Scholar since 4.1 patch - how are we finding it?

I haven't touched scholar since 4.05 and went to AST but do miss my sch. The recent changes to succors and the costs for succor/adlo has this made a difference in play?

I'm pleased with it. I think it made a difference.

The mitigation difference with succor is immediately noticeable in O4S.

I was a sch main that swapped to AST in stormblood. The changes are certainly a step in the right direction (taken with all the changes they have made since stormblood launched). I've been playing sch more since the patch hit although I haven't taken it into savage yet. The job still needs some help though, I'd like to see Selene and dissipation be reworked so hopefully this won't be SE's last adjustment of SCH in stormblood.

Less Succor in O4S was good. One-and-out on Alamgast with fairy buffs pretty much. Of course with both us healers being i340 probably doesn't say much. Back in 320, probably would notice more.

Dissipate needs no more hidden buffs, it got another special with the summon change.

I haven't touched SCH since the patch, but I do notice we're not getting hit as hard with SCH as a co healer now. It feels a lot like AST level mitigation.

You can definitely notice the Succor changes. Mana costs being lowered helps with getting a few extra Miasma II weaves here and there. Dissipation feels a lot lot nicer to use with the MP reduction on Summon, and the shortened cast time helps for when you have to use Swiftcast on something else. Dissipation was definitely the winner in this update for SCH imo.

However, there are still changes that SCHs need to get. Dissipation still needs a tweak, it hasn't actually received any changes itself. It's only getting easier to use due to other abilities changing. And for the millionth time, we need Selene to be relevant again. I actually hope they don't touch SCH unless they want to specifically rework these two aspects of the job. If they keep buffing us in unnecessary areas, then we'll start creating an imbalance and I don't think anyone has any trust in SE dealing with that properly.

I love the changes to Succor. I main SCH and I have never felt more offended then when I have an AST tell me that they won't switch to Diurnal Stance because their shields are better than mine. Its only happened twice but it makes you wanna rage quit before a fight even starts. The worst part is that they aren't wrong and prior to the update it was an incredible difference in strength. Right now I am still farming the normal Delta Raids but I feel comfortable using Selene and enjoying the minute Raid DPS increase for the length of the encounter in good parties. I think the strength of our DPS and group DPS contributions are in a good place. Selene isn't great but she is still useful when you don't need Eos raw healing. It just requires you to be more aware of the fight mechanics.

The only real change for Selene I would like to see is to have her speed buff get reduced from 30 seconds to 15 seconds and have the speed increase changed from 3% to 6%. This would make it so that the Scholar effect on group DPS is exactly the same but you would actually feel it in other classes and also allow it to shine during the small DPS checks in more 4 man dungeons and full party encounters. Having that burst of group power on command would be more exciting then the barely noticeable 3% increase we have now and also line up perfectly with the duration of Chain Strategem.

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

The only real change for Selene I would like to see is to have her speed buff get reduced from 30 seconds to 15 seconds and have the speed increase changed from 3% to 6%. This would make it so that the Scholar effect on group DPS is exactly the same but you would actually feel it in other classes and also allow it to shine during the small DPS checks in more 4 man dungeons and full party encounters. Having that burst of group power on command would be more exciting then the barely noticeable 3% increase we have now and also line up perfectly with the duration of Chain Strategem.

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This would be alright provided Selene was actually good enough to use in Savage content, as it is now she's only there to buff the pt for pre-pull and won't be back for the rest of the fight. The change above would mean having even less time of Fey Wind in effect after pull and will most likely miss out on some of the buffs/debuffs from other pt members during the opener.

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

Selene isn't great but she is still useful when you don't need Eos raw healing. It just requires you to be more aware of the fight mechanics.

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The thing is, unless you somehow actually have no use at all for Eos's higher healing output (and seriously, how are you not finding a place to use Whispering Dawn?), in most situations you'll get a higher rDPS increase by freeing up yourself and your cohealer to spend more GCDs on DPS, than you would with Fey Wind. The way the math works out, Wind by itself isn't actually a DPS increase until ~60sec (3 full durations) under it's effect - before that it's front loading your damage slightly, but it takes that long for the extra speed to actually let you get an entire extra global in. And that's assuming that there is no clipping or globals lost to movement while Wind is up.

The spell as it exists right now is really only useful for squeezing an extra attack into opener raid buffs by using it pre-pull like FalalaMaru mentioned.

Good, the changes are immediately noticeable. Succor doesn't feel like a weak shield and the changes to the summon time make Dissipation as punishing as it once was. I still think Dissipation needs to be reworked as it makes no damn sense in the grand scheme of Scholars kit. But these buffs were definitely a step in the right directions ultimately.

The changes are really good. I had an AST who decided to stay in Nocturnal Stance for the 24 man as my cohealer. The joke was on him though...Succor OVERWROTE his shields every time. Feels good man.

I don't know. I feel weak and my physick feels like it takes a long time to cast. I've no problems in dungeons or normal raids but have been having trouble in Shinryu Ex with the ank morn or however you spell that. The second and third ones are brutal. I'm hoping it's just my ilvl though (325). I know it's not all me (just got out of a group where one of the tanks got one shot by earthen fury -- his first attack lol) but it feels that way sometimes.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

The changes are really good. I had an AST who decided to stay in Nocturnal Stance for the 24 man as my cohealer. The joke was on him though...Succor OVERWROTE his shields every time. Feels good man.

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On an opposite note, before the patch I had a spread adlo be completely over written by ast using his aoe shield before a pull. Felt bad man.

Edit: realized they can still do this.

Edit2: I do not know how you overwrote anything with succor because it's still the worst potency shield. You must have severely out geared him or something.

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Originally Posted by Miles_Maelstrom

On an opposite note, before the patch I had a spread adlo be completely over written by ast using his aoe shield before a pull. Felt bad man.

Edit: realized they can still do this.

Edit2: I do not know how you overwrote anything with succor because it's still the worst potency shield. You must have severely out geared him or something.

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Unless something changed that I missed, Galvanize and Nocturnal Field effects automatically overwrite each other regardless of potency.

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

Unless something changed that I missed, Galvanize and Nocturnal Field effects automatically overwrite each other regardless of potency.

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That's a troubling design choice in its own right then.

Edit: Anyone confirm this?

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

Unless something changed that I missed, Galvanize and Nocturnal Field effects automatically overwrite each other regardless of potency.

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^ This. Also, I think the only time Galvanize would overwrite Galvenize is when it exceeds the remaining HP on the existing shield. I do believe any Nocturnal Field would overwrite any other Nocturnal Field regardless of the HP on the shield.

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Originally Posted by Miles_Maelstrom

That's a troubling design choice in its own right then.

Edit: Anyone confirm this?

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This is the case. It wasn't a design choice as much of a punishment that they never went back to consider. There was some shinanigans of people stacking various shields so certain classes like BLM could ignore mechanics and just stay where they were. I don't think they ever thought more about it when they wrote the whole 'the overwrite each other' thingy after that.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

^ This. Also, I think the only time Galvanize would overwrite Galvenize is when it exceeds the remaining HP on the existing shield.

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Galvanize and Nocturnal Field both work this way; the oddity is that Galvanize and Nocturnal Field overwrite each other without checking the value of the existing barrier, and I think it's been like this since AST was introduced.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

^ This. Also, I think the only time Galvanize would overwrite Galvenize is when it exceeds the remaining HP on the existing shield. I do believe any Nocturnal Field would overwrite any other Nocturnal Field regardless of the HP on the shield.

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Yes, the way Galvanize works makes sense why overwrite a superior shield. If Nocturnal Field actually does that, over writing regardless, that is a huge disservice to ast. More ast should be up and arms about that. And if their functioned properly maybe it would be easier for SE to fix the cross class situation better.

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

Galvanize and Nocturnal Field both work this way; the oddity is that Galvanize and Nocturnal Field overwrite each other without checking the value of the existing barrier, and I think it's been like this since AST was introduced.

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I guess that tells you how much I play Nocturnal AST, heh.

I imagine Galvanize and Nocturnal Field always overwriting was a quick fix to ensure no super stacked shield comps would be generated. It SHOULD check which one has the greater HP and maintain that but I imagine there's some kink in how the buffs would interact in this fashion that prevents it, thus the mess we have now. As much as we want to say "fix it!" I doubt this is an easy fix and probably really low on the priority scale for them, sadly.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

^ This. Also, I think the only time Galvanize would overwrite Galvenize is when it exceeds the remaining HP on the existing shield. I do believe any Nocturnal Field would overwrite any other Nocturnal Field regardless of the HP on the shield.

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Actually, unless it's changed since HW, Galvanize only checks the existing shield's original value. So a 1000 value shield that has absorbed 900 damage (100 shield remaining) would still be counted as 1000, and would block a new 800 value shield from applying. I always assumed that Nocturnal Field worked the same, though I never did test it.

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Originally Posted by Riyshn

Actually, unless it's changed since HW, Galvanize only checks the existing shield's original value. So a 1000 value shield that has absorbed 900 damage (100 shield remaining) would still be counted as 1000, and would block a new 800 value shield from applying. I always assumed that Nocturnal Field worked the same, though I never did test it.

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You could be right, but I’ve always assumed that the current value was referenced. For example, if I throw a crit A. Benefic or Adlo on a tank at the start of a pull, I don’t observe any problems overwriting it after it’s taken a few hits.

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

Galvanize and Nocturnal Field both work this way; the oddity is that Galvanize and Nocturnal Field overwrite each other without checking the value of the existing barrier, and I think it's been like this since AST was introduced.

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They really should change that then. It's better if it checks the value of the barrier before overwriting. There's no point in a 7000HP barrier replacing a 12K HP barrier.

The sheild breakages from overwrites were what I assumed were implimented to avoid negating damage altogether by multi-stacking SCHs, and later, Noct ASTs. It's a design quirk that I don't find any issue with, myself.

IMHO, AST players that can't be bothered to swap to their cohealer's opposite (or worse, learn how to play both sects) are just bad.

As for SCH now, I felt the difference on my mana consumption pretty immediately and was happy to drop Largesse for Eye for an Eye. Feels good, man.

But good lord, Selene is still useless outside of that hyper-situational AoE esuna. I wish Silent Dusk could be swapped out with something more useful and reliable. Maybe her own version of Garuda's Pathogen?

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Originally Posted by Riyshn

Actually, unless it's changed since HW, Galvanize only checks the existing shield's original value. So a 1000 value shield that has absorbed 900 damage (100 shield remaining) would still be counted as 1000, and would block a new 800 value shield from applying. I always assumed that Nocturnal Field worked the same, though I never did test it.

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This is the first I've heard of this, personally. At the same time I don't find reason to doubt this completely either given how... special S-E coding of XIV seems to be.

Anecdotally, I don't think this is the case based on my limited observations. In the same token, I haven't really super observed how Galvanize / Nocturnal Field works in combat situations where this would occur.

I should find some time to test this in the future just for my own curiosity.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

This is the first I've heard of this, personally. At the same time I don't find reason to doubt this completely either given how... special S-E coding of XIV seems to be.

Anecdotally, I don't think this is the case based on my limited observations. In the same token, I haven't really super observed how Galvanize / Nocturnal Field works in combat situations where this would occur.

I should find some time to test this in the future just for my own curiosity.

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As I said, I haven't retested it since SB launched. Did test it working that way in HW, though. I actually had it lead to one or two unfortunate times that the Adlo before my deploy off our WAR was a crit, and was then not able to get appropriate shields on the party.

Galvanize and Nocturnal Field do overwrite each other regardless of shield strength. I'm not sure if Galvanize will overwrite an old Galvanize based on the shield's current value, but afaik that was the case too.

I'm pretty sure it's because the code doesn't really recognize both buffs as the same thing in concept, and is just programmed to overwrite it as a slapstick fix. Really wish they'd change it, tho. I accidentally overwrote a Deployed Adlo the other day when pugging a SCH for v4s, since I'm so used to mitigating the first Almagest with Noct shields and deploying during the initial hit :/. Felt really guilty about it.

As for the OP's topic: I already liked SCH a lot after the changes in 4.05, but the buff to Succor's shield is definitely noticeable. As someone else said, Almagest is fire and forget coupled with fairy buffs and most of Exfaust's White Holes feel a lot easier to handle, at least the ones that need hardcasts.

On Sch for both succor and aldo it states "Effect cannot be stacked with Nocturnal Sect" on the tooltips...
On AST Aspected Helios and Aspected benefic state "Effect cannot be stacked with Aldoquium" on the tooltips.

So Succor/Adlo and AST in Nocturnal sect helios/benefic cannot be stacked

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Originally Posted by PaulH

On Sch for both succor and aldo it states "Effect cannot be stacked with Nocturnal Sect" on the tooltips...
On AST Aspected Helios and Aspected benefic state "Effect cannot be stacked with Aldoquium" on the tooltips.

So Succor/Adlo and AST in Nocturnal sect helios/benefic cannot be stacked

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I don't know what you are think we are talking about . . . but

It's like this. So if a sch casts Aldo on some one and it crits it creates a large shield. Then he cast aldo again immediately and it doesn't crit, the new weaker shield would not overwrite the stronger old shield, it will fail to apply the new field.

On the other hand if an ast casts aspected bene on the guy with the crit galvanize. It'll overwrite regardless of being a weaker shield, it ideally should work like how the sch situation from above where it fails to apply the shield unless it's stronger.

It's better, don't get me wrong, but I feel like it still just needs a bit more to feel "good". I'd still like for Chain Strat and Excog to have interaction with Bane and Deploy respectively, even if they have to get a potency reduction on the pass. Selene is still vastly inferior to Eos. Double SCH, should it happen in random fights, feels suuuper bad (double WHM is still usable, but it's still not great either). Aetherpact/Fey's Union and Dissipation are still "meh" as capstone skills. Yeah, Dissipation got "better" thanks to changes around it, but the skill itself still does not synergize well with the SCH's playstyle and the rest of the kit (it gives more Aetherflow and a healing boost, but that healing boost doesn't affect the Aetherflow heals. The extra Aetherflow means nothing if the Aetherflow heals are on cooldown. Aetherflow used while the fairy is gone doesn't build Fairy Gauge).

It's better, but it's still highly disjointed. It had this problem in HW, too, but it was so minor, it didn't really matter. However, it's much more pronounced now, and it should be addressed, yet it's not.

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Originally Posted by inhaledcorn

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It's better, but it's still highly disjointed. It had this problem in HW, too, but it was so minor, it didn't really matter. However, it's much more pronounced now, and it should be addressed, yet it's not.

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Preach! I went off on some of those issues in another thread. Our ability synergy definitely took a hit from HW to SB.

A big one was how deploy felt. While still functionally the same it feels like it synergies with us less. This is because in HW it used to spread any of our scholar provided buffs (which we had 2, Galvanize and e4e). Now in SB it still spread those same buffs but e4e is no longer a scholar buff, it's a Healer role action, and we have another buff to give in excog. So now it doesn't spread our scholar buffs it spread Galvanize and e4e. It just makes this skill feel off-putting.

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Originally Posted by inhaledcorn

-Snip-

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I do agree that going from HW to SB kind of felt like a perfectly designed job got gutted into a clunky mess. It's not so bad now though. Funnily enough, we all speculated in 4.05 that we wouldn't get any big changes until 4.1, and then come 4.1 we got no changes to what all SCHs were actually asking for (except MP reductions, but imo the only significant one was to Summon which we got thanks to SMN). For that reason, I'm not too hopeful for Selene or Dissipation. BUT even if they just made Dissipation into a Faerie swap with less penalty, it would make the current Selene a little more relevant.

I guess Chain being able to spread via Bane wouldn't be too OP, as it would most likely be exclusive to dungeon content. I don't agree with being able to Deploy Excog though. Given how powerful Indom is, do we really need a nerfed version of Excog to be AoE? It has a much better purpose as an instant heal for tank busters IMO.

I've gotten used to SCH now, and it is effective at what it does. I can easily say though that 4.x SCH is nowhere near as fun as it was before. We can only hope 5.0 will branch us away from SMN and we'll finally get a little more attention.

Having the shield being at least the same as an AST shield is good, because it means we can shield (t least) as good as the other shield class.
Faster summon is always appreciated so we dont waste swiftcast if our pets dies (not an usual thing)
Ive never had much of an MP issue but its always nice for Adlo to be cheaper.
Sustain is very welcome, it was a stupid thing to take it away, specially for a SMN

Anyway I cleared O4S before the patch and after the patch, SCH has always being a good job, and capable of clearing all of the games content, as every other job.

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Originally Posted by Miles_Maelstrom

Preach! I went off on some of those issues in another thread. Our ability synergy definitely took a hit from HW to SB.

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I would argue that the biggest hit to our synergy (aside from the obvious Dissipation/Aetherpact conflict), is actually the removal of Cleric Stance. Scholar feels disjointed because it is, because it was designed to take full advantage of Cleric stance dancing, and the dual-stage gameplay that that created. Now that that's gone, we've lost a core mechanical strength, and the tools that worked well with that are just kinda left hanging.

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Originally Posted by Clouse_Cleyra

Having the shield being at least the same as an AST shield is good, because it means we can shield (t least) as good as the other shield class.

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Nope, shields still aren't as strong. (numbers assume a crit multiplier of 1.4)

SCH:
Adlo: 300/300
Crit Adlo: 420/840
Succor: 150/225
Crit Succor: 210/315
Noct. AST:
Asp.Bene: 230/575
Crit Asp.Bene: 322/805
Asp.Helios: 172.5/258.75
Crit Asp.Helios: 241.5/362.25

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Originally Posted by Miles_Maelstrom

I don't know what you are think we are talking about . . . but

It's like this. So if a sch casts Aldo on some one and it crits it creates a large shield. Then he cast aldo again immediately and it doesn't crit, the new weaker shield would not overwrite the stronger old shield, it will fail to apply the new field.

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Haha hmmm I dont know why my quote didnt work and some info missing... I was referring to RyuDragnier who said about that the AST he paired with didnt know about overwriting of shield on NOCT sect. I was pointing that these type of people need to read about tool tips hence stating them lol..

But I do get the shield debate it's not complex but I was trying to get from this thread about how SCH is since 4.1 and not thought debates on shields that could be spun into another thread.

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Originally Posted by Riyshn

I would argue that the hit to our synergy (aside from the obvious Dissipation/Aetherpact conflict), is actually the removal of Cleric Stance. Scholar feels disjointed because it is, because it was designed to take full advantage of Cleric stance dancing, and the dual-stage gameplay that that created. Now that that's gone, we've lost a core mechanical strength, and the tools that worked well with that are just kinda left hanging.



Nope, shields still aren't as strong. (numbers assume a crit multiplier of 1.4)

SCH:
Adlo: 300/300
Crit Adlo: 420/840
Succor: 150/225
Crit Succor: 210/315
Noct. AST:
Asp.Bene: 230/575
Crit Asp.Bene: 322/805
Asp.Helios: 172.5/258.75
Crit Asp.Helios: 241.5/362.25

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Why is asp helios 172,5? Isnt it 150 as same as succor? I think thats what it says on the skill.

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Originally Posted by Clouse_Cleyra

Why is asp helios 172,5? Isnt it 150 as same as succor? I think thats what it says on the skill.

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Noct A.Helios also gains a 15% Healing Bonus from being in Nocturnal Sect.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

Noct A.Helios also gains a 15% Healing Bonus from being in Nocturnal Sect.

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Oh didnt rememberd that, well AST is stronger on aoe shields then haha.
Im still sticking to SCH for Unending Coil thou xD