AST : use of Spear

[Zari]

Spear only affects skills used after it is put on.

And i wouldnt suggest doing that to a MCH, it will mess up all of his CD alignment.

That and the fact it is a before-the-fact use thing make spear kind of hard to use in almost any situation. I usually just redraw if i get it

[technole]

And i wouldnt suggest doing that to a MCH, it will mess up all of his CD alignment.

It's fine on MCH, the cooldowns that matter get used with Wildfire off-cooldown. First days of A5S Hummel dps check with a spear, I was able to get BfB up again sooner for last burst and help get the close kill.

[Neophyte]

Spear only affects skills used after it is put on.

And i wouldnt suggest doing that to a MCH, it will mess up all of his CD alignment.

That and the fact it is a before-the-fact use thing make spear kind of hard to use in almost any situation. I usually just redraw if i get it

I always wonder how you can "mess up" CD alignment. Either it's good that CD x, y, z is back up faster and you can use it again sooner or... it just doesn't matter... you just have to delay it for 5-10s back to it's original place? If you're used to activate a CD like Internal Release the 2nd time @ about 1:10 min in a fight... you can still do that, even if Internal Release is back up from CD @ 0:55. You just have to not use it sooner.

I can understand if arrow messes up your rotation (tp/mp ticks, having to use other rotation to not apply still running DoTs/debuffs again, etc.), but spear?

I mean... "Oh no, my Raging Strikes, Atherflow, Enochian, Vengeance, Internal Release, Swiftcast, [...] is back from CD sooner than I expected, I'm gonna eff up my rotation now!", or what?

[technole]

Spear can sometimes be hard optimally outside of a pull, on the other hand once you know some instances well enough, even playing as a tank/dps you'll find where there are "hot" points to know where cooldowns will start to be popping. Like back in Thordan EX for the double knights (plus since you were not supposed to use dps cooldowns for the center knight so they would be up for the duo). Other times you just want to use it now so you can get a better Draw.

I can understand if arrow messes up your rotation (tp/mp ticks, having to use other rotation to not apply still running DoTs/debuffs again, etc.), but spear?

I mean... "Oh no, my Raging Strikes, Atherflow, Enochian, Vengeance, Internal Release, Swiftcast, [...] is back from CD sooner than I expected, I'm gonna eff up my rotation now!", or what?

It doesn't mess up anything rotation wise for MCH. You are supposed to line-up Blood for Blood, Raging Strikes, and Hawks Eye for Wildfire. (Every other rotation will be a "Mildfire" with just BfB/Hawks until Raging is off CD again). If these cooldowns come back a few seconds earlier it's not going to matter all that much. But if you are only doing dungeon trash, by all means having those up sooner for just AoE blow-up support is great. Spear helping oGCDs like getting Bullets back sooner helps a bit for procs. No real downsides.

[ccrocker58]

snip

I'm kind of wondering the same thing to be honest. I've read on here more than a few times that Spear screws with rotations, but I can't really figure out why or how, probably because I don't DPS much. Sure, I can see how it may be less useful than the other cards due to the way it works, but how does its effect negatively impact a rotation? On my NIN, for example, I know my opener/rotation like the back of my hand and tend to focus on other things during that time. If I get a Spear, it...often does nothing for me; it shortens CDs sure, but outside of raiding, I just autopilot my opener, and everything after that is a priority system. I just don't see how having some shorter CDs would throw off a rotation.