Scholars what are your thoughts?

[TheChemicalCat]

Was it basically the only thing that got an MP increase in 4.0?

Nocturnal Benefic is more expensive now too but the comparison isn't even fair because it was really cheap to use. Adloquium was already expensive as hell and they thought to make it even moreso.

[Judge_Xero]

Still, what reason was there to increase the cost of Adloquium?

TBH I'm not sure. Maybe to stop people hunting for crits? I don't really notice the change since I only shield when it's needed but I could see if a SCH spammed Adlo it would eat through MP.

[zeopower6]

I find this early on it's hard to say 'shield as needed' since if it's not a critical shield, it will disappear pretty soon after applied in most scenarios this far. So suppose you're in a dungeon and place it on the tank to prep for dealing damage but instead have to spend multiple Physicks and Lustrates anyway shortly afterwards due to damage going out. I -want- to use Adloquium, but it's a little difficult to when you need to considering our MP changes. Plus supposing you were Astrologian, you'd have essentially the critical shield from the get go without having to 'fish for crits' which is kind of mind boggling IMO.

[Judge_Xero]

I find this early on it's hard to say 'shield as needed' since if it's not a critical shield, it will disappear pretty soon after applied in most scenarios this far.

That's true. But SCH also has the Fairy spamming heals where as the AST does not. AST doesn't even have a regen if they are in NOCT stance, mind you can they put a single shield outside of battle and then swap back to Dia, but then they are not spamming "crit" shields on the tank in Dia either.

I guess another reason for the possible increase to Adlo cost is the Potency increase of Physick from 300 to 400. - Derp, I thought it was only 300 Potency meh

IMO Roused Fairy > Noct Aspected Benefic.

What I mean by "shield as needed" is whether the tank needs additional eHP to survive a hit.

[Mairissa]

I think they also increased Aldo cost +increased Ast shield potency to make a WHM+AST pair competitive with AST+SCH pair. Otherwise AST+SCH would have been too good.

[VanilleFang]

Potency increase of Physick from 300 to 400

Physick has always been 400 hasn't it? As far as I can remember Physick, Cure, and Benefic were identical (besides Freecure proc for WHM on Cure).

Cure is now 450 though.

[Cynfael]

Physick has always been 400 hasn't it? As far as I can remember Physick, Cure, and Benefic were identical (besides Freecure proc for WHM on Cure).

Cure is now 450 though.

Correct. Physick was 400 potency pre-patch and remains so.

While it's true that the faerie is an additional, free source of healing, I think she's fallen too far behind the curve. It also doesn't help that her new mechanic is currently the opposite of fluid and intuitive to use. God help SCHs who didn't micromanage their faerie before all of these changes.... I feel that SCH's effective skill floor has actually risen in this patch while the skill ceiling has both come down and offered less reward.

[LegoTechnic]

While I haven't tested at 70 yet, from both HW and the early 60's the fairy effectively heals about 30% less than the SCH given listed stats, giving her an equivalent embrace potency of about 180 (even though it's listed as 250), which is close to a WHM's Regen (150), but with the flaw of being unreliable and difficult to target as the fairy will change targets frequently (both a positive and negative feature) as well as stop any time she uses an ability or repositions. Whispering Dawn is listed as 100 potency, which is effectively 70 potency, and thus only a little more than Medica II's regen (50). Rouse increases the healing done by 40%, putting Embrace back up to 250 potency and Whispering Dawn to 100, but there's a weird feeling when you have to Rouse your abilities just to make them equivalent to their tooltip amounts. Rouse does make Whispering Dawn the most powerful AoE regen in the game however, and it can be further supplemented by Fey Illumination for an additional (nerfed) +10% since that buff also effects Eos (Largesse does not). However both Rouse and Whispering Dawn last only 20-21 seconds, with Rouse on a 90 second cooldown and Whispering on a 60 second one, so you have to plan around when you should use these effects, which is part of the SCH class design focus (powerful supplemental abilities gated by long cooldowns).

I'll remind that I haven't experimented with max level scaling yet, so if this changes I wouldn't mind knowing.

Physick, Cure, and Benefic were all 400 in HW, with Cure and Benefic having additional proc chances. Cure was buffed to 450, and Benefic is now either 440 or 460 depending on AST stance, but Physick wasn't nerfed; it's the same as it always was, and this is fine. If you find yourself unable to keep a target up with physick spam then you either burned your stacks or fairy cooldowns inappropriately or the party bit off more than you could handle. There's also Largesse to supplement those spam moments, as well as Dissipation if you're in a real crisis.

[Cynfael]

...as well as Dissipation if you're in a real crisis.

Just taking the opportunity to call out that Dissipation is still the only "emergency" skill in the healer family that can leave you worse off than you were before using it. Yet another ability that would be infinitely better with a few common sense tweaks.

[Rocento]

SCH was supposed to be the job that requires you to determine when to use your abilities. Not to set it and forget it while keeping everything on cooldown and spamming 1. But after what they did to Shadow Flare as well, it seems like SE just wants to completely remake SCH and kill off an entire playstyle. It's gone from being a taxing but engaging job with a lot to do, to being more or less mind-numbing in favor of braindead players that just want to keep pressing 1 and let their pet do the work. It's no wonder SCHs have such bad rep in low level dungeons. I don't care if they nerf this class into the dirt so long as they bring the old SCH feel back.