Scholar 5.0 Discussion

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

That's the issue. The Exceedlingly Boring element of it is purely a matter of opinion and preference. You have folks like me who are used to the more streamlined rotation and dont mind and even prefer it, from my own perspective the job feels about the same, you're still leaning on ogcd heals, and utilizing shielding and damage mitigation preemptively. It was just streamlined. One dot of a decent potency does the same job of two dots of a lower potency. As for the aoe, we did take losses in total potency but our kit is more streamlined. AoW is more expensive then Holy and Gravity but it's also stronger and instant cast.

But that's the other problem. What some people see as nuance and complexity can also be seen as clunkyness and needless busy work to others. As fun as it is to debate and discuss ultimately it's going to be futile no matter what the devs do. You're either going to please the people who want complexity and alienate everyone else, or you're going to please the everyone else and alienate those who want complexity.

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you can definitely please both kind of players. you said yourself, the job feel the same for you.
in the other hand, we're a lot who are more that disapointed by all the things we lost. 2 years for that ?

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

But that's the other problem. What some people see as nuance and complexity can also be seen as clunkyness and needless busy work to others. As fun as it is to debate and discuss ultimately it's going to be futile no matter what the devs do. You're either going to please the people who want complexity and alienate everyone else, or you're going to please the everyone else and alienate those who want complexity.

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I think a good portion of 'my' crowd would be happier if the job flowed better really. A lot of the changes are quite disruptive to the GCD and APM rate of the job and that's something that SCH has always been good at avoiding in the past. Nothing major, just the little nuances that SE perhaps overlooked such as pet actions now being an oGCD. Being able to use these abilities mid cast again would likely be a good step forward imho.

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

That's the issue. The Exceedlingly Boring element of it is purely a matter of opinion and preference.

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And your preference is that YOU like it that's fine, I get it. The rest of us don't have to. It seems you are on a personal crusade to change our minds when nobody asked you to. If you want to start a thread with pom pom's and hearts about the new changes please feel free. WE didn't come to this thread to argue with you we came to vent and show OUR displeasure with the bulk of the changes.

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

You're either going to please the people who want complexity and alienate everyone else, or you're going to please the everyone else and alienate those who want complexity.

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You said yourself that the job feels the same for you. So, giving players that actually want to use the job to it's full potential fun isn't going to alienate the rest of the playerbase that decided to not even use the full kit. You told us of how it doesn't change anything for you.

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

But that's the other problem. What some people see as nuance and complexity can also be seen as clunkyness and needless busy work to others. As fun as it is to debate and discuss ultimately it's going to be futile no matter what the devs do. You're either going to please the people who want complexity and alienate everyone else, or you're going to please the everyone else and alienate those who want complexity.

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Sure. But I'd argue that when you remove complexity (for good or for ill), those that enjoyed that will try to find complexity elsewhere. In FFXIV's case, the search for complexity will naturally lead to Dungeon and Boss design. Dungeons/Trials are, wisely, designed to allow most groups a high % shot at completing them, regardless of individual skill. This means they aren't going to be naturally hard nor will they be nuanced/complex. This was fine in HW, and "okay" in SB, because players that liked complexity could play games with their skills to eek out that extra 15%, but that 15% wasn't even close to necessary to complete the dungeon. It appealed to both sets of players. It is possible to please both players. FFXIV has done that for two expansions (arguably for SB, but I think so).

I don't foresee SE's dungeon design principles changing all that much. Nor have those principles changed that much in the dungeons I have run. On the face of it, they're probably saving that solely for more hardcore items like Savage raids (and arguably Extreme Trials, though those aren't very complex either). For me, that poses an issue. I'm a casual player, I ground to 80 simply because I had PTO that was going to die by the end of this year so I burned it here. I had fun doing a drop in/drop out for the casual content and found my fun in min-maxing my contribution to dungeons/raids. I generally can't devote more than 1-2hrs a week to FFXIV.

The changes to Sch are pushing me out of FFXIV completely. And that's a shame for me, so I'm going to say it's a shame. If you'll note, despite playing FFXIV since a bit before HW launch, this is my first forum post in many years. It's because I'm finally dissatisfied enough to voice it.

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Originally Posted by Truen

The joke is on anyone who plays this job considering the changes they're pushing onto the community. My personal favorite is how instead of fixing Selene, they just made her Eos...I mean what a laugh! It doesn't get any lazier than that.

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SE can't defend this at all, it was pure laziness; Its like the team working on SCH said less just delete everything instead of thinking of ways to fix it. At least with SMN they made ifrit a better single target and Garuda better AoE.

the devs are definitely more and more lazy. it's like they forget everuthingss that happened since 1.0.

And it's a shame. they had the passion to give the game a second chance, and that chance was well deserved. they manage to changed a disaster into one of the best MMO you can find.

But that passion is gone.

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Originally Posted by Naychan

And your preference is that YOU like it that's fine, I get it. The rest of us don't have to. It seems you are on a personal crusade to change our minds when nobody asked you to. If you want to start a thread with pom pom's and hearts about the new changes please feel free. WE didn't come to this thread to argue with you we came to vent and show OUR displeasure with the bulk of the changes.

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I was just giving myself up as an example of someone who's fine with things being more streamlined. I'm fully aware that my opinion is ultimately irrelevant, especially here in this thread.

The point I was attempting to make was that if anything, no ones gonna be pleased no matter which way you take it. Someone will either hate it or someone will love it. Someone will be upset if the class is too complex, someone will be upset if it's too simple. I do agree there are issues that need to be addressed, like the lack of an aetherflow dump is a big one, but the problem I'm seeing is that the "it's boring arguement" is one that is a matter of opinon.

Also I would like to point out that everytime someone does make a thread being positive you folks still jump on there and sprout negative opinions, so it can't possibly be any worse then throwing positive opinions in the more negative threads.

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

Also I would like to point out that everytime someone does make a thread being positive you folks still jump on there and sprout negative opinions, so it can't possibly be any worse then throwing positive opinions in the more negative threads.

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I wasn't aware that if someone makes a thread with an opinion/a vision of something on a forum meant for discussion about the class, people can't share their own opinion too, because otherwise they're being "negative".
If you want to talk about what do you think of the class without someone disagreeing with you, I suggest you do it with friends and not on a forum meant for feedback. No one is stopping you from telling what you think, but when you decide to share your opinion on a place like here, people also have the right to question it.

If you can't deal with that I'm sorry, but maybe a place meant for feedback and discussion is not the place for you.

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

I'm seeing is that the "it's boring arguement" is one that is a matter of opinon.

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Boring is actually a valid feedback if you're talking about something the involves gameplay or a game in general. But the thread is also full of explanations of what "boring" means, and what makes the gameplay boring. Also if a enough part of the playerbase finds the class boring then maybe it's something more than just a subjective perspective.

I really hope SE will change certains aspects of the "new" SCH, even the Japanese players don't understand all those changes so maybe we have a chance.

Its sad that 18 years ago playing a druid in (everuqest I) I had a better dps rotation then I do in 2019 playing a Scholar.

We get 19 abilities that have cure potency and 4 that have damage. Is it me or does that seem over the top to you? Some of these heals come with our temporary fairy that for the life of me I don't remember anybody asking for. They come at the cost of our current fairy that now heals for less while the other was brutally murdered and is worn like and edgar suit (RIP Selene). Small upgrade to one dot while one was removed. Shadow Flare & Miasma replaced with the clunkiest AE ever but I can fire it off 31 times before going OOM (Great for Fates). Cant dump aggro anymore, Cant use Atherflow out of combat or right after a rez because I'm not in combat yet. Lost protect and eye for an eye. My oh chit aoe heal lost 100 potency /cheer. But that's ok cause after I get this POS to 80 I'm probably never going to look at it again.

I'm glad dps, tanks, whm got some nice stuff. Scholars should have been sent a bottle of lube.

Okay, found something with SCH I feel needs a proper buff. Fey Blessing, it uses 10 fairy gauge and is on a 60s cooldown, but only heals for half the power of a Physick. On that kind of cooldown, it should be healing for the same amount of as a Physick. Either buff the healing power so it's better to use, or reduce the cooldown to about 10-20s. If it's going to heal for so little, it shouldn't have such a high cooldown.

Can someone please explain how having aether flow not accessible when outside out of combat is a good idea? Like out of all the design changes this is the one I just cannot wrap my head around. Is us being able to pop it and have instant access to stacks and a small amount of mana that game breaking? I really don't get this one. Also, has anyone else noticed that the faeries react time to when I push the button is way slower now? Or is it just me?

Ya it's a bit slow cause now it's one of our skills so we have to wait our character's animation, then the fairy reacts.....

Feels a bit like https://imgur.com/gallery/OPvfe75

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Originally Posted by Anselmet

Can someone please explain how having aether flow not accessible when outside out of combat is a good idea? Like out of all the design changes this is the one I just cannot wrap my head around. Is us being able to pop it and have instant access to stacks and a small amount of mana that game breaking? I really don't get this one. Also, has anyone else noticed that the faeries react time to when I push the button is way slower now? Or is it just me?

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Part of me thinks it has something to do with the faerie gauge and not being able to spam up to 100 quickly but I can't be sure without getting to 80 first. But even if that's the reason it's a stupid one. Overall though it's clear that no one on the design team actually /played/ SCH and that the people play testing it either didn't care to speak up about the glaringly apparent problems. That or they just sat around and pure healed, which is the only way your mana doesn't swirl down the toilet right now.

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Originally Posted by Alphras

SCH won't have any problem in savage raids performance wise, it's pretty powerful.

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There will be a problem in raids. Because other 2 healer job’s first pick partner won’t be SCH especially in the early periods when everyone is still updating their IL. It’ll be WHM/AST all the way because of both healing and dpsing potential. And MP managements too. Other roles doesn’t care about the aetherflow problem. They just want the healer to heal in the right time and dpsing the other times. WHM is simply stronger in DPSing and pure healing. And AST can barrier as well as buff the PT more frequently than SCH.

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Originally Posted by Avih

There will be a problem in raids. Because other 2 healer job’s first pick partner won’t be SCH especially in the early periods when everyone is still updating their IL.

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I'll be very very surprised if noct AST is anything like being competitive with SCH tbh

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Originally Posted by Anselmet

Can someone please explain how having aether flow not accessible when outside out of combat is a good idea? Like out of all the design changes this is the one I just cannot wrap my head around. Is us being able to pop it and have instant access to stacks and a small amount of mana that game breaking? I really don't get this one.

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This is the one thing about the Sch changes that has been bugging me the most, especially since your current charges are also cleared upon entering a dungeon.

I wouldn't mind seeing Energy Drain and Bane or Shadowflare comeback in some form. As I have been noticing the aetherflow stack issue, either have had to burn them off super fast to manage a dicey situation, or don't really have much to use them on. Energy Drain and Bane helped with the mp management a number of times, and Shadowflare helped make the incoming damage in larger pulls a bit more manageable. I know I wasn't really using those for damage, but more so could stay focused on the more preemptive nature of Sch healing as well as keep the mp up to maintain that healing too.

Agreed with the above, Fey Blessing is really weak.

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Originally Posted by Hawklaser

This is the one thing about the Sch changes that has been bugging me the most, especially since your current charges are also cleared upon entering a dungeon.

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It's to get rid of pre pull waiting on AF to come back off cooldown. Was more of an issue with SMN than SCH but yeah that's why. That's also why they fixed dissipation to be in combat only.

Having SCH at 80 now, thought I would throw my thoughts into the mix. The class functions - there isn't a problem keeping people alive once you get used to the new changes. I can see what they were trying to do in giving us our own identity away from SMN and I think the new animations on Biolysis and Broil III are great, they mesh well with Chain Stratagem. That said, playing the class feels very clunky, so while you arguably can get the job done, it doesn't really feel that good to do it.

Some fix ideas the wouldn't change the way SCH currently functions, only streamline things and add some extras for those who want to do or are able to do more - without punishing those who would prefer to just heal:

1) Change the fairy back to a pet entity. It's fine if we can't target it or it's not in the party list but being unable to weave it's healing abilities during casts takes away what made SCH so fun to play before. It wasn't a necessity for beginner SCHs to do (now they are forced to anyway since the fairy cannot be on {sic} ) but it made optimizing your healing a challenging and interesting mechanic.

2) A way to dump extra Aether stacks. Energy Drain with Quickened Aetherflow was perfect for what it was - it wasn't enough to be game-breaking but it felt better to use it for the small damage increase and the ability to get your stacks back faster. It was infinitely better than standing around in lower level dungeons waiting for anything to happen. Weaving oGCDS and weighing opportunity cost is SCHs bread and butter, it feels rather neutered when we can't, or if doing so is pointless (i.e. holding stacks, or overwriting unused stacks of Aetherflow).

3) A smaller QoL change would be to make Aetherflow accessible out of combat, it's frustrating in dungeons and especially in the overworld as most of SCH healing abilites are tied to Aetherflow - if you accidentally fall, you are left to use Physick and your fairy to slowly heal yourself up whereas WHM and AST can both top up with a single button press.

4) DPS changes, IMO, are mostly fine. I'm okay if they don't give our single target dots back but perhaps adjusting the potency of Art of War to being a dot would be a better callback to SCHs roots, so it feels less like a WHM clone. Holy has Stun, it could be argued that Art of War and Gravity could have an interesting mechanic added to their moves. Please note that interesting mechanic does not mean better or more powerful than WHM.

4) Not really battle related, but when Seraph is summoned, I wish the buttons for Whispering Dawn and Fey Covenant changed to match her skills, even if they do the same thing. We have a new shiny pet, it would be nice to be able to see it reflected there as well.

I'm probably re-iterating a lot of what has already been said, but the class is important to me so if an extra voice can help, I'm happy to try.

Alright.... I've gotten SCH to 80.

Here is my feedback.

I feel like Energy Drain should be returned. If the issue was the dmg aspect then remove the ability to do dmg and just give us the mana regeneration back. I know it's possible to do considering BRD's repealing shot was also removed dmg at one point. At least it gives us something to dump Aether flow.

Also, fairy needs to show up in PT list again. Sometimes it gets lost in the crowd and I don't even know if it's actually in the boss room with me. It's really inconvenient. Especially when it's a boss with heavy mechanics and I want seraph buff to hit everyone. I always have to make sure I position her again before poping seraph because it doesn't land. so frustrating.

Another thing would be the fact that Aetherflow is no longer used outside of combat. It's again really frustrating. Why was this done again? As well as removing Eye for Eye?

What is the point of spreading Adlo when the crit doesn't spread? I feel like its quite pointless. IDK. I still spread it considering all the AOE spams for bosses but - ngh. It feels very lackluster.

Art of War?!
Incredibly useless. It wastes so much mana for little potency back. I mean its a downgrade compared to Holy and Gravity. /Sigh/

Sch feels very lackluster...

I do like what they did with dissipation. It's nice the fairy returns after it leaves now. I also really love the crit heal on hand when oh shit moments happen. I really do like some of the new heals - it was nice....However, the new aoe fairy heal doesn't really do much? Maybe if it had a Seraphim version that gave it more oomph but otherwise I don't really feel much difference with it.

MeH

I want my AoE cleanse back! I bloody loved that AoE cleanse, it always felt so good to remove an entire parties DoTs.

Also, what the guy above me said, WHY CAN'T I SPREAD MY CRITS.

One of the biggest concern I have is that they simply removed too much skills you can use during cooldown.
Bio and Aetherflow are pretty much the only two skills you can do on GCD. Everything else, even the fairy skills are now player skills.
You basically have to stand there during most of the GCDs and this is very frustrating and boring.
It's critical not to cancel casts unless if it's absolutely necessary but there are a lot of instances now where you'll have to give up on the Broil casting to prioritize casting the fairy skills quickly.
This really affects the DPS on savages(if it stays as is) where everyone's required to meet certain DPS. I hope SE have adjusted raids so that healer ain't part of the DPS checks as much.

Also MP management will be very challenging in raids with these changes. You'll have to memorize the timeline more thoroughly then ever to get the best out of your skill rotation.
But that could easily be broken if some in your PT makes mistakes and have to use the stacks for something extra in the middle. all because of this broken Aetherflow changes, SCH may not have a seat in some end contents(at least at the beginning).
Who wants to hear an excuse that you were out of the Aetherflow stacks or MPs? Your PT members simply need a healer who can heal in the right instances. No one wants to worry if the Scholar have their stacks or MP left to cast the big heals.

SE should at least consider bringing ED back in some way. Maybe remove the damage but for MP management or strictly to charge the fairy gauge.
And take the fairy skills out of player skill. Let us use the fairy skills on cooldowns.

They should probably also put SCH AF back to 20% MP.

One complaint I see that I absolutely don't agree with so far is MP management. Using Aetherflow and Lucid Dreaming every 60sec, I never had any MP issue.
I do hope they make some tweaks in the first patch. The Aetherflow out of combat is really not good for first pulls, feels very naked.
I am getting used with the pace but I still wish for one Aetherflow-consuming attack to use when we have nothing to use them on. Even low potency... just dont like wasting stacks.

I only ever really ran low during dungeon large pulls. :P

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Originally Posted by Hysterior

One complaint I see that I absolutely don't agree with so far is MP management. Using Aetherflow and Lucid Dreaming every 60sec, I never had any MP issue.
I do hope they make some tweaks in the first patch. The Aetherflow out of combat is really not good for first pulls, feels very naked.
I am getting used with the pace but I still wish for one Aetherflow-consuming attack to use when we have nothing to use them on. Even low potency... just dont like wasting stacks.

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The MP complaints I've seen are when people are mentioning Art of War the new AOE DPS spell SCH has being spammed on trash mobs in dungeons. Personally, I agree with the complaints. 800 MP is too high, they should reduce it to 600 MP like the other healers.

First, a must have setting. This will let you see the fairy name so you can see where you placed her. You will not be able to cast anything on the fairy:

Settings -> Character -> Control -> Target -> Untick "Disable targetting of pets and minions when in battle".


Feedback after a few days of 80. No Extremes yet, waiting for people to max level.

I'm happy with the Embrace nerf. There's also been an overall healing nerf due to HP scaling. I'm also happy with heals being weaker relative to the total HP of your party members. There seems to be more damage going around, but this may just be due to lack of gear. I've not seen a wall-to-wall pull on a fully geared lvl 80 tank. I have no memory of Stormblood raid wide damage to compare, so all I can say is - could use a bump in frequency to make the relatively weaker heals necessary.

I'd like Energy Drain back or an Aetherflow dump in some form. Sometimes I need all of it, but this is generally due to people getting hit left and right by mechanics in encounters they've never seen before. I expect excess Aetherflow to become more and more common over time. The lack of Energy Drain makes things a bit awkward.

And finally, I like the MP management changes. If you're consistently forgetting about Lucid, you will have problems.

Piety scaling is linear and around 22 piety for each 1 MP per tick. If you scale this to a minute, your extra piety is approximately your extra MP per minute. E.g. 440 Piety ~= 400 MP per minute. I don't expect it to be necessary in Extreme, but possibly in Savage? Who knows.

It still feels very awkward not having an offensive option to dump aether when everyone is at full health. I don't think I've ever felt I had to overheal so much just to get the most out of a end of combat stack reset whether from dissipation or AF.

Outside of that, the healing is fine, but dear god trying to use art AT ALL is just not worth the cost or effort for the damage output given with no other benefits to it.

I still have a fair bit of uptime once I learn the mechanics of a fight so what am I supposed to do now? Chain > Bio > broil + ruin II 80x as my mp allows > lucid when at 3-5k mp or stand around and just watch and dodge until I have an actual need to heal anyone at all.

Going into the dungeons first time when nothing is known is the only "challenge" available so far because it becomes a standard affair 2nd time on if you catch on fast. But after that, especially with the additional shielding available from Seraph, I'm expecting even more downtime, even in later extremes and savages unless the bosses become "use 2-7 raid damage" and "9-26 tank busters" per minute.

Piety feels really useless to me within a fight and despite doing "20-24k" on double casting broil and ruin, I don't feel like I'm contributing a whole lot to a fight offense wise.

Maybe if that seemingly cutscene only wait pose is accessible it'd showcase explicitly how I feel in a fight once its down pat, especially if the tank at least knows how to minimize their damage taken even in a bigger pull.

Ok, so noticed something wrong.

I just did my roulette and ended up in a 70 trial. my addlo seemed the same as when i was lvl 80 so i tested, just to compare the number.

As a lvl 70, level sync so no materia, my addlo were basically 9200-9400.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...921/xew5ju.png

As a lvl 80, ilvl 341 full melded.... i basically do the same !

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/a/im...053/evBw6g.png

I have 10 more level and 31 more Ilvl. My weapon have +7 magic damage. Why the hell is my addlo doing exactly the same as when i'm lvl 70 ?

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Originally Posted by LariaKirin

Settings -> Character -> Control -> Target -> Untick "Disable targetting of pets and minions when in battle".

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My hero!! How did I miss this T_T

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Originally Posted by Yomiko_Nonaka

I have 10 more level and 31 more Ilvl. My weapon have +7 magic damage. Why the hell is my addlo doing exactly the same as when i'm lvl 70 ?

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This is how the scaling works in this game. I remember in HW's launch showing that having two characters at 50 and 60 with precisely the same gear, the level 50's pet actually embraced for significantly more.

To drastically over simplify things, it's like a sliding scale that uses your item level relative to your actual character level. As you level up, the scaling gets ever worse to try and slow down the pace of stat inflation.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

This is how the scaling works in this game. I remember in HW's launch showing that having two characters at 50 and 60 with precisely the same gear, the level 50's pet actually embraced for significantly more.

To drastically over simplify things, it's like a sliding scale that uses your item level relative to your actual character level. As you level up, the scaling gets ever worse to try and slow down the pace of stat inflation.

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So my lvl 70/400 gear should last till 80 w/o major repercussions?

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Originally Posted by Naychan

So my lvl 70/400 gear should last till 80 w/o major repercussions?

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If you think that's weird, just wait until ilvl jumps up towards the end of the expansion. The other healers will be complaining again that our fairy heals for too much, it's always been like this. On release of an expac our fairies embrace is basically garbage and by the end of the expansion the fairy can almost solo heal entire dungeons with just embrace.

So just to make sure I have this straight, due to piss poor design healers took a nerf so they would not be OP at the start of the new expansion but we should be back to where we were before the next one. Oh course minus any dps that would be engaging and our mitigation abilities. They could have just made the mobs hit a lot harder if the wanted us to heal more. Now I have 19 abilities between me and my fairy at lvl 80 to choose from and a more boring rotation then a Pokémon at level 5. Does that all sound about right?

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Originally Posted by Ftail

If you think that's weird, just wait until ilvl jumps up towards the end of the expansion. The other healers will be complaining again that our fairy heals for too much, it's always been like this. On release of an expac our fairies embrace is basically garbage and by the end of the expansion the fairy can almost solo heal entire dungeons with just embrace.

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Even with them knocking her down 50 potency on her new spaz heal?

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Originally Posted by EmeraldDawn

Does sacred ground have health regeneration?

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Sacred Soil does have a regen tick now, yes. But only as a trait at higher levels. Lower level it's just a barrier.