SCH needs some nerfs

[Eloah]

I'd argue Scholar is the best healer for oh crap moments, raids or any content.

SCH was not horrible at the beginning of 4.0, the cries in this forum were mostly people who couldn't even play the job correctly.

SCHs aren't bad at Oh Crap moments per se, it's their kit isn't really designed for it and the moves they have for it are oGCD moves. The biggest thing is SCH has no spammable AoE. But as you said other moves can make up for that bringing them up to par.

As for the 4.0 SCH, I wont say it was unplayable, since I did play it, the issue was more getting rid of skills, potency needs, and no compansation with new skills or adjustment of old ones. Excog was broken, as was the fairy gauge. They nerfed our healing output without giving us anything in return; lily and our mp regeneration was nerfed which played into how we calculated things. The marginalized our shields making them pointless since ASTs were larger and had a lesser mp cost. And they practically made out AoE 0 because they nerfed the heck out of Bane and removed Miasma II, which prior to 4.0 wasnt a widely used skill but still, and some players use blizzard II for AoE as well. Basically they stripped SCHs identity and gave nothing in return. Yeah WHM lillies are meh, but WHM kept everything that was important.

Not to mention, we still have the lowest base heal of the 3 healers, and that's technically our only/main healing move; that's a spell mind you. The rest of our kit is about shielding. I mean I want more shields, call me shield ho if you will, lol, but a Physick II might be nice someday. Also, this is just a general observation, not a complaint.

I just hope for 5.0 we dont have a repeat

I also disagree with your premise that:

1. SCH shouldn't be healing in a raid setting - it has the best tools to deal with healing while not spending the precious commodity known as GCDs
2. Deployment Tactics needs fixing - it's one of the best mitigation tool in the game and enables so much LB cheese in the process; if anything I'd say it needs a nerf

I never said SCH shouldn't heal in raid, that was a comment stating what the OP said.

Also Deployment Tactics does need fixing. You are right it is a good mitigation tool, but only when Adlo crits, which is where all the OP talk comes from spreading a regular Adlo is not much better than a Succor or a Aspected Helios. It is better don't get me wrong, but for an ability that can only be used ever 2 minutes, and on SCH no less it should be, since that's SCH gimmick.

Also, keep this in mind, yes, compared to Aspected Helios, a Deployed Adlo is better, but AST also has a spammable AoE heal without a shield attached. And one could argue that besides Indom, SCH doesn't even have an AoE heal. Aside from when Energency Tactics is used Succor is to be viewed as an an AoE shield, not a heal.

How can we fix Deployment Tactics and not break it or make it OP, I'm not sure. But, it does need a tweak. I will say personally its relation to Eye for an Eye needs adjusting.

[Sunako]

Adlo crit is still not reliable, it is too much rng based. You can not calculate any mechanic based by your adlo crit. It not make sch overpowered. Sometimes it crit, most of time not. What make adlo/spread really powerful is that you can abuse singletarget tank buffs like defiance + conva and spread it for aoe.

[Grimoire-M]

If you wanna balance SCH remove Critlo so Noct Benefic and it can be properly tuned against one another (ideally nerfing Noct Benefic down rather than boosting Adlo up), move Fey Covenant to Selene (replacing Fey Caress). Nerf indom to 300 potency, add a 300 potency 2-minute CD AoE heal to Eos, then remove Rouse and take a proper look at how good Fey Union and Embrace are (Embrace has always felt too weak or too good depending on item level post-cap).

Those are fair abilities to have and hit a lot of SCH's strengths without wrecking it. Hell I'd be fine if Indom was weaker than a GCD AoE heal if it had a lower cooldown. Even a Lustrate level one. Aetherflow gates it as is.

[Eloah]

If you wanna balance SCH remove Critlo so Noct Benefic and it can be properly tuned against one another (ideally nerfing Noct Benefic down rather than boosting Adlo up), move Fey Covenant to Selene (replacing Fey Caress). Nerf indom to 300 potency, add a 300 potency 2-minute CD AoE heal to Eos, then remove Rouse and take a proper look at how good Fey Union and Embrace are (Embrace has always felt too weak or too good depending on item level post-cap).

Those are fair abilities to have and hit a lot of SCH's strengths without wrecking it. Hell I'd be fine if Indom was weaker than a GCD AoE heal if it had a lower cooldown. Even a Lustrate level one. Aetherflow gates it as is.

Wow, you uh... really wanna break us don't you.

[MoroMurasaki]

58k uploads between WHM and AST (27/30k) for Alphascape. 44k for SCH alone. This means of the 102k individual healer parses uploaded about 43% are for SCH.

About 30% are AST - a bit behind an ideal 33% split but not horrible.

On the other end of the spectrum we have WHM with about 27% of total healer parses for Alphascape. A quarter of the parses and yet there are only 3 healers.

It's clear where the missing numbers from AST and WHM are.

But please, SCH mains, keep telling me that this isn't abysmal healer balance and that you aren't clearly overpowered and overrepresented

The community has spoken - another expansion where WHM will end solidly in last place and SCH is so OP they'll nerf it going into 5.0. Don't worry though! With just a week or two of complaining they'll get buffed back to godhood and we can all lather, rinse, repeat.

[Grimoire-M]

Wow, you uh... really wanna break us don't you.

It's honestly warranted. You'd still play SCH over the other two healers even with those changes. Fey Covenant is good. Indom is -stupidly- good. Embrace and Fey Union have almost no cost and are always better than Regen/D.Benefic on a single target. Rouse only affects Embrace now so there's little reason to have it anymore when it and Fey Union cover similar ground (Fey's better when its applicable, obviously) unless you wanna see Whispering Dawn nerfs to justify returning it back to a spell. Critlo is something SE has to tune AST's shields around and both classes suffer for it. Deploy still has a benefit with the base Adlo shield. The only reason I added the AoE pet heal is because sometimes you do need that 500 potency Indom, but not as often as it feels like you do. Needing to Succor more isn't gonna kill SCH either. You even might have to use Emergency Tactics sometimes. Not a big loss overall.

[KDSilver]

Even if you removed Critlo today, it wouldn't make Noct.Ast better because of its lack of sustained heal.
CU could somehow mimic Whispering Dawn, but it's on a 90s CD.
Eathly Star is somehow a response to this as well as Indom, but it's on a 60s CD and need people to be inside of it (with a limited range).
If Noct.Ast mitigation was something else than Aspected benefic/helios, the bole and the lady being reliable card for sustained heal and mitigation, it would be a good step in the right direction.
But any change to Ast mean Diurnal will also get it, which hurts WHM.
Both sect should have their own effects

If anything, about your suggestion, I won't say it's bad, but not good either, I don't know how it would actually play and how efficient it would be.
At least, since they fixed mana cost and Aetherflow trait, you could safely return succor potency to 150/150, indom to 400 and Emergency tactics at 30s.
It wouldn't hurt too much.

[Seraphor]

"But any change to Ast mean Diurnal will also get it, which hurts WHM.
Both sect should have their own effects."

Not if its a change specifically to Noct Aspected shields or the sect as a trait.
Being able to stack the respective shields of Helios (effective 200 potency) and Benefic (500) just as their Diurnal regens stack would be a good start.

[Heilstos]

Even if you removed Critlo today, it wouldn't make Noct.Ast better because of its lack of sustained heal.
CU could somehow mimic Whispering Dawn, but it's on a 90s CD.
Eathly Star is somehow a response to this as well as Indom, but it's on a 60s CD and need people to be inside of it (with a limited range).
If Noct.Ast mitigation was something else than Aspected benefic/helios, the bole and the lady being reliable card for sustained heal and mitigation, it would be a good step in the right direction.
But any change to Ast mean Diurnal will also get it, which hurts WHM.
Both sect should have their own effects

If anything, about your suggestion, I won't say it's bad, but not good either, I don't know how it would actually play and how efficient it would be.
At least, since they fixed mana cost and Aetherflow trait, you could safely return succor potency to 150/150, indom to 400 and Emergency tactics at 30s.
It wouldn't hurt too much.

And here we are again with the problem of the Nocturnal astrologer, which has already been addressed by many players to patch 4.2. But nothing changed (till today).
The Nocturnal AST has the problem that two strong CDs in its stance do not work as they do in Diunal :



Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition are so strong in Diurnal, but it do not work with Noc. and the SCH has with luck a crit shild that played by mechanics.

I hope they adress the problem with Nocturnalfield and Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition. It does not bring anything to extend a shild to 50 sec. that breaks with 2 Autohits. Oo
And the Answer for that Problem is not to rise the multiplier. From 170% -> 250% [Noc. field (Aspected Benefic)] 120% -> 150% [Noc.field from Aspected Helios] (was the chances for Stormbloodstart).

Why do not extend Time Dilation or Celestial Opposition the Power from Noc. fields?

But like how looks the Idea for that?

I looked at the Redmage Talent "Embolden". A strong gain that wears off after a while. That represent the Idea from Time Dilation,"a process in which diverting a celestial body's otherwise straight flow of aether creates the illusion of slowed time, increasing the duration of beneficial magicks." (Jannequinard Quest "Feather in the Cap")

My idea is to transfer the principle of "Embolden" to nocturnal field.

We have 2. cases (single shilds and AoE) thats important.

Case I) Single shild from Aspected Benefic

The Noc. field have a duration from 30 secends. If we split the the 30 secends in 5 (principle of "Embolden") same long parts (thats 6 secs^^) and give it strong gain (like "Embolden") that is an multiplier.
So we have a protective shield, which subsides after a certain period of time.



And for AoE:

Case II) AoE Shild from Aspected Helios

Is the same case like One, but you can only use Celestial Opposition to reinforce the shild from Aspected Helios.

For AoE shilds we have only 3 steps and hold 10 secs.



It is important to me to say that Noc. field from Aspected Benefic can only reinforce by Time Dilation and Noc. field from Aspected Helios can only reinforce with Celestial Opposition. Otherwise would have no Idea witch multiplier we have there.That's why I built this restriction^^

I know it's just a simple concept. You probably have suggestions for improvement.

From: Scholar vs Astrologian Mitigation (07th March 2018) Link

*)Own remark: The post office is meanwhile so old that the used pictures unfortunately no longer exist and I made new one =).

And for the "lack of sustained heal" SE has an answer. If ONLY the Noc. Ast would get another version of:



Here the sense of strong healing was pronounced. Even if the healing of 40% -> 25% would be a good balance (Just a numbers gimmick and that is the task of the Dev team ^^) and would not argue with the WHM, by the way of playing GCDs to minimize healings.

It feels good to heal so in the pvp and why the Noc give it too. Thus, the AST can improve the healing of "Benefic" as well as "Benefic II" only for the burst Noc AST. If its important you can chance the skill name/Skill ID for Noc. Than we have it way of some WAR skills.



Lastly, it must be said that the SCH is in a very good position. For some players (I could hear that from the discussion) too good. Nevertheless, it can not be the solution to weaken the SCH for the Noc AST / WHM to be able to arm.
The problem is not the SCH. But as described above, the Noc AST need hardly love. Because the changes, which the sign got at the beginning of the addon were provided with the price of an AoE healing. Some would talk about the so-called wolf in sheep's clothing. Others would call it a good kind of balance.

[Seraphor]

Seems to me that it would be simpler to change Noct shields into 'shields-over-time'.
Instead of a flat 500 potency shield for Noct Benefic, it applies a 100 potency shield every 3 seconds, which stacks. Noct Helios: 50 potency shield.
This would serve as an autoattack damage sink thats far more mana efficient, in addition to providing a decent big hit shield when used in advance, and extending buffs will increase its effective potency in exactly the same manner as the HoTs.