Post 5.05 SCH suggestions

[Cheapshot]

I was a little confused by the SCH changes, aside from getting Energy Drain back (thank you). I wont complain about the Art of War and Succor buffs of course. I don't know anyone who was complaining that Scholars weren't strong enough though. The problem is SCH was the job for people who liked complexity, and in 5.0 they removed so much and made SCH dull to play, and very barren and weak below lv 50. SCH lv30-50 feels like Conjurer lv1-20. Here's my suggestions to finish up SCH.

• Remove "Only usable during combat" from Aetherflow.
  It’s awkward, unnecessary and causes frustration.

• Add the ability to spread our DoT, with damage falloff (as Bane used to), to Deployment Tactics.
  Slightly lower passive damage boosts to account for this extra dps.

• Increase range of Deployment Tactics from 10y to 15y

• Remove threat generation from Embrace.
  Currently if the tank is damaged when entering a new battle, your fairy can auto heal them and generate threat before the Tank has a chance to, and fairy threat is now passed to the SCH. This feels very unintended.

• Re-balance progression to give more of SCH's kit earlier

• Fix tooltips of Whispering Dawn and Fey Illumination.
  Currently they simply say "Orders faerie to execute ____" which is not useful while learning.

• Ideally, improve visuals of abilities to be more impressive and create a unifying visual theme for Scholars.
  I see this requested frequently from others.

I wouldn't mind seeing something like setting up Selene to have some utility for solo play, instead of just lazily making her a copy of Eos, but I don’t have suggestions for that. I think the above changes would do the trick in general though. Thoughts?

[Wawachume]

Well, you already mentioned the two main things I want now, out-of-combat aetherflow and bane.

• Remove "Only usable during combat" from Aetherflow.
  It’s awkward, unnecessary and causes frustration.

I kind of suspect the change was made for raids without considering dungeons. :/ It only really serves a purpose in raids, because nobody waited for aetherflow cooldowns before pulling a dungeon boss. Conversely, its problems show up mainly in dungeons, since in-combat aetherflow is much more awkward on trash than boss fights.

• Add the ability to spread our DoT, with damage falloff (as Bane used to), to Deployment Tactics.
  Slightly lower passive damage boosts to account for this extra dps.

I never considered a dual use for deployment tactics like this. It's actually a really cool idea. Plus it fits with SE's desire for separate SMN/SCH spells.

• Ideally, improve visuals of abilities to be more impressive and create a unifying visual theme for Scholars.
  I see this requested frequently from others.

I think theme has become a more pressing issue in Shadowbringers, because the SMN/SCH split has kind of seen scholars moving away from the old biological/plague motif. All that's really left of it is the names "bio(lysis)" and "sacred soil".

Personally, I don't really like the new animations (mostly Broil 3 and Biolysis). They look really "techy", more Allagan than Nymian. Maybe they should be machinist animations, but they don't seem quite right on a fairies-and-mortarboards class.

What I like is the red circle of text that appears around your hands when you cast succor or any of the broil spells. It's like a single sentence written in an ancient book you found, and when you speak it aloud it releases all this magical power. That's the kind of thing I want---less technological and more arcane.

(That being the case, I do like the symbols that appear on either side of you when casting Broil 3. They look like magical diagrams. Just not their particle effects.)

I also think some scholar character animations look a little aggressive compared to the other healers. For most of them, it's probably because they were originally made for arcanist as DPS animations, but Art of War is brand new and it's the worst offender by far.

And finally, it really bothers me that Eos is whitish and Selene is yellowish. That's totally backwards.

[GhostXO]

I mained SCH in Stormblood and I decided to play WHM through the story because SCH just felt so bad without energy drain in my opinion. I'm glad it's back and I'm actually giving it a chance now that it is.

The main GLARING issue for me is not being able to use Aetherflow out of combat. If there are going to be changes made, I'd definitely want that to be the first next patch. I don't really raid or anything. I prefer doing dungeons most of the time and this issue has made itself a very apparent issue when I'm trying to catch up to sprinting tanks who expect a Excog right away and I have to use Aldo or Bio first. It's really clunky and I've killed a tank already because of it.

The other issue I find myself having so far while playing is using Fey Illumination. I've heard people complain that it is too weak, and it might be, but my main issue with it is that it isn't instant when I use it. I used to like using largesse + Indom for big aoe heals in dungeons and I thought a good replacement would be FeyIllum + Indom, but it takes too long for the dang fairy to shake around like a wet dog to get the skill off. I don't really know what would even be a good time to use it...I'd like to see the fairy skills going back to being instant. I'd like just something to make them feel better to use.

Also I never thought I would miss Selene but she was funner to use in the open world during Fates and through story content. Fey Wind was a nice way to toss in some extra damage and make solo content just a tiny tiny bit more fun. So, I'd like to see Selene come back, maybe with Fey Wind and an interrupt or something else completely. More utility and the ability to make decisions based on which fairy you have would be nice.

I'd like to be able to order Eos to use Embrace also, but I doubt that will be changing. Also I agree with you OP, I think Embrace shouldn't generate emnity on ME as a scholar. It's happened quite often in dungeons already and has nearly killed me since my tanks seem to have tunnel vision on other things.

I like the idea of Deployment Tactics spreading the DOT. Just seems neat.

[Sloprano]

Many good suggestions. Have several thoughts on the matter. Mainly it's about bringing back Lily in earlier state to handle more of the healing and either reinstating Arcanist abilities or come up with new wasy for damage, tools and fun

* Manual control, targetable and mortal fairies and their hotbars. The ability to use Lily's abilities and a strong Embrace while casting was a keystone to the job, having to stop whatever I'm doing to user Order abilities feels like it interrupts a lot of good flow the job had.

* Bring back Selene. Scholar used to have a feeling of a multi-purpose Job with many tools that might not fit every situation. That included Selene and her Fey abilities.

* Aetherflow unusable out of combat. Since they already can discern when we're in or out of combat, why not make it 5 second cooldown when out of combat. I would really like to see this returned, for everything like being more prepared at the start of a dungeon pull to be able to Lustrate strangers out in the world that are low on health.

* More dots and the ability to spread them. Miasma, Bio, Bio 2, Miasma 2(, aero) and Bane. Can call it something different if it would suite better and take away potencies on Broil III and Ruin II to compensate for it. It might not been intentional but Arcanist was a great Class base for Scholar that gave you a lot to do both while leveling, synced or even at max level. The wish is to embrace this idea instead of just cutting ties.

* Please keep the pose for casting Arcanist spells. It is the best and would very much like to see it stay on Scholar.

* Earlier cornerstones ability. At level 80 the job feels clunky to play, but functional. Below 80, as clunky with less to do. If the reason for cutting ties with Arcanist is some trouble with Classes, then I would like to see them re-label Arcanist Skills as eligble for "SCH". As they did with Energy Drain, this will hopefully make them rework it into being a level 6 Ability like it is on ACN and slowly trickle in skills earlier like Aetherdam.

* Dealing damage. As many others have made themselves clear on here: Spamming Broil/Ruin/Stone/Glare/Malefic is not fun for the amount of time we are expected or want to do some damage. For Scholar I would like to go back to the Dot management: Chain strat can be reworked and given much earlier. When put on an enemy it reveals weakness about the target: Giving you a random order to apply dots that if done in right order, gives a debuff on the target where either Broil/Ruin II or Energy Drain deals double damage.

* Tools, Mitigation and Nuance. E4E, Virus, Shadowflare, Blind on Ruin II, Heavy and Malady on Miasma. Lots of little things that made the job interesting and have something for everything. Seeing everything just read "deals unaspected damage" feels makes it uninteresting as a whole. If hotbar space is a problem, then we could have combos in the form of "amount of dots on target" and use Broil, Ruin II and Energy drain as different finishers. Say two dots + Energy Drain = Shadowflare under that mob.

[EaMett]

Personally don't care much for quite a few of the elements here. The SCH skill levels do need reworking though. I'll give you that.

Beyond that I would like to see all the bugs with SCH sorted. Make Ruin II worth single weaving with. Fix our faerie, she's taking forever to cast stuff it's super annoying (even moreso from the fact they fixed this last expansion before breaking it again). Correct the bug where faerie skills go on cooldown but aren't applied to party members. Give us a manual embrace back, manually triggering veil and stuff i annoying for one and seraph solo shields really get wasted on random people during encounters.
Also FOR THE LOVE OF GOD fix catalyze/galvanize priority order so that catalyze gets used up first.

I'm also mildly annoyed at having ED back without quickened aetherflow. Not that it's particularly needed but my muscle memory is killing me right now :O *use stakcs then realize there's still 15s left on af*. I never even knew my brain had an automatic 45s AF timer built in until they did this.

[Hysterior]

Remove "Only usable during combat" from Aetherflow.

Since it is aligned with the others 2 healers (AST cant get seals out of fights and WHM cant get Lilies), I dont think it will change the expansion for balancing reasons.

Add the ability to spread our DoT, with damage falloff (as Bane used to), to Deployment Tactics.

Same as above. We actually have energy drain and ruin 2 for movement, which the other 2 healers have not. I dont think that will happen.

Increase range of Deployment Tactics from 10y to 15y

I actually like that it is a small radius, it forces teams to pack.

Remove threat generation from Embrace.

Did not notice it but if that is the case, yes.

Re-balance progression to give more of SCH's kit earlier

Also did not do much old, content so I did not notice any particular issue compared to the other 2 healers.

Fix tooltips of Whispering Dawn and Fey Illumination.

Yes. I also hate the Seraph skill tooltips.

Ideally, improve visuals of abilities to be more impressive and create a unifying visual theme for Scholars.

I dont expect such rework either but we will see. AoW is indeed not very impressive.

I wouldn't mind seeing something like setting up Selene to have some utility for solo play, instead of just lazily making her a copy of Eos, but I don’t have suggestions for that. I think the above changes would do the trick in general though. Thoughts?

Dont see that one happening either.

[galbsadi]

Since it is aligned with the others 2 healers (AST cant get seals out of fights and WHM cant get Lilies), I dont think it will change the expansion for balancing reasons.

Slight caveat here...this is less like 'not getting seals' and more like if they took away the ability for you to use 'Draw' outside of combat. Not getting seals is more akin to not getting fairy gauge outside of combat (which is also true to SCH, but that I don't see people really complaining about).

[jmocubes]

I love the idea of deployment tactics spreading biolysis ❤️

[Impurrrsive]

The others may not like this thread my comrade, but I'm completely up for the out of combat aetherflow.
If u want to suggest changes, if can't elusively do it one at a time and assertively
Or someone might flame this thread lol xD

[Hawklaser]

Something I have been thinking about, as it seems Sch is slowly drifting away from being the shield healer, or they are being de-emphasized more as we get more emphasis on direct oGCD heals. It might be worth bringing back Stoneskin or something similar to it. Currently there is still some of the shields in place, but I am starting to wonder about how much longer that might last.

As much as I hate to steal Phalanx from FFXI's RDM's, it might be a good one to repurpose for a fairy gauge skill instead of fey pact. Maybe builds a shield overtime or grants a %dmg resist per tic while its up or something like that, but it does fit with the Sch's Military Tactician thematic.

I'd really like to see them go back to more of the preemptive mitigation via shields for Sch than even more raw heals like we seem to be getting.