Stoneskin for Scholars, is it necessary?

[kayuwoody]

snip

Your entire response keeps ignoring that simple fact that you may be in a party with no one else able to cast a WHM traited 18% stoneskin. In which case yours is as good as anyone else's, so if you're the one who's got a free GCD, or the other SCH has already started casting adlo..

There will be instances where you will have time to get both adlo and stoneskin up, especially if adlo crits so the shield lasts a bit longer. I've already quoted Ifrit EX twice and specified an exact point in time (when he does Searing). It's also potentially a very pivotal time to have mitigation up on the tank depending on the situation.

Objectively speaking, nothing is "necessary". You don't even need Swiftcast if your entire team's playing well. It just becomes another "nice to have" button. As I keep saying you don't need to cast a lot of spells, but why wouldn't you if you could and the situation called for it?