AST Sect Theory

[Zholi]

Yes, Diurnal has more overheal because of HoTs. Adjusted for overheal, I'd say Diurnal is still about 20% stronger. This is when under near maximum stress in terms of healing output, and assumes you are paired with a WHM and not a SCH, where your shields can overwrite and skew the numbers. Also, a WHM at maximum HPS heals for about 35% more than a Diurnal AST, and about 75% more than Nocturnal, for anyone who cares. A SCH can also easily match (or beat) your maximum HPS in Nocturnal while still outputting 200+ more DPS than you depending on the fight.

[Ninimo_Babamo]

So your plan is for the Nocturnal AST with the SCH to ignore half of their skills.. That is ludicrous. Benefic 2 in Nocturnal is 651 potency while it is 620 in Diurnal, but casts 5% faster. It ends up being the same overall. You can't just continue to ignore the spell speed granted by Diurnal and you cant ask a Nocturnal AST to ignore half of their heals. That in itself ruins the validity of any argument this could ever have of being viable.

[Apeiron]

Something to consider about this argument (the one in which the Hots are ticking, but people are full health) is that if you accept that this is the case, it makes things swing in diurnal's favor since you're accepting that people are topped off often enough that overhealing becomes an issue. Edit: Or it could mean that your cohealer is throwing out too many heals, but that's a seperate issue.

As far as how often these HoTs actually do tick when people are at full hp, experience tells me that people end up spending a lot of time at less than 100% hp when you have an AST in the party, hence overhealing ends up being not so much of a concern.

A good point, one I'll admit I didn't think about, but overhealing is something likely to come up. Maybe not the whole party, but ones and twos could definitely be there. While it might not much of a concern, I still like to know what that would do to numbers.

Yes, Diurnal has more overheal because of HoTs. Adjusted for overheal, I'd say Diurnal is still about 20% stronger. This is when under near maximum stress in terms of healing output, and assumes you are paired with a WHM and not a SCH, where your shields can overwrite and skew the numbers. Also, a WHM at maximum HPS heals for about 35% more than a Diurnal AST, and about 75% more than Nocturnal, for anyone who cares. A SCH can also easily match (or beat) your maximum HPS in Nocturnal while still outputting 200+ more DPS than you depending on the fight.

Just want to make sure I got the intended jab right: you're saying the overwriting of shields, the damage mitigation things, the things which don't tick up potency (and HP) beyond their initial cure potency, and can't be stacked, can skewer numbers? Am I right? Because that's what I'm reading.

We'll agree on the easily match/beat comment for HPS from SCH, but is it really only 200+ DPS? That doesn't seem right. The fight depending, still, they've got plenty of DoTs to drop and let work. I'd figure it to be a bit higher. Oh well.

Even more so, though, I want to know the 75% comes from. If Diurnal is ~20% stronger, the WHM shouldn't be ~75% stronger than the Noctast. That's a huge disparity in numbers. There's a whole ~40% missing. Using HPS with your statement, that would mean a WHM at 600HPS outpaces the AST in Noct by 450HPS (who would be doing a pitiful 150HPS) ... that's more than a little problem, and I'm not ready to buy the accuracy of that statement. I'd have bought your statement if you'd said 55%, but 75% is exaggerating a bit much don't you think?

So your plan is for the Nocturnal AST with the SCH to ignore half of their skills.. That is ludicrous. Benefic 2 in Nocturnal is 651 potency while it is 620 in Diurnal, but casts 5% faster. It ends up being the same overall. You can't just continue to ignore the spell speed granted by Diurnal and you cant ask a Nocturnal AST to ignore half of their heals. That in itself ruins the validity of any argument this could ever have of being viable.

Again, not ignore. They'd simply be prioritizing it lower on their list of spells to use first.

I haven't ignored the 5% to spell speed, it just hasn't come up. But, since you've brought it up now.... Currently, at 53, the 5% puts my cast time at... I want to say 2.28seconds compared to my Noctast's 2.40. The purpose of the spell speed increase seems to have been the dev. teams way of making sure the lower potency healing of Diurnal could keep up with the boosted healing potency of Nocturnal. Imagine attempting to heal as a Diurnast with the lower potency and same GCD as the Noctast, it'd be utterly horrid.

Now, to the cast faster it certainly does that, but to get a tangible benefit out of that type of speed you'd need to stack more spell speed. As it is Diurnal AST doesn't really start dusting Nocturnal AST in terms of time until after the 5th Benefic II where it shaves off a whole second and takes 12.20 seconds to get to (just to get twice as much out of the spell speed buff you'd have to double that time and then some). Until then it looks like you're talking .XX seconds. Again, this is using lvl53 ilvl123 gear, not sure if this stays constant or if higher skill speed makes the difference greater (need more numbers!). This can be modified by your card buffs, but that's a game of RNG, where you're the only person who could possibly benefit from the card (hint, hint, you're not).

But yeah, that's straight Benefic II, and you probably shouldn't be chain casting Benefic II 5 times in a row. It still wouldn't beat the Nocturnast Benefic II, though. Speed, sure, but not by a lot. The difference in potency for them would be 155 (Noctast at 3255, Diurnast at 3100). With every cast of Benefic II, the Nocturnast would also gain a lead on the Diurnasts raw heals by 31 potency. Something that could easily be fixed if they stop to cast A. Benefic where they trade out up front heals for a lower potency just to catch up, to combine their HoT with Benefic II.

[Zholi]

There's a difference between skewing and skewering. There's no jab; it's simply difficult if not impossible to calculate the contribution of shields if they are being overwritten and you have a constant stream of shields that aren't being consumed. And that 200 is at the bottom of their range. At the top, they can go 600+. A SCH doing 200 DPS is still pulling a good bit more HPS than you possibly can.

Forgot to adjust for overheal on the Nocturnal AST vs WHM comparison. WHM is 50~% stronger. Your numbers are also far too small. More realistic would be 1500 vs 2600, but this is before the numbers are adjusted for overheal. After overheal it'd be like 1300 vs 2000.

[FoxyAreku]

I would kick any AST using noct stance if we already have a scholar. It's stupid and pointless. Just saying.

[Apeiron]

I would kick any AST using noct stance if we already have a scholar. It's stupid and pointless. Just saying.

Kick? Instantly? Not even give them the chance to switch? That seems pretty unreasonable.

[FoxyAreku]

Kick? Instantly? Not even give them the chance to switch? That seems pretty unreasonable.

.....I'm just going to pretend that you didn't make such a ridiculous assumption and ignore your post. XD

[Apeiron]

I still don't see the point of a strategy that has two healing classes taking turns to use the same skill when said skills overwrite one another.

A WHM stacking regens with an AST? Sure. It's going to overheal like crazy if you AoE spam it and you'll be a little squishy from a lack of shields, but it's doable.

SCH and a Diurnal AST? Easy peasy. SCH's new burst ability helps cover for AST's lower healing, and AST's buff roulette is plenty helpful.

WHM and SCH? Old School.

WHM and Noct? Just fine. AST's ST burst healing and shields are plenty strong as long as its MP holds out, so keep feeding the AST the Ewer card and you should be just okay.

SCH and Noct? No. While the shields that AST and SCH are probably roughly equal, not being able to stack them means a lot of wasted MP, and AST can't burn MP like a SCH can. Much better to go Diurnal and pop regens.

This is assuming that the AST is being as proactive with their A. Benefic as the SCH is with their Adlo, which they shouldn't be according to this hypothesis. Originally, this strategy was put forward as a way to discuss how best to take advantage of the AST sects. With lower potencies, the hypothesis goes, an AST mirroring their co-healer would be capitalizing on the individual strengths of that healer (HoT, lots of single target healing). A WHM/AST(Di) would have their HoT stack, while providing the necessary quick Benefic/Cure to keep the party alive and handle mechanics accordingly. A SCH/AST(No) would have the SCH continue to be proactive with their shields, while the fairy and AST handle keeping party members well off. If for some reason the AST shields at the same time as the SCH, yes there may be a weaker shield (depending on who shielded first) but there would still be a shield, and some amount of damage would be mitigated.

.....I'm just going to pretend that you didn't make such a ridiculous assumption and ignore your post. XD

It's only a ridiculous assumption if you don't clarify. For all I know, you might be a jerk and insta-kick people. It's not all that ridiculous of an assumption when I have no working knowledge of who you are.

[Mercurias]

Let me dumb it down a little.

If you, as an AST, demand that I not use any shields after the opener while I'm playing my SCH, I'm going to laugh at you. You'd essentially be telling me not to do a pretty crucial part of my job because you want to, despite the fact that you can click a button and let us both do something beneficial to the group without overwriting one another and wasting MP.

That's kind of the end of the line. There is no tactic which would make a Noct sect anything but terrible to pair with a SCH, especially because you have Diurnal to use instead.

[FoxyAreku]

It's only a ridiculous assumption if you don't clarify. For all I know, you might be a jerk and insta-kick people. It's not all that ridiculous of an assumption when I have no working knowledge of who you are.

It was overall just a stupid thing to say. The simple fact that you think anyone would accept a vote kick as soon as an instance starts, or that anyone who plays this game is stupid enough to not give someone time to switch from an incorrect stance, is just mind baffling.

Like, you can't even kick someone in an instance until the instance has been going for 5 minutes, and that's plenty of time to switch. I thought that was common knowledge but I guess not XD.

Anyway, maybe think things through a bit more before you post next time. Sorry~