Stratagems

While I like to say I enjoy and think scholar strats are really useful, I believe that our Dark Arts stratagem could be given more thought. With the introduction to Penance along with the +1 & +2 gloves it makes things like Regen or Refresh useful to use on you or other people; it's like a mini composure. But Immanence itself is a handful due to the fact that its hard to time or get the time right to attempt to make a skill-chain with your magic that you cast. In Abyssea where you fight monster or notorious monsters it does not seem logical to use since you have Parsimony or Ebullience which are way more useful.

On that note, I'd like to see what you guys think about a stratagem for both Light & Dark Arts maybe for Level 99. Personally I don't know what would be nice for Light Arts seeing how I'm really satisfied with what we have. As for Dark Arts I have one suggestion, a "Manifestation" like effect on Elemental Magic. That's one thing we lack, the ability to Area of Effect our nukes. In situations like box farming in Abyssea it would be nice, as well as making it also Yellow Stagger trigger-able.

Another one I thought of is something like "Weakening elemental resistance based on the spell you cast." It would be similar to the -Ja spells. Some of you may think that's making it unbalanced, but you could make the strats' cost 2 instead 1, or something in that area to make it fair. This is just me thinking of different stuff, and I'm interested to what other Scholars think about it as well as post more ideas.

I think reduction of the merit stratagems to 1 instead of 2 would awesome! I think there should be a dark magic equivalent to perpetuance -Enhances the duration of your next black magic spell 2.0x useful for: bio, gravity, break, bind, shock spikes, helixes, klimaform. adding enhancing magic to rapture would be sweet, or making a new stratagem to enhance the potency of stoneskin, regen, regain, protect, shell, ect. Just geting some ideas out there.

honestly theres not much they can improve on stratagem wise (other then fixing the god awful meritstrats) if you think about it, weve enhanced our nukes and heals/enhances to the maximum... i think weve hit our limit. we might beable to get some form of augmentation to our grimorie tho >_> that would be cool. like addendum or something, that further enhances, or provides other job traits when under the effects of LA+ability.

I went into this issue in a different SCH thread, even if all the merits should be lowered to 1 we still have useless ones:

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Originally Posted by Rambus

I agree that SCH needs changing. There are a lot of imbalances ever since 80 came out with job vs. job but since this is about SCH here is my concerns for SCH while trying to have balance concern with the other jobs.

A lot of things said here I agree with already so I would like to say I support them.
About cure V, this spell needs to be given to any job that has cures for a main now. Logic of progression with the fact you’re seeing people in abyssea up to 3-4k hp reflects this is a must. All I can say is drop the static enmity on cure V that exists now. Give WHM an enmity down for cures as a trait that works outside current enmity caps. Giving such a trait and dropping the enmity rules for cure V will allow it to be reasonable to give cure V to RDM, PLD and SCH.

AS said earlier tabula rasa has too much time wasted using the other job abilities? Have Alacrity and parsimony atomically activated when under dark arts, and penury, celerity when under light arts. If you have the merit stratagems have those auto trigger as well. Allow light arts and dark arts to be used freely when under Tabula rasa.

Merit stratagems:
First all merit stratagems need to be one charge. Making them cost 2 means you can only use them with tablua rasa.

Altruism: This merit is useless because we have no light base nuke or critical light spell like a light based sleep spell that uses light arts/ addendum: white
Focalization: useless right now because magic accuracy is a joke in the current state of the game
Tranquility: nice concept would be useful with a 1 charge cost.
Equanimity: nice concept would be useful with a 1 charge cost.

Modus Veritas is useless now and a useless merit after the changes made to it.
Enlightement:
Does not follow the game description in what it does, it needs to be changed where you can like cast Reraise II that costs 135 mp under black arts.

Savant's pants +1/+2:
Going from +1 to +2 is not a real upgrade. In general this gear is useless because like I said before magic accuracy is a joke with the game in the current state. I also find it a bit unfair that gear like this is just an Enfeebling macro. Having too much situational gear like this is part of the reason we still have inventory space issues.

Savant's Gown +2:
It’s really hard for casual gamers to know what the enhancement is and even for hard core gamers it’s not an easy thing to test and takes a lot of time to do so. Please give more information on what it does please.

Savant's bonnet +1/+2:
This gear I used as an Ebullience macro and Enhancing magic. I would not mind toning down the bonus for Ebullience if you add real nuking stats on it like INT and MAB so it can be used more often. Like what I said about the SCH pants, too much situational gear like this is why people continuously complain about inventory issues.


Set bonuses do not do enough to agure full set over macro changes. If you want to keep the set as is then the set bonus needs to be better.

A way to do AoE light enfeebling magic like making silance AoE
A way to dark enchaacing magic to get the bonuses of perpetuance.

AoE haste, No reason not to allow it since say whm/sch can still AOE haste and stoneskin when needed.

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underline is my merit stuff in that post

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Originally Posted by Heck

While I like to say I enjoy and think scholar strats are really useful, I believe that our Dark Arts stratagem could be given more thought. With the introduction to Penance along with the +1 & +2 gloves it makes things like Regen or Refresh useful to use on you or other people; it's like a mini composure. But Immanence itself is a handful due to the fact that its hard to time or get the time right to attempt to make a skill-chain with your magic that you cast. In Abyssea where you fight monster or notorious monsters it does not seem logical to use since you have Parsimony or Ebullience which are way more useful.

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Why do people not know how to use Immanence?
Honestly, I'll let using Ebullience slide since well, Immanence is better but it actually does requires some skill to use, but saying Parsimony is better than Immanence in Abyssea? What the hell...

wont lie man, but parsimony is sexy for getting that ugly pendant to kick in

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Originally Posted by hideka

wont lie man, but parsimony is sexy for getting that ugly pendant to kick in

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I do hope you're joking.

If not, elaborate.

Maybe they mean keeping thier mp low and letting parsimony to last longer to get that 8 mab

I rather use SCH neck and use Immanence like you said, i am even able to get off a stone V > Alacrity, Immanence, Ebullience > aero V. padding that much into detonation is amazaing. course it strains my charges but I do not MB when I sc like that, well sometimes, free cast aero III.

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Originally Posted by Rambus

I rather use SCH neck and use Immanence like you said, i am even able to get off a stone V > Alacrity, Immanence, Ebullience > aero V. padding that much into detonation is amazaing. course it strains my charges but I do not MB when I sc like that, well sometimes, free cast aero III.

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Magic Burst Helices, can even get Ebullience in before hand. Really wish SE would introduce means of extending Helix duration, I'm not to big on new spells with II on the end. I'd rather see targeting weakness or Magic Bursting play a role, since both seem strategic.

My memory is fuzzy, but I don't even think you need Alacrity on your second nuke. I think I just did Immanence then cast at least, using gear like AF Feet and AFv2 Hat to speed up casting. Only issue is if Quick-Magic procs, you're nuking in trash, though I wouldn't mind simply because I could Alacrity and Magic Burst with the very spell I just closed with.

yes i meant as a means of keeping low MP >_> and why would i bother doing self skill chains when i can oneshot non bosses in abyssea :P and yes you do need alacrity on the second cast if the spell is above a T3 spell, T4 cast about 2-3 seconds too slow to SC with another spell, and T5 is really really hard to SC with, you need to have some really good fast cast builds (damn near close to cap lol), gearswaps on your strat animations, and precise timing or macros, and yes, Ebulience bursting your helicies is AMAZING damage. ive gotten over 1k Helicies on bursts, i think my record was 2.5k helix on ironclad during 3x magic.

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Originally Posted by Sotek

Magic Burst Helices, can even get Ebullience in before hand. Really wish SE would introduce means of extending Helix duration, I'm not to big on new spells with II on the end. I'd rather see targeting weakness or Magic Bursting play a role, since both seem strategic.

My memory is fuzzy, but I don't even think you need Alacrity on your second nuke. I think I just did Immanence then cast at least, using gear like AF Feet and AFv2 Hat to speed up casting. Only issue is if Quick-Magic procs, you're nuking in trash, though I wouldn't mind simply because I could Alacrity and Magic Burst with the very spell I just closed with.

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How does a V spell cast in time using 2 jas?

the highest spell I done to use without it was III spells, and helix is actally a tricky timing, I failed making Helix end SC before ( was more showing people how scs mix, i normally dont use helix in SC)

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Originally Posted by hideka

yes i meant as a means of keeping low MP >_> and why would i bother doing self skill chains when i can oneshot non bosses in abyssea :P and yes you do need alacrity on the second cast if the spell is above a T3 spell, T4 cast about 2-3 seconds too slow to SC with another spell, and T5 is really really hard to SC with, you need to have some really good fast cast builds (damn near close to cap lol), gearswaps on your strat animations, and precise timing or macros, and yes, Ebulience bursting your helicies is AMAZING damage. ive gotten over 1k Helicies on bursts, i think my record was 2.5k helix on ironclad during 3x magic.

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I dont use fast cast, it is all MAB/ INT as SCH/RDM, maybe too slow hitting macro? the timing is tricky but I am able, I showed how I macro on that thread.

But i do use those 3 jas and end with aero V to make SC

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Originally Posted by Rambus

How does a V spell cast in time using 2 jas?

the highest spell I done to use without it was III spells, and helix is actally a tricky timing, I failed making Helix end SC before ( was more showing people how scs mix, i normally dont use helix in SC)

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I mean Magic Burst Helix, 1k Helices are nice.

Not sure about closing without Alacrity, though. Not played my Scholar in forever, but I'm 100% certain I could close it with at least tIVs. I'm almost certain I remember doing Stone V + Water V > Reverberation on an Ironclad while Manaburning, simply because it was so impressive to pull off and then Magic Burst Hydrohelix for 1k (would have been an achievement if Modus Veritas didn't miss and cause me to rage).
100% certain about tIVs though, you just need to use AF Feet and/or Relic hat (note: I don't have relic hat) to cut the cast time before swapping in regular damage gear. When the servers are back up I'll see if I was right about tVs so I can comment on it further.

And of course you're not going to use Immanence on regular mobs, Hideka. I'll make this clear now, I'll only ever be talking in respect to NMs unless I specifically state otherwise. Talking about regular mobs is a massive waste of time.
If you can use it, Immanence offers you +60% damage, Ebullience is impossible to not use and gives +30%. Depending on the situation they'll either be equal or Immanence is twice as good as Ebullience. I don't buy using Parsimony for Ugly Pendant, even if I did, half the time Artemis' Medal is superior and the other half of the time +30% damage is still greater than +5MAB. Parsimony is trash.

I can see helix without Alacrity, not TIV or TV

unless your using fast cast gear/atma, not something i care to do so i have no idea for sure.

and dont forget about savant's chain, it may not be as good as ugly for T V but it gets close and better for helix.

with that said that should be reason enough not to worry about parsimony nukes to keep you under 50% mp.

some atma buffs may make savant's chain to pull a head for TV I have no idea i lost the ( don't know the word to use, inspiration ?) to do such things.

I know enough they they can be close in damage though

Because I said I would.

So yes, you can solo Skill Chain with tVs without Alacrity. Ignore the pathetic damage, I was naked. /Red Mage, Loquacious Earring and Scholar's loafers were the only Fast Cast I used, no Atma etc., so not even optimal. I see no reason you can't macro them out before casting finishes.