Anyone else feeling a hit to SCH?

[Gemina]

I don't even play astro and I can tell that it's getting effin ridiculous. You guys asked for it though. I've been quite about SCH, but definitely felt the hit. I have to play it to know for sure, but it is in danger of being left behind. I knew SCH was OP, but it was just because of the fairy. I just asked for the fairies healing potency to get reduced further, not take everything from them that made them an arcanist... along with another fairy nerf.

To those who play AST and also raid, what is stopping the ideal comp from being AST/AST at this point?

[Kalinas]

Not gonna lie, I kinda wish AST had RNG based shield strength. let them top out at 300% but off of a 20% occurrence rate for example. I mean it's not like SCHs get to deploy a critlo every time or guaranteed a crit at all for that matter on adlo.

[Aramina]

To those who play AST and also raid, what is stopping the ideal comp from being AST/AST at this point?

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

[LegoTechnic]

SCH was never OP, it was unique. When the AST class was designed they cloned a lot of the WHM's core mechanics; Luminous Aether was Shroud of Saints, Gravity was Holy, benefic and helios were analogous to cure and medica, Benefic II was Cure II, synastry was a variant of divine seal, and so on. You don't have this issue with SCH which was built around a unique aetherize mechanic with a different movepool. While Physick is indeed a clone of Cure I, Succor is quite different from Medica, they have no Cure II, Aetherize replaces the refresh mechanic for mana regen, and so on. HW specifically made lengths to even this out, but the way they did it was still interesting and, most importantly, fun. WHM got a lustrate on a longer cooldown, and SCHs could turn Adlo and Succor into Cure II and Medica on a 30 second cooldown with Emergency Tactics, which let them each have a bit of the other's utility with a bit of cost added to it, but even here AST just took a variant of what was given to WHM with Essential Dignity (different potency but same cooldown and use compared with Tetragrammaton).

And this is what I think the biggest issue is and has always been. In ARR you had WHM and SCH and they were perfectly balanced and complimentary to the other. You could run WHM/WHM or SCH/SCH but each would have clear demerits, and WHM/SCH just worked so well together. Then AST was introduced and it was meant to be able to fill in for both jobs, but card mechanics aside it played almost just like a WHM. Even in Noct stance they just converted regens to shields and called it a day, but that's only the most cursory level of what playing a SCH is like; the mechanics, costs, and resources are still quite different! So is it any surprise that SCH was in every raid composition despite AST having shields when AST is so much like a WHM already? Just giving a WHM shields doesn't address any of the other aspects that made SCHs unique, so of course their role wasn't in any danger.

I never really felt that SCHs were OP because effectively they aren't, but they can do things that the other healers can't, and this is less because they're special and more because the 3rd class just wasn't designed to have its own core with healing abilities. It's a WHM with cards and occasionally shields, but it's still a WHM. Or at least it was until WHMs were completely reworked into whatever they are now in SB.

[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.

[RokkuEkkusu]

I don't even play astro and I can tell that it's getting effin ridiculous. You guys asked for it though. I've been quite about SCH, but definitely felt the hit. I have to play it to know for sure, but it is in danger of being left behind. I knew SCH was OP, but it was just because of the fairy. I just asked for the fairies healing potency to get reduced further, not take everything from them that made them an arcanist... along with another fairy nerf.

To those who play AST and also raid, what is stopping the ideal comp from being AST/AST at this point?

I'd say that the devs are making SMN/SCH rely on their pets more often and to slow down speed runs in dungeons. That is probably why the fairy's healing output was not nerfed.

[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.

[MsTanya]

I'd say that the devs are making SMN/SCH rely on their pets more often and to slow down speed runs in dungeons. That is probably why the fairy's healing output was not nerfed.

Potency was nerfed though, embrace down to 250 potency from the current 300.

[Dastev]

With plenty of skills getting changed and traited, one of my biggest wishes for SCH though is that Dissipation had the same effect Summon Bahamut has - in a way that *once the effect is over your Dissipated Fairy is automatically ressumoned*.

Let's face it, one of the biggest reasons nobody uses Dissipate as often as other skills is entirely because we have to waste a Swiftcast to recall our fairy (and that is completely disregarding the pretty high mana cost!).

If it was automatically so, it would certainly encourage us to, you know, use one more skill from our arsenal. Especially considering the aetherflow CDR trait we're getting, it would make it for amazing synergy.