Astrologian DPS Rotation for Healers — Endwalker 6.4

Astrologian's damage kit is very straightforward, having one single-target damage spell ( Fall Malefic), one area-of-effect (AoE) damage spell ( Gravity II), and one damage-over-time (DoT) spell ( Combust III). The basic idea is to keep Combust III up and continue casting Fall Malefic until you need to refresh Combust III.

The opener is the most controlled, consistent burst window in the entire encounter. As an Astrologian, your buffs affect everyone else's opening burst, so it is important that you use a proper opener.

• Astrologian's opener begins 30 seconds before the pull in order to Play three cards and use Astrodyne during the opening burst.
• The Minor Arcana at the end is up to chance as to whether or not you get a Lord of Crowns, and 50% of the time you will not get one.

This is the base version of the opener. This is what it looks like if you do not have to Redraw. If you do have to Redraw, the Draws and Plays will be moved back to make room. No matter what, Divination should always be used on the third GCD in order to cover your party members' burst.

As a general guideline, your highest priority is acquiring two unique astrosigns. However, you can accept a duplicate sign on your second Draw if you get your preferred role in that moment. Whether it is optimal to do so is largely dependent on your party composition.

If you have at least two unique signs, you have much more freedom to decide if you want to Redraw the third card based on its role or its sign. There are situations in which it may be worth deviating from this guideline, but that is beyond the scope of the opener. Redraw usage is discussed in more detail in the Astrologian Card Optimization Guide.

1. Gravity II is a DPS gain on as few as two targets.
2. Up to four targets, depending on how long the enemies live, it may be worth applying Combust III to some or all enemies before you begin using Gravity II.
   • With two targets, Combust III only needs 15 seconds to be a gain.
   • With three targets, Combust III needs 24 seconds to be a DPS gain.
   • With four targets, Combust III is only efficient on enemies that will survive for the full 30-second duration.
3. In dungeons, regardless of how many enemies there are, it is often worth applying Combust III to enemies while the tank is running to pull all the enemies, simply because it is the only thing you can cast on the move unless you have Lightspeed available.
4. Even when there are more than four enemies, it can be time-efficient to apply Combust III to enemies that have significantly more HP than the others in the pull. While Gravity II seems better on paper, it would only result in the weaker enemies dying faster. You would still have to finish off the tougher enemies afterward.
   • By focusing a little more damage on them with DoTs, you can save time overall by minimizing how much time you spend dealing with the remaining enemies in a less AoE-efficient one- or two-target situation.
   • In a perfect world, the most efficient outcome is that every enemy dies at exactly the same time because the party used its most efficient single-target damage sources to keep the tougher enemies in line with the weaker ones.

Up to about 80% of your personal damage is directly tied to your GCD uptime, so keeping your GCD rolling is vital. Be aware of your positioning and any movement that is required to dodge incoming AoEs or handle mechanics. Combust III is an instant cast, so it provides a good opportunity to move larger distances whenever you need to refresh it.

Take advantage of slidecasting and the short cast time of Fall Malefic to move for mechanics and dodge AoEs. "Slidecasting" refers to the ability to begin moving before your cast bar has completed without interrupting the cast. The timing of this window can vary based on your latency to the server, so you will have to experiment to familiarize yourself with it.

Generally, it occurs about half a second before the cast bar is finished. With a short cast time like Fall Malefic, that would be around two-thirds of the way through the cast bar. This window, combined with the roughly one second before you must stop moving to begin your next cast, gives you a lot of freedom to move around without losing any casts.

When a large amount of movement is required and you cannot pause to slidecast, Lightspeed should be used to maintain GCD uptime.

Astrologian has only two sources of oGCD damage: Earthly Star and Lord of Crowns (from Minor Arcana). Be sure to use both as often as possible to maximize your damage contribution.

The cooldown of Minor Arcana begins as soon as you use it, even though you cannot see it. This means that you can hold a Lord of Crowns for up to 60 seconds without delaying your next Minor Arcana. When possible, take advantage of this to save Lord of Crowns for raid buffs, especially two-minute burst windows with Divination.

It may be more damage-efficient overall to delay Earthly Star if it will allow you to damage multiple targets. Even if you lose a use of it in the fight because you held it, it would be damage-neutral if you hit two targets instead of one. With more than two targets, it is a significant gain even when losing a use.

Earthly Star deals more damage than Fall Malefic, and Aspected Helios does more healing than Earthly Star. This means that it is usually better to use Earthly Star purely for damage, even if it is 100% overheal. You should try to make use of both the damage and healing, but if you would lose a use in the fight by delaying Earthly Star to make use of its healing, it is actually more efficient to use it purely for the damage and cast the extra GCD heal later.