Scholar 5.0 Discussion

[Jaegerin92]

This expansion has been amazing in term of story, but as a healer, it's felt like a slap in the face.

My main issues with SCH:

1. The fairy is sooo buggy. She sometimes despawns when changing locations and also puts skills on CD without actually casting them. I've experienced both of these bugs several times, and it's incredibly aggravating.

2. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE give us energy drain back. Aetherflow design feels terrible. It's so clunky now. We need a way to spend it that ISN'T overhealing for easy content. Also having to be in combat to use is frustrating. It feels awful in dungeons when it comes off CD a second after the last mob dies, and you can't pop it.

3. Art of war costs too much mana. Even with piety melds and being overleveled, I still find myself out of mana on back to back trash pulls, and then I just stand there feeling useless....

None of this is anything that hasn't already been stated dozens of times, but I just wanted to add my own voice in the hopes that Square Enix addresses some of our concerns quickly.

[YanderePrincess]

I get that White Mage has like, infinite MP, but that’s kind of it’s thing lol. It wouldn’t be part of the classes identity as the powerful, safe healer with more MP economy if Scholar was the exact same, I think

It's interesting you say that. Back in 2.x, SCH had infinite MP and WHM was the one that struggled with MP/needed Mage's Ballad from bards.

[YanderePrincess]

2. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE give us energy drain back. Aetherflow design feels terrible. It's so clunky now. We need a way to spend it that ISN'T overhealing for easy content.

Are you needing to use Aetherflow everytime it comes off cd in order not to run out of MP?

3. Art of war costs too much mana. Even with piety melds and being overleveled, I still find myself out of mana on back to back trash pulls, and then I just stand there feeling useless....

That's always been the case for spamming an aoe spell on healers, whether it's Gravity, Holy, or even Miasma II back in SB. It's supposed to be the trade off for doing so much damage by hitting everything around you.

[NobleWinter]

Since we lost Fey Wind and Chain Stratagem got nerfed I'm not sure what the high point of Scholar is? The Cooldown on Chain Strat seems too high for it to be less powerful now if it's the only utility we bring. We definitely don't bring enough raid utility to match Astrologian and our personal DPS is abysmal compared to White Mage. Are we just a powerhouse healer now? I wanna be great at something because I'm playing MY healer and I'm not sure what that thing is as Scholar. I'm having a lot more fun being powerful as White Mage right now.

[Alphras]

That's always been the case for spamming an aoe spell on healers, whether it's Gravity, Holy, or even Miasma II back in SB. It's supposed to be the trade off for doing so much damage by hitting everything around you.

At least on white mage you can spam holy without any care for mana.

[charmwitch]

Hi everyone, I would like to put in my own two cents about Scholar. As a preface, I have been a Scholar since Coil and have cleared every savage except Ultimates. (No time unfortunately.)

I'll try to be succinct, so here are my points:
- My most annoying problem right now is that I have a phantom limb situation with Energy Drain. When I am unable to drop stacks in order to refresh my stacks, I feel like I'm solely wasting perfectly good stacks. I either heal, or I don't, and refresh the stacks. It's mostly very unfulfilling.

- Art of War costs a lot of MP. It is nice to use, but I do think it can be adjusted.

- The inability to reset aetherflow stacks before a tank finishes a pull and establishing aggro means you have to create the situation of being in combat first before you can quick heal the tank. This isn't a problem if you think ahead in the previous battle to save a stack, but I prefer to use my stacks and not keep them sitting around. Unfortunately, I do feel a sense of panic now in between pulls. I know this change was mostly to stop pre-pull waiting, but not having your toolkit ready at the start of a fight is a little stressful.

- The main problem I'm encountering is that in normal raids and 24-man dungeons, there isn't much to do. If your tank isn't tanking, if your party isn't taking damage, you can only use two buttons, three if you want to sacred soil on cooldown. While I understand that these changes were brought in to balance the classes out, I feel there is a lingering dissatisfaction with playing a healer. You really can't do much when you're not needed, and a good group should do their best to minimize their own input of damage. It sort of makes you feel... unhappy to heal. If that makes sense?

- I quite like recitation, I think it's neat and fun to use. Much needed for the class.


I'll be honest, I did not level Scholar first this time around because I wanted to finish the Bard Job Quest before the Scholar one, but in doing so I've noticed (for multiple reasons -- no new healers, the new changes) that healers are almost always in need, because healing at times just... feels like a chore. I feel as if I'm not contributing enough and can not keep my hands busy enough during encounters besides broiling and the occasional single dot.

Currently, I truly feel that the general healer changes have made healing un-fun and a lot of people unhappy, but I hope we can see some changes in the future to recoup the thrill of the battle.

Thank you very much for your time.

[YanderePrincess]

At least on white mage you can spam holy without any care for mana.

I've honestly never understood why they gave us Thin Air in the first place.

[YanderePrincess]

- My most annoying problem right now is that I have a phantom limb situation with Energy Drain. When I am unable to drop stacks in order to refresh my stacks, I feel like I'm solely wasting perfectly good stacks. I either heal, or I don't, and refresh the stacks. It's mostly very unfulfilling.

I think the most important thing here is whether or not you need to be using Aetherflow every 60 seconds to avoid running out of mp. If your MP isn't requiring the 10% restore every 60 seconds, then there's not really a reason why you should be trying to use Aetherflow as soon as it comes off cd instead of waiting until you've used up your stacks. This is what we tended to do back in 2.x where we had 0 mp problems. I know in stormblood there was much more need to aetherflow every 45 seconds for the mp, so dumping stacks around 40 seconds to drop the cooldown all the way to 45 seconds and then aetherflow again was really good, especially since your AF dump was both damage and additional mp restore. It might just be the mindset needs to shift again, but that depends heavily on how mp efficiency is atm.

[Deceptus]

Honestly, If we're supposed to heal so much, wouldn't Miasma II fit that model a lot better than Art of War? Hit Miasma 2, heal for a bit, hit it again. Repeat.

Aren't the Devs contradicting themselves a bit with that ability?

[Hawklaser]

The more I have played Sch in Shadowbringers, the more apparent the aetherflow charges feast/famine has become. The famine, due to not being able to enter a dungeon with them, and not refresh them out of combat, combined with the nature of some pulls. The feast... when everything is going good, not a ton of things to spend them on outside of over healing.

Something I just remembered were the Helix spells Sch had in FFXI. This is something that could potentially be adapted for XIV's Sch. For those not familar with them, they were an elemental nuke that also applied a DoT that ticked for the same amount that they landed for initially. How they could be adapted could be 1 Aetherflow Stack, maybe with a CD on it, and have it do some up front damage, with the added effect of either applying a DoT or debuff to the target, or maybe an AoE Regen or other buff to allies around the target. The main thing, would be to have something else to use Aetherflow stacks on when the healing aetherflow abilities are not needed or the others that could dump with are on CD or need to be saved for specific timings in a fight.