@ WHM who stoneskin whole party

lol. I used to stop doing this in fights like Turn 2 or King Behemoth where the constant damage to everyone will remove stoneskin in seconds and MedicaII would be a better choice. But then people would yell out, "Stoneskin please!", or the other SCH/WHM/tank will then start casting Stoneskin.

So even if SS will be useless to the fight, I cast it anyway just to give people a sense of security and peace of mind.

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Originally Posted by Kinseykinz

Those saying it's a waste of time just don't get the first rule of healing: Better safe than sorry.




Except: The only target that should need any cure at all from you as a WHM (assuming there's a SCH in the party) is the MT. The SCH's healing does more than enough and you can, get this, use that 1000 MP you say will 'regen before I need it anyway' in CS DDing Garuda.

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Because I am a healer? I still need to cast a heal or so, so if I am spamming DPS during that part, I am not saving the mana for when I need it? The only heal the MT needs for that is a regen, anyway. But, I suppose you make an exceptional point here. Cast SS 500x on a fight so I can spam DD abilities and negate the saved mana the SS brings. Kosher!

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Not only that: How many times have you missed someone with that Cure III. Because if you cast it right before she disappears, Melee and Tanks are out of range, if you cast it when people stack and hide...very rarely does everyone stack on the same side. (which yeah shame on them, but healers adjust to the party)

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Meh. All non-tanks ranged party or move along. I mean, if we're going to min/max, then that's my stance, anyway.

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Oh and as to calling it a pointless preheal: I can actually keep my WAR tank friend alive on many low-heal things in full Cleric's stance with just SS's. Single-target 18% damage mitigation is nothing to sneeze at. And the pro to SS is unless I am missing something, unlike your cures, it's not effected by CS. So you can even cast it without having to go in and out of CS like you do with a cure. Does this work for everything? No. But it can eat a crap-ton of damage you're not giving it any credit for.

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I do this in dungeons all the time!!! I totally get its value. Just not interested in it for a lot of the 8-man content. That 30 seconds we are spending waiting for me--the only player who has to cast 9 buffs before we start--could be spent on the fight learning the mechanics. Most of the mechanics on any boss are not game-breaking should you not enter the fight with stoneskin.

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And no, making it party wide would either gimp it or give WHM something too similar to SCH's tool kit. It's fine single target.

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Fair enough.

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As to the attitude: 'well they're learning they're just gonna wipe anyway' How would you like it if DD's and Tanks took that attitude. Oh, it doesn't matter if I get out of the AoE damage, we're just practicing anyway...Oh who cares if I did the proper rotation...wear the proper gear...use my Defense cooldowns effectively.... Part of the learning curve IS knowing how much damage is going to happen to everyone in each phase of the battle. SE gives WHMs (and SCH's) a tool that helps them keep their hate low and basically gives every party member a 'free hit'. Why wouldn't you take a couple seconds (time when people are chatting anyway) to just prebuff the inevitable?

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You're comparing a pre-fight mechanic to all in-fight mechanics. Hardly reasonable. I am not talking about not healing people in a fight, I am talking about the efficiency vs. value of a spell before most fights. The hassle of casting stoneskin on all targets before the 20 wipes most DF-type parties are guaranteed to have is just lackluster for me. That's my prerogative, and I have a right to it. I SS the tanks before the pull, and frankly, that's good enough for many fights like this!

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If it was so bloody pointless, every SCH and tank I know wouldn't be casting it so much.

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The tank can cast it if he wants--makes sense. A SCH casting it is a complete waste of mana and time, imo. Doing so before is absolutely a waste, especially if your wonderful WHM is casting their buffed version on everyone.

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And yes, in dungeons I have SS on the tank before every pull...every time, last mob has 10-15% health I'm casting SS so tank without missing a beat can grab next set, Why? Because that gives me about 10 seconds where I can Repose/DD/virus or chill until they need a heal. I have SS on the party before they enter the boss room in every dungeon as well...again pre-casting during last mob before entrance's dead.

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I wasn't talking about dungeons. I am talking about 8-man content. Different animals.

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So maybe, instead of saying it's a time-eater or wasteful spell, learn to time your usage better.

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I have no idea what "learn to time your usage better" means. It's a pointless precast for most of the 8-man content as a blanket precast. You can't change my mind on this. A lot of people see it my way; a lot see it your way. I am just chiming in to show support for the OP's view on this particular instance of using it. Complete pointless time sink before fights like Garuda.

Why does it matter? You guys are crying because people get something else to click? People are watching cut scenes and chatting it up before a pull anyway so what the hell does it matter if someone puts up a ss on everyone. If you don't like you just right click it off you.

Has anyone mentioned the fact that adding Stoneskin onto players with full HP is effectively giving them spare HP in case they get hit by a powerful attack? No? Well, I guess I just did then. I always Stoneskin players, even during certain fights, because that extra buffer can be the difference between getting 1-shot by a strong attack or living to fight on. I've never had anyone complain about getting stoneskin, so I guess the OP is one of the minority... or just a troll.

For future posters/debaters, please be aware that the OP is saying SSing everybody pre-combat is useless, he is not saying SS during combat/in general is worthless, thank you :).

Regarding precasting SS.... Personally I'll just SS the tanks and myself, and tell the tank's we're good to go, but while I'm waiting (maybe the tank is adjusting his seat, yawning, talking to his/her mom....I dunno), I will continue to SS everybody else, once combat starts, then I'll stop SS (Combat Regen is slowwwww).

On an unrelated note, how I wish SS can become an off GCD instant cast skill with suitable cooldown (20 seconds maybe?), it will add sooooooooooo much utility for WHMs :D.

Hiya, it has it's place, it's debatable but it's useful for all three extreme primals:

Garuda EM: It'll generally last on the melee till wicked wheels, I tend to keep it on them to avoid instakills if they lose track of when they need to get clear.

Titan EM: Safety blanket for the first set of plumes whilst people get into the groove.

Ifrit EM: Stops people getting knocked straight back out again by the opening vulcan blast.

Not to mention, if I'm in a pug, it's a threat headstart that can be rather necessary sadly.

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Originally Posted by JonFarron

You're really assuming things here. In Titan HM, not every tank is super geared, what if you're helping a tank get their relic? Do you know how hard it is for a tank that isn't relic to keep aggro from a fully geared healer? That stoneskin in the beginning allows the WHM to skip a Medica (assuming theres a SCH in the party who can Succor it) effectively lowering their hate in the beginning considerably. What if you're solo healing? (Which is very possible for a geared WHM to do, if there's a Bard in the party) That stoneskin prevents a Medica, you can instead wait until the next tumults or jump. Solo healing WHMs draw MASSIVE aggro, and every bit counts. But you wouldn't know, considering your WHM isn't 50 yet.

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Do you know how many times I run Titan HM DF a day? Or look for PF groups doing Titan on my SCH? This is not just an issue where you think I've seen it a couple times and have misjudged WHMs completely: this occurs quite frequently.

I am almost always stuck solo healing post heart because the other healer ends up dead.

The stoneskin in the beginning is actually just a waste of time and a crutch: similar to building LB. If you need to build LB on Titan, you are not ready for Titan. If you need to stoneskin pre-pull on Titan, your healers are not ready for Titan. It's really as simple as that.

We never were discussing solo healing Titan HM. If I wanted a class to solo heal Titan HM, I'd take a SCH over a WHM due to all the issues you just brought up (which are really non-issues for most competent WHMs).

Yes solo healing WHM draws massive aggro when you play it like trash just like how my Eos draws massive aggro when I use a rouse'd whispering dawn when the party is already near full HP. The overhealing generates a crap ton of aggro. Same for medica 2.

It isn't a hard issue. SCHs deal with it by splitting threat between the fairy and themselves. WHM have this lovely ability called shroud which serves two purposes.

My alt's WHM is actually 50. I heal, on my SCH, with competent WHMs who have no issues with threat and don't stoneskin pre-pull because they realize it isn't needed on Titan.

I list a crap ton of fights where I think stoneskin pre-pull is worth it and ones where it isn't. Titan is not one of them.

I don't think stoneskin pre-pull is all useless: I think on certain fights it is, though.

Stating that you think SCHs don't have to deal with mana issues or threat is hilarious. Get YOUR SCH to 50 before talking about healing from a SCH PoV. Meanwhile, my WHM alt and SCH main will continue to heal DF Titan HM without incident.

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Except for the fact that you effectively just wasted 1000 MP vs waiting a mere 24 seconds to cast SS on everyone before the fight for 0 MP.

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This is the point we're trying to get through your thick skull: that MP is irrelevant. If you are running into MP issues on either healer, you have certain things to look at:

1) People are dying and you are having to res frequently (not a healer issue)
2) You are bad and spamming AoE heals when you don't need to be
3) You are shrouding when you shouldn't be, wasting mana regeneration because you pulled hate spamming medica like a dolt instead of letting the other healer pick up the slack

Edit: Why am I not surprised? Half the WHMs who have posted in this thread have done nothing relevant in terms of endgame healing.

Unless the fight is going to be intense and it's possible to go OOM, pre-fight stone shields make sense, otherwise it's pointless ya.
the damage mitigation of your stone shields are only about 1 Medica cast plus some tickes from regen on tanks, if this bit of mana is going to make any difference in your fights, you might as well just find another group.
imo under most circumstances pre-cast stone shield is not worth everybody's 24 seconds. (you can cast them if the group's not ready, but if the group's ready, just stop it)

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Originally Posted by Hitome

This is the point we're trying to get through your thick skull: that MP is irrelevant.

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>.<

Chiming in, just a little... MP isn't an issue on fights where people are playing well and not taking much damage. This much is true. You can pretty much spam lower-level Cures to your hearts content and never run out of MP, and if you have to occasionally spike a few more powerful Heals and AOE Cures then Shroud keeps you well topped up. However for certain fights, AoE Healspam or Cure II spam can end up being needed, which cuts into your MP reserve quite drastically. This is usually either due to silly fight mechanics (Ultima EM? Turn 2 0-click method? Sirens's Non-esuna-able Healing debuffs?) or people being unable to dodge stuff due to inexperience or lag (Feathers + a 2x Wicked Wheel is a good example). Normally a Bard can keep you covered, but sometimes there's no bard or you're in the middle of a DPS-check phase where using Ballad would be detrimental (Turn4/5?).

I agree that Pre-buffing Stoneskin is not needed for certain content. And that you could potentially take that notion to extremes and make the same case for Protect or Food or even up-to-date gear. I just like having it there in case brown stuff hits the air circulator because the cost of putting it up is very very small and you don't need to wait for everyone to be gathered together before you start. I guess it's a min/max thing - some people enjoy trying to get the highest possible performance out of their classes whether it ends up making a difference in the end or not. It might not usually mean the difference between wiping and succeeding, but it gives you a slight extra buffer to work with (quite literally in Stoneskin's case!) :)

Honestly..... if people are just sitting there waiting... why the hell does it matter if the healer decides to throw a ss on someone.... You make it seem like its a bad thing to have it up before the pull. Like oh shit now we are going to wipe because the tank has an ss on him pre pull gg noobs. Please take your QQs somewhere else or at least come up with something that makes sense to cry about.

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Originally Posted by Maelwys

>.<

"Sirens's Non-esuna-able Healing debuffs?)"

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WAT?

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I agree that Pre-buffing Stoneskin is not needed for certain content.

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That's all any of us are really saying.

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I just like having it there in case brown stuff hits the air circulator

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Interesting way to use a cliche! 1 point.

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because the cost of putting it up is very very small

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It's annoying to do over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and you get the idea. Especially if it really makes no difference to anything as to whether or not it's up. It "wastes" time, and contributes to early-onset carpal tunnel.

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Originally Posted by Jyoeru

WAT?

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A FC member swore blind that they couldn't use "leeches" to get them off last week.
This may have been a Derp.

Twintania's Non-esuna-able healing debuffs then. You get the idea though... there are times that your normal "comfortable" level of healing output can start to struggle to keep the party topped up for whatever reason; and your MP starts to suffer as a result. Obviously with better gear and better skilled players these situations become less frequent outside of certain particular fights :)

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It's annoying to do over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and you get the idea. Especially if it really makes no difference to anything as to whether or not it's up. It "wastes" time

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Agreed.

There are certainly times that a Stoneskin ends up not being used. It's not being able to predict when those times are, in advance, that is the problem for me.

I guess it just comes down to how confident you are that that the team you're with will clear the content you're running without getting into difficulties.
I'm a bit OCD, and the warning bells go off in my head if I could do something to help prevent a Derp moment, even if that Derp moment never actually ends up happening.

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and contributes to early-onset carpal tunnel.

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As an aside, about a decade ago I used to get quite severe wrist pains and "tight" finger tendons, and had to take some steps to mitigate my Mouse usage - to the point of training myself to use my left hand for the mouse in work during the day and my right hand at home later for gaming, and using a joypad instead of the mouse and keyboard presses instead of clicking whenever possible.

These days I only get a slight twinge in my right wrist after prolonged typing sessions, never after gaming.
In FFXIV I find it it's a heck of a lot easier on my wrists to use the numpad for teammate targetting and keypresses or joypad buttons for ability casting instead of the mouse.

I'd probably draw the line at using automated macros for casting multiple Stoneskins though, because it'd take some control away from me whenever we have more than one person casting it :)

hey guys, I guess I change my opinion from reading all the replies here. What I meant to say was that on many fights (like some ex-primals), the stoneskin will be dissolved in the first few seconds from everyone, and mana/hate is not an issue. 1 medica/cure iii, sucor will solve that. So prebuffing 7x3 21 seconds before each pull takes a bit and is not worth it.

I do recognize that in other fights it may be very useful to do so, and especially if you can make a macro to SK everyone with 1 button, I guess it is easy to do and possibly worth it pre-fight even if in some cases it most likely wont help or change the outcome.

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Originally Posted by Squa

just stop it, most of the time its just wasted anyways.

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Eh... I give this attempt a 4/10. It's rather poorly constructed, and too easily disproven to warrant higher, but this is the lodestone, so you'll get a few bites.

I like that whm use stoneskin before fights. when I am playing as whm, I usually stoneskin everyone. Even during certain fights I am glad to see mine gets refreshed. The sandworm in cutter's hits you with a sand cyclone that has a large dot that needs to be dispelled. If you have stoneskin on, the dot doesn't get applied.

Waste of time...I think not.

I use SS prefight on everyone. Now, I may not be the BEST WHM to ever grace the game, but I have managed to get my relic, so I guess my opinion is just as good as everyone elses.

While people are casting their buffs, it's better than standing around doing nothing proactive. It takes less time to cast SS on the full party than it does for everyone to coordinate the plan. I manage SS and protect in the time it takes to first pull (if I skip the cutscenes, that is). Where can you go wrong if A: it doesn't take up time and B: doesn't hurt. So what if in certain fights it doesn't do a whole lot of good? What does it hurt? If anything, it gives some buffer for that first hit.

I can see where it may eat time if the party wipes and time is limited. Hopefully you don't wipe. If you do, it's time to change strategies anyways.

I haven't done coils yet and if I find when I get to it that my SS is useless, I am willing to stand corrected. So far, though, SS hasn't let me down.

As a SCH, I get not using it.
Pop a Succor, Adlo the Tank(s) and pull.

But don't be hatin' on a WHM shielding people!!!

I will wait for that shit, yo!

Pre-casting stoneskin is, in my opinion, a measure of insurance when starting a fight.

If things go wrong on the pull, that's several thousand less damage I have to heal. If someone pulls threat and gets punched by the boss, they're less likely to die before the tank recovers and heals come in. If I don't have to medica the first blast/tumults/whatever, that's more healing I can do later on without pulling hate. Etc, etc.

In practice the amount of damage it prevents is small, and when things go well, the effort is basically pointless. You could argue the same for virus, eye for an eye, and several other spells. ("certainly the boss hitting 10% less a few times won't make or break the fight if the tank is being healed properly...") but I don't live in a world where everything always goes right. As healer it's my job to stack the odds in our favor with as many tools as I can.

Some encounters warrant SS before the pull, some don't. With that being said, I always SS everyone at the start of any raid/dungeon, and then prepull on any boss. I also stoneskin tanks before every pull. Doing this takes literally zero time with the help of pre-casting at the end of pulls, and doesn't slow anything down at all, even more so if you have swiftcast.

The only time where SS actually takes raid members time is when the raid is actually ready to pull and you are still buffing people. However, if any of you have actually done high level progression in a raid setting, you would know that almost after every wipe, people talk about what went wrong and what can be done to correct it which takes time, and also that people understand that you should be going in with your absolute best, which means repaired gear, HQ food eaten, Protect/SS/Succor before pulling, etc. Any advantage to help you win, or at least push you into a new phase in which you can learn is time well spent.

I'm going to go ahead and say most people in this thread have not downed T5, or even experienced it for that matter. Well, it is a perfect example of where precasting SS is a valuable asset. I am the spot healer/OT healer for phase one. Since lb3 is incredibly hard to build for my group, we put our OT at 1HP and heal him, effectively shooting our LB through the roof. Doing this however, means I have to be very attentive on his HP, and it detracts from spot healing, during which, DPS can die from liquid hells. Even if we didnt do this strategy, which we didn't adopt until recently, we have had a single DPS eat three liquid hells in a row resulting in barely living due to SS. For those that don't know, SS on a 4.3kish HP target nullifies approximately one liquid hell's initial damage. This means that I get to conserve probably a thousand mana or so in phase 1 due to pre-fight SS, as well as assist MT healing because I have less to do, as well as adopt our current strategy for building LB.

pre-fight SS does not hurt anyone. Hell, most people are more than glad to take an extra 5-10 seconds for SS cast because they want to take a drink and relax for a second. The only people I have met that have zero patience for the extra 10 seconds SS takes are snotty douches blessed with the maturity of a 12 year old, who mostly suck at gaming to begin with.

pre-fight SS isn't just for mana efficiency, its also for time efficiency and insurance. Instead of healing for that first phase of garuda EX or MoogleKing, you can be pulling 170-200 DPS in cleric stance, healing MT on twin, ensuring DPS won't get oneshotted by a soldier/knight/dreadnaught that wasnt picked up correctly, reducing any chance that you will pull snap aggro, and it also allows you to put your attention on any number of things instead on healing.

The only arguments against pre-fight SS are out of laziness/impatience, both of which are immature qualities and would get you kicked from any respectable high end progression group.
Sometimes I get sick of casting 8 stoneskins and a protect after every wipe, especially if wipes are on initial phases of a fight. But then I remember, it's my job and responsibility to my partners to play my job to the highest caliber possible. That means casting SS before a fight unless asked to do otherwise.

Average health for DPS in my raid: 4,550+ = ~800 shield
Iirc, our warrior tank has 8.8k HP without any CDs = ~1,600 shield
Our paladin tank has around 6,800 HP without CDs = ~1200 shield
Our healers each have roughly 4300-4400 HP = ~800 shield

800 x 6 + 1600 + 1200 = 7,600 HP absorbed before the encounter has even started, not even taking into account Succor. That, my friends, is alot of mitigation, which you should be taking advantage of.

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Originally Posted by Slark

it's my job and responsibility to my partners to play my job to the highest caliber possible

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Nicely said, in many regards. But, two things: you can't discredit someone because you did turn 5 and assume most players haven't. Stop it.

And, the mentality that something is your "job" on a game is where part of the problem is. Yes, it's an MMO. Sure, the group will have expectations. Yes, you should do what the group expects if you're not leading it. But nothing in this game is your job. It's a game. Stop treating it like a job and have fun. If you're not having fun, why are you paying someone else to do a job?

And that's important because you get these players who treat this game like it's a job. Players who demand you have the absolute best gear with the absolute best materia with the absolute best infinite stack of food and potions, and that you've watched all of the videos and can do the absolute best rotation for the absolute best DPS. The game isn't designed for that. Maybe you get a newer fight that could benefit from the absolutism the gaming community brings, but as I always say, if you're bringing a nuke to kill a bunny, something is terribly wrong with that.

There's this attitude that forms, and people with this attitude start a trend that something must be done X way in Y manner. Those people tend to ruin MMO culture in my opinion. You get the extreme elitists vs. the super casual wood choppers. And if you're not bringing the nukes to the rabbit, you get stuck trying to raid with people who only know how to chop wood.

Meh.

Edit: In other words, it becomes (and already is) a solo grind. Don't come to X group until you've spent 1000 hours on your own getting the best everything so when you get here, we're not "carrying you." Bah. That attitude really needs to GTFO.

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Originally Posted by Jyoeru

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It is the same in real life. Those with better qualification will get to join a better company with better pay. It is also a respect to the rest of the team who want to progress, they did the same grinding just so they do not turn out to be a burden. So, if people can do it, why can't you?

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Originally Posted by Jyoeru

snip.

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My intention wasn't particularly to bash people, nor was it out of malice. However, if someone lacks the experience, they don't understand all of the applications of their kit, and where it may shine the brightest. Doing an armory search of a few people in this thread, it seems that was the case. They have no clue how important pre-fight SS can be, and to spread misinformation that it almost always is near-useless, to the point where they don't even cast it is completely incorrect. This is not a matter of subjectivity. One method is and always will be superior to the other until content is on farm status. Even then, it should still be used, but I could see the argument taking a little more hold then.

Playing an MMO is not a job; perhaps that was the wrong term to use. However, if you are signing up for anything, you do owe the respect to your team, friends, or partners, even if they are duty finder strangers, to make sure the run goes as fast and smoothly as possible. I have always prided myself on playing to my best. To me, reading up on my entire role, testing, theorycrafting, and applying, have always been the funnest part of PVE to me, and many others. It is only "work" if you perceive it as such. To me, doing that stuff is fun, not work. Precast stoneskin is one of the many ways you can play your best.

I am not advocating spending 9 hours a day researching and playing a game just to min/max your character if that is not your cup of tea (doing that for FFXIV would render you out of material in probably a week or two, or less though, and in MMO's, there always exists someone else to do it for you). However, if you understand a mechanic, and you refuse to do it just because you are being a slacker, that is a completely different story. Everyone else hauled ass to get to be a positive influence on the raid. For a single person to slack shows an incredible amount of immaturity, disrespect, and it also reveals a spoiled, apathetic brat who doesn't deserve the privilege of playing with 7 hard workers.

Since when is it a "solo grind"? I can, and did, gather Darklight with my friends, I capped Myth with my friends, Hell, I even leveled up with some of my friends. I also ran people through instances to get them crafted gear/DL, gave charity titan runs to about 30 people, gave charity hydra/chimera/garuda to even more. There are so many opportunities to play with your friends while gearing up. For me, it was never a solo grind. BUT, if you showed up to a raid in full strategos when you had ample time to get darklight and you never capped myth, you aren't eating food, and you do not understand your class, then you clearly are not showing that you want to be there, nor have the commitment.

To put it another way: Someone cannot come to a gymnasium one day a week and expect to get into the olympics. Why? because they put no work or commitment in, and as such, they are going to be terrible. Why would you have someone who knows nothing about what they are doing, when you can have a highly capable individual for literally no extra pay or work?
You might think it's silly that I compared an MMO to the olympics, but it really is not, and it applies to any situation in life where you have to work as a team, be it group projects in school, sports, video games, personal commitments, military operations, etc. Bring your best so things go as smoothly as possible.

I don't get it, Stoneskin is entirely a positive thing. to not use it, or worse, to bash people for using it is so contradicting it makes my head hurt. People complain about bad healers all the time, then when you have a healer doing something right, you bash him for it? Ugh...

the only time i feel it's useless is in titan hm
it's literally gone within the first 10 seconds of the fight.
but it still doesn't even matter that much
OH NO YOU'VE STONE SKINNED US OOOOOOOH

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Originally Posted by Maelwys

And that you could potentially take that notion to extremes and make the same case for Protect or Food or even up-to-date gear.

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No. Let's not go there.

Protect takes a couple seconds to cast. In fact, you can apply it during the pull/shortly after it and not receive much of a mana hit. Food takes no time to cast but has about a half second delay before you can perform an action.

Stoneskin takes much more time to apply to everyone. You also apply it to pets, right? That's the very first thing I do when I summon my fairy: apply it to my pet and any other pets in the vicinity because WHMs often forget to do so.

We are not telling you stoneskin is useless pre-pull but that it takes too much time to keep reapplying every time. There are certain fights where I would want it reapplied every time even if it takes that extra time like Twintania and Ifrit Ex.

When your raid leader calls a wipe on Titan Ex because a healer or tank was landslided off (and you can't continue the fight) and this is 1 minute into the fight, you're just going to have to reapply stoneskin again as soon as you resurrect. This is where I consider it a waste of time. Maybe cast one stoneskin on lower HP members that might die to the first set of plumes and that's it. Adlo on the tank will suffice and succor for the first tumult usually handles things coupled with 1 medica.

Stone-skin nulls weak damaging knock-backs like garuda in ultima. . . How is something that pro useless. u_u I'm getting it as a scholar because of that reason & more. (More of stone-skinning the dps when I have nothing to do except watch my dots tick*)

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Originally Posted by Squa

just stop it, most of the time its just wasted anyways.

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Um, no. If it protects you when you accidentally pull too much hate and thus saves me having to be distracted from keeping the tank alive to heal your worthless hide (lousy WHM's oath), then it's not a waste.

Late to the party I know, but it needed to be said. ;)

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Originally Posted by faceroll

the only time i feel it's useless is in titan hm

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Titan is one of the most useful times to use Stoneskin; 1000-1500 HP mitigated from a Mountain Buster.

It's actually pretty useful, having ss up at the start lets you skip having to cast medica after first stomps. Really useful for threat management with pugs.

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Originally Posted by EveAlexandra

It's actually pretty useful, having ss up at the start lets you skip having to cast medica after first stomps. Really useful for threat management with pugs.

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This. Enmity is a big issue when you're solo healing Titan, as you're often doubling up on healing. Mitigation is the king of healing enmity mangement.

Pretty sure everything worth saying has already been said, but I'm still gonna back up the point that there's no harm in casting Stoneskin, especially when heals aren't required and you've got some spare cast-time. I also understand that one of the arguments against casting it on DPS is that they have low HP so it isn't as effective on them than on a tank, which is ridiculous anyway, considering that if they have a low maximum HP, surely any boost to that is worthwhile...

Someone mentioned why not just pop a Medica or CIII in the beginning for the same result. Enmity aside, casting a 465 (IIRC) mp spell in the beginning has a negative trickle down effect on mp efficiency esp if something goes wrong early. It's more noticeable than one would think. Besides Medica heals too little and C3 requires huddling. SS mitigation is still king.

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Originally Posted by Tinker

BTW, just a pair of handy, simple macros for all you stoneskinners out there

Makes life easier

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tried that when i started playing :)

unfortunately its normally something like

1. load in
2. stoneskin self and tank
3. wait around for other people to skip the cutscene
4. cast protect as soon as they load in so you hit everyone before they run off like twats
5. stoneskin the rest after you put regen on tank for first pull



i do it everywhere apart from turn2, and rarely if ever do people make it through a dungeon/primal with it still intact,
and its not even 24seconds because half the party already has it by the time everyones loaded in and if theres 2 whm i do the bottom 4 while they usually do the top 4

Haha
Can I ask which class you play.

The reason personally why I do it, and reapply when I can throughout the raid or whatever is to prevent DoTs, I especially try to keep it up on our casters so they can keep their dps up, also in mitigation terms it already means i'm one heal ahead for whoever its on.

If you do not see the benefit from casting Stoneskin before bosses or on load in during dungeons then that's your own thing.

As a WHM on all boss fights, Stoneskin keeps my mana pool a little higher and my threat lower.

Example - Titan HM that folks have quoted is worthless because of first tumult

if I medica on first tumult I am usually 2nd on hate list instantly, then you have second tumult is dps is a bit low and then titan jumps. 3 medicas that early in the fight is high high high agro

Why not stoneskin party first so I don't have to cast medica at all on first tumult? Saving my enmity and giving tank another round to get sufficient hate. As well on Titan HM, Stoneskin during fight is a waste? Not when you know mountain crash is incoming. I pug Titan every day almost to help people on their relics, so I am not always grouping with ilvl 80-90s, and even if I was I am not going to change my Stoneskin habit.

Every boss fight Stoneskin is worthwhile, i'm sorry that you are too impatient to see the benefit. WHM have extremely broken agro in this game, anything I can do to mitigate that and the dmg to the group is worthwhile to me. I'd rather end the fight with a healthy mana pool and everyone alive than have the group die because I ran out of mana.

If somebody does not want to be buffed, then I can live with it. Usually longer than that person.

If someone does not care about the extra 10% from Stoneskin, I will happily stop curing when his HP drop below the 10% mark. I have no problem with letting people die who think that they have to tell me how to do my job.

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Originally Posted by sheepysheepy

1. load in
2. stoneskin self and tank
3. wait around for other people to skip the cutscene
4. cast protect as soon as they load in so you hit everyone before they run off like twats
5. stoneskin the rest after you put regen on tank for first pull

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Mh yeah I basically stoneskin people when they get out of cutscene/arrive to the battle, so in the order in which they do that. Kinda hard making a macro for it.

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If someone does not care about the extra 10% from Stoneskin, I will happily stop curing when his HP drop below the 10% mark. I have no problem with letting people die who think that they have to tell me how to do my job.

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Not a single MMO has a cure spell that can heal the debuff known as "stupid"

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Originally Posted by Squa

just stop it, most of the time its just wasted anyways.

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I've just wasted my few seconds reading this nonsense.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Katchii

Not a single MMO has a cure spell that can heal the debuff known as "stupid"

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But with a proper game design, you would be able to throw Mega-Potions of Intelligence on other people.