Concerns about SCH.

[Pofo]

Alright so, since the release of these forums, I'm happy to see that a few of the issues I'm seeing in SCH are also noticed by others as well. That being said, rather then have 20 posts of complaints and suggestions, it might be better to keep everything in 1 organized topic. I'm glad Square Enix made these forums so we can better voice our oppinions and concerns, knowing that they will be seen and possibly considered.

I'd like to take a quick step back in time and look closely at the 75 cap. During the 75 cap, Scholar was a very diverse job, that was able to keep up with the damage and DoT of BLM, yet able to keep up close to par with WHMs (though whm was always the best healer, as it should be).

However, since the release of the 90 cap, I'm slowly but surely seeing Scholar to be much more underpowered then I remember it back in the 75 cap. With Black Mages having broken abilities like Enmity Douse (100% enmity reset), defensive capabilities like manawall, which are especially broken in places like abyssea where full merit abyssites gives you on average 1800 mp , and even more broken Elemental Celerity (average BLM/RDM casts at 30%), I feel the diversity of my Scholar is slowly diminishing with each and every update.

As far as healing goes, it's no secret that not only is SCH suffering from a lack of Cure V but so is RDM, (but since this topic is mainly about SCH, we won't discuss RDM issues). While I fully support the fact that WHM is the best healer, and it should be, I feel that the healing capabilities of SCH are much lower then they really should be, it really in most cases somes down to "Whm or your screwed" which is pretty discouraging.

All that being said, I'm not making this post for unrealistic requests like "Give SCH manawall and Enmity Douse" or anything like that, just suggestions to keep the job as diverse as possible, but not too strong that it steals the spotlight from jobs like BLM and WHM. Because right now it just feels very underpowered and a very undesireable job to play, I find myself on BLM more then i do SCH nowadays.

To name a few main things I'd like to see SCH get in future updates:

Elemental Celerity (Even if it's not as potent as a BLM's Elemental Celerity): Mainly because before BLMs had EC, they usually casted on average at around 65%, then with the mix of EC and the +2 trial staffs, and Goetia Petasos +2, it's not uncommon for a BLM to cast at 30%, even less if they /SCH and use Alacrity, which is a massive difference, when SCH is still casting at 50-55%. Yes, as SCHs as have Alacrity at our disposal, but I feel like it's a spit in the face that we have to use a stratagem to cast that fast and more or less sacrifice ebullience for conserving stratagems, when BLMs can just fire out nonstop 30% casts.

Comet: As Meteor was announced about a year ago for BLMs, it's pretty obvious they will be getting Comet first, now, since we're only at the 90 cap I can't say whether or not we're getting it or not, but I strongly hope that we do, otherwise it would just be another thing to add to my list of reasons why SCH has been feeling very underpowered lately.

Cure V: I really don't think this needs an explaination, but here you go. As the level cap is increasing, so is the power of the mobs we're fighting, Cure IV is no longer cutting it, I'm not just speaking for SCHs in this sense either but for RDMs as well. It's just pretty much gotten to the point where the mobs are dealing more damage then we can cure, so it's either WHM or Bust.

Merit Stratagems Cost reduced: While most SCHs always 5/5 Stormsurge, that leaves us with room to 5/5 one of the merit exclusive Stratagems, or in my case 1/5 Enlightenment and 4/5 focalization, though, even with 5 stratagems at my disposal, I have a very difficult time finding the benefit in using 2 stratagems for a single spell, I don't think it would be unrealistic to ask that those be cut to 1 stratagem costs.

Adloquium Boost: I love the fact that we get the only regain spell in the game aside from COR's Dice, but I feel 1 TP per tick is alittle underpowered, maybe 2 TP would be alittle better, I don't get alot of use from the spell and I don't care all that much for it, but it's just my oppinion that if it had just a tiny boost like that, more people would get more use out of it.

Storm II spells: While I can somewhat understand this could be somewhat game breaking, with BLMs having a nuking diversity of Agas, Ajas, AM II, etc., I don't really see Storm II spells stealing BLMs spotlight, but still I don't expect Storm IIs to be released anytime soon.

Helix Adjustments: helices are one of SCH's most usefull spells, and one of their strongest, but I'd like to see alittle more changes or gear enhancements toward them, MaB has little to absolutly no effect on Helix, it's soley based off INT that enhances it's based damage, but I'd like to see some sort of modifier that increases it's duration beyond it's current duration cap, or, perhaps in the upcoming 99 cap and the new merit-type system that was mentioned to follow it, there could be Helix IIs, that would allow multiple upgrades for duration.

So those are my oppinions in positive ways that Square Enix could take to improve SCH's functionability, but now I leave the floor to the rest of my fellow SCHs, I want to here your oppinions, what would you like to see for SCH in future updates? What issues do you see in SCH as it currently stands? 6-7 Years ago we would have never imagined we'd have a forum linked directally to square enix, so now that we do, take advantage of it and voice your oppinions!

[Sotek]

Meh, I was just about to make a thread.

Job Ability ranting:

First off, Tabula Rasa. I would love it if I didn't have to waste half its effect time readying stratagems. Would it be possible to have it automatically put all stratagems in effect? All Stratagems you currently have access to except Accession and Manifestation, that is, since automatically having access to -50% MP and -50% cast time on Cure is pretty worthless when Accession is doubling both, not to mention the unneeded hate spike. Ideally it would give you access to both Light and Dark Stratagems (as well as Addendum spells), since it does give you the effect of both arts anyway.

Libra could do with working from a greater distance, I don't really enjoy running into AoE range just to gauge enmity levels. I'd also quite like more power to control enmity if that's the direction you intend to take SCH. Two spells with +/-5 Enmity was a let down to say the least.

Modus Veritas could do with working again. I understand it needed to be nerfed so people couldn't abuse a method of instant killing mobs, but there has to be a better way than just making it the most worthless Job Ability ever. Honestly, you never really see more than a couple of scholars at an event anyway. Just remove the ability for Modus to stack and make it work again. It always puzzled me why it would be used after casting a Helix spell to begin with, it seems like a much better option to have it give you a status effect that doubles the damage of your next Helix and halves the duration (or lower the duration with merits), since the resulting Helix could be treated differently, maybe it would mean someone can't overwrite it with a weaker Helix, too.

Enlightenment would be a much better Job Ability if it changed you from Addendum: Black to Addendum: White and vice versa. If I need to cast a spell from the opposite Addendum, I generally need to cast more than one.

I think a Job Ability that allows for a a single Stratagem to be used twice would be quite a nice addition. Specifically for Immanence. Plus I just really want a Job Ability called Gemini.

And to go together with the fact that SCH has access to weather via spells, I would love a Job Trait that makes the Obis obtained from Sea, completely worthless. Even make it a level 45 Job Trait to give more incentive towards /SCH. That or increase the drop rate of organs, because I've long since had it with that quest.

[Pofo]

Ah yes, I forgot about the major issues with Modus Veritas "missing" nearly everything in existance. While I agree a Trait that allows us to have a 100% weather proc would be great, I'm having a strong feeling that if they end up +3'ing Staffs for trials, we will probably have the Obi effects added onto them, which in my case is a huge inventory saver regaurdless because I'm one of the few who actually trialed all 6 Elemental nuking staffs to their +2 versions lol. All speculation though, that's just what I'd like to see added to the +3 versions if they decide to continue them, or more affinity dmg... which would be just broken.

[Digi]

Having leveled both BLM and SCH I see some interesting points here, however SCH was a very powerful job at level 75. To powerful, and personally I think the B+ skill in elemental magic is hurting the job past level 75. As for Cure 5 I'm not sure I'm for it personally. Its not that it's a bad idea it's just that I don't see how it separates us from WHM or RDM or BLM.

I think new helixes or fixing current helixes is needed and new spells that makes SCH stand out from BLM and WHM. And lastly I think they need to raise the number of stratagems as well. SCH gets T5 nukes, so I personally feel its fine when doing spike damage.

[Sotek]

Oh Christ, how could I forget:

A full spell list please.

When Scholar got Aquaviel/Blink/Stoneskin/etc I really started to gain hope for this. I'm not suggesting Scholar gets every white and black magic spell in the game, but there are a couple that would be really appreciated. Haste (and remove that block on Accession + Haste so I can Accession + Perpetuance + Haste /drool), Phalanx, Bind, Gravity, Paralyze, Slow, Silence, Poison I~II, Bio I~II, Dia I~II, Banish I~III and Flash.
Some of them are debatable, but the majority are spells we'd have from subjob regardless, it seems pointless not having them on main. Enfeebles specifically irk me since SCH has what? Four native enfeebling spells with a B+ Enfeebling skill. Same rational for the Divine Magic options, I never understood why Light Arts gave me Divine skill when I had no spells natively (and even from subjob half the time).

[Pofo]

The same reason RDM gets a divine magic skill, but then again, iirc RDM used to get flash without a sub job back in the day.

[Sotek]

Dia used to be Divine magic as well iirc, but a sort of moot point since it just leads me to arguing that RDM should get Divine Magic spells.
My main reason for wanting Banish III and Flash is simply because I'd like to be able to be more versatile when it comes to procing !!s. It hardly takes away from White Mage or Paladin since Scholar would still lack Holy and Banishga, as we similarly lack AM and Elementalga spells.

[Krystal]

Frankly i think a new stratagem should be introduced with the new merit system that allows sch to AOE elemental nukes. that would be a great addition to the sch's abilities. everything else has been pretty much covered in this thread.

[Pofo]

I thought about that too, but then I thought about all the crying and complaining BLMs would do over the fact that we'd have Aga V's and Aga IV's while they have Ajas. Maybe if they just alter Manifestation to allow that, so BLM/SCH would have the option as well, then that might be a realistic idea. If you remember, in the fight for our Scholar's M.board, the guy we fight was able to utilize Blizzard III with Manifestation and it came out as Blizzaga III (though it was pathetically weak). Also iirc, All-Seeing Onyx Eye was one of the only mobs in the game that can cast Helix, stating that in some way he's a SCH, and all of his nukes, from Thunder IV, etc and his AMs like Flare, all came out as AoE.

[Sotek]

Well, in the AF3 fight Ulbrecht was wielding a Blood-red Grimoire. And All-Seeing is a NM, which generally play by different rules.
But if you wanted to make a Stratagem that makes nukes AoE, you could simply have it so it has a significant damage reduction. Manifestation doubles cost and cast time, hypothetically you could just slap "halves damage" on it too and go with that (a real number would need to be tested, I doubt halving damage would be at all balanced).

Just to amend my Tabula Rasa suggestion now that I've been reminded, in the AF3 fight once Ulbrecht used Tabula Rasa his Stratagems would not wear off. That seems like a much better solution to my issue than just having all of them active when under the effect of it.