diurnal sect or nocturnal sect which do you like better

[FeliAiko]

AST regens work with WHMs. It's AST-AST regens, AST-SCH and SCH-SCH shields that don't stack.

[Ghishlain]

Aha, that makes a lot of sense. Even looking through your numbers it seems like, as Sapphidia said, it only makes a difference once you pass that 10% crit margin, so you would really need to have a lot of crit to reach that point. And even then you really need to keep your crit maxed out to see large differences, it seems. Thanks for the link, was an informative read!

You're welcome~

Funny thing is according to Dervy you'd only need 571 Crit to reach a 10% crit rate once you do the math backwards. You can actually achieve that number very easily in the current gear tier just on Lore pieces and a Baked Pipira Pira despite the apparent lack of Crit pieces on that set (the linked set gives 575 Crit). It's actually even easier to achieve in pure Prototype Midan gear and you get 598 Crit without food.

Of course more Crit helps more and the divide just grows wider and wider the more Crit you stack but 10% is very very achievable for any healer even if all you're doing is dumping Lore or Midas normal pieces into the job. And yes, what Sapphidia says also rings very true:

And even so, although Scholar -can- always push out much higher shields, AST has the advantage of always being able to guarantee that their shields are a base amount higher than the weakest scholar shield. I guess it depends on what's better for an encounter - a small shield that's sometimes randomly a stupidly huge shield, or a fairly consistant medium sized shield.

Healing is always about the situational awareness and knowing which path may benefit your group the most.

[Mature]

Ast + Whm = Nocturnal
Ast + Sch = Diurnal
Ast + Ast = Diurnal/Nocturnal

Ast + 4 party Dungeons = Diurnal
Ast + 8 party Raid = Nocturnal/Diurnal
Ast + 8 partt Primals = Nocturnal/Diurnal

[Alistaire]

Ast + Whm = Nocturnal
Ast + Sch = Diurnal
Ast + Ast = Diurnal/Nocturnal

Ast + 4 party Dungeons = Diurnal
Ast + 8 party Raid = Nocturnal/Diurnal
Ast + 8 partt Primals = Nocturnal/Diurnal

AST+WHM = diurnal except for very very few exceptions

[Kaurie]

Just to clarify, here is some math regarding which has higher average potency shields SCH vs AST.

Potency | Regular | Crit | Total Potency over 100 uses
| | 94.285 |5.715
Adlo | 300 28285.5 |5143.5 |33429
Aspected Benefic | 250 |30642.625 |2786.0625 | 33428.6875

The left is potency difference of the heal (300 SCH, 250 AST), the top is the crit rate required to make the total amount of shielded potency equal (5.715%). As soon as you go above 5.715, the total shielded potency is higher over 100 uses (on average) for SCH than AST.

For 10% crit rate

Potency | Regular | Crit | Total Potency over 100 uses
| | 90 |10
Adlo | 300 27000 |9000|36000
Aspected Benefic | 250| 29250 | 4875| 34125

With a total of 1875 extra shielded potency (equivalent of 6.25 uncritted adlo's) more over 100 uses.

Note: this is not accounting for the added increase in crit power with higher crit and is assuming all crits = 1.5x

Nocturnal Sect has benefits that Scholar doesn't, benefits that are often over looked... for some reason. From what I know comparing their skill sets:

- Instant cast healing for 10s every 150s
- Instant cast Benefic II on occasion
- A very potent (150 per tick) AoE regen and damage reduction barrier on a 90s CD
- A proper AoE heal that doesn't have a 30s CD
- Disable, which is better than Virus in every way
- Higher potency shields (not by much, but they are) that can scale up to 950 effective potency between the healing and shielding components on demand
- The ability to effortlessly heal two targets on demand with no micromanagement
- An AoE stun (not very useful in raids, incredibly useful in dungeons)
- The ability to reduce their enmity generation for a significant amount of time
- Higher potency DoTs that can't miss (Miasma and Aero can, Bio and Combust can not)
- A passive 5% boost to all healing spells (think of it like always having a slightly weaker over time Divine Seal active)
- And finally the cards, all six of which are exceptionally powerful, have a myriad of uses and applications, and can be used at almost any point in any fight.

Many of these are unique to Astrologian as a whole, yes, but these effects are part of what must be taken into consideration when looking at Nocturnal Sect. So no, I think what the problem really is that the metagame is overly rigid and stubborn to change. The Sect itself is fine.

I appreciate the response; however, I don't think any of that makes up for the advanced power of the SCH toolkit.

A few notes:
-Instant Cast healing for 10s every 150s sounds fairly lack luster imo? I have lustrate/indom for the very few instances where having an instant cast would be beneficial. However, that's nice enough I suppose.
- Instant Cast Benefic II - proc that it casts instant while still having the MP cost. I'd rather have Adlo crit shield or free cure of WHM personally *shrug*
- Your aoe Regen / damage reduction barrier is one of ASTs biggest weaknesses compared to SCH imo. You can't do anything, as a SCH I can throw up the damage reduction barrier much more frequently, have Whispering Dawn up (with Rouse = 140 per tick), while also casting Succor and/or DPSing + having my fairy embrace at the same time
- Disable is generally much worse than SCH/SMN Virus, but they both have their uses.
- Shield potency, see above.
- It's fairly effortless for Eos/Selene to auto heal targets as she does. She also does this with 100% uptime and no cooldown
- AoE stun is nice, but not as nice as Holy. I prefer Shadowflare personally, slow set on all mobs for 30s is better than 5s of stun and then back to normal, both are nice though
- Enmity generation is a non issue on SCH due to a large amount of your healing coming from your pet
- Dots, SCH Bio + Bio II + Shadowflare = per tick is 110, per, 840 potency total or vs Combust II + Combust = 85 per tick, and 690 total
- Passive 5% is nice, but SCH has fairy healing while I am healing for a 33% increase. Examples:
Embrace (300) + Physick (400) > Benefic (420)
Embrace (300) + Adlo (300+300) > Benefic II (682.5)
Succor (150+150) + Whispering Dawn (700) > Aspected Helios (210+150) or Helios (315)
Lustrate (600) + Embrace (300) > Essential Dignity (420)
*note I added the 5% bonuses to all the AST spells
*also note that Embrace/Whispering Dawn potencies are pet potencies and not player potencies. Pet potencies are ~70% as strong (300 potency gives me 1880 embrace, and 2700 adlo)
- Cards are quite nice, and the only thing which make AST at all worthwhile imo. However, their RNG factor makes it not, for me.

A few other things SCH has not mentioned above
- Fey Covenant for 20% magic resistance added to all party members
- Eye for an Eye which gives a 10% damage decrease to anything that hits my target
- Deploy those adlo crits baby, nothing like giving your entire team a 12k shield and just laugh off the Seph Ex limit break
- Energy Drain + Aetherflow, never have MP problems, especially when DPSing (vs holding back DPS on other jobs to conserve MP)
- Healing not a problem? Can bring Selene for a 50% uptime 3% speed buff for all party members without the concern of RNG
- Healing not a problem? Can bring Selene to do an AoE wide debuff removal so you can continue to DPS to your hearts content when your party stands in the AoE
- Healing not a problem? Can bring Selene for instant Silence - for me this is mostly used in Hunts, but was useful in like T1


In my opinion, Nocturnal AST is barely better than SCH without Fairy. However, when you add the Fairy into the mix, it's a landslide for SCH.

[Ghishlain]

-Snip-

Just three small nitpicks I wanted to point out that I noticed.

For your Aspected Benefic (Noct) vs Adlo comparison, I noticed that you forgot to add the 1.5x Crit multiplier on Aspected Benefic but did include both the 1.5x Crit multiplier and 2x Crit multiplier on Adlo. Also you'll need to add the 5% potency modifier to Noct Aspected Benefic too (and of course floor your decimals on each step). This will affect your math and should get you to that 10% Crit breakpoint for Shields that I posted earlier.

For the third nitpick, just wanted to mention that Fairy potency are weaker than their listed value. The Fairy itself basically heals for approximately 33% less power than list now (just compare your Fairy Embrace to your Physick) so Embrace is closer to 200 and Whispering Dawn is closer to 469 potency. This doesn't actually change the meat of your argument though but I just wanted to point it out because I'm OCD about misinformation and try to correct things when I see it.

Despite this weakened fairy it is hard to argue against an entity that gives the SCH 4,000 potency of healing every minute at 0 MP or GCD cost to the master/mistress (more if you're using Eos). I do find the Noct AST kit more enjoyable than the SCH kit but I know that's a playstyle preference then actual power. It probably skews my perception that I DF a lot and Noct AST kit really shines in random chaotic environments while the SCH is magnificent in a controlled raid dance when you know everyone can perform properly and you're not trying to cover huge mistakes.

[Kaurie]

Just three small nitpicks I wanted to point out that I noticed.

For your Aspected Benefic (Noct) vs Adlo comparison, I noticed that you forgot to add the 1.5x Crit multiplier on Aspected Benefic but did include both the 1.5x Crit multiplier and 2x Crit multiplier on Adlo. Also you'll need to add the 5% potency modifier to Noct Aspected Benefic too (and of course floor your decimals on each step). This will affect your math and should get you to that 10% Crit breakpoint for Shields that I posted earlier.

For the third nitpick, just wanted to mention that Fairy potency are weaker than their listed value. The Fairy itself basically heals for approximately 33% less power than list now (just compare your Fairy Embrace to your Physick) so Embrace is closer to 200 and Whispering Dawn is closer to 469 potency. This doesn't actually change the meat of your argument though but I just wanted to point it out because I'm OCD about misinformation and try to correct things when I see it.

Despite this weakened fairy it is hard to argue against an entity that gives the SCH 4,000 potency of healing every minute at 0 MP or GCD cost to the master/mistress (more if you're using Eos). I do find the Noct AST kit more enjoyable than the SCH kit but I know that's a playstyle preference then actual power. It probably skews my perception that I DF a lot and Noct AST kit really shines in random chaotic environments while the SCH is magnificent in a controlled raid dance when you know everyone can perform properly and you're not trying to cover huge mistakes.

Hey Thanks! Always appreciate people pointing out my mistakes (legit, not sarcasm).

1. I figured that the shield tooltip says "Nocturnal Shield Potency" which made me think it would include any % benefit applied by the nocturnal stance. So I purposely left that out. I could be wrong here though.

2. For the Crit modifier on Aspected Benefic, thanks for pointing that out, oops here is the corrected versions (I'll also edit my original post):

Potency | Regular | Crit | Total Potency over 100 uses
| | 94.285 |5.715
Adlo | 300 28285.5 |5143.5 |33429
Aspected Benefic | 250 |30642.625 |2786.0625 | 33428.6875

For 10% crit rate

Potency | Regular | Crit | Total Potency over 100 uses
| | 90 |10
Adlo | 300 27000 |9000|36000
Aspected Benefic | 250| 29250 | 4875| 34125

3. Yeah I know fairy heals are less powerful, I left it out because I didn't know the actual conversion. However, you make a good point and I suppose that was misleading. I'll add a * in my original post. That said, my overall argument is still the same.

4. Definitely, there is a lot of playstyle choice. Personally, I find SCH handles emergency situations very well, but definitely shines more in the predict damage department. The actual HPS that a SCH can put out is pretty similar to both WHM and diurnal AST, while being undervalued due to a lot of that HPS being shields (i.e. a 2500 HP adlo counts as 2500 hp per gcd, not 5000 on your HPS).


Another great thing, that you kind of alluded to, is that your fairy can heal ongoing MP free. So if you do run out of MP (or say die and get raised) your pet can continue to heal while you regain some MP.

[Ghishlain]

Hey Thanks! Always appreciate people pointing out my mistakes (legit, not sarcasm).

1. I figured that the shield tooltip says "Nocturnal Shield Potency" which made me think it would include any % benefit applied by the nocturnal stance. So I purposely left that out. I could be wrong here though.

2. For the Crit modifier on Aspected Benefic, thanks for pointing that out, oops here is the corrected versions (I'll also edit my original post):

Potency | Regular | Crit | Total Potency over 100 uses
| | 94.285 |5.715
Adlo | 300 28285.5 |5143.5 |33429
Aspected Benefic | 250 |30642.625 |2786.0625 | 33428.6875

For 10% crit rate

Potency | Regular | Crit | Total Potency over 100 uses
| | 90 |10
Adlo | 300 27000 |9000|36000
Aspected Benefic | 250| 29250 | 4875| 34125

3. Yeah I know fairy heals are less powerful, I left it out because I didn't know the actual conversion. However, you make a good point and I suppose that was misleading. I'll add a * in my original post. That said, my overall argument is still the same.

4. Definitely, there is a lot of playstyle choice. Personally, I find SCH handles emergency situations very well, but definitely shines more in the predict damage department. The actual HPS that a SCH can put out is pretty similar to both WHM and diurnal AST, while being undervalued due to a lot of that HPS being shields (i.e. a 2500 HP adlo counts as 2500 hp per gcd, not 5000 on your HPS).


Another great thing, that you kind of alluded to, is that your fairy can heal ongoing MP free. So if you do run out of MP (or say die and get raised) your pet can continue to heal while you regain some MP.

No problem/ Glad to be of help~

If you want to see my testing on Noct Sect and Aspected Benefic / Helios, you can find it here. Incidentally, my Crit theorycraft happens to be on that page too if you wanted to review it since it's related to the topic at hand.

That should give you all the information you need regarding Noct Sect and its effect on Aspected spells. The nuances of Noct Sect tend to get lost since it's definitely the less popular of the two sects so I can understand why it would be confusing.

[Lemage]

Ast + Whm = Nocturnal
Ast + Sch = Diurnal
Ast + Ast = Diurnal/Nocturnal

Ast + 4 party Dungeons = Diurnal
Ast + 8 party Raid = Nocturnal/Diurnal
Ast + 8 partt Primals = Nocturnal/Diurnal

this, except I'll still go Diurnal with WHM unless it's a fight with a really painful tank buster.