SCH needs a tutoring buddy
I’ve been at it since 2.0 and these are just my thoughts on 5.0 SCH. I figure might as well add my voice to the chorus and beat the drum a little as well. And while I'm only level 75 and pushing my way through MSQ with this job, I do my homework and always level all the jobs to make sure I have a good understanding of what each job is able to bring to a party. With SCH, it just feels...off now, kinda tilted and not balanced.
Healing POWER and resources:
SCH had a kit that used to really flow well together, which now just isn't the same. We have heals for days now...but nothing that really needs that much power. I mean I could hit Whispering Dawn and let it top people up, but I have extra Aetherflow and it’s coming off cool down so might as well pop Indom.
There’s no logical order or priority to using heals on SCH anymore. I used to use Whispering Dawn while DPSing, Indom if more damage control was needed, Succor, Succor/Emergency Tactics if even more. Same thing with individual heals: I used to let Embrace handle things, then Fey Union, Excog, pop a Lustrate if needed, then Adlo, Adlo/Emergency Tactics.
Also healing buffs still don’t work with healing abilities, so that Fey Illumination and Dissipation healing buff means next to nothing unless you’re Physic/Adlo/Succor spamming. It doesn’t work for Lustrate/Excog/Indom…that’s half of SCH’s healing kit. Even the Fairy’s kit is mostly healing abilities except Embrace (or Seraphic Veil).
The change to Adlo was also kinda wonky as the Galvanize status that we use to deploy off of gets used up before the new Catalyze gets used if you got a Critlo…so trying to deploy off it is more annoying than needed and not well thought through.
Aetherflow only in battle doesn't feel right. I hate going in on a pull and not having it ready to go before hand. It kind of feels like a punishment in fact. You basically have to cast your dot on a mob to get into battle asap so you can open the resource you need to heal with. Then there’s fact that you can still hold Aetherflow outside of battle anyway if you pop Aetherflow or have some left before the battle ends…great game design right there.
The lack of Energy Drain (or some form of Aetherflow dump) makes me feel wasteful to just be hitting Aetherflow for more mp and I hate over healing with an Aetherflow abilities like Lustrate/Indom/Excog/Sacred Soil after a tiny amount of damage just to build up the gauge/dump a stack before Aetherflow comes off cool down. Use it or lose it is not fun.
Speaking of losing, losing the trait for the 45 sec Aetherflow also feels like it takes forever to fill the gauge up anyway unless you’re just tossing out the over heals.
This is more of a general thing…but why was the hate reduction on Lucid Dreaming removed exactly? I’ve already had trials where I had hate from minimal heals and couldn’t get rid of it. I also kind of hate that I can't have the fairy pull hate now and tank for me if needed.
MP costs…
SCH has a bunch of spells that cost obscene mp for little reason. The Art of War 150 potency for example will drain your MP down like crazy with its 800mp cost if you’re using it in dungeons to speed up the run. Have to dodge AoEs from enemies to really get in there. It doesn’t even have a stun like WHMs Holy which is 140 potency for only 600mp and close range. WHM also have so many more mp recovery tools like Thin Air and Assize for sustained damage. Art of War doesn’t even have a dot like Miasma II did…just the same close range instant cast. Then AST has Gravity for 700mp at 130 potency and it’s castable from a distance. I'm not saying bring those jobs down either...I'm just asking for SCH to be raised up.
I mean Succor costs 1300mp Cure Potency of 180 with a shield equaling 125% of the healed amount. AST has Aspected Helios for 1100mp Cure Potency of 100 with a shield equaling 250% of the amount healed.
Adlo is 900mp and Cure Potency of 300 with a shield equaling 125% of the restored damage with an extra shield at 125% if the Adlo crits. AST has Aspected Benefic at 500mp with a potency of 200 with a shield equaling 250% of the amount healed. On paper, it's kinda ok...until you realize SCH won't always get that Critlo (new ability aside) and that our mp cost is nearly twice that of AST's version.
Now this brings us to the other big hot topic: DPS
The DPS skill loss really hurt. I mean, I've been playing SCH awhile now and we have seen our skills pruned down more and more. Cleric Stance, Thunder for Blizzard 2 (which I was ok with as it gave us a spammable AoE for once), Aero, Bio, Bio II, Miasma, Miasma II, Bane, Energy Drain, Ruin II, Shadow Flare. And no this isn’t about whether or not Healers should DPS/Heal…this is about having fun with your play style. For me…hitting a dot and then the same nuke (Broil III or Art of War) over and over isn’t fun. That’s pretty much the whole DPS kit for healers (except AST and WHM who also have access to even more DPS/heal abilities like Earthly Star for AST and WHM has Assize/Afflatus Misery). If you like to take it easier and not push DPS as that's cool / have fun playing your way, but why should those who do like to help DPS in a DPS game focused on DPS be denied.
In the end, yeah I miss stance dancing for more damage. Popping out of it to Lustrate, then back at it because a dead enemy does no damage I have to heal. In my perfect world, Cleric Stance could just be a damage up and healing down toggle again based on Mind this time...maybe give it some SCH flair like "Attack Stratagem" and let us DPS+Excog away in safety. Again, it wouldn’t be mandatory to do damage if you're not comfy with it, but gives the job a higher skill ceiling to reach for and for those players who want to push their own limits a chance to grow.
Or you know...if you really, really don't want to give us dps skills back, then give us a Nymian Marine to summon since they worked so closely together or a little stabby Tonberry buddy. That would be cool too.
If we aren't going to have a nice dps kit anymore, then give Selene some bite, let her be more of a DPS booster or attack pet for when we don’t need the extra heals. I mean...SCH auto attack is a book smack that barely gets used. Why not have Selene be an "Auto Attack" for SCH. When killing things out in the open world it’s basically mandatory to have your Chocobo out if you want to kill things with any kind of speed. Solo fights…man those drag on now…
Now about the fairy changes…
No more damage to fairy and re-summoning it (Aurum Vale and boss cleaves while tethered...). That’s cool.
Not cool. No more deploying Adlo off fairy.
Then there's not being able to manually target players with Embrace. I used to be able to direct the fairy to heal NPCs (squadrons) and other people outside my party if needed like in a 24 man raid. Controlling the pet was part of what made SCH fun. AST has cards to manage and SCH had a pet to work with. Now it's just SCH with a shadow for a pet. I mean regens on AST and WHM tic harder now than the fairy's Embrace spell. True, it's a "free" constant heal on SCH and I guess at this point you get what you pay for.
Also not cool. Your hotbar abilities like Whispering Dawn don't tell you what they actually do in the tooltip…you have to look into the actions tab and scroll down.
All the fancy white wings of the new fairy came at the cost of healing power on the old ones. Honestly, it looks like they chopped off a chunk of healing power from Eos/Selene and gave it back temporarily in the form of Seraph as if it was new.
I don't like not seeing the fairy status on the party screen. I know the gauge does kinda turn grey while the fairy isn't summoned, but it's not where I'm used to seeing the fairy status. There are times when I place Eos and take care of other things going on, but then we move on and Eos doesn't auto return to me after a certain distance between us (this would be a nice QoL change fyi). I keep looking at the party list now and having moments of "is she here or not..." Plus it makes me feel a little lonely...Party of 1, Party of 1 your table is ready. I even turned the pets name on again under the HUD settings because of this change and it barely helps to keep track of the fairy.
I hate that I can't cast fairy spells and my own spells at the same time anymore. The Fairy was finally listening to us and using skills on demand (only Embrace was still a cast), but now...I can't be casting Adlo/Broil spamming and asking Eos to use Whispering Dawn at the same time. Or use Succor and Fey Covenant (now just a weaker version baked into Fey Illumination *See below loss of Fairy skills below for more)
The general loss of Fairy spells/skills...well...really poor Selene in general. Her silence, Silent Dusk, was a good back up for when a DPS or tank forgot to use theirs. Fey Caress, the AoE cleanse was useful for certain raids or trials to fix mess ups. Fey Wind...was just a weaker Fey Light and Fey Glow meshed together, but at least it was there. The fact that Selene is now just a skin is just salt in the wound.
In Closing:
Again, these are just my thoughts on a job I love and played for the last 6 years. The treatment healers received this expansion just doesn't feel well planned or thought out. Some have fared better than others and that's great. Some are happy with the current healer builds, but I'm not. I like healing and supporting my party, but there comes a point when the party doesn't need as much heals or support. There's some great ideas and improvements, but also a lot of half-baked stuff that needs more time in the oven.