Scholars what are your thoughts?

[Azell]

Fey union needs to change, 10yalms is too short and if the target moves the fairy stays there doing nothing, it should cancel automatically if its out of range.
Oh and the delay to activate is is awful.

[saramcdohl]

I hope the devs at Square actually read this thread, cause this is total trash. I've leveled all the way to 70 now as a Scholar, done all of the content available at launch for Stormblood. This class is no longer fun. It is seriously like placing the training wheels back on. For instance, the tanks can no longer pull large pulls in dungeons, because I can no longer mitigate the damage that they take. Simple mobs are completely out of my range it's insane. I like some of the changes like the fact that everything I do is now based on Mind. It makes things 100x easier to manipulate the flow of my DPS with healing, and to be honest, every skill in my 'Role' section is worthless outside of Swiftcast and Protect. In larger trials i'm barely able to keep everyone alive, even tanks who have 50k HP, due to the fact that I'm completely RELYING on crit heals to take hold, without Physic healing for 10k + randomly, I'd never manage to keep us alive.

[SoulMonarch]

I could go on and on about how I feel SCH got screwed, but I think most people have covered it.

The bottom line is that the SCH signature gameplay is simply gone. Our role has always been to use shields / pet to give yourself extra time to dump a truckload of DoTs of something and spread it out on any groups with Bane. And we did not simply have our DPS reduced a little, it got absolutely destroyed. WHM does considerably more damage in all situations than SCH can now, and retains better healing to boot. (Note: Not saying nerf WHM or AST.)

I have been main SCH forever, and this is depressing enough that I can't even work up the desire to play Stormblood at all. So I am probably going be playing other games for a while until I'm cooled down some. When I come back I am likely either going to go WHM main or maybe spend time playing RDM / BRD. I have my doubts that SE will be willing to re-balance SCH to what they should be, but you never know I suppose.

[Cynfael]

Don't have access to the Stormblood material yet, but here are my thoughts so far.

- The nerf to Aetherflow isn't that bad with Lucid Dreaming in your kit. Is it annoying, yeah, but hit LD, use Energy Drain, and then hit Aetherflow again and you're good to go.

- The nerf to Bane is more than annoying. It was needed to balance summoner, but it really hurts Scholar's DPS output.

- I barely noticed the cost increase to Aldo until it was pointed out. Annoying, but manageable.

- Lack of AoE hurts. Bane was super useful before, and Miasma II was nice if mobs got close, but with the nerfed Bane and no Miasma, Scholar is lacking in the DPS department.

- No Stoneskin sucks. Period.

- It is really nice not having to stance dance, but I know that made healing jobs for some people. It didn't for me.

- I see no point in having Eye for an Eye in your tool kit. A one in five chance for 10% less damage? I don't see the point. This may change as I play around.

- I'm pretty sure we have the most healing buffs. Largesse and Eos' Fey Illumination, unless I'm misremembering. So that's useful.

- It's nice to still have Ruin II to weave between Broils.

All in all, it's still playable, but it's not the Job I've come to love. It's fixable. A new DoT in a future release, something to fix the Bane nerf, like a trait for Scholar's only (if possible, and I'm pretty sure it is.) And lower the MP cost for Aldo, and I'll be happy.

My thoughts:

- Is MP management doable with LD? Sure. Does it feel like SCH? Not in my opinion.

- Adlo cost increase isn't as devastating when you start to gather more Piety on gear (simply because Aetherflow is restoring 10% more of a larger maximum and is available slightly more frequently overall with Quickened trait). In the low 60s it's extremely annoying if you need to expend any additional effort to help a (bad or average) party.

- Having Eye for an Eye made into a role skill was baffling, especially since it synergized slightly with Deployment Tactics. Granted it usually doesn't proc much except for the tank, but at least the extra frosting was there.

- AST has us destroyed in healing buffs. Fey Illumination is nerfed; Diurnal AST has an equivalent potency boost as their passive, and Noct is at 15% now...and they have access to Largesse as well, of course. WHM lacks either Fey Illumination or AST's Sect passives, but they received some base potency buffs to help compensate.

- Ruin II is garbo unless you must move and have nothing else to cast. It trips the GCD just like Broil but has 130 less potency, so there's rarely a point to using it.

[Kurando]

I'm liking Scholar now however there are a few issues.

Aetherflow: 10% mp recovery seems too low. Ok if 20% was too high, I'd settle on 15%, but at the moment it's easy to burn through MP and Lucid Dreaming barely covers it.

Eye for an Eye: This is working just like pre-SB but without the trait that reduces the cooldown. It now makes the wait longer than Deployment Tactics, so it's just not possible to do the old EfE and Galvanise aoe at the same time, players end up waiting for EfE to come back up. This should go back as a SCH only skill along with the cooldown trait.

Shadow Flare: It only lasts 15secs and the cooldown is 60secs, that's a major nerf and cannot be paired with Sacred Soil. If SF time could be increased, that would be welcome, 20secs maybe.

[Ferocious]

Scholar main since 2.0 and currently 65 in Stormblood. I started leveling it with no second thoughts because it's always my main. The one thing that is bothering me the most is MP management (like others have brought up). I seriously never had an issue with MP in these past 4 years, but now it's a problem. In first two dungeons so far, my MP was fine and I was dps'ing hard, but my low mana pool at times reminded me of WHM. Then I tried Suzano... holy hell, that's where it was noticeable. I was helping with the heals normally and people weren't stepping on AoE. I was timing my Aetherflow perfectly, but still I was so mana starved towards the end. I did have to battle rez once, that was it. I remember SCHs were the king of battle rez because of their great mana management, but now just one rez killed it for me.

In short, I can deal with nerfed heals, but these mana related changes should get reverted. It's quite ridiculous now.

[Riyshn]

Shadow Flare: It only lasts 15secs and the cooldown is 60secs, that's a major nerf and cannot be paired with Sacred Soil. If SF time could be increased, that would be welcome, 20secs maybe.

Shadowflare and Sacred Soil have always been mutually exclusive, actually. The tooltips just didn't actually say it before.

[Sylvain]

I'm either expecting my sakura-card-captor job to be nurfed beyond measure or WHM and SCH being buffed through the roof.

[Riyshn]

I was actually initially really hopeful because we have that official statement from Yoshi-P that they didn't want to nerf SCH/WAR with the expansion, and instead bring the other jobs up to that level. Unfortunately from what I've seen, they did indeed bring most of the jobs up to the level of "self complete-ness" that SCH/WAR had in HW, but then also nerfed SCH into the ground.

[CakeyCakes]

I honestly would just like sustain back at least... for smn too.