Uncap Stoneskin, please.

[TimeMage]

Well, the title says it. If Stoneskin remains capped at 350 HP, it soon will become totally worthless. While spells like Blink scale perfectly with the increasing strength of the enemies, since, no matter if the hit is of 10 or 400 damage, it will absorb two, stoneskin only absorbs a certain amount, and that amount is now less than what many NMs can deal in one hit.

Uncapping stoneskin would let it help soften the harder blows better, and absorb two or three lighter ones. I can't imagine how uncapping it would break the game, either, so I think it is totally reasonable to uncap it. Let the player's MND and Enhancing skill decide the size of the stoneskin, not some arbitrary cap designed in the 75 era.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Something something Enhances Stoneskin Effect gear.

[MDenham]

Great. That puts it up to 450. At present, and assuming the caster is (1) a WHM/SCH wearing full Enhancing Magic Skill gear w/full merits in that (442 skill at present under Light Arts; at 99, that'll probably be 496 assuming no future gear updates that help with that) and (2) not brewing...

Well, it'd be around a 1000HP Stoneskin effect if it were uncapped. I'd have no problem with the effect being somewhere around 700 at this point without taking the "enhances Stoneskin effect" gear into account, though.

---

At present, anything in the way of (skill + MND*3) over 540 is useless - which means that a WHM/SCH is guaranteed to have capped Stoneskin at this point (well, assuming they've got Light Arts up and they've got capped Enhancing skill). They don't even have to be in Abyssea for this to happen. Clearly a fourth tier would make sense to add, and one that does exceed the current 350HP cap - simply because it'd provide a distinction between WHM90/SCH45 and WHM99/SCH49 with respect to how effective their Stoneskin is.

So: at the point where an "uncapped" Stoneskin would hit 600HP (that is, Enhancing skill + 3*MND is 790 or higher), Stoneskin should start increasing again. If this behaved as a fourth tier (4*(floor(Enhancing/3) + MND) - K, like the previous tiers - in this case, K=700 or so, vs. the previous tiers' 60 and 190), we'd see WHMs at cap firing off a Stoneskin of somewhere in the high 600s or low 700s.

K could probably be reduced to as low as ~580 without seriously affecting balance issues (a second upper cap could be instituted if necessary, although it likely would only be hit by WHMs using brews barring pieces in the future with Enhancing magic skill boosts in the 30s).

[SpankWustler]

Equipment that enhances Stoneskin comes out at right rate to keep the spell going up in accordance with player HP. However, new stuff hits so hard that I doubt it is scaling with the damage we take.

An increased cap would be neat. Stoneskin II would be neat.

[Raksha]

I heartily endorse this good and/or service.

Last time I checked I could cap stoneskin naked. Completely uncapping it might be a bit much, but it definitely needs some sort of boost.

[Eth]

Agree with the OP. The stoneskin cap is one of those areas where the game still seems stuck at 75. It makes so little sense to not have the effect scale up further - considering that HP and damage dealt by monsters in Abyssea have gone up considerably - that it seems more likely due to dev laziness rather than deliberation. It's also an insult to well geared mages that they do not receive the benefit of a superior stoneskin.

A steady stream of new items that push the cap higher in steps of 20 or 30 is not the answer because of inventory constraints. AF3+2 items did provide some relief to mage jobs by enabling retirement of some items, but with haven hose, siegel sash and stone gorget, career mages are once again in perma-79/80 mode.

[Anucris]

They just need to raise cap or add stoneskin 2. Otherwise what would ATMs like "earth wyrm" do? It gives full benefit of earth spells. So if uncapped SS would never wear off? It just needs to be raised.

[Neisan_Quetz]

... Please reread that atma, then tell me what it does.

[Anucris]

lol didnt even have to reread it... now that i think about it. it says earthday/weather doesnt it. for some reason i thought it was spells also.