Rounding out SCH subs

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

So far, I have WHM, BLM, RDM and BRD for SCH subs at the time being. While I like /RDM over the other subs I have, I see myself /WHMing it up to 68 for the time being unless opportunities to nuke arises, but from there on out it seems like /RDM is the superior option. /WHM is mostly due to the ever-present burn PT trend, but admittedly, being able to dish out an Accession Stoneskin to go under those shadows will likely help me keep more MP in the long run, not to mention Accession Regen II.

Now that Addendum: White and Black have given us a little more space to breathe on subjobs, I'm now also looking at finishing up DRK and PLD subs for Stun/Absorbs and Flash respectively, giving me tools on SCH I presently lack. The Absorb spells are limited, I'll admit, but Absorb VIT and AGI might bring some added versatility; Stun's utility is undeniable and AoEing it might have some perks to it in crowdcontrol situations. Flash is for times its needed and Auto-Refresh is a nice bonus.

SMN would have been nice had it offered tricks I couldn't already get from the main job and other subs, so I see little to no point in persuing it as a sub.

Can't really think of anything else, but if anyone else wants to point out something I'm missing, feel free.

[Callisto]

Re: Rounding out SCH subs

I'm not sure of the utility of /PLD, but I myself am all about /DRK, while it does lack defensive ability, being able to cast Stun and Absorb spells with solid Dark Magic skill is pretty nice, although it is unfortunate that you can't get Bio II as /DRK. It would take a fair amount of restraint to not yet yourself killed by dishing out Stuns and T4 nukes, however. Not sure how often it'd get used, but it just looks like a cool combo to me.

[Icemage]

Re: Rounding out SCH subs

The obvious beneficiaries here are /WHM, /RDM, and /BLM due to the white/black magic strengths of Scholar.

I used /BRD for a few levels, and it has its uses; I am sure SCH/BRD plays similar to WHM/BRD or RDM/BRD up through at least 60 (i.e. you're just filling in time between casts for Madrigal/Paeon/Ballad to get something while you're not resting). This is bolstered at 35, when you really have few options but to NOT rest when using Sublimation - this is a perfect time to be using something like Paeon, Madrigal or Ballad.

I see very, very little reason to use /WHM after you get access to Addendum: White in an XP party. The way I see it, if you're going to need heavy access to status removal, you're in a main healer role anyway, and are going to be in Light Arts/Addendum: White 95% of the time except for the rare occasion when you want/need to flip into Dark Arts to burn off some MP or cast Aspir/Drain (or alternatively for an emergency shift into Addendum: Black for a Sleep to control a link). Divine Seal and Auto-Regen are nice perks, but other subjobs offer more.

One possibility that occurs to me is /BLU. Blue mages get access to a very, very early version of Stoneskin in Metallic Body at level 8. According to the wiki, the formula is Blue Magic/3 + Level/3 (I'm assuming this is your current main job level, not the level of your Blue Mage subjob, but I could be wrong - need to test!), so at level 35 when you first get Sublimation, it should absorb:

54 Blue Magic (cap for level 17)
+ Level 35 = 89

Divided by 3 = 29 damage.

This buys you some 14 ticks of damage immunity against Sublimation, which is "enough" to let you do some judicious resting.

It's possible that I'm wrong and that it triggers off of your effective Blue Mage level, in which case it would be (54+17)/3 = 23 damage absorbed = 11 ticks, which is still acceptable under this circumstance. In all cases, the potency of Metallic Body is low, but it costs less MP than Stoneskin and in any case buys you enough time to get some substantial MP back from resting while under the influence of Sublimation.

Another nice benefactor to SCH/BLU is Healing Breeze, which gets a substantial boost to potency based on MND, Healing Magic, and VIT - and you can add Sheep Song into your spell list to get the same Auto-Regen trait that /WHM offers, even earlier than you get it from /WHM. It's also much more MP-efficient than Curaga or Curaga II, and doesn't cost you a strategem charge for Accession (though you still have this option if you need it for some reason).


Icemage

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Rounding out SCH subs

Only thing about PT support from /WHM is that it does have the AoE SS/Blink option going for it a lot earlier than /RDM would, otherwise with it all I'm using Addendum: White for is to tap Reraise or Stona (yeah I thought for sure that one was gonna stay WHM-exclusive, it didn't). /WHM otherwise at least saves me a strategem if I chose to slip out of Light Arts to Dark Arts and back after Reraise.

BLU I hadn't really thought about, but only because I was pushing Kitten through that job as a main and not Foobar, which the character that's 55 SCH right now. I might get back to it though, Healing Breeze was the spell I was trying to get on him before I decided to shift gears and level the job on Kitten as a main and COR subjob. Reasoning was that I put full sword merits on her and was going to max out MP merits anyway.

DRK is closest to getting to sub level, I left it sitting back in 20s when my enthusiasum for RDM completely died late in the CoP days.

BRD is 75 on Foobar, so easy to slip on as a sub if I absolutely need the extra tick of refresh from Ballad. I just don't hit below 300 MP terribly often thanks to Sublimation and Conserve MP. Got Refreshed by a RDM maybe a total of three times last night and Sublimation just rejected it and I kept up just fine, if not better on MP than our RDM did. Accession Regen II is just tremendously efficent like that.

/RDM honestly has the most going for it, particularly past 68 where you don't even have to go to /WHM for Stoneskin. Only downer for me is when there is a DNC in PT and I could have done and Accession Enspell, Sambas override them :/

[Icemage]

Re: Rounding out SCH subs

To revisit the particular topic of Metallic Body's potency, I just tested it as SCH37/BLU18.

With these spells set (minus Sheep Song +5HP, which I turned off because it gave me Auto-Regen), I have 472HP:



This is with no gears equipped as Tarutaru SCH37/BLU18 (1 MP merit and 3 of my 7 HP merits in effect)



After casting Metallic Body and activating Sublimation, I then cast spells to drain out all the rest of my MP, activating Sublimation returned 118MP, and left me at 387HP.



From previous testing, I know that the amount of damage from Sublimation is 2 less than the amount of MP returned, so I should have taken 116 damage.

However, I took 85 damage (472 - 387), which means that Metallic Body absorbed 31 damage for me.

I have 57 Blue Magic with this combination, so:

(57 + x) / 3 = 31
57 + x = 93
x = 36

Since my SCH is level 37, that extra level is probably being truncated, so Metallic Body does indeed use your main job level as part of its calculation.


Icemage

[Sabaron]

Re: Rounding out SCH subs

I'm thinking that Metallic Body from /BLU is not the coolest option on that sub. What about Cocoon? Do you think your tank, DRGs, other squishy front-liners, would love to have 50% more DEF? I do... Kinda short duration on Accession, but nifty nonetheless. With a duration of 90 seconds, it doesn't really become viable until 50th level. It also brings Wild Carrot and Healing Breeze to the table--the most mp-efficient bulk curative spells available.

Oh wait... NVM. Can't use Acession/Manifestation with a BLU spell... Que malo.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Rounding out SCH subs

Wild Carrot is also a level 30 spell

Maybe SE will be nice and let me merit for a Blue Grimorie?

[Neomage]

Re: Rounding out SCH subs

Wild Carrot is also a level 30 spell

Maybe SE will be nice and let me merit for a Blue Grimorie?

I actually suggested this a while ago, for SCH merits.

[Karinya]

Re: Rounding out SCH subs

I'm thinking that Metallic Body from /BLU is not the coolest option on that sub. What about Cocoon? Do you think your tank, DRGs, other squishy front-liners, would love to have 50% more DEF? I do... Kinda short duration on Accession, but nifty nonetheless. With a duration of 90 seconds, it doesn't really become viable until 50th level. It also brings Wild Carrot and Healing Breeze to the table--the most mp-efficient bulk curative spells available.

Oh wait... NVM. Can't use Acession/Manifestation with a BLU spell... Que malo.

Besides, it would duplicate the BLU merit ability that does the same thing - Diffusion.

Which is a damn nice ability, except the timer is really long. But BLU would be pissed if someone else could do it on a 1 min timer (at SCH70), even if they could only use level 37 or lower blue magics through it.

I think it makes good lore and gameplay sense for SCH and BLU to be incompatible. They're really totally different approaches to the nature of magic and power. Apollonian and Dionysian, even.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Rounding out SCH subs

Besides, it would duplicate the BLU merit ability that does the same thing - Diffusion.

Which is a damn nice ability, except the timer is really long. But BLU would be pissed if someone else could do it on a 1 min timer (at SCH70), even if they could only use level 37 or lower blue magics through it.

I think it makes good lore and gameplay sense for SCH and BLU to be incompatible. They're really totally different approaches to the nature of magic and power. Apollonian and Dionysian, even.

I mostly agree, but then, Rapture kinda steps on Divine Seal's toes, not to mention Accession -na spells/Erase/Stoneskin/Regen II/Blink stomp all over WHM and SMN's feet.

Ebullience is a different case, it increases the potency of Dark Magic and Nukes by about 20%, while Elemental Seal increases accuracy of the next black magic spell.

[Malacite]

Re: Rounding out SCH subs

>_ > Anyone think there's a chance of SE reversing/nerfing some of these changes? While I love them to death, it does seem that SCH has become a tad psycho.


Shit, I'm pretty sure they can even pump out more damage with Tabula Rasa than a BLM can with Manafont given the following:

Tabula Rasa allows for unrestricted use of stratagems. That means at Lv 75, Ebullience will basically make up for (maybe even surpass?) any MAB discrepancy between a SCH/BLM and a BLM main. Then you have Parsimony and Alacrity to cut the costs and casting times in half. This will lead to some rather nasty spamming of high powered Thunder IV >_>b

Conversely, a SCH/RDM could do the same thing but with White Magic popping off high powered, half cost (or full cost if for some freaking reason you decide to use accession as well) Cure IV at blazing speeds to keep people (Kraken DRK???) alive.


I swear Tabula Rasa has become the perfect melding of chainspell and manafont, which coincidentally enough are needed to unlock the job in the first place. Hmm....


But yeah, it looks like BLM and RDM are without question the status quo jobs for EXP now. Divine Seal is kinda nice early on, but Rapture basically nullifies it. Hell, I'd go as far as to say that SCH is now more efficient at healing than WHM thanks to the stratagems changes. DRK and BLU seem more situational to me, and as BBQ pointed out, SMN would only be for auto refresh since SCH can already duplicate it's BP tricks much more efficiently.


>. > And you just know they're probably going to allow us to merit for more stratagems (probably as a category 2 though, similar to BLU's Assimilation merit. I can't honestly see them giving us 5 more stratagems, especially with the recent changes. WTF would that do to the recharge timers?!)

[MrMageo]

Re: Rounding out SCH subs

Well I think a blue spell merit would be great put smn skill in there two so sch can step on everyones toes at once ^^

of course it could fit the story line they are studys of magic

[Icemage]

Re: Rounding out SCH subs

Malacite, I think you're overstating the power of strategems.

(1) You still have to be in the appropriate Arts to use the related Strategems. Tabula Rasa gives unlimited strategems while it is active and removes the spell cost/speed penalty to spells from the "wrong" color, but you still only have access to whatever strategems are linked to your currently active Arts.

(2) It takes a couple seconds to activate a strategem. So using Ebullience, Alacrity, and Parsimony on a Tier IV nuke costs you probably 5-6 seconds, which brings you back to basically the same cost/power that a BLM can do without the extra gruntwork of using JAs. And you still have to pay for the spell, unlike the BLM.


Icemage

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Rounding out SCH subs

Here's how I see the balance it as of now for jobs dubbed "Mage."

• WHM - Healing specialist, most potent cure and protective abilities.
• BLM - Elemental damage specialist, most powerful nukes. High MP consumption
• RDM - Middle of the road, capable healer/support, respectable nuker. Highest MP endurance in the game.
• BLU - Decent support abilities, highly potent physical magic. High MP consumption.
• SMN - Moderate support ability, AoE party buffs, potent physical magic via avatars, modest elemental magic via avatars. Highest Max MP in the game.
• SCH - Can specialize highly in Black or White magic, very capable support as well, but at the expense of one magic specialization at at time. Most efficient MP user in the game.

While I admit SCH dances heavily on the feet of WHM, BLM and support SMN, at the same time trying to be any of thier roles at the same time at the same time is very, very difficult. Its better to play the hybrid WHM/SMN or focus on a BLM role entirely instead of shift back and forth constantly.

SAM's design is largely to be credited for SCH's design and it just shows. Sublimation is a kind of Store MP, Light and Dark Arts have thier bonuses and penalties just like Hasso and Seigan do. The theme for both is to be adaptable to the situation, something SCHs probably won't mind doing, but SAMs remain reluctant to do.

What needs to be done at this point is to not take anything away from any of these jobs, but to push these distinctions between them further. In the case of WHM and BLM, SE needs to work a little harder than make new spells that send people somewhere else. SMN got some fixes recently and there's probably more to come there, and then there's the new avatars on the way. RDM doesn't need a lot of fixing, SE just needs to give them something that helps them be more welcome in melee for situations that call for it but not so much that they shift to melee full-time.

[MrMageo]

Re: Rounding out SCH subs

Id like you to add support to rdm please and thank you, we dont get begged to join parties for our cures and definitally not our nukes.

Haste can i have it? NO!
Refresh can i have it? NO!
enfeebles can i have it? NO!

RDM retired march 20th 2008

BLM>SCH>DRK

I will miss you my red hat friend.