Endwalker Scholar

Level 82 I am liking Broil 4 and Art of War 2

Anyway going about levelling and glad I did first from 2.0 Beta to current. I know there are alot of problems but meh - keep on trucking.

Fairy skills for me feel VERY responsive on things i have done so far so very happy.

i notice less delay with fairy abilities, but in general i notice less delay. like the game runs more fluidly. Maybe the update of servers work a lot better for people like me that play from South America/brasil idk.

The fairy responds really quick, but it still suffers from a huge delay when you cast whispering dawn and fey illumination back-to-back.

Seraph still digs out when you try to cast consolation right before she times out.

Removed MP from energy drain and left that measly HP gain; why???

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Originally Posted by Kyaruo

The fairy responds really quick, but it still suffers from a huge delay when you cast whispering dawn and fey illumination back-to-back.

Seraph still digs out when you try to cast consolation right before she times out.

Removed MP from energy drain and left that measly HP gain; why???

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To get people to stop using their AF stacks for damage when they want players to use them for the heals. I disagree with how they went about this though, cuz now keeping AF on CD is more important and thereby more punishing if you screw it up, which is super simple to avoid but for a role they absolutely want to be less punishing they just made SCH potentially more punishing for people who want to pick up and learn SCH. If they wanted to incentivize the healer stratagems they should have shifted the MP restore to them. An AST is gonna play cards anyways hence why they gave draw a MP restore. A SCH is gonna use AF stacks anyways and if they REALLY wanted to dis-incentivize ED usages they should have just shifted the MP recovery to the healer stratagems or added a new Barrier stratagem with a MP restore, that way you aren't over healing and doing what you should be doing anyways as a shield healer which is provide shields. I really hope they revert ED MP restore, the fact its 100 potency per ED now makes it really dumb as a damage ability. All 3 of them equals about 1 Broil (using ShB potencies cuz i cant recall the EW potencies for Broil off the top of my head).

And I would rather the MP restore be on the healer stratagems or my dumb hypothetical barrier one ideally. But reverting ED is the simplest fix they could do to address it, especially since the first thing you do upon rez is hit AF to try and top yourself and your party back up. But now that AF is the only MP restore/manipulation within the Job itself its gonna lead to SCHs getting rez'd using AF then getting KO'd again except next time they rez its on CD. AF gating your best heals and your only non role MP restoration is just a bit too much of a bottle neck in my eyes.

Still gonna play SCH but I can see potential issues arising from their ED change that might necessitate them to fix it, an opportunity that could be afforded to other areas of SCH/another Job who needs adjustments like DRK for example.

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Originally Posted by Alpheus

To get people to stop using their AF stacks for damage when they want players to use them for the heals. I disagree with how they went about this though, cuz now keeping AF on CD is more important and thereby more punishing if you screw it up, which is super simple to avoid but for a role they absolutely want to be less punishing they just made SCH potentially more punishing for people who want to pick up and learn SCH. If they wanted to incentivize the healer stratagems they should have shifted the MP restore to them. An AST is gonna play cards anyways hence why they gave draw a MP restore. A SCH is gonna use AF stacks anyways and if they REALLY wanted to dis-incentivize ED usages they should have just shifted the MP recovery to the healer stratagems or added a new Barrier stratagem with a MP restore, that way you aren't over healing and doing what you should be doing anyways as a shield healer which is provide shields. I really hope they revert ED MP restore, the fact its 100 potency per ED now makes it really dumb as a damage ability.

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Energy Drain works as an AF stack dump in theory. They removed the MP recovery effect but retained the 100 potency damage which, with the fact that its an oGCD means using it is a DPS gain.

Therefore, SCH will prioritize using AF stacks as a DPS tool for optimization.

If they truly wanted to make SCH use their p for healing they would have removed ED's damage and left its MP recovery effect, that way a skilled scholar would use Energy Drain to maximize their MP recovery before re using Aetherflow without sacrificing any dps gain.

I like the new Art of War sound effect. The theming of SCH is still all over the place though, with the colder technologic feel of Broil and AoW feeling a bit out of place now that Sage is a thing, IMO. The fairy seems to be more responsive though ghosting is still present, and I've noticed that she sometimes still can get confused when you tell her to use Fey Union and has to sit there for a moment or two before she decides to do it. From what little EW content I've healed (just the first dungeon, my progress has been slow, can't get on with all these 2002s) I've enjoyed it a lot, the first dungeon had a lot for me to heal (though that may just be due to me not being great).
It's going to be hard to break the habit of Ruin II + ED for weaves though, I've had to catch myself while trying to weave heals via Ruin II instead of just using Broil. I'm also not a fan of the removal of MP management from Energy Drain, one of the things I do not like about Sage is the MP recovery being tied to using Addersgall heals instead of having a stack dump. Aetherflow feels better to manage than Addersgall in general, though that's a topic for another thread.

From my experience so far it's felt incredible compared to ShB scholar. More or less most of the things I speculated where the case in the past came to fruition.

Starting with the Broil cast time: As I speculated in the past that was a massive factor in the quality of life, with it returning the faerie heals to having no cost (except for Fey Union, but we'll get to that in a moment.) and reducing the inherent cost of using deployment tactics it's allievated so much clunk from the flow of the class.

Faerie Responsiveness: I was worried that this wouldn't end up being the case going into endwalker but under a majority of the time the faerie begins the animation for their action the moment your character starts to do their "point at the glyph" animation. The only time I've noticed a delay was if i gave a command right as she was doing an embrace animation, but even then it was not as much of a delay as it was in shadow-bringers. As far as ghosting, the only time I've personally witness the faerie ghosting was when i commanded Seraph right before she left the field. Under most circumstances, however, whatever delay the faerie has has been offset by the way single weaving on Broil naturally spreads out the commands.

Faerie Potency: I have not done the exact testing, but I have seemed to notice that was all the current values Fey Blessing feels much stronger then it did in SHB, a friend of mine stated that the consensus seems to be that faeries are back to a much higher conversation rate of stats like in the past, but i unfortunately have not checked for myself to confirm so. THe reduced pet potencies across the board seem to be inline with the pet having full stats conversion.

Energy Drain and Fey Union: Fey Union actually feels like a worthwhile ability to use now. The animation is significantly faster then it used to be, and once you stockpile a decent enough amount of guage I've been finding it a tool i'm constantly toggling on and off to heal with. It's about the sole reason I have no complaints with ED and the fact AF heals now cost more to use. Does it mean death is punishing? Ofc it does, death being a punishment is something I fully expect in an mmo game. But the biggest thing by far I've noticed healing in endwalker is the increased frequency I use Fey Union to "target" my faerie on specific targets. All of which is possible due to the combination of free weaving space + faster faerie responsiveness. Could i perform this prior to EW? Yes, but between the slower speed and the need to utilize Ruin IIs to achieve it, it felt far more awkward to preform.

Onto the new abilities, unfortunately I'm still level 88 so I've only used Protraction so far, and it helps, it definitely fulfills a role of being a versatile cooldown, especially since it finally gives scholars a way to buff their OGCD kits. I am excited to try out Expedience once I acquire it, but that will require me to be able to log on first. Which for me it unfortunately isn't the right time yet due to peak NA hours.

Unfortunately, I already know that despite the way it has been significantly improved in responsiveness and flow, that the fact they didn't address the thing that is repeated over and over again on this forum means that all this positivity is meaningless to alot readers? But honestly? I am more then satisfied with all the under the hood adjustments made that it's definitely reducing my eagerness to state Sage as wholly and completely superior to it.

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

the thing that is repeated over and over again

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Broil?

(Sorry, I had to)

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

snip.

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I agree. Broil IV and Art of War II are pretty and impactful. The fairy is super responsive and 1.5s Broil makes the job quite fast paced because we weave a lot. As I predicted, Fey Union got a huge boost in usability and it is now such a great skill (it always was, to be fair, just very clunky to use).

The job is so smooth now and I'm really enjoying it. Can't wait to get the new skills.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

Broil?

(Sorry, I had to)

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Broil machine go "Bzzt Bzzt"

I'm still trying to find a reason to use Dissipation, but maybe when I'm finally able to play the game I'll figure it out.

I stopped playing Astro in Stormblood aside from leveling it to 80 in ShB so the cast time reduction is really a struggle for me to adapt to. My muscle memory does not want to weave with Broil and it hurts.

SCH is to me still the same Job as in ShB. Quality of Life changes shouldnt be something that should only be released during Expansion releases. And just changing the visuals of a Skill, can barely be called an Upgrade.

Lets see what we got:
- Seraph is still useless
- Broilccoli, Art of Dabbing and Ruined 2 are still the same Skill
- Fae Gauge is still overbloated with ressources.
- Selene is still just a reskin of Eos
- Despite being labeled a BARRIER Healer, SCH still has overwhelmingly generic Healing Magic instead of Skills that should work with Barriers in some way.

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Originally Posted by Iedarus

I'm still trying to find a reason to use Dissipation, but maybe when I'm finally able to play the game I'll figure it out.

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Same as always I assume, an emergency button when you run out of every other oGCD?

If you can cast 12 Broils without using fairy ability, then Dissipation would’ve been a good choice.

Having played a bit:

Putting down Sacred Soil (-10% damage as well as a regen), Whispering Dawn, as well as Fey Union and tanks are still dropping.

3 substantial Cooldowns and it's still not enough.

To me, something seems wrong with that.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Having played a bit:

Putting down Sacred Soil (-10% damage as well as a regen), Whispering Dawn, as well as Fey Union and tanks are still dropping.

3 substantial Cooldowns and it's still not enough.

To me, something seems wrong with that.

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SCH always feels weak at the start of an expansion so that sounds about right. It just has to rely on its GCD heals at the start but once everyone starts gearing up a bit, the problem sorts itself out for the most part.

Things I wanted to see for Scholar since Shadowbringers, at least:

• Deployment Tactics to spread Biolysis and Chain Stratagem to enemies and Excogitation to allies, not just Galvanize. Basically a cornerstone ability that spreads debuffs to enemies and buffs to allies (same or lesser version, w/e the balance requires). When it was introduced it had synergy with Eye for an Eye as well, which was removed.
  
• Fey Union to make the fairy float above the player level and very slowly follow the target
  
• An update on spell effects and animations and consolidation of visual themes: Sacred Soil looks low res and dated, while Energy Drain is extremely simple on all accounts: icon, animation (if it doesn't get skipped) and effect. Some core spell and ability aesthetics feel like random 1.0 leftovers. Art of War I is especially guilty of this but at least we have a theme going with Art of War II being related to Biolysis visually.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

SCH always feels weak at the start of an expansion so that sounds about right. It just has to rely on its GCD heals at the start but once everyone starts gearing up a bit, the problem sorts itself out for the most part.

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I've only healed the first dungeon so far and I never had to use a GCD heal, nor did I feel weak. The dungeon has some weird damage spikes and sometimes the tanks are very low all of a sudden, but that's it.

I had the same experience as SGE when I had to use multiple cooldowns (Taurochole, Kerachole, Physis II) and tanks were still dropping fast.

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Originally Posted by rewd

I've only healed the first dungeon so far and I never had to use a GCD heal, nor did I feel weak. The dungeon has some weird damage spikes and sometimes the tanks are very low all of a sudden, but that's it.

I had the same experience as SGE when I had to use multiple cooldowns (Taurochole, Kerachole, Physis II) and tanks were still dropping fast.

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Well there isn't really an issue then. I mean, I've healed the 1st dungeon on my SCH and tanks were taking a bit more of a beating than they were in SB but I just chalked it up to the fairy being slightly weaker as per usual with each expansion. I did have to use the occasional Adlo due to people being new and taking some extra damage here and there but nothing I hadn't experienced before with people doing new content for the 1st time. It feels more or less the same from my experience.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

Well there isn't really an issue then. I mean, I've healed the 1st dungeon on my SCH and tanks were taking a bit more of a beating than they were in SB but I just chalked it up to the fairy being slightly weaker as per usual with each expansion. I did have to use the occasional Adlo due to people being new and taking some extra damage here and there but nothing I hadn't experienced before with people doing new content for the 1st time. It feels more or less the same from my experience.

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The fairy is not weaker, I don't know where you get that from. It's also harder to make direct comparisons because the tank you are healing also has a huge role in this. Except for this weird damage spikes, I didn't notice anything out of ordinary.

Healed the first two EW Dungeons and the first Trial, and I had zero issues keeping everyone up. Actually felt pretty smooth especially with the response time from the fairy now. I'm really liking SCH atm. Plus Broil IV and AOWII sound amazing to cast lol.

I hit level 90 and happy with protraction and expedient (great for side quests) and happy with my lot. I am not defending the changes it is what it is and I will stick with it. It isn't ideal... I didnt struggle to heal any content.

Question: Has anyone noticed anything different with the buffering (dont use macros) it is more that I feel like If i throw down an adlo after broil spam, the skill needs me to hit it a couple of times to register?. I notices this with mouse and controller. Maybe its just me.

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Originally Posted by Anhra

SCH is to me still the same Job as in ShB. Quality of Life changes shouldnt be something that should only be released during Expansion releases. And just changing the visuals of a Skill, can barely be called an Upgrade.

Lets see what we got:
- Seraph is still useless
- Broilccoli, Art of Dabbing and Ruined 2 are still the same Skill
- Fae Gauge is still overbloated with ressources.
- Selene is still just a reskin of Eos
- Despite being labeled a BARRIER Healer, SCH still has overwhelmingly generic Healing Magic instead of Skills that should work with Barriers in some way.

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-Wrong, I've found Seraph very useful from playing.
-They're stronger potency wise and Broilccoli now has a 1.5 sec cast for weave.
-I've had the opposite experience, I've use Fey Union constantly in EW compared to ShB
-Still stronger and more responsive then it was in ShB
-Barrier healer means they have access to on-demand (as in, near spammable) shield spells, not that they are the sole component of the gameplay. They still use Deploy and Emergency to interact with their shields, and their two new abilities both augment shields indirectly (one by giving you a means of buffing the healing output, which you can use in conjunction with deploy, and one that reduces the damage the target takes, thus making the shield last that much longer).

1. The 1.5s cast time on main nukes made weaving really smooth; the only downside to this are now I'm spamming more Broils & Adlos usage are becoming more and more nadir.
2. Fairy responsiveness. This here, is a god given gift, to me. Double weaving fairy's abilities are still doodoo but why do we even need to do that is outside my comprehension.
3. I'm seeing less times where my Fae gauge sitting at 100/100 now. With previously mentioned fairy's responsiveness, it's now very possible to abuse Union ticks to heal scratches on non-tanks without extensive delays.
4. Words cannot describe how much I LOVE Protraction. Such a shame this kind of ability (same with other healer's equivalent) are not something we learnt from 50s.
5. Broil IV animation looking more awesome than III, though I and II are still top notch in my list. AoW II is fine. Just new particles.
6. Thank the heaven they're merging Summon Seraph & Consolation together.
7. All would be perfect if we can use Expedient in lv80 duties :^)

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Originally Posted by rewd

The fairy is not weaker, I don't know where you get that from. It's also harder to make direct comparisons because the tank you are healing also has a huge role in this. Except for this weird damage spikes, I didn't notice anything out of ordinary.

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I'm not saying it is weaker. I'm saying that at the start of an expansion the Fairy usually feels less impactful due to us no longer being at level cap. That's why I attribute the increase in damage that tanks are taking as simply the fairy not being as impactful as she once was but will clear up once we get geared up for end game, like it usually does.

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

-Wrong, I've found Seraph very useful from playing.
-They're stronger potency wise and Broilccoli now has a 1.5 sec cast for weave.
-I've had the opposite experience, I've use Fey Union constantly in EW compared to ShB
-Still stronger and more responsive then it was in ShB
-Barrier healer means they have access to on-demand (as in, near spammable) shield spells, not that they are the sole component of the gameplay. They still use Deploy and Emergency to interact with their shields, and their two new abilities both augment shields indirectly (one by giving you a means of buffing the healing output, which you can use in conjunction with deploy, and one that reduces the damage the target takes, thus making the shield last that much longer).

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Outside of testing purposes, i havent used Seraph since ShB Launch and managed to clear any Content i ever engaged as SCH. I havent reached Queuewalker endgame yet, but so far, no Content up to lv77 has forced me to use this garbage yet.

-1,5 cast time on Dps skills doesnt mean anything aside from having a easier time slidecasting, when youre still tied to a 2,5sec GCD.

SCH might be stronger, but it is still a boring Job to play which has nothing interesting to offer gameplaywise. Despite being labeled a strategist which should have a more complex skillkit to do his name justice, it is STILL a generic Healer with generic abilities.

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Originally Posted by Anhra

Outside of testing purposes, i havent used Seraph since ShB Launch and managed to clear any Content i ever engaged as SCH. I havent reached Queuewalker endgame yet, but so far, no Content up to lv77 has forced me to use this garbage yet.

-1,5 cast time on Dps skills doesnt mean anything aside from having a easier time slidecasting, when youre still tied to a 2,5sec GCD.

SCH might be stronger, but it is still a boring Job to play which has nothing interesting to offer gameplaywise. Despite being labeled a strategist which should have a more complex skillkit to do his name justice, it is STILL a generic Healer with generic abilities.

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To be honest, I'd find the job boring too if I didn't use its skills...

I had a talk with a lot of sch player that did lvl sch and sage. And all tell me sage feels way better. Even if the fairy is more responsive being the person that uses the abilitys instead of a seperate entity. Sage bubble can be used in all situations with no drop off were sch/whm (and rare if you hold the astro bubble then astro also) need people to stand in the field for the pull heal and bonus effect. Also the job has so many strong tools on short cd (Physis and Krasis both 1 min cd for 30 % more heal increase is pretty nutty.

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Originally Posted by Anhra

-1,5 cast time on Dps skills doesnt mean anything aside from having a easier time slidecasting, when youre still tied to a 2,5sec GCD.

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I apologize but the 1.5 second cast time is actually a massive thing for scholar, are you familiar with the concept of weaving your ogcds? 1.5 sec casts allow you to single weave an ogcd without clipping the gcd, which is massive for reducing the dps loss for healing. The easier slidecast and more mobility are factors, but the ability to command your faerie (who is now also faster to respond to your commands) without loosing dps is the main boon of the class. It's part of the reason AST is such a powerful healer compared to WHM, because it had the ability to utilize its cooldowns at no cost to its dps, and now scholar has similar benefits to it's own healing kit.

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Originally Posted by Mortex

I had a talk with a lot of sch player that did lvl sch and sage. And all tell me sage feels way better. Even if the fairy is more responsive being the person that uses the abilitys instead of a seperate entity. Sage bubble can be used in all situations with no drop off were sch/whm (and rare if you hold the astro bubble then astro also) need people to stand in the field for the pull heal and bonus effect. Also the job has so many strong tools on short cd (Physis and Krasis both 1 min cd for 30 % more heal increase is pretty nutty.

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Sage definitely FEELS better to play... but I'd say scholar is much stronger overall. SCH basically has similar cooldowns to sage but just feels like they never run out compared to sage who feels like they burn through theirs super quickly anytime something goes sideways.

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Originally Posted by Drekor

Sage definitely FEELS better to play... but I'd say scholar is much stronger overall. SCH basically has similar cooldowns to sage but just feels like they never run out compared to sage who feels like they burn through theirs super quickly anytime something goes sideways.

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I think it’s quite the opposite. Desperate measures is a meh ability that sage has with his bubble on a 30 second cooldown. Also his Kardio always heals the player that receives constant dmg as you do tons of dmg. You get 30 % more healing on a 1 minute cd, that is pretty bananas (and that’s without sacrificing the “fairy heals” like sch does). Haima and panhaima with his bubble and holos together are also pretty strong and on the ogcd. His aoe shield is a instant cast making it more usable in every situation plus a dash makes him the most mobile healer in the game. Sage is a really stacked job and maybe scholar gets better with the crit stat getting higher but before sage will be better.

I agree that SGE definitely feels better to play, though I have yet to play SCH with its tweaks, I don't think the tweaks would resolve all of my complaints or where I feel SGE offers better QoL. But what I am curious about is, has there become a greater dependency on shields? We have this emphasis on pure vs shield healer and I am curious if this differentiation has been achieved because 5.0 SCH felt more like an oGCD healer. I am using shields more on SGE and so far it feels like that balance is there, but the true test will be level 90 in good gear.

Scholar feels better. but even loving the job IMHO still suffers from boredomness.

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

I apologize but the 1.5 second cast time is actually a massive thing for scholar, are you familiar with the concept of weaving your ogcds? 1.5 sec casts allow you to single weave an ogcd without clipping the gcd, which is massive for reducing the dps loss for healing.

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So? You could pull those stunts off before with the old casttime as well, all it required was adjustments on the players side (to get used to the timing) and People cleared all content with it (including solo deep dungeon btw) without ever fussing about cast times being a issue.

As for the Fairy changes, as mentioned already, this isn't something worthy of a expansion. This should have been a thing from the beginning.

I really wish that People would finally stop treating Squeenix like a small indie game company, it cant be that hard to make Jobs unique from one another when you got plenty of experience about MMOs (which we should assume they have).

I hope that the next expansion wont have any new jobs or races, but instead more focus on the currently existing jobs.

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Originally Posted by Anhra

So? You could pull those stunts off before with the old casttime as well, all it required was adjustments on the players side (to get used to the timing) and People cleared all content with it (including solo deep dungeon btw) without ever fussing about cast times being a issue.

As for the Fairy changes, as mentioned already, this isn't something worthy of a expansion. This should have been a thing from the beginning.

I really wish that People would finally stop treating Squeenix like a small indie game company, it cant be that hard to make Jobs unique from one another when you got plenty of experience about MMOs (which we should assume they have).

I hope that the next expansion wont have any new jobs or races, but instead more focus on the currently existing jobs.

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You could but it always felt clunky from the perspective of optimizing your damage, since you either took the loss of casting Ruin II, combine the weave with an energy Drain, thus reducing your available resources if you where in a spot to need them or delay using the ability until your Biolysis was ready to refresh. This meant that most of your healing was a dps loss to do, something AST did not have to deal with at all by comparison.

ANOTHER thing was that the lack of single weave spaces often meant you where more likely to double weave your faerie, which played a factor in the delay of the faerie actions, such as double weaving Seraph into Consolation.

You can continue to say it doesnt matter all you want. It does matter. Now scholar has some of its lossless healing back thanks to the faerie and Recitation. and the damage you do loose from aetherflow healing is made up for by the fact that Fey union is far more reliable and accessible to offset the healing loss from using Energy Drain to dps.

Testing Expedient and it's the same speed as Sprint.

People theorized it would be less, but it's not. That's a pretty major thing.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Testing Expedient and it's the same speed as Sprint.

People theorized it would be less, but it's not. That's a pretty major thing.

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It has been known since the media tour.

I reached 90 a few days ago, so here are my impressions.

The fairy is definitely faster. However, it isn't guaranteed. There's plenty of times it will exhibit lag, just like before. Embrace now being an instant definitely helps the situation and that's great news to me.

Merging Seraph with consolation wasn't a bad idea at all. The 1s recast time is a bit problematic to order a consolation if you want to summon her at the same time like before. Maybe it could be made instant? It isn't a deal breaker to me though, as I never relied on it.

Protraction is great. I'm talking out of my bum there, but the animation feels like Celestial Intersection. The effect is pretty strong and it helped a lot for packs in dungeon. I'm a big fan.

I really like Expedient too. It is "just a sprint" and a global CD, but it feels really good to play with. I can't wait to use it in Savage and EX trials haha.

Deployment tactics size buff helps. It's a bit harder to see than before though, but I welcome it. (It's huge,though!)

The bad things now:

Sacred soil is back to not being instant effect anymore (I wish it was written in the patch note :( )

My hands hurt from Art of War/Broil spam. Honestly it wasn't fun in ShB, it isn't fun right now.

I still want Bane, DoTs and the pet bar. I will not yield!!

Conclusion : It's a lot better feeling than ShB for me. Broil spam is still boring, but the new stuff is pretty cool. I like.

Soooo about expedient, i originally thought it was a lack luster capstone (to a point i still do) but after using it i found two areas it helps in, large pulls in dungeons and primal fights. 20 secs of 10% damage reduction really cant be ignored.

The movement speed increase though, i have seen people run off the edge of a fight a few times because of it, much hilarious do recommend.