Astrologian: Mimi's Guide to the Stars

[Ghishlain]

[something I'm not actually sure about for once, under Ewer card priority, you may be 100% correct, I've never really tested if it works on a BRD who is using a song like Army or Mages, or even foes, i always thought that prevented them from receiving mp regen themselves when singing]

BRD who's singing can still receive MP from Ewer. I was on the first boss of Neverreap once where I just happened to have Extended Ewer with Shuffle and Spread used so I ended up using it on the BRD who had Foes up. Because of Ewer, they basically were able to maintain Foes for the entire fight.

I imagine Mage's Ballad doesn't affect the BRD singing it because infinite MP shenanigans.

@Card use
I find DRGs to be a good use for Spear as they have their own fair share of oGCD DPS abilities.
Arrow on classes with native attack speed buffs get even faster because of the way Haste stacks in the game. Also jobs that are dependent on their combo for higher DPS abilities can benefit from Arrow too (ie WAR w/ their Wrath/Abandon stacks and DRG w/ Blood of the Dragon + Geirskogul)

[VolAnari]

I would personally never spread a bole. It's basically your only access to the enhance effect. Spear and and bole are pretty much RR fodder for me, though I will occasionally use spear for pre-pull dps CD, or before i use LA + CO or synastry, because god I love synastry. I also like giving spear to SMN and SCH when I notice they dont have aether stacks or have only 1 stack. I would certainly NEVER expand a bole, it's just not worth it at all.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

With 4 man content, you generally can get away with anything. That being said, with an Expanded Balance, you're give four people (yourself includes) a 5% damage increase, which I think is a bigger DPS increase IF everyone is DPSing optimally. Royal Road usefulness vary with the situation.

Technically, you can get away by royal roading anything in 4-man content. But expanded is possibly the least valuable one among the royal roads for 4-man content.

Let's forget about proper dps numbers for now and just assume the flat percentages:
Expanded would provide 5% on 2 DPS jobs, 1 tank job and 1 healer job for 30 seconds. On a course of 1 minute that's 2,5% and arguably 10% combined together.
Extended would provide 10% on a single (DPS) job for 60 seconds. Within that same timeframe it's a 10% increase/minute
However, 5% on a healer and/or tank does not provide the same increase as the same 5% on a DPS job. The practical value of expanded is nowhere near a 10% increase for 60 seconds as extended would provide

So what about enhanced? Enhanced would be 15% for 30 seconds or 7,5% for 60 seconds. That's notably less than expanded. But throw in Time dilation in the mix and it's 11,25%/60 seconds. In a list:
Enhanced TD: 11,25%/60 seconds
Enhanced TD+CO: 12,50%/60 seconds
Expanded TD: <11,25%/60 seconds
Expanded TD+CO: <12,92%/60 seconds

TD - Time Dilation (+15 seconds, single target)
CO - Celestial Opposition (+5 seconds, 10y radius)

Expanded TD+CO seems better than the enhanced variation by 0,42%. But remember: a little less than half of the increase isn't DPS role-tier, it's an increase based on tank and/or healer DPS.

[technole]

I would certainly NEVER expand a bole, it's just not worth it at all.

Thordan Extreme, Ultimate End. If you had multiple deaths before you might need every cooldown in the book to survive it due to high LB and/or given weaknesses. Spread Bole, Tank Convo, Mantra, PLD Divine Veil, Eos buffs (if SCH available usually Adlo spread the tank with the cooldowns up). If you are the Noct AST in that situation, Synastry buff with the usual shields and CU. 5% mitigation can be a life saver in this fight if you've ever done it, or healed through a phase 9.

Can work on A3S Splash/Cascade, along with Disable. Usually AoE DPS buffs as much as possible because of DPS checks but it's another situation if that is what you got. With 210 gear now this mechanic isn't so much heartburn with mitigation.

[Mimilu]

SNIP

Grammatical Errors
I'll definitely fix those. >w>()

Spear
I was originally going to put all of ASTs oGCDs that were effected by it but decided not to. I'll add them to it.

Lightspeed
What I meant was "If you are in Nocturnal Sect, use Aspected Helios before the first hit OR if you are in Diurnal, use it afterwards". I'll reword it so it makes more sense.

Synastry
1. You can't target yourself with Synastry. Every time you try, you'll get an Invalid Target message. D;
2. I forgot about that! I just tested it and it still works. Defiantly need to add that to the guide.

Snip

I'll reword it so that it is single-target spells.

SNIP

I do need to put a warning on Arrow and Spear about their potential to mess up rotations... >w>()

SNIP

I had forgotten about DRG's Blood of the Dragon. >w>()
I do need to add that Spear helps most jobs with things like openers or when their rotation restarts.

[Rai_Takara]

As for the second question, Det is the safer of the two stats, giving you a constant boost to your heals and damage. Crit is still RNG and Nocturnal Sect's shields don't receive the x2 multiplier when Crit.
However, in the grand-scheme of stat weights, their are more or less on equal grounds.
If you felt the need to min-max, Diurnal is probably more Det > Crit, while Nocturnal is more Crit > Det.

I just liked Crit for the off chance that my aspected benefic in diurnal crits, meaning more upfront healing or when essential dignity crits. I just wanted to know if I was gimping myself or not by favoring Crit over Det or if it was fine either way and just a playstyle thing.

[Mimilu]

Did the revisions I posted above and added a Stat Weight section.

[Mikoko_Miko]

Synastry
excluding the AST who placed the buff on them

Just like LDR wrote, Synastry works when you cast a single-target healing spell on yourself.

Note that Essential Dignity doesn't benefit from Synastry because it is not a spell but an ability. Collective Unconscious is also an ability.

[Mimilu]

SNIP

Revising and adding the note about Essential Dignity and CU.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

There are a number of errors in the guide. Your guide states...
...that Combust II has 35 potency, lasts 30 seconds and has a combined potency of 450
...that Collective Unconciousness has a range of 7 yalm radius
...that Luminiferous Aether is "exactly" the same as shroud, but states a difference next paragraph
...that Aspected Helios in Diurnal sect is "exactly" the same as Medica II, but states a difference on the very same sentence
...a "doesn't like" item is placed in the "who likes spire" list
...that Synastry doesn't work when you cast a spell on yourself

Some things I don't agree with:
A lot of egoistic priority with the cards: Ewer and spear in general. Placing yourself on higher priority with your cards defeats one of the reasons to bring an Astrologian over a White Mage
Tanks aren't included with some cards. For example:"(enhanced) Arrow for a warrior opener. It can give the warrior 2 GCDs more with Berserk up and the practical value of Arrow would inflate with their opener (+50% berserk, +20% maim, +10% Storm's Eye)
Don't give Ewer on paladins. If they're out of MP after spamming flash, they're set on enmity for life and have no reason to spam more of it.
Arrow on Machinist during wildfire gets an additional 25% value for that duration. Arrow would give machinist an extra GCD for their wildfire.
There should be no priority on spire based on role, but rather on job. As of 3.0, it's unlikely bards will run out of TP. Machinist, on the other hand, are very TP hungry. Ninja can goad another job, but not themself. Warrior is the only tank job with a TP restoration ability. etc.
Spear on a summoner before Dreadwyrm Trance wouldn't matter. Recast time on any DWT related abilities are less than Aetherflow. It would make more sense to use it on them before they use Aetherflow.
You'd never want to expand an Ewer, but depending on the situation you may want to expand a spire. The amount of jobs present that could use the extra MP is limited to healers nearly all the time.
Lightspeed is not a speed tool. Your recast time remains the same, all it does is remove the cast time. It doesn't reduce recast time like Machinist's rapid fire.
Disable is not more potent than Virus. Virus reduces stats by 15% and this translates into a 15% reduction in damage dealt. Virus also lasts 10 seconds over Disable's 6 seconds.
Why would you want to apply an Aspected Helios before using Time Dilation?
You didn't include Synastry in the list of buffs to extend with Celestial Opposition
Spell speed has very little value compared to other available stats for Astrologian. Be sure to read about it in this topic