Scholar 5.0 Discussion

Vent here.

Group therapy.

1 Dot and 1 filler from lvl 4 to lvl 80.

Moved our AoE from lvl 30 to lvl 46 (?!)

We went from 7 dps moves to 3.

Eos and Selene are just reskins of each other (Thanks for the memories)

GG SE.

It's just sad. Scholar (alongside Warrior) was considered one of the best designed jobs at one point and now it could easily be the worst. SE just casually ruining their own excellence with shit like this!

At least we'll get 'healer in need' bonuses all day every day.

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Originally Posted by Kabzy

It's just sad. Scholar (alongside Warrior) was considered one of the best designed jobs at one point and now it could easily be the worst. SE just casually ruining their own excellence with shit like this!

At least we'll get 'healer in need' bonuses all day every day.

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The joke is on anyone who plays this job considering the changes they're pushing onto the community. My personal favorite is how instead of fixing Selene, they just made her Eos...I mean what a laugh! It doesn't get any lazier than that.

I'm happy at the new skills, but the loss of Miasma and Miasma II, Energy Drain, and Shadowflare hurts. IT REALLY HURTS. Plus no more deploying critical shields. OOF.

I don't even know where to start. This is going to go one of two ways. Current high level SCH players are going to either quit the class and probably healing. Or the meta will become solo healer.

Part of me really really really hopes solo healer becomes meta. That would be the best middle finger the community could give SE.

AFAIK, we still have double shield for critlo but cannot spread it out since they separate it into 2 different buff?

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Originally Posted by ShariusTC

AFAIK, we still have double shield for critlo but cannot spread it out since they separate it into 2 different buff?

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Yep. We can spread the Galvanize, not the Catalyze.

SCH really has had it worst. We need to weave our fairy skills, can't shield the fairy for deploy anymore, no fey covenant we need to use up a fairy heal along side it. Can't crit adlo and deploy anymore. Get the ability for a stronger indom etc.. we really didn't need that. DPS is heavily nerfed (sch will easily be lowest personal dps now). No eatherflow stack dump anymore since ED is gone. Made a cool change to dissipation but it's pointless now with the other changes.

Wow, like I don't understand how you can screw a class up THAT bad. Honestly you don't even need to play sch to see it. wtf.

Obviously the healer team is made up of people like Bobby McNobuttons, the all-star roulette healer that only casts physick.

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Originally Posted by EaMett

SCH really has had it worst. We need to weave our fairy skills, can't shield the fairy for deploy anymore, no fey covenant we need to use up a fairy heal along side it. Can't crit adlo and deploy anymore. Get the ability for a stronger indom etc.. we really didn't need that. DPS is heavily nerfed (sch will easily be lowest personal dps now). No eatherflow stack dump anymore since ED is gone. Made a cool change to dissipation but it's pointless now with the other changes.

Wow, like I don't understand how you can f*ck a class up THAT bad. Honestly you don't even need to play sch to see it. wtf.

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Might want to change that last line so you don't get suspended / banned friend.

R.I.P gameplay and congratulations to all the whinners on balancing healer, wo got this because of you, be proud of that :)

I don't main Scholar anymore, and maybe that revokes my right to really complain about it. But I mained scholar from 2.0 all the way until just before 4.2, when the weekly lockout on O4S was removed, at which point I traded roles with the person that had been our main tank for all that time. He was on the verge of qutting, and honestly I was feeling pretty bored with nothing changing in my main job in so long that I was glad for the swap. I still liked to go into 4man dungeons on healer to mix it up, and I always defaulted to my Scholar. But with the classes as they are, I don't think I'll ever touch my healers again unless I absolutely have to. I've never posted on the OF before but I'm doing so now in the hopes that SE will hear us better here than on reddit - please do not let this be the state of healers in FF14 going forward. Scholar, Astrologian, and White Mage all look utterly miserable to play, and especially boring in dungeon content. I don't know if any of the influencers brought in for the media tour were healer mains, but I hope so, and I hope they got to voice concerns as well.

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Originally Posted by DoctorHam

I don't main Scholar anymore, and maybe that revokes my right to really complain about it. But I mained scholar from 2.0 all the way until just before 4.2, when the weekly lockout on O4S was removed, at which point I traded roles with the person that had been our main tank for all that time. He was on the verge of qutting, and honestly I was feeling pretty bored with nothing changing in my main job in so long that I was glad for the swap. I still liked to go into 4man dungeons on healer to mix it up, and I always defaulted to my Scholar. But with the classes as they are, I don't think I'll ever touch my healers again unless I absolutely have to. I've never posted on the OF before but I'm doing so now in the hopes that SE will hear us better here than on reddit - please do not let this be the state of healers in FF14 going forward. Scholar, Astrologian, and White Mage all look utterly miserable to play, and especially boring in dungeon content. I don't know if any of the influencers brought in for the media tour were healer mains, but I hope so, and I hope they got to voice concerns as well.

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Exactly. I made a forum account when these changes were announced out of shock and saddness as well. But, I don't think the devs care honestly. They're mute on this from what I can tell. They talk at us, not with us regarding these changes.

I hope everyone will continue to write on the forums about this absolute garbage of a "balancing" that SCH received. More like a push in the dirt. Hopefully they will patch it as soon as possible once they realize how bad it is. Quitting SCH until it is decent again and moving to a dps class. Also agree that the balancing team for healers made huge mistakes and I honestly can't believe this got through to the final version. WHM still doesnt have a party buff, so if they get around to fixing scholar it will be be the same old SCH/AST meta. So much disappointment...

SCH appears to be a very strong class still. The only thing that's bad is the simplified DPS rotation. The MP cost for Art of War probably too high, give us back Shadowflare like it was in Heavensward and I'll be happy.

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Originally Posted by Starflake

SCH appears to be a very strong class still. The only thing that's bad is the simplified DPS rotation. The MP cost for Art of War probably too high, give us back Shadowflare like it was in Heavensward and I'll be happy.

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Oddly the tooltip on Sacred Soil says, "cannot be used with any other area-creating actions" when they removed the only other area creating action (ShadowFlare).

A 10 potency gain on Bio II > Biolysis. 10 dang potency increase. . .

Stuff like that shows me whoever is designing the healer jobs is incompetent or just really really doesn't know what they're doing.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Might want to change that last line so you don't get suspended / banned friend.

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Thanks for the heads up. I missed that. Potty mouth be potty mouth.

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Originally Posted by Starflake

SCH appears to be a very strong class still. The only thing that's bad is the simplified DPS rotation. The MP cost for Art of War probably too high, give us back Shadowflare like it was in Heavensward and I'll be happy.

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erm SCH lost skills that account for ~30% of it's dps. I have yet to see anything that could make up for that. CS got nerfed as well (although that was expected)

I'm at a loss as to why we lost energy drain and then gained all these healing options that are not effected by aether stacks. Do we really need that much healing potency now? My main concern is that if standard content isn't buffed up then I'm just gonna be a supped up whm with shields and a fairy. I know it sounds weird, but I am truly at a loss as to why they gave us so much healing potential. What am I gonna do with all these extra stacks? Do I just overheal so I get my gauge up quicker? Which if that's the case... did se not learn from sb lily system to not do that? Or am I missing something. Is there a new skill that is linked to aether stacks? I know there is one that negates them which do we really need that?

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Originally Posted by Anselmet

I'm at a loss as to why we lost energy drain and then gained all these healing options that are not effected by aether stacks. Do we really need that much healing potency now? My main concern is that if standard content isn't buffed up then I'm just gonna be a supped up whm with shields and a fairy. I know it sounds weird, but I am truly at a loss as to why they gave us so much healing potential. What am I gonna do with all these extra stacks? Do I just overheal so I get my gauge up quicker? Which if that's the case... did se not learn from sb lily system to not do that? Or am I missing something. Is there a new skill that is linked to aether stacks? I know there is one that negates them which do we really need that?

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For the trust AI, it's all for the trust AI

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Originally Posted by EaMett

For the trust AI, it's all for the trust AI

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Alphinaud has never kept me alive and he never will.

I just read that Embrace is nerfed from 250 potency to 150 potency wat. Edit, guess it makes sense since Seraph gives you 50 gauge and 200 potency embrace with 200 potency shields for 20 sec (probably less if animation is a thing

sadly sch is still the better healer (like they have been since game release). They still have rdps and whm doesn't, which means by default they are superior.

Honestly a good chance would've been the make whm hands down superior. Its time to change up the class order.

The sheer negativity in this thread I swear...

I'm gonna start with what I do miss. Energy Drain. Not even so much for the damage potency/mp sustain it provided, but rather for it being a viable option for dumping aetherflow when the cooldown is almost up.

Now that my gripe is out of the way. I love the changes. While the simplification of our dps is a reason for complaint. I'm personally not bothered by it. Infact, I'm rather happy Art of War replaced Miasma 2, and that Ruin II got a potency buff, as I hated the use of Miasma II to optimize my dps and weaving. Ruin iI is a much more comfortable spell to use at that point.

Speaking of weaving. While the fairy no longer having it's own seperated gcd is a valid thing to be bothered by. SCH still has some of the best options for weaving ogcds out of the three healers. They would only loose about 80 potency, and have a potency gain at 2+ mobs, to double weave their vast ogcd kit.

So while there are elements of it that will feel weaker. I cant help but feel positive about it since it still has the tools for it to fulfill the niche of the high uptime aggressive ogcd focused healer.

After looking at these changes I have come to the realization that Scholar is going from being my favorite job to basically making me considering leaving the game. I have been a raid scholar since Final Coil and been highly praised by raiders and casual players alike for how I well I know my job, and manage my pets. I have put a great pride in that and I can honestly say that playing scholar is for me as natural as breathing and I have loved it so much.

I'm trying to not sound like a ranty little kid and keep this criticism to the point, so I made a list of the changes I want to adress and how this will ruin the job I love for me.

On the plus side, Recitation is something I have begged for since Cascades in A3s, however, If the use for it has been removed with no longer spreading of crit Adlos this new additional skill basically feels very lacklustered for me, it feels a underwhelming. A little like getting that game you always wanted and realizing it doesn't work on your console.

So without any further ado, here is my list:

1) The Removal of Selene
The removal of Selene and her skills seem rather illogical with the philosophy that SE seem to be heading with healers and making them more "simple/straightforward".

The use of Fey caress as an aoe esuna in dungeons was a really handy toolkit to have. And outside of dungeons in some situations, such as Place of the Dead, Heaven on High + Baldesion Arsenal it was extremely irreplaceable. It was to that extent that I, even tho it would heal intensive, pick Selene over Eos just for her instant dot removal. In especially the deep dungeon this could mean the difference between a wipe and a clear because of server ticks sometimes being an issue.

They redid the interrupt system in this expansion to make it more clear to people when things could be interrupted then they went and ripped silent dusk away from scholars, I don't understand the logic here.

Finally Fey wind was a small but nice to have raid buff, its a small 3% that's been removed for no reason. I always used Selene in the beginning of a fight just because there was no healing required there, I would put a shield and Excog on the tank before the fight and then focus on my dps rotation and swap out Selene for Eos when the fight started to get into the intensive parts.

2) The Removal of Energy Drain
Energy Drain is big part of my rotation, its a way to dump my Aetherflow stacks when healing hasn't been necessary and Aetherflow has been coming off cool down. It was also a way to regain MP in situations were I for example have died and being raised again, so it have made it possible for me to recover faster and move on in the fight. The removal of Energy Drain also doesn't make any sense with the fact that the fairy gauge will become more useful with the addition of a new Fairy Gauge action. If the point is to build gauge, which it has been in Stormblood, that haven't made it easier. Scholar has gone from being a very effective and flexible job to overly simplified and straight forward with just a lot ogcd healing. If I could change anything, it would be this, give us back Energy Drain, you can dump the Mp regain down to 5% if needed, but just give it back because as it stands with this current information, playing scholar will basically mean that I will have the highest over healing known to man, I might even ripe hate because of the pure aggro generation the healing does.
To give an example of how important Energy Drain is to the Fairy Gauge as well I'll talk about O11S:
For the first minute of O11S there is basically no damage going out if I put up an Adlo spread at the beginning, the Aoe isn't strong enough to break the shield and the tank will get a Regen from the Whm/Astro + A shield from me + Embrace from Fairy.
During this minute I can use 6 Energy Drains without sacrificing any healing, because there is nothing to heal. With these 6 energy drains I can build up a 60 stack Fairy Gauge, which I'll use on healing the main tank during the first encounter of the fists which requires a lot of orientating and moving for healers while heavy auto attacks is going out on the tank, so using Fey Union on the tank here is both efficient and useful since the Energy Drains I have used up until this point has been converted to heals from the fairy. At the same time, I have not wasted any stacks on missing cool downs or holding aetherflow. I know this requires planning, but that is what made Scholar fun.

3) Fairy Embrace
From what I have seen/heard, we no longer can control our Fairys basic heal ability. Why is that? The heal has even been reduced, which is fine, but why can't we control it? Since Embrace is on auto for party members below 80%, its still random which player she will heal first, or at all. I know that micro managing your fairy is something not all Scholars do, and that's fine, I won't say a word about it, however I know how I play and I enjoy being able to use Embrace on people in situations where they would have for example 85% health and NEEDED to be topped of to not turn to stone. It would make more sense then using a Physic or Adlo on them because of the pure Mp cost and an Embrace would more then enough which would save a GCD which could be used on for example moving into position for an upcoming mechanic.

4) Removing Miasma
When Stormblood came out I was really sad, but I accepted that I had halved my dots from 4 to 2, now they are halved again, into 1... The thing with scholar has been our dots, dots has been our damage, which has made it possible for us to focus on getting stronger shields and protecting our parties. Removing Miasma has basically turned Scholar into a Noct astro without the Cards, which makes no sense, especially not when it comes to down to the whole balancing of the three healers.

Scholar has ONLY 1 dot and 1 GCD for dps (Ruin 2 doesnt count, it a weave skill for moving)
WHM has assize and Afflatus Misery which yes they are oGCD but that's additional potencies that they will have over sch.
Meanwhile AST is throwing out all these raid buffs and still has earthly star on a min cd for an extra 150 potency every minutes.
With these it just feels like sch is going to be sitting around waiting to heal/dump their aetherflow and also be doing less damage/compared to the other healers.
So basically, Scholar is the only of the healers that won't have an ogcd dps skill, meaning we are going to be the healer who, which SE has said they actively wanted to avoid, will be stuck in acting as the main healer.

5) Deployment Crit-lo
So I don't know if this is correct yet, but I hope it ain't. From what I have understood spreading a Crit Adlo will no longer spread the additional effect of the adlo, which was that your shield became 200% of your heal, meaning a 10k Adlo became a 20k shield. If this is the case I honestly just feel drained. Basically every single fight I do depends on a crit adlo at some point or an other, if it's in the beginning or to avoid the hell that is Hello World in o12s. For parts of these fights I would just do everything I could to get the biggest crit I could possible get. This means sacrificing my own personal DPS, which I was fine with because of the benefits it would mean for the party. With this argument I hope that you can see that I'm not just a summoner disgusted as a healer, I don't care much about Dps, however I care about being efficient and honestly, there was no better feeling then seeing a massive raid Aoe a'la Aion Efflex do zero damage to the whole party.

There, I have tried to keep my comments to the point and give example on how this effects us Scholars actually doing the content created for us.

Have a good one.

Game over man, game over!


But fr I can't believe how badly they massacred our role. To think I was so excited to get to level it again for Shadowbringers. Good bye to that fantasy lol, I'm not even looking at it again until they restore it back to a proper state. These changes are unnecessary and unacceptable and I wish everyone who decides to stick with SCH(and healing in general) good luck because Hydaelyn knows y'all will need it.

It's punt the Scholar II: Revengence. Just like how they took miasma 2 the last time they took nearly everything this time! :C

I've never been this upset before an expansion and I don't even main a healer.

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Originally Posted by Zweiss

Good bye to that fantasy lol.

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Truly, a final fantasy.

i been with SCh since 2.0, i dont get why they take away actions, then give them back when we complain enough. the removal of action is never the answer unless you give back something better in return. the Art of War is a Miasma II clone without the Dot with a 800mp cost upped from 100 potency to 150 potency minus the DOT for 12 sec with a 25 potency. Shadow Flare needs to return renamed it "War Room" with potency up from 50 to 75 with additional effect "War Ready" allowing the "Art of War" to mimic Miasma II old attributes minus the 5% slow. healing is fun, dpsing is fun, the tanks got the best of both worlds, might as well share it with the healers who love doing more. Because we all know when it comes to raiding it always a big DPS race to the finish, if all are not dpsing then we hit a mini dps check with a room wide wipe.

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

[...] Ruin iI is a much more comfortable spell to use at that point.

Speaking of weaving. While the fairy no longer having it's own seperated gcd is a valid thing to be bothered by. SCH still has some of the best options for weaving ogcds out of the three healers. They would only loose about 80 potency, and have a potency gain at 2+ mobs, to double weave their vast ogcd kit.

So while there are elements of it that will feel weaker. I cant help but feel positive about it since it still has the tools for it to fulfill the niche of the high uptime aggressive ogcd focused healer.

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Ruin II still only worth it if you double weave. Still better to clip your broil III if you're single weaving. We also don't have much left in terms of actual weaving once you remove ED, SF, Cleric. End result will be that you will be clipping a lot and every now and then you'll double weave. The rest of the time you'll have blocky gameplay like WHM waiting for you GCD to get back after your bio.

It's astonishing that they would go back over something that flowed really well. I'm hoping we can convince them that ED has to come back in some form or another. We need a stack dump and another ogcd damage skill.

In fact they not only need to bring back ED and maybe SF, they should make AoW a DoT again because Holy = AoE+Stun, Gravity = ranged AoE, and AoW = Melee instant AoE? That's just no fun at all. It is not even engaging. Therefore AoW should be a DoT again like Miasma 2.
Then they have to bring back ED and SF and also Miasma as a castable DoT. SCH was so much fun to play and so unique. It was such a nuanced job and now they dump it down? For what? WHM do not even want that. They were not complaining about that but about Chainstrategam!
Why does SE not understand the Healer community?
SE has to bring back ED, SF, make AoW a DoT again and Miasma. All with different IDs if they want, if not, then just bring them back once and for all.

SE needs to get to know their own Healer playerbase and not ignore them. If they do not have a healer designer who plays healer and is motivated they need to get a new team or w/e.
If they go this way, they will just lose SCH players and maybe even more(AST for example).

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Originally Posted by EaMett

Ruin II still only worth it if you double weave. Still better to clip your broil III if you're single weaving. We also don't have much left in terms of actual weaving once you remove ED, SF, Cleric. End result will be that you will be clipping a lot and every now and then you'll double weave. The rest of the time you'll have blocky gameplay like WHM waiting for you GCD to get back after your bio.

It's astonishing that they would go back over something that flowed really well. I'm hoping we can convince them that ED has to come back in some form or another. We need a stack dump and another ogcd damage skill.

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Its also a decent option for mobility as well. Besides, with how much more expansive our ogcd kit seems to becoming I feel confident that we can work out more consistent double weaves. Ruin II has a far lower loss of potency attached to it compared to Dia or Combust. And now that ED is gone, we no longer have to worry about trading ED's damage potency for heals. While I generally agree that the loss of ED does feel a little bad, it also means that our Aetherflow no longer has value outside of the heals and the extra 1k mp a minute.

My main issues with the SCH changes are largely on the DPS front. FF14's trademark is that healers do damage. Any advice you give to newbie healers is "guess what, you're not a pure healer!" Healers being accepted as expected to do DPS in their free time is a huge step forward for MMOs. The awesome part about having a mini dps rotation as a healer is it gives you something to do once you learn the fight, and keeps you from burning out as you still have to balance healing and DPSing.

That said, the reason why the SCH changes are so awful is that they remove ALL damage skill complexity for the class. It's gone from a slightly bloated state to a dead simple 2 button damage class. It's like every single thing that was available to trim, they cut. The damage for dungeons and AoE pulls is a one button rotation. We hardly get to keep any remnants of Arcanist. It's a really sad day for us. Honestly if we got back Shadowflare and Bane I'd be OK with it. But the amount of things cut is just far too many, for no good reason.

Probably the most puzzling thing is that they didn't address Succor + Emergency Tactics. Emergency Tactics should not exist, the effects it provides should be a separate skill like Medica 2 is a separate skill from Medica that way it can have its own cooldown. It'll make it so you don't have to weave the OGCD in before casting it, and remove a button press. Out of all the cutting that was done, that remains?

For the healing side of it, I'm willing to give it a go. From a glance it seems extremely bloated and too many things do the same thing. On top of that, the goal is said to be to differentiate types of healing... and SCH just gets more direct healing alongside it's already strong proactive healing. That just makes it even worse.

The primary issue I have is that this new SCH just feels like a super early rough draft, and since it is (was?) my main it's super painful to see. Maybe I'll give it a go in 5.1 or 5.2?

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Originally Posted by Kabzy

It's just sad. Scholar (alongside Warrior) was considered one of the best designed jobs at one point and now it could easily be the worst. SE just casually ruining their own excellence with shit like this!

At least we'll get 'healer in need' bonuses all day every day.

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This MMO just became the most unfriendly to healers. AST and SCH got gutted.

But....... I’m happy with the changes. Only way they could make it better is with fairy glam.

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Originally Posted by DamianFatale

This MMO just became the most unfriendly to healers. AST and SCH got gutted.

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Exactly, my discord channels were filled with people in disbelief about how any developer could have the courage to roll out these changes and say they're good with a straight face. They're an absolutely attempt to turn what are currently different and interesting classes to virtual clones of each other. That's not balance though SE, it's homogenization. And quite frankly, it's boring.

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Originally Posted by Truen

That's not balance though SE, it's homogenization. And quite frankly, it's boring.

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It's not even that, it's the fact that healing is threatening to be really boring during downtime, which is going to be at least 90-95% of the game's content.