Stoneskin II

[Ferocious]

What 5th skill must you cross class. I'm only coming up with 4 must haves. Protect, Stoneskin, Swiftcast, Cleric Stance. The only others I could think of would be Surecast which is pointless and I'd drop it on WHM for something better and Aero which isn't a must have spell. The only other possible cross class skills are Cure, Raise which you already have copies of and Blizzard 2 which is useless for pretty much any class..

Aero is the 5th must have. Its DoT ends up doing more damage than Ruin I/II, so yes it's worth using to maximize dps (especially on bosses). And while we're on this topic, here's the order you should take each cross-skill :

1. Cleric Stance
2. Aero
3. Protect
4. Swiftcast
5. Stoneskin

You take cleric stance/aero first, so you can dps in lower dungeons while your pet does solo healing. They can perfectly solo heal till at least Haukke Manor. The amount of times I see SCHs without cleric stance, it's quite irritating and lazy. First sign of a bad SCH.

Stoneskin is last because at lower levels, it's not worth using on small HPs. Protect isn't worth using at low dungeons either. Your pet can still solo heal without it as I have personally tested that. Same reason why Swiftcast is 4th because you can easily hard cast rez in low dungeons while your pet heals. Super rare you would see anyone die anyway.

So there ya go, a quick breakdown.

[Urtear]

Useful as SS2 seems to be, especially in saving time, there will sadly be that tank or 12 who won't wait for it.

[StrangeBard]

Useful as SS2 seems to be, especially in saving time, there will sadly be that tank or 12 who won't wait for it.

If you are in a 4 man dungeon just use Swiftcast. Hell even if you are in a raid you can blow Swiftcast to get this off in the case of an impatient tank. Nobody should by dying in the first 60 seconds of a fight and if they do then they deserve to wait for you to get an opportunity to cast the spell without disrupting the flow of heals with the cast time. Though I think the major issue in why tanks don't wait for it is that they don't even know it exists. I was running Snowcloak last night and the tank thought he was lagging out because he had no idea how I could cast Stoneskin that many times in such a short duration. So we just need to take it upon ourselves as healers to make sure tanks know that not only does Stoneskin 2 exist but it is really convenient and should be waited on.

[Mayh]

Considering that Stoneskin II cannot be cast while in combat, I was a little bit disappointed that it has the same cast time as the first one.

I was hoping it would be a shorter cast, but I'm grateful that we got it regardless.

[Vorpal_Spork]

If you are in a 4 man dungeon just use Swiftcast. Hell even if you are in a raid you can blow Swiftcast to get this off in the case of an impatient tank. Nobody should by dying in the first 60 seconds of a fight and if they do then they deserve to wait for you to get an opportunity to cast the spell without disrupting the flow of heals with the cast time. Though I think the major issue in why tanks don't wait for it is that they don't even know it exists. I was running Snowcloak last night and the tank thought he was lagging out because he had no idea how I could cast Stoneskin that many times in such a short duration. So we just need to take it upon ourselves as healers to make sure tanks know that not only does Stoneskin 2 exist but it is really convenient and should be waited on.

I put it in a macro that explains that I'm casting Stoneskin II and requests that the tank stop for a few seconds.

[Tristamwolf]

I'm loving the convenience of Stoneskin II so far, and do what I can to let people know I can buff them all at once with it. Also, had a small glitch one time where the tank pulled a fight before Stoneskin II finished casting, but neither me nor my "target" were considered in battle because we hadn't attacked or interacted with someone who had attacked, so my Stoneskin II went off about .5 to 1 second in to the fight. I might attempt to recreate this for the purpose of bug report, but it would be rather unreliable for regular use I feel. Still, something interesting.

[Arkenne]

had a small glitch one time where the tank pulled a fight before Stoneskin II finished casting, but neither me nor my "target" were considered in battle because we hadn't attacked or interacted with someone who had attacked, so my Stoneskin II went off about .5 to 1 second in to the fight.

I don't have a WHM, or a healer at that, but if «Stoneskin II» has the condition of "only if not in battle" then just as «Hide» from the Rogues you'll be able to cast it at any point in the fight so long you aren't fighting a boss and your enemy list is clear (haven't throw any heal, attacked any enemy or got targetted by any enemy yourself).

If it worked on a boss fight thats just the spell clipping in which spells cast so long 90% of the casting bar has been completed. Not much utility I can see there, besides from recasting stoneskin on the Tank for an aditional shield refresh. Then again, I am no healer, so I can't tell.

[Saevel]

I think it's likely to be a CNJ/WHM only spell, but even if that's not the case I will not be giving up the cross-class actions I have set for SCH in favor of this.

[Hopecord]

that's good, but personally I wish whm get something like "Sacred Prism" in 1.0 which makes the next spell aoe with longer casting time, and make it on long cooldown 4 or 5 min. but that also require making the cooldowns of the entire party reset after each wipe which is another needed QoL thing.

[Sanguisio]

Bliz2 is good for AOE trash, aero is dps ticking over while you are healing.