Emergency Tactics is great, but...

So the recent buff to ET cooldown has been great for scholars, giving us the ability to output raw healing when appropriate. The biggest issue I have with it right now is that it's costing SCH far too much in terms of time.

ET pretty much adds .5-.75s of animation delay to every single succor/adlo, and it really adds up. To add on top of that SCH has only 1 "free" oGCD action in Bio.

This means pretty much every emergency tactics is a ~30% nerf in terms of HPS/DPS when using it to succor an aoe. You actually want to use it as little as possible, because that time you spend prepping an ET could have been used to sneak in another broil.

I think ET needs some sort of effect added to it to make it worth using. As it is now there's no point in ever using ET unless you know for sure there's not going to be any incoming damage for the shield to mitigate.


Adding some sort of guaranteed effect like "increases the potency of the next heal by 20%" would pretty much solve the DPS/HPS issues scholar has in current savage content, IMO, as well as giving a reason to use it every 20s.

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Originally Posted by Dregenfox

ET pretty much adds .5-.75s of animation delay to every single succor/adlo, and it really adds up. To add on top of that SCH has only 1 "free" oGCD action in Bio.

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There's also miasma 2 and ruin 2.

I suppose your skill bard are already cramped and something really demanding to do, but that's how you would want your SCH to be optimised. Also, watch out for miasma 2 MP cost if you want to go down that road.
And you do want to use that spell the leats you can, as also cost with a heavy MP cost behind. The fact that it makes you lose DPS doesn't matter for progression, I think this where you want to cast it.

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Originally Posted by Vyriah

There's also miasma 2 and ruin 2.

I suppose your skill bard are already cramped and something really demanding to do, but that's how you would want your SCH to be optimised. Also, watch out for miasma 2 MP cost if you want to go down that road.
And you do want to use that spell the leats you can, as also cost with a heavy MP cost behind. The fact that it makes you lose DPS doesn't matter for progression, I think this where you want to cast it.

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Ruin 2 is even worse. You lose 130 potency by using ruin 2 over broil, over delaying broil by .75s which is only a loss of 69 potency. Ruin 2 doesn't apply to scholars. Summoners use ruin 2 when weaving because ruin 3 drains too much mana and is only +50 potency, compared to scholar who is giving up a cheap, sustainable 230 pot nuke.

You can't just look at a skill, see it has no cast time, and think you can weave it in whenever you want. For optimal play SCH is not using miasma II or ruin II, which leaves only bio and the .5s in between adlo (which SCH also is trying to minimize). The times where you need to adlo + ET + succor are few and far between, and you're still losing .25s.

Progression is the worst time to use ET because in savage you're getting an incoming AOE in the next 30 seconds more often than not, and you can't afford to lose 30% of your aoe HPS on something that will do essentially nothing half of the time.

I'm not sure what to answer.

Yeah, ruin 2 is pretty bad but it's still an instant casted spell, if you're moving away from a target it's the only weave option available. Though I'm not sure about the sanity of those who actually do this. It can get somehow a little worth you use energy drain on something else on it. And it doesn't cost a lot of mana
Miasma 2 on the other hand is good. It 100 potency on hit et 100 potency over 12 sec, there's no reason to use it when you want to cast an instant and bio 2 is already up. I'm not sure why you would want to consider weaving with addlo but not that.

And ET is now 20 sec CD. And it's basically one of the few thing you can fire if your co-heal can't save life. Not sure why you wouldn't use that on prog'. It seems you're talking without taking 4.06 changes into consideration.

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Originally Posted by Vyriah

I'm not sure what to answer.

Yeah, ruin 2 is pretty bad but it's still an instant casted spell, if you're moving away from a target it's the only weave option available. Though I'm not sure about the sanity of those who actually do this. It can get somehow a little worth you use energy drain on something else on it. And it doesn't cost a lot of mana
Miasma 2 on the other hand is good. It 100 potency on hit et 100 potency over 12 sec, there's no reason to use it when you want to cast an instant and bio 2 is already up. I'm not sure why you would want to consider weaving with addlo but not that.

And ET is now 20 sec CD. And it's basically one of the few thing you can fire if your co-heal can't save life. Not sure why you wouldn't use that on prog'. It seems you're talking without taking 4.06 changes into consideration.

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ET only has a use if you know the DPS aren't going to take any damage within 30 seconds. Otherwise all you're doing is trading a shield for more hp that will disappear to the equivalent value of the shield.

Ruin II is a 130 potency loss every time you use it...so it's better to just not weave unless you can chain at least 2 oGCD's in that time period.

Miasma II is nice but has several conditions - you have to be next to the boss, it's still a 30 potency loss, and it also costs ~1700 mana. In savage it's really not worth keeping the dot up since mana becomes an issue.

The biggest issue is still that SCH has to take 3.25 seconds to do what a WHM can do in 2.5 seconds, as well as paying a ton more mana. Giving some sort of heal bonus to ET would make it not as punishing to use.

Honestly there's only a couple spots in o3s/o4s where using ET even makes sense, which makes the 20s cooldown sort of pointless...

If you can weave 2 gcds under one ruin II it's worth it. Miasma II is always worth it with just one ogcd ability.

An ogcd is worth (1/2.5)230=~92 dps loss compared to using that gcd to broiling, therefore, using it under ruin II results in it being a gain.

Ruin II (100) + OGCD + partial broil cast (92) < Broil II (230) + OGCD

Ruin II (100) + OGCD + OGCD + Partial Broil (184)>Broil II (230) + OGCD + OGCD

Ruin II (100) + ED (150) + partial broil (92) < Broil II (230) + ED (150)

If you are barely moving and are able to hard cast broil II within 1 second of Energy Drain to dodge, you're doing it right. (easy dodges not sprinting across the map)

If you have long distances to travel Ruin II + ED is ok. Swiftcast Broil II + weaving if you only need 3.5 seconds to adjust.

Really kind of depends on your mana management whether miasma II is worth it or not, as well as positioning. You're losing ~1000 mana for a potency gain of 39 (or less, if your ping is amazing).

Still doesn't address the fact that SCH struggles to keep up with combined DPS/HPS vs WHM if ET usage is involved.

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Originally Posted by Dregenfox

Really kind of depends on your mana management whether miasma II is worth it or not, as well as positioning. You're losing ~1000 mana for a potency gain of 39 (or less, if your ping is amazing).

Still doesn't address the fact that SCH struggles to keep up with combined DPS/HPS vs WHM if ET usage is involved.

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When i said worth it, I was saying potency wise, irrelevant to MP.

Yeah, I'm not talking about getting miasma DoT up, but to use it for OGCD weaving (and movement) when bio is already up. Espcially for using energy drain/shadow flare.

Also, I didn't get your point with damage coming in the next 30sec but you were talking about galvanize. When thing go wrong, I tend to cast both succor and ET succor one after another as juste spamming succor serves absolutly no purpose.

But it seems we agree on succor not being a good cast to begin with, making ET as much uninteresting to cast. This is more a matter of SCH basics skills not being really efficient.

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Originally Posted by Rawrz

When i said worth it, I was saying potency wise, irrelevant to MP.

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If we're going by that metric then succor is just as good as medica in terms of potency >.>

Can't you pop ET for use before you actually need to heal? As in use it between broil spams or, even better, after a dot refresh. Keep dpsing until you need to heal. Not only is it already on you so you don't have to waste time waiting on the animation, but it's already recharging cooldown because you had the foresight to prep it. Win win.

But at that point why wouldn't you mitigate the incoming damage that you popped ET for to begin with? It's weird that you have to create a use for ET instead of the game doing it for you. It does need a change. If you crit the ET with adloquium, it's almost entirely too much healing. It's an awkward ability but at the same time it's pivotal for the SCH to be able to reliably heal a high raid wide damage phase, without a stack for Indomitability the SCH will fall very short, or more accurately just on the threshold of not enough healing.

I've been suggesting that ET reduce the cost of Adlo/Succor by half since SB launched and I'm sticking to that.

I'm not against ET boosting healing output but a crit Adlo will almost always overheal on its own so that would just waste whatever buff ET would have given and with how weak Succor heals for naturally, the potency buff is also not very helpful, not to mention SCH already has several ways to get heal increase buffs (Largesse, Dissipation and Fey Illumination) that do they honestly even need more of the same.

I just prefer an MP cost reduction on ET as it would both help in MP management for SCH (something that would be universally useful for everyone) as well as just fitting with the whole "Emergency" idea of ET; if being MP starved to a point you can't even afford to cast Adlo/Succor isn't an emergency, IDK what is.

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Originally Posted by Dregenfox

which makes the 20s cooldown sort of pointless...

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Said this as soon as that buff was announced. "Not enough AoE healing" hasn't been a real issue for SCH for a long time, unless you're trying to soloheal undergeared content. The buff didn't actually address any of 4.0 SCH's real problems.

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Originally Posted by AxiomPITCH

Can't you pop ET for use before you actually need to heal? As in use it between broil spams or, even better, after a dot refresh. Keep dpsing until you need to heal. Not only is it already on you so you don't have to waste time waiting on the animation, but it's already recharging cooldown because you had the foresight to prep it. Win win.

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Even if you pop it in-between broil spams that's still delaying your broil spam by .75 seconds, so it's reducing potential DPS. It's already hard enough to keep up in DPS with a skilled WHM even with all our oGCD's because the WHM gets free weaving with aero every 18s + everytime they cast regen, compared to SCH's single free weave every 30s (or killing our mp bar with miasma II). SCH doesn't even really get a DPS advantage for their longer dot durations.

That's on top of the fact that a lot of SCH's are often using it needlessly and ET is effectively doing absolutely nothing in terms of HPS, DPS, or utility.

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Originally Posted by Dregenfox

Adding some sort of guaranteed effect like "increases the potency of the next heal by 20%" would pretty much solve the DPS/HPS issues scholar has in current savage content, IMO, as well as giving a reason to use it every 20s.

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Because having three of these (Largesse, Fey Illumination, and Dissipation) isn't enough as is, I personally think .5 or .75s is too small to actually have a gripe over. Especially if I'm popping it in advanced for a big hit like Charybdis + Roar, Grav Wave, or Dim Wave/Spellblade Holy. Plus if you're delaying it then the cooldown will be shorter so you'll have another Emergency Tactics Succor ready to go.

You can weave it with Physick or Adlo. They have 0.5 less cast time than the GCD.

I have never ever tried to use Emergency Tactics without being forced to because I already had shields up. It rarely ever gets used period. Lowering the recast time was the least exciting change to me ever. Succor and Aldo already cost an arm and a leg to cast so casting them twice is like suicide. I would love to see Emergency Tactics give some kind of benefit like reduced cast time or mp cost on your next spell. It would make the time wasted activating it warranted since its really an "Oh Shit" button to begin with.

I can't pull the same math that others have here, but I haven't found much use for ET outside of healing an incoming tank or party buster that I need to be aware of. Even then...

I'm just trying to figure out how it differs from granting galvanize. Both effects essentially return the same amount of HP, but ET adds an animation to it. On top of that, if it crits, only the initial heal crits, and not the second unless this changed with 4.0?

I could see if it added some potency, instead of just reallocating it. Someone enlighten me to the benefit of ET over galvanize.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

I can't pull the same math that others have here, but I haven't found much use for ET outside of healing an incoming tank or party buster that I need to be aware of. Even then...

I'm just trying to figure out how it differs from granting galvanize. Both effects essentially return the same amount of HP, but ET adds an animation to it. On top of that, if it crits, only the initial heal crits, and not the second unless this changed with 4.0?

I could see if it added some potency, instead of just reallocating it. Someone enlighten me to the benefit of ET over galvanize.

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The benefit is that if you already have the tank galvanized but still needs to be healed for next mechanic/tank burster/whatever you would use it. Basically you should use it when your Adlo/Succor would overwrite (or not if the shield is less potent) and people aren't full HP.

That's the theory, the practise is that those occasions usually don't happen that often.

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Originally Posted by AlphaSonic

The benefit is that if you already have the tank galvanized but still needs to be healed for next mechanic/tank burster/whatever you would use it. Basically you should use it when your Adlo/Succor would overwrite (or not if the shield is less potent) and people aren't full HP.

That's the theory, the practise is that those occasions usually don't happen that often.

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I see. After pondering it a bit, I was thinking you would use it when you want the heal, and not the shield, and came up with what you exactly pointed out (galvanize already active). It would have to be a really hard incoming hit, and the SCH would need total awareness of the fight. You literally lose a gcd with the animation though, so again, I am not really seeing the benefit to using it. My experience also doesn't go beyond EX primals, and can't speak for any savage or 24-man raids, so perhaps it has more use there.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

I see. After pondering it a bit, I was thinking you would use it when you want the heal, and not the shield, and came up with what you exactly pointed out (galvanize already active). It would have to be a really hard incoming hit, and the SCH would need total awareness of the fight. You literally lose a gcd with the animation though, so again, I am not really seeing the benefit to using it. My experience also doesn't go beyond EX primals, and can't speak for any savage or 24-man raids, so perhaps it has more use there.

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The conditions are really hard to accomplish because why would you ET. When you can use Indom (group heal) or Lustrate (single target). So basically you need to be out of Aetherflow to use it or having Indom on CD if you want group heal. And when there's successions of AoE since they destroy your shield reapplying Succor wouldn't be a problem at all. It's very specific instances. And that's not taking into account the other healer healing.

Emergency Tactics really sees the most use in instances where there are two Scholars present and they aren't trying to constantly overwrite each other shields and throw away half the potency of their skills. Scholars are the only healing class that truly suffer from being paired together. Emergency Tactics and its reduced cool down would allow the 2 Scholars to alternate placing Galvanized Shields but its a really underwhelming skill when you realize that Scholars aren't even very common anymore.

It's okay for healing double-wham mechanics that ignore shields, like Folio during Queen's Waltz. You know the shield won't do shit for the next Folio so you through ET to put everyone above 50% HP.

A possible use, at least. I agree it's not the most used tool, but it still has its uses and I think it's an important part of the toolkit.

Also when you know no one is gonna take damage for the next 30 seconds and you don't have neither Indom or Whispering Dawn ready. It slowly loses value as prog ends, tho.

ET also comes in pretty handy when the other healer dies and you need to get out some extra heals before raid damage comes.