Using Stoneskin as a paladin, should you have it?

[Hayward]

I'd disagree that all of PLDs cross-class skills are a waste. I've done well without Stoneskin so far but would take WHM up 3 more levels to get it. Fracture seems to be a good complement to Circle of Scorn for DoT purposes and Mercy Stroke is really good when there isn't much time for Curing oneself.

[Steeled]

They're not a waste, they just suck.

Tbh, I barely use fracture on WAR, let alone having ever considered it on PLD.

Logging in is hard, but I think the cross class I have sat is FS, BB, MS, SS, Raise. Having raise is just a courtesy, but the selection is that awful.

[Leiron]

PLD cross skills are really bad, which might be to balance its already very good cooldowns it posseses natively.
The only true good one is stone skin, which is very useful due to the glut of MP Paladins tend to possess.

[Ehayte]

Stoneskin is awesome - I think people that think PLD is boring don't really see the broad spectrum of things you can do with Stone Skinning. People think that Stone Skin and Riot Blade are useless, then they are bored off-tanking in sword oath while taking aggro from the MT, while healer MP is drained from AoE damage to DPS chars . . . sigh.

My favorite Xclasses are Stone Skin, Cure, Foresight, Mercy Stroke, and Bloodbath. I just hook FoF into Fast Blade and BB into Savage, I have MStroke on my 2nd XHotBar (which has my AE stuff, namely Riot/Mercy), and Cure and Stone swap places between by 2 Xhotbars. Cure is by far my least used Xclass, as its hard to justify a 290pt cure over a 370-800 stoneskin...I mostly use it to troll my friends, just like our LB!

[julliz]

i've done fine without stoneskin, but as everyone else has said - it's useful in certain situations definitely. i don't think it's particularly needed though just because it i see it as situational. it's definitely better than most of the cross-class abilities for PLD, though

[Phreak]

I still need to get this on my SCH for when I heal 4mans and feel like being lazy. :/

Best, Signature, Ever.

I always wondered how someone could manage to hit themselves while splitting wood, now I know, you have to be a complete moron with spaghetti arms.

The Warrior thing is just icing on the cake.

[juniglee]

Just got Stoneskin last night, and actually used it in Coil too!

Helps to block some damage off the rather powerful Hood Swipe from Caduceus, and I try to time a Stoneskin on the Main Tank when trying Twintania (right before Death Sentence - eases a fair bit of pressure from the healer). I will probably try it against Titan HM some time soon too.

[TaneshimaPopura]

If the damage you are taking isn't above a certain % of your MaxHP you will not be cast interrupted. Hence, Stoneskin is particularly a very strong mitigation skill if used under the right circumstances, be it as the MT or the OT. And when you manage to cast a Stoneskin your next Stoneskin is almost guaranteed to cast as the barrier break and the insufficient damage to cause a chance in cast cancel.

Only problem people seem to have with Stoneskin is chain casting it while their threat generation suffers. This is why I and many other tanks have already suggested using Gryphonskin Accessories so you will pull ahead in threat and able to hardcast stoneskin when your group is in a bind. Double self cast Stoneskin before Rock Buster to Mountain Buster will almost always let you survive without self or external CD.

One thing people also fail to notice is that Stoneskin negates any application of debuff should the attack which cause the debuff fails to pierce the barrier.

[allluckys]

So long as you have a lead in threat stone skin is an amazing tool for mitigation and it should be used to assist healers in tough situations.

[Leiron]

You should be perfectly fine on threat to cast a single stone skin up every now and then.