Because why not: A Moderate Proposal - SCH

Not particularly. Then again seraph is pretty close to rouse but 38 levels higher. Aetherpact is a needlessly convoluted targeted heal, dissipation something people like to complain about and sacred soil a fairly situational mitigation until the hot trait. Really bane at 30 is the only “woah change in gameplay” capstone, and that isn’t even there anymore. And also an arcanist button.

Expedient may be a lower level spell. SCH has some odd reasons for why as Ren was stating with some anti-synergies in the kit. Dissipation makes you lose the fairy and it only buffs the Adlo and Succor spells. It gives you 3 Aether and yet doesn't buff the oGCD heals.

I think others liked the movement speed on it for the Savage raids but it is also not my main cooldown for wall to wall pulls. The first cycle tends to use Whispering Dawn with the Seraph Fairy. Fey Illumination will probably be used here in the first cycle too. Second cycle is essentially a potpourri of almost the rest thrown in together prepping for losing my fairy. I would like to say Dissipation is the main one, but it really only gets used to charge an extra 3 Aether for more Lustrates. Recitation is the true impactful cooldown for my second pull cycle to take advantage of the healing spell boost on Adlo. Expedient gets used a little after the shield is put up. Both cycles make use of Sacred Soil, Excogitation and Lustrate with the Aether cooldowns to keep the tank alive.

Expedient 'not feeling like a 90 skill' is echoed across other jobs, eg I don't really feel like Wyrmwind Thrust feels all that strong, but it's used pretty often so it adds up. Phantom Rush looks cool but is actually only a 300 potency increase over TK and has a soft-CD of 2mins. Radiant Finale is... what it is, Chainsaw is 'Drill, again again (but this time with AOE)', Resolution is 'Scorch, again' and SMN's demisummons are 150p stronger than the egi's you've used up til that point.

Expedient, if nothing else, is a 10% mit buff for 20s that sticks to allies, addressing one of the weaknesses of SCH: that people need to stand in Soil for the mitigation. This means that in times where people are spread far AND take damage (Heavensfall, Quickmarch, Blackfire... actually any Ultimate mechanic really, but also things like Act 2, Curtain Call, Gloryplume spread, Intemperance iirc you're spread just too far for a Soil to get the corner people), it's a very welcome addition, even without considering the sprint.

Dissipation/Union/Seraph can suck egg, but other jobs get stinker capstones too. Like Dragonfire Dive jesus christ SE you better fix that one in 7.0

edit: MCH's current 60 capstone is 'you get the final step of your heated 123 combo', it's 30 potency increase over non-heated clean shot, that's pretty sad

MCH gets its capstone to its 123 at 64 (Heated Clean Shot), the same level they got them all in StB. MCH is weird leveling since ShB like many jobs, but at least they give em Drill early, which is bonkers overpowered for that level range.

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I'm glad the OP responded with what they see the issues of SCH as being. I think it's fun to sometimes imagine specific toolkits or adjustments, but I prefer to focus on what we enjoy and what we don't enjoy with what's there when trying to give constructive dev feedback.

So, here's a bit of history and how I felt about iterations on SCH over the years.

My first class in FFXIV was CNJ, cuz my bro invited me to the game and his group needed a healer, and it's the only one you can start as. Coming from a crappy WoW private server, I really liked how the game cut down on bullshit like waiting for MP to return, action tooltips that obfuscate how strong your actions are and make comparisons difficult, and healers that could contribute nothing if there was nothing to heal, which tended to happen the more geared your party got in WoW. I leveled both CNJ and ACN because the game let me (and forced me to get ACN to 15 for WHM anyways)! I also enjoy learning what all the jobs can do by trying em out. Eventually, I settled on SCH when we started raiding because we had another WHM and the simple idea on paper of a healer that focused on shields and using a pet to heal sounded intriguing, but since the game made it so easy to swap between them I'd tend to just play whichever, especially once my bro and his friends all quit and I did the PF thing until finding a static for second coils and beyond.

Briefly, I enjoyed WHM because it was simple and powerful, easy to react to stuff going wrong, and I enjoyed SCH because if you knew what you were doing, you could basically go forever and carry a group through anything (true of pretty much all healers to an extent) while contributing damage cheaply. I preferred SCH if I had the choice, but there were benefits to having both in a party.

SCH in ARR required more planning than WHM to heal effectively because actions like Adloquium and Succor applied shields (weaker than they are now; Adlo was 300 potency + 300 potency shield, less overall than WHM's 700 Cure II, and Succor was 150 healing + 150 shield, equivalent to Medica's 300, but weaker than Medica 2's 700 and Cure 3's 550). SCH's "feeling" was planning and mitigation, having a variety of different tools when compared to WHM between oGCD cooldowns that directly healed, greater MP generation, shields and a higher action economy because of the Faerie.

I wanna emphasize just how much more powerful the faerie was before. First, all pet actions were simultaneous, separate actions you could issue WHILE casting, no oGCD weaving needed. Embrace, Faerie's basic heal, used to be 300 potency, which was 3/4ths of a Physick. By synchronizing with their faerie target, it meant that a SCH could cast an equivalent Cure II heal every GCD on whatever target they wanted for the MP cost of Cure I (MP was a much bigger consideration then), or just get free healing every GCD while they continued dealing damage. Left to her own devices, she'd simply heal the target with the lowest hp% as she does now.

On top of this, Eos' Whispering Dawn, is currently 21 sec of 80 healing potency (560 total) where before it was 100 (700 total). SCH's kit emphasized this with Rouse, which buffed all your Faerie's heals by 40% for 20 seconds per minute (increasing Embrace to 420, and aligning with every Whispering Dawn to bring it up to 980 for the whole party). So basically, the Faerie wasn't just a fashion accessory or a proxy some of your oGCDs emit from, it was almost half your toolkit and contributed meaningful healing every GCD.

Eos also brought Fey Covenant (20% damage reduction to all allies from magic for 20 sec every 2 min) and Fey Illumination (20% healing output increase for all allies for 20 sec every 2 min), while Selene could bring Silent Dusk (a silence), Fey Glow/Light (30% spell/skill speed for all allies for 30 sec each, minute cooldown only one could be active at a time) as an alternative to allow for more dps if the healing wasn't necessary. In an alternate history, SCH would go on to get more faeries that do different things like the way SMN's pets used to work instead of them being stripped and consolidated.

Lastly, she had her own aggro table, and you could use her to gather adds or trash packs to tanks by proxy. Kind of less and less important in a post ShB tank stance, no bosses with simultaneous adds gamescape, but it was still a neat trick and a way to even let her tank for you when playing solo.

The Faerie felt much more a part of SCH's identity because you managed it constantly, even while casting, and it carried so much more of your healing and toolkit.

There were certainly complaints throughout the game's history that healers mostly just dps, and this older iteration of SCH was no exception (see this stupid memey flowchart guide to SCH from HW: https://imgur.com/TCdZ11H), but because of SCH's more varied damage options and its reliance on a pet that could heal as it focused on damaging, it felt like a more natural fit for SCH as it was then than it is now.

Sorry yes you are correct, it's not MCH's 3 from their 123 but the 2 that gets upgraded at 60, which is arguably even worse feeling

As for 'focusing on the feel' I agree, but at the same time don't. We have the devs saying 'we didn't really know what to do for SCH this time around', right? If we were to say, for example, 'downtime feels bad because we press Broil 120 times in the fight', it's entirely possible the solution they come up with is one that doesn't actually really solve the issue at all. 'A new 1min burst damage button' would make us use less Broils technically, but it does near as nothing to actually fix the problem. Rather, when we make these ideas it's not just that we are saying 'class is bad, do exactly this instead', but that we're providing our view on what it could be, and regardless of if the idea is directly used, or is just a source of inspiration for a different, but equally viable 'fix' to the problem, we'd consider it a worthwhile attempt to contribute.

Take my WHM idea, even if they don't add the damage stuff like Dia rescaling or Banish button and just add the other stuff, it at least helps give the lower levels more to do, and adds a new dimension to the class in the form of 'potentially spend lily on shields instead of healing'. On the flipside, if the only thing they added is the damage side, and not the healing/mit side of the idea, then it means the downtime is more engaging. But that doesn't mean they have to do what I asked exactly. Maybe they decide to add Banish as a 30s CD instead of the 15 I'm asking. Maybe they leave Dia at 30s. Maybe they don't add back the elemental stuff, or the new gauge, and the 'big cool new heal' is just a 60s CD, IDK. But if it at least gives them some fresh ideas, then it's worth me taking the time to write it out, right? Long as it actually fixes issues, at least. If they add the big heal tool and nothing else, it doesn't exactly solve the problem of 'we don't really need to heal much', it'd just be another healing tool on the pile

I just want them to admit, if they are out of ideas, that they are out of ideas. Then they can take steps to find new inspiration, instead of running on fumes and coming up with filler trash. They should take this particular line to heart I think:

https://i.gyazo.com/3d813de1f052a5ea...530c865c6f.png

I see where you're coming from a little better, thanks.

But, is there any historical evidence of them ever taking our more creative ideas and implementing them?

The only instances I can think of are when they specifically address actions like Living Dead being horrible for the DRK alone and adding more work for healers (after so many years) or when they go back and forth on things like AST's Minor Arcana and Crown Play or DRG's Jumps and Mirage Dive being separate actions or the same action (these changes are stupid, by the way, they should strive instead to give players UI options for these types of decisions. AST used to have an 'undraw' action to unload cards when that made sense to, but could still simply "/statusoff "The Balance" <me>" to right-click the buff or whatever if they wanted). More pertinent to SCH, take pet responsiveness feedback and use it to completely rework the faeries from full pets into intangible ghosts that oGCDs emit from.

I think I wouldn't mention it if I actually understood how the feedback pipeline works (if there even is one). I think there's some community reps that gather and translate feedback to devs, but it's difficult to know, and I worry that it just contributes to an unhelpful cacophony.

I certainly would also like for them to be okay with admitting that they're struggling with ideas if they are, and I'm glad that they've started to include some explanations of their decisions regarding balancing in the Job updates. Unfortunately we don't know for sure if we're going to see 'based on player feedback' decisions if they drastically rework jobs.

I would *really* like for the feedback pipeline to be less opaque, though. I've even seen some English speakers try to post on the Japanese Forums because they're worried their voices aren't heard here.

From what I know of, they tend to tell us what they plan to do for the next patch or expansion through a live letter on the lodestone site. Sometimes a few YouTubers get to interview Yoshida directly and post the video.

I do remember posting some Monk Blitz ideas that required pushing in GCD Actions to determine which spell came up... It's a reality now but I do not know if they accepted the idea or coincidently thought of it on their own.

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Originally Posted by Post

But, is there any historical evidence of them ever taking our more creative ideas and implementing them?

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Not that I recall. There's a little precedent for responding to outrage; Scholar in 4.0 was embarrassingly undertuned, left without an AOE other than Bane. They fixed that pretty quickly. And they eventually did something about lilies. But creative suggestions? Crickets. I fear if they do trawl the forums for ideas, the Healer ones are among their least likely. They stopped announcing job changes ahead of time altogether because they were so embarrassed by what we told them regarding the Stormblood lilies.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

Not that I recall. There's a little precedent for responding to outrage; Scholar in 4.0 was embarrassingly undertuned, left without an AOE other than Bane. They fixed that pretty quickly. And they eventually did something about lilies. But creative suggestions? Crickets. I fear if they do trawl the forums for ideas, the Healer ones are among their least likely. They stopped announcing job changes ahead of time altogether because they were so embarrassed by what we told them regarding the Stormblood lilies.

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Were stormblood lillies the single most prominent case that made players doubt the devellopers actually played the classes they designed?

IIRC the exact moment they stopped giving patch notes early was when some spreadsheeters did their spreadsheet thing on WAR 4.2 changes (the ones that changed IR to be 'press for 5 free FCs') and decided that, since it was going to change to a 90s CD it'd be misaligned from Trick/2min stuff. Turns out, it being guaranteed crit/dhit was a lot bigger of a buff to the damage WAR dealt than 'it lines up with raidbuffs every time'

Problem with the media tour thing is, if we get the info about say, WHM SB lilies and we go 'these are bloody terrible', chances are by the time the majority of the playerbase get to know (ie, the embargo is up) then it's too late to do anything to fully fix or replace the bad design, only tweak numbers stuff. And the majority of the influencers are some combination of 'dont play healer', 'play healer occasionally but not as main' or 'dont want to anger daddy SE and lose media tour privileges' so stuff slips through

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Originally Posted by GrimGale

Were stormblood lillies the single most prominent case that made players doubt the devellopers actually played the classes they designed?

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That was the watershed moment, yes. Back in Heavensward there was a ton of jank and tuning issues. Lilies were the first stark example where I think the most positive thing I saw was "maybe they aren't bad once you play with them". Everywhere online I looked back then was eviscerating Square on what a surprisingly terrible idea they were, wondering how the hell they made it out of the brainstorming step.

Oh man. Yeah, I remember feeling ahead of Stormblood that they were focusing too much on trying to make pretty UI elements for each job without really considering if they were necessary or complementary to each Job's feel.

WHM's Lillies are a great example, but so is SCH's Faerie Gauge, notorious for its sole use being "Fey Union," then and again now that they've removed Fey Blessing from it. Fey Union itself has always been stupid, IMO. Too many buttons to push to get what amounts to what Rouse already did anyways, and they very specifically had to nerf Embrace entering StB just so that Fey Union felt like it contributed something worthwhile. The Aetherflow's UI element is probably more useful because it's more central to how the job operates (I think it should also display Aetherflow's cooldown visually, and this would have made even more sense during StB when Aethergauge usage reduced Aetherflow's cooldown).

I think the best example of the Faerie Gauge being an engaging system was during ShB PVP, actually, when you would generate gauge via healing/damage spells at a rate of 10/20, and then you could convert 50 gauge into a Lustrate charge and a short 150% damage/healing buff. It was a simple, fun and impactful to the game plan of SCH, and it had the added benefit of high risk-high reward where if you played offensively you could be rewarded with more damage and free heals, where if you solely healed you would much more slowly accrue resources and wouldn't be able to maintain the buff for most of the time.

At least Lillies and Faerie Gauge could mostly be ignored. In the worst cases, they completely altered certain jobs to fit their system. MCH was pretty significantly changed so that the heat gauge could be a thing and you had almost control over it until max level (Flamethrower is a vestige of this). BRD was well received, at least. DRK was changed pretty hugely too, but that probably has more to do with the changing cross class to the role action system at the same time.

The job gauges were often a case of systems outside of job design or the battle system arbitrarily affecting job design, rather than for an actual issue that needed addressing.

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Originally Posted by ICountFrom0

While we're tinkering.

Does anybody else think that expediant feels more like a level 50 capstone ability and not a level 90 capstone ability?

It's a little speed and a little damage reduction. Other classes get quite a bit more at 90. It looks like it lines up better with level 50 abilities.

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I would definitely trade Expedient for Sacred Soil. Soil doesn't even give a Regen until level 78 so it would strictly be an upgrade having the speed boost attached to our mitigation until level 78 without any need for the party to stand in a bubble. I wouldn't mind getting Sacred Soil at 90 instead as a capstone ability either. Let me speed up the dungeon runs for every expansion please.

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

I would definitely trade Expedient for Sacred Soil. Soil doesn't even give a Regen until level 78 so it would strictly be an upgrade having the speed boost attached to our mitigation until level 78 without any need for the party to stand in a bubble. I wouldn't mind getting Sacred Soil at 90 instead as a capstone ability either. Let me speed up the dungeon runs for every expansion please.

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Inb4 random SCH fat-fingered Expedience at Red Girl's forced march mechanic. That oughta be a funny sight though. ;)

<TLDR version>

SCH gets Sacred Soil early on with Lustrate being the level 50 milestone both for Aether use. We may need to shuffle other things to make this work since switching Expedient to be here would make the Aurum Vale dungeon have zero healing Aether usage ... unless we want Expedient to use an Aether ... then maybe give Sacred Soil to the fairy as a cooldown or Fairy Gauge spell? Maybe have it replace Whispering Dawn with its upgraded HoT to it later on? Or the other way around with the HoT first, then damage reduction later.

</TLDR>

I mean, WHM Assize also has the weakness of unwanted hits to that small mud add on a 60 dungeon too. Have to move to the edge of an arena to minimize that.

Roe pretty much made the arguments that level 90 abilities are typically lower priority or upgrade skills to most other classes anyhow. There are a few exceptions though like the mentioned Wyrmwind Thrust on my DRG where it does feel like a decent boost to what I do with the class. More particular on AoEs since we don't have a 4th or 5th combo extension step for it ... yet. They probably could do that too by combining it to the current "Fang and Claw" and "Wheeling Thrust" to change ... I had quick queues on the DRG yesterday night and it froze me away from using SGE for 9 minutes to let me test this again >.>

Anyways, level 50 currently tends to add something a little more to complete the rotations and we get locked out of it for the 49 dungeon Aurum Vale :P No Benediction or Lustrate for that dungeon ... But I had Holy with Swiftcast, Regen and Cure 2 on WHM still. On SCH, I think I last remembered actually having to occasionally alternate Physick due to the Adloquioum shield still not quite breaking yet. No Emergency Tactics yet at that level.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Expedient, if nothing else, is a 10% mit buff for 20s that sticks to allies, addressing one of the weaknesses of SCH: that people need to stand in Soil for the mitigation.

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This. People always forget the damage reduction component of Expedient. It's a 20 second Soil that doesn't require standing in. When the Sprint was 20 seconds - in combat 20 seconds Sprint - it was amazing. I used that in 6.0 for ZodEx (meteors) and HydEx (chakrams, probably her most difficult mechanic, as well as the stack/spread in the final phase) and they made things go WAY more smoothly. Like, they were often the difference between success and wipes. Expedient is one of the most powerful abilities we have in our arsenal. It's absolutely worth the level 90 spot. Especially compared to stuff like Aetherpact and Dissipation.

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Originally Posted by Post

I'm glad the OP responded with what they see the issues of SCH as being. I think it's fun to sometimes imagine specific toolkits or adjustments, but I prefer to focus on what we enjoy and what we don't enjoy with what's there when trying to give constructive dev feedback.

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I think it's instructive to do both. There are things I love about SCH. It has tools for most any situation. It really nails the fantasy of protecting your allies, not just patching up their boo-boos, both in the Job quests, the mechanics of mitigation and shielding, and even the VFX of the various abilities (Succor looks a lot more shielding than Eukrasian Prognosis, for example, with the latter sending a wave of energy out but Succor specifically forming bubbles around each party member; and, of course, there's Soil's ground effect bubble with the flittering barrier animation around the border).

It also does a good job of presenting a tactical field officer leading and augmenting troops in battle, coordinating with their adjunct subordinate, Eos. I always thought that, not the DPS, was SCH's hallmark and class fantasy. It's also why I hate Dissipation as a skill, since it rejects that core of SCH's gameplay and fantasy (working with your faerie partner) and why I dislike Energy Drain optimization, since that actively works against Sacred Soil, one of the Job's iconic moves that I love using.

And unpopular opinion: I actually liked the ShB changes to SCH, and the EW making the pet more responsive.

Those are the things I love about SCH, I think.

.

As for the thread:

There are a lot of people here who want all the Healer Jobs dps focused with more dps rotations. I'm not one of those people. I've been advocating for a while for one to be left alone, and agree with the YouTuber Misshapen Chair's video of why healing in FFXIV is bad and his solution ("Probably White Mage."), and I actually like Healers as they are now.

But after repeated attempts to gain traction with the "leave one of the Healer Jobs alone" having failed, I considered an alternative. Changes to one of the already most complicated ones that MOSTLY leaves it alone, but maintains the general level of complexity and playstyle today by trading away a bit of SCH's existing clunk (complexity...sorta, more artificial complexity/difficulty) for a slightly more interesting rotation and smoother overall mechanics to kind of meet in the middle as a bridge we might collectively agree on. I long thought SCH would be the LAST choice to leave more or less alone since people liked its HW and SB incarnations, but these changes are largely a nod to those while striking a middle ground.

And based on how well they've been largely received, I'd say it's a bridge that could work to reach compromise into something everyone can accept and at least be somewhat happy with, as it were.

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Originally Posted by GrimGale

Were stormblood lillies the single most prominent case that made players doubt the devellopers actually played the classes they designed?

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Probably.

No matter what the perception, they were the absolute worst possible idea. WHM in ARR was fine and in HW was decent, just outshown by AST's utility and heals. WHM just needed a few buffs. Instead, SB was when they decided every Job was getting a Job Gauge ([VOICE=Oprah]"You get a Job Gauge! And YOU get a Job Gauge! AND YOU get a Job Gauge! EVERYONE gets a Job Gauge!!!"[/VOICE]), even if the Job didn'd need one and what they came up with was worse than not giving one at all. With Cleric Stance toggle going away, all WHM needed is what they've needed before and since - a party damage buff, a party mitigation buff (instead they removed Protect and Stoneskin), slightly better MP economy (oddly, they got that right with Thin Air, only to make that the ONE downgrade for WHM from ShB to EW...), and slightly buffed damage output.

To this day I'm convinced before SB they were told EVERY Job HAD to have a Job Gauge, and they literally had no idea what to give WHM, so Lilies were born out of that. It righted itself with the ShB and 6.1 EW implementation, but WHM didn't even need that in 4.0. There was no reason at all for it.

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Originally Posted by Tigore

<TLDR version>

SCH gets Sacred Soil early on with Lustrate being the level 50 milestone both for Aether use. We may need to shuffle other things to make this work since switching Expedient to be here would make the Aurum Vale dungeon have zero healing Aether usage ... unless we want Expedient to use an Aether ... then maybe give Sacred Soil to the fairy as a cooldown or Fairy Gauge spell? Maybe have it replace Whispering Dawn with its upgraded HoT to it later on? Or the other way around with the HoT first, then damage reduction later.

</TLDR>

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Lustrate is the primary method of healing on scholar. Why on earth would you lock that behind level 50 - 45’s bad enough as is. Soil being a non-hp mitigation works well as a capstone skill for scholar, being both visually striking* and complimenting the rest of the skill set. I get that you can’t realistically suggest locking broil behind it but come on now.

*before everyone and their dog got a bubble at least.

Excuse me on Lustrate. I could have sworn that Lustrate was a 50 ability in the past when I was levelling in Heavensward. If so, it must have been changed with me not noticing at level cap already. And also, I wasn't the first person to suggest switching Expedient with Sacred Soil. I was discussing what type of things could potentially occur if a switch was desired between the 2 spells. Aetherflow is a major cooldown SCHs use and making a switch like this would kind of remove an aether spell for levelling unless Expedient became the new spell with an Aether cost.

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Originally Posted by Tigore

Excuse me on Lustrate. I could have sworn that Lustrate was a 50 ability in the past when I was levelling in Heavensward. If so, it must have been changed with me not noticing at level cap already. And also, I wasn't the first person to suggest switching Expedient with Sacred Soil. I was discussing what type of things could potentially occur if a switch was desired between the 2 spells. Aetherflow is a major cooldown SCHs use and making a switch like this would kind of remove an aether spell for levelling unless Expedient became the new spell with an Aether cost.

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It was. Sacred Soil used to be 45. Scholar got Lustrate and (Arcanist) Shadowflare at 50 before Square swapped them around.

It's not like SCH is unique in this regard though, look at something like MCH. Ricochet at 50 (130p OGCD), Heated Split Shot (???) at 60, Flamethrower at 70. Only Queen at 80 and Chainsaw at 90 are 'interesting' and even then, Chainsaw is basically Drill 3 in function, nice that it's got AOE to it though.

Rather than saying SCH has problems because Expedient is at 90 but feels like it should be at 50, surely it's more productive to change the 60/70/80 skills to feel better

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

It was. Sacred Soil used to be 45. Scholar got Lustrate and (Arcanist) Shadowflare at 50 before Square swapped them around.

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Probably so SCH has more tools to 'emergency heal' in the 'super difficult noob-slayer dungeon' Aurum Vale, since it syncs you to 49. You'd get more use out of Lustrate than Soil in there and Dzamael, and since you get both within 5 levels of each other it doesn't really change anything else

I wonder what other potential areas of agreement exist here...

I'm not sure. I said that it could be a possibility to work Expedient into a low level spell, but if we were to keep it the way it is for the switch, it would kind of take the focus a little away from Aetherflow. As others said, Sacred Soil has been a major part of what SCH does even though Expedient might technically do it better. I think we have slightly more saying no to the spell swap, but we still have enough disagreement to suggest we may need to discuss why the switch is wanted. Looking through the SCH Beginner Job guide, these look like our milestones.

- 50: Sacred Soil
- 60: Dissipation
- 70: Aetherpact
- 80: Summon Seraph
- 90: Expedient

Dissipation is already going through discussion with the first post to no longer sack the fairy and may have other effects desired. Such as extending the healing buff to spells and oGCDs and maybe buffing / refreshing shields on the party. Aetherpact is already suggested on the first post to essentially become the new "Lustrate" using fairy gauge. Summon Seraph could use some discussion of thought since they only really have a couple weak AoE shields on the party and that's about it. Maybe it could also have a single target shield that shares charges with the AoE one? Expedient has already been dubbed the best milestone having the mobility with it although with no HP regen and likely does not need any changes to it if it stays here.

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Originally Posted by Tigore

- 50: Sacred Soil
- 60: Dissipation
- 70: Aetherpact
- 80: Summon Seraph
- 90: Expedient

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When I look at this list, I realize: Two of these are just 'Rouse, but reskinned'. Aetherpact could instead just be 'your next X Embraces are empowered by Y potency' and it'd be almost identical. Just that you wouldn't be manually targeting the target of the Embrace, but people used to do that with macros in the old days anyway. And Seraph is 'Rouse again, but the bonus effect granted by Rouse is not flat HP but instead granted via a shield'. Expedient is different but at this point I'm chalking it up to them thinking 'if we give them Rouse AGAIN they'll realize'

I'll say it again, Expedient does not need to be moved in level, it's fine where it is. Moving it would throw a lot of things into disarray, like old Ultimates are tuned around Soil being available every 30s. Are we reducing Expedient's CD to 30s? What about it's duration, surely that would change too, we can't have 33% uptime on a partywide sprint surely! Everything about the skill has to be changed to accomodate it being moved to level 50, and it'd be way more work than the actual solution, because this doesn't really address the real problem (imo): the other capstones feel bad in comparison to how useful Expedient feels. So make those better, and Expedient being great isn't as glaring a difference

Soil's good and better after 76. Could this trait be added at a lower level without unbalancing everything? Probably not.
Dissipation is basically fine as is, there just needs to be more encouragement to use the button.
Aetherpact is pretty good, but doesn't feel it
Seraph's 2 free succors.
Expedient is good.

I don't think aetherpact or seraph are helped by the way they interact through the pet. Seraph in particular given it replaces the pet with another pet.

TBH if they made DOTs tick every 1.5 or 1.0 seconds instead of 3, Aetherpact would feel way better just off of that I think

It’s not going to happen with the current system they have in the game. It’ll just create a can of worms, open the floodgates that they can’t close. If this spell can have a 1-1.5 sec DoT, then the DPS DoT should have it, then the tanks. Then it’ll be something else because it’s never enough.

Flamethrower, phantom flurry

The Machinist already has temporary sped up GCDs to make their rotation work with overheat. As far as I know, the other class players did not constantly, as a whole, ask for every GCD to be like that.

Dissipation I did successfully use for 4 man wall to wall pulls. I use up my Aether on Excog, Sacred Soil, etc then use Dissipation like as if it is a second Aetherflow cooldown. I have used Recitation shields to start a pull, but I was thinking in my posts it should be after Dissipation for a healing buff to the shield. I think it just needs to extend the healing boost to oGCDs so the 3 bonus Lustrates (or Excogs with Ren's suggestion) are also buffed with the fairy still being there using Embrace.

For Summon Seraph, it is interesting to look at it as 2 free Succors. I wonder how many players would rather have the spell just do that directly? Rename it to Fey Union and have it change Adlo and Succor to Fey Adlo and Fey Succor temporarily with 2 charges. Since the current shield is an instant oGCD, these ones may need to be mana free instant oGCDs too just for the Fey forms. I think the only disadvantage is this may remove double shields with Succor + Seraph.

I'd argue SCH's been in a state of "Rouse, but reskinned" since StB. I have a lot of thoughts on how it ended up that way, but it'd be a long(er) post.

Suffice to say, SCH's basically been too powerful relative to the other two healers since 3.0 and to the encounters in the game since 3.4, but it feels bad to nerf jobs outright and they want to keep adding new actions every expansion.

On the subject of old capstones, they fit better in the past environments before StB.

At ARR's Level 50, SCH's only strong, reactive heal was Lustrate. It costed SCH's overall dps to use (instead of Energy Drain; Bane). Notably, this is the only period in the game's history that Energy Drain is stronger than SCH's basic Ruin damage (100 vs 80). WHM by contrast gets the ultimate simple emergency healing tool, Benediction.

At HW's Level 60, SCH is still a mostly planning-oriented healer and still the main job that mitigates party damage. Dissipation grants an emergency reaction state comparable to Benediction, again at a major cost to its dps and even its sustained healing if done at an inopportune time. Other healers get their own flavors of SCH's Indomitibility and Lustrate because they're so strong.

At StB's Level 70, SCH follows suit behind WHM and AST and starts copying its own actions. It has to lose power (Embrace) and buttons (Rouse) only to get them added back (Aetherpact) so it feels like it's still progressing on paper. But this is the first time none of the healers really get anything too new in their toolkits. They've hit a rhythm with their encounter design: most healers can handle everything thrown at them without casting and then some, even in the new "Ultimate" modes. The meta leans further towards dodging and mitigating, not healing, and especially in savage floor 4s, which now invariably are designed around walls of "get 5+ debuffs and puzzle out what the hell to do" and not "this boss hits really hard and has multiple adds so puzzle out how to spread out so you can reach everyone and who's healing which tank." Healers have their offensive debuffs removed and given entirely to dps and tanks. They add Rescue, but overall the game's healer meta is kind of solidified.

SCH made off like a bandit this time because it got the first new tool that fits in its own unique way with the "mostly avoid the damage" meta. It has a mitigation slapped on there so it's always useful, but because it has so many other buttons, SCH can easily save it for when movement would help. It has the unique action that brings it out of line with the other healers for now; please look forward to the other three healers getting an answer in 7.0 unless some serious overhauls to how healers fit into the the battle system happen.

Edit: I wouldn't mind Seraph doing that, considering they've basically made Consolation weaker than Succor at 90 and everything she does is just a less responsive oGCD now that you can't use pet actions while casting. I dunno how many Fey Adlo's you'd get if they're meant to be her Seraphic Veils, but considering those are about 40% as strong as Adloquium if they were just buffed up to match, who cares? They could also just add Seraph for 20 seconds instead of replacing your faerie. Outside of duties, you can have a minion, a pet and a companion with you simultaneously, so... Anything to keep her clunky ass animation from eating my faerie cooldowns or preventing me from using faerie Indomitability and dumb Rouse. Hell, I think in other FF games SCHs would get 'faerie circle' which would have an animation with like 3 of em showing up; maybe Summon Seraph shoulda gone the way of Neutral Sect and also let you use both faerie's actions for a time. Y'know, before they were trashed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tigore

For Summon Seraph, it is interesting to look at it as 2 free Succors. I wonder how many players would rather have the spell just do that directly? Rename it to Fey Union and have it change Adlo and Succor to Fey Adlo and Fey Succor temporarily with 2 charges. Since the current shield is an instant oGCD, these ones may need to be mana free instant oGCDs too just for the Fey forms. I think the only disadvantage is this may remove double shields with Succor + Seraph.

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I oddly like this idea... o.O

The one thing to note is that Consolation stacks with Succor right now and is oGCD where Succor is not. So that would be a potential issue. You also aren't saving a hotbar button since you still need to hot whatever the Seraph button replacement that accesses this is. When they made Seraph turn into Consolation, that fixed that issue.

Personally, I really like modifier buttons like Recitation, Emergency Tactics, and Eukrasia. They let other buttons pull double duty without more hotbar bloat, and they generally feel good to use (if you actually use them) since they feel like you're tweaking your spells on the fly to address the current situation, something that really plays into the class fantasy for a tactician like SCH, in particular.

The intention I was getting at was to improve the Seraph fairy into providing single target shields too. By having it change both Succor and Adloquium, the buttons remain unchanged in number to grant that buff to have a choice. It may be possible that the Fey Union spell may need to buff Fey Succor and Fey Adlo enough so that it equals the shield value we used to have with Consolation + Succor. The Fey Adlo and Fey Succor should be free of mana cost and possibly instant cast too. We could even consider if they are oGCD too so you can still Broil and DoT enemies while doing so. The last part making it oGCD is more up to debate, but everything else I think would be more agreeable.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tigore

The intention I was getting at was to improve the Seraph fairy into providing single target shields too. By having it change both Succor and Adloquium, the buttons remain unchanged in number to grant that buff to have a choice. It may be possible that the Fey Union spell may need to buff Fey Succor and Fey Adlo enough so that it equals the shield value we used to have with Consolation + Succor. The Fey Adlo and Fey Succor should be free of mana cost and possibly instant cast too. We could even consider if they are oGCD too so you can still Broil and DoT enemies while doing so. The last part making it oGCD is more up to debate, but everything else I think would be more agreeable.

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So a bit more like Eukrasia or something?

In a way, yes. Just this "Eukrasia" has the 2 minute cooldown or so to grant 2 charges.

Edit: It was an idea thought of where the Seraph Fairy was looking more like a WHM than a SCH pet from what Roe said. So I instead thought of animations that could form a bond with our current fairy pets. Post was saying if we get the 2nd fairy Selene back with her different stuff and all, this spell could be instead made to resemble "Neutral Sect" and summon both of them.

Bit of a random question in a bump: Do people still generally like this idea?

Some people have suggested wanting to talk about this idea some more, so bumping so we can talk about it here. Anyone?