AST Sect Theory

[Zholi]

Honestly this stuff is so obvious that I feel like I'm wasting my time even telling you you're wrong. This is like arguing with someone who insists the sky is red and the sun is a unicorn. If you look at hundreds of raids and the breakdown of data you can see pretty clearly how regens factor in. You don't need to gather 8 people to stand around while you "test." That's absurd. If you actually did real raid content you'd have plenty of data.

[Apeiron]

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.

I was actually poking fun at your statement, as if you're making your pick based on regens you'd never pick the AST for anything. You don't bring the AST for shields or regens, because that's not their whole kit, and if that was the greatest factoring point you'd ignore them altogether in favor of WHM and SCH. It's been stated (I think by you) that the AST has the same kit, save three skills, in Diurnal as they do in Nocturnal. For this you always know what those spells will do, they don't change how you interact with your co-healer. The sect change isn't a game changer, but it allows your co-healer to know what to expect out of the AST, and what they might have to do to step in and close some gaps. They hardly bring a myriad of HoTs (like the exaggeration, though), and while the regen of CU certainly looks nice, does CU in nocturnal not stack with Sacred Soil (I honestly haven't been able to find an answer, so I'd appreciate the clarification)? That would mean SS, CU, and Succor could be thrown down to mitigate damage that the regens would have to recover, and bring you back to where you were.

Please understand, I'm not attempting to dismiss the HoT, nor do I think I've called them ineffective. I've stated that they're not as beneficial as everyone likes to paint them. I know they're effective, I ran dungeons and primals with them, as well as CT, but I've also done those things with Nocturnal and had only one problem in WoD when I first got Nocturnal sect. I'm not sure if you guys aren't just doing a thorough enough job of explaining yourselves, but I'm not seeing the handicap except from co-healers who wouldn't know how to interact with a Noctast, and rely on them to replace them all together.

The comparison of WHM HoT does look very similar, but look at it like this:

AST A. Benefic will tick a total of 790 potency
WHM Regen will tick a total of 1050 potency.
AST A. Helios will tick for a total of 640 potency/party member
WHM Medica II will tick a total of 700

If we add those up from one person, the AST has a total potency of 1430, the WHM on the other hand comes out with 1750 as the difference in potency. The AST certainly beats the SCH out in regens, but the longer the WHM lets their regen roll, the bigger the discrepancy becomes.

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.

It should be. Anyone who has leveled AST to just 50 knows that Diurnal is just fine for single target healing. They wouldn't be a playable class if everyone was struggling to keep their tank topped off during dungeons. Alone, the AoE becomes a problem for AST, but allowing the SCH to shield and the fairy to use Divine Wind should ease that pressure.

Honestly this stuff is so obvious that I feel like I'm wasting my time even telling you you're wrong. This is like arguing with someone who insists the sky is red and the sun is a unicorn. If you look at hundreds of raids and the breakdown of data you can see pretty clearly how regens factor in. You don't need to gather 8 people to stand around while you "test." That's absurd. If you actually did real raid content you'd have plenty of data.

Why don't we make this clear: If you came into this thread with the intent to argue a theory -- rather, a hypothesis -- something that is untested, you came here with the wrong mentality. I presented a the idea that I had not seen expressed elsewhere, probably because a lot of people would dismiss it with the statement on how the shields overwrite one another, and like a lot of people seem to think "if you don't bring AST for shields you don't bring them". Seriously? Are you bringing them for their regens? Because there's this other class we're all well acquainted with by now that does regens better. If that's the logic I have to keep contending with, you guys are being lazy and that's kinda sad. I'm well aware what the dominating play style is with the AST, but that doesn't mean it's right or the only method of playing them.

I've been going about this thread as less of an argument, and more as a discussion with an exercise on the AST capabilities through potencies, and you guys have been fantastic in getting me to do just that. Seriously, thank you. If any of you actually wanted this thread to die, as a good few of you seem to want, you'd have stopped posting. Because if you considered the notion to be so foolish that it was downright unworthy of entertaining it, why did you bother to reply at all? Instead you guys came in, and a lot of your claims coming in have been about how amazing regen is, and how it just flat out wins in comparison, but without at least trying the nocturnal sect idea I've presented, we don't know for certain.

Which brings me back to the original post, the one where I asked for help. I'm only at lvl59 as a DRG. Depending on how the week goes, I might hit 60 sometime later next week. After that I get to grind fates, dungeons, until my AST is 60. Then comes getting gear, which I should be picking up a few as I do dailies for expert roulette, then finding an FC or static.

Meanwhile, a good number of you guys are already at that stage, and in a position to actually help me disprove this. The only problem is none of you want to be bothered with it. You'd much rather sit on the forums and pick apart an argument than go ahead and do some testing anyways, because hey, what have you got to lose in a video game? Time? Money? Reputation?

A very few number of people coming into this thread have bothered to be helpful, or provide actual constructive comments, but all in all I've been as active as I have here because without me present to at least defend my position, no one would have bothered to look at it or speak up for it.

[Aurum]

The problem with pushing those duties off onto your co-healer, as I see it, is that you don't actually have much of an effect on the power of their heals. I'd be fine being second fiddle to my co-healer if I had the tools to make them better at their job. If, for example, A. benefic buffed heals received for one of the Sects so that the WHM/SCH had an easier time being the "Main healer", that'd support that style of play. As is, you're just pushing off more responsibility to your co-healer for more or less no gain.

[Zholi]

I've been as active as I have here because without me present to at least defend my position, no one would have bothered to look at it or speak up for it.

You need to ask yourself why that is.

[Apeiron]

The problem with pushing those duties off onto your co-healer, as I see it, is that you don't actually have much of an effect on the power of their heals. I'd be fine being second fiddle to my co-healer if I had the tools to make them better at their job. If, for example, A. benefic buffed heals received for one of the Sects so that the WHM/SCH had an easier time being the "Main healer", that'd support that style of play. As is, you're just pushing off more responsibility to your co-healer for more or less no gain.

Hrm. Maybe I was thinking of how a SCH would lead with Succor, an AST could take that as their cue to pop Helios as needed. You make a valid point on us not having much of an effect on the co-healer's healing. I would like to know how much we do effect, however.

Yes, you are bringing Diurnal in part for their regens since they stack with all effects aside from the same from another Diurnal AST. It's a given that AST is neither a full-powered WHM nor a full-powered SCH, but the Diurnal HoT remains effective in all but one healer pairing.

As for 4-man content (any content, really), currently there aren't many reasons to take either AST over WHM or SCH, but we have enough threads about that.

I'm still baffled as to why anyone should want to pair a Nocturnal AST with a SCH only to cast very slightly stronger versions of Cure, Cure II, and Medica when you can bring Diurnal to do the same at a tiny bit less potency but with greater potency/mp over time with applied HoTs.

Haven't had the chance to test Noct CU with Soil, but that's because both are nearly useless except in progression. Even if they do stack, the only way anyone will care is if this allows a team to survive a HP check that is the only thing gating their progress.

There might really be no reason to do it [pairing Noctast with SCH], but we don't really have people trying it out to see what the weaknesses really are. People say that the Nocturnal Sect is lacking because of the shields, and that the 5% to healing isn't enough, so than what is going right with the class? I'm asking people to dig a little harder with Nocturnal Sect. I'm not asking people to accept a new meta -- that would come after enough data has been gathered to justify it, if it exists.

But what comes with playing the Noctast wouldn't be slightly stronger cures. If you've popped essential dignity already, and someone's about to eat a mechanic that'll get them too low for HoT to take effect, as the Noctast you're fully capable of shielding and healing them quicker to get them out of danger. If you're running with a SCH you can leave the rest of the healing to the fairy who doesn't consume MP to heal people, and go about keeping everyone else up. It's a hypothetical, I know, but it's still an option on the table.

Please let me know what you find out about CU, I'd appreciate it

You need to ask yourself why that is.

I have, actually. My theory -- I guess I should call it hypothesis now, not theory -- doesn't look favorable at first glance (look at how many of you showed up just to tell me how silly my idea even was) and takes AST away from a play style they've become accustomed to as it's familiar, effective, and doesn't have abilities which might step on toes of other players.

From 30-50 we're stuck with Diurnal Sect, and we get pretty good compensating for its weaknesses. It's not perfect, we know, but it's all we have and we love it. It introduces us to our job, makes us happy with how it looks. For anyone who's leveled WHM, it's familiar and a fun change of pace -- hell, probably challenging us to remember mechanics and think a bit a head (not too much as we've run some of the content to death) or figure out who gets what buff from our cards so that we're not completely bored. We know we can rely on our regens to help keep us afloat, but they're not going to carry us. Our HoT do their job, and we keep the party alive without too much worry about our MP. When we can finally run 8-man content at 50 (CT, Coil, Primals) we can stack all of the regen with WHM, and we watch mechanics do their damage. The SCH shields before big damage, and between the lull in mechanics that happens, and the shields, we watch as our HoT slowly - but surely - help our party recover. It feels great.

But then we get Nocturnal Sect as well, and we're not too certain where it fits. Are we a SCH? No, that much becomes obvious really fast. No more a SCH than we are a WHM. The first time we notice our shields don't crit for a bonus shield, we're spamming our shields trying to keep our party alive fruitlessly. We're also trying to juggle our buffs, remember who's in our party and what they can use, trying to determine if we want to use, hold, or royal road (it gets easier because we've gotten used to it) and doing it all without a pet. It's not easy and we don't like it. We can't just set heals and forget. With our HoT we can wait until our party members are somewhere in their health that we don't like, and know we're not about to rush to have to beat mechanics or autoattacks. We've still got our basic heals, and they're even slightly improved. They've got a nifty shield now, but that excitement is ruined in the first pairing we make with a SCH and we accidentally overwrite their shields, trying to be the good co-healer and save our buddy some time and MP. But our basic kit is still the same, and we can still use all of the old tricks, we've now just got the help of two other healers.

I doubt a good many people would have bothered with this theory, and that's because how do you go about convincing an entire community that is dead-set on the mentality that Diurnal is the only option to take when paired with a SCH?

Short answer: you don't. You don't try and convince them. A lot of people probably would have taken to this thread to sway the masses of a new meta. I'm not. I have a very simple goal that I'm asking for help with: test it, see if it works, and if it doesn't (when it doesn't, if you prefer) you come back and say, "Sorry man, it doesn't work." I'll ask a few more questions, you'll answer to the best of your ability, and then we keep going with a more constructive conversation than we'd might if we were debating.

That's what I want. I want a discussion, and a damn good one, too. Not a complaint thread; not a why I love this job thread; not a this is how SE should fix the job thread. I want a we tried everything, and these are the limitations, the weaknesses, and new ways to handle certain things thread. I want us to recognize strengths as well as shortcomings, encourage others to speak up, and not devolve into senseless bickering of opinionated trash.

I've tried to avoid personal attacks, attacks on people's intelligence, or other similar pointless and petty comments. If I've failed in this over the course of these last 10 pages, in any way, I apologize. But I want the discussion to keep going, even if most of you are ready to let it die.