Scholar – Uses for Adloquium

[Rigelvox]

I just unlocked Scholar a few days ago with the expectation that it'd play a little like a Discipline Priest from World of Warcraft with a little flavor of its own. In the several dungeons I've healed since, I noticed a real lack in usefulness for Adloquium. The shield is almost immediately absorbed by incoming damage on the tank. So my question is this: Is Adloquium supposed to be used as more of a raid heal mechanic on players not receiving huge amounts of burst damage, or is my healing output just not great enough to make a powerful shield on tanks?

[Hulan]

A more experienced SCH may disagree, but I would say Adloquium's uses are two fold. It is extremely useful to pre-cure your tank with Adloquium before each pull. This will give you a few cycles to cast DoT spells on the first target and Bain to spread it out if need be. Beyond that, I actually find myself using Adloquium as my mainstay heal, switching to Physick when I spot heal and when I need to conserve MP (rarely). Adloquium heals marginally less, for more MP but the sheilded damage gives you extra breathing room - even if it's just one extra GDC - to throw in another cure, or if need be, throw up other buffs/debuffs.

SCH is all about pre-curing. The extreme case would be to say "if your tank is taking damage, you're doing something wrong", but in reality, that's rarely the case. Even still, don't be afraid to throw an Adloquium on the tank before big AoEs, or even when things are going well. Every Adloquium you cast is an extra GCD you don't have to be curing.

You say "the shield is almost immediately absorbed", but even just one attack absorbed is going to mean you have time to cast Adloquium or Physick again.

[Ladon]

Adloquium's shield basically minimizes overhealing making you a very efficient healer. If you throw out an Adloquium for 300 but the tank was only missing 300 HP then you just topped them off and temporarily boosted their effective HP by 300. Compare this to say a Cure for 600 in the same situation which basically means half of that Cures potency was just wasted. This goes double for crits as a crit means a more powerful shield where a Cure crit is just another waste.

Additionally the shield mechanic makes you a very stable healer in instances where you are chain healing to keep up with the damage as it gives you a small buffer of free HP on the tank to get that next Adloquium or Physick off.

[pandabearcat]

Adloquium is extremely inefficient unless you crit.

It is depressing, and also doesn't stack, which is one of the main complaints scholars have (esp dual scholar parties).

If you play WoW or other games, Adloquium is closer to a Flash Heal rather than a Greater Heal, or even PW: Shield.

Physick is 400 potency, Adloquium is 300 + 300 shield, but costs nearly three times as much.

Assuming 15%ish crit chance, Adloquium's average healing is

.15*1.5*(300+600) + .85*(300+300) = 712.5

While for the same mana, 2 Physicks is 800 potency.

So with adloquium, you trade efficiency for bulk healing (regardless of crit, adloquium IS more healing than physicks over the same GCD).

It is certainly not sustainable.

Succor is a bit better, but again, only works well on sustained AoE damage (Titan stomps, for example), but is extremely inefficient if used to heal up after large AoE damage has hit.

[Maku]

Uses: Pre-Heal for a massive hit on the party member.
Heal on a party member to full and give temp boost in HP(technically)
Use it when someone has taken massive damage and then top off with Physic (Adloquium -> Physic is how I heal up all major hits.)

Pretty much if you are on SCH and the tank doesn't already have an Adloquium Shield Active there is no reason not to throw out one.

[Zaresin]

Uses: Pre-Heal for a massive hit on the party member.
Heal on a party member to full and give temp boost in HP(technically)
Use it when someone has taken massive damage and then top off with Physic (Adloquium -> Physic is how I heal up all major hits.)

Pretty much if you are on SCH and the tank doesn't already have an Adloquium Shield Active there is no reason not to throw out one.

I keep meaning to test but from what the tooltip says it gives a shield based on the amount of health restored. If they are already at max health they have a 0 strength shield.

[Marcusow86]

Adloquium is mainly used to mitigate incoming huge damage and is a situational heal. The MP cost stops you from spamming them too. I find myself using Adloquium when the tank is being pummeled from pulling additional group of mobs. A swiftcast Adloquium followed by physic spam saves a lot of tank in my party.

I keep meaning to test but from what the tooltip says it gives a shield based on the amount of health restored. If they are already at max health they have a 0 strength shield.

Even when the target HP is full, Adloquium will still put a shield based on how much it heals.

Currently the shield value goes like this:-

1. Normal heal (100) : Shield value (100)
2. Crit heal (200) : Shield value (400)

So, Adloquium highly depend on whether it can crit, if it crits, the shield would absorb massive amount of damage. But due to crit is highly unreliable for SCH's case, we do not depend on Adloquium crit to save the day.

[DenzelTaru]

Please forgive me if I am repeating what others said I didn't read but Adloquium is a very useful spell.

Pre-Fight:
Using it on a Tank takes away that first 1 or 2 hits of damage.

During a Fight:
Think of it more as a large cure than a shield. If you ad for 500 you are actually curing for 1000 because you are preventing a further 500 damage from happening. If you critical like this for lets say 1000 then you are curing for 2000 (end-game numbers)
Rest of the party shielding:
If you know there is a regular aoe attack then you can pre-shield your party. The best example i have for this is the Psycheflayer (sp?) in AK.. he does an aoe lightning attack that does about 600-700 to each member. He does that every 35 seconds-ish and adlo lasts for 30 seconds. So I will adlo everyone except the tank, we get hit, take 0 damage or maybe a little over the top of the shield and then i shield up again.

SCH is more about damage prevention that face-tank healing

[sharazisspecial]

It is better and more efficient to cast 2 physicks(800) instead of 1 adloquium(600) in most situations. Especially considering physick+embrace is decent hps. But adlloquium is occasionally better to cast .In situations such as needing the extra potency/HPS(coil) and lowering the incoming burst(titan buster).

[Burstwolf]

Its a defensive wall with a heal.Do you build a defensive wall after someone invades or before?Its good without the crit when used right.Have yet to see correct scholar math as they only account for only after.