Biggest disappointment as a Scholar.

[Llynd]

Thank you GameolayZero for being soooo right in your post.

[FeliAiko]

You're better off questioning whether it's actually a Square-Enix statement or someone pretending to be some Square-Enix representative and making their own statements as if it's Square-Enix's

Hardly pretending to be a SE rep, but this was a cute comment. Got a chuckle from me at least.

With the dev-admitted balancing issues that stemmed from it, to the introduction of 'Advanced Jobs' (with no base class) as their direction going forward, it doesn't take much to conclude that the 1 Class -> 2 Jobs concept is something they want no parts of going forward. Perhaps calling it a 'failure' was too strong, but it's certainly not something they deemed successful enough to persist with as a template for future Jobs either.

On top of that, Yoshi's comments on how he'd rather release individual Jobs as opposed to having branches of existing ones can be seen as enough of an indication on how they feel about the dual Jobs matter.

Cloud Strife was also a "failed experiment".

I know, not quite the same thing, but it still makes me question SE definition of failure and success.

If it's not the same thing, then there's no point making the comparison.

A closer comparison would be how MCHs story wise aren't seen as a strong/serious discipline in Ishgard but in actual raid settings are the opposite. However, the perception of MCH in Eorzea, like Cloud to Shinra, is part of the Jobs background, and nothing to do with their perception from a player/dev standpoint. The 'failure' in SCHs is not in how they work in gameplay/raid settings, but in how as part of the 1 Class -> 2 Jobs concept they're part of the issues you get with dual/hybrid Jobs, which from a dev perspective is more trouble than it's worth to deal with hence we have 'Advanced Jobs' now.

[Miziliti]

Ok, I can understand some points. I love playing SCH because my pet is such a reliable healer, and I can do more than healing and partylistXIV by dpsing. I also love playing AST for its buff play style. When my AST gets pair with SCH, I immediately know I would be the main healer for the fight. That said, I've been seeing some SCHs that refuse to help healing when fight gets ugly, and it is absolutely frustrating. There will be time embrace is not enough, and I would expect a SCH to do some heal. Some SCH would only adlo tank, then throw everything else back the WHM/AST. I really can't stand this kind of mentality.

The most important thing is SCH has fairy's heal. If SE remove embrace from fairies, leaving only buff utilities (doubt they dare), Noct AST could outshine SCH anytime. All three healers can do decent dps, but since SCH has fairy as healer, SCH is able to dps 95%-100% of the fight. I would rather have an actual 5th dps in raid if the SCH only cares about dps.

[Dzian]

No strategy, no planning, if things go tits up you don't even have the healing power to salvage the raid, you just roll over and die.

LOL

Scholars rely heavily on strategy and planning. they're a very pro-active healer. They don't react to the damage the party takes they anticipate and mitigate it.
if you play scholar reactively then yeah you're going to find things hard and feel weak in comparison to other healers. but if you play pro actively i'd say they're pretty damn strong.

yeah psykik might only heal for 5-6k which might feel weak after a tank eats an 18k tank buster. but if you're pro-active you can often mitigate 7-8k of that incoming damage before it hits. meaning you just don't need the big heals a whm has or anything like that.

and if crap does hit the fan using imdominbility and emergency tactics with succor is a pretty decent burst of aoe healing especially with imdomnibility being instcast.

but scholars are a very pro-active job. it's not so much about healing damage it's about preventing it in the first place.
which if you're doing then the other healer shouldn't have as much healing to do thus can also contribute to the dps or whatever.

Yes, I still DPS as a healer; I follow the meta even though I wish SE would change it: It's on SE to either create raid fights that require constant healing or rework their healer classes in such a way that healers can contribute in other meaningful ways that aren't DPS-based.

This is Funny. not because I disagree because as a scholar/healer I do agree with it.

it's funny though (personally at least) because as a Paladin I want to be able to mitigate more damage and shrug off those big tank buster hits which means I need less healing...

I want my cooldowns to have more impact. at present I often don't feel they do... the difference between using a cool down on a tank buster and not Is only a couple of thousand hp in some cases. hardly noticeable. the number of tanks I see just eat big ass hits without cooldowns. because they have so little impact on an encounter.

ive often referred to an old 1.x skill called aegis boon. where using that at the right time meant you could survive a 4k+ tank buster even if you only had 400hp. but using at the wrong time meant you were dead even at full hp. i'd love to see skills like that come back. at first I thought bulwark was when I saw it's description. but it just guarantees a standard block it doesn't actually mitigate the next attack.

[Quor]

My biggest disappointment as a Scholar is that the degree is worth squat in today's economy.

[Sabeta]

Goodness gracious, reading through this thread was a pain.

I feel that one major misconception needs to be cleared up right away. Some people here keep perpetuating the myth that Scholars were designed as a Pseudo-DPS Supportish off-healer from the very beginning, and I must say that that is factually incorrect. So let me enlighten you all to exactly how things came to be the way they are now. I've noticed that a lot of the people spouting out this myth have also mentioned they started playing 2.5 or later, so a brief history lesson is in order.

After the fall of 1.0, but before the beta of 2.0 development was really weird. Yoshida had already proven himself a capable director after almost salvaging 1.0, and after being given free reign a lot of strange things happened. Arcanists was data-mined as early as 1.2 and at the time was a trap-master using a mechanical staff to function as a Support (complimenting Bard who was originally planned as a Support as well). Sometime after the ARR sight went up and it was revealed that Arcanist had been completely reimagined as a Pet class with branching paths.

Fast-forward to 2.0, and we have Scholar. Back then people drastically undervalued the class because the community couldn't understand shield mechanics and believed that micromanaging a pet while trying to heal would be too difficult. That being said, Scholar was always designed as a more tecnical healer. Whereas White Mage could solve all of their problems by using big heals, Scholar's were required to think about how to use their abilities. It wasn't hard, especially after people started realizing how overpowered Supervirus was at the time (SCH+SMN could have 100% uptime on Supervirus, effectively nerfing every boss in the game's damage output and trivializing healing)

But more important than that, fights were designed different. Take for example Garuda Extreme. Garuda would summon two adds who needed to be kited away from each other. This mechanic forced split-heals between the tanks. Titan had his Gaols that often forced solo-healing, but it was also no secret that the best way to survive his jumps or his stomps was with a pre-casted succor chased by a Medica. Ifrit had an entire mechanic dedicated to healing, and it was actually challenging at moments. Caduceus also had a tank-split mechanic that required dual healing.

During these early days, Scholar was regarded as the "Tank-Healer" and White Mage as the "Party-Healer". People had begun to catch on to Scholar's DPS potential by this point, but the general consensus was "Not in my party. I want you to keep me alive" It wouldn't be until SCOB that Scholar DPS really took off as something normal, and even then WHM couldn't really solo-heal most content without tons of amazing gear. This was mostly caused by a shift in encounter styles though. The Devs had moved away from consistent raid-wide damage and moved onto less-frequent but bigger hits. The game was less about consistently performing your job well and instead moved on to "remember to press that button or everyone dies." Essentially, as time went on; Healer checks became less important. Gordias sort of changed that back to how things used to be, but then the fans complained that it was too hard and we ended up with the comparatively piss-easy Midas.

Now that the History lesson is over let's go with some more modern proofs that Scholar was never intended as the "DPS Healer".

1) Scholar's Kit was changed to give them more influence as a Healer. 4/5 abilities are related to Healing, and Lustrate was changed to make it so that we were forced to drop Cleric's in order to heal properly.

2) White Mage's have actually always had comparable DPS to Scholar, it just wasn't sustainable. With the addition of Aero III and Stone III, they actually have higher DPS than us, but it still isn't really sustainable for any period of time.

3) Scholar doesn't even get Cleric's by default. Checkmate atheists.

4) SSS gives White Mage dummies more HP than Scholar's, because even the Devs know WHM has superior DPS. This actually reinforces point 2.

5) As others have said, the best way to maximize raid-wide DPS is for both healers to do damage. Referencing point 2 again, if a Scholar takes over the majority of the healing to allow White Mage time to DPS you'll notice massive gains. The trick is to swap back before the WHM starts experiencing MP issues and/or whenever it's time to reapply Dots. My group had achieved this seemingly hard balance by simply calling out "Dance". When we say Dance, we swap stances and do our thing.

TL;DR: Scholar's were not "designed" as a Pseudo-DPS Support/Off-Healer. They were designed as a full healer. The "Meta" exists people suck at this game. I put groups that think Scholar's should 90% DPS in the same boat as people who had to beat Ramuh using Titan-Egis. Read: Garbage. If you need proof that the Meta is inefficient, just look at FFLogs.

[Adventica6]

My alt job is a 60 sch and I like how I never run out of mana compared to the other healing jobs, sch is pro-active like someone said, maybe some people just don't like books as weapons, or they just want to complain.

My 220 ish sch does fine in normal content and with decent piety and crit I can actually spam aldo + stoneskin on a tank if I felt like it.

Sch is a good healing job and has the best dps of the 3 and the most mitigation of the 3.

[Gameplayzero]

The "Meta" exists people suck at this game. I put groups that think Scholar's should 90% DPS in the same boat as people who had to beat Ramuh using Titan-Egis. Read: Garbage. If you need proof that the Meta is inefficient, just look at FFLogs.

I had a proper counter-argument to each of your statements until I read this. I'll go tell Elysium that they are doing it wrong and that they are "garbage". Brb.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

I had a proper counter-argument to each of your statements until I read this. I'll go tell Elysium that they are doing it wrong and that they are "garbage". Brb.

TBF, their DPS is failing at their job of supplying enough DPS to down the boss, whether it's due to unoptimized rotations or a complete lack of gear. It is the DPS' responsibility to ensure their properly geared after all. That's why healer DPS is a thing, to cover up for the shortcomings of said DPS.

[Ghishlain]

TBF, their DPS is failing at their job of supplying enough DPS to down the boss, whether it's due to unoptimized rotations or a complete lack of gear. It is the DPS' responsibility to ensure their properly geared after all. That's why healer DPS is a thing, to cover up for the shortcomings of said DPS.

.... did you just really equate Elysium's DPS to being "garbage" because the group needed healer DPS to World First A8S......?

I don't think I have any more words at this moment.