Scholar subjob discussion

[Icemage]

I'm really liking Scholar as a job, but it feels so very incomplete. The job itself has a LOT of holes in its spell repertoire - not a blasted thing in the arsenal aside from cures, protects, shells, regens, and nukes, plus the oddballs Sneak/Invisible/Deodorize and Raise.

While currently only level 15, I've been experimenting with different subjobs and this is what jumps out at me:

/WHM:
Dia/Dia II/Slow/Paralyze/Silence
Paralyna/Blindna/Poisona/Viruna/Erase
Curaga I/II
Banish I/II
Reraise
Stoneskin/Blink/Aquaveil
Protect/Shellra I/II (avoids being forced to use Accession to "upgrade" your normal Protect/Shell).
Barspells

Magic Defense Bonus I/II
Clear Mind I/II
Divine Seal

Comments:
Standard /WHM usefulness applies here, naturally, with Divine Seal and status removal.

Self-only buffs are of particular interest here. The acquisition of Accession at level 40 Scholar adds some interesting effects to the Scholar reportoire when a /WHM subjob is used. Consider that is now possible to casting all of the following on your entire party:
Stoneskin, Blink, Aquaveil, and most interestingly - Reraise, though that comes at a level where it's of only limited use.

When using /WHM, be careful when casting enfeebling magic, as Light Arts does not improve Enfeebling Magic skill, so you have to make a choice when casting Dia, Dia II, Slow, Paralyze, and Silence, since they get the casting cost/time/recast bonus of Light Arts, but suffer from your D rank Enfeebling Skill. Activating Dark Arts for these five spells, on the other hand, hurts the MP cost, recast, and casting time, but improves your chance of landing them by raising your Enfeebling Magic skill to B rank.


/RDM:
Dia/Dia II/Slow/Paralyze/Silence
Bio/Bio II/Gravity/Bind/Sleep/Poison/Blind
Dispel
Phalanx/Stoneskin/Blink/Aquaveil
Barspells (self)
Blaze Spikes
Enspells

Fast Cast I/II
Magic Defense Bonus I
Magic Attack Bonus I
Clear Mind I
Resist Petrify

Commentary:

/RDM may actually be a very useful subjob for Scholar, as bizarre as it might sound, even though they're both sort of half-way points between black and white mages.

As with when using /WHM, be careful when casting enfeebling magic, as Light Arts does not improve Enfeebling Magic skill, so you have to make a choice when casting Dia, Dia II, Slow, Paralyze, and Silence, since they get the casting cost/time/recast bonus of Light Arts, but suffer from your D rank Enfeebling Skill. Activating Dark Arts for these five spells, on the other hand, hurts the MP cost, recast, and casting time, but improves your chance of landing them by raising your Enfeebling Magic skill to B rank.

/RDM adds Bio I, Bio II, Poison, Dispel, Sleep, Blind, Bind and Gravity to Scholar's offensive spell arsenal, which are all pretty useful, above the standard white magic enfeebles mentioned above. These spells also dovetail perfectly into Dark Arts, as their magic type matches Dark Arts perfectly. Note that it may be possible to turn all of these into area effect versions through the use of the Manifestation strategem at level 40+ (Sleepga, Graviga, and Bindga may no doubt become useful at some point).

Also like /WHM, it should be possible to cast Stoneskin and Blink on your party (borrowing aspects of either Blue Mage or Summoner in the process). Unlike /WHM, you also have the option to cast Phalanx on your party - with 256 base skill, which is, as they say "not bad at all" since that stops 25 damage per hit even if you aren't wearing any more +Enhancing gear or have merits.

It's also possible to put Enspells on your party, but that's of strictly limited utility I think unless someone in your party is wielding something crazy like a Kraken Club.

/BLM
The most offensively focused subjob for Scholar, /BLM offers the following spells and abilities:

Bio/Bio II/Poison/Blind/Bind/Sleep/Sleepga
Tractor/Warp/Escape
Blaze/Ice/Shock Spikes
Elemental enfeebles (Burn, Choke, etc.)

Elemental Seal
Conserve MP
Magic Attack I/II
Clear Mind I/II

Comments:
Conserve MP obviously stacks quite nicely with Light/Dark Arts effects to save you even more MP. Sleepga is a nice perk which avoids having to depend on having a Strategem charge available to put groups to sleep. Elemental Seal is, as always, useful for making sure spells stick.

I'm personally curious how Manifestation (AoE dark magic) will affect Tractor and Warp. Tractorga? Party Warp? Could be interesting indeed.

Otherwise, SCH/BLM ends up being a fairly straightforward nuking combination. Not as good as BLM, but better than RDM.

---

What other job combinations have people tried, and what were the results?


Icemage

[Taskmage]

I think that just about covers it. /drk might not be entirely useless for stun and absorbs, and likewise pld for flash and auto refresh, but 90% of the time those three subs will probably be used in listed order. It's a little bit of a shame that scholar's version of Earthen Ward and Noctoshield come to the table as late as they do in levels, but we wouldn't want to steal smn's thunder entirely and we could stand to see more of those effects in play in general.

Some points of detail: scholar can AoE -na at an earlier level than whms, and can do it more than twice as freqently when they get the ability. Accession Raise is a much more resource efficient way to make a quick recovery after a wipe than Chainspell Raise, though it's too bad whm can't sub for Accession Raise 3. ^^

I wonder what effect Ebullience will have on DoT spells like Bio, Burn and -helix spells, since that seems to be sch's area of focus in terms of damage dealing.

[Karinya]

Doesn't Manifestation say it affects only enfeebling and elemental magics? You might have more luck with Accession + Warp since Accession works on enhancing (that is, if it isn't restricted to *white* enhancing).

Aside from Warpga (if it's possible at all), the benefits of SCH/BLM look rather meager compared to /WHM and /RDM. Drain and Aspir are not actually benefits to /BLM since SCH gets them natively. SCH/BLM (and BLM/SCH, an otherwise attractive prospect) would be very vulnerable without the protective self-buffs that they normally have from /WHM and /RDM, and I don't think the firepower benefits are going to be that big.

RDM is strongest in enfeebling and enhancing magic, which is exactly the types of magic that SCH natively lacks, so they fit together quite well (fast cast doesn't hurt either). And of course /WHM is still the best sub for keeping your party alive and in good condition in many situations, for any main job except WHM itself.

Accession + Reraise could be very useful in no-exp-loss situations like some missions, Besieged and Campaign. Otherwise, level 66+ parties might prefer to bring a RR2 item, or a WHM. (Although I can see some endgame LS using Accession + Reraise and just saying "you can get your exp somewhere else"... it's not hard for any job to get exp now, and having RR on everyone could really help for fights like Proto-Ultima or Odin.)

P.S. You don't mention Erasega and Dispelga specifically, but I think that both could be quite useful in the right situations. SCH/WHM and SCH/RDM only respectively.

[hongman]

Im curious to know about the implications of raising your skill.

So SCH has D rank enfeebling. Using the Dark Arts raises to B rank.

I presume this means, if you have capped enfeebling at D rank, it also puts you at cap for B rank? What if you havent capped it?

I doubt anyone would actually use Dart Arts to cast Dia though.

[IfritnoItazura]

Don't the Arts give player without native skill B ranked, capped magic skills?

[Malacite]

Yes they do Ifrit, as TM pointed out in one of his posts.

Also, what about SCH/DRK or SCH/PLD ? >.>

Now granted this is extremely niche, but for the sake of playing around with spells like the Absorbs, Flash and especially Stun I'd like to see what could happen.


You're right in that SCH does feel like it's missing a lot as a main job, and I'd like to see it get some more unique spells rather than making it more RDM-like.


Also, I find it somewhat fails as a SJ despite SE intending it to be a very good one. It's four best abilities can not be used when subbed (Accession Rapture Manifestation and Ebullience) and I can understand SE's reasoning why (the job has to have something unique that can't be subbed) but I think SE really screwed us on this.

WHM BLM and RDM have a lot of powerful spells that would greatly benefit from these. Either SE did this deliberately to keep game balance in check (seriously doubt this), or they just couldn't come up with anything good (More likely. They said so themselves at fan fest SCH and DNC were very difficult to design)

I mean, COR can already give us Refreshga at no cost, so why not RDM/SCH? AoE Cure V or Reraise 3 could have been huge but no, we can't.

Or how about Rapture + Cure V o O (probably overkill but still) or Banish III or Holy...


Let's see what else did we get screwed on... Oh yeah, Manifestation + Bio III (okay not much of a loss there. Actually not being able to sub this isn't that big a deal) and then of course Ebullience is every BLM's wet dream :angry:

ES + Ebullience + AM II {Can I Have It?} {Death} {You can have this.}

[Taskmage]

I think it was Coinspinner's post that showed the effects of Arts when your skills are uncapped. They just set your skill equal to the B rank cap for your level, regardless of your natural skill level.

If the description on the wiki matches the in-game tooltip, Ebullience enhances the potency of your next black magic spell, no reference made to the school of magic it's from.

I would call sch a complete job. It's just different from other mage jobs in that instead of deriving its identity from signature key spells and supplementing that with a subjob, scholar supplements its subjob with its signature JAs. It could certainly stand to have its first 40 levels spiced up in some way, but I think as a whole it's designed pretty well. We'll see how that opinion holds up to play ...

[Karinya]

You're right in that SCH does feel like it's missing a lot as a main job, and I'd like to see it get some more unique spells rather than making it more RDM-like.
Well, it does, but not until later. We'll have to see if those are good enough to be worth bothering with.
Also, I find it somewhat fails as a SJ despite SE intending it to be a very good one. It's four best abilities can not be used when subbed (Accession Rapture Manifestation and Ebullience) and I can understand SE's reasoning why (the job has to have something unique that can't be subbed) but I think SE really screwed us on this.
Those aren't its four best abilities. Those are its third, fourth, fifth and sixth best abilities. Its *best* abilities are the ones that give you guaranteed Conserve MP and Fast Cast and B skill if you didn't have it already, *for as long as you want, for free*. If you want to improve spells you already have, rather than expand your spell list by subbing a different mage job, SCH is an awesome sub.

It's true that /SCH doesn't get some of the best stratagems. But the Arts are in full force for /SCH (including for jobs that don't have those skills *at all* natively, like WHMs and SMNs casting Aspir for useful amounts) and do a lot to enhance the spells that the main job has.
WHM BLM and RDM have a lot of powerful spells that would greatly benefit from these.
Yeah, too greatly. SCH needs to have some of their awesomeness reserved for SCH main. Unlike the basic mage jobs, SCH is defined partly by its spells and partly by its JAs; so it's appropriate that not all the JAs are available to /SCH. Otherwise SCH would be in the same position compared with mage/SCH as pre-Assassin THFs were compared with 2h/THFs: all their good stuff is used better by another job.

Look at what you *do* get, rather than at what you don't get, and you'll see that /SCH has quite significant benefits for at least WHM, BLM, RDM, SMN, PLD, DRK, and BLU. Whether it's more than they would have gotten for other subs... isn't always going to be obvious or the same in all situations, which is as it should be.

[Galaxia]

At the momoment on Garuda ppl are using /whm and /blm, Only seen 2-3 /rdm.
But on almost all the comments theres
Sub Job: /WHM /BLM

Theres already a lv 50 SCH on Garuda and he says not to use /rdm

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Yeah, I was kinda glad with this recent update to jobs and the addition of SCH that many jobs got ablities as exclusives. I was hopful at least some of the weather magic would show up pre-sub for /SCH, but then every BLM would just sub that to capitalize on what would basically be free Sea Obis.

I feel the spell list's holes are very intentional to press the issue of other mage subs. And to be fair, /SCH does bring some things to the table that other subs other jobs wouldn't such as Regen II and a stronger Aspir. That could mean a great deal to my BST and I've halted my plans to level BST to get SCH done as a sub and possibly further.

I think /RDM does have potential as well, its just lacking in JAs. Not that WHM or BLM have load of them, but Divine and Elemental Seal do add a little something. But AoE Phalnax or Stoneskin at times is something to think about.

I'm curious to hear any feed back on /BLU, /NIN and /BRD as well, though I get the sense SCH is restricted to White and Black Magic

[Malacite]

BBQ's right (and it's what I like about SCH) in that it's like a RDM, but more defined by it's SJ and abilities and not just the spells it has. I'm also all for the exclusives (SCH would suck if it didn't have any) but I still can't help but wonder at just what WHM BLM and RDM could all do with those last 4 stratagems =/

[Sabaron]

I have to admit, /RDM is currently my top favorite. I mean look at what you get:

Full course Debuffs both Black and White
DoTs

Phalanxga
Bar-ra with Accession if you really need it.

Enspellga

I've marked my favorites. SCH tops out at 256 with LA on which is especially lovely here with Enspellga providing +17 damage. 17... I mean come on. Who wouldn't want their weapon damage code to go up by 17? Even a slow weapon guy wants that--and I think NIN's will be licking boots to get it. SCH can even modify the weather to boost the bonus especially on DDs who are WS'ing with a particular elemental affinity or who have one of those ever-so-nifty Weather related items like Monsoon Tekko. Hard to beat, and on the other side of the coin we've got -25 Damage (max) Phalanxga which especially coupled with Stoneskinga (maxed at 350) will provide horrendous mitigation capabilities especially with Paladin tanks in combination with their already formidable mitigation JA's--and Ninjas with RDM-style Stoneskin backup for shadow-recast? Forget about it. /RDM is Gold.

If /RDM is gold, then /WHM is Silver, but only because there is a greater shortage of healers seeking than DDs. Face it, Scholar may make an excellent nuker, and may even be able to manaburn, but you know that people are going to snatch you up to heal them more often than manaburn or DD scenarios are going to come along. It's simply a fact of life. In those camps where you just can't avoid status-casting mobs, /WHM will still be the pick of the litter, and best of all, you get to keep Stoneskinga!

Poor /BLM is going to have to get my bronze medal only because it will be the least popular of the main three due to aforementioned reasons. Ultra-potent nukes sound mighty fine to me: Ebullience + Elemental Seal + Thunder III = fun. Top it off with a full round of DoT and a Helix will make a very nice pop in the DD department. I don't think Scholar will take the prize away from BLM of course since they can't drop tier IV, and AM2, but they're definitely respectable especially in the DoT department on longer battles (NMs).

I'm currently SCH/BLU at very low level because /BLU provides healing and damage efficiently. It will peter out, of course, as I approach 20.

Oh and as a sidelight, I'm no longer considering Phalanx II as a viable merit on RDM because of SCH/RDM's Phalanxga.

If you need more convincing on the Enspellga thing, try thinking MNK x 4 all wearing Monsoon Tekko, Enwaterga + Rainstormga. Here we go:

Martial Arts VI: Base delay = 300
Weapon is Unlocked Destoyers of course +18/+48
Total delay is 348 without haste gear.
So we've got 17 x 2 / 348 * 60 * 1.1 (Weather) = 6.45 DPS per monk without the tekko.

The tekko are Acc+8 during rain, and as we have recently been informed, every 2 points of Acc are worth roughly 1% increased hit rate, so we can effectively say that (provided non-capped Accuracy) that provides an additional 4% over w/e the normal DPS would be.

Remember, we've also got 4 MNKs so... 6.45 * 4 = 25.8 DPS from just that little combination. I'd say that enspellga definitely has potential considering even Relic weapons don't break 15 DPS. If you like it better as flat damage, we're applying this damage over what 2:30? 6.45 DPS * 150 sec = 967.5 damage per monk per cast which means the monks in that party just did about 3870 damage and spent 36 mp (Enwaterga) + 90 mp (Rainstormga) = 126mp for 3870 damage or 30.7 hp/mp which is an extraordinary ratio. Now think THF and NIN and WAR/NIN.

Does this sound a bit broken? I think it does. I wouldn't necessary rule out a retool.

[Malacite]

Keep in mind that even with charges stored up there's still a 1 minute delay between Stratagems, so depending on the duration of the buffs it's not quite that good but still hot damn!

[Sabaron]

Keep in mind that even with charges stored up there's still a 1 minute delay between Stratagems, so depending on the duration of the buffs it's not quite that good but still hot damn!
You get one stratagem every 240s (I was originally thinking 1/minute) and the buffs all last 150s.

Of course, now I'd have to alter my strategy to disclude the rather dismal +10% from the Rainstormga, so

17 x 2 / 348 * 60 = 5.86 DPS for 150/240s = 3.66 DPS (adjusted for JA recast) * 4 MNKs = 14.64 which is much more reasonable but still quite high on the DoT totem pole with 4 high-speed DD's.

This mode of scholar seems to reinforce the TP Burn idea.

---- Above Heavily edited due to temporary personal overindulgence in stupidity ----
Sorry, got a bit ahead of myself. You get 1 charge every 4 minutes and store up to 3 not 4. Above altered.

[Icemage]

Re: Sabaron an AoE buffs
Have to remember that the recast timer on Strategems is 240 minutes, and buffs like Phalanx and Enspells only last 150 seconds. Also, I don't know what the high-end Strategems will be like - seems prudent to not base your higher level strategies around the low level stuff since I'm sure Square-Enix has saved the best for last.

Fixed the entry on /BLM to remove Aspir and Drain since I had forgotten that these spells were native to the Scholar job.


Icemage

[Sabaron]

Re: Sabaron an AoE buffs
Have to remember that the recast timer on Strategems is 240 minutes, and buffs like Phalanx and Enspells only last 150 seconds.

I took that into account in the above calculation. It's where the adjusted DPS of 14.~~ comes from.

Also, I don't know what the high-end Strategems will be like - seems prudent to not base your higher level strategies around the low level stuff since I'm sure Square-Enix has saved the best for last.


We can look at the helixes a bit. Let's say we get top-end damage of 50 (a guess) and Ebullience is a 50% boost (it could be 100% for all I know). Reports on weather indicate that 1x weather is extending duration by 20s from 50 to 110s iirc, so we'll assume 1x Light weather on Luminohelix as follows:

50 Damage * 1.5 (Ebullience) * 110s / 3tick = 2750 damage

Wiki doesn't say what the spell costs, but if we can tri-stack them like elemental debuffs, we can add two more that look like:

50 Damage * 50s / 3tick = 833 damage

to get:

2750 + (833 * 2) = ~4417 damage over 110s for (probably) a rather hefty mp cost. Now of course that depends on whether or not Luminohelix does ~50 damage and not ~100.

All of it is, of course, pure speculation, but I really like where said speculation is going.

One might be able to categorize Phalanxga and Enspellga as situational if one considers non-optimal situations. Alternate melee groups such as DRK, SAM, and DRG make Enspellga far less powerful. Phalanxga is situational with respect to mob attack speed. Mandragora and bees are MNK and so are greatly affected by Phalanxga, whereas say a Wivre is going to be hitting much harder and much slower and is not going to suffer nearly as much from it. I simply see potential for those two abilities with respect to abilities off sub which is what the thread is about.

[Armando]

Mandragora and bees are MNK and so are greatly affected by Phalanxga, whereas say a Wivre is going to be hitting much harder and much slower and is not going to suffer nearly as much from it.Nitpick: Bees are not MNKs.

Carry on.

[Tsrwedge]

Have to remember that the recast timer on Strategems is 240 minutes, and buffs like Phalanx and Enspells only last 150 seconds.

Second nitpik - that's 240 seconds.

Carry on.

[Sabaron]

Nitpick: Bees are not MNKs.

Carry on.

They fight in a very MNK-like manner. High speed attacks that do little damage.

[Armando]

No, they don't. They have the same 240 (4 second) Delay as any other mob, and their attack damage is pretty much average. Unless we're talking about very obviously MNK or NIN mob, only a handful of CoP and ToAU mobs have non-standard attack speed (Wanderer-type Empty, Colibri, Chigoe, Fomors according to their weapon, and I don't know of anything else right now.)

[Sabaron]

Fine, they're not. Anyway. Back to the more important issue. I forgot to add in time sensitivity in my thing on Helix, so I'll do time-adjusted DoT evaluation of Helix.
Assumptions:
Helix top end = 50
Ebullience = 50% boost
Positive Weather Effect makes Helix duration 110s always active (self-storming same element as helix)
-----------
50% bonus for 110s/240s = 22.92% adjusted

Assuming their additive and not multiplicative:
50 damage * (1 + 0.2292) * 110s/3s = 2253 average damage per cast.
If we want it as DoT, we just divide the 110s back out and get:
20.48DPS
which is still better than Enspellga unless my math went weirdy weird somewhere (it did). The problem now becomes how to properly calculate the effect of Elemental Seal...which was, admittedly, the original intent of this post which has been now back-burnered since I don't know how much more accurate Eleseal makes a spell.

Now when you cast a helix I'm assuming that if you storm yourself you get the bonus since you can't storm a mob.

Now with Tabula Rasa in full effect I have infinite stratagems, so I can do something like...

3x Ebullient Helixga

provided Helix stack like standard EleDoTs, but this will probably cause your own death. Good way to go down in a big fight though, but probably needs a Paladin to Invincible to get it off or the mobs will likely kill you before you finish casting it. Also, I don't know how long it takes to cast a helix but Tabula Rasa only lasts 1 minute.


-----------------------------EDIT--------------------------------
Wait a minute.... I just retarded out didn't I? Elemental seal doesn't double the spell effect... It just makes it top out it's "power" so that it will be unresisted. Therefore, my boost effect was erroneous...
Adjusted.

[Malacite]

um... I don't recal Tabula Rasa giving unlimited Stratagems. It says it Optimizes both Black and White Magic, effectively giving you both Light and Dark Arts at the same time.

[Anaki]

im wondering. if weather affects helix alot. and you can make weather. and there are the obis that increase the affect of weather.

so dynamis (double dark/void weather) + voidstorm + anrin obi(enhanced dark weather affect) + modus veritas(sp?)(enhanced helix spells)= what kind of damage to a dynamis mob?

[Karinya]

Tabula Rasa removes charge limitations from stratagems, but does it still remove the minimum 1 min cooldown?

In any case, I think AoEing a short-duration buff is not likely to be that great a strategy for most situations. You'll run out of charges after only a couple times recasting it (unless it's a BCNM where you go through your charges, then 2hr, then by the time that wears off the fight is hopefully over).

Especially if you're going to all that trouble just to duplicate Noctoshield, Earthen Ward or Aerial Armor... at least with enspells there's some excuse, because Rolling Thunder is so horribly broken.

[Tsrwedge]

um... I don't recal Tabula Rasa giving unlimited Stratagems. It says it Optimizes both Black and White Magic, effectively giving you both Light and Dark Arts at the same time.
Quoting directly from the game...
Optimizes both white and black magic capabilities, which allowing charge-free stratagem use.
I can attest to this as well - saved the pt last night when I was near-empty on MP and fired off a few Regens and a couple Cure 2s. When I used Tabula Rasa, I had 66 MP - triggered Penury on each cast, finished with 30 MP.

[Taskmage]

So it removes the recast restriction as well then.

[Malacite]

> < just checked wiki, apparently Helix spells do not work with Manifestation /cry

[Sabaron]

> < just checked wiki, apparently Helix spells do not work with Manifestation /cry

They must've made a special exception because they're classified as Enfeebling and Manifestation states that it works on Enfeebling magic.

But yeah, Tabula Rasa gives Light Arts + Dark Arts + Unlimited Stratagems which is very cool, but you still have only 1 minute to cast all your spells.

And to Anaki WRT 2x weather and Voidstorm, I'm not sure but were I to venture a guess, I'd say that Storms don't "add" to the weather but simply apply it. In other words, If I cast Ionstorm when there is thunder weather, the weather is still thundery, but if I cast Ionstorm in 2x thunder weather, nothing happens because it is already more thundery. That's more of an opinionated guess than a known fact.

[Gwynn]

They must've made a special exception because they're classified as Enfeebling and Manifestation states that it works on Enfeebling magic.
But yeah, Tabula Rasa gives Light Arts + Dark Arts + Unlimited Stratagems which is very cool, but you still have only 1 minute to cast all your spells.
And to Anaki WRT 2x weather and Voidstorm, I'm not sure but were I to venture a guess, I'd say that Storms don't "add" to the weather but simply apply it. In other words, If I cast Ionstorm when there is thunder weather, the weather is still thundery, but if I cast Ionstorm in 2x thunder weather, nothing happens because it is already more thundery. That's more of an opinionated guess than a known fact.

Yet another minor boost of /RDM: Fast Cast for your 2 hour. Get a RDM or WHM to cast Haste on you and think of all the spiffy things you could pull of with a Tabula Rasa in a BCNM. Might change a few things in CoP.

[Malacite]

Assuming Helix Spells stack, Tabula Rasa + Helix Spells + Ebullience = nasty shit.

[Sabaron]

With Tabula Rasa, I'm assuming I can stack stratagems (maybe I can't but I'm not high enough level yet to test), so I could stack Alacrity and Ebullience onto each helix is the casting time is high to enable me to get them all off before my 2 hour wears. Even though people are already casting helix, no one has updated the casting times on the wiki. If they take 20-27 seconds each, that's just enough time to cast them all without Alacrity. I need about 3 seconds to launch the three
JA's but I think I really would like a 10 second or so buffer so the timing isn't so strict. Of course, If I use Alacrity on all of them (@ 30 sec ea) that's only 45 seconds + 6 seconds for the JAs = 51 seconds worth of casting and I can still toss out an AoE buff or two (Phalanxga, Stoneskinga, Enspellga because you already know I'm subbing RDM) before I sit down and die because of all the enmity I just generated.

Add:

I've just thought of something. If I have 3 stratagems stored up and I activate Tabula Rasa will I still have 3 stored after it ends or do I need to use my stored stratagems first?

[Gobo]

Assuming Helix Spells stack, Tabula Rasa + Helix Spells + Ebullience = nasty shit.

Survey says, no they do not. It was tested in Ballista, the status effect given was just a generic "Helix" effect.