AST should have one default and one toggled sect

[Chris310]

Since neither of the three Astrologian abilities which are affected by the "Sect" stances are enhanced in any way when no Sect is active, I propose that the Regeneration effects of Diurnal Sect are made the default effects of these 3 abilities, which become overwritten by the Nocturnal Sect Shielding effects when it is toggled on.
Ideally this would be achieved by turning Diurnal Sect into a Trait unlocked at Level 30

The positive effects resulting from this alteration would be:

• Less margin for error for absent-minded AST players who forgot to turn one sect on at the start of a duty
• One freed up skill slot in the hotbars/crossbars for no negative effect since the job's full strength is preserved

"Why should the Regen effects be the default?"
The Astro's Healing-Over-Time effects do not overwrite a White Mage's HOTs, but their Shielding effects overwrite a Scholar's Adloqium shield.
Going in line with my point about reduced margin for error it would only make sense to make the Astrologian's default state one where their inattentiveness results in suboptimal synergy when paired with a White Mage, instead of harmful dissynergy when paired with a Scholar.

[Heilstos]

Hey Chris,

Since neither of the three Astrologian abilities which are affected by the "Sect" stances are enhanced in any way when no Sect is active, I propose that the Regeneration effects of Diurnal Sect are made the default effects of these 3 abilities, which become overwritten by the Nocturnal Sect Shielding effects when it is toggled on.

The thing is that the Hots not overwritten by shilds. And the All shilds are stacking like all HoT. Only Nocturnal Field is not stacking with SCH shild the rest is stacking. And dont delete the Hot.

The Balance expalint it well that you make stance dance at a start of a fight:



The great explain from the Balance discord tells everthing



In Diunal you have shilds aswell now with the neutral shilds so. And in Nocturnal you have extra hot. The shilds have not that Problem.

If you make in Nocturnal asp. Benefic you get a hot with neutral, BUT if you make asp. Helios aswell you overwrite the HoT from the Benefic (this HoT is weeker.). In Diu the neutral shild only overwritte if the shild is stronger.

The Astro's Healing-Over-Time effects do not overwrite a White Mage's HOTs, but their Shielding effects overwrite a Scholar's Adloqium shield.

Why you want this if AST have it (every 120s) with Neutral shild in Diunal (+20% boosted)? That question could be SE to lower the CD from Neutral to 60s or 30s? The answer would be impossible becuase seraph and Temperance have to lowerd aswell for balance reason.

[Eclipse12187]

The issue with the opener you posted from the balance is that this forces double regens if you have a whm cohealer. A recent foray watching my friends try to clear e7s they were having damage mitigation issues (people died) from a lack of shields. At one point their whm died from the empty wave raidwide from full hp. Double regens are a powerful tool, however with the comp of whm/ast you only get partywide shields under neutral sect.

Openers aside, I agree that ast should default to diurnal sect in level 30 and above content (when they would learn diurnal) so as to avoid a party where you forget your sect. As to why not default to noct that’s because you don’t learn noct sect until level 50.

[Billythepancake]

You shouldn't need shields for empty wave if you're at full health though, what. Maybe if you're going in at minimum ilevel, but not at a decent level, at least, not so long as it's being reprisaled by the tanks, like it should be.

[Eclipse12187]

You shouldn't need shields for empty wave if you're at full health though, what. Maybe if you're going in at minimum ilevel, but not at a decent level, at least, not so long as it's being reprisaled by the tanks, like it should be.

My apologies it wasn’t empty wave, it was the post adds raidwide damage that killed the whm, they had 103k total hp roughly.

[Heilstos]

Hey Eclipse,

In Nocturnal you have to start with Diu and make the same rotation. So you get neutral shild (asp. helios and for main tank asp. benefic) + CI (for the maintankt) than switch in Noct + noc field (asp. helios and for main tank asp. benefic) + CO + and the bubble short. The bubble medigation holds 20s. So have not to heal.



The neutral shild and the noc. field has a 20% buff.

Yep if you play diu ast + whm the midgation is not so great. Than you have to play in Nocturnal and that stance is not bad after the hugh buffs and change from patch 5.1. CO+ Noctunal field stacks. The bubble have min. 20s -10 dmg Buff (that can extended to ~40s with a 60s CD. But found no reason for it). The positiv thing in Noc is that CI is a hot tht cost nothing and is ocd heal.

I know hat a lot of the AST player wants to play in Diu. But in Savage Raid you have to look that the Raid do not wipe from aoes or tankbuster. The Noc AST has great tool and with helios/ Benefic II great tools to heal, if the the OCDs are not there -> in the best case you dont need if the WHM makes a good job^^.

[Jaelommiss]

Hey Eclipse,

In Nocturnal you have to start with Diu and make the same rotation. So you get neutral shild (asp. helios and for main tank asp. benefic) + CI (for the maintankt) than switch in Noct + noc field (asp. helios and for main tank asp. benefic) + CO + and the bubble short. The bubble medigation holds 20s. So have not to heal.



The neutral shild and the noc. field has a 20% buff.

Yep if you play diu ast + whm the midgation is not so great. Than you have to play in Nocturnal and that stance is not bad after the hugh buffs and change from patch 5.1. CO+ Noctunal field stacks. The bubble have min. 20s -10 dmg Buff (that can extended to ~40s with a 60s CD. But found no reason for it). The positiv thing in Noc is that CI is a hot tht cost nothing and is ocd heal.

I know hat a lot of the AST player wants to play in Diu. But in Savage Raid you have to look that the Raid do not wipe from aoes or tankbuster. The Noc AST has great tool and with helios/ Benefic II great tools to heal, if the the OCDs are not there -> in the best case you dont need if the WHM makes a good job^^.

Diurnal AST + WHM can definitely mitigate enough for every fight in this tier. It worked for my static for 5-7 even when we had people below i475 (some people didn't buy crafted gear). E8S is a bit tighter, but apart from Absolute Zero at 0:16 there's nothing that needs shields after around i490.

Diurnal is a 45% increase in oGCD healing potency over Nocturnal. People being too lazy to use their mitigation tools isn't a good reason to give that up.

Making Diurnal the default sect if one isn't selected is a great idea. It's ideal for all content up to and including Extreme trials. For content above that it doesn't matter if there's a default Sect or not because people will almost never forget to use them as part of their prepull actions.

[Mhaeric]

I'm not sure how a suggestion for having Diurnal be on by default unless you manually select Nocturnal turned into a discussion about AST party composition, openers, and shield stacking in a single post since the suggestion would have zero impact on any of that. Misunderstanding the suggestion? Going off on a tangent?

I agree with the OP that it would be a nice QoL and one I support.

Pragmatically, I also don't think SE will do it even though I think they should. Every job that has some sort of mode has to activate it and making Diurnal be on unless Nocturnal is on would remove an action which despite the recent action streamlining is something SE appears to really like to have for stuff. The only precedence I could see come into play here would be RDM with their always on Dualcast, but that's such an integral part of their gameplay that I don't think it counts as a true precedence when compared to a toggled stance like the Sects.

[Limonia]

I really don't get the above discussion either. There's no downside to only press a button functioning as a toggle instead of two buttons.

I think it would be a great idea to have diurnal sect on automatically upon switching to AST. Then to get into nocturnal sect you press the sect button (and see the nocturnal sect animation), if you press it again you switch back to diurnal sect (with the diurnal sect animation). Frees one button and makes sure you have a stance instead of none. No downside at all!

I'm just not sure if it's even possible to implement like that though... are there any jobs that automatically get an ability activated when switching to them (other than gatherers, they may be special in that regard)? Or they would really have to make it into a trait, but then we would probably lose the diurnal sect animation.

[AnotherPerson]

I really don't get the above discussion either. There's no downside to only press a button functioning as a toggle instead of two buttons.

I think it would be a great idea to have diurnal sect on automatically upon switching to AST. Then to get into nocturnal sect you press the sect button (and see the nocturnal sect animation), if you press it again you switch back to diurnal sect (with the diurnal sect animation). Frees one button and makes sure you have a stance instead of none. No downside at all!

I'm just not sure if it's even possible to implement like that though... are there any jobs that automatically get an ability activated when switching to them (other than gatherers, they may be special in that regard)? Or they would really have to make it into a trait, but then we would probably lose the diurnal sect animation.

If people really want to keep the animation, they could make Nocturnal Sect animation when Diurnal Sect is active, and Diurnal Sect animation / Skill when Nocturnal Sect is active. Though I'm all for this QoL, it frees up one slot without losing anything - people can still jump into Nocturnal Sect and prep shield while jumping back into Diurnal Sect after if it's a toggle outside of combat.