Graniteskin

It was changed along with the implementation of astro so that whm wouldn't be mandatory in progression raiding. 18% as opposed to 10% mitigation on tank busters would be hard to pass up. It's the same reason they gave proshell to everyone. If it wasn't changed one of the healer slots would be locked to whm specifically for those two spells.

The strength on Stoneskin is not about the percentage but about the fact it stacks with Galvanize.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sunako

Because astro would cry in the corner with their 10% stoneskin.

---

My point exactly, they dont cry because they dont get quick cast stoneskin because its not as useful.

Each healer has their benefits, and graniteskin was one of WHMs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by EZ5902

Each healer has their benefits, and graniteskin was one of WHMs.

---

Fast stoneskin may seem weak but its not useless and it's there. So its also one of WHM benefits. Just weaker than the old benefit.
Same goes for Enhanced Medica, that trait is really cool.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by zuzu-bq

Fast stoneskin may seem weak but its not useless and it's there. So its also one of WHM benefits. Just weaker than the old benefit.
Same goes for Enhanced Medica, that trait is really cool.

---

I'm still on the side that the loss of graniteskin was a direct nerf to a core identity of White Mage. Even Yoship did apologize for it during an early live letter because it was to make AST viable, but also said they made up for it with the stronger healing toolkit. Still, a fast 10% stoneskin costs the same as Cure II at level 60. So it's not only weaker in mitigation, it's weak in the MP cost department. Can argue you are better off healing the damage either through direct heal or regen in most situations because they probably didn't need the extra HP. If you have free GCD, sure toss it up, or DPS. It's still a bit more than just a percentage nerf.

Of course the Stoneskin nerf was made for both reasons, because 18% were too strong and to help AST to fit more in raid. And yes, stoneskin is weaker now, at the same time still usefull.

Saying it was a nerf to its core, there I disagree. WHM's core is to have burst Healing and Damage with high potency spells. Nerfing a shielding spell is not a nerf to WHM's soul and essence.

As it stands right now stone skin is a complete waste of MP. It was fine at 18% as a single target strong shield. It didn't take away from SCH shields because it was not AoE. My WHM is at 56 right now and my Cure II for the same MP is healing for twice as much as a stone skin on someone with 20,000 hp.

Well, strictly speaking Stoneskin was still a waste of MP when looking at amount mitigated compared to Cure II. Even back then a Stoneskin (at 18%) wouldn't match up to Cure II in terms of potency. In both GCD as well as MP efficiency, Stoneskin was and still is lacking in efficiency for it's "potency"

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by karateorangutang

Just out of curiosity, my scholar is only i185-ish, what kinda of shield does a critted adlo give for scholar at around i200?

---

I'm i209 SCH and I've hit 5.5k crit on a war. So, 11k shield.

You can't compare efficiency of a pure shielding spell to a pure healing spell. And Stoneskin is not a waste of MP, its just extremely situational just like other skills most healer has are situational. As a spell of few uses it looks useless since most times it would be bad, but at that perfect moment, its either amazing or the best thing you have.