When should WHM use Stoneskin I?

[technole]

Hmm. You're not waiting on the cleric stance CD at that point? Usually I have to get 1 non-swift holy off before the timer's expired.

Depends on when you flip it-on (and type of pull). If it's immediately before, yes you will end up waiting unless you manually get another off which is likely a good idea. But if they already have stoneskin on and you know the damage output to expect you could swift one and then get out of stance to handle heals. Of course it's all situational and for extra meat pulls you probably want to get the DS+regen up first before stance.

on a healing intensive fight, that 10% max hp shield an off or main tank pld can dish out can save the raid from a potential wipe. i guess that's one good use of stoneskin 1....

Yep, and for coil bosses with tank buster hits it's generally recommended for that buffer. Otherwise you have to land a properly timed cure spell to land on the hit.

[Yare]

When I mess up and cause party wipe, I stone skin my face. (J/K)

Other than what ppl have said, I apply stoneskin to dps that I just raised.

BTW, I find swift cast stoneskin is useful b/c stone skin has long cast time.

[416to305]

Thanks everyone definitely a huge help. I've been trying to cast it before pulls but some tanks just rush off which is fine but always before a boss even if the tank is already running to it, which seems to be most times. I'm just at Cutter's Cry now but so far I haven't really found any time where it's been like thank God I used Stoneskin. I do on everyone before bosses, or sometimes I will on a melee DPS before a pull just to give them some extra while I focus on the tank. I'm not sure if it's bad/good to use Regen a lot but lately I've been waiting for the tank to pull lots of aggro and then when he's at 85-90% HP I hit him with Regen which I've found on these dungeons seems to take care of most healing for me on him, allowing me to either cleric stance and DPS a little, or focus on the mechanics of the battle instead. I find Regen is handy as well if a DPS takes damage especially a ranged one where they might be down to 70% health due to some aoe or something, where they aren't actually under attack, so instead of curing them I just hit them with Regen while moving and let it heal them and so on while I bring focus back to the tank.

[Selli]

*Old lady voice* Back in the old days, we used to have to Stoneskin everyone one at a time. And those times were hard!

In all seriousness, you should try to keep Stoneskin on people as much as possible. A SCH who has shields (and has to spend a lot of time casting buffs, omfg) you can get away with just Stoneskinning yourself and the tank. But for a WHM, as your only source of mitigation, you should have it on everyone as often as you can (excluding the middle of boss fights unless it's a special fight like t9 and everyone is i110 and clicked off echo). I've had Stoneskin save a couple of positional happy melee before, so it's definitely worth it.

Since people like to run without waiting for anything, it's usually best to re-apply Stoneskin to melee (if it comes off) when you have 1-2 mobs still up, as they (in theory) should be smart enough to stay out of trouble for a few seconds. Ranged DPS you can get away with applying it as it falls off (unless the mobs cast lots of AoEs, then you might want to hold off just in case). And the tank I usually Stoneskin at around 50-25% of the final mobs HP, this usually helps make sure its on before the next group so I don't accidentally aggro them (which still happens more often than I'd like *sigh* Did you know PLDs will sometimes pull using Sprint? Yeah, that's a thing. ._.).

[Risvertasashi]

Depends on when you flip it-on (and type of pull). If it's immediately before, yes you will end up waiting unless you manually get another off which is likely a good idea. But if they already have stoneskin on and you know the damage output to expect you could swift one and then get out of stance to handle heals. Of course it's all situational and for extra meat pulls you probably want to get the DS+regen up first before stance.

Oh, makes sense. Yes, I've usually been doing the DS + regen first. But if I go into the pull with cleric first, I could stun and then do that... hm. I might have to try that.

[PenutButter]

Pretty much to help tanks, or sometimes dps, survive big hits that may potentially 1-shot them. This pretty much only apply to end-game content though. Anything other than that don't really matter at all. I would say cast it when you have nothing better to do but might as well throw in an Aero in those cases.