Common Non-Scholar Misconceptions

[Einalem]

Mages love to compare themselves to each other, especially when similar. We all know WHM cures and BLM nukes, but then we have SCH and RDM that do both, which naturally causes the other 'Polar' jobs to draw comparisons. There's nothing wrong with that, but please understand the limitations that come along with being a mixed caster.

So you can see where some of my lines of thought come from, I see SCH in the cycle of mages as BLM aligned in the spectrum.
Spectrum of Light to Dark Magic:
WHM > RDM > SCH > BLM

Keep in mind: RDM has Tier IV nukes and built in MAB. SCH has Tier V nukes and NO built in MAB. BLM has both.

SCH is not a straight caster job. Yes, all of its coolness is from having fun with what equated to D&D 3.5 Metamagic feats with spells, but that is actually what makes it not a straight caster. The main power of the job comes from the Stratagems, which are job abilities. This makes us more susceptible to Amnesia than any other Mage... and we have no Resist Amnesia traits. This is probably on purpose as a limiting factor to SCH that other straight casters don't have.

Because those Stratagems are what you base most power arguments around (for good reason), when you further layer up gear and effects like weather, you start down a slippery slope where you can start to confuse what makes SCH good inherently, and what SCH has to do to approach competitive levels with a Polar Mage.

Consider: Layering is a core concept of SCH, from layering gear, to weather effects and most prominently, layering stratagems. Some of that layering is SCH specific, but a good amount can be done on the party, too. Please try to restrain your imagination and discount what a SCH can do with full layering if at any point in the layering it can be done to you, too.

Out of the Mages, SCH is also more limited on gear choices. This also seems to be on purpose, as even our AF3+2 Body only provides 1MP Refresh. A fully geared and prepped SCH is able to reach that level of competitiveness with Polar Casters... but at what cost to the SCH in terms of inventory slots, gil/time, and having to macro all that swapping in? Are you really upset because SCH is OP? Perhaps you're seeing some fluid and extensive macroing that had to come together to get those gear swaps and job abilities firing correctly. Or are you looking at his gear over swaps and seeing some fine gear that would take forever to attain? There's nothing wrong with that, just recognize all the effort that went into that SCH spell, BEFORE it was ever cast.

Before Abyssa, in the land of level 75, SCH had mana efficiency and time on it's side. Less so in Abyssea. The main parallel to BLM drawn up on the Kanican journal was to show how, through MP Efficiency, SCH was more 'powerful' than BLM over time.
This was a warning to SE and it looks like they took parts of it seriously. In the updates they have given BLM some very fine tools 76-95 which help widen this gap (Elemental Celerity, Enmity Douse, Mana Well), and very little to SCH (One More Stratagem). This is good, as SE needs to be conservative with edits to SCH. Time, however, relates back to stratagems. We top out currently at 5 recharging ONE stratagem in 48 seconds (6 and 40 seconds if they add one through 99, which I doubt they will do or need to do). So once a SCH is out of stratagems, those awesome spells can only be cast in 48 second intervals. This means that in addition to having MP as a limiting factor in general, job abilities become a secondary limiting factor which other Mage jobs don't have in the course of casting a majority of their spells.

Hopefully with these things in mind, and with what other SCH might point out too, you can see where the trade-off in power between the jobs really happens and make more pointed and precise criticisms of SCH versus your other jobs... now RDM on the other hand...

[Michae]

The main reason ppl criticise sch so much is that there are very few ppl who know how to play sch since it is also one of the more complicated mages to play. With the strategems and weathers to couple with spell effects it takes someone who actually used sch tactics while lvling to fully get what can be gotten from sch. I know while playing sch ppl have been surprised at what I was able to do with it. The strategic use of job abilities and sch only spells is what the job is all about and someone who just sits there and nukes and/or heals is not playing the job to its full potential. Even while lvling sch from 1-75 in the old grind pts dropping my whole party stoneskin, regen, etc., boosting stats and my own healing pot with weather while nearly never running out of mp made ppl second think the job. Its all about scholarly tactics and not just cure bombs and nukes.

<3 sch

[Sotek]

Storm spells being a self-target only spells has to be my all around favorite misconception.

Do people even think that? I doubt it, they're just looking for reasons not to improve Scholars use with them because "A Scholar didn't share Storm spells with me" clearly calls for "Don't buff Scholar" rather than "Stop being a whiny little sh*t and ask for Storm spells or kick the deadbeat for not sharing them". It boggles my mind how Storm II or any variation on that is overpowered, but Ballad III or Refresh II weren't. If a Bard doesn't give you Ballad, or any songs for that matter, you kick them from the party. If a Scholar is hoarding a +10% bonus to themselves, kick them from the party.
Difficult concept? Apparently so, since I see it repeatably crop up when ever Stormsurge or Storm II is concerned. Every Black Mage I know likes the idea of Storm IIs, but hey, I'm not a total bitch (honest) and they actually have Hailstorm or Thunderstorm when they need it. But hey, next update White Mage will be able to best Scholars Hailstorm with Boost-INT, no reason SE should do something about how crap Scholar cast Storm spells are, right?

Scholar out damaging Black Mage or ever even replacing White Mage is a close second.

Dear White Mages,
Scholar never had Haste, please shut up about us replacing you in Nyzul and bird parties, it never happened. If it did happen, be content that those parties got 5k/Hr while anyone rocking Haste could easily have managed 10k/Hr.

People need to shut up about Kanican, too. That maths was done on Flans. Take it to any real situation back then like HNMs/Sky/Sea and it instantly falls flat on its face, we remained MP efficient, sure, but with resisting actually being a thing back then, Scholars damage never added up and thus having a better damage/MP cost ratio never materialized. To even attempt to avoid resists Scholar needed to quite literally have the absolute best gear available. If you took Scholar to anything worth bragging about, you'd have had crippling resist rates. There is a reason Scholar never became a bandwagon job and that right there is it. The closest Scholar ever got was a bunch of people Astral Flow burning it when the Modus exploit went public - yes Astral Flow burns, so don't pretend like Scholar never caught on because leveling it was an issue.

[Siiri]

I think you are remembering Kanican wrong. I googled his journal just now. Here is his conclusion.

http://kanican.livejournal.com/34049.html

Quoting Kanican " Finally, near the end of this post, I will be discussing the state of Scholar in terms of balance relative to the Black Mage job. By the end of this analysis on resistance rates, it should become clear that a Dark Arts SCH is not only more MP efficient, self-reliant, and versatile than BLM, but also nearly equal in terms of resistance rates on most resistant type mobs. As a player that basically specializes in both these jobs, I will try to make my case as to why and how much SCH is imbalanced relative to BLM."

Actually, Scholars can thank Kanican for the MV nerf too , since he is the one who brought it to the forefront.

[Neisan_Quetz]

That was also when Blm had absolutely no method of regaining mp other than /rest and 1-2/tick in gear. With either Rdm or Sch sub/Manawell/Manawall/Enmity Douse and SE's hardon for proc systems in VW/Abyssea Blm became much more viable than it was then.

[Raksha]

People need to shut up about Kanican, too. That maths was done on Flans. Take it to any real situation back then like HNMs/Sky/Sea and it instantly falls flat on its face, we remained MP efficient, sure, but with resisting actually being a thing back then, Scholars damage never added up and thus having a better damage/MP cost ratio never materialized. To even attempt to avoid resists Scholar needed to quite literally have the absolute best gear available. If you took Scholar to anything worth bragging about, you'd have had crippling resist rates. There is a reason Scholar never became a bandwagon job and that right there is it. The closest Scholar ever got was a bunch of people Astral Flow burning it when the Modus exploit went public - yes Astral Flow burns, so don't pretend like Scholar never caught on because leveling it was an issue.

I'd like to echo this. I remember the first time I went to sky as a SCH, everything got resisted, helices all did 0 dmg, and it was all around a miserable time. Even as my gear got better and better it never really changed anything. Klimaform didnt help, my high rest nuke set cut down the resists but they still did crap damage, and helices still did 0 dmg.

Things are much better now, but SE could decide to flip that switch again tomorrow and SCH nukes would once again become useless on anything that mattered.

[Siiri]

That was also when Blm had absolutely no method of regaining mp other than /rest and 1-2/tick in gear. With either Rdm or Sch sub/Manawell/Manawall/Enmity Douse and SE's hardon for proc systems in VW/Abyssea Blm became much more viable than it was then.

Right, I was addressing the statement that it was a misconception that at 75 scholar was stronger than black mage. It was not a misconception, if you read Part IV of Kanican's journal he lays out how scholar can meet resist tiers and in his words scholar was so much better it created "a situation which should be alarming in terms of game balance considering it's a hybrid job."

As for 95, I don't know about scholar, I still think its Dark arts is really strong. However, I have a hell of a good time on black mage now, SE did some nice stuff for black mage. Too bad I am always on white mage now. I despised playing black mage at 75, it felt so weak.

[Sotek]

Right, I was addressing the statement that it was a misconception that at 75 scholar was stronger than black mage. It was not a misconception, if you read Part IV of Kanican's journal he lays out how scholar can meet resist tiers and in his words scholar was so much better it created "a situation which should be alarming in terms of game balance considering it's a hybrid job.

Here's the part you willingly ignored from your quote:
"The only thing that can potentially hold Scholar back is the elemental magic resistance rate - an issue which is becoming increasingly less noticeable as equipment and job updates increase. Given this, a Scholar with the proper resistance and nuking sets truly is the strongest magical DD in the game - a situation which should be alarming in terms of game balance considering it's a hybrid job, but very cool if you are a Scholar."

Resistance rates were a significant issue for Scholar, all Kanican did was suggest that at some point Scholar is going to reach the same resistance threshold as Black Mage and then, though superior MP efficiency, Scholar would reign.

He compared Scholar and Black Mage resistance sets, Black Mage coming on top with a capped 95% accuracy, Scholar having 8 skill and 11 INT less than Black Mage puts it at a significant disadvantage with resist rates, FFXI isn't the kind of game where 1 skill means anything unless its pushing you up a tier. With an absolutely optimal set (he had a god damn Aureole) Scholar would still have had a significantly higher resist rate than Black Mage which would have a significantly large effect on his Damage/MP ratio since Scholars damage would drop significantly.

I've worked out why I thought his tests were on Flans; because they might as well have been. His actual Damage/MP ratio tests were purely hypothetical from what I can tell, he took maximum damage sets and compared hypothetical damage on a monster with absolutely no MDB and 65INT. You know what I would have done? Nuke a significant NM or HNM and use those numbers, because those are the numbers people will actually give a damn about. His numbers give a difference between Scholar (using Parsimony) and Black Mages Damage/MP ratio of about 5, I imagine that would be significantly reduced in any real situation; even before you apply the very real resist rates Scholar had to deal with.

Like I said, Scholars superior Damage/MP ratio never materialized on anything significant. His tests showed potential in Scholar and nothing more, it was either never meet or meet by the time Abyssea rolled out and made the concept of being MP efficient somewhat laughable. Basically, Scholar was never better than Black Mage but it could have been.

[Siiri]

I believe he always took Scholar to HNMs over Black mage, because he felt it was better. He was able to floor his resistances, partly because he had an Aureole. I do give you though that he was an exceptional player and most players could not match him. I also agree without haste at 75 that scholar never could replace white mage or red mage as a sole healer.

[Delvish]

Sad as it is, I regularly out nuke BLMs when I take SCH out to a group that has one, because 9/10 times that BLM doesn't have full AF3+2, Obis, twilight cape, or (minimum) +2 element staves. Often in Abyssea they don't have the right atlas either. More than anything, I think the biggest misconception with SCH, is that mages have this dilusion that a hybrid like SCH should never match a primary, where reality is that SCH shouldn't match a primary while equally well geared and prepared. It is hard work maximizing a job like SCH when you don't have WHM or BLM gear to play off of.

In reference to the macro statement above, I firmly believe that SCH cannot be efficiently played without the use of macros. As it stands, I have two entire macro books just for SCH, one for Light Arts and one for Dark. Funny how they are called macro -books- eh?