A couple SCH ideas...

[Muras]

I've had a couple ideas bouncing around in my thoughts for a while, and figured I'd finally share them with the community to see what others thought of it.

As we all know, we have a couple levels of Occult Acumen that essentially does us no good due to always switching staves, along with Adloquium that's virtually not worth casting. Ever. I also find that I can go through my strategem charges quite quickly, especially when things get busy.

So I was wondering if it'd be good to give SCH two JAs that make use of that TP we're always getting (And promptly losing) and use it to restore charges. I'm terrible with naming spells and abilities so I'll just use generic names:

Job Ability: Accumulate TP
Recast: 15-30 seconds or so.

What this would do is store away the TP, similar to how Sublimation works. It takes all TP the player currently has and stores it. So if you have 30% TP and use the JA, 30% is now stored. Then you gain 21% TP and use the JA again. Now 51% is stored. It's important that the recast remains low so that it can be used between nukes.

Now for the second JA...

Job Ability: Use Up TP
Recast: 3-5 mins.

This JA will make use of the stored TP. For every 100 TP you regain a strategem charge. We can have icons like this to indicate where the amount is:

For less than 100%


100-300%






This effect would carry over through zoning much like Sublimation.

Basically, you'd nuke, use the JA, then use your next spell which would involve staff swapping and repeat the process until you have enough stored. This would give a purpose to stuff like Occult Acumen and Adloquium, and also let SCH make use of TP wings in events like Voidwatch/Abyssea/whatever.

Given how long it takes for a SCH to build 300% TP, and how strategems are SCH's bread and butter, I think this would be a great addition to the job that would be useful but not overpowering. Any thoughts or opinions on this?

[Merton9999]

Well I certainly would be happy about more strategems. And in fact the spirit of how you're suggesting them (as a conversion or trade-off of less-used benefits) appeals to my tactical mage side.

First, I worry about the numbers you suggested, so maybe they just need a little tweaking. I'm imagining areas where I can full-time Embrava (Abyssea, Besieged, half-time in Nyzule) and don't necessarily have to staff swap. That would be up to 7 TP per tick regain that we could could store every 15-30 seconds. I'm not going to work out the exact math but I think if you could recover a strat for every 100 TP, you'd essentially double our available stratagems under Embrava. Maybe I could chalk that up to a SCH-specific benefit allowed for Embrava though, so I'm not sure it's all that bad.

I'm also imagining this creating some unfamiliar desire to melee on mobs where I can safely get close, just to gain TP for strategem conversion. So for example if I'm playing the LA SCH (and not gaining TP through Occult Acumen) and can live with just an Arka IV equipped long-term, I'd be tempted to jump into the fray to fill my TP up for this ability. Not saying that would be horrible for everyone, but I'm not sure at this stage I want to think about "idling" in melee accuracy gear on SCH.

[Muras]

The Embrava issue wouldn't be a problem since the 2nd JA (The one that consumes the stored TP) would be on a 3-5 minute timer (I think 5 mins would probably be the most balanced, personally). It wouldn't matter if you could store 300 TP right after regaining your strategems since you'd have to wait on the 2nd timer anyways.

As far as meleeing goes... I can't see SCHs (At least the smart ones >.>; ) full time meleeing stuff, especially in dangerous situations. But I see no problem running in after a mob uses a TP move to get a single swing in, then running back out. As long as it's safe and doesn't cause problems for the rest of the PT (Like running in to swing instead of tossing a Cure IV) there isn't really a problem. It really just comes down to the judgement of the player, and good players will know when not to swing their staff.

[Merton9999]

Yeah I missed the recast on your second JA. I certainly can't argue with gaining an extra strategem every 3-5 minutes. Sounds good to me.

I wasn't really worried about players being so bad on SCH that they couldn't judge when to approach the mob. I was thinking of maximizing my potential with this new ability, wanting to gain that extra strategem, but not being able to fit melee accuracy gear for a few LA swings in my bag.

But when I think about it, with a 5 minute recast, I probably wouldn't have to worry about getting a swing in at all. If I'm really sticking to one staff, just Adloquim on myself would be enough to gain that strat every 5 minutes. In fact I like this idea just to make Adloquium useful. MP recovery being what is is now, I wouldn't miss the MP cast to cast it on myself, but I'd certainly love that strategem.

[Oscar71]

Dump it on a 30 sec timer and watch the Soul Shattering mayhem begin.

[Delvish]

Dump it on a 30 sec timer and watch the Soul Shattering mayhem begin.

The point of this is to use TP to gain stratagems, not WS more.