The Bottom Feeders: Moves You Never Use and Why (Ver. 2)

[technole]

Stoneskin is not a cooldown rotation. If you did such during the Turn 13 pre-echo days to try to "make up" for a real cooldown during the Flatten cast you would have been crushed to low HP and then die to the following three flare breaths. It required a strict cooldown rotation depending on first phase DPS. Rampart/Foresight, Hallowed Ground, and Sentinel. Stoneskin was the White Mage's job with the 9% buff to land before Flatten hit for extra buffer. If you had done any coil pre-echo, you'd realize how dangerous it is to self-cast a stoneskin over scripted cooldown use. It wasn't just one hit you had to mitigate.

I even get annoyed by the PLDs tanking the knight adds in Thordan EX thinking they are a healer with their two cast skills because that is just more time their knight is still up before the switch, and even not hitting the darn thing while in Sword Oath.

Flash I said for low-level, because you don't have a large MP pool to draw from and if you have to pickup adds because of being careless with stoneskins all over the place in a short period of time, that is totally on the PLD. You don't regenerate MP as fast at low level.

There is even a reason why WAR does cross-class flash in many instances even with Overpower It's because in the chance of having to pick-up adds when pacified there is still a way to run through them and not be helpless for those seconds while they munch on the White Mage.

[Februs]

Stoneskin is not a cooldown rotation. If you did such during the Turn 13 pre-echo days to try to "make up" for a real cooldown ...

I'm not sure where you're getting this idea from, because I never said that Stone Skin somehow "makes up" for a Pld's real CD's. I actually said that the Pld Defensive kit is planned. It's all micro managed. You don't just stop using other Def CD's because you have a Stone Skin up. You use it with your CD's. That being said, which CD's you use will change and can be planned around the extra mitigation of Stone Skin.

Foresight, for example, is super weak and is almost always used with another CD. However, if you couple it with Stone Skin for a single hit TB it's more than enough to cover the dmg without wasting another CD that could be used later. I would never advocate using Stone Skin in place of scripted CD uses. I would recommend using it with scripted CD uses for the most efficient mitigation you can get. It's basically stretch or bonus mitigation for any Pld who actually knows how to time the cast correctly.

Secondly, Pld Dps does not make or break the Dps check in Thordan EX. They should be contributing to the check, certainly (and stance dancing accordingly), but if the Dps can't make the check because the Pld took 2 seconds to cast a Stone Skin then the problem is not with the Pld's Dps. It's with the Dps. That being said, a Pld should not be using SS during that phase of the fight anyway. It's not required, and SS has limited use on a multi-hit tank buster like Holy Blade Dance. The only time I've ever needed to self buff with SS (or even heal up with Clemency) is if the healer was asleep at the wheel. At that point, you're happy to have the skill, but it's not something a good Pld would normally work into that stage of the fight. Knowing when and where to use the move is important.

Lastly, Pld's cannot really use Stone Skin in low level dungeons, so I'm still not sure what you're going on about here. Pld's get access to SS around lvl 34. Even if they got it earlier, none of the early level dungeons or trials have any instances in which on the fly buffing with SS is useful. In dungeons, SS is a pre-buff skill for planning your pull. It basically allows you to run from one set of mobs to the next without having to worry about how much dmg you're taking in between. No Pld in their right mind would try to use SS during the actual fight, because Pld enmity is too low and, honestly, low level dungeon mobs hit like wet noodles.

Maybe you've just run into some really crappy Pld's, but the downsides you're listing for Pld's cross-classing stone skin are ways in which the move should never be used in the first place. Like I said before, there's nothing willy-nilly about the way a Pld should be using the move, and they most certainly should not be using it as a replacement for their defensive CD's. Like all of their moves, they should be micromanaging it's use to fit in and work with their defensive kit. It's the same for any tank, really. They try to find synergy in their kit for which moves work with which and in what circumstances. The only move a Pld would ever use alone is Hallowed Ground (for obvious reasons).

[technole]

No, you can cross-class stoneskin in the first or second slot and have it available in lower-levels even before White Mage ever gets the skill. I can even cross-class ghetto-version of Mantra (MNK 42) on WAR/DPS in an earlier slots and it's available even all the way back at Copperbell. Regardless, Stoneskin is not a cooldown either.

Foresight ends up about an overall 6% defense on Warrior, and it has better use even alone when tanking in Deliverance to soak auto-attack damage, then other cooldowns can be used for more mechanical damage.

I'm not sure where Foresight is even being questioned, I only put that along with Rampart for the standard first T13 Flatten rotation. Regardless, Stoneskin was the White Mage's job in end-game because of enhanced 19%, and most of them being interruptible, and tank busters that required actual cooldown use. None of what you said advocates that it's okay during those situations. Like I said, there has to be a situation where the boss is away, or a free GCD where damage cannot be done to ever be worth it due to it's cast time and low-effiency.

Every job contributes to damage on the check. Even healers have a few GCDs to get damage and DoTs up on both knights before the stance. DoTs that go up on the knight before the switch get full-value even if they change to the shield. The notion that oh i'm just a PLD so damage doesn't matter is pretty silly.