Stoneskin Midbattle waste of time?

[Miyu20]

Another thing is that as a Scholar in a double scholar battle, a good scholar will be casting Adloquium and as the other scholar in that fight, I anticipate that and cast Stoneskin in Cleric Stance for that double mitigation. In a double scholar fight, that extra thought helps heals for both ends.

Since you can cast it in Cleric stance as well, you can go back to DPSing the boss afterwards thereby pushing phases if you're good and healing less over the course of the fight as a result.

The person who told you to stop using Stoneskin doesn't understand why you're using it and it's not your job to explain it to him either. Just say okay, and move on.

[KisaiTenshi]

Some blm got lippy with me the other night over me reapplying stoneskin during CoD as a sch saying I was only wasting my mp. I personally think that the fact that Adloquium costs 330 mp and that stoneskin is only 230 that stacking it or in the case of a reprieve using stoneskin only saves me mp in the long run and also from having to chase plummeting hp particularly from the more hapless party members.

But thoughts?

Cast it whenever you feel like it. As WHM or SCH SS doesn't really have a lot of value mid-fight due to the cast time being longer unless you are really anticipating a lot of damage on someone wearing wet paper bags for armor. It's value at the beginning is to proactively protect against whatever the first raid-wide AOE is. After that, you don't really have the time to keep casting SS when people need to be healed.

There is not much you can do to save a bad party/player who steps in everything avoidable. The targeted attack in WoD-CoD you can't save someone from if they stop or decide to barrel into the combat parties. It's similar to the marked attack at the beginning of AK-hard's first boss Anchag.

What you should be comparing is how the shields work. Stone Skin from a SCH is 10% and applies to "the end" of the HP meter. This is roughly equal to one use of Psysick. Aldoquium is like having one cast of Psysick and one shield of the same value as Psysick. So if a player has 10,000HP, Stoneskin is like giving them 1000HP, but to get that out of Aldoquium you have to cast Aldoqium after they have already lost 1000HP, so that it recovers the 1000HP and adds a 1000HP shield. Since you can stack them, there's not much harm in actually having both, but if you can recover more HP with Aldoquium and apply a shield that is more than 10% as long as the target had more than 10% to recover in the first place. Sometimes the fairy doesn't let you.

[Seryl199]

I see SS mid battle as a waste of time as sch, unless I know the rotation and know that a tank buster is coming up soon, and my whm cohort is asleep perhaps, or if I see a player with weakness that seems especially squishy. I'd much rather spend my time adding DPS to push faster. That said, if you don't want to DPS for whatever reason, I'd rather see a healer trying to mitigate than twiddling their thumbs and waiting for damage to heal.

[radioactive_lego]

That said, if you don't want to DPS for whatever reason, I'd rather see a healer trying to mitigate than twiddling their thumbs and waiting for damage to heal.

Depending on the fight, I see nothing wrong with a healer soaking up oxygen. Saving those MP for (known) upcoming heal checks is fine. Spending those MP on trying to shave 10s off a phase or fight is fail.

[Seryl199]

Depending on the fight, I see nothing wrong with a healer soaking up oxygen. Saving those MP for (known) upcoming heal checks is fine. Spending those MP on trying to shave 10s off a phase or fight is fail.

Sure, mp management is a basic skill and should be taken into consideration all the time. I'm more referencing healers that stand around and do nothing for the sake of it, something all too common in the OP's circumstance fighting Cloud of Darkness. If you can't spare the mp for a couple stoneskins, you're party is likely hurting in areas more serious than mitigation, or you're playing serious content where a competent whm will back you up.

[Abeyante]

Primarily I only reskin the tank and those recently rezed (or less aware as previously stated) and preferably after a crit heal from ado so if we're continuing with the tank with 10k hp is 1k from ss and usually 2k+ from ado for a total around 3k. Sounds like this is a very divisive topic though.

[Blueyes]

As a Scholar I tend to use Stoneskin pretty rarely during combat. Specifically in relation to World of Darkness most attacks aren't going to require Stoneskin to survive. I am however obsessed with making sure each and every person, pets included, has Stoneskin applied before any combat starts. But once someone pulls I prefer to spend any down time that I have pushing out as much damage as I can. During combat Succor or Adloquium provide sufficient protection. If a player gets Weakness or there is a new player with a significantly lower HP pool than the rest of the group I'll take greater care in keeping them protected with Stoneskin.

[Sebazy]

Stoneskin mid encounter is generally required for end game progression content when it's current and you're not overgeared for it. Go back to 2.0 and Death Sentence from Twintania frequently lived up to it's name if you didn't have both Stoneskin and Adlo up for it. T9 and T11 both have phase transitions that required the entire party to have stoneskin and of course T13's flattens were also super risky without it.

Of course, in these examples you'll generally have a WHM casting it for the 18% flavour. However there are a few odd little situations where I was judiciously applying stoneskin even as SCH. The best example would be going right back to Turn 2 in BCOB. The vulnerability debuff that forced tank switches from ADS could be prevented entirely if the tank was shielded for that ability, of course just adlo alone wasn't always reliable and the debuff would sometimes sneak through. The trick was to alternate adlo and stoneskin as a SCH and promptly trivialise pretty much everything the turn had to offer besides rot.

So in your case, as a scholar, your time is often better spent doing other things besides stoneskin, however don't entirely discount it as it does have it's little uses here and there.

[CycLee]

If you expect a tankbuster-skill -> use it.

Stoneskin is not your bread&butter-skill infight but becomes very handy in certain situations.

[ruskie]

For WoD I just apply stoneskin on everyone as I have time. There are 2 attacks that actually get defended from it direct while at the same time it reduces my healing to near nothing as a result.

But yeah heat wave(dragon) and udulation(sp?)(cerby) will not even apply if a party member takes no damage from it. But as sch I'd go with succor for it - the damage iirc is sufficient for succor to mitigate as well.

Basically if I have time I'll mitigate with stoneskins on all, if not I won't. If MP is not an issue it can help a lot.