Stoneskin shouldn't have been removed

[Applesnap]

For me, its an extra safety tool on my PLD to add some extra 10% hp to my healers in case of bad things happening.

Most people seem to have missed this. I use Stoneskin quite often on paladin to dampen incoming damage during jump / wait phases or in some instances to avoid getting a debuff. Mitigating an attack in full can sometimes prevent its additional effect from landing, which in turn means higher healer DPS and fewer MP wasted on cure etc. Worth bearing in mind...

[RokkuEkkusu]

Stoneskin should have been kept for White Mage at least.

It can stay off the cross role list for all I care.

[Paladinleeds]

Another thing worth remembering is that while Stoneskin may seem useless compared to Galvanise/Nocturnal Field, is the stacking. Galvanise/NoctField overwrite each other (dependent on which shield is the strongest), but they don't overwrite Stoneskin (and vice-versa). This meant that you could Stoneskin + Adlo -> More shielding on the target. I'd say it was far from a useless skill.

[KisaiTenshi]

So why did we lose Stoneskin, but keep Repose, our extremely useless sleep spell?

I think this explains the crux of the matter.

Casual Healers use Cure I and Cure II, and don't use Stoneskin after the initial pull, and use regen/medica II to to survive.
Raiders Healers use Regen and Medica II only, and don't use Cure I or Cure II if they can help it, and use Stone Skin to survive instead.

There is two different play styles going on, and Yoshi-P is catering to the Casuals, while the Raiders really want to be playing AST.

There are mechanics in game content where Sleep/Repose was expected to be used, and people didn't use it, because not everyone had access to a sleep spell. There are mechanics where stoneskin could be useful, but since not everyone had it, and it's been nerfed so many times, it's not used where intended.

The problem with Stone Skin in the first place is that it has a cast time. It should have a cooldown time instead. That's why it doesn't get used. Particularly with StoneSkin II, because you could be mid-cast of it and then the tank pulls, so the tank doesn't get it. Even Swiftcast+SS2, which you can hit while moving, the tank has already run off. That is why people aren't using it. If you were wasting time casting SS, you were told to quit being bad and DPS instead.

http://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...cf56b933b99601

The level 50 support ability Stoneskin II has been added.
Action Effect
Stoneskin II Creates a barrier around self and all party members near you that absorbs damage totaling 18% of maximum HP. Cannot be cast while in combat, or on a target engaged in combat.
Duration: 30m

You can't cast SSII on anyone with enmity, so it's basically useless everywhere except pre-pull, and that still requires a tank that is patient. The entire reason SSII exists is to cast stone skin on everyone before a pull because otherwise you were casting it individually on everyone.

On WHM, there is supposed to be a grainiteskin trait that increases SS from 10 to 18%. This disappeared to make SS in a cross-class equal on other healers.

So my guess is that if SS is gone for good, it was likely more to do with it's infrequent use and need to reduce "role" skills down. SCH and AST typically would take CS, Stoneskin, and Protect from the CNJ cross class, while the WHM takes nothing from ACN, but nothing from the actual SCH or AST because those are job skills you can't take at all. WHM was alone in this case.

Do you see anything in the Role actions that were previously in AST or SCH? NOPE.

SE should have just left Stoneskin/SS2 on the CNJ/WHM-only skill list

[JunseiKei]

It really isn't needed.... my AST shields are typically stronger than what Stoneskin provided. SCH has shield, WHM now has a shield.... its just redundant.

^
Stoneskin only absorbed 10% of the target's max HP. Even a tank with 35,000 HP only absorbed 3,500 damage from stoneskin and with any other class, it's even less. My AST's shield is 3,600 without factoring in the 170% bonus. My SCH's adloquium is 4,000. All of which do not matter who is getting the shield and all of which are even faster cast's than WHM's 2.35 second timer. Yes, stoneskin did stack, but defensive cooldowns have pretty steep diminishing returns. Well, not diminishing returns, but the more defensive things you stack, the less efficient it becomes and ultimately becomes a wasted resource (waste of MP in stoneskin's case).

The only time you actually needed stoneskin was to block prey in The Final Coil of Bahamut. Even then, the scholar could take care of both with an adloquium on one DPS and swiftcast the other on another DPS.

[Dyvid]

I think this is related to the Speed Run nerf.

[Aramina]

Do you see anything in the Role actions that were previously in AST or SCH? NOPE.

E4E says hello, but WHM should have kept SS.

[ErikMynhier]

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.

[NolLacnala]

I used stoneskin with noc ast to stand in really dumb stuff and be totally fine, like the middle meteor in diabolos

Which might be one reason they're getting rid of it

[DarkRain]

Or done like ff11 Cure 4 or 5 also granted stoneskin .....