What about Macros?

MACRO ABILITIES ARE NEVER OPTIMAL FOR AST, EVER.

Does not matter what it is. If it’s Star, if it’s cards, if it’s Malefic (heavens no), macros should never be desired. If using any, the goal should ALWAYS be to work out of needing them. Yes, this includes you controller players. I play on it without any macros, you can too.

There is one set of macro types I will excuse under the condition that using them, the player understands:

1. It is objectively unoptimal and is costing them DPS and performance.
2. They are training wheels that should be worked out of ideally.
3. They will likely cause hiccups with queueing at times and discombobulate you.

What about SpS?

Yes this gets its own section for now. AST has been a SpS-guzzling job since the end of Shadowbringers with MP adjustments, and the egregiousness of the addiction has been more enabled in Endwalker.

If you want the short story, it simply provides more damage should you never run out of MP/sacrifice other stats for Piety.

If you want the longer explanation, there are only two non-linear stats in the game that grow at different rates from the linear-focused stats otherwise observed: Crit and SpS. Crit still provides the most damage as we are able to stack it more heavily as observed easily through simulations (more chances to crit + higher crit numbers stack together), so this choice is made easier. But why SpS?

In a very crude and not 100% perfect way of explaining things, think about the term DPS. Damage per Second. Crit improves your DPS by increasing your Damage done in an interval of time. SpS improves your DPS by decreasing the Seconds required to do a given amount of damage.

Simulations will also easily back this up, so for those that like concrete proof, the gear sheet will replicate these findings happily. This will be more thoroughly explained in the Advanced Guide once I finish writing that.

What about drifting?

Any level of spell speed should never cause any significant drift with Divination, at the very worst being ~.4s - which is within the expected value any job in the game can drift even at optimal play. The highest recommended BiS in 6.05 - a 2.32 GCD - will cause 0 drift when played properly.

Reminder that we should be using Lightspeed before pressing Divination, as our Dyne window opens up just before Div is supposed to be pressed. We have the entire window after an instant-cast GCD to press Divination. If it drifts significantly, this is either a matter of ping or player error.

Astrodyne?

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Cards? Gauges?

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