(AST) i dont see any reason why i should use nocturnal stance >_>

[gumas]

the shield give only 130% of the heal amount so if i heal for 1000 it will give 1300 shield which mean 2300 "aid" total

the diurnal will give regen so again if i heal for 1000 it will give 750-800 (more or less) for 18s (which about 6 tick i think?) thats 4000++ "aid" not including the initial heal.

the bonus 5% from norctunal didnt give much help too, if i heal for 1000 i will get 50 more heal which is a ridiculous amount no matter how i see it.

the diurnal also stack with WHM regen thus there is no harm using our regen with WHM regen (both single and aoe regen)

can anyone help? i try every DG and primal so far and i still find diurnal is the better one even in raid, did i miss something with this norctunal stance?

*i havent try savage though so maybe?

[LDR]

You havent exactly missed something and your not really wrong in your thoughts.

Diurnal is generally accepted as the better stance with the higher heal rate, and there are rarely situations in regular content where the shields are more useful than the regen [except some choice scenarios depending on how you look at it], and if you do think a piece of content requires shielding people will generally prefer to use a SCH.

Places and situations where you can solidly argue Noct is better than Di are very few and far between; BUT Noct can do all the content just as much as Di; to my knowlege there isnt currently a situation where "you would have made it through had you been in Diurnal instead of Noct"

Personally I use Di in dungeons, but i go Noct for Mhach, if only because having an instant cast shield i can use on the move has saved things more times than regen would have in my eyes.

Generally Diurnal is the more efficient of the stances; using Noct is purely down to preference, or being asked to use it; but you wont fail to get through things using Noct, you just have to work a touch harder.

[seekified]

A regen won't help if the initial hit killed someone. For this reason, when playing with a WHM in 8-man content, Noct is usually the way to go. Shielding is good because it temporarily gives you a bigger HP pool, which is handy in many situations.

[Sida]

What others have said. Amount of regen doesnt matter much if the person dies before it's done its job. The instant cast shield + heal which is not on cooldown or tied to cooldown (aetherflow stacks) is pretty nifty tool if you end up in a content where you need to pop people back on safe heal levels quickly (looking at you, haircuts in Mhach) It might be situational but the beauty in AST is that you can decide it on fight basis switching mid duty if it's reasonable. Tool for a purpose. Also, I hear in PvP Noct AST is very handy but I don't PvP so don't know of that.

[Alistaire]

Wow @ these replies. Nothing outside of savage raids is going to one-shot people, this is not a reason to go nocturnal. Basically OP you're seeing it right; there's no reason to use nocturnal outside of mechanics that need a person shielded (prey).

Nocturnal is for popping a quick shield on the tank between pulls in dungeons and switching back.

If you could switch stances in combat you'd still stay in diurnal 90% of the time. Even with a WHM, and yes you go diurnal with a WHM except in fights like t10 or A5S where there's consequences for a person taking damage from a prey.

[seekified]

Nothing outside of savage raids is going to one-shot people

Nobody said anything about one-shotting, a player could be at 25% health and be saved by a shield where they would've died with just a regen on.

[_slowpoke_]

Nobody said anything about one-shotting, a player could be at 25% health and be saved by a shield where they would've died with just a regen on.

If you are in non-savage, non-extreme content, and someone dies at 25% from unavoidable damage, then the stance doesn't matter, because the healer(s) is/are bad. Likewise, if someone dies at 25% from avoidable damage, that player is bad, which again has nothing to do with the fact that Nocturnal is shit and should be avoided whenever possible, i.e. at all time (except PvP, which barely anyone cares about).

I don't understand why people keep defending the mess that is Noct. I really don't.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

I don't understand why people keep defending the mess that is Noct. I really don't.

In a sense, it's not necessarily Nocturnal Sect that's a mess. It's the job itself - The topic is fairly old, but would elaborate why the job is a mess.

The only good thing I can point out about Nocturnal Sect is the ability to snipe heal. Unlike Scholars and White Mage, Nocturnal Aspected Benefic has a combined potency of 603 potency of healing and shielding. This is practically a pseudo lustrate that isn't limited to a maximum up 6 uses in a single minute (9 if you include the fairy snack). But this is incredibly niche, sadly.

[_slowpoke_]

In a sense, it's not necessarily Nocturnal Sect that's a mess. It's the job itself - The topic is fairly old, but would elaborate why the job is a mess.

Yes and no. Diurnal is perfectly fine. You could literally just remove Nocturnal from the game and still have a very viable healing job with D.AST as it currently stands. It's Nocturnal that needs fixing, and Nocturnal only. The problem is that Nocturnal cannot be fixed with buffs alone, as you also state in that linked thread. It needs a complete overhaul, which is something that is unlikely to happen in the midst of an expansion. Maybe SE does something in 4.0. Please look forward to it™.

Players being shit does not refute my point. I'm not "defending" Nocturnal, I'm just stating a use case where it is superior to Diurnal. People get hit by stuff all the time, even supposedly perfect progression raiders.

Except that no self-respecting progression raiding group runs with a Nocturnal AST. WHM/AST is not a viable composition unless you overgear a fight to hell anyway and have it on farm. There is still zero reason to use Nocturnal anywhere except PvP. If you are running WHM/AST, you go Diurnal, and if you are doing content where you need shields, you don't run WHM/AST, end of story.

[seekified]

If you are in non-savage, non-extreme content, and someone dies at 25% from unavoidable damage, then the stance doesn't matter, because the healer(s) is/are bad. Likewise, if someone dies at 25% from avoidable damage, that player is bad, which again has nothing to do with the fact that Nocturnal is shit and should be avoided whenever possible, i.e. at all time (except PvP, which barely anyone cares about).

I don't understand why people keep defending the mess that is Noct. I really don't.

Players being shit does not refute my point. I'm not "defending" Nocturnal, I'm just stating a use case where it is superior to Diurnal. People get hit by stuff all the time, even supposedly perfect progression raiders.