A Question For Career Blm/rdm Concerning Blm/sch

So i'm a career Blm. Better yet i'm a career Blm/Rdm. I've been hearing alot of things regarding how "amazing" Blm/Sch is. I have not looked into Sch as a subjob mainly because i know they do not get Blink, Stoneskin, Phalynx, and Gravity as a subjob.

I would like to if any of you other career Blm/Rdm have tried Sch as a sub and if you thought it was par or better then /rdm, and why?

Please don't post on here if your going to flame Blm/Rdm. I only want to know about /sch.

Thanks.

I would say /sch has it's niches, you have to be a little more selective about where you take it than /rdm. Obviously you can't really use it in places where you would want grav, but it's great for situations where your only job is to turn mp into dmg.

Personally I use it on Tiamat and in Ein, could see it used on khim maybe too. Tiamat is nice since you can dump 2 penury AMII's essentially every flight and SS/blink don't do that much anyways since you shouldn't be getting hate that often. Ein I also like since it's generally partially melee burned, less worry about getting hate so less need for blink/SS

I'm not a career black mage. I'm just finishing black mage now after 4 years of it being stuck at 47. I can tell you about it though.

With a scholar subjob, you get sublimation (mp gets stored for a later use), alacrity (spell is cast 50% faster), parsimony (50% off mp cost), and while under dark arts, your spells cost a little cheaper. All that comes at the price of being vulnerable though.

Like all sub jobs though, they are situational, and most of all, depend on your personal preference. I prefer WHM/SMN because that's what I played for years. Yet, WHM/SCH is more efficient so I sub /SCH now.

Subbing scholar as a soloing black mage is pretty much the ***. I can get constant chain 5s with never really having to worry about mp, and I can deal with the rare resists I get pretty well. For me, mp effenciency trumps live saving buffs any day.

As others have already mentioned, it is situational. I really only use BLM/SCH for 2 things: Besieged & Campaign Battle

Being able to zing out a BurstII (using Alacrity, it cuts casting time in half as well as recast time) on campaign mobs as the enter that last 10% health has always led to me getting the killing blow (more exp). Being able to cut the cost of spells down by 50% is also nice, and thats on top of spells being a tad cheaper with the proper "Arts" on.

Sublimation just makes it all the better with that add MP you can drop at a whim. I use sublimation in town while looking for an area to go fight in, do my light arts, addendum: white, then reraise myself for 50% less mp, and then rest up to full once Sublimation is done taking HP away and putting them into my MP storage bubble as I like to think of it lol.

But the cherry on top to me, when in Campaign Battle as BLM/SCH is that I can reraise and raise, and I can do it cheap or fast (or both) if needed. When you are trying to get exp in these battles raising people seems to be better exp than 1 T4 nuke... not to mention that I love to GA3 large groups of mobs when there is no one in the area... so having that free RR can really come in handy!(I know I know, but this isnt about how to play campaign!)

I will say this about SCH/ pre 40's... The job was a bit of a pain to level.
Having RDM BLM and SMN at 75 and my WHM at 42 I know a full power or half and half job when I play it, and SCH pre 40's isn't even a 50/50 job. You're WHM spells are that of a childs, as are your BLM spells, and no matter which side of the Arts your casting from, it always felt like the main version (BLM or WHM) would be doing better at it. The one thing I did notice while leveling SCH is that they really are good with conserving MP, if it was a skill, they would have the highest skill for sure.

/SCH is a winner if you can get by without Stoneskin and Gravity. Top DPS sub in exchange for zero defensive measures. You're a career BLM, you should understand when that's a good thing and when /RDM, /WHM, or even /NIN is more appropriate.

For what it's worth, anybody who has a career subjob is doing it wrong.

Just cause i career /rdm does not mean i don't pop on a ninja hat or even the whm hat when it warrents. A few examples: Byakko i am /whm 100%,
If i ever took Blm into Salvage i would be /whm, and when doing fights like Brass Borer, Iriz Ima, and Dea i am always /nin.

The majority of events/fights /rdm has and is king. And in all honesty if you don't have and accasionaly wear your whm and nin hats then you can't really call yourself a Career Blm.

As for the info i'm hearing back on the sch hat it sounds like it is definately a sub i need to have in my arsenal, even tho I will rarely be using it.

Keep the info coming, Thank You.

If I want to sub SCH on blm, I'll just play SCH.

There has been no reason from me to change from /rdm sub on blm, simply because if it's been working for the past 2 years, it'll keep working.

/SCH however in campaign and besieged I do from time to time.

I've only ever subbed nin once and that was when I was trioing genbu with a smn and rdm a few days ago, and even then I didn't really need it.

I'm just old fashioned in the sense 'if it aint broken, don't fix it.'

TBH

BLM/SCH for DMG

SCH = MP = DMG) If I was needed for heavy DMG and as frequent as possible I would use /SCH... Not to mention it has the ability to Magic Burst more efficiently because of 50% faster cast and more efficient because you can throw in more nukes before rest as /sch.

Now /RDM is good mainly and only because you can live longer.

Like someone said its situational, you dont want to use /sch when you are needed to help kiting.

Even though I'm only a 59 Blm, I love the combination and probably will always use it. Yeah, it makes me extremely vulnerable like a drunken sorority girl who was left alone by her friends at a frat party, but I can always buy blink bands and stoneskin torques to cover my ***.

Pretty much any time I have a tank that I can trust I'll /sch. Especially if theres like an odd slot out since I wont need refresh as much as the other blms and still throw out more spells. I've actually managed to do all 6AM2s back to back no 2hr meds or refresh before just for fun.
It's awesome for soloing mobs that can't catch up to you wheather its cause they're slow or just dumb and keep using spells like elementals its just too efficient. But you emphasis the idea of glass cannoning lol

^

For a little example.. Tonight, I was already on BLM before I logged in and was late for Limbus. The group split and I ended up going to Ap. SE (the one for melee epeen). I didn't have time to change so I went and rq /SCH because there was no way I'd really get hate (making stoneskin/blink/etc useless) and I could cast more and more often that way.

Basically, I see it as, if you wont be getting hate, /SCH lets you deal out more spells and at lower MP cost. (As Night said above, being career BLM- it should be easy to understand which situation /SCH would be best for and not).

As many people seem to be pointing out, its situational and can be damn fun. Sometimes if you and your buddy are xping off of puddings, all u need is one blm to be /rdm while you can enjoy the dps you get from being /sch.

You only kill one every 50-60 seconds?

Or do you time nuke them?

Im not sure its dps as it is the fact that /sch conserves MP so much that when the rest of the BLM/RDM are at 1/4 your blm/sch will be 2/3ish at the pudding camp, not to mention, more damage.

Yeah, I'd say the tank makes all the difference in the world. Usually on bigger fights, protos, sky gods, etc. where I wont take hate, I'll pop on the /SCH and nukes that much more. No sense in needing to enfeeble if you have any sort of RDM or having to survive if the tank is a beast.

More damage in Less time, for longer

That is the very definition of higher DPS

To add to the stated benefits:

Arts not only reduce base cost but also cast/recast time by 10%. That's the way it is on SCH main and I'm almost positive it's the same while subbing it.

You'll also get access to -na spells. Generally not that useful but if you're with a bunch of other BLMs and poison's preventing you from resting, hey it can come in handy.

No stoneskin or blink, no thanks. BLM/SCH is useless.

I'm seeing alot of great benefits to equiping the /sch hat, i'ts definately something i need in my arsenal for blm. The only Negative i'm seeing with it is Survivability. I already get cut to often as /rdm that i can only see myself using it to dink around in or for campaign/besieged.

Thx for the info.

Old thread is old and will likely be locked in about three pages. While it IS a valid question, there have been other threads on it. And like those, your question will be answered in the first five posts, then this will turn into a clusterfuck of SCH IS BETTER THAN BLM! NO BLM NUKES HARDER! MY JOB IS BETTER! regardless of if that was not your question.

To answer, /SCH is more MP efficiant, but you will die more. /RDM helps you survive pulling hate...and let's be realistic. An average Hume BLM has about 800 MP without MP merits. If you need over 800 MP to get any job done on BLM before pulling hate and killing yourself, you're doing the job wrong.

/SCH has it's very few situational uses; however, a long time BLM user knows that /SCH is a deathwish and really only for epeen. Which we have long gotten out of that phase. Mark my word, if you see a BLM die in Dynamis and whine about it, it will be a BLM/SCH.

I know, I know. But my question was very specific and in no way a sub hat vs a sub hat. I figured it would eventually turn into one, and it usually starts after the threads material goes off topic just as i am right now.

Specifically I want to know how you survive doing 5-6 AM2's in 1 mp pool in the same amount of time a /rdm does there 2-3. If i spam through my full mp pool on Blm/rdm I almost always pull hate. Few NM fights withholding. I want to know how a Blm/Sch survives pulling hate having a very limited defensive spell list.

The only possible way would be to equip lots of -enmity gear, not nuke right off the bat... let the tanks establish good hate control. Or just lightly nuke tier2-3s and not big AMs.

I was thinking close to the same thing, But if i'm going to go /sch i'm not going to let it be wasted by not going above that of rdm. So i guess for me it will just be one of those i'm bored guess i'll goof around sub jobs :/

Btw i do alot of solo blm, and duo blm. I was kinda hopeing there were some tricks or enhanced play styles that would let me use /sch on a solo/duo fight.

(`.`)b

Got the impression you were /rdm onry when you said career blm/rdm. That is not the case, carry on.

Saw Sky mentioned somewhere above, I've actually been going /SCH to gods and Kirin lately rather than /RDM. We have a couple of tanks that I trust to hold hate, so it's never an issue. So if you trust your tanks and aren't going to be eating AoE damage, it's a valid subjob choice as long as you don't need Gravity.

As for solo, I want to say Apollyon NW is generally soloed /SCH but that may require Herald Gaiters to pull off. I don't know, I dropped the career BLM thing a while back and didn't have Sea access back then (still don't >.< in a static but they started at the beginning).

There is no situation as blm I have been in where if I had /sch there would of been a better outcome.

As solo blm/sch is a no. Puddings are killed within one manapool of /rdm.

Dynamis is a no. With double dark weather and plenty to aspir you just dont need to sacrifice /rdm for the manaconserve.

I can go on more but the point is clear.

I only /sch for whm, which is the only job that really needs the mp conserve among mages and has stoneskin to offset the -hp tick of sublimation.

Mentioned a few above where /sch works out fine, Einherjar, Tiamat, could probably get away with it for Kirin also, dunno about regular sky gods since you might get hate on those.

Get better tanks. Generally I prefer getting nin/drks give them a couple of mins to get to the hate cap and go to town. With some restraint. Did it all the time on proto-omega even with the hate reset moves.

Have you tried /SCH out yourself? Sub SCH can be very useful for more than JUST WHM. I've had some fun with SMN/SCH and RDM/SCH (if curaga isnt needed) is my new favorite sub for RDM when I campaign with friends. RDM/SCH also happens to be the only job I've got more than 3-4k exp in campaign with, the most being 6600+

Try it out if you have the time to unlock the job and level to 37, really no reason not to have the option at hand.

I don't see how you can go to town with restraint...ya.

You must have some good stunners for you to be able to go to town on Omega. That and the whole standing on his legs thing.