How could you do this to AST?

[Piarkire]

They never said that they don’t stack—they said that they don’t stack continuously. I’m guessing they what they meant is that: Neutral Sect is an ability with a 20-second duration on a 120-second cooldown. Therefore, every 2 minutes, you have the ability to cast shields that stack for a total of 20 seconds (the shields last the standard 30 seconds). However, you do not have the ability to do this constantly during a fight. Continuous stacking of shields would be overpowered, especially when paired with AOE mitigation from other jobs.

I do believe I'm not going too far out on a limb to say that Neutral Sect, and by extension Celestial Intersection, has done quite a number on nocturnal sect and probably necessitated its' removal.

I think what's going on with AST, as many have said, is that it's trying to balance itself to be useful in everything which naturally is going to shaft a lot of people who play a specific job out of high-end content. The case that its' nocturnal potencies are slightly higher than a scholar, and thus stronger shields, somewhat proves this.

While I don't exactly condone the strategy used to solve it, I personally expected this one.