AST should have one default and one toggled sect

[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.

[YusiKha]

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

It's been there since the beginning, but I disagree. Aspected Benefic and Helios have always been footnotes in AST's healing identity. What I think of instead is Earthly Star's delay and timing, Essential Dignity's low% HP mechanic, The ability to extend regen effects by 3 to 5 ticks (which did nothing for shields by the by).
Those have always been the memorable parts of AST's kit. Changes in ShB have brought the sects more into general usage (CO/CI), but that's not what I think when someone says 'AST healing identity'

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.

Could it be that AST feeling like a WHM clone is actually because WHM itself is a boring cardboard cutout baseline of a healer instead of DiuAST being similar? Because their only similarity is their GCD skills.
Don't get me wrong, WHM works in its current state but its skills are almost entirely just +HP or +HP over time. The more interesting skills being assize, which the on-cooldown demand makes rather dull, and Asylum, whose healing buff could make for interesting teamwork potential but its high potency results in basically just another +HP skill.

If anything, AST's raw healing tools of Earthly Star and Essential Dignity, with their more engaging mechanics, make for more an evolution of WHM's concept than any skills attributed to WHM itself.
Is it really AST's fault for being 'samey' with WHM, when WHM boasts a base kit and little more?

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.

The skills not stacking won't force Nocturnal. Nocturnal fails because shields aren't necessary in 90% of encounters, especially with allies who avoid avoidable damage.
If you don't need shields, then having them is worthless. So the sect that boasts higher healing numbers wins.

Nocturnal can't be forced unless shields are forced, and forced shields are eventually circumvented with tank cooldowns and gear progression. AST just needs a singular healing kit, with some regens and some shields, and no bogus 'dichotomy' shoehorned in.
The same with WHM, and SCH, and the next healer.

[Heilstos]

The skills not stacking won't force Nocturnal. Nocturnal fails because shields aren't necessary in 90% of encounters, especially with allies who avoid avoidable damage.
If you don't need shields, then having them is worthless. So the sect that boasts higher healing numbers wins.

Nocturnal can't be forced unless shields are forced, and forced shields are eventually circumvented with tank cooldowns and gear progression. AST just needs a singular healing kit, with some regens and some shields, and no bogus 'dichotomy' shoehorned in.
The same with WHM, and SCH, and the next healer.

I think SE make this in this addon well. That OP, CI and neurtal sect.. For my person I like it to have a doubled asp. Helios and the play with the stances.



In an Opener you see that you can have strong shilds. So shilds are not a problem here. You get till shiva no much dmg for the first group buster. Same it you do not use noc field and a spreadlo form SCH.

Neutral makes a great Job and would like to tempt me to use GCD healing in the event of severe damage to groups without a guilty conscience.

This Healer Kit from the AST is powerful, BUT you have to understand how to play with this power. And I agree Yusi Kha in her thread that "Remove the GCD cost from on-demand healing". The AST has a great GCD healing Kit but it punnishes the DPS part.
I think its okay to use this Kit but than give the AST something for use a Asp. Benefic or Asp. Helios.

Atm you get punnished because using much GCD healing bruns your mana down, but CDs like Horocop or synastry force you to use them. And here is the problem in the Kit which is going to hold as "weakness" or special way to heal.

I liked the SHB healing kit because SE care about the CDs in Noc and found a way to make Diu in the pure hot stance.



The Noc stance make his Job great to participate inc. dmg. I watch a person with gthe name "Barlow" and he told his viewer that "Bring the Player and not the class".From my point of view, this philosophy stands out for the astrologer, which is certainly contestable.

I would be painfully touched if SE change these two strong forms in a 0815 healing direction. Just because the opinion prevails that a stance does not promise "sufficient" healing.

P.S.: For completeness I made a screenshot to reflect the shields and buffs in Nocturnal, which is not bad compared to the SB Nocturnal healer. And trust is a way to show how tall shilds can be on our friends^^

[Rilifane]

Synastry and Horoscope don't "force" you into anything.
Horoscope is a nice free aoe heal without charging it and Synastry is a sort of support tool IF you know oGCDs aren't cutting it anymore. Astro currently has the highest rDPS with a good chunk of it coming from buffs. They lose far less dps than a SCH or WHM while getting a ton of value out of a single hardcast. What more could you want, really?
Temperance and Asylum also increase healing done by GCD heals but nobody forces a WHM to GCD heal when those buffs are up. Same with SCH Fey Illumination. It's an added bonus in case you DO have to hardcast.
Neutral is the only skill that kind of "forces" you to GCD heal and with AST having the highest rDPS plus insane oGCD heal potential it's only fair that there's a tiny tradeoff tied to it because it's the only one they have.
Lilies are a always net dps loss over Glare even with Misery (unless you dump at least one during transition). Any oGCD from SCH is a dps loss unless solely used during dot refresh or Ruin II's 2nd weaving slot after having it used for ED anyway.
AST gets a free weaving slot with every single Malefic and that's way more than they need for cards. The rest of the time they're free to do whatever they want with it. So talking about "getting punished" as AST is rich. It's by far the least punished healer for using a GCD heal.
It's every healer's challenge to minimize GCD heal; take that away and you don't have to think about anything when it comes to optimizing. So removing the GCD cost from spammable heals would imo be a terrible idea.

Nocturnal is a nice choice for prog as it serves as a safety net if your party isn't yet sure how much they need to mitigate at which points. Regens not stacking WHM regens would largely be inconsequential. You neither spam Regen/ Asp. Benefic nor MedII/ Asp. Helios. And the only time when it's unavoidable to hardcast is during Shiva add phase and the party is split anyway.
Even for cases like back to back aoes during e7 tornardo it's easy enough to take turns with your aoe heals because both using them is overkill anyway. Diurnal would still win. Diurnal wins because it gets higher value out of every single oGCD and GCD and "unlimited" shields on demand are not neccessary. That the regens stack is nice for inexperienced healers but completely irrelevant once you get better.

[QooEr]

Nocturnal can't be forced unless shields are forced, and forced shields are eventually circumvented with tank cooldowns and gear progression.

there is another way to force shields, and its used in exactly 2 fights in the entire game: make something bad happen when a party member takes ANY sort of damage from a specific attack

the two fights are a5s, where the boss rushes to a party member and gets a damage down if they took damage; and uwu, where ifrit pushes back everyone if they take damage from vulcan burst

what i dont understand is, if the devs love this false shield/regen dichotomy so much, why are these 2 the only mechanics where shields are relevant when not in minimum ilv

[ForteNightshade]

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

You should still be able to live that. Maybe you'll need a tank CD there but I'm pretty certain it doesn't one-shot if the White Mage with that ilvl. It could be their healing cast went out at the same time, and because XIV registers damage first, they were snapshot with less HP than what their HP bar actually showed.