AST Sect Theory

[Aurum]

Lastly, please remember that this is only considering these 3 specific spells, all of which are single target. ASTs AoE healing potency is something I'm not going to comment on other than to say it's pretty lackluster in either sect.

[Apeiron]

Here's some data for you:
-Ilvl 181 AST with i180 Law wep
In Diurnal, my A. Benefic heals for 1200 initially followed by 6 ticks of 600 hp per, for a total of 5500 healing
Also in diurnal, my Benefic 1 heals for 2550 hp on average.
Casting A. Benefic once and Benefic 1 for each tick of the hot after (that's 6 casts) that nets me a total hp healed of 20700

In Nocturnal, my Benefic II heals for 4500 and my Benefic 1 heals for 2700.
Following the same pattern as above, if I cast Benefic II and then Benefic 1 six times afterwards I end up with a total hp healed of... 20700

Something to consider though... this assumes these spells will be cast at a 1:6 ratio. If however, you cast fewer benefics per Benefic II/Diurnal A benefic, the more Diurnal sect becomes more efficient than Nocturnal. On the flipside, the more Benefics you cast per Benefic II/Diurnal A benefic, the more potent Nocturnal becomes.

Lastly, please remember that this is only considering these 3 specific spells, all of which are single target. ASTs AoE healing potency is something I'm not going to comment on other than to say it's pretty lackluster in either sect.

Thanks for posting this. This is awesome.

[Zholi]

You're supposed to have regen rolling 100% of the time. Your comparison literally makes no sense. Regens are like 50% of your healing. There's no way a 5% boost to your other spells can make up for that. You should honestly just let this thread die. It's embarrassing.

[Aurum]

Snip

For regen to be 50% of your single target healing, you would have to cast 2 benefics over the course of A. Benefic's duration. Just an FYI

My comparison assumes you have 100% uptime on A. Benefic since you only have time for 6 casts (totaling 15 seconds worth of casting time since 6 casts at 2.5s per is 6*2.5=15) after your initial A. Benefic cast (0 seconds to cast, but 2.5 seconds recovery time).

Again, the situation is somewhat more complicated than the limited example I gave, since it only looks at A. Benefic/Benefic I in Diurnal and Benefic II/Benefic I in Nocturnal.

So, to put the results in english instead of numbers, if you're chain-cast healing one person using only the spells I point out above, the sects have almost exactly the same output.

[Zholi]

I didn't say it's 50% single target. It's 50% in general. And to completely discount the importance of AOE healing in a raid is absurd. If that's not part of the discussion, then why even have it? Pure single target healing is a situation that doesn't exist.

There is literally no good argument for using Nocturnal with a SCH, and the fact that people are even discussing it makes me worry for the intelligence of the community.

[Aurum]

Snip

My only goal in posting in this thread is to bring some much needed objectivity to the talks we're having about AST. Experience-wise, I have a considerably easier time healing in Diurnal than in Nocturnal. Does that mean that it's impossible to heal in Nocturnal? No, all it means is that that's my experience. Actually doing some testing, even in a limited scenario like I did, gives us more data on how the sects differ and where improvements need to be made.

In addition, I didn't discount AoE heals because I don't feel they're important, but rather because there are too many things that can go on with 8 seperate people in a raid for me to be comfortable saying "Oh, calculate the HoTs like this. Yup, that's how it works 100% of the time.".

Also, it's remarkably rude to cast aspersions on people's intellegence.

[Apeiron]

I didn't say it's 50% single target. It's 50% in general. And to completely discount the importance of AOE healing in a raid is absurd. If that's not part of the discussion, then why even have it? Pure single target healing is a situation that doesn't exist.

There is literally no good argument for using Nocturnal with a SCH, and the fact that people are even discussing it makes me worry for the intelligence of the community.

Not only is it rude, it's down-right unproductive. If you allow for your Diurnal AST to cast an AoE, where the ticks are counting, you'd also have to allow for the Nocturnal AST to do the same. In a scenario where both cast their respective main AoE heals, you get the Diurnast with a potency of 140 + 50/3sec. Meanwhile the Nocturast can very easily cast Helios for 304.5 potency. To catch up to that, the A. Helios of Diurnal would have to get 3 ticks in to bring A. Helios close (it becomes 290 total, and that's 9 seconds of your HoT's 30). By the time the Nocturnast would need to cast Helios again, it would pull away from A. Helios.

The main reason behind avoiding AoE healing numbers is likely due in part to it being rather difficult to get enough people to stand still while you run tests on their characters -- not to mention trying to pay attention to 8 ticks and write down all the numbers. I'll have to look into video recording as a method of getting around that though.

It's equivalent to bringing a WHM who only uses Cure, Cure II, and Medica with no DS or PoM.

Even though it's possible and passable, there's really no reason to do it.

See, if a WHM did this there'd be problems, as their HoT are significant enough to make a tangible difference. The consistent potency of their regens means that they're more likely to heal above incoming damage like auto-attacks. The WHM's Regen, compared to Divine Wind (the only regen for SCH) or A. Benefic in Diurnal, still wins out amongst them with a stronger potency drawing from the WHM MND and despite having the same duration as Divine Wind.

Medica II meanwhile has ~1.5 initial potency on A. Helios (diurnal) with the same follow-up potency of 50 to keep it ahead.

To recap, the WHM has longer and more potent regens. If they decide to forgo regens, it's a sizable difference than if an AST forgoes regens to go with more potent healing with a SCH to compliment what they already have.

[GideonHighmourn]

There is literally no good argument for using Nocturnal with a SCH, and the fact that people are even discussing it makes me worry for the intelligence of the community.

It's equivalent to bringing a WHM who only uses Cure, Cure II, and Medica with no DS or PoM.

Even though it's possible and passable, there's really no reason to do it.

[GideonHighmourn]

Good job missing the point.

Bringing a Nocturnal AST with SCH just for heals would be the same as bringing a WHM that only used Cure, Cure II, and Medica, because that's all the Nocturnal AST would be bringing in equivalency; rather than bringing a myriad of HoTs and stronger healing CDs (CU). It's handicapping yourself and your group, for absolutely no reason. You continually dismiss AST HoTs as being ineffective in vacuum, on-paper scenarios before ever actually trying it yourself. In actuality, their HoT ticks are very comparable to WHM's, and Regen is the only HoT that WHM has that outpaces AST's HoTs.

At this point, it's a circular argument. If you enjoy handicapping yourself and your group by bringing NoctAST with your SCH co healer, then go for it.

[Aurum]

Looking at the numbers, and using the experience I have playing AST, I'd say that for single target heals, using either sect would be fine, but Noct AST has a significantly harder time with any kind of AoE due to lacking a medica II equivalent and hence has a harder time in endgame content than Diurnal AST.

In addition to that, even though CU isn't great in either sect, Diurnal CU is still miles ahead of Noct CU. It might be an awkward tool to make use of, but at least it's something.