What if Scholar became oriented around movement instead?

I was talking with some FC-mates about Scholar, and we started tossing around an idea, somewhat inspired by the in-combat Peloton they're getting.

When I started Scholar, I wanted to execute abilities like the Miqote I can't remember, where I felt more like a commander or a field marshal. Now that there's the Peloton, what if they took that even further? What if Scholar's role got some of that battlefield commander identity back with buffs that revolve around positionals and movement?

I know positionals are on their way out for DPS, but that opens the door to bring them to Scholar as their defining characteristic. Flank buffs for DPS on positionals. Damage reduction for tanks in front. Buffs that increase damage the longer someone stays rooted in place to benefit the ranged damage dealers.

Couple that with something like wards that are short-term, seconds-long buffs that proc a heal on hit, for example, and that would go a long way, I think, to cleaning up the Scholar concept and returning it to the strategic focus it had back in the day.

That would be hilarious, and work with the glams in the most meta smashing way, I kind of love the idea.

Sure if it means they get a dash themselves why not. Also the positionals you're proposing are FFXI Geomancer properties, they've shown how they wanna unshackle themselves from lore (SMN and AST lore ignoring actions they've taken recently) so GEO might be back on the menu and they might want to keep positional nuking as something for XIV GEO as well. Thats the only road bump I can foresee in a vacuum.

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Originally Posted by Alpheus

Sure if it means they get a dash themselves why not. Also the positionals you're proposing are FFXI Geomancer properties, they've shown how they wanna unshackle themselves from lore (SMN and AST lore ignoring actions they've taken recently) so GEO might be back on the menu and they might want to keep positional nuking as something for XIV GEO as well. Thats the only road bump I can foresee in a vacuum.

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I stopped following FFXI before they added Geomancer but I would hate that for GEO in this game. They should be tanks that use the elemental abilities to enhance defense and offense and inflict buffs/debuffs. I would prefer they were support classes, but FFXIV and modern MMOs have no interest in dedicated support classes.

Same i enjoy support roles even pure support roles cuz it let's you be a field commander as you mentioned previously, but if GEO is gonna be a thing in XIV it'll probably just take over WHM's prior elements and SMN's DoTs and rez (SMN rez is defintely getting axed in 7.0). But since Reaper seems to be melee DNC with how some of it support is shaping up (in terms of the vibe I'm getting from the Job actions trailer and I could be dead wrong on that count), GEO might just be a RDM-esque DPS where they have some support tools yes but mostly a DPS