Goodbye Nocturnal Sect, Goodbye my world

You will be dearly missed

And the pretty stars which light up the sky as I waver between the sects will never be seen again

"With every end comes a new beginning", but there is no beginning when something is gone, it is just gone

Even your portrait is proscribed, defiled by grey and red.

Good! They said. Diurnal is better. What fools. It is not just one but both removed. Gone too is Diurnal. The sun only rises when the sky is dark after all, and there is no need for one sect when the other is gone.

asdf

Once we had three cards and two sects, now only one and none.

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Originally Posted by lisaa

You will be dearly missed

And the pretty stars which light up the sky as I waver between the sects will never be seen again

"With every end comes a new beginning", but there is no beginning when something is gone, it is just gone

Even your portrait is proscribed, defiled by grey and red.

Good! They said. Diurnal is better. What fools. It is not just one but both removed. Gone too is Diurnal. The sun only rises when the sky is dark after all, and there is no need for one sect when the other is gone.

asdf

Once we had three cards and two sects, now only one and none.

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As a Keeper of the moon playing the Diurnal sect is against my nature and my believe.

Joke aside, this removal of Nocturnal sect is the last straw for me, dumping down the card already weaken our identity, and with Nocturnal gone. I don’t feel I am the same AST as I fall in love with back in HW.

May be a good excuse to try out Sage

I know some people liked Noct sect and I respect their opinion on what they found most enjoyable. Hopefully they can find some fun in Sage or still enjoy the current AST.

But speaking personally, for me Noct can rot. I won't miss it one bit. It was the rubbish lower-potency noodle stance that I always resented on the rare occasions I had to use it. It was the bad player trap, the "oh, I have a WHM co-heal in this easy MSQ content, I better go Noodle Sect and spam Asp-Does-Barely-Anything". Noct is only better if you need constant shielding, which is far too rare. I hated Noct.

Personal opinion of course.

It always were my favourite sect tbh. I really enjoyed the instant single shield and being a shield and having access to helios/medica.

That being said, what I will lament the most was Nocturnal Celestial Intersection. A free, oGCD regen which last 15 seconds, every 30 seconds?? This was insanely good imo.

At least neutral sect is still a thing. I think AST lore has truly been thrown off the window for good this time however. RIP

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

I know some people liked Noct sect and I respect their opinion on what they found most enjoyable. Hopefully they can find some fun in Sage or still enjoy the current AST.

But speaking personally, for me Noct can rot. I won't miss it one bit. It was the rubbish lower-potency noodle stance that I always resented on the rare occasions I had to use it. It was the bad player trap, the "oh, I have a WHM co-heal in this easy MSQ content, I better go Noodle Sect and spam Asp-Does-Barely-Anything". Noct is only better if you need constant shielding, which is far too rare. I hated Noct.

Personal opinion of course.

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So here's the big question
Instead of removing it for a regen/barrier distinction that doesn't actually exist, why couldn't it have been buffed to bring it up to diurnal's strength?

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Originally Posted by Doragan

It always were my favourite sect tbh. I really enjoyed the instant single shield and being a shield and having access to helios/medica.

That being said, what I will lament the most was Nocturnal Celestial Intersection. A free, oGCD regen which last 15 seconds, every 30 seconds?? This was insanely good imo.

At least neutral sect is still a thing. I think AST lore has truly been thrown off the window for good this time however. RIP

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my love of Nocturnal Sect is unconditional, simple because it is Nocturnal Sect. I love it not because how weak/strong it was but the lore of AST

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

So here's the big question
Instead of removing it for a regen/barrier distinction that doesn't actually exist, why couldn't it have been buffed to bring it up to diurnal's strength?

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They tried that and it made AST's shields stronger than SCH's. It was impossible to balance it properly as a result.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

So here's the big question
Instead of removing it for a regen/barrier distinction that doesn't actually exist, why couldn't it have been buffed to bring it up to diurnal's strength?

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They had years to do that and failed time after time to balance it with Diurnal and the other to healers.
Time to admit defeat and delete it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

So here's the big question
Instead of removing it for a regen/barrier distinction that doesn't actually exist, why couldn't it have been buffed to bring it up to diurnal's strength?

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As others have said, Noct basically made the healers impossible to balance when paired with SE's design philosophy surrounding healing in FF14. It was actively holding back healer design as a whole because every little change to AST could have a rippling effect and make SCH or WHM irrelevant in some way. In any other game this would likely not have been much of a problem, but when the design team already has issues with healer concepts to begin with it basically was just one big old monkey wrench that could never be reliably fixed.

Personally the only time I found Noct useful was during dungeon pulls with undergeared tanks. Specifically in Bardam's Mettle during a few of those long pulls. Beyond that though? It really wasn't very useful and actively gave me grey hair as a SCH main back before SCH was pumped so full of oGCDs that we no longer cared about our shields being constantly overwritten.

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Originally Posted by lisaa

You will be dearly missed

And the pretty stars which light up the sky as I waver between the sects will never be seen again

"With every end comes a new beginning", but there is no beginning when something is gone, it is just gone

Even your portrait is proscribed, defiled by grey and red.

Good! They said. Diurnal is better. What fools. It is not just one but both removed. Gone too is Diurnal. The sun only rises when the sky is dark after all, and there is no need for one sect when the other is gone.

asdf

Once we had three cards and two sects, now only one and none.

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You're losing the animation of going into Noct and Diurnal. That is the most you are losing from this skill being deleted. You have my condolences, but the inferior stance is gone, and you're better off. Welcome to Diurnal AST!

I understand that Nocturnal Sect wasn't particularly popular, but I wish it hadn't been completely removed. If someone got caught in an AoE right before raid-wide damage was about to go out, an on demand instant shield could save their life. Even if Nocturnal Sect was objectively inferior to both Scholar and Sage, I would still find situational uses for it.

Even if they determined that the shields had to go, I would have liked to see Nocturnal Sect repurposed. Once upon a time, Scholar could choose between Eos or Selene. One for healing and one for utility. They could have tried something similar for Diurnal and Nocturnal. Instead, it's just gone.

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Originally Posted by Blueyes

I understand that Nocturnal Sect wasn't particularly popular, but I wish it hadn't been completely removed. If someone got caught in an AoE right before raid-wide damage was about to go out, an on demand instant shield could save their life. Even if Nocturnal Sect was objectively inferior to both Scholar and Sage, I would still find situational uses for it.

Even if they determined that the shields had to go, I would have liked to see Nocturnal Sect repurposed. Once upon a time, Scholar could choose between Eos or Selene. One for healing and one for utility. They could have tried something similar for Diurnal and Nocturnal. Instead, it's just gone.

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You still have access to this instant, life saving shield. Actually even more access now. Like I said before, you are not really losing anything other than the animation and some sympathetic ties to the lore. I can understand the loss of those, but there is little, if any argument that can be made about any functionality being lost due to Noct being deleted.

I think some players in general have some trouble losing stances of any kind.

I had to use Noct sect to clear T10 Min IL, no food & no potion

The poor shield strength from scholar couldn't fully mitigate Erratic Blaster, but Noct AST could.

During that fight, if a player is targeted by Erratic Blaster, it's mandatory to use shield to mitigate it.

If that targeted player takes damage from Erratic Blaster, it will become a dot that deals high damage, and explode to room wide aoe with paralyze that cannot be dispelled.

Shield from Noct AST never breaks to that mechanic, but SCH shield is too unreliable as it sometimes breaks.

Without Noct AST, I don't think I can be able to clear that content again in Min IL

Unfortunate, but I would agree that it was probably holding them back from designing new healers. They had WHM, SCH, and the middle ground. Something had to budge.

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Originally Posted by Aword3213

I had to use Noct sect to clear T10 Min IL, no food & no potion

The poor shield strength from scholar couldn't fully mitigate Erratic Blaster, but Noct AST could.

During that fight, if a player is targeted by Erratic Blaster, it's mandatory to use shield to mitigate it.

If that targeted player takes damage from Erratic Blaster, it will become a dot that deals high damage, and explode to room wide aoe with paralyze that cannot be dispelled.

Shield from Noct AST never breaks to that mechanic, but SCH shield is too unreliable as it sometimes breaks.

Without Noct AST, I don't think I can be able to clear that content again in Min IL

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I remember that fight when it was relevant. WHM had a similar issue handling it because Stoneskin had a longer cast time than Adlo and if the target got hit prior to Erratic, it would put that DoT no matter what because Stoneskin didn't provide enough shielding on it's own. Considering that SE has thus removed Stoneskin, it's clear they don't care about past content and whether or not a class can clear it anymore.

Ya, during prog we used to use both Stoneskin and Adlo to deal with it back then. RIP old content. Kaliya was a particularly great fight that tier when undergeared++

Noct was awesome, noct sect made sch shields a living joke, at heavens ward 60+ and future expansion noct really shines cause celestial opposition and noct field stack and had small cool down giving some big shields, dirunal shield+ noct shield could stock for crazy shields + regen, I drop ast already as soon as I open the game. Same dry boring cards cept lady and crown getting back stormblood like effects and removal of noct was my last draw point.

Sage rocks though its like a better noct ast, all spells cept dps one is instant, beautiful mp resource management, beautiful big shields like noct ast had and they all instant to boot, first healer to have a aoe ready for low lvl dungeons at lvl 26 with others aoes that you can all spam for some fast trash cleaning, kardia is pretty much the new eos/selene giving hp back to whoever you choose everytime you damage someone and finally lovely burst heals I have 0 complaints and thank you SE for this beautiful master piece. Long live shield healing. Do not nerf or damage this class ever like you did ast plz!!!!!!!.

Only disappointment is I though game be coded so there be one shield healer and one barrier healer so I can always hope for a ast as my co heal and not have to worry that another sage/sch for shield fighting, from what I see tbh I have not seen a single whm or sch on my server but one ast so far today in an alliance. I feel it mostly gonna be just all ast/sage combos. Rip sch you had your time for awhile why bother play it anymore since it has to still cast its shields while sage ones are instant but ofc it dont bug me cause I never like sch to begin with.