SCH as subjob for BLM?

[Olorin401]

Note: I was going to post this in the BLM section but it's more a discussion of Scholar's practicality.

I've just started working on my Scholar so I can get it to subjob level for my White Mage. From what I've seen it's a much more practical subjob than Summoner, even if it doesn't provide the extra MP boost and auto-refresh.

Since I also play Black Mage a LOT lately, I wanted to look into how useful SCH-sub would be in this case, compared to either WHM or RDM. At the moment my SCH is only level 10, so I'm going to outline the pros and cons based on the printed info for each job first.

Job Traits:

SCH as a subjob gives you access to one of the most useful job traits a mage could want - Resist Silence. It comes at sub-level 10, and it's only a tier 1 resistance. At sub-level 30 you get Max MP Boost which is also extremely useful for a mage to have.

These replace the WHM traits of Magic Def. Bonus 1/2 and Auto-Regen, and the RDM traits of Fast Cast 1/2 and Resist Petrify 1/2. The loss of MDB might cause a problem when fighting mobs solo, or anytime a mob uses magic attacks in a party or endgame situation.

Job Abilities:

SCH gives you access to Light Arts & Dark Arts at sub-level 10. As a BLM main, Light Arts is a moot point so let's focus on Dark Arts. With this ability active your BLM gains a bonus to Elemental, Enfeebling, and Dark Magic, all MP costs for your BLM spells are reduced by 10%, and all casting times for BLM spells are reduced by about 7%.

**Note: I don't have a comparison table of the skillcaps for Elemental/Enfeebling/Dark magic yet, nor do I have a comparison of baseline INT between the various subjobs. I'm going off what I've heard from others at the moment. If you have this information, both with and without Dark Arts active, let me know and I'll include it in this write-up.

Wow.. now this is ALL big time stuff. You cast your spells faster (which makes up for the loss of Fast Cast from RDM sub), they're more powerful, and they cost less to cast. What more could a bad-ass derka-derka BLM like yourself ask for?!

Well how about the Grimoire abilities that come with Dark Arts? At Sub-10 you get Parsimony, which allows you to cast a single spell at half MP cost. Freeze 2 for the cost of Thunder 3.. sounds good! At sub-25 you get Alacrity, which allows you to cast a single spell at 40% casting time. While I don't think this is as useful as Parsimony, it has a good use in situations where you're looking to get a quick spell off - such as a zerg situation (beat the Manafont timer!) or to finish off a mob before the chain runs out.

Spell Set:
As with any subjob, your spells will vary depending on what you use. Scholar unfortunately doesn't offer as much utility in this area compared to WHM or RDM, plus when you have Dark Arts active your White Magic spells cost more and cast slower. You do get Cure 1-3, Regen 1-2, Raise, Deo/Snk/Inv. You do NOT get Blink and Stoneskin, which are MAJOR utility losses for a BLM. This is possibly the one point that would make me shy away from using SCH as a sub, because when you're nuking hard you tend to go down hard. You also don't get Reraise, but then again in most endgame cases you'll have a RR item and/or a WHM around to give you R3.

OK that's all I have for the moment. Let's open this one up for discussion.

[Callisto]

I've seen enough Dynamis to know that BLMs without Blink/SS or Utsusemi is just a very, very bad thing. I honestly don't think Dark Arts gives that huge of a boost, since I believe only your Enfeebling Skill would benefit with it(Elemental and Dark are both too high to get any use from it), and the Enhancing boost from Light Arts won't boost any of your Spikes since they are Black Magic, you'd really only be getting a few more HPs on your Cures thanks to higher skill, but do you really want to be dropping 190 Cure III's on yourself without Blink/SS?

So it basically comes down to 10% MP savings, slightly faster casting/recast, which may not be stronger than /RDM Fast Cast(I'm not sure how much it is), and the occassional 2 Strategems for lower MP cost and faster casting time. I think /SCH is still fantastic for WHM and SMN, situationally good for RDM, and probably not all that good for BLM, as 10% MP savings does you no good when you're laying face down on the ground.

[Kasandaro]

Best reply? Wait a day or two to ask - if you look elsewhere in this forum, Scholar is getting a phenomenal number of ability and spell changes in this patch.

All your points are valid (and yes, I love whm/sch, especially in dyna with all the walking super ethers), but depending on what Addendum: White and Addendum: Black contain, Scholar's viability as a support job to black mage may get re-evaluated by the horde.

[Callisto]

Best reply? Wait a day or two to ask - if you look elsewhere in this forum, Scholar is getting a phenomenal number of ability and spell changes in this patch.

All your points are valid (and yes, I love whm/sch, especially in dyna with all the walking super ethers), but depending on what Addendum: White and Addendum: Black contain, Scholar's viability as a support job to black mage may get re-evaluated by the horde.

Unless they added more spells that they didn't list, every new spell for SCH is 40+, so /SCH will only be getting Sublimation. We'll find out in a few hours, I suppose.

[Ellipses]

Unless they added more spells that they didn't list, every new spell for SCH is 40+, so /SCH will only be getting Sublimation. We'll find out in a few hours, I suppose.

They didn't list every spell. They only listed spells that don't have the correct level listed for Addendum.

I would guess that they're giving either Blink or Stoneskin with Addendum, if not both.

[Olorin401]

They didn't list every spell. They only listed spells that don't have the correct level listed for Addendum.

I would guess that they're giving either Blink or Stoneskin with Addendum, if not both.

I sure hope so.. being a regular BLM in a hardcore endgame linkshell can be extremely taxing on the health of my XP buffer.

Then again.. I just remembered I tend to run around without Blink/SS up while I'm casting Sleepga 2's on a horde of Dyna-Xarc demons.. but that's because I know I have RR up.

[IfritnoItazura]

So it basically comes down to 10% MP savings, slightly faster casting/recast, which may not be stronger than /RDM Fast Cast(I'm not sure how much it is), and the occassional 2 Strategems for lower MP cost and faster casting time.

It may be a little less than 10% additional saving because of Conserve MP trait.

On average, Conserve MP knocks of 7% off of the MP cost. If Dark Arts works the way I think it does, it reduces the 10% up front. So,

No Dark Arts:
100 MP spell -> Conserve MP = 7 MP saving
7 / 100 = 7%

Dark Arts:
100 MP spell -> Dark Arts = 10 MP saving
90 MP spell -> Conserve MP = 6.3 MP saving
Total MP saved: 16.3 MP
16.3 MP/100 MP = 16.3%

So, Dark Arts would give 9.3% additional savings instead of 10%.

* * *

Depending on the recast time of Sublimation and how much MP over time, it can be very useful--at least for my RDM. I'm hoping for 1MP/3sec, matching Auto Refresh.

[Neomage]

/SCH is truly the job to ultimize your damage dealing potential. However, you have to keep in mind that BLM is not a pure DD, they are a utility job. This means that in certain situations, where the utility desired is damage, /SCH is the best choice. Situations like these include things like Manaburn setups. In other situations, such as Dynamis, Solo, or standard parties, /WHM (or occasionally /RDM) is the better option.

Personally, I am leveling it myself. During god runs and manaburns, I feel this will help a LOT. I can't wait to pull off a Burst II without worrying about timing. Just pop Parsimony, Aclarity and cast the same way I would Thunder IV.

[Karinya]

They didn't list every spell. They only listed spells that don't have the correct level listed for Addendum.

I would guess that they're giving either Blink or Stoneskin with Addendum, if not both.

Nope.

Addendum: Black gives sleep, dispel, sleep II and tier IV nukes. Dispel is the only one that BLM doesn't already have.

Addendum: White gives -na spells (most are available subbed), and a bunch of stuff that doesn't come subbed and therefore won't help a blm/sch. And to use it you have to change to light arts, use the addendum (which is a stratagem), cast your spells and then you lose the addendum if you change back to dark arts (which you will).

Relative to pre-patch, blm/sch will get more stratagems (2 charges with 2 min recharge after 60/30), and Sublimation (data on how this works still being collected). But they'll still be totally defenseless, and so will sch/blm.

[Chocobeau]

so is /sch for WAR viable? maybe just for solo work?
(sorry, i should have probably posted this as a separate thread >_<)

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

If you're a melee main job, typically mage subjobs are best left in the mog house unless you plan to solo. These days, /DNC is the subjob of choice for melees wishing to solo and have curative abilities or /NIN to avoid taking damage.

[IfritnoItazura]

Back on the topic of BLM/SCH...

Though lacking in defensive measures, BLM/SCH looks like it may have higher chaining capability than BLM/WHM or BLM/RDM when soloing BST beatmen's pets, one-shot style.

Sublimation: Once per chain; before start of first nuke, let it gather some MP. Toggle after AM, get MP back.
Parsimony: Once or twice per chain, depending on level. Halves the costs of the AM.

Watching my sister getting chain#4 consistently on BLM56/WHM28, I couldn't help but wonder if on /SCH, she just may be able to stretch that to chain#5 or #6, if the re-pop speed supports it. She runs down to ~60MP or so at the end of each chain, while Quake is 377MP. Dark Arts would cut that down to 340. One charge of Parsimony would essentially give her 170 extra MP, so at ~230 after chain#4, before Sublimation is account for. If able to get 110 MP from Sublimation (and maybe a little bit more rest time), that looks like chain#5 to me right there.

Of course, if anything goes wrong, one is more likely to eat an RR than on either /WHM or /RDM, due to the lack of Stoneskin and Blink. ._.

[Malacite]

Actually, it's very rarely an MP issue so much as a time/resist factor.

I'd rather use Alacrity to speed up the kill. And depending on the mob, you may actually need Blink and Stoneskin to survive.