Playing SCH is so awkward and bad

[HyoMinPark]

]So could someone explain it to me? Cause Im struggling to understand how just having 'more skills' = more fun.

It’s the idea of having more to do. Reapplying 1 DoT every 30 seconds and filling in the other non-healing GCDs with Broil is a lot less interesting than:
—keeping up with 2~3 DoTs each with their own separate timer (4.0 SCH had 3 DoTs to manage—Bio II, Miasma, Miasma II; 3.0 SCH had even more than that),
—managing mana to have as many Miasma II casts as possible (because it was pretty hard on the MP),
—making sure Shadow Flare remains on CD/optimizing its usage around things like raid buffs that would occur around the time it would come off CD,
—using Ruin II for this weaving,
—and then using Broil as a filler.

Being active and having more timers to pay attention to can make a job feel far more interesting. It’s why I miss Straight Shot on BRD: I like things like self-buffs that require upkeep. Having more oGCDs to engage you keeps gameplay interesting (so long as these oGCDs are able to be handled in a non-cumbersome way—see: 5.0 AST cards and Sleeve Draw for the definition of cumbersome).

[Melichoir]

It’s the idea of having more to do. Reapplying 1 DoT every 30 seconds and filling in the other non-healing GCDs with Broil is a lot less interesting than:
—keeping up with 2~3 DoTs each with their own separate timer (4.0 SCH had 3 DoTs to manage—Bio II, Miasma, Miasma II; 3.0 SCH had even more than that),
—managing mana to have as many Miasma II casts as possible (because it was pretty hard on the MP),
—making sure Shadow Flare remains on CD/optimizing its usage around things like raid buffs that would occur around the time it would come off CD,
—using Ruin II for this weaving,
—and then using Broil as a filler.

Being active and having more timers to pay attention to can make a job feel far more interesting. It’s why I miss Straight Shot on BRD: I like things like self-buffs that require upkeep. Having more oGCDs to engage you keeps gameplay interesting (so long as these oGCDs are able to be handled in a non-cumbersome way—see: 5.0 AST cards and Sleeve Draw for the definition of cumbersome).

I just dont see this being 'more interesting'. It runs into the idea that this more engaging simply because its more to do. As a point from my perspective, if youre not using Shadow flare on CD, you may end up missing a cast and hurting your overall dps. This isnt interesting to me as a mechanic, its simply "Press this button every 60 seconds", and to do that, you need to use something that you can weave with. There isnt much of an argument to say "Oh should I put off using ShadowFlare and hard cast a dot cause thatll be more damage." Only situation I can imagine where you might hold shadowflare is for damage windows, but if that damage window is more than so many seconds out, its not worth while to hold. This isnt any different than SE on DRK in this regards. I dunno if people would be happy if, lets say, they reduced the potency of Bio and gave you miasma back, so that both deal the same amount of damage, but now you have to manage two skills. More to do, but more engaging? Its like saying that to make things harder, just have the boss have more HP and better defense with nothing else.

I didnt play SCH in SB, and Im not going to say SCH right now is the most interesting thing since sliced bread, but Im just not seeing this position of it being that much better from a pure mechanics point. I guess if its just a matter of pressing more buttons ensure things are off CD, then yeah I guess. And I know you can boil that down to it broadly with any class, but I dont see much meta game here or actual thought process going into things that this system was that substantially more interesting. Shadow Flare off CD, press button unless youre within x seconds of TA. Simplistic PoV, sure. But I think saying that this kind of thing made a huge difference in play is a bit of a stretch to me.

This all being said, most of this can be fixed by adjusting almost nothing on the class and adjusting the fight mechanics in the game. This goes back to the issue I see generally is that a lot of complaints come from the fact the game has a low skill floor. Would SCH still be considered boring if you were required to cycle much faster through single target healing, aoe healing, shielding and using oGCD heals in a more managed way, and filling in the rest with Bio, Ruin, and Broil? Whre you had to rely much more heavily on hardcasting heals? I kinda feel this wouldnt be the case. But this requires harder encounters which requires higher skill floor. Heck, considering most players dont play savage, simply increasing the skill floor to be more healing intensive and managing your heals better would actually solve some of the complaints. Itd still be boring in savage, but for the average player, its gonna be more interesting simply because difficulty requires more from the healer than they would do currently.

I think that encounter design is the side of this equation that people rarely ever address. Its always "Its a class problem" and not "Its a fight problem". If the game had way harder mechanics that required more of youre input from the healing side, I dont feasibly see this being as big a problem. Maybe people feel itd be easier for the devs to change class mechanics rather than address battle mechanics.

[Billythepancake]

I think that encounter design is the side of this equation that people rarely ever address. Its always "Its a class problem" and not "Its a fight problem". If the game had way harder mechanics that required more of youre input from the healing side, I dont feasibly see this being as big a problem. Maybe people feel itd be easier for the devs to change class mechanics rather than address battle mechanics.

Because they'd have to change classes alongside battle mechanics. Healers in this game are not designed for constant healing. Try to constantly heal and you'd be running on empty 2 minutes into a 5 minute encounter. People ask for more DPS skills because they'd be the easiest to implement and wouldn't require an ARR level rework to get done. I don't want the next expansion just being them fixing healers and encounters, I'd rather have new stuff, and it'd be way easier and time effecient to just have healers work and be fun in current design rather than redesign the entire game on top of redesigning healers.

[Melichoir]

Because they'd have to change ...<snip>...on top of redesigning healers.

I dont quite agree with this. IIRC outside of Succor and Adlo, healing skills on SCH are the same cost as DPS skills. And some of this is offset against fairy buffs and Aetherflow skills. If you wanted to tweak it so healers would last longer or heal more, its a matter of tweaking MP regen rates or mana costs. But adding dps skills shifts encounter designs quite a bit in of itself. Faster you kill, less of the encounter you see, less you have to heal. It gets more complicated when you have to add DPS skills to both AST and WHM to ensure they all do around the same damage output, otherwise SCH becomes a must take because the encounters are designed around damage output.

This is just a difference in outlook though. You want more Damage cause you think thatll fix the class, I personally want harder encounters overall to raise the skill floor of all players without relying on DPS checks because I dont think the class is inherently broken. It's more a matter of shifting focus away from "I need to do DPS" to "I need to resolve boss mechanics while keeping people alive." Heck, might kill two birds with one stone and get people to hush about "Healers just heal and nothing more".

Find the fights to be more or less the same since ...<snip>... press it and forget about it.

Unfortunately this is the direction most of the classes went into. Its more heres a CD, use it. Thats a problem with the xpac class wise. This would be fine if the fights were harder/more interesting overall. Simplifying a class and giving you a basic kit is fine if that kit is flexible and the fights were challenging.

I think you missed my point: for some of us...<snip>... of performance far less rewarding.

I think I get what you guys are getting at broadly, its just I feel that its a ...flawed way of looking at things? I know that comes off as condescending, but its partly the way Im seeing this. Its like arguing that when something was ultra clunky, it's still good due to how much APM or how many buttons to press. My understanding of SMN is that this is the problem - to much going on. More buttons can be interesting, but it tends to sidestep other issues such as "Is this even well designed?" What Im feeling is that this feels like the illusion of gameplay, rather than actual gameplay. Like how for a while in games everything was a QTE. Like there wasnt deep thought for on keeping straight shot buff up. Is it gonna fall off? reapply before anything else. If you can get a straighter shot crit, great. Its something to do but its not meaningful skill.

Id say that yeah, if we want to debate if things got simpler this xpac, sure. I think thats the case. I have my complaints about DRK personally, but I think the thing Im not connecting with here is simply how this is being framed. This isnt like DRK, as an example, where you had managing 2 buff windows, ontop of mana pool management that couldnt be remedied by someone elses raid buffs, oGCD usage of DA (as in where you use it in the oGCD) paired with Tank CDs and aggro management, but now its just Put on Grit, use that Standard DPS combo, and spam EoS until youre down to 3k mana, and use Delirum and Spamotard BS. The skills shifted into much less interesting versions of themselves, aggro management is now a joke, youre not really managing mana anymore, you dont really have to care about how oGCDs are used, etc. Im not seeing my blind spot on this when people are saying "Oh, we lost an oGCD that was used on CD, and a dot that was mana heavy, poor poor selene, therefore the class is substantially less interesting." What Im asking is where is the big nuances that define a substantial differences between 4.x SCH vs 5.x SCH? Cause I can do that with DRK, but Im having difficulty doing that with SCH, even after reviewing guides on SCH from 4.X, particularly since some of these nuances seemed like bad game design. Not that DA spam was good design. It certainly wasnt, but some of the things buried in there were. There was more meta thought to it. You could do more damage doing DA earlier in the GCD. Things like that.

So if there is something akin to this, then Id be interested in hearing that. But the "Well I needed to use this skill on CD, and that dot was kinda mana intensive" isnt telling me that there was much deeper things going on.

[CrimsonGunner]

snip

i think you are kinda missing the point the healers are trying to say.they don't just want dps tools, they want to use more skills during healing downtimes.

the reasons why people tell you about dot managements is probably due to the fact that was what SE mostly gave healers and cause the arcanist/scholar identity which was mostly a dot mage so having different dots and re-apply them in different times and managing them was a part of a scholar identity along side his healing ability and not to mention managing their pet,selene and eos which had different tools and not being the same as they are now.

you mention DRK which i read people complain about it being too similar to WAR ,this is the same thing most healers are complaining about.
yes SE simplify too much, its isn't just a matter of losing an oGCD or just a dot and yes it is especially poor poor selene since what they made all the healers is identical to WHM and remove what was different and unique in their game play.

with selene and eos being the same,they removed a certain element from the pet management,making basically the fairy good for is just oGCD healing only.
there are also certain issues with the pet management that also upset people like unable to control the fairy embrace which is auto cast without any preferred target among its issues.
as for dot management,people still loved to have different dots to apply for scholar since as i said before was tied to his identity as a dot mage due to its roots from arcanist.

what the healer community asking(at least how i understand this) isn't simplified the jobs but actually request proper and unique game-style and kit for each of the healers while still being balanced(each class will make up for what the other is lacking).
it isn't just a matter of more or less buttons to press but actually have an interesting play with their jobs.(those who chose scholar loved having the dot management aka debuffer , AST being the varied card buffer and WHM straightforward game play) .

my point is that just like DRK issue of being too similar ,the same problem is with all the healers jobs. pressing only broil/malefic/glare and apply 1 dot isn't a rotation, the healers want skills during down time, not just dps but buffs and debuffs as well.
those that choose the healers roles come for the complexity: keeping people alive,improve the party by applying buffs on members and debuffs on enemies and lastly if all is applied we dps for help.

as for too much healing downtimes , it seems that it became a fact in the healer community that its because of SE scripted fights and the encounter design fault (at least from what i read) and would love it to change so there will be more healing to do but knowing SE it most likely won't happen which is probably the reason why you stumble less about blaming how encounter works.

hope it helped you understand us better Melichoir

[Crushnight]

I think I get what you guys are getting at broadly, its just I feel that its a ...flawed way of looking at things? I know that comes off as condescending, but its partly the way Im seeing this. Its like arguing that when something was ultra clunky, it's still good due to how much APM or how many buttons to press. My understanding of SMN is that this is the problem - to much going on. More buttons can be interesting, but it tends to sidestep other issues such as "Is this even well designed?" What Im feeling is that this feels like the illusion of gameplay, rather than actual gameplay. Like how for a while in games everything was a QTE. Like there wasnt deep thought for on keeping straight shot buff up. Is it gonna fall off? reapply before anything else. If you can get a straighter shot crit, great. Its something to do but its not meaningful skill.

Id say that yeah, if we want to debate if things got simpler this xpac, sure. I think thats the case. I have my complaints about DRK personally, but I think the thing Im not connecting with here is simply how this is being framed. This isnt like DRK, as an example, where you had managing 2 buff windows, ontop of mana pool management that couldnt be remedied by someone elses raid buffs, oGCD usage of DA (as in where you use it in the oGCD) paired with Tank CDs and aggro management, but now its just Put on Grit, use that Standard DPS combo, and spam EoS until youre down to 3k mana, and use Delirum and Spamotard BS. The skills shifted into much less interesting versions of themselves, aggro management is now a joke, youre not really managing mana anymore, you dont really have to care about how oGCDs are used, etc. Im not seeing my blind spot on this when people are saying "Oh, we lost an oGCD that was used on CD, and a dot that was mana heavy, poor poor selene, therefore the class is substantially less interesting." What Im asking is where is the big nuances that define a substantial differences between 4.x SCH vs 5.x SCH? Cause I can do that with DRK, but Im having difficulty doing that with SCH, even after reviewing guides on SCH from 4.X, particularly since some of these nuances seemed like bad game design. Not that DA spam was good design. It certainly wasnt, but some of the things buried in there were. There was more meta thought to it. You could do more damage doing DA earlier in the GCD. Things like that.

So if there is something akin to this, then Id be interested in hearing that. But the "Well I needed to use this skill on CD, and that dot was kinda mana intensive" isnt telling me that there was much deeper things going on.

I'll try to explain this from my AST perspective with a bit of the other healers. The cards were changed to be simpler to use but it was changed badly, as the cards lost their greater impact but also have been made worse to use especially for controller players.

They changed the fishing from 92% for trying to get aoe balance (which wasn't the only useful thing just the most desired) to 76% for 3 seal divination, this could look like an improvement but it does not feel like an improvement to a lot of AST players heck 3 seal divination is such a small increase over 2 seal divination(even 1 if that unlucky which can happen) it feels so lackluster getting that card luck over how it used to be.

Draw and using the card(Play now) are now separate buttons which makes it unlikely you'll accidentally use the card early with a double tap but adds a slightly longer delay to use the cards, fix one problem add another the staple of ShB AST, also with cards being only single target as a controller player you have to cycle through the party list or use macros this becomes mandatory for openers and every 6 mins of a fight in 8 man content due to always going to have to click up/down 4 times due to how the party list is structured, this is very cumbersome and a major issue that sadly is not being addressed by the development team.

Cooldowns are also being forced into scenarios that should never be forced into Lightspeed is not being used purely for movement or for fast heals/dps, you have to save it for the opener and every 6 mins in a fight or you are going to have an atrocious time with Sleeve Draw heck just Sleeve Draw in general, the opener is especially bad because you have 4 gcds to get 3 seal divination and with 24% chance to get it without redraw(another ogcd) it requires a lot of work for a very small payoff combine this with needing to select party members individually and it is the worst designed job for controller players during those points(job gets way more manageable after opener/6 mins but still saying that feels bad after 3.0-4.XX AST).

You also have to wait for the server to register both you and your card target to be in combat (1 server tick) for you to acquire any seals if unlucky this can cost you a seal in the opener if you act too quickly, but when you only have 4 gcds you have to act quickly in the opener.

You then have the stuff they took away like Time Dilation and old Celestial Opposition where you cannot interact with your buffs anymore, the buffs are both AST's buffs but not AST's buffs at the same time, those two skills were simple but added a lot to AST's playstyle because it added small decisions on what buffs do i extend (HoTs/dmg reduction on tank or dmg up on Dps or extend my own mp resoration etc), it wasn't huge nor was it difficult to gauge what would be appropriate to do but it added something to AST that no other healer could do.

SCH has had similar issues with its fairy they tried fixing a problem (Which fairy is better) but created more from it (Lack of variety/decision making, ghosting issue), this has sorta been sch's big loss over the years losing their decision making skills from DoTs, fairies and to deal damage or heal with stacks(sorta revised now with energy drain back).

Ogcds are so powerful on healers right now and fight design has not really changed since Creator that healer downtime has only increased as they add more ogcds but instead of making healer downtime more interesting they simplified it as well for all healers, this is where a lot of the healer problems are stemming from we want more to do during this period and since encounter design seems off the table then people ask for job changes instead.

TLDR healers as a whole feel like they tried to take a step forward but took 3 steps back even WHM hasn't really moved, it still is prone to powercreep if AST gets buffed too much.

[Sloprano]

I think that encounter design is the side of this equation that people rarely ever address. Its always "Its a class problem" and not "Its a fight problem". If the game had way harder mechanics that required more of youre input from the healing side, I dont feasibly see this being as big a problem. Maybe people feel itd be easier for the devs to change class mechanics rather than address battle mechanics.

Find the fights to be more or less the same since ARR. Only Scholar has changed and the game isn't as enticing for me anymore.

I'm glad you brought up Shadowflare, because that used to have a long cast time, but with no cooldown and added slow to enemies. It made me think if it was worth using a Swiftcast for, only for the tank to pull big without cooldowns seconds later. That is all gone now, but I realize a whole bunch of the new stuff is just cooldowns. When saying "cooldowns" I'm thinking about more and more of the new skills is the 1 - 2 min scale. Now this don't sound like much, and probably lines up with someones boss script "you're gonna need a cooldown for this"-attack perfectly, but it's turning Scholar into a MOBA or Overwatch character for me. For a job that had a world of fun at it's fingertips now I need to wait for Fun to get off cooldown.

Before I had cooldowns in form of Aetherflow, Deployment Tactics, ET and risky Dissipation which felt very well paced as for example back then 30s without Embraces was a substantial hit to your healing. Other than that, the whole skillset was reactionary and on just a gcd, which meant you could adapt very well. Now all that is gone and I'm waiting on Chain strat, Seraph, Excog, Fey Blessig, Indom, Recitation, 2-3 min to fill up Fey Gauge in nor particular order to come off cooldown so I can press it and forget about it.

[HyoMinPark]

I just dont see this being 'more interesting'. It runs into the idea that this more engaging simply because its more to do.

I think you missed my point: for some of us, “more engaging” is synonymous with “more interesting”.

Another healer example: ShB got rid of Aero III on WHM. WHM has never been the more complex healer, but I liked having two separate DoTs to manage. It kept me engaged; it kept me attentive to my DoT timers, and it also just simply gave me another button to press that wasn’t Stone IV (not to mention, it was good for both single-target and AOE scenarios). Being more engaged in keeping track of timers and having more to press made the gameplay more interesting simply because it wasn’t so monotonous as Dia > Glare > Glare > Glare > Glare > Glare ad nauseam until Dia is about to fall off. Monotony is what healers are complaining about when it comes to their neutered damaging toolkit—and since the developers won’t actually give us MORE healing in encounters, damage is the only other thing we have.

For another example unrelated to healers: ShB BRD has been simplified and lost all of its SB complexity when it comes to snapshotting buffs and manipulating Repertoire for increased proc chances and DPS gains. Keeping track of Chain Strat and Battle Litany usages and manipulating our DoTs was a more engaging aspect of the job—which made it more interesting for BRDs that want to optimize and push out those minuscule bits of damage. When they announced the changes to Repertoire in the pre-expac PLL, a lot of BRDs that enjoy optimization were really unhappy with it because it simplified the job, made it more boring, and made higher levels of performance far less rewarding.