Scholar Feedback

Hi I main Scholar since a realm reborn. I have noticed a lot negativity surrounding the class at least on the forums while leveling through stormblood content.

I have hit 70 completed the main scenario and have ran the expert dungeons a few times and currently working on gearing up to get into the casual deltascape raid.

So now that background is out of the way lets move on to real feedback.

What I like about the job is the variety of tasks scholar can do and the different ways they can heal. Excogitation is one of my new favorite skills and the Aetherpact skill is pretty dandy unfortunately that is all the gauge is for.

My gripes with Scholars current state are as follows. There seems to be no longer any situation in which our basic tools are able to accomplish basic healing tasks. I'm talking about the use of Physick, Adloquium etc.

Running stormblood content in order to heal and keep people alive your basic healing tools must always be accompanied with aetherflow skills do to how hard enemies hit and fairy cooldowns like whispering dawn will be thrown in as well to try put out enough healing to where the tank is having an actual net gain in health instead of just dying slower.

I have been playing through stormblood content as tank and have noticed my non scholar healers appear to be way less skills in order to accomplish the task of basic healing and this where it hit me scholar could use a look at.

Simply put healing as scholar as of right now feels very hectic and stressful as it takes multiple resources to do the job the other healers can perform with way less buttons. Which means playing as scholar is like playing on a higher difficulty level and explains a lot of the discontent with the class as of right now.

From what I understand the purpose of the stormblood expansion was to reduce button bloat and de-emphasize cooldowns etc. Basically making jobs feel less convoluted to perform at a competent level. Scholar feels like it has gone in the opposite direction since multiple resources are being used to accomplish one task creating the problem of too much work too little pay.

I understand scholar got nerfed in the expansion one of the nerfs being in fairy healing potency so I would like to suggest instead of just outright removing that heling from eos, instead take that healing and roll it back into some of scholar's basic healing tools so it doesn't feel as frantic and stressfull while also making it so the fairy has less 'carry' potential.

Other issues would be dissipation works against the fey gauge mechanic.

While we're on the topic of the fey gauge and aetherflow abilities Scholar seems a tad too reliant on aetherflow usage as of right now our basic healing kit has been demoted to MP expensive form of damage mitigation while aetherflow is where the real healing is at making our basic skills feel like trash.

To add to this Aetherflow skills add to the fey gauge to make use Aetherpact which would in all honesty would an amazing tool for freeing up the scholar to provide dps for a time, but I often hang on to it as an extra source of emergency healing in the even I run out aetherflow and not enemies are dead yet for whatever reason.

The bigger issue I see with the fey gauge is it encourages or teaches inefficient use of aetherflow abilities since for example you can cast bane on a boss with no adds around solely for the sake of building fey gauge or casting sacred soil which actually has a cooldown again for the sake of earning fey gauge points.

So they fey gauge in a way can be argued that it actually takes the main purpose of the aetherflow abilities away instead of being skills that need to be well timed and are amazingly rewarding for doing so they have been somewhat reduced to 'point generators' rather than valuable tools that should be used wisely yet I'm using them nearly all the time now so they don't feel as great or rewarding to use because ALL the time is the time to use them.

So my suggestions for when SE does eventually look over scholar again are:
Take the potency you took from eos and find a way to roll that in back into scholar's main healing tools to make the job less stressful and frantic to play, this could be done via a trait that increases physic potency for example.

Then check to see how this affects aetherflow usage and make adjustments to the fey gauge gain per aetherflow skill or even adjust how the fey gauge gets built up say for example dabbling with eos/fairy skills adding to the fey gauge instead.

In short basic healing tools in my opinion would need to be bumped up in effectiveness and Aetherflow/Fey Gauge interaction could be rebalanced accordingly if deemed necessary after potency adjustments.

Hope this was constructive until next time.

inb4 everybody calls OP a bad healer.

SCH is a mess, but there's pretty great chances that changes will happen at 4.1. The best thing to do right is to deal with. The DPS part of the job works quite, even though it's really different to what it was before. It's more about including healing in DPS.
But then a part of your skill set does feel like it belong to another job.

BTW, if you want to spend a charge : use energy drain. It's better than everything if you have nothing to do. It does damage and give mana, there's never a moment to not cast that ability.

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Originally Posted by AbstractLemons

The bigger issue I see with the fey gauge is it encourages or teaches inefficient use of aetherflow abilities since for example you can cast bane on a boss with no adds around solely for the sake of building fey gauge or casting sacred soil which actually has a cooldown again for the sake of earning fey gauge points.

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While I agree that the fairy gauge does make players use their Aetherflow stacks more, it's also to take advantage of Quickened Aetherflow. And really there are better ways to burn through stacks than on a Bane that won't spread anything. There is usually some degree of healing to do and if nothing else there's Energy Drain.

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Originally Posted by AbstractLemons

So they fey gauge in a way can be argued that it actually takes the main purpose of the aetherflow abilities away instead of being skills that need to be well timed and are amazingly rewarding for doing so they have been somewhat reduced to 'point generators' rather than valuable tools that should be used wisely

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There appears to be some debate about this now. Some players are suggesting using Aetherflow stacks for free heals as a form of mana management, which is a valid argument but in my opinion it's not when this deprives the party of, as you say, well timed skills.

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Originally Posted by AbstractLemons

yet I'm using them nearly all the time now so they don't feel as great or rewarding to use because ALL the time is the time to use them.

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It can certainly feel that way with chain pulling tanks as some do not use defensive cds properly or if you're unlucky with poor dps making chain pull fights last very long. Depending on the circumstances I sometimes feel like sch runs out of options too quickly. However this doesn't happen to me as much in raid content as it's much more difficult to do those encounters in ways that were not originally intended, so in that environment sch to me feels more balanced and rewarding.

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Originally Posted by AbstractLemons

So my suggestions for when SE does eventually look over scholar again are:
Take the potency you took from eos and find a way to roll that in back into scholar's main healing tools to make the job less stressful and frantic to play, this could be done via a trait that increases physic potency for example.

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I was at first very salty about the Embrace nerf, but I think I'd prefer a different fairy adjustment instead. I really want fairies to cast abilities when I tell them to, not after they finish whatever they're doing. That being said I still won't say no to a little buff to Embrace.

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Originally Posted by AbstractLemons

even adjust how the fey gauge gets built up say for example dabbling with eos/fairy skills adding to the fey gauge instead.

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I think one of the biggest issues with Fey Union is that unless there's trash before the boss, you won't have it on the pull. Which basically means in any ex or savage content you're never going to have it on the pull. Although it's a pretty damn powerful spell so maybe this was intentional by SE. Maybe they want to avoid scenarios where players use Fey Union on the pull directly after Fey Wind so they can go full on dps instead of using it as a tool during periods where there is a heavy demand on healing.

Personally it seems that right now sch suffers mostly in 4-mans. The majority of sch dps are dots and mobs frequently die before they are finished ticking, spreading dots uses an Aetherflow stack and with chain pulling being so common there are scenarios where you need stacks so much more for a Lustrate/Excog than dps, the fairy is pretty clunky at times because after the running part of a chain pull you need to wait for it to position itself correctly before commanding it to use cds or risk half the party not being in range, and there are times (once again chain pulls highlighting the cons of sch) where I would love a Fey Union near the beginning of a dungeon but the gauge lacks enough charges from Aetherflow use to be actually beneficial.

Sch is still very much viable in raid content and it feels far more balanced there, but it's still in need of some tweaking. I really think Aldo could do with a small potency boost and Excog should have a mechanic in which upon expiring it casts a heal of some sort on the target. I have had scenarios in which the tank dropped to nearly below 50%...but not less than 50% so that was an Aetherflow stack that went to waste. And yes I even abstained from healing with the intent of making Exog pop but other factors like the other healer and the tank's own self healing still kept them above 50%. It's best used on a mechanic that you know for sure is going to bring the target to below 50%, like Charybidis (I probably spelled that wrong) on os1 savage.

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Originally Posted by AbstractLemons

The bigger issue I see with the fey gauge is it encourages or teaches inefficient use of aetherflow abilities since for example you can cast bane on a boss with no adds around solely for the sake of building fey gauge or casting sacred soil which actually has a cooldown again for the sake of earning fey gauge points.

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Nope. Use Energy Drain. If you're casting Bane on single target or using Sacred Soil, you are being a bad SCH.

Should always Energy Drain, even if you need a filler that's more MP, and you are keeping the Aetherflow clock down.

The only reason they added that Aetherflow zero effect adding to the fairy gauge was if you made a mistake (Bane single target) or it somehow did no heal/damage to the target (Excog expiration). It wasn't encouraging bad use.

It's the same with Summoner, someone could fat finger Fester with no DoTs up, but they allow it to still build Dreadwyrm stacks. It's a substantial DPS loss if you mess up Aetherflow with the job, so they made it more forgiving.

Two things really worth pointing out so they don't get buried in the wall o text:

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Originally Posted by Vyriah

BTW, if you want to spend a charge : use energy drain. It's better than everything if you have nothing to do. It does damage and give mana, there's never a moment to not cast that ability.

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Pretty much this.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

I was at first very salty about the Embrace nerf, but I think I'd prefer a different fairy adjustment instead. I really want fairies to cast abilities when I tell them to, not after they finish whatever they're doing. That being said I still won't say no to a little buff to Embrace.

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Also, this. Trying to fire off WDs felt like a coin toss half the time. A simple option within character config to make hotkeyed pet abilities interrupt the current cast AND prioritise said ability over another auto embrace would do wonders IMHO!

I am aware that energy drain is the better go to choice I experimented with bane/sacredsoil to see or fully understand the mechanic.

I used bane as an example to because I thought it at least feel I shouldn't be rewarded for bad scholar ay or be incentivised to use skills like sacredsoil in situations it's not needed.

I'm short my opinion on the subject was that bad sch play shouldn't be rewarded. Which is why i made that complaint as an issue I saw with how the mechanic currently works, and suggested they try dabbling with how fey gauge is generated like make it so all support abilities generate gauge but in small amounts so we can include actions like physic, adloquium etc instead of putting that much emphasis on aetherflow only.

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Originally Posted by AbstractLemons

I used bane as an example to because I thought it at least feel I shouldn't be rewarded for bad scholar ay or be incentivised to use skills like sacredsoil in situations it's not needed.

I'm short my opinion on the subject was that bad sch play shouldn't be rewarded.

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Using an Aetherflow Stack incorrectly carries its own punishment since you wasted a precious resource to do nothing. There is also the fact that both Bane and Sacred Soil can be used properly and still effectively do nothing. If a mob dies before the damage ticks from Miasma and Bio have a chance to be effective you have still lost an Aetherflow stacknand the same applies if no one enters the effect of Sacred Soil since it takes a few seconds for other players to even realize it is active. Since Aetherflow abilities require such careful management it would seem almost cruel to add another level of consideration on when and how to use them.

The thing is since the beginning of ARR it was always possible to screw up your Aetherflow and get no return. Then there was healer accuracy in end-game content where energy drain could miss quite often without proper melds and food.

But now that there are gauge skills that adds another skill layer to current skills to build that up, so they obviously wanted to make things easier to build the gauge. If anything the Excog timer was the biggest issue myself and many people had . You'd be doing your job just fine throwing it on a Paladin expecting the damage, but you'd get some really bad player that couldn't stand their HP being barely dented they Clemency themselves out of the Excog proc. So at no fault of your own that was Aetherflow likely wasted. It's good this was addressed.

Call me crazy, but blowing your Aetherflow stacks before you had it available again was the norm in AR and HW, what's different in SB?

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Originally Posted by AlphaSonic

Call me crazy, but blowing your Aetherflow stacks before you had it available again was the norm in AR and HW, what's different in SB?

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In ARR and in HW, we had good barriers and a mostly competent fairy who could patch up our problems in between. In Stormblood, you're almost railroaded into choosing between further mitigation, heals or damage because our barriers are garbage in comparison to Astrologian and our Fairy apparently got brain damage.

It's far more punishing to whiff an Aetherflow stack now that it ever had been.

Here are the skill changes I would love to see:

Bane:
Ability
10 Sec Recast

The spread and damage drop off would remain the same except the 15% chance to renew the duration timers would be replaced by a 5% chance to hit an enemy with full potency instead. Having a few extra seconds on one enemy is useless when you are just going to cast Bane again and clip the extra time accidentally.

Deployment Tactics:
Ability
60 Sec Recast
Duration 10 Sec

Your next single target spell on self or party member will have its effect shared with all party members within 25 yalms.

So Phsyick now becomes a low cost AoE heal to offset the high cost of Succor and Adloquium while Adloquium now distributes both the Galvanized Shield and its initial heal amount as well. Fishing for CritLo Deployment is no longer possible but that happened with its MP cost already.


Emergency Tactics:
Ability
30 Sec Recast
Duration 10 Sec

Replaces next Galvanize effect with healing equal to the amount the barrier would restore and reduces cast time for next Adloquium or Succor by 50% to offset the animation lock.

Dissipation:
Ability
300 Sec Recast

Order currently summoned Fairy away to rest for 20 seconds resetting all Fairy Action timers. Also grants one Aetherflow Stack for each Pet Action that does not need to be reset up to 3 maximum.

This would require more planning but it would allow you to get more use out of your fairy at the expense of sending it away for 20 seconds. It also means the number of Aetherflow Stacks you get is dependant on how many abilities your fairy has used so most likely you wouldnt get 3. I dont think the healing boost is necessary either to compensate for having your fairy abilities reset.

War Economy:
Trait Level 52 ACN-SMN-SCH
While engaged in combat each cast of Physick on self or party member that doesn't over heal will increase the healing potency of Physick by 15 up to a maximum potency of 550. Effect is lost once battle ends.

This would allow the Scholar to become more effective over the course of a battle and help Summoners equally. Simply spamming Physick wouldnt activate the trait but proper usage would be rewarded. It would take 10 cast to reach full potency.

Selene
Fey Caress:
Lv 1 Spell
2 Sec Cast Time
3 Sec Recast Time
Removes one Detrimental Status Effect from a single party member.
Additional Effect: Restores Health
Heal Potency 150

Fey Awakening:
Lv 1 Ability
120 Sec Cool Down
Revives a single party member to a weakened state

Clamouring Dusk:
Lv 20 Spell
2.5 Second Cast
60 second Recast
Heals all party members within 25 yalms.
Heal Potency 300

Fey Wind:
Lv 40 Ability
20 Sec Duration
60 Sec Cool Down
30 Yalm Range
Increases Action Speed for Self and Party Members by 5% for 20 seconds.

This makes Selene a Support Fairy that requires the scholar to proactively heal more due to half potency "Embrace" equivalent but removes detrimental status effects reliably and can also revive KO'ed party members occasionally while providing a slight raid wide speed buff. Also offers an AoE burst heal that coincides with Rouse making this fairy a real contender for the enormous healing capacity of Eos. The War Economy Trait would allow a Scholar who is healing more to keep up with the lowered heal rate of this Fairy.

Just a wishlist that's probably terribly imbalanced.

• Physick

  Additional Effect: 15% chance that next Adloquium MP cost is reduced by 50%.

• New Trait: Aether Attunement

  Transforms Energy Drain into Aether Conversion.

• New Ability: Aether Conversion

  Transforms the next Adloquium or Succor recovery effect into a barrier which nullifies damage equaling the amount of HP restored.

  Additional Effect: Increases potency of the next Broil by 25%.

  Additional Effect: Reduces the MP cost of the next spell by 25%.

• Adloquium

  Cure potency increased to 600.

  MP cost reduced to 1200.

  No longer shields the target.

• Succor

  Cure potency increased to 250.

  No longer shields the target.

• Sacred Soil

  Additional Effect: 20% chance that next Succor will cost no MP.

  New Effect: Reduces the MP cost of the next Succor by 50%.

• Deployment Tactics

  Galvanize effect cannot exceed 30% of target's maximum health.

• Emergency Tactics

  Transforms the next Galvanize status into HP recovery equaling the amount of damage reduction intended for the barrier.

  Increases the potency of the next Aetherflow action by 20%.

• Removed: Dissipation
• New Ability: Fey Blessing

  Orders the current faerie to watch over a targeted area, granting a blessing to all party members within it.

  (Eos) Blessing of the Dawn: heals for the duration.

  Cure Potency: 200.

  (Selene) Blessing of the Dusk: Increases attack speed by 5% for the duration.

  Faerie Gauge is depleted while blessing is active.

  Only one Faerie Gauge ability can be active at a time.

• Fey Union

  Startup animation speed increased.

• Silent Dawn

  Silences target for 1s.

  New Effect: Increases target's magic vulnerability by 5%.

  Recast time increased to 120s.

• Fey Caress

  AI: Will no longer attempt to remove irremovable status effects.

• Removed: Fey Wind
• New ability: Fey Warmth

  Shields all nearby party members for 5% of max health.

I play SCH occasionally, with an unhealthy mentality of considering myself a green DPS which used to work to an extent in ARR and HW, but now it's just boring and unrewarding.

I also don't like it when I have to try and manage DoTs on multiple enemies during bigger pulls while juggling between DPS and healing, getting rewarded with 2,5k DPS at best, while a WHM can just casually saunter over the mobs after casting Regen, and Holy spam for 4k+ DPS while not having to worry about healing due to stunlocking, as well as Assize and Benediction.


If they only just removed the Aetherflow requirement on Bane, and otherwise kept it as is, it would really help since I wouldn't have to worry about not having stacks for emergency healing anymore.

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Originally Posted by Shihen

/snip

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I don't know about a lot of your list (I do like the idea of making Adlo/succor straight heals, but iffy on the idea of changing Energy Drain. I had a similar idea of taking the shield effect of the spell and putting it on an ability, but it was through use of the Tactics abilities, not Energy Drain.)

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Originally Posted by Shihen

• Removed: Dissipation
• New Ability: Fey Blessing

  Orders the current faerie to watch over a targeted area, granting a blessing to all party members within it.

  (Eos) Blessing of the Dawn: heals for the duration.

  Cure Potency: 200.

  (Selene) Blessing of the Dusk: Increases attack speed by 5% for the duration.

  Faerie Gauge is depleted while blessing is active.

  Only one Faerie Gauge ability can be active at a time.

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But, this? This I like. My only problem is that Scholar lacks a free fairy switch to make that idea work.

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

Here are the skill changes I would love to see:

Bane:
Ability
10 Sec Recast

The spread and damage drop off would remain the same except the 15% chance to renew the duration timers would be replaced by a 5% chance to hit an enemy with full potency instead. Having a few extra seconds on one enemy is useless when you are just going to cast Bane again and clip the extra time accidentally.

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I am 100% on board for this. This is a fantastic idea.

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

Deployment Tactics:
Ability
60 Sec Recast
Duration 10 Sec

Your next single target spell on self or party member will have its effect shared with all party members within 25 yalms.

So Physick now becomes a low cost AoE heal to offset the high cost of Succor and Adloquium while Adloquium now distributes both the Galvanized Shield and its initial heal amount as well. Fishing for CritLo Deployment is no longer possible but that happened with its MP cost already.

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I don't know if I'm 100% on board, but I wouldn't be upset by the change. Anything to reduce the cost of Adlo because of the outside chance of getting such a strong shield is a good thing.

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

Emergency Tactics:
Ability
30 Sec Recast
Duration 10 Sec

Replaces next Galvanize effect with healing equal to the amount the barrier would restore and reduces cast time for next Adloquium or Succor by 50% to offset the animation lock.

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I'm not sure about putting the cooldown timer back to 30s, but, instead of reduced cast time, why not instant? I don't think it would break your next Adlo/Succor.

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

Dissipation:
Ability
300 Sec Recast

Order currently summoned Fairy away to rest for 20 seconds resetting all Fairy Action timers. Also grants one Aetherflow Stack for each Pet Action that does not need to be reset up to 3 maximum.

This would require more planning but it would allow you to get more use out of your fairy at the expense of sending it away for 20 seconds. It also means the number of Aetherflow Stacks you get is dependant on how many abilities your fairy has used so most likely you wouldnt get 3. I dont think the healing boost is necessary either to compensate for having your fairy abilities reset.

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Eugh. This just sounds even worse than the current Dissipation. Sure, you get 3 Aetherflow for just blowing all of your fairy's cooldowns but, this is 100% at odds with the proposed changes you have for Selene below. We still get 3 Aetherflow now, and people still don't use it because it shoots our healing potential in the foot. This shoots our healing potential in the foot and doesn't give us a boost.

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

War Economy:
Trait Level 52 ACN-SMN-SCH
While engaged in combat each cast of Physick on self or party member that doesn't over heal will increase the healing potency of Physick by 15 up to a maximum potency of 550. Effect is lost once battle ends.

This would allow the Scholar to become more effective over the course of a battle and help Summoners equally. Simply spamming Physick wouldnt activate the trait but proper usage would be rewarded. It would take 10 cast to reach full potency.

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This trait is baaaad. It's useless in dungeons since it resets after every battle. Summoner shouldn't ever heal 15 times, and the Potency is too low for them to capitalize on it anyway. Besides, I don't think a Scholar would use Physick 15 times either.

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

Selene
Fey Caress:
Lv 1 Spell
2 Sec Cast Time
3 Sec Recast Time
Removes one Detrimental Status Effect from a single party member.
Additional Effect: Restores Health
Heal Potency 150

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I can't agree taking away some of Selene's healing potency just to give her a spammable Esuna that she will try to use on everything that has a debuff whether it can be cleansed or not. She's already unfavored since her support is weak in comparison to Eos's healing.

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

Fey Awakening:
Lv 1 Ability
120 Sec Cool Down
Revives a single party member to a weakened state

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NO, just... so much noooooooo. The last thing that should exist is Raise ability. You can make the argument for the Esuna spell since SCH formerly couldn't get it until 40, but there is no need for this.

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

Clamouring Dusk:
Lv 20 Spell
2.5 Second Cast
60 second Recast
Heals all party members within 25 yalms.
Heal Potency 300

Fey Wind:
Lv 40 Ability
20 Sec Duration
60 Sec Cool Down
30 Yalm Range
Increases Action Speed for Self and Party Members by 5% for 20 seconds.

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And, these are fine.

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Originally Posted by inhaledcorn

Eugh. This just sounds even worse than the current Dissipation. Sure, you get 3 Aetherflow for just blowing all of your fairy's cooldowns but, this is 100% at odds with the proposed changes you have for Selene below. We still get 3 Aetherflow now, and people still don't use it because it shoots our healing potential in the foot. This shoots our healing potential in the foot and doesn't give us a boost.

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To clarify, a Scholar would only receive Aetherflow for the fairy abilities that HAVENT been used. So if you used Dissipation but Whispering Dawn was not on cool down you would get an Aether Stack. This proposed Dissipation isnt for getting Aether Stacks. Its meant to be used immediately after blowing through your fairy abilities so you would ideally use Whispering Dawn and Fey Illumination together and then Dissipate your fairy so that you can resummon Eos with all her abilities reset with 10 seconds to spare before Whispering Dawn has ended. You dont need additional Aether Stacks or more potent healing if you use this skill correctly.

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Originally Posted by inhaledcorn

This trait is baaaad. It's useless in dungeons since it resets after every battle. Summoner shouldn't ever heal 15 times, and the Potency is too low for them to capitalize on it anyway. Besides, I don't think a Scholar would use Physick 15 times either.

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This trait may seem useless but objectively it is because the SCH skill set is already numerically balanced to handle small pulls in dungeons. Physick would only grow in situations that demand it like when a tank pulls a mob so large you blow through lustrates and are forced to alternate Adlo and Physick or during long end game encounters where mana efficiency is more important. This trait isnt meant to break healer balance but give the Scholar an effective answer to the cost imbalance of Adlo and Succor during the encounters where it counts most. Summoners are also the only DPS with a reliable heal that can be spammed and this allows them to grow more effective if a healer dies and they are the only source of healing for the party. It isnt meant to overwhelm game balance for Summoners or Scholars in normal content. WHM and AST have Cure2 and Benefic2 they can spam and this would help Physick bridge the gap in crisis.

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Originally Posted by inhaledcorn

I can't agree taking away some of Selene's healing potency just to give her a spammable Esuna that she will try to use on everything that has a debuff whether it can be cleansed or not. She's already unfavored since her support is weak in comparison to Eos's healing.

NO, just... so much noooooooo. The last thing that should exist is Raise ability. You can make the argument for the Esuna spell since SCH formerly couldn't get it until 40, but there is no need for this.

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Selene will still prioritize the lowest target so spamming her Caress will default to a posioned person once their health drops sufficiently if other debuffs are also on the party. Selene is only used when less healing is necessary in the first place though so giving her a reduced potency shouldn't matter. Her ability to raise and cleanse makes her a true support because the Scholar wont waste the MP or time required to do these tasks. It means Swift Cast can be used for healing and not rezzing. For a Healer I think this would be the perfect support pet.

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

To clarify, a Scholar would only receive Aetherflow for the fairy abilities that HAVENT been used. So if you used Dissipation but Whispering Dawn was not on cool down you would get an Aether Stack. This proposed Dissipation isnt for getting Aether Stacks. Its meant to be used immediately after blowing through your fairy abilities so you would ideally use Whispering Dawn and Fey Illumination together and then Dissipate your fairy so that you can resummon Eos with all her abilities reset with 10 seconds to spare before Whispering Dawn has ended. You dont need additional Aether Stacks or more potent healing if you use this skill correctly.

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You also forget that, again, the fairy is a large portion of our healing potential. That's why Dissipation gives the Largesse effect - it's supposed to offset the loss of the fairy (and even then, it really doesn't). With this change, sure, you reset the fairy abilities and get Aetherflow for each ability used, but you have no healing boost to offset the loss of the fairy, so now the SCH has to play the game for 20s severely gimped instead of 30s mostly gimped.

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

This trait may seem useless but objectively it is because the SCH skill set is already numerically balanced to handle small pulls in dungeons. Physick would only grow in situations that demand it like when a tank pulls a mob so large you blow through lustrates and are forced to alternate Adlo and Physick or during long end game encounters where mana efficiency is more important. This trait isnt meant to break healer balance but give the Scholar an effective answer to the cost imbalance of Adlo and Succor during the encounters where it counts most. Summoners are also the only DPS with a reliable heal that can be spammed and this allows them to grow more effective if a healer dies and they are the only source of healing for the party. It isnt meant to overwhelm game balance for Summoners or Scholars in normal content. WHM and AST have Cure2 and Benefic2 they can spam and this would help Physick bridge the gap in crisis.

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You're describing Aetherpact/Fey's Union. It's an ability that's built up over time to be used in certain situations, only it doesn't reset after every battle, instead it resets when changing instances or after a raid/ex encounter fight.

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

Selene will still prioritize the lowest target so spamming her Caress will default to a posioned person once their health drops sufficiently if other debuffs are also on the party. Selene is only used when less healing is necessary in the first place though so giving her a reduced potency shouldn't matter. Her ability to raise and cleanse makes her a true support because the Scholar wont waste the MP or time required to do these tasks. It means Swift Cast can be used for healing and not rezzing. For a Healer I think this would be the perfect support pet.

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Or Eos will just power through the poison, and targets won't get low enough to heal Slow and Doom and what have you.

If you give Selene a Raise ability, you will force SCHs to take Selene and nothing else because that will be what the meta demands. All of SCHs skills will then be rebalanced around the idea that SCH does have an instant raise on one of their fairies and suffer everywhere else accordingly (RDM seems to have this same problem). SCHs who "don't bother" with raising are bad SCHs, and, even now, all healers don't like hitting the raise button, especially if there's a SMN or RDM in the group. You want to take away even more of that responsibility? This ability has no place in the game.

I find it fabulously amusing when I see comments about how amazing SCH shields were in ARR and HW, but somehow now they're "total garbage."

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Originally Posted by NorthernLadMSP

I find it fabulously amusing when I see comments about how amazing SCH shields were in ARR and HW, but somehow now they're "total garbage."

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You also have to realize how things were.

In ARR, there was no other shield healer. SCH was the only one, so, yeah, they were "awesome" by default.

In HW, it's a multi-sided thing that "mad our shields awesome". Our MP efficiency was amazing because Aetherflow instantly restored 20% MP on every press, not 10%, and Adloquium was much cheaper to spam to crit-fish for Deployment Tactics. Embrace was much stronger, allowing the fairy to carry much more of the healing bulk. Cleric Stance was a Mind/Int swap instead of a small, general damage boost, and Healers in general had more DoTs (SCH had the most). SCH could stay in Cleric Stance much longer than the other two healers, making its DPS potential crazy high (which made it very valuable). In addition, AST shields were pathetic, and it lacked any sort of passive healing.

So controversial opinion: I think turning all of the pets to be more similar to Bahamut, (as in, they don't technically exist on the field, and they do stuff when their master does stuff), but with a few changes:

1) The pets only perform their actions on spells with cast times (Swiftcast will still have them do stuff) except on Resurrection. But, pet actions are instant (so they can use them while moving).

2) ACN/SMN pets only attack when using damaging spells, and SCH pets will only heal on healing spells. (This will kill a lot of SCH's passive healing potential, but-)

3) The three pet abilities are put back onto the masters so that pets perform their actions in a timely manner instead of queuing them (the pet bar can be repurposed for the Chocobo).

4) The pets are redefined (SMN - Garuda/Emerald Carbuncle: party support. Ifrit: single-target dps. Titan/Topaz Carbuncle: AoE dps. SCH - Eos: Regen fairy. Selene: Shield fairy)

5) Aetherpact/Fey's Union is changed to: Creates a pact between the fairy and the tethered player. For every spell the Scholar casts, the fairy heals the target. (Heal Potency: 500) For every heal the fairy casts, the fairy gauge drains by 10.

In addition, the Fairy Gauge increases by 10 for every Aetherflow action made and for every basic heal cast by the Fairy.

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Originally Posted by inhaledcorn

You also have to realize how things were.

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Yeah, I really don't need you to school me in anything. I've been playing SCH as one of my main jobs for almost 4 full years. I'm fully aware of of their history.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by inhaledcorn

2) ACN/SMN pets only attack when using damaging spells, and SCH pets will only heal on healing spells. (This will kill a lot of SCH's passive healing potential, but-)

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Terrible. They already gutted our dps. What are trying to do give them the idea to take away everything that made Sch great from 2.x-3.x?

Sp far, I haven't found playing Scholar in Stormblood as terrible as I thought it would be. I suppose my biggest complaint would be that I feel we have too many skills locked behind aetherflow stacks. MP management has been harder, but I haven't yet encountered a situation where I ran completely dry. I do think we have to work harder to get the job done.

I would mind getting our basic healing spell Physick buffed a bit to make up for the loss in fairy healing potency. Or revert the added mana cost to adlo to what it was pre-Stormblood. I just don't feel we get an adequate effect from our spells for how much mana they cost compared to the other healers.

I don't think they need to change things drastically, but there is still room for improvement. Hopefully we'll see something in 4.1

I have some thoughts on this.

Stay tuned need to edit to surpass cap, why cap on words, when you can edit and surpass it, ask SE.

Edit:

I love playing a fairy wrangler, but it has been not so great as of late.

We suffer from some major things imo. Those being progression and how our abilities mesh together.

I say progression is a problem, because the issue becomes prevalent in progression. Scholar is a healer that needs a lot of planning, during a fight we need to plan when to use abilities for what mechanics and everything tends to be a little tight especially with this current flavor of raids seems to be lots of strong AoE damage to the group and the need to keep players topped on HP. OS4 literally has a mechanic that severely punishes for any player missing as much as 1 hp. Scholars have a limited kit of non-CD based spells, or I should say spells that can deliver healing with out some limiter in how often we can other than MP. 3 Spells. Physick, Aldo and Succor. 2 of which have high MP cost, in case of Aldo a stupid high cost for what it is. The MP limiter is fine, but none of these spells are high heal spells. they can become better at healing but we need CDs.

The issue that this becomes in progression, is for mistakes. When a group is learning mistakes happen, and scholars lack the ability to help recover. Most if not all of their CDs are usually reserved for a specific mechanic in a fight, where they will need the healing they provide. If something goes wrong and we need to help recover we have to use a CD, and then later when we planned to use it we no longer have it and the group will be in a bad spot again. The other two healer have larger heals that are not limited by anything but MP cost, which that can use to help recover a group in a pinch and then others can even help them regain the MP lost. While at the same time preserving the CDs they will need later.

My other main issue is the meshing of our abilities. My main problem comes with Dissipation. The skills fights itself, that's how much it doesn't mesh with how a scholar plays. Disspation when use offer two benefits gives you a fresh 3 aether stacks, and a bonus healing to spell. Those 3 spells above our non-CD based ones. This is where immediately it is fighting itself. it gives you 3 aether flow stacks to use of healing abilities, but those don't benefit from the healing bonus, so what do you do, you either don't make use of the healing bonus to use your better abilities, or you delay the better abilities, but if you could afford to do that why did you use dissipation. This ability also has a very tight optimum use window. The gain of quicken aether flow makes it have some good benefits. So ideally you'd want to use dissipation early after a aetherflow and stack use so these new stacks can further decrease Aetherflow CD without being wasted. Additionally, if you want to make use of the healing up you'd need to ignore this benefit, because it requires a fast use of these stacks. The other issue is the fairy. Dissipation has this hidden cost of 1 major CD (or a long cast) and a good chunk of MP to get the fairy back. It's silly that this ability wasn't changed to function like the SMN bahumet. They obviously thought that the SMN having to resummon after bahaumet would be to much of a detriment to SMN based on how important their pet is to their role. Scholar's pet is just as important to us as SMN to our role.

A smaller issued with ability meshing is with our new ability. Aether Pact, I actually like this ability, it has some issues but the idea is solid. I wish the fairy could activate it faster, but it's not a huge issue. The main thing I have here is that I wish the gauge could do more. working toward only one ability seems kind of flat. I wish dissipation also had some functionality with the gauge.

I know it would be broken but I'd like to see Excog being deployable. It's a buff we provide, and it should be affected by deployment tactics like any of our other buffs. It's an ability meshing thing.

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Originally Posted by Archamgel

Terrible. They already gutted our dps. What are trying to do give them the idea to take away everything that made Sch great from 2.x-3.x?

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Uh, actually, yeah. The Scholar is proving to be a nightmare to balance because of the fairy. In ARR/HW, it was too strong. In SB, it's too weak. If it's for easier balance, then the fairy should go and behave more like a stance. This also would have the side effect of reducing the gap between the floor and ceiling since I still see so many Scholars keep their fairies on Sic/Follow, meaning Eos is using cooldowns willy-nilly and not casting Embrace efficiently. Another thing people complain about is the Pet AI putting skills in a queue, attacking/healing wrong targets, one pet is clearly better than the others, no Sustain to keep our pets alive, and, though this is a Summoner only problem, Bahamut doesn't exist on the field.

If we put Embrace back at 300 potency, all of those other problems would exist, but that wouldn't matter since Scholar wouldn't have to heal and crank out more DPS, making White Mage outclassed again.

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Originally Posted by inhaledcorn

Uh, actually, yeah. The Scholar is proving to be a nightmare to balance because of the fairy. In ARR/HW, it was too strong. In SB, it's too weak.

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Is it? There's a SCH in pretty much any speedkill party on fflogs.

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Originally Posted by Lastelli

Is it? There's a SCH in pretty much any speedkill party on fflogs.

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It's a bad idea to balance jobs based on farm parties.

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Originally Posted by Miles_Maelstrom

It's a bad idea to balance jobs based on farm parties.

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How are they supposed to balance jobs, then?

But that's not the point. The guy said that sch is "too weak" in sb. How? Can people making this assertion provide some proof or some data to back it up?

Something a little more convincing than "job x is clunky and weak because I'm having trouble with it and I don't care if other players can do amazing things with said job, as long as I can't the job is weak".

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lastelli

How are they supposed to balance jobs, then?

But that's not the point. The guy said that sch is "too weak" in sb. How? Can people making this assertion provide some proof or some data to back it up?

Something a little more convincing than "job x is clunky and weak because I'm having trouble with it and I don't care if other players can do amazing things with said job, as long as I can't the job is weak".

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I went into the scholar's issue with progression. We have issues but I don't think the fairy's healing power is currently one of them. Not with the current "themes" of raiding. An issue I see with scholar is getting that jump from a progression party to a farm is more daunting than with other healers. Farming we're great.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lastelli

How are they supposed to balance jobs, then?

But that's not the point. The guy said that sch is "too weak" in sb. How? Can people making this assertion provide some proof or some data to back it up?

Something a little more convincing than "job x is clunky and weak because I'm having trouble with it and I don't care if other players can do amazing things with said job, as long as I can't the job is weak".

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The whole point of the streamlining of jobs was to reduce button bloat and to reduce the gap between the skill floor and the skill ceiling, yet the Scholar's gap is still very much there. And, as Miles mentions, Scholar struggles during progression but kills it in Farm. To balance a job solely around the idea that the job is always going to play perfectly is why people are upset with Summoner and Dragoon as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by inhaledcorn

The whole point of the streamlining of jobs was to reduce button bloat and to reduce the gap between the skill floor and the skill ceiling, yet the Scholar's gap is still very much there. And, as Miles mentions, Scholar struggles during progression but kills it in Farm. To balance a job solely around the idea that the job is always going to play perfectly is why people are upset with Summoner and Dragoon as well.

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As a drg main, I can assure you that there's nothing wrong with the job, it's actually very interesting. And there's nothing wrong with the idea of a complex healer (or a complex job in general) that requires a more skilled player or party to perform well, especially if in those cases that healer is required in an optimal composition. We can't have powerful jobs that are easy to use while still being optimal in my opinion. Which is why I think that healers are very well balanced right now. WHM is the easiest by far, no weird skills, just powerful healing and damage spells. You like to have it for progression because it gives an extra security buffer and after that you'd rather have ast/sch. AST has a straightforward healing toolkit, but also has to properly manage cards and this adds an extra challenge to the job. SCH requires more meticulous planning and execution, it's a high risk high reward job. I'm ok with some qol fixes, like a better responsiveness of the fairies or slightly reduced mp cost for shields to help less skilled sch that still use adlo and succor way more than they should, but other than that the job really is fine as it is. Increasing sch healing output is very dangerous because it would probably result in whm losing is precious "progression healer" spot, unless they start making healing in this job a real challenge...but this is a different topic.

Honestly, I'd have a lot better time if the fairy wasn't such a dingleberry, it feels like she's too busy stuffing gravel into her nose to do as she's told.

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Originally Posted by Jollyy5

Honestly, I'd have a lot better time if the fairy wasn't such a dingleberry, it feels like she's too busy stuffing gravel into her nose to do as she's told.

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I agree. IMO, all of the fairy's ability needs to be either (castable while she is moving) or (downright instant) My healing macros invoking the fairy usually includes 5 lines of fey spamming, 1 line of rouse and another 8 lines of fey regen.

Or they could change fairy's heel command to one that immediately "rescues" the fairy and puts it right next to the SCH.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mrydeen

I agree. IMO, all of the fairy's ability needs to be either (castable while she is moving) or (downright instant) My healing macros invoking the fairy usually includes 5 lines of fey spamming, 1 line of rouse and another 8 lines of fey regen.

Or they could change fairy's heel command to one that immediately "rescues" the fairy and puts it right next to the SCH.

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Um no, you don't cast heals while you are moving unless is an oGCD or Swiftcast. Why don't you learn to place your fairy like you are supposed to.

It's intentional design, some SCHs are so willy-nilly at moving around so much when they don't need to, and lose several Embraces. Or they don't place when it's appropriate especially with heavy moving mechanics.

Scholar does seem to do much better in 8 man content yet pull their hair out with basic dungeon content which is content that gets played most of the time is why I'm not all that happy with sch.

Aoe heal kit needs an overhaul from a fluidity perspective

with the exception of tank healing..
If you're casting shields, you anticipate damage: healing is redundant
If you're casting heals, you're healing damage already received: Shielding is redundant

Given this, I recommend the following:
Succor now straight heal
Indom now straight shield (still capable of critical, even if potency needs adjustment - SCH is crit-centric)


I keep reading 3 things all over threads like this:
1 - Stormblood is supposed to remove complexity
2 - Adlo's mana cost is too high for what it does
3 - Faerie healing is difficult to balance

With this in mind, and with the suggested stream-lining above:
1 - Remove deployment tactics.
2 - restore pre-SB Adlo cost ratios
3 - sacred soil dmg reduction increased from 10% to 20%

If these changes make sch too powerful replace embrace w/ a strong shield that the faerie only applies when a target drops under 21% HP @ 60-120s cd

Quote:

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Originally Posted by plasmacutter

Aoe heal kit needs an overhaul from a fluidity perspective

with the exception of tank healing..
If you're casting shields, you anticipate damage: healing is redundant
If you're casting heals, you're healing damage already received: Shielding is redundant

Given this, I recommend the following:
Succor now straight heal
Indom now straight shield (still capable of critical, even if potency needs adjustment - SCH is crit-centric)


I keep reading 3 things all over threads like this:
1 - Stormblood is supposed to remove complexity
2 - Adlo's mana cost is too high for what it does
3 - Faerie healing is difficult to balance

With this in mind, and with the suggested stream-lining above:
1 - Remove deployment tactics.
2 - restore pre-SB Adlo cost ratios
3 - sacred soil dmg reduction increased from 10% to 20%

If these changes make sch too powerful replace embrace w/ a strong shield that the faerie only applies when a target drops under 21% HP @ 60-120s cd

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Alternatively, instead of removing Deployment and getting rid of our oGCD AoE heal (which the other two jobs have, btw), why not make Deployment Tactics make the next Adlo/Succor apply shields?

Shields and heals fall under the same category of "added effective health", and sch is supposed to be specialized in shields (and "catching" players whose HP are falling fast with spells like lustrate).

Further, shielding is about timing and galvanize doesn't stack, making the instant cast and CD on indom perfect for my proposed change.

As such, I contend this is not a loss of an oGCD AoE heal but a shift in its nature.

A good compromise, however, would be to make Indom a shield which slowly regens HP over time at the cost of equivalent mitigation. (starts out all shield, after the first 3s -X to shield, +X to player HP, repeat until gone)

If anything, I think deployment tactics needs to be replaced with something to increase damage output while soloing. It's taking FOR EVER to kill things as I move further into heavensward content.

If you think SCH takes forever to kill things doing solo content you haven't played the healer job that does the least personal dps and with only one DoT: Astrologian.


Deployment is the best healer progression skill. SCH can recover from a raid spaghetti mess just because of that skill.