How to Celestial Opposition

Honestly I'm not sure if this is common knowledge or no, but here goes.

Let's say an AST want to CO his sexy sexy AoE Balance, I've seen the below:
1) an AST throws up his AoE Balance, and then immediately follow up with CO.
2) CO is on CD, the AST waits until CO is off CD, and then goes to step (1).

I would say the above playstyles is not optimum.

Card buffs are anywhere from 30 seconds to 75 seconds, as long as you use CO anywhere within this time frame, the buffs will still be extended by 10 seconds.

As an AST, you should try your best to fit as many buffs as you can for the CO.
For example, you used your AoE buff cards at 0 seconds, you know you'll want to use CU at 20 seconds, and Synastry on the MT at 25 seconds.

The best course of action is to wait until you have casted your Synastry before using CO, this allows all three of your buffs to enjoy an extra 10 seconds, whereas if you follow the playstyle mentioned above, only your card buffs is extended, not CU and Synastry.

Extra Trivia and Tip:
You're pre-drawing before a pull, you got an arrow, you think to yourself, "whatever man, I've been drawing for so long, this is better than nothing", and you Spread it.
Now you're fishing for Ewer/Spire for the AoE RR, your next draw........Balance, FYL right?
Well... if your team does not mind waiting another 1.30-2 minutes for the AoE Balance Opener, what you can do is as below:
1) Immediately use your Spread-ed Arrow, this will initiate the 30 second CD on Spread.
2) Wait until your Balance Drawn Duration is below 20 seconds, then hit CO, this will bring it back up to 30 seconds (another fun fact, Drawn duration is capped at 30 seconds).
3) With an extra 10 seconds to the drawn duration now, your Spread's 30 second CD will complete before the Balance Drawn effect is expired, allowing you to Spread it.

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what you can do is as below

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I think it's a basic AST strategy:
1. Use pre-Spread card on a pull
2. Draw new card (RR if Ewer/Spire, Redraw if Spear and, most of the time, Bole)
3. Check if heavy damage incoming / use appropriate buffs (Synastry, Asp. Helios etc)
4. CO if not needed for specific fight mechanic for stun effect
5. Spread when it comes off CD.

One thing I see a lot of ASTs not doing is using draw pre pull. If you have an aoe balance spread, use draw before the pull. You could draw another balance and use that instead of your spread, or you could draw something to royal road after you use your spread balance. It gives you time to think about what you want to do.

I don't disagree exactly—if you can extend Synestry and other buffs that's great and may have a noticeable impact on the fight or no impact at all. My use of Synestry is pretty much always scripted though, or popped in a panic to compensate for mishaps, whereas my goal with cards/CO/TD is to increase party DPS as much as possible and as often as possible for as long as possible, meaning keep the cards/CO/TD moving ASAP to allow for more overall opportunities.

To clarify; if the Monk is out of TP I'll throw him a spire, and if my party has a bunch of Vuln stacks/weakness before raid damage, I'll happily spread a Bole, or I'll save The Balance if necessary for a DPS check, etc. as the situation requires. But outside of adapting to circumstances, the bold line above is my goal.

The sooner I cast my expanded Balance the sooner I draw a new one. The sooner I utilize my CO, the sooner I can extend the duration of another expanded Balance. If I know that I have a Synestry/LA in the next few seconds, then it's worthwhile to me to hesitate on popping CO, but unless there is a known issue that I need to adjust for using my cards/CO, then they go to raid DPS in the most efficient way that I can utilize the RNG which means reacting quickly to create more opportunities for things to come off CD. If I can CO one more expanded The Balance within the raid timer, I'll take that over extending Synestry/LA any day. The difference can be that last 1% on the boss, meeting an enrage timer, or skipping a costly phase (time/mp).

Edited for typos and a few poorly chosen/confusing words.

Don't forget to extend your lumin aether and lightspeed with CO when applicable.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

Don't forget to extend your lumin aether and lightspeed with CO when applicable.

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yoooooo never thought about those. nice!

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

Don't forget to extend your lumin aether and lightspeed with CO when applicable.

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Celestial Opposition also extends applied buffs such as Food, Protect, Stoneskin, Medicated (Mind Potion), Sprint, <Card> Drawn, Surecast (lol) and Swiftcast (lol).

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

Don't forget to extend your lumin aether and lightspeed with CO when applicable.

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This is what I always do. After spread buff, LA, and Light speed I popped the CO.

Can CO and TD affect party buff? So if pally pop their hallowed ground and you cast CO and TD, is he like 35 seconds invul?

In my opinion, the extension of 10 seconds for LA is more valuable than the cards and regen unless a specific mechanic requires you to save CO for it.
Extension of cards are a bonus if the party happens to have AOE Balance/Arrow at that point.
Synastry, Lightspeed and CU are scripted CDs;Thus, no point extending unless LA usage happens to coincide with those.

If we were to use CO based on AOE balance/arrow, then we are waiting for RNGesus to give us the optimum situation to use it.
If CO is for opener, then the next question to ask is whether we will be using LA in the next 2 minutes.
If no, then go ahead and use it. If yes, i'll prefer to save CO.

Flexibility is the name of the game for ASTs.

Some may think CO is best combo-ed with cards, others may think CO-LA is the bomb, whichever's superior is an argument for another time.

Cards have a base duration of 30 seconds, LA have a duration of 24 seconds.

My main point is try your best to see if any of these buffs duration may overlap each other, and that will be the best time to pop your CO, do not just LA/Cards -> CO immediately, use the 30 seconds (if you're in the card camp) or the 24 seconds (if you're in the LA camp) window to your advantage.

Yes I agree, that's the "bonus" aspect which I was referring to which requires flexibility in judgement.

Sometimes, when you're about to pop LA, you'll have royal road buff and your draw is coming off CD. It's better to hold CO until you see what you get after draw, if it's balance/arrow, then you have 40 seconds of cards with 34 seconds of LA together. Generally, as long as you pop CO within the 24 seconds of LA, all is good.

To an extent I agree with this. You should fit as many buffs in with a CO as possible. I always shoot for AoE card buffs+my LA minimum. If I know a rough part of a fight is coming up, I'll save CO to use with Synastry. I DON'T think you should pop a bunch of buffs purely just to use CO to its "maximum effectiveness". There's still a time and place for each buff in most fights. (Least that's how I plot out my fights.) If I can save my CO for those times I do, but if I draw AoE Balance way beforehand, I'll most likely extend it with CO to get the most out of the card buff.

Whenever you pop Celestial Opposition, remember to pop sprint. With the 10 second increase, that means it'll be up again as soon as it wears off. There's no downside unless there's some way for AST to use TP that I don't know of.

My method has always been use Aspected helios > AOE Card > Aspected Benefic to tank > Collective Unconscious > Aether (if needed or boss fight) > Celestial Opposition. Usually more than enough to burn down without needing to worry about healing the tank at all. Never thought about synastry though, will need to keep that in mind.