Scholar 5.0 Discussion

[LegoTechnic]

To be fair, Largesse and Convalescene were kinda shitty since they only worked with healing *magic.* They weren't technically useless, but they were far worse than they should've been, and frequently misused because most people didn't realize they didn't work with abilities like Lustrate, Essential Dignity, Tetragramaton, Indom, etc. And it was fine that they only worked with healing magic, back in 2.0, when WHM's only ability that healed was Benediction and Lustrate healed a % of the target's max HP. But it's a problem with both of those skills that has gotten progressively worse over time. They needed to either be removed or changed to work the way the new buff on Asylum works.

To be fair, it's tank buffs like convalescence that need to be changed to allow abilities to heal more like the new Asylum, not Largesse, because Asylum is a "healing recieved" buff. Largesse was fine in so much as it was a WHM ability for a class that had a lot of healing spells, and while AST could also make great use of it given their plethora of "spells", it wasn't anything SCHs ever really wanted in the first place since they already had it with both Fey Illumination and, if they were silly, Dissipation. And of course, one of the balances for a heavy ability set was that abilities weren't buffable, which was just another pro and con. As it was, largesse was still useful for beefing spread-adlo and for damage spam phases like Omega's final mode, but honestly they may as well have left it with WHM instead of stripping it for a filler role action.

[YanderePrincess]

To be fair, it's tank buffs like convalescence that need to be changed to allow abilities to heal more like the new Asylum, not Largesse, because Asylum is a "healing recieved" buff. Largesse was fine in so much as it was a WHM ability for a class that had a lot of healing spells, and while AST could also make great use of it given their plethora of "spells", it wasn't anything SCHs ever really wanted in the first place since they already had it with both Fey Illumination and, if they were silly, Dissipation. And of course, one of the balances for a heavy ability set was that abilities weren't buffable, which was just another pro and con. As it was, largesse was still useful for beefing spread-adlo and for damage spam phases like Omega's final mode, but honestly they may as well have left it with WHM instead of stripping it for a filler role action.

Except Fey Illumination and Dissipation had the same problem, which was even sillier with Dissipation since part of the purpose of it was to then spend aetherflow on abilities the healing buff didn't affect. Like I said, it all made sense when 2.0 first came out and the only non-magic healing was either %hp based healing (Lustrate and Benediction) or relatively small self-heals where it wouldn't especially matter. But as time went by and new stuff was added, all of those increase-healing effects should not have stayed limited to magic healing only.

[LegoTechnic]

Except Fey Illumination and Dissipation had the same problem, which was even sillier with Dissipation since part of the purpose of it was to then spend aetherflow on abilities the healing buff didn't affect. Like I said, it all made sense when 2.0 first came out and the only non-magic healing was either %hp based healing (Lustrate and Benediction) or relatively small self-heals where it wouldn't especially matter. But as time went by and new stuff was added, all of those increase-healing effects should not have stayed limited to magic healing only.

That's partly the thing, though. Back in ARR SCH simply couldn't recover-heal as well as WHM with their lesser output, and that was largely by design. They could absolutely tank heal, but the second extreme AoE healing was required then they struggled, needing Whispering Dawn to even have a chance (which was important because Selene's skill/spell speed buffs were a lot more potent back then). HW introduced indom and emergency tactics, and those both eased their AoE struggle, but given indom's use, not being able to buff it with illumination was fine because it was already powerful enough to compensate.

But when Stormsblood gave them Largesse, we just didn't really need it. We certainly made use of it, because that's what you do; you take your moveset from the expansion and you learn to work with what you have, but no SCH is really going to mourn the loss of it, at least as it was. With more and more abilities added each expansion and no new "spells", its value just decreases, but in a way not being buffable is a flaw to offset the overwhelming utility of ogcd abilities, and this is fine. While I certainly agree about Dissipation, which I frankly have never liked simply due to its design theme of eating the fairy to enter "WHM mode", I never really cared about Illumination because it applies its bonus to the party, meaning your partner healer also gained its buff benefit. This was always fine, I thought, and SCH as a class worked just fine without heal buffs which, while certainly useful, weren't necessarily needed, especially since the class already had two such buffs built in that were used primarily for their other benefits anyway. It was just one of the aspects that separated SCH from WHM.

But now the situation is changed, isn't it? Largesse is gone, and has been combined with WHM's Temperance and AST's Neutral Sect, but while those two classes got a lot of value from the effect SCH in turn didn't really lose out on much, because even though Largesse was absolutely useful for adlo or succor spamming moments (which of course did occur), the new addition of Recitation easily replaces the specific utility of buffing adlo for a spread with much greater effect. For spam not only is illumination's 10% still there, but without Selene (RIP, you were too young to die) there's no chance it won't be an option unless you dissipate, in which case you have the 20% effect anyway.

Basically I feel like largesse effects were just never really a key facet of the SCH toolkit, and now that they've been removed from the other healers outside of their capstone abilities, I don't really feel SCH needs any additional address on this regard. Aetherflow ogcd abilities are inherently powerful, and making them even moreso is likely best served to other class support effects, much like how illumination tended to support the other healer more than the SCH itself.

[TipRingSleeve]

So maybe this is just me, but as much as I love the general feel and change in Scholar since Shadowbringers came out (seeing what my barriers are doing and heals generally feeling more powerful especially at 80), there's a change that has really been getting on my nerves rather often.

Aetherflow. Specifically, being unable to activate it outside of combat.

Now, I get why it was put in place (at least in the context of high level raids and such) but whatever flag/variable is setup that decides when I get to use Aetherflow seems to be one that's very poorly picked.

In order to get Aetherflow to work, I have to get into combat and be on the aggro table, which is usually by either healing a party member in combat or firing off a spell at an enemy. For something like a boss fight, it's a non issue, but I've had so many situations where I'll go into a duty where the tank decides to do big pulls, sprinting ahead as fast as possible, and where as before I would be able to toss Excog on the tank to make sure they don't die from getting completely swarmed or fire of a Lustrate when they're already draining health pretty quickly, I'm blocked from being able to do that. Even though the tank has aggro and the party is essentially in combat, apparently because I haven't healed the tank or hit an enemy, I'm unable to use Aetherflow until I do one of those two things.

The problem with this system is that both Physick and Adlo take time to cast, and often the tank will run out of my range before I can finish casting it. The other option is to toss Biolysis or Ruin II on an enemy, but that just feels so absolutely clunky and a waste of time that would be better spent... you know, healing.

On a conceptional level, I'm pretty neutral about the idea of not being able to use Aetherflow until you're in combat, and it's not something that'll make or break the deal. But whatever system has been put in place is making it difficult for me heal effectively, not because of stats or gear, but because of some weirdly arbitrary mechanic that I don't see having really any benefit to how the game feels to play.

Why can't I just use Aetherflow as soon as ANY party member enters combat? At least that way things going badly is the result of poor teamwork rather than a implemented class function AND poor teamwork.

[EaMett]

So maybe this is just me, but as much as I love the general feel and change in Scholar since Shadowbringers came out (seeing what my barriers are doing and heals generally feeling more powerful especially at 80), there's a change that has really been getting on my nerves rather often.

Aetherflow. Specifically, being unable to activate it outside of combat.

Now, I get why it was put in place (at least in the context of high level raids and such) but whatever flag/variable is setup that decides when I get to use Aetherflow seems to be one that's very poorly picked.

In order to get Aetherflow to work, I have to get into combat and be on the aggro table, which is usually by either healing a party member in combat or firing off a spell at an enemy. For something like a boss fight, it's a non issue, but I've had so many situations where I'll go into a duty where the tank decides to do big pulls, sprinting ahead as fast as possible, and where as before I would be able to toss Excog on the tank to make sure they don't die from getting completely swarmed or fire of a Lustrate when they're already draining health pretty quickly, I'm blocked from being able to do that. Even though the tank has aggro and the party is essentially in combat, apparently because I haven't healed the tank or hit an enemy, I'm unable to use Aetherflow until I do one of those two things.

The problem with this system is that both Physick and Adlo take time to cast, and often the tank will run out of my range before I can finish casting it. The other option is to toss Biolysis or Ruin II on an enemy, but that just feels so absolutely clunky and a waste of time that would be better spent... you know, healing.

On a conceptional level, I'm pretty neutral about the idea of not being able to use Aetherflow until you're in combat, and it's not something that'll make or break the deal. But whatever system has been put in place is making it difficult for me heal effectively, not because of stats or gear, but because of some weirdly arbitrary mechanic that I don't see having really any benefit to how the game feels to play.

Why can't I just use Aetherflow as soon as ANY party member enters combat? At least that way things going badly is the result of poor teamwork rather than a implemented class function AND poor teamwork.

Casting a bio on a mob as you're running is enough (an argument could be made that you should be doing this on all mobs anyways until your tank settles). Not sure why you don't have stacks by the time your tank starts taking any form of damage (he should be pre addloed). Also, dissipation at the end of a pull will set you up nicely for the next one and unlike AF you don't need to slow down dps on mobs for it to be back up.

AF out of combat is a non issue for the most part. Especially now that they nerfed AoW mana by a full 25% we can get away with having less natural regen in between pulls.