SE, what is the vision and identity of Scholars?

[Deceptus]

SCH's are and have been a jack of all trades healer

That is literally AST. . .

They do both things, shield and regen.

[Risvertasashi]

That is literally AST. . .

They do both things, shield and regen.

Well, there is a nuance. SCH has a powerful AOE regen without needing to give up its shields. Caveat is you can only use it once a minute.

[inhaledcorn]

Well, there is a nuance. SCH has a powerful AOE regen without needing to give up its shields. Caveat is you can only use it once a minute.

To add to that, AST can't be both at the same time. It needs to choose to either be Regen heals or Shields and loses complete access to the other heal (except in Celestial Opposition).

[LegoTechnic]

To add to that, AST can't be both at the same time. It needs to choose to either be Regen heals or Shields and loses complete access to the other heal (except in Celestial Opposition).

Yes, and SCH have a similar decision. They can either have a regen available, or choose to buff DPS with a minor Arrow card effect. While SCH is able to switch mid-battle for 2400 MP, the abilities share the same cooldown so you can't have both active at the same time or even consecutively unless you have two SCH.

In essence, they're giving up their mini-Arrow card ability for a Regen instead of a Balance, but without all the RNG nonsense involving the "heart of the cards".

[Deox]

That is literally AST. . .

They do both things, shield and regen.

False statement , AST Sheild OR Regen. They have to pick an identity

SCH has always been about the wise timing and appropriate management of Aetherflow skills woven through with the rest. Blowing through three Lustrates right after putting AF on cooldown is a quick ticket to a wipe when an emergency arises. You need to use your other tools in between your uses of Aetherflow in order to ration them out over the cooldown time--but those other tools aren't, and shouldn't, be so good that Aetherflow abilities just become a very nice, very possibly OP, bonus. Not running out of mana vs not running out of instant Aetherflow heals at a critical time is the very razor's edge on which the job is balanced.

Do we need buffs to this approach to healing to help us out? Certainly, particularly on the mitigation side of things--and DPS, which is just one more way to control the battlefield, would be a very welcome addition, too, especially since the class is designed to give us a lot of time to deal damage.

All of that just to say: I still don't think the job is having an identity crisis. That's not the root of the problem. We're still tacticians. We're just a little crippled in comparison to our competitors, who don't have to do much tactician-ing at all to get the same results. It feels like our high skill ceiling is still there, but the reward for reaching it is gone in the name of balance, and the easier healing jobs are able to perform as well as we do for less effort, while also having skills that are more functional, nicer to look at, and easier to use. That is the real problem here.

Literally one of the few sane post since 4.0 launched

[BloodPact]

That is literally AST. . .

They do both things, shield and regen.

Not true, AST does shields OR regens. Scholar does shields AND regens. That's the reason why AST shields more. If under Nocturnal the potencies were the same then where is the extra healing that the pet provides coming from? Whether one thinks this is fair or that it steals Scholar's identity is another topic. For the purpose of healing balance, AST shields need to output more than SCH's. HEALING BALANCE. No need to bring up the cards and support abilities (though for the record, I think The Balance should be toned down to something like 13% ST, 7% AOE).

[inhaledcorn]

-snip-

It's precisely why I think Emergency Tactics needs to become a toggle buff rather than a one-time cast buff for SCH to really come into its own. SCH already does both shield healing and passive healing, let us do that better at the cost of not having as strong a healing potential. While SCHs have been known as the mitigation healer, AST came in and did that better (after several buffs but whatever). What they don't do better is how flexible they are at their healing. They're stuck as one or the other. SCH doesn't have that same restriction.

[LegoTechnic]

Not true, AST does shields OR regens. Scholar does shields AND regens. That's the reason why AST shields more. If under Nocturnal the potencies were the same then where is the extra healing that the pet provides coming from? Whether one thinks this is fair or that it steals Scholar's identity is another topic. For the purpose of healing balance, AST shields need to output more than SCH's. HEALING BALANCE. No need to bring up the cards and support abilities (though for the record, I think The Balance should be toned down to something like 13% ST, 7% AOE).

The problem with this statement is that Noct AST is also able to heal for more as well as having greater shields as they still retain access to Benefic II and Helios, and have generally higher potencies across the board outside of aspected benefic (stronger shield, weaker heal). Furthermore SCHs use Eos at the cost of excluding Selene and her damage buff, so they have to make the decision on whether to bring a somewhat passive minor-haste with 50% uptime or the three healing abilities of Eos. The fairy is the equivalent of the AST card mechanic with different effects but stronger reliability, just instead of a Balance or MP/TP refresh effect they have an HP regen. Otherwise they have a variant arrow with Selene, or a variant magic-only Bole with Eos, as well as the class's half-potent version of Divine Seal I guess to make the spear card feel bad.

An interesting parallel to note is that ASTs have six cards with six unique effects, and each fairy has 3 unique abilities for 6 total, only 3 of which are available at a time and all with cooldowns ranging from 1 to 2 minutes. The embrace mechanic in general is there to offset SCH's complete lack of a spammable greater heal. There is a balance in comparing the AST and SCH class design, and both take different paths to reach separate but similar distinctions of utility.

[Tashim]

Not true, AST does shields OR regens. Scholar does shields AND regens. That's the reason why AST shields more. If under Nocturnal the potencies were the same then where is the extra healing that the pet provides coming from? Whether one thinks this is fair or that it steals Scholar's identity is another topic. For the purpose of healing balance, AST shields need to output more than SCH's. HEALING BALANCE. No need to bring up the cards and support abilities (though for the record, I think The Balance should be toned down to something like 13% ST, 7% AOE).

Noct Astro does have a regen, its just on a 2 minute cooldown.
That pretty bubble... yeah, it does more than mitigate. It also applies Wheel of Fortune, which is a 172 potency regen for nocturnal sect astro, that lasts 15-40s (depending on channeling time and optionally extending it with celestial opposition). It heals for 50% more than Eos' whispering dawn does, and that's if you use fey illumination along with rouse first. It does have twice the cooldown of Whispering Dawn, but typically heals for more overall.

[BloodPact]

Noct Astro does have a regen, its just on a 2 minute cooldown.
That pretty bubble... yeah, it does more than mitigate. It also applies Wheel of Fortune, which is a 172 potency regen for nocturnal sect astro, that lasts 15-40s (depending on channeling time and optionally extending it with celestial opposition). It heals for 50% more than Eos' whispering dawn does, and that's if you use fey illumination along with rouse first. It does have twice the cooldown of Whispering Dawn, but typically heals for more overall.

So you're telling me that Nocturnal Astrologian "has" HoTs because they have an ability that they can use every 2 minutes, that they need to channel, is tied to the server tick to apply (so in many cases the HoT isn't applied instantly upon use and we need to wait for it to stick) and is centered around the caster, so you need to run up to the melee (tank), channel it, then run back? You're grasping at straws.

I use this all the time in large pulls in dungeons paired with Celestial Opposition to have more uptime spamming Gravity. But if you think this is a viable way to HoT in Nocturnal you're deluding yourself.