Let's talk Scholar: Changes, Class fantasy and Abilities

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Originally Posted by Calysto

I have a question/comment about class fantasy / lore.
SCH had bio (and other removed dots) thanks to ACN, but that's no longer the case.

Seeing how Nimian civilisation ended due to a disease, how does that make sense to have these lines of spells ?
I mean, sure, they studied it to find a cure but that was already the end ; their whole point before that was startegy and heal.

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It's important to make a clear distinction between what we learn as an Arcanist thru the Guild in Limsa and what we gain from the Scholar soulstone. The "Disease" spells are from the Arcanist training we undergo. Scholar used to have an Esuna clone spell called Leeches that did the same thing. It showed how the Nymian Scholar's devised their own way to deal with plaque and affliction. Our Characters are using a mixture of Arcanist and Scholar spells for maximum effectiveness.

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Originally Posted by Connor

The Bio spells are essentially the reverse of this happening; the target’s aether is manipulated in a way that causes its gradual breakdown.

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Wasn't the lasts quests saying that was actually what they were missing ? (aetherial unbalance causing them to transform)

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

It's important to make a clear distinction between what we learn as an Arcanist thru the Guild in Limsa and what we gain from the Scholar soulstone. The "Disease" spells are from the Arcanist training we undergo. Scholar used to have an Esuna clone spell called Leeches that did the same thing. It showed how the Nymian Scholar's devised their own way to deal with plaque and affliction. Our Characters are using a mixture of Arcanist and Scholar spells for maximum effectiveness.

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That's the point of my post, since ACN got retcon'ed, with SMN change does it still makes sense for SCH to have it ? at least under a name that seems to clash with the lore.
For that reason ruins are understandable since it still come from ACN (it becoming broil is another thing that doesn't make much sense to me. Who think broiling is a scholar thing ?)

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Originally Posted by Calysto

Wasn't the lasts quests saying that was actually what they were missing ? (aetherial unbalance causing them to transform)



That's the point of my post, since ACN got retcon'ed, with SMN change does it still makes sense for SCH to have it ? at least under a name that seems to clash with the lore.
For that reason ruins are understandable since it still come from ACN (it becoming broil is another thing that doesn't make much sense to me. Who think broiling is a scholar thing ?)

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Broiling is a scholar thing because current SCH class fantasy is a nerd redditor with a fairy. I'm not messing around with you.

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embroil - VERB
involve (someone) deeply in an argument, conflict, or difficult situation.

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Scholars are literally arguing with enemies which causes damage. They are defeating people with facts and logic. In the German translation, which is more based off of JP terminology than the English one, Broil II receives "Heated" adjective in its name, Broil III gets "Destroying" and Broil IV gets "Brutal".

Also Art of War is just a book SCH picked up in a library.

The more you know :)
I guess the next evolution is "Roast" then :cool:

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Originally Posted by Calysto

Wasn't the lasts quests saying that was actually what they were missing ? (aetherial unbalance causing them to transform)

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If you’re referring to people becoming monsters in Endwalker then not exactly. That aetherial imbalance was an intentional result of the sundering, and one of the only reasons we were able to put up a fight against Meteion. They meant that was the aether of people on Hydaelyn simply isn’t as strong as it was for the Amaurotine. Their creation magics were possible because of the vast amounts of aether they had. But because normal humans on Hydaelyn don’t have the same amount of aether, Meteion’s song had to take a different approach to see them destroyed. Post-sundering though, all remaining living beings had their aether ‘sundered’ to prevent a repeat of what happened on the Final Days and give the world hope by allowing people to interact with Dynamis. To compensate, Meteion’s approach changes from transforming the creations, to transforming the physical body.

The transformations you see in Shadowbringers and Endwalker are basically aetherial corruption of a specific and overpowering form. For example, the Sin Eaters were the result of a person’s body becoming so full of light aether that their aether became warped and twisted (hence form changes). With Meteion however, rather than warp or twist the target’s aether, her intention was to simply ‘delete’ it; as in, causing the target’s aether to vanish from existence, likely to ensure that it would be an absolute death. A side of effect of the vanishing aether, coupled with the emotional distress people were during Endwalker, resulted in them being unable to maintain their physical forms in the face of Meteion’s song, thus becoming the horrific and monsters we see.

So essentially, if you think of ‘Bio’ as magic acid that gradually turns the target’s aether into mush, things like unintentional transformation from aetherial imbalance or destruction are akin to a ‘magical cancer’ where the disease is so severe that it attacks the thing that gives that body physical form (if that makes any sense lol). So whilst Bio sees aether break down in such a way to cause harm to another, the principles behind transformations is more about fundamentally changing the aether inside a person (e.g with light or complete removal) as opposed to simply being the result of a breakdown of aether. You aren’t as much ‘destroying’ a target’s aether with Bio as much as simply breaking it down until the target is no longer able to function. But the target wouldn’t simply cease to exist or disappear once the spell had its run course; not physically anyway

As for Broil as previous poster said it’s a play on words. Broil meaning both ‘to cook’ and ‘to engage in heated argument’. I can’t speak for other languages, but I know the JP translations of spell names end up being fairly different from their localisation. Using Broil as an example, the translation is, or was, ‘Extreme Demon Flame Method’ lol. Sacred Soil was something like, ‘Circular Defensive Formation’ lol. I think the idea for the JP spell naming was to have them named practically based on function as opposed to being more poetic or philosophical. Adloquium is literally called Inspire in JP, which is literally what Adloquium means in Latin lol. Unfortunately that’s somewhat lost in translation because the localisers decided to go for the holy priestly theme with ‘Sacred’ Soil and ‘Lustrate’ (to give off intense light), thought they then decided to go for the ‘practical naming’ theme for future skills (i.e Emergency and Deployment Tactics, Broil is literally named after what you’re doing to cast the spell, Expedient is fairly self explanatory when you consider the name.

One thing about that though, it honestly gives me conniptions that the ability is called Expedient and not Expedience, Expedite or Expedition. Nouns are for naming things not adjectives lol

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Originally Posted by Connor

If you’re referring to people becoming monsters in Endwalker then not exactly.

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I was refering to the 80 quest where thanks to our experience in the first and light inbalance (and sin eater transformation), we were able to help them figure a cure to Mach disease/curse.
so yes, apocalypse's transformation is another thing, but Mach's is aether inbalance/manipulation.
I guess Bio could be about messing aether with no notion of elemental balance ; but that would still be close to their affliction. Seems weird they lacked informations about elements being scholars in the "magi's era"

From what i seen, SCH naming conventions depends on localization a lot ; with many treatises/stratagems being lost in english.

For more Scholar trivia from the German translation (Gotta pass qeue time somehow):
Deployment Tactics is called Dislocation. Dislocation is a term used in the medicine field for dislocated organs/bones (stuff being in wrong spots of the body). I guess the idea is that the Shield is dislocated and we spread it to the proper spots (whoever is in range) or the other way around.
Emergency Tactics is called Apotropaion (Apotropaic magic) which is "old greek for a type of magic intended to turn away harm or evil influences, as in deflecting misfortune or averting the evil eye". No need to really make any comparisons this one is self explanatory.
Yes in the german translation (and i assume the japanese one too) SCH has only 2 tactician related skills, Art of War and Chain Stratagem (called Critical Strategy).
Here is a fun one, Biolosys is called Causae et curae which is latin and roughly translates to "About causes and cures of Sicknesses" Yes it's another Book SCH found in the crystarium library, or rather 6 books that together form 1 volume. The funny thing is that the same author also wrote a book called "Physica". The only thing missing is actually meeting a character called Hildegard of Bingen. This might give flavor to why SCH player come up with a cure in the level 80 Job quest. I really wish we had flavor text like BLU spells do.

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Originally Posted by Calysto

I was refering to the 80 quest where thanks to our experience in the first and light inbalance (and sin eater transformation), we were able to help them figure a cure to Mach disease/curse.
so yes, apocalypse's transformation is another thing, but Mach's is aether inbalance/manipulation.
I guess Bio could be about messing aether with no notion of elemental balance ; but that would still be close to their affliction. Seems weird they lacked informations about elements being scholars in the "magi's era"

From what i seen, SCH naming conventions depends on localization a lot ; with many treatises/stratagems being lost in english.

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Yeah, though the principles behind how the Mhach transformed the Nymians was the same principle behind people’s transformations on the First. I think the logic for that quest was basically ‘we’ve seen that too much of any one kind of aether turns you into a thing, so maybe the Tonberries just need less of whatever aether was stuffed into them’.

When it comes to stuff like Bio, it’s more about changing the aether that’s already there, whilst with the transformations, it’s about adding new aether that shouldn’t be there (at least in the case of Sin Eaters and Tonberries). So while there are similarities, I think the different functions are why Scholars didn’t all turn around and say ‘why are we using the same stuff as our enemies’ lol.

As to the reason why they ended up with two spells that were so similar and yet so different is also likely due to the way they manipulated the aether. The way it’s done can have as much effect on the end result; channeling aether from the land around you can result in both unimaginable powers over life or catastrophic powers of destruction (White and Black Mage). Where Scholars used geometric formula and written text to manipulate aether, the Mhach I believe drew aether from the land itself as the precursors to Black Mages.

And as we know from what happened afterwards, drawing that aether results in massively powerful magic - far more powerful than could be created using any normal. But eventually the land will run dry of aether, so the elementals yeet everyone into oblivion with a great flood so the planet doesn’t hit a ‘worst-case scenario’.

I guess theoretically what Mhach inflicted on the Nymians could be described as like a ‘Super-Ultra-Bio’ that caused such severe aether corruption (purely a guess but I’d imagine towards darkness since it generally represents atrophy with light representing stagnation) it physically mutated the inhabitants, something only made possible by drawing vast amounts of aether from the land.

And yeah in general there is fairly little to go on in terms of Scholar lore, since Nym no longer exists and it’s citizens are all stab-happy monsters. Especially in terms of, why their spells took the forms that they did. The only thing that’s really explored in detail is the fairy.

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Originally Posted by RinaShinomiya

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Yeah, flavour text like with BLU spells would be amazing, even if it was just brief. It’d be nice to know more about all the abilities we use, like why they ended up doing what they do, or how they were developed, etc.

Probably a more commonly known fact but the name of the level 90 book ‘Epeolatry’, translates specifically to ‘worship of words’ in Greek (they really went all in with the Ancient Greek this expansion lol).

Naturally, it’s less about religious/faith based worship (though having mass for the word of the day would be interesting lol) and more about accepting the power our words can have, which is more literal for Scholars than anyone else. Essentially, we’re running around with a book that’s about loving books, full of words that describe how great words are lol.

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Originally Posted by Connor

Probably a more commonly known fact but the name of the level 90 book ‘Epeolatry’, translates specifically to ‘worship of words’ in Greek (they really went all in with the Ancient Greek this expansion lol).

Naturally, it’s less about religious/faith based worship (though having mass for the word of the day would be interesting lol) and more about accepting the power our words can have, which is more literal for Scholars than anyone else. Essentially, we’re running around with a book that’s about loving books, full of words that describe how great words are lo

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Damned ; I had a "sch rework" idea a few month back around a mudra-like system of combining words to replace AF.
I still think that'd be cool (and convoluted, but whatever).

Top 5 Scholar Wishlist Wishes

1. Give Selene back. All her moves, her look, everything. But especially haste. Still devastated to this day.

2. They made Sage what Scholar should be largely. Should at least return the Fester combo to us and taking job learnable skills like Cleric stance was a mistake across all classes.

3. Chargeable shields - add physical, magic or pure mitigation to adlo with an ability similar to Focus. As in depending which fairy you have out, an ability precharges the adloquium shield.

4. Anything that rewards forethought. This is what made Scholar a Scholar, yet it was never continued in that direction after the very beginning. I feel like this is one area the team never quite understood which they inherited from pre-ARR days. Reward forethought with real DPS opportunity or if not pushing a phase then reward with adding leeway to the current phase.

5. Would be great if the book did something with a big flashy spell... really feels like we are due both a flashy attack and a unique ultimate scholarly skill. They even took away Shadow Flare.. it has been so hard to keep going but these tomes wont read themselves..

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Originally Posted by Halfgeeek

Dissipation is a great cooldown. I seriously don't get the hate that it gets, and it being the major reason for people to say SCH is "clunky" or a job that "fights itself".

How hard is it to use it after you've already blown your Fairy heals?

Or during the end of a pull, so that Fairy returns at the start of the new pull?

Or during approach of boss phase transitions, giving you ample time to wait for the 30s return timer to keep on ticking.

People have been complaining about how simple healers are, and Dissipation is one of those powerful abilities that requires thought to use well, and the masses seem to crap on it because they can't figure out how that skill can benefit them..

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dissipation is alright but it only buffs a part of our kit that we dont often use, if it buffed everything rather than adlo and succor only it would be in a perfect spot as a tradeoff they could reduce it to 10%.

Remove energy drain and I'll switch back to sch from sge.

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Originally Posted by Vortuna

Remove energy drain and I'll switch back to sch from sge.

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Im hoping its repurposed. I just want to be able to use my kit and not sacrifice it for damage, not when I see the counterpart doing both effortlessly

Rummaging through the forum and I think this is an appropriate thread to bump to share some ideas and wish list for SCH. I hope this isn't much of a necro'ing.

Keep in mind that all these are assuming the SCH is at lv90 & numbers are obviously going to be whacky & unbalanced:

Basic kits changes & Traits

• New Trait: Nymian Trick
  SCH's generated shields now comes with certain amount of probability to proc "Overflowing Aetherflow" that alters certain action. Once expended, this trait cannot be proc'ed again for the next 30s.
• Physick
  Starting lv30 and higher, the button will morph into "Adloquium" so long as the SCH's MP pool is higher than 1000.
• Adloquium
  Breaking Adloquium's Galvanize shield has 15% chance to proc "Overflowing Aetherflow". Breaking Catalyze shield is guaranteed to proc the trait.
• Succor
  Breaking Succor's Galvanize shield has 3% chance to proc "Overflowing Aetherflow".
• Broil IV
  Potency is reduced to 270p. If target is suffering from Biolysis OR Chain Stratagem, potency is buffed to 290p. If both Biolysis and Chain Stratagem are active, potency is buffed to 320p and each cast generates fae gauge by 3p.
• Art of War
  Under the effect of "Overflowing Aetherflow", this action morphs into "Shadowflare."
• Shadowflare
  Instant cast GCD. Create a patch of corrupted soil that inflicts damage over time with potency of 60p, lasts for 15s. If target is suffering from Biolysis AND Chain Stratagem, generate fae gauge by 10p and inflicts "Nymian Seal". Costs 800 MP. AoE is 6y in radius.
  Nymian Seal = Party member absorbs 3% their damage dealt as HP recovery from this target. Lasts for 20s.
• Ruin II
  Removed.
• Miasma IV*
  Instant cast GCD. Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 50 & inflicts damage over time with potency of 60p, lasts for 12s. Costs 600 MP.
• Emergency Tactic
  Moved to lv35.
• Deployment Tactic
  Can now be used against a foe to spread Biolysis, Miasma IV, and Chain Stratagem at 50% potency fall off.
  
  *Replaces Ruin II as a DPS neutral mobility tool when extended movement is needed & an option to zerg pack of mobs when used in conjunction with Biolysis & Chain Stratagem with the help of Deployment Tactic.

Next it'll be about the notorious Aetherflow Gauge:

Aetherflow
Aetherflow action is removed entirely. All the current AF-based actions will be adjusted as follows:

• Lustrate
  Now behaves as a charged-based action, recharges every 30s. Recast stays at 1s. Maximum charge: 2
• Indomitability
  Now behaves as a charged-based action, recharges every 30s. Recast is lowered to 5s. Maximum charge: 2
• Excogitation
  Now behaves as a charged-based action, recharges every 45s. Recast is lowered to 15s. Maximum charge: 2
• Sacred Soil
  Now incorporated into one of fae-related abilities. Read more below.
• Energy Drain
  Now incorporated into one of fae-related abilities. Read more below.

That wraps the Aetherflow Gauge, now moving on to the Fae Gauge lastly:

Fae Gauge is rehauled.
Free from Aetherflow Gauge, Fae Gauge will now become the prominent focus of SCH's resource management. The cap remains at 100p. There are 5 ways to generate fae gauge which is as follow:

1. Fairy's Embrace casts: 2p/cast
2. Seraph's Veil casts: 4p/cast
3. Broil IV (special condition): 3p/cast
4. Shadowflare (special condition): 10p/cast
5. Energy Drain: 30p/cast

With that in mind, the following abilities will be altered:

1. Energy Drain
   Deals unaspected damage with potency of 150. Generates 30p Fae Gauge, restores 10% of Max MP, and absorbs 10% of damage dealt as HP recovery. Recast timer is 30s. Learned at lv20.
2. Whispering Dawn
   Now costs 20p to execute.
3. Fey Illumination
   Now costs 30p to execute. Deploys shield with potency of 200 while reducing damage taken by 5%. Damage reduction remains intact as long as the shield is up. Lasts for 30s. Cooldown is 60s. Healing magic buff is removed. Each of these shield has 20% to proc "Overflowing Aetherflow" when broken.
4. Fey Blessing
   Removed.
5. Fey Union
   No longer belch out tether to the target. Fairy's Embraces will now be focused at target & each casts will consume 4p of fae gauge until turned off. Fairy can still execute other abilities without breaking the Aetherpact.
6. Fey Wind
   Increase self and party member's direct hit rate by 6% for 15s. Costs 50p to execute. Cooldown: 90s. AoE is centered around the fairy.
7. Sacred Soil
   Now costs 40p to execute. Radius is extended to 10y. The dome is placed on where the fairy is stationed at the time of cast.
8. Dissipation*
   Now costs 60p to execute. Reduce recast timer of Lustrate, Indomitability, and Excogitation by 30s while increasing damage dealt and healing action potency by 10% for 15s. Also recovers 15% of Max MP. Cooldown is 90s. Does NOT remove fairy upon use.
9. Seraphic Veil
   Breaking this shield has 10% of proc'ing "Overflowing Aetherflow".
10. Angel's Whisper
    Does not cost fae gauge to execute but still shares the same cooldown as its weaker counterpart. Radius is extended to 20y.
11. Angel's Illumination
    Does not cost fae gauge to execute but still shares the same cooldown as its weaker counterpart. Radius is extended to 20y.
12. Consolation**
    Now comes to with a buff that increases HP recovery by healing actions by 8% for 20s. Radius is extended to 25y. Each broken shield has 20% chance to proc "Overflowing Aetherflow".
    
    *Yes, this is stolen from PvP SCH's Dissipation.
    **Healing received buff is added is to ensure 2nd Consolation shields will always overwrite the 1st Consolation's, effectively extending the window of which shield can stay active unless critical'ed.

I know I know, it's painfully useless but lemme just fantasize and let these thoughts out ;_;

In the end, the problem really boils down to ED and Aetherflow existing together and preventing SCH from using stacks for healing. The whole excuse of "healing opportunity" is BS.

Look at WHM, Misery is a loss and even more so since they fixed the weaving. People swore up and down that the 1.5s cast time would fix their issues except it didn't. It only cleared up clipping and some freedom in movement.

Lilies will always be a loss when you have a coordinated party.

Using Aetherflow heals cuts into ED, a way for you drop stacks before a refresh. In a nutshell this is a "reward" when you realize that you should everything not under Aetherflow before you use touch the stacks because why use an Indom, when you can either use Fey Blessing, Expedient, Whispering Dawn, Seraph? And even when you exhaust these options, you still have Recitation.

The current Aetherflow needs to be only for buffing/debuff with ED as the reward. Attaching healing to damage has done way more harm than good because the devs almost always, don't make it worth it because they're not DPS neutral.

Toxicon should never be fished for so you only have it for prepull and downtime (which we didn't have much of this tier).

Misery is a loss now that WHM can weave and move properly. And the requirement for 3 lilies before for a Misery is bad design. Same with Toxicon where you can get this during downtime or long movement.

Lord of Crowns is 50/50 with a heal so you can never count on it to be ready. But at least it's not attached to GCD healing right?

The perception that these are "rewards" for healing is tragic. They can't be rewards when you get punished for even using them. Either make them DPS neutral or detach them from healing all together.

The devs want this design of "rewarding through healing" when it should be rewarding free healing for correct dps gimmicks. The game has and will always revolve around DPS checks so every job is a dps in some capacity and the faster something dies is the best form of mitigation. Kill it faster than it can kill you.

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Originally Posted by elioaiko

The devs want this design of "rewarding through healing" when it should be rewarding free healing for correct dps gimmicks. The game has and will always revolve around DPS checks so every job is a dps in some capacity and the faster something dies is the best form of mitigation. Kill it faster than it can kill you.

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It's not so much that rewarding through Healing can't work but the way they've set it up is done poorly and they haven't done enough for it to be rewarding. They have a foundation with the Lily System and Addersting but haven't gone far enough with either system to make them really a reward, resulting in both being just lackluster refunds. SE had actually fixed ED being used as a DPS tool in ShB by making Ruin 2+ED on par with Broil so that SCH had a Weave/Mobility tool that didn't harm the job in terms of its DPS but with the cast time changes, Broil now provides the same benefits while also making ED a DPS gain again. Lord and Lady of Crowns making a return just caused Button Bloat issues for AST while also increasing the likelihood of RNG screwing them up.

The Devs just need someone to sit down and reevaluate healers from the ground up because it's very clear they can't be bothered to do it themselves.

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Originally Posted by StealthPaladin

Top 5 Scholar Wishlist Wishes

1. Give Selene back. All her moves, her look, everything. But especially haste. Still devastated to this day.

2. They made Sage what Scholar should be largely. Should at least return the Fester combo to us and taking job learnable skills like Cleric stance was a mistake across all classes.

3. Chargeable shields - add physical, magic or pure mitigation to adlo with an ability similar to Focus. As in depending which fairy you have out, an ability precharges the adloquium shield.

4. Anything that rewards forethought. This is what made Scholar a Scholar, yet it was never continued in that direction after the very beginning. I feel like this is one area the team never quite understood which they inherited from pre-ARR days. Reward forethought with real DPS opportunity or if not pushing a phase then reward with adding leeway to the current phase.

5. Would be great if the book did something with a big flashy spell... really feels like we are due both a flashy attack and a unique ultimate scholarly skill. They even took away Shadow Flare.. it has been so hard to keep going but these tomes wont read themselves..

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I would love to see Selene receive her own tools once more, but they cannot be what she had before. AoE Esuna is cute for the literal 1 mechanic per expansion we get where it actually does something, but cleansable debuffs are so incredibly rare in this game these days and only continue to get rarer as the combat design team continues to forget it's even a thing. It's just not worth dedicating a button to that when Esuna is already forced. Haste is a buff that not all DPS want or even benefit from it. In some cases, Haste can actively desynch a DPS's rotation. If Eos and Selene got some kind of rework to how they're implemented, perhaps with some inspiration from SMN's Design, I could see Selene absorbing Chain Stratagem if she gets a phase that's ideal for burst windows, but it would take a specific type of rework to make that happen.