[Request] Can Scholar please get Miasma back?

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Originally Posted by LariaKirin

No, that's where you chose to enter because you think you found a gotcha. You keep coming back to this, even when I'm trying to clarify and steer the discussion towards that of dots not being more forgiving.
My initial argument: "A missed Broil is a missed Broil, regardless of whether a dot is ticking or not."

If you replace Succor with Biolysis you only lose 70p (if late), yes. But that is because you replaced Succor. You conveniently removed what we considered a GCD loss in the Biolysis example.
Why does "no dot example" lose 290 potency from Succor, but "Biolysis example" somehow magically doesn't have an opportunity cost for Succor?

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Because that wasn't your original statement. You keep saying that using Succor is a potency lose of 290, regardless of what Succor would have replaced and in your initial argument, you say that you lost 290 potency from Succor and an additional 70 from the 1st tic of Biolysis, implying that Succor would have replaced a Broil and not a Biolysis, which is what makes the argument false because either Biolysis would have been used in place of Succor in the 2nd example, or you wouldn't need to use Biolysis and it would be the same potency loss as the 1st.

Now, you're trying to argue that DoTs aren't more forgiving than using a nuke because you wasted a GCD on a heal, which doesn't make sense because a heal is neither a DoT nor Nuke so its inclusion doesn't change anything. Using a GCD on a heal is a DPS loss, period. The only thing that matters is what that Heal is replacing, so either a DoT or Nuke. Missing a Nuke is more punishing because you lose out on its entirely potency, whereas missing a DoT only delays its total potency by 1 tic, hence its more forgiving because you are losing less potency than that of your nuke. The only way that your argument would be true is if the DoT was a GCD Nuke that dealt its full damage upfront and was delayed by the use of a GCD heal and even than, you'd be missing the 700p from that Nuke vs the 290 potency you keep falsely arguing about but since DoTs don't work that was, you only need to account for the 1 tic in delay vs the 1 nuke delay.

You can try and argue otherwise but the fact is you're just wrong. DoTs are more forgiving because you only lose 1 tic of damage when delayed by using the GCD heal or nothing vs a nuke losing its full potency.

It feels like you're both coming at this from opposite ends of the same point.

A more helpful and grounded way to look at this is to look at how the value of slamming every last GCD diminishes slightly when our dots carry more of our potency per tick vs our nuke.

Here's a couple of super basic timelines, the first potency is the complete potency so far over the timeline, the potency in brackets is dot damage only. 10 GCDs total, We're going to miss the 5th and 7th GCDs with a heal on both occasions.

Example A: What we have now - 290 Nuke, 70 Dot - 3310 potency over 10 perfect GCDs

1 - Dot - 70
2 - Nuke - 430 (140)
3 - Nuke - 790 (210)
4 - Nuke - 1150 (280)
5 - Heal - 1220 (350)
6 - Nuke - 1580 (420)
7 - Heal - 1650 (490)
8 - Nuke - 2010 (560)
9 - Nuke - 2370 (630)
10 - Nuke - 2730 (700)

Example B: 210 Potency Nuke, 140 Dot - 3290 potency over 10 perfect GCDs

1 - Dot - 140
2 - Nuke - 490 (280)
3 - Nuke - 840 (420)
4 - Nuke - 1190 (560)
5 - Heal - 1330 (700)
6 - Nuke - 1680 (840)
7 - Heal - 1820 (980)
8 - Nuke - 2170 (1120)
9 - Nuke - 2520 (1260)
10 - Nuke - 2870 (1400)

It's super simplified but hopefully it gets the point across. Example B has 20 less peak potency in a target dummy style setting, but yet comes out 140 potency ahead in the end with 2 GCDs missed. The more GCDs you miss, the more example B pulls ahead.

More emphasis on dot damage over nuke damage absolutely raises the skill floor for healer DPS and makes using GCDs for something other than a nuke less 'wasteful'. SE are absolutely missing a trick by not taking one of the healers down this route. Load them up with dots, add a 2.0 Bane style cooldown for good measure and you've got something that'll feel legitimately different for very little work.

So I've played Scholar for all of 6.0, and I've also leveled AST to 90. Alongside that, I've gotten both WHM and SGE to level 86 and I'll get them to 90 somewhat shortly. I feel like Scholar is in a better place in EW than it was in ShB, but the DPS rotation is still lacking on single target, and REALLY lacking on AoE compared to the other healers in EW. I still feel like giving Scholar Miasma back would really help the job out a lot!

If we look at the DPS toolkits of each job, I understand that all of the healers right now generally boil down to "hit your 1 nuke and refresh your DoT" over and over on single target. Miasma itself wouldn't break this up by much, though I do think it would help SCH a lot still for the reasons I originally stated.
However, if we look at the AoE DPS options of each healer:

White Mage: 3: Holy, Assize, Blood Lily
Astrologian: 4: Gravity, Lord of Crowns, Earthly Star, Macrocosmos
Sage: 4: Dyskrasia, Phlegma, Toxicon, Pnuema
Scholar: 1: Art of War

This disparity between them is really apparent in dungeons and it leaves a lot to be wanting from SCH's AoE options. I understand that Art of War II has the highest potency of all the healers AoE options and is a gain on two targets, but Sage's Dyskrasia II is 10 potency less, a gain on two as well, and they also have other AoE options as well. I understand that the Blood Lily, and Toxicon are locked behind healing resources and Lord of Crowns is a 50% RNG change, but even then, they have more options than SCH does.
If Scholar got Miasma and Bane back, this would raise Scholar to 3 AoE options in its DoTs and Art of War and 1 AoE spreader that deals 0 damage, which would make doing AoE a lot more satisfying on Scholar. Alternatively they could just give Energy Drain damage to all targets or give SCH like Miasma II, but personally I'd love to see something that fits into both of their AoE and ST and Miasma (if given Bane as well) would do this perfectly in my opinion!

Agreed that SCH is really bare bones when it comes to AoE options. The other healers at least have 1-2 relevant cooldowns to track in order to maximize their damage output. Miasma would be a good addition, as would changing Chain Stratagem to be an AoE ability. Nerfing AoW to be a bit weaker than WHM and SGE would be a fine trade-off in exchange for something else to do.

The developers don’t seem to want DoTs to have any place in ffxiv, as evidenced by the fact that the game two primary DoT dps are now no longer primary DoT dps (one is procs, one is…whatever you would call Summoner lol)

I understand wanting to see a skill you liked in the past return. I really miss Wide Volley and Foe Requiem from Bard, they looked awesome and would be really fun to use.

Unfortunately for me, those abilities simply do not fit the Bard play-style anymore. It’s AoE seems to me like it’s supposed to be position-based which is why it’s a weird cone shape and Shadowbite is an annoyingly small radius, which Wide Volley would let you completely circumvent. Your one and only singular focus beyond ‘aiming’ your attacks properly should be hitting procs. An illogical design, because it doesn’t take eagle-eyed perception to know which enemy to hit so you hit them all, but still what I believe was their intention. And procs, by their very nature, aren’t always available, so it doesn’t make sense for them to say ‘but you have Shadowbite for circular AoE’. Foe Requiem was actively used support ability that drained MP, but SE has made is abundantly clear they do not want Bards to ever have to spend time singing for the party (hence it all became oGCD attack skills with support passives added, then removed, then added), and of course they don’t want any non-magical DPS job to have any use for MP in any way.

I think the developers are approaching Scholar with similar (poor) logic.
Miasma I/II would require Scholar to focus its attention on the enemy and maximising DoT uptime, which SE has made clear they want to move all healers away from. I imagine they’d have plenty other nonsensical reasonings as to why it no longer fits like ‘but Scholars need the MP to heal!’, but having to manage uptime is likely the main issue in their eyes.
The same applies to Bane, but also because it uses Aetherflow, the developers wouldn’t see it as an appropriate for Scholars because it would require Scholars to use Aetherflow for their DPS. Meanwhile Energy Drain exists…

Of course I do agree that Scholar needs its overall gameplay looked it. If you ask me the problem is that the previous Scholar was essentially a puzzle that the devs stuffed the wrong pieces into until it came out looking somewhat acceptable. Then when they started replacing the pieces of the puzzle with what was supposed to go there in the first place (resulting in a much, much smaller puzzle lol), they yeeted the remainder out the window in the hopes nobody would ever remember they existed. The new one looks nice, and some people like it, but it still isn’t the same thing as what we had before, and people liked what we had before too.

In my personal opinion, I think Scholar should have new DoTs designed for it entirely separate to Miasma and Bio. Let them rest lol. Giving it low potency damage over time abilities with utility effects like reducing damage dealt by the target, slow, etc, would fit the jobs ‘intended identity’ whilst still having a similar feel to the options the job had previously. I mean, if you ask Alka Zolka what a Scholar is, the first thing he mentions is ‘support’, not poison or destruction lol. Support can be offensive, of course, but I don’t think spreading corrupted awther around the battlefield is actually benefiting anyone lol, besides the old ‘can’t hurt you if they’re dead argument’ which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in a world where you can poison people through sheer force of will, or just circumvent death completely as our villains are wont to do lol.Not that lore has any relation to gameplay anymore because Astrologian and Bard lol. (“Look at all these constellations that empower your comrades in different ways” lol)


Of course, that would be a huge pain in the ass balance, so hilariously SE is unable to develop Scholar to be what they themselves describe it as. But then it also can’t be a dps because Sage, or a power healer because White Mage, and buffing is for Astrologians. But if they made it focus completely on power healing with the fairy, it circles right back around to being un-balanceable (because every Scholar would bring two healers). I don’t even think Alka Zolka or Surito Carito could explain what in the world Scholar is supposed to be now lol.

as a final addendum I admit I maybe went too far with this post but I don’t want to have to give up my main job again because the developers can’t figure out what to do with it, as I’m sure most Scholars do

I tell my troops to get out of the fire, to focus down a target, and tell them the safety zone with my blue ground flare.

Not joking. Was running expert and the only way I could get my party to avoid avoidable damage was to use Sacred Soil as a visual marker for safe spots.

Oh gods…are we the in-game Lord of Verminion job?!?

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

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Didn't even read your post, just saw the title. Have a like.

if we cant get back miasma as a dot, can we at least get it as a gcd with a 24s cooldown like phlegma? sch desperately needs something to make its downtime more interesting. it went from one of the most fun healers to an absolute bore.

1) ... with what button space? With LB and role actions, I have 3 bars full for SCH. Where would I even put Miasma.

2) Enemies can only hold so many debuffs at a time. Why would the devs consider giving SCH another DoT, when they could just increase the potency of Biolysis for the same effect without increasing resource intensity?

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

1) ... with what button space? With LB and role actions, I have 3 bars full for SCH. Where would I even put Miasma.

2) Enemies can only hold so many debuffs at a time. Why would the devs consider giving SCH another DoT, when they could just increase the potency of Biolysis for the same effect without increasing resource intensity?

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1.) Button consolidation might need to be a necessary, but possible evil, maybe less harsh than I may even outline.
2.) Said debuff limit can only be realistically reached in a very organised + high debuff composed Alliance raid, if not 48man raids (Delubrum Reginae Savage and Baldesion Arsenal). An additional DoT on a healer is hardly going to break the debuff bank. But to humour your idea:

If debuffs were really such a problem, why do Reapers have their "damage buff" in form of a debuff? They could just have it give +10% dmg to self and while under that effect you gain Soul for every kill / assist. Why do Bards then have two DoTs, now that they even decoupled their procs from them and reapplying them usually happens via Iron Jaws anyways? Why do players miss the days of balancing between 3-5 dots, all with different durations and / or applications?

Because frankly it is kinda more fun than just building on a single dot that just sits there being used every 30 seconds. You don't enhance it, you don't prepare for its' next application, you just use it and that is honestly boring. If it was at least half the duration, it would be more interesting, even if a bit more punishing.

I'd take Miasma II and Bane to spread Biolysis any day to at least make dungeoning more interesting than spamming AoW II.

Everyone mentions Miasma, but does no one remember Shadow Flare :(?

Bumping this again, perhaps futilely, but just trying to keep it on the first page. We're not asking for more damage, we just want more damage options for fun!

This would mean we would need to lose another ability as scholar is already a job with quite "button heavy" hotbar. It is ture you do not need to use all of them, but they want to decrease the number of the buttons for PS players not increase them.

However, I would not mind losing Repose... I can count on one hand how many times I used this ability...

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Originally Posted by Shuuli

This would mean we would need to lose another ability as scholar is already a job with quite "button heavy" hotbar. It is ture you do not need to use all of them, but they want to decrease the number of the buttons for PS players not increase them.

However, I would not mind losing Repose... I can count on one hand how many times I used this ability...

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SCH used to have a lot more buttons prior to the skill pruning and I still have some of those old skills on my 3rd Hotbar that used to be full that acts as a skill graveyard. Hell, with a proper rework of some of the old skills, you could easily return 70% of them without adding a single new button.

Eye for an Eye could be reworked into a low level version of Protraction and have Protraction be spreadable by Deployment Tactics like Eye for an Eye could be spread.
Rouse could be Seraph since all they both do is upgrade the fairy a little bit (albeit Seraph adds a shield effect and Rouse was just a potency increase but both accomplished similar functions). Merge Consultation with Fey Blessing instead and nothing changes.
Shadowflare, Bane and Virus? Made into a system built off of Energy Drain that merges them into Art of War, Biolysis and Ruin 2.

That leaves only Miasma 1/2 that would need to be added as "new" skills and if we're going to be pruning skills anyways, let's make Dissipation into a low level version of Recitation, that just allows you to use 1 extra Aetherflow ability and Recitation adds the Guaranteed Crit as an upgrade that includes Addlo into the effect. If Dissipation's only real purpose is to be a roundabout DPS gain, cut the nonsense and return Misama as your DPS buff and make Dissipation into the healing tool it was always intended to be.

It would be nice if they made SCH a healer with low potency direct heals, with shields and HoTs. Combined that with DoT based dps and it would be a refreshing change. Instead we get homogenized healers in the name of balance.

My little idea for a minor SCH rework would giving SCH its dots back, make all of the direct “restores HP with a potency of X” like indom, lustrate, whispering dawn, would come from the fairy whereas every shield and utility like protraction and expedience would come from the SCH themselves. I also think deployment tactics should have a MUCH shorter cooldown and spread dots like bane used to. I think every heal that currently consumes aetherflow should consume fairy gauge. Fairy gauge would be generated by casting offensive spells or shields. Oh, and energy drain should be turned into fester, it’s potency should depend on how many dots the target is under, and it should be free and just have three charges.

I see the Miasma icon on Biolytic in PVP, Square! You can't hide it from us forever!

Bumping this again; I am a Miasma lover.

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

Bumping this again; I am a Miasma lover.

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Knowing SE, once Biolysis reaches level 4, they'll change it to Miasma just to troll us.
I wish they'd pull their head out their asses and actually make healers fun again.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

SCH used to have a lot more buttons prior to the skill pruning and I still have some of those old skills on my 3rd Hotbar that used to be full that acts as a skill graveyard. Hell, with a proper rework of some of the old skills, you could easily return 70% of them without adding a single new button.

Eye for an Eye could be reworked into a low level version of Protraction and have Protraction be spreadable by Deployment Tactics like Eye for an Eye could be spread.
Rouse could be Seraph since all they both do is upgrade the fairy a little bit (albeit Seraph adds a shield effect and Rouse was just a potency increase but both accomplished similar functions). Merge Consultation with Fey Blessing instead and nothing changes.
Shadowflare, Bane and Virus? Made into a system built off of Energy Drain that merges them into Art of War, Biolysis and Ruin 2.

That leaves only Miasma 1/2 that would need to be added as "new" skills and if we're going to be pruning skills anyways, let's make Dissipation into a low level version of Recitation, that just allows you to use 1 extra Aetherflow ability and Recitation adds the Guaranteed Crit as an upgrade that includes Addlo into the effect. If Dissipation's only real purpose is to be a roundabout DPS gain, cut the nonsense and return Misama as your DPS buff and make Dissipation into the healing tool it was always intended to be.

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I’d like this. As a controller player who uses the Mixed setting for my hands and wrists, I’m limited to 32 quick action buttons, so when abilities merge or have charges, it helps a lot.

I like the healing of the healers overall right now especially with their level 90 skills, but their DPS rotation is a bit boring when you’re not needing to heal. Plus, I tend to not want to take healers through the story or solo content because their DPS rotation is pretty boring. Even a small change, extra charge for some skills, or one new skill would be make things more fun, for all kinds of players.

I also wish we had more use of the faerie gauge.