Minor Arcana & Divination

[Yvresse]

When am I supposed to use these? I just turned lvl 50 and i have so many spells I dont know where to put them all.

[wereotter]

For divination, you might have noticed the full moon, sun, and crescent moon seals on the cards you draw? Every time you use one of those cards, you'll store the seal. Once you get three seals, you can use Divination for a party-wide damage buff. The potency increase raises if you have different seals, ideally you want to get one of each. You should have enough time to draw four cards between divinations, and you can use redraw to try to get the three different seals.

Minor Arcana have the same effects as your other cards, but don't have seals. So they're good to use if you, say, got three different seals on your original pulls and don't want to mess that up while divination is still on cooldown. Lord of Crowns goes to melee jobs and Lady of Crowns goes to ranged. However, this comes with a HUGE asterisk as this advise only is good for the next two weeks. When Endwalker launches, Lord of Crowns is supposed to get its usage changed to being an instant-cast damage dealing ability, and Lady of Crowns will be an instant-cast heal.

[Yvresse]

For divination, you might have noticed the full moon, sun, and crescent moon seals on the cards you draw? Every time you use one of those cards, you'll store the seal. Once you get three seals, you can use Divination for a party-wide damage buff. The potency increase raises if you have different seals, ideally you want to get one of each. You should have enough time to draw four cards between divinations, and you can use redraw to try to get the three different seals.

Minor Arcana have the same effects as your other cards, but don't have seals. So they're good to use if you, say, got three different seals on your original pulls and don't want to mess that up while divination is still on cooldown. Lord of Crowns goes to melee jobs and Lady of Crowns goes to ranged. However, this comes with a HUGE asterisk as this advise only is good for the next two weeks. When Endwalker launches, Lord of Crowns is supposed to get its usage changed to being an instant-cast damage dealing ability, and Lady of Crowns will be an instant-cast heal.

Awesome, thank you for that. I realize now I actually posted this in the wrong forum - oops.

So does that mean that Lady of Crown and Lord of Crown gives the same % buff as normal arcana card buffs?

And with Diurnal Pact and Nocturnal Pact, I just unlocked the shield one, but which one is better?

[Beddict]

The Lord and Lady provide a bigger damage bonus. If played on the correct Job, The Lord/Lady will provide an 8% damage buff compared to the 6% of the regular Cards. If played on the incorrect Job, the damage buff is 4% for The Lord/Lady compared to 3% for the regular Cards.

Diurnal is the stronger of the two since it has a higher total potency. For example, Diurnal Aspected Helios heals a total of 700 potency over 15s, while Nocturnal Aspected Helios heals for 200 potency and applies a 250 potency shield. Because incoming damage tends to be infrequent, it's more efficient to just slap a regen on people and let that tick up over time for more total HP restored, but shields win out if players need extra HP to survive.

That said, all this goes right out the window in a little over two weeks with the release of Endwalker. The Lord is being changed into an AoE attack that no longer requires the regular Arcana Cards, and The Lady is becoming an AoE heal that no longer requires the regular Arcana Cards. Diurnal and Nocturnal Sect are also being removed, and abilities that change depending on your Sect will simply have the Diurnal effects going forward (Aspected Benefic will always apply a regen, Celestial Opposition will always apply a regen, etc). There will still be some shields available on abilities, but you won't have to bother with choosing a Sect anymore.

[RobynDaBank]

I've been where you were OP, not too long ago! I made my binds so that Draw + Play + Redraw are on CTRL 1 through 3 keys, and changing the card to Minor Arcana buff is on Shift +`. Divination is on Alt + E. It sounds messy, but I developed a super strong muscle memory of this sequence; so I can suggest grouping your abilities in a certain way (one group for modifying cast speeds and types like Lightspeed and Swiftcast, one group for buffs like Collective Unconscious, Lucid Dreaming, Celestial Opposition, etc). With time your brain should reach for binds automatically.

As for what the seals do? It's definitely a lot thrown onto you at level 50, but the core of it is "easy" - each of your cards that you play normally will give you a fixed Seal. I remembered it so that any card beginning with a vowel gives a Lunar Seal (Ewer and Arrow) and any card beginning with an S gives a Celestial Seal (Spear and Spire). Right now before Endwalker's release, you need to preferably play/redraw for all unique Seals so that Divination's party buff gives the maximum, as it varies with the uniqueness of the Seals. All melee cards turn to Lord/all ranged cards turn to Lady with Minor Arcana, which is more of a buff but gives no Seal. I use that when I get terrifically unlucky with redrawing and don't want to waste a Draw, or when I have all the Seals I need and don't want to mess with them.

[wereotter]

Awesome, thank you for that. I realize now I actually posted this in the wrong forum - oops.

So does that mean that Lady of Crown and Lord of Crown gives the same % buff as normal arcana card buffs?

And with Diurnal Pact and Nocturnal Pact, I just unlocked the shield one, but which one is better?

Nocturnal Stance is being deleted with the launch of Endwalker, so I wouldn't stress it too much.

Just stick with Diurnal and get to be an expert in it rather than try to learn something that you won't have in a few days.

[FujikoN]

I suggest to watch this video. Good guide.
https://youtu.be/WVWyX8qLmTw