I am stuck in a Scholar midlife crisis!

Greetings Ladies and Gentlemen,

my name is Zed and I am in a Scholar midlife crisis. Or whatever you want to call the annoyingly frustrating state (of mind) I am in right now. As hardcore Red Mage fan I usually commence my duties as a red-clad Jack of all Trades™. My secondy role has been Scholar since 2014. Yes, I took a long break, but still, Scholar was great and I had a 50/50 ratio between Black Mage and Scholar. When I returned a half year ago, I started Heavensward and played Scholar there exclusively. So it was a 100% Scholar ratio in dungeons and such. I enjoyed it pretty much (on my way to be a fully-trained Red Mage).

Then there was the big change of our stuff with Shadowbringers - you remember your skillbar with lots of crossed-out icons, right? - and since then, I am literally unable to get any further. As I wait for my cousin to catch up, I am basically a Level 60 Scholar playing dungeons around Level 60. All fine so far - except I can't get back to it. It's like I lost the golden thread and I can not really grasp the idea of the Scholar around/after Level 60. It's really hard to put in words what I am trying to say, but you realize: I am lost. And it frustrates me so much!

Yesterday I picked up the book and summoned my Selene for an Aetherochemical Research Facility run for/with my cousin. And boy, I hated it. We did not wipe, we had not had any vitality problems, but the flow was gone for me. I was so disappointed by the entire gameplay and that the spark did not ignite (read as: Being a Scholar was a joy and fun in the past years, yesterday I really loathed it) that my cousin tried and had to cheer me up over Discord. Go figure! Two grown men..

I absolutely love Red Mage. But I like to have a dedicated healer for a change, and Scholar is the way to go for me. Or was. But right now, I dislike the current gameplay and the future gameplay looks rather odd when I read trough the Job Guide.

I just can't find a real "theme" of how to set up my hotbar even, it's looking like a Swiss cheese since a couple of months. Do you see how confused I am when I am not even able to set up my skills.

It must be me for sure, so you can maybe give me a bit input, point a bit into the direction or, like, help me out of that?

Things I can't get over are:

* Fairy management - Fair enough, as Level 60, I am maybe right in front of the next class mechanic or something, but right now as I stand, I don't feel I enjoy the "fairy management". She is more of a nuisiance im terms of management and control, like those annoying "follow-AI NPC" in games that get you a GAME OVER (Golden Eye on the N64 anyone...?). Eos/Selene is great, and I like the design idea, but she is camouflage in the boss fights, blown all over the place which makes it hard to use her properly after you realizing she just cast her AoE in the corner of the boss arena, affecting NO ONE. Since she is hard to spot in the visual clutter, it makes it even worse to have my fairy as a companion instead of a toddler I have to supervise 24/7.

* I can't get any sort of flow into this profession. I may be spoiled by Red Mage, but I struggle so much to understand the flow here. Having a clean "plan" in mind is what I'd like, e.g. "When X happens, I can do A or B". Me ingame: "OMG, I heal-spam like a madman without any sense."

* I am not interested in any other healer. Pure White Magic is nothing I want and Astrologican is like someone else is doing the healing and I would be just the medium. I could understand that I am too dumb for Scholar (kind of a pun) and you would probably suggest White Mage, but I like Scholar in the past and felt well-prepared, why should that have changed?

* Is Scholar ... "less desired" compared to the others? Is the current (or future) stand of this profession getting worse by design? I don't know what Square Enix is going to do with this profession, but it feels as we are just the non-FF profession and they don't want "us". I feel much better dishing out two Vercures on my Red Mage then being the dedicated healer for 30 minutes.


So, the first portion is "Just me" sort of issue, but the latter one...? Help... :(

https://imgur.com/tBHz405.png

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Originally Posted by MrKusakabe

I just can't find a real "theme" of how to set up my hotbar even, it's looking like a Swiss cheese since a couple of months. Do you see how confused I am when I am not even able to set up my skills.

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Are you using a ps4 controller or kb&m? I personally use a ps4 controller and my layout is I have all my heals on left trigger and all my dps buttons on right trigger. I would take a screenshot of my layout, but it has a lot of redundant skills on it paired with a heavy reliance on macros.

I know some people talk about using the extended crossbars for more space and have great luck with them. Hopefully someone that uses it can explain their layout as well.

Scholar being "less desired" than the others? No, absolutely not. Is it getting worse by design? Yes.. But it's not being singled out.

The sad truth is that healers in general are neglected and seemingly undesirable to Square's attentions. Astrologian's lore and gameplay was gutted even worse than Scholar's. White Mage is left with several useless skills, basically the same gameplay depth they've had for years and was only at the top of the pile at the start of the expansion by the grace of not being gutted during their reworks. None of them got any particularly good love in Shadowbringers.

They just don't want to properly fix healing in general.

Welcome to the healer forums. :) You're not the only one. There are those who still like it, but this section of the forum has had its fair share of complaints for healers and what you're highlighting with Scholar is among them.

For perspective, I was a SCH main from early access of 2.0 all the way around to the start of Stormblood, I loved the job, I swapped to RDM for a bit to do something different for a change and once the novelty of playing RDM died down, I jumped between playing the two. RDM has the really nice advantage of flowing really well, so I can totally see how there is a stark contrast with SCH when coming from RDM. I didn't like SCH in SB too much as it's where I was started to get bored but was excited to see what ShB would bring and now I'm a DNC main and if I heal, I heal on AST. AST doesn't flow well either (probably less well than SCH), but it has more to do and that helps keep me from being bored.

But if you're struggling to get back into it and the abilities feel confusing, maybe break it down and even try lower level content to get back into the swing of it. Starting with lower level abilities and working up until you get back at it and stuff should start piecing together.

I am not quite sure if a DPS minded player would enjoy SCH much in its current state. It used to be the best healer for a DPS player to transition to since it had the most offensive buttons to push. Now it is probably the least favored. At least know that you are not alone, and the frustration is felt by many SCHs, both new and veteran.

I want to tell you it gets better, and from a healing perspective it does. You learn some really cool abilities 60-80, and SCH is without question a top-notch shielder, and mitigating damage can be very gratifying, and there will definitely be times where a well-timed shield makes the difference between whether or not that player survives the hit. Rezzing players is it's own mechanic really, and while there is nothing to it but to do it when Swiftcast is up, when it is not; it can force you make some tough choices. They have powerful heals through their aetherflow, and with Energy Drain back, you have something to dump those stacks on if heals are not needed.

It is still a pet class, and there are still issues that need to be addressed with the pet classes. Never the less they are still effective in combat. A tip I can give you is to use place if you are not sure where your fairy is at. She obeys your place commands no matter how much distance is between you and her. You can also always call her back to your side so she follows you around again as well.

When it comes to your DPS though, I am sorry; it doesn't really get better. A DoT, a nuke, and an AoE is all you get. You just get updated versions of them as you level except the AoE. I've been playing SCH since ARR, and I still love the job despite how badly it's DPS skills were gutted. A reason for this is because I DPS as healer because there is nothing else to fill my downtime with, not really because I get any kind of gratification out of it. Even when SCH had more DPS buttons to push, it was still nowhere near as engaging as an actual DPS job, and I found I love doing one or the other; not a half-arsed hybrid of the two.

In short, you kind of have to get enjoyment out of healing to like present SCH. But an issue with that is healing requirements are still pretty much the same, and we have these huge windows to toss in DPS. I personally rectify this by visiting a nearby PUG where I have no clue who is going to get hit by what. Big pulls in dungeons can also leave you drained of MP and ogcd both, and can feel pretty good when your dance-with-death-tank makes it out of a multi-mobpack onslaught alive when he would have otherwise died in less than three seconds.

I wouldn't be playing healers if I didn't enjoy them, and I am still here. That doesn't mean everything is a-ok, but yeah. Perhaps you will find something you enjoy about the job as well if you stick with it. Up to you though.

Welcome to Healer Forums, Zen. No, you're not alone. Many of your sentiments coming back to the job has been expressed here since details about Shadowbringers were revealed. When 5.0 came along we found the job had been bludgeoned to forget half it's spells and the word "BALANCED" carved into it's forehead.

There isn't much fairy to manage anymore unfortunately, she's immortal and can't be commanded directly expect positions. If you find she's way out of range, can recommend making sure she is on "Heel" keeping your head on a swivel to make sure she's right behind you before using any commands or manually place her in arenas where she'll hit everyone with the spells. I don't know how much you played of earlier iterations, but I feel it currently flows like a river of bricks after losing control over it's petGCD. You either wait for someone to take damage or fill the empty pauses between with Ruin/Broil, occasionally refreshing Bio.

If you're having trouble setting up your hotbars I recommend finding a training dummy, hit it to start combat so you can use Aetherflow and stand in front of it as you put out every skills you have on the hotbar, read the text of each one and use it plenty of times so you can reach a skill without looking at your hotbar. Then take it to plenty of parties and dungeons to get a feel for what skills you use the most and reposition them for easier access to them.

If you're thinking it's less desirable in parties or by the devs themselves. If it helps, it's still perfectly capable of healing anything I've come across so far, even so well I find myself using Broil/Art of War more than my healing skills. For the latter, it's a toss-up at this point, they haven't been keen to deign a response yet.

tl;dr: healers suck. Real bad.

The feeling of disjointedness in your kit isn't just you, all healers just get a ton of healing abilities with little to no synergy and that's it.

I prefer SCH this expansion than during Stormblood where I completely fell out of love with the job.
I do agree however that, like SMN, it is still clunky and SE has clearly not mastered the 'pet' classes yet.

Thank you for your time guys. It is actually helping me a bit that I am not alone. Else I'd just put my book next to my Bard clothes - in that dusty chest in my inn room in Gridania and never go back. But now, I am maybe overreacting in my mind.

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Originally Posted by vtndll

Are you using a ps4 controller or kb&m?

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I am using keyboard and mouse. Tried to use an XBOX controller but when you are a PC gamer and used to have all the skills accessable either by tapping a key or by clicking on it I found it hard to have it in seperate bars. It's muscle memory since September 2013 and I don't think I can change.

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Originally Posted by Synaesthesia

Scholar being "less desired" than the others? No, absolutely not. Is it getting worse by design? Yes.. But it's not being singled out.

The sad truth is that healers in general are neglected and seemingly undesirable to Square's attentions. Astrologian's lore and gameplay was gutted even worse than Scholar's. White Mage is left with several useless skills, basically the same gameplay depth they've had for years and was only at the top of the pile at the start of the expansion by the grace of not being gutted during their reworks. None of them got any particularly good love in Shadowbringers.

They just don't want to properly fix healing in general.

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Scholar is great by design. When I read the official job guide I linked in my opening post, I am so like "Yes, yes, yes!!". The lore was always very stupid and probably the worst ever: Tomberry stares into the sea for 15 quests and you do some stupid errand quests. Or rescue "Alka Zolka The Suicidal". You can really feel Square Enix can't write a lore around them.

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Originally Posted by Saefinn

[...]For perspective, I was a SCH main from early access of 2.0 all the way around to the start of Stormblood, I loved the job, I swapped to RDM for a bit to do something different for a change and once the novelty of playing RDM died down, I jumped between playing the two. RDM has the really nice advantage of flowing really well, so I can totally see how there is a stark contrast with SCH when coming from RDM. I didn't like SCH in SB too much as it's where I was started to get bored but was excited to see what ShB would bring and now I'm a DNC main and if I heal, I heal on AST. AST doesn't flow well either (probably less well than SCH), but it has more to do and that helps keep me from being bored.

But if you're struggling to get back into it and the abilities feel confusing, maybe break it down and even try lower level content to get back into the swing of it. Starting with lower level abilities and working up until you get back at it and stuff should start piecing together.

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Unlike Scholar, Red Mage has a beautiful flow. It is like going into the kitchen with random ingredients and mange to get something tasty out of it, no matter if sweet (ranged) or spicy (melee). Some nice sauce (Vercure) and dessert (Verholy) are also ready to enjoy. On Scholar I feel unprepared. I walk into the enemy to do some "Art of War" blows which is such a bullshit skill and my healing skills are not feeling to match each other. If you take the cooking analogy, my Scholar rotation is resulting in:

https://imgur.com/BGvNLqW.png
(This is a Zelda: Breath of the Wild reference when you put random shit into the cooking pot and the result is what you see above)

I also thought of systematically go back to milestone dungeons. The problem there is that I am fine up to the Aetherchemical Research Facility - which is Level 60. But I just Physick-spammed trough it. I used to the need to create Sacred Soil and HP-shields and all that in the past, but these are too easy and the later dungeons might be too tough if I can't get the synergy done between my upcoming skills. Unprepared as said..

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Originally Posted by Gemina

[...]
I want to tell you it gets better, and from a healing perspective it does. You learn some really cool abilities 60-80, and SCH is without question a top-notch shielder, and mitigating damage can be very gratifying, and there will definitely be times where a well-timed shield makes the difference between whether or not that player survives the hit. Rezzing players is it's own mechanic really, and while there is nothing to it but to do it when Swiftcast is up, when it is not; it can force you make some tough choices. They have powerful heals through their aetherflow, and with Energy Drain back, you have something to dump those stacks on if heals are not needed.

It is still a pet class, and there are still issues that need to be addressed with the pet classes. Never the less they are still effective in combat. A tip I can give you is to use place if you are not sure where your fairy is at. She obeys your place commands no matter how much distance is between you and her. You can also always call her back to your side so she follows you around again as well.
[...]
I wouldn't be playing healers if I didn't enjoy them, and I am still here. That doesn't mean everything is a-ok, but yeah. Perhaps you will find something you enjoy about the job as well if you stick with it. Up to you though.

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This is the sort of heads-up I was also looking for. I see there is some nice stuff coming up, but it feels so clunky. I really do not even understand certain tooltips, as pathetic as that is. When I read "next galvanize..." and I am like "What is that? Where do I trigger this in the first place?!". In 2015, I had it all sorted out: These buttons are shields, this is the panic heal, this is the AoE heal, that needs Aetherflow. Now I have Aetherflow AND a cooldown on a skill, and this is so confusing to understand the logic. If am already gated behind stacks which are behind CD, why does the spell itself is also limited?

I used to send my pet into the boss room or over places I can't reach during some mechanics. But I could see her by selecting her in the party list. Also, when she got damaged, I knew the guys there get damged, too, so I had great overview of the arena. Like "damage hotspots". I took care of special cases with my toolkit and Eos did First Aid and scouting. Now I am spending more time to move her around or get her back on my heels. Which adds to my entire confusing gameplay.

You know, I am not as incompetent as I seem in the OP, but right now, I am. So there must be something I am missing http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/i...lies/frown.png

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Originally Posted by Sloprano

There isn't much fairy to manage anymore unfortunately, she's immortal and can't be commanded directly expect positions. If you find she's way out of range, can recommend making sure she is on "Heel" keeping your head on a swivel to make sure she's right behind you before using any commands or manually place her in arenas where she'll hit everyone with the spells. I don't know how much you played of earlier iterations, but I feel it currently flows like a river of bricks after losing control over it's petGCD. You either wait for someone to take damage or fill the empty pauses between with Ruin/Broil, occasionally refreshing Bio. [...]

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The problem is that I place her a lot all over the place as this is the reason why I have a pet in general: A companion to work in a team with. I think it's super idiotic when I command her to be on spot X and she is moved way, she should move back to spot X. I mean, I commanded her to be exactly there, not anywhere else. If I place her at X:15 Y:20, and she finds herself a t X:0 Y:15, she should move back. That'd help a lot and would be true to the "Position" command. It is just awkward she is unselectable. I play on 2550x1440p, it's so difficult! Like I am playing "Where is Waldo".

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Originally Posted by Lodi

tl;dr: healers suck. Real bad.

The feeling of disjointedness in your kit isn't just you, all healers just get a ton of healing abilities with little to no synergy and that's it.

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The synergy is really a problem! Phew, I am not the only one in that matter.

The reason why I am doing this that I like Scholar. Very much even. I am not a fan of White Mage at all. To me it is always like White Mages are from a Christian St. BlaBla hospital with pictures of god and crosses over the door in every room, while Scholars are doctors from an University Hospital, trusting in themselves and their knowledge instead of another entity. And Astrologicans are playing Yu-Gi-Oh. So I want to stay a Fairy Master. But I struggle so much. Not by the numbers, the healing is fine. It's so clunky. I can't get anything in order. Look at the difference of my two professions:

https://i.imgur.com/ojJxym6.png

https://i.imgur.com/Bb7Nie1.png

Sincerely,
https://imgur.com/9mjol58.png

It's not hard to sort healer skills, imo. Mine are sorted in three lines - damage, single target heals, and aoe heals- and then a square hotbar where I put all my CDs.


The real problem with healers is that, when you get a new action, you don't ask yourself what does it do. Instead, you ask yourself what will it replace.
A healer's kit doesn't expand with levels, it just gains free actions so your lv1-50 spells progressively become less and less needed.

Tetragrammation? Free Cure II every 60s.
Afflatus Rapture? Free Medica every 30s.
Celestial Opposition? Free Aspected Helios every 60s.
Horoscope ? Free Helios every 60s.
Earthly Star? Two free Helioses 60s.
Lustrate? Free Physick up to three times every 60s.
Indom? Free Succor up to two times every 60s.
Fey Blessing? Free Succor again every 60s
Consolation? Free Succor AGAIN every 60s.


"All my friends got a new phone for christmas, and what I got was the model I already have but with a different colour" sums up the healer situation quite nicely. Zero surprises, only different colours .

Settings -> Character -> Control -> Target -> Untick "Disable targetting of pets and minions when in battle".

As for the other stuff, just read your buttons and try them out.

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Originally Posted by MrKusakabe

This is the sort of heads-up I was also looking for. I see there is some nice stuff coming up, but it feels so clunky. I really do not even understand certain tooltips, as pathetic as that is. When I read "next galvanize..." and I am like "What is that? Where do I trigger this in the first place?!". In 2015, I had it all sorted out: These buttons are shields, this is the panic heal, this is the AoE heal, that needs Aetherflow.

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Should I throw Catalyze in there as well (another shield) ;p

Galvanize is the status effect gained from Adloquium and Succor. This effect in all retrospect has it's own HP that can even stack on top of maximum HP to increase to overall HP of the player. It fades when the shield breaks or the generous timer expires. It does not stack with AST noct shield, however, it can be used with of other mitigation abilities such as tank cooldowns, your own Sacred Soil, and Catalyze (what I mentioned earlier), which you will learn later. When the tooltip says "next" Galvanize, it is just referring to the next Adlo or Succor cast by you will receive the benefit.

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Now I have Aetherflow AND a cooldown on a skill, and this is so confusing to understand the logic. If am already gated behind stacks which are behind CD, why does the spell itself is also limited?

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My friend, right here you bring up one of my biggest gripes with the game, and that is abilities that tap from multiple resources. Every job I play suffers from this except WHM, which used to suffer from it greatly tying many of their light-based skills like Tetra, Assize, Benison, and Asylum to the lilies. These have all been severed from the lilies and just have the CD now. This improved WHM drastically, and I would imagine all jobs currently suffering from this atrocity would also benefit.

The problem was exacerbated with the addition of job gauges in SB. It is flawed design to implement a gauge as a resource and then also gate its abilities with a CD timer. If we have to build the resource up, then a CD pretty much defeats the purpose of it. It is far more engaging to have multiple abilities use and share the job gauge resource so players can choose which ability fits the current situation. If an ability is so powerful that you have to slap a CD timer on it, then it probably doesn't belong in the set of job gauge skills.

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I used to send my pet into the boss room or over places I can't reach during some mechanics. But I could see her by selecting her in the party list. Also, when she got damaged, I knew the guys there get damged, too, so I had great overview of the arena. Like "damage hotspots". I took care of special cases with my toolkit and Eos did First Aid and scouting. Now I am spending more time to move her around or get her back on my heels. Which adds to my entire confusing gameplay.

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Yeah, these "damage hotspots" is a crutch you do not need, but thinking outside the box is a good thing, especially for a SCH. However, not being able to see Lily in the party list was a definite problem that thankfully got fixed. But pets have some glaring issues, and some have been around for quite some time:
- Ghosting
- Too long of a delay between use of fairy action, and reception of fairy benefit
- Taking pet abilities off of the pet hotbar
- Multiple resource abilities (Fey Blessing, Consolation)
- Wonky AI

This is along with several grievances that could easily be taken care between patches. SCH's accidentally sending away their fairy can be taken care of by having the ability grayed out when the SCH is in combat. Forgetting that you placed her and leaving her in the dust in dungeons and forcing the SCH to resummon her can be taken care of by simply having Lily teleport to the SCH once the distance is too great between them. This would also help tons in alliance raid arenas, that are like what? A thousand yalms in circumference? xD

As for your hotbar setup, I don't see why you can't organize them in a way that is satisfactory to you. You have so much more time on your RDM than your SCH, so you will need to give it a little bit of time for your hotbar setup to be as proficient as it has become for you on other jobs you've spent more time with. I play on controller myself and I tend to place instant/ogcd skills on the face keys, and GCD dependent skills on the directional pad. This is because for skills that use the directional pad, I have to sacrifice movement or use autorun, so it is best to place skills there where I have to do this anyway. From there I try to categorize them based on type of skill such a damage, heal, god abilities, etc.

I am just truly thinking Square Enix does not know where to go wit their skills with healers. Or it is not even user-friendly as it could be. This awkward half-empty but non-editable Fairy skill bar is a disgrace for this company.

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However, not being able to see Lily in the party list was a definite problem that thankfully got fixed.

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But we can't do anything with her from the party list. Have not tried it ingame, but last time I checked she even loses the name tag in battles, it is litreally just a 30x30px object on a 2550x1440px screen when scrolling out and/or having a topdown view. I don't have a problem with her leaving because I haven't left her behind so far (I had that happen a lot back in 2014 when summoning her took full 5 seconds instead of the half we have right now).

Here is a file image though. Did they fix that - the name tag gone missing? Else the party list is useless if it's empty. I know if my Fairy is there if I have the Fairy Hotbar, so why having a party entry when it's unclickable?

https://imgur.com/PSkDIkP.jpg

Also, I keep playing this intro riff from "Galvanize" playing in my mind now for hours when going Scholar..

I decided to mix in more Scholar and get it to 80 and the profession quests done so I have all ready. Actually, I am a bit better now then the past two days where I was so close to ditch this profession. Having a hard time to visualize the abilities makes it hard. And I don't know why that is a thing. Imagine you drive stick fine and confident for 2 years and then I can't move 5 meters without stalling the engine..

Sincerely,
https://imgur.com/9mjol58.png

They did fix it. She has her name tag on the battlefield, and she is in the party list. You still can't target her, or deploy adlo's off of her like we could in SB. They changed the fairy gauge as well. It is always present now whether or not you have Lily out. However, it still brings up a great point that there are multiple ways to tell if Lily is out, but seeing her in the party list is by far the easiest method to ensure she has been summoned and resummoned after Seraph leaves the arena.

A big issue with the fairy gauge is that it is underutilized, meaning that it spends a lot of time being full. Only two skills are tied to it, which are Fey Union and Fey Blessing. Union is just fine. You can activate it and deactivate it at will so long as you have some gauge built up. Blessing however is also tied to a CD along with the 10 point cost to the gauge. Blessing should have a cost that is coordinated with the rate that the SCH build the gauge through aetherflow. Right now, I believe we get 30pts every minute, and Blessing is on a 90sec CD, so the cost of blessing should be somewhere around 30-50 off of the gauge; or take the gauge cost away completely and leave it at 90sec. Either way, what SCH needs is another way to spend the gauge and have to choose between that and Union.

Glad to hear you're going to stick it out. SCH has always been the healer I use to do more difficult content, and it's DPS toolkit has always been lower on the list of why I get enjoyment out of those fights. Overall, I find it to be a very fun healer that has a lot of toys to fire off while dancing around teh AoE. It is just no longer equipped to satiate the thirst of those who want more DPS skills to use during their downtime.

Small correction to the above: Fey Blessing is a 60s cooldown.

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Originally Posted by Synaesthesia

They just don't want to properly fix healing in general.

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I feel like they don't know how.

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Originally Posted by Rasikko

I feel like they don't know how.

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It definitely feels like that.. I mean.. Who would look at people who play a pet based class where a lot of the fun is in you working together with your fairy and go

"You know what we should do in the next expansion? Make Scholar's partner dopey, sluggish and unreliable"

The weirdest thing is that they used to do much better than they do now..

Even if it wasn't perfect, some content like Dun Scaith had mechanics that made healing more engaging, like random Doom, Earth Shaker attacks that would hit random party members, rescuing people from falling off during the knockback attack from the first boss or the heavy hitting tank busters that the last boss would do in succession. Monsters being able to afflict slows, or lethal dots meant you had to try and respond as fast as possible if 3 people got hit and your triage was on a short timer.

Along with the more greater variety of attacks and buffs that healers had, Scholar and Astrologian's special job traits being more varied and engaging and that ogcds didn't outpace the content to the point of getting by on them alone, it was really enjoyable.

I don't think it's just the healer design that's less inspired now, it's also that the fight design doesn't offer a lot to keep healing engaging.. All 4 current Eden Savages have a healing design like "Tankbuster, group damage, tankbuster, group damage, lots of group damage near the end" that just repeats.. There's a brief moment during E2S where you have to identify 2 people with a debuff and heal them, then it's back to normalcy. E4S gets intense enough at the end that you have to focus and work but..

It's like we've been given this massive toolkit based around a few 60 second splotches of intense damage at the end game without consideration for how it feels to play the rest of the time..

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Originally Posted by Synaesthesia

It definitely feels like that.. I mean.. Who would look at people who play a pet based class where a lot of the fun is in you working together with your fairy and go

"You know what we should do in the next expansion? Make Scholar's partner dopey, sluggish and unreliable"

The weirdest thing is that they used to do much better than they do now..

Even if it wasn't perfect, some content like Dun Scaith had mechanics that made healing more engaging, like random Doom, Earth Shaker attacks that would hit random party members, rescuing people from falling off during the knockback attack from the first boss or the heavy hitting tank busters that the last boss would do in succession. Monsters being able to afflict slows, or lethal dots meant you had to try and respond as fast as possible if 3 people got hit and your triage was on a short timer.

Along with the more greater variety of attacks and buffs that healers had, Scholar and Astrologian's special job traits being more varied and engaging and that ogcds didn't outpace the content to the point of getting by on them alone, it was really enjoyable.

I don't think it's just the healer design that's less inspired now, it's also that the fight design doesn't offer a lot to keep healing engaging.. All 4 current Eden Savages have a healing design like "Tankbuster, group damage, tankbuster, group damage, lots of group damage near the end" that just repeats.. There's a brief moment during E2S where you have to identify 2 people with a debuff and heal them, then it's back to normalcy. E4S gets intense enough at the end that you have to focus and work but..

It's like we've been given this massive toolkit based around a few 60 second splotches of intense damage at the end game without consideration for how it feels to play the rest of the time..

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that is just in savage tier ,what about the other content like MSQ or dungeons or normal raids even? it feels even worse there unless you actually got a really bad or inexperienced party/alliances members that will make you burn your heals.
their idea for healers is neat(having a pet class healer,card using healer and the classic healer) but their kit design seriously sucks, i said it once and i will say it again whoever in SE that was in charge of designing the healers kit in SHB designed it for a brain dead bot and not for a living and breathing human beings.

Scholar is the only class whose gameplay doesn't build up.

WHM: Slowly generate lillies. When you spend them you unlock a new powerful skill. Using it feels satisfying. A reward for keeping an eye on your resources and spending them. (Though arguably not that efficient to do so.)

AST: Collect seals by buffing allies. While buffing doesn't interact with healing, it still builds up to a strong CD ability. The animation is beautiful and its satisfying to fish for the seals to unleash the most potent version of divination. (Though AST lost much of its flavour and support by making every card a flat dps increase.)

SCH: A bunch of disjointed CDs you can use whenever which actually lock you out of other interesting abilities.
Dissipation> No fairy skills or fey gauge
Fairy tether> No fairy skills
Seraph>No tether or veil
Fey gauge is used for 2 mildly potent things, one of wich locks your fairy out of her strongest skills.

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Originally Posted by MrKusakabe

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But we can't do anything with her from the party list. Have not tried it ingame, but last time I checked she even loses the name tag in battles, it is litreally just a 30x30px object on a 2550x1440px screen when scrolling out and/or having a topdown view. I don't have a problem with her leaving because I haven't left her behind so far

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It has been posted earlier in the thread, but in case you missed it: You can make Lily's name appear and make her targetable in combat by going to Settings->Character Config->Control Settings -> Target tab-> Disable targeting of pets and minions when in battle: Turn Off. It makes her easier to spot, specially if you change her name bar in "character config -> Display name settings -> Own -> Click on "Pets"".

This lets you spot her and target her in combat easier so you know where she is before using any of the commands. Still can't heal her or deploy off her nor fill out the five holes on the pet hotbar unfortunately.

Looking at Scholar it's like one of those talent trees in wow, rift and other mmos called "Healing/Restoration." Put all your points in there are and you are very proficent in healing, keeping everyone alive is no problem, but if you wanna do stuff solo it's kinda lackluster. Thats why you could spec into something else for fun. Whole thing smacks of SE wanting to make three specialization for AST, WHM and SCH: AST would also be able to further look into Time Magic or Card Enhancement, White Mages commuing even further with the Elementals or dwelving into the mystery of Lilies, SCH's could seek out K'rhid and K'lyhia for even more Arcanist tools or more training in Nymian Marine tactics to increase playstyle synergy with Lily.

Instead a notice was probably never sent, a yellow note was blown away, someone forgot, instructions were given to a designer who turned out were just there to deliver a fruit basket. Then at the day 5.0 went gold a dev went: "Oh no, we only managed to finish the healing specs! Ast, whm and sch gameplay will be utter trite!" "Worry not" said a senior dev, "we'll claim this was for Balance reasons, tomorrow all the healers will have forgotten they were only designed to HEAL with one nuke and a 30 second dot for 74 levels across hundred of hours of solo fights, duties and dungeons." Everyone at SE cheered and I'm reminded how awful Scholar is for each Broil III I cast.

Seeing as my assumptions for how 5.0 SCH came to be is reaching unhinged levels it is in hopes that this is the post that propels the Healer subforums postcount across the magical threshold that makes a klaxon ring at SE HQ and in a puff of smoke and sparks makes a Community manager appear, clapping as he goes: "Congratulations! You've reached the mandatory levels of posts, we will know read and acknowledge your concerns."

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Originally Posted by GrimGale

SCH: A bunch of disjointed CDs you can use whenever which actually lock you out of other interesting abilities.
Dissipation> No fairy skills or fey gauge
Fairy tether> No fairy skills
Seraph>No tether or veil
Fey gauge is used for 2 mildly potent things, one of wich locks your fairy out of her strongest skills.

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I gather that the idea is that SCH's gameplay loop is supposed to be Build Fairy Guage -> Spend Fairy Guage. But when there's only two options for spending fairy Gauge, one of which is a cooldown, then the loop is lost.

In my little delusions of grandeur of how I would've design SCH, it's always been "increase fairy guage generation, increase the number of skills fueled by it."

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GrimGale

Scholar is the only class whose gameplay doesn't build up.

WHM: Slowly generate lillies. When you spend them you unlock a new powerful skill. Using it feels satisfying. A reward for keeping an eye on your resources and spending them. (Though arguably not that efficient to do so.)

AST: Collect seals by buffing allies. While buffing doesn't interact with healing, it still builds up to a strong CD ability. The animation is beautiful and its satisfying to fish for the seals to unleash the most potent version of divination. (Though AST lost much of its flavour and support by making every card a flat dps increase.)

SCH: A bunch of disjointed CDs you can use whenever which actually lock you out of other interesting abilities.
Dissipation> No fairy skills or fey gauge
Fairy tether> No fairy skills
Seraph>No tether or veil
Fey gauge is used for 2 mildly potent things, one of wich locks your fairy out of her strongest skills.

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You had me with whm, you had me with sch, but man you lost me with ast there.

Whm is certainly alright keyword alright, you aren't punished for needing to gcd heal, it is just the need to gcd heal diminishes with level, skill, and gear. To also have 4x glares be better off on single target than to interact with your lily resources unless pressed for it feels off to say the least.

Sch has had this wonkyness with its capstone abilities for awhile now (basically since Dissipation in HW) and i think the devs need to take a hard look at all these abilties and try to figure a way to make them interact better. Random idea what if dissipation just locks out fairy abilities but doesn't despawn it and you gain twice the fairy gauge under Dissipation's effect, allow access to still tether the fairy to a party member, this tether then gives a fairy stack per tick (up to 5) which increases healing received, this could increase shields effectiveness from both sch and Seraph .

Not going to go into Ast i have done it so much recently but i legit lol'd when you said it was rewarding to fish for seals for max divination buff to which i'll just say to each their own XD

The issue with the healers, and with "most" of the jobs as a whole is SE seems to only view them in the vacuum of endgame. But when there are various endgame, the skills can easily become disjointed. Very few jobs actually focus on the interim and how things feel at each interval once a reset occurs. SE seems to be trying to adjust this, as we get more expansions. Just look at the MCH rework, and BLM is still the poster child for a finely tuned job. Hopefully, SE will continue to listen to our feedback.

As a SCH specific example, all of the cap-stone skill, past 50, fight against each other. You can't use any of them at the same time, and each one locks something out of use. We know SE is "comfortable" with rearranging skills, like Aetherflow, Lustrate, and Sacred Soil, but they need to do another to smooth things out, for most jobs.

Oh, ofc AST is not perfect. But I think my point about the "building up" nature of the class design still stands. ( Which served to point out SCH as an outlier.)

Feelings of satisfaction are subjective after all. Numbers could be tweaked and "seal fishing" could be adjusted to be less reliant on RNG but in essence you still need to draw cards and play the appropriate ones to maximize the potency of Divination.

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

In my little delusions of grandeur of how I would've design SCH, it's always been "increase fairy guage generation, increase the number of skills fueled by it."

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Compared to other job gauges that would work swimmingly. I'm also averse to having to build it up as slow as we do: Gauges seem to be central for managing resources so have been thinking either:

1. More things to spend gauge on and more things build gauge: Like Embrace, dot ticks build 5 each. ED/Ruin 2/Adlo/Lustrate/Excog/Indom build 20 for each. Ruin/Broil/Broil II/Broil III build 10/15/20/25 respectively. So we can quickly gain it, have skills gotten from early on that let's use it tactically or dump it for buffs or offensive skill. Basiclly a more fancy Aetherflow applications and Energy Drain.

2. We start with full gauge and it always builds up like 5 per tick. So the same applies: We can gain gauge fast and get more to spend it on that carries at least the same weighty options like Lustrate/Bane/Sacred Soil/Energy Drain.

Currently it works if you know you will need a full gauge ten Energy Drains into the fight, but instead of cooldowns you have the resource give you access to powerful skills, but can only use a couple until it recharges. That kind of decision making I think feels better for Scholar like how you decided on Lustrate/Sacred Soil/Bane/Energy Drain instead always using Excog when it's off CD.

Hey I'd be more for stuff playing off of the faerie gauge, as MP feels less like a resource to manage, I think it'd add more in terms of resource management as a dynamic, whilst not putting as much of a penalty as running out of MP might. It'd feel like we'd get more out of the gauge too

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GrimGale

Oh, ofc AST is not perfect. But I think my point about the "building up" nature of the class design still stands. ( Which served to point out SCH as an outlier.)

Feelings of satisfaction are subjective after all. Numbers could be tweaked and "seal fishing" could be adjusted to be less reliant on RNG but in essence you still need to draw cards and play the appropriate ones to maximize the potency of Divination.

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It is essientially this,

Whm: good in writing, less so in practice. You get rewarded some damage back for gcd healing, in a game where your discouraged from doing so as much as possible, oops. It functions perfectly fine it is just battle design has not accommodated such a class design and likely never will because it would require an overall from ARR onwards which is just not worthwhile thus class design needs to be looked at more.

Ast: good on paper, not so in execution. 3 seals prevent going after a single card, buffs are not so worthwhile and a mega chore for controller players which is a healthy chunk of your playerbase, yikes. It would take a hefty rework on a few skills or/as well as, the targeting system to make this more manageable for controller users, there needs to be some sort of work done to Ast the problem is the devs are too hesistant to do so due to who like it now(ignoring the bigger population Ast had throughout SB now being more unhappy).

Sch: what idea just fling at wall we'll make it stick. It works but no flow even to outright contradict each other in use, absolutely needs to be looked at as a basic design flaw. Plenty was stripped from Sch, the fact it escaped the devs notice how stupid it was not having something like Energy Drain with a resource mechanic that required you to spend a resource to generate another is laughably baffling and highlights the devs need to actually buckle down and pay attention to healers.