It feels like SCH is slowly losing its identity

[Nerfworthy]

Hi all, I know there's a bunch of threads on the whole healer debacle right now, but I wanted to touch on something that is currently bothering me in regards to SCH specifically.

I've loved SCH for the identity of being a combat medic, someone who uses poisons in battle and also heals with the help of a fairy partner. Their Nymian lore and history is fascinating and I love Tonberries most of all. I can't help but feel like with no new class quests, and the stripping of a large portion of our dots and dps abilities in general, we are being robbed of some of our identity. Fairy abilities becoming player actions removes complexity that I enjoyed. This has nothing to do with "muh parse" but merely the "feelscraft" and identity of playing SCH as a main.

Going forward, are the healers going to feel more "samey"?

[GrimGale]

I love SCH because it was the more "manly" of the three healers. In Japanese games most healers are usualy oriented towards female characters so they make every animation as flashy, sparkly and pretty as possible. In this game, AST and WHM animations (Meaning poses and stances) are very feminine. SCH was the only one which had somewhat gender-neutral poses but even its Lore is more about Tactical support rather than pure healing. This approach immediately caught my attention and Scholar has become my favourite job.

In terms of actual gameplay, I feel the very few ubicuous SCH mechanics are being diluted with the removal of skills and general homogenisation. More over, an additional problem I've noticed is how AST and WHM sets seem to have an inherent build up, either being Blood Lillies or Divination and seals. SCH lacks this feel of "build up". I was hopping Seraph would have taken the place of this ultimate ability that represents the satisfying result of our Fairy Gauge finally hitting 100, but it turns out its just another boring CD.

So they did homogenize skills but didn't homogenize the satisfaction a kit based around building up resource brings.

[Nerfworthy]

So they did homogenize skills but didn't homogenize the satisfaction a kit based around building up resource brings.

We had a build up before where we had to actually make a decision to use an oGCD heal or use Energy Drain instead to use up our Aetherflow stacks. This was important as the CD on Aetherflow was reduced with each ability used. Now that is no longer a choice, and I can't help but wonder what we will do with the stacks when no one needs healing? ... Sit on stacks? Overheal? None of that feels good.

[Kuurei]

We had a build up before where we had to actually make a decision to use an oGCD heal or use Energy Drain instead to use up our Aetherflow stacks. This was important as the CD on Aetherflow was reduced with each ability used. Now that is no longer a choice, and I can't help but wonder what we will do with the stacks when no one needs healing? ... Sit on stacks? Overheal? None of that feels good.

Have a feeling we'll be healing a lot more in ShB than previous expansions. And as with all combat changes, they have a propensity to indirectly affect previous content too.

[Haxaan]

You are not alone OP, they have essentially taken the "special" qualities (or lack there of in the case of WHM) and stripped them down to make all the healers feel the same. They have taken the unique play style the cards offered for AST and completely taken away the Time Magic aspect we once had which really helped to make AST feel special. Instead of offering WHM utility and bringing it up to the other two healers in respect of unique abilities, they have essentially brought the other two healers down to where WHM is at and made them all very similar with different animations. I understand balancing things out, but they went in a VERY different direction than many of us thought they would, and it is yet to be seen if it is for the better or not.

[Nerfworthy]

You are not alone OP, they have essentially taken the "special" qualities (or lack there of in the case of WHM) and stripped them down to make all the healers feel the same. They have taken the unique play style the cards offered for AST and completely taken away the Time Magic aspect we once had which really helped to make AST feel special. Instead of offering WHM utility and bringing it up to the other two healers in respect of unique abilities, they have essentially brought the other two healers down to where WHM is at and made them all very similar with different animations. I understand balancing things out, but they went in a VERY different direction than many of us thought they would, and it is yet to be seen if it is for the better or not.

While I do have AST at 70 I've never played it at a serious level, and it saddens me to learn it is receiving similar treatment to SCH. I was one of the many who was hoping for DNC to be the new 4th healer. It is disappointing that their idea of balancing the existing healers is to homogenize them, and even more disappointing that this apparently is the reason we do not get a new healing job in 5.0.

[Sanctify]

Fairy abilities becoming player actions removes complexity that I enjoyed.

Does this mean the accursed days of having a mandatory pet cross hotbar on controller is over? If so, that's amazing and a massive boon.

[Jonnycbad]

I liked that Scholar was sort of a science healer as opposed to a mystical white Mage or astralogian. But now that they're doubling down on the fairy instead of the tactical and science aspect, it's losing some identity. I wish the fairy was nixed and Scholar became closer to its XI counterpart. More strategem skills to enhance and deploy our spells, reduce and mitigate damage, and heal and buff allies. Maybe one day, just how MCH became less of a gunner and more of a machinist, Scholar too will be less of a fairy Mage and more of a science mage.

[Haxaan]

While I do have AST at 70 I've never played it at a serious level, and it saddens me to learn it is receiving similar treatment to SCH. I was one of the many who was hoping for DNC to be the new 4th healer. It is disappointing that their idea of balancing the existing healers is to homogenize them, and even more disappointing that this apparently is the reason we do not get a new healing job in 5.0.

I was also on the DNC Healer Hype Train, but I understand why they made it a Ranged DPS. I 100% agree with you about the homogenization though. I definitely feel that there were other ways to bring the healers in line with eachother, and I understand that certain abilities need to be trimmed to make room for others, but to completely take away a core identity or utility from a job instead of adding more utility to another job is really disheartening. We'll see how it goes, I really hope AST gets it's Time Magic abilities back and REALLY hope they give WHM some sort of Utility so they can stop taking things away from SCH and AST.

[LegoTechnic]

Does this mean the accursed days of having a mandatory pet cross hotbar on controller is over? If so, that's amazing and a massive boon.

This statement confuses me. You have never been required to have a pet crossbar specifically, and could freely link pet abilities to your standard crossbar when you wanted them. If you were concerned about space, all you had to do was write Summon macros that replaced the same spots with the summoned fairy's abilities so that when you summoned Eos her abilities would be on bar, and when you summoned Selene hers would take their places.

If you did this, like most SCH who used a controller, then you'll see absolutely no crossbar differences from fairy actions becoming player abilities in Shadowbringers, with one annoying exception. Since they're now player abilities they're treated like Fey Union (the tether cast), meaning the player has to cast them with an animation trigger. This means you can't cast Whispering Dawn while in the middle of casting Broil like we previously could.