SCH adjustments & Additions

[Fredjan]

I would like to see SCH get something that is like a distinction, that makes it more unique as a main. It's an excellent support job for certain jobs, but it doesn't shine as much as a main nowadays. Obviously, Abyssea is a huge influence, because SCH isn't capable of doing as many yellow !! as BLM is. Adloquium is cool I guess.

Sure, we get Tier V nukes, just like BLM, but given the current state BLM beats SCH. I have fairly top-nuking gear for both jobs and due to BLM having Blizzard V and atma that favors it, my SCH cannot top my BLM's damage. That doesn't bother me much at all, though.

What I would like to see is something that SCHs would use frequently that's unique to their job. Really, when one looks at it, it isn't much at all... Helix spells (maybe), storm spells, enmity+/- spells at 85, Adloquium at 88 (60 TP for the duration, or 120 TP with Perpetuance/135 with AF3+1 hands/150 with AF3+2 hands)... nothing that really -shines- out that would result as, "Hey, gear Scholar!" (I can tell you 95% of the time people forget I even have the job at 90). I wouldn't mind seeing something that increases the TP/tic to that. Red Mages got something to boost their Refresh, and we get something as well as WHM to boost Regen effect as well as duration. I wouldn't think getting something to boost Adloquium is unreasonable.

I can't say I've been asked to heal on Scholar often. Anytime I'm asked to heal that means I'm on White Mage. So when I'm on Scholar, it's mostly support healing and nuking. Casting storm spells / using Ebuillence makes up for our lack of MAB vs. BLM, and casting Aurorastorm helps makes up for our lack of cure potency vs. a WHM's. I rarely use the enmity spells. I'm rarely with a tank, and anytime I nuke that means I'm getting hate anyway, enmity- spell on or not.

Since we got a Stratagem that makes a spell open or close a skillchain, I could forsee them adding spells with multiple elements (maybe). That's actually an interesting idea that I like, but as others have said, it's a question of how fast the spells would be, damage, and MP cost. T2 storm spells and T2 helix would be neat as well. However, it's only 9 levels, it's a matter of seeing what SE has in mind that isn't obvious already, given the rate of spells we have gained since 75 cap... all under Addendum: Black of course, only exceptions being the white magic spells we've obtained: Adloquium, Enmity spells, and Regen III.

What we have gotten just for nukes:
Stone V - SCH79
Water V - SCH83
Aero V - SCH87

What we can likely expect just from that:
Fire V - SCH91
Blizzard V - SCH95
Thunder V - SCH99

But it's obvious to me Scholar needs more than that, something other jobs won't have. If they do introduce merits for lv99, that'll be a given that we'll get some unique stuff, it's just a matter of what that'd be and how it'd influence the playerbase to use/play the job.

[Pebe]

Oh, new idea. They should make the enhances addendum on sch af3+2 body like enmity douse. Everytime you switch from addendum black to addendum white or vice versa, it acts as an enmity douse. That would be fair because it would take two stratedgems. Lights arts >> white then back to dark arts >> black.

[Fetus]

I would like to see SCH get something that is like a distinction, that makes it more unique as a main. It's an excellent support job for certain jobs, but it doesn't shine as much as a main nowadays. Obviously, Abyssea is a huge influence, because SCH isn't capable of doing as many yellow !! as BLM is. Adloquium is cool I guess.

Sure, we get Tier V nukes, just like BLM, but given the current state BLM beats SCH. I have fairly top-nuking gear for both jobs and due to BLM having Blizzard V and atma that favors it, my SCH cannot top my BLM's damage. That doesn't bother me much at all, though.

Since we got a Stratagem that makes a spell open or close a skillchain, I could forsee them adding spells with multiple elements (maybe). That's actually an interesting idea that I like, but as others have said, it's a question of how fast the spells would be, damage, and MP cost. T2 storm spells and T2 helix would be neat as well. However, it's only 9 levels, it's a matter of seeing what SE has in mind that isn't obvious already, given the rate of spells we have gained since 75 cap... all under Addendum: Black of course, only exceptions being the white magic spells we've obtained: Adloquium, Enmity spells, and Regen III.

What we have gotten just for nukes:
Stone V - SCH79
Water V - SCH83
Aero V - SCH87

What we can likely expect just from that:
Fire V - SCH91
Blizzard V - SCH95
Thunder V - SCH99

But it's obvious to me Scholar needs more than that, something other jobs won't have. If they do introduce merits for lv99, that'll be a given that we'll get some unique stuff, it's just a matter of what that'd be and how it'd influence the playerbase to use/play the job.

This (I didn't quote the whole post, just parts I thought were especially telling). Thanks for reminding me that we have no equipment to enhance Adloquium. Why the Savant's Bonnet +1/+2 enhances Regen instead is beyond me. Maybe if we all gripe about it enough, they'll change it? As is, the potency of Adloquium is so weak that I don't even bother using it inside of Abyssea. Outside of Abyssea, that changes a bit, but not by much.

Speaking of... I think we need to eliminate Abyssea from this conversation indefinitely. Inside of Abyssea, Monk is the ultimate tank, mages never run out of MP, every melee job has capped critical hit rate and critical hit damage and Ninja can nuke targets for thousands of damage per :Ni nuke. Outside of Abyssea, Monk is about as mortal as it was at 75, mages have a finite amount of MP (without proper party support), melee jobs cry because they don't deal thousands of damage per WS and elemental ninjutsu still sucks against almost everything. My point is everyone has Abyssea on the brain and Abyssea skews how everything works outside of Abyssea. 99% of the game is not in Abyssea. We need to stop using Abyssea as a point of relativity when comparing Y to Z.

@Pebe - Unless I miscounted, SCH can achieve +68% damage on any Elemental Magic spell. This is before Elemental Affinity, Magic Attack Bonus, INT formulas or anything else is included. Like Fredjan and you have said and as Hideka as taken steps to illustrate, SCH needs something that is SCH only. It's a great support job, no doubt about it, but it doesn't feel unique nor finished yet.

@Hideka - I'm a huge fan of your "Fusion Magic" ideas. Keep working on them. Flesh them out even more. Make them definitively "Scholar". SE needs to see them and read this thread, honestly. That being said, I'm not a fan of your latest ideas and I mean no disrespect in saying so. They seem overly complex. Not saying that I can't appreciate complexity, but it just seems needless. However, your Minuo Pretium made some lightbulbs flash in my head. I'm working on something and I'll try to get it posted later. I think it could be another step towards making SCH really unique.

[Rambus]

Minuo pretium (Blood Price)
Strategem

Might be overpowered (would it be an unaligned strat or one art specific?), but there's precedent for SCH already using their HP as MP in a bizarre way. I like.

Praevenio Decessus (death prevention)
Strategem
Light arts

Oh. God. Yes. I've always been a fan of conditional buffs and hanging healing effects ever since playing a Pro-Monk in Guild Wars - XI healing ever since has felt so brute-force. And since they've established this type of death-conditional effect - Migawari, Earthen Armor, Scherzo - one more job having a variant of it isn't horrible. And I agree, in that it shouldn't stack - I might also ask that it blocks and is blocked by Solace's Cureskin, just to keep a SCH and a WHM from complete mp-bombing a tank.

Maybe a Dark Arts-equivalent that hangs an AoE retributive damage on a target PC? Dunno.

---

Speaking of... I think we need to eliminate Abyssea from this conversation indefinitely.

outside abyssea your taking about a level 90 tanking on 75 content, any DD can tank.

I laughed in one dyna we did when mnk mobs would 100-fist to only have a wiff fest on our monk tank.

MNKs, SAM, DRK all had thier lime light in taking at 75, hell even rdm and brd did too.

one should state what x is like inside abyssea and what it is like outside abyssea, I hate how people talk about stuff and just assume they only mean abyssea.

just because in abyssea your in god mode does not prevent it from being analyzed.

I think I agree more with Rambus' response* that we need to consider both inside and outside abyssea slightly separately, but I do agree with what you're saying here, in that we do not know what content post-90 is going to be (please, for the love of Promathia, no more abyssea).

In that vein, I'm wondering why so many of the suggestions (not here, but elsewhere) duplicate stuff we get from our subjobs. Fact of the matter - by endgame, we're going to have a subjob, and save for a very few situations, it's going to be one of three: WHM, BLM, or RDM. Not just because of what they grant, but because very little else makes sense for what a SCH does. So why duplicate into SCH stuff we'd be getting anyway from the subjob, whether it be enfeebles, MAB, or whatnot?


*Why is the forum telling me I'm quoting from "posts that are not part of this thread"? And not letting me quote Rambus' at all?

No idea, maybe I am special, i can quote myself across threads and post them.
*btw it was really hard to quote your post exactly, then adding me in it lol.

maybe you had a number wrong and gave an error

[Fetus]

Here's my idea: Introduce the glory of the Blood-seed Grimoire ala "Crimson Arts".

I've also designed this list of suggested ideas from the users of this forum. I'm not taking credit for almost any of them. Some of them are slightly altered. A lot of users have put on their mortarboards and come up with some really genius ideas. If anything should be changed, let me know and I'll edit.

Suggested Scholar Updates

I.) Changes to existing job abilities:

Modus Veritas
-Recasting time should be reduced from 10 minutes to 1 minute.

Sublimation
-Conversion rate of HP to MP should no longer fluctuate after activating Sublimation.

Addendum: Black
-Scholar should no longer need to be under the effect of Addendum: Black to gain access to the following spells:

- Stone IV
- Water IV
- Aero IV
- Fire IV
- Blizzard IV
- Thunder IV

II.) Introduction of new job abilities:

Crimson Arts

Obtained: Scholar @ Level 91
Cast Time: Instant
Recast Time: 1:00 (-00:02 by each Merit Points upgrade)
Duration: 2:00:00

-Optimizes certain aspects of both black magic and white magic:

-Elemental, dark, enhancing, enfeebling and healing magic is optimized.

*Crimson Arts bestows the same 10% MP Cost Reduction/Casting Time/Recasting Time benefits as Light Arts and Dark Arts does.

While under the effect of Crimson Arts, a Scholar should gain access to the following stratagems:

-Diminution (an augmented Penury/Parsimony): Reduced the MP cost of your next dark, elemental, enfeebling, enhancing or healing magic spell by 75%. Consumes 5% of your HP.

-Legerity (an augmented Celerity/Alacrity): Reduces the casting time and recasting time of your next dark, elemental, enfeebling, enhancing or healing magic spell by 75%. Consumes 5% of your HP.

-Revelation (an augmented Accession/Manifestation): Your next dark, elemental, enfeebling, enhancing or healing magic spell will become AoE. Triples the MP Cost, Casting Time and Recasting Time. Consumes 5% of your HP.

-Profundity (an augmented Rapture/Ebullience): Your next applicable black magic spell will gain an increased potency of +30%. Your next applicable white magic spell will gain an increased potency of +60%. Consumes 5% of your HP.

-Convalesce (an augmented Perpetuance/Immanence): Your next enhancing magic spell will have its duration increased by 3x. Your next elemental magic spell will generate enhanced damage on the skillchain it produces by +30%.

*Stratagems obtained via merit points will be unusable while under the effect of Crimson Arts.

*Addendum: Black and Addendum: White will be unusable while under the effect of Crimson Arts.

Certain new spells will only be available for use while under the effect of Crimson Arts.

III.) New spell acquisition and spell-related changes:

White Magic:

- Cure V (Addendum: White)
- Sandstorm II
- Rainstorm II
- Windstorm II
- Firestorm II
- Hailstorm II
- Thunderstorm II
- Animus Rasa

The level requirement to learn “Adloquium” should be reduced from Level 88 to Level 85.

"Klimaform" should be changed from a black magic Dark Magic spell to a black magic Enhancing Magic Spell.

*Animus Rasa will cause the selected target to gain no enmity from any action for 30 seconds.

MP Cost: 63 MP
Spell Element: Light
Magic Skill: Enhancing Magic
Casting Time: 5 seconds
Recast Time: 3:00
Spell Duration: 30 seconds

*Tier II -storm spells will cause the selected target to gain the effect of “double” weather.

Black Magic:

- Fire V (Addendum: Black)
- Blizzard V (Addendum: Black)
- Thunder V (Addendum: Black)
- Terra Pullus (Crimson Arts) [Earth/Dark]
- Glacialis Fons (Crimson Arts) [Ice/Water]
- Ventus Reboare (Crimson Arts) [Wind/Thunder]
- Aduro Illustrio (Crimson Arts) [Fire/Light]
- Funditus Elucido (Crimson Arts) [Light/Thunder/Fire/Wind]
- Omnino Creperum (Crimson Arts) [Dark/Ice/Water/Earth]


*The Terra Pullus, Glacialis Fons, Ventus Reboare and Aduro Illustrio spells possess the innate qualities that allow them to be used to form Level 2 Skillchains when used in conjunction with Convalesce.

*The Funditus Elucido and Omnino Creperum spells possess the innate qualities that allow them to be used to form Level 3 Skillchains when used in conjunction with Convalesce.

IV.) Item-related:

Savant’s Bonnet +2
-This item should be changed to: Enhances “Adloquium” effect instead of Enhances “Regen” effect.

*Edit 1: Credit to Hideka, Fredjan, Rambus, Jomen, Pebe and whoever else I missed.

[Sotek]

I don't like some of those abilities, too similar to some Thief abilities and one is clearly Enmity Douse 2.0.

I've mentioned such an idea before, but I didn't really give it much thought until (I think) Rambus likened Scholar to Corsair. Basically, give Scholar some buffs that are based off enmity.
If Corsair has a buff that gives you Refresh, the best when it rolls a 5 (or 11), think of something similar for Scholar that gives the best bonus when the targets enmity level is at 50% according to Libra.
The idea clearly needs fleshing out, but it's the only real way I can see Scholar working with its Enmity roll. I don't even think it should be given any ability to control enmity outside maybe a "Enmity stays as it is for x amount of time", I'd much rather see Scholar have to tell a Thief to take some of a Monks enmity so the Monk can deal better damage, it seems far more like the roll of a General that I think Scholar is meant to fill. Other jobs would need more ways to control enmity in that case. Dragoon and Black Mage already have enmity wipes I guess (I want their buff to require 50% enmity just to trollface.jpg).