Feedback on SCH Design in Shadowbringers

[Aqua150]

I've only just recently gotten SCH to Level 70 but I've been wondering this for a while and would like an answer from people who main SCH and have played it more than I have.

What is the point of burning extra Aetherflow stacks right now? Why do we need to use Aetherflow on cooldown as we did before? We no longer need it for DPS, which is why we needed to ensure we never held onto Aetherflow longer than needed before, so I'm wondering why it matters if we hold Aetherflow for when we need the extra stacks/MP and why it matters if we use it when we still have stacks left over when we have no need to use them.

Also, I've stated this in another thread and I assume a lot of people don't like it, but: I feel giving SCH a spammable oGCD damage ability would be misplaced in this Expansion for healers. It would greatly increase their DPS since Healers have had their amount of DPS skills gutted though.

The only reason to burn excess Aetherflow is to generate more Fairy Gauge, but that on its own is not enough reason to justify the DPS loss required to create enough weaving opportunities to do so. So in short: there is no reason to use excess Aetherflow, and consequently the entire mechanic is boring and counter-intuitive.

I don't agree that a spammable oGCD damage ability would be misplaced - SCH currently has the simplest DPS kit to manage, with only 1 DOT and 1 nuke. WHM and AST do have extra things to do in addition to those - Assize, Afflatus Misery, Earthly Star and Cards (Okay, I guess SCH has Chain Stratagem, but "press this button once every 2 minutes" hardly counts as something to manage and is by far the least engaging of all the healer DPS abilities), so I see no reason why SCH couldn't have something more to think about as well. While the WHM and AST skills I mentioned may not be spammable, I don't see that being a problem - I view "spammable" versus "unspammable" as simply being a way to differentiate the flavour of the three classes.

[GameTaco]

I've been thinking since 70 that it they should have integrated the Faerie Gauge sooner. Always found it a little silly. Aetherflow burning was a concept that you just kinda did if you could/wanted to do so, then suddenly out of nowhere as the new capstone ability is an incredibly powerful channeled single target heal using this new resource that will make those irresistible monster pulls at least somewhat less of a headache to deal with and maybe even free up a hand to help out with the AoEs, as long as you have meter to burn.

Two years later, we have all of one new ability that uses this resource, is basically just a bonus Indom with twice the cooldown, and our main meter spender, Fey Union, is now even harder to build up to use out of the gate because we can't hit our first Aetherflow until the first pull begins. (Remaining rules apply: We must be in combat to gain meter, and even though Dissipation now resummons upon expiration, the fairy is still technically eaten so we can't use our fresh refill of Aetherflow to fill more meter there either)

Before it was Temple of the Fist for me, now it's Anyder. Ran it four times and every time, including when the party knew I was fresh, watching the intro cutscene with some sub-400 accs, still ran on ahead and did that first pull to wall with me straining to keep up, panic healing the whole time. Every time, it ends on a wipe, and I haven't queued Expert since then because I'm still mentally theorycrafting how in the seven hells tanks expect me to keep them alive when at best I'll have three ticks of the Fey Union until 60 more seconds into that first pull, one cycle of Seraph, one Recitation to auto-Catalyze or get a free Lustrate/Excog for another Union tick, and the rest of it is at the mercy of my Adlos + Dissipation and the fairy cooldowns. It never gets anywhere approaching this bad again until the *last* pull of the dungeon, and even then I find myself with moments where I get to turn Aetherpact *off* because the flood of incoming autos at least gets a few more breaks in between.

In that 10-15 second very Ala Mhigo reminiscent run down the long pathway with absolutely nothing going on (plus time in the barrier, assuming I load first) I should at least still be allowed to hit Aetherflow to top off and have that on cooldown. Yes, I miss pre-5.0 Energy Drain too for our many "nothing going on, time to not only burn Aetherflow but also pop Dissipation and weave in 3 more OGCD mini-Ruin 2s AND drop the cooldown of my next Aetherflow by another 15 seconds to boot" encounters, but on the off chance that I actually am expected to semi-intensively heal, I'd like to be 100% sufficiently prepared on resources to be able to do that too.

But that's just me. I don't do Savage or even Extremes, much less 8+-mans in general as tank/healer, so what goes on beyond the scope of 4-man dungeon crawls and this set of rather chill trials and raids is admittedly beyond me.

[Aqua150]

I've been thinking since 70 that it they should have integrated the Faerie Gauge sooner. Always found it a little silly. Aetherflow burning was a concept that you just kinda did if you could/wanted to do so, then suddenly out of nowhere as the new capstone ability is an incredibly powerful channeled single target heal using this new resource that will make those irresistible monster pulls at least somewhat less of a headache to deal with and maybe even free up a hand to help out with the AoEs, as long as you have meter to burn.

Two years later, we have all of one new ability that uses this resource, is basically just a bonus Indom with twice the cooldown, and our main meter spender, Fey Union, is now even harder to build up to use out of the gate because we can't hit our first Aetherflow until the first pull begins. (Remaining rules apply: We must be in combat to gain meter, and even though Dissipation now resummons upon expiration, the fairy is still technically eaten so we can't use our fresh refill of Aetherflow to fill more meter there either)

The fact that we can't use Aetherflow until the first pull begins is certainly annoying. I believe the rationale is that we shouldn't have to wait for things to come back off cooldown before pulling a boss in an optimized setting, but this wasn't really a problem for scholars in the past due to Quickened Aetherflow (why was this ability deleted again? It was an interesting and fun trait that rewarded good gameplay). I would also think that most people would rather have to wait 10 or 15 seconds for a cooldown in an optimized setting (which the vast majority of players don't care about in the first place) rather than endure the frustration of not using Aetherflow outside of combat throughout the ENTIRE rest of the game. The priorities here seem very backwards.

The gauge is made even harder to build up in general due to the prevalence of unused Aetherflow stacks. It takes FOREVER to charge the gauge if you're not just spamming Lustrates for the sake of getting rid of stacks. And so the deletion of Energy Drain causes the fairy gauge to be less interactive in addition to the Aetherflow mechanic itself.

[KDSilver]

Do you know where he said that exactly? If that is true, the grasp Square has of the healers is worse than I thought.

Live letter of the combat system update in may if i remember well.
But he truly stated that indeed.

[Eloah]

I went back and checked the Live Letter and it looks like I had the quote slightly wrong, but it doesn't really change my point. The exact quote of his official translator is the following:

"With the scholar, they typically handled applying barriers, mostly, and they didn't really have the direct capabilities of healing spells. So the responsibility of healing tended to go to other healer jobs. Now, with the addition of more healing spells, now we're sharing the responsibility so it's not just the other jobs, but the scholar is now more able to heal so you can depend on each other."

Source: https://youtu.be/rewM-Z9bGhA?t=7993

I edited my original post to more accurately reflect the fact that Yoshi's statement was more about SCH's barriers than it was about DPS. Either way, it shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the way healers work together in reality and raises the same concerns regarding design choices in Shadowbringers.

See, this is the issue that I dont think SE realizes they created and it sorta plays into a post you made a little ways down the line...

I don't agree that a spammable oGCD damage ability would be misplaced - SCH currently has the simplest DPS kit to manage, with only 1 DOT and 1 nuke. WHM and AST do have extra things to do in addition to those - Assize, Afflatus Misery, Earthly Star and Cards (Okay, I guess SCH has Chain Stratagem, but "press this button once every 2 minutes" hardly counts as something to manage and is by far the least engaging of all the healer DPS abilities), so I see no reason why SCH couldn't have something more to think about as well. While the WHM and AST skills I mentioned may not be spammable, I don't see that being a problem - I view "spammable" versus "unspammable" as simply being a way to differentiate the flavour of the three classes.

SCH's kit worked because everything functioned as a whole, the GCD skills the oGCD skill and the pet. But SE wanted SCHs themselves to heal more so they nerfed the pet, then they added more "SCH" heals. But all of the new heals are basically pet related and oGCD heals. SE can't expect SCHs to focus more on healing if you nerf part of their kit and give them unspammable heals. What if we have that one tank who thinks they are invincible, and some do. That's part of the main issue, SCH only has 'one' spammable heal, Physick. Spamming skills is not ideal ever, but at certain times, it is needed. But SCHs only have 3 heals that are on the GCD and 2 are shields. You cant even Emergency Tactics them since the buff vanishes after a use. Maybe if ET was changed to function like Planery Indulgence, that might negate some of the problem. And another thing is the Fey Gauge, what's the point of having skills to use ot if the skills are on lengthy CDs or the gauge takes forever to build up. Of the 2 tacked on gauges for the Healers SCHs felt more "natural" but it was still sorta lackluster, but Lilies are more engaging now, and that's saying something.

[ksuyen]

It's clear they want us to spam Physick seeing they reduced the cast time from 2 to 1.5s.

[Billythepancake]

It's clear they want us to spam Physick seeing they reduced the cast time from 2 to 1.5s.

I'll be deep in the cold cold ground before I use physick

[Sloprano]

On the topic of Fey Gauge after playing with it and reading impressions of it I think it more and more strange how long it takes to build to a point where I feel using Fey Union would help. And often hang around with a full gauge for several pulls without using any of it(is this how whms felt about Lilies?) For a change I wondered if Fairy Charges would be better.

Instead of the 100 gauge, everytime you spend Aetherflow you gain a Charge, up to maximun of three. These charges when used augments or change the fairy\\\\\\'s next ability or spell. Something like:
Embrace: Powerful instant heal
Whispering dawn: Instant aoe heal to replace Blessing and Indom.
Fey Covenant: Decrease physical damage aswell as magical
Fey Illumination: Illuminating the area give Blind to enemies
Fey Dusk: Stun for 1s
Fey Caress: Removes all debuffs from party members
Fey Wind: Increase haste to 10%
Seraph becomes its own full summon and her abilities except Veil cost a charge to use.

So spend AF to able to enhance Lily. If things are going well or solo, you use ED to quickly access it. The three maximum is to keep using the fairy as much as possible for the healing part and added support. Fey Union I think could be replaced by a stronger Rouse and an effect of: "During Rouse, fairy will only automatically embrace your current target. Manually casting Embrace overrides this."

Overall idea is to move more of the healing and support back to the fairy.

This would involve my wish of fairy hotbars restored, manual embrace, Aetherflow usable out of combat and ED returned. That wishlist also includes the full arcanist skillset.

The fairy auguments can probably use more thought and sorry if this comes out in bad format, writing on the phone.

[Dyvid]

I posted this in another thread but Fairies seem to lose more than they gained. Lily, Selene, and even Seraph are really just glamour. The fairy gauge is meh. DPS is now meh. Buff are meh. A lot of meh it seems lol

Lily and Selene need to be different; Selene should change the 3 fairy abilities to debuff and attack spells
Whispering Dawn -> Howling Dusk = Single target DoT
Fey Illumination -> Fae Confusion = Decrease Damage from target for 10s but also adds a spell resist for 60s for balance.
Fey Blessing -> Fae Curse = 100 Potency DPS spell

Seraph would cast a party buff once summoned that reduces weapon skill cast time and recast time, spell cast time and recast time, and auto-attack delay of self and nearby party members by 3%. Duration would last 20s. Also increase the potency of Angel's Whisperer and Seraphic Illumination to give them more weight.

The problem is though, fairy would need to share the abilities recast timers but would make this very painful really fast. You could change the system around though where Aetherflow would be fairies resource with all abilities have a 5s recast and old AF spells would just consume MP or be OGCD with recast timers.

[Enla]

I'll be deep in the cold cold ground before I use physick

Ironically I used it a lot when I could direct Eos' Embrace with a macro. Physick + Embrace wasn't too bad of a combination when all other options failed. Now? If it weren't for the potential of getting low level dungeons in the roulette I'd be tempted to remove it. It's kinda hilarious that they likely knew Physick would lose a lot of it's usage with the faerie nerfs given the decrease in cast time and yet they went ahead with it anyways.

As for the rest of the rubbish, everyone else has already given voice to my issues with the class. I'd trade part of our current godly healing potency for the class to be as complex as it once was. Hell I'd trade some of it for the Faerie Gauge to actually be useful. The class might have no trouble healing right now but it's a mess from almost every design stand point.