Astrologian Guide

[Parawill]

Imagine you are at 70% MP (this is the moment you should use LA), there are 3 possible scenarios.

Completely disagree.

You can use Luminiferous Aether at 70%, but you are not making most of its cool down by holding it. You should realistically FIRST use Luminiferous Aether (or Shroud of Saints) if you're going to expend equal or greater amounts of MP that it will restore. You should also use it when you know you're spending more MP than your natural in-combat MP regen can recover given that you wont need to expend over 30% of your MP before Luminiferous Aether comes back up. A great way to look at MP is how you would treat your own money.

MP = how much money you have.
Heals = how much money you have to spend.
Luminiferous Aether = how much money you make within a given time (5 ticks) , and how long it takes for you to make your next pay check (120 CD).

So if you had 100 MP and know you're going to spend 20 MP within 5 ticks (15 seconds), use Luminferous Aether to equalize the amount spent to the amount gained. This way you'll sit at around 90% because you will most likely be healing or DPSing while its active.

After your first initial use of Luminiferous Aether, feel free to use it whenever you can, unless you're literally sitting at 90% ~ 100% and aren't dropping below that at all.

And Spear is situational. It doesn't suck when you can use it, but you shouldn't explicitly save it unless its literally in the opening pull to reduce everyone's CDs.

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Here are some tips and tricks in general though. Celestial Opposition extends all buffs you apply by 5 seconds, which includes Light Speed, Luminiferous Aether, Collective Unconscious Buffs, Card Buffs, Protect (lol), Stoneskin (lol), all Aspected Buffs (lol nocturnal) and Synastry.

Synastry lasts as long as the shortest duration amongst yourself and your Synastry target, so in order to keep the Synastry buff on for 5 seconds longer, Celestial Opposition must hit your Synastry target.

Collective Unconscious' Regen & 10% mitigation spell can be Time Dilationed' and Celestial Oppositioned giving it an addition 15 seconds to both buffs. The 10% mitigation buff last 3 seconds, but isn't shown. If you want to argue this, go figure it out yourself--I'm tired of having to prove this time after time because no one wants to be observant of their own skills >_>

Never RR twice unless you really wont gain any benefit from the card, or if you know there is a specific check coming and you have a Spreaded Card ready for that situation. If you get two Spires and literally no one will need a TP song or a Spire (because of downtime or they simply have CDs such as Invigorate and alike).

Never use an Expanded Bole unless you can actually somewhat benefit from it in terms of raid damage. If you come across this situation either RR for Enhanced or click off the Expanded RR buff and just throw it onto your tank.

Try not to Ewer a Black Mage. Black Mages gauge MP values to what they will do next. It's a somewhat simple system, but complex if you don't understand it. All this boils down to is information distortion which can mess-up a Black Mage's rotation Coordinate and communicate before using.

[AlphaSonic]

Snip

I was just talking about an hipothetic case and the usual use of Shroud/LA, if you aren't under 70% MP, most of the time you don't need to use it. Of course if you are going to use a great sum of MP use shrould/LA, I use Shroud at 90% MP at the start of faust extreme just to DPS and I agree about Spear usage. But i find those occasions too situtational to be a useful card. Even if it's good at his job (Spear), it's so situational that it's nearly impossible to use it at 100%.

[Ananolf]

Your MP problems are either gear or skill. It's an illusion.

[Jinrya-Geki]

And what of the sects. Which is usually more preferred since you can't switch during battle? Nocturnal sect or Diurnal sect?

[DawnSolaria]

And what of the sects. Which is usually more preferred since you can't switch during battle? Nocturnal sect or Diurnal sect?

Solo I would recommend diurnal, although nocturnal is very decent now. In a paty with scholar definitely diurnal.

[PogueX]

How do you shuffle or play royal road? i only see the option to draw

i usually use Bole for tanks, Balance for DPS, Spire for boss fights on DPS, Arrow on DPS or DRK and WAR, Ewer on MP classes, and Spear i have no idea i usually don't play that card

but my buffs depend on the randomness of what i draw, so very little control over my buffs

[Gist]

How do you shuffle or play royal road?

Royal road burning is a skill unlocked at level 35. Can't speak for shuffle as I haven't unlocked it yet.

[Jinrya-Geki]

When is it best to used aspected benefic?

Is it for emergency quick heals only?

[Darkseth]

When is it best to used aspected benefic?

Is it for emergency quick heals only?

No, In Diurnal Sect you want to use it once every 18 seconds. Just to reapply the Regen (because it has a total potency of 1030 if i'm not mistaken).
In Nocturnal Sect the base heal is stronger, and theres no regen. But a Shield worth 130% of the potency (250 heal + 325 shield). Treat this like an instant stoneskin. An extension of Tank's HP. You dont need it on a Tank, if he only eats auto attacks. But if a big Tank buster comes, it helps the Tank to survive the Hit.
So in Noct, you want to use it before strong attacks to mitigate the damage. And for this task, aspected benefic is the easiest spell because its instant (and doesnt need to time a precast)

[Calypsx]

Should I ever use cards right away or should I always try and wait for a royal road buff before using them?