Astrologian Guide

[Shyluv]

If in an expert roulette dungeon, Draw will most likely be up again when the mobs are close to dying. RR or spread depending on what you get, and then draw will be up again a few seconds into the next pull.

[Ghishlain]

You should build a priority system for your cards knowing that the priority system can shift at any moment during the fight depending on what is happening and how you wish to slot a card where. While the most obvious card is Balance and the second is arguably Arrow, the remaining four cards are situational and should be used / RR'd / Spread when appropriate.

Just a few pointers:

Arrow
This is a DPS booster and you almost always want to be using it on a DPS - preference goes to those that have native Attack Speed modifiers such as NIN and MNK as the more attack speed they stack, the faster they go. WARs in Deliverance can make use of this as well to eck out more Fell Cleaves and any job going through a burst rotation at the time you give them this will probably get one or two more attack under their buffs. This card will have a lesser impact on DoT jobs like SMN as DoTs aren't affected by attack speed. You may want to refrain from using this if you notice the DPS you want to put it in is low on TP as they won't be able to make full use of the card if they don't have the resources to maintain the attack speed.

Generally good to spread at the beginning of the fight in a pre-buff scenario, though Balance is a better choice overall. If you have no one to use it on, Royal Road'ing for Extend is a good option to.

Great with Enhance on an Attack Speed DPS, though both Extend and Expand are good too.

Balance
Always good, give it to your best DPS and let it rock. Straight forward and easy. You'll pretty much always want to Spread this at the beginning of a fight or if you know the DPS won't be able to make use of the full duration due to long invulnerability mechanics. The only time you should RR this is if you have nothing else to do with it at the time.

Pretty much good with all three RR types - Expand, Enhance, and Extend, though you might not get the mileage with Enhance as you would with Expand and Extend.

Bole
I tend to RR this, though keeping it on Spread isn't necessarily bad either if a tank buster is coming down the tube in the near future. This is indirectly a resource saver as it'll reduce the HPS requirement for 10% for the duration of the buff. You generally don't need to keep this on any content aside from bleeding edge progression. Admittedly, Diurnal Aspected Benefic + Helios + Bole + Collective Unconsciousness on a tank during big trash pulls is pretty fun to watch.

Enhanced Bole + Time Dilation is a nice 15% reduction for 45s and Extended Bole is a resource saver in general. There will be few opportunities to make use of an Expanded Bole so I wouldn't count on it to help with Raid damage.

Ewer
I prefer to RR this, though some ASTs prefer to keep on in their Spread at all times for MP recharge. This is preference though - I tend to almost always RR it or if I have an RR I want to keep, put it on my Spread to use shortly after my next draw.

You'll want to try to combine Ewer with Extend. Enhance doesn't help when Extend does it better and Expand is only useful if it hits three targets (and even though, someone may need the MP much more than the others).

Spear
I pretty much regulate this to Royal Road bait unless I happen to have it line up with some of my other CDs at the time of the draw. If I can't RR due to RR slot being saved already, jobs with short oGCD abilities can make use of this such as DRGs, NINs, and MCHs. Some ASTs would prefer to spread this for use of their own cooldowns later down the line. I personally don't like this but if that suits your playstyle, go for it.

Enhance is the best RR to go with this if you must use it. 30% reduction on CDs is a pretty big number, especially on some longer CDs. I find Extend pretty bad though it may allow the player to clip more CDs with this ability. The only time you should Expand this is at the beginning of a pull when everyone will be popping their CDs for bursting.

Spire
More or less RR bait unless you just raised a dead Physical DPS. When that happens, you pretty much want this to get them back into the game as fast as possible.

Expand is generally the biggest DPS booster in the game when going for pure damage so this works out well to RR for the next draw. Extend Spire is a solid 30s of TP restoration for someone and should be used in those rare opportunities that it's useful. You generally shouldn't need to Enhance or Expand this, and should try to avoid doing so.

-----

In general, the best ASTs are those that don't follow a rigid system of rules when using their cards. While there should be an overarching goal you want to achieve with your card selection, sometimes RNG won't allow that. In these instances it's important for the AST to understand where they and their party are in the fight and how best to use their cards to suit. Sometimes, the best thing to do is just let the Draw expire and move on to the next.

I personally tend to use Spread as a 2nd Shuffle - if I get an undesirable card for my current RR scheme and Shuffle nets me nothing, I put the current card in my Spread and just wait out the next Draw. This way I can drop the card from my Spread later if need be after consuming the RR with my next Draw, or use my current RR with the current Spread then RR the new Draw. It's a bit complicated to think about, but there's a large array of actions an AST may employ to try to push RNG into their favour or at least minimize bad RNG impact - this comes with experience of playing the job.

[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.

-----

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.

[TatoRazzino]

If you're wondering about when to use cards in a dungeon situation, you're gonna be fine with whatever you do, since cards don't do much inside a dungeon or in short fights. Due to the RNG component of your buffs, you need a long fight (i.e. raid/ex primal) for you to actually feel the benefit of the complete buff toolkit AST has. People are saying that some cards are useless because they're imagining a short fight/dungeon scenario, and in this case they're absolutely right: there's almost no benefit from drawing the Spear, the Ewer or the Spire; the Bole is nice because it allows you to DPS longer before you have to switch back to healing, but it won't be as good as the Balance or as the Arrow.

In raiding scenarios, however, the picture changes a lot. There are no useless cards inside a raid and all of them help the group. I'll tell you how I use them based on my experience, but it's extremely important that you ask your group what they feel about the cards you're using on them. For instance, I had a WAR who wanted to receive the Arrow in A2S, since my BLM said she didn't want them during her AoE rotation because it made her MP control harder for her; that WAR said he didn't have any TP management problems since he was almost always in Deliverance, so it turned out that the group would benefit the most from using the Arrow on him. Rules of thumb only get you to a certain point, but you'll only make the most of your cards if you actually know what they bring to the table and what are the downsides of using them on specific party members.

My common strategies are:

The Balance: it's a straight damage increase tool, but it doesn't affect all DPS players the same way. For example, if you use the Balance on a SMN that has already cast his DoTs and is not in Dreadwyrm Stance, the card will be completely wasted since you'll only be buffing his Ruin spam. The best way to use this card is to pay attention to your party list and select the DPS who is doing the most damage at the moment. If you see a SMN about to get into Dreadwyrm Stance or if you see a DRG with Blood of the Dragon active, it means they're in their burst rotation and are dealing more damage than the other party members. NINs make the most of this card when they're about to use (or have just used) Trick Attack, and you can keep track of this by paying attention to the Suiton buff icon. MCH is a good target when they have Wildfire up and full ammo, because that's their peak damage. BLMs and MNKs usually keep up their damage buffs all the time, so they're always a safe target for this card when the other members are not in their burst rotation. BRDs, as far as I'm concerned, don't have a burst phase and are not a good target for this unless they're multi-dotting (in A2S that's common). Also, you have to know the fight in order to use this card well; take A1S for example: if you use many damage cards on the same player, you may make your group's life harder since both bosses need to be kept with the same HP. Pay attention to those details when you're using the Balance.
As far as Royal Road or Shuffle is concerned, I only use those skills with the Balance when I'm out of combat and I already have a card in my Spread and I'm looking for a specific Royal Road effect.

The Arrow: it's basically a haste, and it doesn't affect DoT damage (it's not Spell/Skill speed, but Attack Speed). For this reason, this card can be practically useless on SMNs, since they do most of their damage from DoT ticks or from off-GCD spells. BLMs make the most of this card, because it helps them a lot with dodging and keeping Enochian up. Physical DPS can benefit from this in some situations, but in long fights that have short breaks (like A2S) it can drain their TP and result in a DPS loss; MNKs and NINs will drain out of TP super fast if you use the Arrow on them. Some DRGs like the card, but some other don't because it messes with their timers, and the same goes for MCH and BRD; ask your group to see how they feel about that. Healers also benefit from this, specially during heavy hit situations.
The Royal Road effect from the Arrow is pretty good and it's nice to burn this card if you don't have a BLM in your party and if it's not going to help your Healers or Physical DPS. I don't recommend shuffling it unless you're aiming for a specific Royal Road effect; either use it or Royal Road it to double your next card.

The Bole: this is very, VERY useful in raid situations. Tanks are always rotation cooldowns and the Bole can make your life easier, allowing you to conserve MP which will take some of the stress from your BRD/MCH in the long run; in some situations, your Tank can drop his defense skill (Shield Oath/Defiance/Grit) to do more DPS. Even though it may seem contradictory, this card can be less effective for Tank Busters, since Tanks usually save all their big cooldowns/invulnerabilities for those moves; you can use it any time and there's no need to Spread it.
If the Tanks are doing fine without it and you and your healing partner are not having to burn MP to keep him up, you can Royal Road it to increase the next card or just Shuffle it. But in a progression group, you'll most likely use it every time you Draw it.

The Spear: this card is very tricky, because it requires timing to use. It's best used right before the pull, specially when Expanded (AoE version), because it reduces everybody's cooldowns in 10%. From a DPS perspective, is not always good, since the card doesn't always lines up with their off-GCD damage skills and they usually save their self buffs (Blood for Blood, Internal Release, Ley Lines, Raging Strikes etc.) to use in specific situations. NIN makes the most of this, because their Ninjutsus line up perfectly with the duration of the card. Like a lot of people have said here, you can also use it on yourself if you're about to pop cooldowns, but I usually save mine for specific situations so it's not that helpful.
In my opinion, the true strength of the card lies in its Royal Road effect, since it doubles the duration of the next card you use. Instead of seeing this as a waste of a card, think that if you burn the Spear, it will be as if you had drawn another card twice, so it's not a bad use at all and the Spear is far from useless.

The Spire: in fights like A2S, you can never Draw too many of this. I mean it. Every time I look at my BRD's TP bar, it's always going down fast because of multi DoTting. In a long fight, your MNKs and NINs will also love you; DRGs have better TP management because of the special trait they get for Invigorate, but they can also benefit from this. PLDs and WARs in Defiance are also a good target. This card can add a lot of DPS in the long run, because it may allow your BRD/MCH to not use their TP refreshing song/turret.
I never burn this card in combat, because the Royal Road effect is not that good in my opinion (even with The Balance, for the reasons I explained above) and the TP refresh is very useful. If you don't need to refresh TP in a specific situation, just Shuffle it.

The Ewer: this is also very useful in a raid situation, just like the Spire. You can keep the MP of your party up with this, and WHMs and sometimes SMNs (and you, of course) will benefit from it. BLMs will almost never use this card because of Enochian: just because they can cast another Fire IV, it doesn't mean they will, since going into the Blizzard rotation is necessary to keep their self buff up; so, never waste the Ewer on a BLM unless they ask you to. DRKs can't have their MP refreshed under the effect of Darkside, so pay attention to this while using on them. I haven't tested the effect of this card on BRDs/MCHs while they're singing/using their bots, but the card will most likely be better spent on Healers.
My Royal Road/Shuffle strategy is the same as the Spire one: I only burn it outside of combat and I Shuffle it only when MP refresh is absolutely not needed – which is very rare.

[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%.

[Gist]

When do I pop LA? I'm used to popping Shroud at about 60%, but everything I've had so far hasn't had me oom. I see that the CD is a lot smaller than Shroud as well, so I assume I'm supposed to use this frequently.

[Cynfael]

When do I pop LA? I'm used to popping Shroud at about 60%, but everything I've had so far hasn't had me oom. I see that the CD is a lot smaller than Shroud as well, so I assume I'm supposed to use this frequently.

As others have suggested, use it early on/right before you need to unload MP.

Shroud really should be used the same way if just for MP, but with LA it's important to activate it before you start building enmity with healbombs since it reduces enmity gain on subsequent actions instead of dumping enmity already gained.

[TatoRazzino]

The CD for Shroud and LA is the same now, if I'm not mistaken, and the only difference about the spells is how they deal with enmity: Shroud works like Elusive Jump and LA works like Quelling Strikes. When to pop LA for the first time is variable, because it depends on the content you're doing.

In Dungeons, you can pop whenever you feel like it and in most runs I don't have to pop it at all.

For EX primals, I pop whenever I hit 80%ish, but for raids it depends a lot on the fight.

For A1S, for example, I pop LA the first time on phase 1 right after the first prey/before the Resin bombs and I combine it with Celestial Opposition, while trying to be near someone with a card to add 5 more seconds to it; after that, I pop it whenever it's available and I try to time my Celestial Opposition to hit someone with a card or to add another tick to my Aspected Helios' regen (I run A1S in Diurnal).

For A2S, I pop LA when the second wave comes; I try to set up an Expanded Balance during that wave and I use Synastry as well, so my Celestial Opposition gives +5s to everything; my second LA is popped at the start of wave 5, with the two spiders, because I use Collective Unconscious and Synastry there, so I want to extend those buffs with Celestial Opposition as well; after that, I just use LA+CO whenever it's available.

I can't tell you what to do for A3S or A4S yet, because my group has just become stable (since week 1 we've been having to replace members, so we were held back), but the strategy will probably be similar: I'll time my LA + CO in a way that keeps my MP in a safe level while trying to extend as many buffs as I can.

This is one of the things I like the most about AST, because even though our spells look like copies of WHM spells, the way our skills play out and are linked to one another makes the job unique and so much fun to play.

[Kimbot]

I like healing, it's da best.

[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)