Scholar - Upgrading the Faerie Gauge

So I wanna talk about an idea I've had about how to make the Faerie Gauge more impactful. Right now it's a resource for Fey Union and Fey Blessing, but Fey Blessing isn't used frequently enough to drain it with how often you can charge it with Aetherflow Spells, and Fey Union can be awkward to use in many situations.

I also want to talk about Embrace. Each expansion, Embrace has gotten weaker and weaker essentially because it's just free healing that doesn't consume any kind of resource, be it MP or the need to cast it as your Faerie is just acting as a heal-bot in most circumstances.

What if we flipped this dynamic around a little bit to allow Embrace to be buffed back up to being a more substantial heal. Here's the concept:

1. Embrace is no longer cast automatically, meaning your Faerie will normally do nothing unless commanded to perform an action.

2. Faerie actions, such as Whispering dawn, Fey Blessing, and Fey Illumination, increase your Faerie Gauge instead of Aetherflow actions.

3. Fey Union is replaced with Command Embrace. Command Embrace orders your Faerie to follow a specific ally and use cast Embrace on them. Each cast consumes 10 Faerie Gauge. While this is in effect, you can still use other Faerie Actions. It would be acquired along with Summon Eos/Summon Selene instead of at level 70.

4. Command Embrace changes to Command Return, which orders your Faerie to cease casting Embrace and return to you. This will also happen automatically if you run out of Faerie Gauge for her to cast Embrace.

5. Seraph can stay working the way she does currently since she's on a time limit.

I think this would let us make Embrace strong again since it will now consume a different resource and makes managing the Faerie Gauge more important.

This could also be expanded on with other actions or new actions in the future.

Not related to you request... but give me my face back!

Isn't... what you described just Aetherpact, but somehow worse? Right now, the resource might as well not exist since it doesn't really push SCH to new heights, and it doesn't work with Dissipation or Seraph. That's three capstone abilities in a row that don't work with each other. Dissipation and Aetherpact need a rework. The idea behind Seraph is good. One thing that bothers me is that it has Seraph version of Fey's Illumination and Whispering Dawn when they're exactly the same as the fairy version.

They can't seem to decide what to do with the SCH and the gauge just feels like its there because reasons instead of them trying to innovate it or evolve it. I feel Blessing was a good start, but Blessing is really weak with a really long cooldown timer for also using a resource, so it's functionally worthless. Honestly, I want them to make all the fairy cooldowns require differing amounts of Fey Gauge to really make our Aetherflow uses and the gauge actually feel worth it since, honestly, I don't really use it outside of dungeons, and, even then, it feels horribly underpowered.

Honestly, I've always been a little ambivalent about the faerie gauge. My favorite part of resource management is making tactical decisions about how to spend them; how I build them is much less interesting. So I like aetherflow because you build it with one button and spend the next sixty seconds deciding how to spend it. The faerie gauge is the opposite way---its complexity is more in the building than the spending---so it tends to bore me.

So on the one hand, this proposal doesn't solve any of my issues with the gauge. But on the other hand, it sounds kind of cool on its own merits, and it might be more fun than the current system.

I just have two concerns.

First, embrace right now is basically a passive regen effect, albeit a rather lackluster one. So we'd be exchanging a weak sustained throughput heal for one that's more powerful, but burstier. It kind of seems like that would weaken the job where it's already weak and improve it where it's already strong.

Second, while embrace isn't that great, it's very easy to use. I'm concerned that replacing it with command embrace raises the scholar skill floor, where most of the complaints lately seem focused on the skill ceiling.

One of the joys of playing SCH is having the fairy automatically do spot healing... what you are proposing sounds like a very awkward Regen.

Simpler solution:
Rouse (replaces Aetherpact) - Costs 40 fairy gauge, 20s duration. Increases Embrace / Seraphic Veil healing potency by 300%.
Fey Union (reworked) - Fairy action (usable regardless of casting or GCD), orders the fairy to cast their next Embrace / Seraphic Veil on the target.

Edit: This would remove the awkwardness of Aetherpact, make the fairy more impactful and interactive, and give choice and flexibility (i.e. skill ceiling) while still allowing novice SCHs to simply have the fairy on auto pilot.

After Losing the Quickened Aetherflow Trait and the ability to use Aetherflow outside of combat it is really painful to build Fey Guage. So much so that spending 10 points on Fey Blessing feels more like a Curse. I have had this irksome suspicion the entire expansion as I use Scholar across various content that Fey Blessing is backwards. I am pretty sure it would make more sense if the incredibly lackluster heal had the benefit of increasing the Fey Gauge by 10 instead. This way it could be used anytime without being restricted by Aetherflow and also help build up Fey Union faster to see more uptime instead of taking away from it. The 60 second Cool Down restriction is harsh for such a small heal so the actual Blessing should be access to more Fey Union in my opinion. It's a gorgeous skill but it sees very little usage in most content but being rewarded with Fey Gauge would really bring both Fey Union and Fey Blessing to life. I wouldn't mind if they increased the CD on Blessing a bit to compensate either. Being able to use the ability in the Open World without needing combat would also be a nice side effect. You can't show off Blessing right now to the Sprouts in Gridania or Uldah and they should get to see that.

Personally i would of loved an expensive (30-40) fairy guage spender that did a powerful dps attack (Fey Spear?), instead of reintroducing the, to me, annoying NRGDrain.
That way we would of been using our Aetherflow for, u know, the heals lol, promote the use of Dissipation while not taking away our heals, and give player choice in where the guage is best spent.
Atm our kit is so disjointed and using multiple things actively stop us doing other things, and this, i think, would help bring it together.

Could even add in the seraph using an aoe Spear to make use of the guage as well, and give more complexity/benefit.

And yes, i know NRGD has the use of making sure the AF guage isnt sat maxed, and a heal would just potentially add to overheal, but u could have an ability that doesnt heal but give a lowerish potency catalyse shield (Ward?) only instead as this isnt necesarily overhealing, that gives the mp regen when its hit.

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Originally Posted by Archeros

Atm our kit is so disjointed and using multiple things actively stop us doing other things

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I'm inclined to see that as a good thing, though. If some of your abilities are mutually exclusive, it promotes decision-making. It also allows you to have more tools at your disposal, since if you could use all your stuff at once it would have to be nerfed.

So I kind of like the "disjointedness" of the current kit, because I feel like it gives me more options. White mage already has the "spend resource on heals to build other resource for damage" mechanic, and I find it unpleasantly rigid compared to scholar. I would much rather have six doodads to spend on healing or damage, than three doodads to spend on healing and three whatsits to spend on damage.

All that aside, I wouldn't say no to an offensive gauge spender. I end up wasting a lot of gauge as it is.

O i definitely think choice is good, but its where the choices are that im questioning.
Personally i would like the choice to be 'do i need to use the fairy guage for an aoe, a ST channel, or can i afford the expensive but worthwhile attack?' and 'i want to build the fairy guage so when is best to use this heal over that heal to make dissipation worthwhile as a healing buff and not a healing loss'
Atm, the scholar feeling disjointed is alongside a pretty rigid dps rotation of um...broil biolysis, nrgd, broil etc, where id like to bring the kit together and make it flow :)

Personally I’m glad Fey Union is as constrained as it is. It and Rouse were frankly too strong in tandem with Quickened Aetherflow and the old Embrace.

What I’d prefer to see is a charge based Nuke added that generates Fey Gauge, at a rate of an extra 20 per minute, while adding back Rouse as a one-off boost to the next Fairy healing ability (apart from Fey Union/Embrace equivalents) as a 10 Gauge cost 2 min cooldown. All Fey Union needs is more Gauge. We don’t need it, old Rouse, and Seraph at once.

I’d rather boost the potency of Lustrate & Physick than increase Embrace potency again too, if anything.

Rouse never had any effect on Fey Union. Rouse didn't affect abilities. Whispering Dawn benefited from Rouse in Heavensward while it was still a spell but once it became an ability this benefit was lost. In Stormblood Embrace was the only thing that Rouse affected as far as I know but I could be remembering it wrong.

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

Rouse never had any effect on Fey Union. Rouse didn't affect abilities. Whispering Dawn benefited from Rouse in Heavensward while it was still a spell but once it became an ability this benefit was lost. In Stormblood Embrace was the only thing that Rouse affected as far as I know but I could be remembering it wrong.

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Rouse did affect abilities till 4.1. However even without it it still affected Embrace, which was at 250 pet potency back then. By alternating between Rouse, Whispering Dawn, and Fey Union while sustaining Quickened Aetherflow spam you could effectively keep double regens up on your tank 90% of the time. Seraph and the current Fey Union are similarly powerful, but more gated. I think it's okay to push on Fey Union more given its target restriction, but giving the old Rouse and Embrace back would be a mistake.

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Originally Posted by Acidblood

One of the joys of playing SCH is having the fairy automatically do spot healing... what you are proposing sounds like a very awkward Regen.

Simpler solution:
Rouse (replaces Aetherpact) - Costs 40 fairy gauge, 20s duration. Increases Embrace / Seraphic Veil healing potency by 300%.
Fey Union (reworked) - Fairy action (usable regardless of casting or GCD), orders the fairy to cast their next Embrace / Seraphic Veil on the target.

Edit: This would remove the awkwardness of Aetherpact, make the fairy more impactful and interactive, and give choice and flexibility (i.e. skill ceiling) while still allowing novice SCHs to simply have the fairy on auto pilot.

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I'd much rather just have Aetherpact be more responsive. At least it feels like a deliberate and impactful option (when it actually goes off when it's supposed to), whereas a mere pet potency buff, especially over such a long duration generally wouldn't unless overpowered over time.

When I first saw to 5.0 abilities trailer, I totally thought they would tie Seraph to the fairy gauge to give us something else to spend it on. The SCH would be able to call forth or send away at will, and basically only bring out Seraph whenever Consolation is up. I felt that between that, a strong Fey Union, and Dissipation, the SCH would have some interesting things to decide and have a considerable amount of interaction with their fairy.

Yeahhh, nope. Slapped Blessing to it at a low cost so the gauge still spends a ton of time being full, and let's not forget it's also on a 60sec CD which making tying it to another resource totally pointless. They could make Blessing cost half the gauge and it wouldn't change anything.

it's amazing how fey union feels useless sometimes ... I try to spend the gauge but many times I don't really need it. It's prefer have it for a big ST heal, + the fey blessing and maybe having fey blessing being able to use up to 30 charges for a bigger AoE heal ?

I realise I mostly use gaue for blessing and union sometimes on savage, usually on big dongeon pulls and that's it. don't say it's useless .. it has its uses .. but a bit too niche .. I usually prefer big heal over a regen coz anyhow my cohealer will resplenish tank's health whatever union or not and the delay is annoying, so u cannot rely on it the second u need it anyhow.