So...Can a SCH tell me how SCH's are right now relative to WHM and AST?

[Silver-Strider]

Honestly, leveling my WHM and then SCH was like night and day.
Things my WHM found a minor nuisance were flat out nightmares on my SCH.
I'd find myself utilizing every available CD on my SCH just to try and make it thru without dying and considering that, unlike my WHM, my SCH was better geared at the onset of some of the encounters due to having my WHM's hand-me-downs, that's very problematic.

I didn't feel it immediately mind you. Up to 64, apart from getting used to the MP changes, I didn't believe any of the doom and gloom. Level 65 in Bardum's Mettle immediately changed my mind and soured my entire view of SCH to the views of the Doom and Gloomers. The Herculean pulls some tanks made were just too much for me to handle in most cases (note: this was prior to tank accessories with STR and tanks having 270 strength accessories in place instead of VIT gear.) The only times I'd be able to handle the pulls was with overgeared tanks that used CDs, else I'd just fail every time.

Fast forward to now, recent experience after the patch and don't notice much of a difference, apart from Excogitation being more helpful. I'm still using every CD available, spamming Lustrate like it's going out of season on large pulls, not feeling like anything has fundamentally changed except some QoL upgrades. It feels really bad to see my emergency heals needing to be used just get thru pulls my WHM just pulled off with ease.

[giantslayer]

I didn't feel it immediately mind you. Up to 64, apart from getting used to the MP changes, I didn't believe any of the doom and gloom. Level 65 in Bardum's Mettle immediately changed my mind and soured my entire view of SCH to the views of the Doom and Gloomers. The Herculean pulls some tanks made were just too much for me to handle in most cases (note: this was prior to tank accessories with STR and tanks having 270 strength accessories in place instead of VIT gear.) The only times I'd be able to handle the pulls was with overgeared tanks that used CDs, else I'd just fail every time.

A full-pull Bardam's run is probably the worst thing you can base your opinion of a class on. Tanks who haven't upgraded past 270 get torn to shreds by small pulls in that dungeon. Healing a big pull with a poorly geared tank in that dungeon is incredibly hard. On my Bardam's run, the tank did big pulls and it was the hardest dungeon I've healed since the 2.x days before they started designing dungeons to limit how much you could pull at once.

It also sounds like you did this before the 4.05 SCH buffs, which really made a huge difference.

Back to the OP, all 3 healers are good. Go for whatever you like best.

[Silver-Strider]

A full-pull Bardam's run is probably the worst thing you can base your opinion of a class on. Tanks who haven't upgraded past 270 get torn to shreds by small pulls in that dungeon. Healing a big pull with a poorly geared tank in that dungeon is incredibly hard. On my Bardam's run, the tank did big pulls and it was the hardest dungeon I've healed since the 2.x days before they started designing dungeons to limit how much you could pull at once.

It also sounds like you did this before the 4.05 SCH buffs, which really made a huge difference.

I'm not basing my opinion on just that pull. I'm basing it on everything that I've experienced since the SB release and the subsequent patch. The recent patch hasn't changed how SCH functions because all it did was buff Excogitation/Indom and grant more liberal usage out of Aetherstacks due to the changes to Quickened Aetherflow but the core healing kit was left completely untouched.

Large pulls are still more troublesome on SCH just because they don't have a better spammable heal than Physick and even with SCH's mitigation tools, it's often not enough, leading you to use Lustrate just to keep up. The only leeway I found at all was Rouse + Whispering Dawn being as potent as it's ever been and with it up the pull is much easier but the problem is that it isn't always up and due to the sometimes unresponsive nature of the Fairy, it can take several attempts to get it out, making the task just that more frustrating. I am much harder pressed to try squeezing in some DPS on my SCH than I've even been on my WHM because my WHM has so many safety nets that I can afford to let the tank take a few extra hits before I need to heal him but SCH's safety nets are all locked behind Aetherflow stacks and I don't have a bigger base heal up to match Cure 2 outside of E-tactics/Adlo every 20 seconds.

I like SCH and I won't argue that it's still possible to play the class but the skill ceiling for SCH has shot up significantly and considering that OP is asking for advice on the role, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's not a healer class that he should be involved with until he gets more experience as a healer in general because of it.

[RajaVamberaux]

snip

Scholar probably does have the highest skill ceiling of the healers. I just want to mention though that frequently using Lustrate in large pulls is actually how Scholar should heal. Physick is a last-resort heal. If you blow two stacks on Lustrate in order to get DoTs in and Bane then you're doing it right not wrong.

To say that SCH is disadvantaged for having to do this is not accurate since they don't have to use a GCD to Lustrate or Excog.

[Silver-Strider]

Snip.

The thing is, prior to SB, SCH was a proactive healer, shining in preventing damage so that they wouldn't need to use their Emergency heals like that. Now, they're being changed into reactive healers because they can no longer do that, at least not as effectively, and because they don't have the same tools as AST and WHM, they have no choice but to use Lustrate to try and become these reactive healers that SCH was just not designed to be.

To say that Physick is our last resort is a bit of an exaggeration as well. We have no other spammable heal since Adlo had its cost increased, so realistically, you would be using Physick more often than a last resort. This is why I'm so adamant about SE letting E-Tactics reduce the cost of Adlo/Succor by half, because it's our Cure 2/Benefic 2 equivalent and while Crit Adlo is a godsend, it's much more infrequent now than ever before, making it foolhardy to rely upon and since Adlo cost a good 33% more than it's counterpart, this would help SCH by giving it a more consistent power heal without breaking the bank. Hell, if it was up to me, I'd also give Adlo a very slight potency buff to 350, from 300, just to sweeten the deal a little bit.

Also, you have to consider that SCH needs to use a oGCD to get an equivalent heal to Cure 2/Benefit 2 but consider that AST and WHM have their own oGCD that do the same thing as Lustrate but still have their GCD heals on top of that, it's not outlandish to say that SCH is getting the short end of the stick currently.

[RajaVamberaux]

The thing is, prior to SB, SCH was a proactive healer, shining in preventing damage so that they wouldn't need to use their Emergency heals like that. Now, they're being changed into reactive healers because they can no longer do that, at least not as effectively, and because they don't have the same tools as AST and WHM, they have no choice but to use Lustrate to try and become these reactive healers that SCH was just not designed to be.

First off, I disagree with the notion of Lustrate and Indom being emergency heals. Both should be used on cooldown when possible to maximize your MP and DPS efficiency.

With Scholar’s current toolkit now having Fey Union, Excogitation, and Quickened Aetherflow – in addition to Succor, Sacred Soil, Aldo, and Fey Covenant – I’d completely disagree and say that Scholar is now more proactive than ever.

With Fey Union, you must use it when the tank is near full HP, and can expect it to keep their health steady for a not insignificant amount of time (until the next dungeon pull or until the next raidwide AoE when it’s time for Whispering Dawn). If you wait too long you’ll find that it’s not enough to top the tank off in time.

With Excog, you have to plan with your cohealer which segments are appropriate for its use, apply it at the right time, and then not heal (i.e. DPS instead) so that it goes off effectively.

With Quickened Aetherflow, Scholars now need to be much more attentive to their stack usage otherwise you’ll find yourself sitting on Aetherflow with no MP. You have to plan your heal stacks such that the rest can be used on Energy Drain, and you now have to use your stacks 25% more quickly.

All of these abilities are in addition to what we had in 3.x, when we already had to use Succor wisely otherwise face MP issues, proactively Aldo incoming busters, determine which damage was magic-based and Covenant appropriately, etc. A Scholar using all of these tools is in no way underpowered in comparison with the other healers, who simply can’t do any of this without losing DPS uptime.

To say that Physick is our last resort is a bit of an exaggeration as well. We have no other spammable heal since Adlo had its cost increased, so realistically, you would be using Physick more often than a last resort. This is why I'm so adamant about SE letting E-Tactics reduce the cost of Adlo/Succor by half, because it's our Cure 2/Benefic 2 equivalent and while Crit Adlo is a godsend, it's much more infrequent now than ever before, making it foolhardy to rely upon and since Adlo cost a good 33% more than it's counterpart, this would help SCH by giving it a more consistent power heal without breaking the bank. Hell, if it was up to me, I'd also give Adlo a very slight potency buff to 350, from 300, just to sweeten the deal a little bit.

Your spammable heal is Lustrate. Don’t know how many times I can say it. You get 3 every 45s, which should be used as such:
Lustrate/Excog == Indom >>>>> Energy Drain >>> Sacred Soil.

The instant single target heals from WHM & AST have a much longer cooldown in comparison:

WHM: Tetragrammaton (1 per 60s); Benediction (1 per 3m)
AST: Essential Dignity (1 per 40s)
SCH: Lustrate (3 per 45s – can be boosted by Dissipation; shares resource stack w/ Indom)

Aetherflow stacks are shared of course, but with no Energy Drains and party damage you can still Indom (which should be enough) and still have 2 Lustrates available. One of these is enough to keep any party member in comfortable health-territory in almost any content in the game (I know because I’ve saved party members in O3S plenty of times with a single Lustrate).

Furthermore, because WHM/AST have only one on a moderate cooldown, the risk of using either outside of any planned usage is far greater. Let me explain:

In content: While using Gravity/Holy/Stone IV/Malefic III you let the tank’s health get quite low to maximize Essential Dignity, but a rogue DPS simultaneously takes an AoE to the face. If you quickly ED that DPS knowing that party damage is incoming (perhaps this is the final boss in Ala Mhigo), you’ve now increased your quickest response time to the tank to 2.5 seconds. You have to pick one.

This situation arises in numerous content, both serious raid and dungeon content, and in those situations WHM/AST is always faced with a choice, to then suffer the consequences later. But Scholar (stacks willing) can always do both. So to say that Lustrate is underpowered in comparison is not seeing the full picture.

Also, you have to consider that SCH needs to use a oGCD to get an equivalent heal to Cure 2/Benefit 2 but consider that AST and WHM have their own oGCD that do the same thing as Lustrate but still have their GCD heals on top of that, it's not outlandish to say that SCH is getting the short end of the stick currently.

Not having to use a GCD (or as you put it – needing to use an oGCD) is a benefit not a detriment. I don’t think I should have to explain the value of the GCD.

[Silver-Strider]

First off, I disagree with the notion of Lustrate and Indom being emergency heals. Both should be used on cooldown when possible to maximize your MP and DPS efficiency.

With Scholar’s current toolkit now having Fey Union, Excogitation, and Quickened Aetherflow – in addition to Succor, Sacred Soil, Aldo, and Fey Covenant – I’d completely disagree and say that Scholar is now more proactive than ever.

With Fey Union, you must use it when the tank is near full HP, and can expect it to keep their health steady for a not insignificant amount of time (until the next dungeon pull or until the next raidwide AoE when it’s time for Whispering Dawn). If you wait too long you’ll find that it’s not enough to top the tank off in time.

With Excog, you have to plan with your cohealer which segments are appropriate for its use, apply it at the right time, and then not heal (i.e. DPS instead) so that it goes off effectively.

With Quickened Aetherflow, Scholars now need to be much more attentive to their stack usage otherwise you’ll find yourself sitting on Aetherflow with no MP. You have to plan your heal stacks such that the rest can be used on Energy Drain, and you now have to use your stacks 25% more quickly.

All of these abilities are in addition to what we had in 3.x, when we already had to use Succor wisely otherwise face MP issues, proactively Aldo incoming busters, determine which damage was magic-based and Covenant appropriately, etc. A Scholar using all of these tools is in no way underpowered in comparison with the other healers, who simply can’t do any of this without losing DPS uptime.

I will admit that Excogitation is a proactive heal, however, I can't count neither Fey Union nor Quickened Aetherflow as such. Fey Union is gated by the Fairy Gauge, of which you need to build up by using your stacks. That alone means it cannot be used proactively until much later into an encounter, and even then it's going to be used as a more reactive. As for Quickened Aetherflow, this is something that more proves my original point of SCH being made into a Reactive Healer than a Proactive healer, as by your own words, Lustrate is our "spammable" Cure 2, something that should be used to maximize our DPS and MP efficiency, and Quickened Aetherflow is actively rewarding us for doing so but since the majority of our Aetherflow abilities have CDs or ill suited to be spammed, we don't have much choice in the matter as to what we spam, leaving Lustrate as the only real option in the matter.

Your spammable heal is Lustrate. Don’t know how many times I can say it. You get 3 every 45s, which should be used as such:
Lustrate/Excog == Indom >>>>> Energy Drain >>> Sacred Soil.

The instant single target heals from WHM & AST have a much longer cooldown in comparison:

WHM: Tetragrammaton (1 per 60s); Benediction (1 per 3m)
AST: Essential Dignity (1 per 40s)
SCH: Lustrate (3 per 45s – can be boosted by Dissipation; shares resource stack w/ Indom)

Aetherflow stacks are shared of course, but with no Energy Drains and party damage you can still Indom (which should be enough) and still have 2 Lustrates available. One of these is enough to keep any party member in comfortable health-territory in almost any content in the game (I know because I’ve saved party members in O3S plenty of times with a single Lustrate).

Furthermore, because WHM/AST have only one on a moderate cooldown, the risk of using either outside of any planned usage is far greater. Let me explain:

In content: While using Gravity/Holy/Stone IV/Malefic III you let the tank’s health get quite low to maximize Essential Dignity, but a rogue DPS simultaneously takes an AoE to the face. If you quickly ED that DPS knowing that party damage is incoming (perhaps this is the final boss in Ala Mhigo), you’ve now increased your quickest response time to the tank to 2.5 seconds. You have to pick one.

This situation arises in numerous content, both serious raid and dungeon content, and in those situations WHM/AST is always faced with a choice, to then suffer the consequences later. But Scholar (stacks willing) can always do both. So to say that Lustrate is underpowered in comparison is not seeing the full picture.

Your example is bias towards SCH and thus completely neglecting the rest of WHM/AST tools, just to make SCH look better than it realistically is but if we're going for a REALISTIC context, let me put it in a more factual setting.

Now, if in a situation a WHM/AST is using Holy/Gravity, a SCH should be using Bane and last I checked, Bane uses an Aetherflow stack so we're down to 2. That would remove Energy Drain from your supposed optimal usage of stacks. Now, let's say we use Sacred Soil (2nd stack gone). WHM has Asylum, AST has Earthly Star (2 abilities you failed to mention btw) All act in a similar fashion of reducing healer strain, just in different methods. Sacred Soil does it by reducing damage, Asylum does it by granting a regen and Earthly Star is just a time bomb heal that AST can set off whenever. Eventually, you'll need to heal, of which AST is currently in the lead as Earthly Star already did that, so WHM and SCH use Tetra/Lustrate. Guess what? All 3 stacks are now gone buddy. You no longer have your safety net to DPS and Aetherflow might still be on CD. So, SCH stops DPS to Heal. WHM still has Assize and AST still has ED so can DPS for a little longer.

Let's go to a boss setting now.
Stone4/Malefic3/Broil2 are going off, letting the tank get low. DPS gets hit by X just as a group attack is coming.
AST = Lightspeed Helios/Benefic -> ED
SCH Double Lustrate or Lustrate + Indom
WHM = Presence of Mind Medica 1/2 + PI -> Tetra
All three jobs have the necessary tools to do the same exact thing. AST/WHM just have to use more of their toolkit but that's not exactly a problem because, unlike SCH, their toolkit isn't handcuffed to Aetherflow stacks

Not having to use a GCD (or as you put it – needing to use an oGCD) is a benefit not a detriment. I don’t think I should have to explain the value of the GCD.]

It's not a detriment, it's just that SCH is more limited in this department BECAUSE it doesn't have a stronger GCD than Physick and had no choice in the matter and unlike WHM/AST, are at the mercy of Aetherflow to grant them a heal WHM/AST have naturally, on top of their oGCD to heal more effectively. It's not a matter of using oGCD as a detriment, it's that SCH has to use their oGCD to make up for their lack of a Cure 2/Benefic 2 whereas WHM/AST do not.