Giving Scholar a Chance in Stormblood

A few changes that would make SCH go from a downgrade to an upgrade, while still losing many of the skills cut in stormblood.

Remove Ruin mastery that turns ruin into Broil. Instead:

Disastrous Ruin- Ruin's mp cost raises to 1.33 times that of Broil II. 80 Potency AOE within 8 yalms of the target. 20% chance your next ruin will be instant cast.

Shadowflare- Places an Aoe at a given area dealing 25 potency a second over 30 seconds. There is a 15% chance that each bio/bio ii or miasma ii tick will reset the timer. Can only be reset once every 15 seconds. While already active Shadowflare becomes a 250 potency aoe around the target, instead of a placeable field. Bane will 100% reset the cd. CD of 60 seconds.

Dissipation- Healing spells increased by 20%. Lustrate, Indomitability, Sacred Soil, Excogitation, Bane and Energy Drain have their potency increased by 20%. You gain III aetherflow stacks. If used while Fey union is tethered to a target, the target has 20% of their mp,TP and hp restored, a barrier of 20% of their is added to the target. Will overide any Galvanize or Nocturnal Benefic/Helios. Cannot be overidden, except by Galvanize or Nocturnal Aspected Benefic/Helios of a higher potency. Successfully using Summon or Summon II removes the effect of Dissipation. Duration 30 seconds. Recast time of 180 seconds.

Virus- Removes the effect of Addle. Target has 15% reduced attributes for 10 seconds.

TRAIT-Brilliant Broil II (instead of just broil to broil ii upgrade)- Embrace has a 20% chance of causing your next broil II to be instant cast. Upgrades Broil to Broil II. (Opening more opportunity to weave.) Duration: 20 seconds.

Deployment tactics. spreads galvanize onto nearby party members and resets its duration. If used on an enemy, spreads Virus to surrounding enemies and resets its duration. Eye for an Eye spreading has been removed since it is a role skill.


Fey union- When used with eos, damage taken is reduced by 10% on top of a ~350 potency, realword healer potency every 3 seconds. IF selene is attached, damage done is increased by 5%, spell based healing received is increased by 50% (Selene will not heal the target.)


If you feel this is overpowered, take a good long look at AST.
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Current Changes to SCH:

Bio removed.
Aero removed.
Bane nerfed from the removal of Bio and diminishing returns.
Blizzard II removed.
Miasma II removed.
Shadowflare removed from the GCD on a 60 second cd.
Spell speed pet action proc removed.
Virus removed.
Eye for an Eye placed as a role skill.

Just to add a few things to current changes:
Shadowflare is 15s uptime not 30s as previously thought. Tooltips are wrong you can see it in the ingame footage as a 15s buff, specifically the mister happy one.
Aether cut in half to 10%, probably forcing us to take lucid.
Embrace 50 points less potent.

Shadow flare only half the update? Seriously, this is getting disgusting. The nerfs are way too much.

I don't really agree with the nerfs not being needed, though. Wait to see how it plays first.

The shadowflare idea is pretty interesting although I'm not sure bane auto resetting it would be the best idea as it's going to put it straight back into a fixed rotation for aoeing again.

2 dots, Shadowflare, bane, shadowflare, nuke for 15 seconds. Even with 2 targets it's going to proc quickly without the need for the auto proc on bane imo.

Good stuff tho, I like it <3

I'd say the devs are intent on making us rely on the fairy to supplement/complement what healing output scholars have been doing. That remains unchanged.

I think the other main thing with the aoes nerfs across the role board is slowing down speed runs in dungeons to make them more "challenging". (Sees how potent aoes melt the living hell out of trash mobs in pretty much any dungeon.)


That being said, great ideas you got there Rawrz.

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Originally Posted by RokkuEkkusu

I'd say the devs are intent on making us rely on the fairy to supplement/complement what healing output scholars have been doing. That remains unchanged.

I think the other main thing with the aoes nerfs across the role board is slowing down speed runs in dungeons to make them more "challenging". (Sees how potent aoes melt the living hell out of trash mobs in pretty much any dungeon.)


That being said, great ideas you got there Rawrz.

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If there were nerfs to the other healers aoe I would agree with you. Both others got buffs. Assize got 30s off of its cd astro got its own version of assize, both unaffected by number of mobs. Aero 3 unaffected by number of mobs. Holy and gravity retain the 10% reduction per mob that they currently have so they're essentially untouched and just as powerful as now.

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Originally Posted by MsTanya

If there were nerfs to the other healers aoe I would agree with you. Both others got buffs. Assize got 30s off of its cd astro got its own version of assize, both unaffected by number of mobs. Aero 3 unaffected by number of mobs. Holy and gravity retain the 10% reduction per mob that they currently have so they're essentially untouched and just as powerful as now.

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And WHM got thin air, which basically means free holy spam.

I don't like RNG proc mechanics even in the best of times, so I'd rather just have shadowflare off a 60 cooldown. Additionally it can't renew itself if the tank moves things off it or if it's placed badly. Also I don't like the idea of changing it to targetting an enemy. While it's instant now making this much less of an issue, one of the best things about Shadowflare is being able to place it in an area in anticipation of where enemies will be. More than utility, dropping it where the boss will be pulled before the charge-in is just simple fun, and I'd hate to lose even the small bit of that.

Fairies in general still need attention but they don't get it since they're not a priority; still it's sad that this is the 2nd expansion without either fairy learning a 5th move, cementing their role as Pokemon forever. Spreading Virus is a no, that just turns deployment into Bane for a debuff, and we don't even have that anymore because it's a design decision to remove all enemy debuffs from healers across the board (they're solely in the camp of DPS now, which is just the weirdest design decision ever and the less I say about it the cleaner my dialog).

I am still in favor of something like Exterminate, a move that was iconic to Bravely Default's Arcanist class, that deals spike damage to poisoned targets. We already see the mechanic in Fester, but as the adage goes the "one who is most aware of the many ways to destroy your body is your doctor", so an AoE fester on a similar cooldown to indomitability would be both kind of fun and fit class design standards.

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Originally Posted by LegoTechnic

Spreading Virus is a no, that just turns deployment into Bane for a debuff, and we don't even have that anymore because it's a design decision to remove all enemy debuffs from healers across the board (they're solely in the camp of DPS now, which is just the weirdest design decision ever and the less I say about it the cleaner my dialog).

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It would also reset the duration of Virus. It would be one of those skills that offers a choice. In my opinion those are the best kind.

A fester painflare would be amazing, if they weren't already just deleting skills on a rampage.

What I've always wanted to see is Selene getting a magic vuln up on a single target for 8 seconds every 90, call it fey charm and Eos getting a buff that she would place on a single target that would place a shield for 50% of the next spell based healing received. Call it Fey Memento.

Sadly with WHM being so bad right now, im pretty sure they wont even touch SCH anymore just to improve WHM...

Dissipation -Pretty surprised no changes happened here, wasnt much of a skill before... An easy minor fix, just give it an auto re-summon much like Smn's Summon Bahamut, their original summon returns once Bahamut is done, Sch's Dissipation should really have this as well...
Aetherpact/Fay Union -I definitely wanted a single target focus for fairy, but... was hoping for a simple pet command, as a full on skill this is pretty underwhelming. It really needs something else along with the heal, why not add a heal crit rate buff to target as well, it could also change depending on the fairy out, something like a increase heal crit chance for Eos, and maybe a status immunity buff or a far more potent single target fey wind buff for Selene.

I love you and want to have your scholarly children

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Originally Posted by Rawrz

A few changes that would make SCH go from a downgrade to an upgrade, while still losing many of the skills cut in stormblood.
...
If you feel this is overpowered, take a good long look at AST.
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Current Changes to SCH:

Bio removed.
Aero removed.
Bane nerfed from the removal of Bio and diminishing returns.
Blizzard II removed.
Miasma II removed.
Shadowflare removed from the GCD on a 60 second cd.
Spell speed pet action proc removed.
Virus removed.
Eye for an Eye placed as a role skill.

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To be completely fair, there is no way to know that this is actually a downgrade. One of the things people complained/worried about when SB was just a rumor, was bar bloat (esp true for SCH). They cant let SCH keep all of its skills and reduce bar bloat at the same time. You could say "SCH lost Bio, what a nerf!!!!" but ultimately so long as the dps ratio between healers stays roughly the same (SCH is currently at bottom anyway), it wont upset balance. If the ratios stay the same, this is actually a buff, as you will be able to achieve similar results with fewer skill activations. Potencies havent been finalized. It's a little early to sound the alarms. SCH also appears to be at 0 risk of losing its raid spot.

SCH has had the lowest paper dps of the healers in heavensward... yet continues to be the dps'er. You are not going to be losing your dps/off-healer role as you arent there strictly because of your paper dps.

to reply to the dude above me

its not just the dps that scholars took a hit on. their fairy does less healing now also when you use the new fey union skill which tether it to one person the fairy can't use any skills anymore to help the sch out, we get less mana from our mana resource skill, they give us more skills that require us to chose which to use our aetherflow stacks on and thats freaking stupid, it would be alright if it gave us 4 aetherflow instead of three.
the only real good skill sch gets is chain stratgem and even that is like mediocre at best
astro shields are freaking better then sch's crit adlo. like right now on paper you might as well take 2 astros into raids if everything is going to be this

scholar got stratagem which is a multiplicative 20% battle litany. even if schs single target dps took a hit with the removal of bio (not aero because broil ii does more than aero so its pointless to use at this point), raids are still going to want a scholar because of stratagem and because the fairy lets healers dps more.

in fact, i wouldnt say its single target dps got nerfed at all. broil ii's potency more than compensates for the loss of bio

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Originally Posted by QooEr

scholar got stratagem which is a multiplicative 20% battle litany.

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Is this confirmed? Last I saw, the theory crafters were sweating it that it might be additive? I suspect we just won't know on this one till early access. Fingers crossed it doesn't turn out to be as misleading as 2.0's Fey Wind/Glow ;)

But ya, SCHs single target dps should be there or thereabouts, it's their AoE that's the problem really.

I want it to be multiplicative, because WHM will stop to bring this skill along Balance when they said they have no utility.
Without Chain Stratagem (additive theory), SCH is nothing.
But will see with the patch notes.

its multiplicative just for the fact its a debuff on the boss and not a buff on party members

If chain strategem is multiplicative it'd be very weak. It'd make a 10% crit chance a 12% crit chance which would be hardly noticable, if it's additive it makes a 10% crit chance a 30% crit chance.
With a x1.5 crit modifier, an additive 20% crit chance buff makes it equivalent to an AoE balance.

As stated above, just the fact that its a boss debuff rather than a buff to party members kind of indicates its a multiplicative effect. You'll see maybe 5% crit increase at max gear, much much less at starting values if they do what they did in SB that they did in HW and reset our crit rates due to a level increase and a reworked formula.

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Originally Posted by MsTanya

As stated above, just the fact that its a boss debuff rather than a buff to party members kind of indicates its a multiplicative effect. You'll see maybe 5% crit increase at max gear, much much less at starting values if they do what they did in SB that they did in HW and reset our crit rates due to a level increase and a reworked formula.

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How does that figure?

From a coding perspective, there's no reason on earth you couldn't make a buff additive or multiplicative with a debuff or vice versa.

Ok lets use logic then. Why on earth would they give us a more powerful version of litany on a shorter cooldown? Logic would dictate such a powerful buff would be on at least an equal cooldown to that of litany, this game is usually pretty good at cooldown duration reflecting the power of the ability its tied to.

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Originally Posted by MsTanya

Ok lets use logic then. Why on earth would they give us a more powerful version of litany on a shorter cooldown? Logic would dictate such a powerful buff would be on at least an equal cooldown to that of litany, this game is usually pretty good at cooldown duration reflecting the power of the ability its tied to.

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Chain Stratagam is on a single target, Battle Litany is also legit on multiple targets for burst and this gives much higher burst. In combination with our huge nerf to our AoE, it would make sense.

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Originally Posted by MsTanya

Ok lets use logic then. Why on earth would they give us a more powerful version of litany on a shorter cooldown? Logic would dictate such a powerful buff would be on at least an equal cooldown to that of litany, this game is usually pretty good at cooldown duration reflecting the power of the ability its tied to.

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I wasn't arguing one way or the other about whether it's additive or multiplicative, simply that it being a debuff in no way tells you which it will be.

Am I the only one who just isn't worried at all?

If anything I'm excited, scholar has played exactly the same while being mandatory in all groups since they were introduced into the game basically. They're finally going to be a bit different, I think it will be refreshing even if they are nerfed a bit.

I mean, really, what's the worst that can happen? That groups start using the white mage and noct AST setup instead of a scholar? I find that hard to believe unless they have no other option heh.

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Originally Posted by Starflake

Chain Stratagam is on a single target, Battle Litany is also legit on multiple targets for burst and this gives much higher burst. In combination with our huge nerf to our AoE, it would make sense.

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That would be broken af in raid content though, it has nothing to do with the aoe nerf...that's another can of worms altogether lol

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Originally Posted by Menae

I wasn't arguing one way or the other about whether it's additive or multiplicative, simply that it being a debuff in no way tells you which it will be.

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Since its on enemy instead of on ally it can't be additive as it isn't adding to anyone's crit rate. It even says the enemy is 20% more likely to take a critical hit, which is x 0.2 of crit rate.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

Am I the only one who just isn't worried at all?

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They will still be highly capable raid healers, I don't doubt that for a second. My concern is that these changes make their personal DPS mechanics even shallower than WHM/AST.

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Originally Posted by AstroZombie

Since its on enemy instead of on ally it can't be additive as it isn't adding to anyone's crit rate. It even says the enemy is 20% more likely to take a critical hit, which is x 0.2 of crit rate.

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It's not that well worded and I guess we'll have to see after they either clarify the tooltip or we're able to test it out when 4.0 launches.

To put it simply if it works as some are suggesting then a 30% crit rate (30/100 chance of crit) would turn into a 37.5% crit rate (30/80 chance of crit).

Don't forget one thing.

All buff have been spreaded on every classes.
Bard can now increase critical rate for a small amount too.

So Chain Stratagem isn't that weak, it just has a synergy with the others skills.
If it was a 20% critical rate increase, it would be too much.
Imagine a monk with internal release, litany, chain stratagem and bards song (i don't remember if others classes can increase critical)...

So that's why. Alone it looks weak indeed, but with the others' buff, it adds a little interesting boost.a

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

They will still be highly capable raid healers, I don't doubt that for a second. My concern is that these changes make their personal DPS mechanics even shallower than WHM/AST.

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I find it really hard to believe that we will ever be shallower than the class that places 2 dots and then presses one button over and over in literally every situation.

At worst we'd be on par. That's still pretty bad mind you, but AST's DPS rotation has always left me unimpressed lol.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

I find it really hard to believe that we will ever be shallower than the class that places 2 dots and then presses one button over and over in literally every situation.

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Rather, that's exactly what SCH is turning into if the media builds are to be believed.

This puts WHM, SCH and AST on a fairly even footing as far as single target stuff goes. That's not the issue I'm referring to though, the problem is that where the jobs previously branched off on their own ways for AoE, now you've got WHM and AST pretty much as they are (Weighing up efficient multi dotting vs just going gung ho with holy/gravity as well as skewing assize/CO usage to maximise that) whilst SCH has pretty much zero options outside of holding onto Shadowflare if you've got a decent multi target pull coming up. I'd say that's somewhat shallower if it's possible =/

With these changes it barely matters if there's one target or 10, you're going to be doing the same thing with a single oGCD to separate it. SCH is practically going to play like a pre gravity AST in dungeons. That's not acceptable at the end game imo.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

Rather, that's exactly what SCH is turning into if the media builds are to be believed.

This puts WHM, SCH and AST on a fairly even footing as far as single target stuff goes. That's not the issue I'm referring to though, the problem is that where the jobs previously branched off on their own ways for AoE, now you've got WHM and AST pretty much as they are (Weighing up efficient multi dotting vs just going gung ho with holy/gravity as well as skewing assize/CO usage to maximise that) whilst SCH has pretty much zero options outside of holding onto Shadowflare if you've got a decent multi target pull coming up. I'd say that's somewhat shallower if it's possible =/

With these changes it barely matters if there's one target or 10, you're going to be doing the same thing with a single oGCD to separate it. SCH is practically going to play like a pre gravity AST in dungeons. That's not acceptable at the end game imo.

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Potentially. I'm hoping that they have made cc more important in the game so everything doesn't remain mass aoe pul after pull. I'd like to see the return of normal pulls with mechanics to deal intermixed with some aoe pulls to give a bit of variety. Guess time will tell. If they keep to the aoe everything except bosses then I do wonder about scholar aoe. Seems really lack luster.

That'd be a dream if they did yeah, around late beta and very early release it was generally more efficient to just sleep everything and chew up the mobs one by one in the early dungeons. Timing and keeping a tabs on those sleeps was pretty good fun, esp if the tank wasn't keeping ontop of agro in the process!

Here's hoping for a savage mode expert roulette <3