GIVE SCHOLAR BANE AND FIX ART OF WAR MP AND WE'LL BE FINE

[Eloah]

I would really like to know where you are seeing people clamoring for a separation of SMN/SCH? Who exactly? Because everyone I know loves that connection.

A seperation has been talked about on the forums. But it's mostly because SE stated when HW was being released, that balancing the skills was a bit tricky. But when SB released that issue was seemingly resolved. But with the ShB release it looks like they are separating them... but aren't, we wont know until the release.

[Eloah]

This this this, where is my scourge of nym spell etc I want fun spells which match our lore.

YES!!! Someone understands me.

Also, please, please, make the level 80 quest be a wedding. I wont say for who, but SCH mains know, lol.

[Kurando]

I would really like to know where you are seeing people clamoring for a separation of SMN/SCH? Who exactly? Because everyone I know loves that connection.

There plenty of posts/threads on the forums asking for more separability between the jobs, I didn't just create this theory out of thin air. A number of balance issues stem from the jobs being linked, of course with each expac this slowly gets addressed but think how easier it would be if they were seperate to begin with.

Alls SE needs to do is give SCH copies of the base spells but with different names, done, we can all be happy.

This is what I'm saying, I'd be fine with this. Perhaps amend the effects slightly to better represent SCH but I wouldn't want things returned and nothing done with them when there could be something unique you know.

[Starflake]

Like what, are you going to Bane your one dot? I also don't understand why people are saying they want Energy Drain back, it would be the most useless spender out of all the healing tools we have available now. It has 50 potency less than Ruin II, so using it for movement is just not a clever move. With how broken the Soil is, you can put 2 of them down in a minute providing tanks and or the party with a 10% mitigation buff. I think it's like half a minute total. On top of that, 500 potency heal per Soil. That's 2 spenders per minute. Then you can either Indom, Excog or Lustrate. Keep in mind you can "Life Surge" two of these. It's just a stupid idea with the current set up to give Energy Drain back as it would be an almost completely useless skill.

That being said, I'm not quite sure what the purpose of Dissipate is then. Surely we won't have all the stacks on heal spenders to then refresh three stacks to spend them on healing spenders again. That's the only argument you can make for Energy Drain.
I would much rather they give us Heavensward's Shadow Flare back (and let it be independend from Soil). Or give us Miasma II on a 30 second to 1 min CD that of an OCGD aoe with drawbacks. Make it around 250 potency total. Just do something to make SCH at least a little bit interesting whe DPSing.

[Knoahl]

This is what I'm saying, I'd be fine with this. Perhaps amend the effects slightly to better represent SCH but I wouldn't want things returned and nothing done with them when there could be something unique you know.

Of all the spells we kept as well it was ruin 2 lol

I hope one day we get spells with properties similliar to virus and shadowflare etc, which mitigated the damage of big pulls in dungeons/bosses as of SB we have lost a lot of our mitigation tools. Seems to be more of a tank responsibility now. It's why I'm considering moving to tank, as most mitigation on party members/off healing seems to have gone to them while they dps which is odd. Or at least from a quick look it does.

[dezzmont]

A seperation has been talked about on the forums. But it's mostly because SE stated when HW was being released, that balancing the skills was a bit tricky. But when SB released that issue was seemingly resolved. But with the ShB release it looks like they are separating them... but aren't, we wont know until the release.

Considering Scholar was a downright oppressively dominant healer it was not resolved.

A big reason for this was the extra DPS coming from shadowflare and energy drain, but also the fact that Eos is basically a better regen for single target damage, the fact SCH has a lot of oGCD tools to avoid healing and to provide utility, has more damage in DOTS making it more mobile, and had around 2k extra potency per minute over the WHM, which has less utility and mobility.

Energy drain is a long term balance problem because it combined with aetherflow makes it impossible for SCH to ever have mana issues, which is problematic because with its insanely strong manaless healing, raid utility makes it a total beast. And it isn't like they really need mana restore; even without aetherflow, energy drain, or lucid a scholar can aoe heal 33 times or single target heal 22 times before ever having to pause even for a second to get mana.

The class was overtuned. This isn't really debatable. It needed to lose potency because a class with that much utility shouldn't also top potency. It needed to lose mana efficiency because mana... isn't a mechanic for scholars right now at all. It needed to lose the ability to use Eos as a superior tank regen. These things... needed to happen, because you can't realistically buff other healers to compete with scholar if it is just so good at everything that being better at one thing doesn't matter because scholar does it 'well enough' AND does everything else.

It is weird and not cool that the DPS rotation is getting simpler, though the fact they are reworking mana means that maybe aetherflow being used as an offensive tool (even if their overall potency was lowered and it didn't restore mana) would be a trap, as SCHs would be depending on it more for healing. Their thematics were also obviously hurt, and it is really incoherent they don't have an AOE DOT.

But lets not pretend that SCH was fine and should have gone into ShB as it was. I can't think of a more 'bad guy' job in terms of crowding out other jobs than SCH, besides perhaps WAR. A lot of things about SCH from SB were clearly oppressive.

[Knoahl]

The class was overtuned. This isn't really debatable.

This is why we need public test servers, so we can give feedback and help them balance the game. Even if it was select people I suppose.

[dezzmont]

This is why we need public test servers, so we can give feedback and help them balance the game. Even if it was select people I suppose.

PTRs don't work great for MMO design. I will say it would be ideal if they had a more nimble patch philosophy of course. MMOs work better with aggressive balance patching rather than a PTR due to how their meta works and how there is a very loved culture of 'server first clears' that makes a PTR intensely undesirable. When exploring the content, mechanics, and challenges of the expansion are the main draw, PTRs really hurt the longevity of an MMO. The last thing you want is for people to clear endgame content multiple times before the expansion is even out!

I do think there are issues with how healing was done, but it just downright bugs me how many scholar players utterly do not realize that they are sorta the bad guys here. Like there is a difference between 'my rotation is simpler now and I would like to have a more complex rotation and more focus on offensive skills even if I am going to have lower DPS than WHM because its clear my job shouldn't be the top DPS healer due to its extreme utility,' which is a totally reasonable take, and "I want energy drain and shadowflare back" without thinking how badly these skills sorta mess up the entire dynamic of scholar as the tricky toolbox healer by forcing their DPS too high.

Like either Energy drain would need to have so little damage that it would not be worth it compared to using aetherflow to heal and avoid going off DPS spells, or DPS spells would need a potency nerf to make energy drain mandatory in the rotation over aetherflow healing, which is obviously not desirable a design at all when they are trying to make healing more of a focus for the healing jobs (which MANY people constantly state they want).

To me, the fact the job is a bit too simple for people's tastes is a fine criticism (though if content requires more reactive 'tactical' healing, which would probably be a good thing compared to the current meta of 'don't heal or heal a LOT as fast as you can to pass a heal check' then that may be a bit too hectic unless you go 'cat heal druid' ala that one wow patch and let a healer class heal via offensive skills to an assist target) but the statement of 'Why did you take energy drain, give it back' is somewhat... irritating. It is VERY clear why SCH lost energy drain, it was a skill that boosted the SCH's pDPS really way too high, made the primary resource of a healer irrelevant, and stopped SCHs from looking at their primary heal resource as a heal resource. Even if you don't agree that SCHs should have lost all oGCD weaving aspects (To be clear I would love it if their DOT was an OGCD with a 10 second CD and duration so OGCD weaving was still an aspect of the job without pushing their DPS to a weird place), it is really obvious Energy Drain at the very least needed to be reworked significantly and can't just be slapped back onto the job.

[Kvasir]

yeah it's one dot but it lasts for 30 seconds which is pretty good. plus bane (for smn) is free now without needing an aetherflow. It's super easy to add and it'll help aoe alot.

[Knoahl]

I do think there are issues with how healing was done, but it just downright bugs me how many scholar players utterly do not realize that they are sorta the bad guys here.

SCH, has always been broken yes, it wasn't really a large issue until Astro came into the picture and it became more obvious overtime, WHM was never the "dps healer" due to accuracy requirements not really working well with how its damage works, yet now its been pushed that way its interesting how much things have changed.

TBH my personal complaint is I just want the jobs to be the ones I loved in all the other FFs I've played as a fan of the series, but I honestly think I'm expecting the wrong thing from this game after Stormblood when cross class was removed. Aesthetically we have FF, just not really mechanically I feel. maybe I'm wrong to say that.

I do agree with your points about SCH and how strong it was though, I just wish the other healers were brought up to it, that they all met the middle ground instead of them all sinking to the floor.

Beta tests are what got ARR to where it was though, so I can't agree that PTRs do not work, spoiling the story/raids is not what we need, just an environment to test the jobs, see how they work and give feedback. Not nescessarily the content.