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

[Kvasir]

Because this as close to balance, damage wise, as we've ever been. AST is raid utility heavy, WHM is personal damage heavy and SCH is is in-between. Asking for Bane, Energy Drain and Miasma II back is asking for the old problems to return. At most they should get Miasma II back so they have an aoe dot. But spreading their 60 potency, 30 second dot? No that's horrible.

absolutely ridiculous. You think that's balance? you already have lily aoe 900 potency damage plus holy that's basically free since you never run out of mana, yet scholars have 1 single aoe ability that costs more than holy while not having unlimited mana like whitemages. Scholars in dungeons will end up being absolute trash if the last build we saw doesn't receive any adjustments. whitemages are absolutely god tier for dungeons even WITH bane/shadowflare/miasma2/energy drain existing for scholar, whitemages aoe is just unmatched. Bane wont really be TOO relevant for raids anyway since mostly raids are against a single boss so it's not like scholars are suddenly going to make whitemages cry and make them feel underpowered because of bane. plus dont forget that bane has damage falloff. you're making it seem way too overpowered when it's really not LOL.

[Inkpot]

Like I WANT to feel bad for scholars who legitimately lost some job identity in terms of mechanics but the reaction of SCHs makes it really hard to not go celebrate with all the WHMs that SCH is now finally behind them in hypothetical potency over time.



I main Culinarian~

What do WHM have to celebrate? They are losing a DoT and gaining nothing. WHM will still not be meta because they STILL do not have rDPS. Despite the brutal cuts, classes like DNC and NIN will still make rDPS the most valuable tool in a Job’s kit.

SCH is not the hotshot kingpin you’re trying to make it out to be. It is in for explicitly one reason- Chain Stratagem.

AST does better damage, contributes far more utility, is infinitely more flexible, is super mobile, has better regen, and has the single best buff in the game bar NONE. WHM was certainly a neglected class in that both SCH and AST were fun, strong, and flexible. WHM was the prog healer, with FAR better healing than AST or SCH.

I cannot stress enough how SE has not changed up meta with these changes, and even if they make changes in the near future that do, they do not warrant taking away SCH’s kit. If you want to nerf SCH’s potencies into the ground, fine, but at least let me have fun doing less damage.

[Semirhage]

SCH is not the hotshot kingpin you’re trying to make it out to be. It is in for explicitly one reason- Chain Stratagem.

No. Chain Strategem is one of the laundry list of reasons why Scholar is overpowered, but it's by no means the reason. Square tried to nerf it last expansion and it didn't really work, both because they lost a bit too much and because Scholar is so unbelievably OP that being slightly underpowered feels like the end of the universe. It's been a locked slot meta-warping job basically since it was released. Square has a hard time nerfing it out of that spot because its design is the problem, not its potencies. While yes, Scholar is probably the most fluid, best designed of the three healers, it's a double-edged sword. Cut its numbers too much and it's way too hard to play with no tangible benefit. Don't cut them and it's a locked slot, way-too-good-not-to-take job.

Like Dezzmont said. It has no real weaknesses. Great damage, strong numerous off-GCDs, a fairy that contributes a heck of a lot to efficiency, HoTs, defensive and offensive utility, and group shields when the need arises. It does everything, and competently to boot. There's a reason it's been the number one best in slot healer for progression, speed killing, and every other meta in between for all three expansions. Because its kit is tailor-made for the way this game's combat system works. Encounters favor exactly the way SCH's kit works, and avoid touching its vanishingly few weaknesses unless there's major deviation from normal design.

You can't really fix that with potency tweaks. You need to either redesign WHM and AST to play like Scholar, or delete the fairy in it's current incarnation to get rid of the power imbalance.

But who am I kidding, Scholar mains are going to scream and kick and raise Cain until they go from boring but overpowered to just straight overpowered, meta-hogging powerhouses like they've always been by 5.1.

[Inkpot]

But who am I kidding, Scholar mains are going to scream and kick and raise Cain until they go from boring but overpowered to just straight overpowered, meta-hogging powerhouses like they\\'ve always been by 5.1.

I think we can both agree that SCH is very good and meta-centric, and deserves nerfs, but everything SCH does, AST does +1. AST’s shields are stronger, AST does more damage, AST has more utility, AST has more mobility, AST can mesh well with any other healer (unlike infamously frustrating SCH/SCH setups) and AST has more raid DPS. SCH is inferior in every way.

Your comment that SCH is designed for this game is excellent, and how shocking that a healer in a game is designed to perform well in that game. AST with its cast time changes allowing for nonstop weaving is every bit as fun, engaging, and overpowered- that comment you said yourself should highlight not only how poorly designed WHM was for its own game but also how poorly designed these coming changes are that try to make everything into WHM. And on top if this, how taking away SCH’s dots and dps tools changes nothing about the class’ superiority.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

I'd also appreciate it if you could keep your WHM problems out of SCH threads. This isn't about White Mage.

I only bring up WHM because the most likely reasoning for this massive shift in aoe damage is because they wanted to solidify WHM as the no utility high damage job.
Now I do think they went too far, but the solution isn't to just give then everything back. Remember what happened in 4.0? SCHs complained about low aoe damage, and suddenly they were doing more aoe and single target than WHM. I don't think we need a repeat of that.

Thinking more on it, Bane will probably be fine, but I don't think they should get back Shadow Flare and Miasma II as well.

[Semirhage]

I think we can both agree that SCH is very good and meta-centric, and deserves nerfs, but everything SCH does, AST does +1. AST’s shields are stronger, AST does more damage, AST has more utility, AST has more mobility, AST can mesh well with any other healer (unlike infamously frustrating SCH/SCH setups) and AST has more raid DPS. SCH is inferior in every way.

Your comment that SCH is designed for this game is excellent, and how shocking that a healer in a game is designed to perform well in that game. AST with its cast time changes allowing for nonstop weaving is every bit as fun, engaging, and overpowered- that comment you said yourself should highlight not only how poorly designed WHM was for its own game but also how poorly designed these coming changes are that try to make everything into WHM. And on top if this, how taking away SCH’s dots and dps tools changes nothing about the class’ superiority.

I'm not disagreeing with your central point. I'm explaining why Scholar is overpowered, and why Square has failed to nerf them in a satisfying way every time they've tried. These changes aren't going to accomplish their stated aim. The only point where I disagree is the particulars of the pecking order. Scholar dominates and defines the meta, and always has. The fairy's contribution to efficiency for both healers is way more broken than AST's cards.

[dezzmont]

I'd also appreciate it if you could keep your WHM problems out of SCH threads. This isn't about White Mage.

Hard pass on that fam. SCH changes exist purely in the context where they out preform other roles in ways that are difficult to balance outside of making SCH worse at DPS to compensate for their utility and the nature of their healing kit. A thread about the desire to add back in DPS skills to SCH needs to address they were removed specifically so that ShB could push WHM as the DPS healer.

There is definitely room for SCH to have a more complex rotation without going back into SB Scholar DPS+utility king, which is unarguably an unhealthy place for SCH to sit, but lets not pretend this is not a win for WHMs on some level now that they absolutely have the highest potency output of healers both due to SCH losing DPS tools and them obtaining Dia and Afflatus (it is absolutely not an accident that SCHs no longer can decide to DPS with their healer job gauge while WHMs now can). There are ways to make this win not come at the cost of a single button rotation (Again, a really easy way to do that would be to make the DOT an oGCD with a 10 second cooldown and duration so that SCHs still contain offensive weaving), but SCH getting hit really hard in DPS was... objectively a good thing for the game and for other healers? Like you can either nerf SCHs to have lower DPS so their focus is on their utility, or you can apply really wacky buffs to other healers that make them more omnipotent like scholar. Contrary to what people think overbuffing tends to create more homologous game states than nerfing specific aspects of specific kits doing things you don't want them to do. With the nerf you get really clear differences between the healers (DPS WHM who loses a lot of DPS to movement or healing windows, offensive utility Astro with a lot of anticipation moves that make up for poor mana efficiency, and SCH with a lot of strong moves to instantly pop off and apply defensive utility while not losing much at all to movement) whereas buffing WHM to have raid utility and DPS to match scholar even while they are moving makes everything... samey...

Now not only does WHM have a better claim on a healer slot (Because they can DPS faster) but WHM+Astro is a realistic comp as opposed to SCH being mandatory and AST close behind. You can't talk about major balance changes without the context of the balance they are seeking to obtain, and part of why SCH players crying en-mass about losing mechanical power (as opposed to losing fun aspects of the rotation, which I can 100% get behind) is so offensive is because of how absolutely deserved SCH nerfs are.

Like for real a lot of these threads have made me go "It is really bad these healer changes are happening because I want the healers who support me to be happy even if I don't enjoy how FFXIV handled healer" to "Wow SCHs are kinda crybabies huh?" There are definitely valid criticisms of the changes, don't get me wrong, but so many people are acting like it is entirely unwarranted for SCH to be worse than another healer at basically any aspect of the game, and to some extent one can lay the fact we didn't get another healer at the fact no SCH change has ever stuck because people freak out any time its brought to be in line with other healers. That clearly isn't the main reason, but if I were designing FFXIV I would seriously struggle to come up with a 4th healer with SCH absolutely HAVING to have a DPS rotation, instant cast mitigation utility, on demand mobile healing, a powerful pseudo-regen, and raid utility. Like what else would I make the hypothetical 4th healer do in a way that makes you want to play em over SCH without basically invalidating AST or WHM?

I think it is pretty agreed by everyone that the SCH changes are not ideal. So definitely they should be improved. But threads demanding revisions without understanding why, or even deliberately demanding that we ignore why by refusing to recognize other healer jobs exist, A change needed to happen are not endearing.

[EaMett]

snip

If I'm not mistaken the single target "dummy" dps delta between sch and whm isn't that noticeable. I think it's roughly where it currently is. Something like 1 maybe 2 gcds ahead per minute. Thing is whm is going to lose those gcds to sch healing kit so I don't think much has been accomplished in this department. Especially if they up healing requirements. And this is only pDPS, not accounting for CS

I'm sure someone can step in and do the math again to confirm this (or not). But I wouldn't get my hopes up that WHM is the dps healer just yet (dungeons and multi-target are another matter, and whm is clearly ahead then).

[dezzmont]

Currently WHM outputs about 6858 potency a second, using Aero 2 and 3, but not Aero 1 which is a DPS loss, including casts of stone lost to applying DOTs, in a hypothetically perfect situation.

The SCH does 5750 potency a second, not using Miasma 2 normally due to it being a DPS loss just cast normally.

However we know SCH has a final DPS output that is higher than WHM due to mobility and lesser need to use GCDs, the fact SCH can weave better (Which does not come through with this napkin healer math at all, having oGCD and instant GCD attacks is more DPS than it appears on paper). 2k above WHM in fact! The ability to trade 150 potency for a big heal has a lot of value compared to trading 250 potency.

Evaluating the new WHM we see it gains, single target, to replace aero 3 that has significantly higher (single target) potency per-cast than Aero 3. 370 vs 720 in fact, AND you lose fewer casts of Stone to Dia! SCH meanwhile LOST potency from its DOTs (600 total Potency vs the old 620, though now you get an extra broil cast just like how WHM gets another stone cast per minute.

EDIT: I made a mistake here, Lillies do not enable an oGCD healing skill, meaning that Aetherflow still maintains a big advantage in allowing oGCD heals.

Furthermore, every 90 seconds you toss out a 900 potency attack, which comes out to an extra 600 potency a minute for the WHM, while SCHs in addition to losing DOT potency lost their oGCD attacks. So now oGCD offensive casts are a WHM thing, not a SCH thing.
But the biggest change to WHM DPS is probably the fact it is going to be more mobile and better able to weave heals than it used to be. Lillies are entirely different, and give an extra 2 oGCDs to WHM to reduce its dependency on GCDs, going from 6.5 on demand serious oGCD heals (counting Plenary Indulgence as half an oGCD heal because it depends on GCD heals) to 8.5. This means the WHM will be trading Stones (Now glares) for healing less frequently, in addition to the fact the potency gap got bigger between SCH and WHM, which was the main reason why SCH had more DPS than WHM. Now the WHM has MORE oGCD healing than SCH, which was a big thing pushing SCH's DPS numbers, AND its 'platonic' DPS is higher. It is hard to see WHM not becoming the clear pDPS frontrunner of healers for single target. While Dia is a SIGNIFICANT damage upgrade to Aero 3 the fact Lillies are a pseudo Aetherflow rather than a weird recast time reduction that depends on a GCD heal is going to probably push damage even more than doubling the potency of a DoT and increasing the base attack potency by a solid 50, which are both... absolutely huge changes in of themselves.


As for AOE... well... yes they lost Aero 3, but Holy Moly I think we all know why WHM is going to stay the king of AOE healer damage (sometimes even passing some DPS roles to boot in Stormblood!) in Shadowbringers...

[EaMett]

I'm going to assume you mean per minute and not per second. Also, it was my understanding that Afflatus skills were on the GCD and not off it? Not to mention that misery incurs a dps loss before you can profit from it.

I'll do the math again eventually just don't have time for it right now.