Playing SCH is so awkward and bad

[Billythepancake]

I'm just gonna point out that for PvE if scholar was as bad as its being made out to be, then why do people try to avoid white mage + astrologian for raiding? 8D

I'm not saying that it has no issues as some of the fairy problems have existed since 2.0, but scholar is still the best healer of the 3.

Because the issues with SCH isn't about it being strong or balanced, as many have pointed out, its problems lie with how it feels to play. AST is in the same boat, albeit much worse off, as it is perfectly capable of doing all the content and doing it well, but it feels like garbage to play so nobody does it.

[KarmaLad]

Been maining SCH for a long while now and as someone who used to play WHM I can tell you that the playstyle difference is relatively significant, but if you stick by it and manage to learn the ins and outs I am sure you'll do great. Still, just like Billythepancake has been saying the class has been butchered by SE. All Healers have. They've become way too streamlined and as deep as a shallow puddle. Are they effective? Yes. Are they fun and engaging? No, or at least when compared to what other classes have to offer. SE tried to make healers accessible to everyone but ironically they are making a lot of healer mains turn away. If you really want to take some of our tools away then fine, but at least give us others instead of a single new spell and a couple of buffs. I don't want to get into AST because I don't play them and probably won't for a while after they butchered their main gimmick so badly, I just wished they'd revert their choice regarding healers. It won't happen though.

[Brandedblade]

What's with the nostalgia over Miasma II? That spells' ShB incarnation was literally shoehorned in to give sch an aoe filler for dps. Some people might argue that it was an awesome optimization tool but all I could see out of it was a poorly designed skill that took away from another skills (Ruin II's) function. The Ruin II buff and AoW implementation are one of my favorite changes precisely because it gave the two spells a distinct purpose as opposed to ignoring one of them in favor of a mana inefficient spam.

As for the pets, the only time I've had issues with ghosting is if I pop a skill right before Seraph is summoned or dismissed, that is solely an issue of user error due to not watching timers. If the issue of ghosting is a matter of the pet moving around and getting its AI mixed up then place the darn thing.

One more trick for all the people who can't find their pets.

Character Config -> Control Settings -> Target Tab -> Under Target Settings: Uncheck Disable targetting of pets and minions when in battle.


As far as my own wish fulfillment fantasy I would be content with just reimplementing miasma for the illusion of dot management, and have it upgrade into Miasma II (although what I'm imagining is Sch-flavored Aero III, not the shb version people love to rant and rave about) but honestly once they re-implemented ED they fixed the only trust issue I felt with the job.

[Reynhart]

[*]My lvl 70 SCH has only access to Aetherflow to get Atherflow stacks every 60 seconds, and yet several of my heals/mitigation tools are locked behind an Aetherflow cost

How can this be an issue when WHM has heals locked behind Lilies you get once every 30 seconds ?

[Crushnight]

I'm just gonna point out that for PvE if scholar was as bad as its being made out to be, then why do people try to avoid white mage + astrologian for raiding? 8D

I'm not saying that it has no issues as some of the fairy problems have existed since 2.0, but scholar is still the best healer of the 3.

Oh this is simple the difference between Duirnal AST vs WHM is far far smaller than Nocturnal AST vs SCH. Bare in mind also Diurnal is far superior to Nocturnal due to better mp management, greater potency heals in the long run, 500 less mp Aspected Benefic, and Diurnal now has shields sufficient for half of the savage fights so WHM + Duirnal is better in most circumstances than WHM + Nocturnal.

Nocturnal AST has to be reworked to be even close to what a SCH is capable of, they need better mp regeneration or lower mp costs, they need more powerful ogcds as nothing compares to Seraph(as underwhelming as Seraph is on SCH it is a boon)/Excog(Horoscope but its a stack vs a gcd thing) /Indom(Lightspeed yet that has to be used for Sleeve Draw)/Sacred Soil(Collective Unconsciousness which is just laughably weak compared), basically Nocturnal AST needs to be able to give their co-healer as much free time as SCH does to be considered for the shielding role which cannot happen due to being tied to Diurnal on a single job, so AST is always a hodgepodge of both WHM and SCH without fully embracing one thus it must be gimped or it is going to be too strong and hurt the other healers(most likely WHM 1st due to their issues).

[Lacan]

So basically, their attempt to balance the healers was a bust. :v So does that mean they'll try it again with 6.0 and give us a new healer job for 7.0 at last?

[Melichoir]

Snip

Not gonna lie, I had a bit of difficulty understanding some of the stuff you said. First we have to separate the simplification aspect from the balance/design aspect, because those are not the same thing. They could balance classes without simplifying them. Some of the simplification aspect was to deal with hotkey bloat.

Now AST is a bit of a mess in many places, so thats something I wont debate. Of the 3 healers, it has the most problems. If anyone has anything to complain about, itd be AST currently. That being said, lets not lie to ourselves and say Fishing for Balance was a great system, nor that the old system would work in our current system. We dont have TP so Spire is out. Ewer would be godly with how mana operates now, so thats out. Bole was a strong defense CD but highly situation and niche. You couldnt reliably pull a bole for a tank buster (where itd be great). I am having difficulty imagining Bole being great currently because it would have to be nerfed down to fit into the current tank environment. That leaves us with Spear, Balance and Arrow. Because Arrow and Spear are sub stat modifiers, their effectiveness is a bit broad and with less focus on class synergy, these potentially create a balance issue in regards to who you bring to a fight. It goes back to the issue in SB where you bring utility over pure roles. So a DRG was much more ideal than a SAM typically. Same for AST/SCH over WHM. Balance, on the other hand, was good for everyone and was the ideal card to pull. It was that substantially better and easier to manage as a buff. You wouldnt accidentally screw up someones timers like you might with Arrow, or overly synergize with Spear.

The current set up gives you minor balance no matter the card pulled. You will always get a manageable damage buff that at worst roughly translates to the same damage output as a Spear. Always. It solved some of these complaints people had about the nature of cards from 4.x. Now, this comes with other issues on how its set up, as you illustrated. To fix something, they broke other things. That needs to be addressed for AST. I get that.

But this isnt like SCH in this regards. Your skills were altered and then thrown together in a clunky manner. Youre still the card buffing healer, your buffs are just a lot more simplified and your other skills are a mess to use in a nice and tidy manner. However, If you were to give the old cards back, much of what ast suffers from now still doesnt get fixed as youd still have sleeve draw issues, youd still have issues trying to get the divination stuff (cause I would assume that itd tack on the sun/moon/celestial aspect to our current cards and how theyre played, though itd drop the roll aspect possibly). Youd get the original issue of Balance fishing, on top of hte current issues, and going back to teh old system requires a literal rework of the class and trying to adjust that to the current changes in mana, tp, and class synergy.

Snip

I think this is incorrect as I think itll actually drive player base growth by making people have to invest in gameplay. Yes some players will leave cause "its to hard", but I predict youll likely pick up more players who want the challenge and experience. It also is a smack at at the casual base, because it assumes the average player wants content to be little effort, but I frequently see people stating they want something harder than what non EX/Savage offers. The demand of difficulty is there. If it were simply a case of appealing broadly and making it super easy to maximize players, theyd drop enrage timer and dps checks, and make it near impossible to die to 1-shot mechanics or raid wipes.

I think what people tend to see when complaints about difficulty crop up is the jump between dungeon difficulty and EX. There's a sharp incline there thats a problem. If they did nothing to ex and savage modes, and raised difficulty of dungeon and regular trials gradually, youd actually see less complaining about EX modes without any substantial loss in the player base pop. Youd have to scale up over the lvl 70-80 content (which is key to all this, you dont immediately spike it), but if its done slowly and with purpose, the player base will get better without realizing it. Which they have IMO. Casual players who play now are better than when they played SB on average. This isnt all players, or that there arent players who want things to be face roll easy, but that there is a vocal part of the player base wanting something harder. And giving them harder content by slowly training them up allows them to get into EX easier, build confidence and get into Savage easier. If theyre going from "I dont have to move out of pancakes/we can have 12 + deaths and still clear a boss fight" to "2 or 3 deaths can cause a wipe" its gonna seem like a stretch. Mix that with players thinking that Savage tier and EX is "elite status" and it psychs people out.

So basically, their attempt to balance the healers was a bust. :v So does that mean they'll try it again with 6.0 and give us a new healer job for 7.0 at last?

They did balance them (roughly), its just that people dont like the result of said balances from a playstyle point. Part of what has to be understood is that how it was in 4.X put WHM under the bus broadly. Great healer but about 0 utility and with class synergy being a thing, it was very unideal outside of prog. Not that you couldnt, but it wasnt recommended. The changes, or atleast the idea behind the changes, made the classes a lot closer in scope. Some of this was gonna require that certain aspects of the jobs would get nixed. Im not saying theyre 100% successful. There is room for QoL adjustments, and they all could use a look over (AST mostly so) but they are now relatively balanced from a function stand point with AST pulling up the rear.

[Granyala]

My main gripe with Fairies and Egis is that -I- cannot be casting when I order them to do sth.
This completely defeats the point of having a pet.

Pet actions should be independent from character actions, so that they feel like a separate entity.

How can this be an issue when WHM has heals locked behind Lilies you get once every 30 seconds ?

The lilies do nothing unique. Aetherflow stack heals do.

Depending on a groups performance it is rather easy to be Aetherstack starved and trying to heal with your basic heals feels .... really bad. They are so weak compared to WHM heals it feels borderline futile.

[Shougun]

Sorry if this feels a bit tangent but since I read a few posts on losing damage spells and how it felt like there was less to do I thought it would be fun just to twiddle in the space SE has given us (so not returning any spells but just adding some new interactions). Not to be taken too seriously but I still find these things are fun to talk about.

Could come up with concepts for other healers too but this was on scholars, cause scholar thread lol. Would probably come out as a buff unless SE tweaks other things down a bit- though I personally wouldn't mind if healers could get a few more % of damage out (wouldn't mind if healer damage was improved a little, so long as tanks and healers are far "enough" away from DD lol). Just make sure the other healers are on par at the end :P.

Rough concepts (mostly for fun) and some of these could be expansion concepts-

What if when Scholar cast their Bio DoT each tick has an increasing chance to become a pustule (honestly the name can change lol, just went with that because "bio" theme). Pustules can be popped (:3) via Broil for extra aoe damage to nearby enemies (worth a little bit more potency than casting an art of war in that situation), or lanced via Ruin for extra single target damage (worth more potency than casting art of war on 3 targets, but not worth more than an aoe on 4). The effect lost once popped of course, pustules last ~10-15 seconds regardless of remaining dot time and don't stack. After triggered the rate resets and builds up again. It would be nice if there was a little dot or some way to easily tell a pustule is on a target, obviously an animation occurring would help but I was thinking on their nameplate, enemy list, their circle (just for scholar), or some other easy to see method without having to tab onto them. Perhaps simply a persistent non-obtrusive visual effect (until consumed at least), like a partial transparent sphere centered on the monster that is theme'd to scholar's imagery- which would also allow for a nice dissipation/interaction animation when popping them (may need to be player specific only visual to prevent scholars confusing each other though lol). Worst case scenario it could just be tied into a blood lily job gauge like concept so players know when the effect has triggered, but I'd rather it be on a per monster basis as it could be quite fun having them appear like a whack a mole game and works quite well with an Art of War concept below.

Energy Drain will greatly increase the development rate of pustules (so if it was like 30% development per tick chance+ an extra 10% each tick, energy drain might add+40%). Once per unique monster (the rate increase, not the pustule).

Each time one is popped there is a chance to gain additional effect of outbreak (a buff that sits on scholar for a time priming additional effects for other spells).

Energy Drain will apply patient zero to target (and consumes outbreak).

Art of War can consume outbreak to place a ground zero (g0) zone on cast, the added effect being: the longest bio owned by that player affected in the Art of War radius becomes patient zero (p0) and a ground radius of Art of War becoming ground zero (shadow flare like area).

The timer on p0 is matched to bio's remaining duration and has it's own minor potency per tick (so if bio was 50 potency and p0 was 10 then total is 60 per tick), for each tick of this unique bio (while the monster is in g0) a contagion effect will be spread (of lesser bio potency, like the bane days) for the time remaining on p0. If all nearby enemies have been infected p0 will infect everything again adding the time remaining to contagion (so if the enemy had a contagion of 5 seconds left and p0 had 6 seconds then contagion would now have 11, this only happening once every nearby enemy has been cycled through). Only one ground zero may be active at a time, but if you got very lucky you might back to back the effect I suppose (and it would be wise to make sure a long lasting bio is up before creating another g0 for maximum p0 contagion spreading opportunity). If you recast bio while the monster is affected by p0 debuff the bio will refresh but the patient zero timer will not refresh. Contagion and Bio replace each other based on whichever one would do more damage (for the owner, not another player's- not like SCH / AST shields lol). So if a monster had bio on it for 2 seconds and contagion applied for 15 it would replace bio but if bio was at 30 and contagion was going to be 5 it would not replace bio (opting for the better DoT- to be clear contagion effect and bio conflict and not patient zero as both p0 and bio can be active at once). Contagion may trigger their own pustules like bio would (perhaps at a lower starting rate, but enough that if you had a large pack of monsters it wouldn't be uncommon to see them appear frequently).

Might make funny positions but also thought it might be fun if Art of War had two concentric circles, the first larger one is as we have now and is for the same potency, but a much smaller circle would have a bit higher potency and pop pustules like broil for aoe damage but at a very slightly lower potency. This would encourage Scholars to move around the field methodically, targeting high priority monsters, easily being able to explode their pustules (though if they wanted to tab target and broil they'd get a bit more reward), and generally give a sense of "positional" aoe movement.

Not crazy different from before and no new buttons, but a bit more to think about - I think lol. And returns, vaguely, some of the fun of shadowflare and bane. You get a sort of reactive mechanic of pustules that encourages using spells you might otherwise be ignoring (not using Ruin/Broil due to circumstance), as well as being rewarded for particular placement of yourself (higher powered AoE in the center of your Art of War).

Also may consider changing some of these concepts into debuffs rather than damage focus, or using a sort of defense debuff I think that balances fairly well. So like if you pop a pustule (broil, for aoe) it splashes (eewww hahaha) onto nearby enemies causing them to be afflicted with defense down sort of debuff (that decreases defense by X value until Y potency has be done and then falls off, allowing it to balance itself). Of course you can have debuffs like slow or damage down but some of the issue would be that would create even less spells to use since you'd definitely not need to be healing then. Haven't ran the numbers but may need to do something about bio spam vs letting ground zero play out, depending on how it feels and making sure the more entertaining route is promoted (spamming bio on everything for loads of pustules vs waiting for ground zero spread it via contagious outbreak). Might also be able to play with energy drain spam after this (promoting aether traits for healing, after you've promoted your first pustule at least), I think prototype or roleplaying (DNDing-ish) out the rotation with someone would help if we were going to be serious :3 (I'm mostly just having fun spit-balling inside the space SE and Scholar's theme have given).

Like before a single target might be a bit like:
(Bio) - (Broil for days) / (Ruin if you needed to move) + (Energy Drain for some fae power and ogcd weaving, if you don't need them for heals)

Now:Similar though you'd probably Energy Drain earlier after bio for a faster pustule,
(Bio) - (Energy Drain) - if Pustule (Ruin for extra single target damage) - if outbreak (check bio timer, then Art of War or Energy Drain) - (Broil until pustule or repeat) + (Energy drain weaving when you don't need it for other stuff), the change isn't crazy large but it does add a little of interactive reactivity

AoE:
(Bio) - (Art of War until not worth it) - (Broil till dead after AoE is not worth it, in the unlikely event you need to move maybe use ruin lol)

Now:
(Bio) - (Energy Drain) - (Art of War, standing on the highest priority target) - (Broil pustule, extra aoe damage) - Outbreak effect unlocked, gauge how much bio time is needed and recast if needed - (Art of War outbreak in a central area, causing contagion to spread) - (Art of War) - (Broil, pustule) - (Broil, Pustule) - (Ruin, pustule as 3 or less now are alive) - (Art of War at 3) - (Broil at 2) - (Ruin last pustule appears) - (Broil till dead, probably not worth recasting bio at this point).

Alternatively if you feel like "I don't want to tab target today, I'm tired but I still want to play fairly well" you can run on top of the monster so that your concentric smaller circle overlaps theirs and pop them that way for just a tiny loss compared to broiling them.

Just for fun of making a short tooltip (because the above was long and might seem like "can't be tooltiped", not that mine are great examples lol):

Bio -
Additional Effect: X% chance and increasing each tick to create pustule.

Ruin -
Combo Action: Pustule debuff on target
Combo Potency: ???

Broil -
Combo Action: Pustule debuff on target
Combo Bonus Potency: ??? to all nearby enemies

Energy Drain -
Combo Action: Bio debuff on target
Combo Bonus: Increased chance for a pustule to develop
Combo Action: Outbreak & Bio debuff on target
Combo Bonus Potency: ???
Duration: Time remaining on Bio

Art of War -
Additional Effect: ??% increased damage ?y from center
Combo Action: Pustule debuff on target ?y from center
Combo Potency: ???

Combo Action: Outbreak & Bio debuff on one nearby enemy
Combo Bonus Potency: ???
Duration: Time remaining on Bio
Additional Effect: Ground Zero
Contagion will spread from target, dealing X potency, with a stacking duration based on time remaining of ground zero.

Anyways just had some fun thinking of not adding a new spell slot but interacting a bit more on the field. I always find that enjoyable thing to talk about XD, wont bother me if someone hates the idea- also not suggesting SCH /needs/ this just that I could imagine it fitting into scholar without killing anything or requiring any new buttons (though I see it increasing scholar's damage, which would mean the other healers would probably appreciate some love of some sort too lol).

You could always say "how about instead make the monsters hit harder so I can actually heal, the job is called healer not damage dealer", but I'm concerned if they go too far into healing exclusively that you'll frequently have end of the world hurricane torrential terror of gil repair madness as your tank / healer can't seem to get their stuff together. If you don't lean HARD into needing to heal rather than damage deal then great healers will have a lot of down time, who will then be quite bored lol. And that down time can fit debuffs and damage very nicely (obviously what many healers do, just bored pressing one damage button to win). Feel like the length of this post is like youtube video statistics where 99% have dropped off already so /wave to you who is reading this, hi there nice to meet you lol. While if SE just tried to fit more damaging monsters into that down time to the point healers had to use way more of their main healing kit then you get a lot of "can't even pass the first pack without dying because my healer doesn't know what esuna or cure II means, and don't even get me started on "oGCD spells", and now our tank blew all their CD on the first pack to get through so we're looking at the second pack waiting for them to come back. . . nice. . ." .

Not that I'm saying leaning into healing more is impossible just that there will always be a bit of downtime for those who've tuned their healing, unless SE goes so hardcore into damage management that I think it'll just kill the game for casual / normal DF groups (so some damage and or debuff management is a must for many healers to not be bored). Though I'm not opposed to the idea certain healers are simpler than others (hard to balance that concept but it's okay to make a class that is more straight forward, I think). Just that I think it might be helpful to add a bit more depth to that offensive down time for some of the healers (like perhaps a new healing job, 6.0 healers going to riot if no new job then ). I had thought a dark theme'd healer could fit that quite well, not necessarily necromancer but like curses, dark magic (ritual, primal like witches, eldritch, etc), some physical elements like mid ranged chain whip with scythe tip and a bell on the handle (for magic), aggressive healing style, a number of monster interactions (like one concept I thought for healing that might be fun was that you prevent damage at the source by cursing the monster, such that it acts as a heal but cast on the enemy rather). Debuff heavy high tech healer might work too, the machinist of healers lol- perhaps with chemist trappings.

[Melichoir]

Snip

I think these are fun ideas to tinker around with. Expanding the scope of how current skills operate or interact might help make it more interesting, particularly if you start creating player judgement situations where theres either risk reward or trades.

To quickly touch on the "More heal intensive fights", to be clear with what I was talking about, Im not suggesting that healers only heal. I expect there to be down times where healers contribute to damage dealt. But having hte fights a bit more healer intensive OR more mechanically demanding so that there is less emphasis on 'downtime' where you will notice your dps usage and its limited options.

To go from
Broil>Broil>Broil>Broil some more> dot/RuinII with Energy Drain, some more broil, Adlo or Lustrate, back to Broil, etc

to

Broil>Adlo>broil>Broil> Ruin II> Lustrate> Bio>EDrain>Broil> Adlo>Succor>Lustrate> etc.

You jam in Broil, Bio, etc when you can and healing when necessary. I know Im not using like 90% of the skills but Im just trying to illustrate that increasing the healing load and incorporating mechanics which prevent you from sitting there and straight casting Broil would probably help mitigate against how boring it is to play the class. Heck, some of these things can be spruced up by having bosses cast mini tank busters. Busters that do % based damage that can be mitigated by shields/CDs, or have the boss do raid buster followed by tank buster followed by raid buster at a point where you cant LB3 it. I am obviously not a genius at encounter design, but there's a lot they can do to modify difficulty without overhauling every last aspect if people are willing to go for a different play style. If all healers want to do at the end of the day is manage dps skills and toss in heals or let their fairy do that work, then this wont work.

If they wanted to add more to the DPS (which I think is the wrong direction IMO but oh well - devs choices), then I would say it should not be by adding in the old skills but by adding complexity to how damage is dealt. Possibly up management of the fairy so that it does have DPS some skills attached to your gauge or where your fairy deals damage for you so itd be more optimal for a burst window for you to use healing while your fairy damages for you. Im more opposed to "put a dot on here, use an oGCD on CD there and bam - thats complex and engaging!", and that for the sake of class identity, if were gonna debate about that AST is about using cards to buff and RNG matters, then it would also be appropriate to say that SCH needs more fairy management, and not damage skills.