Stoneskin + Mercy Stroke

Hello All,

This is basically a question regarding the two cross-skills Stoneskin and Mercy Stroke. I intend to have these on my toolbar, but I am not sure when to break off and level my CNJ and MRD to the requisite levels. I'm currently 41 PLD. I'd like to bring the most to the party that I can. I am just unsure at which point these two abilities in particular become expected. Any thoughts? I plan on taking the lazy man's way via fates for those as I have little interest in those classes.

Stoneskin is very, very nice to have, but ultimately not needed for a good portion of the content. However, i would say that its interests skyrocket for titan HM. In this fight, you will take regularly (every 30 seconds more or less) a very predictable spike of up to 6k damage (to your about 5300 hp pool) in the space of two seconds. While precasted cures landing in between, parry, block, dodge, sch shield and CD can all help survive this, you have a nice window of about 5 second to cast stoneskin before every burst of damage, making the whole thing much less stressful for yourself and your healers.

Mercy stroke is a joke and has fringe interest at best. The odds of you landing the killing blow on an adds during a boss fight are abyssmal if you were to try and time it perfectly, and you will have something else to think about than to try that. During trash, you may have more luck with it... But it's trash, so who cares ?

Honestly I'd say it's more important to finish leveling your PLD first, gear up a bit, then come back to them. Mercy Stroke is not THAT great, not with it's cooldown or the damage penalty from shield oath. If you're insistent I'd level the WHM to 34 first, Stoneskin provides more utility. As far as when these become expected, I have yet to have anyone seem to notice that I've used Mercy Stroke or haven't used Stoneskin.

i leveled whm first so i had ss handy, and it is bybfar the MOST USEFUL CROSS ABILITY i have albeit primarily during boss fights - you have many many opportunities tobre apply it, and it is simply amazing.

mercy stroke is only useful for trash pulls where you can use it to top up ur hp when killing off 1 of thr 3 to 4 mobs you pulled, but getting it to be the killing bloe is konda tricky.

i would pick stoneskin over mercy stroke anyday but the truth is that there isnt any content pre-50 that cannot be donr without it. as much as i highly recommend it, you shouldnt feel obliged to have it until you are 50 and need to be as optimal as you should be.

p.s. fracture is nice when fighting bosses too.

This is great input all. Thanks.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Casper

snip

---

while i do agree, i'd like to add that Titan does a move called Mountain Buster in a rotation, doing between 4.5k - 5k damage, not 6k. and thats before Shield Oath mitigation. Very honestly, both skills are useless to you. every cross-class skill is generally useless to you. because you're a PLD.

You already have some of the best tanking skills in the game, the only reason I refuse to tank as GLD/PLD is because I don't like the sword and board approach. Mercy Stroke is next to useless if you're going for the killing blow, I wind up just using it when I can for some TP-free damage. Stoneskin has it's uses, it can't hurt getting it if you feel like getting it :)

Stoneskin is probably our best CC skill, but very situational, and you probably won't find much use for it until HM Primals and onward.

I would advise getting all of Warrior's skills. They're nothing great, but they'll make you a better Paladin.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tzukuma

while i do agree, i'd like to add that Titan does a move called Mountain Buster in a rotation, doing between 4.5k - 5k damage, not 6k. and thats before Shield Oath mitigation. Very honestly, both skills are useless to you. every cross-class skill is generally useless to you. because you're a PLD.

---

Sorry but not every cross class skill is useless. Actually if you can manage to get stoneskins before moutain busters its a big help to the healers. In turn 5 you can use it to mitigate some of the 5kish hits from death sentence possible saving your life.

Raise ... well im sure you never had a bad healer that died in some 4 man right? Useful.

Cure - don't bother once u have stoneskin since its stronger

Bloodbath/foresight - Not that great but still better then nothing

Out of all the cross class stuff we can get Stone Skin is the most beneficial. 10% of your hp shielded on top of the heals. makes a big difference in the harder fights (Mostly turn 5 as Titan HM is a joke with or without it)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tzukuma

while i do agree, i'd like to add that Titan does a move called Mountain Buster in a rotation, doing between 4.5k - 5k damage, not 6k. and thats before Shield Oath mitigation. Very honestly, both skills are useless to you. every cross-class skill is generally useless to you. because you're a PLD.

---

Have you actually made the fight ? I said :
"a very predictable spike of up to 6k damage (to your about 5300 hp pool) in the space of two seconds"

In this, i count the fact that titan does an autoattack into rock buster, then 1.5 sec later an autoattack in mountain buster. While mountain buster alone hit me for about 3.4 k, rock buster hit me also for 1.5k, and each autoattack for 650. All in all, it amouts to about 6 to 6.2k, after shield oath reduction. As i said, number of things can help get you through this, from blocks to parry to dodge to cd to healing precasted and landing between RB and MB (casting it when you get the first damage is not enough though). But stoneskin is still a HUGE help to overcome this.

I grinded Con up to 34 for the skill before I lvled my PLD. It's a great skill to have even if you lvl up other classes. I used it heavily in my pre 50 dungeons since it gave me a couple of free hits. Especially if I didn't know what all the abilities were of the bosses I was fighting. Doesn't take too long to get to 34 with fate grinding, so its definitely worth the investment.

As for mercy stroke, I don't have that one. But as many other people have already brought up its downside, personally I probably won't go for that one unless I'm really bored.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tanaya

Stoneskin is probably our best CC skill, but very situational, and you probably won't find much use for it until HM Primals and onward.

---

Absolutely not true.

In Haukke Manor, I always had time to apply SS prior to Void Thunder III. In fact, I always had time to re-apply SS whenever I fought bosses. It helped with healing, a lot.

In Brayflox, Aiatar takes really long to charge up it's dragon breathe attacks, and I would use it to apply SS. It would then last for 1 to 2 hits, which was significant, and it happened really frequently.

In Temple of Qarn, I had soooo many opportunities applying SS fighting the Temple Guardian, although Adjudicator did involve some movements to make casting easy.

In Cutter's Cry, I could apply SS when the worm boss started burrowing, and when it randomly attacked other members. Chimera also had a lot of 'openings' for me to apply SS when it was casting it's various forms of attacks. SS was VERY useful in CUtter's Cry.

In Stone Vigil, once you have hidden behind the first boss when it's doing its lion's roar/breathe, it was huge window to apply SS. Isgebind also gave a lot of windows to apply SS when it flies up, and even before the frost breathe attack, which helped to mitigate a lot of damage since it hit pretty hard.

In Darkhold, the final boss doesn't attack in quick succession and there are also ample opportunities to apply SS.