Making Eos and Selene Different Again

What differences do you want to see between Eos and Selene?

I would like to see it exactly how it was before being butchered in Shadowbringers. Eos for healing cooldowns, Selene for utility cooldowns. Above all else, I just want Embrace to be usable and good again. I liked being rewarded for my faerie management to keep the tank healed by giving myself more time to attack.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by VentVanitas

Above all else, I just want Embrace to be usable and good again.

---

Please please please please please.

Why have a healing pet if you as their master still need to heal that same target? Makes no sense. I do hope they give embrace back its amazing power. Right now it’s not even worth it.

I definitely want them to have their own identities again, though I think there are some issues with old Selene. As a Dancer, for example, I'd much prefer you didn't give me Fey Wind. I don't want any Skill Speed because it could hurt my rotation, which is a pretty big issue with Skill Speed in general for almost every job (BLM being a notable exclusion to the rule). I do think there are things about the old Selene that would need to be changed.

Something I had in mind was making it so that you actually want to swap between Selene and Eos mid-battle frequently. First, make Summon Eos and Summon Selene Abilities rather than spells, instant cast, and with a 15 second recast, then, their main tools could be like this:

Eos
- Embrace: 250 Potency, 2.5 seconds cast time, and make it cost 5 Faerie Gauge
- Fey Blessing: 400 Potency, instant cast, and make it cost 20 Faerie Gauge
- Fey Illumination: No major change

Selene
- Fey Spark: 4 second Stun, 2.5 seconds cast time, and it adds 5 to the Faerie Gauge
- Fey Tricks: Bane effect when you target enemies and Fey Caress effect when you target allies, and it costs 20 Faerie Gauge
- Dusk Glow: Restores your MP

The idea here would be if SCH could get some new DPS tools that are high DPS but also high MP costs, and Selene's support is about batterying your MP to allow for those powerful DPS spells. Meanwhile, she can't actually heal, but can build your Faerie Gauge for you for when you need to swap to Eos for healing, and also being good for starting big pulls.

I'd also like to change Dissipation into something that swaps Selene and Eos and grants you 50 Faerie Gauge for when you need Eos' healing.

Also, can we return the ability to manually cast Embrace? I don't really understand why we got rid of it when auto casting was always an option to begin with. Let the people who want to micromanage her do that. Just make the auto casting command apply to only Embrace so that it works the way it does now.

Eos:
- Keep as is except allow us to cast "Embrace" again. I used to use this strategically.

Selene:
- I'd like to see Fey Wind back. But if they aren't keen on its haste effect maybe make it a damage boost instead. I expect when latency is involved too much skill speed could be a problem for balance.
- I agree we could use Selene for some kind of return of Bane. This would add it without adding new buttons.
- Maybe something with the same effect as Miasma II, I'd say "Shadowflare" but Shadowflare required a ground target placement, Miasma II would be a DoT exuding from where your faerie is placed. (Maybe this could worked in as a Selene specific aetherpact ability if giving Selene 3 skills is too much with the current ability set)
- Of course, the ability to cast Embrace manually

I'd also see Selene change how Fey Blessing works too. Maybe this could be a shield instead of a heal.

I'd definitely want a Selene that's used for utility. This might actually help with SCH's issue of it healing too well and help restore some of SCH's balance with its own abilities.

Eos's use I'd see being for newer and less confident players and also for progression runs.

For experienced players and for better optimised runs I see Selene being more useful. This is how I used to see the Eos/Selene balance before. Because you have the tools to be efficient without Eos and could put some more emphasis on using shields (especially if Selene gets one via Fey Blessing) because you've self nerfed your healing efficiency.

This keeps it beginner friendly too and is a way of raising the skill ceiling without raising the skill floor and doesn't add extra buttons.

My argument for Embrace is that it was a part of the toolkit I used to use when SCH's pure heals were weaker. I would weave its usage during casts AND use it in combination with Physick. I get that micromanaging was fiddly, but it was an aspect I liked that when done well could boost your efficiency and most importantly: optional. You still had an AI to handle it if you preferred.

I realise these suggestions will increase SCH's rDPS. But that's fine, because I think if anything, that gives room for WHM and AST to get more love they need too.


With regards to a stun, I think we'd run into the same problem we had with Silence on Selene is that Stuns generally need to be quick as what you're trying to stun relies on your reaction time and even without a delay it can still fall prey to the pet action stack. This is why Silent Dusk got a niche use, it was harder to ensure that it goes off in time.
And with MP, I feel SCH is already MP efficient enough, with Aetherflow, Energy Drain and Lucid Dreaming all being ways to restore MP, whilst conceptually I think a good idea, I don't think it's needed. The only healer that would found themselves thinking about MP management in ShB was AST and they patched that.

Regarding Eos:

One thing about Embrace and returning it to a cast time instead of being instant cast is that it will help with ghosting issues. These are an issue now because when you try to input commands within her GCD window after she's Embraced an ally, she can't cast. By restoring Embrace to a cast time, we can mitigate if not eliminate that issue. Additionally, if we give it a small Faerie Gauge cost, we can not only make the Faerie Gauge more impactful, but also restore a lot of power to Embrace as a higher source of healing outside of your kit. Absolutely, though, we do need to restore the option to allow for manual Embrace usage. There's no reason to take that option away when it was never required to begin with.

Regarding Selene:

Fey Spark Idea: The difference between Stun and Silence is Stun isn't exclusively used as an interrupt and can be useful for pulled enemies to enable you more time to DPS. When you're not fighting stunnable enemies, it instead acts solely as a Faerie Gauge battery, preparing you to use Eos when needed. It also creates a more pressing need to switch between the two rather than just sit on one or the other if one can heal and the other can't.
Dusk Glow Idea: So the reason why I think adding a self MP restore to Selene would be a good replacement for Fey Wind is because we can redirect that DPS support identity into something that works for the Scholar's benefit instead. I imagine with this concept that the Scholar could have 2 additional spells:

Meltdown
Unaspected Damage with a potency of 400
- MP Cost 1000

Drown
Unaspected damage over time with a potency of 200
- Duration 15 seconds
- MP Cost 1000

The numbers here are placeholder, but get the point across. You can up your DPS by using these in place of Broil, but doing so will chew through your MP quickly. This is where Selene comes in: giving you more opportunities to make decisions with your resources. This would give the Scholar more DPS engagement as they need to decide when Meltdown and Drown are too costly to use.

Something I want to note though regarding Fey Wind is that the more DPS utility we give to Scholar, the less selfish DPS Scholar can reasonably be allowed to have. Scholar is the only healer to originate from a DPS, and one of its biggest charms from 2.0 and 3.0 were that it was a high-offense healer to contrast against White Mage's more passive nature, and that's something I strongly want to see restored to Scholar. In order to accomplish that, I don't think we can afford to give any more utility to Scholar, and I even question whether or not giving it Chain Stratagem was more harmful than good in that regard.

They could always make it so that the pet skills you have to assign to your hotbar change depending on whether you have Eos or Selene out, with Eos having the same AoE regen and incoming healing boost, and Selene having the old skill speed buff but not really sure about the second skill.

Since Selene is utility focused maybe she can extend the duration of chain stratagem, or offer something similar to a chargeable swiftcast where the next spell is instant to make SCH able to mass rez easier like RDM can. They could also make the pet casts instant like summoner and have separate charges so that pet switching according to what's happening in the fight will be something high end scholars will be doing on the regular.

I did always like the option of using the fairies for different encounters etc and them having some variety of them. The fact that now it’s just a preference of which I like to look at more kind of upset me. I mean I’m used to it now but I wouldn’t be mad if they made them diverse again.

I would love to have an identity separation for both Eos and Selene. I doubt they would ever make the fairies SUPER different like it was pre ShB again. So these suggestions has no MAJOR skill changes and reworks, rather instead having more subtle changes but also a level of new dynamic for SCH given the situation. And some of these skill suggestions are in preparation of endwalker and SCH being part of the shield healer category. The big change overall is taking out Regen from whisper. Regen on Sacred Soil would still be there though. Embrace has no changes. Cooldowns not included, that would be up to balancing.

Fairy Skill Changes

Summon fairy is now an OGCD
This is a big one. And it would be relevant to some changes i made to certain skills.

Whisper:
Selene/Eos: Group Heal.
Seraph: Group Heal with increased potency
Would be what blessing is now, and seraph would just increase the potency

Blessing:
Selene/Eos: Group Shield (two stacks).
Seraph: Group Shield with increased potency
This would just add on to the shield niche SCH would be put into for Endwalker and would help
SCH have more shield options other than Succor

Illuminate:
Salene: Increase dmg potency to party.
Eos: Increase healing potency to party.
Seraph: Increased dmg and healing potency to party.
This is where one of the difference would be for each fairy. Eos would be used for "progression" while Selene would be used for "speed runs/clearing".

Dissipation:
Selene: increased healing potency to self.
Eos: increased damage potency to self
The secondary skill that differentiates Eos and Selene. However, while whatever chosen fairy is used for illuminate for group buffs, the opposite effect occurs to self buffs when using dissipation. This adds a level of dynamic especially when weaving in fairy summon which mentioned earlier would be an OGCD. If you want both group dmg buff and self dmg buffs, you will need to weave in a summon between the two. This would also give SCH a "DPS burst phase" that isnt just using swiftcast for Broils like how it is now LOL

Aetherpact: Fairy tethers to selected target. The tethered player receives a reactive Heal that heals target after taking damage.
Skill only usable when gauge reaches 100. Uses 60 fairy gauge per reactive heal. 10 Second CD after first reactive heal before a second reactive heal can occur. SCH must increase gauge to 60 (using two aether skills) within the 10 second CD for the second reactive heal. If not the tether breaks ending Aetherpact.
Didnt want to make this super overpowered. Puts aetherflow usage on the SCH and whatever situation they are in. This would really push some unique Aetherflow combos.

Consolation: When Seraph reverts back to Eos/Selene, the SCH will receive one stack of blessing.
Adds resource. This would just further define SCH as a shield healer.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ty_taurus

What differences do you want to see between Eos and Selene?

---

I'm in the minority here, but I don't need them to be different.
They've shown they can't give SCH multiple fairies the way SMN has multiple egi without one just being better (akin to the way there's such imbalance between AST's Noctournal and Diurnal sects).

I don't want them to return to that.
I'd rather they continue designing one fairy and building SCH's kit with it in mind.

I think they'll give Selene a shield kit rather than her utility kit if they tweak her any more. slides sch more fully into shield healing and gets away from the haste buff messing with timings on everything.

I'm surprised that Square Enix still has decided to not have any differences aside from appearance, even though said appearance could be further simplified by having glamour options rather than additional buttons. At this point, I'll take almost anything for the sake of variety, even if it's just stat boost changes between the two.

Looking at the changes in AST and SMN I figured the Fairies could follow some sort of Rotational pattern. After all Selene and Eos are named after Dusk and Dawn.

Why not have them be temporal summons with charges, just like EW Summoner. You cycle through them like you cycle through the Elemental Summons. Once you've completed a Cycle you can unlock a powerful self buff just like AST 's Astrodyne?

Ofc you'd have to adapt what their abilities do. It's easy to make a DPS/Buff rotation after all, damage and buffs to damage are always useful while healing is situational.

You can even tie them to the Black and White Grimmoires reminiscent of FFXI's Scholar.

30s of Dawn, 30s of Dusk, on a 60s rotation. You can use Biolysis re-apply to keep track of the fairies, just like AST uses the Combust timer to weave in their cards.

i think fey wind could retain its haste effect if it was single target and a bit stronger to compensate. worst case you use it on yourself, best case you give it to a black mage.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by GrimGale

Why not have them be temporal summons with charges, just like EW Summoner. You cycle through them like you cycle through the Elemental Summons. Once you've completed a Cycle you can unlock a powerful self buff just like AST.

---

Oh wow. That sounds actually amazing. I'd love to see that.

Unless SE’s willing to fix the lore and/or mechanics to make Eos and Selene work as distinct entities within either a healing only constraint or non-healing non-DPS utility constraint I do not feel compelled to force them into distinct roles at all. Eos became good because people realized she was more of a DPS increase than Selene straight up. Seraph also adds a major complication to the mix. My opinion is that they should figure out if they want to do a full on rework in the first place then comb the appropriate feedback out of us in the devtracker.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ItMe

I'm in the minority here, but I don't need them to be different.
They've shown they can't give SCH multiple fairies the way SMN has multiple egi without one just being better (akin to the way there's such imbalance between AST's Noctournal and Diurnal sects).

I don't want them to return to that.
I'd rather they continue designing one fairy and building SCH's kit with it in mind.

---

And because of that mindset we can't have nice things. There will always be someone with a fancy chart saying 'Actually...'
I really don't mind imbalance in job design. I really don't. Especially after 5.0 .
I also enjoy(ed) noct AST. /shrug

What I think is missing in this whole discussion is the fact that people like different things for different reasons. Yet for some reason people keep insisting that there is one and only one way.

It's not like I don't get where you're coming from, though. SE's healer record especially isn't exactly stellar.

Since I doubt Eos and Selene will get the Diurnal/Nocturnal treatment in terms of regen vs shields, we'd probably have to look for alternative options. I also doubt they'll give Selene DPS options since that would make Selene the preferable choice outside of healer intensive moments.

With this in mind.

Fey Illumination on Selene would increase Healing Magic Potency by 10% and cause Disease on all nearby enemies, reducing the damage they do by 5%.

Whispering Dawn would increase everyone's HP like an AoE Protraction and offer 5% Mitigation.

Seraph would a combination of the 2 and have all their effects with her abilities.

Best I could probably come up with given the limitations I set but hey, they're different enough to be good either way.

An idea I’ve been mulling over is taking the toggle-ability of Eukrasia/6.0 SMN and have it be a fairy thing.

So, the main change I was thinking of:

1) One fairy - Lily. If no fairy is summoned, pressing Summon Eos/Selene/Seraph automatically (and instantly) summons Lily.

2) Summon will place a buff on the SCH that modifies the next fairy ability they use. Summon Seraph is a 2 min cooldown. It places a buff on the fairy that adds a shield component (Neutral Sect does this) to her Embrace (and Fey Union, noted below). Prob rename abilities.

If no fairy is summoned, the SCH will instantly summon Lily and gain the appropriate buff at the same time.

3) Fairy gauge is generated when the fairy casts a regular heal.

4) Aetherpact and Fey Union are actually two abilities now. I’ll explain Aetherpact later.

5) Embrace and Fey Union are both 3 sec ticks, have same potency, generate same gauge. One auto-targets, other is tether.

6) There are only two fairy abilities now: Fey Whisper and Fey Blessing. Effects depend on fairy toggle/buff active when pressed.

Fey Whisper (Eos) - Healing potency buff and regen.
Fey Whisper (Selene) - Healing potency buff and damage reduction.
Fey Whisper (Seraph) - Healing potency buff, stronger regen, and damage reduction. Overwrites any active Fey Whisper (Eos/Selene)

No cooldown, just fairy gauge cost.

Fey Blessing (Eos) - Heals nearby allies.
Fey Blessing (Selene) - Shields nearby allies.
Fey Blessing (Seraph) - Heals and shields nearby allies.

No cooldown, limited by fairy gauge.

Summon Seraph also gives a 2 charge buff. Reduces fairy gauge cost of your next two fairy abilities to 0. Essentially, lets you do the whole 2x Consolation.

I considered Dissipation being a fairy DPS ability. Dunno, still thinking how this could work. If anything, when Lily disappears, it doesn’t unsummon her, she just has a “15 sec long animation” of not being there and not being controllable.

7) Aetherpact - When a fairy buff is toggled, casts Fey Whisper, but costs an Aetherflow stack instead of fairy gauge. Has a 60 (or 90?) sec cooldown.

Summary:

Consolidates and updates some buttons. Before we need 8 buttons for 8 effects (Summon Eos/Selene/Seraph, Consolation, Whispering Dawn, Fey Illumination, and Fey Blessing, Dissipation). Now we have 6 buttons for 12 effects. If Dissipation is removed, we’d have 7 buttons for 7 effects in the old and 5 buttons for 9 effects in the new.

This allows the ability for control over the fairy (if needed).

Don’t know if these would be good changes, but I like the idea of consolidating fairy buttons down to make room for new abilities. I wouldn’t mind if they divorced the Aetherflow/fairy gauge from one another.

It sounds good to me, but that’s just me. Hence opening it up to the forum to pick at.

I really like an idea I read elsewhere:

Make Eos/Selene/Seraph akin to SMN summons.

Have an Eos Phase where she focuses heals (waxing) / a selene phase (waning) that focuses on party buffs / and then Seraph (like bahamut) that is super strong on a short timer.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Deceptus

I really like an idea I read elsewhere:

Make Eos/Selene/Seraph akin to SMN summons.

Have an Eos Phase where she focuses heals (waxing) / a selene phase (waning) that focuses on party buffs / and then Seraph (like bahamut) that is super strong on a short timer.

---

Yes, that's what I thought. But the problem with "healing" rotations is healing is in it's nature, situational- So it's not something that can be turned into a perpetually turning wheel, unless you'd use away abilities when you don't need them and lose the opportunity to do so when they are. The potential to sabotage yourself is much greater than in a DPS rotation.

That being said, there are other solutions, like turning both fairies into different types of support: One debuffer that weakens damage dealt from enemies, one buffer that increases healing done: In this example both contribute to the SCH's sustain of the party. Two sides of the same coin.

Another more clear example is: Buffing the partie's damage done, or increase the enemy's damage taken. It's essentially the same thing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by GrimGale

Another more clear example is: Buffing the party's damage done, or increase the enemy's damage taken. It's essentially the same thing.

---

So, if I'm understanding, you're suggesting a buff/debuff rotation? That could be interesting and give some depth to SCH that it's severely lacking.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by inhaledcorn

So, if I'm understanding, you're suggesting a buff/debuff rotation? That could be interesting and give some depth to SCH that it's severely lacking.

---

I remember someone suggesting a scanning minigame to replace the Aetherflow mechanic. There could be two modes of it for AoE (Field Stratagem) and single target (Focus Stratagem) and the Scholar would have to run towards different points (If Sage gets a gap closer why not give Scholar positionals? Lol) of an enemy or group of enemies and scan those parts. Brings back Scholar's identity without adding any DPS.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by inhaledcorn

So, if I'm understanding, you're suggesting a buff/debuff rotation? That could be interesting and give some depth to SCH that it's severely lacking.

---

AST card system with Astrodyne is a good example of the type of rotation that can fit into a healer: You always want to use cards, so you keep play on CD. Each card gives you a seal which you can use for your "burst" , that being Astrodyne. With Draw being a 2 charge ability, there is some space to delay for a fitting moment before you start lagging behind. Astrodyne isn't a "healing" ability, rather something that can be used to improve all of AST's abilities that being healing or damage, so it's less situational. Of course you'd still want to align the use of Astrodyne with Burst windows to get the most of it, but outside of those it still a useful ability.

A rotation system for SCH could use these same principles: It improves SCH's casting either making your spells stronger (Offensively or Healing wise), maximizing their influence on their respective targets (Damage taken or Healing recieved.) or increasing the speed of application.

The problem of course is that you could not lock healing abilities or spells behind fairies. If the fairies are to become a rotational system, you can't have healing abilities tied to them. Fey Union, Fey Blessing, Whispering Dawn. They would have to be changed.

I could see Eos and Selene getting the BLM treatment for a SCH rework. Eos could be our "Astral Fire" increasing the potency and cost of our healing spells by a fixed percentage. Maybe somewhere between 10% and 30%. Selene could be the "Umbral Ice" allowing us to use healing spells at their normal potency and cost but with the added benefit of extra MP regen tied to her being present. They would both have the same potency on Embrace, Whispering Dawn, and Fey Blessing in my vision and summoning them would be an oGCD ideally. This would mean we never give up our healing tools and dying would be less impactful since Selene could help us get back on our feet faster. We could remove or reduce the MP restore from Aetherflow and Energy Drain to make switching fairies a key part of our play style. To be clear, the healing potency gain would only apply to Adloquium, Succor, and Physick: the actual spells Scholar has at their disposal. So for players who rely on these heavily they would be stronger with Eos and more spammable with Selene. For players who avoid them heavily they could get more impact out of the occasional shield with Eos and have no worries about their MP economy while using Selene. It would be a nice change in my opinion to use them both regularly as more than a glamour option but as a tactical decision. Selene could help us spam Art of War without going OOM and that would be glorious.