You know it, I know it, and I bet Yoshi-P and his team know it. It's time for Sch and Smn to get a divorce. They made them sound like this was the picture perfect couple and that they would be setting others up to be like this, but...it just didn't work. They are both tired of one holding the other back (devs afraid to do too much with their base class because they walk a thin line of making one op and the other too weak, #BaneNerfHurts). So, as sad as it is (double the leveling), it's time for a separation.
I definitely don't foresee it happening anytime in this expansion, but for the next one, I would be more than ok with the seperation being touted as "new classes" to add to whatever they are currently thinking of atm (money on Blue Mage). The question is, though, what to do with Sch? Smn could keep most of arcanist and be fine, since they are the dot casters (that doesn't mean I wouldn't want to see things changed, added, or tweaked), but I would like to talk about my favorite class in all of Final Fantasy, the Scholar.
Scholars in Final Fantasy have always been the type of mage that likes efficiency, whether it be through offensive or supportive magic. They would still most definitely be a healer, but maybe have some rewards for going the extra distance in "efficiency" of being able to keep others healed *and* help take down enemies. My thoughts (however little they mean), is to remove Aetherflow from Scholar and replace it with something akin to FFXI Scholar. Maybe we could make a Dark/White Arts gauge that is a grimoire that fills up its pages with text, or just a simple bar (à la Red Mage), cast healing spells and one side of the grimoire fills up white, and cast damage dealing spells for the other side to fill up with black.
From this, we can spend it on 1-2 abilities of the appropriate kind. Say you filled up the Black side, well, then you could spend it all on a single target nuke or aoe dot. Fill up the White and you can spend it a heal nuke or aoe regen. This could even be on long cd's, or the bar could take awhile to fill up, but either way, you are rewarded for being efficient with your time and most definitely defining a style of healing for us.
I would still keep Sch as a mitigation healer, keeping up the barriers and such, since I think a mitigation healer would fit this play style very well. Also, I would keep the fairies, as they are bound to our lore, make this Sch unique from the others, and they can still help us keep people healed while we do damage since they are kind of another form of mitigation. Of course, I wouldn't make it to where they are doing all the work, but helping prolong our dps time to fill up the Black gauge.
This doesn't mean I want us to be overpowered enough to keep up with the pure healing of Whm, nor do I want us to be able to provide as much dps as...well, a good dps, but feeling like we contributed directly to taking down enemies is a great feeling, and one that I have loved from previous Scholars in the FF series.
I like the direction they were going with Chain Stratagem (ok, I saw Stratagem, it looked like Libra, and had nostalgia), but some of their other choices seem questionable (*cough* Bane, losing a dot, Ast better shielding, why get rid of sustain!? *cough*). But, some of it was good, fairy nerf, broil buff, the *idea* of a heal that will activate on its own, and the *idea* of making fairy focus on tank healing.
I know Yoshi-P and his team will probably never see this (not only from a language standpoint, but also from a "just another fan idea for a job change" point, and I *HIGHLY* doubt they would even think of doing this), but I thought it to be interesting and just wanted to share my thoughts. I didn't want to go into specifics, like, the entire kit of arcanist that would be replaced from this separation with all the individual skills, but just kind of a core thing for them.