What is the next logical step forward for SCH

So as we remember we from the lead up to EW the development team have said the class they have seemed to struggle with the most on new skills is SCH (not so much like DRG where the job is complete just that they don’t know what to do with it that will meaningfully change it)

However despite this they accidentally chanced on what I think would probably be the general consensus for the best button added in EW in expedient

So now what do you think they will attempt to do next especially given they now need to consider SGE. I see 4 potential paths forward

1) they revert to the ShB design and give it a random heal at level 100 the class doesn’t need because SCH really doesn’t have a healing weakness (like WHM’s mitigation or AST’s on demand healing)
2) they try for another flash in the pan level 100 skill like expedient (what that may be I have no idea considering how restrictive utility is in this game and they fully admitted expedient was a happy accident)
3) we get a “chain 2” at level 100 that has a 120 second CD and that’s functionally it beyond the rumoured succor 2
4) they completely retool the kit in a soft rework to make some space and give us something like an extra DOT or 2

I’m not really sure which one I consider most likely but SCH seems to be in the strangest position right now as I can see at least one path forward for near every DPS, WHM can just another mitigation as a lily ability and SGE seems most poised to get another “phlegma style short CD that’s a gain on dosis” and AST is being reworked but I genuinely have no idea what to expect out of SCH at the moment

A soft retool is what the job the needs. It has way too many direct healing cooldowns. Adlo, Succor, Lustrate, Indom, Excog, Embrace, and Whispering Dawn are more than enough.
1. oGCDs should revolve around modifying barrier properties, other than Emergency Tactics, i.e abilities that does additional effects when the target has a Galvanize/Catalyze active.
2. Sacred Soil is enough mitigation. They can merge the effect of Fey Illumination's 5% magic mitigation with Sacred Soil, in favor of removing the regen effect, then drop Fey Illumination.
3. They can merge Whispering Dawn and Fey Blessing to act like Medica 2.
4. Since a huge chunk of SCH's direct healing comes from Aetherflow, remove Physick.
5. Change Dissipation's +20% healing spell potency to -0.5s cast time to Adlo and Succor and temporarily reducing its MP cost from 1000 to 800.
6. Change barrier application mechanics to not rely on healing done but instead have a set barrier potency to open up for the possibility of even more oGCDs that modify said barrier.
7. I know I am a broken record for saying this but Rouse can literally replace Seraph and Aetherpact.
8. Incorporate RTS-like mechanics when controlling pet movement
9. Pet HP and Sustain
10. Increase pet movement speed.

Those will free a number of slots which make room for more offensive GCDs like Shadowflare, pet modifiers, and more GCD-modifying abilities.

Edit.. as a matter of fact, bringing back Cleric Stance to SCH, in the form of FFXI's Addenda (Addendum: Black buffs offensive potencies while Addendum: White buffs healing potencies) is another feasible route.

From what people have been digging in the benchmark, Chain seems to follow onto an unknown new effect/ability which seems to trigger something under an unknown specific condition (it's something found notably in the combo finishers like apex -> blast, etc). It's there for a lot of raid buff abilities like DT Radiant Finale as well, etc. Hard to tell how it's gonna be in concrete terms but this is what intrigued me the most actually. Seems like raid buff abilities are getting fleshed out in a way or another.

Succor, Adlo and Emergency Tactics also seem to get something similar. Succor seems to be especially convoluted and goes further than this.

Joke answer: like the rest of the healers the next step is to delete them xD.

Serious answer:
First off, all other roles sustain needs to come down. Then, all healers need to be reworked to a proper progression system, where you get your heals and after learning your heals have the higher level skills be damaging skills that look to enhance those pre-existing heals. I.e you learn your job, then you learn to capitalize on your job. As for what that would look like in a lvl 100 ability for SCH, it would depend how far that system would be developed horizontally...I would like to imagine a rework of Seraph, having a skill that allows you to remove Seraph early to do damage and heal to play into the high risk, high reward, similar to Dissipation (which could also be looked into to flesh that ideology of risk factor). If Dissipation gave you more than three EDs in terms of damage, I don't think it would be meme'd on as hard as people do already.

Personally I think Sch should move towards becoming a healer where the majority of its tools have interactions with others while recovering a lot of its lost kit (dps kit and fairy kit). Some of the best healing moments I've had as Sch were when you could use skill interactions to do what it felt like outsmarting the fight, things like deploying your succor from your fairy or using recitation to cheat Aetherflow stacks out of combat. I also think that all the Sch cooldowns should be tied or interact with its core systems (Aetherflow and fairy) which is why I don't consider Expedient or Protraction good skills for the job regardless of useful they are as neither of those do that.

On a side note I think the fairy gauge should be reevaluated because right now is extremely lackluster

Now what I think will happen? Nothing, they'll keep it with minimal changes so its easier to balance regardless of the problems it (and the whole healer role) has

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

So as we remember we from the lead up to EW the development team have said the class they have seemed to struggle with the most on new skills is SCH (not so much like DRG where the job is complete just that they don’t know what to do with it that will meaningfully change it)

However despite this they accidentally chanced on what I think would probably be the general consensus for the best button added in EW in expedient

So now what do you think they will attempt to do next especially given they now need to consider SGE. I see 4 potential paths forward

1) they revert to the ShB design and give it a random heal at level 100 the class doesn’t need because SCH really doesn’t have a healing weakness (like WHM’s mitigation or AST’s on demand healing)
2) they try for another flash in the pan level 100 skill like expedient (what that may be I have no idea considering how restrictive utility is in this game and they fully admitted expedient was a happy accident)
3) we get a “chain 2” at level 100 that has a 120 second CD and that’s functionally it beyond the rumoured succor 2
4) they completely retool the kit in a soft rework to make some space and give us something like an extra DOT or 2

I’m not really sure which one I consider most likely but SCH seems to be in the strangest position right now as I can see at least one path forward for near every DPS, WHM can just another mitigation as a lily ability and SGE seems most poised to get another “phlegma style short CD that’s a gain on dosis” and AST is being reworked but I genuinely have no idea what to expect out of SCH at the moment

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Less OGCD and GCD heals and more dps spells.
That's the only way forward.

I hope they reduce the number of oGCD heals and increase your amount of aetherflow at higher levels to make up for it. Maybe even remove indom's cooldown or give it charges if that would be OP. Energy drain also needs to be an integral part of your rotation. Maybe give us more DoTs, and make energy drain a DoT too at a higher level. I want a potency buff for it anyway to make it feel like it actually matters.

I also think AoE healing radius should be reduced but to make up for it, you should be able to execute any heal from your faerie. Scholar would actually have some strengths and weaknesses compared to sage.

So...

I'm expecting one generic heal upgrade/new skill such at lv 94-96.
We've already got the GCD upgrade this expansion at lv 85 but there was no visual upgrade so it didn't feel "new"

Maybe this is what the new Lili Medica and Helios-Aspected Helios are, we've just haven't seen the SCH and SGE version of those upgrades.
So instead of getting Protaction, Aquaveil, Exaltation and whatever-its-called, we get a "AoE gcd boost upgrade" which is either permanent or conditional, hence a new "global healing skill at 94-96".

At 100, hard to say, usually we get the new shiny healing tool that's meant to make us feel more broken.
My gut feeling would be a new fairy skill, ideally related to the gauge. We got no fairy related spell this xpac. I would be surprised to go 20 levels without a single fairy skill/upgrade.

I feel like chain-2 might simply be part of the "DPS upgrade skill at 92 or 94". Unless it is a different skill, AoE chain stratagem isn't interesting and doesn't warrant a whole new lv slot of new skill. Beside allowing to crit harder on trash mobs in dungeon... who cares? I'm convinced it isn't the lv 100 skill. There's no way to show the lv 100 skill so casually in the trailer. Hopefully it will have a greater impact on firsst sight than expedience... Skill is amazing but it sure fell flat 2 years ago in the trailer.

We can all dream about more dps skill but I've long stopped hoping for that.
The most I could expect would be a visual upgrade on RuinII

Beside, I wouldn't bet much but, some QoL or simplification perhaps could happen.
Emergency Tactic getting a buff or an extra charge.
Not that I think it is needed, but when compared to Sage Pepsi + Ability to spamm Prognosis, it feels a bit more whoomf is needed for when your coheal died, everything is on CD and you're left with just Succor. (Mostly an EX trial scenario with an "always dead" cohealer and a bunch of dps/tank with 3+ vuln stack not knowing what mitigation is)
People often quote physics but, beside sage because it's obviously tied to the shield... whm and ast also have the useless cure1 so... either they'll do something about all those spells on everyone or... well... it'll remain in the spell book.

I feel deployment tactic could just be a regular gcd that deploys upon finishing the cast.

I wouldn't be surprised to see them touching at Energy Drain + Dissipation.
Both these are in a state of "hate it or love it". Since they tend to make everything more cohesive and streamlined.
They've already tried to remove it during 6.0 if I recall so... maybe this time they'll actually do it by implementing a dissipation rework with it.

I agree that SCH is in a strange position... I mean, it's litterally the healer with the most heated debats (excluding blabers on cards)

The personal healer and tank buffs we got during Endwalker were a great step in the right direction and should be continued.

I think Scholar would benefit of getting rid of most pure healing ogcds and turn them into special buffs like expedient (imo their biggest win in their toolkit but it's a shame you get it way too late)

I'd really want Energy Drain gone, it serves no purpose on making you feel bad on using your powerful aetherflow abilities. Something that uses all remaining aetherflow stacks to grand a shield based on stacks used maybe? Something that feels rewarding and not something that fights the core of your job skillset for once...

have seraph as perma upgrade to the fairy because I will not lie I never use seraph in itself and I feel sch should play more with the property of everything like not bend the world but like being able to use it as it's advantages I don't know how to explain and mix some skill together to have more fairy skills or change some skill property as seraph is smn would make me use her more then just having the same skill happen with a name change

There's no point in upgrading the fairy to Seraph given that they removed Selene, and made her pet glamour. The more logical route is to remove Summon Seraph and make Seraph fairy glamour.

what i've always wanted for schoolar? instant shields to be able to react in the middle of combat to unknown or forgotten mechanics instead of just: 'yeah i know dmg is coming so i'm gonna cast a shield'

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Originally Posted by Asari5

what i've always wanted for schoolar? instant shields to be able to react in the middle of combat to unknown or forgotten mechanics instead of just: 'yeah i know dmg is coming so i'm gonna cast a shield'

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That's like, the entire reason you'd play Sage.
Sage has a lot of instant casts but it unfortunately gets no chain strategem. It does make up for the difference in more personal dps though.

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Originally Posted by Asari5

what i've always wanted for schoolar? instant shields to be able to react in the middle of combat to unknown or forgotten mechanics instead of just: 'yeah i know dmg is coming so i'm gonna cast a shield'

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Swiftcast for the extreme clutch situations. Also, SCH is a proactive healer. You should be able to anticipate incoming damage and have prepared the barrier for it. That's just how the job plays. It's part of its charm.

SCH isn’t even that proactive anymore

Expdient is probably the fastest mitigation to apply its mitigation in the game if you suddenly forget a mechanic otherwise SCH is drowning in regens, I have 100% regularly used sacred soil as a regen ignoring its mitigation effect in many circumstances

Since it’s the only class to have 3 mitigations you have a lot of wiggle room even in savage on SCH

All thanks to the direct healing surplus when it should have stopped after getting excog. Quite honestly, a good chunk of active direct healing SCH has can be removed.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

SCH isn’t even that proactive anymore

Expdient is probably the fastest mitigation to apply its mitigation in the game if you suddenly forget a mechanic otherwise SCH is drowning in regens, I have 100% regularly used sacred soil as a regen ignoring its mitigation effect in many circumstances

Since it’s the only class to have 3 mitigations you have a lot of wiggle room even in savage on SCH

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I think the most proactive I've been on SCH this expansion was on week 1 of P8S prog.

That tight check meant I had to spread all my tools thin and time them early so I can use them again later, because I had to maximise EDs and Broils to not cause an enrage wipe due to unnecessary Soils and Succors.

But for fights where you have more freedom to throw Soil and Indom around, yeah, SCH can afford to not be proactive.