Scholars what are your thoughts?

[Neela]

Do smn and sch still share exp? Or have they separate them in SB? : O

[Gemina]

SCH is so boring now. Honestly casuals ruin everything. If they found SCH so hard, go play an easy mode class like WHM.

WTF? You're blaming casuals for this? You need to get your facts straight, because the devs for the longest time have been keeping their eye on how OP SCH was, and even stated that they did not like how much they, and even the other two healers were spending in Cleric Stance. It is pretty clear that they were not content with the meta prior to 4.0. SCH right now, feels more like SE's pure healer than WHM. And we are all finding out that it is every bit as boring as we thought it would be.

Difficulty of a job is also subjective. I think I can count with the fingers on one hand how many tanks have dropped on me while playing SCH. The fairy was always there to back me up if I derped, and especially if I went into Cleric when I shouldn't have. As WHM? I can pave a road for miles with the bodies of dead tanks. This game punished me much more playing WHM without question since there is no safety net when I screw up. That is why taking away the DPS aspect of SCH and giving the most powerful shields to AST just makes it a really boring job to play.

[Gemina]

As many people already mentioned, SCH feels weaker, especially underwhelming compared to both other healers (Adloq costs more and shields for less than Noct Benefic, really SE? :l ), but most important of all, boring. Our new DPS rotation is so bland that so many people's favorite, most fun job became a very dull, slower one.

While we all have yet to reach level 70 content and see how the full powered scholar will be like, from the looks of it, and when experiencing level 60>= content, it's safe to say the class got butchered to a very unpleasant spot.

I hope SE can do something to fix it and make it fun again!!

We shouldn't have to suffer through 9 levels to get to that point. It should be fun and enjoyable to take your favorite job through new content. However for SCH, even that destination looks gloom. If the eventual over-gearing content remains, will SCHs feel like they are contributing anything when the healing requirement plummets? If EX/savage becomes the only place they even feel viable, what about the players who love SCH but have no interest in endgame?

I'm not disagreeing with you. I am only expressing a major concern that I think most players have right now, especially considering SE isn't well known for giving back what they take away.

[Vulcwen]

WTF? You're blaming casuals for this? You need to get your facts straight, because the devs for the longest time have been keeping their eye on how OP SCH was, and even stated that they did not like how much they, and even the other two healers were spending in Cleric Stance. It is pretty clear that they were not content with the meta prior to 4.0. SCH right now, feels more like SE's pure healer than WHM. And we are all finding out that it is every bit as boring as we thought it would be.

Difficulty of a job is also subjective. I think I can count with the fingers on one hand how many tanks have dropped on me while playing SCH. The fairy was always there to back me up if I derped, and especially if I went into Cleric when I shouldn't have. As WHM? I can pave a road for miles with the bodies of dead tanks. This game punished me much more playing WHM without question since there is no safety net when I screw up. That is why taking away the DPS aspect of SCH and giving the most powerful shields to AST just makes it a really boring job to play.

I'd have been fine if they just halved Embraces potency, or just changed everything to the new PvP form (pet heals, when you heal as well). That's the thing, I expected nerfs to hit SCH's ability to keep DPSing, not the DPS gameplay itself, with no changes to the low-risk healing style. In fact, the changes they did is just poor design.. it's spite-development, wildly swinging the nerf hammer, rather than coming up with a solid design where the OP parts are toned down, but things stay rewarding and engaging in their own style.

I also got triggered by SE stating they balanced everything around level 70 play, with jobs not balanced to the content, and you should just try it out when you get there:
1. We have level sync in this game, so not everything is at level 70, even after you reach that point
2. All levels should have a fun and rewarding kit, jobs need to be balanced towards already existing content, otherwise it hurts early game, which is really important for bringing in new players to the game. Would you pick up an MMO if someone tells you, it's clunky and boring at the start, but it gets better later on, when you expect to play for a month or more before even reaching that point?

[Gemina]

I'd have been fine if they just halved Embraces potency, or just changed everything to the new PvP form (pet heals, when you heal as well). That's the thing, I expected nerfs to hit SCH's ability to keep DPSing, not the DPS gameplay itself, with no changes to the low-risk healing style. In fact, the changes they did is just poor design.. it's spite-development, wildly swinging the nerf hammer, rather than coming up with a solid design where the OP parts are toned down, but things stay rewarding and engaging in their own style.

I also got triggered by SE stating they balanced everything around level 70 play, with jobs not balanced to the content, and you should just try it out when you get there:
1. We have level sync in this game, so not everything is at level 70, even after you reach that point
2. All levels should have a fun and rewarding kit, jobs need to be balanced towards already existing content, otherwise it hurts early game, which is really important for bringing in new players to the game. Would you pick up an MMO if someone tells you, it's clunky and boring at the start, but it gets better later on, when you expect to play for a month or more before even reaching that point?

Exactly! In my last post I expressed the same concern for pre-endgame content. Combat should be engaging in ALL content. PLDs shield oath is a testament to this. 3.0 PLDs had to suffer 10 levels without their defensive stance while the other two tanks had theirs (and in a way, healers having to heal them did too). Changing it to 30 FINALLY is an admission that it was senseless decision to make it lv40, and you'd think that they have learned their lesson. Now this burden falls on SCH, assuming they don't get booted right out of the meta, which is a distinct possibility.

I would also think that balancing content outside of endgame would only help balance it at endgame. You have a foundation from which to build off of that brings a sense of familiarity that would help bring more of the casual gamers into this content. If this is a goal of the devs, they're taking one step forward, and two steps back.

[Archamgel]

I have mained Sch since 2.0. I never thought I would like it since it was nowhere near the Scholar I (still) live in FFXI, but, I ended up playing it all the way through to Stormblood.

But, now? No way. The class's identity has been stripped. We were the preemptive healers. Shield them before they take damage, use buffs to further prevent, and then leave fairy on it until we are needed while we do the other half of the job and throw out as much Dmg as we can.

This carried into 3.0, but we got some AoE "emergency" heals (much appreciated in Nidhogg trial) that completely rounded out the class. I could help the DPS with trash, push Dmg onto the boss, and still keep my party healed. This was a fun play style since I was constantly finding something to do.

With Bane, the removal of dots,and everything else, it's just not fun anymore.

[Archamgel]

I'm definitely not saying that Sch didn't need some nerfs, namely fairy potency (she is there to allow us time to dps, not be the main healer), but completely gutting our AoE was not needed.

This class is was clearly meant to be more complex (just like Sch in FFXI) than other healers. It did not need a simplification for everyone to be able to pick it up and master it instantly. There are other classes for that. (Not saying this to be "pro gamer here" or w/e, because I definitely know I can't Ninja. Just, not every class is for everyone.)

So, as a previous long time Sch main, I will be enjoying Rdm for now.

[Spirlia]

Keep in mind I'm level 61 (stuck at the MSQ wall, loool), but I'm already mourning scholar. I started as a white mage, and decided to try out scholar to use in Second Coil of Bahamut. I fell in love, and it has been my main ever since.

However, just playing the solo content and doing a round of Gubal (Hard), I am utterly bored. I feel like my damage is minuscule, and I run out of mp very fast. I suppose it'll be a learning curve, but I am seriously considering switching to AST just so I can feel useful again.

I will still take it to 70 to see if it gets better. But I am not very hopeful.

[KDSilver]

After playing SCH in some dungeons, I can say the job has become terrible boring.

I don't want to complain to much but...
Yeah, i must agree with that, unfortunately, for all the points everyone said... =/

[Galaktica]

My thoughts on SCH now are that AST now looks infinitely more appealing. I can understand why they decided to nerf us, but they just seemed to go overboard. To top it all off, they didn't really give us any exciting new tools as far as I'm concerned.

We get yet another situational spell on an arguably needlessly long CD that again uses a stack of Aetherflow (just make everything cost a stack of Aetherflow at this point, SE. You know you want to do it.). A fifteen second buff which, while a very good buff, is fifteen seconds long on a one hundred and twenty second cooldown. And to round it all out they gave us, a pet class, one new ability for our nerfed pets that -and granted I haven't been able to use it for myself yet- seems situational.

And then AST is over there with all their buffs and cool new shit.

Overcompensated is the best way I can describe anything about these balance changes.