How often do you use sacred soil?

So I'm going to be switching to sch when I get some time off school to actually play and I was looking at the skills and was just curious. Do you keepit on cool down or save it for big hits?

Also if a move says only available while under the effects of aetherflow does this mean it consumes it like energy drain? Or are there moves that don't consume it?

Sacred Soil is on a 30s cd so you can use it twice per Aetherflow. For end game raiding in Binding Coil, you would want to mitigate as much damage as possible as we are undergeared. Keeping it on cd or saving it for big hits would really depend on the fight, and how much damage is being taken by the tanks or raid, i.e. situational.

For example: On Turn 1 BC, you would save Sacred Soil for when the stacks on the boss increase (due to fools messing up with slimes or w/e) and the tanks get hit more. However, on Turn 2 ADS, you would be better off chaining Sacred Soil since there is always a tank taking huge damage because of the vulnerability stacks.



And yes, it consumes one Aetherflow charge like Energy Drain.

Depends on the fight.
I'll save it for big hit, if I know it will happen.
If there won't be any big hit coming, I'll just use it whenever I want, but make sure it will be off CD when the big hit comes.

It consumes 1 Aetherflow stack, yes like energy drain, from maximum of 3 stacks at level 40.

It is incredibly useful on Garuda. The Sisters spawn at exactly 3 minute intervals, so what you do is the second you see garuda dissapear, cast Eye for an Eye on the tank, Sacred soil the area, Virus Garuda, and succor / heal away. By the time the next sisters spawn everything is off cooldown, and Sacred Soil helps mitigate a ton of the damage by the sisters, making it fairly easy to keep everyone alive assuming they are positioned right.

-10% aint shit though not worth it imo rather save the stacks for lustrate.

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Originally Posted by Zoeila

-10% aint shit though not worth it imo rather save the stacks for lustrate.

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If I did the math right, when Titan jumps, if everyone has 3200 health that usually takes 2/3's of everyone's health, one succor would stop about 1689 damage amongst all your party members. Then you can use 2 lustrates to heal 1 or 2 people for 640 per. Thus, one SS and 2 Lustrates would equal about 2969 in healing/damage prevented. And 3 Lustrates is 1920.

So yea. 10% is worth a fair amount. Unless my math is horribly wrong, which I suppose it could be.

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Originally Posted by Zoeila

-10% aint shit though not worth it imo rather save the stacks for lustrate.

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Lustrate is more of an emergency heal more than anything else, when things get crazy and you need to immediately heal the tank. If you are constantly taking AOE damage, such in Garuda's case, then the damage prevented will be much greater than what a single lustrate could ever heal for. Also, not only will it prevent damage, Sacred Soil can save you MP, by preventing damage, there is less damage that needs to be healed. So you will most likely save the WHM or yourself from needing to physick someone.

The idea of a SCH is to be a healer who excels in preventing damage, and they are damn good at it when played correctly. Ever seen an astral flow of a primal go off and think, "That's it? That did like 25% of my HP" You know your SCH is doing it right when that happens.

So if/when I can attack does bane spread all three or just one of the three? Also if/when you do get to throw some dots, do you use shadow flare at all?

For whispering dawn, it says own and all nearby party members. Does own mean my hp or the faeries hp?

Sacred Soil's barrier stacks with Succor's and works wonderfully with WHM's Medica II. Sacred Soil before Earthen Fury and Tumult spam in HM Titan is amazing. With a SCH doing this alongside my healing, my group can survive the tumults with like 70-80% HP compared to 2 WHMS which is usually results in 20-40% HP depending on the number of tumults. There are Weight of the Lands immediately after so being at higher HP counts for a lot as if someone gets hit by a weight they will (barely) live and having a living member vs. a dead one is an incredible difference in that fight.

the way im looking at it is someone has to take 1000 damage for sacred soil to cut off 100 damage wich isnt even that much. SS aint doing shit for me when a whole bunch of people are damaged and i cant decide what to do because i have no answer for that situation. i get what you saying about 8 mans but im thinking more of 4 mans where it feels useless.

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Originally Posted by Zoeila

the way im looking at it is someone has to take 1000 damage for sacred soil to cut off 100 damage wich isnt even that much.

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I do agree, it takes alot for sacred soil to be worth it. Hell, arguably one of the worst offenders of AOE damage being titan would deal only ~250 less damage per person in sacred soil after each of his jumps.

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SS aint doing shit for me when a whole bunch of people are damaged and i cant decide what to do because i have no answer for that situation.

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Well SS is ment to be used before the damage goes out. It's terrible as an 'oh shit' reactive cooldown.

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i get what you saying about 8 mans but im thinking more of 4 mans where it feels useless.

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I throw it down whenever I get the chance in 4 mans for a few reasons:

- to play the 'how long the tank can go without taking damage' game if adloquium crits+swiftcasted stoneskin on top.
- i shouldn't need to lustrate on trash groups the vast majority of the time
- nothing better to do with atherflow charges because of the aforementioned point. I do use bane, though.

Tsk...
Use Aetherflow for Energy Drain or Bane in Cleric Stance.
Screw Lustrate/SS, it's all about the dps, let the lil floating healb!tch do the healing while she's aroused.

In all seriousness, only times SS is worth it is when a lot of people are taking heavy dmg, or when a huge ass dmg spike is coming in on the tank and you know it miles in advance.
And with huge ass dmg spike I'm talking about 90% or more tank hp gone in that 1 hit if not mitigated.

I believe there is a balance to be struck between lustrate and sacred soil.

Sacred soil mitigates damage recieved by everyone in the area of effect. While lustrate provides 20% hitpoint to a single target; that means that in single target situations there is a sweet spot somewhere where the damage mitigated by sacred soil over it's lifetime is LESS than the health that would've been restored by applying lustrate (Which in the case of a single tank scenario they would have to have twice their hitpoints worth of damage directed at them (and healed) within the span of a single sacred soil), making lustrate a preferable use of aetherflow). However in HM content with so many timed AoEs getting flung about the balance almost always falls on the side of Sacred Soil where it matters making it a matter of choosing it's timing rather than what to spend it on.

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Originally Posted by RyuujinZERO

I believe there is a balance to be struck between lustrate and sacred soil..... SNIP .....
...it matters making it a matter of choosing it's timing.

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I would dissagree.
Aoe dmg almost always (except Titan HM pretty much) comes with one burst and then there is a period of no aoe dmg.

I do not need to mitigate that dmg by 10% most of the time IF:
-My Succor is enough to outheal it
-I got my fairy regen to heal it up over time before next aoe
-Next aoe comes so much later that I can have my my fairy heal the ones low on hp and cast succor to top everyone else off

So most times Aetherflow is best saved for Energy Drain if Lustrate is not needed before Aetherflow is recharged.

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Originally Posted by ReviiLagoon

It is incredibly useful on Garuda. The Sisters spawn at exactly 3 minute intervals, so what you do is the second you see garuda dissapear, cast Eye for an Eye on the tank, Sacred soil the area, Virus Garuda, and succor / heal away. By the time the next sisters spawn everything is off cooldown, and Sacred Soil helps mitigate a ton of the damage by the sisters, making it fairly easy to keep everyone alive assuming they are positioned right.

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It's pretty great for Titan too, SS on P5 stomps=lifesaver.

Sacred soil has to mitigate 20% of your main tanks max health or more to start becoming worth the stack in my opinion. This means effectiveness drops when you have a Warrior tank due to Lustrates effectiveness increasing.

In coil I have no accuracy
so I use it a lot!
and lustrate

I use it frequently if the tank is fighting aboss with an unavoidable spike move or AoE that would hit the melees or adds that don't go down quickly... I genrally save energy drain for if I'm @ or below 50% MP I see your concerns with the percentage dmg reduction but it's more about the potential to get a free succor cast... those bubbles are the wholllleee big picture of SCH healing. We are preventative healers not burst healers.

Why would energy drain even be on your bars?

Lustrate on the tank saves you more mp by not requiring physicks than energy drain provides.

So unless you're sitting on an aetherflow and like 3 stacks (which you wouldn't need aetherflow anyway...since you're at max mp), its better to let the tank drop and lustrate rather than keep sustain healing with physicks and use energy drain.

Lustrate is the best spot-heal in the game, but it doesn't do any good until your target takes damage. Sacred Soil is one of the only ways to prevent damage from a big hit you know is coming, and should be used in conjunction with Lustrate to get the job done. I've saved a tank in Wanderer's Palace on the Tonberry King with this before, for instance, when the boss got five or six stacks of Furor. You can't Lustrate a corpse.

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

Why would energy drain even be on your bars?

Lustrate on the tank saves you more mp by not requiring physicks than energy drain provides.

So unless you're sitting on an aetherflow and like 3 stacks (which you wouldn't need aetherflow anyway...since you're at max mp), its better to let the tank drop and lustrate rather than keep sustain healing with physicks and use energy drain.

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My strategy is to keep at least one or two stacks of Aetherflow at all times. However, if Aetherflow pops back up and I don't have full mana, it makes more sense to pop either an energy drain or a Sacred Soil and then use Aetherflow to get the 3 stacks back. Basically, you're wasting your potential if you sit around with 3 stacks of Aetherflow and the ability Aetherflow is off cooldown, so it's better to find some use for them.

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

Why would energy drain even be on your bars?

Lustrate on the tank saves you more mp by not requiring physicks than energy drain provides.

So unless you're sitting on an aetherflow and like 3 stacks (which you wouldn't need aetherflow anyway...since you're at max mp), its better to let the tank drop and lustrate rather than keep sustain healing with physicks and use energy drain.

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Haha, really?

I use energy drain all the time.

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

Why would energy drain even be on your bars?

Lustrate on the tank saves you more mp by not requiring physicks than energy drain provides.

So unless you're sitting on an aetherflow and like 3 stacks (which you wouldn't need aetherflow anyway...since you're at max mp), its better to let the tank drop and lustrate rather than keep sustain healing with physicks and use energy drain.

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Lustrate heals a good amount but in reality unless your tank is a major hp stacked/geared warrior its just a physick, possibly less if you get physick to crit. As such I tend to stick to using physick/adloquium until my tank gets hit with a crit or unforseen major hit before I lustrate. If my Aetherflow is off cooldown/coming off of cooldown I tend it drop sacred soil (only if I know I wont need it) and use the rest of my stacks on energy drain to make sure I don't waste the potential those stacks bring.

That doesn't make sense.

If you are low on mana, that means you were succoring tons (or spamming adloq...which i dunno why you would ever do).

If you were spamming succor you should've placed a SS, if spamming adloq you should've used lustrate.

Which is basically...if you are low on mana you should have 0 stacks.

If you are low on mana and you have unused stacks, that was your own fault that you wasted those potential XD

So yes, while I agree that if you are low on mana, and somehow have excess stacks, you should use them, it is a horrible practice and means you weren't doing things efficiently.

Also I guess if lustrate isn't doing more than your physick on a tank, something is very very wrong, or your tank is extremely undergeared compared to you.

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

Also I guess if lustrate isn't doing more than your physick on a tank, something is very very wrong, or your tank is extremely undergeared compared to you.

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Lustrate on my paladin tank heals for 1200 or so. My physick non crit heals for 1k+ which means its more if I crit, and my adloquium will always give more mitigation than lustrates heal.

I am not saying I DON'T use lustrate. I am just saying that there is a time and place for everything. I am not going to blow lustrate on the tank at more than 20% hp and if he is below it I should be mid cast through something to bring them back up. I do happen to use lustrate more often on my warrior tanks due to its effectiveness increasing, but on my paladin I feel like the total gain from sacred soil ends up being a greater use of my stacks.

I must say I use energy drain much less in coil but I still have it on my bar.

Sacred soil has to block 20% of your tanks maximum health to beat out lustrate which happens more often than not in coil. So in my eyes my priorities change based on my tank (obviously changing based on situations):
Warrior: Lustrate > Sacred soil > Energy drain
Paladin: Sacred soil > Lustrate > Energy drain

As for gear like I said before if you are healing paladins lustrate doesn't give THAT much more than a physick/adloquium, it just has no cast time and is off the global which makes it great for an OH SHIT button which is why I save it and end up with left over stacks which I use on energy drain if my tanks don't need a top off.

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

Why would energy drain even be on your bars?

Lustrate on the tank saves you more mp by not requiring physicks than energy drain provides.

So unless you're sitting on an aetherflow and like 3 stacks (which you wouldn't need aetherflow anyway...since you're at max mp), its better to let the tank drop and lustrate rather than keep sustain healing with physicks and use energy drain.

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Energy Drain gives you exactly enough mana for two physics. So it really depends on your gear, and your tanks gear. My Physic heals for ~1k non crit. so i'd get ~2k worth of heals from that one aetherflow stack, Where as lustrate would only heal for 2k if my tank had 10k hp, which none of them do. Energy Drain>Lustrate in term of mana efficiency if your geared.

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

Also I guess if lustrate isn't doing more than your physick on a tank, something is very very wrong, or your tank is extremely undergeared compared to you.

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See above.

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Originally Posted by Swick

Energy Drain gives you exactly enough mana for two physics. So it really depends on your gear, and your tanks gear. My Physic heals for ~1k non crit. so i'd get ~2k worth of heals from that one aetherflow stack, Where as lustrate would only heal for 2k if my tank had 10k hp, which none of them do. Energy Drain>Lustrate in term of mana efficiency if your geared.

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Well said good sir. I knew energy drain gave more than mana than what physick needs but I was unaware that it was enough for 2. Is that static or is it based on the damage you deal with it? I haven't had time to test it.

SS scales with damage over 15 seconds.
Lustrate scales with target max HP.

(Damage over 15 sec) = y;
(Tank Max Hp) = x;

Set them equal b/c we want to be the same effectiveness to find threashholds.
y*0.1 = x*0.2;
y is our variable, you should know x once you have selected a tank.
y=2*x;


What does this mean?
Let assume WAR tank has 7000 HP. (Why warrior? I haven't tested how PLD DR work with SS. I can only assume.)
y*0.1=1400; y=14000;

The party must take take 14,000 (over 15 seconds) damage before a SS is worth using over Lustrate.
That is 166 (933 total) damage a second to everyone in the bubble. Titan and coil runs can easily do this kind of damage to the tank alone, let alone the party.

For easy thinking. Can this pull/fight/boss kill your tank in 7-8 seconds from full?
If no, then not worth using SS on JUST the tank.

Will this AoE do more than a quarter than the tank's Max HP to the people in SS range?
If no, not worth using SS.

Side note.
With you full DL tank, 1750 is the rough threshold of damage per person for SS. All primals easily cross this with signature attacks.