Consolidated Scholar 4.0 Feedback Thread

[Firemblem]

the WORSE problem problem for me playing as a scholar right now is....IT´S BORING! RLY RLY boring =/
I can´t say for sure what it is that makes scholar so boring for me now, could be a bunch of useless skills that are in my bar that COULD be cool but are just downright useless or conflict with each other...Could be my fairy being useless and having two but the other is kind not even needed in the game...Could be the story pointing to a 3° fairy that could do new stuff but we got nothing in the end...Could be my Fey useless pact sometimes bug and making my fairy stop doing anything for the rest of the fight...
So much stuff that just make the class boring, im not saying it´s a bad class or you could not heal with it tough, but WHY would i want to heal with a scholar over the other healers is the question in my head...Anything a scholar bring the others can do much better AND FUN!

[RyuDragnier]

erm, no? Indom, Lustrate, excog, and every off gcd arent influenced by either healing boost or healing debuff, regardless of who got it. That's pretty much why a lustrate on a WAR with defiance will do the same on a PLD. (unless that's been changed, but i dont think so).
Fey illumination will work exactly the same as largesse, exept the other healer will benefit from it.

I feel like they should change it so all our heals are effected by those. Would be a serious QoL change.

[Docteur_Fluttershy]

Remember that its both a downside and a bonus.
In thordan you can heal when -90% healing with asylum/assize/indom/lustrate/collective unconscious etc... for example, same for Ramuh mechanics

[Deox]

I feel like they should change it so all our heals are effected by those. Would be a serious QoL change.

No thanks, those abilities ignoring heal modifiers is by far one of their strongest aspects

[SweetP]

Hello and thank you for taking the time to read this. I am sure that you get many comments and complaints about job changes, and there are many people who dream up amazing new abilities and traits that you should give to particular jobs that they play. I do have a few minor suggestions, which I find quite reasonable, that I would like to propose for scholar.

I appreciate the attempt at balancing the healers in general for the Stormblood expansion, and feel that scholar has been made on a much more level playing field with other healers. Here are my few minor suggestions that might help to make some of the skills more effective in the job's toolkit:

1) Pre-4.0, when cleric stance affected healing output, Excogitation would have a valuable addition to the job. Scholars could have applied Excogitation to a player, entered Cleric Stance, and had more freedom if the ability was triggered. In 4.0, this type of utility is not present nearly as much, due to the change in Cleric Stance. Lustrates can now be used quickly in almost any circumstance. A scholar can, for example, cast Bio II or Ruin II and use a Lustrate immediately before their next attack, without even delaying their global timer. This weakens the case for adding Excogitation to the skill set.

Excogitation is even less important as a job tool because there is a decent amount of risk in using it versus Lustrate, in its current form, with virtually no reward for that risk. Lustrate potency is at 600 (and the ability to critical hit) and Excogitation at 650. The expected value of heal for Lustrate is actually higher than the expected value of heal from Excogitation. One of the most problematic issues with Excogitation is the fact that it does nothing if the target never reaches low HP. I would like to suggest making one of the following changes to Excogitation listed as follows:

A) Excogitation Lv. 62
Range 30y Radius 0y
Cast Instant Recast 60s
Grants target party member (remove “other than self”) the effect of Excogitation, restoring HP when member’s HP falls below 50% or timer expires, whichever occurs first.
Cure Potency: 800
Duration: 30s
Additional Effect: Increases Faerie Gauge by 10
Aetherflow Gauge Cost: 1

Or

B) Excogitation Lv. 62
Range 30y Radius 0y
Cast Instant Recast 60s
Grants target party member (remove “other than self”) the effect of Excogitation, restoring HP when member’s HP falls below 50% or timer expires, whichever occurs first.
Cure Potency: 650
Duration: 30s

Basically option A increases the potency slightly, allows the ability to complete if time expires, and allows use on self, whereas option B does not increase the potency but instead changes it to an ability that does not cost aetherflow.


2) Fey Union as a skill is truly a creative idea that I appreciate very much. It is true to the identity of the job and a very thoughtful addition by the design team. I do have two major concerns about this ability.

A) As you are no doubt aware, many players mention the AI interface for pets with some skepticism. A common critique is that pets will not follow commands easily if one of their abilities is being used. For example, I will often wish to use Whispering Dawn but will have difficulty making it execute while the fairy is attempting to Embrace party members. Fey Union has an even deeper level of difficulty to get the ability to execute. With Whispering Dawn (and other abilities), I can spam the button hoping that the ability will execute after the pet completes its current cast. With Aetherpact having a 5 second cooldown timer, if I want to initiate Fey Union, it is even more difficult to time this ability to occur during combat while the pet is not executing any actions, since I must wait at least 5 seconds to try again if the initiation fails. I do realize that this design is probably in place so that players do not accidentally initiate Fey Union and then accidentally cancel it immediately, and I can appreciate that part of the design, but getting the skill to activate can be quite tricky at times.

B) Using the skill requires the target to stay proximal to the pet throughout its use. The design of the Fey Union tether was well done by the design team, but often times dodging many types of mechanics will make this ability unable to have its intended effect.

I would like to recommend the following adjustments to Aetherpact:

Aetherpact Lv. 70
Range 30y Radius 0y
Cast Instant Recast 5s
Orders faerie next action to execute Fey Union with target party member other than self. Faerie will follow target until effect ends. Effect ends upon reuse.
Faerie Gauge Cost: 10
The Faerie Gauge increases when a faerie is summoned and an Aetherflow action used by you inflicts an effect on a target.

Essentially the change is that, when activated, Aetherpact will be the next ability used by the pet, and the pet will follow the target party member until the effect ends.

I would like to thank you for your interest and time in reading my suggestions. I do not believe that these minor changes would be a large boost in the power of the job as a whole, but rather a way of making the current design even more fluid and enjoyable to play.

[Jeckyl_Tesla]

I've still a leveling SCH, and I'm currently 65.
I have not healed any Primal Exs yet, so I can only hold my opinion on those in the end.
However, this is my opinion so far of SCH.

Things I like

Now, before this I played a WHM, Tanks and DPS classes. And I personally, love how SCH plays right now. The way I see SCH, is that it has an answer for any situation that could arise. It has a spell for any sort of situation, that if you are able to plan ahead, you can prevent or deal with any situation.

I know people do not like Excog, but I think it's a great skill if you don't compare it to something like Lustrate. It has a specific use. It's fantastic on tank busters, at the beginning of big pulls, at the beginning of bosses which means you can just Rouse and Whispering Dawn and your Fairy, along with Excog can deal with the tank for a good 30 seconds depending on the boss.

I love thinking ahead. I don't see any of my abilities (maybe except Sacred Soil) as useless like some people seem to do. Every ability has a use. You may not use them in every single fight ,but it's always there when the situation arises. I love that.

Saying that, the SCH needs some help.


What I would change

First things first, we need to get back to mitigating shit with our spells again. Adlo and Succor cost too much for what they do. Emergency Tactics cover this slightly, but again, that's a long CD and even then it doesn't heal for a lot. What I would change here, is to increase the shield potency of the Succor and Adlo but a decent amount, while slightly adjusting the crit aspect from 2x to something like x1.25-x1.5. What this would do, is that this would bring us back out mitigation on our two important spells, but would keep the healing as is. However, this would also really beef up our Emergency Tactics.

In one fell swoop, we gain access to powerful but expensive mitigation, or a big AoE/ST heal every 30 seconds.

This would again, help out Deployment Tactics, since everything that we seem to lack and have problems with are our mitigation spells, which multiple of our other spells seem to lead into.

Sacred Soil is a spell that I'm not really sure of. I've found a tiny tiny use for this spell, but it's only really useful for big AoE or big pulls, which is fine I guess. But the fact it costs an aetherflow is crazy for what it does.

I can't comment on MP or Aetherpact yet. But so far I've had no MP problems with using my Aetherflow aggressively and my Lucid Dreams. So we will see.

[Clouse_Cleyra]

Wow really Lustrate and Indomability have no effect on healing buffs? I have played SCH years and didnt had a clue about it, the skill doesnt say that in any place, why this happens? o.O

[lulunami]

Wow really Lustrate and Indomability have no effect on healing buffs? I have played SCH years and didnt had a clue about it, the skill doesnt say that in any place, why this happens? o.O

Healing buffs only affect spells such as Physick, Cure, and Regen. Lustrate and Indomability are listed as abilities. For WHM, Largesse does not affect Asylum, Tetra, Benediction, Plenary Indulgence, nor Assize since they are all abilities.

[Clouse_Cleyra]

Damn didnt know abilities werent buffed, ty.
You always learn something new.

[Docteur_Fluttershy]

what you must remember about it is mostly that they arent influenced by any modifier.
If a target has "receive 90% less healing", or you have "your heals does 90% less", the abilities will still do 100% of their effect.
Only stat modifier can affect abilities, such as mind diminution or augmentation, determination, direct hit, critical hit multiplier and such.
This is really important in fight where, for example, you miss a mechanic (like a3s where you had the -90% healing debuff for a long time), or for fight where your healing ability is lowered to the extreme, you can still manage to heal decently if you kept your abilities ogcd.