Thoughts on the FFXI Job Adjustment Manifesto

[Eric]

Vision
Students in the art of war who employ stratagems to alter the tide of battle along with elemental magic to support their allies and annihilate their foes.

We wish for scholars to further their education in order to become absolute masters of their art, and the latter stages of their research will produce skills comparable to those of a white or black mage whose spells may take time to cast, but compensate with both the bliss and destruction they beget.

Example Adjustments
Adding spells which gradually reduce an enemy's TP or status enhancements.
Adding a spell that can be cast while under the effect of Tabula Rasa.

I was mostly disappointed with the examples they gave. I really hope they come up with something more compelling than that.

I think they also need to consider the fact that Abyssea and new job abilities are making our bonuses from Light/Dark Arts and stratagems obsolete. It talks about how scholars' spells are quicker to cast than BLM/WHM yet BLM can already cast spells considerably quicker due to elemental celerity. Make Dark Arts(& Light Arts) surpass the -25% casting time given to BLMs and then we'll be talking.

That being said, I'm still generally happy with scholar in the position it's currently in, so it's not like this will deter me from continuing to use it as my main job.

What are your guys' thoughts on this?

[Merton9999]

I wasn't happy with these at all.

Spells to reduce TP and buffs seem odd, and more suited to RDM. The last 15 levels have seen only unique enhancement spells that are currently near useless. I'd rather those be buffed and our healing side be augmented than to introduce enfeebles. The only thing I can see being useful is to reduce TP so much that we actually don't need Cure V? Haha, if anything it will be like Adloquium's silly +1 TP, only -1.

I said in another thread if the Tabula Rasa spell is Ultima or Death, great. If it just works like another addendum for Raise 3 and Freeze II then yuck.

I'm wondering if the second vision paragraph was mistranslated or worded wrong, or if people are misinterpreting it. What I'm hoping they intended here is that SCH will receive new spells that are on par with WHM and BLM, those new spells will take longer to cast, but will be worth it for their recovery/damage. The way they worded it people seem to think SE is saying WHM and BLM take longer to cast.

I would take that interpretation - a SCH-exclusive Cure VII that takes 10 seconds to cast would be interesting. This also fits with a Tabula Rasa Ultima.

And I'll say it again here: fix that horrendous range on Libra, unbreak Modus Veritas, and make Enlightenment do what the description says. It's hard to think about new abilities for SCH when the unique ones we have are so broken.

[Eric]

I'm wondering if the second vision paragraph was mistranslated or worded wrong, or if people are misinterpreting it.

A comma can make all the difference in the world. It makes sense if you add a comma between "black mage" and "whose".


the latter stages of their research will produce skills comparable to those of a white or black mage, whose spells may take time to cast, but compensate with both the bliss and destruction they beget.

It's basically saying that SCH may be approaching the potency levels of WHM & BLM, but since WHM & BLM take longer to cast their spells, they are also more powerful than SCH's spells. Just kind of reinforcing the idea that scholar has always really been about--it's not stronger than either mage at casting a single spell, but it's quicker and more efficient.

New job adjustments, along Abyssea, and other things, have sort of killed this idea because now not only is SCH weaker than WHM and BLM, but now it's also not considerably better at doing the things it was supposed to excel in.

[Merton9999]

I get how people are interpreting it, I'm just hoping that wasn't SE's intended meaning, especially because it's functionally false.

I agree with you. With merits and various benison/celerity traits, WHM and BLM are casting their usual spells way faster than SCH despite our FC and /RDM. Not to mention WHM is subbing SCH or RDM anyway, which minimizes this difference even more. I honestly can't see an excuse of leaving SCH off the Cure V scroll because we can cast Cure IV faster. It doesn't make sense. It's the same with nukes, like you said originally.

What makes more sense to me is to give SCH access to these high tier spells and let us suffer from casting time in comparison to WHM and BLM with their traits, unless we choose to use Alacrity/Celerity.

[Sotek]

I'm assuming Tabula Rasa is getting Summoner treatment. Something like Ultima that uses up Tabula once cast, just like Odin/Alexander. I assume SE will be doing that to all 2Hours, people want more strong abilities and giving 2Hours dual uses pretty much does that.

I'm actually getting a bit more annoying at Libra now. Before the level cap rise we get "We'll be moving Scholar towards a hate management role" and now they've gone back to "We're making it a more efficient but weaker White and Black Mage". Great. Thanks for wasting 15 levels on completely worthless trash SE. I'd probably let it go if you weren't giving Dragoon and Ranger (and Paladin last update) more control with enmity than us. It really adds insult to injury.

Let me make a few suggestions (actually I'm pretty much just repeating everything I've said here already since the site opened) that you'll no doubt never read, SE:
-Change Libra to Scan. It shows a monsters elemental and physical (blunt/slashing/piercing) weakness and increases the damage dealt to it by magic and weapons that target its weakness. Also have it show a mobs Stagger weakness if it has one.
-Remove Animus spells and just slap Storm IIs in their place. Two birds with one stone, make Stormsurge stack with Storm IIs for a different effect like the ones mentioned in a few other threads.
-Make Tabula Rasa so it makes Stratagems not wear off after being used. One of the only Scholar enemies in the game gets this damn effect and it's a far better fix than "Oh look a pretty new spell!".
-If you're adjusting job-specific merits so that Modus merits are changed to "Increases the accuracy of Modus Veritas", well... May God have mercy on you. Just make it so Modus doesn't stack. Christ, no one ever really used that aspect of it apart from the very reason you made it worthless. There's a massive hole in your logic here.
-Change Enlightenment so that it changes your current Arts/Addendum. It's far more useful than "Use one spell from your other Addendum" because if I need to use one, go figure I'll need to use another.
-Change the merit Stratagems to using 1 charge if you're not already. If you're making it so, for example, Ninja doesn't have to pick which Ninjitsu to merit (so they get all in one merits like they should have in the first place), I'll probably expect the same for the Stratagems as well.
-Increase the range on Libra. It can't be that difficult and you just did the same thing for some Thief abilities. Again, insult to injury.
-Adjust Cure V/VI and give White Mage the enmity reduction bonus as a trait. Then give Scholar Cure V (and Red Mage). The fact that White Mage can cast it without pulling hate ever would already fit perfectly with your vision of what Scholar should be.
-If Dancer can use TP to get the party >1TP/sec, Scholars regain sure as hell best be upped to 2/sec, even if it's just through gear.
And finally:
-Hire someone new to do you're translations. I'm completely ignoring your vision for Scholar based on how poorly it's worded. I don't support allies with elemental magic and I'm fairly sure Scholar is weaker overall than Black Mage and White Mage who both cast faster than Scholar. So please, hire someone who's competent at wording and translating.

If anything that last point demands that one of the devs finally graces the Scholar section, if only to clear it up and say "We'll consider it" to things that don't even need considering like Modus Veritas.
(what a ridiculous idea, there aren't enough Scholars here for a single post to get enough "Likes" that someone from SE would come to investigate)

[Raksha]

The way I interpreted is that SCH is the one taking longer to cast the spells. Our taking longer to cast is compensated by being able to fill both roles.

It isn't spectacularly worded though.

[Covenant]

How many black mages would pass out if Scholars received meteor/comet via 2 hr? Lol. Or WHM if under light arts Ultima?

TP manipulation is interesting if looked at from both ends. If subtracting from mob not so much, since various jobs have a "TP reducer" moves. However, regain has always been far and few between.

[Sotek]

I think I'm going to take it as a jab at our Empyrean Armor Set: effect.

a white or black mage whose spells may take time to cast, but compensate with both the bliss and destruction they beget.
All spells take time to cast unless Quick Magic procs. Unless we're getting 100% Quick Magic I'll be taking that as an insult, SE.

In all seriousness though, I guess they could be talking about new Scholar specific spells. If you think about it Helices do have great potential to be more damaging than Black Mage but they are obviously slower (though not in casting, so what the hell, SE). Never been too psyched by the "Healing Helix" idea though, but I'll withhold judgment until I see the finished product, if that's indeed what they're getting at (I still don't see how making a whole new set of unique spells just for the sake of unique spells is a better fix that making two simple adjustments to a preexisting spell).

I think I'll stop wasting brain cells on this and just come back in a month to see SE contradict themselves and add Animus II spells.

[Sotek]

Anyone else find it massively depressing that a thread about giving Scholar Recall and Retrace gets more posts, views and likes than basically any of the suggestions in this section; regardless of what they are, when they were posted or who posted them? What exactly is the point of the Jobs section of this forum?

[Merton9999]

"Massively depressing" is about right. Thanks so much for pointing out that thread. I gave my two cents.

I'm struggling trying to find the point of the job section myself. I always looked at job adjustments in the past as nice candy that either would or wouldn't coincidentally fit with what I or others on non-sanctioned FFXI forums were asking for. "YAY!" if they do, "Oh well" if they don't. When an official forum is created, however, with a natural implication that the company is actually going to take what the players are asking for to heart, that invites a much more potent reaction from me when announced "improvements" don't remotely resemble fan requests.

I don't expect everything people have suggested here to be implemented. However, for the jobs I play, the manifesto announced the opposite extreme. Currently the job forums seem like an invite to request changes just so they can be officially ignored instead of coincidentally ignored.

I'll have to see what happens in the actual update. SE has the opportunity to prove the validity of their official job forum or make it a joke that degrades into a wasteland. Right now I'm still in the "too early for final judgment" mode, am hoping for the best, and calling the manifesto a rushed release of ideas that will evolve to be much better for the final implementation. We'll see if I'm right.

[Diemond]

Sch
give libra the ability to tell monsters weaknesses and make it a shout instead of a say! since its basically an order from the battle field right, let it even pull a little hate it only makes sense.

the storm effects should give auras that add increased att, increased def, double att.....etc. and if players are struke with an element spell or WS opposing their aura they take more dmg.

[TimeMage]

I posted in the stupid recall & retrace thread, trying to convince some people that we could care LESS about those spells, we want our damn fixes to healing capability, MV, Enlightment, and stupid new buff spells done.

And while they're at it, why not fix our 2H, fix the broken additional effect on our +1/+2 Emp body (or tell us what the hell it does!), and make Haste able to be used with Accesion.

[OMEGA_HACK]

TimeMage, the +2 body gives you 1% (or very very very low) enmity on a monster while casting Tier V nukes. I don't really think its broken, basically you can deal massive damage and pull absolutely no hate so long as you are in the right Art. The only fix the +2 SCH body needs is to change the Refresh to 2MP/tic (like ALL the other +2 Empy bodies with that stat; idk why SCH is the only one with 1MP/tic).

I agree with all the other stuff though.

[TimeMage]

TimeMage, the +2 body gives you 1% (or very very very low) enmity on a monster while casting Tier V nukes. I don't really think its broken, basically you can deal massive damage and pull absolutely no hate so long as you are in the right Art.

When was that discovered? Can you point me to wherever the research was posted? I'd be awesome if it's true.

[Sasaraixx]

The way I interpreted is that SCH is the one taking longer to cast the spells. Our taking longer to cast is compensated by being able to fill both roles.

It isn't spectacularly worded though.

I agree on both counts. That wording is needlessly confusing.

I took a look at the Japanese version for clarification and not surprisingly, that wasn't entirely clear either.

[白魔道士と黒魔道士のある程度の能力を持ちつつ、時間がかかるかわりに有効な支援、攻撃が行えるようなアビリティの追加/調整をしていく予定です。]

My translation is, "Having skills comparable to that of WHM and BLM, we plan on adding/adjusting abilities that allow effective support or attacks in exchange for taking time." That isn't worderd spectacularly well either lol, but it is a little clearer I think. The "taking time" could refer to DOT spells (although th JP specifically says ability) or actual casting time.

I would welcome TP spells as I think it fits in with the tactical aspect of the job, but they have to be potent. I wanted enmity spells for a long time, but the way they were implemented was terrible.

Fix the Animus Spells.
Fix Modus Veritas.
Increase Aldoquium.
Change the effect of Tabula Rasa (allow us to keep the strategems without having to reapply them)

Do these 4 things and you will dealt with quite a few of my issues with the job. After that, then we can talk about Cure V, higher tier/more potent Helices, a new Klimaform type spell, and all of the other new goodies coming.

[Raksha]

TimeMage, the +2 body gives you 1% (or very very very low) enmity on a monster while casting Tier V nukes. I don't really think its broken, basically you can deal massive damage and pull absolutely no hate so long as you are in the right Art.

Yeah I'm gonna need some confirmation on this too. If it actually does as you say then it isn't a 100% chance of it, because I pull hate with T5 nukes all the time. Also wouldn't explain what the "Enhances Addendum: White" does

[Vhailor]

As an up-front: I have not played SCH at high levels; in fact, my mains are the other three mages (WHM, RDM and BLM). Excluding RDM, the other two mages work fairly well in Abyssea now; WHM is where it should be, at the forefront of healing. BLM is, well, nukes still aren't nearly powerful enough to keep us on par with melee, but SE won't ever fix that. At least yellow procs make BLM useful.

RDM and SCH, however, are obviously still broken (within Abyssea at least); SCH has got to be in the worst shape out of that pair. From my perspective, however, the problem with SE's vision is that it's still assigning to SCH a kind of "in between" role. Good at both WHM/BLM style roles, but excellent at neither. And if there is one thing the player community has cemented fairly well over the years, it is that jobs that don't excel in one particular needed aspect, almost never get invites. It is with this in mind that (and this is half-directed at SE's development team) I propose SCH be given a new vision, something unique that it does that no other mage job has much access to.

TP and enmity manipulation would be a possible area, as mentioned. I think Enhancing Magic is probably the only category to really go with. Obviously Healing is a WHM's specialty; Enfeebling (should be) a RDM's specialty, and Elemental is for BLMs. Any attempt to make SCH relevant in those areas would almost by definition destroy the respective main jobs listed, for SCH can provide a lot more peripheral abilities than the others. That's what has made it so hard to buff in the first place.

Enhancing, though, is ripe for some new abilities; you could have on the mage side some Fast Cast bonuses, perhaps. You could give them some spells that mimic certain MAB bonuses CORs currently provide (but not to the extent of COR, likely). And yes, some sort of Regain spell perhaps, or a spell version of SAM's TP transfer. Some enmity manipulation spells, not just monitoring. I think this is probably the best route to go in for SCH.

TL;DR: I have trouble with the idea that SCH should remain as a magical generalist. It hurts their invites, and any attempt to power them up enough for this not to be an issue, will almost by definition destroy the balance with BLM or WHM. As long as Abyssea remains the end-game, "efficiency" is thrown out the window, and thus SCH hurts. They need to go in a new direction. Since RDM should be receiving some buffs to maintain its status as the elite enfeebling mage, this leaves only one real area to go to: Enhancing. Yes, it competes with BRD and COR, but there are still a lot of ideas they could throw in that they haven't used yet to give SCH a nice niche. Just my two cents, anyway.

[OMEGA_HACK]

I done some tests on the body myself, basically Nuke in the Arts > Libra > Nuke in the arts > Libra > nuke outside the arts > Libra > Nuke in the arts without body > Libra rinse and repeat. Your enmity gain is really slow when you use them in the corresponding Arts.

(you can do the tests yourself, it really doesn't give much hate at all) But the body really should be a 2mp/tic refresh (BLU even gets 2mp/tic on the +2 body and its a melee mage D:)


On the note of Enhancing would be neat to be able to transfer TP gained into HP/MP or give something beneficial to another target of your choice at the cost of the TP.

[Ahrana]

Well, here are the thoughts that I have on what they should do with scholar.

1. Tier 2 storm spells
2. MV needs to have it's accuracy returned to 100%. If you try to use MV on a helix spell that only has 1 tick left it fails.
3. Access to cure V. If it's a huge issue make it only under add light.
4. more tp/tick on regain

The unique spells for scholar have been underwhelming, which has been a major disappointment since every other job seems to be getting goodies every cap increase. I don't really want recycled spells from other jobs, I would like scholar to have spells and abilities that make it bring a unique dynamic to fights. Some of the things I came up with are:

Solid damage dual element spells so we can open light/darkness skillchains while only using a single strat. They don't need to be more powerful then tier V spells, but the added versatility of adding party damage is attractive.

An additional high damage DoT that will stack with helix. Helix 2 spells are also welcome.

A enfeeble that causes damage every time a skillchain or magic burst is used for the duration.

Like many posters have said scholars need to bring useful spells to a party. They shouldn't be necessary for a party to be effective, but they should have something that makes others want to take them instead of another black/white/red mage.

[brayen]

sch really has taken a bit of a backseat in the field of jobs. Lacks the harder cures and is behind on the nukes. Personally i am hoping to see at least comet on sch to be frank. Otherwise i am guessing it will fall even further from blm. Hopeing on cure 5 as well. if they will make sch overpowered or not really depends on how whm and blm turns out so hard to get into that kind of debate.

As for the mentioned manifesto. While they seemed interesting ideas (particularly the tp reduction) it seems way too insignificant when compared to how the rest of the game is played. It would requier a heavy tp reduction to make an impact with even 3 maybe even 2 melees fighting a mob alone. Here is hoping that the confusing paragraph is leaning towards a positive but hard to say by how it is worded.

I also agree, the last few lvls have been very disappointing. from my point of view sch just keep falling further behind. helices were bad before in most cases, then they destroyed the only saving grace form modes vertis, and now with harder enemies the dmg is even more worthless then before. The enmity spells are trash no matter how much i try to make use of them i still have trouble trying to match pace with a blm without dying while they simply shed all their hate in 1 JA. On top of that we get libra..why? so we know when we are about done being able to nuke i suppose? really isnt even worth it either cuz ull be walking into AoE range. To top it off our one strong area that we made some extra leg room (mp maintenance) has been made a joke. All jobs can get mnore refresh then us(see af3 bodies refresh) and all we get is a faster sublimation charge. With recent changes sch really has taken a hit, and notice i have yet to talk about inside abyssea where sch is seldom used.

...cutting my rant short here ...... i was really fond of sch and have not used it outside of keeping it's lvl up to date. Havnt even been able to wear my AF3 and it was one of the first ones i completed *sigh*

i know it is a hard job to balance being both an offensive and defensive job so here is to keeping my hopes up!

oh and to the above post i agree with 1 2 and 3
4 i dont think is needed, the spell isnt something anyone is going to rely on anyways, pretty meh spell but it gets me an extra refresh tic with that neck that converts tp to mp lol..point being however is that itll need to be much higher before it becomes something desired.

[Sotek]

The sudden surge in activity in this forum pleases me. Oh and dear God I missed Accession Haste off my list? Someone shoot me.

OT: I just though of something. Aren't these new Enfeebles basically Helices? They effect the mob over time after all. God would it be great if they stacked with Modus (if it worked). Potentially more important, the basis for that idea is very much like Healing Helices. Like they've said to Dark Knight, those examples are just examples, which no doubt means there's more in store.
Though maybe the sudden influx of posts here has left me strangely optimistic.

[Merton9999]

The sudden surge in activity in this forum pleases me. Oh and dear God I missed Accession Haste off my list? Someone shoot me.

OT: I just though of something. Aren't these new Enfeebles basically Helices? They effect the mob over time after all. God would it be great if they stacked with Modus (if it worked). Potentially more important, the basis for that idea is very much like Healing Helices. Like they've said to Dark Knight, those examples are just examples, which no doubt means there's more in store.
Though maybe the sudden influx of posts here has left me strangely optimistic.

I was thinking the same thing regarding enfeebling helices. I imagine any Cur V-esque spell will be a helix too if we're to take the "potency but extra time" statement seriously, though I'm still not sure if we know how it was meant.

I would love if a Modus Veritas type ability on a much shorter timer were able to increase potency and decrease duration of any tick-based spell - helices of course, but also any new enfeebling or curative spell, as well as Adloquium.

Of course, the problem is it would miss.

[Sotek]

God I hope SE is at least listening to me right now if this isn't already their plan.
Making Adloquium and Animus Helices would basically fix everyones issue with them. Animus would be perfectly justified as a flat out -%Hate/time and with Modus (which can't miss an allied target I'd imagine) Adloquium becomes 2TP/tic. Even if they don't make Modus 100% on mobs again, Adloquium and maybe a Curative spell alone let me justify leaving my merits on the damn thing. Furthermore, having more than one set of spells for Modus justifies lowering its recast and although that's a completely lame and stupid fix for its current use, at least it's something.

[Sasaraixx]

God I hope SE is at least listening to me right now if this isn't already their plan.
Making Adloquium and Animus Helices would basically fix everyones issue with them. Animus would be perfectly justified as a flat out -%Hate/time and with Modus (which can't miss an allied target I'd imagine) Adloquium becomes 2TP/tic. Even if they don't make Modus 100% on mobs again, Adloquium and maybe a Curative spell alone let me justify leaving my merits on the damn thing. Furthermore, having more than one set of spells for Modus justifies lowering its recast and although that's a completely lame and stupid fix for its current use, at least it's something.

Again, another great idea! I do hope the Dev team is reading threads other than the Retrace/Recall thread. There are a lot of good ideas being offered here.

Having MV work on Animus, Aldoquium, Helices and these new TP enfeebles would work well. It would force us to be strategic in our use of the ability and hopefully press the potency of some of the spells up to pretty nice numbers. I agree with you Sotek that the recast time would have to be lowered. 5 minutes perhaps?

I straight up wanted Cure V, but it looks like we might be getting a super regen instead. The amount per tic would have to be pretty high.

And if we are going to continue receiving enhancing magic spells (useful ones!) I think I'd like another charge at lv99. We're going to be using Accession and Perpetuance quite a bit in parties.

[Raksha]

I done some tests on the body myself, basically Nuke in the Arts > Libra > Nuke in the arts > Libra > nuke outside the arts > Libra > Nuke in the arts without body > Libra rinse and repeat. Your enmity gain is really slow when you use them in the corresponding Arts.

(you can do the tests yourself, it really doesn't give much hate at all) But the body really should be a 2mp/tic refresh (BLU even gets 2mp/tic on the +2 body and its a melee mage D:)


On the note of Enhancing would be neat to be able to transfer TP gained into HP/MP or give something beneficial to another target of your choice at the cost of the TP.


Were your nukes controlled for damage? Were they all on the same mob? Was it used as the first action? Was there a time delay between the nukes? Some of these would cause enmity differences.

[Raxiaz]

I wouldn't be surprised if SE takes ideas from here, puts them on the test server, and then after hours of hard studying come to the conclusion that with the changes SCH becomes too powerful.

Just sayin'. It's already a pretty flexible job that can do a lot of things. Giving it more might make or break it, never know. Just know that no matter what you say or think, SE knows more about this game and the job's mechanics than anyone here could ever hope to imagine.

:)

[Sotek]

I wouldn't be surprised if SE takes ideas from here, puts them on the test server, and then after hours of hard studying come to the conclusion that with the changes SCH becomes too powerful.

Just sayin'. It's already a pretty flexible job that can do a lot of things. Giving it more might make or break it, never know. Just know that no matter what you say or think, SE knows more about this game and the job's mechanics than anyone here could ever hope to imagine.

:)

You'd have a point, had they not blindly adjusted Modus Veritas as such that it is completely worthless. Arguably you can dismiss Modus since it was an emergency fix, though that shows a massive lack of foresight on their behalf and well, since they've left it the same as it is for such a long time, no you can't really dismiss it. They're being incompetent.
Then there's Libra. Giving it the same range as nukes or Modus wouldn't do a damn thing. Heck, Libra doesn't do a damn thing anyway. The limit of their testing is "Does it do what we want it to do?", with Libra they said "Yes! It gives a read out of enmity" (though it still had some glitches, ha!) and release a pile of crap that had no affect on Scholar or the game; short of taking Storm IIs away from the levels where /Scholar gets Storm Is.

[Raxiaz]

I wouldn't say that MV is "fine" nor do I really support "libra" (i've only ever used it once and decided it was very, very, very redundant). I wish the first MV on a mob was 100% land rate, and then all MVs afterwards are gimped acc. I really do support that idea. Besides who brings more than 1 SCH to anything, anyways?

[OMEGA_HACK]

Raksha it was on Ultima and Omega (as my LS prefers BLM > SCH in abyssea but SCH > BLM outside it because of that body piece and the fact that I never run out of MP and rarely have to use Convert to do so)

And on both of those (casting all my strong magic practically continually as well as landing 200/tic helices on them) never made my hate go above 25% (according to Libra) and I was spamming them as we had a WHM and an Ochain90 PLD tanking, so didn't need to use Light Arts at all.

[Pebe]

My thoughts personally on the Job adjustment Manifesto is that I find it a bit lackluster. I really hope the spell we get during Tabula Rasa isn't one and done. Although it probably will be, I hope it is something as strong as Ultima (Better not be comet or meteor -.-).

Btw, don't you think it is time scholars got access to another Grimoire? And access to a third style of arts. It wouldn't be too far fetched because we already know other grimoires exist (Crimson/Blood Grimoire). Under this new Grimoires Addendum, the buff spells that everyone suggested could be included (Glyphs, Backfires, etc).

Also I agree with the changes proposed to Tabula Rasa, with full time Parsimony,Alacrity, and Ebullience it would be like a 50% manafont, combined with a 50% chainspell. However, under Light Arts, it might get a little broken. Can you imagine fulltime penury,celerity,accession and rapture for 60 seconds? The only thing that keeps it from being overpowered now is the downtime time it takes to goes through those stratedgems imo (all 2 seconds of that time XD). You could full cure an entire alliance in seconds. Oh, and the massive amount of hate you would get balances it somewhat, but then again if you have full equanimity(Spelling) merits :P. But I'm rambling on now, the point is, Benediction would have to be upgraded, maybe to full alliance heal, for it to be fair for whms.

I am also in favor of a modus Veritas fix. Although I think there should be changes to it. My idea is that when you use modus verias on a mob after helix, the remaining ticks are multiplied with the damage of the helix and that number is multiplied by a modifier depending on merits and that amount of damage is done instantly to the mob. Would be good if you need some instantaneous damage done and didn't want to wait for helix duration. I find helixes useless on alot of things when with a group simple because the monsters die to fast. I usually only use helix on NMs, which I find a little lackluster due to the high int values of certain NMs. I think making modus veritas like this would be a nice boost for helixes. Would have to lower the recast slightly on modus(I forget what it is haven't used it in a while, 5 mins? 10 mins? meh irrelevant).

[TimeMage]

Raksha it was on Ultima and Omega (as my LS prefers BLM > SCH in abyssea but SCH > BLM outside it because of that body piece and the fact that I never run out of MP and rarely have to use Convert to do so)

And on both of those (casting all my strong magic practically continually as well as landing 200/tic helices on them) never made my hate go above 25% (according to Libra) and I was spamming them as we had a WHM and an Ochain90 PLD tanking, so didn't need to use Light Arts at all.

Well, this explains it, and I'm sorry, but you don't understand Libra.

What probably happened is that, at first, with hate not capped, let's say that the PLD had 1000 enmity, the highest, and Libra labeled it 100%. you nuked hard, let's say, enough for 250 enmity (I'm pulling simple numbers from my ass, btw, I know enmity is not like this, neither it has this numbers) and your hate, being 25% of the Paladin's, was labeled 25%. then, later in the fight, the PLD has his hate capped. I think it's 10k or something, I don't really remember. In any case, you've been churning those awesome spells of yours constantly, but since the PLD's hate was still increasing it seemed to you that your nukes weren't generating hate, since... You still stayed at 25%! Well, that's wrong. because 25% of 10k is 2500, and that means you did 10 nukes of the exact same enmity of the first one, but your % total of enmity kept constant when using Libra.


Which, btw, this proves that Libra not also needs a range change, but also needs to show actual enmity total numbers, and not percentages relative to the highest in the list.

[Merton9999]

If a Modus Veritas type ability were to be added for curative, enfeebling and buff spells, the recast should be a lot less than 5 minutes, and not tied to strategems. If this is going to be the method by which Adloquium and Animus are made worthwhile, and by which SCH can become a viable healer again, it would need to be available much more frequently, unless straight Cure V or more base potency were added.

I agree with the trade-off concept though. I'm looking for an ideal recast where you could make good use of the ability to buff either healing, OR enfeebles, OR cures OR buffs consistently, but not something that freely lets us do all of them simultaneously. I like the current choice concept of SCH and want that to remain. But, to even rely on a MV regen as a replacement for Cure V, since Regens tend to last less than two minutes, not even one minute recast would enough to full time an MV ability on one target, let alone having the choice to use it on anything other than that one spell.

Again, if this is the mechanism by which our healing, enhancing and enfeebling sides are to compete to 99, I don't think something like a 30 second recast is unreasonable.

Another possibility is for the party-target MV to affect all existing slip spells on the target. So if they have Regen, Regain and Dia on them, MV would double all those potencies and halve all the durations. Then the recast could be upped.

Keep regular MV at 5-10 minutes (no ability should be more than 5 minutes, imo, except 2 hours), so we're not overdoing it on nukes.

My biggest gripe with the MV nerf is that the potential for it was widely known and talked about on forums from the day the ability was made available. I looked forward to doing it myself from the day of the expansion release. Either SE was not aware of something so ridiculously obvious and didn't read any forum posts, or they knew about it from the beginning and were waiting to see if people could pull it off just to nerf it as soon as they did. Either scenario is pretty sad.

I agree it shouldn't stack. I also agree that not many people bring more than one SCH to events. The problem is the potential to stack 18 MVs can destroy anything without effort. I don't think something like that should be available for new non-Abyssea content. Just make it 100% and either non-stackable or a low stack chance, like everyone has said.

[Sotek]

Keep regular MV at 5-10 minutes (no ability should be more than 5 minutes, imo, except 2 hours), so we're not overdoing it on nukes.

Hmm? Having Modus for every other Helix hardly sounds overpowering. Rather, it sounds like quite a good way to buff our nuking potential without stealing anything away from Black Mage. Modus is either a increase in DoT - which is redundant right now - or an extra two tics (well, a single extra tic with double damage), neither sound overpowering.

[Raksha]

Keep regular MV at 5-10 minutes (no ability should be more than 5 minutes, imo, except 2 hours), so we're not overdoing it on nukes.



No ability at all? 5min convert?

[Merton9999]

Hmm? Having Modus for every other Helix hardly sounds overpowering. Rather, it sounds like quite a good way to buff our nuking potential without stealing anything away from Black Mage. Modus is either a increase in DoT - which is redundant right now - or an extra two tics (well, a single extra tic with double damage), neither sound overpowering.

I don't really care. Maybe before Enmity Douse I would have said it was unbalanced because helices are hateless, but with it I agree the timer could be lowered significantly.

[Jamesy]

I've waited a really long time before joining this forum site, but i finally decided I'm going to clear the air and the senseless shouting of ides for jobs has to end.

i completely agree scholar needs an overhaul as someone who has had scholar as his main job since the release of it.
i am going to categorize and state what needs to be changed and fixed as someone who understands the job completely, I'm not saying people on here don't its just a lot of ideas are being thrown and we need order.

1- modus veritas: undo the gimping and just make it so it doesn't stack and have a % of accuracy not a complete immunity for notorious monsters. P.s. our recast timer needs to be shortened

2- Cure V or cure v type spell: we all need one stop beating around the bust it doesn't need to be the same exact potency but scholar's cure capability is gimp with the level increase and it has to be addressed.

3- storms: we either need a second tier or their level acquirement has to be adjusted because storms and helices are a part of our individualism and since most jobs can /sch and get most of our storms we are losing a fine part of our job.

4- Libra: ok we all know libra is a joke the idea was cool but execution was lack luster it didn't really follow how libra worked in the old games and we need a range increase aswell as something other then enmity read because personally i can tell hate levels without it.

5- nukes: we have helices but honestly we need something else to give scholar more variety the high damage over time is cool in all but in use it makes it difficult to fight high level monsters. so it would be nice to see a second tier or maybe another elemental selection of area nukes scholar can tap into.

6- break(not just for scholar): this spell is currently a hilarious mix between stun and bind. which needs to be improved considering monsters can cast break and petrify for an extended period of time and hit us the players multiple times while we cant accomplish anything. I'm not saying give us par to monster strength but maybe implement a strength of petrify based on enfeebling skill.

7- as far as the manifesto goes i think its funny that they want to give us a spell or ability that can only be used under tabula rasa while it sounds cool id much rather prefer like previously stated to see stratagems not wear off during the ability.

8- spell possibility Omega: this adds to the helices section of my post have a new spell for scholar that is acts like a helix with 2x the potency and mp cost but is a non specific element or mixes elements depending on the day kind of like staggering elements it has the possibility of being the current days element along with the day before or after along with it.

well that's my 2 cents and i apologize if i offended anyone i just wanted to try make it clear to se what scholar really needs.

[Watts101]

As someone who's practically brand new to Scholarl I've enjoyed seeing where others feel the job needs adjusting. Since SCH is my first real "Mage" job I've been eagerly seeking info about the job. As I've played it I feel I've almost instantly discovered a lot of the shortcomings of the job and that isn't saying much for the job since I've only played it for about 2 weeks. All in all i love SCH the basis of the job is sound. But like several others have already posted it needs some serious overhauling attention. I'll try to Highlight or bold my main points so you can sift through my blathering.

I really don't think it's unfair to say that the reason SCH is 18th in popularity, according to the recent census, is because the job has a lot of lack. Nearly everyone who's posted in here is saying it.

Very first thing I noticed had issue was Modus Veritas. Awesome idea! I read about it and was way excited to use it. So when i decided to pew a mob with it and it says missed target I was furious since nearly every JA that isn't melee is either 100% hit or totally resisted! I went back to read on the JA and found in some comments that it'd been adjusted.

Talk about deflating for someone who's wanting to try this new job and use it to its utmost, only to find that the one really cool JA had been hit with the nerfing stick and been buried 6 feet underground and forgotten about entirely or just simply ignored in order to give other jobs attention.

Alright maybe it's overall potential was higher than the Dev. Team intended but it didn't need to be murdered in the dark.

My second real hangup on the job is healing. Yup, it's been said plenty already and i completely agree. I've got Galkas with empyrean weapons wanting me to cure and keep them alive in abyssea with rapture > cure 4 which at the moment with my limited skill is only getting them maybe 720 HP. That's with whatever gear to increase it I've got. Lots of abyssea nm's hit for 500's How is a lowly sch supposed to keep even one galka alive without cure 5? maybe the Dev. team is worried about accession cure 5's; in an aoe sense that would put us above WHM's because they're currently at curaga 4. Understandable to an extent when viewed from that perspective. So don't let accession affect cure V. You did it to haste clearly it's possible.

My third and really most recent complaint is actually just that. Accession > Haste. Why not? Garuda gets it but last time i checked most summoners aren't invited so they can AOE haste. As a SMN i generally only use hastega when i'm in party with some melee and figure i've got some mp to spare. I've had multiple people in my LS that aren't sch's ask if i can AOE haste. Every time i say i can't the response is the same "Lame". Melee's are wanting it from us. Sch's are wanting it so we can give it to them. Come on.

I haven't really messed with the 2-hour on SCH but from what i've read i can understand other SCH's complaint that it needs fixing. This recent july update affected tons of jobs. Where's the sch update? Is it in Aug.? I sure hope so. Fix the 2-hour to do what it was originally intended to do then you'll find players wanting to give greater feed back on additional content like spells under 2-hour.

I'll put it out there right now. As much as i'd LOVE to have Ultima on SCH. If the Dev. team decided to make it a 2-hour spell could you kindly ask them to change our 2-hr's name to Ultima instead? If the 2-hour doesn't work properly to begin with that's all that it's gonna get used for. A single 2hr boom! ULTIMA!!!!


Here's a few of my ideas regarding the manifesto.

Help define SCH's role in an alliance! If we're working towards endgame material it needs to be able to have purpose. A previous post suggested making SCH an enhancing master and to stop treading so much on RDM's enfeebling magics. Regain; although nice 1tp tic's are like waiting for your laundry to dry; Boring and kinda pointless.

Add spells to enhance damage given from specific weapons. piercing, slashing, etc. maybe that's overpowered i dont know. it would make sense for a second teir of storm spells or something like unto it.

Give our emnity spells more Power! At the moment the emnity difference is minimal. If i cast Animus Augeo on a Ninja. That ninja should be getting a noticeable increase in emnity. Animus Minuo needs to lower emnity more also.

Another person suggested modus veritas be able to be used for buffing spells on allies. A good idea. Adjust the timer though.

Libra, I've used it once to see what it looked like. I saw it laughed and then proceeded to ignore it. I definitely liked the suggestion of changing libra from an emnity examination to scanning for weaknesses blunt resistance, piercing resistance, slashing, magic, enfeebling etc. A scholar should be able to assess his enemy and determine his weaknesses! That's what strategists are supposed to do! Find the loop holes in an enemies defense and exploit it. If that kind of useful information was being given I wouldn't be against moving into range of a dangerous mob to attempt, with reasonable success, to obtain it. Keep the range the same but with the risk increase the reward!

Also for the manifesto, I like the idea of allowing SCH to magically create more skillchain options! Immanence allows us to create a lvl 1 skillchain. Take it further! Introduce some final spells that have dual elements or at the least allow for the building of tier 2 skillchains. It offers increased dmg to or risk of healing a mob. It would also allow for BLM's to have more magic bursting opportunities and wouldn't tread on BLM's spells and power so much since the spell has to connect with a weaponskill to create the chain or potentially another SCH.





I want tier 2 helix spells! P.S. don't nerf them! grant them an additional affect like magic evasion down or amnesia. Effect diminishes with time. make the effect useful!

Finish giving SCH the tier 5 elemental spells.

[Watts101]

bah i was in the midst of editing my previous post. Sorry i know it's big. LOL. Lastly i'd love to see a forbidden gray or red arts. Cause it to remove access to all other spells while gaining access to some endgame power spells. Cause the spells to have dangerous casting costs.

Quick: Allows next spell to be cast instantly with no recast timer but still costs full mp" 50 tp 100 MP

Temporal Tear: True AOE haste 15% for 5 mins hits everyone including mobs in cast range. casting cost 250 HP 250 mp

Seraphims Halo: AoE DMG Spell with additional affect light based healing helix effect for 1/6 the damage done. stacks with regen. Spell cost 50% HP 50% mp

Ultima: Yes every SCH wants it. SCH's final spell. 75% hp 50% mp 100 tp to cast.

Perhaps some tier 2 helix and storm spells. Just some food for thought to play with. If sch is to tread on both White magic and Black magic it only makes sense to allow for some powerful spells unique to them that dont take away from WHM or BLM. A set of Red or gray arts spells would allow for that. Limit it's use. Can only be active for 1 min. 5-7 mins recast. Powerful spells with dangerous consequences, while restriciting the sch's ability to over use the spells given. The numbers i'm offering for casting costs are just speculation and suggestive. I'd expect the dev, team to hammer out those kinds of details.

[Merton9999]

@Watts101
Immanence can create level 2 skillchains already. It can't create level 3 alone - you have to add Black Halo or Retribution, so not really happening in parties on important mobs. This is one way in which the previously mentioned dual-element spells would come in handy.

Curaga IV is essentially AOE Cure V - all curaga tiers cure roughly the same as the single target spell above their number. Also, the .dats indicate WHM will be getting the Curaga V next update, meaning AOE Cure VI strength. I'm not trying to be a nitpicking jerk, just wanted to point out there's nothing about SCHs getting Cure V that would put us past WHMs, at least as far as the strength of cure spells.

[Raksha]

One other thing to add is that Accession already doesn't work with cure5/6.

[OMEGA_HACK]

Well it doesn't work with Cure5/6 right now because SCH doesn't learn it natively or at subjob levels, if SCH were to learn it, then WHM and any other job that could use Cure 5 would be able to accession it.

[Kasandaro]

bah i was in the midst of editing my previous post. Sorry i know it's big. LOL. Lastly i'd love to see a forbidden gray or red arts. Cause it to remove access to all other spells while gaining access to some endgame power spells. Cause the spells to have dangerous casting costs.

So we're going to unlearn that whole lesson we were taught while we were pursuing our Artifact Armor, about how charming and fluffy the Blood Grimoire is?

To be clear, I'm completely okay with this. But SE occasionally gets this storyline consistency bee in their bonnet...


Well it doesn't work with Cure5/6 right now because SCH doesn't learn it natively or at subjob levels, if SCH were to learn it, then WHM and any other job that could use Cure 5 would be able to accession it.

Uh-huh. Counterargument. Haste has been available from sub for longer than Refresh, yet one's accessionable, while the other's not. Trust me, as a WHM, I'd kill to be able to Curaga-bomb another party at times. But I don't think SCH-access is their deciding factor for accessionability.

[Ahrana]

Honestly, the only reason haste was singled out was because it was just that useful, and I think it was specifically restricted so that whm would have the option of subbing something other then scholar.

Scholar has been able to accession spells that it normally wouldn't have access to. Phallanx, stoneskin, blink, and aquaveil all fall into that category. In addition, reraise is a spell that by description should be able to be accessioned, yet it is not. I actually need to do some testing with some of the new spells and see if sch can accession/manifestation them (reprisal, dread spikes, aspir 2, redmage merit spells, tier 2 enspells). I think a lot of the new spells don't work with accession though. :(

[Merton9999]

The behavior of non-accessionable spells has always been a fun little exercise in group theory and ven diagrams, one appropriate for SCH :)

I think the limitation would have been better stated as "if SCH doesn't have access to the spell via main or sub job" then the spell is not compatible with accession. The only exceptions were 6 months of Refresh and Protect V, and 12 months of Shell V, but that's presumably because SCH would get access to them soon. New 50+ spells for other jobs are all incompatible. Currently, the stated restriction applies.

Note, however, this says nothing about spells SCH does have access to. Of course we know there are additional incompatible spells which SCH can use (Haste, Reraise). In other words, spells SCH cannot use are currently a proper subset of the full list of incompatible spells - all inaccessible spells are incompatible, but so are others.

With that in mind, given spells like Haste and Reraise, it is certainly possible that if SCH were to get Cure V, it too could be incompatible if SCH were to get it. And what scares me is that Refresh, Protect and Shell V were allowed before SCH officially got them, but Cure V is not.

I think it's safe to say that no matter what the rule seems to be, SE can do whatever they want based on balance or any other reason.

I'd be seriously ticked if that happened, though. It's a huge letdown to give SCH a job-defining ability and then go around exempting spells from it. Additionally with the way that MV was treated, and the lack of power in storms, animus and adloquium, another limitation like this would be maddening to say the least.

[OuShiroHeart]

I thought I would share with you Sch's future 2hr only spells, from JP side

「ブレイブ」
対象：単体(戦術魔道書で範囲化が可能)
効果：リジェネ＋リゲイン＋ヘイスト(効果値、効果時間は調整中です)
使用Lv：5～(連環計専用魔法)
スキル：強化魔法スキル
Brave
Target: Single (Possible to make area effect)
Effect: Regen+Regain+Haste
Level of use: 5+ 2hr only
Skill: Enhancing magic
「メルトン」
対象：単体(戦術魔道書で範囲化が可能)
効果：ダメージ+スリップダメージ(スリップダメージは、初弾のダメージに依存します)
使用Lv：5～(連環計専用魔法)
スキル：暗黒魔法スキル
Merton?
Target: Single (Possible to make area effect)
Effect: Damage+slip damage (Slip damage depends initial damage)
Level of use: 5+ 2hr only
Skill: Dark magic

So now you can all stop guessing ^^

[Merton9999]

Wow thanks!

Hmmmm, one enhancing and one nuke(?). Well, at least if the nuke is indeed called Merton (maybe more likely Meltdown?) I'd obviously be happy :)

Brave seems odd for a 2 hour spell, unless it is uber potent of course. Nice to see a dark magic spell, allowing it to AOE. Hopefully it's a nuke type and not just Bio IV.

These could be great or terrible, we'll obviously have to wait for numbers. I'm still not really excited about any new spells being 2 hour only, though. It certainly doesn't help us fill our advertised roles.

[Sasaraixx]

We're in agreement again Merton. (Sadly, メルトン will probably be translated to Meltdown in English. It would have been awesome if you had a spell named after you! :) It's appeared as Meltdown in almost all FF games and Terra uses it most recently in the Dissidia games.)

They HAVE to be incredibly potent. I could see Brave possibly having potential uses in zerg type fights (will those even be possible with lv99 end game content?) The Regain would have to be very high and the haste effect maybe stacks with normal magical Haste or pushes you past the cap? Otherwise you're basically left with just regain, because a WHM can cover Haste and Regen. And the duration has to be decent as well. We're surely going to use Accession and Perpetuance for the spell, so I'm hopin ga 5 minute duration will be possible. That only leaves 115 minutes to fill with something else useful :D

Meltdown - I really have no idea. I will entirely have to wait and see on that one.

I will say that I am a bit worried by these details. Perhaps I am just being a bit paranoid, but it seems like the possibility of a stronger Aldoquium and tier II Helix spells just slightly decreased?

[Horadrim]

We're in agreement again Merton. (Sadly, メルトン will probably be translated to Meltdown in English. It would have been awesome if you had a spell named after you! :) It's appeared as Meltdown in almost all FF games and Terra uses it most recently in the Dissidia games.)

They HAVE to be incredibly potent. I could see Brave possibly having potential uses in zerg type fights (will those even be possible with lv99 end game content?) The Regain would have to be very high and the haste effect maybe stacks with normal magical Haste or pushes you past the cap? Otherwise you're basically left with just regain, because a WHM can cover Haste and Regen. And the duration has to be decent as well. We're surely going to use Accession and Perpetuance for the spell, so I'm hopin ga 5 minute duration will be possible. That only leaves 115 minutes to fill with something else useful :D

Meltdown - I really have no idea. I will entirely have to wait and see on that one.

I will say that I am a bit worried by these details. Perhaps I am just being a bit paranoid, but it seems like the possibility of a stronger Aldoquium and tier II Helix spells just slightly decreased?

Its probably Meltdown.

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Meltdown

Fire Damage + Sap? Sounds like what it does in FFXI.

[Merton9999]

I will say that I am a bit worried by these details. Perhaps I am just being a bit paranoid, but it seems like the possibility of a stronger Aldoquium and tier II Helix spells just slightly decreased?

This is how it struck me too. We've been asking for stronger Adloquium and tier 2 helices. Unless these two spells are ridiculously powerful, I'd feel slapped in the face to get both of those requests fulfilled only as 2 hour spells.

[Merton9999]

We're in agreement again Merton. (Sadly, メルトン will probably be translated to Meltdown in English. It would have been awesome if you had a spell named after you! :) It's appeared as Meltdown in almost all FF games and Terra uses it most recently in the Dissidia games.)

Yeah I've always kept my screen name Merton as a nod to the original translation from the SNES FFIII (US) :) I'd love it if they left the English version named Merton!


Its probably Meltdown.

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Meltdown

Fire Damage + Sap? Sounds like what it does in FFXI.

My first thought was fire nuke plus fire helix, but it's supposedly Dark magic ...???

[Sasaraixx]

I took a peak at the JP thread and there is some more great information from Mocchi. He/she says because SCH has a lot of abilities they are going to break up the answers into separate responses. Mocchi is planning to post again tomorrow regarding tactical magic(?) I'm not sure how best to translate that.

Anyway, here is the info! I've included the original question/request and then also Mocchi's answer. I'm sure an official translation will come in the coming days, but I know some of us are impatient :) Also, if any other Japanese speakers spot some mistakes, please correct me!



第1回　ジョブアビリティ編

First: Job Abilities



グリモアの効果をレベルに比例して強くなるようにしてほしい
これは調整を行う予定でいます。メインジョブ学者の方がより恩恵を得られるようにしたいと考えています。

I would like the effect of the Grimoire to get stronger as we level.

We are planning to adjust this. We are thinking that the SCH main job should receive a greater benefit.



「ライブラ」で敵のステータスや弱点、TPなども調べられるようにしてほしい
予定はありますが、「ライブラ」の性能を変更するか、他の手段を用いるかという点は検討中です。ライブラ以外のアビリティになるかもしれません。

I'd like Libra to show the enemies weakness or TP.

We have a plan for this, but we are examining whether to change Libra's properties or use another method. It will probably be another ability.


学者の魔法がHNMなどに入らなくなるのではと心配です
全く入らないということにはしない予定です。
ただし学者の魔法の場合は、レジスト率というよりは弱体効果の発生頻度や持続時間といった面で、効果が変動することにはなると思います。

I'm worried that SCH's magic will not be able to land on HNMs.

We are not planning to make it impossible to land. But in the case of SCH magic, less than resist rates, the occurence of the enfeebling effect or the contiuation of the effect are likely to be changed.


陣系の魔法に、天候の効果を得られるのに加えて、属性にちなんだ追加効果を付けてほしい
これはメリットポイント「陣頭指揮」の追加効果として、メリットポイントの見直しをする際に検討してみます

I would like effects obtained through weather increased and there to be additional effects associated with the atrributes for battle(?) magic. [not sure of the translation on that]

For the additional effects from the merit ability Stormsurge, we are currently studying ways to revise merit points.

[Merton9999]

Nice job, thanks! This sounds better than I feared at least, given the other job responses. Always vague of course, but at least it's not 5 NO's.

Something else is worrying me about these two hour spells though. Since they are combination of other spells, I wonder if these are being added just to prevent us from having to spam 20 strategems and 5 spells. In other words, the potency will be the same as Regen III + Adloquium + Haste and a tier V nuke + Helix, and the only benefit will be the time saved in casting "combination" spells...

[Sasaraixx]

Ah, again good catch Merton. I hadn't thought of that. Again that would be a disappointment. I really want Modus Veritas changed so that we only have to hit each strategem one time! Half of our 2hr is spent hitting strategems, unless you have windower and some good equip swaps programmed in.

And if it really is just normal potency wrapped up into one spell, then that is a serious let down. You would be better off using Tabula Rasa for something else honestly. But, we will just have to wait and see. It could be awesome. Or it could be horrible. Fingers crossed!

[TimeMage]

That's some great information!

Brave could be interesting if it lasted at least 3 mins (5 mins would be the ideal amount in my opinion) and the effects were really potent: Regen IV or more, Regain of 3/tick or more, Haste of 15% or more. And regarding Merton, if it were some kind of Helix with a potency inbetween what a TII Helix would be (around Stone II - Aero II of potency) and a normal nuke, it could be interesting. Doing the damage of a high TIII or low TIV and repeating it Helix-like would be loads of win.

[Sotek]

Why does Brave give Haste? We don't get Haste natively, not to mention you can AoE it. Better not be getting my hopes up here, SE.

[Horadrim]

Why does Brave give Haste? We don't get Haste natively, not to mention you can AoE it. Better not be getting my hopes up here, SE.

At level 99 cap /RDM, arguably one of the best subs for SCH, gives Haste. (level 96, to be exact).

That aside, Brave conceptually infuses the player with tenacity, attacking faster (haste) and harder (regain) makes sense for that.

The potency has to be higher or stackable with base Haste for it to be worth it, though.

[Sotek]

At level 99 cap /RDM, arguably one of the best subs for SCH, gives Haste. (level 96, to be exact).

That aside, Brave conceptually infuses the player with tenacity, attacking faster (haste) and harder (regain) makes sense for that.

The potency has to be higher or stackable with base Haste for it to be worth it, though.

I know that, I recommend you look up the word "natively" some time.

Seriously, we get Haste under Tabula Rasa at level five and it's Accessionable. Yet we don't get actual Haste, which isn't Accessionable. I find that to be a minor annoyance; not the fact that we don't get Haste so much, but rather Accession.

I'll hold any real judgment for when I actually see these spells, but first impressions are "they're not making Tabula Rasa actually useful, just sticking shiny spells on it" and "they don't want to give Scholar Haste or Accession Haste, so they made that a Two Hour spell", both disappointing to say the least.


I'd like Libra to show the enemies weakness or TP.

We have a plan for this, but we are examining whether to change Libra's properties or use another method. It will probably be another ability.

Anyone who can speak Japanese go correct them:
Displays enemies weakness and increases damage dealt to them by that weakness.

Just seeing a mobs weakness is worthless unless SE plans on adding more mobs that switch weakness regularly; though that's still an incredibly worthless role since it would be such a small niche.
Seeing TP would be somewhat more useful, but not by much. Now seeing "The x is readying y" would be a lot more useful, would have been great if you could tell 10 seconds in advance that Cerberus is going to use GoH, for example. Though I'm guessing mob TP mechanics work nothing like that so it's unworkable. Seeing TP values would only be great for Dark Knight really, something like our future -TP/tic spell isn't something you'd only use after seeing TP levels just like Libra and Animus. God it pains me to see the same mistakes being repeated.

[Sasaraixx]

That's some great information!

Brave could be interesting if it lasted at least 3 mins (5 mins would be the ideal amount in my opinion) and the effects were really potent: Regen IV or more, Regain of 3/tick or more, Haste of 15% or more. And regarding Merton, if it were some kind of Helix with a potency inbetween what a TII Helix would be (around Stone II - Aero II of potency) and a normal nuke, it could be interesting. Doing the damage of a high TIII or low TIV and repeating it Helix-like would be loads of win.

Brave has potential, but it does indeed need to be powerful. A poster on the JP forum mentioned that they would want the haste comparable to a Soul Voice'd March/March. I'm not a melee or a Bard, so I have no idea how strong that would be, but I definitely think it should be stronger than the normal Haste spell or stack with it.

The regen effect should be Regen IV or V depending on whether we get Regen IV by lv99. The regain effect should be 3tp/tick minimum and a duration of 5 minutes would be great.

[OMEGA_HACK]

If we have Brave, where's Faith?

Spell: Faith
Effect: Refresh 3mp/tic + MaB20-50 + Cure Potency20-50% (AoE? I mean its a 2hr spell after all)
Duration: 3-5min?

Spell: Brave
Effect: Regen IV + Regain 3tp/tic + TP Bonus100-200 (AoE? Again, it would be a 2hr spell)
Duration: 3-5min?

I don't really think Haste is really needed, as its already too easy to get REALLY close to the cap, instead I would like to see a direct damage increase (SCH's manipulate the strengths and weakness of the mobs and players; hence the TP bonus) to the ws on Brave.

Merton (Meltdown) is pretty neat, but I would also like Ultima and make that the Divine counter point to Merton. And the initial damage should be around the T3 elemental nukes (non abyssea T3s to clarify); again this is the 2hr spells, not something we can just spam spam spam.

OR!

Just thought of this make them a little weaker (but still stronger than t1 helix) then make Modus Veritas work 100% (up to 4-5 can stack before it gets completely resisted) on Ultima and Merton. That would be nifty and hold true to the old saying "Two heads are better than one" lol :x

[Sasaraixx]

Official translation is up on the general Manifesto thread. My translation was pretty good :D

One thing, the spell is called Merton!! Merton you are obligated to use this spell every 2 hours :)

Faith would be a nice addition indeed. I'd make the Refresh more potent than 3mp/tick though. We can already do that with /RDM. Maybe 5mp/tick, MAB and Enfeebling Potency Up. You can cover MACC issues by giving weather and Klimaform.

Ultima as the Light magic equivalent of Merton is also a good idea.

[OMEGA_HACK]

Not Light Magic but Divine Magic! (Give some use to that almost useless magic skill category lol)

[Merton9999]

Official translation is up on the general Manifesto thread. My translation was pretty good :D

One thing, the spell is called Merton!! Merton you are obligated to use this spell every 2 hours :)

Faith would be a nice addition indeed. I'd make the Refresh more potent than 3mp/tick though. We can already do that with /RDM. Maybe 5mp/tick, MAB and Enfeebling Potency Up. You can cover MACC issues by giving weather and Klimaform.

Ultima as the Light magic equivalent of Merton is also a good idea.

LOLOLOLOL The spell name is totally awesome. I seriously expected that if a version of that spell were to be added to XI it would most certainly be named Meltdown. Wonder if they chose Merton because the doll move is already Meltdown? Whatever, the spell name is actually the most exciting part of the announcement to me :)

Good job on the translation btw!

@OMEGA_HACK
Good idea on Faith and Ultima. I still think MACC would be a good inclusion - after all we will also be able to provide Regain, Regen, and Haste in addition to Brave, so adding MACC to Faith in addition to weather + Klimaform would be along the same lines.

Ultima as divine and Merton as dark would be fun and fitting. I was always hoping for a SCH only divine spell just for a completeness - we have all other magic types natively.

[Sasaraixx]

Not Light Magic but Divine Magic! (Give some use to that almost useless magic skill category lol)

I'm going to say make it elemental magic lol Partly because I'm lazy and don't want to have to make a divine build on SCH and also because I have a feeling that SCH will not be on a lot of that gear.

From a lore standpoint, I don't know if it makes sense for SCH to wield a powerful divine spell like that. Yes, we study both sides of magic, but that is a particular branch that is mastered through prayer and meditation. That doesn't sound like the kind of research a SCH would do. We would probably want research light magic in order to find a tactical use for it in battle. That sounds more like elemental magic to me. This is entirely my opinion obviously.

I wouldn't mind native Repose though! haha

[Sasaraixx]

Part 2 of Mocchi's SCH adjustments was posted this morning. I'm a bit pressed for time, so I don't have time to translate it all, but I'm sure we'll get the official post later today.

The post today was all about strategems and it was a little less encouraging. The questions/requests chosen this time around were not really issues I wanted to see addressed. (Have Manifestation work with nukes, I want alliance wide effects, I want Rapture to raise the potency of Aldoquium, etc. Incidentally the responses were 1) They're looking into Manifestation but b/c the effect wouldn't be reduced in the way -ga spells are it would be unbalanced. 2) No. 3)I'll address that one in a second)

They said Modus Veritas is working as intended and they have no plans to go back to the way it used to be. (I wish they would consider removing the ability to have it stack with other SCHs and let it be 100%.) On the other hand, they said they are looking into lowering the recast timer.

Someone asked that we be given more charges. The team is looking into this, which is why we may not see large increases in the potency of some of the strategems. Being able to use them more often is the trade off. I'd be all for more charges at our current strengths to be honest. They point out that revising this is complex so give them some time. Please, just natively make Aldoquium stronger.

There was one question I didn't quite understand. Something about Haste or Fast Cast being influenced Alacrity and Celerity. Mocchi said they are examining those strategems, but if they did something like that then Slow or other demerit would also be effected. As I said, I wasn't quite clear on that question so wait for the official translation.

We can look forward to a Part 3 regarding magic and other general issues the beginning of next week. I'm glad the team is spending so much time addressing SCH. It seems that they are at least aware that the job needs a lot of attention.

[Sotek]

They said Modus Veritas is working as intended and they have no plans to go back to the way it used to be. (I wish they would consider removing the ability to have it stack with other SCHs and let it be 100%.) On the other hand, they said they are looking into lowering the recast timer.

Fucking great SE. Now I can resist Modus Veritas every five minutes instead of every ten. Christ, just remove the stacking ability and make it 100% accurate again. Even if it had a one second recast it would still be worthless crap since it doesn't hit anything of value. How bloody dense can you be? You completely broke it. It doesn't fucking work at all. No one ever used the stacking ability outside the exploit. How is the answer not painfully obvious? How can it possibly be "working as expected" when it doesn't fucking work?

They better deliver on the spells and general issues, because right now they've just once again displayed how bloody incompetent they are. Maybe they should just delete the English sections if they're only taking suggestions from the Japanese ones, it would save the the trouble of putting forward obvious fixes and watching them get completely ignored for one thing.

[Merton9999]

Thanks for the translation again Sasaraixx! I'm such a spoiler junkie I can't possibly wait for the official one :)

Modus Veritas
I'll defer to Sotek. All I can do at this point is roll my eyes.

Strategems
I actually never thought about making these more powerful. We have been suggesting that the spells themselves be magnified (storms, adloquium, animus), or that more powerful spells be added or suitably substituted (Cure V or a damage prevention equivalent). If Rapture potency were to be increased, or charges for that matter, it would help with healing in some way, but they'd have to double charges at least to come close to simply adding Cure V. If they actually did make Rapture capable of augmenting enhancing magic, that might work for storms, adloquium, animus, but again our charge count would have to soar. I wouldn't mind if all these things were dealt with via strategem charge count and potency, as long as the charge count increase is dramatic. It would actually be kind of interesting and scholarly to base what spells you decide to enhance on the limitation of strategem charges.

As far as the rest there's not much to comment, and I'd guess most of the US posters feel the same. It seems SE is using the Japanese feedback only to guide their response, and do us the service of just translating what they tell them. It's a little aggravating.

On the other hand it is definitely encouraging that SCH is getting at least three posts from the community team. Let's hope all the talk actually translates into something.

[Raksha]

I think they just go and find the most retarded questions to answer, tbh. I don't think I've ever once heard someone suggest that the current stratagems are underpowered.

Personally I just toss Modus Veritas in with Libra and the merit stratagems as things I don't ever have to bother trying to use. It would be great if they were made functional, but its not like they fill gaping holes in SCHs playstyle.

[Sasaraixx]

You're very welcome :)

The news today was a bit disappointing. Our fellow SCH's on the JP forum weren't overjoyed either. There is a concensus that while having strategems improve some of our enhancing spells is a nice boost, it ignores the fact that the spells are weak to begin with. I shouldn't have to use Rapture to make Aldoquium worth using. We would literally have to have charges out the wazoo to pull that off.

I cosign all comments regarding Modus Veritas.

I think some of those questions may not have been because the person thinks the strategems are weak, but that by increasing their potency/potential it might help fix other areas of SCH. I don't agree with this personally.

I'm waiting for the official translation to pop up because that Haste/Fast Cast comment didn't make sense to me.

Oh well, I hope the spells information will be more encouraging. I was actually fairly excited by yesterdays news.

[Merton9999]

Personally I just toss Modus Veritas in with Libra and the merit stratagems as things I don't ever have to bother trying to use. It would be great if they were made functional, but its not like they fill gaping holes in SCHs playstyle.

I like this point, and it's exactly what I've learned to do regarding MV, Libra and merit strats, but just for my own peace of mind. The problem is they added this official forum and said "Hey, what do you guys think about these proposed adjustments?", then nearly everyone that responds proposes the same simple balanced adjustment for MV, and the SE response is "Nope, we like it this way." Huh? To me, it's annoying not because these abilities are so crucial for the job but because the invitation to comment was made and then ignored for no reason.

I'm also stuck on the Overpromise and Underdeliver problem that plagues FFXI announcement to implementation history, especially for SCH. Modus Veritas, Libra, Adloquium, Animus spells, exemption of spells from Accession/Manifestation, and even storm effects all fit into this stigma. Sure more jobs are crying for updates, but it seems like SCH has been stuck with the most lemons.

[Sotek]

Sasaraixx, if it's not beyond your ability to translate, could I trouble you to take a bunch of ideas you like from here and go slap them in the Japanese forums? If you're not already, that is.

Anyway, I give up trying to hammer common sense into SE, back to new ideas:

Rather than adjusting Stratagems I think a new JA would be OK as a replacement for Cure V. I never looked at Cure V as a spell I even particularly needed, I've always suggested tagging a hefty amount of enmity on it for Scholar, so it was never going to be something to spam ala-White Mage, it's just having a spell for when the shit hits the fan is a lot more useful than not.
Something that Doubles the Potency of the next Stratagem while making it cost extra Stratagems. Slap a ten minute timer (or whatever works) on it and let it work with any Stratagem, in the case of something like Manifestation it would allow for AoE nukes - that's not something I've ever really wanted for Scholar, but on a ten minute timer it would hardly be game changing and it would fill a demand.
I doubt it would actually fix Scholar in terms of Light Arts, but if they're buffing Arts anyway I can't see it being too useless. I've main healed with Cure IV before, the only reason it's not something I regularly do is because I lack any tool for bad moments, Cure V would have filled that as a spell I hardly ever used (yet somehow still crushes White Mage toes), but a Double Potency Double Stratagem ability would work fine. Had I got Cure V I was temped to get Tranquility just for it just to reduce the enmity gain, so the Stratagem cost is no real problem for me. Recast would probably need some work though.
I also feel like bringing up another idea I had at the start of these forums since it kind of fits with the above idea, basically lets you use a single Stratagem twice. Effectively what I'd want Tabula Rasa to be doing, another reason I bring it up, of course. Though that idea kind of waned when I stopped using Immanence for solo Skill Chains, it would still be very useful and stack well with the other ability, though.

As for actual Stratagems, they mention adding more. I dislike that idea, I'd rather have "Grimoire Recast" changed to "Stratagem Recast" for our merits. I'll be undoing my Modus merits anyway, would be nice to have something that actually effects my game play, even it it's just -2 seconds per merit. I guess I'll go with Sublimation in the mean time but Sublimation is already overkill since it got updated a while back.
Scholar merits really need some work, they've always been shit, Stormsurge was the best and that's just +Stats for crying out loud. If they're changing that I'd opt for +2% Potency for weather per merit with the first merit making Storm spells the same as Gain spells with Enhancing Magic effecting the Stats gain, 5/5 Stormsurge would equal Gain spells while also effectively providing Double Weather. When Storm II was something everyone expected anyway, I hardly see it as being a problem.

[Merton9999]

I'm waiting for the official translation to pop up because that Haste/Fast Cast comment didn't make sense to me.

Looked this up on Wiki just to be sure:

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Alacrity

Alacrity and Celerity stack with FC sources to lower casting time, but the recast reduction is not increased by Haste. Maybe they're asking to factor in Haste? What confuses me is the response you translated seems to be saying they'd look into making Haste matter, but then they'd have to make Slow matter too, but wiki says it already does....

[Pebe]

I hope metron is like Scourge from FFXII, GIANT LAZER! I'm hoping the damage and DoT on this is very potent. Here's to hoping. Brave sounds cool for zergs. Just get a sch to tabula rasa and do perpetuance, accession brave in all 3 DD parties immediately before the bard rotation begins. Especially if it stacks with haste. I still have my fingers crossed for ultima. You can't have a FF game with the spell ultima. Ultima the mob doesn't count >.> (was a summon in ffxii but that is irrelevant)!

[Raksha]

Looked this up on Wiki just to be sure:

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Alacrity

Alacrity and Celerity stack with FC sources to lower casting time, but the recast reduction is not increased by Haste. Maybe they're asking to factor in Haste? What confuses me is the response you translated seems to be saying they'd look into making Haste matter, but then they'd have to make Slow matter too, but wiki says it already does....

This is pretty much how I interpreted it also.

[Sasaraixx]

Sotek, I sure will. I posted a few of my concerns on the JP forum this morning (got a few likes as well :D) and I will start to do so more in the future. Over the weekend I will tackle the MV ridiculousness. Takes a bit of time for me to write about SCH because the abilities and spells are completely different in Japanese. I have to type with JP wiki up :)

I've seen some intelligent posts over there as well, which is why today's questions seemed a bit bizarre.

[Sasaraixx]

Looked this up on Wiki just to be sure:

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Alacrity

Alacrity and Celerity stack with FC sources to lower casting time, but the recast reduction is not increased by Haste. Maybe they're asking to factor in Haste? What confuses me is the response you translated seems to be saying they'd look into making Haste matter, but then they'd have to make Slow matter too, but wiki says it already does....

I'll take a look at it again later tonight. I could have made a mistake. It also doesn't help that I didn't understand how Haste and FC worked with those strategems, so that probably had a lot to do with it. :)

[Sotek]

Sotek, I sure will. I posted a few of my concerns on the JP forum this morning (got a few likes as well :D) and I will start to do so more in the future. Over the weekend I will tackle the MV ridiculousness. Takes a bit of time for me to write about SCH because the abilities and spells are completely different in Japanese. I have to type with JP wiki up :)

I've seen some intelligent posts over there as well, which is why today's questions seemed a bit bizarre.

Thanks, I'd be grateful if even a tenth of what I've said gets through in the end.

Since they're actually considering something that resembles my Scan/Libra idea, I'd appreciate it if you corrected them on that. If they added an ability that shows a monsters physical and magical weakness and nothing more, I would be extremely disappointed (and I don't want to fire up the rant engine so soon after all that Recall/Retrace business). It should increase the damage dealt to weaknesses else it's just as worthless as Libra is. Ideally it would make Stone V on a monster weak to Earth a better choice than Blizzard V, but that's a whole different topic considering how that's how magic damage should have been in the first place.

[Sasaraixx]

Sotek, I can't agree with you enough about magical damage in this game. I never understood why certain spells innately did more damage than others. They should all do the same damage the way that avatar nukes do. I want elemental weakness to effect damage as well as resist rates. I play mage jobs in every RPG game I play and part of the fun is adapting your spells to exploit monster weakness. That could have been implemented better in this game, particularly because weapon types receive bonuses versus certain monsters.

That scan ability would be weak, unless they start implementing mobs that change elemental affinity without any kind of visual indication. And not only that, but it would have to be necessary to deal the correct damage for the ability to have a use. (For example, if you cast the wrong nuke the mob goes into a brief rage mode and the correct element must be cast in order to remove physical damage immunity. You'd need both, otherwise leaders would just tell everyone not to nuke.)

[Sasaraixx]

The official translation is up. I didn't do as badly as I thought on the translation. Even in English, I still don't understand what they mean if Fast Cast already affects the strategems.

"I want haste and fast cast effects to be added to Celerity and Alacrity.
We can look into this. However, if this were to be implemented, we would need to look into negative effects like slow, too."

And I apparently made a mistake on this one, but it's because I never knew that . . .

"
I would like Manifestation to be able to make Elemental Magic AoE.
We will continue to look into this, but the effects of spells that are turned into AoE by Manifestation are weakened, so adjustments to maintain that balance would also be necessary. Please be aware that implementing this will take a lot of time."

So when we use Manifestation, the effect of the spell is weakened? I never knew that . . .

[Raksha]

The official translation is up. I didn't do as badly as I thought on the translation. Even in English, I still don't understand what they mean if Fast Cast already affects the strategems.

"I want haste and fast cast effects to be added to Celerity and Alacrity.
We can look into this. However, if this were to be implemented, we would need to look into negative effects like slow, too."

And I apparently made a mistake on this one, but it's because I never knew that . . .

"
I would like Manifestation to be able to make Elemental Magic AoE.
We will continue to look into this, but the effects of spells that are turned into AoE by Manifestation are weakened, so adjustments to maintain that balance would also be necessary. Please be aware that implementing this will take a lot of time."

So when we use Manifestation, the effect of the spell is weakened? I never knew that . . .


What he's saying is that for Blizzaga3 or Blizzaja or any kind of AoE nukes theres a "Multiple Target Damage Reduction" that lowers your damage. Thats why if you nuke 1 mob with a GA3 it will do more damage than if you nuke 2 mobs with a GA3 (the damage gets "spread out" a little bit).

Since there's no MTDR on single target nukes you'd be getting an AoE full powered Nukega.

[Sasaraixx]

Raskha, I'm not at all confused about how MTDR works or the fact that single tier nukes would have to be adjusted to work with Manifestation. I'm commenting on the part where he says spells that are turned into AoE by Manifestation *are* weakened. They would have to make adjustments to "maintain" that balance, implying that is already the case. I've never heard that. So if you Manifestation Gravity, the effect is weaker than if you just cast Gravity on a single target. It makes sense, but I don't remember reading any confirmation on that.

[Raksha]

Yeah I should have read it before commenting on it. My bad.

EDIT: Thinking further on this, wouldn't the only spells effected by this be Drain and Aspir? Possibly the initial Damage of Bio. Has anyone noticed a decreased duration of sleep/bind gravity when AoE'd?

[Sotek]

I'm amazed they're actually considering Manifestation for Elemental Magic, I always figured there was a very good reason why they didn't do it. Kind of begs the question why are they making Merton Dark Magic when we'll be able to Manifestation Elemental.

I'm going to have to try Immanence + Manifestation nukes when (if) they actually do this.

[Merton9999]

Yeah I should have read it before commenting on it. My bad.

EDIT: Thinking further on this, wouldn't the only spells effected by this be Drain and Aspir? Possibly the initial Damage of Bio. Has anyone noticed a decreased duration of sleep/bind gravity when AoE'd?

In 4 years never. My guess is it's mistranslated or poorly worded, and was thinking it was supposed to mean what you said Raksha. I'm responding to that thread and will put it in there. A lot of those responses don't make sense :(

[Merton9999]

I'm amazed they're actually considering Manifestation for Elemental Magic, I always figured there was a very good reason why they didn't do it. Kind of begs the question why are they making Merton Dark Magic when we'll be able to Manifestation Elemental.

I'm going to have to try Immanence + Manifestation nukes when (if) they actually do this.

Haha that would rock. Sadly so much of what I've enjoyed on SCH the past year is stuff that just looks or sounds cool but doesn't have any real use to a group. But, that disappointment might just be alleviated for a week or so if they let me create 10 fusion animations at once!

[Sasaraixx]

Raksha, you were just commenting on what it should have said. I went back and looked at the original JP post by Mocchi and I think the English has a translation error. It should say, "but the effects of spells that are turned into AoE by Manifestation are not weakened, so adjustments to maintain [that] balance would also be necessary.

[Raksha]

Raksha, you were just commenting on what it should have said. I went back and looked at the original JP post by Mocchi and I think the English has a translation error. It should say, "but the effects of spells that are turned into AoE by Manifestation are not weakened, so adjustments to maintain [that] balance would also be necessary.


lol that does make a lot more sense!

[Merton9999]

Raksha, you were just commenting on what it should have said. I went back and looked at the original JP post by Mocchi and I think the English has a translation error. It should say, "but the effects of spells that are turned into AoE by Manifestation are not weakened, so adjustments to maintain [that] balance would also be necessary.

lol thanks for doing that, I feel better now.

[Sasaraixx]

Third and final part of the SCH notes were posted by Mocchi. I assume the English translation will be up later this afternoon. I have to run to a meeting, but I just had to post and say that I was a bit disappointed. It was more so with the questions than the answers. No mention of storm spells, helices, Aldoquium or the Animus spells.

The first question was asking for Cure V and the answer wasn't yes or no. They did say that there are thinking about a way to improve our support ability that is different from WHM. It could be stronger Regen effects, but they aren't sure. Mocchi did point out that it does not mean that they will not add Cure V later. For now they are looking at different adjustments and if after testing those they decide to add a higher tier cure spell they will.

Someone also asked for spells to lower a mob's TP and evasion. There are plans to add a higher tier Gravity spell but I have to assume that will be RDM exclusive. They are also examining magic subtle blow effect. (I don't know if that means magic to grant subtle blow [but we already have Auspice] or a way to lower TP given by magic spells.)

There were also requests for Reraise working with Accession, but they said that would require a lot of testing. There is also something about a magic crit spell and a request for a spell to make monsters to be intimidated {could be a mistranslation on my part. I'm not sure what ひるむ means in this context} by a PC's pet . . . Um, seriously?? The response was that would be an adjustment not for SCH but for pet jobs themselves. DUH!

All in all, not that much to be excited about. Part 1 left me with a bit of hope. Part 2 was ok and Part 3 is a bit disappointing. Let's hope something was lost in my translation and that better notes await!

[Siiri]

You got 3 replies to Scholar where most jobs got 0. I wouldn't worry, looks like Scholar has resumed its throne as one of SE"s favorite jobs.

[Merton9999]

Only numbers will tell that. Everything mentioned in posts 1 and 2 could be great or turn into the 75-90 problem of all hype and no substance.

Thanks again Sasaraixx. I agree it's the requests they're picking again that are disappointing, as well as the responses this time. Storms, animus, adloquium, helices seem like given topics for a dev post on spells and it turns out to focus on Cure V, Reraise and a spell to make a mob intimidated by pets? lol

[TimeMage]

Thanks, Sasaraixx.

You know what? I'm actually a bit upset at SE for not looking at all the English job forums, and only reply the questions made by Japanese in the Japanese JOB forums. So far, if we want to have anything replied to about our jobs in English, the only place to do it is in the General forums. So, basically, SE is asking us to make offtopic posts because of their ignoring of the English job forums. Good job, SE! -_-

[Sasaraixx]

You got 3 replies to Scholar where most jobs got 0. I wouldn't worry, looks like Scholar has resumed its throne as one of SE"s favorite jobs.

I think the fact that it took 3 posts to address the concerns about SCH is more indicative of the current state of the job than any favoritism on SE's part. And to be fair, I'm sure the devs will be making their way through all of the jobs. The manifesto was only posted 2 weeks ago. Give them some time.

And as for the questions chosen, I don't know where they come from. The reactions from some of the JP posters were exactly the same. Namely, "Um . . .?"

We will just have to wait and see. They are obviously still in the planning/testing phase for a lot of these ideas so it's hard to know what exactly will happen. (Unlike today's DRK notes that mentioned a planned ability for DRK in the next Version Update.)

[Sotek]

And as for the questions chosen, I don't know where they come from. The reactions from some of the JP posters were exactly the same. Namely, "Um . . .?"

I'm guessing whoever passed on some of these ideas has mixed up somewhere along the lines. Maybe Beastmasters asked for an ability to make their pets intimidate a target and that got shuffled into the Scholar suggestions pile somehow. Maybe that's how Scholar got Libra when practically every other job in the game is more suited to it, really it should have been a Thief ability.

[Raksha]

You got 3 replies to Scholar where most jobs got 0. I wouldn't worry, looks like Scholar has resumed its throne as one of SE"s favorite jobs.


To be fair maybe two or three of those questions were things that we actually wanted an answer to, and a lot of questions still haven't been answered. So really they wasted a lot of time to make three posts when they could've made half of one.

[Zanobi]

First post in forums... So... Here goes.

Scholar is my main. I refuse to take WHM or BLM past 55 for now. Maybe later, but... not now...

To the point:

Modus Veritas: I concur with everyone's agreement. Take it back to better accuracy. Also, make it either stack MULTIPLICITAVELY or not at all. (For those non-scholastic [hehee], I mean make MV multiply the damage by each scholar who uses it. Effectively, it makes one helix per scholar, and currently, only one helix PERIOD can be active at a time right? Just make MV a tool that lets the damage equal the same as each scholar having a helix on the mob.)

Libra: Waste of a JA. Those of you who posted about changing Libra to determine weakness? Kind of an iffy subject. If you let Libra determine, for example, Abyssea weakness. It takes away from the work people put into downing the 9 Abyssea bosses for the Abyssite of Discernment. Who would need it? Just Libra and forget it. You'd trigger every time. Part of the fun of Abyssea is working the triggers. On the note of mob damage weakness, I'm pretty sure we've all memorized what each mob is weak to... Colibri are weak to ICE and PIERCING [but strangely seem to have a 95% resistance to magic]. Skeletons are weak to LIGHT and BLUNT. School age knowledge that stuff. If you DON'T know a mobs weakness already, then you've either not really bothered with it or you burned your character to 90 in Abyssea and let others do the work. Not to mention... There's websites out there that tell you weaknesses. SOMEONE is bound to know. SOMEONE is that hardcore. Always.

White Magic: Scholars definitely need a better heal. Cure IV without any stratagems does around 370-430ish depending on your gear. Look at monks. They have 3300+HP in Abyssea now. you'd have to cast Cure IV at least EIGHT TIMES if they were in CRITICAL status. Not to mention, they get hit DURING the cast time of the spell, so unless you Quicken Magic 100% of the time, you're in a world of hurt (not to mention that monk!) E
-Enhancements: Adloquium needs either tweaked to +2 or +3, or add tiers to it while lowering the level requirement of the original. There were regain items for level 75, possible lower (dunno). I would say 60 is a decent level for Adloquium I to be at. Far fetched hear, but... White Mage in Abyssea got a huge focus on elemental resistances. Nothing for status resistances. Maybe give scholars some IMPROVED bar-status spells. Ever fought Yilbegan? Alliance + outside alliance BREAK. Without fast reaction after break wore, dead. Improved status resistances would be nice, but not necessarily vital.
-Light: Far fetched, but... Maybe some higher level light elemental spells. Could be under Divine, could be Elemental, who knows? Who cares? Not essential, but it would be nice if at least ONE job (mainly Scholar, since Paladins and White Mages can't "nuke" EFFICIENTLY while still maintaining their main role) got some more depth into Light elemental magic.
-Storms: Definitely add new tiers to the Storm series. As someone mentioned... Give job traits IN ADDITION to the stats to the Storm II spells. Maybe an increase of +12/+6(Void).

Black Magic: NEEDS MORE WORK. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE!!! Personally... 90 Scholar. In a party, I watched the numbers. Me and a Black Mage. Aero V. NEITHER OF US USED ASCETIC POTION. I had BETTER GEAR THAN HE DID. I HAD BETTER ATMA THAN HE DID. THIS DUDE WAS JUST STARTING ABYSSEA. I used Ebullience. I had WAY better gear than he did. He was in base level Goetia. +0 you might say. Even Teal was better than what he had. His Aero V still stomped mine. Completely. BROKEN. MESSED UP. If my gear/atma/MAB is greater than someone else, AND ON TOP OF IT I add another 20% from Ebullience, I had well better hit harder than him. But I don't. I can't. Why? Because "Black Mages do Black Magic best." BLM gets tier II MAB trait. 20%. SCH? 10%. SCH adds Ebullience. Another 20% OFF OF THE RESULT of that. so roughly scholar gets 32%. At least 12% MORE than BLM BASE. Plus, with my gear better than his, I had roughly 25 more MAB than him BASE. AND ON TOP OF THAT. With ATMA, I had the +50MAB Atma. that's MINIMUM of 75% more damage. That's me. A scholar. NOT EVEN REACHING MAB cap (Ebullience doesn't count towards it), and the BLM had less than HALF of my MAB BASE. I should have done MORE damage with Aero V than HE did. And neither of us resisted BTW. Go figure? There's more to it than meets the eye. Unless I get resisted 100% of the time with Capped + 8/8 merit? Not likely. Fortune does not smile upon Scholars in the face of damage. FIX it.
-Helices: Interesting concept of DoT. And it failed. Highest I've done is 320/tick, and that's with every piece of gear with INT/MAB, appropriate weather, ascetic potion, proper Atma, everything. Divide that by nine. that's 35.55 DPS. I've seen more DPS from Regurgitate. Unless the helix is what pulls the mob, then it's not worth it. Add Tier II helices or add another spell set to replace them.

The Middle Path: Scholars were intended to walk that fine line between light and dark. They've changed from being STRATEGISTS, to ENMITY CONTROL, to who knows what. Scholar has no DEFINED role anymore. Same with Red Mage. Red Mage is the master enfeebler, but most NM's are immune, or are so succeptible a war/(mage) could enfeeble them. Red Mage lost it's job as well (that's another story I have for a different day :o). Scholar needs to be defined. Be it, the top ENHANCER (since there is none), or maybe put it at 10% less effective than WHM and BLM, but not the 50% or lower like it is now. Scholar has so much untapped, waiting potential.

Misc Suggestions:
1. Someone mention before dual element spells.
a. Maybe something like Frostfire? (Yes, WoW has it. Don't be retarded.)
b. Maybe something to open and close LIGHT and DARKNESS exclusively?
Different possibilities await for opening/closing skillchains of different levels. Scholar is the only one that can do it at the moment with spells, why not expand upon it?
2. A more enhancing roll. Another someone's idea that I loved. Let Scholar be the ONE job that gets ALLIANCE wide skills for buffing or something. Most groups only have one scholar at a time anyways, why not put that to good use? One character focusing on keeping an alliance buffed with Prot/Shell, Aldoquium, etc. Instead of having your WHM stop in the middle of a fight just to rebuff everyone while the tank takes chunks of damage. Also, increase scholar's Light Arts enhancing cap to A- or A+. WHM gets healing, BLM gets Elemental, DRK gets Dark, RDM, gets Enfeeble... screw divine. Divine sucks. But. There's no job with Enhancing. More enhancing spells? I PERSONALLY as a 90 scholar wouldn't mind just sitting back and buffing. Could be like a Bard, but with different effects. Kind of a bard/corsair fusion. Alliance wide refresh, attack speed, resistances. Sheesh, even Corsairs can out-dps a Scholar. [Technically speaking, traditional Scholars, or, as they were TRADITIONALLY referred to as, tacticians, were non-combatants. Scholar could be that ONE non-combatant job.]
3. LOWER LEVEL SCHOLARS!!! PLEASE add some unique scholar spells to lower levels. The level gaps between the elementals and the light arts spells is too drastic. It's like leveling with two sub jobs and no main job.

Anywho, nuff sed. Said my gripe. I hope they fix Scholar soon...

[TimeMage]

Black Magic: NEEDS MORE WORK. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE!!! Personally... 90 Scholar. In a party, I watched the numbers. Me and a Black Mage. Aero V. NEITHER OF US USED ASCETIC POTION. I had BETTER GEAR THAN HE DID. I HAD BETTER ATMA THAN HE DID. THIS DUDE WAS JUST STARTING ABYSSEA. I used Ebullience. I had WAY better gear than he did. He was in base level Goetia. +0 you might say. Even Teal was better than what he had. His Aero V still stomped mine. Completely. BROKEN. MESSED UP. If my gear/atma/MAB is greater than someone else, AND ON TOP OF IT I add another 20% from Ebullience, I had well better hit harder than him. But I don't. I can't. Why? Because "Black Mages do Black Magic best." BLM gets tier II MAB trait. 20%. SCH? 10%. SCH adds Ebullience. Another 20% OFF OF THE RESULT of that. so roughly scholar gets 32%. At least 12% MORE than BLM BASE. Plus, with my gear better than his, I had roughly 25 more MAB than him BASE. AND ON TOP OF THAT. With ATMA, I had the +50MAB Atma. that's MINIMUM of 75% more damage. That's me. A scholar. NOT EVEN REACHING MAB cap (Ebullience doesn't count towards it), and the BLM had less than HALF of my MAB BASE. I should have done MORE damage with Aero V than HE did. And neither of us resisted BTW. Go figure? There's more to it than meets the eye. Unless I get resisted 100% of the time with Capped + 8/8 merit? Not likely. Fortune does not smile upon Scholars in the face of damage. FIX it.

Can't believe this. Only good BLMs surpass my Aero Vs with theirs, and I surpass many okay BLM Blizzard Vs with my own Aero Vs. Either the BLM was better than you said, you are not as good as you say, or you just witnessed ONE instance of a resist in your nuke and though it was the norm.


-Helices: Interesting concept of DoT. And it failed. Highest I've done is 320/tick, and that's with every piece of gear with INT/MAB, appropriate weather, ascetic potion, proper Atma, everything. Divide that by nine. that's 35.55 DPS. I've seen more DPS from Regurgitate. Unless the helix is what pulls the mob, then it's not worth it. Add Tier II helices or add another spell set to replace them.

I've done 600+ Helices several times. And not only to trash mobs, but to NMs too. The normal amount for NMs ranges from 200 to 400. I don't know what set you have for Helices, but it isn't very good.

And I'm not even that pimped out, I'm missing most +2 pieces and only have the wind +2 magian staff.

[Raksha]

That's me. A scholar. NOT EVEN REACHING MAB cap (Ebullience doesn't count towards it), and the BLM had less than HALF of my MAB BASE.

Where'd you get your info about an MAB cap?

[Ahrana]

I don't believe there is a MAB cap.

The one thing he was right about is that scholar is suffering from SE trying to change it's job description. At 75 sch was a competitor for blm on single target nuking damage, with the flexability that if it completely changed roles it could do some moderate healing via phalanx, stoneskin and cure 4. It seems SE decided that they wanted blm's to pull away in single target nuking, but they haven't given scholar anything to fill the huge gap they left in job utility.

If they don't find something to give it in the next 9 levels scholar is going to turn into lolsch, which will make me sad. :(

I don't necessarilly need to be the highest nuker out there, I don't screenshot damage for epeen, but I want to be a valuable asset to a party. We're getting decent single target nukes, but it would be nice to be able to kick up the damage of people around us. The regain spell was kind of in line with that theme, even though it was underwhelming. I still like the idea of being able to open up level 3 skillchains with a single spell (or having dual element spells, however you want to say it) that will allow us to work with melee to push out more damage (skill chain partner on demand!). Tier 2 storm spells so we can increase the damage of other mages.

They just need to decide what they want us to do, because they've been really indecisive for 15 levels so far.

[Raksha]

-Helices: Interesting concept of DoT. And it failed. Highest I've done is 320/tick, and that's with every piece of gear with INT/MAB, appropriate weather, ascetic potion, proper Atma, everything. Divide that by nine. that's 35.55 DPS. I've seen more DPS from Regurgitate. Unless the helix is what pulls the mob, then it's not worth it. Add Tier II helices or add another spell set to replace them.


Try nuking flans, it's good for your e-peen (Also immanence is fun):

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/3724/ffxi20101224005337.png
http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/9999/ffxi20110130135659.png
http://img847.imageshack.us/img847/8087/ffxi20110702222804.png
http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/2705/ffxi20101219144838.png
http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/5097/ffxi20101224125726.png
http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/7236/ffxi20110411213235.png



I don't believe there is a MAB cap.


Me neither.

[TimeMage]

There isn't MAB cap, or if there is, it can't be reached even with a brew.

And BTW, for epeen screenshots... Magic bursting Qutrubs is the way to go! :P

[Ahrana]

And I have another request, even though it's minor at best. I think scholars (and black mages) should be given access to the weaponskills that have been set aside for whm, pld, smn and mnk. It's annoying to have to sub white mage to have access to cataclysm, and not being able to hit staff red triggers as scholar is somewhat insulting.

[Raksha]

And BTW, for epeen screenshots... Magic bursting Qutrubs is the way to go! :P

Hmmmmmmmmmmm

[Arcalimo]

I'll just leave this here.

Instead of Merton, that seems just like another helix spell, you could add a spell more unique for the 2h.
Scholar's are good at controling the weather and could exploit this knowledge to cause a "Disaster"

Target: Single (stackable with stratagems)
Effect: Deals earth/water/wind/fire/ice/thunder/light/dark damage (based on Sch's level)
Aditional effect: Klimasphere (Party members around the SCH temporally get all weathers effects, including stormsurge bonuses)
Usage Level: X (Under the effects of Tabula Rasa, can be used only once)
Skill Type: Elemental Magic
Damage of each element calculated alone.

Example:
At max level could be something like this:

Scholar cast Disaster.
Enemy takes 1000 points of earth damage.
Enemy takes 1000 points of water damage.
Enemy takes 1000 points of wind damage.
Enemy takes 1000 points of fire damage.
Enemy takes 1000 points of ice damage.
Enemy takes 1000 points of thunder damage.
Enemy takes 1000 points of light damage.
Enemy takes 1000 points of dark damage.

It wouldn't be too overpowered considering that some jobs already can do 8k, or more, of damage with their's 2h, and that some enemys may resist damage from some elements or even be healed by some of them.

Also, i think that we should be able to cast brave and faith w/o the need of 2 hour ability.

[Merton9999]

Well, see, you still gotta call it Merton! :)

Yeah I'm not too excited about a 2-hour helix spell even if it has the best spell name in FF history. I'll wait to see the effects but I like your idea of a multi-element nuke better. I'm hoping SE implements something along these lines eventually, whether it's simple dual-element nukes or some mega all-element 2-hour nuke. I especially like your tie to weather and natural disasters, like we've learn to cause them by manipulating weather for 59 levels.

EDIT: Merton is listed as Dark magic skill, not necessarily dark element. I wonder what element it will be - maybe you'll actually get your all-element spell in helix form...

I'd have to think about an all-element nuke a bit (what staff do you use? What mobs would it not be useful in due to resistance/absorption?), but it sounds interesting at first read.

As far as Brave and Faith, I'll have to see potency first. I totally agree with you if Brave just ends up to be a simplified combination spell with the same potency as Adloquium + Haste + Regen.

[georgcantor316]

yay first post! there are only a few things that I really don't like about scholar, course these are just my opinions but. The worst is probably elemental celerity, I hate running with blms and they cast what feels like at least a third faster than I do on elemental spells. I feel like an inept douche when I start casting, blm runs up starts casting after me and gets it off still.
Another thing, this is obvious, but we need something taht approximates cure V. Although I do feel like I can cure better than a rdm or ne other expect whm.
The dark arts strategems kind of bug me as well, I feel like I'm always having to choose strats that increase my endurance over increasing my epeen.
I also feel that I can't help but under-utilize immanence, between staff swapping and then having to use too many strats to make immanence effective, unless there is pty co-op, makes me feel like the consept is flawed.
Also I think given the dependency on the strats there should be some sort of JT that occ. doesn't use a charge when I've used a strat.
I also think the mathematics in regards to the helix spells are horrendous but there you are.

[Economizer]

And I have another request, even though it's minor at best. I think scholars (and black mages) should be given access to the weaponskills that have been set aside for whm, pld, smn and mnk. It's annoying to have to sub white mage to have access to cataclysm, and not being able to hit staff red triggers as scholar is somewhat insulting.

Summoner does not get Cataclysm or most of the Staff weakness triggers either. The only classes that get all staff WS natively, without having to sub one of these classes is WAR, MNK, PLD, and WHM. This is because these classes are recognized as relying more on damage dealing with melee then nuking.

If you want to melee, you have to sacrifice something for that ability. In this case, you have to sacrifice spells like Sleepga or Phallanx and job traits like Magic Attack Bonus.

As a White Mage you have to make similar trade offs, such as choosing between /BLM for Warp/Stun/Sleep2/Tractor/Ice Spikes, /RDM for Refresh/Convert/Phallanx/Ice Spikes, or SCH for Light Arts/Sublimation/Strategems. If White Mage natively got Light Arts/Sublimation/Strategems, Scholars would be screaming bloody murder. I don't see why White Mage should have to make difficult choices about their subs if other jobs don't.

[Sotek]

If White Mage natively got Light Arts/Sublimation/Strategems, Scholars would be screaming bloody murder. I don't see why White Mage should have to make difficult choices about their subs if other jobs don't.

I'd say comparing giving Scholar a decent Weapon Skill lineup for Stagger procs to giving White Mage Light Arts, Sublimation and Stratagems is one of the dumbest things I've read, but sadly it isn't. It would probably hold more weight if White Mage wasn't already the sole source of healing power in the game, not to mention out meleeing what is arguably meant to be a melee mage. I'm sure SE has plans to make Banish IV and Holy II out do Meteor in terms of damage, too.

Seriously, the only reason I can imagine you'd come back with that kind of response to "Give Scholar Weapon Skills that do no damage" is because you don't want Scholar stepping on your precious toes. Honestly, at this point I'm ready to sledgehammer them.

[Economizer]

Please, reread what I said, hopefully after having some Chai or something to calm you down. The point of it is that each sub job has trade offs. Part of the package with /WHM is losing nuking power for more melee power, and currently, but very temporarily, Haste. I suppose there are also some very situational advantages involving not having to pop Add. White.

Should I have mentioned this more clearly then I already very clearly did, by say, mentioning them by name? Maybe. But it isn't something to get upset about. Please don't take things so personally, and if you do, don't get into a toe smashing contest with a White Mage. You won't ever win, they excel at smashing things with sledgehammers.

I really hope you aren't saying SCHOLAR is supposed to be a melee mage. Perhaps you mean Red Mage. But lets get this clear. White Mage has very useless nukes. Even the White Mages asking for the spells know that Banish IV and Holy II aren't going to do hardly any damage and will eat a ton of MP. In the end, Paladin is probably going to be more effective with them, provided when their job timer resets. White Mage, like every other class in this game, deserves a little bit of damage output. Both Scholar and Red Mage get varying levels of solid nuking power. White Mage does not. White Mage currently has very shakey rolls to back up on if we fall back into the dark ages of Colibri burn parties. Thus, White Mage is the mage with the most raw melee power, as this fits game balance.

Anyways, I didn't ever say that Scholar should have no damage weapon skills, White Mage was already given a few of those, and I can tell you that White Mages aren't so unkind to wish such harm on anyone. Without having to trade off anything in subs, Scholar already gets access to Spirit Taker and Retribution, two very solid WS. If you wish to get access to magic WS, you have to make a trade off however. I'm really sorry if this is frustrating, but that's game balance, and not something to get too upset about.

Although, if you really want to get a solid magical WS with no real tradeoffs, you could just sub Red Mage and merit Dagger a bit. You'll also get Phalanx, which really helps with AOE WS if you plan on farming in Abyssea with it, and even a crappy level 12 knife can put out major numbers with this WS, but you can equip a Blau Dolch. In Abyssea, Minikin/Gales/Beyond will augment this nicely while still filling out your role with easy, although you may find some other combination to your liking.

Omniscience is something else that comes to mind, I think it might be a elemental WS, but I don't actually have a lot of information about it at this time, so I can't really help you here. If anything should be a good damaging WS for Scholar, it would be that. Perhaps this could be the damage tool you may be looking for.

[Sotek]

The point of it is that each sub job has trade offs. Part of the package with /WHM is losing nuking power for more melee power, and currently, but very temporarily, Haste. I suppose there are also some very situational advantages involving not having to pop Add. White./White Mage doesn't add melee power, it adds two pathetic Weapon Skills and one OK one. /Warrior would add melee power and the Weapon Skills, to my knowledge. There is no trade off for melee power with /White Mage, if we're meleeing we're already trading off nukes. A main Black Mage would trade off Elemental Celerity, all its MAB and Magic Crit if it choose to melee because you can't nuke and melee at the same time. All the subjobs you mention are ones I'd already have to take into consideration anyway, regardless of wither I grew a brain tumor and decided to melee.


I really hope you aren't saying SCHOLAR is supposed to be a melee mage. Perhaps you mean Red Mage. But lets get this clear. White Mage has *** all for nukes. Even the White Mages asking for the spells know that Banish IV and Holy II aren't going to do hardly any damage and will eat a ton of MP.Of course I'm talking about Red Mage. It has *** all for nukes compared to Scholar or Black Mage (which are *** compared to any DD in the game). *** all for Enfeebles pending the the changes in future update in which Scholar is also getting a bunch of new Enfeebles and my Phalanxga out shines its Phalanx II (and if SE is changing merits, I wouldn't be surprised if Phalanx II becomes a AoE spell that outdoes Phalanx, meaning my only role in the game is gone). Oh, and I already mentioned that what's meant to be a back line main healer and glass cannon (I'm talking about White Mage here incase you need some help with common sense) far out does it in terms of melee.


Although, if you really want to get a solid magical WS with no real tradeoffs, you could just sub Red Mage and merit Dagger a bit./Red Mage and do Dagger procs? That'd be great, I never have a Thief in my parties. Sarcasm, in case you missed it.


You'll also get Phalanx, which really helps with AOE WS if you plan on farming in Abyssea with it, and even a crappy level 12 knife can put out major numbers with this WS, but you can equip a Blau Dolch. In Abyssea, Minikin/Gales/Beyond will augment this nicely while still filling out your role with easy, although you may find some other combination to your liking.You may want to name a Weapon Skill rather than just saying "This WS", I'm not a mind reader. I can only assume you mean Aeolian Edge, which may be a valid point, but I'd still rather have access to Weapon Skills on my C+ weapon rather than my D skilled weapon.


White Mage currently has very shakey rolls to back up on if we fall back into the dark ages of Colibri burn parties. Thus, White Mage is the mage with the most raw melee power, as this fits game balance.White Mage has a absolute role in this game, compared to Scholar which has absolutely no role. It's the only real healer in the game, everything else doesn't stand a chance. If you're worried about Colibri burn parties coming back, look at the *** game. I can cap every job and merits in a couple of weeks. End game events are tossing out 15k EXP and everyone has auto-Reraise III, this game is never going back to merit parties so get *** over yourself, White Mage is the single most vital job in this game and apart from a very brief spell in ToAU, it always has been. It doesn't deserve melee power in the slightest. It doesn't even deserve updates anymore; not until SE can make a single job rival it for even a second, anyway.


Anyways, I didn't ever say that Scholar should have no damage weapon skills, White Mage was already given a few of those, and I can tell you that White Mages aren't so unkind to wish such harm on anyone.Primarily we want Weapon Skills for red Stagger because in terms of Abyssea, something Scholar is completely lacking any viable role in. I'd rather have Helices proc yellow like they should, but I'm not going to turn down Weapon Skills. Earth Crusher and Sunburst aren't going to break the game or even effect balance in the slightest. Even if we got Cataclysm it wont do anything to effect game balance at all, as you've said we already get a couple of damaging Staff Weapon Skills, one more isn't going to change a thing.
The only reason anyone would want a full set of Weapon Skills on Scholar is for Immanence, which is stupid since in the time you waste meleeing for TP you could easily out damage your eventual Skill Chain with a couple of nukes. There is zero reason for Scholar to melee in this game and giving it three Weapon Skills isn't going to give it one. You could give Scholar Drakesbane but it still isn't going to equip a non-existent (or event) Polearm to melee just because it's got a great Weapon Skill for it.

How you get all defensive about the idea of Scholar having access to Weapon Skills that are not going to push Scholar into a melee oriented role in a thousand years is quite honestly beyond me. White Mage can equip a Club and Shield or two Clubs and practically solo anything thanks to Cure V and VI, which as I've said, is something it shouldn't even be able to do. Even if Scholar suddenly got a A+ in Staff (currently it has the same level of skill as White Mage) and could Triplewield the damn things, it's not going to be managing that. Grow *** up and stop pretending that Earth Crusher and Sunburst are going to have any effect on the balance (or lack off) between Scholar and White Mage in any way.

[sigma_star]

Nothing that hasn't been stated before, but I'd at least say it again to put in my vote - strength in numbers...

1)
Sch needs cure v or some equivalent, or SE at least needs to do us the courtesy of updating the Sch description to reflect what it really does (not) have for healing at end game.

2)
Until we start getting invites for the unique aspects of the class (I'll skip on naming them all), those unique aspects are underpowered. The empirical evidence speaks much louder than the loudest subjective opinion anyone has.
It doesn't really matter how "unique" something is if it's not useful, and if no group really cares if they have it or not.

[Eric]

Until we start getting invites for the unique aspects of the class (I'll skip on naming them all), those unique aspects are underpowered. The empirical evidence speaks much louder than the loudest subjective opinion anyone has.
It doesn't really matter how "unique" something is if it's not useful, and if no group really cares if they have it or not.
One of the saddest facts about the game when it comes to what people choose for their parties/alliances/LSes: people don't care for jack-of-all-trades jobs.

Look at the census: http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/guide/development/census/10/2.html
The 4 least popular jobs are jobs that are unique because of their versatility; however, people don't care about that, because they only care about jobs that specialize in what they do.

In the case of SCH, if people want a nuker, they'll invite a BLM; if they want a healer, they'll invite WHM; if they want someone to enfeeble & buff their party, they'll invite a RDM.

The same could be said about COR, PUP, and BLU, who can all fill different positions in a party. The only reason I would say BLU is at the top of this list is because people require BLU for grellow procs in Abyssea, and even then, according to the census, it's still not a terribly popular job.

So if we can't rely on SCH to be more accepted by the population based off of the job's versatility, SE can do one of two things:

1) Make it a truly unique job that can bring something USEFUL**** to the party that no other job can do.
2) Simply make it much more better at what it currently specializes in (MP conservation, AoE buffing/debuffing, and using the elements strategically (to buff party & nuke enemies)).


It seems like SE's introduction of Libra and the Animus spells was a half-baked attempt at #1, because not only does the manifesto completely lack any reference to any sort of enmity control, but previous to the 80 cap increase, SCH had not seen any sort of indication that it would play a role in controlling party enmity.

#2 is pretty straightforward, and SE seems to be taking some initiative in that direction with some of the stuff we've heard (increasing the effect of Light/Dark Arts according to levels), but I would really like to see some more storm/helix type spells that rely on the power of the elements. I want SCH to be able to pinpoint an enemy's weakness and use it to their advantage (more so than just using a spell that an enemy is weak to).

[georgcantor316]

Was in a campaign battle and for the first time in a long time I felt like I had an advantage to being a sch exclusive to sch. The NM was casting breakga frequently and my lil stonaga was saving the day. >.> ! Which lead me to think a simple buff to help make sch exclusive and useful and what not is to make ascension capable of buffing the alliance. It wouldn't be too powerful cuz people can sub it and do it. I know someone has probably had this idea before but I'm just seconding(x) that. Just had to share that I felt good being on sch for once lol. >.>b

[Merton9999]

Was in a campaign battle and for the first time in a long time I felt like I had an advantage to being a sch exclusive to sch. The NM was casting breakga frequently and my lil stonaga was saving the day. >.> ! Which lead me to think a simple buff to help make sch exclusive and useful and what not is to make ascension capable of buffing the alliance. It wouldn't be too powerful cuz people can sub it and do it. I know someone has probably had this idea before but I'm just seconding(x) that. Just had to share that I felt good being on sch for once lol. >.>b

I'm too lazy to look it up right now but I remember this specifically from the community rep post as the (last item?). They said no. I'm filing it in the "would be nice" bin but have also always had it in the "not going to ask because I think it's too far fetched" bin.

I always loved stonaga specifically in campaign too. It's not really exclusive to SCH. WHM/SCH can do it too, but of course with less strategems available. Maybe you were referring to the frequency/reliability with which SCH can do this?

I don't really find a problem being useful on SCH outside Abyssea, or many complaints when I insist on coming SCH. We all scoff at Adloquium's lolPotency but it's pretty nice to start out the tank/dd party in BC alliances outside Abyssea with full TP, and people do actually appreciate this. I also get some nice smiles from WHMs with Korin Obi in and out of Aby. With that and Twilight Cape on the target SCH can give a pretty potent boost to cures. These couple things aren't game breaking, though, and mostly just useful outside Aby, so I'm not downgrading my insistence that SCH be a viable healer for new end game. We still have the MP efficiency card, if that is made relevant again. Honestly, though, I'd rather that not continue to be an excuse for gimping unique contributions.

I can't figure out where the WS arguments are coming from. I couldn't have cared less for this job. I understand the desire to have a useful role in Abyssea, but I really don't find a lack of WS coverage happening when I'm on SCH.

It did get me thinking, though. I want to finish a Yama's for Merton. I'm guessing it will be dark element, not just dark magic. From what I understand Cataclysm is the best way to do this, and I really don't want to do it on WHM or /WHM. I don't know why, maybe just because I hate WHM outfits so much, and really don't want to stare at it for the duration of a magian trial! Oh well, they are planning to adjust how WS's work, so I'd be pleasantly surprised if SCH got native access to it.

[Merton9999]

Incidentally, has anyone thought about what double weather capabilities would mean for SCH cure potency vs. WHM? We'd push Korin Obi up to 25% on a single piece alone. Together with Twilight cape that's a 30% bonus that is not subject to the 50% gear cap, right? If I have all the pieces right it's 68% cure potency bonus to SCH cure spells (without Rapture), where WHM would be stuck at the 50% cap without a SCH or the ability to sub Aurorastorm.

My solution would just be to remove the cap. I haven't done a whole gear evaluation for WHM but I think 70% is possible without weather.

[TimeMage]

Obi bonus is multiplicative with "cure potency" bonus and cloak bonus. So, a basic 15% potency set for SCH (staff + serpentes set) plus obi plus cape, on single weather is 1.15*1.05*1.1 = 33% extra amount of HP healed, and with double weather is 1.15*1.05*1.25 = 50% extra amount of HP healed.

[Merton9999]

Nice, yeah I see that now in the Wiki formula, thanks. So if you had the max available cure potency gear for SCH, you'd get:

1.38*1.1*1.05 = 1.59 or 59%

and with double weather:

1.38*1.25*1.05 = 1.81 or 81%

lol@ 81% cure potency with double weather.

EDIT:
Would the cape and obi be applied together as one percent? The formula has day and weather applying separately after gear, but it's not clear what happens with the cape. In other words is it gear * 1.1*1.05 or gear*1.15? I don't think it matters for single weather but for the whopping 25% double weather bonus it would only be 79%, not 81%.

[sigma_star]

Nice, yeah I see that now in the Wiki formula, thanks. So if you had the max available cure potency gear for SCH, you'd get:

1.38*1.1*1.05 = 1.59 or 59%

and with double weather:

1.38*1.25*1.05 = 1.81 or 81%

lol@ 81% cure potency with double weather.

EDIT:
Would the cape and obi be applied together as one percent? The formula has day and weather applying separately after gear, but it's not clear what happens with the cape. In other words is it gear * 1.1*1.05 or gear*1.15? I don't think it matters for single weather but for the whopping 25% double weather bonus it would only be 79%, not 81%.

You should really multiply that double weather 25% bonus by the (in)frequency of it occurring to get a more realistic overall percentage. In my experience with sch when I hear the words "in double weather", I pretty much ignore it as too circumstantial.

[Raksha]

Nice, yeah I see that now in the Wiki formula, thanks. So if you had the max available cure potency gear for SCH, you'd get:

1.38*1.1*1.05 = 1.59 or 59%

and with double weather:

1.38*1.25*1.05 = 1.81 or 81%

lol@ 81% cure potency with double weather.

EDIT:
Would the cape and obi be applied together as one percent? The formula has day and weather applying separately after gear, but it's not clear what happens with the cape. In other words is it gear * 1.1*1.05 or gear*1.15? I don't think it matters for single weather but for the whopping 25% double weather bonus it would only be 79%, not 81%.

Cape is a seperate term, so (single weather, no day) obi + cape would be 1.1 * 1.05.

[Economizer]

You should really multiply that double weather 25% bonus by the (in)frequency of it occurring to get a more realistic overall percentage. In my experience with sch when I hear the words "in double weather", I pretty much ignore it as too circumstantial.

He was proposing a situation where Scholar would get new weather spells that add double weather.

Speaking of which, Scholar can cap cure potency inside Abyssea. Meaning that with full cure potentcy, and the appropriate gear to help with weather, 73% potency, and if they got double weather, a 96% potency. With the reachable 73% you could toss out ~700 damage Cure IV, or Rapture for ~1000 damage, depending on MND and VIT. Double weather effects would mean that total cure potency would beat out a White Mage including fully buffed cureskin, in terms of potency. Getting Cure V at any time during this would obsolete White Mage outside of procing Holy and Banish III, assuming you or someone else in your party is /WHM.

[sigma_star]

Thanks for the clarification.

In my experience your strategems go fast if you try to main heal on a big boss, so Rapture is nice but not always there. Sometimes you would have to be healing cure iv + Rapture every time or you will fall behind without more support. Also, whm has aoe heal without needing strategems.

Additionally, whm has cure vi now, and there's no way a sch can beat that.

[Merton9999]

You should really multiply that double weather 25% bonus by the (in)frequency of it occurring to get a more realistic overall percentage. In my experience with sch when I hear the words "in double weather", I pretty much ignore it as too circumstantial.

Do you mean a weather proc would be infrequent even with Korin Obi or that double weather would be infrequent? If it's the latter Economizer answered that - I'm pointing out what will happen if the suggestion mentioned many times here were implemented and SCH somehow could provide double weather effects. If it's the former, for clarification if anyone doesn't know, Korin Obi forces the weather bonus to proc 100% of the time so there would be no infrequency of weather bonus occurring in single or double weather as long as Aurorastorm was up. The cape is then forced to proc by the obi.

@Raksha
Thanks for the cape clarification. So we really would be up to 81% outside Aby if double weather were added.

[OuShiroHeart]

Hello everyone,
I just wanted to clear up your misunderstanding of twilight cape, it is not separate from other day/weather effects ^^
I can post pictures if you like, but I think it is easy enough for you all t test yourselves.
For me, Cure IV alone cures 532HP
Using light weather, it becomes 585HP (532*1.1)
Adding twilight cape becomes 611HP (532*1.15)
532*1.1*1.05 would be 614HP instead

[Economizer]

*Edit: I'm not changing all my numbers again to reflect more information about the Twilight Cape in relation weather obi. I've already had to do that twice with previous posts this week from learning more about how they're effects work. Thus, some of the cure potency numbers might be a percentage point or two higher then they should be.

AOE cures are nice in the rare situations that you use them, however rare this is. The only situation I constantly come up to with this is in Campaign Battle, where the only way to do it is stratagem or bust.

That said, unlike with single target curing, where any lead White Mage would have is crushed the second someone with the same or better cure potency gets Cure V, even if Scholar could Accession every cure spell without spending any stratagems, the White Mage AF3 pants pretty much give out free cures. I'm not holding my breath for situations where this is both true and beneficial to do so on a regular basis.


Additionally, whm has cure vi now, and there's no way a sch can beat that.

Why do Scholars think that Cure VI is a good spell? Even as a WHM/SCH in Abyssea with decent gear, and some refresh atmas, if you spam Cure VI, you will run out of MP. Outside, if you use it, outside of an "oh crap" moment that shouldn't come up more then once every say, two hours (huh, I wonder what would cover that?), you are a scrub White Mage who should pay attention. The spell is currently less efficient then Cure II (the most inefficient single target cure in the game previously) in MP efficiency (only barely beating Cure II in extremely high Mind setups), something that only Curaga spells used on single cure targets can beat. Inside Abyssea, the spell is essentially a second Cure V timer that has a slight healing bonus and should ideally never be used. Even if you use a Primeval Brew, the spell is less efficient then Cure V, and I cannot stress enough that relying on it beyond the occasional "oh crap" moment is very, very bad practice. Essentially, if the group you run with isn't complete garbage at this game, and you aren't complete garbage, Cure V would let you do everything a White Mage can.

Cureskin is also not going to make that big a difference either if you get Cure V. Inside Abyssea you can reach 73% cure potency, and outside you will be able to maintain healing for longer without support, while still getting around 59% cure potency, or 50% if you don't have any of the ASA gear. And of course, if you ever need the extra edge, don't forget you can drop a stratagem a little over once a minute too, which will make up for any remaining difference, not counting things like being able to AOE Phalanx to counter any remaining advantages. Outside of this the only major tool a White Mage for healing/buffing left is slightly better magic defense.

Cure V leaves a very strange position in terms of balance for SE. If Scholar ever gets it, White Mage would need a buff or risk being obsolete. But currently, Scholar is very short on healing power inside Abyssea. Perhaps SE has a solution in mind, but constantly clamoring for Cure V is as futile as White Mage during the peak of the meriphos crying out for Refresh, at least for the time being. Having your nemesis be Atmos isn't so bad though, at least Scholar wasn't taken down by little pink birds.

[Merton9999]

Yep that's actually what I'm seeing too. Every iteration I try shows day, weather and cape bonus forced by obi to be added first, then multiplied by the gear enhanced value. Light Day + Aurorastorm + Obi + Cape I get a multiplier of 1.25 over my naked cure.

Uh oh, we're back to 79 instead of 81. We definitely need double weather and Cure V now!

[TimeMage]

Regarding the topic of super-buffed Cure IVs, (which btw, inside abyssea, lightsday, theoretical double weather, capped cure potency and AF3+2 hat bonus, could go up to 1300 HP healed), no one is taking into account one key factor: ENMITY. A Cure IV of that magnitude is going to get the attention of the NM real fast, no matter how much -enmity gear you accumulate. Sure, in longer fights even WHM using Cure V will reach the hate cap, but mega Cure IVs are a real quick way to cap your enmity as a healer >_>

[Economizer]

But that's why SCH has an enmity spell. :p

Seriously, as long as your tank is hitting the mob, and you aren't, you should be fine. The only times I take hate as a White Mage, despite very obviously being near the hate cap, are when the tank dies, or when the tank stops hitting the mob for a significant period of time so someone can proc a stubborn mob. I can use Cure IV a lot in Abyssea, but since I don't use it and not Cure V, I really can't say. Perhaps I'm wrong. That said, as a White Mage, I used to fear casting Cure IV. Between Tranquil Heart and tanks having super capped hate, I now use the spell quite liberally, and my ideal fight is one where I can get away with only casting Cure IV. I sincerely hope that enmity doesn't become a problem for Scholars in Abyssea who are only curing, even if you are in a party where your throwing out Rapture'd Cure IV bombs on a theoretical 30 second strat timer while spamming it every other chance you get too.

[TimeMage]

It's been a while since I main healed anything in abyssea, thanks to one of our group members leveling WHM to 90 (hint: that's when we started being able to do the cool NMs), but I managed to pull hate quite often as SCH back then because you have to spam Cure IV so much. and still, when I'm not on WAR and I'm on SCH to help healing and with -nas, I STILL get pretty paranoid if I have to start using Cure IV too much.

I'd use Libra to gauge that but, you know... THE RANGE IS STUPID >_>

[Sotek]

But that's why SCH has an enmity spell.

Animus spells suck. They're both a complete waste of MP, +/-10 Enmity that doesn't even work outside regular Enmity gear was the dumbest idea SE had since Libra.
Animus Augeo should have been +# VE/tic and Minuo -#CE/tic, listen up SE. Even 1/tic would be an improvement from what we currently have.

I don't particularly think Cure Potency is an issue for Scholar even without capping and any weather. My main issue with having just Cure IV is that I only have Cure IV. If someone's going to die when I'm main healing, it's because I have to wait several seconds between Cures, not because I'm not healing enough. That or I pull hate because SE loves irony.
I really don't get what's so hard about balancing Cure V for Scholar. Take the enmity reduction away, I'm already pulling hate with Cure IV and Cure V would only make things worse. I just want a second healing spell so I don't have to stand their for four bloody seconds when the shit hits the fan. There's no way it would threaten White Mages position, I'd actually have to think about using the spell.


Even as a WHM/SCH in Abyssea with decent gear, and some refresh atmas, if you spam Cure VI, you will run out of MP. Outside, if you use it, outside of an "oh crap" moment that shouldn't come up more then once every say, two hours (huh, I wonder what would cover that?), you are a scrub White Mage who should pay attention.

I don't buy running out of MP in Abyssea from spamming Cure V/VI, not unless you're excessively spamming them (as in the tank has 5HP and you're using Cure VI just because). Between Red Mage and Bard you shouldn't even run out of MP outside Abyssea, hell fights shouldn't even last that long anymore anyway. The MP efficiency of Cure VI really doesn't matter that much, not you're not going to spam it - as you say its for emergencies typically - you'll spam Cure V. How is it I can't use Cure V the way White Mage should treat Cure VI?


And of course, if you ever need the extra edge, don't forget you can drop a stratagem a little over once a minute too, which will make up for any remaining difference, not counting things like being able to AOE Phalanx to counter any remaining advantages.

Just a heads up, I can't use Accession (and maybe Perpetuance), run up to the tank/DDs, cast Phalanx and run back while casting Cure IV. Same argument for any other Accession buff. Christ I haven't had to say this since these forums were first set up.
Really, Cureskin is great if only because it lets you give a decent buff at the same time as Curing. When people complain at Scholars wanting to be able to do too much at a time when we clearly can't cast Thunder V, Cure IV and Phalanxga at the same time, it gets a little irritating to see people scoff at the ability to do just that (not the Thunder V but you get the idea) on their job.

[Economizer]

Animus spells suck.

Did you read what I said? I was clearly joking about the fact that they suck. But whatever, enmity decay is actually a good suggestion.

[Foxclon]

Hello Scholars!

Today, we have finally caught "Merton" in action! Please check out this brand new spell and its effect by giving a simple click to the following video.

<object width="560" height="349"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/GvZN3rOSEHk?version=3&amp;hl=ja_JP"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/GvZN3rOSEHk?version=3&amp;hl=ja_JP" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="349" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>

[Fredjan]

Wow... that's awesome, I approve!

[Eric]

OMGOMGOMGOMOGM

[Quetzacoatl]

HOLY F#%@! That's Dark Elemental, isn't it...AND DID WE JUST SEE TWO HITS IN AN AOE?!

...urge to level SCH rising...

[Darkwizardzin]

Hello Scholars!

Today, we have finally caught "Merton" in action! Please check out this brand new spell and its effect by giving a simple click to the following video.

wooooooo merton!!

Also no fair how come we can't post videos.

[Eric]

HOLY F#%@! That's Dark Elemental, isn't it...AND DID WE JUST SEE TWO HITS IN AN AOE?!

...urge to level SCH rising...

I don't think it was two hits. From what I remember, it's been stated that Merton will leave a strong DoT effect on the mob you cast it on.

[Xellith]

Hello Scholars!

Today, we have finally caught "Merton" in action! Please check out this brand new spell and its effect by giving a simple click to the following video.


that sch has no mp!

[Cymmina]

A dark magic spell that does about double to triple of what an ordinary helix does, and we can only use it once per 2 hours (depending on JA resets).

Let's be honest, no one invites a job because of their 2hour. The exception is SMN, and only for Perfect Defense (ask a SMN when the last time they got invited for Zantetsuken was, other than gimp Abyssea EXP groups who think it's cool). It's nice, but will do nothing to increase demand for SCH.

[Unctgtg]

OMG I just did a Vanilla Ice REMIX, get up and dance

[TimeMage]

Looks really, really cool! And hopefully, it's as powerful as cool. Thanks for the video!

[Unctgtg]

But remember this is under the effect of our two hr correct

[Economizer]

Let's be honest, no one invites a job because of their 2hour. The exception is SMN, and only for Perfect Defense (ask a SMN when the last time they got invited for Zantetsuken was, other than gimp Abyssea EXP groups who think it's cool). It's nice, but will do nothing to increase demand for SCH.

Warrior gets a pretty nice boost to AOE WS using Fell Cleave. But for exp parties, 2hour abilities aren't really what you get invited for. For NM on the other hand (and I'm not talking about weakling Abyssea seal NMs), jobs get invited to 2hour for various reasons. SAM, DRK, PLD, THF, SMN, RDM all come to mind.

Considering that one of the biggest complaints I hear from SCH is not being invited to do stuff, adding a powerful and unique ability to assist in zerging stuff down shouldn't be dismissed as useless. But I have a feeling that short of obsoleting other classes (even if boo hoo you can only obsolete one class at a time), some Scholars (not all, but some) will never be happy. I'm not sorry your class is no longer better then White Mage at curing or Black Mage at nuking. I'm also not sorry your class doesn't have the same ability as either of these classes, and no, only being able to be the same as one of this classes at a time due to Light Arts or Dark Arts does not count as balanced either.

If Brave and Merton are both significantly powerful, prepare to see Scholar get a unique position in endgame content as the premier zerg and zerg support class, in addition to its other incredibly potent roles it already has. Boosting the usefulness of Scholar's unique abilities and giving it more unique abilities is definitely the way to go for a more powerful and unique Scholar.

[Unctgtg]

Warrior gets a pretty nice boost to AOE WS using Fell Cleave. But for exp parties, 2hour abilities aren't really what you get invited for. For NM on the other hand (and I'm not talking about weakling Abyssea seal NMs), jobs get invited to 2hour for various reasons. SAM, DRK, PLD, THF, SMN, RDM all come to mind.

Considering that one of the biggest complaints I hear from SCH is not being invited to do stuff, adding a powerful and unique ability to assist in zerging stuff down shouldn't be dismissed as useless. But I have a feeling that short of obsoleting other classes (even if boo hoo you can only obsolete one class at a time), some Scholars (not all, but some) will never be happy. I'm not sorry your class is no longer better then White Mage at curing or Black Mage at nuking. I'm also not sorry your class doesn't have the same ability as either of these classes, and no, only being able to be the same as one of this classes at a time due to Light Arts or Dark Arts does not count as balanced either.

If Brave and Merton are both significantly powerful, prepare to see Scholar get a unique position in endgame content as the premier zerg and zerg support class, in addition to its other incredibly potent roles it already has. Boosting the usefulness of Scholar's unique abilities and giving it more unique abilities is definitely the way to go for a more powerful and unique Scholar.

I love my sch cause it lets me nuke, cure, support all in the same. I don't need to be the main nuker, I don';t need to be the main healer, etc. I like assisting and making other jobs better. And nothing beats a helix :)

[Raksha]

My twilight cape info was outdated, it isn't a seperate term. Kirschy failed me ;_;

Also am I the only one who noticed that the Initial damage of Merton did much more damage than the DoT? Looks like it isn't going to be an Uber Helix. Looked like the DoT ticked faster than a helix also

EDIT:

Lots of replies since yesterday @_@. A few thoughts:

1) Cure6 is pretty terrible
2) Enmity is only a problem without DD tanks
3) Cure potency isnt SCHs biggest problem it's recast timer on cure4. Cure5 is the easiest fix, but isn't the only one.
4) One of the bigst problems with SCH is that most SCHs have whm and/or BLM levelled also. So if you need a healer you'd come WHM or if you need a nuker you'd come BLM. This is the case with every SCH in my endgame LS (except me!).

[Bubeeky]

can we whms get a little manifesto love? some jobs have been given multiple updates and we haven't even gotten one :(

PS I know this isn't the whm forum, but obviously the devs are paying more attention to sch forums than whm, so here's hopin' <crosses taru paws>

[Unctgtg]

can we whms get a little manifesto love? some jobs have been given multiple updates and we haven't even gotten one :(

PS I know this isn't the whm forum, but obviously the devs are paying more attention to sch forums than whm, so here's hopin' <crosses taru paws>

Whms will probably get something cool :)

[Calamity]

Cool as the spell looks... I just can't get over that it's named "Merton". How could you take someone serious who threatens to use "Merton" on you? -.-

[Alhanelem]

A dark magic spell that does about double to triple of what an ordinary helix does, and we can only use it once per 2 hours (depending on JA resets).

Let's be honest, no one invites a job because of their 2hour. The exception is SMN, and only for Perfect Defense (ask a SMN when the last time they got invited for Zantetsuken was, other than gimp Abyssea EXP groups who think it's cool). It's nice, but will do nothing to increase demand for SCH.
Who cares? It's awesome. Stop being such a party pooper. And I use Zantetsuken all the time. There are times when it can save your butt; and an exp group doesn't have to be "gimp" to "think it's cool." Given the high frequency of 2-hour chests, that's a lot of instant kills.

You're right that no one gets invited for their 2hour. The 2hour by itself isn't something that should attract anyone to a job. 2-hours are generally just strong tools to help out in a bind. They don't define the whole job...

Now, it would have been better to see the spell used on something stronger, but at least it gives us a good idea how powerful it is.

[Raksha]

Who cares? It's awesome. Stop being such a party pooper. And I use Zantetsuken all the time. There are times when it can save your butt; and an exp group doesn't have to be "gimp" to "think it's cool." Given the high frequency of 2-hour chests, that's a lot of instant kills.

You're right that no one gets invited for their 2hour. The 2hour by itself isn't something that should attract anyone to a job. 2-hours are generally just strong tools to help out in a bind. They don't define the whole job...

Now, it would have been better to see the spell used on something stronger, but at least it gives us a good idea how powerful it is.

It looked to me to be about as powerful as a good t5 nuke, with a hefty DoT (non-helix-like DoT). Only awesome part I see is that it is AoE'able. That alone makes it awesome.

[Sotek]

If that video is anything to go by (and it isn't since I still remember the AV strategy video), Merton easily replaces Black Mage in Abyssea for Azure/Chest farming, it basically one shots everything.

Still, it is impressive even if it may be highly exaggerated. I can only hope Brave offers similar results.

PS. Boo at derailing a topic on Cure V and how crap Animus spells are.


PS I know this isn't the whm forum, but obviously the devs are paying more attention to sch forums than whm, so here's hopin' <crosses taru paws>

When your job actually has need for an update you'll get one. Until then enjoy being the single most needed job in the damn game for ten years running.

[Economizer]

I love my sch cause it lets me nuke, cure, support all in the same. I don't need to be the main nuker, I don';t need to be the main healer, etc. I like assisting and making other jobs better. And nothing beats a helix :)

Thank you for not being one of the vocal "give me everything, and balance can home point!" Or worse, someone who doesn't remember meriphos or what else happened at 75. I appreciate it, and it I hope that Scholar gets more fun abilities outside of the new two hour stuff.

I have to say that the Helix spells are definitely something very nice, and they synergize well with the weather spells, which was something else I've always liked about Scholar. I definitely hope that improvements to Scholar are as outstanding as these two faucets of the job.

I hope Scholar gets more Helix type spells.

I've never understood why Scholar's TP spell was so terrible. I think that even if SE refused to increase the potency too significantly, doing something like moving its tics to match that of a Helix spell would be a much better move for example. This way you'd at least get 3 TP every ten seconds, which is more likely to help a WS on someone building TP very quickly. Of course, if the spell was also more potent, this would also work well, without just becoming Meditate (since the spell can't currently get Raptured, wouldn't 10TP every ten seconds be more fair? Or if it was allowed to get Raptured, 6TP/10 seconds would be a very big deal.)

I think using Helix like effects could be a very good template for improving Scholar in general. Imagine an enhancing spell that forced the next attack from someone to double attack, and then did it every ten seconds afterwords. Or if the enmity spells increased or decreased enmity over time on a Helix timer. Or a fairly potent (at very least Cure III potency, but preferably much, much more) healing spell that worked like a Helix. Or Helix 2 spells (meritable probably).

On Merton, I believe it a post on the JP forums by the devs stated that it is single target, Dark Magic, and has slip damage equal to initial damage. Of course, as always, I'm going by a terrible machine translation, so I could be wrong about this.

[Bubeeky]

When your job actually has need for an update you'll get one. Until then enjoy being the single most needed job in the damn game for ten years running.

we have not been the single most needed job for ten years running...at 75, sch and rdm were most needed for healing because they were more efficient at mp use, and newsflash, there's 5 more levels soon and 4 more beyond that later and sch has had 4 updates now relating to theirs, and whm has had none...it's not much to ask that we whms get a little manifesto love too...I'm not asking for the world, or to get everything we've requested, just a little heads up from the devs on whm's piece of the next 5-9 levels.

[Unctgtg]

we have not been the single most needed job for ten years running...at 75, sch and rdm were most needed for healing because they were more efficient at mp use, and newsflash, there's 5 more levels soon and 4 more beyond that later and sch has had 4 updates now relating to theirs, and whm has had none...it's not much to ask that we whms get a little manifesto love too...I'm not asking for the world, or to get everything we've requested, just a little heads up from the devs on whm's piece of the next 5-9 levels.

Taru bite ankles: Careful lol Bubeeky just relax, people are playing internet tough guy.

[Sotek]

Thank you for not being one of the vocal "give me everything, and balance can home point!" Or worse, someone who doesn't remember meriphos or what else happened at 75. I appreciate it, and it I hope that Scholar gets more fun abilities outside of the new two hour stuff.

Is this directed at me? I certainly hope not since if anything I've emphasized balance more than anything.
As for Lv.75, Scholar never replaced White Mage in Salvage, Nyzul or Merit Parties since it completely lacked Haste. Even then, what White Mage suffered was incredibly brief compared to what damn near every other DD in the game has gone through bar Samurai. Though even if I take your point seriously it's still completely moot; everything White Mage failed at is now either a completely redundant event or so much easier now you could bring a Dragoon/Samurai to main heal, meanwhile Scholar has - and probably always will - never truly amounted to much in any event. But don't worry, I'm sure Scholar would be fine if its only use in life was Storm spells and two spells from /Red Mage when it has access to top tier nukes etc.
Really, that's all Scholar ever amounted to when White Mage didn't get to come merit. On anything that mattered Scholar didn't have easy access to the gear (not that that matters anymore) to properly nuke and only got in thanks to Hailstorm, on something like Dynamis or Einherjar Gravityga was our saving grace and for some reason Phalanxga is and was an important thing, I do love making the easy life of a White Mages even easier. Three spells with only two of them native, this is why Scholar is getting attention and not a job that is in no way shape or form broken.

Oh and I'm not particularly against White Mage getting attention from the devs, you're just asking in the complete wrong place. They're going to get to every job eventually, even if they do have favorites they still give out details for every job when the time comes. Go be impatient elsewhere.


Taru bite ankles: Careful lol Bubeeky just relax, people are playing internet tough guy.

Always nice to see someone I've not even directed my wrath at resort to "interwebz tough guyz!1!11". No, I'm just right. White Mage doesn't need a fraction of the attention Scholar needs. Complaining that one very undermined job is getting more attention that what is currently the most vital job in the game is just ridiculous.

[LancerLeon]

My question is, How accurate is this spell gonna be? Cause in the video Elemental Seal is used in both of them.

[Unctgtg]

My point is, people need to stop trying to make sch replace whm, sch to replace rdm, and sch to replace blm. Sch was designed to switch between all three and support.

[Unctgtg]

Is this directed at me? I certainly hope not since if anything I've emphasized balance more than anything.
As for Lv.75, Scholar never replaced White Mage in Salvage, Nyzul or Merit Parties since it completely lacked Haste. Even then, what White Mage suffered was incredibly brief compared to what damn near every other DD in the game has gone through bar Samurai. Though even if I take your point seriously it's still completely moot; everything White Mage failed at is now either a completely redundant event or so much easier now you could bring a Dragoon/Samurai to main heal, meanwhile Scholar has - and probably always will - never truly amounted to much in any event. But don't worry, I'm sure Scholar would be fine if its only use in life was Storm spells and two spells from /Red Mage when it has access to top tier nukes etc.
Really, that's all Scholar ever amounted to when White Mage didn't get to come merit. On anything that mattered Scholar didn't have easy access to the gear (not that that matters anymore) to properly nuke and only got in thanks to Hailstorm, on something like Dynamis or Einherjar Gravityga was our saving grace and for some reason Phalanxga is and was an important thing, I do love making the easy life of a White Mages even easier. Three spells with only two of them native, this is why Scholar is getting attention and not a job that is in no way shape or form broken.

Oh and I'm not particularly against White Mage getting attention from the devs, you're just asking in the complete wrong place. They're going to get to every job eventually, even if they do have favorites they still give out details for every job when the time comes. Go be impatient elsewhere.



Always nice to see someone I've not even directed my wrath at resort to "interwebz tough guyz!1!11". No, I'm just right. White Mage doesn't need a fraction of the attention Scholar needs. Complaining that one very undermined job is getting more attention that what is currently the most vital job in the game is just ridiculous.

My only 2 jobs at 90 are drk and sch, and both need attention, I take what they give me, and see how to apply it and get the most out of the job.

[Merton9999]

Thanks Foxclon!

+1,000,000!

Merton looks incredible! Of course it has to since it was named after me :p I'm really excited now.

[Sotek]

My point is, people need to stop trying to make sch replace whm, sch to replace rdm, and sch to replace blm. Sch was designed to switch between all three and support.

Having Scholar replace White Mage is the communities choice. Hell, I can shout about this all day but the fact is I've replaced White Mage a few times anyway.
My point is the game should be balanced. White Mage has no competition currently, a completely ungeared one can trample over anyone who'd try. I've only ever managed because they outright left so I had to main heal, but the fact is I had to stand their and watch my enmity and spam Stratagems to the point of breaking, where as a White Mage just stands there and casts Cure V over and over. It's completely unbalanced and you're deluding yourself if you think otherwise. In an ideal world Scholar would be held in the same regard as both White and Black Mage (so help me if I have to explain once again that Scholar can't do both at the same time), not "the best Scholar ever made is just a bit better than the most brain dead White Mage alive" kind of situation we have now.


My only 2 jobs at 90 are drk and sch, and both need attention, I take what they give me, and see how to apply it and get the most out of the job.

I'd love to hear how you're going to apply a lack of a secondary Curing spell towards bringing Scholar on - or slightly under - par with White Mage, or how you're going to take an outright "No" at Modus Veritas and make the ability work again.
My only two jobs at Lv.90 are Dragoon and Scholar, as it stands my Dragoon does a better job of healing and dealing damage that everyone so hates Scholar for being able to do. 300+ Elemental Breath 700+ Healing Breath and 5,000+ damage in Weapon Skills and Jumps in roughly the same space of time it takes Scholar to use Rapture and cast Cure IV. Looks like I had to take a pick at people who think Scholar can do everything at once after all.

Really, just once I'd like someone to actually attempt to counter a point I make, rather than instantly resorting to "Scholar shouldn't be trying to replace everybody" or "White Mage didn't get invited to Merit Parties". Seriously, I make a post countering arguments such as "Cureskin really isn't that great" and "White Mage doesn't have MP efficiency" and all I get from it is "I was joking when I said Scholar has enmity spells" (which I honestly only quoted to belittle the spells themselves and offer an improvement, rather than counter a point). Maybe I'm completely wrong with everything I've said, but anyone who argues against me (or rather doesn't) does such a piss poor job at arguing back that I may as well be right.

[Skeith]

I want to go to there.


Hello Scholars!

Today, we have finally caught "Merton" in action! Please check out this brand new spell and its effect by giving a simple click to the following video.

<object width="560" height="349"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/GvZN3rOSEHk?version=3&amp;hl=ja_JP"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/GvZN3rOSEHk?version=3&amp;hl=ja_JP" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="349" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>

[Winrie]

If that video is anything to go by (and it isn't since I still remember the AV strategy video), Merton easily replaces Black Mage in Abyssea for Azure/Chest farming, it basically one shots everything.

a well geared BLM will always outdo a SCH, i one shot things in abyssea on BLM so how exactly is one spell for SCH going to replace a whole job? Yeah..

[Mizuharu]

Oh my God...

Just...

... Oh my God.

(Sneak-peak of Brave inbound Fox/Camate? :o)

[Sotek]

a well geared BLM will always outdo a SCH, i one shot things in abyssea on BLM so how exactly is one spell for SCH going to replace a whole job? Yeah..

Damage isn't reduced with Manifestation. Also do you want me to highlight "for Azure/Chest farming"? Because that's all I said Merton would outdo Black Mage in.

[Mizuharu]

Damage isn't reduced with Manifestation. Also do you want me to highlight "for Azure/Chest farming"? Because that's all I said Merton would outdo Black Mage in.

Although, if a monster dies to the dot effect rather than the initial nuke, it will cause pearl light.

[Sotek]

Well that's great for Pearl then, I usually cap Azure on several ephemeral mobs anyway. Mostly it's great for farming chests.

[SpankWustler]

First and foremost, what does the .gif in your signature come from, Sotek? I have always wanted to watch a cartoon about a little girl in a funny hat shooting evil bumblebees in strawberry short-cake forest.

Edit:
After many hard-spent minutes of research, I have determined it's from "Puella Magi Madoka Magica"! I have also determined a lot of lonely dudes draw a lot of creepy pictures of a lot of little girls, but that's the price one must pay for progress!


White Mage doesn't need a fraction of the attention Scholar needs. Complaining that one very undermined job is getting more attention that what is currently the most vital job in the game is just ridiculous.

Pretty much this.

Scholar does pretty well with Dark Arts. In return for what the job has, it lacks the AoE component that's such a huge part of Black Mage. It could use a second tier of Helixes or something, but the stratagem system jives really well with how Black Magic works.

Scholar currently scrapes by in Light Arts, with the former complete inability to cast Haste being replaced by the need to strain and grunt and groan just to squeeze out a cure for about the same amount of HP as Cure V. By casting light weather on himself, and taking the time to expend a job ability; Scholar is capable of casting the Cure V of the worst White Mage in all of Vana'diel.

This situation will improve a bit at 99 when Scholar has access to Haste while subbing Red Mage, but the current healing paradigm isn't what it's been for the first 75 levels.

Before, it was comparable to a race. White Mage held the lead, and if it ever fell behind, it was given abilities to regain that lead. Now, it's a dichotomy. There's White Mage and everything else, with second-best being irrelevant since they are all perfectly adequate healers for old content and generally inadequate healers for new content. Yes, they all put out different numbers in the chat log, but the end result is the same.

Maybe this is intentional on SE's part, but given the premise of the job, I'd think at least Scholar should fall somewhere between White Mage and the rest.

[Raksha]

First and foremost, what does the .gif in your signature come from, Sotek? I have always wanted to watch a cartoon about a little girl in a funny hat shooting evil bumblebees in strawberry short-cake forest.



Pretty much this.

Scholar does pretty well with Dark Arts. In return for what the job has, it lacks the AoE component that's such a huge part of Black Mage. It could use a second tier of Helixes or something, but the stratagem system jives really well with how Black Magic works.

Scholar currently scrapes by in Light Arts, with the former complete inability to cast Haste being replaced by the need to strain and grunt and groan just to squeeze out a cure for about the same amount of HP as Cure V. By casting light weather on himself, and taking the time to expend a job ability; Scholar is capable of casting the Cure V of the worst White Mage in all of Vana'diel.

This situation will improve a bit at 99 when Scholar has access to Haste while subbing Red Mage, but the current healing paradigm isn't what it's been for the first 75 levels.

Before, it was comparable to a race. White Mage held the lead, and if it ever fell behind, it was given abilities to regain that lead. Now, it's a dichotomy. There's White Mage and everything else, with second-best being irrelevant since they are all perfectly adequate healers for old content and generally inadequate healers for new content. Yes, they all put out different numbers in the chat log, but the end result is the same.

Maybe this is intentional on SE's part, but given the premise of the job, I'd think at least Scholar should fall somewhere between White Mage and the rest.


Couldn't have said it better myself.

[TimeMage]

You know what I'd really like to know? Seeing Merton in action was great, but I want to see, and specially know the specifics of Brave. Anything short of 40 regen, 3 TP/tic, and 15% haste will be underwhelming. The duration has to be decent too, 3 mins MINIMUM, 5 mins would be ideal.

On the other hand, I completely agree with mostly everyone in saying that our Dark Arts side is mostly fine, but our Light Arts side needs real help. There's the obvious help like something extra to make us more effective at healing (whether it is Cure V, an alternative healing spell, new awesome forms of damage mitigation, etc.), and there's also things like fixing our enmity spells to make them worth using (Make augeo a decent reduction to CE lost per hit, or something like that, and minuo a greatly increased rate of VE loss, like I think Sotek suggested, and we're done), and our pathetic TP spell, Adloquium. 2 TP/tick would be adequate, 3 TP/tick ideal. Anything higher would be welcome but potentially overpowered.

[Eric]

I don't understand why WHM and BLM are so intimidated by the idea of SCH getting any sorts of boosts. Both of those jobs are at the top of the list for Abyssea parties. Is there something I'm missing? We're just asking for changes so that SCH can actually be relevant in endgame, as opposed to holding the spot as the 19th least popular job on the census.

[Katalsar]

First, I'm a SCH 90, love the job, got pretty much everything for SCH except the Relic/Mythic/Emp weapon but I got ToM staffs! ^^.
Ok my sight on this...

First lets start with the job traits.

Defensive Traits
- Scholar is dependent on job abilities, without our job abilities were nothing. Why haven't Scholar received "Resist Amnesia" as a job trait.
-
Offensive Triats
- Job trait that boosts our spells naturally by weather effects.
- Elemental Celerity
- A job trait that extend the duration for us to self Skillchain.
- job trait "Adrenaline" boosts your magic depending on your health (From FF13).

Now onto Spells :

Defensive Light Arts Spells:
- Faith (Refresh+3, Magic atk. Bonus+5,Magic Accuracy+5)
- Veil (Defense+30,Magic Def. Bonus+5, Resistance to all status ailments increased)
- augmenting storm spells..
** Giving the spells an added effect. Firestorm - Attack, Rainstorm - Magic defensive or Magical dmg -5%, Windstorm - Evasion, Earth - physical dmg -5%, Hailstorm - Magic Atk. Bonus, Thunderstorm - Critical Hit rate or dmg +3%, Voidstorm - +1 to all, Aurorastorm - Cure Potency +3%**
- Or augment stormspells where they occasionally absorb damage like Watereater from ff10

Offensive Dark Arts Spells:
- Comet
- Spells that give added effect when under the corresponding weather effect and lowers the resistence the element strong to it. (i.e Helix II spells)
**Example, I have to have firestorm up first before casting spell, once casted it give a Helix and Addle+1 and lowers the resistence for my water spells.**

Job Abilities:

Light Arts: - Could get a Cure Potency +5% naturally
I figure since Scholars read books to increase their knowledge why not stack the strategems? This can be gimped for example rapture give 50% base with stacking that is increase by half so 75%. Or Accession Can be charged 3 times to cure an entire alliance. etc. etc...

Dark Arts: - Get a magic Atk. Bonus +3~5

- A jobability that enhances the duration of your dark magic spells.
-Ebullience same as Rapture increase by 20% if charged again 10% then 5%
-Manifestation would increase in Radius
-Penury halves the mp each charge
Alacrity decreases the casting time by half each charge.

Libra:
Shows the target weakness/enmity/HP(if not shown)

Enlightenment:
Access to both Light Arts/Dark Arts and Stratagems

There's a whole lot of other stuff I have but I have to go ; ;

.
I know its alot I'm not asking for all these but these are just thought I would like to seem what others think are cool and what not.

[Ahrana]

I think the biggest problem I have with the scholar cure V argument is that many white mages think that's all they bring to the table. Maybe they were brought up in abyssea so that's all they know, but the list of tools a white mage has is solid. There was a time when shellra IV, cure V, and haste was all a white mage had to offer, but those days are in the past.

Esuna, sacrifice, curaga, and barspells all have their place on my macro bar, and they can often turn challenging fights into pushovers. I know that the introduction of esuna/cura back at 75 cap made a lot of einherjar monster sets easy, and esuna + curaga IV has made glavoid laughably easy. It's not always possible to leverage these abilities, but whenever I can I become a healing juggernaut. Solace cureskin is just icing on the cake.

This brings me back to scholar. I understand the pushback from many whm's that if scholar gained access to cure V that they could potentially heal for more HP then a white mage, but they seem unwilling to acknowledge that cure IV isn't an acceptable healing tool in today's end game. These same white mages need to realize that having one job that is completely irreplaceable can't exist, especially when you generally need at least 1 white mage per party.

The mp efficiency argument is also a bit dated. A serious white mage can sport 7 mp/tick in idle gear, and their mp cost per healing spell has gone down since af3+2 pants have become available. Throw on top of this sublimation+light arts or refresh+convert, and 10 mp/tick isn't unreasonable before you take in account outside refresh. That's a far cry from when mp efficiency was a legitimate argument, when the numbers were 1 mp/tick from gear (if you had omfg gil), which would go up to 4/tick if you had a bard or redmage.

And honestly, melees don't care what job is behind them as long as they get cures, haste, and you keep plague and paralyze off of them. Someone who is willing to play white mage will always be wanted.

[ffxititanplayer]

here here, lets break scholar even more, its alreay more useful then any other mage, fuck lets just give them AOE AM too, why not i mean they got everythign else!

[Raksha]

here here, lets break scholar even more, its alreay more useful then any other mage, fuck lets just give them AOE AM too, why not i mean they got everythign else!

Haters gonna hate.

[ffxititanplayer]

lol not hating just pissed they they get so much crap when the rest of us get just meh stuff, but i expect to be flamed! FLAME AWAY!!!

[Malacite]

So, this is the Tabula Rasa only spell?

Looks freaking sweet, love it. And it's not Ultima:

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Meltdown


^^ good times.

[Elexia]

I ignored most of the posts because I'm sure its the typical bullshit that makes no sense but:

It's a damn nice looking spell and should be pretty powerful given it's not the typical give and take "Oh it's powerful..with a powerful DoT!.....but it lasts only .4 seconds :3".

All is well if thats not the case.

[Sira]

lol not hating just pissed they they get so much crap when the rest of us get just meh stuff, but i expect to be flamed! FLAME AWAY!!!

man.....they get SO MUCH "CRAP" (let me emphasize CRAP) yet they are the 18th on the most wanted list, guess what, there's 20 jobs. So yeah, we get cool things like regain, which is mildly not even worth casting, libra which requires you to risk getting your head blown off in the process of finding out useless information because you are never in the tank party, you're in the mage party, which well isnt going to tell you much when its only telling you the enmity values of YOUR party. and hell lets stomp all over the fact that in the time it takes a sch to get a cure IV off, a whm will have got off a Cure IV, Cure V, Cure VI, and go to watch the lord of the rings, that's a problem, is it even worth pulling up light arts aside from tossing out the accensioned buffs and the occasional "oh crap, someone has X number of enfeebles" *switches to light arts and by the time you figure out whats going on the whm has stolen everyone's enfeebles and already esuna'd herself*. and gee we are supposed to be focusing on regen, yet we got regen III with a slight boost from af3 that doesn't do much at all for things that will hit you for 200+ a hit, get back to me when you give us a regen that cures at least 50 hp a tic seriously. Oh lets not even go into modus veritas, you give us the opportunity to merit something that you nerfed sooooooo bad that it misses on your run of the mill monsters, never mind trying to get them to stick in voidwatch when it's a sch proc, god forbid it's the proc you need.

do i need to go further? or have i got acrossed that yeah we are getting stuff, but SE is so afraid to do it right that they mess up in the process, including metron, having to see elemental seal in the video for both demonstrations pretty much means there's going to be a problem landing the spell well.


sorry [/rage]

[Ank]

So, this spell seemed to do a lot of damage to that poor akrab (atleast 80%?), my question is: this spell is available at level5, does it scale with level? Percentage based initial damage? Some other mechanic?

[Farchord]

I personnally think Merton is nice, but I'm more interested into the potency of Brave.

And there is some things you guys aren't taking into account about the video provided of Merton:

1- Does she have Atmas on?

2- Does she have an Ascetic's Tonic on?

3- How potent is this spell under a brew?

4- Also note: Two hour abilities might be two hour, but you guys seem to forget how you can reset abilities often in abyssea (2 hour chests/revitalizers anyone?)

Idk, I guess it'll be fun to experiment this.

[Sotek]

here here, lets break scholar even more, its alreay more useful then any other mage, fuck lets just give them AOE AM too, why not i mean they got everythign else!

Your post would have some kind of meaning if the general consensus here wasn't "Dark Arts is fine, Light Arts sucks". There aren't enough Scholars asking for a serious nuking buff around here to screw in a light bulb. I'd feel like actually countering the tripe you might call a point with that post, but A) I already have numerous times and B) you're either a troll or an idiot, both ignorable from this point on.

[Megusta]

It looked to me to be about as powerful as a good t5 nuke, with a hefty DoT (non-helix-like DoT). Only awesome part I see is that it is AoE'able. That alone makes it awesome.

Well since i posted that on the other thread might post here as well, looks like merton inflicts bind as well, take a real good look at the scorpion on the video and you will see what im talking about, 2 ticks would be time enough for that scorpion to get to that sch and swing for at least one time. yet it stays in place he just turns around to the character direction like a bound mob would.

[Eric]

Well since i posted that on the other thread might post here as well, looks like merton inflicts bind as well, take a real good look at the scorpion on the video and you will see what im talking about, 2 ticks would be time enough for that scorpion to get to that sch and swing for at least one time. yet it stays in place he just turns around to the character direction like a bound mob would. Wow that's really observant of you. It looks like merton will definitely be SCH's tool for doing chest spam in Abyssea EXP/Time Building/KI Hunting.

[Ank]

Well if the damage isn't as amazing as the video is pretending it is, bind would be amazing side effect to a spell that quite possibly dot'd all your mobs heh.

[Eric]

It kinda makes me happy that SCH is getting all of this attention. Hopefully SE can continue making improvements like this to the job, hopefully next we see adjustments to things that aren't as situational as 2 hours.

[Merton9999]

I am too, but I'm cautious. I remember being excited about a lot of things SCH that didn't deliver.

For example, I'm worried SE is going to make Merton and Brave terribly difficult to obtain. This is where SCH actually has a really good track record - job specific spells have always been purchasable through NPCs (except Klimaform). People can scream the "lazy" and "hard work" rhetoric all they want, but one thing I've really enjoyed about SCH is that it provided a nice break from my other mage jobs in terms of time and cost to obtain spells. In some ways it did feel rewarding for a while to expend time and effort to get the best spells but after doing this for BLM, WHM, RDM, and BLU, the SCH leveling path has been refreshing.

I'm trembling thinking that Merton is going to follow the SMN precedent and I'm going to have to finally finish the WoTG missions to obtain it ; ;

As far as the accuracy worries, I know Mocchi was shown using elemental seal, but if it does turn out to be inaccurate, I can't imagine it would be so bad that our current tools couldn't deal. Focalization (free during TR), Voidstorm + Klimaform - if that doesn't cover it and I have to sub BLM, then yuck, no thanks.

[SpankWustler]

I assume the use of Elemental Seal was to make sure the spell landed with no degree of resist in the video, rather than any reflection on the magic accuracy of the spell. It's definite faster and easier to just use Elemental Seal rather than to do other things which would increase magic accuracy.

[Miera]

That video just gave me diabetes... ;o

[Miera]

Regarding the topic of super-buffed Cure IVs, (which btw, inside abyssea, lightsday, theoretical double weather, capped cure potency and AF3+2 hat bonus, could go up to 1300 HP healed), no one is taking into account one key factor: ENMITY. A Cure IV of that magnitude is going to get the attention of the NM real fast, no matter how much -enmity gear you accumulate. Sure, in longer fights even WHM using Cure V will reach the hate cap, but mega Cure IVs are a real quick way to cap your enmity as a healer >_>This is why I think they should just fix the Animus spells to Gain and decaying type instead of a puny -5

Should work like the SCH regain spells. -2 or +2 Enmity every second and should last about the same if not a lttlle longer than the regain spell.

[Sasaraixx]

Spell/JA Update notes are up. Color me fairly disappointed with SCH.

BLM, WHM and RDM are all getting some very nice spells and abilities. (0 mp for next spell, party magic def up, quick magic, breakga & comet for BLM, holy II and what looks like an occasionally attack twice spell for RDM.) So I'm quite happy about that.

Tabula Rasa is being extended from 30 seconds to 90 seconds. Merton (I forget the new name) and Aura (name changed from Brave) both cost 30% of you max MP and are learned at lv5. We also are getting the natural upgrades, Raise III, Reraise III, Fire V, Bliz V, etc.

[Karbuncle]

Raise/reraise III were natural upgrades? I never expected SCH to get those TBH. Guess i missed some updates :X

[Sira]

raise III before cure V? how does that work....

[Ank]

Yeah this is terribly disappointing..

A two hour update, and a couple spell extensions that were coming anyways..
Not sure anyone would have cared about raise3.

After all the crying that was happening after the video of merton, the update notes feel like we got trolled just a little bit.

[Raksha]

Raise/reraise III were natural upgrades? I never expected SCH to get those TBH. Guess i missed some updates :X

I saw it coming from a mile away. In fact I've had raise 3 scroll in mog storage since lvl 80 cap.

[Merton9999]

I don't think I can put my disappointment into words really. I'll go with insulting.

After three feedback posts dedicated to SCH and just the presence of these forums themselves, this is a huge let down. Raise III and Reraise III are pointless, and a slap in the face to the requests for more healing capability. Maybe I should be happy that when I pull hate and die from Rapture + Cure IV spam it will now only take me 5 seconds to recover the lost exp instead of 10. Ridiculous.

Oh wait, since I'll now maybe be coming to Abyssea on SCH only for hours of boring Fell Cleave burns, I suppose I can get excited about being able to use Crapstra for 90 seconds once per ISL chest. Seriously, for as terrible as I expected this spell to be in practice, I thought I at least had a nostalgic name to enjoy. Yet another SCH nerf, and this time before implementation. We better get some use out of it now before it gets obsoleted as too powerful and starts to miss. Actually we probably have a couple years, because they'll need time to implement merits for it so they can make them useless when they nerf it.

BLM and RDM are getting superior versions of our strategems. MV still sucks. No healing helix or damage prevention spell, no AOE nukes (except Crapstra every two hours), still stuck with tier 1 weather that everyone /SCH will get except three of them. lolquium, Libra range, Animuseless ... all unaddressed with only the hope of 96-99 that's probably another year away.

What was the point of these forums again? Right now they seem like another way for SE to prove its position as the poster company for Overpromise and Underdeliver, especially when it comes to SCH.

[Sotek]

So they check these forums, give us feedback and then do the opposite. Should have seen it coming really, I knew this was going to be as disappointing as Odin/Alexander from the start. At least they did something with Tabula Rasa, though I'd rather they just make it so Stratagems don't naturally wear off during it like the bloody NPCs version, but tripling the duration of something you lose half the time of due to Stratagems isn't too bad. Its still a half baked fix, though.
I'd say Merton/Brave (why exactly have they been renamed?) better be good, but they're only really good for Abyssea where you can spam it to begin with, regardless of how good they are, so I'll say SE seems to want to leave us five pegs behind; we'll be good in Abyssea when it's irrelevant.

Would have at least been nice if they gave us a new Job Ability like every other job.

Scholar
Gemini (Lv.95)
Allows next Stratagem to last for two spells.

Go add it fast SE. I may even forgive you.
I wouldn't particularly mind this update if it wasn't "Scholar is getting two new spells and nothing else". I knew from the start "New two hour spells" would translate into an update notice just like this one. I'd raise hell about this, but fuck it. I've said it all before and it has fallen on deaf ears time and time again. Unless I get a one on one with the development team (or whoever handles this crap) themselves, I really can't be asked. And given the fact that the development team turned around and said Modus Veritas is fine, it's probably a very bad idea to leave me in a room with them.

I'm just going to walk away happy that I didn't read;

Existing Spells Made Available to New Jobs
Recall-Jugner (SCH Lv.91)
Recall-Meriph (SCH Lv.91)
Recall-Pashh (SCH Lv.91)
Retrace (SCH Lv.91)
Christ I would have blown a fuse. Nice to see my post of the front page out did it in 'Likes' at least, shame that didn't seem to make an ounce of difference. If I take my Scholar past Lv.90 it'll be from EXP from NMs, I can't be asked to actively level something SE doesn't give a shit about.

[TimeMage]

As expected, SCH got Fire V and Blizzard V. I don't know if I should finish my Ice magian staff, or wait until I'm 95... Detectors are a PITA to kill with only Blizz IV, I bet I could oneshot the DC ones with Blizz V. On the other hand, I need to start thinking in a Dark staff for Kaustra... Ugh.

As for Embrava, the potency of the various buffs will be the key of its usefulness. I bet it scales with level (Or max MP, since it consumes 30% of it), and hope it's really potent at 95.

Other than that, no buffs to our Light Arts self outside of RIII and RRIII. What can I say? RRIII is convenient, but not that awesome anymore. And without a better form of healing, we're stuck as nukers, and occasional buffers, nothing more.

All in all, a really underwhelming update, not because of just getting a boost to our 2H (It's really nice they made it 90 seconds, at least now the time lost using stratagems will be compensated...), but because they outright IGNORED our concerns about our Light Arts side.

[Ahrana]

I'm trying to stay positive, but it's hard to really be psyched about the update notes. I guess all we can do is wait and see how potent the 2-hr spells are. If they're good maybe we can have a spot in 2-hr burn fights right next to the summoners.

On the plus side, anyone who comes in here crying about how OP scholars are we can now point them at this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svwGRJA28lY&feature=related) without acknowledging their argument.

[Ank]

What's worse is with only another what, four levels left? I really don't see a full allotment of storm or helices fitting in there by 99. Pray for a merit update to stormsurge that effectively does the same. Actually a possible merit update could still surprise us but I'm not very hopeful for anything at the moment.

Some kind of maelstrom weather that grants all weather's at once could be cool to, if they don't want us to have double weathers.

Like hell I'm buying raise 3 though.

[Sira]

half the whm i know dont even have r3, its just not worth getting...

[Watts101]

Have you ever been shaking someones hand right as they put a knife in your back? Sure feel that way at the moment. Seriously, what did we get? Here! we'll give you something nifty that you can only use every 2 ours and is now available at lvl 5. Why at level 5? Because clearly SE would rather us delvl our sch's and be more effective at lvl 5 than we currently are at 90. I dont dislike the new 2hr ability but i sure expected to see cure 5 under current white magic to be obtained not LOL raiseIII/reraiseIII. I barely use reraise 2 why on earth would i need reraise 3? Nice i guess, but definetly not what sch or rdm need spellwise especially in the healing deparment. Truth is we got totally screwed. All i can hope is that what they posted was simply the tip of the iceberg not the main course on a very very very VERY small silver platter. Eh, why bother believing they'll follow through though, they always draw up short citing balance issues. You want us comparable to WHM and BLM while not stepping on the WHM or BLM's toes. Why create SCH then? Seriously.

[TimeMage]

Why create SCH then?

Isn't it clear? We're the subjob they wanted for mages. Right now, not much more, sadly.

[Eric]

I'm just disappointed because Scholar is seriously the only mage job that I genuinely enjoy playing full time. I don't want to sound ungrateful, because SE just gave us the 2hr spells, but I'm really disappointed in the direction they've taken scholar.

It's become an even more situational job than it was before, and you can tell that the devs totally do not know what direction to take scholar in, because all of the updates since the level cap increases have just been random (and lackluster) abilities and spells that really don't even fit into the role that scholar originally had in parties. I don't think it's fair that they tried (and failed) at making Scholar an enmity control job. That was never what it was intended to do. Sure it fits in with the "Strategic Mage" idea, but not only was the idea half-baked, but I don't see any indication that they even continue to head in that direction.

The only thing that I can say that I'm grateful for is the new strategems. I've been considering changing my main job to something other than scholar, but I don't even know what I would play. It's been my main job for a year now. :( Even when I quit, deleted my character, and came back I still didn't want to play another job. I hate feeling like SE's neglected child. Especially because everyone accuses you of whining when you try to speak up.

[Parrow89]

Reposting from another thread to increase visibility to what I think is a valid point.

As having both SCH and WHM at 90 there are a couple of things I'd like to point out that I'm sad to see that SE didn't continue as the progression of spells continues.

I was looking over the spell lists again between WHM and SCH and one question comes to mind. "Why hasn't Scholar's regen progression continued?"

Looking at the spell lists Scholar gets spells well after both WHM and BLM except for one, and that's regen. Scholar is the only job that gets it early. Regen at 18. Regen II at 37. Regen III at 83? Wait! Stop right there!

For comparison WHM gets Regen at 21, Regen II at 44, and Regen III at 66.

For all the complaints that SCH doesn't have Cure V which I'm not a fan of. I would present the suggestion that we restore SCH to being the Regen kings/queens. Keep the merits for Regen on whm and get rid of the regen + on sch gear.

My proposal is that Regen III goes to sch at 60, Regen IV at 80, and create a Regen V (or equal healing helix) and give scholar that spell at 95.

Regen IV currently at base restores 600 hp total and costs 82 mp to cast.
Regen V (or healing helix) I would propose at base restores 800 hp total and cost 100 mp to cast. Make it unable to be used with Accession.

With this I could see healing again even in aby made better cause I dare not take my SCH into it anymore.

Thoughts?

[Horadrim]

Reposting from another thread to increase visibility to what I think is a valid point.

As having both SCH and WHM at 90 there are a couple of things I'd like to point out that I'm sad to see that SE didn't continue as the progression of spells continues.

I was looking over the spell lists again between WHM and SCH and one question comes to mind. "Why hasn't Scholar's regen progression continued?"

Looking at the spell lists Scholar gets spells well after both WHM and BLM except for one, and that's regen. Scholar is the only job that gets it early. Regen at 18. Regen II at 37. Regen III at 83? Wait! Stop right there!

For comparison WHM gets Regen at 21, Regen II at 44, and Regen III at 66.

For all the complaints that SCH doesn't have Cure V which I'm not a fan of. I would present the suggestion that we restore SCH to being the Regen kings/queens. Keep the merits for Regen on whm and get rid of the regen + on sch gear.

My proposal is that Regen III goes to sch at 60, Regen IV at 80, and create a Regen V (or equal healing helix) and give scholar that spell at 95.

Regen IV currently at base restores 600 hp total and costs 82 mp to cast.
Regen V (or healing helix) I would propose at base restores 800 hp total and cost 100 mp to cast. Make it unable to be used with Accession.

With this I could see healing again even in aby made better cause I dare not take my SCH into it anymore.

Thoughts?

I like the idea, but I've said before that before about similar ones that make perfect sense.

The problem isn't that there are no good ways to fix SCH without infringing on other jobs, the problem is that SE isn't using any of them...

We'll just have to wait and see what Brave has to offer.

[Eric]

Going into the JP forums equipped with google translate has led me to realize that a lot of JP players are also asking for major improvements to scholars. It's not only us complaining. There is a large majority of people who primarily play SCH that are asking for improvements.

Why are our voices being left unheard? One urgent thing that needs to be fixed is Modus Veritas. The dark times of exploiting its use for AV are behind us. If we want to avoid a similar situation, all one would have to do is prevent more than one SCH from successfully using Modus Veritas on a mob. Another option would be to let it be a status that makes your next helix do double damage in half the time.

That is one small thing that we have been shouting about for a LONG time. Recently, voidwatch has once again highlighted the severe shortcomings of the job ability.

That being said, I'll ask this again: Why are our cries for change falling on deaf ears?

[Economizer]

Why are our voices being left unheard?

Scholars got four update notes (five if you count the additional notes on the fourth update) before some jobs even got one. SE is most certainly listening to you. Not doing exactly what you want does not mean they aren't listening.

[Eric]

Scholars got four update notes (five if you count the additional notes on the fourth update) before some jobs even got one. SE is most certainly listening to you. Not doing exactly what you want does not mean they aren't listening.
Yes, because fixing/enhancing an ability that we can use every 2 hours will obviously fix SCH.

What's the worst part of it all, is that by giving us 2 powerful, but EXTREMELY SITUATIONAL spells, everyone feels like we're being ungrateful and whiny.

SCH is still an incredibly unpopular job. You know why? Because it's broken and unwanted. An improved 2hr won't fix that.

If they're listening, they're doing a terrible job of it.

[Ank]

Oh god, mister butthurt whm, you're right. Why with so many update posts for sch, and before any one else! sch is so broken! Crawl back into your holes everyone, we got a two hour update, what more could anyone ask for?


Even if the spells are mind blowingly amazing, a two hour update isn't a job fix. The reason we feel unheard is because there are tons and tons of ideas on this forum alone about doing something with sch, most even inline with the theme of the job, and yet only the first of the so called sch update posts even addressed anything useful, the rest was fluf. But apparently fluf is enough to get everyone else jealous.

[georgcantor316]

Honestly I think we need to fight the power Ghandi style. We need everybody in both the RDM and SCH camps to come together and petition SE. There are legitimate concerns comming from both the RDM and SCH camps in regards to the healing capacity not being addressed and there is simply no reason that it couldn't have been fixed this update. There were many unique and viable solutions to the 'Cure V' problem that could have been further tweaked by SE but they did nothing. This is simply unacceptable. Let's just look at this from a monetary point of view. We pay SE for the game, we give them our money. If we fall in love with a job and want to be able to play that job within the context of the other jobs in a meaningful and relevant way it's their duty to provide us that as we pay them for that. I would go so far as to suggest a RDM and SCH strike until this gets resolved. /end extremist rant... but it did feel good getting that out there

[Economizer]

Oh god, mister butthurt whm

Ad hominem, straw man. But hey, if people blindly like what you say because you can dish out the insults on the hallucinated arguments you say I'm making, that's fine. Putting words in the mouth of someone whose words you shouldn't be listening to because you consider them butthurt is a pretty good way to win an argument.

I didn't say that Scholars should be happy or unhappy with the generous amount of information the have been given. I merely said that Scholars should know that SE is listening to them. The notes SE has given have been reiterated over and over again as not completely being for the next update, but also for the future. The shear amount of things they have talked about will take time, especially on a busy development scheduled. But apparently not giving you everything you want right away doesn't count as listening?



Even if the spells are mind blowingly amazing, a two hour update isn't a job fix. The reason we feel unheard is because there are tons and tons of ideas on this forum alone about doing something with sch, most even inline with the theme of the job, and yet only the first of the so called sch update posts even addressed anything useful, the rest was fluf. But apparently fluf is enough to get everyone else jealous.

But the updates were not fluff. Aside from the massive two hour update going out with the next patch that will make Scholars incredibly useful inside Abyssea (2 new spells, 90 second duration), there are tons of things that aren't two hour related.

For the next update, Scholar is getting Raise III (SCH Lv. 92), Reraise III (SCH +v. 92), Fire V (SCH Lv. 91), Blizzard V (SCH Lv. 95). While Raise might not seem amazing on its face, being able to raise a whole party, even when weakened is now something Scholars will be able to do, and do better then even a White Mage. Additionally, there are adjustments planned for Raise that might include reducing weakened timers for higher tiers of Raise.

For future updates, Light Arts/Dark Arts are getting an unspecified buff depending on level. Scholars will be able to scan mobs. Debuffs will be easier to land on NMs, although duration will be affected more by resist rates. Stormsurge is getting changes, possibly the increased magical crit rate while under storms buff mentioned. Increased Stratagem charges are being considered, as is allowing Rapture to be used with Adloquium. Modus Veritas is likely to get a shortened recast to combat misses. Elemental magic may be able to get Manifested in the distant future.

SE also reassured Scholars that they are considering every suggestion for Scholar, particularly unique spells.

While some of those updates was SE flat out saying "no" to very unreasonable demands, the truth of the matter is that SE is listening to Scholar. The changes that you want may be delayed for future updates, or even denied, but to say SE isn't listening is pretty rude.

[Raksha]

Ad hominem, straw man. But hey, if people blindly like what you say because you can dish out the insults on the hallucinated arguments you say I'm making, that's fine. Putting words in the mouth of someone whose words you shouldn't be listening to because you consider them butthurt is a pretty good way to win an argument.

I didn't say that Scholars should be happy or unhappy with the generous amount of information the have been given. I merely said that Scholars should know that SE is listening to them. The notes SE has given have been reiterated over and over again as not completely being for the next update, but also for the future. The shear amount of things they have talked about will take time, especially on a busy development scheduled. But apparently not giving you everything you want right away doesn't count as listening?




But the updates were not fluff. Aside from the massive two hour update going out with the next patch that will make Scholars incredibly useful inside Abyssea (2 new spells, 90 second duration), there are tons of things that aren't two hour related.

For the next update, Scholar is getting Raise III (SCH Lv. 92), Reraise III (SCH +v. 92), Fire V (SCH Lv. 91), Blizzard V (SCH Lv. 95). While Raise might not seem amazing on its face, being able to raise a whole party, even when weakened is now something Scholars will be able to do, and do better then even a White Mage. Additionally, there are adjustments planned for Raise that might include reducing weakened timers for higher tiers of Raise.

For future updates, Light Arts/Dark Arts are getting an unspecified buff depending on level. Scholars will be able to scan mobs. Debuffs will be easier to land on NMs, although duration will be affected more by resist rates. Stormsurge is getting changes, possibly the increased magical crit rate while under storms buff mentioned. Increased Stratagem charges are being considered, as is allowing Rapture to be used with Adloquium. Modus Veritas is likely to get a shortened recast to combat misses. Elemental magic may be able to get Manifested in the distant future.

SE also reassured Scholars that they are considering every suggestion for Scholar, particularly unique spells.

While some of those updates was SE flat out saying "no" to very unreasonable demands, the truth of the matter is that SE is listening to Scholar. The changes that you want may be delayed for future updates, or even denied, but to say SE isn't listening is pretty rude.

a few thoughts:

1) An Ad Hominem is only a fallacy if it is being used INSTEAD OF an argument. (e.g. You're not wrong BECAUSE you're a troll, you just happen to both be wrong and a troll.)

2) So far I haven't seen SE give us ANYTHING we've wanted. It's not just that we haven't gotten everything we wanted.

3) Blizz5 etc aren't new, and aren't even the problem anyway.

4) 2HR spells will not make SCH useful in abyssea. Abyssea is a solved equation, and short of giving SCH procs or the ability go afk and still keep a tank alive, nothing will.

5) I can already raise an entire party of people while weakened. Raise 3 is a nice addition though, and it's welcomed. Also isn't really surprising.

6) Light/dark arts buff is something i'm actually excited about. Manifestion nukes are out of left field, and if allowed will be quite a bonus, but like we've been saying forever dark arts doesnt need much, if any, adjustments.

I understand you're upset that SCH has gotten so many responses. I partly agree. I would've preferred one decent post rather than four WTF?!? posts.

[Economizer]

An Ad Hominem is only a fallacy if it is being used INSTEAD OF an argument.

No, and here is an example. Lets say that I argue that the sky is red. Then someone says that you can look up at the sky and see that it is clearly blue, and I also have green hair. They could have argued a perfect argument, but they also used an ad hominem attack, particularly because it has nothing to do with my argument, and is only there to discredit or distract from an actual argument.

Making personal attacks and keeping them separated from an argument is pretty hard to do in any case, but even so, insulting others while arguing is generally bad form, and further, against the forum rules.


So far I haven't seen SE give us ANYTHING we've wanted. It's not just that we haven't gotten everything we wanted.

You contradict yourself later.


2HR spells will not make SCH useful in abyssea. Abyssea is a solved equation, and short of giving SCH procs or the ability go afk and still keep a tank alive, nothing will.

KI farm.


Light/dark arts buff is something i'm actually excited about.

Didn't you say in the same comment that SE wasn't giving you anything that you wanted? You just said you are excited about the buff, which usually means that it is something you want.


I understand you're upset that SCH has gotten so many responses. I partly agree. I would've preferred one decent post rather than four WTF?!? posts.

At this point I am not upset that Scholar has gotten so many responses. I am upset that many Scholars dismiss them as being nothing or being crappy posts.

Compared to certain other job notes, Scholar's posts are attentive, and straightforward. Scholar as a job may still have complaints, but, once again, saying that Scholars have been given nothing useful or aren't being listened to is not truthful.

[Raksha]

No, and here is an example. Lets say that I argue that the sky is red. Then someone says that you can look up at the sky and see that it is clearly blue, and I also have green hair. They could have argued a perfect argument, but they also used an ad hominem attack, particularly because it has nothing to do with my argument, and is only there to discredit or distract from an actual argument.

Making personal attacks and keeping them separated from an argument is pretty hard to do in any case, but even so, insulting others while arguing is generally bad form, and further, against the forum rules.


Here's the first paragraph of the wikipedia article:



Ad hominem
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Personal attacks" redirects here. For the Wikipedia policy, see Wikipedia:No personal attacks.

An ad hominem (Latin: "to the man"), short for argumentum ad hominem, is an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or belief of the person advocating it.[1] The ad hominem is normally described as a logical fallacy,[2][3][4] but it is not always fallacious; in some instances, questions of personal conduct, character, motives, etc., are legitimate and relevant to the issue.[5]



I'll let it speak for itself.




You contradict yourself later.


I'll get to this later.




KI farm.


BLM will still be better. WAR will still be better. BLU will also probably still be better. If you meant that it will allow SCH to do something better than it could before, then I agree with you. But there's no reason to take a SCH to KI farm.




Didn't you say in the same comment that SE wasn't giving you anything that you wanted? You just said you are excited about the buff, which usually means that it is something you want.


Now i'm going to have to argue semantics with you.

Saying that they didn't give us anything we've wanted is true. If you go through all of the SCH threads (In the english forum at least) you won't find anyone who asked for this buff. Saying that I am excited about it is also true, and is non-contradictory. Perhaps a better phrasing would be "They are only giving us stuff we didn't originally know that we wanted."



At this point I am not upset that Scholar has gotten so many responses. I am upset that many Scholars dismiss them as being nothing or being crappy posts.

Compared to certain other job notes, Scholar's posts are attentive, and straightforward. Scholar as a job may still have complaints, but, once again, saying that Scholars have been given nothing useful or aren't being listened to is not truthful.

I don't know that I would call them crappy, but most of them weren't really worth the time to bother answering when there are much better things to focus on (like answering the other jobs' concerns). I'm of the opinion that SCH isn't in as terrible shape as most people seem to believe, and the "fix" is a relatively simple one (a 2nd cure spell that we can spam along with cure4).

[Economizer]

But there's no reason to take a SCH to KI farm.

I've seen all sorts of setups for KI farm in Abyssea. For a lowman KI farm of 1-2 people, Scholar is going to be further cemented in as one of the better jobs to do this with.

Considering this, next time you decide to farm chests in Abyssea, demand to go as a Scholar, if Scholar is the job you enjoy playing most.


I'm of the opinion that SCH isn't in as terrible shape as most people seem to believe, and the "fix" is a relatively simple one (a 2nd cure spell that we can spam along with cure4).

Alternatively, SE could just say that Scholar is supposed to be a better nuker and other jobs are supposed to be better healers. The biggest issue at this point is the gap between perception and what each job is getting.

Thus if SE merely said something like "We currently have jobs balanced so that it is set up like this: Healing > Nuking -> White Mage > Red Mage > Scholar > Black Mage", it would solve the problem with half the work.

Maybe this would be the ideal, maybe not. SE will eventually sort things out, considering that they are unquestionably listening. I predict there will be complaints no matter what SE does though.

[sigma_star]

Alternatively, SE could just say that Scholar is supposed to be a better nuker and other jobs are supposed to be better healers.



They could, but that idea cuts both ways. They could just as easily redefine whm and say that whm was never meant to be the only main healer. I'm not saying they will, but if they did - would you expect whms to just accept that without complaining?
But anyway, one thing to point out is the progression that they had sch at earlier levels. It's pretty obvious that there's been a substantial change in later levels in light arts spells from the previous trend. It's not that people here are arguing to change sch to something completely new, it's that people want the trend changed BACK to what it was, with respect to other classes. Hence the the charge of the class being "broken" has evidence to back it up - it's not just people whining.





The biggest issue at this point is the gap between perception and what each job is getting.



This is an is/ought fallacy. What "is" (or rather what "will") doesn't justify what "ought to be". What each job is getting doesn't settle anything concerning this debate. It's what this job should be getting.




SE will eventually sort things out, considering that they are unquestionably listening. I predict there will be complaints no matter what SE does though.

That's probably true, but making pejorative statements against complaining doesn't say anything meaningful. The whole point of this discussion is not whether there's complaining, it's if the complaints have merit. You side-step the whole debate entirely.

[Economizer]

Forgive me for also quoting parts that are completely unnecessary, but I want to be very clear about what is being said, and not taking it out of context. I don't want to paint a picture about what is being said by others that is not true.


But anyway, one thing to point out is the progression that they had sch at earlier levels. It's pretty obvious that there's been a substantial change in later levels in light arts spells from the previous trend. It's not that people here are arguing to change sch to something completely new, it's that people want the trend changed BACK to what it was, with respect to other classes. Hence the the charge of the class being "broken" has evidence to back it up - it's not just people whining.

So, basically what you are saying, is that what you percieve Scholar to deserve vs. what you are getting are two different things, and the problem here is the gap between the two?


This is an is/ought fallacy. What "is" (or rather what "will") doesn't justify what "ought to be". What each job is getting doesn't settle anything concerning this debate. It's what this job should be getting.

For a fallacy, you sure appear to have eaten it up two seconds ago, and then in the same statement you make now.

Mainly because in this case, it is not a fallacy - the problem is solely based on what people are happy with - and Scholars aren't happy with the gap between the abilities they think they have "what is" and the abilities they think they deserve "what ought to be"

The issue is that Scholars don't think they are getting what they should be getting. It is a matter of fixing the gap between perception and reality. This is a very real and pressing issue that has to be dealt with in some way.

My ideal would be for SE to actually do something about it instead of just telling Scholars that they aren't meant to heal at all, but defining the job as "not a healer" would also solve the problem.


The whole point of this discussion is not whether there's complaining, it's if the complaints have merit. You side-step the whole debate entirely.

No, I don't. I am clearly saying that the complaint about SE not listening does not have merit. I am not saying that other, well-thought, and incredibly valid complaints are invalid, I am only saying that saying the SE is not listening is an argument without merit.

I have not yet seen anything that contradicts this, in fact, the longer I deal with this, the less I am convinced that I will ever see any evidence that SE is not listening to Scholars. It might take time, but between valid discussion about actual issues, and suggestions about how to improve the job, Scholar will have the gap between perception about what their job should be and what it is fixed, and more.

[Sotek]

I am clearly saying that the complaint about SE not listening does not have merit.

I both agree and disagree. Though regardless, their listening doesn't seem to do much. All Scholar has asked for since Lv.75 (however it may as well have been since Lv.55) is something new for Light Arts. I guess Libra/Animus could be counted as such, though they've shown no notice of complaints about either (I'll admit my adjustment for Animus would take long, but the very minimum people have asked for in regards to Libra is to increase its range - that shouldn't even take ten minutes to do). I'm willing to let Perpetuance cover Light Arts for now, but they still seem to cover heavily on Dark Arts rather than Light Arts on a job that should treat both equally. Hell, I've been piping the same tune since before these forums were up and I'm possibly one of the more vocal here, yet this update we get nothing more than new shiny two hour spells? That doesn't send out the greatest message, it's not so much an issue that they don't listen, rather they lack comprehension and make incredibly bad choices regarding updates, or at the very least it says they didn't listen until the last minute; which may not be a bad thing, but I'm still not going to be happy about it.
I'll admit the two hour spells aren't awful considering I'll get some use out of them (though I'd rather have had something I can use in any situation like most other jobs got), but they're not exactly the few dozen notches above Libra that I've been waiting for since Lv.80.

As for where I disagree that they're listening. I can sum it up in two words; Modus Veritas.
Sure they plan to decrease its recast - though once again that shouldn't take more than ten minutes so I'm perplexed about the wait - but that doesn't mean jack shit. Modus Veritas hasn't landed on anything in a good while and I'm willing to bet that adjusting it has been one of the biggest suggestions this forum has brought forward, yet they've turned around and said it's working as expected. Before it was just a mild annoyance I'd tag on each post, but now it's just infuriating. I'd gladly turn around and say they are listening wholeheartedly if Camate (or whoever) relayed the message that it isn't working back to the devs, and that reducing the recast to zero seconds on an ability with a 0% success rate is the dumbest idea to circumvent an exploit that they not only should have seen coming but should have simply fixed by removing the stacking effect that has zero benefit to the job or ability itself outside the damn exploit. But so far I've had little luck on that.

I do hope they are still listening, since not a lot of people are happy with this update and it wouldn't hurt them to know it. While we're not going to change anything regarding this update, but it would be nice if the constant bitching got us the overhaul we've been waiting for since Lv.80 in the next minor update (September I assume), confirmation that Scholar is at least getting real attention soon would be nice. If not, I guess they could always post that video of Embrava that was missing when they did the last one. Neither would hurt though I'd prefer the former, but I guess I should wait for this update to be over first.

[Ank]

I'd love to believe that not only is SE listening, but that they actually making positive progress with sch's development at some unspecified point in the future. But raise 3 just has me shaking my head. I guess I should be happy that I can raise like nobody's business, I'm sure I'll find lots of use for that.

I don't even like healing on sch, merton should be a fun toy and despite almost every addition to light arts other than perpetuance being virtually or completely useless it doesn't bother me that badly.

But then maybe my perspective is skewed, remember when sch got all those lowbie buffs added natively like stoneskin? Despite "winning the update" I consider that mostly fluff to.

[Eric]

Okay, I change my mind: SE is listening, but either they're not listening enough, or they're just ignoring what we say. They understand that we are asking for something "unique" and useful, but they aren't listening to the details. They don't really understand what it is that we are unhappy with. If they did, they would do something about Modus Veritas. At the very least, I would like a way to increase the accuracy of the job ability. I wouldn't mind having to sub /blm and using elemental seal or something. Leaving it completely up to chance is just a terrible and counter-intuitive idea.

Everything Economizer is saying is exactly the reason for why I am unhappy with the update. It's not that I don't welcome the changes; it's that by giving us these (at first glance) overpowered abilities, we almost lose the right to complain about the many things that SE has failed to address.

[sigma_star]

So, basically what you are saying, is that what you percieve Scholar to deserve vs. what you are getting are two different things, and the problem here is the gap between the two?



Of course. There would be no need to say anything otherwise.




For a fallacy, you sure appear to have eaten it up two seconds ago, and then in the same statement you make now.

Mainly because in this case, it is not a fallacy - the problem is solely based on what people are happy with - and Scholars aren't happy with the gap between the abilities they think they have "what is" and the abilities they think they deserve "what ought to be"

The issue is that Scholars don't think they are getting what they should be getting. It is a matter of fixing the gap between perception and reality. This is a very real and pressing issue that has to be dealt with in some way.

My ideal would be for SE to actually do something about it instead of just telling Scholars that they aren't meant to heal at all, but defining the job as "not a healer" would also solve the problem.



Yes, this gap as you call it is what's stirring the debate. You again have an is/ought here because you seem to be saying that because we don't like what "is", we somehow are intrinsically wrong. That doesn't work. That logic would never allow debate of any sort otherwise.
If SE would say what you're suggesting, that wouldn't change anything. It would just explicitly state what they've been implicitly saying in practice for the most part. But again, that's not what this debate is about. Sch should be a healing class - they are at earlier levels, and they should continue to be at later levels. That's the stance we're taking and what we're trying to argue. To try to assume to the contrary is missing the whole debate. If you want to say that sch shouldn't be a healing class, you have to say why, and back it up with your arguments.




No, I don't. I am clearly saying that the complaint about SE not listening does not have merit. I am not saying that other, well-thought, and incredibly valid complaints are invalid, I am only saying that saying the SE is not listening is an argument without merit.

I have not yet seen anything that contradicts this, in fact, the longer I deal with this, the less I am convinced that I will ever see any evidence that SE is not listening to Scholars. It might take time, but between valid discussion about actual issues, and suggestions about how to improve the job, Scholar will have the gap between perception about what their job should be and what it is fixed, and more.

Maybe I misunderstood you - I thought you were slamming complaining in general. Complaining about SE not listening wasn't how I read that. If I was wrong, then I stand corrected.

[Raksha]

But then maybe my perspective is skewed, remember when sch got all those lowbie buffs added natively like stoneskin? Despite "winning the update" I consider that mostly fluff to.

The way I interpreted that change was to fix SCH as a subjob rather than SCH as a main job. The only thing SCH practically got out of that update is Shock Spikes since we could only sub it using /blm (which is rarely used)

[Ank]

Aye it was a boost to sch/nin if you needed stoneskin or blm/sch I guess, still don't see many of them around. Could just be the trashy forums I read, but I remember a lot of comments about sch winning that update though - either not understanding how sch works, not a surprise, or simply looking at the number of updates instead of what they were.

At the least they could have let us accession the spikes after giving them natively.

[Economizer]

The way I interpreted that change was to fix SCH as a subjob rather than SCH as a main job. The only thing SCH practically got out of that update is Shock Spikes since we could only sub it using /blm (which is rarely used)

If SE was fixing Scholar as a sub job, they would have added Ice Spikes at a sub-able level. As it stands, most of the updates, and updates SE is considering pretty much seem to be making it so that at 99, Red Mage and Scholar are the main choices for sub jobs, and Black Mage if you want Stun.


Aye it was a boost to sch/nin if you needed stoneskin or blm/sch I guess, still don't see many of them around. Could just be the trashy forums I read, but I remember a lot of comments about sch winning that update though - either not understanding how sch works, not a surprise, or simply looking at the number of updates instead of what they were.

At the least they could have let us accession the spikes after giving them natively.

Spikes spells are under Dark Arts, so in order to AOE them you have to use Manifestation.

[Eric]

Spikes spells are under Dark Arts, so in order to AOE them you have to use Manifestation.

Way to miss the point.

[Siiri]

What is funny about scholars complaining is they always use the argument, "We are the 18th job out of 20 in the games according to the census." Who do people think should be the 18th played job? It has to be someone right? There are 20 jobs in the game, are they all supposed to be at exactly 5%? (Perhaps that would be nice, but SE has never given us a hint it cared to obtain that type of balance. ) So why shouldn't a job that was one of the 3 last introduced be comparatively unpopular? The other jobs down there are also some of the last introduced, like Corsair and Pup. Scholars are not "owed" responses more than any other job, there were at least 10 jobs made fairly useless in the Abyssea era, scholar doesn't have it any worse than a lot of other jobs.

In fact, scholar has been one of the most consistently updated jobs by SE. How many updates have they "won" in the words of forums goers. Let's remember the big huge update 4 years ago or whenever when Kaeko wrote his blog that black mage was now obsolete due to the overpowering of scholar. Scholars still complain and want more more more though.

[Raksha]

If SE was fixing Scholar as a sub job, they would have added Ice Spikes at a sub-able level. As it stands, most of the updates, and updates SE is considering pretty much seem to be making it so that at 99, Red Mage and Scholar are the main choices for sub jobs, and Black Mage if you want Stun.


No one picks a sub based on ice spikes.




Spikes spells are under Dark Arts, so in order to AOE them you have to use Manifestation.

Except manifestion doesn't work on enhancing spells.

[Merton9999]

Manifestation works on spike spells now. It surprised me too. I don't remember it ever being announced in an update. An LS member told me he noticed it working, then I tried it and was surprised myself. I know it didn't work originally. Maybe it was updated when SCH got the spell natively (December?) Wiki even lists spikes as manifestationable now.

As far as the ability wording, I don't think it lists dark magic either but Klimaform, Stun, Aspir, Drain, etc...

It's funny when you cast it too. Unlike every other AOE spell, there is no animation on anyone other than the caster. The log just says they received the effect and it works on them.

[Raksha]

Manifestation works on spike spells now.

Well I'll be damned!

If you happen to read this Camate (or any other mod) please send the dev team our thanks for making this change.

[Merton9999]

Well I'll be damned!

If you happen to read this Camate (or any other mod) please send the dev team our thanks for making this change.

Agreed! I've found it pretty useful in and out of Aby. The only gripe I have is you miss out on the light arts enhancing magic bonus, but tbh I really don't know how the effects are determined on the other targets without enhancing skill. Haven't tested it on anyone other than a PLD.

[Economizer]

Way to miss the point.

And what point would that be? The other point the guy said about people not understanding the job? I considered talking about that, but it was something that is fairly antagonistic, and while it might be true, especially with people not understanding stuff like being able to give spikes to a party, it isn't exactly something polite to point out. I still don't like mentioning it, since we aren't here to attack each other.


No one picks a sub based on ice spikes.

Not many people pick a sub job based on Flash either, but like Ice Spikes, it is incredibly useful. There have been fights I've gone to with Black Mage sub due to the better crowd control the sub provides, Ice Spikes being a major part of it (and I would have gone Red Mage sub instead, but it was underleveled.)


What is funny about scholars complaining is they always use the argument, "We are the 18th job out of 20 in the games according to the census." Who do people think should be the 18th played job? It has to be someone right? There are 20 jobs in the game, are they all supposed to be at exactly 5%? (Perhaps that would be nice, but SE has never given us a hint it cared to obtain that type of balance. ) So why shouldn't a job that was one of the 3 last introduced be comparatively unpopular? The other jobs down there are also some of the last introduced, like Corsair and Pup. Scholars are not "owed" responses more than any other job, there were at least 10 jobs made fairly useless in the Abyssea era, scholar doesn't have it any worse than a lot of other jobs.

Now, once again, I will be clear here, this isn't to say that there are no valid complaints, just to reaffirm this thoughtful statement, since it is not a valid complaint to say your job should be popular to play.

Lets think about Bard. Bard is one of the most powerful jobs in the game - I can't think of a good zerg strategy that doesn't use one unless you are busting out Monk two hour abilities. The job also has a ton of other abilities that make it incredibly useful, but most of these are related to songs, which can be frustrating. Bard isn't ranked very highly in the job rankings - and I don't expect it to ever break a 4-5% mark for main jobs any time soon, and this is despite it being a well sought out job in Abyssea.

Corsair is in a very similar position too, very powerful and unique abilities, low (lower then Scholar) user rates. Puppetmaster also sits in a similar position. I think someone would be a fool to categorize these jobs as weak, or underpowered, personally.

[Karbuncle]

Well I'll be damned!

If you happen to read this Camate (or any other mod) please send the dev team our thanks for making this change.

Hmmm, Curious if you could Manifestation Dread Spikes! im going to test this now. BRB with answer,

[Sotek]

Christ SE, would it kill you to update the flavor text on Stratagems? Accession has never worked on all Healing or Enhancing magic, just change it to "Extends the effect of certain white magic spells ....." and follow through with the rest. Change Enlightenment to "Allows access to both addenda for your next spell" since it has never optimized both Arts - better yet just copy the effect Tabula Rasa gives to it, but who am I to suggest something that should be common sense?

Though, if getting the spells natively is the criteria for making poorly worded Stratagems work with them, I think I just found more fuel to my "Give Scholar native access to basic enfeebling spells" fire. If Accession Paralyze already works, I'm going to complain at SE for specifically stating Haste wouldn't work with it, but never mentioning what new spells will work with it. Can't say I'm a fan of shadow adjustments, though hopefully they pull one for Modus when lowering its recasts, not that I'd be happy at them for avoiding taking fault and acting like there was never anything wrong with it.

[Karbuncle]

Hmmm, Curious if you could Manifestation Dread Spikes! im going to test this now. BRB with answer,

No you can't, Sad day.

Didn't work with EnDark either

However i can confirm Spikes worked...

[Economizer]

Change Enlightenment to "Allows access to both addenda for your next spell" since it has never optimized both Arts - better yet just copy the effect Tabula Rasa gives to it, but who am I to suggest something that should be common sense?

Considering the new link of mini-2hour spells for many of the jobs (mainly Red Mage and Black Mage), this would be a good idea.

Ability: All magic is optimized, and you can use any Stratagems for the next spell you cast. Stratagems are free.

It would only work on one spell, which would be pretty balanced.

[Raksha]

Agreed! I've found it pretty useful in and out of Aby. The only gripe I have is you miss out on the light arts enhancing magic bonus, but tbh I really don't know how the effects are determined on the other targets without enhancing skill. Haven't tested it on anyone other than a PLD.

Can't use Perpetuance either ;_;

[Eric]

Embrava is 4tp per tick regain at level 95. More info from the test server coming soon. Kaustra (wearing SCH AF +2) did 700-ish damage on mobs in Valkurm, and 288 dmg on Clionids in Abyssea. All of this is with every single magic skill capped. ; ; Will try with elemental seal in a bit.

Edit: Here are some images.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/153/kaustra2.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/269/kaustra3.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/38/embrava.png/

Edit #2: I think Kaustra might be broken on the test server, because none of the mobs I used it on showed any signs of slip damage, including a few mandragoras in sarutabaruta and sheep in valkurm as a level 30.

[SpankWustler]

Embrava is 4tp per tick regain at level 95. More info from the test server coming soon. Kaustra (wearing SCH AF +2) did 700-ish damage on mobs in Valkurm, and 288 dmg on Clionids in Abyssea. All of this is with every single magic skill capped. ; ; Will try with elemental seal in a bit.

Edit: Here are some images.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/153/kaustra2.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/269/kaustra3.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/38/embrava.png/

Edit #2: I think Kaustra might be broken on the test server, because none of the mobs I used it on showed any signs of slip damage, including a few mandragoras in sarutabaruta and sheep in valkurm as a level 30.

Given the huge change in damage between low and high Intelligence targets, the initial damage might not be broken and may just be heavily reliant on dINT just like Helix spells. I would be less than shocked.

Maybe try it in your helix set and see if the result makes you feel less like using a kitten to smother an infant? I mean, I fully expect you'll still feel that way about the result, just not to such an extent.

[Ank]

My apologies if spikes actually does work with manifestation, thanks for the super secret ninja buff who ever you are. Clearly I am defeat, I'll try to make the point clearer in the future.

[Sotek]

Considering the new link of mini-2hour spells for many of the jobs (mainly Red Mage and Black Mage), this would be a good idea.

Ability: All magic is optimized, and you can use any Stratagems for the next spell you cast. Stratagems are free.

It would only work on one spell, which would be pretty balanced.

Not really my complaint. Enlightenment reads that it should give you equal access to both Arts just like Tabula Rasa, however all it does it give you access to both Addendum, if you're in Dark Arts and you want to cast Reraise II you'll still get a 20% increase in MP cost and cast time, when according to its description it should have a 10% reduction in both. Though ideally I want Enlightenment to switch you to the other Addendum, since I've never seen any real use in casting a single spell from the other.

Free Stratagem for the next spell you cast is actually a suggestion I've put out though, albeit slightly differently - next spell doesn't use up Stratagems while still gaining their full effect. The effect from the ability would wear off rather than the Stratagems, it'd be very useful for things like Immanence and buffing and Stratagem management in general.
Ideally a Tabula Rasa update would have given it a effect just like that (the AF3 boss NPC gets this exact effect) rather than just extending the duration by 50%, since mine - and most peoples - biggest complaint with it is the massive loss of time reapplying Stratagems. Even with the duration increase I'm still going to be losing a great deal of time between spells reapplying. Though from what I gathered from the description, the Black and Red Mage abilities can be used on targets, a Scholar version of that isn't exactly as useful, Stratagems are limited to Scholar and /Scholar, while instant cast and free MP cost are universally useful for Mages.

[Merton9999]

Embrava is 4tp per tick regain at level 95. More info from the test server coming soon. Kaustra (wearing SCH AF +2) did 700-ish damage on mobs in Valkurm, and 288 dmg on Clionids in Abyssea. All of this is with every single magic skill capped. ; ; Will try with elemental seal in a bit.

Edit: Here are some images.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/153/kaustra2.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/269/kaustra3.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/38/embrava.png/

Edit #2: I think Kaustra might be broken on the test server, because none of the mobs I used it on showed any signs of slip damage, including a few mandragoras in sarutabaruta and sheep in valkurm as a level 30.

<Yawn> Color me surprised that the two hour spells are this pathetic. Libra, Animus and Adloquium all over again. If Kaustra stays that disappointing I'm actually glad they changed the name from Merton. I wouldn't want my favorite spell name to be so gimpy.

Thanks for the info, though, Eric. This is what I get for being a spoiler junkie I guess. Out of curiosity what atmas were you using for the sand sweeper damage? tbh the 800ish value isn't that much higher than a normal Aby helix with the right atmas. If the only benefit of this spell is slightly higher damage and AOE every two hours/chest I won't know what to do but laugh.

@Raksha
Yeah I forgot I was disappointed at not being able to use perpetuance with spikes too. At this point I'm still just glad it works. I'm kind of scared at mentioning it here though. The way the animation goes off it actually looks like a bug when the party receives the effect. Hopefully it doesn't get nerfed.

[Eric]

<Yawn> Color me surprised that the two hour spells are this pathetic. Libra, Animus and Adloquium all over again. If Kaustra stays that disappointing I'm actually glad they changed the name from Merton. I wouldn't want my favorite spell name to be so gimpy.

Thanks for the info, though, Eric. This is what I get for being a spoiler junkie I guess.

It's worth noting that the dmg I was doing was with incredibly crappy gear (although still full AF+2 like the mithra in the teaser video). What worried me at first was that since the dINT between a level 95 and a Damselfly is so large, that 800~1000 was going to be near the cap, but it remains to be seen how damage for this spell is calculated.

Furthermore with some more help from Google Translate, I was able to see on the forums that a very well-geared JP player was able to do 1.3k dmg with it, so it's not completely disappointing if the DoT is per tick and not once every 10 seconds as with helices.

What worries me is that the spell description says nothing about slip damage, and every time I've used it on the test server, I was unable to get the spell to do DoT damage. I really hope this is just a glitch.

[Sotek]

Can you actually get to Lv.95 on the test server? I'd be interested in hearing if Sublimation gets another tic, since it's looking like that's all we really can get this update.
Also, whats the Haste like on Embrava? Or is it even Haste, I've had a nagging suspicion that it could be -Delay, in which case one or two of those Regain tics are possibly there just to cover the loss in TP gain from -Delay. If that's the case I can't say I'm pleased with my Regen V and still less than apt as Tactician's Roll Regain. Not as 2Hour spells, anyway.


Furthermore with some more help from Google Translate, I was able to see on the forums that a very well-geared JP player was able to do 1.3k dmg with it, so it's not completely disappointing if the DoT is per tick and not once every 10 seconds as with helices.

That's still disappointing. That's not even tIV damage, sure we can AoE it but I've been hearing 4~6k damage from Black Mages new -ja, so unless the slip damage that they've neglected to add is damn amazing I really am disappointed. These are two hour spells for crying out loud. They cost 30% of our maximum MP pool. What the fuck is this shit? People were pissed off with Odin and Alexander, but at least Alexander did something useful. Another two spells to add to Scholars list of not worth the MP it costs to cast spells.

[Eric]

Yeah you can get to level 95, but the quest for the limit break is in JP so you have to use the Test Server Moogle to manually set your level to 95.

As for haste, I'm not sure how to go about testing for that, but I will try my best. I forgot to mention that Embrava's HP regen is 40 hp/tic, and the spell lasts somewhere around 5~7 minutes and can be used with perpetuance.

By the way, you can use parsimony with both Kaustra and Enbrava and conserve MP can proc. The recast time for each spell confused me because I think they vary by level, but again, I didn't have much time to do all of the testing last night. I will update you guys more later today.

Edit: Turns out HP regen for Embrava is 40 hp/tic. Still only double Regen III.

[Sotek]

Well, Parsimony makes it better I guess, Empyrean legs practically gives up Manafont and at least Stratagem use doesn't particularly matter under Tabula.

Still, can't say I'm pleased. When people have been asking for a Curative Helix - which would do at least 100HP/tic - and under 2Hour we only get 36HP/tic? Yeah.... Not looking hopeful right now. These might as well be under Addendum for all I can tell. Sure they're slightly overpowered in regards to other spells, but Stratagem use is going to matter without Tabula so theres the massive drawback. They are no where near the level of Odin or Alexander, so I cant really see why they're 2Hour only.

[Merton9999]

Yeah you can get to level 95, but the quest for the limit break is in JP so you have to use the Test Server Moogle to manually set your level to 95.

As for haste, I'm not sure how to go about testing for that, but I will try my best. I forgot to mention that Embrava's HP regen is 40 hp/tic, and the spell lasts somewhere around 5~7 minutes and can be used with perpetuance.

By the way, you can use parsimony with both Kaustra and Enbrava and conserve MP can proc. The recast time for each spell confused me because I think they vary by level, but again, I didn't have much time to do all of the testing last night. I will update you guys more later today.

Edit: Turns out HP regen for Embrava is 40 hp/tic. Still only double Regen III.

Does Embrava stack with Adloquium, Haste and Regen? If so, given its use under TR, we could also apply those three for a total of 63 HP (?), 5 TP, and extra Haste. I'm still underwhelmed for a 2-hour even if it does stack. If it doesn't stack, I'm exiling Embrava to lolLand with nearly everything else 76-90. Also, is the 5-7 minutes with perpetuance or without? I.E. are we looking at 12.5-17.5 minutes functionally?

The 1358 number seems like what you'd get with MAB atma and some high INT/MAB accessories over just your AF3+2 numbers. What would sell Merton to me as a 2-hour would be triple that, and a faster tick than helices. The fact that it isn't giving a DoT is disturbing, if not a bug, since it was highlighted as a major feature and anticipated for pearl farming. Please not another overpromise, underdeliver occasion for SCH - I'm seriously at my limit.

EDIT:
OK I'm going to reserve judgment for a while. This post is showing very different Merton numbers, with atma, and a DoT effect:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/13831-Kaustra-Testing

Either they're changing this with patches or it's buggy. That post sounds a lot better.

[TimeMage]

On alla they said Embrava is 38 regen, 4 regain, and around 33% haste, with a 5 min duration. If that's the case... I think the spell is pretty good. On top of that, it seems like it has its own icon, meaning that it stacks with other buffs, namely normal haste. That means 12.5 mins of very buffed melees, which is really nice for fights that can't be zerged but benefit from increased damage output. Let's say it's only 30% haste, that plus 15% haste spell plus 25% haste from gear is 70% haste, plus Hasso or Haste Samba (Hasso more realistic in the situations you'd 2Hr) is capped haste for a LOT of time. Yeah, yeah, BRD can get to I think 23% haste without 2H with two songs... But it gives us a decent niche in tough NMs.

Kaustra on the other hand... ;_; With magian staff, good atmas and good nuking gear it should do at least 6k per mob per cast to be worthwile.

[Eric]

EDIT:
OK I'm going to reserve judgment for a while. This post is showing very different Merton numbers, with atma, and a DoT effect:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/13831-Kaustra-Testing

Either they're changing this with patches or it's buggy. That post sounds a lot better.
I'm curious to see this guy's gear. I've asked several other SCH that were online, but none of them have reported those high numbers.

To be fair, none of those people play SCH as their main job at level 90(including me, the last time I played SCH 90 was before I deleted my old char), so I think it may all have to do with equipment/atma.

EDIT: By comparison, my gear is at the point where it is doing 1800~2000 dmg with Blizzard V and Fire V on Flamingos in Tu'Lia, while Kaustra was still doing the same amount of damage. It's probably highly dependent on MAB or something, because I cap out at around the same damage no matter what mob I use it on.

http://i52.tinypic.com/qqzl6p.png

EDIT #2: Here is a picture of Kaustra on Flamingos, and of another SCH telling me how much damage he was able to do.

http://i51.tinypic.com/30l0w83.png

EDIT #3: Embrava seems to give 30% haste and doesn't affect TP gained (therefore it's not just weapon delay reduction). It also stacks with Adloquium and Haste. Not sure if it counts for the magic haste cap.

http://i54.tinypic.com/2d7zj3k.png <-(Hearing this comment from a JP nearly made me spit my water out)

Edit #4: Kaustra doesn't work with Immanence. You can, however, magic burst it. Also, it wears off when you die. . . Hopefully the translation team will fix the text.
http://i55.tinypic.com/dg1lq8.png (The Flamingo is no longer Kaustra.)
http://i56.tinypic.com/wclaox.png (Immanence X)
http://i56.tinypic.com/b6amb8.png (Magic Burst O)

[Ahrana]

On alla they said Embrava is 38 regen, 4 regain, and around 33% haste, with a 5 min duration. If that's the case... I think the spell is pretty good. On top of that, it seems like it has its own icon, meaning that it stacks with other buffs, namely normal haste. That means 12.5 mins of very buffed melees, which is really nice for fights that can't be zerged but benefit from increased damage output. Let's say it's only 30% haste, that plus 15% haste spell plus 25% haste from gear is 70% haste, plus Hasso or Haste Samba (Hasso more realistic in the situations you'd 2Hr) is capped haste for a LOT of time. Yeah, yeah, BRD can get to I think 23% haste without 2H with two songs... But it gives us a decent niche in tough NMs.

I'm making the assumption that this counts against your magic haste, in which case it caps at just over 43%. It's better then nothing, and I'm hoping it ends up being better then it looks on paper.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Just checked on the test server it appears all jobs get Klimaform if they're /SCH surely as it's SCH's artifact weapon (so to speak) it should be blocked..

Would you report that in the Test Server bugs section?

[Eric]

I don't think it's a bug.

[Raksha]

Just checked on the test server it appears all jobs get Klimaform if they're /SCH surely as it's SCH's artifact weapon (so to speak) it should be blocked..

Would you report that in the Test Server bugs section?


Somehow i'm not surprised.