Stoneskin shouldn't have been removed

[Limonia]

I think they should have kept Stoneskin, reworked it slightly so that it's like a weaker Adloquium but only for WHM, but not remove it completely. I liked to cast Stoneskin on the tank after a trash pull for the next one or in 24 man content on people with weakness. Very rarely used for tankbusters, but it was there at least. WHM now doesn't have anything like that. That shield we get only can be used after we used Cure a lot and we don't even have Virus anymore. So no real mitigation when you randomly get two WHMs, how boring.

I havent used ANY Stone skin for ages o_O
Because its simply annoying, and if I cast the slow AoE Stone skin, people dont bother to wait and the battle starts - skill not useable.

So I removed it from my skillbar <.<;

Didn't you say in another thread that you also refuse to ever dps as a healer, even when there is absolutely NO damage going out?

So... when you don't even keep Stoneskin up on the DPS players, what are you casting then during the battle? Nothing except for a Cure every 20 seconds? Just curious.

[Cabalabob]

i kind of thought that with the change to roles skills they would have made stoneskin 2 usable in combat and just had the stoneskin spells be exclusive to whm, to kind of be their gimpier version of Aldo/succor and nocturnal sect spells.

[Chiramu]

Getting rid of buffs is good. It just takes up time to buff the whole party. A rework of stoneskin and protect might be a good idea though.

[The_NPC]

Thou I haven't used WHM in awhile since fully leveling AST (mostly for the card mechanic, why DPS as a healer when I can just make u'rs stronger... still DPS sometimes but way less then I did as WHM) I still find Stoneskin useful with my PLD & AST, heck lightspeed + Stoneskin saved my party from death several times in Ballser's Wall when shit starts going down hill (mostly on last boss cause someone forgot to NOT stand in the insta-death AoE). Even found Stoneskin uber-usefull back in 2.0 when I solo'd boss fates for my old PLD relic (or when it was the quest for beast-tribe's) since for somereason I can't trust my bird to actually heal me even thou it has the skills. I'm gona miss it due to cross-class becoming the "Job" pool but can discount it has several uses (even gave me 2-3 extra casts of DPS on AST/WHM before real healing was needed)

[Rinuko]

Stoneskin was a wasted ability so

[Leigaon]

I think they should have kept Stoneskin, reworked it slightly so that it's like a weaker Adloquium but only for WHM, but not remove it completely. I liked to cast Stoneskin on the tank after a trash pull for the next one or in 24 man content on people with weakness. Very rarely used for tankbusters, but it was there at least...

I think you're right about keeping stoneskin but making it just like Aldo wouldn't feel very unique. But this is the start of a good path and any suggestion with some detail is better than half of these threads where they have a vague "It don't work no more. ; ; "

So with what we know about WHM, what could be done to make it something that gives WHM a utility to buff the party but also doesn't make it a copy and paste?

Stoneskin was a wasted ability so

So..what would you have it do instead? The point now is to find out unique ways that it could be implemented. What ideas do you have that benefit White Mage that will fit the criteria that the rest of the people who post are the 4.0 changes would accept? It may not get used but if someone reads it, it could spark ideas in their heads for implementation of the spell. For me it was always a staple and did it just because. I can't remember a much needed use for it except for the early days of T5 against Twinnie.

[velw]

Getting rid of buffs is good.

It just takes up time to buff the whole party.

Swiftcast? Even if it's on cooldown, a Stoneskin II before a fight has a cast time of six seconds. Is impulse control that much of a challenge?

Stoneskin was a wasted ability so

Stoneskin can be the difference between a clear and a wipe.

[Keridwyn]

Every dungeon above lv 34 you can bet your biscuits there was stoneskin on everyone and I reapplied it whenever I could. It wasn't an optional thing to me. It was a necessary skill. I never seemed to have this problem of nobody waiting for stoneskin and it wasn't exactly difficult to reapply between trash packs or during critical moments during bosses.

[QooEr]

stoneskin lets people with brink of death live through some mechs or ultimates. its kinda like a safety net, idk why people say its useless.

i also saves a good chunk of aoe healing at the beginning of fights, which means more healer deeps

and even if ast and scholar have shields.. so what? people still used it. you dont see people say whispering dawn is useless because ast/whm have aoe regen too

[TaleraRistain]

Stoneskin should not have been removed and it definitely shouldn't have gone to cross-role. It was one of the few utility items that were left to make WHM unique. They need to bring back both versions, make them WHM only, and get rid of that idiotic lily ability and replace it with something that will actually be useful. I used Stoneskin II with SC constantly. I used SS during fights when I knew big hits were coming. I used it for soloing. It is not in the slightest useless.