How to make Nocturnal Sect more interesting and compelling

[Akyio]

- this is how every Ast thread goes "why isn't my xyz as good as/better than whm/sch?"

Well I think SE is very well aware that they aren't going to make AST in nocturnal better than SCH and in diurnal better than WHM, in terms of what what those both classes are(pure shields / raw heals).

Except about sacred soil.. i think collective unconscious should definitely be better than sacred soil. It's a level 58 ability, and it's not even comparable to sacred soil now. Both are 10% damage reduction. But with sacred soil you can move around, in collective you can't. Also 8yards vs 20 yards. Cooldowns are different too.
i mean collective unconscious is practically a worthless skill in both diurnal and nocturnal.
In diurnal is a bit better, but.. as if everyone is gonna just stand there in that tiny bubble and wait to be healed..

[Nihility]

Absolutely any change that ends with your shield being better than a sch will irritate me.

Basically everything in this thread is "our nocturnal benefic should be better than adlo" "our unconcious should be better than sacred soil" - this is how every Ast thread goes "why isn't my xyz as good as/better than whm/sch?"

Puhlease.

the thing is collective unconscious is on a long cooldown, player based instead of targeted, and has to be channeled.
By all rights it should be a lot stronger than the WHM and SCH counterparts

and the other question would be why does astrologian have to be straight up numerically worse than WHM and SCH at everything? Make astro utility way stronger or bring their healing up to par, having a strictly worse class in an MMO is very bad

[ChocoChick]

Absolutely any change that ends with your shield being better than a sch will irritate me.

Basically everything in this thread is "our nocturnal benefic should be better than adlo" "our unconcious should be better than sacred soil" - this is how every Ast thread goes "why isn't my xyz as good as/better than whm/sch?"

Puhlease.

More on what Muahbec said. It's more about differentiating AST from the other healers that is more important. It's fair enough that our heals and shields be a bit weaker, but why do we have to mimic WHM or SCH so much? Give us a more unique identity and make some of the copy cat healing spells to be different from the others.

[Arcana]

I like the idea, but maybe to not be too OP, the recast time of Aspected Benefic should be 15 seconds.

Well I think SE is very well aware that they aren't going to make AST in nocturnal better than SCH and in diurnal better than WHM, in terms of what what those both classes are(pure shields / raw heals).

I agree, but there is another option: make AST unique and not a stupid underpowered version of WHM or SCH?

[ckc22]

the thing is collective unconscious is on a long cooldown, player based instead of targeted, and has to be channeled.
By all rights it should be a lot stronger than the WHM and SCH counterparts

and the other question would be why does astrologian have to be straight up numerically worse than WHM and SCH at everything? Make astro utility way stronger or bring their healing up to par, having a strictly worse class in an MMO is very bad

It also has a longer effect time and costs you absolutely nothing except a CD to cast - the general use of SS is for a stacked phase change anyway - why do you need to move around during that?

Instead of asking for more stuff to be stolen from whm and sch you should be asking for card buffs and enhanced ability to speed heal in line with the time mage theme.

Instead every post on here and reddit about ast is basically "Why doesn't our version of adlo crit?" Because it's instant cast and costs like 70% as much mp. Maybe it should cost 0 mp, be aoe, and triple crit?

I think the entire idea behind Ast stances was a mistake and I called that this stuff would happen like 20 seconds after SE announced "whm and sch mode".

[Roxas_Andrade]

Well, in my opinion, AST has to make noct sect interesting because of diurnal. Diurnal sect gives 5% spell speed and noct gives 5% heal potency. It's like they want a pure heal/support stance (noct) and a heal/support/attack stance (diurnal).

I don't think the skills should be changed (maybe collective unconsious and spear), just improve the noct heal potency to 10%. Is fine for me. Or even better, improve mind by 10% that it will be good for both heals and attack...

[ckc22]

Well, in my opinion, AST has to make noct sect interesting because of diurnal. Diurnal sect gives 5% spell speed and noct gives 5% heal potency. It's like they want a pure heal/support stance (noct) and a heal/support/attack stance (diurnal).

I don't think the skills should be changed (maybe collective unconsious and spear), just improve the noct heal potency to 10%. Is fine for me. Or even better, improve mind by 10% that it will be good for both heals and attack...

Which would give you a succor superior to scholars. So.... no.

[Dynalon]

Instead of doing changes to sects I would change only collective unconscious, I would leave channel thing as it is and do following: increase HoT effect for the first tick potency to 500 then let it fade so for example first tick potency 500, 2nd 250 third 100 and then keep it at 100, that way you could do some interesting mana free aoe healing, without having it too OP, similar thing for nocturnal sect, first 3 seconds 20% DR then go down to 15% and after 6s stay at 10%.

[Indiction]

Which would give you a succor superior to scholars. So.... no.

Okay all I'm hearing from you is...

Players: "Hm, I could see xx skill being useful if xx were to happen.."
You: "Nope, can't be stronger than my job"
Players: "But.."
You: "NOPE."

I don't see why AST can't be comparable to WHM/SCH. We may be able to change our type of healing but we're LOCKED into the stance during battle. I'd agree with you that it can't be as potent if we were even remotely able to change in battle. Like many have said, however, we want to be comparable and unique, offering something new or a comparable style of healing, not necessarily being the same as WHM/SCH with the same everything.

1. Collective Unconscious (like you said) costs nothing to cast. While it does have a higher duration than SCHs sacred, you don't end up using the full length of it. The fact you have to stay in place for 18s makes it utterly trash. All you have to spend on SCH is 1 stack of aetherflow for the same % reduct + time you'd actually keep CU up + you don't get rooted. On the WHM Asylum side, yes our CU has 50 more pot, but it has a lower duration than WHMs Asylum (and again, you have to stay still, which you can't for the full duration 95% of the time).

When you take a step back and realize that CU is worse than a lv 45 skill AND a lv 52, at level 58...it's kinda hard to see it in a bright light.

2. Celestial Opposition. It doesn't do much. For the effect it gives, the CD is too high in most people's eyes. A 4s stun ('cuz you know whm didn't get an equivalent in holy) that runs on the same timer as all the other stuns so might as well be useless. +5s to buffs is decent if used with full raid AoE balance, but again, it's not 150s cd decent.

3. Gravity is a crap aoe really. Might as well be holy, except oh wait, it doesn't give a debuff in any way, shape or form with it being almost the same exact skill. Blind, Stun, Silence, anything at all would be nice really for a lv 52 skill (vs WHMs lv 45 aoe stun and SCHs aoe debuffing/dot-ing).

I really see no problem with the potency of heals considering we're meant to be faster casters with our insta-cast aspected benefic and our trait for insta benefic II.

[Roxas_Andrade]

Which would give you a succor superior to scholars. So.... no.

Maybe. If the increase in healing potency was 10%, AST would have a 154 potency of Aspected Helios, agaist a 150 potency succor, but we have to consider that SCH usually are crit-specd, making their version more like to overwrite the other (considering the strog shield to surpass the weaker, cause the way it is now sucks, where one shield overwrites the other despite the potency). If we consider the mind improvement, maybe we have more difference and I can't tell how different they would be.

But either way, if there's an AST and a SCH in the party, there's no use to choose nocturnal sect. AST shuld be diurnal, where one job wouldn't cause impact to the other anyway.