Stoneskin Midbattle waste of time?

[Abeyante]

Some blm got lippy with me the other night over me reapplying stoneskin during CoD as a sch saying I was only wasting my mp. I personally think that the fact that Adloquium costs 330 mp and that stoneskin is only 230 that stacking it or in the case of a reprieve using stoneskin only saves me mp in the long run and also from having to chase plummeting hp particularly from the more hapless party members.

But thoughts?

[Cariborne]

Adlo is better then Stoneskin for a Scholar in my experience. The only time I use Stoneskin is Pre-battle in a dungeon where we don't have a White Mage. otherwise I don't see the point.

[Sanguisio]

They stack...
Just think of it as an extension of peoples HP bars and its cheaper than raising.

I will say if you just applying it whenever as oppose for a specific hard hit or pre pull it is a waste. But in fights like t10, t13 and certain skills hit quite hard a stoneskin is very good to use.

[Raminax]

It's never wasteful, unless someone will somehow go the whole 30 minutes without ever taking damage.

But it is arguably inefficient at times. If people won't die due to the lack of an HP buffer, Stoneskin will likely prevent less damage per MP spent than you can restore with other healing spells. Naturally, even if you can survive a particular hit unmitigated, said hit might leave you on such low HP that you could be picked off by an unavoidable AoE a second later, so Stoneskin is still useful in that case. In the case of Cloud of Darkness, Stoneskinning people with multiple Vulnerability stacks is a fine idea, especially if some Dark Clouds/Storms go through to the Cloud of Darkness. But Stoneskin is fairly meh if her super move is at 0 stacks and no one has Vulnerability.

Say, during the time you'd be Stoneskinning the entire party for a boring 2'000 damage hit, you could've helped ensure that Dark Clouds/Storms die with some DPS, or you could've just smacked the Cloud of Darkness herself. A 24 second cast time on 8 Stoneskins is, after all, almost 10 damaging spells that could be squeezed in, or ensuring that Particle Beams or Clouds/Storms don't get through when you aren't locked down for so much time.

So yeah, no straight answer to it. If required to survive a heavy hit, then it's never a waste of time. But if you can survive without it, it tends to become a grey area and a question of efficiency of MP costs and how your time casting Stoneskin could otherwise be used.

[DarkerOrange]

On a WHM it may be worth doing, but on a SCH I would say no. You have far better things to do as a SCH in that fight than standing around casting SS for almost 30 seconds.

[VanilleFang]

As a WHM I only reaply SS on CoD before she casts her Raid Wide AoE. I make sure at least me, the other healer, and my tank have it up before she hits us.


I also recast it on the MT. Since it's just as effective while CS is up I usually cast it after I apply Aero II + Aero, though only occasionally.

[melflomil]

SCH is all about mitigation, if you are mitigating damage tell the person to stfu and continue to their role. If you feel you are at a good spot go cleric and start destroying the boss/mobs

[radioactive_lego]

On a WHM it may be worth doing, but on a SCH I would say no. You have far better things to do as a SCH in that fight than standing around casting SS for almost 30 seconds.

Agreed. Graniteskin is excellent on a tank where you get a lot of bang for your buck (a 10K HP tank just got an additional 1800 HP). It also goes further; since armor. Giving a Nin an extra 900 is meh since they are made of paper. If they delay on 4x stacks of WoLs, they are dead no matter what.

Granted, you can get a Cure II for 2700ish HP (4K crit) for about the same amount of MP, but sometimes you just gotta lean forward on dmg "mitigation".

[Sanguisio]

Its needed for certain mechanics e.g. preys etc.

With less geared tanks vs flattens, revelations, crit rip, 2nd head etc.

If your target won't survive the mechanic, give them a shield nuff said.

[Yumi_umi]

If a tank gets roflstomped by a tank buster and survives with 1000 hp etc. you would be glad you casted that virus and stoneskin before that hit lol.
Cuz crits happen and when it does, healing it after it lands is more riskier than mitigating it before hand.