Scholar notes from E3 build - Titania Fight

[Loki]

I'm not well aware of this. Why cannot we place Sacred Soil anywhere now? What did they changed?

We have to use aetherflow for using sacred soil but now we can use aetherflow only during fights....

[Brandedblade]

Seriously how can you, my SCH brothers and sisters, be happy with all those changes???!!!!

Because the only thing removed of any real substance was ED and possibly Shadow Flare. You still work in tandem with your pet and Summon Seraph is essentially Rouse in functionality. Does it suck that it's all the way at level 80? Yeah. But with Embrace being nerfed and the pet being invincible, Rouse has lost its value.

Bane does kinda feel weird to lose, but Miasma's potency was rolled into Broil and Bio and you actually do more damage not having to spend that extra gcd on reapplying Miasma. What's the point of Bane if you only have one dot to spread? If anything it could be rolled into Art of War as a trait.

Speaking of Art of War, other then its mp cost being higher then the other healer aoes, is a much better alternative to Miasma II. While yes, potency wise its weaker then Miasma II, the lack of a dot means you arent loosing potency spamming your aoe filler on trash packs. And with Ruin II being buffed to 200 potency you can now use that skill to double weave without having to sit on the bosses butt the whole time.

And I have good news! You can still use sacred soil! With ED gone its cost is no longer tied to your aetherflow skills, it's now more viable to use, and better yet, we're getting a trait that adds a regen to it! With the regen attached to it, it's actually a stronger heal then indom!

You still have your pet, you still have your shields and your barriers, and you even have tools to weave your ogcds with. The only thing lost was a redundant dot, your aetherflow dump skill, and your aoe dots.

Could they improve it? Sure, whatever, loosing ED is the only real complaint I have, I would like to see it come back with just the mp gain and no damage. Maybe rename it "Recharge" or "Sublimation". The problem with tying damage to a healing resource is that when optimizing you no longer want to use said tools for their function of healing. Does that hurt? Does that give an illusion of choice? Sure. But I think having a high uptime damage mitigation + regen will somewhat make up for that.

[Elgeron]

You seem to have ignored his real complains. The pet is there, but now it works even less than a pet. Her skills are use through your skill bar, you cannot use her for deployment of shields, she cannot be targeted so positioning of the pet only matter when ti comes to her healing reaching everybody. Furthermore, now Selene has become a skin of Eos, meaning that they have even less importance. At this point, the fairy is becoming more and more a superficial element, the "healer pet" aspect of the class has been through expansions simplified to a degree that it stop feeling like you had a pet at all.

Bane does kinda feel weird to lose, but Miasma's potency was rolled into Broil and Bio and you actually do more damage not having to spend that extra gcd on reapplying Miasma. What's the point of Bane if you only have one dot to spread? If anything it could be rolled into Art of War as a trait.

Again, speaking of numbers, when it just feel like shit not managing multiple skills to maximaze damage. My DPS could be now amazing, and I would still prefeer the old system as I have to though in advance how to manage the 2 CDs to minimize loses. Bane has become pointless because the rest of the kit is just gutted.

[Loki]

"dont worry SCH will be fun".

I'm glad for you, if you are enthusiastic with all that, personnally i'm not. I'm scared to not love my main job anymore and to loose interest into the game in general cause of that. (ya i haven't found a second job i love as much as sch)

I was happy and had fun to help my friends on some 15-70 content until now but with all those changes i'm afraid to just fall asleep.

And concerning bane, even if i have 1 dot it will be always more useful to spread it to a pack of mobs than to loose my time to cast this same dot on each, just for helping my team for killing them and have the feeling to contribute?

[Brandedblade]

You seem to have ignored his real complains. The pet is there, but now it works even less than a pet. Her skills are use through your skill bar, you cannot use her for deployment of shields, she cannot be targeted so positioning of the pet only matter when ti comes to her healing reaching everybody. Furthermore, now Selene has become a skin of Eos, meaning that they have even less importance. At this point, the fairy is becoming more and more a superficial element, the "healer pet" aspect of the class has been through expansions simplified to a degree that it stop feeling like you had a pet at all.



Again, speaking of numbers, when it just feel like shit not managing multiple skills to maximaze damage. My DPS could be now amazing, and I would still prefeer the old system as I have to though in advance how to manage the 2 CDs to minimize loses. Bane has become pointless because the rest of the kit is just gutted.

Just because you have to directly control the pet now doesn't mean it's no longer there. And now you can deploy off yourself to compensate. And honestly? Most of Selene's toolkit was either too weak or too niche to be of any value anyway, it is a shame they decided to axe her as oppose to trying to make her toolkit more valuable, but another goal of the sch rework seems to be reducing button bloat so I'm thinking that was the reason why.

Considering Aero III was removed from whm it doesn't seem that SE wants healers to be dealing in AoE dots, and while that does hurt I'm used to popping combust and aero on mobs as the tank pulls so I'm sure I'll get used to it. I do recall someone suggesting making shadow flare an aetherflow spender and I think that would be a fair compromise, but again, SE doesn't seem fond of the idea of sch's aetherflow being used offensively due to the "cost" it put on the skills.

[Elgeron]

Just because you have to directly control the pet now doesn't mean it's no longer there.

At that point it is pretty much as the new DRK skill, the Inner Shadow. I have seem complaints that it is little more than a glorified DoT, and I can't hardly debate that claim. It acts on its own, regardless of your input, and does prefixed skills. We are not at that point yet, thankfully, but we are getting dangerously close. We hardly have to concern ourselves with out fairy anymore, and if you changed its skills to function around the SCH, very little would change on the actual gameplay of the class. The only remaining management we have is its position. This feels like shit when you take into account how important was the fairy on the job quest, being its own character. Loki's feelings are on point with this, it hurts the "class fantasy" that has been established. This is another layer hurting the enjoyment of the class, and while it may seem irrelevant to some, do not underestimate its importance.

SE decisions are puzzling, and at this point I think there is a hint of insincerity about why they made their decisions. If I have to venture myself to do so, this was a very poor attempt to make healers more accessible and easy to balance, but instead screwed with so many elements that made so many people love their classes while not addressing any of our complaints.

[Loki]

I agree with you, for me it's just some lazyness from SE and it sux to see how they can spit on their own work so easly (not only SCH). They create something and ruin it for strange reasons.

So the next add on when we will be lv90 they will erase everything again for not adding more skills cause "it's too complicated for players" ? Maybe the next step will be to watch our character act by itself.

Anyway, when i look at Mr Happy's videos , those skills barrs are so empty, and it's at lv80.... i can't imagine on lower content how fun this shit will be.

[Brandedblade]

At that point it is pretty much as the new DRK skill, the Inner Shadow. I have seem complaints that it is little more than a glorified DoT, and I can't hardly debate that claim. It acts on its own, regardless of your input, and does prefixed skills. We are not at that point yet, thankfully, but we are getting dangerously close. We hardly have to concern ourselves with out fairy anymore, and if you changed its skills to function around the SCH, very little would change on the actual gameplay of the class. The only remaining management we have is its position. This feels like shit when you take into account how important was the fairy on the job quest, being its own character. Loki's feelings are on point with this, it hurts the "class fantasy" that has been established. This is another layer hurting the enjoyment of the class, and while it may seem irrelevant to some, do not underestimate its importance.

SE decisions are puzzling, and at this point I think there is a hint of insincerity about why they made their decisions. If I have to venture myself to do so, this was a very poor attempt to make healers more accessible and easy to balance, but instead screwed with so many elements that made so many people love their classes while not addressing any of our complaints.

As long as that fairy exists it's a part of your classes' identity. Hell even if it was just like in pvp where you pop it and it just "mimics" your heals until you run out of fae aether, that would not change the fact that it's still a part of your kit and a part of you identity.

And so what if people don't like the changes? Just because they're not what some people like it to be doesn't mean it wont work or that everyone else will also dislike it.

Something can be simplified and still have a similar toolkit and gameplay loop. You still have dps, you still have weaving tools, you still have ogcd heals, they still feed into a gauge that allows you to make your pet focus heal a target, in fact they're adding another gauge ability that basically lets them cast a poor man's medica. You new cornerstone ability is even pet centric by upgrading your pet directly! The only thing of value you lost is your dump skill for your stacks, and that can even be replaced by something else that fills the role without adding extra damage to your toolkit! Everything else is a matter of preference.

[Eloah]

There is such a thing as overly simplifying something. And for many people that's what has happened to the healers. SCH especially, since SE was sorta building them up to be a foil to SMN similar to WHM being a foil to BLM. Now instead of both jobs mirroring one another with one focusing on DPS and the other healing, they are both just an odd mix of skills. SMN might look okay, but it looks to have it's own share of issues. Plus, I know SE admitted to not liking the early version of SMN, but it seems like SE doesnt really know which job used which skills for both gameplay and lore. SMN almost never used ED once it got faster, and why does it still have Physick. Plus the poison spells fit SCH a lot better lore wise. Why didnt the poison spells turn into elemental DoTs based on the primals? It all just makes me really sad since SCH just clicked for me. T.T

[Atlantasia]

I wish we had some healers jobs like the Cleric one in Aion.

Cleric has some powerful/interesting healing skills and some dps skills with even a rng combo rotation and even a root skill for entraving ennemies and has to manage MPs.

Like Dodoku said, until now, as healer, we had the choice to just heal or to use fully our skills and add some dps when it was possible for being always active and add a "rythm" to our job.

Now it looks like they remove this choice and it sucks.

For those who will say "don't worry you will be able to dps you have still few dps skills" i think it's just an illusion cause of those 10k mp cap. We won't be able to spam those skills cause we will be fast out of mana + they remooved "protect", "largesse", "rouse" for the fairy any kind of boost healing or mp regen which help a lot to heal and dps at same time....so they force us to play in a certain way a job we have played years in our personnal way?

Having mained Cleric in AION for a long time prior to switching to FFXIV, it is a very fun healing class that is very engaging, even at lower levels and even while soloing. But the content is designed differently. That being said, I really miss the full on DPS rotations and options that Cleric in AION had. They were unique and fun to utilize. I liked being able to pick when I needed to use skills like Benevolence which upped heals like Largesse, but also upped MP consumption and was on until you took it off like the original Cleric Stance. I liked the different types of rezzes available, being able to rez every one around you with a very long cast skill was nice in the middle of a near wipe. And being able to rez people where they fell and not to you was strategic, you were given an option between rezzing to you or not. They also had a skill like Thin Air. <3 xD And it was level 20, in a game that got you to level 70+. All these skills were given early in the game, by 50 you had most of your kit and were only missing some of the specialty ones and upgrades of abilities. But they also had fun skills like Healing Rain at level 75 to allow you to remove ALL debuffs (in a game with a lot of debuffs) and the target gets healed to boot with a potent regen.

To have skills like that and be able to use them... xD I wish we had the ability to have diverse and interesting kits with chain skills for both healing and DPSing. I wish I had a damaging elemental to ping a boss with holy spec damage while I heal on WHM. lol

But it's not that game. I'd like to see WHM get love though. I'd like to see the healers get balanced against AST as it currently is, aka SCH taken down a bit and WHM brought up a decent amount.