Disrespectful and Dismissive.

[Acidblood]

We went from 5 DoTs (Bio, Bio II, Miasma, Shadowflare, and Aero) in 3.X to 2 (Miasma, Bio II) in 4.X, and now to 1 (Biolysis) in 5.0. That's the problem here..

Technically SCH had 4 DoTs in 4.X (Bio, Miasma, Shadow Flare, and Miasma II)... they also had Bane and Quickened Aetherflow (and Aetherflow out of combat) all of which added some interactivity to their kit and rewarded good play. So yes, 4.X was worse than 3.X, but even comparing 4.X to 5.0 (or 5.05) is far worse than simply losing 1 DoT.

[Sloprano]

You have perfectly encapsulated why Scholar was fun in the past. Whenever people disagree with how it was 'gutted', they only talk about how we went from 2 DoTs in 4.X to 1 in 5.0.

But that's a technicality, isn't it? That's pulling up figures from a time in which things were pretty bad to point at and say "Look, it's not too much of a loss!" 4.X SCH wasn't very fun, because it lost so much from 3.X. What little remained was then taken away in 5.0. To discuss it honestly, you need to look at what's changed over the lifetime of the class, and while I can't speak for 2.X as I did not play at the time, I can certainly say that since 3.X the amount of fun I have had playing SCH has decreased from a decent amount (I'd say 6-7/10) to the absolute gutter (1/10).

We went from 5 DoTs (Bio, Bio II, Miasma, Shadowflare, and Aero) in 3.X to 2 (Miasma, Bio II) in 4.X, and now to 1 (Biolysis) in 5.0. That's the problem here. For those of us who played SCH in 3.X we had a somewhat-engaging gameplay loop to look forward to of managing multiple discrete timers, a fairy, and and Aetherflow, and this gameplay loop was significantly eroded in 4.0 and has not been completely eroded in 5.0 with the removal of fairy control (by making her abilities clip and removing the ability to target Embrace), removing the vast majority of our DoTs, and simplifying Aetherflow so much (though this at least was improved in 5.05).

Thank you. When I first got here after 5.0 I found it at first difficult to put into words exactly why I enjoyed Scholar as much as I did. I kept on writing about that era I found it the best and slowly the reason came. Lots of tools and each fight was a chance to see how much you could use of it. Was first here to try to bring about changes to Scholar (or reestablish as that might be the quickest way during an expansion) but came to see WHM and AST players in the same dire straits: Almost nothing to do when no healing is needed.

2.0 Arcanist/Scholar seems to have been lightning in a bottle for me and it might not have been intentional. I don't think every healer would benefit from a dot management and a dps class base, instead they find up unique ways for the healers to stay busy. AST could keep drawing cards that could be transfered to damage spells and WHM getting some water spells that work together like Fluid Aura (and Rescue on mobs). I getting my 35 ast and 45 whm up to speed just so I can come up with something that might work better.

[Seoulstar]

So..we're not getting our cards back? How unfortunate..

[Rosa_Frandlia]

Technically SCH had 4 DoTs in 4.X (Bio, Miasma, Shadow Flare, and Miasma II)... they also had Bane and Quickened Aetherflow (and Aetherflow out of combat) all of which added some interactivity to their kit and rewarded good play. So yes, 4.X was worse than 3.X, but even comparing 4.X to 5.0 (or 5.05) is far worse than simply losing 1 DoT.

People always bring up sch and DoTs, but does anyone other than me remember HW WHM and is DoTs? Aero 1 and Aero 2 were separate, meaning both could be applied. Aero 3 could also be applied as an AoE DoT. I feel like a dinosaur I guess having to have managed 3 DoTs as WHM. There of course was a damage and knock back component to Fluid Aura too which was gradually taken away.

If I remember right, AST also lost a DoT in SB when Combust and Combust II were combined and not separate. You just have to go farther back to look at how the WHM and AST DoTs got gutted, it was in SB and for WHM also in ShB. The truth, all healers have lost DoTs and not just SCH's.

[Acidblood]

People always bring up sch and DoTs, but does anyone other than me remember HW WHM and is DoTs? Aero 1 and Aero 2 were separate, meaning both could be applied. Aero 3 could also be applied as an AoE DoT. I feel like a dinosaur I guess having to have managed 3 DoTs as WHM. There of course was a damage and knock back component to Fluid Aura too which was gradually taken away.

If I remember right, AST also lost a DoT in SB when Combust and Combust II were combined and not separate. You just have to go farther back to look at how the WHM and AST DoTs got gutted, it was in SB and for WHM also in ShB. The truth, all healers have lost DoTs and not just SCH's.

I remember, and I still miss HW WHM with its 3 DoTs and (real) Cleric Stance, it was 'simple' but it had enough depth to keep things interesting. I quit WHM is SB though, without (real) Cleric Stance it was just too simple, add the gutting due to cross-role and the lilies system and... just no. ShB is a small improvement on SB, which is why I don't think many complain about WHM compare to SCH/AST, but it's still dull (arguably even more so without Aero 3).

[Rufalus]

I don't think S-E have been disrespectful and certainly not deliberately. I'd like to know how many people are actually mad about healer changes across all of the regions. This topic is just 101 likes atm so it doesn't represent much of global playerbase. It would be nice it they could do player polls sometimes and make a news topic about it on lodestone / launcher to get the attention of people who do not come to the forums. Presumably they are doing what the majority of people want already but it would be nice to have the data to show that they are listening, or which region they are listening to more. Let's see how high each job rates on a satisfaction scale.

[tikiwiki]

I don't think S-E have been disrespectful and certainly not deliberately. I'd like to know how many people are actually mad about healer changes across all of the regions. This topic is just 101 likes atm so it doesn't represent much of global playerbase. It would be nice it they could do player polls sometimes and make a news topic about it on lodestone / launcher to get the attention of people who do not come to the forums. Presumably they are doing what the majority of people want already but it would be nice to have the data to show that they are listening, or which region they are listening to more. Let's see how high each job rates on a satisfaction scale.

there was a player poll done on reddit so not the most reliable thing but ast and sch were the bottom of satisfaction by a large margin

[Hatstand]

If the tank put out a poll (and actually did something based on the results) I'd ve far less inclined to call SE dismissive of healer problems. Every indicator I can find (the few third party pulls that have been done, forum representation, AST representation in recorded parses, etc) suggests that there is some sort of problem. It's the fact that SE is just going on as if everything is normal that's got a lot of people upset.

Also, 101 likes is a lot for a forum post. Looking at the number of likes that healer questions got for the live letter, at the very least you'd have to admit it seems there are more dissatisfied healers than people of other roles.

[Sloprano]

I don't think S-E have been disrespectful and certainly not deliberately. I'd like to know how many people are actually mad about healer changes across all of the regions. This topic is just 101 likes atm so it doesn't represent much of global playerbase. It would be nice it they could do player polls sometimes and make a news topic about it on lodestone / launcher to get the attention of people who do not come to the forums. Presumably they are doing what the majority of people want already but it would be nice to have the data to show that they are listening, or which region they are listening to more. Let's see how high each job rates on a satisfaction scale.

It might just be, I'm also curious who this majority is. They changed damage spells to scale of mind instead of int and removed cleric stance in 4.0. Further made every healer have one powerful casted spell to fill in between heals instead of having other way around, powerful heals, shields and buffs/debuffs to fit inbetween your interesting damaging spells for the scripted boss battles. I can believe it was in their best intentions to make it easier to deal damage and heal as a healer, but they started and didn't seem to stop.

Indeed, a poll would great or if they'd disclose with us how they gathered data and reveal more details around why they did what they did. Barely interacting with those on this forums, both those who enjoy current iterations and those who want for change, is a strange way to go about it.

[LariaKirin]

You said "latest live letter" in reference to ninja only. You can't expect anyone to extrapolate that you wanted that bit referencing the ninja changes to apply to your entire statement. Once again, I regret to inform you that I cannot read minds.

I expect people to have a minimum ability to understand context. Why would I bring up ninja in a discussion about healers? It's merely an example that shows that Squeenix is now willing to do major changes to jobs in the middle of SHB.

When you present statements such as "The existence of Bane, Miasma, Shadowflare today would preclude the existence of anything better than that in the future" as fact, I believe asking for them to not be an assumption is reasonable, especially when this is one of the core points that we're discussing here. There are some things that we can consider implied assumptions. This is not one of them. Remember this?

It'd be nice if we could not present assumptions as facts, and it'd also be nice if we didn't say "I'm not assuming anything" when in fact one of the most the most crucial point that we (in this case you) are making is at it's core, just an assumption. It's not rocket science and it's not philosophy either.
[...]
Nope, but on some statements it's pretty important. Again, the statement that having bane, misama, and shadowflare would prevent us from getting new better abilities is a statement that has very little reason behind it and having proof here would be appreciated. If you can't substantiate that claim with at least some form of evidence, then I suggest that you don't present it as a fact like you did.

It'd be nice if you didn't ignore every single post of clarification on that statement. I've said repeatedly in the latest posts that it's not a statement of fact, but one based on observation. But you keep clinging to that one statement several pages later because, I assume, it's easier for you. So let me rephrase it for you.

"Given SE's observable behavior in the recent past: if they restore Bane, Miasma, Shadowflare, then it is extremely unlikely that they will give us anything better in the future".

I'm curious to know what you understood so far about my point. What is the most crucial point I am making? Please relay it to me so that we can discuss it and so that we can stop wasting time on this.

Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...54w3SuMgaL704g

Interesting. I don't take it as "we don't want healers to DPS", but I am curious where they will take it.

5.0 sch was boring
5.05 sch is still boring, but it's slightly better.

Here is what I find most likely: sch (and all 3 healers in general) remain unfun to play for the duration of 5.0
Here is what I find to be possible, but unlikely: SE will listen to their players and healers will get some of the pruned abilities back
Here is what I find to be most favorable, but extraordinarily unlikely: SE does a rework of healers in the middle of the expansion, and gives healers new abilities that fit the classes better than the old ones we had in stormblood
Here is my prediction for 6.0: Healers will suck for the entirety of shadowbringers. SE will remain clueless in 6.0, and give us boring healers once again. Will I even be playing this game at this point? Probably not, if it continues like this

I disagree that SCH is boring in 5.05.

I think it's more likely that they will listen to the players, which is why I want to ask for something new.
Getting Energy Drain back was a direct response to player feedback. The MP reduction on AoW was a direct response to player feedback (to 600 as some have suggested here).
AST was in a rough spot healing wise and they fixed that, but they didn't have to reduce Divination cooldown (to the 2 minutes suggested by many AST players) or improve Sleeve Draw. That is another direct response to player feedback.
If you read the forums enough, you'll be able to relate some of the changes to the posts here.

Why do you think that scenario is most likely?