What if Nocturnal Sect...

[AlphaSonic]

I don't think so. If I recall, the AST shields are stronger than a SCH's. Unless that SCH crits.

And you ignore the important things like DPS, MP management, instant heals, FAIRY, even SCH mitigation is more reliable than AST one.

[FeliAiko]

Comparisons between Noct AST and SCH are inevitable since it's obvious 2.0 SCH was used as a base reference when creating the Sect. Same way with Diurnal and WHM, but the latter plays more to AST's strengths and overall toolkit better.

I mentioned in another thread how Noct could be changed to be a reversal of Emergency Tactics. Imagine if ET was an actual stance SCH was locked into for a whole fight, and that's how I see Nocturnal. An ability that would work well in situational circumstances but not as an 'always on' move that fits as part of the job's overall package (since the other jobs do that role better)

[Izmeaih]

Another type of healing could be reactive. Thus that when you got hit, you were healed by an amount. This would allow you to have a reactive barrier that functions quite differently than white mage or scholar. On lots of mobs, it would work well, against fewer mobs it would work less, but it would also give you a very distinctive flavor. Other mmo's have used this healing method and it works pretty well.

[Ragology]

Today we have a majority of Diurnal ASTs on PVE, what could make you guys choose Noct more often?

I haven't unlocked the job yet, but maybe if Noct stance couldn't draw the same card twice in a row then people would use it more?

[Ersahi]

I haven't unlocked the job yet, but maybe if Noct stance couldn't draw the same card twice in a row then people would use it more?

The problem is that one card is always good, and the rest are (at best) situationally useful. They honestly need to go back to the drawing board with the card effects because what they developed is crap.

[AzureFlare]

The problem is that if the current design meta of 'Toss large amounts of AoE with low enough movement and enough clustering that AoE healing will take care of it', together with 'toss mediocre amounts of individual/spot damage that only one healer has to be busy fulltime at most and another healer only has to throw super-efficient heals' makes SCH's strengths stand out tremendously as an offhealer compared to Nocturnal AST.

Aetherflow is already competitive with Shroud + Assize and Luminiferous + Celestial. Another thing often forgotten is that you start with 3 stacks too, and that extra mana can swing things pretty nicely.
Energy Drain is a huge boon if you don't need the healing. It is way harder to convert abilities like Collective, Assize, Asylum into mana-efficiency than it is to press a button and get MP back. And then we're ignoring the free damage that comes with it.
Even if you don't use Energy Drain, the abilities are ridiculously efficient anyway when compared to their spell-counterparts (think Succor/Adlo/Physick vs Indom/Lustrate).
Nocturnal AST has no answer to the fairy besides manually healing. Even if you slot in a Diurnal AST/WHM instead, you'd still need to spend mana on Aspected Benefic/Regen to replicate the effect (to a lesser degree at that) while the SCH is pushing tons of free healing while.. doing absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing? Absolutely nothing.
SCH has more, usually competitive, on-demand abilities compared to Nocturnal AST that are very comfortable to use too, on top of abilities AST can't access or are locked behind RNG to produce a sub-par effect (AoE bole vs Fey Covenant as biggest offender, no answer to Deployment Tactics as examples).
Definitely has a lot more 'cleave' damage that is very cheap to use (Bane). Rub Aero 3 and Assize all you want, but Bane's absolutely crazy if you are allowed to let it tick.

I like Nocturnal AST, but it is very unrealistic to think WHM + N.AST will be a staple if Midas content is still based around pushing numbers, regardless of where. Giving up such a huge comfort and benefits while SE has already shown their designs usually don't change around (huge AoE damage/predictable tank buster/no-cast cleave(semi-buster)/low critical movement/high amounts of clustering) is pretty crazy.

If you want to see N.AST be really competitive, either pray Midas is a blow-out numbers-wise to the point the instant shield is a giant boon, or pray Midas will have a lot of spothealing/separation and very little clustering while tossing enough damage to keep both healers occupied. Or there are actually meaningful changes.

[SWB]

I just want noct sect to increase all spells by 5% potency, so i can dps more when with a WHM

[Mimilu]

I just want noct sect to increase all spells by 5% potency, so i can dps more when with a WHM

I kind of want this so it can compete with Diurnal's 5% attack speed boost.

[Miyha]

I just want noct sect to increase all spells by 5% potency, so i can dps more when with a WHM

Now this I could totally get behind. AST have sub-par DPS compared to the other healers as it is, and since Noct is the "SCH" stance, and SCH is pretty much a "pseudo-DPS" type healer (and even if you don't want to call it that, you can't deny its insane DPS capabilities for being a HEALER class), I feel like it would make sense to tack something like that onto Noct Sect.

[Alisane]

I always had this thought that, instead of shields, Noct Stance could apply a stackable buff that increases defense alongside the heals, but suddenly I thought something else:

What if, instead of the 5% heal buff, the Noct Sect would buff your cards in 5~10%?

This would make AST heal potency even with the other healers (nerfing what they have now, but not making them worse than the other healers), would improve buffing, and would make extending the buffs with TD and CO better than the Diurnal counterpart that already have a synergy with Diurnal's regen.

What you guys think? Any ideas to help improve Nocturnal?

I like both of these ideas, though I also think it doesn't necessarily NEED reworking. I was a little disappointed that Noct was just shields... Was kind hoping for something different that hadn't been done with the other two yet. We got that in cards to an extent, wish they would have elaborated with that.