AST should have one default and one toggled sect

[Seraphor]

Seriously. The very simple fact is one sect doesn't play well with SCH's and one does. And the one that plays well with SCH can play with either AST or WHM as well. So the one that can play well with any combination should be the Default Sect.

How is this even controversial?

One potential issue, to play devils advocate as it's technically a slippery slope fallacy, is that by making Diurnal the default sect, Nocturnal sect becomes irrelevant to the point that it gets removed.
They could conclude that Diurnal already has a shield via Celestial Intersection and Neutral Sect, and that Nocturnal Sect is no longer necessary. Stripping yet more identity away from AST.

[YusiKha]

One potential issue, to play devils advocate as it's technically a slippery slope fallacy, is that by making Diurnal the default sect, Nocturnal sect becomes irrelevant to the point that it gets removed.
They could conclude that Diurnal already has a shield via Celestial Intersection and Neutral Sect, and that Nocturnal Sect is no longer necessary. Stripping yet more identity away from AST.

'Being able to shield' isn't much of an identity if you ask me, since 2/3 of the healers can do it. And if we can strip out a load of bogus identity crap to make way for actual job identity, that would be pretty nice.

[Seraphor]

'Being able to shield' isn't much of an identity if you ask me, since 2/3 of the healers can do it. And if we can strip out a load of bogus identity crap to make way for actual job identity, that would be pretty nice.

I agree that healer identities need to distance away from being either regen or shield healers, but this is a fundamental part of the AST's indentity, and removing Nocturnal sect would just fuel the concept of AST merely being a WHM clone even further.
I think all healers need to be able to do both to some degree, and the sects is ASTs way of doing this evenly.

I think Nocturnal sect should be made more relevant personally, and perhaps this could be forced by simply making Diurnal Benefic and Regen unable to stack or something like that. Therefore WHM+AST forces you into Nocturnal sect just as much as SCH+AST forces you into Diurnal.

[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.

[Limonia]

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.

The problem is that if diurnal is the default, there would be no animation for it. You could have one for activating nocturnal, but deactivating it (to get back to stanceless = diurnal) would probably have no animation.
But we lost so many nice animations already that it doesn't really matter anymore anyway.

[AnotherPerson]

The problem is that if diurnal is the default, there would be no animation for it. You could have one for activating nocturnal, but deactivating it (to get back to stanceless = diurnal) would probably have no animation.
But we lost so many nice animations already that it doesn't really matter anymore anyway.

You know how Standard Step for DNC turns their other skills into dance skills - but aren't hotkeyable? However Standard Step and Standard Finish both swaps the effect of the Dancer skills.
There can be a skill called 'Sect Stance' that works like [Play] which has a different skill icon, but because Diurnal Sect is the sect trait (like auto-hide for Gatherers), The 'Sect Stance' turns into Nocturnal Sect with Nocturnal Sect animations when added to the hotbar. Similar to how [Play] becomes [Spire/Ewer/Balance/Spear/etc.] whenever a player uses [Draw] and gains the card buff indicating they are holding a card.
When using Nocturnal Sect, the Sect Stance skill turns into the non-hotkeyable 'Diurnal Sect' skill that when used, plays Diurnal Sect animation, disables Nocturnal Sect skill buff, and gives the Diurnal Sect buff, changing the Sect Stance skill into Nocturnal Sect.

It works similar to DNC's Standard Step buff where Standard Finish removes Standard Step - but different in which there's no timer associated with the buff.
So Auto Diurnal Sect (Standard Step) -> Nocturnal Sect (Standard Finish) -> Diurnal Sect (Standard Step)

[Rongway]

The problem is that if diurnal is the default, there would be no animation for it. You could have one for activating nocturnal, but deactivating it (to get back to stanceless = diurnal) would probably have no animation.
But we lost so many nice animations already that it doesn't really matter anymore anyway.

This is easy enough to handle as follows.

Lv30 Trait: Sect Mastery
Automatically activates Diurnal Sect when changing your job to astrologian.

[Precedent: Auto Prospect (MIN), Auto Triangulate (BTN), Auto Fathom (FSH), Auto Sneak (MIN BTN FSH), One with the Mountain (MIN), One with the Forest (BTN), One with the Ocean (FSH)]


Lv30 Action: Diurnal Sect
Adds Regen to certain actions and removes Nocturnal Sect.
This action shares a recast with Nocturnal Sect.
This action cannot be used while in combat if you are under the effect of Nocturnal Sect.
Activating Diurnal Sect a second time does not remove the effect.

[The last line becomes moot at Lv50 because Nocturnal Sect replaces Diurnal Sect when Diurnal Sect is active.]
[Even though Sect Mastery would automatically activate this ability, it must still be available to use manually at Lv30 so it can be turned back on after unsyncking from a lower level.]


Lv50 Trait: Sect Mastery II
Changes Diurnal Sect to Nocturnal Sect while under the effect of Diurnal Sect.

[Precedent: Nascent Chaos (WAR), Enhanced Kassatsu (NIN)]


Lv50 Action: Nocturnal Sect
Adds a damage-nullifying barrier to certain actions and removes Diurnal Sect.
This action shares a recast with Diurnal Sect.
This action cannot be used while in combat.
This action can only be used while under the effect of Diurnal Sect.
※This action cannot be assigned to a hotbar.


Then Diurnal Sect is the default, and at 50 the Diurnal Sect button becomes a sect toggle button, with animations.
Also, if while syncked below 50 you forget that you don't have Nocturnal Sect, pressing the button to switch won't dispel Diurnal Sect and leave you wondering why none of your Aspects are working.

[Rilifane]

I think it's a good idea to make Diurnal default stance.
And while we're at it I think it's also time to get rid of that awkward 5sec cooldown on stances. I never got the point of it because you can only switch out of combat anyway. Why add a cooldown on top of that? It only makes stance dancing between pulls more risky as it increases the chance to get locked into the "wrong" stance and plenty of AST stay away from it because of this.
And if they want to avoid people accidentally turning off their stance altogether because they spam-clicked it: 1sec cooldown is enough.
I sort of got it with old cleric stance because it was meant to be risky and force you to plan ahead. But with something that can only be changed out of combat anyway? Meh.

And regarding the off topic discussion:

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.

If people die to raidwides on e7 and e8 that has nothing to do with the AST playing in Diurnal.
Raid mitigation is team effort, not a "healer only" thing. You are not meant to survive many aoes on e7 and e8 without at least one type of mitigation up. e5 and e6 are pretty forgiving and you don't get one-shot if you're somewhere near full HP at ilvl 480 but that ends with e7 where you get completely wrecked even in near 500 without mitigation.
Melee DPS: Feint, Second Wind, Bloodbath
Physical Ranged: Addle, Second Wind, Shield Samba/ Tactician/ Troubadour
Caster: Addle, Manaward (BLM)
DRK: Reprisal, Dark Missionary, TBN
GNB: Reprisal, Heart of Light, Heart of Stone
PLD: Reprisal, Pasage of Arms, Divine Veil, Intervention
WAR: Reprisal, Shake it Off, Nascant Flash
That's a lot of mitigation and emergency heals and it doesn't even cost them anything except for one lousy weaving slot compared to AST blowing MP + a hardcast on a raid shield. If they had to rely on Noct Asp. Helios/ Succor pre-shielding to survive mechanics they were doing something seriously wrong.
You can Reprisal pretty much everything and between Temperance, Neutral, CU and two tank raid mitigations you have enough even without a physical ranged to spread it evenly on top of Addle/ Feint.
But it's astounding how many dps say something like "just a sec need to put it on my hotbar" when you ask them to use Addle/ Feint or how many tanks reply with "it's just 10%, you can just heal it" when asked to use raid mitigation.

[Limonia]

You know how Standard Step for DNC turns their other skills into dance skills - but aren't hotkeyable?

Oh, I haven't even thought of that!
Though when changing zones or dieing it would probably default back to diurnal... I'm really not sure if the game code could manage it. But maybe there is a way.

And while we're at it I think it's also time to get rid of that awkward 5sec cooldown on stances.

This is another great idea. The cooldown on AST sects only makes it too risky to switch between sects in dungeons. It doesn’t do anything for raids, it only makes it annoying to use when running dungeons, so they could just make it 1 second.