Can Someone Explain . . .

[karateorangutang]

Shadow flare is a completely different animal, it's the highest single potency AoE attack that sch has, with mitigation to boot. It deserves to have a long cast time. Likewise, SS II does the work of as many as 8 Stoneskins, for the cast time and mp cost of 2. If people aren't standing around waiting for your SS II to finish casting, you're probably trying to cast it in a situation where it's unnecessary. If there is real danger to the party, such as before a boss battle or a mass pull with hard hitting, AoE-centric trash (SV HM comes to mind, with multiple Aevis), most of the time folks are plenty patient enough for the buff.

I understand, I was using it as an example. All I'm saying is it would elicit a bandwagon effect. The games pace moves steadily as it is and it forces you to make a choice before pulls as to whether you want to use SC for dmg output or for protection in a party. Trust your tank and dps? Then use SS on just your tank and save it for holy.

[Seryl199]

I understand, I was using it a an example. All I'm saying is it would elicit a bandwagon effect. The games pace moves steadily as it is and it forces you to make a choice before pulls as to whether you want to use SC for dmg output or for protection in a party. Trust your tank and dps? Then use SS on just your tank and save it for holy.

The addition of SS II had a bandwagon effect immediately, many scholars complained that they still had to cast Stoneskin individually. However, considering the priority for scholars to cast Stoneskin is low, especially with a Graniteskin toting white mage around, it was never really considered an issue. Making it take less time or even instant certainly could be balance altering, as I'm sure development time was taken into creating SS II and making sure that it had a small impact on the game, being a QoL addition as it was.

Otherwise, yes, we're in agreement concerning it's impact when it comes to Swiftcast. I for one enjoy the impact each of my decisions have as Whm, and how decisions such as spending any (or sometimes all!) cooldowns during a pull can have a great effect on HPS/DPS.