Tier 4 nukes! <3Follow

Just logged on and checked out new stuff on my 75 SCH... using addendom: black we get all the tier 4 nukes! White also gives us -na spells. Weather spell recast is like 15 secs now, 5~ sec cast time and 27 mp cost.

Along with all the other stuff.. best update ever.

Nope none of those, but it does get dispel, reraise 2, raise 2, and some other things I may be forgetting.

Still no Haste, so White Mages are far from obsolete.

I don't think so. The addendoms are a nice addition which will now allow a sch to be even more flexable with their subjobs (whm is pretty pointless as a sj for sch now).

The new tier4 nukes are nice but schs are far from being able to do the damage a blm can with those (sch can only get upto magic attack bonus trait II with /blm) and no elemental magic potency merits.

SCH is far from being overpowered. Before this update, sch was like a rdm but less appeal; now, it seems a bit more balance.

I had only level sch to 37 but now, I'm a bit interested to take it further.

A few things people need to keep in mind with these abilities. You gain power, but you do sacrifice some of your flexibility as a mage to do it. Remember you not only HAVE to have the appropriate art active (making the 1 min recast on arts more important to manage), you must ALSO burn a strategem charge to gain access to the spells every time you change arts. This may not be as much of an issue at higher levels. However, if I try to rely on White Add. for status cures at level 20 so I can sub BLM for MAB I, then I basically chain myself to Light Arts for 4 minute intervals because if I flip to Dark Arts early, I won't be able to regain access to my status cures until my next charge is ready. So in this situation it's either nuke once every four minutes, nuke under Light Arts, or lose access to status cures for certain stretches of time. In other words, you still have to compromise your nuking ability if you want fulltime access to status cures.

Another thing is, even with intelligent use of multiple charges to keep the addenums active at higher levels while changing arts more often, you're basically sacrificing the ability to use the other strategem abilities in order to maintain access to your addenum spells. While the spells are nice, so is the ability to cut MP usage on high level nukes, AOE a healing spell, and whatnot. In my opinion, I think these new abilities are more balanced than people realize because they require you to make choices and sacrifice other potentionally better abilities to use.

That's true, and I agree that's probably how SE intended them to be used. However, my point was to show that there are limitions, as I'm getting a feel from a lot of people that SCH has suddenly turned into this all-powerful job that can now nuke tier IV's, cure status ailments without /WHM, hand out R2's, Sleepga 2 mobs (however, I've read that Manifestation doesn't work with Sleep 2 right now, is this true?), all at the same time when this is simply not true. They CAN do these things, but only occasionally unless you decide to specialize in one of the arts for a decent length of time. I guess my overall opinion is these updates were a much needed boost and not the overpowered insanity some people are trying to imply.

Edited, Mar 11th 2008 4:41pm by Saelae

The reason we're pissed (at least the reason I am) is that Sublimation doesn't stack with Refresh, but it does stack with Ballad and Evoker's Roll, so any WHM/SCH or SCH/XXX in a party is going to want a BRD or COR before a RDM (because either of those gives 3mp/tick + Sublimation and we can only give 3mp/tick OR Sublimation), and on top of that, that means that a RDM/SCH won't get the added benefit of Sublimation + Refresh, while a BRD + PUP/SCH (Stormwaker or Soulsoother) with decent +MP gear (and PUPs get no shortage of Mage gear for some odd reason) could probably main-heal a party now (grats to the PUPs on this, btw), with the exception of Haste (and SMN/SCH can do everything PUP/SCH can do, PLUS Hastega and Auto-refresh). Heck, BST/SCH could probably tank AND main heal, especially with the reduced Reward recast.

Now all of this, I can respect. The other mage jobs have needed RDM-esque durability for a long time now, and this update came not a moment too soon for them, but was it really necessary to cut RDM out of the loop? Is another 400MP/10 min for us so overpowered (and RDMs with Dalmatica and Duelist's Chapeau already have access to this, this just gives this advantage to your average RDM) that it justifies turning us into the last-choice Refresher, who already is inferior because the other two Refreshers can AoE their Refreshes (which cost them no MP) and we have to do it all single-target and spend 40MP a pop?

There comes a point where adding more MP/tick doesn't matter anymore; where it's simply not worth the trouble to go for even more MP. The Morrigan/Dalmatica + Duelist's Chapeau RDMs are pretty much there already. Letting Refresh stack with Sublimation would simply put the average RDM in easier reach of a higher degree of excellence, and not nerf our Refreshing ability in parties compared to BRD and COR. Would letting Refresh and Sublimation stack overpower our soloing ability even more? Possibly, but I don't really think so. On anything tough, we're going to be RDM/NIN with a Ceremonial Dagger, and /SCH isn't going to help us Sleep/Nuke anything we can't already, it will just let us do it faster (and we'll still be ages behind a SCH/RDM on the same solo in speed).

Part of me believes that Refresh and Sublimation not stacking is just a bug, and that it will be fixed; another part of me believes that SE hates their playerbase (and me in particular), and did this on purpose.

Either way, we came into this update anticipating a new toy to play with (especially with that frontline tease from fanfest), and ended up getting left out of the biggest mage buff since Rise of the Zilart (which, coincidentally, is the last time RDM has gotten anything cool), and having our Refreshing ability nerfed-by-exclusion. Also, they could have left us out of the buff in a different way, allowing Refresh and Sublimation to stack so we can remain a competent Refresher, and giving us a cool new JA that for one reason or another, doesn't stack with Sublimation, so at least we get something nice out of the deal, like an ability that drains 2HP/tick but boosts Magic Accuracy or something (I'd use that over Sublimation any day, resists are like a personal insult to me).

Anyway, I could go on, but really, that's most of my complaint. I don't begrudge Scholars for this (unlike BLMs, I'm sure), in fact I'm happy they got a great buff. I just don't want it screwing me over in the meantime, as you can bet that post-update every WHM will be /SCH, and they will always choose a BRD or COR over RDM now because our Refresh doesn't stack.

While I agree with your sentiment, (maybe some of the insanely-powerful Avesta-RDMs can set me straight on this if I'm wrong, but), RDM really is at the point of diminishing returns with regards to MP. If we had access to 4,000mp/10 minutes, we really wouldn't be that much more powerful than we are already, due to the amount of time required to cast spells. It would just make it so we didn't have to consciously concern ourselves over how much MP we have left, and let us main heal RDM + 5xDD parties with ease instead of BRD + RDM + 4xDD parties (and nobody would want to do that, as a BRD puller is more beneficial to a party than a 5th DD). In my experience, at least, I am rarely hampered by a lack of MP in whatever activity I participate in (except solo-healing 5xDD or attempting to main heal from the frontline as something other than /DNC or /BLU, although I haven't tried since the /DNC adjustment, so that may have gone out the door); the real chains holding me back are 1) spell casting times, 2) number of spells to cast, 3) recast times/spell duration. Even if Sublimation and Refresh did stack, I could still see lots of RDM forgoing /SCH and subbing /WHM, /DRK, /BLU, /BLM, etc. just as they currently do, simply for the increased utility in focused tasks.

That's not to say that /SCH is useless, far from it (especially with the addition of -na spells), but letting Sublimation stack with Refresh for RDM/SCH isn't as big of a deal as everyone is making it out to be, we'll do just fine without it, we have for a long time: the real issue is that Refresh and Sublimation don't stack on SCH/XXX, WHM/SCH, SMN/SCH, BLM/SCH (if people actually do it) etc., and that's what really hurts RDM.

blm 75 here :-)

i'll be happy to invite sch to manaburns now.

group aoe weather effects ^^ (obi-fun)
tier IV nukes to join in the blm's
raise II for when things go bad.

only negattive thing i can think about is sch uses a lot of JA, and when we're at the pudding camp, you might get some aggro.
i used elemental seal once close to some puddings. 5 puddings turning to you is not a pretty sight...

What I would like to hear is how much dmg a SCH can do with a Tier IV spell w/o buffing it with potency JA, just dark arts and equipment

Wow, such negativity going on about "such-and-such" job and all. Come on guys, I just think SE is trying to stop all this "Brd only, Rdm only, 4xDD + Rdm & Brd" stuff. "We" as a player base have done this sort of thing to ourselves only making it frustrating for certain jobs/people to enjoy the game with each other. Don't get me wrong, Manaburns/Tp burns are nice, but what about the good ol' days where You used to have Tank,DD,Support,Main healing comprised of a variety of jobs lol.



Naw, I for one will enjoy partying with a good ol' Blm!

Quite possibly the best item for the Nuking SCH that was released was the Vicious Mufflers:



It's a "free" Zenith Mitts for SCH, and trumps anything else we can currently wear on our hands. It's also a force-pop NM in Meri[tab] where you trade some Gnat Pellets to a ???.

We talking about puddings or normal mobs? Puddings add an extra 25% to your nukes, so let's not forget what kind of mob we're talking about.

I'm pretty sure any SCH that wants to nuke, and do it right will follow the same moniker that BLM does... "If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing". I think the numbers to be looking for are the numbers using Ebullience.

Of course. I'm looking for your standard comparison, and then the enhanced. Sell it to me.

(If we're going to use everything available for an 'all out' comparison, then let me compare my Burst II w/ a Spirit Lantern charge to your Thunder IV and see who wins. /wink)

I want to know the whole gamut SCH damage can do, w/ BLM sub, w/ RDM sub, w/ charges/weather. The whole shebang.

I have no doubt SCH does good damage, hell I want it to. I love BLM, and I like SCH.



Edit: Yeah sock, none of this directed at you at all. I'm really curious about it, TBH. I've never merit'd vs one, and I'm interested in seeing some comparisons. I'd expect any SCH XP'ing to max themselves before others in the PT, as well. I mean hell, when I merit BLM it's for the sole purpose of making the other BLMs wish they were me, I can merit on RDM if it's just for merit points. ;)

And mine's 24, @#%^ing Kings keep screwing up my XP times.

Edited, Mar 12th 2008 1:56pm by kerryak

Lets see, now I can be a BLM with convert. Think I'll do some jumping myself.


Edited, Mar 12th 2008 2:10pm by Sheeeesh

Kerryak: Toth did 1275 to a Jidra (Apollyon SW) with Ebullience, so if you want Pudding numbers, it's easy to get a rough estimation:
1273*1.25=1591.

Was his U. Pendant active, I don't know.
He has very nice stuff, but didn't have Vicious Mufflers yet, so he was using Goliard Cuffs, +1 MAB upgrade possible.

Edited, Mar 12th 2008 3:17pm by NotASock

Aliekber


I thought that sublimation didn't stack with any forms of refresh, including thigs like juices, has this been confirmed that it stacks with brds and cors?

Also, pups could main heal far before this patch, /sch has little importance when the puppet has infinite MP and access to cure V, regen II, etc...just that no one wants a pup to main heal. Also, it would only be soulsoother, that is the whm head that lets you cure other people.

I think you're going a little over board with the usefulness.

It's great for /sch in general, just that a lot of jobs could already do things similar before hand.

And you can never have enough MP. Anyone who says that more than likely isn't maximizing their job. RDM at mamool camp can easily attest to this, any mp you have extra can go to nuking.

blm is still a stronger compared to sch.

blm has a higher MAB
sch only has /sub MAB
elemental skill is better on blm, so less resists.
blm has better clear mind. (clear mind IV-V) but this maybe a minor difference.
and about the Sublimation. This is only good when you rest (stoneskin-sublimation) this will compensate the clear mind.

you will not have a permanent sublimation effect during combat. it wears when you are attacked.

but this is not about which one of the 2 is best, blm is a DD, sch is a hybrid DD-healer, with the option to switch between both functions.

IMO it would be good to mix blm-sch in party, sch can offer a very nice boost to the blm party and contribute to the overall dmg.

blm+sch+ 1cor or brd = drool...

Oh please, don't be offended by your putting words in my mouth. I didn't say SCH shouldn't use weather or ebullience when nuking. Of course they should.

I just wanted to know what the @#%^ their damage was w/o it for the sake of BASE DAMAGE comparisons. It's not "insulting" to ask for a freaking comparison, b/c that same SCH can give ME a weather effect in a PT and then I'm freaking Black Mage Jesus.

What's so bad of knowing the entire range of someone's damage capabilities?

Nice use of holier than thou combined w/ a suggestion you'd put your penis in my mouth.

Point of information: I thought only 1 charge came back / minute after the update. Which means you could do 4 Tier IV's w/ Ebullience when you start, but are limited to 1 / minute after that as you're waiting 60 seconds / recharge. Is that a correct interpretation? My SCH is 24, so I only have the first tiering of charges and recast.




PS: I want to know b/c I want to level SCH, not b/c I'm trying to outdamage them. I'd really like to field SCH in my LS's Einherjar.