SCH QOL changes for 5.35/5.4

I'm tired of fairy ghost skills too! Just happened twice during the last EX è.é plz fix it! You could test your gameplay changes before launching your add ons SE

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Loki

I'm tired of fairy ghost skills too! Just happened twice during the last EX è.é plz fix it! You could test your gameplay changes before launching your add ons SE

---

the worst part about fairy ghosting is that THEY HAD FIXED IT IN STB

all they had to do was change SMN pets to be similar to SCH, but they went the other way around. there's no telling what could happen next expansion. we might just see the outright deletion of pets.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bundythenoob

the worst part about fairy ghosting is that THEY HAD FIXED IT IN STB.

---

Indeed. Fairy responsivness was good when they fixed it in SB.
And it has to be back.

I've updated the original post with the addition of buffing embrace for lower leveled content. hopefully they can return embrace back to its former glory for 6.0, but having it buffed right now could still be helpful for helping new players learning how to heal.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Loki

I'm tired of fairy ghost skills too! Just happened twice during the last EX è.é plz fix it! You could test your gameplay changes before launching your add ons SE

---

Indeed. If they're going to turn ScH's fairy abilities into half its oGcD toolkit, they need to make sure it works smoothly without glitches. If WhM or AST weave an oGcD or two, it simply triggers and applies. ScH has to deal with ghosting and delays on top of making sure the fairy is Placed in the right spot and having it vanish entirely for 30 sec windows. Clunkiness is not a class identity, they don't seem to get that with healers.

We don't need aoe dots because we have the strongest of the basic healer aoe dps gcd skills, which is instant cast compared to holy and gravity. Why bio and miasma aoe with bane with damage drop off when you can spam aoe 170 upfront potency AoE that exceeds the damage from dots? SCH aoe dmg is already pretty strong.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

We don't need aoe dots because we have the strongest of the basic healer aoe dps gcd skills, which is instant cast compared to holy and gravity..

---

Holy has a stun and provides utitlity, not to mention is easily paired with Thin Air and Pressence of Mind making it come out faster and cost zero mana.

Gravity can be instant cast with Lightspeed and is available almost every pull in dungeons with a low 90s CD.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

Why bio and miasma aoe with bane with damage drop off when you can spam aoe 170 upfront potency AoE that exceeds the damage from dots? SCH aoe dmg is already pretty strong.

---

Because you could be Bane'ing a 600 potency Biolysis to each target.

All of the healer AoE are essentially equal in damage. That's why WHM Holy is considered so good. It has the stun to go with it.

Now if Gravity had a Slow attached to it (it should IMHO) it would equal Holy

If Art of War applied some debuff (Damage down or something), it would equal Holy. Oh wait, we had that in ShadowFlare. . .

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Deceptus

Holy has a stun and provides utitlity, not to mention is easily paired with Thin Air and Pressence of Mind making it come out faster and cost zero mana.

Gravity can be instant cast with Lightspeed and is available almost every pull in dungeons with a low 90s CD.



Because you could be Bane'ing a 600 potency Biolysis to each target.

All of the healer AoE are essentially equal in damage. That's why WHM Holy is considered so good. It has the stun to go with it.

Now if Gravity had a Slow attached to it (it should IMHO) it would equal Holy

If Art of War applied some debuff (Damage down or something), it would equal Holy. Oh wait, we had that in ShadowFlare. . .

---

This would be a great change to Healers for 6.0. I always felt that Gravity should apply a slow, considering its name is gravity and all that..

As for SCH, maybe they could return Virus as a debuff on AoW? just some food for thought.

I think all of the healer AOES should have some job flavour added to them. Holy's stun was always so iconic that adding additional effects to other jobs wouldn't hurt too much. the only problem might be how our gear scales with content, meaning that the addition of slow/virus would trivialise the already steamroll tier content, but that's a whole 'nother discussion.

Personally? I'd be cool with different status effects that assisted mitigation on the healer AOEs in different ways. That'd be neat.

Realistically? I'm a little surprised Holy still has its stun. I mean, I'm sure the WHM population would riot (even more) if they got rid of it, but the direction the wind's been blowing the last six years has been removing any kind of status ailment that any healer can cause, from any spell. Much as I'd love it if Squeenix turned their steering wheel around here, my advice is to always keep your eyes ready for rolling.

I'm not a fan of getting Bane back personnaly. Not that I wouldn't want to, but that's not on top of my priorities. Plus, if it's back, I'd prefer it to work differently than the old one. I don't think I'd like the AF cost on it.

As for status, I'm all for it. Shadowflare had Slow, Ruin II had blind. It was small little addition that just felt nice to have.
And of course, i'd be glad if WHM got Aero 3 back.

Personally, I vastly preferred Miasma II over Art of War, but the sooner we get Bane back, the better (not that I see anything mutually exclusive about the two).

I'd just offer also that I'd rather see Bane reworked a bit. While I'm at, I'd rename Bane to Contagion, because that makes many orders of multitude more sense. Bane sounds like an exploited vulnerability -- the exact kind of thing you'd expect from a "magic resistance down" debuff previously given to, of all things, Contagion.

Contagion: Summates and evenly splits the durations of your DoTs among the target and all nearby enemies while inflicting them with Aetheric Plague.
Area of Effect: 12 yalms, target-centered.
Cooldown: 10 seconds (scaled with GCD speed)
Additional Effect: Doubles the duration of DoTs on the target.
Aetheric Plague Effect: Causes the victim to split the remaining duration of the caster's damage over time effects afflicting them among enemies within 12 yalms upon death.

Voila, now you actually want to spread multiple DoTs initially, enough to have sufficient duration to cover all enemies over the full cooldown. And you can still get some use out of it as a means of getting off another two Ruins per DoT period when you don't need MP.

Naturally, do couple this with a returned second DoT (rather than leaving all that strength in, say, a 600 potency DoT alone), such via as the aforementioned Miasma I and it's upgrades. Ideally, leave one at an 18s CD.

I know I’m late to the game on healing jobs but for all these years I’ve heard sch is the shield healer along with being more dps oriented (not so much in shb)... I was just in a party with a ast who refused to switch to regen aspect So he was throwing up shields too. I couldn’t help but notice that their party shields eclipsed mine every time by a bit. Am I missing something? This is job identity of sch, in part, so shouldn’t it be better than the switch hitter, AST? If not then why would anyone bring SCH anymore?

... something better than “but the farie” bcs that thing is glitchy as can be.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Danelo

I know I’m late to the game on healing jobs but for all these years I’ve heard sch is the shield healer along with being more dps oriented (not so much in shb)... I was just in a party with a ast who refused to switch to regen aspect So he was throwing up shields too. I couldn’t help but notice that their party shields eclipsed mine every time by a bit. Am I missing something? This is job identity of sch, in part, so shouldn’t it be better than the switch hitter, AST? If not then why would anyone bring SCH anymore?

... something better than “but the farie” bcs that thing is glitchy as can be.

---

Fun fact: even if they swapped to Regen stance, they still have access to shields. If anything, they'd get access to MORE shields. They can essentially adlo one person (TL note: your tank tbh) every 30 seconds, completely free. It's an oGCD, so no GCD cost and no MP cost. If we're discounting "but Seraph," because Seraph has not earned our respect and is not invited to our discussion... then yeah, SCH's shield heal identity gets thoroughly trounced. Not even by the other shield healer, but a regen healer- I rate SCH's situation a hardcasted Absolute Yikes III, perhaps even a IV.

Thanks for the info - had no idea it was that bad. What was SE thinking...

I mean, has Scholar ever *really* been The Shield Healer? Yes, it has GCD shield spells which was a notable difference between the two healers in ARR, but it's also always had Whispering Dawn and Embrace, which are rough mechanical equivalents of Medica 2 and Regen. Apart from Seraph, Scholar has two shield spells, both of which it's had since ARR. I'd say SCH's big thing was its oGCD healing flexibility for much, much longer than it was "shields". It's almost like calling WHM The Crowd Control healer because it had a bind, a stun, and a sleep.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Semirhage

I mean, has Scholar ever *really* been The Shield Healer? Yes, it has GCD shield spells which was a notable difference between the two healers in ARR, but it's also always had Whispering Dawn and Embrace, which are rough mechanical equivalents of Medica 2 and Regen. Apart from Seraph, Scholar has two shield spells, both of which it's had since ARR. I'd say SCH's big thing was its oGCD healing flexibility for much, much longer than it was "shields". It's almost like calling WHM The Crowd Control healer because it had a bind, a stun, and a sleep.

---

SCH had two, AST had two, but SCH had Deployment Tactics, Eye for an Eye, and Sacred Soil in its favor. They've got a lot more abilities themed around putting something between you and a pissed-off boss to make you take less damage, whereas WHM has more abilities related to topping you off afterwards. This has been a pretty strict dichotomy in job design since ARR, with the newest healer (no longer very new at all) just fitting in as either one part of that dichotomy or the other. I mean- believe me, I was hoping Shadowbringers would either introduce a new healer that shatters the dichotomy meta, or radically redesign AST to be a true Third Type of Healer instead of WHM stance or SCH stance. It just didn't happen, though.


I do think, outside of the dichotomy, though, that your point would support an argument for SCH having a weak identity at the moment. Everyone has oGCD flexibility for days right now. Lustrate isn't so special when AST has two charges of Essential Dignity, nor is the burst healing impressive considering WHM can instant cast cure 2s and still weave a Tetra in. I think SCH should have a strong argument in favor of being "The Shield Healer," certainly a lot stronger than it has right now. It definitely needs some fixes to get there.



If we were talking about ARR/HW PVP, I would absolutely call WHM the CC healer, since it had a heavy, a knockback + bind, an aoe bind, a stun, and a sleep. People who sat on the back lines and only healed were only scratching the surface back then, but that's a total tangent.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gravagar

SCH had two, AST had two, but SCH had Deployment Tactics, Eye for an Eye, and Sacred Soil in its favor. They've got a lot more abilities themed around putting something between you and a pissed-off boss to make you take less damage, whereas WHM has more abilities related to topping you off afterwards. This has been a pretty strict dichotomy in job design since ARR, with the newest healer (no longer very new at all) just fitting in as either one part of that dichotomy or the other. I mean- believe me, I was hoping Shadowbringers would either introduce a new healer that shatters the dichotomy meta, or radically redesign AST to be a true Third Type of Healer instead of WHM stance or SCH stance. It just didn't happen, though.


I do think, outside of the dichotomy, though, that your point would support an argument for SCH having a weak identity at the moment. Everyone has oGCD flexibility for days right now. Lustrate isn't so special when AST has two charges of Essential Dignity, nor is the burst healing impressive considering WHM can instant cast cure 2s and still weave a Tetra in. I think SCH should have a strong argument in favor of being "The Shield Healer," certainly a lot stronger than it has right now. It definitely needs some fixes to get there.



If we were talking about ARR/HW PVP, I would absolutely call WHM the CC healer, since it had a heavy, a knockback + bind, an aoe bind, a stun, and a sleep. People who sat on the back lines and only healed were only scratching the surface back then, but that's a total tangent.

---

to add onto this, I think if Noct AST is going to be the "shield healer", then SCH should have its former debuff identity return.

Allow Chain stratagem (and future stratagems) to be spread to enemies via deployment
Give AoW the old Virus Debuff for some more flavour. this would make it useful to apply during single target to break up the broil spam
bring back eye for an eye as a passive that gets applied to adloq/succour to make up for weaker shielding values compared to Noct AST
make shadowflare a fairy gauge spender that debuffs enemies to give alternatives to sacred soil

things like that. you can make SCH more interesting without buffing its shield values, so long as its utility and dps makes up for its lower heal potencies.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bundythenoob

...

---

Likely blasphemy, but... what if we traited SCH's Bane (assuming it'd ever be allowed to return) into, say, "Pulse", which could work on allies or enemies both, and removed Deployment Tactics?

Pulse: On an enemy, Pulse summates and evenly splits the durations of your damage-over-time effects across the target and all nearby enemies while inflicting them with Aetheric Plague. On an ally, Pulse summates and evenly splits the value of your absorption effects across the target and all nearby allies.
Area of Effect: 12 yalms, target-centered.
Cooldown: 10 seconds (scaled with GCD speed)
Additional Effect: On enemy, doubles the duration of DoTs on the target. On ally, refreshes the value of the absorption effect to its maximum.
Aetheric Plague Effect: Causes the victim to split the remaining duration of the caster's damage over time effects afflicting them among enemies within 12 yalms upon death.

Give Miasma (or even Miasma II) a no-DR slow effect (not split from Miasma itself), stronger than was previously held by Shadow Flare, to reduce white damage taken. That'd apply to SMN as well, but SCH could go one step further by, say, allowing shields to be recharged by a portion of damage dealt by enemies inflicted with unaspected damage-over-time effects. There'd be a bit of anti-synergy in the redundant slow, but added synergy in shielding while the SMN Banes. Deployment Tactics would no longer be so "brokenly" powerful that it has to hold Adlo back, but its feature would now be a frequent and integral part of the kit, effectively offering at least another Adlo's worth of shielding at the cost of a single Aetherflow. Naturally, yes, let Pulse spread Chain Strategem, or even replace Chain Strategem completely with something a bit stronger that already iconifies a sort of well, series of kills.

Personally, I don't need SCH to be "the shield healer" so much as I want it to just be a healer that uses some form of strategy, with plenty of potential synergies. I want it to set up, and reap. Shielding, and effects that deepen shield-based gameplay, seems a good place to start, but it doesn't have to be the only.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gravagar

SCH had two, AST had two, but SCH had Deployment Tactics, Eye for an Eye, and Sacred Soil in its favor. They've got a lot more abilities themed around putting something between you and a pissed-off boss to make you take less damage, whereas WHM has more abilities related to topping you off afterwards. This has been a pretty strict dichotomy in job design since ARR, with the newest healer (no longer very new at all) just fitting in as either one part of that dichotomy or the other. I mean- believe me, I was hoping Shadowbringers would either introduce a new healer that shatters the dichotomy meta, or radically redesign AST to be a true Third Type of Healer instead of WHM stance or SCH stance. It just didn't happen, though.

---

Sure, but what I mean here is, does two shield-creating spells make an identity? Scholar has always had nearly as many HoT spells as it has shield spells. Post-ARR (up until the Seraph shield) has only added even more regens. I've always found this community definition of "Shield Healer" versus "Regen Healer" to be really...odd, because you have two healers with both single target and AOE shields and single target and AOE regens, and one healer with a boatload of regens and...one single target shield.

If that difference had any starkness to it, you'd expect to not see too many regens on the Shield Healers, but they've got TONS of them, and have for quite a while. Not saying they should have them taken away or whatever, just that it's a weird, misleading definitional distinction if you set up the healers to split into these "specialization" boxes, but the shield healers also borrow extensively from the other box.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bundythenoob

to add onto this, I think if Noct AST is going to be the "shield healer", then SCH should have its former debuff identity return...

---

That sort of change would get me to pick my codex back up. What initially drew me to SCH in ARR was saying "I want to have some cool debuffs, this job seems to have that kind of thing going on." My goal shifted from being an effective debuffer to being an effective shield healer, though, due to feeling like the regen/shield dichotomy was inescapable, as well as SCH slowly losing that part of its identity over time. I'd be happy to see that aspect return to the forefront too.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Semirhage

Sure, but what I mean here is, does two shield-creating spells make an identity? ...

---

I think it's mainly because Noct AST and SCH do not play well with each other or with composition duplicates due to the main parts of their kit overwriting other uses. WHM and Diurnal AST issues of this kind are barely noticeable by comparison; even Diurnal AST shields stack with Noct AST or SCH shields. I don't think these restrictions have ever really made sense, since the thing that makes them feel like such a defining characteristic to everyone is what they cannot do (stacking does not work and overwrites instead) rather than what they can do.

The high availability GCD shields don't stack for a really obvious reason: shield stacking allows you to skip mechanics. It's why they changed how critlo and spreadlo worked after adding Recitation. A spread crit Adlo in expansions past allowed for cheesy things that fight designers didn't like seeing.

If you want uber strong shield stacking, the easiest way to allow that IMO is standardizing debuffs through shields. If an enormous barrier makes a boss's attack do zero damage, it shouldn't also block an important mechanical debuff from hitting the party due to that attack, allowing you to cheese the whole thing. My opinion, if they made that change, stack away. Now, I think Yoshi would say that having a boatload of extra HP buffer could be exploitable. And depending on the encounter it very well could be. But in most scenarios, spamming your shields on everyone is both too draining, and a waste of time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KDSilver

I'm not a fan of getting Bane back personnaly. Not that I wouldn't want to, but that's not on top of my priorities. Plus, if it's back, I'd prefer it to work differently than the old one. I don't think I'd like the AF cost on it.

As for status, I'm all for it. Shadowflare had Slow, Ruin II had blind. It was small little addition that just felt nice to have.
And of course, i'd be glad if WHM got Aero 3 back.

---

I'm interested to hear why you wouldn't want Bane back (or its current version anyway). do you think that buffing embrace would be a better option?

Also for 6.0, if Square is gonna return SCHs attacks and give AST some utility back (slow/stun) then WHM BETTER get Aero 3 back, as well as a much needed Fluid Aura buff. I'll never 4get my absolutely fav thing to do on WHM, using Fluid as a killmove to knock dead enemy corpses 15 yalms away ;-;7

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Semirhage

The high availability GCD shields don't stack for a really obvious reason: shield stacking allows you to skip mechanics. It's why they changed how critlo and spreadlo worked after adding Recitation. A spread crit Adlo in expansions past allowed for cheesy things that fight designers didn't like seeing.

If you want uber strong shield stacking, the easiest way to allow that IMO is standardizing debuffs through shields. If an enormous barrier makes a boss's attack do zero damage, it shouldn't also block an important mechanical debuff from hitting the party due to that attack, allowing you to cheese the whole thing. My opinion, if they made that change, stack away. Now, I think Yoshi would say that having a boatload of extra HP buffer could be exploitable. And depending on the encounter it very well could be. But in most scenarios, spamming your shields on everyone is both too draining, and a waste of time.

---

I'm very familiar with the excuses that are commonly given every time shielding gets nerfed, but in the end, they ARE just excuses. Tanks are allowed to cheese mechanics with Hallowed etc, so I see no problem with giving healers a similarly powerful ability. Encounters being cheesable with certain tools are an encounter design problem. You can see the encounter design team rising to counter player strategies with things like random-target unlabeled stack AoEs. They didn't like that tanks could say "I got this, don't stack on me" and run off, pop their invuln, and completely ignore a mechanic... so they removed the marker you rely on to know when it's safe to do so.


Every tank and healer should have defensive tools that make everyone go "woah, that was awesome!," like how old Deployment was. That's good job design, it's a good time for players, and adds more depth to a role that has been suffering from shallowness problems.


Both mechanical debuffs and punishments for messing up mechanics already ignore shielding. Believe me, I've tried, and I can PROMISE you that Forsaken and Hello World still apply debuffs even if HP bars don't move. Occasionally you can nullify a lingering DoT effect after a partywide attack (Quickthinx and Cruise Chaser come to mind), but that's not even a mechanic, it's just... using shields to prevent (even more) damage that you would have to heal. Using healer damage-mitigation mechanics to mitigate damage... Why vilify that?

It was that just mechanics that deployed critlo allowed you to skip but basically an entire phase if possible. The three instances that are oft mentioned are O8s, O9s, O11s and O12s. With O8s, you negated basically all the damage that 2nd forsaken did up to the light of judgement. For O9s, it was the earth phase of the fight that critlo allowed you to cheese cause if you took no damage, the healers and tanks only would need to worry about the conal aoes. In O11s, there were instances of it where you didn't need to tank lb3 for the wave cannon damage after the checker and no need to tank lb cheese the red fists before second pantokrator. In O12s, it was the fact if you deployed at the right time, the only damage you needed to healer were the last 3 defamations before the ion efflux which ended the hello world phases.

It was the fact you could basically bypass whole phases with a critlo (aided by largasse, nature's minne and convalescence) and lb cheesing is why you see what they did to sch shielding and I don't see what they could of done with Whm or Noct astro that could ever get them on that level.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gravagar

I'm very familiar with the excuses that are commonly given every time shielding gets nerfed, but in the end, they ARE just excuses. Tanks are allowed to cheese mechanics with Hallowed etc, so I see no problem with giving healers a similarly powerful ability.

---

Adloquium doesn't have a seven minute cooldown.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bundythenoob

I'm interested to hear why you wouldn't want Bane back (or its current version anyway). do you think that buffing embrace would be a better option?

Also for 6.0, if Square is gonna return SCHs attacks and give AST some utility back (slow/stun) then WHM BETTER get Aero 3 back, as well as a much needed Fluid Aura buff. I'll never 4get my absolutely fav thing to do on WHM, using Fluid as a killmove to knock dead enemy corpses 15 yalms away ;-;7

---

It's not that I'm firmly against. Considering the current toolkit SCH has compare to its older form, I would be glad to get anything back.
However, I think that it used to be more "engaging" to spread 3 dots than just one. As for why I think I wouldn't want the AF cost on it, it's because how you can heal with SCH in dungeon for wall to wall pull. You can properly rotate each of your oGCD in between each Art of War, and keep the AF stack for some soil or lustrate. Yes, there are several times that you'll end up with still 1 or 2 stacks remaining that could totally go into Bane (you use it into Energy drain so). But I think it's comfier this way. Plus, I think the SMN version of Bane right looks good to play, with its 100% of refreshing DoTs.
Now that Excog and Soil (with regen) exist, there are more room for AF healing usage, and what's remaining can safely go to energy drain for mana.

That's only for dungeons however.
But that's just a personnal preference. If Bane would be back as it was, I'd definitely use it.
What I'm trying to say is, it's not THE skill I miss the most on SCH.I would vastly prefer to get something like Miasma because only one DoT is really meh or even Shadwoflare first.

For Embrace, I don't really know. Currently, it's really weak and you can't micromanage it anymore.
I understand why the fairy took another hit in the teeth. We all know about who used to be SCH and its glorified position in the meta. It was not just about the fairy of course, it was definitly part of it.
150 pot today isn't justified however I think. Because healing calculation have been revised in lvl80. So I don't think it makes embrace as powerful as it used too.
Also, what used to make the fairy a strong asset was its comparison with Noct AST who couldn't compete and had that lack of regen. Now, it has Celestial Intersection which kinda closed the gap and if really needeed, Neutral Sect.

I don't think what bothers me the most is its potency right now. But the fact that Embrace is out of control. Some people might argue that they never tried to micromanage Embrace anyway so it doesn't change anything. But for people who used to work with it, I think I'd like something like DNC closed position where you can select the target you'd want your fairy to cast her embrace on. Cause most of the time, you want it on your tank for auto.
But that wouldn't work well if it has an animation, cause you'd have to weave it.
I want the old micromanagment of the fairy anyway...

I remember a raid though (A7S) where sending your fairy to the DPS jail allowed you to keep him alive with Embrace. But there aren't as many existing scenario where you'd another target than your tank (except extra damage on someone that Embrace can cover instead of casting some physick or wasting some lustrate on him.)

I don't have a correct answer for that. (and I don't want another healer war where "blabla, sch buff, sch meta, sch fairy", I'm tired of this).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KDSilver

snip

---

You do bring up some interesting points about AF spending, but atm I think that one of SCHs weaknesses comes from its lack of AOE AF spending. I know that dumping excess into ED for more mana can be nice, but there have been plenty of times during my dungeon runs where i thought to myself "it would be nice to spend the AF on Bane and spread dots like in STB". I don't think Bane should return by itself though, but in tandem with Miasma at least to give us 2 dots to spread. ideally, we could get our 2 dots back and give the virus debuff to AoW for added flavour, but that's a big if that hinges on WHM getting aero 3/fluid aura back, and on AST getting a slow for gravity + CO stun for 6.0.

As for Embrace and the fairies, you're totally right in that I'd much rather have 4.0 fairy back with targetable embrace. its lower potency is hurting lower level players, and without the ability to control it to target heal with physick, it makes healing during ARR/some HW content a lot harder than it used to be. I've also heard that it shows almost no impact in lv 80 content, but that may be due to them buffing soil + recitation + seraph for lv 80 content to "make up for embrace". it still doesnt make sense though that they went and broke the fairies. that's definitely something that must be remedied by 6.0 above else.

Tbh it feels like the battle systems devs went and """balanced""" all of the jobs around lv 80 content, but totally forgot about the balance at lv 50, 60, 70, and all of the other levels in between. just another problem that would be solved if they hired a dedicated healer dev (and a tank one too, for obvious reasons)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Maltothoris

It was that just mechanics that deployed critlo allowed you to skip but basically an entire phase if possible....

It was the fact you could basically bypass whole phases with a critlo (aided by largasse, nature's minne and convalescence) and lb cheesing is why you see what they did to sch shielding and I don't see what they could of done with Whm or Noct astro that could ever get them on that level.

---

To the first points: "Skip" implies that victory at that phase becomes a foregone conclusion regardless of what you do, like skipping Soar. That's not true. You don't get to skip all of Hello World no matter how much shielding you have. If passing rot goes poorly, then you're dead anyway. If I inaccurately aim my conal aoe in Forsaken and cleave the party, a deployed adlo will not save them. You still have to do the phase. Effectively using your tools as a healer leads to you having an easier time doing the healing part of those mechanics. There are more fallible ways to do those mechanics than a beefy deployed adlo, or more costly ways, yes. But calling a situation in which I use a healy button now so that I don't have to use a different healy button later a "skip" is something I cannot agree to, unless you consider healing everyone up after / during a mechanic to also be "skipping" it.

To the second point: Understandable, I don't hold most people accountable for coming up with good designs. I DO hold the dev team accountable for that, however, and I expect a certain level of quality for what I pay for. They're professionals, and shouldn't come up on mental blocks as easy as us players. Shadowbringers did not deliver the expected quality level on the job design front at all, for my salty healer self anyway. As for WHM, they have DR from their wings, maybe that but bigger and better. AST could cast Undo and fix a big oopsie, if they kept their time mageyness. Add some clause about how these three big cooldowns don't interact together / can't be stacked... These ideas are probably terrible, but I'm saying them anyway, because it's not an impossible request, I believe.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Semirhage

Adloquium doesn't have a seven minute cooldown.

---

Did you mean Deployment? I'll assume you did, since we're talking about it, but please do correct me if I'm wrong.
I'd rather take Deployment's cooldown doubling or tripling over it being completely neutered. Yes, even if its cooldown is significantly longer than any tank invuln cooldown, I would still gladly take that kind of nerf over the mistreatment it got.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bundythenoob

You do bring up some interesting points about AF spending, but atm I think that one of SCHs weaknesses comes from its lack of AOE AF spending. I know that dumping excess into ED for more mana can be nice, but there have been plenty of times during my dungeon runs where i thought to myself "it would be nice to spend the AF on Bane and spread dots like in STB".

---

Which is something I totally understand and realized too indeed. As I said, you spend the extra on Energy drain anyway.
I wonder if getting Energy Siphon from smn wouldn't be an answer to that. Sharing the same 3s recast time, also restoring 500 mp, but being a 50 potency aoe damage. But people might be upset of it I guess ? Because it would make SCH and SMN alike once more and I think people want them to be seperated even if they share Arcanist as their primary class.

Quote:

---

I don't think Bane should return by itself though, but in tandem with Miasma at least to give us 2 dots to spread. ideally, we could get our 2 dots back and give the virus debuff to AoW for added flavour, but that's a big if that hinges on WHM getting aero 3/fluid aura back, and on AST getting a slow for gravity + CO stun for 6.0.

---

Yeah, if Miasma comes back, why not. I'd love to.
I'm not for getting a Virus debuff on Art of War though. For balance purpose. You can (rarely though) see some use of Art of War in raid situation. Virus was 15% if I remember correctly, which is really strong.
I'd prefer a debuff that only work on trash mob such as slow/blind/stun so that it doesn't disrupt other content balance as well. Of course, if SCH gets that, i'd want the other to get something back as well. I miss Aero 3 and the damage on fluid aura.
(I really liked Virus though)

Quote:

---

As for Embrace and the fairies, you're totally right in that I'd much rather have 4.0 fairy back with targetable embrace. its lower potency is hurting lower level players

---

I don't know if it does. Critlo on lower level just double your HP bar and succor heal+shield has been buffed.
I think it's more a panic feeling. I remember my leveling when I started the game. I didn't understand what oGCD was, was not using my fairy at all and any missing HP made me fear for their lives. So when you see that succor doesn't restore as much HP than medica, and you don't understand that the yellow bar is a shield and make your party safe, don't have confidence it regen... it "looks" like SCH is weak. But it's not. Whispering Dawn alone already covers mostly everything. But you have to think to use it in both single target and aoe situation (single for trash pull and aoe for bosses in dungeon).
SCH is actually certainly more safe for a newcommer than WHM. What they need is actually understand what their tool does.
Despite being nerfed, Embrace still restore a good amount of HP in lower level. I know I raised this fact in another topic, but I don't believe this nerf impact SCH at all. Especially with Adlo being at its best iteration today.

Quote:

---

Tbh it feels like the battle systems devs went and """balanced""" all of the jobs around lv 80 content, but totally forgot about the balance at lv 50, 60, 70, and all of the other levels in between. just another problem that would be solved if they hired a dedicated healer dev (and a tank one too, for obvious reasons)

---

Yes, that's the case for a lot of classes. They looks broken.
See Divination on AST for example. You can't align it with every other buff until lvl70 when you learn sleeve draw. Drk looks weak because TBN is also being the lvl70 wall. Their 2nd aoe combo is learnt at lvl72. War doesn't build its gauge on aoe until lvl74-78 ? Don't remember.
There are so many example of that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gravagar

To the first points: "Skip" implies that victory at that phase becomes a foregone conclusion regardless of what you do, like skipping Soar.

---

I think the correct word for that is more "ignore" unavoidable aoe damage.
Which is true.

But yeah, critlo spread went from godsend to "meh", might as well just succor.

It felt nice to be a SCH a do that back in HW/SB. But I understand why they took it away.
I think nowadays, deployment should get some new flavor. Spreading something else. But I wouldn't want it to feel "overpowered" as it used to, cause that's why it as been nerfed in the first place.
I thought about excog with a lowered potency like 200. So that it add a little something over succor.

I know eye for an eye spread was not that good unfortunately. But the fact that this option existed was still a little "something". I'd be glad to see Deployment having another synergy like that that isn't just with adlo.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Semirhage

Adloquium doesn't have a seven minute cooldown.

---

Nor is she necessarily requesting the ability to cheese a mechanic to the degree that Hallowed does.

I think one can reasonably assume she means that if, say, the fact that invulns skill exist within a tank-pairs rotational schedule would make it viable to ignore a tank-swap mechanic (for some advantage in ease of play, positioning, uptime, etc.), CD-buffed shields and surrounding effects across a heal-pair ought to be potentially capable of that same tactical power, even if in a less convenient fashion.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Nor is she necessarily requesting the ability to cheese a mechanic to the degree that Hallowed does.

I think one can reasonably assume she means that if, say, the fact that invulns skill exist within a tank-pairs rotational schedule would make it viable to ignore a tank-swap mechanic (for some advantage in ease of play, positioning, uptime, etc.), CD-buffed shields and surrounding effects across a heal-pair ought to be potentially capable of that same tactical power, even if in a less convenient fashion.

---

Correct. Like, for example... When bosses have tank busters that also inflict (phys/magic) vuln down, tank invuln cooldowns let you ignore the penalty for a botched swap completely. You can eat one or more autos with your forced-swap-debuff, even if each one would normally one-shot you. Deployment was never that strong.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Nor is she necessarily requesting the ability to cheese a mechanic to the degree that Hallowed does.

I think one can reasonably assume she means that if, say, the fact that invulns skill exist within a tank-pairs rotational schedule would make it viable to ignore a tank-swap mechanic (for some advantage in ease of play, positioning, uptime, etc.), CD-buffed shields and surrounding effects across a heal-pair ought to be potentially capable of that same tactical power, even if in a less convenient fashion.

---

Has some possibility, not going to lie. Where my concern lies here is with how it plays out in the way healers work together. Forgive the disgruntled former WHM main casting a side-eye at Scholars asking for unique job capabilities that smell like "Make AST and SCH Mandatory And Overpowered Again". I'm aware that mega-shields and the cheese they could enable don't preclude anything interesting or unique being given to the healer that has zero GCD or AOE shields, but let's just say I'm also accustomed to the other two healers getting stuffed with utility like Thanksgiving turkeys while whatsherface that third healer over there gets more timeout in the No Utility closet.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Semirhage

Has some possibility, not going to lie. Where my concern lies here is with how it plays out in the way healers work together. Forgive the disgruntled former WHM main casting a side-eye at Scholars asking for unique job capabilities that smell like "Make AST and SCH Mandatory And Overpowered Again". I'm aware that mega-shields and the cheese they could enable don't preclude anything interesting or unique being given to the healer that has zero GCD or AOE shields, but let's just say I'm also accustomed to the other two healers getting stuffed with utility like Thanksgiving turkeys while whatsherface that third healer over there gets more timeout in the No Utility closet.

---

Oh, I get that. But consider -- this shouldn't be anything that a single job on its own is necessarily capable of. Every "Regen" healer has shields. Every "Shield" healer has at least as many regens. There's no reason for these capacities to be looked at strictly as a job's toolkit rather than what is possible for a healer pair as a unit.

If anything, WHM is the more keystone job in any such equation. Unlike Nocturnal Field and Galvanized, Divine Benedict can stack with all other sources of shielding, just as Stoneskin could before it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Oh, I get that. But consider -- this shouldn't be anything that a single job on its own is necessarily capable of.

---

I'd be perfectly happy to do away with tank invulns. They've been used to cheese and trivialize countless mechanics.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Semirhage

Has some possibility, not going to lie. Where my concern lies here is with how it plays out in the way healers work together. Forgive the disgruntled former WHM main casting a side-eye at Scholars asking for unique job capabilities...

---

Please read what I actually said-

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gravagar

Every tank and healer should have defensive tools that make everyone go "woah, that was awesome!," like how old Deployment was. That's good job design, it's a good time for players, and adds more depth to a role that has been suffering from shallowness problems.

---

I also elaborated some vague ideas for the sake of argument. I'd like to hear your thoughts about that instead of whatever it is you're talking about, because I have no interest in defending a strawman. Nobody here wants any of the healers to suffer. This thread is about SCH in particular, though, so... that's why I'm talking about SCH in particular...

this whole critlo debate is the reason why I believe that Deployment Tactics should be reworked to spread stratagems. this way you can balance future stratagems to be either single target debuffs or single target party memeber buffs, and give us the option to spread them to other allies or enemies to bring that tactician decision making aspect of SCH to the forefront. of course this means that Deployment would have to be learned after chain stratagem, but then we could simply learn a new stratagem at lv 58 and then move deployment to lv 68, since there is a hole in our kit where quickened aetherflow used to be (RIP)