Scholar So Far

[Reika]

The fairy definitely needs to not use skills automatically like they do. I don't like how the fairy will just throw out the AOE regen and magic damage reduction before anyone else even takes damage or any kind of magic damage. I don't mind them putting the Healing potency increase on me automatically tho... but I know that one can be easily macroed to be placed on yourself even if you are targeting someone else.

About the randomness tho, I have noticed that the fairy will usually immediately heal a person that is not your target when they take damage, but it is always with the DPS of the party, and sometimes it doesn't get on the ball with the tank. You also have to be within a good range of that person, so I always try to stay closer to people so the fairy will do their thing. It does have randomness to it tho.

The lvl45 skill also I agree is too weak. They make it sound strong, but it is really just a 10% damage reduction.


Post Limit:

I'm not trying to super buff the heal potency of Scholars shield heals. 200 potency from 150 on succor would be nothing considering the MP cost of it, and that they get no other aoe spell after that, so Medica II beats the death out of that spell since it comes with regen attached to it.

If you played WoW, you should know you can run a dungeon or raid with all one class of healer if you so chose to. They are actually balanced there. You can run with all shaman who's the damage preventer, or you can run with all Paladin who are all about big heals. Burning Crusade was a time where there was X is better for Y, but that all died with Wrath, and further died with Cataclysm. They all obtained their specific ways of tackling the same objective, whether it be single target or multi target healing.

You can balance Damage shielder with Direct healer. Neither of them should have crappy regens or crappy aoe tho, and WHM has both the greater direct heal numbers and the greater regen ability, and I fear at end-game the lack of good regen will greatly hurt the scholor balance-wise. 50 potency regen @ 60 second recast is crap compared to both 200 potency direct with 100 potency regen @2.5s recast and 150 potency direct instant cast regen @2.5s recast. You don't need to get to 50 with both to see those numbers are extremely unbalanced. The fairies also do it whenever the hell they feel like it, and you do not even notice the difference.

[Paralein]

Choice, of course. The only reason to pick one over the other should be player preference. If you have to pick one because it does this better, or is overall a better class, then their balancing is fail. Scholar doesn't even have as powerful of a single target regen that WHM does, and Medica II can easily be seen as overkill when you compare it to what scholar has for AOE healing ability.

WHM AOE spells Medica, Cure III, and Medica II which has a regen as its after effect. I think the Fairies aoe regen could see a much shorter cooldown based on this, and maybe Succor should be 200 potency instead of 150.

No, the choice between absorbs and Regen/hots is not just a matter of preference, they are completely different mechanics that are not equally effective.
In all MMOs I played in the alst 10 years or so, Regen/hot has nearly always been the weakest, most unreliable form of healing. Absorbs, if available, have nearly always been the best.

In WoW, there was a time when hots were very useful, but that wasn't because of the way HoTs work, it was because they were much, much cheaper to cast than comparable regular heals/absorbs.


The main problem with HoTs is this: They suck in fights with lots of burst damage and they are risky to use to their full potential. Why would anyone use a HoT to slowly regenerate somwone from 50% to full when a regular heal will do it instantly, as long as the mana costs are similar? During the time the hot slowly heals the player, he/she could easily catch another aoe that kills them because they were not fully healed.

The thing that makes absorbs so good is that you can heal damage before it is dealt. When the healer knows the boss mechanics, this is incredibly useful. Big aoe coming? Place a few shields on the raid. Tanks catching a healing debuff? Place a shield. Some DPS need to move out of healing range for whatever reason? Place a shield. You could place a regen on these DPS too, but with a regen, their health bars will drop lower, which means they'll be at a much greater risk of dying to the next random ae.

We don't know yet how healing at max level will work, but I'm 100% sure that, if the numbers are roughly equal, absorb healing will be considerably more effective than regen/hot healing, and not a matter of player preference.



edit: I hate you, post length limit.

[Tanknspank]

The Pet heals isn't really a big amount for the SCH anyway so u don't really need it. The pet however does other moves which increases ur spell rate etc.. So having it on auto is the best anyway. If u cant heal alone without the need for pet u proberally shoulnt be a healer. The pet as well Eos has a healing ability to be able to make your heals 20% more effective in later levels. So the pet is a great help also being on AUTO. Also when u take AoE damage which on a lot of boss fights everyone takes AoE cant be helped your healing pet will automatically start healing you so u can concentrate on the party. Also another AUTO ability. So why do u want it to heal single targets?

[Pyros]

had a terrible time with the first boss of AV as SCH. fairy seems basicly useless on it and our only AoE heal isn't really that great (mp costs are kinda high). Sure practice might change that but I'm sure I'd would have been much easier as whm.
I do like Sacred Soil though.
And yes the fairy is too random sometimes.

Definitely the worst boss as a scholar so far. What can help is having Quickcast from THM to resummon a fairy instantly, but I don't have that yet nor knows if it works on summons(assume it does though). Still didn't have an issue healing it even though our DPS was low due to tank being fairly bad at threat(DPS were threat capped). Just Physick everyone in a chain and Succor the tank back to full every rotation, and make sure everyone eats fruits at 2 stacks of the poison, not later(and quickly do so at 2 stacks), so aoe damage is fairly low. Succor II when you have mana too as long as you can hit everyone with it.


A lot of other fights I'd say SCH has a big advantage over WHM however. Like on Titan how your fairy keeps healing even if you get stone blocked while your DPS get you out, or on most fights how your fairy keeps healing the tank for a solid amount even when you have to run around avoiding stuff. Also quite often you can activate Rouse then Succor I everyone in your group in preparation for a big aoe or something, that's like 400hp absorb shields on everyone. While WHM can Stoneskin people for similar amounts, it's a longer cast and they can't keep the tank up at the same time so it's fairly risky but a Roused fairy has no issue unless it's one of the high damage boss(but then their aoe tends to be weaker).

Mostly biggest downside of SCH is the aoe healing, but no fight so far require strong constant aoe healing, it's generally just one aoe then a 20secs time to top people off before next one, so it's very easy to handle with one Succor II then letting the fairy top everyone off while you Succor I the tank/Physick people up too. Hell you can probably Succor II 3times for every aoe, and still have mana to go due to how good Aetherflow+Energy Drain is.

[YinShi]

Although I've only done the lower damage I think players are expecting the fairy to actually heal for them on the side and the ai to be that smart. But pet AI is almost never that smart in most games. Just putting the fairies abilities on your bar can create a huge difference in experience. PS they should make a mode that allows the fairy to not use the different abilities so that you can micromanage it better. I'd rather play a second character than have the AI go on its own. Overall I love the Scholar.

[Draemos]

Choice, of course. The only reason to pick one over the other should be player preference.

This might be relevant if WHM's shoved off a ton of their MP usage onto a pet, had a 20% mana regen on a minute cooldown, and had a mana leach spell on top of it. SCH already has a ton of upside, lets not pretend like the MP inefficient Regen spell, which is more than made up for by you're Fairies embrace (which is also free MP) is enough to make up for all the SCHs upside. And lets not even get into your 30s 30% buffs; which are exceptionally strong. The AoE healing & repose is the only reason I'd bring a WHM over a SCH.

Listen, I'm not trying to get in a pissing contest, but right now there is just very little reason to play a WHM over a SCH. I'm extremely tempted to play SCH just based on raw potential of mechanics alone, and that's not a good sign for balance.

[jojober]

For me, the two things that would make SCH competitive with WHM are:
1) Change Fairy AI to not switch from steady to guard upon issuing a command to her, and
2) Make pet abilities macro'able.

With these two changes giving us more control over the pet that is responsible for 1/3 or more of our raw healing power, we would be on equal footing with WHM. The potential is there, and it is fantastic. We just need the tools.

[Scerick]

Just dropping my two cents in.

I just healed Sunken Temple and Titan last night and did extremely well. I had zero mana issues and no one died. Loving the class, and loving being able to pre-shield the group. I really think some of you are overlooking how effective absorb healing really is.

To be clear: I'm not arguing against better pet ai/control.

[Bauric]

I concur with OP, there needs to be a way to set ALL pets to full manual. Since she uses the 2 cd's she has as soon as they come of CD, its a pain, since I'd rather her use them in moments i deem them useful. (especially end game this will be problematic as it's essentially wasting 2 really good skills that would be more useful in specific situations)

[FrionielHope]

I used scholar once to run the level 30 dungeon and had a really bad time of it (couldn't beat it after like 8 tries). The heals are just too weak, I had to constantly spam psykik then aldo then psykik then aldo over and over, and even then I just BARELY kept up, not to mention on the boss my mp would run out before he died almost every time, even with aetherflow and energy drain and the archer skill that regens mana. It wasnt that I was inefficient either, again I HAD to spam the skills over and over just to keep the tank from dying, not once in the whole dungeon could I take my eyes off the party bar. The fairy helped Im sure but I didnt have any time to manage it

Also I noticed I couldn't redo my point distribution, I dumped all my points into intelligence with Arcanist and it carried over to Scholar so my heals are weaker than they could be


So what is it, am I just sucky and missing something, is there a more powerful heal I can get with Scholar? Should I always use Alsoquiuim and never Psykik? Was that boss (level 30 dungeon boss) just particularly hard? I really want to give the class another try and would appreciate feedback from a more experienced player