Would SCH's SB kit be "good enough" now?

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Originally Posted by Renathras

That SB SCH, if implemented exactly as it was into the game now, would not end complaints about SCH and would engender additional requests for further changes.
...which, don't get me wrong, isn't a terrible thing.

But it's a different thing than saying that SB SCH was the height of healer and a thing to strive for.

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It's perfectly possible that something can

• "[be] the height of healers" (that we've seen so far) and
• "a thing to strive for" (because it's better than what we have now) and
• "engender additional requests for further changes" (because it still falls short of its Platonic ideal).

Y'know, I wonder now the topic has been raised: If SB SCH was to return exactly as it was back then, would it actually be stronger at healing compared to now?

I don't mean mitigation, the lack of Expedient and Seraph means it would have less mit options, that's not even a contest. But Embrace was stronger back then, and Rouse still existed. It could argued that Seraph is just Rouse with a pretty VFX, but Rouse also affected OGCDs like Whispering Dawn. In terms of pure HPS throughput, I wonder if SCH back then was actually more 'pure healer' material than it is now?

Then again, we'd lose the trait for Soil to make it heal over time. So maybe it's actually a case of 'it has the same throughput now as back then, but redistributed'. In which case I have to ask, why on earth did they move it from a thematic source (the fairy) to a not-so-thematic source (the bubble)?

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

It's perfectly possible that something can

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If we were to get SB AST cards back (ie varied effects), then it has to be as the exact effects, potencies, etc as back then, didn't you know? It's either 'exactly as it was' or 'not at all and you're stuck with EW design', the idea of 'what if we took the SB idea as a baseline and built off it in a different direction' is not allowed

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Y'know, I wonder now the topic has been raised: If SB SCH was to return exactly as it was back then, would it actually be stronger at healing compared to now?

I don't mean mitigation, the lack of Expedient and Seraph means it would have less mit options, that's not even a contest. But Embrace was stronger back then, and Rouse still existed. It could argued that Seraph is just Rouse with a pretty VFX, but Rouse also affected OGCDs like Whispering Dawn. In terms of pure HPS throughput, I wonder if SCH back then was actually more 'pure healer' material than it is now?

Then again, we'd lose the trait for Soil to make it heal over time. So maybe it's actually a case of 'it has the same throughput now as back then, but redistributed'. In which case I have to ask, why on earth did they move it from a thematic source (the fairy) to a not-so-thematic source (the bubble)?

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This is actually kinda what I was getting at, and my view as well that it would more be things redistributed than throughput changes. Same on the DPS side, with the optimal DPS being comparable, just more moving pieces to get there.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

That SB SCH, if implemented exactly as it was into the game now, would not end complaints about SCH and would engender additional requests for further changes.
...which, don't get me wrong, isn't a terrible thing.

But it's a different thing than saying that SB SCH was the height of healer and a thing to strive for.

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But that's exactly why I was adding context to my answer to begin with. A simple "yes" or "no" to your original question wouldn't give you that answer. If we were to rank each iteration of Scholar by expansion in order of weakest to strongest, we would probably get something that looks like this:

ShB > EW >>>>> ARR >> HW = SB (I'm leaving HW and SB at the top as even because I think that's something you'd see more debate about, but that most who have experienced all iterations of Scholar would probably agree are in the top two spots)

So yes, going back to Stormblood while simply adding the components gained through Shadowbringers and Endwalker would be a much better outcome than we have currently. But the thing is, we know that as an MMO, this game will change over time, and that every job will undergo change with each new expansion. The hope is that every change will improve upon each jobs gameplay--that each expansion will make your favorite job better and better. While that is a difficult standard to meet time after time, we do see jobs that have succeeded at this, like Black Mage. By the time Dawntrail releases, we'll have gone 5 years of seeing our job not only not improve, but actively get worse. Going back to the highest point it was at in the past would be fantastic news, but it also means that we've been denied not only that 5 years of actual growth and improvement, but we'll go through another 3 years having seen no real progress for Scholar--nearly a decade of never getting to see that improvement.

as Ty said why would someone bring back a job exactly as it was into today's context? That would be acting as those jobs existed in a vacuum and didn't interact with other job, which is not the case.

I would also agree that changes are made in theory with the goal of making jobs better each time, I don't even have any issue if an individual iteration makes changes worse since no development team is ever going to be perfect BUT that is reliant on the cadence of changes being on an acceptable time span- again, as Ty pointed out, for SCH, and I would say for other healers- that time span is far from acceptable for me. i would rather that SE made some smaller changes to jobs, obtained some feedback and adjusted accordingly, more frequently.

Unfortunately with their team or patch cycle approach I have my doubts they'll do that.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Y'know, I wonder now the topic has been raised: If SB SCH was to return exactly as it was back then, would it actually be stronger at healing compared to now?

I don't mean mitigation, the lack of Expedient and Seraph means it would have less mit options, that's not even a contest. But Embrace was stronger back then, and Rouse still existed. It could argued that Seraph is just Rouse with a pretty VFX, but Rouse also affected OGCDs like Whispering Dawn. In terms of pure HPS throughput, I wonder if SCH back then was actually more 'pure healer' material than it is now?

Then again, we'd lose the trait for Soil to make it heal over time. So maybe it's actually a case of 'it has the same throughput now as back then, but redistributed'. In which case I have to ask, why on earth did they move it from a thematic source (the fairy) to a not-so-thematic source (the bubble)?

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Actually a pretty good question.

Old Adloquium: 300 cure potency + 100% healing as barrier
Current Adloquium: 300 cure potency + 180% healing as barrier

Old Succor: 150 cure potency + 150% healing as barrier
Current Succor: 200 cure potency + 160% healing as barrier

However,
Old Indomitability: 500 cure potency
Current Indomitability: 400 cure potency

Old Embrace: 250 cure potency
Current Embrace: 180 cure potency

Old Fey Union: 480 cure potency
Current Fey Union: 300 cure potency

Old Fey Illumination: +10% increased healing magic potency
Old Fey Covenant: +20% magic defense (which according to an old SCH guide amounted to approximately 6-7% for DPS, 9-10% for Healers and Casters and about 17% for Tanks)
Current Fey Illumination: +10% increased healing magic potency and 5% magic mitigation

Not much of a difference here besides Fey Covenant's uneven mitigation, but having them as separate abilities does add some flexibility.

And of course
Old Rouse: +40% healing magic potency, lasts 20 seconds just like Seraph but only on a 60 seconds cooldown.

The big question is what the current Faerie's stat scaling is, back in Stormblood it was about 70% of the SCH's stats. I've seen some claims that it's close to 1:1 now which would mean that the potencies betweeen back then and now are roughly the same.

I'm a little late to the discussion, but figure I'd add my 2 cents, even if it's similar to what's already been said here.

Yes, SB SCH would be good enough for me, although I agree with Ty that, if it was brought back without any changes, we effectively spent the last 4-5 years going in a circle, and ideally, I still want Square to rethink how healers are designed so as to better fit the current combat system and content.

I like SB SCH, but it still had some clunk and annoyances attached, some since fixed, many still around. It was easy to wiff Bane and Deployment as the status effects didn't apply immediately after the cast, so there was an awkward delay with button presses to make sure that you could properly spread your DoTs or Shield, Dissipation used to not resummon the fairy, so it was better to not use it outside emergencies, and of course, we still have ghosting issues and fairy tethers breaking from using other fairy actions.

But despite that, I want multiple DoTs again with different refresh timers, I want to spread my DoTs again, I'd like an instant cast DoT that acts as more of a movement and weaving tool (Miasma II), I'd like some damage cooldowns that also have some defensive properties (Shadowflare applying Slow), I want the Aetherflow cooldown to be reduced when I use an Aetherflow ability, I'd like for Eos and Selene to be separate again with unique skills rather than just a glamour.

Even if I have other ideas on how I'd design SCH myself, I'd be happy with SB SCH.

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Originally Posted by TheDustyOne

Yes, SB SCH would be good enough for me,
...
Even if I have other ideas on how I'd design SCH myself, I'd be happy with SB SCH.

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Fair enough.

Honestly, I was genuinely surprised by how many people DIDN'T say this. Given how much and often it's lauded, I thought may would say just what you did - "I'd 1000% take it in a heartbeat and enjoy it, though I do think it should advance with time, too". I was honestly surprised most didn't, which makes me think that SB SCH lives in people's heads as a monument to greatness, but doesn't exactly live up to that in truth when people think about it.

Anyway, thanks for the reply.

Uh, I don't want to misinterpret your statement, but I seriously had to question your understanding of the responses you received. Even though I know you have a reputation (which I shall be able to verify first-hand now), I will try to explain myself in a clear fashion.

People not saying outright "sure, I'd go back instantly", doesn't mean people wouldn't love to go back to Stormblood. The truth is it's disingenuous to say "teleport a lvl. 70 SB Scholar into lvl. 90 EW expansion" and call it a day. It's a silly statement per se — although the enthusiasm SCH players displayed at the idea of having their old tools back should have been quite telling! If you read the answers carefully, most people absolutely had the expected enthusiasm in wanting the Stormblood kit back, they just asked for a more nuanced understanding of the situation, instead of the extreme abstraction that was proposed.

So what exactly is being asked here? If we would sacrifice 20 Levels of Job development for whatever reason? That's absurd. I love Recitation, I love Consolation (not Seraph, lol), I loved 6.0 Expedient. Why am I expected to give them up in your hypothetical scenario? I want Scholar to be good, fun and engaging all around — just like all Jobs should be. So you can't force a superficial binary choice of opposition, and expect people to simply say "yes" or "no" — that is not helpful in any shape, way or form. Saying stuff like "I was honestly surprised most didn't [want to go back to SB Scholar], which makes me think that SB SCH lives in people's heads as a monument to greatness, but doesn't exactly live up to that in truth when people think about it" is the most incredible display of misunderstanding I've seen in a hot minute, enough to make me question your good faith. People rightfully adore what Scholar used to be in Stormblood — and they have said so numerous times here and in a multitude of other threads and posts since late 2019 —, it's just unfair to leverage the 4.x version against the weight of 2 expansions and 20 Levels worth of expected improvement of the Job itself. Really, Idon't know when you started frequenting the forums, but I encourage you to scroll through 60~80 pages of the Healer's sub forum, listen to the various healer podcasts that have been flying around, and even the comments under Youtube videos or similar things. I'd say you'll then have a clear picture of what the situation has been with Scholar in the past few years. It could not be clearer and it definitely speaks loudly against your interpretation of things.

Still, you want to push a black-and-white sort of decision on your audience. That's fair, it was your choice of topic and I shall go along with it. Yes, despite everything I would 100% sacrifice all of Shadowbringers and all of Endwalker to have old Scholar back. Because even though I love the story (until Elpis, anyway), cool glamours and flashy particle effects, I prefer to have fun when I play a videogame — and Stormblood Scholar will forever be infinitely more fun than the mockery which came afterwards.

The reason why it isn't a simple "Yes" despite SB SCH being vastly superior to what came after is because the environment around the job has changed over the last two expansions.
If you asked me "Should we go back to SB combat and job design?" I would immediately answer with yes because I not only consider the Stormblood design to be overall superior (with few exceptions like SB WHM) but it also means that the 4.X job design would then exist in a 4.X environment, the environment it was designed for and functions properly in.
Planting a 4.X job into the 6.X environment is inevitably going to lead to problems.

Let's take a different job as an example that I feel quite strongly about, Warrior.
I consider both pre-4.2 and even 4.2 warrior to be vastly superior to the current design for the job, it had more nuance to it's gameplay and felt more satisfying to execute properly (yes, even after the 4.2 rework).
But dropping 4.1/4.2 warrior into the 6.X combat design simply wouldn't work, it would underperform not only offensively but also defensively in current fight design.

It's offensive kit isn't designed for the 2-minute meta, not to mention the lack of potency creep, and it's defensive kit lacks the strong mitigation that current tanks have access to, it's invuln can't even deal with the high movement situations that are almost constant in current fights.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Fair enough.

Honestly, I was genuinely surprised by how many people DIDN'T say this. Given how much and often it's lauded, I thought may would say just what you did - "I'd 1000% take it in a heartbeat and enjoy it, though I do think it should advance with time, too". I was honestly surprised most didn't, which makes me think that SB SCH lives in people's heads as a monument to greatness, but doesn't exactly live up to that in truth when people think about it.

Anyway, thanks for the reply.

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You ask if anyone would like the Stormblood kit back and get almost unanimous agreement that Stormblood Scholar was better at it's time than what we have now. Even when you try to make it awkward and not allow any job growth from Stormblood until Endwalker (as if that is even hypothetically possible) people still chose the Stormblood jank over ShB and Endwalker. Why can't we just accept that in almost every scenario Stormblood is given praise because the "fun" of the job has diminished with each expansion since then. If you enjoy the current Scholar than feel free to yell it from the roof tops but please don't create a whole topic to bait for an answer you want and then ignore the obvious answer you are given by multiple people. Choosing to disregard nuance and reframe your question to avoid the fact the game has changed in two expansion are not even remotely subtle attempts to force people to say what you expect them too. I don't think you realize how annoying it is to read topics where you seem like you're only present to troll for replies. People respond in good faith mostly which is amazing considering how condescending you can be. Calling Stormblood Scholar a monument to greatness that doesn't live up under scrutiny means your expectation for people who enjoyed Stormblood Scholar is that they are either delusional or simply not smart enough to realize the lost merit of the old job in today's landscape. I can't say that was your intention but for me it read that way and is why I find most of your posts off-putting. It's not the way you describe the game or propose changes but how you describe, interact, and refer to other people (whether it's the individuals here on the forum or the player base as whole).

"Just return Scholar to its Stormblood kit" is, in reality, a statement of defeat. It stems from the belief that nothing better will ever come--that no future change will ever make Scholar as fun as it once was or more fun. If Shadowbringers and Endwalker are all the developers have to show for Scholar, then just take us back to Stormblood because at least that was fun.

The sentiment is not: "Stormblood Scholar was perfect. Why did they have to change it? It never needs to change."

I think that is something that Ren has a hard time understanding, truthfully... That people can be happy or satisfied with the state of something in a game and still expect to see it improve or change over time and actively want that as well. But that's just the nature of live service games. The game is always evolving, and jobs should evolve with it.

I think, overall (for various reasons, not least of which people have preconceived notions and some people just don't like me), a lot of you assumed things about this thread and this question not meant or intended.

Some were evasive in their answer, as if they feared I might attack them for saying yes or no directly.

Others think it's a meant to be artificially limiting to get people to admit the current state in EW is better somehow or something.

Others want to talk about more nuanced things that were left out of the initial question NOT to constrain it, but to prevent getting lost in the weeds (for example, assuming we went straight back to 4.5 SCH, then we had ShB and EW from there, it would have potency increases so that its nuke/DoTs/AOE would be competitive with the other healers now, I'm not talking about going back to 200 potency Broil II), which then derails and sidetracks from the point.

So I'll try to be explicit here:

The point was to see if people really do think SB SCH was a solid kit that, even if it was transferred to now (with normalized upgrades and whatnot), would stand the test of time. That if we had 4.5 SCH (with potency upgrades) in the game right now as another Job, it would be good and they'd want to play it more or less as is, or if they recognize/believe that it was lacking in various ways. In other words, to get people to take it off the pedestal and look at both its downsides and its upsides, not the upsides alone, and seriously consider it. It's easy - and this is the "rose tinted goggles" effect - to forget about how sucky the sucky parts of the past are, as we Humans tend to forget a lot of the downsides of things for whatever reason (maybe our brains evolved to not want to dwell on the negative, I dunno, but it's a thing).

And so the goal here was to have a serious discussion about both the upsides AND downsides of SB SCH, the downsides AND the upsides of EW SCH, and from there, consider what would best merge the most upsides while incurring the least downsides; as well as to get people to realize they have SB SCH on a pedestal it doesn't deserve and shouldn't be sitting in, as seeing it that way prevents seriously considering the negatives of the design that shouldn't be carried forward.

I think Connor was the only one who actually did this.

In short, to see what the negatives were, and consider them as well, and think about what positives have come since, to merge the best of both and set aside the negatives of both.

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There was no attempt at duplicity or "I know you have a reputation" (probably less deserved; I generally do want discussions with people and try to present different perspectives for others to consider that they sometimes are highly resistant to doing and so decide on insults instead), and considering I get that flack and even called a "clownshoe"...yeah.

It's amazing how many people assume bad intentions about me, read what I post and interpret it with that intention, then decides this proves their preconceived notion. If you actually DID read what I wrote, not what innuendos and implications you have to mentally insert (because I sure didn't put them in the text!), then you might find what you believed about me was wrong, and your confirmation bias led to to cement your wrong belief.

I also am confused how what I say and how I interact with people is off-putting...but someone calling me "clownshoe" is not off-putting?

This was a funny thread to follow.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

I think, overall (for various reasons, not least of which people have preconceived notions and some people just don't like me), a lot of you assumed things about this thread and this question not meant or intended.

Some were evasive in their answer, as if they feared I might attack them for saying yes or no directly.

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No, you just have a bad track record of trying to pull a technicality when people talk about general terms and twist the narrative (in this case, trying to twist the narrative that most people who answered positively to SB SCH suddenly don't like SB SCH as much as they thought they would) as you have done by putting your bias on page 4 when wording your replies, so people start taking your post word for word and as literally as possible when replying back to remove any possible misunderstanding.

People answered why they like SB SCH, but then you started specifically asking along the lines of "but what if it's SB SCH exactly as it was (a.k.a as it is with 0 development ) but brought to Endwalker" as if there's some crazy notion that losing 20 levels worth of skills is still a good way to compare SB SCH to EW SCH. Like... what kind of comparison is that???

The quote in question on page 2:

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Note the question was not: What changes to SB SCH's kit could we make to make it good.

The question was: If we got SCH's SB kit back exactly as it was, would it still be regarded as good? Would that be acceptable?

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On Page 4, the answer you got was:

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Originally Posted by Renathras

So the answer is no.

I'm not being obtuse, contrarian, bored, or trolling. I was wondering if people would actually believe SB SCH was the best thing (even now) since people appeal to it all the time. What I'm getting from this thread is that it is not, and people would still want changes to it, meaning it was not perfection, or near-perfection.

So the answer is no.

I think the first thing to getting change is for people to be honest about what they want. Being dishonest, whether intentionally lying or accidentally (having convinced oneself of something that isn't quite true), means it's very difficult to develop actual solutions since the solutions proposed and proffered are for the dishonest (again, not necessarily intentional) desires. Meaning we need to cut to the root of it and see what actually IS what people want.

The answer is no: People would not like SB SCH ported exactly as it was today.

People seem to want that as a base, but with additions and changes made to it, before they would accept it as sufficient. That seems to be what most people are saying.

I think that's the starting point we need to be at, then.

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... I honestly don't know what to tell you if you expect SB SCH to be perfect when people talk about SB SCH being a great iteration at Lv 70 and we're currently about to raise the Level Cap to 100. That just all reinforces why people had to answer as specifically as possible to avoid any misunderstanding.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

That SB SCH, if implemented exactly as it was into the game now, would not end complaints about SCH and would engender additional requests for further changes.
...which, don't get me wrong, isn't a terrible thing.

But it's a different thing than saying that SB SCH was the height of healer and a thing to strive for.

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SB SCH is currently the height of healer design... and that's pretty sad in its own way because it means 5 years of backwards healer design. That being said, it is the CURRENT height of healer, but not the theoretical highest height because jobs can always be developed further. However, with the CURRENT healer design and SE's track record of healer design? It's definitely a thing to strive for. That's pretty much how bad healer design is at currently.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

So I'll try to be explicit here:

The point was to see if people really do think SB SCH was a solid kit that, even if it was transferred to now (with normalized upgrades and whatnot), would stand the test of time. That if we had 4.5 SCH (with potency upgrades) in the game right now as another Job, it would be good and they'd want to play it more or less as is, or if they recognize/believe that it was lacking in various ways. In other words, to get people to take it off the pedestal and look at both its downsides and its upsides, not the upsides alone, and seriously consider it. It's easy - and this is the "rose tinted goggles" effect - to forget about how sucky the sucky parts of the past are, as we Humans tend to forget a lot of the downsides of things for whatever reason (maybe our brains evolved to not want to dwell on the negative, I dunno, but it's a thing).

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Normalized upgrades? As you can see, that's not the comparison you used on page 2. Normalized upgrades can change the topic entirely. Maybe that's the confusion people had with your question when you asked the previous question - Trying to compare a Lv 70 SB SCH kit exactly as it was with EW SCH after EW SCH gets 20 levels worth of updated skills instead of comparing a Lv 70 SB SCH kit after getting subsequent updated skills with EW SCH at its current iteration is a different story -- and something most people expected (at least when I got quoted) when they answered positively for SB SCH.

From my understanding, everyone answered pretty much the same, just every answer was different because the questions being asked was different. SB SCH is great, but could have always been developed further. You were already leaning on thinking SB SCH is a good foundation and could've probably avoided most of the fluff if you specifically asked "What's the pros of SB SCH and pros of EW SCH that would make a good toolkit for DT SCH?"

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Originally Posted by Renathras

The point was to see if people really do think SB SCH was a solid kit that, even if it was transferred to now (with normalized upgrades and whatnot), would stand the test of time. That if we had 4.5 SCH (with potency upgrades) in the game right now as another Job, it would be good and they'd want to play it more or less as is, or if they recognize/believe that it was lacking in various ways. In other words, to get people to take it off the pedestal and look at both its downsides and its upsides, not the upsides alone, and seriously consider it. It's easy - and this is the "rose tinted goggles" effect - to forget about how sucky the sucky parts of the past are, as we Humans tend to forget a lot of the downsides of things for whatever reason (maybe our brains evolved to not want to dwell on the negative, I dunno, but it's a thing).

And so the goal here was to have a serious discussion about both the upsides AND downsides of SB SCH, the downsides AND the upsides of EW SCH, and from there, consider what would best merge the most upsides while incurring the least downsides; as well as to get people to realize they have SB SCH on a pedestal it doesn't deserve and shouldn't be sitting in, as seeing it that way prevents seriously considering the negatives of the design that shouldn't be carried forward.

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If that was your point, you should have been explicit and lead with that. That's simply a part of writing well.

The forums are ill suited to Socratic debate.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Would SB SCH really be "good enough" now?

Not "better than what we have"; would it actually be good to the point people wouldn't be complaining about it?

And I'm not asking this to prove any point. I'm just trying to remember all that the kit had and wondering if people would really REALLY be content with it or not.

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And thus have you contradicted yourself. You wanted to prove a point. You wanted "to get people to realize they have SB SCH on a pedestal it doesn't deserve and shouldn't be sitting in." It's no wonder that...

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Originally Posted by Renathras

It's amazing how many people assume bad intentions about me, read what I post and interpret it with that intention, then decides this proves their preconceived notion. If you actually DID read what I wrote, not what innuendos and implications you have to mentally insert (because I sure didn't put them in the text!), then you might find what you believed about me was wrong, and your confirmation bias led to to cement your wrong belief.

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:shrug:

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

"Just return Scholar to its Stormblood kit" is, in reality, a statement of defeat. It stems from the belief that nothing better will ever come--that no future change will ever make Scholar as fun as it once was or more fun. If Shadowbringers and Endwalker are all the developers have to show for Scholar, then just take us back to Stormblood because at least that was fun.

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At this point I wish they would actually just admit defeat, not just when it comes to healers but combat design in general, admit that they went way too far, then get rid of the last 5 years of job changes and start over from there.

Was every change since ShB and EW terrible? No, but at this point the bad outweights the good.

In my first reply I only mentioned additional things SB scholar used to have that you had not included in your original post. Because they have had so much taken away from their job that even with another 20 levels to make up for it they still don't even come close. It was never about just losing the dots! Bring back quickened aetherflow!

Just for the Quickened Aetherflow and the Pet management, yeah, I think so. Absolutely.
In all sincerity, I feel like the SB iteration felt really impactful while not going bonkers on the amount of actions you could do. I still believe it was the best state of the job so far.

It's probably just a nitpick, but the job really needs to move away from Broil. I do not want to see a Broil V in Dawntrail, for real.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Some were evasive in their answer, as if they feared I might attack them for saying yes or no directly.

Others think it's a meant to be artificially limiting to get people to admit the current state in EW is better somehow or something.

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Aren't you yourself making assumptions on why people are answering the way they are answering? Maybe they were just giving you an honest answer? Who are you to assume the intent behind what they said?

You seem upset with how many have responded to your question, but it really doesn't make sense to me what you're upset about since most answers are quite plainly stating that your hypothesis was basically right--the hypothesis of "to see if people really do think SB SCH was a solid kit that, even if it was transferred to now (with normalized upgrades and whatnot), would stand the test of time."

Though, AnotherPerson has a point that you've stated the intent was SB Scholar retaining nothing from the past two expansions, and that the intent was SB Scholar accounting for those same changes, thus contradicting yourself. You've also effectively stated that everyone's answers, except for Connor's answer, isn't good enough for you. Our perspectives are just wrong in your mind, I guess. Quite frankly, I have no idea what it is you actually want at this point because your description of your intent has changed, and you continue to explain a hypothesis that matches what I and others have stated: SB Scholar is largely accepted as the best take on Scholar in FXIV's history and would be a more fun experience than EW Scholar, but isn't entirely a win because it lacks the growth and development a job should have received over the last 5 years as well as the next 3 years that we'll be in Dawntrail.

What more do you want people to say?

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

It's (WAR) offensive kit isn't designed for the 2-minute meta

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Ironically, pre 4.2 WAR would be designed for the 2min meta. 4.2 and onwards, IR was 90s, so that'd be weird and not conform properly (only lining up every 6 mins, not ideal), but in 4.1 and before, it had two phases: the 60s 'mini burst' of just Berserk, and the full 120s Bankai where you'd have both IR (halved gauge costs) and Berserk (big damage) together. Lining up your gauge/next GCD correctly would allow you, at the 2min mark, to get 6 fell cleaves, a full 123 combo, upheaval and two onslaughts. This would also require a sizeable amount of skill, and includes such esoteric techniques as 'purposely use a slightly less efficient gaugespender skill (onslaught) to keep your gauge lined up right to have 100 going into burst window', so of course it could not work in today's landscape


As for the SCH stuff, I think that if SB SCH, exactly as it existed in 4.55, the final patch of SB, were dropped into EW as a seperate job (so you could play EW SCH or SB SCH interchangeably), SB SCH would fare well in content. We'd have to consider that, while it loses the SHB and EW stuff, it gains things in return. Presumably, the pet potency formula will not be different between SB/EW versions (that would be very strange). This means that, if using the EW pet potency formula, the SB pet potencies are 'cracked', because the EW reductions were mostly to equalize the fact they'd fixed the pet tax to be 'pretty close to 1:1' (it's like 96% or something iirc). So Eos would have an Embrace that heals for 250ish 'real potency', and that can be Rouse'd with 33% uptime. Whispering Dawn would be 100p per tick instead of it's current 80, and can be Rouse'd. Chain Stratagem would be 5% stronger (15% instead of the current 10%). Adlo > Deploy, while not being able to guarantee the crit (as we'd lack Recitation), would, if you get a lucky crit, spread both halves of the Crit Adlo instead of just the Galvanize half. Recall that previously, this was so strong a mitigation that it nullified the damage of some of the hardest hitting hits at the time. Things like 'UpDog' in E10S, or Uptime Soccer in E6S where the strat is 'stack mit, take zero real damage, don't get the damage down cos 'no damage was dealt', would be SO much easier with this. Also, the Fairy would again be able to receive buffs (like Succor shields) and Deploy cold bounce the buff from them. Selene would return as more than just a glamour. Fey Wind would probably not be so ideal for certain jobs, but could find use in certain comps that are not speed-reliant. The AOE Esuna would save healer GCDs in any content that has something to Esuna (P12S TBs for example, or literally one-button'ing the entirety of Throttle in TEA).

We'd also have access to the Role Skills selection, I assume. Since Deploy had an interaction with Eye for an Eye in that patch, it makes sense for E4E to be accessible, and it was in role skills. In which case, I would also assume that every role skill is available. After all, we need Lucid Dreaming access for MP management. So, we'd also have Protect (lol), Largesse and SB Cleric Stance (an actual 2min window, incredible). Protect being a permanent, what, 3-4% mit, would presumably help make up for the lack of Expedient as a tool, I'd assume

I wouldn't worry about SB SCH having a place in EW content. If anything, I'd be concerned that it might still, even lacking the 20 levels of stuff from later additions, be too good. The Chain Strat percentage difference alone would be a massive point in it's favor. All the SB SCH would need is to make sure it's potency on damage is balanced (since SE decided to throw 65 more potency on our Broils since those days), and maybe giving it the LV85 trait to increase it's basic heal potencies. Though, even that trait might be overkill, given that one of the things affected by it is Embrace. Do we need the fairy healing for over 300p per Embrace cast? Would be funny, for sure, but with Rouse, that'd put it close to a Physick per GCD for the fairy

My "bad track record" seems to be imagined, but I can't convince anyone who's trapped in that illusion to break it, so it doesn't matter.

Honestly, for my part, I'd be fine with SB SCH. /shrug

I do think the less janky pet is an improvement, and I was never a fan of the pet macroing. The main changes I think that SCH should have from the SB base would be Expedient (a generally well regarded improvement), Rouse to upgrade to Seraph/Consolation, Aetherpact to be a toggle with no gauge that just does targeted Embraces like Kardia (which...was supposedly the original point of it, to make up for not being able to macro Embrace). I do think streamlining the Faerie abilities was a good idea, and I don't think the Eos/Selene split was a thing worth going back to, personally (remember: It's okay to disagree)

And I hate Dissipation. I think it should be changed to just give Aetherflow and boost all healing, not just magic. Everyone always says Eos being gone during the time isn't much healing, so then by that token, there's no reason for her to go away since it makes so little difference.

I do think there'd be a button bloat problem, though...

I was writing a slightly peepoangy post. It's relevant, but, whatever, I'll put it in spoiler tags and call it a day so people don't have to read it if they don't want to.

1) «Some were evasive in their answer, as if they feared I might attack them for saying yes or no directly.»

None were "evasive" though, unless we want to reinvent the meaning of the word. They would have been "evasive" if the inclination of their answer had been unclear; which, it wasn't — at all. Everyone pretty much answered "yes" and then added nuance and context to their response. That is NOT "being evasive", that is expressing one's own reasons for choosing.

2) «Others think it's a meant to be artificially limiting to get people to admit the current state in EW is better somehow or something.»

Your thread IS artificial, there is no denying it. As for Shadowbringers and Endwalker, no one ever — ever! — said they brought absolutely nothing good. The general sentiment is that the bad outweighs the good SO MUCH, that people would rather go back to a Lvl. 70 Job instead of what they have now, even though it sucks to lose certain options.

3) «Others want to talk about more nuanced things that were left out of the initial question NOT to constrain it, but to prevent getting lost in the weeds (for example, assuming we went straight back to 4.5 SCH, then we had ShB and EW from there, it would have potency increases so that its nuke/DoTs/AOE would be competitive with the other healers now, I'm not talking about going back to 200 potency Broil II), which then derails and sidetracks from the point.»

But that's just it: the abstraction you propose, in the extreme form you propose it, is of no advantage to the healer situation in general and to the scholar one in particular. And despite that, if you had taken the time to understand — not just skim — the responses you received, you would have realized you had the answers right there in plain sight, with no room for doubt.

4) «The point was to see if people really do think SB SCH was a solid kit that, even if it was transferred to now (with normalized upgrades and whatnot), would stand the test of time. That if we had 4.5 SCH (with potency upgrades) in the game right now as another Job, it would be good and they'd want to play it more or less as is, or if they recognize/believe that it was lacking in various ways. In other words, to get people to take it off the pedestal and look at both its downsides and its upsides, not the upsides alone, and seriously consider it. It's easy - and this is the "rose tinted goggles" effect - to forget about how sucky the sucky parts of the past are, as we Humans tend to forget a lot of the downsides of things for whatever reason (maybe our brains evolved to not want to dwell on the negative, I dunno, but it's a thing).»

That is exactly why people were giving you nuanced answers, which you dismissed several times with your "off-topic" rationale. So why are you changing the cards on the table now? You were told numerous times, in other threads as well, that nobody ever thought Scholar was impeccable — so perfect that nothing of note could be added to it without compromising it. What people told you is that Staormblood was the perfect iteration to which things could get added without anything being removed really (this last part is debatable ofc).
Also, remember the what the lazy players call "jank" is usually what gives room to player skill expression. Of course there is BAD jank (like Dissipation, which was not good in HW and SB, was slightly redeemed in ShB, and then ruined again in EW by removing the MP regain from Energy Drain). You seem to have this weird perception of Scholar players as monkeys who cannot admit to any flaw of their Job. Yes they can. Indeed, there were talks of fixing aspects of Scholar already in Stormblood and not only to make it better, but to balance it as well — for example, many top players felt that a 500 potency Indomitability was too strong and wanted it reduced, which indeed ended up happening and nobody lamented anything.
I repeat: it's like you read the answers you receive, but don't really make an effort to understand them, while also ignoring the wealth of feedback from the past. You tell me what we are to make of that.

5) «And so the goal here was to have a serious discussion about both the upsides AND downsides of SB SCH, the downsides AND the upsides of EW SCH, and from there, consider what would best merge the most upsides while incurring the least downsides; as well as to get people to realize they have SB SCH on a pedestal it doesn't deserve and shouldn't be sitting in, as seeing it that way prevents seriously considering the negatives of the design that shouldn't be carried forward.»

I thought you wanted people to give a yes/no answer? Didn't you chastise people for actually discussing and argumenting their points? And now you say you wanted to discuss the upsides and downsides of SB Scholar? Ok. Anyway. Stop it with expressions like "get people to realize they have SB SCH on a pedestal it doesn't deserve and shouldn't be sitting in". People don't need to realize anything — you, on the other hand, need to realize that, while not perfect (as no Job outright is) Scholar is probably the epitome of healer design and deserves to be on a pedestal, with golden medals and a divine halo besides. Who do you think you are? Some sort of messiah? Do you really think all these people who have so eloquently discussed with you are fools, and you're the only enlightened one who "has to make people realize things". Not even Napoleon had such a strong delirium of omnipotence!

What I actually want to do now is two things:

First, ask Renathras a genuine question: do you think the fact that 98% of the people here disagree with you has no meaning? Do you think the number of upovotes to the posts has no meaning? Has it crossed your mind that the reason people argue against your poor takes is not because of some witch-hunting, but because they are poor takes? Ever since you started filling these sections with your threads, you've been met with a united and cohesive front, arguing more or less in harmony of understanding and intent. Has this never given you the suspicion that you had to second guess yourself and that you were indeed defending in debatable fashion a debatable opinion? Maybe it's time to push away the mirror and start reflecting. We are not the obstacles that the Almighty has put on your path to test the strength of your resolve and crown you a hero — it's perfectly possible that you are just... wrong. I'm not trying to provoke here and the questions have no intent to be ironic. It just puzzles me too much that you never had a sincere epiphany, despite all the occasions you had. Instead you shuffle the elements on the table and continue arguing or decide to ignore 100 lines of a well-written post to focus on the 2 lines that might slightly irk you.

Anyway, moving on from this unpleasant stuff. Since it now looks like we have been given permission to discuss our takes on Scholar, I shall go ahead and post a number of things I do not like about it and see what people think of them, without stopping at the usual "Capstone skills are at odds with each other" or "Fairy gauge is bad" (both of which are true, mind you).

• Dissipation: this Skill was kinda meh throughout HW and SB, and was slightly redeemed in ShB when they made the Fairy actually come back by itself. It still sucked cause the healing boost didn't work on Abilities, only Spells, and locked you out of many other tools, but it was something. In EW, however, they removed the 500MP recovery from Energy Drain, which all but turned this "Capstone Skill" into a pure and sad DPS button, which retains all of its other problems. I'd like to think Dissipation can easily be fixed in a number of ways, but since SE seems hellbent on not fixing it, I wouldn't mind just seeing it go for good and leave room for something else.

• Seraph: I love Consolation, I "hate" Seraph. There was no need to have a Fairy transition sequence, if all we would get from it is a slightly stronger Embrace (mostly irrelevant and still untargettable) and an extra Fairy skill, while 1) not receiving any improvement on Whispering Dawn and Fey Illumination, and 2) being locked out of Dissipation, Fey Union and Fey Blessing. Like... why? Just have Consolation be a normal Fairy ability with 2 charges and 120s CD and call it a day (that makes even more sense now that they have consolidated the buttons). Make it have a Fey Gauge cost, to limit its added flexibility. Can we instead have Rouse back for a stronger Fairy? Now that didn't lock us out of anything and only had a 60s CD.

• Expedient: Was great when both the mitigation and the zoomies were 20s (doing Act 2 in P4S with this felt so good). Now, with the different timers, it just sucks to have those together. They absolutely need to be decoupled somehow. Also, this Skill is 100% fairy-themed, with the green wind and butterflies, so... why the heck is this NOT a Fairy Skill? Only because it has a stratagem-like name? That's kind of a bad reason tbh. Or maybe they were afraid it would contrast with — you guessed it — Dissipation and Seraph making you unable to use it. Smh.

• Fey Blessing: Eh... I like the animation for this, but I kinda dislike its effect. Outside of hyper-optimized environments, it's too weak to heal anything by itself so you always have to pair it with something else and it's not going to save you any resource. There were talks in late ShB about reducing its cooldown or increasing its potency but nothing ended up happening. Remember how Holos was literally a copy-paste of this, and then got changed for the better (twice)? I'd say making Fey Blessing a 120s CD and putting the Sprint or the mitigation from Expedient here wouldn't be so bad, provided we remove the Seraph, so you can't be locked out of it. Or something else entirely, I don't know lol.

• Fey Illumination: I like multi-purpose skills, but not all multi-purpose skills are good the way they are (see Expedient above). Mostly, it's DPS skills like Miasma II from Stormblood that can be considered excellent and nuanced multi-purpose Skills. When it comes to support, overlapping effects on a long CD skill means more often than not that you'll have to sacrifice one aspect for the other. That being said, I'd like to see Fey Covenant return as a proper 10% magic mitigation on a 120s CD (not a Magic Def. buff, like in SB), and Fey Illumination to be a 120s CD 10% healing buff for GCDs (or maybe 5% for both GCDs and oGCDs?).

• Energy Drain: other than making it MP-relevant and not spammable again (which would force people not to burn every stack during burst), I'd like to see it be a 100 potency AoE skill with fall-off damage, so it would actually be useful during trash packs in dungeons. It feels terrible to burn extra Aetherflow stack on a 100 potency single target ability when there are 12 mobs scurrying about. This would have no impact on single target, obviously.

• Protraction: This feels unimpactful and, despite a lot of theorycrafting, 99% of the times it's used to buff Critlo-Deploy (or for Recitation+Excog in dungeons, but considering the damage it's hardly needed) — in which case, it's just an inferior Krasis. I'm sure all Scholars could lose this button overnight and not even notice the morning after.

• The 1.5s cast time: Not sure how popular this is, but it's not my cup of tea. I'd rather have Miasma II back and actually have to think and optimize my weaves alongside DoT refreshes and minimal (possibly none) Ruin II usage.

Wait... omg... I can actually criticize Scholar despite loving it to death? Unfathomable.

I think the 1.5 sec cast time just sort of became the singularity for healers as they all started getting more and more oGCDs, it's why AST got it first.

SCH had half its oGCDs on its Faerie become actual, weave required oGCDs instead of pet skills you could order while casting, and SGE just copied new SCH.

Even WHM with extra Benison charges and Aquaveil now, probably getting more Assize and Tetragrammaton in the future when they shrug and don't know what else to add.

The 1.5 sec GCD is like how every tank now has 'finish 123 and charge a BIG HIT!' rotation.

It sounds fine if you approach everything with optimal DPS brain, but in my experience it just makes them all the more bland to play. Like, they chose to make certain dps jobs play with a faster GCD to differentiate them, and for a time so did DRK and AST, but for whatever reason that was removed in favor of just copying other jobs of the same role.

MMOs are always in some kinda state of flux I guess, but man does it feel like the devs are okay with jobs being undercooked these days.

"As long as it's edible, what does it matter?"

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Post

I think the 1.5 sec cast time just sort of became the singularity for healers as they all started getting more and more oGCDs, it's why AST got it first.

SCH had half its oGCDs on its Faerie become actual, weave required oGCDs instead of pet skills you could order while casting, and SGE just copied new SCH.

Even WHM with extra Benison charges and Aquaveil now, probably getting more Assize and Tetragrammaton in the future when they shrug and don't know what else to add.

The 1.5 sec GCD is like how every tank now has 'finish 123 and charge a BIG HIT!' rotation.

It sounds fine if you approach everything with optimal DPS brain, but in my experience it just makes them all the more bland to play. Like, they chose to make certain dps jobs play with a faster GCD to differentiate them, and for a time so did DRK and AST, but for whatever reason that was removed in favor of just copying other jobs of the same role.

MMOs are always in some kinda state of flux I guess, but man does it feel like the devs are okay with jobs being undercooked these days.

"As long as it's edible, what does it matter?"

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I feel like the "Astrolofication" of GCD nuke cast time is an entirely missed opportunity to make a different flavor for all healers in some part.

Back when people were anticipating (or should I say, doomsaying lol) the 6.0 EW Healers in late ShB, I had this vague idea of how a smart of use of tools to create those weaving spaces. Something like:

• WHM can stick to their Lily being their majority of their instants to create those weaving space & movement window they need. They certainly could use more than just Solace & Rapture, though.
• SCH can have a couple more DoTs, preferably to have at least one short duration DoT that is DPS neutral with a single Broil cast and other two 'mandatory DoT' with two different timers. "Need to move & weave a quick Soil? Use this hypothetical DoT! Oh no, need more movement? Well I guess time to bite the minor loss of Ruin II(s)? Gotta plan better next time!" Bonus point if said hypothetical DoT will also interact with something else within their own kits. But these all were bare minimum.
• I think AST should just stay at 1.5s. It was one of the thing that remind me in ShB "Oh right I'm playing Yu-Gi-Oh!"

But hey uh, it's easier to just slap 1.5s cast time on everybody and call it a day, right? lmao. No wonder I felt the fast cast time sort of garbage on WHM who has the least amount of weaving to do. They could've just leave it at 2.00s/2.50s cast time and that would've made me think more carefully where, when, and how I want to use the lilies.

Don't have anything to say for SGE cause obviously these were old vague ideas that came up before its release.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Post

"As long as it's edible, what does it matter?"

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You make me realize that the devs made an Archon Loaf of the healer role: has all the 'essential nutrition', but as a result of it's assembly (and it's ingredients) it's borderline unpalatable

Ironic that it's one of the staple dishes of Sharlayan researchers, given that Sharlayan itself is home to two of the four healing disciplines (SGE and 'the real AST')