Scholar is still the only class in the entire game with a single AOE dps skill

WHM has Assize and misery that they can passively charge,
Sage has Phlegma (two charges of 255 potency every 45 seconds), and the occasional Pneuma.
Astrologian's Star got buffed so now it's pretty good for damage (It's stronger than Dragonfire Dive, to put it into perspective), the occasional Lord, and they can use Divination to enhance everyone else's dps.

But SCH has....Chain, which works on single targets only, and Arts of War, which is the GCD hit any class has.

I feel like that's a bit of a weird design choice. It can't even buff people to do more damage, you will only do one button to dps and can't really hold a different CD for certain circumstances where aoe damage is viable (add phase in P3S).
It feels especially weird because SMN has had, since the previous expansion, an AOE equivalent of Energy Drain (Energy Siphon) which I might add, they don't even really need as their aoe damage is pretty good and consistently available.

I feel Scholar could really benefit from having an extra aoe they can splash into their rotation in Dungeons and any relative circumstance. Bane and Shadowflare were decent SCH staples before Shadowbringers, and I'm not quite sure if it would be a good idea to make a skill rely on Aetherflow charges because SCH tends to rely on them for healing in AOE situations.

And before you say Arts of War compensates for having the highest aoe damage in the game among healers, yes I know that, I'm perfectly aware that in a long term SCH could probably do more damage, but that's besides the point. It just has nothing going for it at all in the AOE department which usually feels very underwhelming when running dungeons.

All Healers could use more DPS buttons but scholar has it worst.
ED feels more punishing now than in ShB due to aetherflow being tied to healing and it being weaveable with Broil. In ShB it was only weaveable with Ruin 2 and the DPS gain was tiny (like 10 potency) so using a heal over ED never felt like that big of an issue.
Speaking of Ruin 2, now that every healer can slidecast with their nuke the usefulness of Ruin 2 dropped too (It's still useful just not as much as before).
I feel like these 2 buttons would serve well to be replaced with more interesting ones (at the very least update Ruin 2 animation its been 9 years) or just add new/old DPS buttons because why the hell not.
SCH was tons of fun before ShB and now it feels so incomplete.

You can definitely tell they didn't think of what anything would feel like on Scholar when they removed a bunch of DPS actions and gave it a recycled PvP animation for it's "new" AoE in ShB. Art of War is only marginally the highest AoE damage as well, Dyskrasia II functions exactly the same as Art of War while also being a gain on 2 targets and it does only 10 potency less, but Sage also has Toxicon II (gain on 3 over Dyskrasia II) Pneuma (gain on 2) and Phlegma (510 potency) to use in AoE situations every 45s.
Scholar also has 2 buttons in it's ST rotation if you're saving Aetherflow for healing and Ruin II always being a punishment to use because of 1.5s cast times now, which has left it feeling like a vestigal button that only exists so they can say "Look, SCH has the same amount of DPS actions as the other healers do!"

I am a big proponent of giving SCH Miasma back along with Bane because if SCH got Miasma+Bane back, this would bump SCH up from 1 AoE button to 4 total while also adding a button and another timer to reduce the tedium of SCH's single target rotation. Bane was detached from Aetherflow on SMN in ShB too, so they can do this to not dip into SCH's healing capability in dungeons.

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Originally Posted by RinaShinomiya

All Healers could use more DPS buttons but scholar has it worst.
ED feels more punishing now than in ShB due to aetherflow being tied to healing and it being weaveable with Broil. In ShB it was only weaveable with Ruin 2 and the DPS gain was tiny (like 10 potency) so using a heal over ED never felt like that big of an issue.
Speaking of Ruin 2, now that every healer can slidecast with their nuke the usefulness of Ruin 2 dropped too (It's still useful just not as much as before).

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I agree completely with you about Ruin II and ED in EW. EW making ED more of a DPS gain than it was in ShB was a very strange choice to me considering they nerfed it from 150 to 100 mid ShB to encourage the usage of it on healing more. Your post made me think, why not just bump ED up to the same potency as Broil IV and make it an instant cast single target GCD so it solely acts as a stack dump, isn't a DPS loss if you have to use Aetherflow for healing because of 1.5s cast times and could also function in the same way Toxicon does for movement? I know people hate the idea of homogenization on the healers, but it could be a way to get rid of Ruin II and ED making healing a DPS loss while not changing much about how SCH manages Aetherflow. This could even potentially encourage SCH to sit on Aetherflow when it was off CD for movement heavy parts so SCH would have a guaranteed 6 EDs for movement. I'm not certain if this would be seen as a big nerf to SGE though due to Toxicon not being DPS neutral outside of prepull and downtime.

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

I agree completely with you about Ruin II and ED in EW. EW making ED more of a DPS gain than it was in ShB was a very strange choice to me considering they nerfed it from 150 to 100 mid ShB to encourage the usage of it on healing more. Your post made me think, why not just bump ED up to the same potency as Broil IV and make it an instant cast single target GCD so it solely acts as a stack dump, isn't a DPS loss if you have to use Aetherflow for healing because of 1.5s cast times and could also function in the same way Toxicon does for movement? I know people hate the idea of homogenization on the healers, but it could be a way to get rid of Ruin II and ED making healing a DPS loss while not changing much about how SCH manages Aetherflow. This could even potentially encourage SCH to sit on Aetherflow when it was off CD for movement heavy parts so SCH would have a guaranteed 6 EDs for movement. I'm not certain if this would be seen as a big nerf to SGE though due to Toxicon not being DPS neutral outside of prepull and downtime.

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Ruin 2 replacing ED as a DPS neutral movement AF dump is the most logical "fix" to ED in my opinion. You get rid of 1 button therefore reducing bloat, keep the AF dump skill and remove the pressure of using all AF on Damage rather than heal.
A lot of people seem to suggest a "eukrasian Toxicon" that functions exactly the same as the Ruin 2 suggestion, eating a Addersgall instead of Addersting so it seams to be a popular idea to improve both SCH and SGE. But yeah right now both ED and Ruin 2 just serve as proof that Square does changes without thinking about how it'll affect the rest of the kit. Right up there with Lilies being de-valued from their ShB weave & movement tool purpose.

As for bringing new offensive buttons Miasma is probably the most cost effective way for Square to give Scholar "new" toys without investing too much into R&D. It's just a tiny little bit baffling to me that SMN gets this entire overhaul to simplify the job and get rid of DoT upkeep while scholar gets nothing at all (and I totally blame the Under the hood improvements on them releasing SGE and cleaning up their barrier healer code). Part of me feels like the only reason Scholar was so fun to play in 2.x~4.x is because it was tied to SMN and every time they wanted Arcanist related changes for SMN they were forced to improve SCH as well but that bond was severed and now they can ignore SCH to their heart's content.

Honestly, while the universal 1.5 second cast time on DPS actions is a functionally beneficial addition to the healers in EW, we really didn't need that specific solution to the mobility problem. Ruin II has always been a simple, yet unique solution that SMN and SCH had access to, but for some reason they decided to nerf it when it was never broken to begin with. Back in the day, the potency used to be the same as your Ruin/Broil cast, but costed more MP, meaning there was no reason to spam it, but enough reason to use it for mobility.

If we just went back to that and made Ruin II's potency match the Broil of the week, but cost 600 MP, you could keep Broil at a 2 second cast and be fine.

It was really just WHM who needed an actual answer to mobility and not just "overheal for a DPS loss," and it could've been something unique to them as well

There is no reason for me to play a Scholar so long as Sage exists. While I have the class levelled passively due to having levelled Summoner, I am effectively boycotting it permanently unless major changes happen.

Edit (in response to the post directly below mine):

The class is a horrifically boring mess of bland abilities and has the honor of having the worst damaging abilities of all the healers. Energy Drain should have stayed gone if it was going to draw upon the same resources as our heals, Dissipation is a relic of Heavensward where they had no idea what to do with neither Scholar nor Summoner since dismissing the pet is not something that should have ever been a thing for Scholar. Whether the pet AI is perfect is irrelevant given how underwhelming the class feels to play unless I'm paired with a tank who has absolutely no idea what they are doing, in which case I'd probably rather bail than carry someone who hasn't grasped the fundamentals of tanking 101.

Scholar may as well not exist to me anymore, let me know whenever they finally get their act together when it comes to this class.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

There is no reason for me to play a Scholar so long as Sage exists. While I have the class levelled passively due to having levelled Summoner, I am effectively boycotting it permanently unless major changes happen.

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Good to know that you’re still ignorant of the pet AI improvements despite literally having the option to test them available to you. Keep putting your foot in your mouth. Please look forward to it.

That aside, Scholar’s issues aren’t that different from the other healers. oGCD bloat, lack of a DPS rotation. The pet suffers more from redundancy than anything else. I’d like to see Seraph and Dissipation combined and retooled in some manner to cut back on their problems and highlight their strengths, for one extra oGCD DPS skill to be added that rewards using Aetherflow/Fey Gauge for healing, Bane to be brought back and integrated into Deployment Tactics as an alternate mode, and for the other fairy actions and superfluous cds (Protraction, Expedient), to be removed and reworked into something more solid and cohesive. AoE Fey Union typically comes to mind as a catch-all that could replace Whispering Dawn/Fey Illumination outright.

Aetherflow actions including ED and Recitation are fine. Make the rest of the kit better.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Honestly, while the universal 1.5 second cast time on DPS actions is a functionally beneficial addition to the healers in EW, we really didn't need that specific solution to the mobility problem. Ruin II has always been a simple, yet unique solution that SMN and SCH had access to, but for some reason they decided to nerf it when it was never broken to begin with. Back in the day, the potency used to be the same as your Ruin/Broil cast, but costed more MP, meaning there was no reason to spam it, but enough reason to use it for mobility.

If we just went back to that and made Ruin II's potency match the Broil of the week, but cost 600 MP, you could keep Broil at a 2 second cast and be fine.

It was really just WHM who needed an actual answer to mobility and not just "overheal for a DPS loss," and it could've been something unique to them as well

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Yeah I always was jealous of SCH for Ruin 2 when i mained WHM during ShB. Using lilies to weave is functional but i'd rather have something that doesn't force me to waste resources and Dia only comes up so much. But now there is practically no need for it which is kinda lame.
Having a dedicated Movement/weave button also meant that oGCD heals had a DPS cost across the board (except for AST but AST had way smaller potencies across the board) and that excused Misery being a DPS loss because a SCH weaving with Ruin 2 was also a DPS loss. But now everything is free, nothing interrupts our 1-button spam and things that do become even more jarring than they used to be. They really should've put more consideration into this Nuke cast time change.

Shadowflare and dots+bane did help breaking the one button spam monotony, for sure. If it could <t> on the selected entity without a macro, it would fix the only gripe I had with it at the time.
An Energy Siphon equivalent would be really nice too, I think.

I know it's not directly related, but I find it a bit baffling that Holy is still at full GCD cast time rather than half, like the other jobs.

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Originally Posted by RinaShinomiya

As for bringing new offensive buttons Miasma is probably the most cost effective way for Square to give Scholar "new" toys without investing too much into R&D. It's just a tiny little bit baffling to me that SMN gets this entire overhaul to simplify the job and get rid of DoT upkeep while scholar gets nothing at all (and I totally blame the Under the hood improvements on them releasing SGE and cleaning up their barrier healer code). Part of me feels like the only reason Scholar was so fun to play in 2.x~4.x is because it was tied to SMN and every time they wanted Arcanist related changes for SMN they were forced to improve SCH as well but that bond was severed and now they can ignore SCH to their heart's content.

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I don't even particularly care about Miasma or DoTs specifically despite liking them, I just think suggesting simple changes that won't cost a lot of developer time is an easier path to getting positive changes. I was really hoping with SMN losing it's DoTs in EW that we would get Miasma back, it's not a lot of work for them compared to developing entirely new stuff. No new icons/animations or anything, all they need is to tweak the balance and add it back. They could've even reused Miasma III as an "upgrade" to it for an EW trait and I would've been very happy despite that being an old animation for Summoner. I think you're definitely right about SCH now, now that it's severed from ACN they can just ignore it, that's the only way I can make sense of Ruin II and ED being the same icon, animation and name as ACN/SMN skills despite working completely differently for SCH, especially after SMN got reworked. Why didn't they take the time to at least give new icons/names to SCH's versions of these skills? They're already completely separate from ACN/SMN's versions. Why make Ruin II a button SCH never wants to use and ED more of a DPS gain in EW despite them clearly trying to move away from that twice in ShB?

It's hard to not feel like your entire role is being ignored when there are still so many glaring issues with jobs like Scholar, White Mage or Astrologian, especially when a lot of these are issues they created going into this expac and haven't bothered to address at all like Lilies, which should've been taken care of by now.

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Originally Posted by Doragan

Shadowflare and dots+bane did help breaking the one button spam monotony, for sure. If it could <t> on the selected entity without a macro, it would fix the only gripe I had with it at the time.
An Energy Siphon equivalent would be really nice too, I think.

I know it's not directly related, but I find it a bit baffling that Holy is still at full GCD cast time rather than half, like the other jobs.

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Holy has a stun so that means WHM is the best healer in the game, ridiculously broken, it has to still be at 2.5s or it would be even more overpowered! /s

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

Holy has a stun so that means WHM is the best healer in the game, ridiculously broken, it has to still be at 2.5s or it would be even more overpowered! /s

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Want a kick in the B@lls? Urianger's gravity spell has a slow AND a heavy effect added to it. . .

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Want a kick in the B@lls? Urianger's gravity spell has a slow AND a heavy effect added to it. . .

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Anyone remember Malady? I do.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Want a kick in the B@lls? Urianger's gravity spell has a slow AND a heavy effect added to it. . .

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Alphinaud uses Bio II and Miasma II in ShB Trusts too, but that'd be too hard for us to juggle :P

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

Alphinaud uses Bio II and Miasma II in ShB Trusts too, but that'd be too hard for us to juggle :P

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It's frustrating that they trust NPCs to do it but not players.

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

Holy has a stun so that means WHM is the best healer in the game, ridiculously broken, it has to still be at 2.5s or it would be even more overpowered! /s

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Haha, talk about having a heart attack reading this.
And to think it used to be longer than 2.5s before. It did make it feel impactful though, but I certainly do not want this to be back, lol.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

It's frustrating that they trust NPCs to do it but not players.

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I felt that way when Krile casts Aeroga in Zot.. it's pretty bad. I really want it back now that i wrote that,haha.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Want a kick in the B@lls? Urianger's gravity spell has a slow AND a heavy effect added to it. . .

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And the fairy gauge actually matters in PVP and AST is a Dualcast healer in PVP and AST Gravity increases in potency the higher enemy HP is (yes a reverse ED) in PVP and Yshtola casts offensive Water spells. It's like all the cool healer ideas are relegated to NPC and PVP.

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Originally Posted by Doragan

I felt that way when Krile casts Aeroga in Zot.. it's pretty bad. I really want it back now that i wrote that,haha.

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Aero III for those who aren't playing on a TL that uses a more faithful naming convention (like english).
But to be fair NPC also use those very VERY outdated Abilities that got their behavior adjusted over the years.

It’s like the best healer aoe tho, I don’t understand this complaint. You can have 100% dps uptime in dungeons while healing the tank with any of scholars op ogcd’s.

The complaint should be moar like “how come the other 3 healers have to stop aoe dps to heal the tank? Why can’t our aoe be instacast too”. Sage toxicon is pretty sweet as well, but that’s very limited compared to aow.

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Originally Posted by Picker

It’s like the best healer aoe tho, I don’t understand this complaint. You can have 100% dps uptime in dungeons while healing the tank with any of scholars op ogcd’s.

The complaint should be moar like “how come the other 3 healers have to stop aoe dps to heal the tank? Why can’t our aoe be instacast too”. Sage toxicon is pretty sweet as well, but that’s very limited compared to aow.

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Sage's AoE works exactly like Art of War and is only 10 potency less while also having more AoE DPS options to hit in their AoE rotation.

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Originally Posted by Picker

It’s like the best healer aoe tho, I don’t understand this complaint. You can have 100% dps uptime in dungeons while healing the tank with any of scholars op ogcd’s.

The complaint should be moar like “how come the other 3 healers have to stop aoe dps to heal the tank? Why can’t our aoe be instacast too”. Sage toxicon is pretty sweet as well, but that’s very limited compared to aow.

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How does Sage and AST need to stop DPS'ing to heal the tank? And how is SCH the best at AoE DPS?

SGE:
Dyskrasia is only 10 potency less than AoW (180 vs 170)
Phlegma is 510 potency on first target and 255 potency on all others at 45s cooldown, this alone makes up for the lower dyskrasia potency and it's on 2 charges
Pneuma similarly is 330 potency on first target and 198 potency to everyone else on 2m cooldown, further pushing SGE ahead of SCH in dungeon DPS.
Toxicon can be set up between Wall to wall pulls and similarly does slightly higher damage than Dyskrasia (until a certain number of mobs are reached that no dungeon supports).

SCH just has AoW and ED actually gets in the way of healing unlike your claims.

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Originally Posted by Doragan

I know it's not directly related, but I find it a bit baffling that Holy is still at full GCD cast time rather than half, like the other jobs.

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The Holy thing perplexed me as well but I can only assume that it's because the spell has such a long delay before it activates. With a shorter cast time it would super jarring to cast Holy and then be able to use 3 oGCDs before the Stun kicked in. It already weird to cast it and follow up with Stone or Glare and see the Single Target Animation before Holy Explodes.

It's so sad. SCH went from having the most AoE potential with Miasma 2, Bane and Shadowflare to having the fewest with Art of Floor. Personally, I would give SCH back the entire Miasma line (including Miasma 3) as their AoE DoT.

From there, they'd just need to find a way to reincorporate some of SCH's old oGCDs like Bane and Shadowflare and SCH would be fine in regards to its AoE potential.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

It's so sad. SCH went from having the most AoE potential with Miasma 2, Bane and Shadowflare to having the fewest with Art of Floor. Personally, I would give SCH back the entire Miasma line (including Miasma 3) as their AoE DoT.

From there, they'd just need to find a way to reincorporate some of SCH's old oGCDs like Bane and Shadowflare and SCH would be fine in regards to its AoE potential.

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Speaking from someone who started right at ShB's launch, I always thought Bane was really cool on SMN and it was my favorite AoE action to play with on any job. I thought it felt satisfying and I liked how SMN could use it's single target tools in both it's ST/AoE rotations. It's a bummer that they took these things away from SCH and didn't replace them with anything or give them back after SMN was stripped of them as well, especially considering the state of SCH's AoE. It's hard not to notice how boring SCH's AoE 'rotation' is when all of the other healers use some of their AoE DPS tools in their ST rotations as well, and SCH doesn't have that.

But hey I guess SCH being really good numbers wise makes up for it being an absolute bore, or something.

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

But hey I guess SCH being really good numbers wise makes up for it being an absolute bore, or something.

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Scholar design may currently suck, but don't be so eager to make the finger on that monkey's paw curl. You could always be White Mage: boring AND weak! :D

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

Scholar design may currently suck, but don't be so eager to make the finger on that monkey's paw curl. You could always be White Mage: boring AND weak! :D

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I would curl all the damn fingers if it meant Healers had more to do instead of 1 button spam.

Give me back Shadowflare, Bane and Miasma
Give me back Virus and Eye for an Eye
Give me back Selene.

I don't care if the fairy became clunky again, we dealt with that crap for YEARS.
I don't care if they take away Energy Drain, if SGE can survive without an Addersgal dump, SCH can too.
I don't care if the nerf my damage so harshly that I literally can't progress in the MSQ with the class at all, I have SMN to do that.

I would gladly, GLADLY trade away every single QoL improvement Healers have gotten over the years just to have something to do again that isn't mindlessly spamming Glare/Broil/Malefic/Dosis ad nauseam.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

I would curl all the damn fingers if it meant Healers had more to do instead of 1 button spam.

Give me back Shadowflare, Bane and Miasma
Give me back Virus and Eye for an Eye
Give me back Selene.

I don't care if the fairy became clunky again, we dealt with that crap for YEARS.
I don't care if they take away Energy Drain, if SGE can survive without an Addersgal dump, SCH can too.
I don't care if the nerf my damage so harshly that I literally can't progress in the MSQ with the class at all, I have SMN to do that.

I would gladly, GLADLY trade away every single QoL improvement Healers have gotten over the years just to have something to do again that isn't mindlessly spamming Glare/Broil/Malefic/Dosis ad nauseam.

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I was cautioning against the opposite direction. Being strong isn't a good tradeoff for being boring, but there's another job in the role that shows Squeenix doesn't necessarily consider that a tradeoff: you can absolutely be both boring and have crappy numbers. So what I'm saying is, I don't think that's Square's calculation; you aren't "fine" because your output is fine, Square considers you "fine" if you're popular.

Thinking that SCH used to have the most DPS buttons back then... Completely lost its identity.

ShB and the great action culling of Scholar is still painful to reflect on. I derived so much joy from dungeons on Scholar. Hell's Lid was my favorite dungeon beforehand and the fact I could use Selene for wall to wall pulls up to the second boss and then had to switch to Eos for the last push beyond that cause the enemies hit so hard felt great. I had options that were meaningful. People don't even care now if you have a clean dungeon run cause all the healers are easy. Back in Heavensward and Stormblood people were legitimately impressed with good healers and rightfully so. Now, it's hard to even find self satisfaction playing them. I don't even feel necessary in most trials and dungeons and it's just awful. All I see is overheal from Curing Waltz and unnecessary mantras for raidwides that do pitiful damage. Regens ticking for eternity on a party with full health. My only alternative is Broil Spam and now I find myself falling asleep frequently while I play cause it's just hard to focus. I want content to feel good and I don't have the time to invest memorizing Savage and Ultimates but it's the only viable content left to heal. I really thought they were gonna build on the bland kit from ShB but it's still a single AoE option. I play this game for the social experience now. I made so many great friends I can't justify quiting altogether. I'm desperate for them to give something engaging back to Scholar and Protraction and Expedient are not enough to make the gameplay any better after everything we lost.

I’ve seen expedient save some bad channeling flow positioning, pretty rad skill

This is a problem IMHO and the solution is pretty easy:

Have a high potency aoe blast use 30 units of fairy gauge. It's not like we're using it for anything else (heavy /s)

Turn Dissipate into Detonate. If we're going to snack on the Fairy anyway, we could always blow it up instead for aoe damage c: