SCH, Energy Drain, and 6.0

As a non-SCH(and non-healer) player who has heard about SCH having Energy Drain removed TWICE and the devs faced serious backlash about... who wants to start taking bets that Energy gets removed by the time 6.0 launches?

Devs already said they want aetherflow to be used for healing not energy drain which is why they severely nerfed it. My guess is they will remove energy drain again along with aetherflow as it serves little purpose now. The mp gain is negligible at best. Just give lustrate 3 charges and Indomitability 2 charges. Leave sacred soil on a 30 second cooldown and leave excog on its 45 second cooldown and be done with aetherflow. It’s just gotten worst and worst over each expansion. Sick of that ability now. Change dissipation to a recharge of 1 lustrate and 1 indomitability on a 90 second cooldown and call it a day.

Yeah, my realistic expectation is that they're either gonna remove Aetherflow completely or try to remove Energy Drain again after nerfing it into the ground... only to find out that SCHs are complaining once again because they're sitting on 3 Aetherflow stacks with nothing to heal. No matter how weak ED is, it is still more damage than no damage when you sit on 3 stacks and have absolutely no use for Aetherflow heals.

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Originally Posted by SweetPete

Devs already said they want aetherflow to be used for healing not energy drain which is why they severely nerfed it. My guess is they will remove energy drain again along with aetherflow as it serves little purpose now. The mp gain is negligible at best. Just give lustrate 3 charges and Indomitability 2 charges. Leave sacred soil on a 30 second cooldown and leave excog on its 45 second cooldown and be done with aetherflow. It’s just gotten worst and worst over each expansion. Sick of that ability now. Change dissipation to a recharge of 1 lustrate and 1 indomitability on a 90 second cooldown and call it a day.

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While I can agree with this to a degree, the Aetherflow system is a management system that many SCHs are accustomed to, and enjoy. The issues comes from a lack of other forms of direct healing, the faerie's potencies being nerfed without an offset, and just general lack of needed heals in most content. The main reason people wanted ED back was because SCH needed a dump for when they had extra stacks but needed to use Aetherflow again for MP. The potency nerf was "frustrating" but most people didn't care as much, especially since our DoT and Broil 3 got a slight boost. Though honestly SCHs DoT should be the strongest in general.

Currently there is a similar issue with the Fey Gauge as well. Most of the time it just sits at max or close enough to it cause the tether is clunky and Fey Blessing is on too long of a CD for the potency.

As much as I don't want them to remove either, I would not be shocked if they removed both. IMO, I want SE to double down on aetherflow and it's offensive capabilities. I personally love that aetherflow can be used for both healing and damage, it makes you think, take a risk or play it safe. "Do I use a stack of aetherflow here for some extra damage or do I save it for a heal" etc. Yes, the game design of FFXIV doesn't always make this a problem, with things like recitation, but, a risk/reward system is NOT a bad thing on it's own, the rewards just have to be worth the risk, and currently, there's not a ton of either. And, on another note, SCH REALLY doesn't need to be dumbed down any further, they spam broil WAY too much as it is, it'd be even worse without energy drain.

That being said, yeah, 100% they're going to get rid of it. I'd also not be shocked to see them get rid of the dot because "healers too stoopid for buttons, TAKE THEM ALL AWAY" - Yoshi P. Also ready for fairy gauge to be just as useless as it's always been because the dev team cannot get it through their skulls that any mechanic that is tied purely to healing is a mechanic that WILL fail. SCHs just don't complain about the fairy gauge because aetherflow is their main mechanic, take that away and you learn real quick that the fairy gauge is worthless.

I think they’ll keep it or replace it with another DPS spell, I have my hopes that they’re gonna embrace the green DPS given the soon to be two- f cking-years of people clamouring nonstop about how much healers blow.

Not like settling my expectations low will help if they don’t fix them, as there’s a good chance I’ll just up and quit 14 either way unless they make all the other jobs collectively god tier, whether they were low or high or if I expected something different doesn’t matter.

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Originally Posted by SweetPete

Devs already said they want aetherflow to be used for healing not energy drain which is why they severely nerfed it. My guess is they will remove energy drain again along with aetherflow as it serves little purpose now. The mp gain is negligible at best. Just give lustrate 3 charges and Indomitability 2 charges. Leave sacred soil on a 30 second cooldown and leave excog on its 45 second cooldown and be done with aetherflow. It’s just gotten worst and worst over each expansion. Sick of that ability now. Change dissipation to a recharge of 1 lustrate and 1 indomitability on a 90 second cooldown and call it a day.

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And with that you break scholar gameplay even more.
Aetherflow managment must be one of the last core of its identity still standing.

But looks like people don't like scholar with that design since it keep being butchered...

I reckon its likely

devs stop doing this. get a healer designer already

I think whoever is responsible for designing Jobs in FFXIV, should take notes from their FFXI counterparts, i mean, just look at the skillkit and the job info:

https://ffxiclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Scholar

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Yeah, my realistic expectation is that they're either gonna remove Aetherflow completely or try to remove Energy Drain again after nerfing it into the ground... only to find out that SCHs are complaining once again because they're sitting on 3 Aetherflow stacks with nothing to heal. No matter how weak ED is, it is still more damage than no damage when you sit on 3 stacks and have absolutely no use for Aetherflow heals.

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Ding ding ding, we have a winner!!

Sigh... We're screwed, aren't we?

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Originally Posted by EaMett

Ding ding ding, we have a winner!!

Sigh... We're screwed, aren't we?

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been that way for Sb and Shb.

I am not gonna be surprised if we find out sage is made out of chunks of the other 3 healers. Ast's noct sect, Sch's aetherflow system and whm's old self buffing playstyle.
Ast and Whm chunks are already confirmed in any event

This is their last chance to get it right with healers. They always said Ast was the problem child because it could go either regens or shields so it was hard to balance the healers. Now they won’t have that excuse anymore. If healers are still not fun and unique then we will know. My expectations aren’t high but I’m hoping the healers are getting the biggest rework this expansion. It’s our turn now. We’ve waited long enough.

They should just make it an instant gcd with the same potency as boil.

Probably a unpopular opinion, but i hope the Fairy will get a bit more attention skill- and potencywise at the exchange of being killable again (along with a revive timer) to keep things more interesting instead of having the Fairy constantly on autofollow on every occasion you summon her.

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Originally Posted by SweetPete

This is their last chance to get it right with healers. They always said Ast was the problem child because it could go either regens or shields so it was hard to balance the healers. Now they won’t have that excuse anymore. If healers are still not fun and unique then we will know. My expectations aren’t high but I’m hoping the healers are getting the biggest rework this expansion. It’s our turn now. We’ve waited long enough.

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Not gonna happen; they've shown their hand long ago, we know they don't care about healer's, otherwise we wouldnt be where we are today.

Itll be the same thing all over again, I don't know why anyone is expecting them to care now.

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Originally Posted by FoxCh40s

Not gonna happen; they've shown their hand long ago, we know they don't care about healer's, otherwise we wouldnt be where we are today.

Itll be the same thing all over again, I don't know why anyone is expecting them to care now.

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i don't think its expecting them to care, I think its expecting them to do something on accident that will make things better and mix up what players want with what SE want/think healers play thus accidentally making healers less shit

My hopes are, if Sage becomes the "selfish" self buffing Shield Healer, as it's been revealed in the Announcement, that Scholar will see its Support/Utility expanded to have it mirror AST as the Shield Healer Support oriented counterpart. I want more Stratagems, I want more debuffs/buffs to manage during downtime.

I've always liked the idea of SCH having two modes from FFXI, one grimmoire for Enfeebling/Damage, the other for Buffing/Healing. In FFXIV we had the fairies that acted in that way, kinda. Hopefully we go back to our summon being meaningful and being tied to significant abilities now that the final opportunity has come to detach ACN/SMN from SCH.

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Originally Posted by Anhra

Probably a unpopular opinion, but i hope the Fairy will get a bit more attention skill- and potencywise at the exchange of being killable again (along with a revive timer) to keep things more interesting instead of having the Fairy constantly on autofollow on every occasion you summon her.

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I just wantthe fairy to be targettable again. a well placed fairy used to be a godsend to bounce deployment tactics off.

As for energy drain and unused stacks they could quite easily just let aetherflow restore more MP based on the stacks you have.. 0 stacks. 20% mp on aetherflow. 1 stack 25% mp on aetherflow. 2 stacks 30% mp on aetherflow..

The fairy guage definitely needs some love though.

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Originally Posted by GrimGale

Hopefully we go back to our summon being meaningful and being tied to significant abilities now that the final opportunity has come to detach ACN/SMN from SCH.

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SCH and SMN have already been separated. Because of how the system is, they cannot fully separate SCH from ACN because it would require too much of a rework. But as far as gameplay is concerned, the separation has already happened. That's why the only ability they share now is Resurrection.

What I expect from the 6.0 Barrier Healers is systems that reward proactive shielding and healing. I wouldn't be surprised if Aetherflow stops primarily being a healing resource and ends up primarily a damage resource and Aetherflow generation is tied more to successfully shielding attacks. Not saying Lustrate, Sacred Soil, Indomitability and Excognition would go away, but that Aetherflow is more intended to be be used with Energy Drain and other DpS spenders with most of the healing uses being more for emergency situations.

How I could see things working:

• Max number of Aetherflow stacks increased to about 6
• Aetherflow(ability) would still generate 3 stacks when used.
• Adloquium's Galvanize and Catalyze each give an Aetherflow stack when they break (but not when they fall off).
• Deployment Tactics Galvanize shields maintain the 100% generation chance of Adloquium.
• Succor and Consolidation's shields would have a 20% chance of giving an Aetherflow stack when they break.
• Seraphic Veil shields would have a 50% chance of generating Aetherflow
• Excognition still costs one Aetherflow stack, but gives 2 stacks when it is triggered.
• Fey Union gives an Aetherflow each time it's target takes damage equal to 30% of their max hp.
• Sacred Soil has a chance of giving an Aetherflow when someone under its effect takes damage equal to 30% of their max hp,
• Dissipation would still give 3 stacks at the cost of loosing the fairy for 30s.
• New capstone gcd spell with a 60s or 90s cooldown that consumes all current Aetherflow stacks to deal damage based on Aetherflow spent

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Originally Posted by Anhra

Probably a unpopular opinion, but i hope the Fairy will get a bit more attention skill- and potencywise at the exchange of being killable again (along with a revive timer) to keep things more interesting instead of having the Fairy constantly on autofollow on every occasion you summon her.

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Not going to happen as pets being targetable/damageable causes more problems than they are worth design side. Tankbusters, Raidwides, and Shared damage attacks have had problematic interactions with pets since 2.0 requiring pet interaction exceptions to be added to pretty much every individual action. Them being non-targets makes things less problematic and easier for the designers.

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Originally Posted by GrimGale

I've always liked the idea of SCH having two modes from FFXI, one grimmoire for Enfeebling/Damage, the other for Buffing/Healing. In FFXIV we had the fairies that acted in that way, kinda. Hopefully we go back to our summon being meaningful and being tied to significant abilities now that the final opportunity has come to detach ACN/SMN from SCH.

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I actually hope scholar turns out to be more support oriented like astrologian. It would suck if Astro is the only buffer of the healers then it will basically secure its spot in raid groups for sure. I hope they make Selene relevant again. Just make the faeries in general very powerful at the cost of the scholars own power being nerfed a bit so it’s not op as it was in ARR and HW. There are 4 healers now. So I can’t totally see to bigger types and two selfish dps types. More stratagems will be amazing. We haven’t gotten a new one since HW.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

Not going to happen as pets being targetable/damageable causes more problems than they are worth design side. Tankbusters, Raidwides, and Shared damage attacks have had problematic interactions with pets since 2.0 requiring pet interaction exceptions to be added to pretty much every individual action. Them being non-targets makes things less problematic and easier for the designers.

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That's the Point, to make things more difficult. This Game clearly needs more spices into its gameplay, especially on the Healer side.

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Originally Posted by Anhra

That's the Point, to make things more difficult. This Game clearly needs more spices into its gameplay, especially on the Healer side.

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There is a difference between mechanics being difficult with pets and annoying/cheeseable/breaking with pets. Targetable pets led to the later rather than the former. Multiple consecutive Raidwides in high end fights would often kill Egis and Fairies due to Sustain being unable to keep up forcing resummons (which took 6s to cast then) which heavily impacted both SCH and SMN ability to do their jobs, Ramuh EX for a time did not require tanks to clear due to the Egi/Fairy mercy mitigation (added to help with the former problem) also applying to tankbusters, AoEs that required stacking to survive often ended up weaker than intended due to having 1 or 2 more targets than they were designed for, as targetable entities they caused rendering and targeting issues during large player gatherings such as World Boss FATEs and S-rank hunts, and the Turrets could break fights such as Ifrit EX if they managed to be placed in the wrong place and gained aggro. All of the above and more are why targetable pets are not worth the hassle for mainline jobs*.

*Limited Jobs such as Beastmaster or Puppetmaster having targetable pets wouldn't be as problematic as limited jobs can be allowed to break the game more.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

There is a difference between mechanics being difficult with pets and annoying/cheeseable/breaking with pets. Targetable pets led to the later rather than the former. Multiple consecutive Raidwides in high end fights would often kill Egis and Fairies due to Sustain being unable to keep up forcing resummons (which took 6s to cast then) which heavily impacted both SCH and SMN ability to do their jobs, Ramuh EX for a time did not require tanks to clear due to the Egi/Fairy mercy mitigation (added to help with the former problem) also applying to tankbusters, AoEs that required stacking to survive often ended up weaker than intended due to having 1 or 2 more targets than they were designed for, as targetable entities they caused rendering and targeting issues during large player gatherings such as World Boss FATEs and S-rank hunts, and the Turrets could break fights such as Ifrit EX if they managed to be placed in the wrong place and gained aggro. All of the above and more are why targetable pets are not worth the hassle for mainline jobs*.

*Limited Jobs such as Beastmaster or Puppetmaster having targetable pets wouldn't be as problematic as limited jobs can be allowed to break the game more.

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The matter of Summons was from my point of view only dropped because the developers were lazy to give it more attention thab the matter deserved from their perspective. If Pets had decent defense values that dont result into them being oneshotted, and ways to properly heal them (like being affected by AoE Heals and turning SMN Physick skill into a Healing skill for Egi's) it always could have been manageable for anyone with half a brain.

Saying nonsense like "theyre not worth the hassle" only shows how ignorant and little people like you care about the game having a properly functioning and complex combat system, which is why Healers are in their current situation in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Anhra

The matter of Summons was from my point of view only dropped because the developers were lazy to give it more attention thab the matter deserved from their perspective. If Pets had decent defense values that dont result into them being oneshotted, and ways to properly heal them (like being affected by AoE Heals and turning SMN Physick skill into a Healing skill for Egi's) it always could have been manageable for anyone with half a brain.

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This post more showcases how little players like you understand the difficulties of game design and balance and fail to understand that the ability to bring additional persistent entities to combat has been one of the most difficult things to balance since the RPG came into existence 47 years ago in 1974. Thousands of game designers during those 47 years have run into similar problems and pretty much all of them have had similar troubles and many of them gave up far less time than the 6 years of work the ffxiv devs put into SMN, SCH and MCH.

You also seem to lack a sense of history and are unaware that most of your suggestions were attempted and failed. It is not lazy to fight to get something to work for 6 years, determine that the current system is untenable and then seek alternative methods to implement.

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Saying nonsense like "theyre not worth the hassle" only shows how ignorant and little people like you care about the game having a properly functioning and complex combat system, which is why Healers are in their current situation in the first place.

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Actually I seem to care and understand more about how the game functions than you do. I understand that the boredom both Tanks and Healers currently experience in content comes mostly from their kits being incongruous with what fights are design to do. Targetable and damageable pets will not fix any problems and are more likely to reintroduce or create new problems.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

This post more showcases how little players like you understand the difficulties of game design and balance and fail to understand that the ability to bring additional persistent entities to combat has been one of the most difficult things to balance since the RPG came into existence 47 years ago in 1974. Thousands of game designers during those 47 years have run into similar problems and pretty much all of them have had similar troubles and many of them gave up far less time than the 6 years of work the ffxiv devs put into SMN, SCH and MCH.

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I'm interested in hearing more about this because I also fail to see the difficulties here. At the very least in balancing. It's a pretty simple affair to duplicate the owner's stats and then balance around the pair as a single entity with a lower gcd. Things do get a little more complicated when you need to factor in pet survivability but nothing keeps them from making the pet invulnerable.
Hell, I've made programmable spreadsheets to test this against different encounter designs and I don't have a tenth of SE's resources (including potential pet swaps, that added mobility, etc.).
I just assumed that SE never built tools for balancing (balancing healers at least) and that's why their game design efforts fell short.

Of course, I'm aware that I was at liberty of testing whichever design encounters I wanted. Whereas SE are stuck with their narrow definition.. But that sounds more like it's part of the problem.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

This post more showcases how little players like you understand the difficulties of game design and balance and fail to understand that the ability to bring additional persistent entities to combat has been one of the most difficult things to balance since the RPG came into existence 47 years ago in 1974. Thousands of game designers during those 47 years have run into similar problems and pretty much all of them have had similar troubles and many of them gave up far less time than the 6 years of work the ffxiv devs put into SMN, SCH and MCH.

You also seem to lack a sense of history and are unaware that most of your suggestions were attempted and failed. It is not lazy to fight to get something to work for 6 years, determine that the current system is untenable and then seek alternative methods to implement.

Actually I seem to care and understand more about how the game functions than you do. I understand that the boredom both Tanks and Healers currently experience in content comes mostly from their kits being incongruous with what fights are design to do. Targetable and damageable pets will not fix any problems and are more likely to reintroduce or create new problems.

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There are plenty of other MMOs outside of FFXIV which successfully inplimented Summoners and Pet based Jobs, some to which persist even to this day. Hell my very first MMO (Rappelz Online, launched in 2006) was one that had pet-based combat as its core feature (every Class could have a summoned creature)and even had summoner-based Classes run two creatures at the same time where every Creature had their own Stats, Skills and could even be equiped with Armor and Weapons and balance worked out just fine.

But back on the matter at hand, just because a idea has been dropped at some point, doesn't necessarily mean that the Idea itself is bad. Developers are capable of making mistakes as well, PvP in its current state is a prime example of that, allow me to remind you, since you seem to be quite understanding, that the changes which made PvP to what it is today, killed off 90% of the former PvP community.

More importantly, just because it is a technical issue on their part, it shouldn't mean that a idea should be shot off just because it causes "inconveniences" on the developers side, its their Job to keep things interesting to their Playerbase after all.

The problem I fear is how do the balance the jobs. Ast is still going be a buffer and whm is the king of heals and dmg. Which means in order to balance you need sage and sch to fill these 2 roles for barrier; one being superior in dmg and heals over the other being more party support. I feel as it stand now sch does not fill either of the boxes.

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Originally Posted by Hellstorm

The problem I fear is how do the balance the jobs. Ast is still going be a buffer and whm is the king of heals and dmg. Which means in order to balance you need sage and sch to fill these 2 roles for barrier; one being superior in dmg and heals over the other being more party support. I feel as it stand now sch does not fill either of the boxes.

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The way I see it SCH and SAG will convert to full potency GCD shields ala Divine Benison, and they should be tuned to be the strongest singular form of mitigation against single hits. Currently the strongest form of mitigation across any role is Addle. Mostly due to rate and applicability. Its sole weakness is when the boss jumps or when untargetable adds are the sources of a mechanic. Tactician/Reprisal are equally as good as Sacred Soil, which is also better than Succor on single hits currently. Even Veil/Shake it off are stronger in some situations.

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Originally Posted by Hellstorm

The problem I fear is how do the balance the jobs. Ast is still going be a buffer and whm is the king of heals and dmg.

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I imagine this impression is one reason why WHM remains popular to this day, but I'm baffled where it comes from. WHM is rarely ever the king of heals and damage. It even has to lose a lot of damage to do strong healing and vice versa. AST is the king of everything right now compared to WHM. Both SCH and WHM will need a viable niche going into Endwalker.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

I imagine this impression is one reason why WHM remains popular to this day, but I'm baffled where it comes from. WHM is rarely ever the king of heals and damage. It even has to lose a lot of damage to do strong healing and vice versa. AST is the king of everything right now compared to WHM. Both SCH and WHM will need a viable niche going into Endwalker.

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Probably because most people don't look further than "Glare = big numbers = big damage and Cure Two = big numbers = big healing" without ever thinking about the cost that is attached to WHM's big heals.


When you consider that a majority of the people playing this game don't do much more than maybe read their ability tooltips it's easy to see how this myth about WHM is still going strong.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Probably because most people don't look further than "Glare = big numbers = big damage and Cure Two = big numbers = big healing" without ever thinking about the cost that is attached to WHM's big heals.


When you consider that a majority of the people playing this game don't do much more than maybe read their ability tooltips it's easy to see how this myth about WHM is still going strong.

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And that's a big "maybe".
Outside of niche Cure III and Bene, WHM doesn't have any signifcant heal power over the others and certainly not for free. I think it's more of a "Since I don't have any utility/ support, I must be the strongest in dps and hps" without actually comparing numbers and how much of that healing is free.
Many people think using Solace is a dps gain, Assize is for healing and/ or when you need MP or that Cure II is inherently stronger than Bene II or Adlo. Which is true for the latter but SCH also has the fairy and the auto heals + Adlo are roughly equal to the other spells just spread to two seperate actions.

I have no idea where they'll go with AF/ ED but with how adamant they are about SCH using AF for healing we might see the decision making tied to AF scratched altogether. It would be a shame because it's nice to have something where you need to weigh your options and be prepared to get bitten in the back if you miscalculated.
It seems to be a case of this "What people think I'm doing/ What I'm actually doing" meme with SE thinking we generally spent AF on healing when in reality we squeeze it for every ED we can, otherwise they wouldn't have removed it twice and nerfed it so Ruin II ED is barely a dps gain over Broil.
Or maybe it gets a major rework like WHM lilies got from SB to ShB after it's clear that we are not going to use it as intended and they don't seem to like heal/ support competing for the same resource as damage when it mostly gets used for damage anyway like old cards and now AF.

WHM's main attractors compared to the other healers are twofold

1. No barrier to entry. You can start the game as a conjurer, but you can't as an Ast, Sch or soon Sge
2. Its the only healer that didn't get worse in shb. Its not improved though. Its just functional on the healing side now and the dps kit is broken (misery being a loss, insufficient weaving windows etc) whereas in SB it was the healing kit that was broke

Sadly SE don't have a healer dev, (or a tank one i suspect) and the quality of the playerbase in terms of skill in shb has drastically deteriorated as a result of the dumbing down across the board


Sch meanwhile, the devs are actively trying to destroy it and Astro since they like numbers and the mythological statistical balance over fun. Consequently the repeated ED loss.

You can tell they don't have a healer dev, as they fundamentally do not see how it breaks the Sch job removing ED. Even though its been an intergral part of the kit since always.

If they actually gave a damn, they'd decouple Summoner from Arcanist and not Scholar, scrap everything they did to Sch in shb and start again from SB

Here's the thing, it's not good to discourage a specific way of playing, rather to encourage another. If they want us to use Aetherflow on healing, they need to do two things:

1) make using oGCD heals easier to weave

and 2) reward the player for doing it.

These ideas already exist on other jobs. SCH really needs the same casting mechanic that AST has (ie: shorter cast times vs the GCD) to make the weaving viable (especially since SCH is so heavily reliant on oGCDs to heal especially with fairy skills also now being skills that need to be weaved), and, like on DRK with TBN and WHN with Afflatus skills, a refund on using Aetherflow on something not Energy Drain. This would fix so much of SCH's current clunkiness, even though SCH has a lot of other problems I think it will take an expansion rollover to really iron out.

I do agree that I think SCH and SMN should be completely separated from each other, though, and make SCH either a stand-alone job that can unlock at 30, or introduce a new base class and new starter healer just to even out the starter role distribution a tad.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is SCH the only class that can spend its resource on DPS or other?

PLDs meter is only used for tanking actions (cover, shelltron, intervention).

WHM has lillies and blood lillies, but one is for healing and the other is for DPS.

DRK can use its MP to deal damage OR to tank... but if you use it right tanking "refunds" the MP by giving you a free The Damage button.

All the jobs have their resource wrapped around a single function (like PLD using its meter for tanking skills), and SCH is (I think) the only class that can choose wether to spend its resource on DPS or something else... and it seems like a lot of SQEX's issues with Energy Drain stem from this and wanting to make SCHs resources get in line with a single function.
So I fully expect to lose Energy Drain in 6.0.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is SCH the only class that can spend its resource on DPS or other?

PLDs meter is only used for tanking actions (cover, shelltron, intervention).

WHM has lillies and blood lillies, but one is for healing and the other is for DPS.

DRK can use its MP to deal damage OR to tank... but if you use it right tanking "refunds" the MP by giving you a free The Damage button.

All the jobs have their resource wrapped around a single function (like PLD using its meter for tanking skills), and SCH is (I think) the only class that can choose wether to spend its resource on DPS or something else... and it seems like a lot of SQEX's issues with Energy Drain stem from this and wanting to make SCHs resources get in line with a single function.
So I fully expect to lose Energy Drain in 6.0.

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This is part of the problem, yes. However, Energy Drain is necessary due to SCH's Fairy Gauge which directly feeds off of Aetherflow usage. Without Energy Drain, you don't generate as much Fairy Gauge as you should each minute. Then again, you can largely ignore the Fairy Gauge and nothing really changes since it only affects how long you can use Fey's Union for. Fey's Blessing being tied to the Fairy Gauge is something that still baffles me to this day since it's just a kinda weak AoE heal on a 60s cooldown. If it was just an AoE version of Fey's Union, I can understand why it costs gauge. If it was just an AoE heal, I can understand the cooldown. I cannot understand why it has both of those things.

Anyway, if they decide to expand the Fairy Gauge further (which I kinda which they would since there's a good idea here), Energy Drain (or something like it) needs to stay. SCH, as they intend it, wouldn't be able to function.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is SCH the only class that can spend its resource on DPS or other?

PLDs meter is only used for tanking actions (cover, shelltron, intervention).

WHM has lillies and blood lillies, but one is for healing and the other is for DPS.

DRK can use its MP to deal damage OR to tank... but if you use it right tanking "refunds" the MP by giving you a free The Damage button.

All the jobs have their resource wrapped around a single function (like PLD using its meter for tanking skills), and SCH is (I think) the only class that can choose wether to spend its resource on DPS or something else... and it seems like a lot of SQEX's issues with Energy Drain stem from this and wanting to make SCHs resources get in line with a single function.
So I fully expect to lose Energy Drain in 6.0.

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The only problem with that logic is that, by removing energy drain like they tried to in 5.0 is that aetherflow becomes a useless mechanic, you may as well not even have it. And, if it is unique that SCH has a "I can use this resource for DPS or healing" how's that a problem exactly? What's wrong with a class being unique? Isn't that the entire point of having multiple classes.

Of course, that makes way too much sense, and SE is incapable of balance if the classes aren't carbon copies of each other with different sparkle animations, so yes, it probably will be removed in some misguided attempt to force all aetherflow stacks to be used for healing, only to have that tired idea fail again, and this time either just double down on it and just say "no, screw you, how DARE you optimize and get better at your class" or learn their lesson a 3rd time and return energy drain again.

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Originally Posted by inhaledcorn

Anyway, if they decide to expand the Fairy Gauge further (which I kinda which they would since there's a good idea here), Energy Drain (or something like it) needs to stay. SCH, as they intend it, wouldn't be able to function.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Billythepancake

The only problem with that logic is that, by removing energy drain like they tried to in 5.0 is that aetherflow becomes a useless mechanic, you may as well not even have it.

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I agree... as far as Shadow Bringers SCH is concerned.
Who knows what kind of changes they'll make for Endwalker. Far as we know they're gonna rework the whole system and it won't even have aetherpips anymore.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Billythepancake

And, if it is unique that SCH has a "I can use this resource for DPS or healing" how's that a problem exactly? What's wrong with a class being unique? Isn't that the entire point of having multiple classes.

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I agree, though iirc they've expressed it's a pain to balance content around so, since they've tried giving it the axe twice I'm expecting another attempt in 6.0.

If they remove ED again, it's truly telling that they don't understand how healers are played. While I do miss the fairy being targetable, it was problematic as in the fairy could die to anything for any reason. Making pets immortal should be right way to go as its less of a buggy mess, which is ironic considering how buggy it is now with ghosting.

At some point, what is the purpose of the fairy now? Embrace is weak now and the fairy only acts a beacon. All of your spells come from you. I do miss being able to command the fairy to cast it's oGCDs while I fight the enemy. It felt unique in that the fairy felt like a seperate entity. With how much of a mess they did to ShB SCH, I'd only imagine it'll be shunned by Sage if that turns out to be more powerful and less clunky.

Also WHM as some posts above is NOT powerful in healing, at least on an optimal scale. I hear this all the time from people who couple the idea that WHM is the king of healing and damage when in reality SCH and especially AST outheal WHM in an optimal environment. Their strong heals are tied to their GCD heals and Lily heals are a DPS loss even with Misery. Yes, it's less painful than actually using a Cure/Medica/Cure 3 heal, but it comes at a cost. WHM has the best damage but at the cost of their "big" heal ability. For as long as SE holds onto this idea that WHM has little to no weave windows, Assize, Asylum, Benediction are the only things WHM has on the other heals.

This is why AST is desired among healer combos because it is the only healer with that can dps, buff AND heal the fight without suffering a DPS loss. Both SCH and WHM desperately need something to help them weave their skills better.

I kinda wish they’d just make energy drain consume all remaining stacks and deal damage/restore mp based on how many stacks were consumed. So we can literally just use it when aetherflow comes off CD to get rid of our remaining stacks before refreshing it.