Scholar as a support job. (Nerf imminent?)

[Coinspinner]

Maybe this is old news to some, but I just discovered this today. When you set SCH as your support job and use Light Arts or Dark Arts your skills will rise to B rank for your main job's level. Not only that, your skills will be maxed out without you having to level them to get that high.


http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a239/Coinspinner/FFXI/blmcomparison.png

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a239/Coinspinner/FFXI/WHM_comparison.png

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a239/Coinspinner/FFXI/RDM_comparison.png

"I said 'wow'." This is gonna be a useful sub.

[Lasareth]

Not very useful for this alone unless you mean for rdm. It only boosts your skills to B level which means it won't affect elemental skill for BLM or healing/divine for WHM, which it seems you've noticed already.

As for a sub, its usefulness even with the currently broken strategems is somewhat limited. It's a constant 10% mp conservation which is great for whm mains but you don't get stoneskin or blink which makes subbing for blm kind of iffy. So far the only thing it's got going for it is a 50% mp conservation skill every 4 mins and oh lala regen 2 at 37. I bet that'll change in the near future though.

This bug, or feature, or whatever, only allows you to do a limited set of things unachievable with other subs:
-Drain/Aspir with B skill on whm&rdm without the accuracy of elemental seal
-Enfeeble a bit more precisely on whm and blm (which rarely happens anyway)
-Cast elemental magic as a rdm main more accurately

Really it doesn't augment what jobs already do, except for rdm when you throw a nuke out every now and then for shits and giggles. You're also giving up stoneskin/blink/-na spells for that, so it doesn't seem superior to any of the alternatives as things are now--for blm I'd actually rather hide behind the safety of blink/ss than have dark arts available to me.

The expansion is young though and things are sure to change. Right now SCH sub is more of a curiousity than anything else.

[Armando]

It's true that it doesn't do so much for the skills that a mage main excels at. But think outside the box a little bit - this would let, say, a SMN/SCH or BLU/SCH use Enfeebling/Dark magic with B skill where it normally wouldn't have any skill there in the first place. Now, even a melee job could enfeeble in certain BCNMs, Missions, duo/trio situations, or other random non-EXP party events. When looked at from that perspective, that's pretty fucking big.

EDIT: Whoops. For some reason I could've sworn SCH got access to enfeebles. Even so, that means a SMN/SCH or BLU/SCH could drain and aspir pretty efficiently where they normally couldn't.

[Lasareth]

In order to enfeeble, though, you need the proper spells. SCH does not get any enfeebling skills native except poison up to 37, which makes enfeebling impossible as SMN, BLU, or any melee. You're also limited by a small mp pool if you sub sch since you're not a mage main, making things you can do more limited.

But sure if you want to give up a subjub slot for drain and aspir go for it. That's all I can see it giving anything as a sub.

Edit for your edit: The only things you can nuke with with sch sub are the t1 spells and t2 spells up to water 2, effectively making you a gimp drk. Blu benefits more from blm sj since that gives magic attack bonus and sch does NOT, which is the only thing that would affect blu magical spells in a desirable fashion.

[tdh]

This will actually be a great sub for RDM in the duo/trio Manaburns. I quite often go and duo with a BLM in my LS since I only Pink Mage in Dynamis, so giving me a boost against resists, and saving some MP in the process will be quite helpful.

I'm considering leveling Scholar for more than just sub job purposes, but I still think it has it's merits for a sub in more than just mission/solo circumstances.

[Taskmage]

Hori sheet yay for a big boost to my dark and elemental magic skills. I was hoping for an enfeebling boost as well, if small, but in exchange for +20 elemental skill and +50 dark magic skill I'll shut my damn mouf. This seems really darn good for rdm, situationally still pretty darn good for blm and whm, and a very viable option for smn and blu, especially if healing magic skill really does influence the power of blu healing spells.

[Patchinko]

Does Healing Magic skill affect Blue Mage heals (I figured they were under the influence solely of Blue Magic)?

Also, does the reduction in MP cost and increase in casting speed also work when using /SCH as a subjob?

Sounds like a pretty great RDM subjob, really!

(At this point, it's sounding like this might be my first real second job not just for subjob on my RDM also!)

[Coinspinner]

I'm pretty sure you get all the benefit of ----- Arts while subbed.

What's this about Stratagems being broken?

Edit: Recast is definitely shorter/longer, MP cost is definitely reduced/increased, I can't tell if the cast time is reduced but I'd bet on it.

[Taskmage]

Does Healing Magic skill affect Blue Mage heals (I figured they were under the influence solely of Blue Magic)?Some claim it does, some claim it doesn't. So far I think all the evidence presented on the subject has been anecdotal. I don't think it does, myself.

Hey, I just noticed this means rdm can reasonably reach the 7/dmg per tick tier of Bio II now. And whoa if Bio III's slip damage continues to improve for every 8 levels of dark magic past 209, that means with Dark Arts and +17 skill it should be doing and unresistable 13 dmg/tick. :eek:

[Nuriko]

I can see WHM welcoming an Aspir with good skill each minute in some fast-moving parties ... but the 10% conservation might be better than that. For that matter, /BLM is already over 6% on average plus access to ES, and SMN is 1 mp/tick at 50+ plus some of the summon buffs...

[Lmnop]

What's this about Stratagems being broken?

I've heard something about when using macros instead of accessing via menus, you can store up to 3 charges with /SCH sub job. Can anyone confirm?

[Taskmage]

I can see WHM welcoming an Aspir with good skill each minute in some fast-moving parties ... but the 10% conservation might be better than that. For that matter, /BLM is already over 6% on average plus access to ES, and SMN is 1 mp/tick at 50+ plus some of the summon buffs...I thought the Conserve MP trait averaged out to 10% mp saved, just random unlike the sch JA. Whatever it is, it's generally considered inferior to auto-refresh, but maybe that 10% saving and the decent skill aspir would beat /smn on mobs with mp?

[Lasareth]

I've heard something about when using macros instead of accessing via menus, you can store up to 3 charges with /SCH sub job. Can anyone confirm?

This is true, makes prebuffing for big events like dynamis a lot less mp-costly.

You'll end up at -2 charges instead of 0 which is definitely not intended.

And I've noticed a boost to blu healing spells with high healing magic skill but I also remember it was capped at some point, though I won't really say I know for sure. You still have to consider, though, what subs you're giving up if you're gonna sub SCH. It's not like it's a bonus but rather a tradeoff of your abilities.

I'm not saying SCH is a crap sj, it's just really underwhelming for being heralded as the "new mage sub." Just seems like a sj that's even more situational than any others, if you can even find a situation where it outperforms its alternatives.

[Pteryx]

I don't think that the skill thing is going to be nerfed -- because from the sound of the Osaka festival, where they promised that WHM/SCHs would be able to Drain effectively, this is intentional. Amazing, but very much intentional. I thought it'd have to work something like this to live up to the hype, but I didn't expect them to actually give a B from /SCH. Wow. -- Pteryx

[Armando]

Regarding Healing Skill and BLU: I did a bit of testing way back when I levelled BLU many months ago and I found that my Healing Breeze was far stronger using /WHM than other subs. It was a night-and-day kind of thing, too big a difference for any amount of +MND from /WHM sub to make. But I didn't think it was that important (seeing as I was just confirming what was apparently common knowledge) and don't have any recorded numbers or screenshots to back it up.

[Malacite]

Yeah I was wondering why the hell I was able to repeatedly use the ability and why it said -2 charges >_ >

[Patchinko]

Regarding Healing Skill and BLU: I did a bit of testing way back when I levelled BLU many months ago and I found that my Healing Breeze was far stronger using /WHM than other subs. It was a night-and-day kind of thing, too big a difference for any amount of +MND from /WHM sub to make. But I didn't think it was that important (seeing as I was just confirming what was apparently common knowledge) and don't have any recorded numbers or screenshots to back it up.

I looked up a few things, and it appears that the BLU spells vary in how they're affected by stats, but it looks like Healing Skill does have an effect on the BLU healing spells!

Quite an intriguing combo that being the case.

[Malacite]

BLU/SCH ftw?

No Curaga II or ~na spells though. Magic Fruit should sky rocket though!

and SE said they wanted SCH to be a very good SJ, so I doubt this will get nerfed.

[METDeath]

actually, a whm with dark staff equipped can aspir/drain better than a blm without it... back in the day before I had my dark staff doing crabs with a whm in pt, they would constantly aspir for more MP than I did... Once I got my dark staff I noticed an increased success rate, and higher numbers. And if you're really desperate, just use ES on it...

[Icemage]

actually, a whm with dark staff equipped can aspir/drain better than a blm without it... back in the day before I had my dark staff doing crabs with a whm in pt, they would constantly aspir for more MP than I did... Once I got my dark staff I noticed an increased success rate, and higher numbers. And if you're really desperate, just use ES on it...
Hmm? This is so very not true. Even with Dark Staff and an Abyssal Earring (+5 Dark Magic) equipped, Aspir and Drain tend to land for single digits as WHM/BLM without Elemental Seal, unless the target is desperately weak against Dark Magic.


Icemage

[Lmnop]

maybe they were only doing it once/10 minutes and you just missed them using Elemental Seal first.

[Lasareth]

Well something interesting that I noticed is that not only did light and dark arts decrease casting time for their respective spells, they also seemed to affect recast times. Just something to throw out, makes using it as a whm sub seem more attractive.

Going from Dark->Light arts..
Stoneskin goes from 30sec>22sec, a roughly 8 sec difference between the two.

Interesting :D

[Zempten]

Can someone explain this charge thing? How am I able to go to -2?

What I mean is sometimes when I use it threw the macro it tells me I have 9:50 left and then other times it activates (and I know for sure that it hasn't been 9:50). When I check in the menu it either says -1 or -2 next to charge.

This has really gotten me confused.

[Lasareth]

/ja Parsimony <me>

or penury depending on your current art.

It bypasses the restriction from your strategems list and lets you use up all 3 charges.

----

The way the JAs work is, they're on a 4 minute timer, which means you can use them every 4 minutes. If you expend 3 of them which is your max "stock", it'll be 12 minutes before you get all 3 back. You SHOULD only have 1 charge before level 40 or whatever it is, that would limit you to one per 4 minutes no matter what. However, it's broken and lets you go under 0 charges to a "max" of -2, giving you 3 charges effectively to use at your whim. Instead of 0 to 3 the counter is -2 to 0.

The timer may be broken below 2 and say 12 minutes or whatever it says, but just think of it this way: If you're not at -2, you still have one available. It's when you hit -2 that you can't use anymore. The charge goes back to -1 at the 8 minute mark on the recast.

So it's:

-2 charges at 12 mins (can't use any charges)
-1 charge at 8 mins (you can use one now, since 4 minutes have passed)

[Malacite]

If you do it by macro you also bypass the 1 minute recast on Stratagems, it's clearly broken and I'm sure SE will fix this, most likely in tomorrow's update.