Arcanist, summoner and scholar.

I am someone who is interested in both summoner and scholar. Unfortunately the way it is setup you can only seem to really have one of them. The base class in this respect looks like it favours summoner. Having only one cure and INT traits but no mind traits.

Then the fact you can only put your attributes in to a stat for one job without gimping your output on both makes it push it even further so you have to choose one. The only way around this problem is to use one of those 10k GC seal attribute resets. But long term I don't think this is a viable option.

So I would like to consider and hear some ideas as to how we could get round this problem so that you can play both summoner and scholar effectively.

My initial thought was cleric's stance is the key to this problem. Giving you the ability to swap your INT and MND stats and available on scholar, meaning you could max your INT stat and simply cleric's stance when playing scholar to swap your max INT to max MND. But it was pointed out to me that cleric's stance has a -20% cure potency on it, which completely defeats the purpose I was thinking of using it for.

My next thought was, what if they gave arcanist and summoner access to cleric's stance? Then arcanists could put all their attributes into MND to buff scholar and when playing arcanist or summoner they could use cleric's stance to swap their INT and MND stats. Seeing as they would be using the stance for damage the -cure potency wouldn't hurt them. But then I remembered the problem of the fact that Arcanist has INT traits, which would then get swapped to MND rather than staying as INT. So Arcanist and summoner would lose damage, again, defeating the point.

My final thought was to give arcanist it's own version of cleric's stance, priest's stance. It would have the same effect as cleric's stance but instead of lowering cure potency it could lower damage potency. So arcanists could max out their INT, then when playing scholar they could use priest's stance to swap their INT to MND and lower their damage dealt. Perhaps half potency of all damage? This is the idea I'm currently on now which I can't see any problems with other than it being a complete rip off of cleric's stance. So I brought it to the forums to hear your thoughts on the matter.

I don't care to hear any thoughts on SMN and SCH should not both be playable for this reason or that. I want to play both classes because summoner and scholar are 2 of my favourite Mage classes in FF history and I don't want to have to pick between them. My mind is set on both being playable so any talk of having to pick between one or the other for whatever reason will fall on deaf ears.

Put all your stat points into MND. The damage increase from 30 INT is so tiny that no one would ever say you were not playing "efficiently" because you have 30 in MND instead. The 30 MND for SCH and even for SMN support healing is much more noticeable.

If you gave one of your abilities that switch stats it still wouldn't matter as max 30 points in MND will NEVER give you more MND than INT when you switch to SMN so you if you switch your stats you would actually be giving yourself more MND than INT on SMN and depending on math calculations that I am not going to even try to do the 10% damage increase might not even cover your now lower INT stat.

If you max out INT and switch to SCH your MND is still going to be higher so if you swap you yet again are gimping your main stat.

I play both, love both, and do not get any gruff for not playing efficiently on SMN and I have max MND for SCH.

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Originally Posted by Maku

If you gave one of your abilities that switch stats it still wouldn't matter as max 30 points in MND will NEVER give you more MND than INT when you switch to SMN so you if you switch your stats you would actually be giving yourself more MND than INT on SMN and depending on math calculations that I am not going to even try to do the 10% damage increase might not even cover your now lower INT stat.

If you max out INT and switch to SCH your MND is still going to be higher so if you swap you yet again are gimping your main stat.

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I'm not sure if this is what you're referring to but you're right, I didn't consider the fact that sch uses MND gear still and is pretty much set like that now. So a swap ability wouldn't work anymore unless they could make it so it only effects the stat before gear but after attributes and traits.

If you mean that naturally before gear SCH has more MND than INT even with max INT attributes and the arcanist traits. Then I wasn't aware of that. My arcanist is only level 19 so I haven't unlocked the jobs yet.

I did mean with gear but now I am interested to see if it is still higher without gear which I will check when I get home from work. Either way go all MND for the time being till they give us a way to "maximize" both (which I don't see them doing ever).

Maku basically covered it. I play both classes, and bother are geared well (Sch relic +1, SMN relic and has allagan circlet)

I went full Mind, and my SMN still does a shit ton of dmg.

Ok well thanks for the advice, I'll do max MND and just keep hoping they do something to let us max both classes.

I always have blm if there's ever a time where max INT will really make a difference.

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Originally Posted by Cabalabob

If you mean that naturally before gear SCH has more MND than INT even with max INT attributes and the arcanist traits. Then I wasn't aware of that. My arcanist is only level 19 so I haven't unlocked the jobs yet.

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The Scholar soul stone gives you a monumental boost in MND to bridge the gap between ACN and CNJ and is why SCH is able to be an effective healer. It's a much, much larger boost in stats than every other job. Don't forget that while you only get +INT traits, your healing potency increases as you level up with the Maim and Mend trait, which boosts both damage and healing spells.

Anyways, as you get higher level gear the stat points will mean less and less so don't stress too much about it.

What they could do is just give smn/sch two separate attribute bonus sections. Ie. you unlock SMN and level it while putting points into INT (that skill allocation is saved to SMN). Then you unlock SCH and put in MND instead (again attribute bonus is saved just to SCH job). I just unlocked SCH last night (I want both WHM and SCH) and I re-allocated into MND bonus. I don't intend to play too much on SMN so I don't mind so much (I'm a healer at heart), but maybe this idea could work if it's a matter of "fixing" it. I don't think SE really gave it much thought when designing these two jobs to branch off of one class. Good thing this game seems to be more gear dependent.

You could just throw the 30 points into Vitality, claim it's for turn 5/PvP, and call it a day.

Otherwise get used to farming GC seals.

Or do half and half?