Scholar: The Flexible Mage

Note: this guide is under construction still.

Introduction to Scholar
Well well, another pupil in the Schulz School of magic. You just signed up and are probably wondering: just what does the life of a Scholar offer for me? Well for starters, you are a mage, make no mistake about that. But you are also so much more. You are a tactician, a person who analyzes the battle in front of him and changes tactics accordingly. As a Scholar you have acces to a very wide array of both Black Magic and White Magic spells. In fact, you have access to most WHM spells, and a hefty amount of BLM spells. Adittionaly, you have 2 series of spells that are exclusive to the Scholar job: the Storm spells, wich are white magic spells that allow you to change the weather affecting a player, and the Helix spells wich are high damage DoT spells. In adittion to that, you have access to 2 sets of strategems wich will make casting spells alot more interesting in many situations. All of these will be dealt with in further detail below.

Scholar: The Basics
Starting from level 10, a scholar will gain his 2 basic but most important abilities: Dark Arts and Light Arts. These have a great impact on the potency, cost and cast/recast time of the spells that you will be casting, so paying attention to what Arts you are currently in is very important. Why? Quite simple. As a scholar, your standard skill in all 6 types of magic you will be using is D. With an Arts active however, the situation is entirely different:

Light Arts
 * White Magic MP cost, cast time and recast time -10%.
 * Black Magic MP cost, cast time and recast time +20%.
 * Increases Enhancing, Enfeebling, Divine and Healing magic skill to B+ level.
 * Recast time: 1 minute.

Light Arts is basically your "White Mage mode". You will be in this Arts to heal, cast buffs and cast White Magic debuffs suchs as Slow or Paralyze.

Dark Arts
 * Black Magic MP cost, cast time and recast time -10%.
 * White Magic MP cost, cast time and recast time +20%.
 * Increases Enfeebling, Elemental and Dark magic skill to B+ level.
 * Recast time: 1 minute.

Dark Arts is basically your "Black Mage mode". You will be in this Arts to cast nukes, Black Magic debuffs such as Dispel and Dark Magic spells such as Drain and Aspir.

The Arts abilities are mutually exclusive, that is, you can only be in one Arts mode, when you use the other it overwrites the first. Arts effects will last 2 hours, or untill you use another Arts or zone.

The ultimate effect of this is that if you are casting a spell with the wrong Arts effect on it'll be less effective, take longer to cast and cost more. This does not take away of course that you CAN cast any spells in your repertiore (apart from those that require an Addendum) regardless of wich Arts effect is on, in some cases you will even have to. Take for example you changed to Dark Arts, but you see one of your party members is in desperate need of healing and your Light Arts is still a while off on its recast timer, you can cast a cure spell without problems, but you'll pay the penalty in MP cost, cast and recast time. This will be a problem you will most likely encounter in party situations that force you to switch back and forth between Light and Dark Arts alot.

Strategems: An Overvieuw
The following part will handle Strategems. The 4 basic strategems run parralell between Light Arts and Dark Arts, that is, they ar learned at the same level and have the same effect. The only exceptions are the Addendum strategems, wich I will handle seperately. The name on the left will be the Light Arts strategem, the one on the right the Dark Arts one.

Penury / Parsimony
You learn this strategem at level 10. When used, this strategem will half the MP cost of the next spell you cast in line with the the Arts you are in.

This strategem is handy for many reasons, but will become even handier at higher levels when you get access to high-MP costing spells such as Raise and Reraise. Another good way to use it is in conjunction with Accession/Manifestation to undo the double MP cost that strategem brings.

Celerity / Alacrity
You learn this strategem at level 25. When used, this strategem halves the cast and recast time of the next spell you cast in line with the Arts you are in.

A strategem you'll most often use for those long casting spells like Raise, but also for those spells that have a long recast time like Klimaform. This is also one of it's greatest applications in conjunction with Manifestation (as Manifestation doubles the cast and recast timer also): More AoE Klimaforms, the mages in your party will love you for it.

Accession / Manifestation
You learn this strategem at level 40. When used, this strategem makes certain spells area of effect, at the cost of double MP, cast and recast timers. Please refer to the individual pages for a list of wich spells can be turned into AoE.

This is one of THE best strategems you have at your disposal, and one you will be using, ALOT. Just a small list of possible applications you will be using: AoE Protect, Shell and Cure (it's our own version of Protectra, Shellra and Curaga so to speak), AoE enspell (giving those melee in your party even more damage output, extremely effective on dual wielders), AoE Stoneskin (for that extra bit of protection), AoE Phalanx (handy when the mob you're fighting uses lots of physical AoE moves, or in endgame situations), AoE Erase (who needs Divine Veil when you have Accession?), AoE Klimaform (the only way to get Klimaform on anyone but yourself), AoE Storms (giving the mage in your pary that extra buff). Sadly, some spells that can NOT be AoEd are: Raise, Reraise and Nukes.

A very fun thing to mention on Accession: during Campaign Battles or Besieged Battles, using Accession and casting Protect, Shell or a Cure on a NPC will cause the spell to take effect on EVERYONE around the target. This can be increadibly handy, especially during Campaign where you can easily hit 20 players and NPCs in one shot this way. Keep in mind that for example casting Cure IV on that many people, and having it actually cure for the full amount, will draw MASSIVE hate towards you.

When you cast a spell that is not AoEable by the strategem, the strategem is not consumed and will remain untill used or when it wears off.

Rapture / Ebullience
You learn this strategem at level 55. The effect of these two is similar, but expressed differently due to the nature of the spells they affect. Both are meant to increase the potency of a spell.

Rapture increases the potency of a Cure, Banish or Dia spells by 50%. It's our own half Divine Seal sort of speak. Although it works on Banish and Dia, be serious, you'll never use it for anything but a Cure spell.

Ebullience increases the potency of a Nuke, Helix, Bio, Drain and Aspir spell by 20%. Pretty much used to give your Nuke or Helix that extra bit of zing, or to Aspir or Drain that tidbit more.

When you cast a spell that is not boostable by the strategem, the strategem is not consumed and will remain untill used ot when it wears off.

Addendum: White
You learn this strategem at level 10. This strategem is what I like to call Light Arts +1. When used it replaces the Light Arts effect and, while retaining all the effects of Light Arts, gives you access to White Mage specific spells such as status removing spells like Poisona and Erase, and to Reraise, Reraise II and Raise II. You do not need to use this strategem each time you wish to cast a spell of its added repertiore, the effect will remain untill you zone, it wears off (this takes 2 hours) or you use Dark Arts.

Addendum: Black
You learn this strategem at level 30. this strategem is what I like to call Dark Arts +1. When used it replaces the Dark Arts effect and, while retaining all the effects of Dark Arts, gives you access to Black and Red mage specific spells such as Sleep, Dispel and tier 4 nukes. You do not need to use this strategem each time you wish to cast a spell of its added repertiore, the effect will remain untill you zone, it wears off (this takes 2 hours) or you use Light Arts.

Strategem Charges
OK so these Strategems are all fine and dandy, but how often can we use them? Well, unlike other Job Abilities, Strategems work with a Strategem Charge system. Depending on our level, we have a maximum number of Charges available to us. All the Charges will fully recharge over a 4 minute period. Using a Strategem consumes 1 Charge.


 * From Level 10 to 29, we have 1 charge, wich will recharge every 4 minutes.
 * From level 30 to 49, we have 2 charges, each one will take 2 minutes to recharge.
 * From level 50 to 69, we have 3 charges, each one will take 1 minute 20 seconds to recharge.
 * From level 70 onwards we have 4 charges, each one will take 1 minute to recharge.

Abilities: Beyond Strategems
As Scholar, Strategems are not the only Job Abilities you have at your disposal. Apart from your 2hr ability, you have 2 more handy Abilities.

2HR Ability: Tabula Rasa
Tabula Rasa's effect is twofold: it sets the stored Strategem charges back to its maximum value, and allows strategem use free of charge for one minute, effectively allowing you to spam your strategems.

Sublimation
Learned at level 35, his ability makes you build up a store of MP by consuming HP. It does this at a rate of 2 HP/tic. When wearing the Scholar's Mortarboard this rate is increased to 3HP/tic. This HP drain will prevent you from using /heal to recover HP and MP, however using Stoneskin will allow you to /heal. The storing will continiue untill either:
 * Sublimation is used again.
 * Maximum Store is reached.
 * HP drops below 50%.

The Maximum Store is 25% of your maximum HP, so races with high HP such as Elvaan and Galka will be able to benifit the most from this ability. Wether or not the Storing is complete, when Sublimation is used again, the stored MP will be transfered into your MP pool. This effectively makes Sublimation our very own mini-Convert. Keep in mind however that you cannot have both the Refresh and Sublimation effect active on you at the same time.

Modus Veritas
Learned at level 65, this ability is the key to getting the most out of your Helix spells. As you will read further down, Helix spells are DoT spells, as in that they last for a certain time and will do a certain amount of damage every 6 seconds. Modus Veritas has the effect that it will halve the duration of the Helix spell currently affectinv the mob, but double the damage it does every 6 seconds. Your total damage will remain unchanged, but it will be done in half the time period! This ability stacks between multiple Scholars, so 2 Scholars using this ability together will make a Helix last 1/4 the time for 4 times the damage per 6 seconds. Using this ability thus allows you to shift Helix spells from DoT to streight nuke usage.