Consolidated Scholar 4.0 Feedback Thread

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Originally Posted by KDSilver

Alexander Midas says hi !
WHM had a his glorious spot until 3.4. AST was fine after 3.2 but still less used than WHM in general.
This is 3.4 that make AST shine with the buff to balance and celestial opposition, and the fact that the healing requirements was low so that taking an AST over a WHM was totally fine in progress.
And it had never been the weakest, just that Balance was more appealing the big heals WHM could provide.

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Weakest as in least desired. AST was buffed and then buffed again pushing WHM out. Instead of making all healers mostly equal they overbuffed AST and never buffed WHM.

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

Weakest as in least desired. AST was buffed and then buffed again pushing WHM out. Instead of making all healers mostly equal they overbuffed AST and never buffed WHM.

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They didn't need to buff WHM because it was solid. The issue is that AST was largely a carbon-copy clone of WHM playstyle with a card mechanic, so no one liked replacing SCH with it because it couldn't fill the same role as easily. Originally AST had extremely poor mana management as well, and while people suffered the class for its Balance and Arrow in the harsh DPS checks of Gordias/Midas, WHM was the goto main healer for both sets because it was simply better at the main healing role.

Creator came and by then AST had been brought up to a pretty good place alongside WHM, but Noct stance was still a poor man's SCH. SCH was strong sustained DPS with mana management that supported it with the downside of negligible burst DPS, whereas both AST and WHM were the opposite with high burst at the cost of depleting their mana very quickly. Furthermore Noct shields were at the level where they could supplant a SCH if needed, but they lacked both the utility of Eos and the off-healer friendliness of ogcd burst healing in between cleric stance applications. Again, SCH fit the off-healer role better due to its DPS nature and toolkit of powerful burst heals with cooldowns, so if you wanted cards in Creator swapping the WHM to AST was frankly a lateral move given the similarities between how the two classes played.

That's not the case now. They've made the healers "more equal" with drastic steps, giving WHM and SCH the same mana generation effects and cooldowns with only energy drain and thin air to differentiate them, with all their base DPS being the same spamming one or two DoTs and then direct damage spam. Noct AST was buffed in such a way that no one can really make the argument that they're inferior to SCH shielding, and SCH is no longer able to sustain a high level of DoT DPS to solidify their off-healer slot not thanks to AST buffs, but due to sweeping class restructures and nerfs. And it's not all one-sided, as WHM got a number of changes to bring them closer to SCH in terms of ogcds, with Benediction and Assize having shorter cooldowns and Divine Benison effectively able to turn Cure II into an Adloquium once every 30 seconds. Now all healers play more like each other than ever before, and it will likely only get worse as they build upon it.

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Originally Posted by LegoTechnic

WHM was solid

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Solid in dungeons yes. This has nothing to do with SB or 4.0, all I was pointing out was that AST was being used way back in 3.2. 4.0 did not "cause people to start using AST", which was the main point I was replying to.

And WHM didn't need to be buffed? Granted it wasn't as weak as, say, PLD but there was an obvious bias in Raid group's, and there is a reason people are STILL asking for more utility on WHM. Pure healing can only carry you so far. Why would anyone, back in 3.4, take a WHM or AST? WHM was far inferior to AST and instead of nerfing they should have introduced buffs to WHM.

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Originally Posted by LegoTechnic

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You typed a lot to say a whole lot of nothing.

AST is far and away the best healer right now. WHM is weaker than them, and since AST was, basically, a WHM with Balance in 3.4 it was more desired.

SCH was in an amazing spot, always having a spot in most raid groups, but has been since overnerfed and is now easily the worst Healer.

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Originally Posted by KDSilver

And it had never been the weakest, just that Balance was more appealing the big heals WHM could provide.

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What the... ok. Some one explain to me how one class being overshadowed by the other doesn't make it weaker than it.

Has SE said anything acknowledging the state that SCH are in?

Because I'll be honest, as things are now the state of SCH is likely to lose them my sub. I was increasingly worried as more info about Healer role actions and SCH changes specifically came out in the lead up to Stormblood, but trusted SE to design encounters in a way that made sense with the changes as part of their vision for the game going forward. The more I play and hear from others though, the more clear it becomes that either no one actually tested SCH during Stormblood development, or said vision of the game's future does not include the SCH I've grown to love playing in it.

So Square, if you're reading this; I sincerely hope you can show recognition of SCH's many new issues by 7/15. Not asking for actual fixes in that time frame, just that we know you guys know that there is a problem. Otherwise I will most likely be dropping my sub, and you will have lost both my money and good will going forward.

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Originally Posted by Riyshn

Otherwise I will be dropping my sub, and you will have lost both my money and good will going forward.

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Sure they'll survive.
Why not trying another healer in the meantime? In a multi-class game, I don't get why some people have 0 will to be flexible and try something else...

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Originally Posted by Rivxkobe

What the... ok. Some one explain to me how one class being overshadowed by the other doesn't make it weaker than it.

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WHM was overshadowed because of Astro's Balance and because content in 3.4 content didn't require high healing.
My point was that WHM isn't "weak" in term of healing and kept being strong. BUT, having a healer buffer was better than one with healing only.
That's all.

If I was upset enough to actually come here and say something about it, statistically there's likely to be around 80 others to would just quit over it without saying anything, and who knows how many who would still play, but would lose trust in SE in the future (yes, this does effect sales).

And I have. I don't enjoy them, and none of the changes I've seen to them are big enough changes to their core gameplay to change that.

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Originally Posted by Rawrz

Secondary proposal: If Excog doesn't activate it galvanizes the player. This would result in a 650 to 975 potency shield. Non crit vs crit. Critlo is 900, but can happen anytime. Enhanced excog would take 30+ seconds of setup to justify potency. Rewarding planning and no punishment if your coheal doesn't let it proc.

I really would like deployment to reset the duration of e4e and galvanize at the least.

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I haven't tested Excog despite SCH being my main class (Expected to run story with a FC healer main, so...), but it feels like something like this would be an advantage. It's always been possible to waste the SCH's ability to plan for situations (Mostly dropping shields), but with something using the Aetherflow stack, having it not do anything is just...Too much of a waste, it feels like.

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Originally Posted by Hysterior

Sure they'll survive.
Why not trying another healer in the meantime? In a multi-class game, I don't get why some people have 0 will to be flexible and try something else...

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I can't speak with that guy, but frankly, I'm so disgusted by the nerfs SCH got, and the buffs AST got (I swear it feels like borderline favortism to me the more I look at them) that I refuse to play AST right now. I was actually going to give a shot too,but not anymore.

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Originally Posted by KDSilver

WHM was overshadowed because of Astro's Balance and because content in 3.4 content didn't require high healing.
My point was that WHM isn't "weak" in term of healing and kept being strong. BUT, having a healer buffer was better than one with healing only.
That's all.

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I never said WHM had weaker heals. I was saying it was the weakest healer because it had no utility.

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Originally Posted by Cluebilly

I can't speak with that guy, but frankly, I'm so disgusted by the nerfs SCH got, and the buffs AST got (I swear it feels like borderline favortism to me the more I look at them) that I refuse to play AST right now. I was actually going to give a shot too,but not anymore.

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I understand this even less haha. I've been a SCH from 2.0 as it was fun, rewarding to play and needed in my group.
Now it feels nerfed so I play AST in the meantime. What matters is that you help your group and have fun no?
Pretty sure they'll tweak the job before raid time due to player feedback.
So no need to resign. Just play another job in the meantime and enjoy the content.

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Originally Posted by Hysterior

I understand this even less haha. I've been a SCH from 2.0 as it was fun, rewarding to play and needed in my group.
Now it feels nerfed so I play AST in the meantime. What matters is that you help your group and have fun no?
Pretty sure they'll tweak the job before raid time due to player feedback.
So no need to resign. Just play another job in the meantime and enjoy the content.

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And I've been a SCH since 2.0 as well. It's probably my favorite job in the entire game. But am I supposed to just dump it and move to AST? I'm not resigning so to speak, I just want my favorite job to not be bad.

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Originally Posted by Hysterior

I understand this even less haha. I've been a SCH from 2.0 as it was fun, rewarding to play and needed in my group.
Now it feels nerfed so I play AST in the meantime. What matters is that you help your group and have fun no?
Pretty sure they'll tweak the job before raid time due to player feedback.
So no need to resign. Just play another job in the meantime and enjoy the content.

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I think it's a fundamental difference in playstyle, here. It sounds like you're playing the job because it's strong. I play SCH because I enjoy SCH, and SE seems to be working to destroy that.

Perhaps Silent Dusk could be changed into a targeted magic attack debuff instead of a resistable silence. Like an offensive version of Eos' Fey Covenent with a shorter cooldown/duration.

Sch is in need of buffs in the healing department badly. The overall heals from the job is extremely weak, and most of the time I find myself in a situation where I'm having a hard time keeping up heals where a Whm/Ast can get though without any issue. On top of the weak heals it seems like I run out of Mp slot quicker and the nerf to Aetherflow might be the cause of that. Also (I haven't tested it yet, so take it as a grain of salt, but ) the amount of Mp regen you get from Aetherflow gets consumed by a single use of adlo. I understand that you guys were trying to balance the healers, but the Sch nerf might have went a little to far and the job is bad in need of some healing buffs.

The number of level 60 SCH's posting in this thread speaks for itself. At least get to 70 and try it out geared before crying, WHM is supposed to be babby's first healer job.

I know I'm not alone on this, but SCH feels strong. Most boss mechanics now line up on 30 to 60 second timers, which means you should always have your Indomitable & Rouse/Whisper up for AoE, and Adlo/Excog up for tank busters. The only way I could see MP issues being a thing is if you spammed Adlo/Succor constantly and didn't use Lucid Dreaming off cd, like you had no idea what you're doing.

Keep complaining though guys, an unnecessary buff is fine by me. imo. the only thing they need to fix is how clunky Aetherpact is.

I have tried it out and scholar isn't as good as you make it out to be.

Scholar is not strong

If you think it is, why don't you go Scholar/Scholar for all the Extremes currently?

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Originally Posted by Vijaya

The number of level 60 SCH's posting in this thread speaks for itself. At least get to 70 and try it out geared before crying, WHM is supposed to be babby's first healer job.

I know I'm not alone on this, but SCH feels strong. Most boss mechanics now line up on 30 to 60 second timers, which means you should always have your Indomitable & Rouse/Whisper up for AoE, and Adlo/Excog up for tank busters. The only way I could see MP issues being a thing is if you spammed Adlo/Succor constantly and didn't use Lucid Dreaming off cd, like you had no idea what you're doing.

Keep complaining though guys, an unnecessary buff is fine by me. imo. the only thing they need to fix is how clunky Aetherpact is.

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Uh.. just an FYI, but not everyone has changed their info on this. I'm a 70 SCH since EA ended but it hasn't updated. The same likely goes for others that seem to be '60' when they are 70.

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Originally Posted by curather

I have tried it out and scholar isn't as good as you make it out to be.

Scholar is not strong

If you think it is, why don't you go Scholar/Scholar for all the Extremes currently?

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Already done that. I've finished both of the Extremes with Scholar/Scholar for multiple runs each, and we had literally no issues. No one even got close to dying due to double Indomitable and Whispering Dawn overload. Neither of us even went below 50% MP, even without BRD/MCH, and we retained constant DPS on the boss.

If you were mediocre at SCH before, that's not going to change this expansion.

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Originally Posted by Vijaya

Already done that. I've finished both of the Extremes with Scholar/Scholar for multiple runs each, and we had literally no issues. No one even got close to dying due to double Indomitable and Whispering Dawn overload. Neither of us even went below 50% MP, even without BRD/MCH, and we retained constant DPS on the boss.

If you were mediocre at SCH before, that's not going to change this expansion.

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Indomitable is nice but it has a 30s cd. Other than that, you have emergency tactics to try to increase your aoe heals. Sch/Sch should have their galvanize stack like medica II.

To be honest, as I'm leveling SCH right now and have hit level 66, I have had no problems with MP management or keeping up tanks and the party. I've adapted to not using Adlo as much as I once did, which helps cut down MP consumption considerably. Though it helps that I don't see party wide damage going out that much nor do I actually have to DPS as much as I once did.

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Originally Posted by curather

Indomitable is nice but it has a 30s cd. Other than that, you have emergency tactics to try to increase your aoe heals. Sch/Sch should have their galvanize stack like medica II.

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The 30s doesn't make much difference for these trials at least, since the AoE mechanics from the trials are also on 30/60 second timers pretty much exactly. For example on Susano EX, Ukehi will occur after 60 seconds immediately following the 4th lightning, so you can pre-empt Rouse/Whispering during the 4th cross, and then heal into the Ukehi with a single Succor/Indom, and the party will be at full HP, or will be by the time the HoT wears off.

For Lakshmi, Indom was always up for both AoE & Stack mechanics, and two Indom's just instantly topped off the party every time for 0 MP. Emergency Tactics is also on 30s, so even if you run two SCH, you don't need to overlap Galvanize.

But I guess we'll see if they stick to 30s/60s timers in the raids.

I don't appreciate that sort of holier than thou attitude. If you do content with two healers it's not the same as if you are doing the single healer four-man content. There are definitely issues there.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

To be honest, as I'm leveling SCH right now and have hit level 66, I have had no problems with MP management or keeping up tanks and the party. I've adapted to not using Adlo as much as I once did, which helps cut down MP consumption considerably. Though it helps that I don't see party wide damage going out that much nor do I actually have to DPS as much as I once did.

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The 67-70 content is mainly where you'll feel it most, I think.

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Originally Posted by zeopower6

I don't appreciate that sort of holier than thou attitude. If you do content with two healers it's not the same as if you are doing the single healer four-man content. There are definitely issues there.



The 67-70 content is mainly where you'll feel it most, I think.

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I completely agree! I am leveling up a ast from 60 since I don't see them fixing this.

Please stop posting and saying Scholar is strong in 4.0 when it got literally nothing but nerfs and is a fraction of what it was. Those saying they love Scholar at seventy are oblivious. So I compiled a list of facts of the state of Scholar right now and possible fixes. Don't reply to this and complain about one specific point I made. Just read it and become aware of Scholar's state.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

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Originally Posted by zeopower6

The 67-70 content is mainly where you'll feel it most, I think.

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Good to know, I just hit 67 so I'll be seeing it soon.

Mostly I am fine with SCH in 4.0 at 70 but they need to do some potency adjustments. I'm still baffled at the AST shielding and healing better than SCH and WHM. But then again, they DO want people to play AST, so...

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Good to know, I just hit 67 so I'll be seeing it soon.

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It is pretty much the same for all healers. It is quite an adjustment to go from keeping the tank alive with a regen while watching Netflix to actually having to think about healer CD usage.

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Originally Posted by Judge_Xero

It is pretty much the same for all healers. It is quite an adjustment to go from keeping the tank alive with a regen while watching Netflix to actually having to think about healer CD usage.

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I wouldn't even say this is the case, at least not more so than it was during Heavensward launch.

The only spike in difficulty I perceived was when tanks didn't know how or when to use CDs on larger pulls or on tank busters; otherwise it was mostly shield and DPS as usual.

Actually, I do think that AoE healing requirements went up a bit overall, but each healer has appropriate tools for dealing with that without issue. It's reactive healers who don't observe patterns who suffer the most since they will find themselves out of MP from panic healing if they don't understand when and why the damage is coming out.

My beef with 4.0 SCH isn't that it's truly weak or can't get the job done, because that's not true; it's that SCH got hit with seemingly unnecessary nerfs (did we really need to increase Adlo MP costs, further nerf faerie healing, and keep shielding potencies the same while the already powerful AST got more shielding potency with only one real trade-off in A.B.'s cost increase?) combined with a forced change in playstyle with Aetherflow MP return cut in half to ham-fistedly force SCH to use Lucid Dreaming a la WHM and AST, who already used their respective versions of that mechanic, and yet another poorly designed capstone ability. Fey Union is powerful enough, but the wonky activation, extremely short tether, and continual drain on the faerie gauge if the tether is broken without being ended by the caster make it needlessly restrictive.

WHM has its own issues from a fun and "does it make sense" perspective, but they at least function more or less the same if not stronger in some important ways.

AST is in the best shape ever with a fluid, fun, effective playstyle that rewards people who enjoy having a lot of actions to use and decisions to make. SCH still has elements of this, but the new parts of their kit (with the exception of Chain Stratagem) don't feel nearly as impactful and don't mesh that well with their existing skills. Hopefully the dev team is looking at the situation as "AST is in a great place; what can or should we do to help WHM and SCH feel like this?"

I think they mostly tried to adjust AST without considering that maybe they'd have to adjust WHM or SCH as well. I think SCH probably needs the 'most' adjustments to counteract what they did to make AST playable.

Can we scholars get a buff please????
Embrace- from 250 to 350 cure potency
Excognitation- duration to 1 or 2 minutes
Aetherflow_back 20% mp regeneration
Replace Fey Union with Fairy dust trail-tethers to a enemy and deals damage over time potency of 300
Replace Chain Stratagem with Fey energy- gives 10% to a party member 30 second cd.

I don't need the healing buffed, MP is fine when Lucid is used on cooldown, at this point I don't even mind getting skills I don't use on max level anymore.
But please give us some damage back, there is no sense in i.e. Aero III alone being stronger than our dots baned with our most precious recource on multiple targets.

Ok not gonna go into a long explanation but, with all bane nerf and shadow flare nerf Sch is definitely not it's old self. It's definitely weaker but I will say I like the new heal abilities, it's for planing ahead and getting ready for the " O Crap scenarios". Still wish Eos wasn't nerfed >.< .

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Originally Posted by Spoekes

I don't need the healing buffed, MP is fine when Lucid is used on cooldown,

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While this is true, why is it a thing? As far as I can tell, the only reason Lucid Dreaming is even in the role skills is because they couldn't figure 10 skills to round out the number, so they decided to take away everyone's MP restoration, cleanse and Heavy, then force us all to take Lucid and Esuna to get back these core tools (plus nerfing Aetherflow so that SCH didn't end up with stupidly good MP restoration.)

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Originally Posted by Riyshn

plus nerfing Aetherflow so that SCH didn't end up with stupidly good MP restoration.

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Which shouldn't have mattered judging from the other healers tool kits.

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Originally Posted by VallariaEllethwen

Please stop posting and saying Scholar is strong in 4.0 when it got literally nothing but nerfs and is a fraction of what it was. Those saying they love Scholar at seventy are oblivious. So I compiled a list of facts of the state of Scholar right now and possible fixes. Don't reply to this and complain about one specific point I made. Just read it and become aware of Scholar's state.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

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Not even 70 and not able to understand how strong chain strategem is.
This game isnt all about Dungeons & AoE Dmg. (But yea i admit non existent AoE makes dungeons boring)


Scholar is fine for raids and pretty much still the go to. Mana-Management is by far no problem.
Shadowflare is awesome how it is, especially for fights where the bosses disappear/need to be moved very often.(Its even stronger if you count in that you can broil 2 times instead of wasting gcd to cast shadowflare)
Embrace scale way differently than our normal heals. Embrace is still strong, and its free compared to the hots from ast/whm.
Adlo -> since MP isn't an issue... why reverting it? It should be used for tbs and hard hitting aoe (spread) not as just a better heal than physic.

This doc is just a pile of bullshit... its just a "mimimi make my class op plx" of someone who doesn't knew how to play Scholar befor Stormblood anyway.

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Originally Posted by Amaret

Embrace scale way differently than our normal heals. Embrace is still strong, and its free compared to the hots from ast/whm.
Adlo -> since MP isn't an issue... why reverting it? It should be used for tbs and hard hitting aoe (spread) not as just a better heal than physic.

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I hate that people keep making the Embrace=Regen comparison. It's really not equivalent. Yeah, it's free. This makes up for SCH having generally lower healing potencies at higher costs than the other healers. It is not however, a true replacement for a regen. The key difference being that you can have more than 1 regen going on more than 1 person at a time. The only thing SCH has that fits this is Whispering Dawn, which is gated being a ~30% uptime and at the whims of the pet AI.

Adlo MP is most definitely an issue. I imagine it will get better as ilvl increases with Piety now being apparently a bigger healer thing, but at the moment, at least while leveling, it literally costs more than Aetherflow returns. Our core mechanic costs more than our built-in MP management tool gives us. This is not acceptable.

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Originally Posted by Riyshn

I hate that people keep making the Embrace=Regen comparison. It's really not equivalent. Yeah, it's free. This makes up for SCH having generally lower healing potencies at higher costs than the other healers. It is not however, a true replacement for a regen. The key difference being that you can have more than 1 regen going on more than 1 person at a time. The only thing SCH has that fits this is Whispering Dawn, which is gated being a ~30% uptime and at the whims of the pet AI.

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Oh, yea... because WHM/AST are useing regen on every target they can get.
Also you forgot Fey Covenant and Fey Illumation if you want to compare it that way.

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Originally Posted by Riyshn

Adlo MP is most definitely an issue. I imagine it will get better as ilvl increases with Piety now being apparently a bigger healer thing, but at the moment, at least while leveling, it literally costs more than Aetherflow returns. Our core mechanic costs more than our built-in MP management tool gives us. This is not acceptable.

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It is, just accept that you have to make use of lucid dreaming. And Adlo isnt the core mechanic of Scholar.

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Originally Posted by Amaret

Oh, yea... because WHM/AST are useing regen on every target they can get.
Also you forgot Fey Covenant and Fey Illumation if you want to compare it that way.

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Not every target possible, no, but both tanks and maybe a DPS who just got hit by a mech? And at the same time? Yes.
Ah, I assume you're referring to Inferior Bole and Unreliable Mantra?
(EDIT: Rechecked numbers, "Inferior Bole" is slightly unfair; different use cases. Bole is 20% or 10% AoE and works for all damage, FC is 20% AoE but only works for magic.)

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It is, just accept that you have to make use of lucid dreaming. And Adlo isnt the core mechanic of Scholar.

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It... is, actually. Until AST got overbuffed because reasons, SCH's defining thing was the shields. Which I suppose you're right, the core mechanic is Aetherflow, not Adlo. So I'll revise: Our MP management skill (Which also happens to be our core mechanic) is no longer enough to cover the cost of our defining skill.

I will accept that that is what SE has decided to do to the job, and I have no direct power to change it. That does not mean I will be happy about it or stop trying to make a case that it was a mistake.