Feedback on SCH Design in Shadowbringers

It is no secret that a large portion of the player base is dissatisfied with the changes to the SCH class in Shadowbringers. I believe that this has much less to do with the strength of the job and more to do with how it feels to play scholar with its recent changes, in addition to what I perceive as some notable design flaws. The purpose of this thread is to provide some constructive feedback for what I believe to be the problems with SCH's current design which are in most need of attention from the developers. My perspective is that of someone who has been playing SCH religiously ever since version 2.0 in both casual content and savage raids. So, without further ado:

1. In my mind this is the absolutely most important issue: Scholar NEEDS to have Energy Drain back, or something similar to it to burn excess Aetherflow charges. Currently, the most desirable stack spenders (Sacred Soil, Indomitability and Excogitation) are on longish cooldowns, so that most often the only way to dump spare charges is Lustrate - the problem is that Lustrate is relatively weak and often is unnecessary overhealing. Furthermore, opportunities to weave oGCD skills without a DPS loss are so infrequent (with Biolysis lasting 30 seconds) that using Lustrate to burn stacks ends up extremely low on the priority list, when compared with other skills that need weaving; consequently, it is often best to literally ignore your Aetherflow cooldown because it is simply not needed. Because of this, the Aetherflow mechanic in its current form has become quite non-interactive and honestly not very fun in my opinion. I would add to this that optimal usage of Aetherflow (ignoring a powerful resource that is central to your job's gameplay) is incredibly counter-intuitive and, if a goal of the 5.0 changes were to make healers feel more accessible to beginners, I believe they accomplish the exact opposite of that.

2. This is largely related to Point #1, but currently there is absolutely no clear priority to which heals to use in which situation, because every single one of them comes with the exact same opportunity cost. In Stormblood, it was very clear that (at least in a vacuum), Whispering Dawn > Indomitability > Succor, because in that order they come with successively higher costs (Whispering Dawn cost nothing, Indom cost 150 potency via Energy Drain, Succor cost an entire GCD and lots of MP). In Shadowbringers, since Aetherflow is used only for healing and since all fairy skills require use of an oGCD, all of our oGCD skills (Whispering Dawn, Consolation, Fey Blessing, Sacred Soil and Indomitability) have the exact same cost and achieve largely the exact same things. So I find myself just picking one at random - We have 5 different hammers for the same nail, the element of decision making is completely gone and it feels very awkward!

Continued in next post...

3. Seraph is a cool idea, but in some ways it feels clunky to use, because when she enters or leaves the battlefield she literally replaces Eos/Selene and this animation cancels whatever your fairy was doing at that moment. For example, if I use Whispering Dawn followed by Summon Seraph, Whispering Dawn will go on cooldown but I will not get its effect because the Seraph replaced my fairy before the animation of Whispering Dawn was finished. It feels incredibly awful to use a powerful cooldown and not get its effect. There are also other issues with the Seraph, such as the fact that it locks you out of a significant portion of the rest of your kit. Why can't we use Dissipation, Fey Blessing or Fey Union when the Seraph is on the field? Is there an actual reason?

4. Speaking of Dissipation, I find it a contradiction that the buff from Dissipation (and also Fey Illumination) doesn't interact with 90% of your healing toolkit, because they only affect "spells" and not "abilities." Scholar is by far more dependent on their "abilities" than any other healer, and sacrificing the fairy for 30 seconds seems a ridiculously huge price to pay for something that does near absolutely nothing for your healing throughput; even the extra Aetherflow that Dissipation generates will likely be useless due to no good way to consume the extra stacks (see point #1). To make things even worse, the Aetherflow generated by Dissipation can't be used to gain Fairy Gauge either. There exist skills in the game (e.g. Asylum) that affect healing done by abilities, so why does Dissipation not do this as well? Neutral Sect and Temperance do not come with any cost whatsoever - why does SCH have to pay such a huge price for the same buff, even when it does almost nothing for them? I would even go a step further and say not only does Dissipation DO almost nothing for SCH, it even actively punishes you for using it since the cons tend to heavily outweigh the pros. In its current state, Dissipation might be the single worst ability in the entire history of the game, both functionally and from a design point of view.

5. Ruin 2 damage should be buffed to about 210 or 220 potency - the primary purpose of this ability (aside from movement) is to create weaving opportunities for oGCD skills, without losing GCD uptime. However, with Ruin II at 200 potency it is better for most people (depending on their ping) to clip their GCD to use an oGCD skill, than it is to use Ruin 2 for weaving.

6. It appears the game prioritizes consuming Galvanize over Catalyze, which is frustrating because currently the best use of deployment tactics would tend to be on the main tank; if catalyze were consumed first we would not be at risk of deploying a shield which has been weakened by auto attacks.

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7. Seraphic Veil needs some adjustments. It seems a bit odd to add a shielding effect and simultaneously take away the ability to choose who gets it. Most of the time this shield will likely go to waste, not only because it might target someone who won't take any damage, but also because Seraphic Veil is now weaker than the shield granted by Consolation. The Seraph only lasts long enough to use Embrace 6 times and most of these will either go to someone who doesn't need it or someone who already has a stronger shield.

8. Yoshi in a recent Live Letter made a statement to the effect that co-healers were always picking up the slack for scholars in Stormblood, because scholars were too focused on "applying barriers." I bring this up because the 5.0 scholar changes appear to be consistent with Yoshi's statement - however, that statement has absolutely NO grounding in reality and I find it very odd to let such a myth shape job design decisions (if in fact they did). In actuality, scholars in Stormblood often did significantly MORE healing than their co-healer, due to the fact that it cost them almost nothing to access a powerful selection of healing tools on short cooldowns - Whispering Dawn cost literally nothing, while Indomitability cost them an Energy Drain (150 Potency) - meanwhile, WHM would have to sacrifice an entire GCD to do the same amount of healing, which amounts to much more than a 150 potency loss. Even if all abilities were on cooldown so that a GCD heal was required, the scholar would normally be the one doing it, because their GCD is worth less damage than a WHM's GCD, with Broil being less potency than Stone. So the truth is, SCH was the one picking up the slack for WHM, not the other way around (at least in a group that knew how to play effectively). Now in Shadowbringers, Scholar's healing throughput has become ludicrously high, perhaps to compensate for an issue that didn't exist in the first place, and I cannot help but ask why the job design has headed in this direction. The issue of sharing responsibility has far more to do with opportunity costs and almost nothing to do with "barriers versus pure healing" as was suggested in Live Letter 51. In fact, SCH's barriers are hardly at all the reason why they are desired in raids - they are certainly a perk, but high end play involves casting spells such as Succor as infrequently as possible. It is not clear to me that this aspect of healer synergy is well understood by the design team.

9. I think the DPS kits for all three healers need to be completely redesigned. In its current form it is mind-numbingly boring and, independently of how one feels about whether or not healers should be responsible for DPSing in group environments, the DPS kit is still essential for a significant portion of the game (all solo content and questing) and it should be fun to use WHEN IT IS NEEDED, whether that be in solo or group settings. I understand the desire to have simplicity in the healer DPS kit due to the fact that they have other responsibilities, but "simple" doesn't have to mean "not engaging." I think DPS skills such as Afflatus Misery are a step in the right direction because they interact with other skills in your toolkit in an interesting way.

Thanks to the devs for all the hard work they put into this game - I still love to play Scholar and enjoy a lot of the changes that were made for Shadowbringers - I would love it even more with a few minor adjustments!

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Originally Posted by Aqua150

8. Yoshi in a recent Live Letter made a statement to the effect that co-healers were always picking up the slack for scholars in Stormblood, because scholars were too focused on DPSing. I bring this up because the 5.0 scholar changes appear to be consistent with Yoshi's statement - however, that statement has absolutely NO grounding in reality and I find it very odd to let such a myth shape job design decisions (if in fact they did). In actuality, scholars in Stormblood often did significantly MORE healing than their co-healer, due to the fact that it cost them almost nothing to access a powerful selection of healing tools on short cooldowns - Whispering Dawn cost literally nothing, while Indomitability cost them an Energy Drain (150 Potency) - meanwhile, WHM would have to sacrifice an entire GCD to do the same amount of healing, which amounts to much more than a 150 potency loss. Even if all abilities were on cooldown so that a GCD heal was required, the scholar would normally be the one doing it, because their GCD is worth less damage than a WHM's GCD, with Broil being less potency than Stone. So the truth is, SCH was the one picking up the slack for WHM, not the other way around (at least in a group that knew how to play effectively). Now in Shadowbringers, Scholar's healing throughput has become ludicrously high, perhaps to compensate for an issue that didn't exist in the first place, and I cannot help but ask why the job design has headed in this direction.

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Do you know where he said that exactly? If that is true, the grasp Square has of the healers is worse than I thought.

Also the fairy is sluggish and unreactive. I don’t know what it is but if I had to make a guess it used to cancel it’s embrace to use skills when ordered but now that embrace is instant it has to wait for the gcd to roll before it can cast. Feels so much worse.

Very well put. I agree with everything you said. As someone who plays sch in an optimized environment. The difference in enjoyment between Stormblood and Shadowbringers is like night and day(pun intended). The ex trials show no signs of increased healing requirements, and in fact, I usually sit on aetherflow for almost 2 minutes because using one to heal would be a dps loss and a waste because it's not needed. If MAJOR changes aren't brought in the next patch for all the healers, I will be one of the many healer mains switching roles.

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Originally Posted by Alphras

Do you know where he said that exactly? If that is true, the grasp Square has of the healers is worse than I thought.

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I went back and checked the Live Letter and it looks like I had the quote slightly wrong, but it doesn't really change my point. The exact quote of his official translator is the following:

"With the scholar, they typically handled applying barriers, mostly, and they didn't really have the direct capabilities of healing spells. So the responsibility of healing tended to go to other healer jobs. Now, with the addition of more healing spells, now we're sharing the responsibility so it's not just the other jobs, but the scholar is now more able to heal so you can depend on each other."

Source: https://youtu.be/rewM-Z9bGhA?t=7993

I edited my original post to more accurately reflect the fact that Yoshi's statement was more about SCH's barriers than it was about DPS. Either way, it shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the way healers work together in reality and raises the same concerns regarding design choices in Shadowbringers.

I've only just recently gotten SCH to Level 70 but I've been wondering this for a while and would like an answer from people who main SCH and have played it more than I have.

What is the point of burning extra Aetherflow stacks right now? Why do we need to use Aetherflow on cooldown as we did before? We no longer need it for DPS, which is why we needed to ensure we never held onto Aetherflow longer than needed before, so I'm wondering why it matters if we hold Aetherflow for when we need the extra stacks/MP and why it matters if we use it when we still have stacks left over when we have no need to use them.

Also, I've stated this in another thread and I assume a lot of people don't like it, but: I feel giving SCH a spammable oGCD damage ability would be misplaced in this Expansion for healers. It would greatly increase their DPS since Healers have had their amount of DPS skills gutted though.

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Originally Posted by Rivxkobe

What is the point of burning extra Aetherflow stacks right now? Why do we need to use Aetherflow on cooldown as we did before? We no longer need it for DPS, which is why we needed to ensure we never held onto Aetherflow longer than needed before, so I'm wondering why it matters if we hold Aetherflow for when we need the extra stacks/MP and why it matters if we use it when we still have stacks left over when we have no need to use them.

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There is a whole thread on this topic alone: Scholar Aetherflow Issues. You haven't missed anything about Aetherflow, it's pretty much a useless mechanic right now, all it does is give you back some MP (and MP really isn't an issue right now) and using the Aetherflow abilities increases the fairy gauge (which doesn't really offer anything useful either). So you might as well ignore it. That is why many Scholar players have been asking for them to add a meaningful Aetherflow dump ability.

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Originally Posted by Taika

There is a whole thread on this topic alone: Scholar Aetherflow Issues. You haven't missed anything about Aetherflow, it's pretty much a useless mechanic right now, all it does is give you back some MP (and MP really isn't an issue right now) and using the Aetherflow abilities increases the fairy gauge (which doesn't really offer anything useful either). So you might as well ignore it. That is why many Scholar players have been asking for them to add a meaningful Aetherflow dump ability.

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Ah. Thank you. This helps a lot.

I was slightly misunderstanding what people saying then. lol

Edit: I was taking it they were saying we need to burn stacks because Aetherflow needs to be used on CD to be more effective, like before.

Instead I should of understood that they were saying that it feels bad to be holding stacks that are unneeded and not having a way to dump them so we can use Aetherflow on CD because it feels kind of wasted and less effective otherwise and dumping them on Lustrate or something else feels better than overlaping them or waiting to use Aetherflow but still feels bad.

Because compared to before SCH feels kind of janky with how its stacks work. Which I can 100% agree on. The number of times I've only used Aetherflow for MP when I've had 1-2 stacks left is kind of unreal.

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Originally Posted by Rivxkobe

I've only just recently gotten SCH to Level 70 but I've been wondering this for a while and would like an answer from people who main SCH and have played it more than I have.

What is the point of burning extra Aetherflow stacks right now? Why do we need to use Aetherflow on cooldown as we did before? We no longer need it for DPS, which is why we needed to ensure we never held onto Aetherflow longer than needed before, so I'm wondering why it matters if we hold Aetherflow for when we need the extra stacks/MP and why it matters if we use it when we still have stacks left over when we have no need to use them.

Also, I've stated this in another thread and I assume a lot of people don't like it, but: I feel giving SCH a spammable oGCD damage ability would be misplaced in this Expansion for healers. It would greatly increase their DPS since Healers have had their amount of DPS skills gutted though.

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The only reason to burn excess Aetherflow is to generate more Fairy Gauge, but that on its own is not enough reason to justify the DPS loss required to create enough weaving opportunities to do so. So in short: there is no reason to use excess Aetherflow, and consequently the entire mechanic is boring and counter-intuitive.

I don't agree that a spammable oGCD damage ability would be misplaced - SCH currently has the simplest DPS kit to manage, with only 1 DOT and 1 nuke. WHM and AST do have extra things to do in addition to those - Assize, Afflatus Misery, Earthly Star and Cards (Okay, I guess SCH has Chain Stratagem, but "press this button once every 2 minutes" hardly counts as something to manage and is by far the least engaging of all the healer DPS abilities), so I see no reason why SCH couldn't have something more to think about as well. While the WHM and AST skills I mentioned may not be spammable, I don't see that being a problem - I view "spammable" versus "unspammable" as simply being a way to differentiate the flavour of the three classes.

I've been thinking since 70 that it they should have integrated the Faerie Gauge sooner. Always found it a little silly. Aetherflow burning was a concept that you just kinda did if you could/wanted to do so, then suddenly out of nowhere as the new capstone ability is an incredibly powerful channeled single target heal using this new resource that will make those irresistible monster pulls at least somewhat less of a headache to deal with and maybe even free up a hand to help out with the AoEs, as long as you have meter to burn.

Two years later, we have all of one new ability that uses this resource, is basically just a bonus Indom with twice the cooldown, and our main meter spender, Fey Union, is now even harder to build up to use out of the gate because we can't hit our first Aetherflow until the first pull begins. (Remaining rules apply: We must be in combat to gain meter, and even though Dissipation now resummons upon expiration, the fairy is still technically eaten so we can't use our fresh refill of Aetherflow to fill more meter there either)

Before it was Temple of the Fist for me, now it's Anyder. Ran it four times and every time, including when the party knew I was fresh, watching the intro cutscene with some sub-400 accs, still ran on ahead and did that first pull to wall with me straining to keep up, panic healing the whole time. Every time, it ends on a wipe, and I haven't queued Expert since then because I'm still mentally theorycrafting how in the seven hells tanks expect me to keep them alive when at best I'll have three ticks of the Fey Union until 60 more seconds into that first pull, one cycle of Seraph, one Recitation to auto-Catalyze or get a free Lustrate/Excog for another Union tick, and the rest of it is at the mercy of my Adlos + Dissipation and the fairy cooldowns. It never gets anywhere approaching this bad again until the *last* pull of the dungeon, and even then I find myself with moments where I get to turn Aetherpact *off* because the flood of incoming autos at least gets a few more breaks in between.

In that 10-15 second very Ala Mhigo reminiscent run down the long pathway with absolutely nothing going on (plus time in the barrier, assuming I load first) I should at least still be allowed to hit Aetherflow to top off and have that on cooldown. Yes, I miss pre-5.0 Energy Drain too for our many "nothing going on, time to not only burn Aetherflow but also pop Dissipation and weave in 3 more OGCD mini-Ruin 2s AND drop the cooldown of my next Aetherflow by another 15 seconds to boot" encounters, but on the off chance that I actually am expected to semi-intensively heal, I'd like to be 100% sufficiently prepared on resources to be able to do that too.

But that's just me. I don't do Savage or even Extremes, much less 8+-mans in general as tank/healer, so what goes on beyond the scope of 4-man dungeon crawls and this set of rather chill trials and raids is admittedly beyond me.

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Originally Posted by GameTaco

I've been thinking since 70 that it they should have integrated the Faerie Gauge sooner. Always found it a little silly. Aetherflow burning was a concept that you just kinda did if you could/wanted to do so, then suddenly out of nowhere as the new capstone ability is an incredibly powerful channeled single target heal using this new resource that will make those irresistible monster pulls at least somewhat less of a headache to deal with and maybe even free up a hand to help out with the AoEs, as long as you have meter to burn.

Two years later, we have all of one new ability that uses this resource, is basically just a bonus Indom with twice the cooldown, and our main meter spender, Fey Union, is now even harder to build up to use out of the gate because we can't hit our first Aetherflow until the first pull begins. (Remaining rules apply: We must be in combat to gain meter, and even though Dissipation now resummons upon expiration, the fairy is still technically eaten so we can't use our fresh refill of Aetherflow to fill more meter there either)

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The fact that we can't use Aetherflow until the first pull begins is certainly annoying. I believe the rationale is that we shouldn't have to wait for things to come back off cooldown before pulling a boss in an optimized setting, but this wasn't really a problem for scholars in the past due to Quickened Aetherflow (why was this ability deleted again? It was an interesting and fun trait that rewarded good gameplay). I would also think that most people would rather have to wait 10 or 15 seconds for a cooldown in an optimized setting (which the vast majority of players don't care about in the first place) rather than endure the frustration of not using Aetherflow outside of combat throughout the ENTIRE rest of the game. The priorities here seem very backwards.

The gauge is made even harder to build up in general due to the prevalence of unused Aetherflow stacks. It takes FOREVER to charge the gauge if you're not just spamming Lustrates for the sake of getting rid of stacks. And so the deletion of Energy Drain causes the fairy gauge to be less interactive in addition to the Aetherflow mechanic itself.

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Originally Posted by Alphras

Do you know where he said that exactly? If that is true, the grasp Square has of the healers is worse than I thought.

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Live letter of the combat system update in may if i remember well.
But he truly stated that indeed.

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Originally Posted by Aqua150

I went back and checked the Live Letter and it looks like I had the quote slightly wrong, but it doesn't really change my point. The exact quote of his official translator is the following:

"With the scholar, they typically handled applying barriers, mostly, and they didn't really have the direct capabilities of healing spells. So the responsibility of healing tended to go to other healer jobs. Now, with the addition of more healing spells, now we're sharing the responsibility so it's not just the other jobs, but the scholar is now more able to heal so you can depend on each other."

Source: https://youtu.be/rewM-Z9bGhA?t=7993

I edited my original post to more accurately reflect the fact that Yoshi's statement was more about SCH's barriers than it was about DPS. Either way, it shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the way healers work together in reality and raises the same concerns regarding design choices in Shadowbringers.

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See, this is the issue that I dont think SE realizes they created and it sorta plays into a post you made a little ways down the line...

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I don't agree that a spammable oGCD damage ability would be misplaced - SCH currently has the simplest DPS kit to manage, with only 1 DOT and 1 nuke. WHM and AST do have extra things to do in addition to those - Assize, Afflatus Misery, Earthly Star and Cards (Okay, I guess SCH has Chain Stratagem, but "press this button once every 2 minutes" hardly counts as something to manage and is by far the least engaging of all the healer DPS abilities), so I see no reason why SCH couldn't have something more to think about as well. While the WHM and AST skills I mentioned may not be spammable, I don't see that being a problem - I view "spammable" versus "unspammable" as simply being a way to differentiate the flavour of the three classes.

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SCH's kit worked because everything functioned as a whole, the GCD skills the oGCD skill and the pet. But SE wanted SCHs themselves to heal more so they nerfed the pet, then they added more "SCH" heals. But all of the new heals are basically pet related and oGCD heals. SE can't expect SCHs to focus more on healing if you nerf part of their kit and give them unspammable heals. What if we have that one tank who thinks they are invincible, and some do. That's part of the main issue, SCH only has 'one' spammable heal, Physick. Spamming skills is not ideal ever, but at certain times, it is needed. But SCHs only have 3 heals that are on the GCD and 2 are shields. You cant even Emergency Tactics them since the buff vanishes after a use. Maybe if ET was changed to function like Planery Indulgence, that might negate some of the problem. And another thing is the Fey Gauge, what's the point of having skills to use ot if the skills are on lengthy CDs or the gauge takes forever to build up. Of the 2 tacked on gauges for the Healers SCHs felt more "natural" but it was still sorta lackluster, but Lilies are more engaging now, and that's saying something.

It's clear they want us to spam Physick seeing they reduced the cast time from 2 to 1.5s.

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Originally Posted by ksuyen

It's clear they want us to spam Physick seeing they reduced the cast time from 2 to 1.5s.

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I'll be deep in the cold cold ground before I use physick

On the topic of Fey Gauge after playing with it and reading impressions of it I think it more and more strange how long it takes to build to a point where I feel using Fey Union would help. And often hang around with a full gauge for several pulls without using any of it(is this how whms felt about Lilies?) For a change I wondered if Fairy Charges would be better.

Instead of the 100 gauge, everytime you spend Aetherflow you gain a Charge, up to maximun of three. These charges when used augments or change the fairy\\\\\\'s next ability or spell. Something like:
Embrace: Powerful instant heal
Whispering dawn: Instant aoe heal to replace Blessing and Indom.
Fey Covenant: Decrease physical damage aswell as magical
Fey Illumination: Illuminating the area give Blind to enemies
Fey Dusk: Stun for 1s
Fey Caress: Removes all debuffs from party members
Fey Wind: Increase haste to 10%
Seraph becomes its own full summon and her abilities except Veil cost a charge to use.

So spend AF to able to enhance Lily. If things are going well or solo, you use ED to quickly access it. The three maximum is to keep using the fairy as much as possible for the healing part and added support. Fey Union I think could be replaced by a stronger Rouse and an effect of: "During Rouse, fairy will only automatically embrace your current target. Manually casting Embrace overrides this."

Overall idea is to move more of the healing and support back to the fairy.

This would involve my wish of fairy hotbars restored, manual embrace, Aetherflow usable out of combat and ED returned. That wishlist also includes the full arcanist skillset.

The fairy auguments can probably use more thought and sorry if this comes out in bad format, writing on the phone.

I posted this in another thread but Fairies seem to lose more than they gained. Lily, Selene, and even Seraph are really just glamour. The fairy gauge is meh. DPS is now meh. Buff are meh. A lot of meh it seems lol

Lily and Selene need to be different; Selene should change the 3 fairy abilities to debuff and attack spells
Whispering Dawn -> Howling Dusk = Single target DoT
Fey Illumination -> Fae Confusion = Decrease Damage from target for 10s but also adds a spell resist for 60s for balance.
Fey Blessing -> Fae Curse = 100 Potency DPS spell

Seraph would cast a party buff once summoned that reduces weapon skill cast time and recast time, spell cast time and recast time, and auto-attack delay of self and nearby party members by 3%. Duration would last 20s. Also increase the potency of Angel's Whisperer and Seraphic Illumination to give them more weight.

The problem is though, fairy would need to share the abilities recast timers but would make this very painful really fast. You could change the system around though where Aetherflow would be fairies resource with all abilities have a 5s recast and old AF spells would just consume MP or be OGCD with recast timers.

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Originally Posted by Billythepancake

I'll be deep in the cold cold ground before I use physick

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Ironically I used it a lot when I could direct Eos' Embrace with a macro. Physick + Embrace wasn't too bad of a combination when all other options failed. Now? If it weren't for the potential of getting low level dungeons in the roulette I'd be tempted to remove it. It's kinda hilarious that they likely knew Physick would lose a lot of it's usage with the faerie nerfs given the decrease in cast time and yet they went ahead with it anyways.

As for the rest of the rubbish, everyone else has already given voice to my issues with the class. I'd trade part of our current godly healing potency for the class to be as complex as it once was. Hell I'd trade some of it for the Faerie Gauge to actually be useful. The class might have no trouble healing right now but it's a mess from almost every design stand point.

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Originally Posted by Billythepancake

I'll be deep in the cold cold ground before I use physick

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That's the issue I've been seeing. While yes, Physick is mathematically weaker then Adlo or just using an ogcd. Now it feels good to use. Inefficient yes, but good. Now it's a single weave option so now you can do stuff like Physick +Lustrate to burst up a target or Physick + Whispering Dawn and heal one person and splashing an aoe heal. If healing was more demanding and mana management more of an issue Physick would be awesome for adding more flexibility to the scholar's healing. But as it stands now...

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

That's the issue I've been seeing. While yes, Physick is mathematically weaker then Adlo or just using an ogcd. Now it feels good to use. Inefficient yes, but good. Now it's a single weave option so now you can do stuff like Physick +Lustrate to burst up a target or Physick + Whispering Dawn and heal one person and splashing an aoe heal. If healing was more demanding and mana management more of an issue Physick would be awesome for adding more flexibility to the scholar's healing. But as it stands now...

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I'd argue it needs a slight bit more than this. Not only is Physick mathematically weaker than Adlo, etc....but it's also mathematically weaker than Cure (400 potency for Physick and Benefic vs 450 for Cure) and has no boost to encourage use (unlike both Cure and Benefic, which at least give a chance at boosting Cure II and Benefic II, respectively). As it stands, it's literally the worst healing spell any healer has in the game. If they wanted to keep it fairy themed, perhaps something like "15% chance to to convert your fairy's next Embrace to Seraphic Veil" might be in line.

I've always thought that fairy actions should trigger an advanced effect for Physic like Summoners and Ruin 4. Make Physic an ability that can be weaved any time Embrace Crits. Let physic restore double health randomly like Scathe on BLM. Using Physick could place a buff on yourself or party member that increases healing received by 5% for the next 15 seconds. These could be traits learned later on but Physick needs some love. It's the only base line healing spell that doesn't get a neat additional effect.

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Originally Posted by galbsadi

I'd argue it needs a slight bit more than this. Not only is Physick mathematically weaker than Adlo, etc....but it's also mathematically weaker than Cure (400 potency for Physick and Benefic vs 450 for Cure) and has no boost to encourage use (unlike both Cure and Benefic, which at least give a chance at boosting Cure II and Benefic II, respectively). As it stands, it's literally the worst healing spell any healer has in the game. If they wanted to keep it fairy themed, perhaps something like "15% chance to to convert your fairy's next Embrace to Seraphic Veil" might be in line.

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Does it really matter if Cure is technically the best of those three heals if you never actually cast Cure outside of the worst possible situations, and even then only with gritted teeth? Let's be honest, a WHM using Cure excessively is either playing pretty low-level content, or doing something wrong...
There isn't much incentive for a WHM to use Cure, but if there is for a SCH, why not.

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Originally Posted by Yuyuka3

Does it really matter if Cure is technically the best of those three heals if you never actually cast Cure outside of the worst possible situations, and even then only with gritted teeth? Let's be honest, a WHM using Cure excessively is either playing pretty low-level content, or doing something wrong...
There isn't much incentive for a WHM to use Cure, but if there is for a SCH, why not.

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Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that's not the case either...but at least there's some silver lining if you get in that situation (or if you're playing low level content). Conversely, for SCH it's just like "well this sucks on all fronts."

Remember, as well, this was in reply to somebody who was suggesting damage occurring regularly enough to make Physick justifiable in higher level content...that would likely apply to Cure eventually as well in the same regard. I was saying "just that isn't enough to really make it good, though."

I always found Physick to be ok since I used it in tandem with Embrace or Roused Embrace. It was those moments where someone was low on health, I was out of AF, it wasnt an emergency but this guy needed a heal within the next GCDs so Embrace alone didnt cut it. If anything Physick could be weaker and Embrace potency increased to promote working with your fairy more.

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Originally Posted by galbsadi

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that's not the case either...but at least there's some silver lining if you get in that situation (or if you're playing low level content). Conversely, for SCH it's just like "well this sucks on all fronts."

Remember, as well, this was in reply to somebody who was suggesting damage occurring regularly enough to make Physick justifiable in higher level content...that would likely apply to Cure eventually as well in the same regard. I was saying "just that isn't enough to really make it good, though."

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Big fat disclaimer about opinions here.

I agree, after all, I did say it was too weak and inefficient, I didnt say it was great the way it was. I only said it felt good. Things can feel good to use but be bad to do. Another good example is single weaving with Ruin II. While clipping with Broil II is better unless you have bad latency. It feels better to weave off Ruin Ii and not clip your gcd.

That to me is what my ultimate problem with SCH is atm. It has these skills that feel like they would be great if their numbers where better and the fights catered to their uses. But currently that's not the case. Mathematically Physick is garbage when it feels good to use as a healing tool because of its ability to weave skills on it. Mathematically Ruin II is worse then clipping Broil for single weaves but it feels better to do the latter. I like the gameplay loop things like this imply but as they're currently implemented its more efficient to play against these designs.

And yes. We could really use a damage/dump/ aetherflow skill. It might even serve to make Ruin II feel better to use.

Personally I still feel that all Aetherflow needs is to act as a dump when you use it. Make it recover more mp and give extra fey gauge based on your current Aetherflow stack count (ideally 15-20 per stack to reward players who save it). I’d rather lean in on Ruin II usage to boost SCH’s DPS and make physick more competitive with other heals with a minor 50-100 potency bump than push Energy Drain back into SCH’s kit too. The changes proved to me that SCH doesn’t need ED or Quickened Aetherflow (thank god this is gone) to be engaging, just a smoothing out of their current fluidity issues, particularly when it comes to encouraging them to build fey gauge. Fey Union is still powerful but it certainly takes longer to access in a trial if you sit on aetherflow stacks the way you’re encouraged to. Storing up extra gauge and getting more MP back from using dissipation in dungeons doesn’t hurt either.