Bring back 18% Stoneskin

[DarkmoonVael]

You're not taking into effect the initial heal added to the mitigation. You're not taking into effect the addition cast time of stoneskin even with our "trait" You're not taking into effect crits for your shield. Things are not as equal as you make them seem.

Nor are they any way as clear cut as you are trying to make out. It would push WHM single target reliable mitigation on tanks further ahead of both AST and SCH, and this would not be balanced. Adlo is rarely used to heal, its there to mitigate the next incoming attack, and this is how stoneskin is used in a fight by a competent whm.

Pro-shell (or whatever the whm protect trait used to be called) and granite skin can not be given back to whm unless they nerf other things in the whm skillset or seriously buff AST so it can compete for the main healer slot along with WHM.

Also, you need to address the fact that there are three healers in the game, and the capabilities of the healers have to be based around the three of them. As of yet you have failed to acknowledge that AST actually exists and how it impacts on the game balance between the three healers, including how WHM has to be balanced around AST's inclusion in the game.

[Lorglath]

If they are already at full health at this point (Hello Cure II or Benefic II,) then adlo isn't doing anything. You use Stoneskin to mitigate an attack that would kill someone or to invest time from when you don't need it, to when you do (right after the tank buster.) If you have 4 seconds to cast a shield before a tank buster, 2.5 and 3 seconds are no different. How about when there is downtime in a fight? People are full health at this point.

Theres a 1 in 5 chance I'd crit adlo with my current stats.
9k, 3k, 3k, 3k, 3k. Vs 4.5k, 4.5k, 4.5k, 4.5k, 4.5k
21k vs 22.5k

So how is it, you want a class that can spam Cure II, a real medica, and a perm AOE Regen, to get a single target Shield that's greater than a shielding class, with less MP cost to boot?

Ok Fair enough, at this point after seeing some more info from scholars I can conceed 18% will be too much, but we do need something more than 10% stoneskin. We just can not do anything in mitigation situations, but scholars CAN do something in aoe situations.

[Rawrz]

I, personally, would be much more open to removing Super Virus trait and just reducing its CD to 60 seconds for ACN. This gives WHM/BLM access to a fully functional virus.

[Lorglath]

Also, you need to address the fact that there are three healers in the game, and the capabilities of the healers have to be based around the three of them. As of yet you have failed to acknowledge that AST actually exists and how it impacts on the game balance between the three healers, including how WHM has to be balanced around AST's inclusion in the game.

Astro's are "passable" at both healing and mitigation strategies. I don't feel that WHM getting some form of useful mitigation takes anything away from them or would make it so no one took them.

[Aryn_Lastrov]

People are making the mistake of comparing an 18% stoneskin to a scholar's adlo. The choice is never between a white mage or scholar. The comparison which should be drawn is that between a whms 18% and an astros 10% stoneskin. As it stands, they both have the same mitigation. But changing the whms to 18% significantly tips the whm to be superior by a huge margin. It adds a big reason for people to take whm over astro (see: uplander doom) which is exactly what se said they didn't want to happen. It would give whms a bit too much utility on top of what they already have.

And on a side, people are incredibly underestimating schs aoe potential. Succor + indom is 700 potency worth of heals in 3 secs and the option of emergency tactics is there if necessary, as is deployment tactics and whispering dawn.

[Lorglath]

I, personally, would be much more open to removing Super Virus trait and just reducing its CD to 60 seconds for ACN. This gives WHM/BLM access to a fully functional virus.

See now, this is what I'd rather avoid. Because this does go to taking away some of the uniqueness of scholar and making the healers the same.

[DarkmoonVael]

Ok Fair enough, at this point after seeing some more info from scholars I can conceed 18% will be too much, but we do need something more than 10% stoneskin. We just can not do anything in mitigation situations, but scholars CAN do something in aoe situations.

Er, WHM can cast stoneskin for mitigation........also has untraited virus and eye-for-an-eye.

Astro's are "passable" at both healing and mitigation strategies. I don't feel that WHM getting some form of useful mitigation takes anything away from them or would make it so no one took them.

Well for a start, AST are far more than passable for healing and mitigation.

Secondly this is what internal balance is about for healers. The devs even said it themselves when they explained the removal of granite skin and giving all healer pro-shell was so AST could compete against WHM for a healing spot in raid groups.

People are making the mistake of comparing an 18% stoneskin to a scholar's adlo. The choice is never between a white mage or scholar. The comparison which should be drawn is that between a whms 18% and an astros 10% stoneskin. As it stands, they both have the same mitigation. But changing the whms to 18% significantly tips the whm to be superior by a huge margin. It adds a big reason for people to take whm over astro (see: uplander doom) which is exactly what se said they didn't want to happen. It would give whms a bit too much utility on top of what they already have.

And on a side, people are incredibly underestimating schs aoe potential. Succor + indom is 700 potency worth of heals in 3 secs and the option of emergency tactics is there if necessary, as is deployment tactics and whispering dawn.

And this is exactly what i have been talking about with balance between three healers and not just between WHM vs SCH balancing. I am glad someone gets it!

[Nathair]

And no WHM would would spam stoneskin (even with 18%) to the same degree a SCH uses adlo.

Exactly why changing doesn't make much of a difference anyway, since the sch covers the pray etc.

[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.

[mp-please]

See now, this is what I'd rather avoid. Because this does go to taking away some of the uniqueness of scholar and making the healers the same.

That's ironic considering the base toolkit of astrologians are renames of WHM skills. Ah wait i can't say that, because they're totally unique skills with the same potency and less mp cost for some reason.

Either way while i agree graniteskin would be OP, proshell change dilluted whm identity too. And if yoshida cared that much about healers having the same toolkit, virus, E4E, stoneskin and protect wouldn't have class specific traits and asylum would also have +10% damage mitigation on it.