Make Stoneskin 2 instant cast

As mentioned, I suspect that cast time is there to hamper it's use in 4 man speed runs.

The old bug of being able to stoneskin the group mid combat following a raise may well have played a part in SE's decision as well =(

Personally I only really use it at the beginning of a dungeon or raid or if an opportunity arrises where I can get enough of a head start over the group that they are going to run through me as the cast completes. I'm firmly in the 'swiftcast is for holy' camp as far as dungeons go =)

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Originally Posted by thunderbreak

It was rhetorical. You and I already know the answer, you reserving to a put-down just confirmed it.

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It was a loaded question because you inserted a presupposition. Being last to speak doesn't make you correct by default, just the most persistent.

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

Swiftcast is for Holy :P

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No, Swiftcast is for infight raising Dragoons :P

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Originally Posted by thunderbreak

B. Can you think of a reason why SS2 has a casting time?

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Ok, even as the casttime is botherin me myself - and despite the fact, that asking us for reasons why it has a casttime at all is a bit off (and also debatting with us about this), i can tell you the simple reason i see why it has still a casttime.

Let's just pretend it would not have casttime, what would happen? Correct, we would reaply it between EACH trashpull anew. But Squeenix says: If you want to start every single fight with a optimal buffsetup you have to invest something. In this case, either time or a swiftcast CD. More over, whitemages, who could apply SS2 out of combat instant at every time, can dps way more in speedruns and would use nearly every swiftcast during trash for and instant initial Holy.

It is just natural, that you have to choose between safety or speed, you cant have both - and that's why SS2 have a 6sec casttime.

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Originally Posted by thunderbreak

I feel everyone here has a legitimate explanation of why Stoneskin 2 has cast time to a degree. In practice there are, and will be people who will use it indiscriminately. And while it will never break an entire duty run, I find it cumulatively annoy. So the reason I'm creating this thread, is to say if they are gonna do it anyways, just make it less interruptible.

I personally died way too many times to WHM, much more often than SCH. Mainly because of their poor judgement of the situation, and poor resource management. I mean I wish all of the WHM out there will practice the thought process you are describing lol, it'll really make my day as Tank.

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While I understand the complaint as a whole, there's an expression called "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth". When S-E developed this ability for WHMs, they were doing it as a QoL change for the convenience of the players. They could've made it a lot "worse" per say by doing just the following:
(1) Waited for the expansion for it to come out
(2) Make it cost one of WHMs "skill slots" upon level expansion, thus giving one less ability WHM to use in the field

Also, based on some of your comments on the thread, you're problem feels less about that Stoneskin is "inconvenient" and more about the fact you keep getting paired up with healers who have very poor judgement. Changing the toolkit to give it "less" options isn't the way to fix that - we'll unfortunately always have players who play the game abysmally and no amount of toolkit rework will fix that.

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Originally Posted by CycLee

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The issue with casting buff between pulls is not the healers in-ability to cast the buff but the tanks arrogance that they should be free to run the dungeon at their leisure. I have wasted plenty of SS2 casts where 5 seconds in to the cast tank pulls and the dps engage. Wasting a tonne of MP.

The WHM are not the problem here. It has always been an issue where a tank will pull as a WHM cast SS and then rage because the WHM has aggro. Now we have SS2 with an even longer cast.

Most of us asking for an instant cast SS2 is because players are too stupid to wait a bit. it has always been the WHM's responsibility to babysit and compensate other players stupidity.

This thread makes me sad I'm a SCH... what now? :confused:

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Originally Posted by thunderbreak

A. What if Swiftcast is on CD

B. Can you think of a reason why SS2 has a casting time?

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A) If it's on cooldown then most likely your in combat and the spell can no longer be used. Out of combat? 30 sec cooldown. Enough said.

B) Because it's a party wide stoneskin? Huge buff. Why wouldn't it have a cast time?
At worst your being asked for 4-5 second wait. Silly when you think about it lol

SS2 is not the only ability you cannot use in battle, Swiftsong is also one, so why does this have a casting time? (not as long, but still not auto-cast like you're suggesting SS2 needs to be).

Before SS2 in a raid such as CT, ST/WoD I would alternate with the other WHM in my alliance to SS1 each and every member. Unfortunately sometimes the other WHM would target the same person as myself and we would end up wasting MP. Now with SS2, everyone can see that your casting it and usually they have the intelligence to quickly gather together to receive the buff, it's not always necessary but it's made things slightly less irritating.

Usually in the mentioned raids it's common that people would gather in their respective A,B and C places anyway so if people are gathering in 1 place you can time it very well to land on everyone just before the tank pulls without delaying the group.

While it'd be nice not to have that 6 second cast time sometimes, those are the times where I'll blow a swiftcast.

I think a better question is why Scholar can't borrow this for times when there's two scholars or it's a 4-man.

lol. they've already given us the option to stoneskin an entire party with one button press. what do you want, for them to take the control from you and play themselves?

I like that it takes so long because it makes speedfasts more interesting. I have to sprint ahead and cast it.
tbqh though, it's generally not a big deal for anybody but the tank to have stoneskin.

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Originally Posted by Sousoulsu

I like that it takes so long because it makes speedfasts more interesting. I have to sprint ahead and cast it.
tbqh though, it's generally not a big deal for anybody but the tank to have stoneskin.

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Except DPS who realise there is a skilled healer in with them so they no longer need to dodge AoE and carry on taking hits to the face.

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Originally Posted by firstsin

Except DPS who realise there is a skilled healer in with them so they no longer need to dodge AoE and carry on taking hits to the face.

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Those DPS are about to learn a cruel lesson of life. *muhar*

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Originally Posted by firstsin

Except DPS who realise there is a skilled healer in with them so they no longer need to dodge AoE and carry on taking hits to the face.

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When it starts cutting into my holying, I don't bother :3

I'm glad it's long it gives time for my buffs to be up for pulls.

You know those reasons why you want it to be instant cast?

That's why it's not instant cast.

It'd be op.

It is a long cast time but the way I see it people complained they wanted it so bad..and here it is. Not for or against the cast time adjustment but I understand it and it doesn't hurt me.

I rarely use it as it is outside of large content. In anything more than 4 man you got enough time to cast it while people are talking / confirming things.

In 4 man raids like dungeons, half the time I cast it there's always someone watching the cut scene so I end up having to stone skin just them. Sometimes I don't even get to use it. I put it on the tank first single cast because I'm afraid he's just going to run off. Then there's some days I don't care, I cast it you wait the couple seconds if you want to pull and die in that time? More power to you. Either way the casting time I think they put it on there so people could slow down, or hope they would. Take the few seconds say hi to everyone..do a quick manderville dance and be on your way, I'm in no rush anyways.

ok its late I havnt read all the replies and my answer may of come up...

ss2 can be cast on anyone who is not actively pulling agro on something right.. so in a boss battle with 1 constant target it becomes useless but in any battle that has you kill one thing then the next assuming no one attacks the next target couldn't a healer pull of a ss2, either swift-casted or timed well,!?

just for those scenarios and to give SE some flexibility in the future around fight designs they added a long cd to it... but not so long to be totally annoying.

Make it instant cast with 1 minute recast, (GCD) cause why not?

In all seriousness, it's SE's way to not boost speedrunning dungeons (as if all the gates and stuff aren't enough)

Actually this is true, try stoneskin 2 in T4 between transition phases. If you time it right you can stoneskin everyone.