Adloquium: How Does It Work?

[Penguinmayhem]

Okay, I'm officially confused. I've heard dozens of people now saying that the best time to use Adloquium is right before a pull or before a big aoe or some such, to mitigate damage. However, Adloquium's actual skill description states that:

Erects a magicked barrier which nullifies damage equaling the amount of HP restored.

I've always worked on the assumption this means Adloquium only absorbs as much damage as the spell actually healed. Therefore, if you use it on someone with full HP, you haven't restored any HP, therefore you get no shield.

Can anybody back me up on this one? Was there a change in a patch that I'm just not aware of yet, or have huge chunks of the community been saying something that isn't true? Or does it work some other way and I just don't understand this description correctly?

[Kreis_Veilan]

As far as i've always noticed : Even on full hp you are healing for x amount , over heals count for the shield aspect of adlo , is why most spam it for a crit on boss pulls etc to get the shield goin strong to focus on other things to start off with and relieve some initial stress.

[Kirol]

Here's how it goes - You cast Adlo / Succor on a target and the amount is heals is the same amount of damage that is mitigated by the effect.
Even if the target is at full HP, however, if the spell hits for 255 (just for an example), then there will be 255 damage absorbed by the spell.
So no matter the HP of the target, the number it hits for (even if it can't heal higher than max HP) is the number you'll have mitigated.
Think of it as a low powered cure + stoneskin rolled into one spell.
Because of MP costs it isn't efficient to keep spamming, but if you know there's a big move coming up and see on the focus target bar that it's being charged, it's worth dropping an adlo just for that extra bit of mitigation before you move in to heal what HP has been lost.

[AldoVonAlexandros]

You can test it yourself, apply adlo to you and provoke a monster, youll see how the damage is 0, you can do the math doing this

[lulunami]

For Adloqiuium spell:
If you heal the target for 500 HP, there will be a 500 HP shield. If the heal was a critical hit, your shield is doubled. Lets say you crit heal for 900 HP. The shield is now 1800 HP.

For Succor spell:
There is no added shield effect for critical hits. A 300 HP heal will only provide a 300 HP shield.

[Rennius]

I use Adloquium quite a lot personally. It is usually a good idea to use it when the tank is getting damaged constantly and falls below 50%. You hit him/her with an Adloquium, and you should have enough time to throw in a Physick or two without him/her dropping any further, or even heal someone else.
It can be used in conjunction with other spells as well, such as after a Lustrate.
There are many other situations where Adloquium is very useful, so give it a try, but also don't spam it.

It is also a matter of play style; other fellow healers play Scholar differently, using less Adloquium and more Physick, etc.

[Fynlar]

It works even on a full-HP target, you can easily see it yourself because it still adds the Galvanize status (the shield it's referring to)

It's basically like how XI's "Cureskin" worked, except that worked off a different formula and did not exactly match the HP your Cure would have hit for (but it WAS still based on the HP your Cure would have hit for). That and Galvanize actually does stack with Stoneskin.

Adloquium is basically SCH's rough equivalent of WHM's Cure 2, just with a different sort of effect rather than just a sheer higher healing potency, and it trades in WHM's Freecure trait for gaining more out of criticals due to the shield doubling effect.

[stuscott]

Basically, as a Scholar, you need to get in the mindframe that you heal by preventing damage through shields and use Physick to fill in the gaps and Lustrate as the emergency button (compared to a WHM who heals damage received).

[Freyt]

Adloquium is a 300 potency heal that prevents damage after that heal for the same amount you healed. Essentially, Adloquium is a 600 potency heal, but Galvanize will take effect even when healing past full HP. However, this also means that while Galvanize is in effect, Adloquium is merely only a very expensive 300 potency heal. Adloquium also gains a bonus from a critical heal, making it essentially a 900 potency heal, with 600 of that applying even if overhealing the target past their full HP. The extra extra bonus is that your heal is already boosted from the critical heal, so while you added an extra 300 potency, what was 300 + 300 before is now like 500 + 1000.

In dire times, when healing a single target taking a lot of damage, it is usually best to go with 'Adloquium > Physick > Adloquium > Physick' and repeat. Though some variation depending on the circumstances.

If you spam Adloquium, you will run out of MP. Be efficient.

[NarikoStar]

Lulunami and Kirol have probably defined it best.

The one thing I will say is as you near your SCH gear best in slot you should be right around 4k MP when full party buff + food which makes it much easier to "use" Adloquium and as your crit rate nears the 17~22% range it becomes much more efficient to use. So while I agree with Kirol as it being not so efficient because of its MP costs, once your gear scales closer to properly itemized iLvl90 the spell's efficiency becomes much more useful and you'll probably find yourself being able to use it much more freely than before.


While this isn't exactly related to the direct question but related more towards the topic itself. Some things I've found useful but annoying with the effect of galvanize and adloquium to watch out for:

Higher casts of Adloquium cannot be overwritten while the previous-galvanize effect buff is still on for criticals.
This problem doesn't really occur with regular non-crit adlo's since they usually fall off in any end game situation before the next cast but for critical hit adloquium it can be more troublesome if a situation like this arises:

>> You cast adloquium on tank for a critical of 1500HP. ((Tank now has a 3,000 dmg shield)
>> Ifrit uses incinerate for 2,700HP.
>> You cast aldoquium on tank for a non-critical of 730HP. ((Galvanize has no effect))

Because the galvanize buff is still on the tank registered as a crit shield of x2. Even though the shield has been broken and only has about 300HP left on it, the non-crit aldo which provides a sheild of 730HP does not take effect. I've always stacked crit on my SCH but this particular fight is really the only time I find this build can actually somewhat-hurt you. I still don't think I'd give it up the build because preventing the stacks a majority of the time is still quite beneficial. Especially when a WHM and you are working in tangents on fights like Ifrit EX where he can sometimes do x3 back to back incinerates which CAN be avoided with some savy time casting maneuvering but because of this mechanic makes it troublesome to deal with at times if your first adlo is a crit, but your second one isn't.

So in a short, and additional tip: Watch out for your critical's, because you might end up wasting an Adlo if you decide to cast back to back and have a Crit then a Non-crit.