Scholar notes from E3 build - Titania Fight

[Elgeron]

It was brought in line with whm and ast

I hear this constantly. What does it mean? The only meaning I get is, they are more of the same. You will say "no, they are more balanced", but thing is; they aren't. WHM still has no utility. The one damn thing they wanted to stay competitive, they didn't got it. Actually, I think it may be even worst. AST and SCH are not worse. They have the same DPS. Infact, isn't AST better as know it can reliably give damage buffs even if they had been nerfed? From "maybe if you play your cards right, you get spread balance" to "now you will always get balance, and more constantly spread balance". AST will still dominate the healing field just because of that. And SCH? Just because they still have "Chain Stratagem" they are in over WHM. And if what people are saying is true, they will have even better healing. They aren't balanced at all. We are not worrying about how good they are in fact, we complain about how boring they have become.

It's a healer now more then ever, you'll still be able to dps, you just won't be using a healing oriented resource to achieve it

And what was the problem with that? Why can't we have a unique mechanic like that? Hell, is not even so far as losing DPS, but ED? You can take off the damage off of it and still would be good to recover MP and dump Aetherflow. Now it will feel awkward as hell. If there is something that feel bad when playing, is wasting resources, SPECIALLY if you are a Healer. And now our class doesn't have a way not to do so.

Sometimes you gotta take an axe to a tree to make a house. There will be elements of old sch I will miss. But the core elements are still there and I'm going to keep being optimistic.

But even our fairies have been made even more simple. It may or may not be better mechanically, but the fairy aspect is little by little losing importance, they are hardly pets anymore. And in 2.0 we had tons of DoTs, yet somehow now they aren't a core part of Scholar. Hell, in old FFs, Scholar was a RDM without melee capabilities and good at seeing enemies weaknesses, which then it means losing DPS actually goes against SCH classic identity. This wasn't cutting down a tree to build a house, they cut down the pillars of our house because it "wasn't right."

[Brandedblade]

What they\\'re clearly trying to do with whm is give it the pure output niche. Hence why they gave them Misery and higher overall potencies. Unfortunately as an mmo they\\'re not always gonna get it to stick right the first time. In fact, their edge in mp sustain might, as a few people suggest, be another way to allow them to have a potency edge over the other two healers by allowing them to be less piety reliant, and thus be able to stack more crit and det.

Ast being able to more reliably buff group dps also means it\\'s easier to adjust their numbers should they once more prove to utterly replace whm with their raid utility. Having the factor of rng being as erratic makes it harder to parse their raid contribution. Let\\'s not pretend most of the ast gameplay loop wasnt fishing for balance and settling for Spear or arrow if we couldn\\'t get said balance.

While Chain is still a dps gain, its value is diminished now that brd doesn\\'t rely on crit procs and monk has a higher rate of proccing their crit proc.

ED is a tricky beast. Its value as a stack dump and resource manager is very good and I wont pretend it doesn\\'t hurt to see it go. But. It increases the value of Sacred Soil. Having higher uptime on group damage reduction (and soon to be a free hot on top of that.) may not yield the same returns as free damage and mp, but its still something of value that helps you deal more damage and spend less mp.

Juggling 5000 dots isnt what makes scholar a scholar, it\\'s the shields, the damage mitigation, the pet, the cooldowns. Bringing up how sch functioned in older ff games is irrelevant seeing how red mages dont juggle debuffs and refresh in this game or that dark knight isnt a dps that cuts itself to deal aoe damage to its foes.

[Lannybaby]

I guess this is what happens when there are only 4 (or 5) people in charge of the entire game's battle system.

[Elgeron]

What they\\'re clearly trying to do with whm is give it the pure output niche. Hence why they gave them Misery and higher overall potencies. Unfortunately as an mmo they\\'re not always gonna get it to stick right the first time. In fact, their edge in mp sustain might, as a few people suggest, be another way to allow them to have a potency edge over the other two healers by allowing them to be less piety reliant, and thus be able to stack more crit and det.

Well, let's hope they have the numbers of a DPS class, because so far classes with strong personal DPS have struggled to find parties constantly. SAM mains can tell you about it. Even as buffed as the BLMs are, they aren't still meta. Also how does this help with the "healer should heal" mentality they were going about? Stronger heals means less healing, less healing means more downtime, less lilies and so on.

Ast being able to more reliably buff group dps also means it\\'s easier to adjust their numbers should they once more prove to utterly replace whm with their raid utility. Having the factor of rng being as erratic makes it harder to parse their raid contribution. Let\\'s not pretend most of the ast gameplay loop wasnt fishing for balance and settling for Spear or arrow if we couldn\\'t get said balance.

And still, how much does their utility must be nerfed for them to be replaced by WHM? 1% utility is still more than 0. Hell, SMN utility is nothing to write home about and is still more seek after than BLM, and had to be nerfed multiple times. Nerf healing and potency? Good luck not making AST useless then. Also two issues with the statements about the cards:

-Why literally trash the whole system when they could have done other things to nerf it? Take out Royal Road, nerf the Balance, buff the other cards. Now everything is balance with 1 out of 3 seals.

-Why do you think fishing for balance or Spear was boring? The system was build upon RNG and using the best with what you got. It rewarded quick thinking and decision making based on your party composition. It needed fixing, sure, but the base was good, mechanically many people like it. New system will be stronger, sure, but I doubt it will offer too much engaging gameplay.

While Chain is still a dps gain, its value is diminished now that brd doesn\\'t rely on crit procs and monk has a higher rate of proccing their crit proc.

Still better than 0

Juggling 5000 dots isnt what makes scholar a scholar, it\\'s the shields, the damage mitigation, the pet, the cooldowns. Bringing up how sch functioned in older ff games is irrelevant seeing how red mages dont juggle debuffs and refresh in this game or that dark knight isnt a dps that cuts itself to deal aoe damage to its foes.

No, you are arbitrarily choosing what or what not constituted part of its identity. The truth is that the DoTs where part of our kit since the start of the game. And how is not valid to bring the old representation when speaking of identity? everyone seem to quick to bring the "identity" argument up, yet lack real reasons to back their argument. Also RDM was always a mage that had White and Black spells, debuffs and refresh is something from FF XI. And the "FF XIV works with a trinity system, so classes should be changed to fit", yet here we have Dancer, which has all of the buffs while being a DPS. Who literally has skill focused on not dpsing to buff, which I didn't think SE will be brave enough to implement. SCH identity wasn't the same as FF3, but don't act as it hasn't be part of our kit forever, otherwise we wouldn't be so frustrated.

Also, all of it. All of what you have just said still doesn't address the main issue. How any of it means that they healers are more mechanically engaging and fun?

[Brandedblade]

Well, let's hope they have the numbers of a DPS class, because so far classes with strong personal DPS have struggled to find parties constantly. SAM mains can tell you about it. Even as buffed as the BLMs are, they aren't still meta. Also how does this help with the "healer should heal" mentality they were going about? Stronger heals means less healing, less healing means more downtime, less lilies and so on.

They still have access to party-wide mitigation and their Asylum is now an alternative to having a Monk's Mantra, that sounds like a form of utility to me. Either way they now an edge over the other two healers in their raw dps. As long as they can work it out to where the additional damage is equivalent or greater then the pdps+rdps of the other two healers then it will technically be balanced.

Also two issues with the statements about the cards:
-Why literally trash the whole system when they could have done other things to nerf it? Take out Royal Road, nerf the Balance, buff the other cards. Now everything is balance with 1 out of 3 seals.-
-Why do you think fishing for balance or Spear was boring? The system was build upon RNG and using the best with what you got. It rewarded quick thinking and decision making based on your party composition. It needed fixing, sure, but the base was good, mechanically many people like it. New system will be stronger, sure, but I doubt it will offer too much engaging gameplay.

I never said it was boring. I said that they made the system more consistent so that it's easier to balance. They changed the rng mechanic from the effect of the card, to the seals you generate. And then they reworked the tools you got to further skew the system into your favor. Instead of holding your cards til you get the best set up now you'll be constantly using the cards and constantly providing smaller bursts of damage increases with one moderate payoff every few minutes.

[Brandedblade]

No, you are arbitrarily choosing what or what not constituted part of its identity. The truth is that the DoTs where part of our kit since the start of the game. And how is not valid to bring the old representation when speaking of identity? everyone seem to quick to bring the "identity" argument up, yet lack real reasons to back their argument. Also RDM was always a mage that had White and Black spells, debuffs and refresh is something from FF XI. And the "FF XIV works with a trinity system, so classes should be changed to fit", yet here we have Dancer, which has all of the buffs while being a DPS. Who literally has skill focused on not dpsing to buff, which I didn't think SE will be brave enough to implement. SCH identity wasn't the same as FF3, but don't act as it hasn't be part of our kit forever, otherwise we wouldn't be so frustrated.

Also, all of it. All of what you have just said still doesn't address the main issue. How any of it means that they healers are more mechanically engaging and fun?

Red Mage also tended to be able to wear heavier armor and shields and Dancer almost always dealt in debuffs as opposed to buffs. So any point about identity of a job in this game compared to other ff games is a shaky, if not pointless, angle to go about.

The dots where a part of our kit as a result of us being an off-branch of a dps base class. Which whether or not we like it is something SE has seemed quite eager to change.

Remember the Bane nerf? That was scholar being punished for a tool that was somewhat reasonable for their dps output but made the smn the king of aoe dps in HW. This is the fundamental issue with SCH being tied to ACN. It had to be factored into any balance issue tied to SMN. Any change necessary to bring one or the other in line would inevitably cause an effect on the other.

So now SHB is severing SCH away from ACN further and while we had to take a hit in our dps rotation, we are still going to have similar numbers and then game play flow is still looking to be similar. But we're no longer going to be doing weird things like using an aoe nuke to optimize our single target rotation and using a resource meant to fuel our healing and mitigation for damage.

As for your question about fun. Fun is subjective. I have fun playing a healer, utilizing a basic dps rotation that I can drop at any second to react to a situation with the appropriate healing or mitigation tool, so anything that makes scholar feel more like a healer is a positive to me.

[Elgeron]

They still have access to party-wide mitigation and their Asylum is now an alternative to having a Monk's Mantra, that sounds like a form of utility to me. Either way they now an edge over the other two healers in their raw dps. As long as they can work it out to where the additional damage is equivalent or greater then the pdps+rdps of the other two healers then it will technically be balanced.

DPS is king, offensive utility will still be prioritized. I will grant though, that for progress parties it may be good. Now, the second statement is its own can of worms. If WHM has such a strong pDPS, then it must be so because it is expected to DPS a lot. If so, then the argument of "healing will be constant, there will be no down time" is not going to happen, as to keep competitive then it must have downtime, as very few of its heals are oGDC. Furthermore, to access its stronger Spell, it must use GCD heals, so it will lose DPS regardless if we want to use Misery in Raid situations. There is a very good reason why BLM and SAM have 0 support, they must focus on their DMG output constantly too keep big numbers. So for WHM dps to be useful, they must become Green DPS, and fights must be designed so you don't have to heal as much. Also, to reach that point anyway, as you said, it had to have better pDPS than the rDPS of the others. Thats a lot of damage, like, really a lot. There is no way its going to happen.

I never said it was boring. I said that they made the system more consistent so that it's easier to balance. They changed the rng mechanic from the effect of the card, to the seals you generate. And then they reworked the tools you got to further skew the system into your favor. Instead of holding your cards til you get the best set up now you'll be constantly using the cards and constantly providing smaller bursts of damage increases with one moderate payoff every few minutes.

And again, being better doesn't mean being more engaging. You could turn the system in a single spell that gives you Spread Balance, and it will be more constant and powerful, it isn't as fun. And it will be easier to balance, of course. Doesn't mean again, it is fun. If all the classes where the same, it will be easy to balance, but it wouldn't be fun. Just numbers, not mechanics.

Red Mage also tended to be able to wear heavier armor and shields and Dancer almost always dealt in debuffs as opposed to buffs. So any point about identity of a job in this game compared to other ff games is a shaky, if not pointless, angle to go about.

Here is the thing. I didn't bring up the "identity" argument. You and many others did. What I did was to point out how is flawed, both by FF XIV own standards (SCH originally and through most of the live of FF XIV had DoTs and a more complex DPS rotation as part of its identity), or by the saga Standars (it was never a pure healer to begin with)

So now SHB is severing SCH away from ACN further and while we had to take a hit in our dps rotation, we are still going to have similar numbers and then game play flow is still looking to be similar. But we're no longer going to be doing weird things like using an aoe nuke to optimize our single target rotation and using a resource meant to fuel our healing and mitigation for damage.

While yes, separating SCH from ACN is necessary, it doesn't excuse poor class design. You say our DPS rotation must take a hit. OK. Then why don't they give us something in return to fill the downtime? AST at least still have the cards, despite being simplified, even if nerfed. WHM and SCH are now in the same situation where their downtime is going to be extremely dull. And the better you get at healing, the more downtime there will be. You can say "they will fix it", but things is, they said the same about WHM and healers balance, and so far I fear they haven't done enough after 2 years. Must I wait other 2 years?. Also, why is it weird or bad to use Aether for both? Is not like you HAD to use ED, it was flexibility on how and when to spend aether. Really the only one that actually was "risk" vs "reward" kind of thing is Bane.

As for your question about fun. Fun is subjective. I have fun playing a healer, utilizing a basic dps rotation that I can drop at any second to react to a situation with the appropriate healing or mitigation tool, so anything that makes scholar feel more like a healer is a positive to me.

Why is somehow SCH more of a healer now than before? The rotation wasn't even that complex, and the majority of their tools where mitigation and healing. In that regard, really there is almost no difference with ShB, our healing kit was and will be fantastic. The rest of our kit not so much. But never mind that, you say fun is subjective, but the thing is, there are things is that, in a way, it isn't as subjective. There is a real truth about about the design of Healers up to this point; if you wanted to focus on healing, even if it meant little DPS or even 0, you could. The game allowed you too, Healing is you main duty, and DPS just filled the void. If you wanted to take risk and excel, you DPS and optimize your heals as much as possible. SCH in particular requires to manage 2-3 DoTs, weave numerous heals and manage aether for offense, and this complexity is liked by the players that like to DPS. So we have both kind of players, the Pure Healer and the DPS healer. Which one is more fun? Neither, both are fun for different people is subjective. But now, the class has taken what make it fun for the DPS crowd, making it closer to the other healers. This is a fact, this makes it less fun, as the array of gameplay styles it offers has been reduced.

[Brandedblade]

Well I'm sorry that I'm not inclined to view these changes with negativity. Like I said, someone's gotta be the cheerful optimist.

[Loki]

I wish we had some healers jobs like the Cleric one in Aion.

Cleric has some powerful/interesting healing skills and some dps skills with even a rng combo rotation and even a root skill for entraving ennemies and has to manage MPs.

Like Dodoku said, until now, as healer, we had the choice to just heal or to use fully our skills and add some dps when it was possible for being always active and add a "rythm" to our job.

Now it looks like they remove this choice and it sucks.

For those who will say "don't worry you will be able to dps you have still few dps skills" i think it's just an illusion cause of those 10k mp cap. We won't be able to spam those skills cause we will be fast out of mana + they remooved "protect", "largesse", "rouse" for the fairy any kind of boost healing or mp regen which help a lot to heal and dps at same time....so they force us to play in a certain way a job we have played years in our personnal way?

In parallel they remove TP for DPS/Tanks so they can spam what they want with none limit, wtf.

I had fun to heal random people i met, or during hunts, or raids 24, even npcs in content (hello Estinien o/) with my fairy, now it's over. It was fun to have the feeling to be a "team" with my pet, to be able to cast a skill while she was casting something else, now it's over, it was fun to be able to summon fast my "other" fairy for using a spell like esunaga then recall the other one for continuing the fight, now it's over even her lost a part of her identity (omg so this is the SCH fairy glam you were talking about SE? aaaww wonderful, ty), it was fun to deploy my shields from her now it's over, it was fun to put my dots + bane + shadowflare then use rouse on her for being able to spam miasma 2 and use 3 times energy drain alternatly with it for regaining some MP then focus on healing again, now it's over.
It was fun to /pet my fairy or use emotes with her (they could have add some emotes to the fairy like a /highfive it would be cool), now it's over, it was fun to use my sacred soil anywhere, now it's over....

For which damn reason SE has changed all that?!

Seriously how can you, my SCH brothers and sisters, be happy with all those changes???!!!!

[Elgeron]

It was fun to /pet my fairy or use emotes with her (they could have add some emotes to the fairy like a /highfive it would be cool), now it's over, it was fun to use my sacred soil anywhere, now it's over....

If it is of any help, I think at least we can target them to use emote still. Don't quote me on that, not 100% sure, but I think we can. Also, if they really had to take away our DPS skills, you would have though they could have upped the pet management mechanics of our job to compensate, make it more important, give them more skills or something. Perhaps have like SMN the skill to change them on the fly and use them for different purposes (Perhaps heals/buff or Heals/DPS or something similar). It would have done the job of both filling downtime so the simpler DPS rotation isn't as bad, as we will actually be able to balance it with other things to optimize, while offering a stronger identity as a pet healer to compensate our lost kit as dps. Using Aether for buffs through the fairy may had been good too. I know it would break the balance between WHM and SCH/AST even more, but they could also give WHM more utility in this scenario.

Also on the topic of WHM, they really need some love. We had lost so many skills through expansions, and now we are very slowly playing catching up.

it was fun to use my sacred soil anywhere, now it's over....

I'm not well aware of this. Why cannot we place Sacred Soil anywhere now? What did they changed?

(they could have add some emotes to the fairy like a /highfive it would be cool)

This is a genius idea, even if it may not be possible.