Scholar: Returning to Roots

You bring up a vaild point about stances and how they've traditionally not worked very well, but there's a big difference here because these stances have little to do with DPS. This concept for DT is essentially turning all your single target spells into AoEs. This essentially means you get to use an AoE Physick when you need it, AoE Broil/Biolysis/Miasmolysis instead of needing Art of War or Bane, and essentially allows us to have 1 action instead of several.

ET as I've designed is supposed to turn Physick into a "Physick II of sorts" which inandof itself wasn't really enough to justify it, even if it could also influence this concept for a high CD GCD heal in Epiphany, which is why I ponder if it could be a way to turn GCD actions into OGCD actions to consume resources like the Fey Gauge, but Aetherflow could even make more sense.

I don't want to see SCH return to its 'roots'. And I do not want to see yet another max level skill be just a skill that was previously taken away with a little spice added. I most certainly don't want the return of stance switching involved with DT/ET as the OP suggests. I can tell he is a Cleric Stance of-old supporter for sure.

This does not mean that ET/DT are not fundamentally flawed. They essentially still work the way they always have since HW, and things have changed since then. DT could honestly be used offensively or in support (spread Bio/Biolysis, or a single cast AoE Broil) and giving the SCH this option would add a nice element of engagement to combat. ET's effectiveness is essentially eliminated by still being tied to a GCD ability and SCH now has more means to ogcd heal since ETs inception. It also has a very short CD, so this ability drifts a good portion of the time. I don't have any idea on how to improve this ability as this time.

If there is any stance switching, I would like to see this with Eos/Selene. This was basically the case pre ShB, but Selene had very situational abilities. Fey Wind was awesome, but having to burn up a swiftcast or hardcast her was a problem. What I would like to see is a fairy that is strong in ST situations, and a fairy that is strong in AoE situations. But I don't want their abilities to simply be ST/AoE variants, but rather how they support the SCH and the group. This would also prevent overlapping should two SCHs be in the same party as both should be using their ST/AoE fairy accordingly. I also want their abilities back on the pet hotbar. I believe it's ok to hardcast the first fairy, but if switching (which is something I want to do), it should be instant.

The Fey Gauge is also a big problem for me. Supporting two abilities, one of which has very limited use outside high-end content, and the other has its own CD and feels like it was slapped in last minute because they had no idea what other abilities to possibly give to SCH.

In short, getting SCH to interact with their fairies is how I feel they will make this job engaging again if they don't want to go the DPS route. This interaction between SCH and fairy is what should fill up the Fey Gauge, and allow the SCH to really do something cool. By cool, I do mean some kind of offensive ability. Aetherflow is aetherflow, and there really isn't much reason to tie to the Fey Gauge to it when itself is a resource to use the powerful abilities it unlocks. Just such silly design that when compared to other job gauges, you can just tell that a lot less thought was put into it.

For the record, I actually am vehemently against the Cleric Stance "of-old." I guess because I proposed a stance concept though, that means I am a supporter of every stance and all stances that have ever stanced in stance history.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

For the record, I actually am vehemently against the Cleric Stance "of-old." I guess because I proposed a stance concept though, that means I am a supporter of every stance and all stances that have ever stanced in stance history.

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A bit of an overreaction. It's not that; it's that stances just don't work in this game, and that's why they have been eliminated. When you say switch based on needs, the need is and always has been to kill the enemy quickly. This means you will be spending as little time as possible in any stance that does not do this optimally. And while the effects of each stance you proposed I wouldn't call bad or detrimental, but the number crunchers out there will tell you which stance you HAVE to be in, or you are failing at your job. Mind that these are words out of the echo chamber; not my own. However if there is anything I want to avoid like the plague with SCH, is giving it the illusion of choice that once and still does belong to AST.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

A bit of an overreaction. It's not that; it's that stances just don't work in this game, and that's why they have been eliminated. When you say switch based on needs, the need is and always has been to kill the enemy quickly. This means you will be spending as little time as possible in any stance that does not do this optimally. And while the effects of each stance you proposed I wouldn't call bad or detrimental, but the number crunchers out there will tell you which stance you HAVE to be in, or you are failing at your job. Mind that these are words out of the echo chamber; not my own. However if there is anything I want to avoid like the plague with SCH, is giving it the illusion of choice that once and still does belong to AST.

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It was mostly an overreaction because your statement came across so selfishly. That's not to say "my way is right and if you disagree, you're wrong" case and point my reactions to other's suggestions. Coming out though and saying "well that's not what I want..." Okay, well the game isn't designed for you specifically. The point is to create something that could hopefully make as many players happy as possible, not just make you happy.

But besides that factor, This example of DT and ET wouldn't have a DPS impact in the way that you're implying. This DT does impact DPS spells--Halving their potencies but making them AoE, so yes you would swap into it probably for groups of 3 or more to spread your DoTs and use Broil in the way Art of War is. The original concept for ET wasn't as developed and would only essentially make your Physick a "Physick II" while making Epiphany heal for a hefty 1400 Potency once per 45 seconds. There's also that concept of making your Aetherflow and/or Fey Gauge actions GCD actions that do not consume any resources, but turn into OGCD actions that do consume Aetherflow and/or Fey Gauge respectively while under ET, which would give the player the ability to control when they want to turn those tools into OGCDs which would be DPS optimal while you have resources, but there could still be times where you'd rather save your resources for an upcoming mechanic.

There are many stances that have not been utilized well but that doesn't mean stances cannot work and until you can actually back up why ideas like this cannot work with at least theorycrafted examples rather than vague ones, you haven't convinced me. Another thing that could help your case is rather than just yell about ideas you don't like, why not come up with alternate concepts to counter mine? You don't like my version of DT? What would you prefer be down with it? Do you think it should stay as is? If so, why?

I like the Stance concept for SCH. I would like stances based on Black Grimmoire and White Grimmoire like FFXI's scholars. Each stance would be tied to a fairy and would buff a specific part of the SCH kit. Black would increase offensive and debuffing skills making DT spread debuffs and use Selene as a debuffing fairy, while White would empower healing skills and buffing with Eos.
Of course we would be able to switch stances im combat to allow SCH to be able to adapt to the situation.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

It was mostly an overreaction because your statement came across so selfishly. That's not to say "my way is right and if you disagree, you're wrong" case and point my reactions to other's suggestions. Coming out though and saying "well that's not what I want..." Okay, well the game isn't designed for you specifically. The point is to create something that could hopefully make as many players happy as possible, not just make you happy.

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Well, then you don't know me very well. I am probably one of the least selfish healers you could have in your group. I say this because I am well acquainted with healers both in game and out, and witness firsthand how selfishly they play and communicate with others in a game that's supposed to be about teamwork and unity. I would flip the coin on you sir, and say that singling out my post as selfish and overreacting simply because I do not agree with your take on the job in fact makes you look that way. If you took offense to anything I have said, it was not my intention to do so. Being a supporter of old Cleric Stance or stance switching in general isn't a bad thing at all. It's just unfortunate that those of this mind were punished so greatly over the years.

It's difficult to have everyone's best interest in mind when the healer community is as divided as it is. That being said, many of the ideas I hand out on the forums are formulated from the responses and suggestions from the other posters. Most of what I previously suggested has at one point or another been mentioned already, while other things are aspects about the job that are indisputably flawed. The fact I mention any DPS capability at all shows my willingness to see the other side as I am of the 'pure healer' mindset. I DPS on heals because I have to, and I know it's right; not because I like it or want to be doing it.

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There are many stances that have not been utilized well but that doesn't mean stances cannot work and until you can actually back up why ideas like this cannot work with at least theorycrafted examples rather than vague ones, you haven't convinced me. Another thing that could help your case is rather than just yell about ideas you don't like, why not come up with alternate concepts to counter mine? You don't like my version of DT? What would you prefer be down with it? Do you think it should stay as is? If so, why?

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Actually, considering that stances have pretty much been eliminated completely from the game (MNK still has theirs, but likely to also be gone after 4.4 rework), it is you that has to theorycraft how putting them back will work. You tell me how you will implement a stance where you are not defaulted to the one that causes to most damage or provides the most rDPS? From my observation throughout the years playing this game and mmos in general, stances effectively cut a community in half. Then you have one side in favor of using it how the player sees fit, and another side who tells you to be using it as the meta sees fit. The latter will post numbers, fflogs, and bring up the current raid tier all day to prove than playing any other way is wrong.

So good sir, trust me when I tell you that my statements does have the community in mind, and not just myself. I am selfish in the sense that a desire to unite the healer community would make me happy.

I don't doubt that you can be a selfless person, no one comment is ever a true reflection of one's character in it's entirety. It's that thing I see a lot on these forums... things like "Seat of Sacrifice is too hard and you need to make it easier because I wiped too many times," or "I don't want to DPS as a healer, therefore the developers need to change healing to fit my standard" are the kinds of attitudes that rub me the wrong way, and that response made it feel like that.

For the record, I wholeheartedly want you to have a healer that plays while doing almost no DPS directly. Personally, what I think will really help the healers redevelop their own identities would be for us and Square to accept that healer RDPS contribution is a thing and will forever be a thing in this game, and to move forward by designing different ways of approaching that to appease every player.

If it were up to me, as this concept suggests, Scholar makes sense to be the DPS heavy healer for the players that want to be hyper offensive healers that need to find ways to keep the team healthy in-between damaging spells.
Astrologian should be Scholar's foil, taking damage buffs off the Cards and having GCD spells that buff allies with utility effects while also damaging that party member's target for their own spells and weaponskills. Ideally, your only direct DPS would come from Combust uptime, Earthly Star, and possibly Lord of Crowns if it gets reworked to something closer to what it used to be.
White Mage would be the happy medium with an expanded version of their lily system--gating high burst damage behind heals that you actively want to seek out (meaning Aff. Misery would need to become stronger than Glare spam, or for us to get a single-target "Afflatus Xenoglossy" type spell that outperforms Glare). This would make you want to heal allies with GCD heals rather than OGCD heals first.

I would really love to hope that the future would ultimately see 6 healers by the end of its lifespan so that there could be 2 options for each style, but who knows if we'll ever even get 5.

DoT+Bane made sense back in ARR and HW when SCH did not have a GCD AoE. It wasn't until SB that they got Miasma II with good upfront initial damage (was 25 potency in ARRh+/HW, 100 potency in SB). What they managed to do was roll in all the DoT damage from Bane'd Bio II/Bio/Miasma/Shadowflare and put it into Art of War (160 potency, no drop off). SCH therefore now deal more AoE damage now than they ever did, and with no drop off.

In ARR you had:
Bio II: 35 potency/tick
Bio: 40 potency/tick
Miasma: 20 potency up front, 35/tick
Shadowflare: 25 potency/tick
Miasma II: 20 potency upfront, 10 potency

Sum: 140 potency upfront followed by 145/tick on remaining enemies. later on they added a 60% drop off in damage for multiple enemies.

Art of War: 160 potency every 2.5s, no drop off. Why do you want Bane and DoTs again?

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

DoT+Bane made sense back in ARR and HW when SCH did not have a GCD AoE. It wasn't until SB that they got Miasma II with good upfront initial damage (was 25 potency in ARRh+/HW, 100 potency in SB). What they managed to do was roll in all the DoT damage from Bane'd Bio II/Bio/Miasma/Shadowflare and put it into Art of War (160 potency, no drop off). SCH therefore now deal more AoE damage now than they ever did, and with no drop off.

In ARR you had:
Bio II: 35 potency/tick
Bio: 40 potency/tick
Miasma: 20 potency up front, 35/tick
Shadowflare: 25 potency/tick
Miasma II: 20 potency upfront, 10 potency

Sum: 140 potency upfront followed by 145/tick on remaining enemies. later on they added a 60% drop off in damage for multiple enemies.

Art of War: 160 potency every 2.5s, no drop off. Why do you want Bane and DoTs again?

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Uh Miasma II was there since day 1 for Summoner and Scholar. It wasnt until it was removed at the start of SB and people complained that it was reinstated for Scholar only.

As for Bane, it's not so much about functionality but about style and theme. There's a difference in the style of spreading DoTs vs a single AoE, and literally no one was asking for that to be changed. Functionally, Art of War is fine, but it is probably one of actions in the game most devoid of any theme, lore, or personality. What does "Art of War" even mean? What am I doing as the Scholar to inflict damage on multiple enemies? Astrologian is crushing several enemies with a sphere of intense gravity. White Mage is conjuring pure light aether to sear and briefly disable nearby enemies. What's Scholar doing?

I'm not saying we need to discredit functionality and care only about aesthetics, but in JRPGs, that's something many people care about. When 5.0 first released, I remember there was a thread someone made about their disappointment to the changes to AST's Celestial Opposition action because the new effects made no sense based on the lore of the move. It was supposed to be the AST tugging at the thread of fate to skew a fight in their favor, and stunning enemies while increasing the duration of all their buffs made sense with that in mind, and then it was converted to just another AoE regen or shield, AKA Aspected Helios 2.0. Yeah it's OGCD so it has an additional use to it, but that's the kind of lore many players want not only in their job's design, but in their actions as well. Proper game design is about effectively uniting style and functionality to create something that flows and fulfills the fantasy of the player.