Consolidated Scholar 4.0 Feedback Thread

[VanilleFang]

Alexander Midas says hi !
WHM had a his glorious spot until 3.4. AST was fine after 3.2 but still less used than WHM in general.
This is 3.4 that make AST shine with the buff to balance and celestial opposition, and the fact that the healing requirements was low so that taking an AST over a WHM was totally fine in progress.
And it had never been the weakest, just that Balance was more appealing the big heals WHM could provide.

Weakest as in least desired. AST was buffed and then buffed again pushing WHM out. Instead of making all healers mostly equal they overbuffed AST and never buffed WHM.

[LegoTechnic]

Weakest as in least desired. AST was buffed and then buffed again pushing WHM out. Instead of making all healers mostly equal they overbuffed AST and never buffed WHM.

They didn't need to buff WHM because it was solid. The issue is that AST was largely a carbon-copy clone of WHM playstyle with a card mechanic, so no one liked replacing SCH with it because it couldn't fill the same role as easily. Originally AST had extremely poor mana management as well, and while people suffered the class for its Balance and Arrow in the harsh DPS checks of Gordias/Midas, WHM was the goto main healer for both sets because it was simply better at the main healing role.

Creator came and by then AST had been brought up to a pretty good place alongside WHM, but Noct stance was still a poor man's SCH. SCH was strong sustained DPS with mana management that supported it with the downside of negligible burst DPS, whereas both AST and WHM were the opposite with high burst at the cost of depleting their mana very quickly. Furthermore Noct shields were at the level where they could supplant a SCH if needed, but they lacked both the utility of Eos and the off-healer friendliness of ogcd burst healing in between cleric stance applications. Again, SCH fit the off-healer role better due to its DPS nature and toolkit of powerful burst heals with cooldowns, so if you wanted cards in Creator swapping the WHM to AST was frankly a lateral move given the similarities between how the two classes played.

That's not the case now. They've made the healers "more equal" with drastic steps, giving WHM and SCH the same mana generation effects and cooldowns with only energy drain and thin air to differentiate them, with all their base DPS being the same spamming one or two DoTs and then direct damage spam. Noct AST was buffed in such a way that no one can really make the argument that they're inferior to SCH shielding, and SCH is no longer able to sustain a high level of DoT DPS to solidify their off-healer slot not thanks to AST buffs, but due to sweeping class restructures and nerfs. And it's not all one-sided, as WHM got a number of changes to bring them closer to SCH in terms of ogcds, with Benediction and Assize having shorter cooldowns and Divine Benison effectively able to turn Cure II into an Adloquium once every 30 seconds. Now all healers play more like each other than ever before, and it will likely only get worse as they build upon it.

[VanilleFang]

WHM was solid

Solid in dungeons yes. This has nothing to do with SB or 4.0, all I was pointing out was that AST was being used way back in 3.2. 4.0 did not "cause people to start using AST", which was the main point I was replying to.

And WHM didn't need to be buffed? Granted it wasn't as weak as, say, PLD but there was an obvious bias in Raid group's, and there is a reason people are STILL asking for more utility on WHM. Pure healing can only carry you so far. Why would anyone, back in 3.4, take a WHM or AST? WHM was far inferior to AST and instead of nerfing they should have introduced buffs to WHM.

[Rivxkobe]

...

You typed a lot to say a whole lot of nothing.

AST is far and away the best healer right now. WHM is weaker than them, and since AST was, basically, a WHM with Balance in 3.4 it was more desired.

SCH was in an amazing spot, always having a spot in most raid groups, but has been since overnerfed and is now easily the worst Healer.

And it had never been the weakest, just that Balance was more appealing the big heals WHM could provide.

What the... ok. Some one explain to me how one class being overshadowed by the other doesn't make it weaker than it.

[Riyshn]

Has SE said anything acknowledging the state that SCH are in?

Because I'll be honest, as things are now the state of SCH is likely to lose them my sub. I was increasingly worried as more info about Healer role actions and SCH changes specifically came out in the lead up to Stormblood, but trusted SE to design encounters in a way that made sense with the changes as part of their vision for the game going forward. The more I play and hear from others though, the more clear it becomes that either no one actually tested SCH during Stormblood development, or said vision of the game's future does not include the SCH I've grown to love playing in it.

So Square, if you're reading this; I sincerely hope you can show recognition of SCH's many new issues by 7/15. Not asking for actual fixes in that time frame, just that we know you guys know that there is a problem. Otherwise I will most likely be dropping my sub, and you will have lost both my money and good will going forward.

[Hysterior]

Otherwise I will be dropping my sub, and you will have lost both my money and good will going forward.

Sure they'll survive.
Why not trying another healer in the meantime? In a multi-class game, I don't get why some people have 0 will to be flexible and try something else...

[KDSilver]

What the... ok. Some one explain to me how one class being overshadowed by the other doesn't make it weaker than it.

WHM was overshadowed because of Astro's Balance and because content in 3.4 content didn't require high healing.
My point was that WHM isn't "weak" in term of healing and kept being strong. BUT, having a healer buffer was better than one with healing only.
That's all.

[Riyshn]

If I was upset enough to actually come here and say something about it, statistically there's likely to be around 80 others to would just quit over it without saying anything, and who knows how many who would still play, but would lose trust in SE in the future (yes, this does effect sales).

And I have. I don't enjoy them, and none of the changes I've seen to them are big enough changes to their core gameplay to change that.

[Ilenya]

Secondary proposal: If Excog doesn't activate it galvanizes the player. This would result in a 650 to 975 potency shield. Non crit vs crit. Critlo is 900, but can happen anytime. Enhanced excog would take 30+ seconds of setup to justify potency. Rewarding planning and no punishment if your coheal doesn't let it proc.

I really would like deployment to reset the duration of e4e and galvanize at the least.

I haven't tested Excog despite SCH being my main class (Expected to run story with a FC healer main, so...), but it feels like something like this would be an advantage. It's always been possible to waste the SCH's ability to plan for situations (Mostly dropping shields), but with something using the Aetherflow stack, having it not do anything is just...Too much of a waste, it feels like.

[Cluebilly]

Sure they'll survive.
Why not trying another healer in the meantime? In a multi-class game, I don't get why some people have 0 will to be flexible and try something else...

I can't speak with that guy, but frankly, I'm so disgusted by the nerfs SCH got, and the buffs AST got (I swear it feels like borderline favortism to me the more I look at them) that I refuse to play AST right now. I was actually going to give a shot too,but not anymore.