Astrologian Melding, Stat Priority, and Consumables - Dawntrail 7.01 (2024)

Outside of best-in-slot (BiS) sets, Astrologian has a general statpriority system. While you are gearing up and working toward a specificbest-in-slot, this priority list should guide you toward choosing the best gearand melds along the way. Due to the high priority placed on Magic Damage andMind, the highest item level piece is usually the best choice whileleveling.

Note: This priority system was created with progression raidingin mind because that is when pre-BiS priorities are most relevant. Spell Speedis not an ideal stat if you are not playing in a controlled environment. Beforeyou have access to BiS, it is unlikely that you are playing in such acontrolled environment, and this page reflects that.

While gearing up, you may choose to prioritize Critical Hit andDetermination and then re-meld once you acquire all the gear. You may alsochoose to aim for a GCD tier that is similar to your intended BiS set in orderto get used to it, but if the BiS uses a very fast GCD, trying to use the sameGCD speed for progression may cause MP issues.

1. Magic Damage;
   • Found only on weapons, often called Weapon Damage.
2. Mind;
3. Piety to comfort;
   • You only need enough to keep from running out of MP. Any more than thatis essentially useless, but you will use more MP during progression and/orchaotic Party Finder groups.
4. Spell Speed to the desired GCD tier;
   • This only applies if you have a specific reason to be aiming for acertain GCD speed.
5. Critical Hit;
6. Determination;
7. Spell Speed;
   • Beyond hitting the desired GCD tier, Spell Speed is still a very goodway to scale your damage. Our BiS sets often favor high Spell Speed, butthey are not created to be good for progression. High Spell Speed sets canstill be useful in progression in the right hands, but we do not recommendit unconditionally.
8. Direct Hit;
   • Direct Hit contributes very slightly more to your DPS thanDetermination, but it does not affect healing at all. The damage differenceis inconsequential, and the healing difference is significantly larger.This is why we do not recommend it for progression. Even for BiS, itsimply scales worse than Critical Hit and Spell Speed under mostcirc*mstances.

Magic Damage is found only on your weapon. It has the largest effect onyour damage and healing, by far. Rarely, a weapon with one less Magic Damagemay be slightly better than one with the higher Magic Damage. This may happenif the higher level weapon has undesired Piety, while the lower level weaponhas no Piety.

Mind is the primary stat (or "main stat") for healers. It scales bothour damage and our healing. It is many times less valuable than Magic Damagebut many times more valuable than secondary stats.

Like with Magic Damage, it is sometimes possible for a lower item levelpiece with less Mind to be better than a higher item level piece. This is thecase if the higher item level piece has undesired Piety and the lower itemlevel piece has none.

Due to its strong scaling and the fact that it affects everything we do,Critical Hit is our top priority for secondary stats.

Critical Hit increases your chance to crit and the multiplier applied ona crit. Everything can crit, including damage, healing, damage-over-timeeffects, and healing-over-time effects.

Because it scales both crit chance and crit multiplier, as you gain moreCritical Hit, its scaling is quadratic. Put simply, it scales better as you getmore of it, meaning each point is worth more than the previous point.

Determination is a very "average" secondary stat. It simply increasesall your damage and healing by a certain percentage. Its scaling is linear,which means that it scales worse than Critical Hit in large quantities.

It is often used interchangeably with Direct Hit because it is areliable, unconditional gain. However, Direct Hit does not affect healing, soDetermination easily takes priority for progression.

Spell Speed has two effects: the main effect is that it decreases yourcast time and global recast time (increases GCD speed). The second effect isthat it increases the strength of your damage- and healing-over-time effects bya percentage, similar to the effect of Determination.

Spell Speed sometimes scales even better than Critical Hit on paper. It isa heavily favored stat in many Astrologian BiS sets because the drawback ofhaving less MP to work with is much less relevant in an organized,post-progression environment.

It is not listed as a high priority here simply because the meld priorityis intended for pre-BiS gearing. The general meld priority is most relevant forprogression, and Spell Speed is not necessarily the best choice for that.

Progression is when you will need the most MP because you will need tocast raises and extra GCD heals for safety. Spell Speed causes you to spend MPfaster, which may require you to sacrifice other damage stats for additionalpiety, negating any advantage Spell Speed might have had.

It is also when your gameplay will be the least optimized, and SpellSpeed is not an unconditional damage gain. You will not get the full benefit ofSpell Speed if you are not consistently maintaining GCD uptime, which is harderto do while your group is still learning.

In comparison, Critical Hit and Determination are both unconditionalgains that affect everything you do, regardless of how you play. That is whythey are listed as a higher general priority for a progression environment.High Spell Speed sets can still perform well during progression, but it dependson the player being comfortable utilizing it, so we do not recommend it as anunconditional priority.

Direct Hit provides a chance to score "direct hits," which are likemini-crits. A direct hit deals 25% bonus damage. A single attack cansimultaneously be a direct hit and a critical hit, and the damage modifiers aremultiplicative.

The direct hit multiplier does not change (as far as healers areconcerned), so its scaling is linear, like Determination. However, unlikeDetermination, it does not affect healing at all because heals cannot be directhits. The difference varies depending on the exact gearsets, but it is alwaysvery small. As an example, one comparison saw a difference of 0.23% DPSin exchange for 2.5% healing.

In well-practiced and coordinated play, that 2.5% healing does not makeany real difference, so the Direct Hit is often given a higher priority thanDetermination for BiS. However, we rarely have room to meld either becauseCritical Hit and Spell Speed are both more effective.

Piety is the only secondary stat (or "substat") that does not affectdamage in any way, and healers are the only role with access to it. Because itdoes not scale your damage or healing, it offers absolutely no benefit beyondthe amount you need to achieve your goal without running out of MP.

If you do not have enough MP to do your job, Piety is by far the mostimportant stat for you to acquire until you solve that problem. But, aside frommeeting that requirement, it is essentially useless.

The amount of Piety you need can vary wildly based on many factors, suchas your party composition, your group's familiarity with the encounter, theamount of healing required, etc.

If you are learning an encounter, you probably want more Piety so youhave a buffer for casting Ascend or extra GCD heals forsafety. Additional Piety can also help you recover if you die, since you willbe raised with very little MP.

The unique nature of Piety makes it impossible to create a definitivebest-in-slot (BiS) gearset that we can genuinely recommend to all playersbecause different players may have very different needs. Therefore, ourapproach is usually to create multiple sets that are optimized around varyingdegrees of MP longevity.

Consumables are divided into two categories: meals (food) and medicines(potions). In high-end content, such as savage raids, you are usually expectedto come prepared with the appropriate consumables, especially while you arelearning the fight. The bonuses provided by these items can often be thedifference between life and death.

With Mind being the primary stat for healers, the appropriatestat-increasing potion is the highest tier Mind potion available. Currently,that would be a High Quality (HQ) Grade 1 Gemdraught of Mind. Thesepotions temporarily increase your Mind stat, which provides a small boost toyour damage (and healing) for the duration of the effect.

These are used in high-end content to boost damage during large raidburst windows, most commonly in the opener and the six-minute burst. This iswhen the boost is most effective, as it is stacked with many other raidbuffs.

It is easy to go through a large number of stat potions very quickly ifyou are using them on every pull. Therefore, it is often not recommended to usethem until your group has seen most or all of the encounter and you have achance of clearing the fight.

The exception to this is that you may want to use them if your group isstruggling with a DPS check that is preventing you from progressing. In thatsituation, you may want to use stat potions specifically for that DPS check tomake sure you can get past it and continue learning and practicing laterportions of the encounter.

Ethers can be used to instantly restore a large amount of MP. It isalways a good idea to have some in case of an emergency, such as dying andbeing raised with low MP or needing to raise multiple party members. Thehighest tier Ether available is currently a High Quality (HQ) Super-Ether, which restores 1800 MP.

They are especially useful during progression because mistakes anddeaths are guaranteed. Ethers can allow you to recover from situations thatwould otherwise lead to a wipe. Even if you are only delaying the wipe, itallows your group to see more of the encounter and get more practice.

Ethers share a cooldown with all other "medicines," such as Mind potionsand healing potions. If you think you will need to use an Ether, you may wantto avoid using another Mind potion after the opener. The damage lost from notusing another Mind potion is nothing compared to the damage you lose if you runout of MP and cannot cast spells.

The largest benefit provided by food is simply the extra Vitality, whichincreases your max HP to help you survive hard-hitting attacks. Each food willalso increase two secondary stats by a percentage, up to a listed cap.

Make sure you choose a food that you can fully benefit from by hittingthe listed cap on every stat. For example, if the food says it increases DirectHit by 10%, up to 70, you would only get the entire 70 Direct Hit if youhad 700 Direct Hit without the food. If you have no Direct Hit melds, your baseDirect Hit at level 100 is only 420, so the food would only give you 42 DirectHit.

This would generally make it a worse choice than any other food that youcould get the full benefit from (except Piety food, which is completelyworthless if you do not need the Piety).

The specific food you should use will be listed in the gearset youchoose from the best-in-slot page. Before you have the full best-in-slot, youcan instead choose the highest level food that follows the stat priority givenabove.