Astrologian Discussion Thread: (Insert Yu-Gi-Oh! joke here)

[Niiro]

If we clear more than 1 second before enrage then I've wasted my buttons.

[Eldelphia]

I hate DPSing on healer too. I do it, but it's really not my thing. Can't avoid it on SCH but I wish the jobs weren't designed in such a way as it's almost a necessity. Ironically, I love playing SMN.

[Neon_Sea]

And if it helps to put the issue into perspective, your argument amounts to a DPS knowing exactly how much damage they have to do to clear something, and making the conscious decision not to do any additional damage beyond that.

Its not like the party needs much from astro/whm really. Most of the time whm dps will be like 70 while sch is in the hundreds. Idk much about ast dps tools but that basically amounts to throwing out some dots when you know you have free time even then you are basically solo healing a lot while sch puts in dmg

[Carth]

I hate DPSing on healer too. I do it, but it's really not my thing. Can't avoid it on SCH but I wish the jobs weren't designed in such a way as it's almost a necessity. Ironically, I love playing SMN.

It's not so much the jobs as it is the way the game works. The heal/HP checks are honestly pretty tame, especially after post-nerf T5. In full honesty though, I don't think I could play any healer job without the DPS aspect, especially in dungeons where healing is a joke, and if you don't DPS at all, you might as well have a thumb up your ass. If you're in EX Primals or Savage and if you're a WHM/AST then you're a full time healer and that's fine with me too.

My personal peeve with "I'm a healer I shouldn't have to DPS" is that it's ultimately a very selfish and old-fashioned way to look at things. I don't have an issue if you don't like to DPS on healer. The issue starts when you start using that as an excuse to be lazy and ultimately hold your party back. Jobs in this game have never been limited to their primary roles so I honestly have no idea why this is a thing in the first place.

[octopus]

I guess I'm going to be the different guy and say I actually love to dps as a healer ;o I love pressing buttons and I hate not having anything to do and dps fills the gap for me.

[Kipling]

Its not like the party needs much from astro/whm really. Most of the time whm dps will be like 70 while sch is in the hundreds. Idk much about ast dps tools but that basically amounts to throwing out some dots when you know you have free time even then you are basically solo healing a lot while sch puts in dmg

It's all very phase and fight dependent. I'll use A3S as an example because it changes so much there. In phase 1, I usually end the phase @ 950+ on SCH. In phase 2, I usually end at about 750. Phase 3 it goes down significantly because I'm more worried about slowing the mobs with miasma than anything else and throwing Broil after that's done. In Phase 4, I throw dots every time I get a break (meaning usually right before mechanics). Some of that phase I am forced not to DPS at all due to having a dmg down debuff.

If I maximize my up time and use melded accessories for accuracy + accuracy food I can end the almost 13 minute fight at ~300 DPS on SCH.

[DeadlyWaltz]

I hate DPSing on healer too. I do it, but it's really not my thing. Can't avoid it on SCH but I wish the jobs weren't designed in such a way as it's almost a necessity. Ironically, I love playing SMN.

I completely agree. It's either raid or die with this game, sadly. Unless you craft/gather to make money.

[Niiro]

Honestly I don't think Cleric Stance was a good idea in general.

If healers could simply throw out damage spells in their spare GCDs not needed for healing and not have to commit to 10s of being unable to heal to do it, there would be a lot less resistance to healer DPS and the jobs would play much more fluently overall.

If default healer damage was tuned to be something like 3/4 the strength of what it is currently with Clerics I think it would have made things much better overall.

Obviously a vain hope since they'd never go through the trouble of all that re-balancing all that but it's just unfortunate that they decided to make healer DPS in such an all-or-nothing manner, the fact that there's no middle ground is what leads people to think that you're never supposed to DPS because the stance makes it mutually exclusive with your ability to heal.

[Carth]

Since Magic DPS goes off of INT and not MND, Cleric Stance was a necessity since Square wants to keep stats as straightforward as possible.

Considering they're fine with this (unfortunate) ideology, that's the best we're going to get.

[Niiro]

Add INT to healer gear equal to ~3/4s of the MND on it.

Bam.

(devil's advocate, pointless discussion, never gonna happen anyway, etc)

[TheDirtyHobo]

Just like how they needed to give NIN a stance to make their melee autoattacks work with DEX instead of STR.

[Snoctopus]

Add INT to healer gear equal to ~3/4s of the MND on it.

Bam.

(devil's advocate, pointless discussion, never gonna happen anyway, etc)

I actually really like this idea.

[Niiro]

Just like how they needed to give NIN a stance to make their melee autoattacks work with DEX instead of STR.

Their stances aren't what do this, but still a good point.

(mouse over STR/DEX in the char menu)

[TheDirtyHobo]

Cleric stance was a necessity because there are levels between 1 and 60 and doing quests on healer without cleric would be a nightmare. I don't think it was really SE's (original) intention for it to be used endgame, which is made even more obvious when they stop giving mage gear INT and MND, turning the healing penalty from "slightly weaker but manageable" to "outclassed by BLM physick."

If there's any complaint about current cleric, I would say it's that it should be brought down to 4 or 4.5s recast so that it's 2 GCDs, not 2 GCDs + a bit of overlap time before you can switch back and start curing.

[Niiro]

With a cooldown so low it kind of defeats the purpose (healing and damage being mutually exclusive) and just makes healer DPSing feel pointlessly clunky.

...........which is why the better option to just not have them rely on a stance and balance their default damage accordingly.

[DeadlyWaltz]

Cleric stance was a necessity because there are levels between 1 and 60 and doing quests on healer without cleric would be a nightmare. I don't think it was really SE's (original) intention for it to be used endgame, which is made even more obvious when they stop giving mage gear INT and MND, turning the healing penalty from "slightly weaker but manageable" to "outclassed by BLM physick."

If there's any complaint about current cleric, I would say it's that it should be brought down to 4 or 4.5s recast so that it's 2 GCDs, not 2 GCDs + a bit of overlap time before you can switch back and start curing.

They could've gone the scenic route, like they did with AST in some of their quest, where you just join the instance as the healer and support the NPCs.

[TheDirtyHobo]

That works fine for class quests, but there's only 10 of those compared to a couple hundred run-of-the-mill area quests.

[Elcura]

AST would still probably be able to put out more DPS than a WHM due to their DoTs, but obviously no one knows what cards are so those aren't a factor.

[Kipling]

AST would still probably be able to put out more DPS than a WHM due to their DoTs, but obviously no one knows what cards are so those aren't a factor.

Are those the things that let you draw Bole 8 times in a row?

[Elcura]

Are those the things that let you draw Bole 8 times in a row?

Are you supposed to be making a point? Because everyone is still being really vague about how AST sucks.