The Spear?

What is it for?

It reduces the cooldown on OFF Global Cooldown abilities (ex. Blood for Blood). However it only works if the Spear is given to the person BEFORE they hit the buff. So if they use Blood for Blood and then you give them a spear it will NOT reduced the cooldown. It's is pretty useless without coordination and no DPS is gonna wait for a Spear in order to use their CDs. So it pretty useless and only used for Royal Road.

It's good at the start of a pull before everyone unloads their buffs because it means their buffs will be back up for use sooner, but other than that it requires a bit of coordination to use affectively on others because you don't know when they'll use their abilities. I've never really made intentional use of it on myself, but I could see using it before luminiferous aether to get that back up quickly. Also maybe Lightspeed and Essential Dignity, but timing it on those in a practical way (since they're situational skills and cards are RNG) would be difficult.

only useful on yourself, because of the fact you have control over what abilities you use. Always try to have this card "spread". you can then use it right before you pop all your CDs.

Yes, go ahead and spread the card that literally has zero beneficial applications in any situation. Excellent advice. /sarcasm

Spear was the prime royal road target, because expanded royal road into balance or arrow was the best thing an ast could be doing. Since expanded rr was nerfed...just pray you don't ever draw it.

I figured it was for them, just needed clairification of what the prerequisites were, thanks. =D

Actually spear have it usage

= Reduce tank cooldowns for tank busters
= Reduce Mudra for ninja (20sec cd only)
= Really good for pulls (require preptime)

However if u not got ninja or tank busters moves this card is best used for Royal Road to give out a double time on other cards

i did make a astrologian tip and trick post today i suggest u check it out for the best card usage

I like using it on Ninjas, Bards, and Machinists, seeing as they all have cooldowns in their rotations.
I also like to use it on myself if I draw it and I need to use Luminiferous Aether.

It has a few niche uses. Use it from your spread with a group wide buff at the very start, use it on yourself for a LA if you need it, or what you should do most of the time...Royal Road it.

If it reduces the CDs of spells before they're used AND when spells are on CD, then it would be worth using way more. Currently, it's total garbage, which is what you want out of a card, really. /s

If you have a MCH, NIN, or BRD in your party, use it on them, if your tank is regularly using cooldowns, use it on then, if you're about to pop some of your own buffs use it on yourself.

Spear is pretty much always good on Bards. I just throw it on them if there is one now. They're bound to use bloodletter or internal release or one of their other 20 cooldowns while it's on them, so that's kinda useful I guess...

If I have no mch or brd I can use it on right away I usually spread it and use it om myself right before I draw the next card to lower the cd of draw and maybe Shuffle if I don´t like the next card. Minimizes the downtimes if drawing badly. This gives me some time to save plan my CD´s.

This right here shows that SE has selective hearing and when people say they are listening to the complaints and fixing them I say BS. They do some buffs in the last patch but where's the one to fix this card so that it works for abilities that are on the GCD? Was that so difficult to fix? Instead they kept it as a card that's only beneficial on yourself as I have no idea what cooldowns a tank has as I've never played a tank and have zero interest in playing one. So I can either use it on myself and then pop some cooldowns, or take a gamble using it on the tank having no idea if they have any to use or not.

Useful for any class/job that has many abilities as part of their rotation or kit. As many others have stated, Spear has to be buffing the player prior to them using the ability to get the recast benefit, so it's quite a bit less intuitive than most of the other cards.

Uses:

• Use it on yourself to make Luminous Aether get off CD faster before popping it for MP. Also good for Disable and Essential Dignity. Easiest to use on self because you have the most control of what you do.
• Most healers tend to save their CDs for emergency buttons, so playing Spear at the right time on another healer allows them to cycle through their emergency buttons more frequently.
• Any DPS class that has a lot of abilities that boost their damage. I would prioritize DRG with this. NIN and MCN make good targets too.

I notice people keep saying DRG NIN BRD and MCN but the job that really benefit the most is SMN since they are constantly using OGC abilities.

This thread represents the real problem about AST: the people who play it. Players taking things as gospel and assuming some cards are only good to use in specific situations makes me think the devs are rolling their eyes to every thread they see.
The Spear is not bad and the RR effect was not nerfed. Expanded RR was transferred from The Arrow/The Spear to The Spire/The Ewer. There's a reason for that: during combat, transforming any card on an AoE may not be the best choice. The Balance, for example, loses value if you use them on DPS who are not on their burst rotations, so instead of Expanding it to a whole party on their low-dps rotation you should consider Extending it to use on a DPS that is bursting. Before they transferred the RR effect, you needed to burn The Spire/The Ewer to do that, and those two cards are very valuable to use during raids, specially for progression; now you can burn the Spear (which is less valuable than those cards) to get the most useful effect.

About the card itself:
The Spear is better used on jobs that have short off-GCD skills, like NIN. Since their Ninjutsu skill has a 20s cooldown, they line up with the rotation, so it's almost 100% certain that their gonna get the benefits from the card.
This card is also good on MCH, BRD, SMN and DRG, who have short cooldowns, but since most of them (if not all) have cooldowns that are over 20s long, the card may be wasted sometimes. This is why some people (including myself) find it a good Royal Road fodder, specially since the Arrow has a more direct impact in DPS and HPS values.

It's best used on jobs who have two or more and frequently use abilities that have 20~30 second cooldowns, such as the Dragoon and Dark Knights. Namely jobs that without a doubt will not conserve their abilities.

I don't think the Spear should be used on a Bard at all, because their trait resets their already short CDs, meaning the Spear card would have significantly less impact on them.
I also don't think Spear is good for Summoners, Black Mages, Warriors, and every healer except yourself.


Extended Spear is the best version. Expanded Spear is the worst.

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Originally Posted by TatoRazzino

This thread represents the real problem about AST: the people who play it. Players taking things as gospel and assuming some cards are only good to use in specific situations makes me think the devs are rolling their eyes to every thread they see.
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Yeah I really, REALLY hate Expanded Balance. 5% barely puts a dent in anything unless you're bursting HARD. To ensure it's effect is maximized I opt for extended Balance, 30secs of 10% extra damage is killer.

My English is bad, this happened in another thread too, I was using nerf wrong, I mean to say how expanded rr kills potency of your buff.

That doesn't change the fact that spear is useless in every way. When I say useless I mean it would be fine on its own, unfortunately extended royal road is much much much more useful than spear could ever be. There is literally no reason to not royal road it.

Using spear once <<<<<<<<<< using extended royal road on a good buff like balance or arrow

That's exactly where I think the strength of the cards is, you know? Every RR buff comes in pairs. One of the cards that give each buff is always gonna be good and the other one is more situational or depends on the party comp and how people manage their resources, so these less useful cards can be used for RR fodder during the fights. For A1 Savage, my physical DPS are saying that TP is hardly a problem, because there are lots of movement and the jump breaks make it easy to refresh TP, so that means the Ewer can keep healers fine on MP and the Spire can be used for RR. The Spear may be good for a party with a Ninja, and if you're running three physical DPS and one SMN, the Arrow is less useful than the Spear, because too much speed drains TP. I think that's why lots of people complain: you can't just go auto-mode and do the same thing over and over again; you have to pay attention to everything.

Is it really that good for some DPS classes though? On paper it sounds good, but by lowering their GCDS, it is essentially throwing off their rotations. Don't get me wrong, I know after time some DPS could adjust to it, but when I think of say, a Dragoon class, decreasing their cooldowns might not line up well for their rotation. At least, it would be an interesting thing to look into haha.

What I like about astro is the situational awareness of tools you have. If you're doing progression, you'll get to memorize your tanks' rotations, or if you see some oh shit moments where you had to heal more I tend to use it for my lumi aether. There's almost always a use for something with the exception of a double spear, so I guess it falls short there.. (I don't like expand/enhanced spear that much.)

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Originally Posted by AsheBish

Is it really that good for some DPS classes though? On paper it sounds good, but by lowering their GCDS, it is essentially throwing off their rotations. Don't get me wrong, I know after time some DPS could adjust to it, but when I think of say, a Dragoon class, decreasing their cooldowns might not line up well for their rotation. At least, it would be an interesting thing to look into haha.

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It doesn't lower their GCDs, but their off-GCD spells, like Jumps, Ninjutsus, Quick Reload and so on.

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Originally Posted by TatoRazzino

It doesn't lower their GCDs, but their off-GCD spells, like Jumps, Ninjutsus, Quick Reload and so on.

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Don't know if this was what Ashe was referring to or not, but there was someone on the second page who thought SE should change Spear so it effects GCD skills, which would indeed be a bad idea.
If anything they could at least allow it to shave the amount of time it would have reduced off the skill for oGCD skills that are already on cooldown.

It says Abilities, not weaponskills/spells. So it's pretty much everything that is not on the global cooldown.

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Originally Posted by AsheBish

Is it really that good for some DPS classes though? On paper it sounds good, but by lowering their GCDS, it is essentially throwing off their rotations. Don't get me wrong, I know after time some DPS could adjust to it, but when I think of say, a Dragoon class, decreasing their cooldowns might not line up well for their rotation. At least, it would be an interesting thing to look into haha.

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More speed isn't going to change that. And there's times where you rotation will be messed up anyway thanks to targets dying, boss invulnerability, mechanics, dodging, errors, ect., ect.

The only time this is an issue is if you are a robot.

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Originally Posted by Geardagas

Yes, go ahead and spread the card that literally has zero beneficial applications in any situation. Excellent advice. /sarcasm

Spear was the prime royal road target, because expanded royal road into balance or arrow was the best thing an ast could be doing. Since expanded rr was nerfed...just pray you don't ever draw it.

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how is it zero beneficial applications? there are so many abilities that an AST has that could be reduced from spear: time dilation, synastry, quick cast, LA, lightspeed. with a 120 second ability you shave off 24 seconds on the recast, thats huge. The reason why I spread it, is so that I can time all my CDs with it. Its a waste to cast it on anyone else unless you can coordinate with them which is highly unlikely when youre using duty finder, or at least until they fix it to reduce CD when currently on CD.

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Originally Posted by VitalSuit

If you have a MCH, NIN, or BRD in your party, use it on them, if your tank is regularly using cooldowns, use it on then, if you're about to pop some of your own buffs use it on yourself.

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NO do not throw on Dragoon mech or bard ... there cooldown is too long and majority of the time they are already on cooldown when u throw spear on them.... which then DOES NOT give the cooldown reduction..... With ninja however u garentee to always reduce there next mudra due to only being 20sec cooldown and they are always using it on cooldown so u will always make there next mudra come back faster........ compare to drg/mch/brd....... ninja is ur best option

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Originally Posted by chumsy

how is it zero beneficial applications? there are so many abilities that an AST has that could be reduced from spear: time dilation, synastry, quick cast, LA, lightspeed. with a 120 second ability you shave off 24 seconds on the recast, thats huge. The reason why I spread it, is so that I can time all my CDs with it. Its a waste to cast it on anyone else unless you can coordinate with them which is highly unlikely when youre using duty finder, or at least until they fix it to reduce CD when currently on CD.

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Because extended royal road into arrow/balance is infinitely better than anything spear can do, and arrow is way too good to royal road.

Increasing dps of your squad >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> spearing yourself

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Originally Posted by Yhisa

NO do not throw on Dragoon mech or bard ... there cooldown is too long and majority of the time they are already on cooldown when u throw spear on them.... which then DOES NOT give the cooldown reduction..... With ninja however u garentee to always reduce there next mudra due to only being 20sec cooldown and they are always using it on cooldown so u will always make there next mudra come back faster........ compare to drg/mch/brd....... ninja is ur best option

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I will have to respectively disagree with your use of Spear for DRG bit at least.

Ninja Abilities
-8 Damage-based Abilities (11 in total)
-2 Damage-based Cross Class Abilities (6 in total)
-2 Damaged-based Abilities 30s and Under
-4 Damage-based Abilities 60s and Under (one is cross class)
-8 Damage-based Abilities 90s and Under (two are cross class)

• Ninjutsu (20s)
• Jugulate (30s)
• Assassinate (40s)
• Internal Release (60s)
• Sneak Attack / Trick Attack (60s)
• Blood for Blood (80s)
• Dream Within a Dream (90s)
• Duality (90s)
• Featherfoot (90s)
• Keen Flurry (90s)
• Mug (90s)
• Kassatsu (120s)
• Mantra (120s)
• Second Wind (120s)
• Shadewalker (120s)
• Goad (180s)
• Smoke Screen (180s)

Dragoon Abilities*
-8 Damage-based Abilities (10 in total)
-2 Damage-based Cross Class Abilities (7 in total)
-2 Damaged-based Abilities 30s and Under
-6 Damage-based Abilities 60s and Under (one is cross class)
-9 Damage-based Abilities 90s and Under (two are cross class)

• Leg Sweep (20s)
• Jump (30s)
• Life Surge (50s)
• Internal Release (60s)
• Spineshatter Dive (60s)
• Power Surge (60s)
• Blood for Blood (80s)
• Bloodbath (90s)
• Featherfoot (90s)
• Keen Flurry (90s)
• Mercy Stroke (90s)
• Dragonfire Dive (120s)
• Foresight (120s)
• Mantra (120s)
• Second Wind (120s)
• Battle Litany (180s)
• Elusive Jump (180s)

* I didn't count Blood of the Dragon or Geirskogul since you're gonna be building your rotation around 100% uptime on those abilities and Geirskogul you'll probably never want reduced recast.

Ninja 30s Abilities

• Jugulate (96 Potency)
• Raiton (360 Potency or 480 if Trick Attack is up)

Total either 456 or 576 Potency +10% for raid damage

Dragoon 30s Abilities

• Leg Sweep (149 Potency)
• Jump (299 Potency or 414 if Power Surge is up)

Total of 448 Potency or 563 Potency

Yeah, I like the idea of Spearing DRG because even though the potency is slightly lower, DRG has a lot of 60s abilities that you'll probably end up reducing as well at times and Assassinate for NIN is only available when the target is below 20%, giving even less abilities to Spear off on NIN.

While there is merit to consistency with Raiton versus Leg Sweep, I do like the odds of me getting Jump and Jugulate as well in a single Spear.