Scholar Feedback

[Penthea]

The bigger issue I see with the fey gauge is it encourages or teaches inefficient use of aetherflow abilities since for example you can cast bane on a boss with no adds around solely for the sake of building fey gauge or casting sacred soil which actually has a cooldown again for the sake of earning fey gauge points.

While I agree that the fairy gauge does make players use their Aetherflow stacks more, it's also to take advantage of Quickened Aetherflow. And really there are better ways to burn through stacks than on a Bane that won't spread anything. There is usually some degree of healing to do and if nothing else there's Energy Drain.

So they fey gauge in a way can be argued that it actually takes the main purpose of the aetherflow abilities away instead of being skills that need to be well timed and are amazingly rewarding for doing so they have been somewhat reduced to 'point generators' rather than valuable tools that should be used wisely

There appears to be some debate about this now. Some players are suggesting using Aetherflow stacks for free heals as a form of mana management, which is a valid argument but in my opinion it's not when this deprives the party of, as you say, well timed skills.

yet I'm using them nearly all the time now so they don't feel as great or rewarding to use because ALL the time is the time to use them.

It can certainly feel that way with chain pulling tanks as some do not use defensive cds properly or if you're unlucky with poor dps making chain pull fights last very long. Depending on the circumstances I sometimes feel like sch runs out of options too quickly. However this doesn't happen to me as much in raid content as it's much more difficult to do those encounters in ways that were not originally intended, so in that environment sch to me feels more balanced and rewarding.

So my suggestions for when SE does eventually look over scholar again are:
Take the potency you took from eos and find a way to roll that in back into scholar's main healing tools to make the job less stressful and frantic to play, this could be done via a trait that increases physic potency for example.

I was at first very salty about the Embrace nerf, but I think I'd prefer a different fairy adjustment instead. I really want fairies to cast abilities when I tell them to, not after they finish whatever they're doing. That being said I still won't say no to a little buff to Embrace.

even adjust how the fey gauge gets built up say for example dabbling with eos/fairy skills adding to the fey gauge instead.

I think one of the biggest issues with Fey Union is that unless there's trash before the boss, you won't have it on the pull. Which basically means in any ex or savage content you're never going to have it on the pull. Although it's a pretty damn powerful spell so maybe this was intentional by SE. Maybe they want to avoid scenarios where players use Fey Union on the pull directly after Fey Wind so they can go full on dps instead of using it as a tool during periods where there is a heavy demand on healing.

Personally it seems that right now sch suffers mostly in 4-mans. The majority of sch dps are dots and mobs frequently die before they are finished ticking, spreading dots uses an Aetherflow stack and with chain pulling being so common there are scenarios where you need stacks so much more for a Lustrate/Excog than dps, the fairy is pretty clunky at times because after the running part of a chain pull you need to wait for it to position itself correctly before commanding it to use cds or risk half the party not being in range, and there are times (once again chain pulls highlighting the cons of sch) where I would love a Fey Union near the beginning of a dungeon but the gauge lacks enough charges from Aetherflow use to be actually beneficial.

Sch is still very much viable in raid content and it feels far more balanced there, but it's still in need of some tweaking. I really think Aldo could do with a small potency boost and Excog should have a mechanic in which upon expiring it casts a heal of some sort on the target. I have had scenarios in which the tank dropped to nearly below 50%...but not less than 50% so that was an Aetherflow stack that went to waste. And yes I even abstained from healing with the intent of making Exog pop but other factors like the other healer and the tank's own self healing still kept them above 50%. It's best used on a mechanic that you know for sure is going to bring the target to below 50%, like Charybidis (I probably spelled that wrong) on os1 savage.