/Sch - Not Getting it or Doing it wrong?Follow

I ended up taking a break at the end of last year and still having these thoughts. Ultimately, I'm not fully seeing how /SCH is the end-all/be-all sub for WHM. Now, before I get fully flamed for such, I admit that it could be me doing it wrong.

Here's my typical scenario:
Been whm since day 1 of NA PC Release, no issues with the job and been 99% of the time /SMN prior to /SCH coming out. I did a lot of /SCH before my break and while it was good, I had some concerns with it.

Most of my playtime is dedicated towards endgame events - primarily dynamis, salvage, and sea. I rarely take WHM to a true merit party and most of the time I'm in a party with a RDM.

When I'm /Sch, I have updated macros that's focused on utilizing stratagem (i.e. Penury -> Wait 1 -> Cure V; Celerity -> Wait 1 -> Erase; etc.). Unless I use Celerity for everything, the Wait required to pull off the ability can lead to just that much longer to get the spell off. Lastly, Sublimation is great but when RDMs keep trying to refresh you, it's not all that's good imo.

Now, I DO like the -mp cost thanks to Light Arts and also like that Dark Arts + Addendum : Black gives us enough Dispel power to do Lamia 13 w/ little issue (not to mention being able to pull off Aspir on occasion).

So here's the question...am I doing it wrong? Do most people focus on using the Stratagem from the menu and not fully integrated into their macros due to the wait latency? Do most people ignore sublimation when a rdm is around?

Like I said, am I just not getting it or just plain old doing it wrong?

Edited, Feb 26th 2010 4:27pm by Unholyllama

I think you're doing it wrong in the aspect of trying to integrate the ja's within spell macros. I'm pretty minimalistic with my macros and only macro whats really needed/I use, so I have room to do this whereas other people may not, but here's a small sample of what my whm macros look like

CTRL: c5 c4 c3 # # # # # # #
ALT-: JA JA # # # # # # # #


Cure V is ctrl 1, IV is ctrl2, cure 3 is ctrl 3, Alt 1 is penury, alt 2 is celerity. If I want to drop a penury cure V, alt1->ctrl1 isn't a big stretch, but it opens up easy penury access for R3/rr3/curaga IV, whatever. Same goes for celerity, it opens celerity for haste/SS/repose, without a lot of fumbling with /waits in macros. Maybe it's just me but I find quick use of ja -> spell with 2 macros is more seamless and quicker than 1 macro with /waits in it. /waits always felt clumsy to me.


As far as sublimation goes, I don't take refresh. I buffer a sublimation pre event, use it if I need it, and start it charging again after the cool down. A lot of the rdms I know only shoot me a refresh if they see me recover MP from my sublim use, and I'm fine with that.

Edited, Feb 28th 2010 6:09pm by Logiks

I have separate penury and celerity macros rather than macroing them in with the spells. I always try to use penury with cure v whenever I use one. I also have light arts with "/recast Penury" in it next to the strategems to see how long is left on each. Also, penury Curaga's are extremely nice.

Celerity I use if I need to raise multiple people for Raise 3, or for repose if there are multiple mobs to be slept. I try not to waste it on things like faster haste cycle or stoneskin because a penury cure would probably be better.

And as far as dark arts go, drain and aspir are very fun to use. I aspir up to ~147 as whm/sch in dynamis off mobs with mp. It's not usually that high but it's usually 80+ which is pretty damn nice. I also use it at the end of a colibri's life in merits... There are many situations where its useful, and helps keep your mp up. Also if your hp is low from sublimation or AoE you can drain it back =)

But anyways... here are some random numbers to throw at you comparing /sch to /smn:

Let's say as whm/sch you use a Cure V with penury, and it goes off for 68 mp (a savings of 67 mp, even more if conserve mp kicked in but let's keep that separate.)

You use two Cure III's for 42 mp each, 84 mp total (and a savings of 8 mp)

You use Haste on yourself, and three melee for a total of 144 mp (and a savings of 16 mp.)

You also throw up auspice for 44 mp (a savings of 4 mp)

So you've used a total of 68+84+144+44=340 mp

Conserve MP activation is supposed to be on average about 7% of mp spent saved, so that's 317 mp spend and a savings of 23 mp.

Total saved mp is 118 mp.

Now /smn autorefresh is 1/3 seconds for a total of 20 mp a minute. That savings in mp is going to take 5 minutes and 54 seconds of auto-refresh to equal with /smn. Chances are, you're going to be casting a lot more spells than that in 5 minutes and 54 seconds.



On top of that, if you don't have a red mage, sublimation alone beats /smn. If you don't then:

assuming say, 944 max hp (yay non taru) to equal the time of auto refresh, we have:

118 ticks of sublimation at 2mp/tick for a total of 236 mp. You maybe want to cast stoneskin for that, which /smn doesn't have to, so that's -27 total mp, or 209 mp.

So right there, /sch is 209 mp ahead of /smn (becuse the 118 from autorefresh simply matches the savings from light arts and penury)

If you add in aspirable targets and aspir once a minute with the dark arts ability timer, /smn is crushed even more.




So... long story short..

/SCH is kind of like rolling /blm and /smn into one, but making it /BLM+1 and /SMN+1 essentially. You can aspir better than /blm elemental seal aspir, and you also get conserve mp and penury. You get access to sublimation, which is more mp/tick than auto-refresh.


Oh, and for the record I was whm/smn all the time before /sch came out. When SCH got a buff and became an awesome subjob, I leveled it for subbing on whm, and haven't looked back. It really is that much better

Edited, Feb 26th 2010 11:37pm by Annalise

Don't bother using Celerity for anything other than doing mass Raises (and honestly, if you have a good enough Haste setup, you don't even really need to use it for that unless you're weakened, because your recasts will already be nearly floored). MAYBE Stoneskin if you are in a real pickle, and Teleports if you want, just because.

I don't even bother macroing Celerity; Penury is what's used the vast majority of the time. The few times I use Celerity, I don't mind invoking it from the menu.

Whore Penury as much as possible. That's just one of /SCH's big perks and just one of its many methods of MP conservation.

Edited, Feb 27th 2010 10:03am by Fynlar

"Same reason that most THFs have three macros for SA, TA, and WS. "

actually thfs have separate macros because we need versatility, not because we are worried about delay.

SA+DE
SA+SB
TA+MS
SA solo
TA solo
etc.

Most thiefs have a sa/wait1+ta/(wait1+ws) macro that reduces delay actually.

As a rdm/sch, I tried putting LA/DArts celerity etc in the macros, it does screw up everything. One of rdm forte is landing a spell way ahead of the curve and /wait1's mess that up. I'm actually not a huge fan of /sch for this reason but for whm, yeah its the end-all support job.

I see you're getting your macros ready for the cap raises a bit early.

(Cure IV. :-D)

Using Celerity for raises is still a good idea, as it will get the timer ticking down that much sooner. You can also skip hasting yourself till the 3rd-4th raise.

I sometimes use celerity with Regen III because it has a relatively long cast time. Depends on what you're doing but it's nice for kite fights or when you need it on but fast so you can concentrate on other things.

Edited, Mar 5th 2010 4:08pm by eldelphia

/SMN = 200 MP every 10 minutes.

You can EASILY get more than that with /SCH, even without touching Sublimation.



It's not been added because it's not that important. It's not like we're playing a first person shooter, here.

I thought the SCH vs. SNN arguements were done years ago.

I actually still see a few people running around /smn once in a while.

The mana efficiency oF a scholar plus all the added spells and ablities.

Not sure if it was mentioned, but sublimation also keeps you awake if you happen to get slept by dream flower, sleepga, hypnosis, etc.

Oh, and yes, /SCH beats the pants off every other subjob out there for general use.

Basically every WHM should have the following subs:

/BLM for warp, escape and Elemental Seal repose for very special situations

/NIN for solo and some alliance fights where you expect to take some hate now and then and want to survive. I always go /NIN to odin with the PLD/RDM who straight tanks the valkyries, and I usually pull some hate that my shadows blink away.

/SCH for everything else.

(/SMN if you want to be laughed at)

Actually, if I'm using ES for anything (and subbing /BLM for anything), it's probably Sleepga.

I'm really curious about why would you need ES repose on Tiamat upon pop. If you don't have the manpower to hold it until the cavalry arrives, it's unlikely that the extra 1:30 minutes it buys you will improve your chances over /SCH >_>

Edit: Actually, my curiosity piqued now. Can Tiamat be Reposed without ES? I haven't tried, but I've slept Ouryu without ES before (And I think Vrtra can be slept without ES too).





Edited, May 5th 2010 12:51am by Drakonite

Well, I've never been in a situation where I have enough BLM's to chain sleep without also having someone to hold it, so idk.

The thing about repose tho is that it seems to have a very nice M.Accu bonus applied to it, on top of WHM's much better A- divine skill. I think I could probably get a decent landrate on wyrms, at least before they build resistance.

I'll be honest, /SMN still have some niche uses. Golden Salvage and Zhay 4rth frog floor are good examples of it. But then again, losing your sub on both of this things wouldn't be something to worry.

I certainly wouldn't lose my sleep if I didn't have /SMN available tho.



Edited, May 6th 2010 4:32pm by Drakonite