@ WHM who stoneskin whole party

[Raminax]

What are you meant to do anyway while people are preparing for a boss or waiting for everyone to load in? Stare lustily at that Highlander's bottom?

Mm, oh yes, you-

Uh, where was I? Might as well Stoneskin everyone if you're not chainpulling like mad. D:

[Avette]

In most cases we're looking at a shield for 400-450, so it's not useless per se, but I would not call it more valuable than the time to cast it for certain things like wiping on Titan EX when people have food buffs on.

[ErnestoGiovanni]

Because if you ss the party with full mp regen its free at the moment of cast. When the first aoe hits it will require one less aoe cure saving the equivalent of one x-ether in mp. Its predictive MP management.

[Hitome]

Depends on fight. Most of the time it's a waste, similar to succor pre pull.

Garuda Ex? No thanks.

ifrit Ex? Stoneskin please so we don't get knocked back on first vulcan burst.

Titan HM/Ex? No thanks. You're just wasting my time when it falls off on the first tumult.

T1 Caduceus? Yep.

Turn 2 ADS? Nope.

Turn 4? Nope.

Twintania? Yes, please. It helps the healers quite a bit in the beginning.

[Cegiana]

Not sure if troll, or doesn't understand basic mechanics.

Seriously? Another person throwing the word troll around? So lame...

As for the OP, stoneskin is your friend. Whining over the time it takes to give everyone stoneskin, it's just not worth it. Until you understand how the game works, then I can see why it would come across as a waste of time. It's mostly SE's fault, in 1.23b, WHM would use their ability to have 1 spell hit the whole party and bam stoneskin for all and really quickly, but SE got rid of that, so the time waste comes from them, not your party member that was looking out for your best interests by giving you a stoneskin...

Also, they need to bring back Shock Spikes, they got rid of it before reaching the end of 1.23b, so I dunno, 1.19 or 1.16 or whichever, but shock spikes was just perfect for tanks and was a life saver for CNJs that accidentally got hate in battle, it would paralyze mobs that hit you every few seconds. SE removed more spells than they kept and added a few new ones, but all in all, the CNJ class was a lot more interesting before the new team took over FF14 and changed CNJ and THM, merging them while splitting them apart and then removing a ton of their spells. CNJ had it all, all the black magic and all the white magic, while THM was a unique mage, probably closer to a Time Mage than a black mage. There, you just learned something about 1.0 that you didn't know (except you Legacy readers. )

[Maelwys]

In most cases we're looking at a shield for 400-450, so it's not useless per se, but I would not call it more valuable than the time to cast it for certain things like wiping on Titan EX when people have food buffs on.

WHM Stoneskin is 18% of the Target's Maximum HP.

At endgame, you can expect most classes to be sitting at around 4k-4.5k HP, so 18% of that would be somewhere in the region of 720 to 810 HP. Personally, I'm still lacking a few i90 pieces, and my HP as a PLD is currently 6767 in a party. 18% of that is 1218 HP. That's considerably more than a Cure or Physick cast (I've occasionally seen Cure IIs that heal for less than that!)

Stoneskin helps prevent one-shots, doesn't pull healing aggro and ignores Healing debuffs. It really only has two downsides: Long Cast Time and Large MP Cost. Both those downsides are irrelevant at the start of a fight. It also has a somewhat interesting mechanic in that the benefit it grants is proportional to the Target's stats not the casters. You can be a naked level 36 WHM and still get exactly the same effect out of it as you would fully-i90ed at level 50.

For Titan Ex I'm not sure that you'd get much use out of casting it mid-fight; but that's more to do with all the dodging mechanics of that fight than the skill itself... it can still have its uses occasionally even in Primal battles. To give you an example; on Garuda HM (usually not a tough fight) I've used it before in order to help lesser-geared players live through "Aerial Blast" whenever too many rocks are gone. And on Garuda EM, it can help to mitigate Double "Wicked Wheel"s. And that's not even counting the numerous occasions when a sudden HP buffer is useful during Coil Runs or other endgame dungeons! If you know when gaps in the fight are coming up you'll generally get a chance to pop a SS or two off- as long as you're not hurting for MP it can potentially make things a lot smoother.

[Judge_Xero]

Arg, phone wont let me quote.
@Avette - not sure if you using the context of any other class besides WHM using stoneskin but with the WHM trait it's 18% of max HP. So between 700-1600 depending who you use it on. It also stacks with defensive buffs. So if a PLD with 6k HP using CD's to negate 40% damage gets SS then it is worth almost 2k damage. With Shield Oath and Sentinel it's worth 3k damage.

[JonFarron]

-SCH complaining about shields.

Guys there's a problem here.

You also wanna consider that Stoneskin and Galvanize DO stack. So stoneskin+adlo on tank before pull=1 ( or 2 if adlo crit) less phyisck.

[Fiosha_Maureiba]

Garuda EX and Titan HM/EX, I would pre-Stoneskin the tanks and melee DDs at least.

Garuda EX, the Stoneskin often lasts long enough on melee DDs that they can survive a Wicked Wheel if they're not using Blood for Blood and the i65+ isn't coming from his/her accessories.

Titan HM/EX, the pre-battle Stoneskin while MP regeneration is high often leads to one less AoE heal during combat, when MP regeneration is weak. Helps me manage my MP and threat. I think it's worth the 30 seconds on a serious try. If we're learning mechanics and do not expect success OR overgeared for HM, then no, screw it.

[Rbstr]

I do it before fights when people are loading or explaining and pretty much always on the MT before pulls because sometimes odd things happen.

Other than that? WP Boss fight, Garuda EX on MT before wheels.

I do find it kinda silly when people stand around before going in waiting for it.