All You are not wrong by saying that shields should be considered in the overall formula. But the bottom line is a shield is exactly that a shield. Unless you are using Emergency Tactics, Physick is your strongest GCD heal, as you said yourself Adlo is a 300 heal vs Physicks 400. And yes while crit Adlos are great, the amount of times we get them is based on massive luck, so while it could be much greater than Cure II or Benefic II with or without the shield, its not something to counr on during standard gameplay.
The issue here isn't so much using Physick or not, which you should, it's not niche as you say, you and I both gave situations where Physick is warrented, and these aren't uncommon either. The real issue is encouraging fledgling Scholars to focus on Adlo more than they should. All to often have I encountered a newer SCH who thinks Adlo should be their go to heal, and then they run out of MP, even at later levels. If none of us say anything they are going to continue playing that way and have problems.
So, should Adlo be used more than Cure II and Benefic II, yes since the shield is a part of SCHs playstyle. But should we encourage people to use it as their primary form of GCD healing, no, Physick is both potency and MP efficient, especially now that we don't recover MP like we use to.
