Strategem Strategies

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Since there was a discussion recently on how SCH differed from existing mages, I thought I'd outline the differences I've experienced here by strategem and subjob. This isn't a guide so much as a set of guidelines on how to use these strategems and subjobs the most effectively. Additionally, I hope it adds some insight to how the job functions differently.

Before we start, I should note one thing - Strategem charges increase and recast times decrease as SCH levels up. I'll jot down the evolution real quick:

Level 10 - 1 Strategem charge, 4 minute recast.
Level 30 - 2 Strategem charges, 2 minute recast each.
Level 50 - 3 Strategem charges, 1 min 20second recast each.
Level 70 - 4 Stretegem charges, 1 minute recast each.

Got it memorized? Good. Let's mosey.

Penury (Light Arts, Learned at level 10)

• Next White Magic spell at 1/2 cost MP

OK, I'm gonna be perfectly honest with you - I don't use Penury but for a handful of things. Starting out at 10, its all you've got to work with til about level 25, so yeah, its one you'll be using a bit til then. Those subbing /SCH and using Light Arts are actually going to see more use out of this long term than SCH main.

The reason SCH won't use it so much past 25 and especially past 40 is Conserve MP and Accession bring a lot more to the table. Not to mention activating Light Arts already cuts White Magic MP costs by 10%.

I mainly use Penury for things such as Raise, Reraise/Reraise II and then Curaga/Curaga II when I'm /WHM. Even with the 10% cut from Light Arts, these spells are still expensive. As for Cures, Cure III isn't that expensive and SCH gets a couple really viable ways to get out of using Cure IV at all, which we'll discuss later.

So while Penury is great early on and under sub, SCH doesn't make much use of it in the main job long term. In fact, I'd say when SCH has learned Sublimation and Accession, its pretty much obselete unless you're using a /WHM subjob.

And after level 68, there's not much reason to even go /WHM again, practically every SCH goes /RDM at that point and for good reason - it offers the widest range of benefits to SCH in terms of spells and traits.

WHMs and RDMs would be wise to use Penury towards thier more costly spells over the standard ones. The AoE spells, Haste, Refresh and, Curagas and Cure IV/V most noteably.

Parsimony (Dark Arts, Learned at level 10)

• Next Black Magic Spell at 1/2 MP

Unlike Penury, Parsimony is going to see a lot more action. SCHs will often be called upon to perform as BLMs early in thier careers and learn to bring the pain again at high levels. This is mostly because SCH learns the cure spells slower than WHM or even RDM. They don't get Cure II til 15 and won't learn Cure III til 30. That really hurts, so you are actually better off playing like a BLM for a while.

Nukes are expensive and drain your MP quickly, so the benefits of Parsimony are obvious for the SCH playing on the offensive. This will help a SCH last longer. It gets even better when SCH learns the Conserve MP trait, because sometimes you get lucky and Conserve MP will trigger with Parsimony, saving a nice chunk of MP. As you progress through the game, obtain the higher spell tiers, Parsimony only becomes more valuble, especially so after SCH learns Sublimation.

I actually consider Parsimony to be vastly superior to the final epeeny Strategem, Ebullience. While the Potency Boost Ebullience grants to nukes is nice, Parsimony will keep you going longer and allow you to output more damage over time.

Clearly, the use of this under subjob, particularly for BLM, is pretty major. Half Price Tier IVs, AMs and AM IIs. Spiffy. Tragedy of it is BLMs aren't keen to let go of the /RDM subjob themselves, but in the right hands and the right situation it can be worth the risk of losing Stoneskin, Blink and Phalanx.

RDM actually doesn't live with that tradeoff, so for the nuking RDM, /SCH's boost to Elemental magic skills under Dark Arts and Parsimony lead to nice savings.

Addendum: White (Light Arts, Learned at level 10)

• Adds additional White Magic to spell list

Simply put, if you're a healer at any level (even if you're grudgingly forced into it pre-30), there's no reason not to use Addendum: White. By 50 SCH main will have gained the full -na spell line, Erase and Reraise from this Strategem. Once Addendum: White is used your Light Arts Icon will change to signify spells have been added to Light Arts. The effect will either last two hours or until you switch from Light Arts to Dark Arts.

What's great about Addendum: White is in the long term the spells gained are also usable by Accession, with the exception of the Raise/Reraise spells. Instant AoE status cures. Stona is also gained at 50, which is a huge coup for SCH considering only WHM has had access to it for a long time.

Sadly, /SCH's Addendum: White loses out a few -na spells in contrast to /WHM and Erase isn't accessable at all. Hurts to admit it, but /WHM and even /DNC are better for jobs concerned with access to status cures in the long run, Addendum: White won't offer as much to other jobs as it does to SCH main.

Celerity (Light Arts, Learned at level 25)

• Casting time of next White Magic spell halved, recast of same spell halved after use.

Another Light Arts strategem I don't get much use out of, though is helpful after a group or alliance wipe for raising allies. 1/2 off casting times is marginally helpful to cures, but more useful to the emergency Curaga bomb.

Its really the 1/2 off the next recast that you should be thinking about anyway. The applications to RDM and WHM main jobs should be far more obvious here - quicker haste and refresh cycles for you guys. Also, if theres any other White Magic with a signifigant recast, Celerity is of use there.

Personally, though, I can't think of much else to say on this one. I mainly just use this one to raise people more quickly or reapply reraise when I'm about to die. Its no Chainspell/Raise, mind you, but its the next best thing.

Alacrity (Dark Arts, Learned at level 25)

• Casting time of next Black Magic spell halved, recast of same spell halved after use.

After Parsimony, I consider this the next best Dark Arts strategem.

If the mob has MP, you're going to get a lot of milage out of this one. If the mob doesn't have MP, just stick to Parsimony. The quicker a nuking SCH learns these, the better. Manifestation and Ebulliance are all flash, but neither as effective to MP savings and recovery as Parsimony and Alacrity.

Why so great for your MP, you ask? In a nutshell, while Alacrity does jack to Aspir's casting time, its what you get back in return that matters - more chances to draw MP from the target mob. If any target has MP, you'll learn to love Alacrity and Aspir.

Heck, there were times I was SCH/WHM and would stay in Dark Arts just to exploit this. Since I had most of the -na spells that mattered from /WHM anyway, the 10% added cost/casting time to using White Magic under Dark Arts isn't as bad as you'd think. What I got in return from Alacrity Aspirs more than made up for it.

Additionally, Alacrity is also handy for crowd control situations. Quicker access to Bind, Sleep and such does help a bit. If its an enfeeb or Nuke with a long recast, Alacrity is good to go with it. Also nice if you stink at timing out magic bursts on skillchains, particularly when you get this sexy Tier IVs.

The crowd control applications for RDM main are obvious, and BLMs can't deny that 1/2 off Stun recast is pretty useful as well. Oh, and half off those AM/AMII casting times ain't half bad either.

Addendum: Black (Dark Arts, Learned at level 30)[/I]

• Adds additional Black Magic to spell list

As with Addendum: White, if you're locked into Dark Arts most of the time, there's no reason not to use Addendum: Black. The effect is the same, only this strategem adds Dispel, Sleep, Sleep II and at 70+, it opens up Tier IV Elemental Magic. Yes, good stuff. That Dispel is also accessable under /SCH.

The Dispel part loses its edge once you can sub RDM full time at 68+, as does the first tier of Sleep, but at the same time access to the Sleeps and Dispel when you're /WHM or /BLM is very nice.

Access to Tier IV magic is where you'll really start to see the benefits of Parsimony. To be honest, I somtimes think BLMs are quietly cursing me at the end of a chain when I have like 600 MP left and they have none. Its all because of how much benefit Parsimony brings to this Addendum and the magic that comes with it.

A Word about Sublimation (no Arts applicable, level 35)

OK, this isn't a strategem, but we should hit on it anyway. How you use Sublimation is up to your preference, but its important to remember it doesn't stack with RDM's Refresh or food Refresh. All other forms of refresh work.

Also, how much MP returned from Sublimation is based off 1/4 your max HP. Take 1/2 HP in damage and Sublimation will instantly shut off, so don't get too crazy while its active unless you really know what you're doing.

Additionally, if you really want to get the most out of Sublimation through your career, look to Stoneskin. Since Sublimation deals DoT damage to you to store up MP, this presents a difficulty in resting to recover MP. Stoneskin fixes that.

When you get Sublimation, this is tricky since you won't have Stoneskin under sub til you can sub /WHM at 56. There is an alternative, however, and its a really weird one - sub /BLU.

Now, /BLU doesn't draw any benefit from Strategems, so consider the situation first. If you have a BRD or COR, you may not even need to consider it. Still, /BLU offers Metallic Body at a pretty early level and its a nice cheap Stoneskin effect that will allow your SCH to rest. This might not work so hot for Elvaan and Galka since Sublimation returns are based on HP and that means you get more MP out of it than a Tarutaru would. Unfortunately this also means Metallic Body might not last you a full rest because the Stoneskin effect is kinda weak. You guys have less MP to work with, though, so that may not be so bad.

Only other option if you're not 56 to /WHM is to have a SMN around for Earthen Ward. That's helpful and they'll be glad to have you around to help cure anyway.

You'll find that Sublimation is really helpful, despite the pain it causes and combined with Penury, Parsimony, Alacrity, Aspir and Conserve MP you have pretty ridiculous MP endurance if you play things right.

Final note on Sublimation - its based on the max HP from your Main/Subjob combination and +HP gear. -HP/+MP gear reduces the MP returns, "Covert HP to MP" gear treats it like your original base HP. +%HP gear does not have any effect on Sublimation, nor does +HP buffs from food.

OK, back to the strategems

Accession (Light Arts, learned at level 40)

• Converts next enhancing or curative White Magic spell to Area-of-Effect at 2x MP cost and 2x the cast/recast time.

Accession, from a healing SCH's standpoint, is just too good for words. Penury is nice for its MP savings, but you get a lot of bang for your extra MP expense here. AoE Regen, Regen II, Enspells, Stoneskin, Phalanx, Blink, Cures, Protect, Shell... its very powerful and worth every MP spent.

When you first get it, you'll still be going back and forth between /WHM and /BLM. When you hit 56+, you might be using /WHM all the way to 68 just to get the full benefits out of Accession. When you get to 68+, you'll have Stoneskin under /RDM and access to Phalanx. The damage reduction is so powerful from these two spells you may find yourself doing little else but casting Regen II and the occasional cure. That's healing? Ha!

Now, a lot of WHMs furrow thier brows beneath thir hoods over Accession because you can also AoE status cures like Divine Viel can. This isn't the wisest course of action for using Accession. When there are mobs that spam things like AoE poison, slow or silence, you'll burn up Strategem charges very fast. Better to handle status cures the good old-fashioned way - on a case-by-case basis. Melee might like to slaughter imps, but you're no subsitute for echo drops no matter how many people you can cast Silena on at one time. Tell em to suck it up and be patient, especially since Accession Stoneskin can take off a lot of damage in the first place.

Accession spells are also quite the hate magnet. You'll want to refrain from using this when someone has just engaged the target mob or you'll have hate on you really fast. Do some of this buffing in between fights or after you see hate is pretty well-established.

Yeah, pity you other guys can't sub this one, this is where the subjob stuff ends. But when you look at the stuff you guys can do with the other four strategems under sub and what SCH can't so with it on main, balances out.

Manifestation (Dark Arts, Learned at level 40)

• Converts next Black Magic enfeebling or dark magic spell to Area-of-Effect at 2x MP cost and 2x the cast/recast time.

Manifestation is flashy and has some nice crowd control applications, but it comes at the cost of heavy recast times for all the spells you really don't want that to happen to. The doubled MP cost isn't that bad.

Though AoE Dispel doesn't suffer too much, the recast inflicted on things like Sleep II, Gravity and Bind are rather annoying. This can be remedied by using Alacrity with Manifestation to bring it down to the original recast time, but then, you're blowing two strategems to get that effect.

And you're not gonna want to use it for things like Bio. AoE DoT isn't usually a good thing. AoE Drain and Aspir is cute, but also a tremendous hate magnet. In short, Manifestation gets a lot of things pissed off at you real fast and for not much benefit in return.

SCH has a lot of great potential for crowd control, though. Its just best they don't work alone because the recast Manifestation inflicts is painful. SCH using Manifestation with a team of BLMs is pretty wicked, though.

Manifestation has an odd highlight to it as well, it actually AoEs Klimaform (SCH's exclusive AF1 spell) to your allies. That's not even listed in the description of Manifestation, but it works. This is great for getting the most accuracy out of a spell on the matching elemental day - there are jobs that will appreciate you sharing this one from time to time, BLMs especially.

Also, since these single target spells are converted to AoE, all the AoE rules apply, so those NIN mobs will lose all shadows for any spell you cast on then under Manifestation.

So Manifestation isn't a total wash, just not nearly as groundbreaking as it sounds.

Rapture (Light Arts, Learned at level 55)

• Raises the potency of next White Magic spell by 50%, not applicable to enhancing magic.

OK, so this is kinda like Divine Seal and that's pretty much how its used. It can be used on spells like Dia and Banish, too, but boosting Cure potency is where this is best used. Stacks with Divine Seal, too. Gives those Curagas under /WHM a nice boost.

What is sometimes overlooked is that Rapture can get you out of using Cure IV almost entirely. Seriously, when you can boost the potency of Cure II and Cure III by 50%, why even touch the hate magnet that is Cure IV. Not that you would never use it with Cure IV, i just suggest you do it when there isn't a fight involved.

I consider this also better than using Penury. While Penury saves you MP, so does Light Arts and Conserve MP. Rapture gives your cures more HP recovered for the MP you've spent. Better deal, particularly considering how little you'll even have to do that thanks to Accession.

Also, this should be stating the obvious, but Accession/Rapture/Cure IV is a deathwish in a fight. Campaign, too. Do this only if the situation really calls for it, because if there's mobs present, no one will be able to save you after you pop that on off.Pe

Starting to notice the last two Light Arts strategems and better than the first two (excluding Addendum: White)? Vice versa for the Dark Arts ones. Not what you were expecting to hear when we started out, right?

Ebullience (Dark Arts, learned at level 55)

• Enhances potency of next elemental or dark magic spell by 20%.

Ebullience is great... for epeen. It works with elemental magic such as nukes and helix spells, also dark magic like Drain, Aspir and Bio.

While the epeen factor of Ebullience is impressive, you're still going to get more damage over time if you're using Parsimony with Nukes. You can spend the same MP to get 20% more damage or half MP to do the same damage as you'd usually do - that's your call, I side with Parsimony and Alacrity most of the time.

Not much point to applying this to Bio, Drain or Aspir. You get more from using Alacrity with Drain or Aspir than Ebullience. 20% more HP/MP back from Drain/Aspir or more opportunities to use then, again, that's your call, I side with Alacrity.

I do, however, prefer to use Ebullience with the Helix spells where Helix spells are viable. Since Helix magic is counted as elemental magic in the form of a DoT spell, you'll get more DoT out of the Helix spell by increasing the initial damage - which is treated just like a small nuke - through Ebullience. When you're able to merit Helix Magic Attack/Accuracy at 75, the incentive to use Ebullience with Helix spells increases. Gets even better when you slap on Modus Veritas to double the damage in a shorter amount of time.

-------------------------------------------

And that's pretty much all I have to say. Most of this is just my personal experience and how I've evolved into using my Strategems. Its not exactly how I expected to use them when I first started out, but its how I ended up using them. I though Penury and Manifestation were going to be the best of some of them and they turned out to be the ones I use the least right now.

This will also hopefully give BLM, RDM, SMN and WHMs in particular some insight and encourage them to put down thier pitchforks because we're not played the way you think we're being played.

And I suppose while I'm at it, I'll give you this link to Kaeko's Blog. He's on my server and I don't think I'm quite on his level as a SCH yet, but he does some pretty crazy stuff with it. So here ya go:

Kanican

Its not required reading... but it should be.

EDIT: I come back and spell check later, me sleepy now, kthx.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Strategem Strategies

Excellent post, makes me want to go level SCH now. Also cleared up a lot of what SCH can and cannot do, since I never really see SCH do anything but AoE Pro IV the alliance and other such stupid shit like that. (Okay, not really "stupid" but every party has a WHM with Pro/Shellra V, why waste your Accession on that?)

I vote sticky.

[Malacite]

Re: Strategem Strategies

You already mentioned it somewhat in your post, but I'd like to point out bluntly;

Alacrity breaks Manafont. Nothing like spamming Tier 2 AM! That is all :3


Also meriting Modus Veritas to 5/5 gives you no loss on the duration, and multiple SCH can stack modus veritas on the same helix for insane DoT.

[Solymir]

Re: Strategem Strategies

Excellent post, makes me want to go level SCH now. Also cleared up a lot of what SCH can and cannot do, since I never really see SCH do anything but AoE Pro IV the alliance and other such stupid shit like that. (Okay, not really "stupid" but every party has a WHM with Pro/Shellra V, why waste your Accession on that?)

Wait a minute. Accession will go across the whole alliance? Assuming they are in range, one Sch could give 18 people stoneskin and phalanx? If that is the case, that is awesome. Makes things like doing sky a little different.

[Malacite]

Re: Strategem Strategies

Yes that's a key thing to note about accession;

It allows you to Curaga other parties by curing one of their members. If you do this to an NPC in Campaign, it will heal everyone (NPC and Players) in the vicinity.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Strategem Strategies

Wait a minute. Accession will go across the whole alliance? Assuming they are in range, one Sch could give 18 people stoneskin and phalanx? If that is the case, that is awesome. Makes things like doing sky a little different.

She meant one SCH going about Casting Protect/Shell on other PTs in an Alliance via Accession. One round of protect and shell with two Accession strategems per party. Horrible waste of time, MP and Strategem charges.

Also meriting Modus Veritas to 5/5 gives you no loss on the duration, and multiple SCH can stack modus veritas on the same helix for insane DoT.

MV still isn't worth meritting for one simple reason:

Ten minute recast.

[Callisto]

Re: Strategem Strategies

Just a question about Sublimation:

Is the cap based on your Max HP at the time of popping the JA to start the first phase? Rather would it possibly be beneficial to toss on certain HP+ pieces if they don't kill your MP pool significantly(BQ Ring, W.Turban, Intensifying Cape/Gigant Mantle) in your Sublimation macro?

[Solymir]

Re: Strategem Strategies

I can still see situations where casting AoE buffs on other parties in the alliance would be very nice, albeit situational. Or as Mal said, the occasional "curaga". I have sometimes been the only Whm for a whole alliance. Fighting Demi Gods in sky mostly. Usually a tank party (I'd be in this one), a blm party, and a melee party. The melee party got the short end of the stick since they were always right in the thick of things with no mage, so no buffs of any kind. It would have been nice to give them Pro/Shell and be able to curaga if needed. I'm getting very interested in this versatile job.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Strategem Strategies

Just a question about Sublimation:

Is the cap based on your Max HP at the time of popping the JA to start the first phase? Rather would it possibly be beneficial to toss on certain HP+ pieces if they don't kill your MP pool significantly(BQ Ring, W.Turban, Intensifying Cape/Gigant Mantle) in your Sublimation macro?

If you switch gear out after activation, the MP returns will reduce to reflect the new Max MP. Oh, and trying to add HP gear back after you've removed it won't change it back.

Icemage and I played around with Sublimation a bit after the update to see what affects it and how it works. Here's a link to that thread - http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/sch...tion-food.html

[Callisto]

Re: Strategem Strategies

Cool, was more looking to get some cheap HP pieces for my g/f's WHM for a Devotion build(Taru Devotions = sadface) and curious if it was worth working it into other things.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Strategem Strategies

I can still see situations where casting AoE buffs on other parties in the alliance would be very nice, albeit situational.

The problem is, someone did this to my party, when I was on WHM, in the party. That's just a retarded use of MP, especially because every last one of his buffs had "no effect" because I'd already buffed my party with Protectra and Shellra V. So yeah, I can see it being situationally good, but don't attempt to overbuff a WHM, that makes you look like a dumbass who's just trying to show off. (Trust me, it wasn't even a mistake, he did it regularly.)

But yes, Accession + Curaga for a party that doesn't have a WHM or /WHM and got slept could be a godsend, that's for sure.

[Malacite]

Re: Strategem Strategies

Go SCH being the ultimate back-up!

>. > Seriously, load PT's with DD's and BRD/COR and go nuts! >:3

Assign a SCH or two to each PT from outside of the alliance and bring on the pain! Sounds great in theory anyway, and might be fun to test (Assuming the DD's are hurting the mob enough so that the SCH's don't get shit kicked from a very pissed off NM)

BBQ, I'm curious as to what you think of this; What if SE tweaked Ebullience and Manifestation? It seems like a pretty bum rap that the last 2 Dark Arts abilities are rather lack luster for the most part.

Would it be going over board to increase Ebullience's buff to 40~50% (making the extra damage worth while but also riskier for the SCH)? Or would that just drive up the devastation of Helix spells far too much?

And maybe they can just change Manifestation to only increase the casting cost, or to triple it in place of increasing the recast. The biggest drawback to it as you said is that it doubles the recasts which in the case of gravity and bind is very bad.

[The Mauva Syndicate]

Re: Strategem Strategies

Thanks for this - there isn't a plethora of SCH info out there and Thanks to your illuminating posts, I've gone and started levelling SCH (plus one of the folks in my LS has been the only SCH in the LS for awhile). Time to share the wealth!

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Strategem Strategies

I think Manifestation and Ebullience are OK as is. Adding anything drastic to Ebullience would be overkill, in the right situation I can already do about 1.5k with Ebullience Thunder IV and my gear isn't all that terribly impressive yet.

So there's already room for that to be improved just through gear. I'm upgrading to Yigit Turban and Cobra Unit feet by the end of this week hopefully. The feet are just placeholders for Yigit or Goliard, though. I start work on Yigit Hands after the headpiece and can put my Vicious Mufflers aside because the head + hands will give me same MAB as before, but more INT and MND and -enmity than I had starting out.

Manifestation is arguably pretty powerful, I don't know if anything needs to be changed about it. Its becoming more obvious to me that SCH was meant to work with a team than be a sole crowd controller. If SCH wants to CC solo, Alacrity works out better since you'd only be dealing with a couple mobs.

My other project for SCH right now is to rebuild my macro set, which has remained pretty light since I started out the job. SCH, hands down, has the largest available spell set in the game (seeing as BLU has to set spells and can only use so many at a time) and it can get overwhelming. So I've been somewhat frustrated with my current set and doing things manually as I have.

[Lmnop]

Re: Strategem Strategies

Go SCH being the ultimate back-up!

>. > Seriously, load PT's with DD's and BRD/COR and go nuts! >:3

Assign a SCH or two to each PT from outside of the alliance and bring on the pain! Sounds great in theory anyway, and might be fun to test (Assuming the DD's are hurting the mob enough so that the SCH's don't get shit kicked from a very pissed off NM)

It's been a while since we've had numbers/jobs to do it or done an event that requires that sort of killpower, but we've done something similar to this in the past. The key: BLM party gets the SCH. Brd/whm, Cor/something, 4x melee for melee party, standard tank party, and the "odd man" party. BLMs + stragglers, basically. And we often put a SCH there who, along with our BRD and all of the BLMs, typically keep the melee alive quite well. Only thing left is to find someone out of melee party to dole out Hastes...