How would you change Nocturnal AST to be competitive against SCH?

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Originally Posted by _slowpoke_

WHM cannot "shine as an off-healer" because they don't have the MP solvency for sustained DPS in longer fights, you will simply run dry after just a few minutes without extensive outside assistance, and the same is mostly true for AST (unless you keep throwing Ewers on yourself, and that's the shittiest possible thing to do with an Ewer in raid content). That is a major part of why SCH is the dedicated off-healer and will continue to be - basically infinite MP while DPSing, there's no contest here.

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Maybe SE should look into that, if you really want to achieve Balance by all three equal opportunity at the main heal and off heal slots. I accidentally deleted the part when i said that, maybe, AST could share luminiferous aether, like a goad that hits a party member as well as yourself, while formatting to bypass character limit.

Offensively, MP is a ridiculous struggle for WHM, but both AST and WHM gear heavily for piety. The cards are stacked allot worse for AST, since their heals are the only things subsidized, which i feel their mp management is centered around. A little push towards mp recovery or subsidation would go a long way. (Something similar to the cure 2/3 proc while under the effect of cleric stance, between Aero, Aero II, Aero III and maybe a 100% chance to lower the cost of Stone III by half after casting stone II.)

Maybe in 4.0 we'll see some exciting interactions between the (4?!) Healers.

Giving AST a free, constant 300 potency regen unaffected by Cleric Stance, and two more oGCD heals would help. Reducing Luminiferous Aether's cooldown to 60s would help, as well.

Noct AST isn't the problem. SCH is.

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Originally Posted by AI_wass

Giving AST a free, constant 300 potency regen unaffected by Cleric Stance, and two more oGCD heals would help. Reducing Luminiferous Aether's cooldown to 60s would help, as well.

Noct AST isn't the problem. SCH is.

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Sch don't have a 300 potency regen, so i don't know why you think that would be fair. :p AST can have all of it though, just dump the card system and get rid of diurnal sect as an option.

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Originally Posted by Rawrz

Sch don't have a 300 potency regen, so i don't know why you think that would be fair. :p

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Technically that's almost exactly what the pet is. It's a hands-free 300 potency heal every 3 seconds. Sound familiar?

Edit: Nope. 200; Pets don't heal for as much per potency. See Rawrz's correction below.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Don't Diurnal HoTs already kind of cover the healing while dpsing need, technically? Of course, if a shield, placed prior, keeps one from having to heal as soon as they otherwise would, that much does the same as well, albeit with a greatly shorter duration.

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It does, absolutely but that isn't what I was proposing at all.

Example of what I mean.

Benefict: while in Diurnal stance. Does × heal. Does x potency damage divided between nearby enemies.

Malefic II : while in noct does x potency damage to target. Will also heal x potency to target of target.

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Diurnal struggles with the current meta as main heals because you have to balance the Cards, Royal Road, Clerics and optimal healing. Not much room for dpsing without the loss of one of those functions.

NoctAst struggles as support heals due to no continuous heal support. (Fairy too stronk)

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Technically that's almost exactly what the pet is. It's a hands-free 300 potency heal every 3 seconds. Sound familiar?

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It's 200 potency. Test it by doing adlo and notice how it's heal is 50% larger than embrace, even though both ate "300" potency. The fairy got it's actual base healing potencies nerfed by 33% when hw came out, to balance our aoe healing.

Its still 300 potency at 50, but SCH is noticeably weak in aoe at this level.

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Originally Posted by Judge_Xero

It does, absolutely but that isn't what I was proposing at all.

Example of what I mean.

Benefict: while in Diurnal stance. Does × heal. Does x potency damage divided between nearby enemies.

Malefic II : while in noct does x potency damage to target. Will also heal x potency to target of target.

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Diurnal struggles with the current meta as main heals because you have to balance the Cards, Royal Road, Clerics and optimal healing. Not much room for dpsing without the loss of one of those functions.

NoctAst struggles as support heals due to no continuous heal support. (Fairy too stronk)

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So in one, your heals double as (has the extra option of being) dps, and in the other your dps doubles as (has the extra option of being) healing. Kk, understood now. Not sure of the implications/ramifications it'd have though.

Though, I'd imagine it does just as well as WHM as a main heal when a SCH is on the off-heal? Or at least that's been my experience thus far. I don't see why any but damaging and healing would be in conflict, either. You can weave 4 card functions per minute easily enough, especially by equipping Aero.

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Originally Posted by Rawrz

It's 200 potency. Test it by doing adlo and notice how it's heal is 50% larger than embrace, even though both ate "300" potency. The fairy got it's actual base healing potencies nerfed by 33% when hw came out, to balance our aoe healing.

Its still 300 potency at 50, but SCH is noticeably weak in aoe at this level.

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Ahh... right... I forgot that they nerfed the pets' strength instead of the potency listed. I remember the mayhem that came with the pet's stat scaling decreasing over levels to the point that a level 57 pet was healing for less than a gear 50's, for instance, but just didn't think about it here. Thanks.

The thing about Astrologian is, there's a lot of tools being underutilised in its kit, e.g 'Nocturnal sect', this is a product of some aspects of the class having no rhyme or reason. Astro is the only class that attempts to mimic its competitors only to fall short doing so.

Astro is the jack of all trades master of none, I have nothing short of the utmost respect for those who use Astro on the bleeding edge of progression, but I'd be hard pressed to believe their burden wouldn't be lifted if the other healer classes were used in its stead

If I was to fix astro without dismantling the class, it'd be to reduce the amount of cards you have to draw to 3, thus making more favorable RNG; I would also inturn, make cards more dynamic, having both positive and negative effects depending on the stance used

I find Astro can be a lot of fun to use, but simply buffing the healing potencies in each major patch, I belive won't solve the issue on hand and instead will make whole new ones

The biggest change I would like to see re Noct sect, is for it to have some sort of synergy with AST's buff extension abilities, like Time Dilation and CO. It seems weird that these extend hot duration in diurnal, but don't do anything under Noct.

The other change I'd like is Spear card, which is pretty bad almost all of the time. Pre-pull might have some benefit, but almost every other time I'll redraw or RR it.
Should an AST give me spear, I'm not going to use my CDs if I wasn't already just because of spear. They are either used at specific points in my rotation (dps buffs etc), or held for specific points when they are needed (virus etc). Whilst under spear I'll prob use some CDs by coincidence, that I was using anyway... so they come back a little earlier, which again affects nothing, as I'll still wait to use them at the correct point in my rotation next time, the fact they are available a little sooner makes no difference.
Maybe it could instead give someone +20% crit chance or something. Don't really care what, just something more interesting than what it does currently

If I have to take my ideas from my thread adapted to our Astrologian, it would be this :


Shooting Star : "The Astrologian throws his cards (in his possession with Draw and/or Spread) and deals light damage in line in front of him with a potency of 150 [+ 100 x number of cards thrown] (max 350)."

Cast time : instant
Cooldown : 120 sec
Range : 25y
Radius : 3y


Collective Unconscious : "Creates a wheel of fortune around the caster, granting Regen and the effect ot the following cards for any party member who enters and stay inside it. Can only be executed when a Sect is active. Auto-attack ends upon execution. Effect ends upon using another action or moving. When the wheel of fortune disappears, the effects disappear as well."

- Diurnal Sect : The Bole, The Ewer, The Spire
- Nocturnal Sect : The Balance, The Arrow, The Spear

Cure Potency : 150
Duration : 15 sec.
Cast time : instant
Cooldown : 180 sec
Radius : 10y