FFXIV Random Complaint Thread II: DPS can't count to potato

[Eldelphia]

I love SCH and find AST hard work in comparison this time, no idea why. AST is very popular right now. WHM is straightforward if you want something simple.

[vagus]

Hmm. How do the cards work in Ast?


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[The Stig]

Push button
random card is given to you (dps buff, crit buff, speed buff, damage (tank) buff, mp refresh buff, tp refresh buff)
use it

or turn random card into a buff that enhances your next card by 50% duration, AOE effect or double effect

[Kaisha]

and find AST hard work in comparison this time, no idea why.

Probably because you're always trying to line up 2 of your CDs to go in conjunction with either restoring your own MP, or getting ready for big heals, or trying to max the use of that AoE card you tossed on the group to extend it another 10 seconds. Even with card priorities memorized and making full use of Sleeve Draw, it's just a lot of buttons to hit over the course of a raid encounter if you want to maximize the job.

[Silenka]

Yes, especially sleeve draw I'm still sort of getting the hang of completely. I let it go a few seconds too long for my liking but it really depends on how it lines up with the battle and the other card cds.

To answer the question, on AST you're going to want to draw a card every time the ability is up. From there, you decide whether to turn it into a buff for your other cards (royal road), hold on to it for later, or toss it on someone as-is. (there's also the decision to turn it into a nuke or a heal but this is confusing already lol)

Typically, once you have all your card abilities, before an unsynced battle begins you're already going to have a royal road buff and a desirable card held. When the battle starts you will grab another card and if it's the same one you have held (or another desirable card) you will use that. On the other hand, if it's a card you don't want to use as a buff but would make a good royal road, you'll use your held card and then royal road the one you just drew. By now all your timers are down - you can either wait for them to come up again or use sleeve draw to instantly grab a new royal road, a new held card and a new drawn card. By and large this ends up being trash (I usually end up with something shitty held like spire, and a 200% royal road when I'm usually going for AoE) but it can be good sometimes and you can always make use of a card some way or another.

So you see, between paying attention to mechanics, the health of your party members, making the best use of your healing abilities, and throwing some dps out when you can, you also have to be doing the mental gymnastics required to remember to pull a card, recognize it and its effect (on two fronts, royal road and natural effect) immediately, and decide what to do with it. And every second you have that card held is a second you're wasting on its cooldown.

That said, once you have that shit memorized like the names of the first 150 pokemon (you did, come on, don't lie to me), it's like second nature. As with all muscle memory games you get an internal trigger that says "time to pull a card" and you've looked at them a million times and you already know exactly what to do with it. It's hard on paper but it's all just practice like every other job. But it's probably pretty hard to learn to do alongside proper healing if you're not used to that already.

[Yuri-G]

sounds like AST is the BRD of healing... but worse.

[Elcura]

You all make AST sound god level complex. It's really not, you just heal appropriately and draw cards when you can. The only time it feels like you might be doing too much is if you add DPS to the equation, but that's only really filler material for when there's nothing else to do.

Aim for AoE Arrow/Spear/Balance for 8 man as a primary goal, 4 man just do whatever the fuck you want and experiment. Ask classes what cards they like if you aren't sure or actually care. The only hard card choice can be from not having AoE damage for 8 man, but unless it's savage content who you buff won't really matter past a certain point (are they awake? are they alive?). Most of AST is just getting cards out there since most situations it's more beneficial to have any card than none.

You'll get the hang of it since in practice you'll only be dealing with cards every 30s and the rest you'll either be healing/dps or waiting to do more card shit.

[The Stig]

I'm unable to fully sustain a DPS/heal style on AST I find, I run low on MP a lot more/faster than I do on WHM (not really touched SCH).

I also find Lord of Crowns or Lady of Crowns cards severely underwhelming/weak and most of the time it's just a bonus card for me for unwanted cards. Maybe that is the purpose overall of that button, but I didn't find it very impactful. Had it been an AOE that would be much more useful (both the heal and the damage card).

[Elcura]

If you're running out of MP you're probably doing something wrong, like spamming Grav when there isn't a need or spamming Aspected heals. If you use Lucid and Opposition you'll have like 30s of MP regen.

If you can't sustain basically your full MP pool every 2 mins I dunno what to say.

Lord of Crowns is kinda meh to me but Lady of Crowns is basically just Essential Dignity I dunno how you can't like that. I mean sure it would be objectively better as a AoE but that seems like overkill.

[Silenka]

I tend to only use opposition on card buffs and never lucid. I never run out of mp anyway because I hit lucid when mp is like 60-70% but I'll occasionally use an ewer on myself/cohealer after deaths if there's no manashifting going on or lucid is down. The worst culprit is definitely overhealing/overshielding though - but it's not a problem unique to AST. WHM has extra MP tools so it basically never runs out now, you do have to work a little harder on it with AST, but shouldn't be running out of mp.

And AST isn't god level complex but it is more complex than some people can handle tbh. Casual healers might as well not apply since they treat cards like fucks, they only give one if the fancy strikes them. Drives me nuts because I'm passionate about the job. About 50% of the time I get AST as a cohealer in 8man they act like they don't know what a card is, and another 30% of the time I get one who thinks it's cute to overwrite balances with boles or spires. The point of AST as a job is its ability to buff other jobs, if you're not doing it you might as well play WHM instead.

I agree with Elcura on Lady of Crowns. If I get Lord, it's just an insta-burn extra dps, but I prefer Lady most of the time because it's a free instant heal. I think the finer point here is "insta" heal, you can chuck it at your tank or whatever while you're dpsing and not have to slow down for a cast bar.

Also quick & dirty guide to what card to give to who:

Spear - BRD
Balance - any DPS, pref melee dps / highest dps
Bole - tank
Arrow - casters, esp BLM
Spire - anyone low on TP
Ewer - anyone low on MP

[Alkar]

AST is really not that bad but if you want easy and bland healers look elsewhere. WHM is fun in dungeons with the Holy spam and all of their nice tools, SCH is just boring and extremely dumbed down in any possible situation.
All of them are viable of course but it depends on what you're looking for.
To me AST is extremely satisfying to use and I love it. My main issue with the other two is that their new gauges are just there and serve little to no purpose for the jobs: lilies can easily be ignored and don't really have a huge impact on your gameplay except for the now locked Stoneskin, the Fey Gauge is only used for one ability and nothing else so it might as well not even be there.

[The Stig]

If you can't sustain basically your full MP pool every 2 mins I dunno what to say.

Ya actually I also dunno what to say either for myself. I am playing it like WHM, DPSing where possible, I just feel I don't run out of MP on WHM and can pull indefinitely but I run dry on AST and need a minor break. Even with Ewer cards on me lol.

I don't think I suck though!!!

[Elcura]

Ya actually I also dunno what to say either for myself. I am playing it like WHM, DPSing where possible, I just feel I don't run out of MP on WHM and can pull indefinitely but I run dry on AST and need a minor break. Even with Ewer cards on me lol.

I don't think I suck though!!!

You probably just need to cool it with Aspected heals, they cost a lot of MP and if you're using Diurnal there are a few time tricks you should use (Dilation, Opposition) with regens to extend their buffs which negates the need to cast the regen again for a while. Collective Unconscious (with Opposition/Dilation if you want) is a free strong regen you can use to basically keep your tank going without having to cast on them. I'd say if you run out of MP a lot do what Silenka says and pop Lucid at around 70% MP and try to use it immediately off CD. You can also use Opposition on Lightspeed to give yourself like 16 seconds of fast/cheaper casts.

[Kaisha]

Speaking of AST, this bothers me.

[Twilight Sky]

Please tell me the image on the right represents that spells actual AOE range and not the image on the left.

[Kaisha]

It does. It's just inconsistent that AST's Earthly Star is the only placed AoE skill in the game that doesn't show its actual size with the ground targeting marker.

[Silenka]

I prefer the small one. Much nicer to pinpoint the center of your bubble than to have to move the whole thing, it can get in the way. I was gonna say I hope they change the indicator for the other two to the earthly star one but I think it would be detrimental to shadow flare...it works well enough for earthly star though.

[Alkar]

Earthly Star doesn't work like the other three as it doesn't do anything until you either press the button again or 20 seconds pass. It's really fine as is, only wish tanks wouldn't step out as usual.

[Shenrien]

My problem with Earthly Star when tanking is it gets placed in locations that is so poor that whatever I'm tanking is going to get spun. I'm sure DPS are thrilled about losing their positionals so the healers can keep staying way the fuck out in the middle of nowhere.

[Yuri-G]

you need to place your Earthly Star in a location that is good for positionals, works for the tank, and still allows me to do backflips and cast from range.


WHAT IS SO HARD ABOUT THAT GOSH


I was in a Sophex farm party where the AST placed the Earthly Star and timed it perfectly after her ultimate move + slide, it made me so happy. Also had one who was really good with it during Sephex. A good AST using Earthly Star correctly is so nice