I don't know how you scholar mains do it.

[Cynfael]

I had no special difficulty leveling as SCH (I've also leveled AST and am nearly 70 on WHM as well), but I do understand the frustration. SCH is more harshly punished either for mistakes or for being paired with a bad tank who bites off a lot and doesn't rotate cooldowns appropriately.

Perhaps this was intentional, but the difference between WHM/AST's ability to sustain high HPS vs. that of SCH is more pronounced than before. I'm guessing that many SCHs are becoming frustrated in part because tanks who both pull excessively and perform poorly are creating prolonged crisis situations that exhaust the SCH's cooldowns and resources at an unmanageable rate.

AST is somewhat prone to this as well depending partly on luck of the Draw, but Noct AST shields are so powerful, especially combined with on-demand Benefic II, that they have a better shot at keeping a bad tank afloat even if all of their tricks have been temporarily expended.

If a SCH is pressed to the point of using Dissipation as a panic button, you know they are praying for a respite soon after, because they've probably already blown every CD they own (including Indom and Swiftcast) if they're so desperate as to risk dismissing the faerie.

TL;DR: It's not that SCH can't be successful or do these things, but the margin for error (for both the SCH and the tank) is less forgiving.

[Deli]

I was blindly leveling sch at launch and didn't look at any forum at all. I was thinking... "wow healing is sure tough at Stormblood" even with my 275 relic weapon and all 270 gears.
A tiny bit problem such as weak DDs, tank over pull or a "I-don't-know-what-def-CD-is" tank, then that's it... you just can't get tank hp up no matter how you spam the cure, adol, charges or anything. Then, I'll realized I'm out of mp even with the refresh skill. The situation only get better when I started to get to expert dungeon parts where everyone's gears are up to certain point, and the tough-healing situation started to ease up.


Then, today I started to do SB dungeons with AST... wow... same bad DDs, same bad tanks you always have ways to bring tank hp instantly to full or 75% hp while can still throw a couple cards, gravities, chatting at LS at big pulls... Bad tanks can't output and dodge DDs, no problem. I, as AST, carry everyone.

So, ya, AST is fun and powerful; SCH is just hard...not totally not doable, just need to be careful...

[Starflake]

Leveling scholar to 70 was very easy for me. You still get way more dps time than any other healer because the fairy can still do pretty well on her own. She just can't do your whole damn job anymore. Though i think the scholar itself could use some potency buffs.

You either are extremely bad at other healing jobs or you don't know what you are talking about. Way more DPS than any other healer because of the fairy? It's basically the same as Regen on both the other healers. The only difference is on WHM you stunlock the enemies and you have a bubble and assize. On AST it's way easier and free to get them back up after using Gravity. Scholar does not do way more damage than any other healer at all.

[Dwel]

After doing the ex primals over 20 times each, what we need as Scholars are QoL changes to the Fairy and changes done to the spells we never use.

Dissipation... I hate that when I use it (that one time after some drinks) I feel like I'm completely screwed. Fey Union is just awful and I find myself spending more time trying to get it to trigger than anything else (P.S. trying to use Fairy skills while she is channeling SHOULD cancel the channel automatically). Excogitation needs something extra tacked on (10% damage reduction while it is active would be great).

The Aetherflow passive is very frustrating overall. Scholar without aetherflow stacks is in a very bad position to react to unplanned scenarios. The passive "rewards" using the stacks earlier for efficient proccs and CD reduction. It's great when it happens, but I never want to blow my stacks early just for RNG reduction. (it would be nice if it was a 3 - 5 second reduction per stack use at a 100% chance).

[Enla]

Honestly I rather like Excogitation in spite of the fact that it like many other SCH skills is in need of a serious potency buff. When paired with galvanize I often find that it makes tank busters all that much more easier to bear and it was the lynch pin that helped me countless times in fifteen or so clears of Susano. Likewise in Dungeons it's my 'set it and forget it' button, often allowing me some precious moments to DPS or top others off if they stood in something stupid. Is it necessarily worth the cost? At present only on a situational basis I would feel, but compared to the steaming pile that is Fey Union I will gladly try to find some silver lining in the latest additions to our kit.

[Neela]

Go ahead and explain to me why you would take a scholar over a astrologian, I'll wait.

this just for provocation right? Ast and Sam are just to overpowered - there is no reason to compare any cls with them, atm they stay way ahead of everything else. The chocobo comparison is another joke as well - chocobos were designed for solo content and should be viewed as a full "healer" cls, while Schs fairy is just a part of the cls' toolkit - this comparison is like apple & pears. Dunno why somenone even comes to think about this comparison...

Leveling scholar to 70 was very easy for me. You still get way more dps time than any other healer because the fairy can still do pretty well on her own. She just can't do your whole damn job anymore. Though i think the scholar itself could use some potency buffs.

+1 – thats exactly what complainers really mean... dunno about the potecy... I am able to crit a simple physic up to 12k in my 300er set... but okay compared to Asts star which can heal up to 10-20k in his 2nd phase without crit its really nothing : /

[DynamoAce]

Yeah Scholar has some problem areas right now and more often than not there are a lot of tanks who go crazy in their pulls without really popping any of their own CDs, it sucks. I experienced it a lot lately and it's not exactly the most entertaining thing to go through when you let them know it's your first time in a dungeon.

At the same time though, most of the time it's doable depending on who your tank is. Right now I've gotten to a state where if tanks wanna pull more than they can handle without putting in their side of the work for it and they die because of it, at that point I don't really care after using everything I have and all my CDs have been blown.

They wanna blame you for it? Let them, better off not being with a tank like that. : D

Overall, SCH isn't as bad as some make it out to be.

[Odd2oul]

The only time the fairy did "the whole damn job" was when you were overgeared for the current content. Of course scholars in 270 gear running expert roulette (thats god a gear req of 230-40 ilvl's under) in 3.5 could have their fairy do a lot of the job, but thats just how overgearing works. As a 270 WHM at the end of 3.5, my job was done by mostly regens. AST was the same.

[Neela]

oh than tell me why out of sudden eos become number one after selene was the way to go for a long time in raids? eos reg was to powerful combined with both pet buffs – this fact was enough for letting eos do "your job" in a lot of content even without being overgeared. your statement is just not true.

[Odd2oul]

as far as ive been playing scholar, eos has ALWAYS been the way to go. Selene's abilities are niche/borderline useless. Fey wind is only a 3% speed buff (not even as good as aoe Arrow). The only time Selene was used was when the dissipation bug was a thing, or if people were really adamant about that speed buff and would switch once selene was done using it (but its overall an mp waste to do). Eos' regen is so powerful BECAUSE that's the only regen we have, and its on a 1 minute cooldown.