Question about Astrologian and buffing in 8-man raid.

[MrsFluffyButt]

the correct use of cards is to give enhanced balance to the cutest member of your team
nothing else

Exactly this. See that Lalafell? Don't give it to that, give it to the cute Femroe instead

[LineageRazor]

The top DPS needs to be awfully far ahead of the pack for it to be worthwhile to extend just them rather than give the whole group.

Let's assume that all the DPS are equal. Assign them an arbitrary potency value of 100, over one minute of time. In a full party, then, after a minute you have a total of 400 potency.

Now, let's give one DPS an Extended Balance. Now, one DPS is doing 120 potency over that minute instead of 100, for a total of 420 potency.

Now, let's give all the DPS Expanded Balance. Now, each DPS is doing 55 potency for half that time, and 50 the rest. Again, that amounts to 420 potency, so it might seem like there's no difference - but don't forget the healers and tanks also benefit. It's not a whole lot more damage, but it's still more damage.

It should go without saying that Enhanced Balance is a waste. One DPS does 65 potency for half a minute, leading to a total of 415 potency over the full minute.

So, for it to be worthwhile to Extend one DPS instead of Expanding the whole party, that one DPS has to be doing enough extra damage over the other DPS to make up for the bonus to both tanks and both healers.

[Jijifli]

But the buff weakens to 10% for a balance AOE, but the enhanced version increases the cards by 150% potency. Isn't that more effective on someone that knows what their doing?

It doesn't enhance it by, it enhances it TO 150%, so a 50% boost. That means that it would be 30% more damage, not 50%.

Spreading cuts it down to 10% each, but consider that you hit 4 dps (40%) and tanks who are still dpsing (60%) and if healers get involved (potential 70-80%)

As we can see, even IF it boosted it by 150%, it can still do more spread.

[Bdyer]

I always spread in 8 mans unless rng doesn't let me

[Bigcat9715]

After running A12N with my Ast trying to shoot for AoE buffs instead of enhanced buff. I have to say I think it made a difference. For some reason I just always hated spreading buffs ever since I bought my Ast to a 24-man run after that I just always bought my Sch/Whm to them instead, and just saved my Ast for 4 man runs. Anyway thanks for the advice everyone.

[Lilyth]

Snip

Enhanced is not a waste, it's actually better than extended in many, if not most, cases.

Your math if off by assuming the DPS a Damage Dealer does is constant throughout the entire buff duration.
During pulls for example, if you dont have an AoE balance, 30 secs of 30% additional damage (which is enough to cover all DPS openers) is already more DPS than those extra 30 secs of +20% damage after all openers have already been done, buffs fallen off and oGCDs on CD.

Not to mention you always wanna use Time Dilatation and Celestial Opposition on those enhanced cards for 25 secs of extra goodness, which is by FAR more efficient to use on enhanced cards than extended ones.

[LineageRazor]

Enhanced is not a waste, it's actually better than extended in many, if not most, cases.

Your math if off by assuming the DPS a Damage Dealer does is constant throughout the entire buff duration.
During pulls for example, if you dont have an AoE balance, 30 secs of 30% additional damage (which is enough to cover all DPS openers) is already more DPS than those extra 30 secs of +20% damage after all openers have already been done, buffs fallen off and oGCDs on CD.

Not to mention you always wanna use Time Dilatation and Celestial Opposition on those enhanced cards for 25 secs of extra goodness, which is by FAR more efficient to use on enhanced cards than extended ones.

While I agree that the opener is the best place to do Enhanced if you're going to do Enhanced at all, don't lose sight of the fact that ALL FOUR DPS (not to mention tanks and healers, who do have their own openers if not quite as potent as a DPS's) are doing their openers at that point. I think that Expanded still wins out, there, enhancing all those openers by a little bit rather than one by a lot. Unless, again, that one is WAY ahead of the rest.

But even if we allow for that case, I'd hardly consider that to be most cases, or even common.

[FeliAiko]

You could just AOE Balance the raid, then use Time Dilation on the top DPS afterwards.

[FunkYeahDragons]

the correct use of cards is to give enhanced balance to the cutest member of your team
nothing else

Or Arrows to the DRG who pissed you off.

[Lilyth]

While I agree that the opener is the best place to do Enhanced if you're going to do Enhanced at all, don't lose sight of the fact that ALL FOUR DPS (not to mention tanks and healers, who do have their own openers if not quite as potent as a DPS's) are doing their openers at that point. I think that Expanded still wins out, there, enhancing all those openers by a little bit rather than one by a lot. Unless, again, that one is WAY ahead of the rest.

But even if we allow for that case, I'd hardly consider that to be most cases, or even common.

Yep I agree, that's why I said "when you don't have AoE balance".
Thus I was merely comparing the other two inferior options.