Bring back 18% Stoneskin

[Sabeta]

In almost every fight in the game, Whispering Dawn and Indom have been enough for AoE healing. Failing that, Succor would top them off. Failing THAT, Emergency Tactics could be used. There are almost no fights were massive multi-target AoE damage happens in a frequency greater than every 30s. So yes, while Scholar's AoE healing is in fact weaker than WHM they parse about even in live play. This is something most people seem to forget when theory crafting.

On the other hand, WHM has no unique forms of damage mitigation. Even AST has Bole and Collective Unoncious as possible tools outside of Noct. Now, I don't agree that retraiting Graniteskin is the way to go. That's honestly a bit too far in my opinion. Instead I would like to see some other form of soft mitigation similar to Sacred Soil or Bole.

[Parawill]

You're looking at Stoneskin as an individual skill by itself and only itself. An 18% Stoneskin + Adlo at the moment would be ridiculous amount of mitigation on-top of other cooldowns.

[LDR]

Late to the party but

At the old 18% traited, Stoneskin scales better as ilvl increases than raw healing does, or at least thats the reason why SE removed the trait.
They knew tanks would recieve vastly inflated HP as 3.x progressed, and thus they believed 18% of those pools as mitigation would be unbalanced.
Whilst it may not seem that big a difference vs other mitigation at this point, it would only get "worse" over time.

If they do a similar ilvl jump next tome cycle, we will be looking at i260 upgradable to 270. Whilst its hard to accurately predict, id wager we will be seeing tanks close to the 40k HP range. Give or take a bit and underballing slightly, and 18% STSK would sit around 7k mitigation probably.
Current reliable shielding is on average 3k i think. Even if i lowballed an 18% STSK to do 5k mitigation next tome cycle, i doubt the shields would gain a 2k boost to match when going 210 to 230/40 gained us at best like 800-1k.
Sure STSK is slightly longer cast but if your using it in fight for its mitigation on busters, you would generally know when that buster is due and cast ahead accordingly so its semi moot.

If the 18% stuck about you would probably be able to combo with adlo/a.bene next cycle for about 10k mit. Crit adlo would probably push that to 13/14k maybe even 15k if you had godly crit stats and a high HP tank. Going by my very shakey predicitions, that would be somewhere from 25% - 35% of a tanks HP saved, not even counting defensive CD's.


All in all it was a "pre-balancing" act on SE's part.

[Jukebox12]

How about a 11% stoneskin not so powerful

[The_NPC]

if ppl want WHM to feal more special then change that trait we got in replace of "Granite skin" with something that gives a 2-5% def bonus when under the affect if the buff from Regen or Medica 2 & make it so this "new def buff" last less than the skills normal 1 (so def buff lasts 10sec while Regen/med2's Hot lasts 21'ish), personally thou I'm fine with WHM as is only problem I have is with squishy tanks that think there God & can't back it up

(WHM is my only healer class & I have yet to feal this drive to be special ppl mention... sure I might be jelious of SCH's ability to DPS & heal due to pet but if lv'n ACH showed me 1 thing is that micro-managing a pet & heal/moving is harder than WHM, so skilled ones have my respect)

[AlphaSonic]

I think WHM trait for stoneskin should make it instant cast (like regen). At least it would be useful as some sort of emergency mitigation pre tank burster or something like that.

[technole]

Here was Yoship's quote on Graniteskin removal.

Q16. In regards to the effect of Protect and Stoneskin, can you add some type of advantage, similar to pre-patch 3.0, for white mages?

A16. As I mentioned previously, we made adjustments to actions that were largely based on stat percentages, and due to this the identity of each job was lost when using these abilities as additional actions. I apologize for this.

However, to compensate for this, we've added in a great deal of healing power.

[Tint]

However, to compensate for this, we've added in a great deal of healing power.

...and then they buffed astro to almost the same healing power. plus his buffs, disable and the 10% aoe shield even in whm stance... and we should not forget all his instant-heals...

[DreamWeaver]

...and then they buffed astro to almost the same healing power. plus his buffs, disable and the 10% aoe shield even in whm stance... and we should not forget all his instant-heals...

Don't forget the innately lesser MP cost on spells, innately lesser aggro generation on healing, double (I think) duration on their main MP refresh ability....

[JackFross]

Phenomenal Cosmic Power.... Still no analogue to Cure III. Still a weaker Med II. Still a weaker (shorter by 3s) Regen.

WHM is still the only Job in the game with any AoE heal skill with greater than 600 potency - and it possesses two such skills, alongside an instant-cast Medica on a 90s timer, its primary healing buff being active 50% more frequently (60s v 90s). Its instant heal is quicker to come back, but has scaling based on remaining health and is still weaker than Benediction.

Yes, Astrologian got buffs so its heals would be good enough so as not to be absolute hot garbage.

No, Astrologian's buffs did not come anywhere close to displacing White Mage as the healer with the most consistently potent healing capabilities in the game.



THAT SAID... Stoneskin at 18% was too strong. WHM doesn't need shields - that's not its job. WHM/WHM is a shit comp in the same way as SCH/SCH is a shit comp. Shields don't stack, HoTs do. 10% from a Stoneskin is enough, coupled with cooldowns, for anything that's gonna come at you. Raid mitigation is the one thing they lack, sure, but the game shouldn't be balanced around comps which double up on any given Job.