diurnal sect or nocturnal sect which do you like better

[AlphaSonic]

snip

And then you remember SCH has a fairy that acts as free source of healing and Noc AST becomes completely worthless.

[MiniPrinny]

And then you remember SCH has a fairy that acts as free source of healing and Noc AST becomes completely worthless.

Yes... the fairy that heals slower, at a lower potency than physick, cure, and benefic, and generally is in a stance that only allows it to use a party-wide Esuna once a minute. That fairy... I wouldn't trust Lily to heal through a dungeon, let alone a raid.

[AlphaSonic]

You forgot that the Fairy comes with a SCH that has a similar toolkit as a Noc AST and you see that Noc AST it's the same as a fairyless SCH. Seriously, they could remove Nocturnal Stance from AST and except the people that enjoy PvP and the people that enjoys gimping themselves in dungeons and raids, nobody else would notice. Moreover I think people would be happy to see Noc AST disappearing from PvP.

[Lyshell]

I like diurnal but because I'm a whm so I'm a regen whore. Plus the Hots combo you can do with Dirunal sect is soooo sexy rawr.

[Kaurie]

Yes... the fairy that heals slower, at a lower potency than physick, cure, and benefic, and generally is in a stance that only allows it to use a party-wide Esuna once a minute. That fairy... I wouldn't trust Lily to heal through a dungeon, let alone a raid.

I generally use Eos over Selene, and her heals are quite powerful. Rouse + Whispering Dawn is amazing, buff up her heals with Fey Illum as well. Though the thing is Fairy is not solo, you have Fairy + your shields. With Noct, you have noct + no fairy. You lack:
- Crit shields
- higher potency shields
- Instant Cast AoE heal
- Deployment of large shields
- Eye for an Eye
- Regen of any sort while in shields
- Fairy healing (about 1/3 of your heals if you are using Whispering Dawn and heavy healing encounters like Seph Ex, otherwise 100% of your healing cuz u dun need to heal)
- Sacred Soil 10% damage reduction that can be cast and allow you to actually do other stuff such as move, deploy shields, succor, dps and so on
- Shadow Flare, AoE slow

Without the above, the shields of Noct just seem weak. Diurnal is the way to go

[FeliAiko]

Diurnal is hands down better. Nocturnal just feels like something you'd switch to temporarily, before reverting back to the 'default' stance. Perhaps that's how it should've been set up in the first place, a Sect you can swap in and out of (with appropriate cost and CD) but by default you remain in Diurnal. Taking a WHM-type build and throwing in an Adlo and Succor equivalent instead of HoTs might've worked out at a Level 50 Cap, but when the SCH can do more with its shields (Deployment, ET), along with them not being disjointed from the rest of its tooklit, a Level 60 Noct AST just comes of lackluster as a stand alone build.

[MyaValentine]

Where do you people even come from? Here's some math for you. Adloquium is a 300 potency heal with a 300 potency shield that doubles to a 600 potency shield on a crit. Nocturnal Aspected Benefic is a 250 potency heal which "nullifies damage equaling 130% of the amount of HP restored." Now, the tooltip is phrased a little weirdly, but, like Adloquium, it creates a shield equal to how hard the heal hit, not how much HP ....

If you say so, love. Most people prefer sch shields to ast shields. Ast is weaker as both sch and whm even by a little but still. It's meant to be. But it has the benefit of the cards. Usually from what I've experienced. Sch shields do actually hold up a little longer than said Ast shields. Personal experience though. Maybe you've encountered other results.

[Alistaire]

Noct sect and how bad it is is just SE scared of AST becoming too good. It's similar to how MCH started out and DRK only ended up good because of the raid structure. Face it, after NIN SE got scared of new jobs becoming OP, which is funny considering the only OP part was it would literally go forever only even barely needing Invigorate.

edit: Let's be honest here. They could remove the "in combat" restriction of switching stances and you'd still be in diurnal most of the time.

[Lemuria]

Exactly, you just contradicted and proved my point in one swoop. It's all about pre-planning.
Regen is not always superior if you look more strategically and beyond basic numbers.

Nice cherry pick, but there's no contradiction here. Diurnal Sect is always the superior choice when it comes to Astrologian, there's simply no contest. Some people will cite the cute potency boost on Noct, but it's only a 5% boost, which still doesn't make up for the regens. Our shields only give 130% shield bonus and the healing element has a lower potency than Scholars. We don't even have a pet to make the difference, or a crit bonus.

The only reason to use Noct is when your regens will be annulled by the presence of a white mage. That's literally it. You will never find a good Astro swapping between stances mid-dungeon because there's literally no good reason for them to do so.

[Coratanni]

I'm a regen healer, so it's Diurnal for me. I just can't get into Noct. But i'm sure it works great for certain situations and for certain types of healers. I also dont care for Scholar healing and much prefer White Mage Healing. So that may be why i choose the stance thatI do.

As long as we clear the content, it's all good. ^_^