SCH vs. BLMFollow

Hello^^

I am a BLM75 and SCH37 and I have a couple of questions to the SCH community if you dont mind enlightening me. I am curious as to how you compare to BLM on the offensive end of course. I'm currently looking at possibly leveling SCH as my next job and I just want to make sure I know what I'm getting into before taking it to 75.

First off, how do you compare in end game situations? Does your lower skill keep you from landing nukes consistently or no? How about your damage compared to BLM? I mainly do sky/sea/dynamis, but any examples would be very appreciated.

For those of you that have SCH AND BLM at 75, do you find one of them to be useless or are they just situational? If so, how?

Any other info that you think I might be interested in please post. I appreciate any replies. Thanks

ElVendi you're overusing the word "easily".



I have BLM and SCH at 75 and there's no way that my SCH is getting near my BLM damage without ebullience. How do you account for the extra MaB traits, better gear, and merits ElVendi?



There's that word again. Both jobs can get chain 5 on puddings with a little luck. Chain 4 is pretty much a given once you get a solid strategy down. Although I do agree, with a full mp pool Sch has more damage potential just blowing it all. But you're making it sound way too one sided.




320/120 is the absolute bare minimum, not what you "aim" for. A proper use of the word "easily" is that Blm can "easily" reach that, Sch...not so easy.

Basically OP, if you're willing to give up some offense, for a more well rounded mage, then I think you'll enjoy Sch. If you're the kind of Blm that wants to get the absolute maximum out of each and every nuke, Sch will leave you a little dissapointed.

Using Ebullience, my tier IV spells can match and even beat the averagely equipped BLM. But, to put a fine point on it, im often packing over 150 INT for these nukes and all the MAB gear I can lay my hands on, as well as a HQ staff.

The real benefit that Scholar has over BLM, if you must nit-pick, is that we have a permanent 10% damage bonus on any spell we want to cast, as long as we have the corresponding elemental obi. Black Mages need to rely on the right weather/day but Scholars can simply cast the storm spell they require and nuke away. Whats more, Hailstorm offers a +7 INT bonus when fully merited making it one of the best choices.

That being said, no Scholar is ever going to match a BLM blow for blow. They have superior nukes (AM2's, AoE's etc) more MAB in job traits and equipment, and merits which can raise the roof on their best spells potency. A fully merited SCH is no match against a fully merited BLM.

Comparing BLM to SCH is unfair since BLM is a pure nuking job, one which is very proficient at it. SCH is a hybrid job and should be played as one to get the most out of it. I don't play SCH to nuke the heck out of everything (though I confess, I do enjoy it) I play it to be impressively balanced. Knowing when to drop Dark Arts and take up the light staff is what separates skilled Scholars from the newcomers.

Thank you everyone for the replies. I've learned a lot from your comments

That being said..I'm going to try SCH out and see how it goes. It looks wicked fun and as you guys have pointed out, very useful as well.

Thanks again^^

If the fight is short enough that a SCH can't get enough Parsimony nukes in to trump a BLM (which would have to be quite short), Alacrity spammed tierIVs will do the trick.

This is why SCH is so powerful; it has the versatility to adapt to pretty much any situation. BLM points and shoots.

I already responded to this, with this:



Moving on..



People level on puddings because they don't know any better. It's decent xp, but the camp is always crowded, and all you're getting for your time invested is xp, assuming you can get pulls. Alternately, you can pull an easy 6-9k/hr soloing aerns and statues, depending on how good you are at getting to chain4, and either helping your LS or making money in the process. As a bonus, there's always an open camp somewhere. SCH without a doubt does this better than BLM, for the same reasons it does pretty much everything else better; efficiency. I wasn't attempting to put words in your mouth, just illustrating my point in yet another way. I didn't call them lolmobs because they're easy, I called them lolmobs because it's really a waste of time to ever go out to Zhayolm in the first place.



This is all very good advice, but it has nothing to do with the reason i brought up Klimaform in the first place:



256 Base Elemental Skill
16 Merits
15 Scholar's Gown
7 Elemental Torque
8 Genie gages
302 Total Elemental Skill

All very easy to obtain. Add Klimaform, which is also easy to obtain, and you'll have well over the 320 HNM target. Also factor in Hailstorm for INT+7 and Cream Puffs for INT+7, and you only need somewhere between +30~+40 INT (Depending on race/merits) from gear to reach the 120 target, which is not difficult to obtain.



As I was referring to big-number syndrome, this was clearly sarcasm.



This is all true, as long as you're limiting the scope of your analysis to a single-nuke basis.



This is true; nothing reduces efficiency more than resists; however, I've already shown that, without the usage of any Strategems, SCH can easily hit the accepted HNM skill/INT targets. A well-geared SCH can surpass these as well, also without Strategem use. This allows SCH to use Parsimony spam to maximize their efficiency and continue nuking long after the BLMs have taken a knee. Again, there is really no competition here.

This really depends on your group. I agree that the BLMs shouldn't base their strategies around AoE Klimaform, but it is still useful on HNM, as it allows them to drop some/all of their accuracy gear for more damage. If you find yourself buffing a BLM pt more often than not, you might want to see if you can work this out with your BLMs. 4 BLMs (assuming RDM/BRD/COR is present) dealing even 50 more damage per nuke this way is a great way to make that MP even more well spent.

I think it's important to think of Klimaform as a tool to increase the damage you can deal per nuke, as opposed to a crutch to bring resists down to manageable levels.

For example, I use Klimaform quite often when soloing. I'll start off the fight with Hailstorm+Klimaform and use my max damage gear, including Morgana's Cotehardie.

Cryohelix > Blizzard4 > Blizzard3 > Drain/Aspir > Bind > Blizzard4.

At this point Klimaform should just about be gone, so I'll switch to the appropriate build for whatever I'm fighting to finish it off. I've really seen some great results with this, although of course depending on your gear/merits/etc. your mileage will vary.



I've certainly felt this way before as well, depending on the BLM, but it is definitely a case-by-case basis. A pimp BLM is a pimp BLM.

That is one of my issues with the attitude of the scholar boards. Its all scholars vs. the black mages. In an alliance in a big fight, a stun rotation is great, and blms magic bursting burst 2 off a light skillchain is going to beat anything a scholar will do. Scholars can add a lot with aoe klimaform and stormsurge, why is everything with scholars can we fill every gear slot to nuke and beat the black mages. Low man is one thing, but in an alliance we have more than enough refresh as a rule, and most black mages work together in several events and we do fine.

Not saying a sch isn't a welcome addition to the black mage party, but often they are used better in a tank party or aoe support. If you want to gear sch to straight nuke, its fine I guess, but scholars can do a lot more. As for the tit for tat, I have never see a sch outdamage me on a nuke vs. nuke basis. There are a lot of gimp black mages though, it traditionally has been one of the most popular jobs, and some people just level it to get into end game shells. They put a bad name on serious black mages.

I can guarantee you that I am not a troll.

I just dont know much about SCH as it's not a very popular job (at least on my server) so I dont get to play with them much, and I dont want to take the job from 37->75 only to never use it because I have BLM levelled.

I'm not even sure why I'm defending myself on a perfectly legitimate question, but it's whatever.

For all of the people that replied, I thank you again. I've learned a lot about the difference between SCH and BLM and I continue to learn every time I revisit this thread.

Absolutely, you only have so many Strategems at any given time. We get lots of spells and toys, but we're limited by Strategem recast. This is a core concept of the job. If you're focused on buffing a BLM party, you can't be spamming charges on nukes.



Again, I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Nobody is claiming SCH can outnuke BLM while mainhealing the tank party and buffing the BLMs.



You're thinking of Uggalepih Pendant, which SCH can also use. Sorcerer's Ring is BLM only, MAB+10 when <75% HP, which they can activate 100% with some macro work.



SCH gains 20% MAB from /RDM, 24% from /BLM. BLM has 32% natively. I suppose you could argue other SJ choices, but I think the two listed would be most likely for a SCH planning to nuke.



I'll disregard this, as I never made this claim; in fact, I've supported it in previous posts:





Moving on..



I raise you:



I really understand where you're coming from, because holding back to avoid gaining hate and short rests for MP are what BLM has had to deal with since the servers started. What you described is exactly how a BLM should play; however, SCH has tools that allow it to reduce/eliminate the need for short rests (Parsimony/Sublimation), and the need to space their nukes out to avoid excessive enmity generation (Enmity- sets, Equanimity). Damage per nuke is irrelevant when you can simply cast so many more of them.

http://kanican.livejournal.com/ can explain it much better if you still have any doubts. The graphs illustrate it quite nicely.

There's a lot wrong with this.

In each example, you assert that 1 Strategem is being used on Klimaform (Manifestation for the first example, Alacrity for the second example). However you did not take into account the rate at which the strategems are used. In the first example, 1 charge is being expended on Klimaform every 6 minutes, and in the second example, 4 charges are being expended every 6 minutes. The first example is so inefficient that it would never be used by an intelligent SCH, unless perhaps one round of Klimaform will be enough to finish off the target. In the second example, you're burning the majority of your strategems in an attempt to cap your own accuracy, which is also highly inefficient. You are comparing extremes that are generally not a feasible way to play.

You also are not taking into account the fact that there will be multiple BLMs benefitting from Klimaform, while only you benefit from Alacrity spamming it on yourself. Remember that BLM has access to much better damage gear than SCH does, so it will benefit more from using a max damage set than SCH will. Multiply this by 2-4 BLMs and I can't help but be skeptical that self-Alacrity+Klimaform will produce better results than Manifestation+Alacrity+Klimaform, even factoring in the extra Strategem used.

Lastly, I think most are assuming that by burning 3 Strategems every 3 minutes on Accession+Storm / Manifestation+Alacrity+Klimaform, SCH's DoT capability drops to 0. This is not the case; Helices(Although yes, of dubious use on HNM), Drain, Tier1-3 nukes are all available without Addendum: Black, and you'll still be gaining the benefits of Storm+Klimaform for one minute out of every 3. Also, don't forget about Enlightenment, which can be used to cast a tierIV spell. Granted it's only once per 5-10 minutes depending on your merits, but it's just another example of using SCH's incredible flexibility to your advantage.

To illustrate, this is how I operate in a BLM party:

-Light Arts > Accession > Storm
-Dark Arts > Alacrity > Manifestation > Klimaform
-Enlightenment > tierIV > Helix if feasible
-Chain nuke tier1-3 until Klimaform wears off
-Rest MP > Light Arts > Spot cure/debuff/whatever
-Repeat

In this role, I'm adding a good deal of damage output to the entire party, including my own. Of course, my individual damage won't be on par with what the BLMs put out, but I guarantee that if you add the extra damage the BLMs deal with Storm+Klimaform to my damage, and then compare it to how much damage I would be doing by just spamming Klimaform on myself, sharing wins.

Firstly, I'd like to point out that Equanimity eats up 2 strategems to use. That means you can either fire off 2 understrengthened nukes or 1 powerful nuke with reduced enmity at a whopping cost of THREE strategems. Thats another 3 minutes recharging your next spell and thats without using Parsimony to reduce the MP costs. To quote this as SCH's saving grace for enmity is really a lost cause, since it's high cost makes it anything but.

Furthermore, there are very few -enmity gears that SCH can use which BLM cannot. I'm not sure where you're getting the large boost in enmity reduction from, especially if you're working towards that 320/120 skill/int for high level mobs.

I'll give you Sublimation. That's undeniably one of our strongest assets in a long-haul fight, but it takes a good while to charge and it's unlikely that you'll be equipping the relic body for the whole duration if you're required to nuke, since it's hardly the best choice. AF hat is decent enough, but doesn't offer that Elemental Skill to help you reach your target. If you're swapping to Argute Mortarboard, you can lower that Sublimation down by another point. That's a 2 pt "Refresh" effect, which is not particularly impressive after all.

Truthfully, im certain SCH can do a comparable job at keeping up with BLM, I really am, but im still doubtful that a SCH can outperform a BLM in sheer damage and DoT, even given their impressive slew of abilities. The strategems we use play a vital role in our longevity as well as our spell's final damage, and overusing them to get the effects you mentioned means waiting a good time for them to return.

I really shouldn't have to explain how to properly use Klimaform with Alacrity (Hint: you really don't pair it every time; as your own MP won't allow it).

And again: the benefit an individual member gets from from non-capped with a full resist setup, to a pretty much full damage with capped for pretty much all his nukes; will outdo 4 individuals going from Capped with a mixed set to Full damage for maybe 3 nukes each.




This is not even considering the logistics behind that. It might work the first round around; I'll give you that. But afterwards is folly to believe every BLM will be up on their toes for the next round of Klimaform.

And of course, there's the issue of same element Spam on the mob. If every BLM wants to get the most out of there 1 minute of Klimaform; they'll all be spamming the same element. Which will most likely lead to some serious reduction in the damage.
And if they don't abuse klima... then why use AoE klimaform in the first place?




And I don't even know why you bring Helixes into this. As much as I love them; they have no place in highly resistant mobs.

Okie dokie then ^^ my troll-o-meter must have been off. CARRY ON!

You implied it by listing it alongside enmity gear for reasons why SCH can nuke more often.

Sorry, what? You're saying that it doesn't cost SCH anything because they have a Light Arts set, yet it costs BLM more? Uh... right. Sorry, but as a SCH I have most of my inventory filled with my gear swaps for Scholar. If you want to talk about costs, the inventory space for SCH is far greater than the need for it on BLM. We're already carrying most of the gear a BLM does and more besides! A good mage worth their salt comes prepared with all the gear they might need, that applies to Black Mages as well as Scholars.

The reason BLM generally takes more enmity from attacks has more to do with how much damage they deal than the -enmity gear they equip. You can't reach the enmity cap if you're working towards 320/120. And if you decided to drop some of that skill or INT for whatever reason, all you're doing is losing out on vital accuracy. Klimaform only goes some way to improving the deficit, but as countless BLMs have already pointed out, 320/120 is the absolute minimum not really the recommended stats for high level nuking.

Oh, but it does matter. The reason is because BLM can still obtain Refresh while SCH cannot if they're using Sublimation. A single RDM can refresh a team of BLMs for 3mp/tick which would easily outdo a SCH's Sublimation. In short, you'd probably just go with the Refresh unless you were close to full MP or preparing a charge to start off.

Really? Because from the reasons I've heard so far, all of those maths seem to believe we have an endless supply of Strategems. We don't. We have FOUR. Count them. Each one recharging over a 1 minute period. Which means if you're gobbling them up constantly for Parsimonies and Ebulliences and Alacrities, you're going to be running low very quickly indeed.

Career BLM 75 , newly SCH 74. Please note that this is written with a focus on the Dark Arts side, I leveled SCH as my super solo job, and it has served that purpose well.

For xp mobs such as puddings , aerns, even lower tier NM's I use my SCH.

Considering my SCH nuking set isn't anywhere on the level of my BLM's, yet I can (as of this moment) push out 1400 Bliv IV (storm + ebulliance), which is above what your average BLM can dish out. Hell once I ding 75 and gain access to certain gear, I have no doubt that my nukes will break 1600+.

That is with Ebullinace of course, and me focused on offense. Without the /ja boost my nukes seem to do around 1.2ish a pop. (Puddings take extra damage from nukes, so you can factor that in)

To me SCH is what I always wanted BLM to be, being able to trade abit of your offense for a vast boost in your versatility. I find it funny that my SCH's max damage nuking set has the same amount of elemental skill as my BLM's (300).


Now anything that's actually resity, I would bring out the big guns (BLM) since I can break above 330+ elemental skill with ease, I am currently not able to do that with SCH.

I have alot of room for improvement with SCH, but as things stand now, I feel BLM does need a boost in the nuking dept, though I must admit it is fun making the other BLM's cry at Mount Z.

If ya can't beat 'em join 'em.

Edited, Aug 1st 2009 2:16pm by knightfell

What I wrote:



If you think I implied something by that statement that's your business; in reality, you're just reading into it way too much.



Are you aware of what an opportunity cost is? I'll try to explain it better. SCH already carries an Enmity- set for Light Arts. This is standard gear. Therefore, you already have it on your person. If you can find another use for it, such as nuking, the opportunity cost is zero because it costs you exactly zero inventory slots for another set of gear. BLM, on the other hand, does not generally carry around an Enmity- set for Cures; therefore their opportunity cost for carrying a full Enmity- set is much higher, because they're giving up inventory slots for a very specific set of gear that is highly situational.

I'm not saying BLM can't carry a set of Enmity- gear; I'm saying that if they choose to, they have to sacrifice other gear to do it. This matters.



This has nothing to do with anything. It's common sense.



All I can say is, nuking in Enmity- gear is highly situational. You need to realize that when you are nuking, there's two limits on how much damage you can deal; MP remaining, which we deal with by maximizing DMG:MP ratios; and Enmity, which acts as a hard cap on the amount of damage you can deal at any given time. This is extremely important to understand. If there is a hard cap on the amount of damage you can do, does it really matter if you get there in 2 nukes or 10 nukes? No, it doesn't. In this situation, the only way to increase the amount of damage you can deal is by lowering the Enmity generation of your spells. Keep in mind the Enmity- is a percentage; meaning, Enmity- has increasing returns, much like Haste. If you can manage Enmity-50, you've just doubled the amount of damage you can deal without taking hate. It doesn't matter if every spell you cast in Enmity- gear is resisted; you will be able to deal much more damage in the long run. This is why SCH excels in these situations.

-Low-to-zero opportunity cost Enmity- set
-Klimaform to increase accuracy
-Parsimony to increase number of casts

I really hope this is clear now.



There are 3 jobs in the game that can give other players Refresh. 2 of those forms of Refresh stack with Sublimation. 1 of those jobs is much better suited for a BLM party than a RDM is. So basically, a RDM evens out the total refresh between BLM and SCH, while a BRD or COR just stacks it on. I'm gonna have to stick with advantage: SCH.



I've taken Strategem recast into account in all my posts, so I'm not sure why you're directing this at me. Besides, if you are "gobbling them up constantly for Parsimonies and Ebuilliences and Alacrities," chances are you are using Tabula Rasa.

There's a difference between an argument and a debate.



SCH can't Stun, can't cast AM2/-ga, can't cast Haste, can't cast Refresh, can't cast Slow II...



I don't think I'm alone in saying that, given the level and detail of the debate in this thread, your blanket statements aren't really adding anything to it. Everything you listed is common knowledge; we're debating the finer points.

Again, It's the same thing as Crystan getting on my case about mentioning Equanimity as a tool to reduce enmity. I was listing spells that cause damage and are able to be cast without Addendum: Black; Helices fit these criteria. I even stated they are of limited use on HNM as soon as I brought them up. They are still situationally useful. You are reading too much into it.



As you will have Klimaform up while nuking regardless of whether you Manifestation it or not, this 80% hitrate argument of yours doesn't even matter. The only difference here is that you want to spam Klimaform solely on yourself, giving you more time to cast your unresisted spells, whereas I want to spam it on the entire party to increase their damage and reduce my resists. Using your method, you can cast unresisted spells for 2 minutes out of every 3; using mine, I can cast unresisted spells for half of that while increasing the entire party's damage output. Realize that I add the additional damage caused by the BLMs to the damage I cause, then compare it to how much damage you deal on your own. I don't see how solo casting Klimaform could possibly compare to using Manifestation.

This really depends on how many nukers you have. If your purpose is to just flat-out DD, and you're not stuck in the BLM party, then yeah, sure, have at it with your self-Klimaform spam. However, if you're in a party with 4 BLMs and a COR, you are lowering your party's potential damage output.

Also, I think you're a little too generous on your estimations of magic accuracy. Even a perfectly geared BLM gets resists on Tiamat and Kirin, for example.

You are right though, I think we went off on two seperate tangents here. I think what we really need is some testing to put some real numbers on this.



Space your nukes out in 3 second intervals; this allows for 20 nukes to land within a minute without causing undue resists, and allows 4 BLMs to land 5 nukes each. If your BLMs can't handle this, I'd hate to see their Stun order.

It's not that you aren't nuking while Klimaform is down; If I had an 80% landing rate without Klimaform, I'd still be nuking after it wore if that was my role in the fight. Figure that between the two, you have a minute with capped accuracy, and a minute without, with the 3rd minute irrelevant for our purposes. 80% landing rate means you'll see one half resist per 5 casts on average, so you're only losing half a nuke's worth of damage (numbers will vary of course) during that minute, which works out to a 10% reduction from what you'd deal with the second minute of Klimaform.







The more well-geared a BLM is, the wider the difference in damage between their resist sets and max-damage sets. If you have subpar to average BLMs, I readily concede that it may be better to forgo casting Klimaform on them. And again, just because you're casting Klimaform one minute out of every three doesn't mean they can't keep nuking after it wears off. The only way I would recommend this is if they absolutely needed the accuracy to land their spells reliably in the first place, but that's a different situation altogether.



I always just designate one pillar as the BLM pillar so that whenever they're not casting, they come back and rest and get buffs. Definitely not foolproof, but it helps.



Excellent, I'll look forward to seeing them. I'll see what I can do as well.

Except that extending the fight by a small amount completely alleviates the need to bring extra people. Have you ever heard of low-manning something? Ever in a situation where you need someone to nuke, but there might be a chance that nuker might need to heal for a while so a healer can catch his breath? SCH's perfect for this situation. If a SCH gears and fights properly, over the course of a full MP pool, he will easily match a BLM's output. *I use the word easily in correlation with the intelligence required to gear yourself and fight properly.*

"Cost effective" is relative to the LS's abilities and desires. If the LS has 4000 BLMs that they can throw at something, then by all means... throw 4000 BLMs at it and be done. Few LSs have this, however. Some only have a handful of BLMs that can come BLM to every event. Some people *shocking, I know* prefer an extended fight. I myself hate zerg situations, because they're boring. I have THF as a zerg job and I absolutely loathe it. I would rather fight things the old-fashioned way and have fun than kill it in seconds and get the drops.

Simply put, in an extended time frame, the SCH's efficiency will crush the BLM's. Whether or not this is most beneficial is up to the group fighting said monster. You have no justification coming here and spouting your opinion as if it's fact.

I think a lot of BLMs come in here and get butthurt when they read these threads, and I'm not entirely sure why it's directed at us. We didn't design the job, SE did. Go complain about it in the feedback forum.

As such, nobody in here is trying to make BLM obsolete. In addition to the situations listed above, BLM is clearly irreplaceable in many strategies. Most of the time we don't even compete with BLM for their high-end gear in endgame, since we can't use it. All we're trying to do is maximize our effectiveness in both Light Arts and Dark Arts; and as BLM is the primary Elemental Magic job in the game, it's obviously the job we're going to compare ourselves to when looking to parse our effectiveness. Notice how all the WHM Q.Qing over SCH went away after their epic update? Please, spare us and go bitch to SE.



Sure, if your HNMLS has an endless supply of PLD RDM WHM BLM BRD SAM you can kill anything. However, we here in the Scholar forums prefer to base our ideas in reality.



Why would you want a BLM rotation when a SCH can just keep nuking through all that nonsense? If all you're looking for is quantity of nukes being cast, SCH automatically wins. Why not get an army of SCHs to rotate out? They'll last a lot longer than your BLMs and deal more damage per MP pool.



This is not a theory, it is a fact. Numbers say hi.

Also, a fight only has to last longer than it takes to cast 2-3 tierIV nukes in order for SCH's MP efficiency to shine. If it doesn't last that long, they can use Alacrity to spam nukes twice as fast as a BLM, and/or Ebullience to give them more power, since they won't be needing Parsimony to maintain their MP.



Corsair is a hybrid job. Red Mage is a hybrid job. Blue Mage is a hybrid job. You're telling me your 12-BLM-rotating HNMLS doesn't use any of these jobs either?



Lazy? This alone shows that you are woefully ignorant of all the effort that goes into gearing, preparing, and playing an effective Scholar, and should therefore keep these opinions to yourself.



If you already have BLM and WHM, chances are you already have 80% of the gear needed to play SCH, giving you the versatility of another mage job for a minimum of inventory cost. If anything, that sounds like the definition of practical to me.

I'm sorry, are we talking about endgame events, or HNM situations? Last time I checked HNM was only one aspect of endgame.



Ok, so now you're including non-HNM situations, further confusing your initial point. You say BLM completely outshine SCH under these circumstances, but you are exceedingly vague. Do they deal more damage per nuke? Of course, but SCH can cast many, many more of them over a comparable period of time, and can reach the accepted HNM skill/INT targets, so resists are not an issue. I think it's pretty obvious that a SCH is going to deal more damage over time than a BLM will. This will become even more prevalent when you rely on magic damage as your primary damage source. Your vague arguments have no place in this thread.



Allow me to explain a critical point of playing SCH:

Just because we can switch between Light Arts and Dark Arts once per minute, does not mean it is the best way to play. Doing so increases your versatility at the expense of Strategems, and as such is not an efficient way to play in many situations. In order to compare to a pure nuking job or a pure healing job, you need every strategem you can get, meaning you must stay in one Arts or the other.

Your entire post seems centered around this misconception. I hope I have corrected it for you.

The versatility of SCH is not limited to Light Arts/Dark Arts. In Dark Arts alone, I can choose to Parsimony spam nukes to achieve DMG:MP ratios untouchable by a perfectly geared BLM. I can choose to Alacrity spam nukes to deal enough damage in a short period of time to outdo a BLM casting AM2s. I can choose to Ebullience spam nukes to help even the field between SCH and BLM damage per nuke in situations where the opportunity to nuke is short. I can choose to nuke in Enmity- gear to raise the total amount of damage I can deal within the same Enmity cap. Again, you are only showing your ignorance concerning the intricacies of this job.



Nice sentence structure.

I think you are mistaken; endgame is not about job specialization, it's about role specialization. You need tanks, healers, support, melee DD, ranged DD, magical DD. Any number of jobs can fill these roles.

You say that SCH has no unique ability which is highly beneficial and influential enough to warrant a party spot? Again, more ignorance concerning Scholar coming from you. Under Light Arts, we can use Accession to AoE Stoneskin, Phalanx, and Aquaveil, among other spells. Under Dark Arts, we have Klimaform, which is not self-cast only and adds magic accuracy, along with storm spells, also not self-cast only, which can be used to greatly increase magical damage. This is all without taking into account SCH's ability to tailor their nukes to each individual situation, something which BLM doesn't even come close to. Then of course there is Manifestation, which allows us to Klimaform an entire party of BLMs. It also allows you to cast Bindga and Graviga, which is entirely unique to SCH and game-changing in a variety of endgame scenarios.

As for your comparisons of COR and RDM, I think that logic is indicative of your thinking on this subject. Take away COR's rolls and RDM's Haste/Refresh/Enfeebling skill, and then compare them to other jobs? This isn't even close to being a fair comparison, or a halfway intelligent one. More and more I'm convinced you're just trolling this thread.



No, no, no, just no. You have no idea what you're talking about, it's embarrassing. I would go into this further, but if you had taken the time to scroll up a few posts, you would see why.



People should know what they're getting into; I just hope they don't listen to a word you say. I think you expect SCH to be able to outnuke a BLM per nuke, buff the tank party, buff the BLM party, and mainheal all at once. That's not versatility; that's impossibility. SCH is limited by strategem recast; this prevents them from doing all these things that they are capable of at once, but when they tailor their abilities to specialize their actions for a particular role, you'll find they are quite powerful.

Ahlah, you're a bit confused aren't you?

First, there is a difference between saying "endgame" and "HNM." One is only a subsection of the other. If we want to talk about endgame events in general, you will be hard pressed to argue that SCH does not have a place in ANY of these events. I don't know about your world but in mine I include Ein, Dynamis, Salvage, Limbus and other events in my definition of endgame. And SCH is very nice in Ein and Salvage.

As for low-manning, of course there is not a single event that cannot be low-manned without SCH. Barring a PLD or NIN in certain situations, there isn't any event that cannot be done without one job. The point that we, or at least I, am trying to make is that in these type of events, versatility shines. Having a member that can competently fulfill just about any mage role is a great asset to have. You don't think being able to nuke extremely well, heal extremely well, being an incredibly MP efficient job and also being able to provide buffs to your party does not give SCH any type of advantage? You also don't think that being the, if not one of the best crowd control jobs in the game is also not an advantage?

Now, if you are talking ONLY about HNM situations then I still don't see your point. If the mob is going to be dead in 2 minutes, then yes, a BLM is going to do more damage. For anything that is going to last longer, however, a SCH is going to do more damage over time. You also ignore the fact that, while you could replace that SCH with a BLM for arguably more nuking power, that BLM cannot improve the performance of the entire BLM party. You can still nuke competently and buff a BLM party. Now obviously if you need a stun rotation, you aren't going to have a SCH. If you need to -ga3 a bunch of mobs, get another BLM. A SCH, however, can at a minimum increase the damage of each BLM by 10%. Multiply that by 3 or 4 and then add in the SCH's own damage. That's nothing to sneeze at.

And while you obviously have numerous jobs leveled, SCH is not one of them and you lack knowledge about how the job is actually played. What I do in party obviously revolves around the other members and the monster(s) being fought, however, I can support a party and nuke. The strategms and Light Arts/Dark Arts timer is limiting, but it's not as cripling as you make it. Enlightenment only further enhances this. I can give a nice round of Phalanxga, Stoneskinga, pop over to Dark Arts, put up Klimaform and throw out a Cryohelix, Bliz IV and Blizz III and not need to use a single charge doing it.

And there are specific advantages that SCH has over other jobs: status removal, nuking efficiency, crowd control (situational), alliance healing and it has unique buffs.

Now I'm not saying throw 6 SCH's at a mob. But having at least one SCH in your alliance would be very beneficial.

I love the ignorance I am witnessing today. Allow me to challenge a few statements you made:

"Another BLM or COR will be more beneficial than a SCH."

I don't have a BLM PT without a COR. 2 is wasteful in one PT. This leaves us with BLM BLM BLM BLM COR XXX. In a situation where all the BLMs are geared equally, you can figure that with 4 BLMs, they will each share 25% of the total damage. Adding another BLM will add another 25%.

Now, it's commonly accepted that a SCH geared equally well as a BLM will result in about 80% of that BLM's damage on a nuke for nuke basis. Just adding that SCH's personal damage, that is adding 20% damage. This is not considering stratagem usage. What isn't considered by you, however, is the SCH's ability to up the BLM's damage by 10% each. This means that instead of adding 20% damage to the PT, he's actually adding 30%.

Now let's account for stratagems and battle length. A SCH worth his salt will get anywhere from 20%-80% more damage out of a single pool of MP. If the fight lasts lon enouh to expend a single MP pool, then the SCH will outdo the BLM's damage by the end of the fight. Should the fight last enough to expend 2 or more MP pools, the SCH's superior MP restoration utilities will widen that gap even further.

Should some poo hit the fan and something happen to the healer(s), the SCH can easily change gears and effectively step into that role until things are brought back under control. While, yes, it's not effective to actively switch back and forth, sometimes the situation calls for a switch in roles. SCH has no problem making such an dramatic change on a dime.

I have WHM, BLM, SCH, and RDM. There are things when WHM is better than SCH for healing, things when BLM is better than SCH for nuking, things when both WHM and SCH or BLM and SCH can work in tandem for maximum benefit, and there are situations where SCH can outshine the others at the respective role.

I'm simply saying, "SCH vs BLM" is stupid.

It's mythic weapon, and I don't think it's as clear cut as you say. A WHM can remove 4 status effects from the entire group in 30 seconds or less with two Esunas, and they won't run out of charges.

SCH obviously has the advantage when it's best to keep your distance, or if it's silence, paralyze or petrify.

Also, WHM still has the limited use of Divine Veil. WHM has an advantage with prolonged AoE spam on the other things, with better MP and enmity efficiency in this area. WHM would be better for spamming Esuna on say, bats in Einherjar because there is no way a SCH can keep up with the charges. Also Sacrifice is pretty handy too. SCH can not remove 7 effects from the tank at once, which is particularly handy when it's multiple erase effects. WHM also has the instant all status cure from Benediction in the worst of emergencies. They both have their advantages and disadvantages and I would not definitively state that one is always better than the other.

Edited, Aug 6th 2009 10:30pm by JingWoo