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/gui...nsus/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).
