Feedback on SCH Design in Shadowbringers

[Aqua150]

7. Seraphic Veil needs some adjustments. It seems a bit odd to add a shielding effect and simultaneously take away the ability to choose who gets it. Most of the time this shield will likely go to waste, not only because it might target someone who won't take any damage, but also because Seraphic Veil is now weaker than the shield granted by Consolation. The Seraph only lasts long enough to use Embrace 6 times and most of these will either go to someone who doesn't need it or someone who already has a stronger shield.

8. Yoshi in a recent Live Letter made a statement to the effect that co-healers were always picking up the slack for scholars in Stormblood, because scholars were too focused on "applying barriers." I bring this up because the 5.0 scholar changes appear to be consistent with Yoshi's statement - however, that statement has absolutely NO grounding in reality and I find it very odd to let such a myth shape job design decisions (if in fact they did). In actuality, scholars in Stormblood often did significantly MORE healing than their co-healer, due to the fact that it cost them almost nothing to access a powerful selection of healing tools on short cooldowns - Whispering Dawn cost literally nothing, while Indomitability cost them an Energy Drain (150 Potency) - meanwhile, WHM would have to sacrifice an entire GCD to do the same amount of healing, which amounts to much more than a 150 potency loss. Even if all abilities were on cooldown so that a GCD heal was required, the scholar would normally be the one doing it, because their GCD is worth less damage than a WHM's GCD, with Broil being less potency than Stone. So the truth is, SCH was the one picking up the slack for WHM, not the other way around (at least in a group that knew how to play effectively). Now in Shadowbringers, Scholar's healing throughput has become ludicrously high, perhaps to compensate for an issue that didn't exist in the first place, and I cannot help but ask why the job design has headed in this direction. The issue of sharing responsibility has far more to do with opportunity costs and almost nothing to do with "barriers versus pure healing" as was suggested in Live Letter 51. In fact, SCH's barriers are hardly at all the reason why they are desired in raids - they are certainly a perk, but high end play involves casting spells such as Succor as infrequently as possible. It is not clear to me that this aspect of healer synergy is well understood by the design team.

9. I think the DPS kits for all three healers need to be completely redesigned. In its current form it is mind-numbingly boring and, independently of how one feels about whether or not healers should be responsible for DPSing in group environments, the DPS kit is still essential for a significant portion of the game (all solo content and questing) and it should be fun to use WHEN IT IS NEEDED, whether that be in solo or group settings. I understand the desire to have simplicity in the healer DPS kit due to the fact that they have other responsibilities, but "simple" doesn't have to mean "not engaging." I think DPS skills such as Afflatus Misery are a step in the right direction because they interact with other skills in your toolkit in an interesting way.

Thanks to the devs for all the hard work they put into this game - I still love to play Scholar and enjoy a lot of the changes that were made for Shadowbringers - I would love it even more with a few minor adjustments!