Scholar Stone Skin Q

Alright so swiftcast has been an invaluable tool, simple to use, self explanatory, infinitely useful. Best investment ever to stop doing story quest and make a 26 thermalmageyhocuspocuswhatever.

Right after I leveled Conj to 34 as well, and received my stone skin. How do I really make use of this skill? As it sames right now its a waste of time to cast it when I can be casting a heal.

The only times I have made use of it is before a large attack and even there the results have been, poor in terms of mitigation.

So talk to me fellow scholars, when do you feel it is necessary to use this specific skill over what we already have in terms of shielding on our toolkit.

There is no reason to use stoneskin on a scholar simply because adloquium is an upgraded version of it. for whm's its great but since we dont get it traited a pally with 5k hp will only get a 500 shield. my adloqiums shield for about 700 and is a heal so there is no reason for using it.

A good use is before any battle, or when anyone is at 100% HP, you can also have a macro to made all the party with stoneskin, so they will have less damage at first time.

A heal cannot made people more than 100%HP but with stoneskin you can put them a 110% virtually.

Or.. just cast adloqium for a bigger sheild that lasts 20 seconds than a smaller one that lasts for 5 minutes (i think)

Based on my own test that is what I had figured as well. Aldo is just a way better shield, and it might be a wasted slot for its minimal use.

I might replace it with aero(seriously not a lot of cross class skills exist. Its kind of silly to get cure or resurrection from cleric), pending more testing on my own at least.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Celsius

There is no reason to use stoneskin on a scholar simply because adloquium is an upgraded version of it. for whm's its great but since we dont get it traited a pally with 5k hp will only get a 500 shield. my adloqiums shield for about 700 and is a heal so there is no reason for using it.

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The Adloquium shield and Stoneskin stack together.
Stoneskin doesn't wear after 30 seconds. It lasts 30m, or until damage removes it.

The effects are not identical, but are cumulative. Using both allows you to create a bigger bubble to mitigate incoming spike damage.

The ultimate answer is, if you're sitting around with a nearly full MP bar and no immediate casting needs.. Why not drop an extra Stoneskin somewhere?

I mean like... it kind of depends, because if you have a WHM in your group -if its an 8 man- you'd just let him cast it. if its a 4man in DF then i mean i GUESS its somewhat usable since they stack but its not like your going to notice a huge diffrence. so i mean if your running an 8man (and god knows you wont have enough time to SS everyone if its a pug) its still not MUCH of a diffrence. but i guess if your in coil and your WHM doesnt wanna use it then i guess you could?

While I agree that aldoloquim heals for more, there are 3 things I would like to share with you as reminder.

1. Stoneskin scale with target's hp, for a tank around my lvl, they are hitting the 5k mark, which means a 500 shield for them

2. stoneskin is cheaper, offering you a slightly more expensive option over physic for the pre covering convenience, u can choose to pre shield tank in fight where ongoing dmg is low but occasionally spike dmg to smooth out the inc dmg

3. Aldoloquim has 2 healing components or mechanics, one part is a slightly inferior physick, the other is an equivalent shielding effect. the shielding effect, however, depends on the amount you actually restored, excluding overhealing, it is only effective and fully benefitting when target has already taken some dmg, I personally only use it when target is low and there are ongoing dmg

4. Both aldoloquim's shield and stoneskin stacks

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Your forgetting that adloqium pretty much gives you a free GCD. you will be using it frequently on your tank because it gives you a free GCD to use to heal someone else or do something else. unlike SS that actually does not heal and takes longer to cast (i think) fore your number 2 point. honestly your adloqium should be healing for more than 500 so i mean.. yeah they stack and yes you can use it before a fight but again, no reason for YOU to do it because its not like you have it traited. in an 8man if your running 2sch (im so sorry if you are) then i guess pre-casting it before a battle is okay but adloqium is infinitely better. and is actually useable in battle its very effective to precast it and use it to not let your target get low rather than using it on them when they are.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Celsius

Or.. just cast adloqium for a bigger sheild that lasts 20 seconds than a smaller one that lasts for 5 minutes (i think)

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Stoneskin actually lasts for 30 minutes. Which is pretty stupid lol

I keep stoneskin up on my DPS so that they can take 1-2 hits if they accidently pull agro without me immediatly having to heal them.

You can use Stone Skin in fights where you predict a large amount of damage is going to hit. For example - in AK the last boss does a big damage hit that debuffs the target reducing healing done by 50%. The move is immediatly followed by another large hitting attack. So you have to use leeches on the tank to clear the healing debuff and then cast your heal. At lower gear levels you can get behind on your healing because there is movement/adds involved in the fight.

So I'll preshield the tank with BOTH Aldo and Stone Skin right before the debuff hits. That gives me a much larger time frame to cast leeches and get my heal off.

Yes, a gcd could mean a lot, as I wouldn't know how hectic is endgame yet in terms of healing. I am basing my judgement on my own experiences thus far in dungeons, and my consideration did missed out the fact that only one stoneskin per player. Precasting adloquim, really depends on flow of the fight, if the inc dmg is low and target is almost full, I would normally prefer to conserves the mp by using physick to top up really. By not able to hv 2 stoneskin up on 1 players, I see no use of stoneskin for scholar in endgame then, because if you have 2 scholar, you might as well let one changing into whm. Adloquim is effective for output, but its definitely ineffective for output per mp. How much mp should a scholar hv to start endgame?

Right now unbuffed i have about 4.2k buffed i think about 4.4-5 so.. i guess around there?

and i agree that adloqium is a very inefficient spell. but for what it does, it does it better than stoneskin and endgame healing right now you have no time to sit and wait really. tanks are taking 2.5k+ dmage a hit and sometimes DPS makes mistakes and get hit. its... very hectic and a gcd does mean alot. your simply better off leaving SS to a whm.

I've mostly found Stoneskin stacked with Aldo...nice for giving a slightly larger shield before bigger pulls for tanks-- so I'm not finding myself or the fairy drawing agro quickly from healing early on. Since it's pre-fight, it's essentially free and can save me or my fairy's life if we jump the gun, or were surprised at the tank getting hit hard/crit right off the bat.

I ALWAYS keep stoneskin up on myself if I'm fighting a boss with a one-shot mechanic. I usually survive with like 100hp left.

Adlo blocks more dmg, but only lasts for 30seconds. 30 seconds is unreliable compared to 30mins, especially when you're fighting a boss that requires a lot of healing power and you don't have time to cast Adlo on yourself every 30 seconds.

Stoneskin is fine up to Titan HM. For eg. Good to combo with Adloquium to block a hit or two for people with low HP or if someone died and was rezzed with a debuff. I'd rather the WHM do it though, for obvious reasons. It's castable during certain parts of Phase 3 where the raid isn't taking damage.

After that, you'll find Stoneskin pretty much irrelevant once you reach Binding Coil. I've only used Stoneskin on one occasion: shielding Selene before we pull Twintania because our WHM was like, "shield your own pet noob".

There should be precious few occasions where you stoneskin on a Scholar. It's only 10% of max HP. Most Aldo's should be up in the 600+.

If you need mitigation against Titan's Mountain Buster, a SCH uses Aldo and a WHM uses Stoneskin. That's a good 1.5k or so mitigation right off the bat. You can E4E / Sacred Soil as well for a definite 10% reduction plus RNG 10%. I got stoneskin for SCH, I largely regret it. It's just not all that useful.

Best use I've seen is via Sylvanna, just Stoneskin your fairy so it gets one free hit on it.

I will be honest with you guys the ONLY thing that makes Stoneskin worth the MP cost and cast time is the WHM trait for it that increases it to 18%, and even then it is only efficient on those 6.5k+ war tanks. I still use it on pally's "sometimes" but when it comes to healing a war a Stoneskin is more efficient than a cure II and if the tank is not at a "needs a cure II HP deficit" then I can stone skin him and "bank" a cure II and not overheal them wasting mana.

You guys really don't have MP issues or Enmity issues, so the benefits for you guys are kinda moot like the other SCH have mentioned. As for a WHM, a war tank has lots of HPS, but they don't grab hate as fast as a pally "in some cases" so, leading a fight with Stoneskin on the tank, then recasting it again , then using regen to fill in makes my life a whole lot easier when it comes to hate management with War tanks if I am not burst healing my face off.