AST: Nocturnal Viability

With the changes in 5.0 and 5.05, does any AST still use Nocturnal Sect?

As long as Regens stack and shields don't Nocturnal will always have a place.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

As long as Regens stack and shields don't Nocturnal will always have a place.

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I think you meant "never". Nocturnal is far too weak right now to bother using, even with a WHM in the party.
But they can't buff Shields too much or NoctAST kicks SCH out.
Doesn't help that SCHs whole kit is designed around it having strong shielding and then background healing of good strength to take advantage of the cover the Shields provide while NoctAST simply doesn't.

As a fun aside, I know its not representative of WHMs as a whole, but I just had 2 WHMs in a row in E1N completely ignore healing outside of Rapture(Cos Misery) and Assize because I was an AST. They just went full blown Glare Mage and left me, who was experimenting with Noct post patch to solo heal the runs while still getting all my cards out and doing DPS as well …

Long story short, Nocturnal needs a full rework. It just doesn't work as a proper stand-in for a SCH in its current form.
Although I'm personally hoping Neutral Sect becomes a base Trait learned at 80, with the Sects simply empowering the Shielding or Regen further.

Nocturnal sect just isn't viable with cards.

Regens can be applied and then ignored until they need to be reapplied, giving you time to draw/dps.
But in order to stop Shields from being OP, they have to be fairly weak, which means you end up having to reapply them almost as soon as you've used them, giving you no down time, and burning through all of your mp.

The binary system of Regen OR Shields doesn't work, they're both tools that need to be used together situationally.
That's why SCH has so many healing and regen options via the fairy.
That's why Diurnal Intersection is so good, and pretty much makes Noct redundant.

I was a Noct for trash wall to wall pulls. It was a nice (stop time) while I figured who needed what and if they needed heals, the shield was good to just HALT basically. Now (before and after patch) it's just a no. You HAVE to be Diurnal. Tanks need constant incoming HP. Even with buffs it is a nice buffer but (and this could totally be a tank issue in they feel they need to pull everything wall to wall constantly regardless mind you of the sprout healer [not me but on DNC i've seen it recently ugh]) Noct is now a bonus to my diurnal state. Like oh if I do this ability I * also * get a shield. As opposed to having an entire stance and kit previous to now.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

Nocturnal sect just isn't viable with cards.

Regens can be applied and then ignored until they need to be reapplied, giving you time to draw/dps.
But in order to stop Shields from being OP, they have to be fairly weak, which means you end up having to reapply them almost as soon as you've used them, giving you no down time, and burning through all of your mp.

The binary system of Regen OR Shields doesn't work, they're both tools that need to be used together situationally.
That's why SCH has so many healing and regen options via the fairy.
That's why Diurnal Intersection is so good, and pretty much makes Noct redundant.

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Completely agree with this
Furthermore, having job skills that impact other players job skills is certainly one of their balancing problem at the moment. AST is basically to job that must be balanced against ASTd/WHM, ASTn/WHM, ASTd/SCH, ASTn/ASTd. Non-stacking restrictions only artificially render some compositions nonviable (ASTn/SCH, ASTd/ASTd, ASTn/ASTn)..

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Originally Posted by Sylve

Although I'm personally hoping Neutral Sect becomes a base Trait learned at 80, with the Sects simply empowering the Shielding or Regen further.

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Not both together, but maybe change Sects in battle?

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Originally Posted by CupidCrux

I was a Noct for trash wall to wall pulls. It was a nice (stop time) while I figured who needed what and if they needed heals, the shield was good to just HALT basically. Now (before and after patch) it's just a no. You HAVE to be Diurnal. Tanks need constant incoming HP. Even with buffs it is a nice buffer but (and this could totally be a tank issue in they feel they need to pull everything wall to wall constantly regardless mind you of the sprout healer [not me but on DNC i've seen it recently ugh]) Noct is now a bonus to my diurnal state. Like oh if I do this ability I * also * get a shield. As opposed to having an entire stance and kit previous to now.

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I'm not sure I understand what you mean.. I'm just going to point out the AST shields are the exact same as they were in 5.01: the shield potencies have been halves BUT their strength are a percentage of hp restored and the healing potencies have been doubled.

im not disputing the update or the raise in Noct potency, however (for me at least) when a tank pulls wall to wall the shield goes down almost immediately and at a high mp cost. (yes LS and LD are things also but it IS pricey to use) The *updated* heal of it is nice in emergencies but it's hardly a damage sponge like it used to be, or a stall. Diurnal is basically the fairy of a SCH to us. You could do other things (namely the card system our AST job was based on) whilst the regen(s) keeps ticking. But for noct now, and again this is on wall to wall pulls, it's not how it used to be. Granted i'll give you that in a while when everyone is fully geared and materia'd things might settle down but for anyone picking up AST to level to 80, Eesh, good luck... Now the shields are a bonus to my Diurnal as opposed to an entire stance I can work with. Yes i'm geared and even eat good food and it's mostly a no. Though there are random PUG amaze tanks i'm like dang, do you even take damage? lol

I'm not a master Astrologian by any means (currently 72, my main at one point in Stormblood), but in dungeons I find it useful to use Diurnal for mob pulls and Nocturnal for bosses. And as has been mentioned above, it will always be useful for playing with other healers.

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Originally Posted by Caliburn

I'm not a master Astrologian by any means (currently 72, my main at one point in Stormblood), but in dungeons I find it useful to use Diurnal for mob pulls and Nocturnal for bosses. And as has been mentioned above, it will always be useful for playing with other healers.

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Not disputing just making convo, I was the total opposite because for trash mobs they all hit randomly and faster so Noct was good for stopping time essentially, while I assess the situation and play cards etc. Now for bosses I knew the party/tank would have regen(s) on and I could run around and do mechanics with no worry. Don't get me started on a tank with a left over Diurnal regen on pulling tons of mobs that all immediately come for me lol Yes I could try and end my regen early, or they could pull them off but it's just a game mechanic that irks me to no end lol

I plan on raid healing in savage with Nocturnal sect to see how well that goes. I still think AST is arguably the weaker of the three healers at the moment in terms of overall rDPS, but I wouldn't go so far to say it will be a hindrance on my raid team. As far as healing goes, Aspected Benefic has a lower base heal than Adloquium. However, accounting for the shielding Aspected Benefic has a higher base shield, which amounts to an overall potency increase over Adlo. Additionally, Aspected Helios is currently better than succor, so the AoE shields are stronger in addition to being it 200 MP less to cast. That being said, SCH has the ability to manipulate shields via Recitation, so it seems kind of balanced to some extent on paper.

The rest of the healing kit is kind of a mixed bag versus SCH. It's hard to pull out a direct comparison since the healing kits function in different ways and some abilities would be situationally better in certain encounters. I don't know if mana efficiency will be an issue since the amount of mana saved by Lightspeed depends on what you are casting at the time, whereas Aetherflow always offers 1000 MP. Pretty much the only way to see how it feels in savage is to play it in savage. I plan on using my data and comparing it to SCHs and see how well it stacks up. If it turns out to be too weak, then I think it's clear that I will need to move back to SCH.

Nocturnal shields are unfortunately not needed up to E1S difficulty at least, Duirnal shields are more than sufficient with CI and Neutral sect so yea Nocturnal is looking more ready for the scrap heap by the day.

For Nocturnal to be good at this stage it needs a few things
- an inherent buff to heals, this gives the shields more omph to try and be up giving breathing room for cards/dps
-Lose that asinine 1k aspected benefic cost, the fact this stays when using neutral sect is worse since Diurnal gets the exact same effect for 500 less mp is such a stupid decision.
-Collective Unconsiousness buffed up, this needs to happen for the regen alone for Nocturnal but this ability needs more than that overall.

Nocturnal right now is just there for duo ast as far as i am concerned. I would rather see Nocturnal and Duirnal changed from shielding and regen sects to different buffing sects, have Duirnal deal with extending buffs while Nocturnal deals with empowering them up, AB/AH change depending on the sect still but CI provide a regen/shield while doing a weaker sect's enhancing buff and Neutral still provide shield + regen. With these new sects they could allow sect switching with a cd.

Diurnal is better than Nocturnal for some fairly fundamental game design reasons, and will (and should) remain so as long as AST's sects swap between regens and shields and don't serve some other purpose.

There's a fairly long, boring explanation behind this, but the short version is that regens are more cost-effective than shields because they need to be.

Since AST regens dont stack, so if you encounter another AST in daily roulettes/duty finder, one AST have to alternate sect i guess

This along with the cards and everything else makes me so frustrated. AST was all about versatility, and while people generally preferred and found Diurnal more powerful, at least the complimenting stances were used with SCH and WHM. With the dumbed down cards, loss of time and other skills, and now most people using Diurnal no matter what the other healer is, AST is just a wimpy version of WHM with less power, mana, and DPS. I leveled it 80 with my alt, but I do not have the heart to level it again. Even with the changes in the recent patch, it is losing everything that made it special and fun.

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Originally Posted by CupidCrux

Not disputing just making convo, I was the total opposite because for trash mobs they all hit randomly and faster so Noct was good for stopping time essentially, while I assess the situation and play cards etc. Now for bosses I knew the party/tank would have regen(s) on and I could run around and do mechanics with no worry. Don't get me started on a tank with a left over Diurnal regen on pulling tons of mobs that all immediately come for me lol Yes I could try and end my regen early, or they could pull them off but it's just a game mechanic that irks me to no end lol

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I've tried this out today and I actually prefer your way. Thanks for the tip!

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Originally Posted by CupidCrux

Not disputing just making convo, I was the total opposite because for trash mobs they all hit randomly and faster so Noct was good for stopping time essentially, while I assess the situation and play cards etc. Now for bosses I knew the party/tank would have regen(s) on and I could run around and do mechanics with no worry. Don't get me started on a tank with a left over Diurnal regen on pulling tons of mobs that all immediately come for me lol Yes I could try and end my regen early, or they could pull them off but it's just a game mechanic that irks me to no end lol

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Consider that Diurnal Benefic is a 200 Cure, plus a 200 potency regen over 15s.
That’s a 200 potency cure every 3s for 15s, or 1200 potency of cures over 15s.

Meanwhile, Nocturnal Benefic is a 200 potency cure, and a 500 potency Shield.
That’s 700 potency of curing/mitigation combined. Nearly half as effective.

Noct may seem to give you a bit of breathing room while no damage is sustained, but if the incoming damage isn’t enough to deplete that shield in 5 seconds, then the Diurnal Regen will also be enough to keep the tank alive anyway, for twice as long. Therefore, for the exact same effect, Noct would take two casts for every one in Diurnal.
And if the tank is taking enough damage that the shield is being depleted in less than 3s, then you won't have the breathing room anyway.

Noct does have a place when the tank is taking too much damage though.
If the tank is taking more damage than the regen can keep up with, you don’t have much choice other than to stack all possible oGCD regens you have, if any are available. Meanwhile if the Noct shield is being depleting too quickly, you can reapply it every 2.5s if you need to. You’ll burn through MP very quickly, but it’s an option in an emergency.
But now that Diurnal has a shield via Celestial Intersection, even that isn’t such an issue.

It's strange, am I the only AST who enjoys Nocturnal Stance more than Diurnal? :/

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Originally Posted by Evanoel

It's strange, am I the only AST who enjoys Nocturnal Stance more than Diurnal? :/

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I enjoy the playstyle.
I just don't enjoy burning through my MP quicker than in Diurnal.