Astrologian Guide

[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.