Anyone else feeling a hit to SCH?

[Arcana]

SCH was never OP, it was unique.

Ehm, excuse me but that's not true.

[Alkimi]

And Shadow Flare supposedly took a hit as well.

Because it's now off the GCD the Shadow Flare change is actually a dps boost. It's gone from 600 potency per minute to 250, but it's also freed up 2 GCDs which you can use on Broil II so it's an 80 potency gain.

It's a slight AoE nerf but if you were refreshing shadow flare for the AoE then your party has other problems.

[Eloah]

Ehm, excuse me but that's not true.

SCH were considered OP maybe in ARR, but when HW was released they evened out what made them considered OP, without changing their core gameplay. The Devs just indicated that throughout HW SCH was considered the in demand healer because of its utility.

[LegoTechnic]

Ehm, excuse me but that's not true.

I guess before I go further I should specify they were never OP as in "over-powered". There was no content you couldn't do without a SCH save progression raiding, and that same content couldn't be done with double-SCH due to their lack of consistent large heals. And I'm speaking of low-ilvl progression raiding, because as gear increases restrictions on what healers you bring ease off.

If you're wanting to argue that they were "over-played", then I won't refute that. They had a strong off-healer niche with lots of powerful ogcd abilities and their competitors were shallow for the same role, but what can you expect when AST played like a clone of WHM and for much of HW had crippling mana issues if it tried to DPS like a SCH? However SCH DPS was actually quite lacking comparatively whenever burst was required with the weakest direct damage spell available, making them the worst DPS contributor during most add phases (since they rarely lived long enough for dots to tick fully). They excelled in sustained damage both because dots tick away while you're otherwise busy, but also because aetherize mana return and stack abilities allowed to do so safely without running out of juice, a luxury long envied by WHM/AST. That didn't make them overpowered as they have their fair share of weaknesses, but it certainly gave them a guaranteed raid spot.

[AlexanderThorolund]

I've been a SCH main since 2.0 and have raided all of coil, Gordias, Midas, and the creator as such, but I will not be raiding or going through msq as one in Stormblood.

You haven't even played it yet lol.

Talk about biting off your nose to spite your face.

[Valknut]

I guess before I go further I should specify they were never OP as in "over-powered".

They have been OP for all of ARR and 90% of HW, take off the WAR goggles.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

SCH has been OP for years now. Good to see them getting nerfed.

[Furious]

You haven't even played it yet lol.

Talk about biting off your nose to spite your face.

Some people are capable of reading information and understanding its meaning, contextualising that information and forming opinions based on the outcome.

Shocker, I know.


We haven't seen final numbers yet so for all we know scholars could be the strongest healers around but mechanically they seem worse. However, it's a giant bugbear of mine when people say "just wait till you've tried it!" It's dumb. We grow up as humans learning from past experiences and applying them to information to form expectations on future outcomes. They are sometimes wrong, but they are far more often right.

[Judge_Xero]

Because it's now off the GCD the Shadow Flare change is actually a dps boost. It's gone from 500 potency per minute to 250, but it's also freed up 2 GCDs which you can use on Broil II so it's a 210 potency gain plus saving 1 second of cast time.

It's a slight AoE nerf but if you were refreshing shadow flare for the AoE then your party has other problems.

Fixed that for you. I'm actually super excited for the SCH changes. While it's DPS rotation is simplified, being able to maximize it's healing toolkit is going to make it really fun. I do wish we had more options for weaving other skills though. That is going to make it feel a bit clunky.

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For the fairy healing, I wouldn't worry too much about it. The Fairy has always had negative scaling with levelling. Once we are in level 70 gear it will work itself out.

They have been OP for all of ARR and 90% of HW, take off the WAR goggles.

They really were. Like being able to cast Lustrate while in Clerics, was incredibly OP. It's really hard for the others healers to compete with the Fairy. I'm glad they are fleshing out the class with more healing tools and adding more strength to the Fairy.

The thing about ASTNoct shields being stronger, I don't feel this is going to become a balancing issue. All that really matters at the end of the day is that SCH shields are strong enough to keep people alive. In the case of Tank busters, sure the AST shield has the potential to keep a tank alive with say 2k extra HP over a SCH Adlo, but given proper mitigation a tank should never drop that far. But the NoctAST does need some sort of strength to make it comparable to SCH with Fairy, so if all that means is stronger shields for the AST so my Fairy doesn't get the nerf bat I could care less.

[Cynfael]

On one hand I really don't like that SCH has had to cede part of its identity to AST's Nocturnal Sect, which looks to be the definitive barrier healer going forward.

On the other, yes, the faerie makes a huge difference in healing output and split-target flexibility, and Noct AST needed either to have very powerful shielding or to have a supplementary source of healing.

It seems like the idea with 4.0 was to further reward SCHs for planning ahead (Excogitation), to give them increased party synergy (Chain Stratagem), and to build on their uniqueness as the healing pet class (Fey Union). We'll see how it goes.