Anyone else feeling a hit to SCH?

[technole]

Our version of Battle Litany and LB bars filling more slowly with 2 of the same healer. It may not be much, but it's what we have. :P

No, as long as there is a fairy flying around, Scholar will always have a seat at the table. When you bring two of the other healer jobs they have to always manually heal. That means GCDs, and less time for damage by both healers. Whispering Dawn, regens, and oGCDs should always be the first line of healing defense.

[Aramina]

No, as long as there is a fairy flying around, Scholar will always have a seat at the table. When you bring two of the other healer jobs they have to always manually heal. That means GCDs, and less time for damage by both healers. Whispering Dawn, regens, and oGCDs should always be the first line of healing defense.

Fairy is nerfed though, so we won't have as many free GCDs by virtue of having to control more of the healing ourselves. Will we still be "free'er" than other healers? Obviously, but I don't know if those extra GCDs would be more beneficial than a double AST combo. NOTE: I am not in any way worried about SCH. Those were just my thoughts.

[technole]

Fairy is nerfed though, so we won't have as many free GCDs by virtue of having to control more of the healing ourselves. Will we still be "free'er" than other healers? Obviously, but I don't know if those extra GCDs would be more beneficial than a double AST combo. NOTE: I am not in any way worried about SCH. Those were just my thoughts.

You mean the -50 embrace potency? That is likely negated by the improved Mind and Mend trait buffs to Scholar, which now adds 10% and 30% healing buff to the fairy respectfully, along with gear treadmill over time. Regardless, the other jobs have to manually heal as a first-line of defense, and fairy cool downs haven't changed one bit. Whispering Dawn just got a bit more powerful.

[MsTanya]

You mean the -50 embrace potency? That is likely negated by the improved Mind and Mend trait buffs to Scholar, which now adds 10% and 30% healing buff to the fairy respectfully, along with gear treadmill over time. Regardless, the other jobs have to manually heal as a first-line of defense, and fairy cool downs haven't changed one bit. Whispering Dawn just got a bit more powerful.

Current trait is already 30% to the fairy so we gain nothing there. Its a flat out nerf. Gameplay videos show embrace doing about 15-20% less per cast compared to now and that's at level 64. Regen also gains potency with gear treadmill so that point is moot as an attack on the fairy.

[technole]

Current trait is already 30% to the fairy so we gain nothing there. Its a flat out nerf. Gameplay videos show embrace doing about 15-20% less per cast compared to now and that's at level 64. Regen also gains potency with gear treadmill so that point is moot as an attack on the fairy.

You are correct the current one is 30%, this trait will still append going forward with levels as it scales. Also, forgot to mention SCH gets a new trait in 4.0 that doesn't exist today, Enhanced Mind III. Today SCH has a -6 MND/+6 INT difference to the other healers because of Enhanced INT II, now SCH gets +24 of new MND right out of the gate at level 60 in SB.

Anytime they drastically increase HP levels they have to lower the fairy healing otherwise the auto-healing percentage just gets higher. Last time we got a DET nerf that also affected the fairy healing, this time it's just flat potency and assuming no more DET nerfs it shouldn't be a large effect going to level 70. We were talking very subject at the beginning of HW how much we likely couldn't depend on embrace as well and look where we are now. Still talking about casual content and even savage being healed mostly through Embrace and Whispering Dawn.

[MsTanya]

No, as long as there is a fairy flying around, Scholar will always have a seat at the table. When you bring two of the other healer jobs they have to always manually heal. That means GCDs, and less time for damage by both healers. Whispering Dawn, regens, and oGCDs should always be the first line of healing defense.

Yes the fairy is always flying around but in reality its just saving us having to cast a regen once every 20 seconds. So it saves three gcds in a minute. Just because its casting its ticks doesn't make it any different than any other regen spell. That coupled with our lack of on demand burst healing in the form of spammable cure 2 and medica and their equivalents and our ~33% higher mana costs across the board is more than a fair tradeoff. People really need to stop treating the fairy like a god, its just a glorified/flashier regen mechanic.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

Yes the fairy is always flying around but in reality its just saving us having to cast a regen once every 20 seconds.

I'd argue you aren't giving the fairy enough credit. It's what allows SCH to spend 90-100% of the time dpsing in all content, barring the occasional adlo. It's also got the attack speed buff, a free AoE Esuna and a silence.

OR it's got a significant AoE Divine Seal, AoE Regen, and AoE magic defense. It's quite a bit more than a glorified Regen.

[Ariane]

I'd argue you aren't giving the fairy enough credit. It's what allows SCH to spend 90-100% of the time dpsing in all content, barring the occasional adlo. It's also got the attack speed buff, a free AoE Esuna and a silence.

OR it's got a significant AoE Divine Seal, AoE Regen, and AoE magic defense. It's quite a bit more than a glorified Regen.

AoE Divine Seal, AoE Regen, AoE magic defense and AoE esuna are abilities (off the global cooldown), so they are really not that amazing being on the fairies. The main benefit of the fairy is the embraces because it saves SCH from having to cast regens which saves saves them on full GCDs. I know whispering dawn is also a spell, but closest equivalent is asylum, which is an ability. Whispering dawn moved to the SCH would probably become an ability too.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

Snip.

Oh, I know. I've played scholar, I'm aware of how the fairies work. I was just pointing out they do have mechanics and abilities as well, which would make them more than a Regen mechanic, at least IMHO. Now, if MCH got a turret that just did an AoE Regen, that WOULD be a glorified Regen mechanic, because that's literally all its used for.

[LegoTechnic]

I'd argue you aren't giving the fairy enough credit. It's what allows SCH to spend 90-100% of the time dpsing in all content, barring the occasional adlo. It's also got the attack speed buff, a free AoE Esuna and a silence.

OR it's got a significant AoE Divine Seal, AoE Regen, and AoE magic defense. It's quite a bit more than a glorified Regen.

The fairy is certainly useful like all SCH strengths, but it's also limited, which is again part of SCH class design. You can have a regen, a divine seal effect, and a magic defense buff, or you can have a small haste buff, a silence, and an AoE Esuna, but not all six at once. Furthermore the regen is on a 60 second cooldown with a 15 yd radius from the fairy so make sure position it correctly before you pop it, and it has a duration of 21 seconds. Both Fey Covenant and Fey illumination (divine seal) last 20 seconds but have a 120 second cooldown that cannot be reduced so they're very limited in uptime. Alternatively you have Selene who has a 50% uptime 3% party haste (which is her best feature), a silence with a 40 second cooldown (and given fairy AI is difficult to get her to actually use on demand), and an AoE esuna which while useful, has a 60 second cooldown which is a serious limitation.

All of this is in line with the SCH design focus of powerful triggered abilities gated behind stacks and cooldowns. The class in general has poor basic healing function (meaning no basic large heals) supplemented with powerful options you can use to enhance them, but spread out and locked behind a resource and cooldown wall so that you can't spam them. This encourages you to plan your actions so that you don't find yourself crippled later.

And just to mention the new abilities, excogitation also requires an aetherize stack to use so it is largely an easier to use lustrate on the tank (650 potency vs lustrate's 600, and you're given leeway on timing it since it's proactive rather than reactive). It's a cool ability and it will be a lot of fun (which is important), but it retains the same resource cost as soil, indom, lustrate, and energy drain. Fey Union is nice because it's finally a reliable way to get the fairy to properly focus heal something, but it too is gated strongly behind aetherize usage since it only gains 10 meter points per stack consumed (and depletes 10 meter per tick) meaning on average you're looking at 3 ticks of it being available per minute unless you use dissipation, or 4 if the new aetherize talent procs.