No love for Sch

Sadly SCH didn't have anything new that was flashy to show and thats disappointing but it's not a death sentence, we need to see the details behind the abilities before we do that. Once gripe I had was still using the same ability since ARR (I'm looking at you Aldo). Was happy when WHM used a Holy II, was disappointed to see the same shield spell effects when SCH used Adlo.
I'll give SCH a go when I'm done with the other healers.

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Originally Posted by ToodlesElNoodles

Are there situations in which you need to pump all 3 (Dissipation, Fey Union, and Summon Seraph) at the same time?

Genuinely curious.

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I've had to use Summon Seraph, Fey Union, and Dissipation one after the other while panicking in a very bad run. It was a very VERY hectic run of a trial, leading to a very close clear...with me out of aetherflow, out of the gauge, out of MP, and almost everybody in the party having Brink of Death. I don't think I've ever used Lustrate that much since Heavensward was current content.

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Originally Posted by Euphares

Its a shield healer that has strong mitigation and shields with a pet that enhances its mitigation and shields.

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A shield healer that has more direct heals and regens than it does shields...

Welp, into the fire it goes.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...KjWEAEwGPU.png

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Originally Posted by BaconBits

A shield healer that has more direct heals and regens than it does shields...

Welp, into the fire it goes.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...KjWEAEwGPU.png

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One spell that applies a shield to the entire group with no cooldown and several mitigation spells, it is a healer so by nature it has to have abilities that heal, they cannot make every spell a shield that would be nonsensical. Its identity is still in-tact, even more with the addition of the new ST enhancement spell its getting.

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Originally Posted by Euphares

One spell that applies a shield to the entire group with no cooldown and several mitigation spells, it is a healer so by nature it has to have abilities that heal, they cannot make every spell a shield that would be nonsensical. Its identity is still in-tact, even more with the addition of the new ST enhancement spell its getting.

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It's intact sure, but why take a scholar when sage will probably be better than it in every way?

I don't know if you've tried clearing a relevant savage raid in barely passable gear with 2 white mages, but I guarantee you that it's way more smooth to have a SCH/AST and a white mage, and if sage does indeed end up being much more mitigation focused and Scholar remains largely unchanged then you just know that people are going to only want to accept sages in PF.

Raw healing stops being valuable the moment people's health is full, but there is no such thing as overshielding outside of when you just outright don't need to worry about damage and your shields fall off

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Originally Posted by Dogempire

It's intact sure, but why take a scholar when sage will probably be better than it in every way?

I don't know if you've tried clearing a relevant savage raid in barely passable gear with 2 white mages, but I guarantee you that it's way more smooth to have a SCH/AST and a white mage, and if sage does indeed end up being much more mitigation focused and Scholar remains largely unchanged then you just know that people are going to only want to accept sages in PF.

Raw healing stops being valuable the moment people's health is full, but there is no such thing as overshielding outside of when you just outright don't need to worry about damage and your shields fall off

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So the problems lie with the potential for Sage to be overtuned.


Which has nothing to do with SCH having no identity/bad design/a lacking kit.



Assuming they make content reward having an abundance of healing SCH will be favored, in content where you want more damage Sage will be favored. This seems fine to me, especially considering you can still take SCH in optimization settings and you can still take Sage in prog settings. You just won't be the best (in theory.)


Why does SCH have to be the best at both? Its okay for a job to be unfavored in certain situations. Especially so if despite that it is still viable.

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Originally Posted by Euphares

So the problems lie with the potential for Sage to be overtuned.


Which has nothing to do with SCH having no identity/bad design/a lacking kit.



Assuming they make content reward having an abundance of healing SCH will be favored, in content where you want more damage Sage will be favored. This seems fine to me, especially considering you can still take SCH in optimization settings and you can still take Sage in prog settings. You just won't be the best (in theory.)


Why does SCH have to be the best at both? Its okay for a job to be unfavored in certain situations. Especially so if despite that it is still viable.

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Eh, I'd argue that all the healers currently have bad designs and will probably continue to be badly designed with the exception of maybe sage.

Healers have way too many healing tools for the amount of healing they actually need to do and barely any damage tools for the other 90% of the time where they're doing damage. Sure in terms of both numbers and job identity nothing is wrong, but playing a healer just feels... soulless?

But hey, maybe SCH and SGE have barriers that stack and SCH retains its current healing capabilities, making the meta SCH + SGE, and people will stop running WHM and AST, which IMO would be hilarious but also sad.

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Originally Posted by Euphares

So the problems lie with the potential for Sage to be overtuned.


Which has nothing to do with SCH having no identity/bad design/a lacking kit.



Assuming they make content reward having an abundance of healing SCH will be favored, in content where you want more damage Sage will be favored. This seems fine to me, especially considering you can still take SCH in optimization settings and you can still take Sage in prog settings. You just won't be the best (in theory.)


Why does SCH have to be the best at both? Its okay for a job to be unfavored in certain situations. Especially so if despite that it is still viable.

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I mean it doesn't really have anything to do with Sage so much as it has to do with you only pick SCH over Noct Ast for sacred soil, sometimes chain or if you don't want to deal with star/cards.
Having Sage added and SCH having nothing really changed makes people feel like that trend will continue.

You pick a healer that feels the worst to play for the fact it has 1 skill that makes mitigation charts essentially irrelevant.

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Originally Posted by Nethereal

I mean it doesn't really have anything to do with Sage so much as it has to do with you only pick SCH over Noct Ast for sacred soil, sometimes chain or if you don't want to deal with star/cards.
Having Sage added and SCH having nothing really changed makes people feel like that trend will continue.

You pick a healer that feels the worst to play for the fact it has 1 skill that makes mitigation charts essentially irrelevant.

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I think its a bit dishonest to reduce SCH's kit to being a soil bot, spreadlo and chain are also pretty decent, as are excog and indom as well as both fairy abilities (not fae gauge.) Soil is the peak of its kit though I can agree there. But that still doesn't explain why it should be reworked or how its kit is poorly designed. Saying SCH is bad when its still being picked in every optimal comp (which is the only time these arguments actually matter) is wrong in my opinion. Its identity is solid, and the devs not changing anything fundamental only proves this. Are there things that can be better? Yes, namely the pet AI, but the pet AI being bad is an engine problem because SCH isn't the only one who suffers from it.

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Originally Posted by Dogempire

Eh, I'd argue that all the healers currently have bad designs and will probably continue to be badly designed with the exception of maybe sage.

Healers have way too many healing tools for the amount of healing they actually need to do and barely any damage tools for the other 90% of the time where they're doing damage. Sure in terms of both numbers and job identity nothing is wrong, but playing a healer just feels... soulless?

But hey, maybe SCH and SGE have barriers that stack and SCH retains its current healing capabilities, making the meta SCH + SGE, and people will stop running WHM and AST, which IMO would be hilarious but also sad.

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I mean that's a valid critique and I am def in agreement there, no reason for healer kits to have so many abilities and most of them being waysided because you never need them. But that has nothing to do with SCH itself needing to be reworked and more that healers as a role need adjustments.

If SCH got Bane back, now that SMN loses all DOTs, then that would make it the premier DOT class, and the damage-oriented healer option.

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Originally Posted by Nethereal

Fluid aura deleted? Perfect

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I'm using Fluid Aura regularly in POTD to get a free cast in before I get pummelled again.
It was a nice utility spell with a niche use, and I don't know why it gets deleted.. but removing options is not a good thing.

You don't have to have all your spells on your hotbars at all times. I have special layouts for deep dungeons, without anything I don't need there.

Currently, Scholar is actually pretty nice in DD (except for the damage, "green dps" my ass, lol), would be very cool if they doubled down on that.

That ground-punching AoE looks cool though.

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Originally Posted by Kahnom

That ground-punching AoE looks cool though.

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It's just Art of War but with a new effect, because if you look at current Art of War it is extremely underwhelming...it actually kinda looks like old Shadowflare to me, just without the persistent ground effect.

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Originally Posted by Euphares

I think its a bit dishonest to reduce SCH's kit to being a soil bot, spreadlo and chain are also pretty decent, as are excog and indom as well as both fairy abilities (not fae gauge.) Soil is the peak of its kit though I can agree there. But that still doesn't explain why it should be reworked or how its kit is poorly designed. Saying SCH is bad when its still being picked in every optimal comp (which is the only time these arguments actually matter) is wrong in my opinion. Its identity is solid, and the devs not changing anything fundamental only proves this. Are there things that can be better? Yes, namely the pet AI, but the pet AI being bad is an engine problem because SCH isn't the only one who suffers from it.

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Chain is chain, its convenience is only having to be able to hit the boss relative to Divination.

Spreadlo isn't anything special (especially for people who have played SCH before it got reworked because it could remove mechanics) relative to celestial opposition. And if you're not using recitation it's especially not special.
Spreadlo requires a GCD for a 375 shield along with an oGCD. If you're lucky it will be a crit 375 shield if not AST is better because in those two actions you will have a 500 potency shield and more actual healing potency regardless of if SCH crits or not. Before pets were reworked spreadlo was much more useful and had many niche uses because you could deploy off fairy now you use it because it's your strongest shield, not because it's a good ability.

All aetherflow abilities and fairy abilities are quite fine except maybe Lustrate but there's nothing particularly special about them that AST doesn't match except Sacred Soil. So there really is no reason to pick SCH over AST unless:

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Originally Posted by Nethereal

don't want to deal with star/cards.

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Noct AST beats SCH in everything except personal dps and mitigation. It has more consistent shields with less micromanaging, it heals more, it has an instant single target heal that does 200 potency healing and 500 potency shielding on demand that blows adlo out of the park unless it crits, and if you were to consider Star's skill ceiling it has the most room for growth and optimization out of all 3 healers.

The reason SCH is consistently picked is because the best composition for healers is AST and SCH because there's no need for WHMs super heals and big dps relative to the freedom of movement the other two healers give along with the combination of chain and Divination. You have to work quite a bit more on mitigation sheets if you bring a WHM AST comp vs a SCH AST comp.
It also just so happens that WHM is the best prog/leveling healer and is very easy and essentially takes no managing outside of blowing all your mana on back to back cure 3s.

So while SCH can be fun and people do have fun playing SCH now and again at the bare bones you pick SCH for Sacred Soil because the skill in and of itself is essentially two additional jobs worth of mitigation.
Not because you like micromanaging fairy and making sure its in range of your party when you press the button because it decided to stop moving to use embrace or because you enjoy the skill delay on fairy abilities, or because you enjoy making sure you don't eat your fairy abilities before you use seraph, or dear god after you use seraph, or because you enjoy pretending you like to micromanage fairy tether, or because you like to remind your party to stack on you so you can shield them with your super secret extra big shield that really is barely any better than succor unless you crit, or back in the day because you enjoyed wasting all your mana baiting for a crit adlo so you could ignore a mechanic.
Lightly glossing over another aspect of SCH it is the only healer that has to fight its own kit to properly optimize.

The list goes on, healers in general aren't fun for most, SCH is the least fun healer to play of the 3, soon to be 4. So if we were to fully go down this road at the same pace we are now the next meta comp is going to be AST & SGE with an occasional WHM.
Sacred Soil is good but it's not that good. Now that you have an option that actually provides mitigation that can be paired with AST you will have no reason to pick SCH.
So really SCH's identity is the fairy, Noct AST walks all over any other identity it used to have.

Though I do think the 1.5 sec GCD is going in the right direction and will help close the gap between all 4 healers.
A very big thing AST had over all the other healers was it had actual free healing due to their free weaves, now that every healer is being afforded that luxury it will be a lot better all around.

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Originally Posted by Shironeko_Narunyan

I'm using Fluid Aura regularly in POTD to get a free cast in before I get pummelled again.
It was a nice utility spell with a niche use, and I don't know why it gets deleted.. but removing options is not a good thing.

You don't have to have all your spells on your hotbars at all times. I have special layouts for deep dungeons, without anything I don't need there.

Currently, Scholar is actually pretty nice in DD (except for the damage, "green dps" my ass, lol), would be very cool if they doubled down on that.

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I would usually agree with that mindset but if you literally only have 1 use for a ability that you get fairly early on in 1 specific instance of content then it really is just an eyesore.
I use it on bosses when I have a free cast because I'm bored. Now if it had an effect similar to BLM's sleep I would agree they shouldn't remove it but it really is too niche.

Its trailer was boring and uninspired and its evolution of abilities were terrible.

They didn't even make a draw off of SMN and give our faerie multiple summons. Perhaps she could evolve into an even stronger form than Seraph ?
Give us Bismark and Lakshmi - both which can be related to elements of healing - as summons each with respective and unique healing abilities. Now this would set it apart from sage.

Maybe on the end of Sacred Soil everyone within it when it ends is rewarded with a 5% self shield.
Perhaps Excog could have been made so that you can share it between two players with the first player getting 100% return and the second getting 25% return on consumption or end.
Aetherpact gauge - do something about this. Its use is grossly too specific.
Dissipation ? Let's be real this is my dps rotation. Reward me for using it with a 10% healing increase, 10% dmg increase, 10% shield to the lowest health player everytime I use one of the aethercharges from dissipation.

And these aren't things that should be done all at once, just ideas to spice it up.

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

my bestie, who plays a sch main healer, thinks SCH is fun, is looking forward to the added buff and doesnt think the job is in any way "broken"

I play healers and main whm, have little interest in SGE because it looks like the combat healer the people who whined about SCH losing its dps focus have been waiting on. SCH always was a barrier healer. what more did you expect them to get?

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The problem is that they don't know how to develop for sch.
They give us all these tools with aetherflow costs but we used all of it on EDs.
Fairy ghost actions. SMN probably doesn't have this issue anymore.
They could easily develop party support skills with aetherflow costs. Like give the haste selene use to have with that new movement speed buff.
Maybe a counterpart to sacred soil, that have mobs take more damage.
Just something interesting that makes sch more than spamming broil and ED and letting fairy do the work and throwing out the occasional shield

Is the Broil/Glare spam not a problem in people's minds? The prevalent healing downtime, that forces a healer either to sit on their thumbs or mindlessly press one button over and over and refreshing 1 dot every 30s not a problem? Nobody sees anything wrong about it?

"If you want better DPS options play a DPS."

I want to play a healer. I want to heal. But If you design fights so that there is barely anything to heal, I am stuck DPSing all the time. And DPSing as a healer is as entertaining as watching paint dry.

"Oh but you get to weave in heals that is fun."

Yes. Weaving is fun. But you always weave it with the same goddam spell. The same boring dot/blue blast. Check the parsers from Savage encounters, they are the ones technically requiring more healing. 130 casts of your filler spell VS 30 casts of your healing spells. For a "filler" spell we use them much more often than any other ability.

"Play any other healer."

Hey MNK mains, play any other melee dps. Hey SMN mains play any other caster. Oh, you got your third rework? How come SE lets you have three reworks?

"Your role is to heal."

God I wish it was. With the amount of damage spells I use per encounter It really doesn't feel like it. It feels like my role is to broil/glare and heal on the side. Was dot management really such a big problem. AST has card management. Was it really that hard to give a "debuff" management thing to fill downtime. Was it really that hard to give WHM a more varied Nuke management to fill downtime.

"There is really nothing else we could have done to SCH."

I have nothing else to say. It's such an admission of failure. No imagination and no will to examine anything.
Hey it's numbers work.

Sure, fine. SMN numbers "worked", but you still gave it a mechanics rework.

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Originally Posted by GrimGale

Is the Broil/Glare spam not a problem in people's minds? The prevalent healing downtime, that forces a healer either to sit on their thumbs or mindlessly press one button over and over and refreshing 1 dot every 30s not a problem? Nobody sees anything wrong about it?

"If you want better DPS options play a DPS."

I want to play a healer. I want to heal. But If you design fights so that there is barely anything to heal, I am stuck DPSing all the time. And DPSing as a healer is as entertaining as watching paint dry.

"Oh but you get to weave in heals that is fun."

Yes. Weaving is fun. But you always weave it with the same goddam spell. The same boring dot/blue blast. Check the parsers from Savage encounters, they are the ones technically requiring more healing. 130 casts of your filler spell VS 30 casts of your healing spells. For a "filler" spell we use them much more often than any other ability.

"Play any other healer."

Hey MNK mains, play any other melee dps. Hey SMN mains play any other caster. Oh, you got your third rework? How come SE lets you have three reworks?

"Your role is to heal."

God I wish it was. With the amount of damage spells I use per encounter It really doesn't feel like it. It feels like my role is to broil/glare and heal on the side. Was dot management really such a big problem. AST has card management. Was it really that hard to give a "debuff" management thing to fill downtime. Was it really that hard to give WHM a more varied Nuke management to fill downtime.

"There is really nothing else we could have done to SCH."

I have nothing else to say. It's such an admission of failure. No imagination and no will to examine anything.
Hey it's numbers work.

Sure, fine. SMN numbers "worked", but you still gave it a mechanics rework.

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The issue is the potency of the healing along with a few other things.
It's a catch 22. They're giving healers more healing abilities, not spells, abilities. Understandable because you want to give healers more things to heal with that's why they picked healer, to heal.
The issue is their oGCD heals are too potent and they have too many of them. Like the new WHM ability is an oGCD with a 20 second duration and a AoE heal(presumably 400) every 10 seconds.
If you want to get healers to heal they need to move away from oGCDs but you don't want them to feel useless so you can't exactly nerf them into the ground.
They need to add more abilities that only function after you've used a healer GCD or make more oGCDs have cast bars.
With the amount of oGCD heals everyone has now bosses need to be doing an AoE raid wide every 20-30 seconds throughout the entire fight to force a GCD heal out of someone.

I understand how you feel because for the true healer experience I actually play another game, SOLO. When I queue up as healer all I do is heal. My damage is negligible and it was purposefully made inconvenient for me to DPS.

The fact that SCH and Sage both have more Regens than actual Shields yet for some reason are referred to by the devs as the "Shield / Barrier" healer shows how disconnected they are from reality.

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Originally Posted by Nethereal

The issue is the potency of the healing along with a few other things.
It's a catch 22. They're giving healers more healing abilities, not spells, abilities. Understandable because you want to give healers more things to heal with that's why they picked healer, to heal.
The issue is their oGCD heals are too potent and they have too many of them. Like the new WHM ability is an oGCD with a 20 second duration and a AoE heal(presumably 400) every 10 seconds.
If you want to get healers to heal they need to move away from oGCDs but you don't want them to feel useless so you can't exactly nerf them into the ground.
They need to add more abilities that only function after you've used a healer GCD or make more oGCDs have cast bars.
With the amount of oGCD heals everyone has now bosses need to be doing an AoE raid wide every 20-30 seconds throughout the entire fight to force a GCD heal out of someone.

I understand how you feel because for the true healer experience I actually play another game, SOLO. When I queue up as healer all I do is heal. My damage is negligible and it was purposefully made inconvenient for me to DPS.

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Honestly, I am not adverse to making the DPS part of healers more interesting. I don't mind DPSing as a healer, heck I think done properly it can be extremely rewarding. Hitting the enemy and healing the party can be inmensely satisfying. Juggling healthbars, then applying a dot. Blasting an enemy with a nuke then throwing a shield. Spreading dots on a group of enemies was one of the most satisfying things you could do with SCH only surpassed by Deploying shields onto your group. The placing, the timing, the abilities all line up and pulling it off is satisfying.

I would love to have more interactions of that type. I like AST cards, even if now they just become sorta repetitive.

One buttom spam kills the fun. Constant repetition of a skill isn't what I'd call riveting gameplay. I understand why they made it that way, so that it was easier to keep dpsing while healing. Now it's made even easier with the shorter cast times. Which means Broil/Glare spam will become even more prevalent.

Regarding optimization: "Why would I bother to bend over backwards to fit yet another boring blue blast?" Well now I don't have to bend over backwards to add a few more casts of Glarebroil to the already existing pile of 130 casts of Glarebroil in this 10 minute fight.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

The fact that SCH and Sage both have more Regens than actual Shields yet for some reason are referred to by the devs as the "Shield / Barrier" healer shows how disconnected they are from reality.

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Yes and then comes WHM with his 500 potency, off-GCD and instant cast shield which is completely free and has such a short cooldown that it is basically ready for every tankbuster...

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Originally Posted by Tint

Yes and then comes WHM with his 500 potency, off-GCD and instant cast shield which is completely free and has such a short cooldown that it is basically ready for every tankbuster...

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Wanna know the best part? They never even use it.

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Originally Posted by Tint

Yes and then comes WHM with his 500 potency, off-GCD and instant cast shield which is completely free and has such a short cooldown that it is basically ready for every tankbuster...

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WHM shield is not a group shield though. That's what makes a shield healer a shield healer.

I think the biggest thing that cut off any actual interesting ideas for SCH for 6.0 was the SMN rework, SCH is the only Job now with a pet AI that's in play for the whole duration of a fight so w/e server calculations (in terms of bandwidth for lack of a better word) had to be split before with the SMN/SCH is now just there for SCH, so outside of personal latency issues that is probably what will make Pet AI seem improved, and the Devs probably didn't wanna nuke pets wholesale for an expansion w/o having another Job(s) come in to take the reigns of "MMO Pet class". <--- This is my own random conjecture but if it is even remotely true, then just say that, it's better than just trying to laugh off being really honest about getting stumped (I appreciate their honesty though unless if that was really a mistranslation) and then not addressing pet ghosting or pet potency or getting locked out of your other skills cuz you used these other other skills when they said at the start of the live letter that they weren't really pressed for time.

Again I'm sure SCH will be fine (outside of what the player-base will settle on optimal healer comp because again this is the first expansion where there's an actual choice between SCH and an alternative) but I do wish some more communication was given even if all it would ultimately do is allay concerns of being heard and not any concerns people had with the Job itself. But I'll reiterate I think SCH will be fine as a whole, but whether it keeps it's position of "you really would rather have a SCH in your raid lineup somewhere for both progging and clearing" well. we'll see how that shakes out with Sage on the block.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

The fact that SCH and Sage both have more Regens than actual Shields yet for some reason are referred to by the devs as the "Shield / Barrier" healer shows how disconnected they are from reality.

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The only regens SCH has are the fairy (cannot be controlled, unreliable on who she'll aim for in most cases), the fairy's regen ability (one of our few reliable), Sacred Soil (shares resources with 4 other abilities), and Fey Union (only effects 1 target, using any other fairy skill will shut it off, have to build up gauge to use it). That's 4.

Shield/Barrier wise we have Sacred Soil, Succor, Adlo, Seraph, Consolation, and Fey Illumination. That's 6, 7 if you include Excog into that (even though it's more time delayed HP heal than anything). I understand the complaints about the amount of "regen" SCH has, but don't blow it out of proportion.

I was hoping I wouldn't have to re-summon the fairy after every wipe. But at least now I get to... run a little faster. :(

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Originally Posted by Dreamsoap

I was hoping I wouldn't have to re-summon the fairy after every wipe. But at least now I get to... run a little faster. :(

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It's the most miserable feeling.
Still not sure with movement speed in combat, it can be good but also very bad depending on fights, even a griefing tool in a way if i want to exaggerate.

Either way, whatever else SCH might get in EW, they did a horrendous job showing. Flashy or not, WHM getting a healing totem got people more attention and excitment than whatever was shown with SCH for example.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

The only regens SCH has are the fairy (cannot be controlled, unreliable on who she'll aim for in most cases), the fairy's regen ability (one of our few reliable), Sacred Soil (shares resources with 4 other abilities), and Fey Union (only effects 1 target, using any other fairy skill will shut it off, have to build up gauge to use it). That's 4.

Shield/Barrier wise we have Sacred Soil, Succor, Adlo, Seraph, Consolation, and Fey Illumination. That's 6, 7 if you include Excog into that (even though it's more time delayed HP heal than anything). I understand the complaints about the amount of "regen" SCH has, but don't blow it out of proportion.

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As much as I am trying to stay out of this because I would rather play the job before I start complaining I have to jump in to address the amount of missinformation you've just put out there.

It seems that you are considering any "reduces damage taken" abilities a "shield" and therefore inflating the amount of shields Scholar has access to.

A shield could be explained as increasing your max hp. If you throw a shielding ability on someone with max hp the shield bit will be effectively count as added hp that could not be there had you used a regen or a direct heal. Usually seen ingame as a yellow bar above someone's HP.

Any ability that makes people take less damage or debuffs the boss so they hurt peolpe less without effectively increasing their max HP we usually refer to as "mitigation"

Under these definitions, Sacred Soil and Fey Illumination are NOT shields but mitigation tools. Furthermore I don't understand why you threw Excogitation in there as potentially another shield. It's a conditional heal which has nothing to do with shielding or even reducing the damage taken. Regardless, they still have more shields and mitigation tools available to them than regen healers do.

I find it unfair that you accuse people of blowing things out of proportion when you willingly or unwillingly skewed the number of shields available to prove them wrong.

Still regardless of how reliable the regens are the fact is Scholar has 4 regens baked into their kit as you have pointed out correctly, while White Mage who was (is?) the poster healer for regen healers has 3 - Regen, Medica II and Asylum.
It also has the same amount of regens as Diurnal Sect Astrologian (Aspected Benefic, Aspected Helios, Celestial Opposition, Collective Unconscious)

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Originally Posted by Nethereal

Noct AST beats SCH in everything except personal dps and mitigation. It has more consistent shields with less micromanaging, it heals more, it has an instant single target heal that

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If SCH provides tools that the other healers do not and cannot be found anywhere else, than it has value and a strong identity.


Currently, no other healer in the game can provide the same amount of mit with the same uptime. Noct Bubble is considerably worse than soil and worse than its Diurnal counterpart, considering regen ast still gets the mitigation while noct doesn't get the regen unless it channels.

Healing for more stops being a perk when its understood that every healer has an abundance of healing, but no content requires all of it. Mitigation is what groups value as it nullifies the need to GCD heal which is why SCH is currently favored.

Art of War is considerably better than Gravity as well in fights where healer damage actually matters (TEA for example.)


Furthermore, Noct Ast is being removed entirely and we still have no idea what Sage will be like entirely but we do know that it is an offensive healer who heals through offense. Which is nowhere near treading upon Scholar's territory or identity. So SCH essentially has zero competition for its niche (which is intended.)



Which brings me back to my original point; currently the job is strong and being picked frequently > it receives little changes and the new healer has a different identity > logic would dictate that SCH will continue to have a strong identity and excel at what it is good at > it doesn't need a rework.


Again the only point that I can agree with in regards to needing an overhaul is the pet AI because its currently really broken, but I have to reiterate that this has nothing to do with Scholar's identity or design.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

WHM shield is not a group shield though. That's what makes a shield healer a shield healer.

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TIL that Warriors (shake it off) and PLDs (Divine Veil) are shield healers /s

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Shield/Barrier wise we have Sacred Soil, Succor, Adlo, Seraph, Consolation, and Fey Illumination. That's 6, 7 if you include Excog into that (even though it's more time delayed HP heal than anything). I understand the complaints about the amount of "regen" SCH has, but don't blow it out of proportion.

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You say I blow things out of proportion but you somehow include Seraph (A pet?), Sacred Soil (mitigation) and Fey illumination (magic mitigation) as Shields.

Scholars have access to three shields.

Adlo - a 375 potency chield
Succor (a weak aoe shield at 225 potency)
Consolation (subject to the pet tax, 200 potency shield afterwards)

That's it.

And have access to 4 Regens (counting the fairy as a "regen")
Fairy / Seraph
Whispering Dawn
Sacred Soil
Fey Union

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

You say I blow things out of proportion but you somehow include Seraph (A pet?), Sacred Soil (mitigation) and Fey illumination (magic mitigation) as Shields.

Scholars have access to three shields.

Adlo
Succor
Consolation

That's it.

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You and I both know for a damned fact that SE is also looking at mitigation as a form of shield for the "shield healers". They wouldn't give us so many mitigation tools if they didn't.

Most of what SCH lost over the years are things that didn't belong to them or were a result of being connected to ACN, a beginner dps. The small bit that was SCH only that it lost was Selene being functionally different from Eos. But everything else people miss? Cleric Stance, protect, aero, etc...cross class skills. Eye for an eye, DoTs, Bane, Shadowflare....ACN. if Scholar had never been an extension of acn and instead had it's own beginner class like say, Student or Novice something, these pieces wouldve never been part of SCH's kit. I havent mained sch since 3.5 and I'm also disappointed in how sch has been handled, but even I can see what most people are missing isn't Scholar. You miss Arcanist. (And Selene).

It also lost a lot of pet functionality like being able to weave pet CDs that made the Job feel smoother to play and we never got any of the other clunkiness that accrued addressed so it just felt like it got clunkier and clunkier as it had things added to it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

(..)
You say I blow things out of proportion but you somehow include Seraph (A pet?), Sacred Soil (mitigation) and Fey illumination (magic mitigation) as Shields.

Scholars have access to three shields.

Adlo - a 375 potency chield
Succor (a weak aoe shield at 225 potency)
Consolation (subject to the pet tax, 200 potency shield afterwards)

That's it.

And have access to 4 Regens (counting the fairy as a "regen")
Fairy / Seraph
Whispering Dawn
Sacred Soil
Fey Union

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...
Let me fix that for you real quick:

Scholars have access to 4 shields.

Adlo - a 375 potency chield
Succor (a weak aoe shield at 225 potency)
Consolation (subject to the pet tax, 200 potency shield afterwards)
Seraphic Veil (Seraph) - a 200 potency heal + shield (replaces Embrace)

That's it.

And have access to 4 Regens (counting the fairy as a "regen")
Fairy (Embrace)
Pet Skill (Whispering Dawn - for Eos / Angel's Whisper - for Seraph)
Sacred Soil
Fey Union

Seraph does give shields when healing normally so adding the pet to the shield "table" should be acceptable especially if you are adding Eos to the regen "table"

You people can keep arguing all you want but at least base off your arguments in correct information that you can find by reading your skill tooltips. Please.

SCH.. Scholar... what is this class? I thought it was removed from the game years ago.













/s

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Originally Posted by Euphares

If SCH provides tools that the other healers do not and cannot be found anywhere else, than it has value and a strong identity.


Currently, no other healer in the game can provide the same amount of mit with the same uptime. Noct Bubble is considerably worse than soil and worse than its Diurnal counterpart, considering regen ast still gets the mitigation while noct doesn't get the regen unless it channels.

Healing for more stops being a perk when its understood that every healer has an abundance of healing, but no content requires all of it. Mitigation is what groups value as it nullifies the need to GCD heal which is why SCH is currently favored.

Art of War is considerably better than Gravity as well in fights where healer damage actually matters (TEA for example.)


Furthermore, Noct Ast is being removed entirely and we still have no idea what Sage will be like entirely but we do know that it is an offensive healer who heals through offense. Which is nowhere near treading upon Scholar's territory or identity. So SCH essentially has zero competition for its niche (which is intended.)



Which brings me back to my original point; currently the job is strong and being picked frequently > it receives little changes and the new healer has a different identity > logic would dictate that SCH will continue to have a strong identity and excel at what it is good at > it doesn't need a rework.


Again the only point that I can agree with in regards to needing an overhaul is the pet AI because its currently really broken, but I have to reiterate that this has nothing to do with Scholar's identity or design.

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The only thing SCH provides that other healers do not have is chain and fairy, every other healer has access to shields, healing, and mitigation. That's it. And fairy can technically just be seen as a regen.
Obviously no other healer can provide the same amount of mitigation because like I said Sacred Soil is essentially two additional jobs worth of mitigation compared to WHMs 1 or none depending on what level you're playing on.
So again what identity? That was scrapped when they removed DoTs you pick SCH because WHM has no mitigation.

There's no reason to even compare Sacred Soil to other classes mitigation since the skill itself is the reason you pick SCH. Obviously it blows everything else out of the park.

Yes mitigation is what groups value which is why WHM which either has 1 or none is not picked over SCH, or AST in meta comp. But just like healing mitigation stops being a perk when you no longer need to put it on a chart.
Additional mitigation that doesn't stop you from getting 1 shot is the same as additional healing. SCH is favored because WHM has no mitigation and low movement and there are 2 healer slots and 3 healers to pick from.
Art of War is arguably the best AoE of the 3 healers in relevant content which is fair because it's the least fun healer to play and requires the most weaves.

Noct AST being removed doesn't effect the fact SCH is probably going to be replaced largely by SGE.
Noct AST being better than SCH was just an unfortunate situation but the meta comp is diurnal AST with SCH and now with SGE coming out it will most likely be AST & SGE because SCH's mitigation like I said while good is not that good.

These are the identities that the current healers have:

WHM: Big & easy dps & heals.
SCH: Fairy & Sacred Soil
AST: Cards & Free casts.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

You and I both know for a damned fact that SE is also looking at mitigation as a form of shield for the "shield healers". They wouldn't give us so many mitigation tools if they didn't.

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IDK, I mean mitigations work in tandem with shields to give them some durability but I don't think that makes mitigations, shields. I get what you're saying though even if I don't personally see it that way, you're not entirely incorrect.

Now that SMN lost maisma and bio....can like SCH have it?

No the only scraps SCH is getting is Noct AST's Dome trait where the mitigation lingers even if people run away from it (which is essentially what SCH's EW mitigation skill is gonna be but now with Peloton fringe benefit instead of the regen that drops off once the AST Dome is finished deploying/AST moved).

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Originally Posted by Nethereal

-snip-.

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Downplaying their strengths isn't correct imo, every healer has mit and shields, but do they excel at it like SCH? The answer is no. SCH not only has the best 10% mit cooldown, but an additional 5% mitigation on top of a healing increase. No other healer has both of these. This is the reason to bring up Soil, because no other healer has anything as powerful. Therefore, its a unique strength the solidifies the job as the best mitigation healer. This is an identity and a design goal, and both are being accomplished. This is only further solidified by the fact that Noct Ast is getting removed and that Sage has a very different design approach from what they have showed us. I still do not agree with the idea that Noct Ast is better than SCH as I haven't seen this reflected anywhere, the only perk Noct Ast has over SCH is that Celestial Opposition doesn't require as much set up as Seraph. But its a moot point because groups don't want an abundance of shielding, they want mitigation. Which is why both Neutral Sect and Seraph are rarely used.

I'm not sure why you even bring up dots, dots have nothing to do with a healer's identity considering to my knowledge they never interacted with your healing, it was just free damage. The only healer who's identity is tied to damage would be Sage as its damage directly interacts with its healing and/or mitigation. They are also giving every healer the Malefic treatment, which nullifies the awkwardness of having to use a worse spell to weave.

Additionally, in optimized scenarios where groups are cutting damage down to the wire, there are very few situations where mitigation has a hard-cap on its effectiveness. Otherwise white mage definitely would be meta, lack of movement becomes irrelevant as these groups map out their movement anyways (BLM is meta for the same reason, despite having the same drawback.)

SCH is not favored because WHM has no mitigation(this isn't even true), SCH is favored because it has the best mitigation. Which is its core identity.


The only scenario in which this won't be true is if Sage releases in an overtuned/overloaded state, by which the fault would be on Sage's design rather than SCH being designed poorly/having no identity.