So...why is there still a Nocturnal stance?

[Mimilu]

Well how often are you going to time dilate anyway?

I usually time dilate my cards, not the HOTs.

It's not like the entire class revolves around time dilation....

Sometimes shields are nice

If I draw Bole, I'll place a Aspected Benefic on the tank before Time Dilating them.

[Ashelia_Ferron]

If I draw Bole, I'll place a Aspected Benefic on the tank before Time Dilating them.

Oh of course, I mean if I'm using Diurnal, I'll try to get the most value out of my stuff, but it's not a deal breaker at all.

Half the time I time dilate Balance or something on a DPS

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

Snip

It's simply really;
Even a singular form of mitigation, be it Stoneskin or a shielding spell, can prevent a potential death
No amount of regen can prevent said death within the same parameters.

Nocturnal Sect aspected benefic has a potency of 262. As the shield effect holds 130% value of whatever was healed, it generates a shield for 340 potency. Adloquium, on the other hand, has 300 potency and an equal strength shield. If both spell do not crit, aspected benefic would possess more potency. If the spells do crit, Adloquium would possess more potency. However, as the crit rate stat value is rather... poor... at the moment, I'd say aspected benefic provides a more reliable shield than adloquium right now. So yes, Nocturnal stance got a good buff here - Although not in the right way imo.

So what if both stacked; You'd have a 640 potency shield on the spot. Add in a stoneskin and you'd have enough mitigation for at least 5500 points of damage (not accounting crit). Tank busters are diminished to mere fluff attacks. Succor and aspected helios stacking? Why, A3S muscle-man-waves would make Terry Crews cry. So I'll repeat: Stacking regen doesn't prevent deaths direcetly. I'll admit it can, given the damage doesn't come before the next tick kicks in.

There's another thing of "effectiveness" of the regens. Especially when stacked. See Lordparanoia's post about this.

When progressing proper mitigation makes or breaks an attempt. If the party (or tanks in particular) does not possess enough gear to -just- survive whatever attack, mitigation will make that possible. Did I mention that no amount regen can help here?

Lastly; Nocturnal Sect aspected benefic is possibly one of the spells I personally appreciate the most; It's perfect for sniping players who missed the AoE healing (especially noticable in A1S), weave two healing spells to have effect in a fraction of a second or to toss out before going into cleric's. It's practically Lustrate* and can be used as Lustrate - And just like Lustrate, you shouldn't be relying on this too much or spamming it all over the place.

* You could argue "Lustrate is free", but it's not. One stack used on Energy Drain is equal to 884 MP. When that stack is used on Lustrate, you miss out on said amount of MP (under assumption the ability hits)

edit:
More about crit value in this topic: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...56#post3242356

[Fufupel]

Noct Sect is amazing in PvP, if you use Fending accessories you're nearly impossible to kill even with Melee LB. Noct Sect is also nice in A2S even if your co-healer is a SCH, the regen is going to cause hate with waves spawning and give your tanks a tough time so you're better off with the flat % heal increase from Noct.

[Crater]

Nocturnal Sect really isn't bad at all anymore. It's a fairly decent alternative to having a Scholar in most respects.

Aspected Helios always was, and still is, a perfectly acceptable alternative to Succor.
Aspected Benefic used to be an absolutely terrible alternative to Adloquium; now it is arguably the stronger of the two.
Having access to Benefic II and Helios is the equivalent of having Emergency Tactics with zero cooldown.
GCD heals as a whole are now significantly more MP-efficient than their Scholar equivalents, without sacrificing any power - in fact a few are more powerful.

The 5% Nocturnal Sect potency bonus is, to be sure, significantly weaker than having Embrace, but that's balanced out by having an overall stronger suite of baseline GCD healing.


Scholar's Aetherflow-consumer healing toolkit is fairly evenly matched with the new AST cooldown suite of Collective Unconscious, Synastry, and Essential Dignity. Lustrate/Soil/Indomitability rules the roost in terms of moment-to-moment versatility, as Scholar has always done, but AST having discrete cooldowns means that their skills typically don't have the opportunity costs that Scholar has to deal with, and Synastry/CU/ED tend to beat Scholar's tools in sheer power.

And while it's generally not an apples-to-apples comparison, the AST cards are about on par with the non-Embrace fairly skills, when it comes to the magnitude and variety of effects.



I don't expect to see many Nocturnal Sect Astrologians taking the place of Scholars in serious progression, but that's no longer due to any real deficiency in their ability to heal and shield; it comes down entirely to Scholars just being so well-suited to DPS that it's very difficult to imagine any dedicated healing class/job being able to catch up in a meaningful way. There are adjustments you could make to Astrologian to try to close that gap, but the problem doesn't really have anything to do with Sect choice, and neither would the solution.

[Cynfael]

I need to try more scenarios with Noct, but my early impression is that it's a hell of a lot more fun than it was before. The change to Collective Unconscious (being able to throw it up, have the Regen buff hit once, then abandon it) eases the MP burden and helps provide extra cushion for DPS, and the increased shielding potency on Aspected Benefic was appreciated.

Granted, both AST sects still lack the elegant emergency options of a SCH or a WHM, but if the card buffs prove truly impactful, the trade-off of extra planning and careful CD juggling might be worth it.

[Alahra]

I would imagine it's mostly there for raid-level fights where the shield mitigation is necessary to survive tank busters. It doesn't synergize as well with the rest of AST's kit as Diurnal does, but it's capable of fulfilling that healer role now, when it wasn't before.

[Xenohart]

Dont forget our ST shield is instant cast with a small heal. Its extremely amazing spot healing on fights or long segments of heavy movement, or when you need to get a shield up asap to prevent a dps from possibly dying.

On a tank its not as beneficial, simply because it'll power through your mana, but the 5% potency helps with the other healing forms as well. Its nice to precast a benefic I or II and then insta pop an aspected beneficic, heals nearly anyone to full and plops a nice shield on top of it.

[GideonHighmourn]

It's also worth noting that using Time Dilation on Aspected Benefic doesn't really improve it's healing potential, but just gives a "free" refresh of the regen portion of the effect. It's roughly equivalent to just recasting Aspected Benefic for free; it's hardly as ground breaking or "massive" as you make it seem. Nocturnal does have it's uses, and I think it'll be more complimentary to WHM's HoTs now with the increased potency. Keep in mind, it increases the potency of Benefic I/II and Helios, as well. Overall, I don't think Nocturnal Sect is as bad as people make it out to be, especially since the baseline shielding is now higher than Adloquium or Succor.

[TyloRime]

I quite enjoy Nocturnal stance - while I understand the argument about time dilation not adding value to the shield the way it adds healing in the way of extended ticks of the HoT in Diurnal, somehow it no longer bothers me with today's buffs, whereas before I was quite salty about it

While unimportant from a progression standpoint, I love it in dungeons because I don't have to worry about "is that Tank going to pull with all those HoTs still running?...CRAP YES HE IS.." hehe.