First time playing Astrologian... need some advice/tips

[Mikaeus_The_Lunarch]

2) lightspeed gravity

not gonna lie.....i actually do it pretty regularly. only with CS on of course, but....yeah

[Spiroglyph]

not gonna lie.....i actually do it pretty regularly. only with CS on of course, but....yeah

dishonor on your cow

[Cleftobismal]

Not sure if joking or if chastising :> But light speed gravity spams does more damage than a normal cast time gravity despite the damage penalty. Even still your mana doesn't go as oom giving you more resources to do both hps/dps. z_z . . . . . (Assuming yall are talking about an aoe setting)

[Spiroglyph]

Not sure if joking or if chastising :> But light speed gravity spams does more damage than a normal cast time gravity despite the damage penalty. Even still your mana doesn't go as oom giving you more resources to do both hps/dps. z_z . . . . . (Assuming yall are talking about an aoe setting)

ok well, dishonor on my cow then

i will remember this thread next time i DF as ast

[Mikaeus_The_Lunarch]

Not sure if joking or if chastising :> But light speed gravity spams does more damage than a normal cast time gravity despite the damage penalty. Even still your mana doesn't go as oom giving you more resources to do both hps/dps. z_z . . . . . (Assuming yall are talking about an aoe setting)

that was my reasoning behind it too, guess im not that insane after all.

[Ghishlain]

Lightspeed + Gravity is actually a DPS loss of about 6.25%

[Cleftobismal]

Lightspeed + Gravity is actually a DPS loss of about 6.25%

And normal Gravity spam is a 100% mana lost. No lie. You're better off using light speed gravity for any aoe situations. Especially if you could only contribute two gravities instead of 4-6. Most parties I'm in, the trash mobs die much faster than If I were to not use light speed.

Also could you go into greater detail what variables got you to 6.25%? Are you talking about spamming gravity on a single target? Spamming gravity on trash mobs? If so how long does it take you to eventually eradicate them? Or is this a calculation off of a dummy which doesn't die? Are we also comparing the damage done in 10 seconds with light speed then without? What about after the fact? Will you have enough mana to continue to use gravity? Or will the extra mana you have from the discounted mp cost of Gravity will be enough to out dps it? At any rate, the point of using light speed is not the damage in the long run, but the speed of the immediate damage which will destroy the trash mobs anyways before light speed is off.


Let's also factor in the pro's of being able to immediately heal + regen/shield your party then switch right back to dpsing. Versus without light speed you are creating downtime. It's the same concept of using Presence of the mind for holy spams. You're not using it to increase the dps in the long run, (As your mana will horribly run out) You're using it to quickly take out the mobs in the short term.

[Ghishlain]

Here's the theorycraft behind Gravity versus Lightspeed + Gravity.

Gravity + Lightspeed

Gravity Normally
@00.00s - Begins to cast first Gravity
@03.00s - First Gravity resolves, begin to cast second (total potency - 200 X multi-enemy multiplier)
@06.00s - Second Gravity resolves, begin to cast third (total potency - 400 X multi-enemy multiplier)
@09.00s - Third Gravity resolves, begin to cast fourth (total potency - 600 X multi-enemy multiplier)
@12.00s - Fourth Gravity resolves, begin to cast fifth (total potency - 800 X multi-enemy multiplier)

Gravity w/ Lightspeed
@00.00s - Cast first Gravity (total potency - 150 X multi-enemy multiplier)
@02.50s - Cast second Gravity (total potency - 300 X multi-enemy multiplier)
@05.00s - Cast third Gravity (total potency - 450 X multi-enemy multiplier)
@07.50s - Cast fourth Gravity (total potency - 600 X multi-enemy multiplier)
@10.00s - Cast fifth Gravity (total potency - 750 X multi-enemy multiplier) [Assuming you get the Lightspeed in for easy math]
@12.50s - Begin casting sixth Gravity

Gravity Normally is 800 potency at the 12s mark for a total 66.67 potency per second (plus multipliers which is the same across the board)
Gravity w/ Lightspeed is 750 potency at 10s mark for a total of 75 potency per second (plus multipliers)
Gravity w/ Lightspeed is 750 potency at 12s mark for a total of 62.5 potency per second (plus multipliers)

In theory this looks better to do Gravity + Lightspeed when you consider number of casts within the 10s period of Lightspeed but since you can't begin to cast a sixth Gravity until the 12.5s mark and won't get it until the 15.5s mark, you might as well count Gravity w/ Lightspeed as 5 Gravity's over 12s, leading to the above. Therefore it's better not to use Lightspeed with Gravity.

750/800 = 93.75% aka a 6.25% DPS loss. It doesn't matter the number of targets you target since the same % reduction would apply to every additional mob past the first you'd hit.

If you consider Gravity as a DPS tool in the exact same scenarios where you may use Gravity + Lightspeed versus just Gravity by itself, Gravity will win in out right damage (and you'd still end up using the same MP anyway since you need five Gravity's instead of four just to keep up in damage).

Considering the context of the posts above indicated that using Lightspeed Gravity is a greater DPS increase versus just using Gravity by itself, I'm just stating that this particular idea is wrong (as per above quote)

If you're looking at a myriad of other scenarios listed above, I'd say it's up to the individual healer to understand their kit and use the appropiate toolkit for it and have no bearing to the actual context of "Lightspeed + Gravity DPS" > "Gravity DPS"

If you wish to front load a heal due to lightspeed that's your decision, but it's not how I would use Lightspeed in most trash-based scenarios.

Take into account that unlike Presence of Mind, Lightspeed doesn't reduce your recast so the only DPS spell that would gain any benefit from the cast time reduction would be Gravity. Any healer spell would be front loaded but you're still restricted to the same 2.5s recast.

[Cleftobismal]

It doesn't matter the number of targets you target since the same % reduction would apply to every additional mob past the first you'd hit.

If you consider Gravity as a DPS tool in the exact same scenarios where you may use Gravity + Lightspeed versus just Gravity by itself, Gravity will win in out right damage (and you'd still end up using the same MP anyway since you need five Gravity's instead of four just to keep up in damage).

Considering the context of the posts above indicated that using Lightspeed Gravity is a greater DPS increase versus just using Gravity by itself, I'm just stating that this particular idea is wrong (as per above quote)

Yup I can agree that gravity without light speed warrants more damage assuming you have the mana for it.

However, in most duties you aren't doing aoe damage alone, and it's best to contribute damage in between the downtime's you're casting without light speed. Which is the main reason why my light speed duration is still up after the trash mobs are cleared.

If you wish to front load a heal due to lightspeed that's your decision, but it's not how I would use Lightspeed in most trash-based scenarios.

Considering the lengths of expert dungeons, it's a high time worth it to use your cooldown's before reaching every boss. I'm able to atleast use two light speeds in a fast party before I get to a boss in Xelphatol. True, light speed is a wonderful tool to use for emergency healing and quick regens/shields. But this isn't the only thing in AST's kit to save a party. (Although I do agree this is the best to use for quickly aoe healing)

[technole]

If you are already using Lightspeed for some AoE heals, and then want to go into Gravity spam for some GCDs when you don't need anymore heals during its duration you really should just click-off lightspeed, or a create a /statusoff macro. That DPS loss isn't worth it.