Concerns with Astrologian in Endwalker

[Semirhage]

Having greater or lesser MP economy isn't a material advantage, granted. It's somewhat helpful for sloppier pulls, but in the grand scheme having the best of the best MP recovery is moot.

That's not what the argument is.

WHM doesn't just have the worst of a list of viable MP economies. Its MP recovery next expansion is going to be so low that it's going to bleed mana just keeping up its ABCs. Glare is the classic example, because spamming it is cheaper (MP wise) than GCD healing. It's a great hypothetical, because it represents the lowest consistent MP expenditure over time. WHM is going to run out of MP about halfway through an Ultimate fight's timeline with the Thin Air changes. That's -bad-.

Of course it goes without saying that yes, while MP isn't a material advantage, it's just funny that White Mage can't even boast that. It's got lower damage. Less free healing. Less utility. It's just a numerically, factually inferior job to the other healers for *no reason*. It doesn't have anything that makes up for these weaknesses. Even its personal damage is dumped all over by the other healers' buffs.

[lisaa]

Why is it always WHM this, WHM that, even in a thread about AST it's just WHM WHM WHM! Mana issues? So what, it just means you need less spellspeed and more piety. Saying AST has more ogcd heals but in reality lilies are the same as ogcd heals that also return 400mp. The damage you lose is even less than Scholar's aetherflow! Why does it matter to lose 85 damage when you do 60 more with every single glare!

[Semirhage]

AST is WHM's competition in the "pure healer" role. And the competition isn't even close. Lilies aren't even remotely close to oGCD heals, you have no idea what you're talking about. oGCD heals lose zero damage on AST. More potency on WHM's Glare isn't the advantage you think it is. There are compounding problems there. Having zero offensive utility means you get none of that refunded through raid buffs. Having fewer oGCD heals means you have to dip into your GCDs faster. On a class that has offensive buffs, that's less of a problem because other party members are making up for that lost damage. On a zero-utility job? You're just losing damage, no refunds.

AST has higher total DPS, more oGCD heals, better oGCD heals, faster oGCD cooldowns, more interesting mechanics to occupy its time, actual party buffs, cheaper GCD heals, around quadruple WHM's MP economy next expansion, it's not even a contest. Either AST is stupidly overpowered...yet again...or WHM needs more going on. Square will fix neither of these things, because AST has to crap all over WHM's potential every single expansion otherwise it's not "faaaaaaaaaaair".

AST is more powerful than WHM in almost every single way. The ones that matter, the ones that don't. The only thing WHM has an easier time doing is spamming Cure 3 (oh wait, you can't do that with Thin Air nerfs, teehee!) and overhealing. This isn't "balance". This is just one job being better than the other.

[Silver-Strider]

Why is it always WHM this, WHM that, even in a thread about AST it's just WHM WHM WHM! Mana issues? So what, it just means you need less spellspeed and more piety. Saying AST has more ogcd heals but in reality lilies are the same as ogcd heals that also return 400mp. The damage you lose is even less than Scholar's aetherflow! Why does it matter to lose 85 damage when you do 60 more with every single glare!

Because WHM is the direct comparison to AST and AST doesn't really seem to have any negatives to talk about in comparison. RNG on Lord/Lady of Crowns is probably the only concern for AST going into EW, while WHM has quite a bit wrong with it. Going into Piety more as a WHM means that the extra potency difference of Glare is irrelevant since AST would simply make up for their lower potency with better melds while still providing group utility even further widening the gap between WHM and AST.

Lilies give increased MP economy sure but not enough for WHM to not still be hemorrhaging MP and after the potency increase to Glare, is an even greater DPS loss since Misery is refunding less of the damage lost than before.

[Semirhage]

Let's say we're at a fancy party. Everyone has a nice huge steak on their plates. The host, GameDevDesigner, comes by to pour the drinks. While he's pouring Astrolina and Scholario's water, he leans in and whispers "Hey, I'm pretty hungry. Could I have about 20-30% of that steak? In return, you'll get a salad, dessert, mixed drinks, a gift basket to take home, and a valet to take care of your car."

Whitemagos says, "Uh. You guys have a lot of stuff there."

The other two screech "BuT YOuR StEAk IS BiGgeR SO ItS fAIR"

The above party is the history of the healing role.

[Crushnight]

Remember when ShB launched and people cited how bad Ast's mp economy was for months that the devs took multiple patches to fix until the draw and sleeve draw change that gave them better mp economy because Lucid Dreaming was just not enough to deal with elongated fights.

Seems SE didn't learn their lesson with Ast and decided to make Whm suffer the "we need a healer to validate Piety build" for EW.

This should not be the case Whm did not deserve this and I do not want to see Whm having to wait as long as Ast did in ShB to get the necessary buff to their mp economy back up to snuff. I would like it fixed sooner rather than later.

[glamazon]

So many posts about mp management and yet I bet no one has piety slotted….

[glamazon]

I wish people would talk about their job without dragging other jobs into it. Whm should have greater potency because they have less utility but this is an Astro thread…

[Maltothoris]

Well here's the thing about piety, It is the most useless substat in the entire game. Even when compared to tenacity. First off, it's a prog stat, only useful when you are first doing a fight. Next, what it does is that it only increases how much mp you get per tick. Tenacity at the very least, is multi-purpose with lower damage received, more healing received, and more damage dealt but at a much lower rate. Lastly, the return on the piety rate is the second worse of all the substats. The base 340 is a natural one percent in combat. Every 22 piety, you get one extra mp during tick, so instead you would be getting 101 mp back per tick at 362 piety.

So basically in order for piety to have any great returns it would need to at least be 2200.

And most of us wouldn't meld piety cause like I said, it's only a useful prog stat but a weak one at that and our mp options as of now are more than enough to keep us mp healthy. The onyl mp on my char is the eden pants and belt and thats more than enoughf or me, I never ran out during the eden fights outside of death.

[Liam_Harper]

Why is it always WHM this, WHM that, even in a thread about AST it's just WHM WHM WHM! Mana issues? So what, it just means you need less spellspeed and more piety. Saying AST has more ogcd heals but in reality lilies are the same as ogcd heals that also return 400mp. The damage you lose is even less than Scholar's aetherflow! Why does it matter to lose 85 damage when you do 60 more with every single glare!

-Because AST doesn't need Spellspeed or Piety, and just as a reminder Piety hasn't been changed and is effectively 0 stat in terms of damage. Taking 1000 piety is like raiding with a permanent -1000 crit or det debuff in all content.

-400 mp refund is 4% mana. Meanwhile AST gets twice that just for throwing cards.

-You get 60 more from every Glare to compensate for the fact that AST is throwing out huge raid buffs. SCH's Aetherflow cost sucks too when Sage is paying 0 tax, they'll be leaning very heavily on Chain Stratagem. Why wouldn't it matter that you're bleeding damage for every lily heal, when your direct competitor for the pure-heal slot is throwing out better heals as free oGCD's?

-Thin Air is awful design now. Using it with Raise requires either a clip or 1 GCD delay. It also requires an expensive spell to get value and loses value when the fight is going well, while the other healers are getting a flat mana return. It's straight up clunky.