Every problems with healers at 5.1

[Connor]

My problem with Scholar isn’t as much the dps; I can take or leave the amount of DoTs / Damage spells I have as long as I have decent ways to support the party in some way, offensively or defensively. I honestly wouldn’t even mind using GCDs on defensive buffs if they made them a thing. That said, I think giving Scholar some DoT spells with debuff effects and lower potency than Biolysis / Broil to compensate would be a nice middle-way between ‘more damage’ and ‘more support’. Maybe even with a high MP cost. I think one of Scholar’s biggest issues is that we have so many powerful oGCDs that we rarely have to actively work to keep the party alive. Not that this doesn’t apply to other healers too, but I feel it’s most apparent on Scholar. That said, I wouldn’t suddenly quit the job if they returned loads of DoTs etc, since it’s not like it hasn’t been like that before.

In terms of the fairy, I wonder if making fairy abilities work like Egi actions would make them less clunky to use. Costing a gcd, but with a stronger effect to compensate (though maybe keep Consolation off-cooldown to try and minimise ghosting. Or at least make it so that if you command the fairy to use an ability, the effect always goes off even if the fairy is in a transition between Eos / Seraph.

Seraph is really cool but I agree that the abilities could use different effects to make it feel more like an ‘upgrade’ than a shiny version of the original. Maybe they could even have summoning it give some sort of passive effect like Phoenix or Bard’s songs, thought it’d have to be super weak and it wouldn’t really add much to the ability.

Overall I don’t have a problem with Scholar’s skill set on-paper, but then you go into actual content and it’s like ‘I’m only using 3 of the abilities I have and the rest basically just directly restore HP in some way’. And then you soon realise that your healing oGCDs are powerful enough to deal with the vast majority of the healing, so you have a bunch of ‘heals target’ spells (and even some oGCDs) you don’t want to use, 1 attack spell you use every 30 seconds and 1 attack spell you use for like 90% of a fight.

I don’t even disagree with their reasoning tbh. I assume they wanted to make it easier to deal ‘respectable’ / ‘decent’ damage as a healer whilst still keeping the party fully healed. But then they keep healing requirements extremely low, despite designing the healers as if we were constantly going to be on the precipice of death.

Sometimes I find myself spamming Broil thinking ‘what should I do now?’ before quickly realising ‘oh, nothing’ and just Broiling some more. That’s the best way to describe my problem with Scholar currently


Addendum: they made such a big deal of ‘separating Scholar and Arcanist’, but we still have the same Ruin II spell we’ve had since 2.0. Couldn’t that have gotten an animation upgrade like Bio II becoming Biolysis instead of Bio III. I’m sure it wouldn’t be too much of a challenge to create a new instant cast spell animation for something that’s more tailored towards Scholar

[Lodi]

I think one of Scholar’s biggest issues is that we have so many powerful oGCDs that we rarely have to actively work to keep the party alive. Not that this doesn’t apply to other healers too, but I feel it’s most apparent on Scholar. That said, I wouldn’t suddenly quit the job if they returned loads of DoTs etc, since it’s not like it hasn’t been like that before.

[...]

Sometimes I find myself spamming Broil thinking ‘what should I do now?’ before quickly realising ‘oh, nothing’ and just Broiling some more. That’s the best way to describe my problem with Scholar currently

Very much this. Healer gameplay right now is spam 1, use your CDs if someone's hurt, use your healing spells if you don't have any CDs available.
Each passing expansion makes us heal less and less, we have less damage options, less things to worry about, less interaction.

When was the last time we actually got new spells?
Let me see, WHM got Afflatus spells in 5.0, and... well, that's it.
In two whole expansions, we got potency boosts, less spells, and a metric crapton of CDs.
What does Plenary do? Oh, it makes it so you need to use Medica once instead of twice. Celestial Opposition/Intersection? They're just a free Aspected Helios/Benefic. Excogitation? Lustrate but better. Fey blessing? Free Indom.

I wish our new abilities had more identity than "this spell but free/better/faster".

[Deceptus]

In terms of the fairy, I wonder if making fairy abilities work like Egi actions would make them less clunky to use. Costing a gcd, but with a stronger effect to compensate (though maybe keep Consolation off-cooldown to try and minimise ghosting. Or at least make it so that if you command the fairy to use an ability, the effect always goes off even if the fairy is in a transition between Eos / Seraph.r

After playing the new version of SMN, I honestly think this is going to be the best way to go. Some may not like it, but the current state isn't optimal.

Overall I don’t have a problem with Scholar’s skill set on-paper, but then you go into actual content and it’s like ‘I’m only using 3 of the abilities I have and the rest basically just directly restore HP in some way’. And then you soon realise that your healing oGCDs are powerful enough to deal with the vast majority of the healing, so you have a bunch of ‘heals target’ spells (and even some oGCDs) you don’t want to use, 1 attack spell you use every 30 seconds and 1 attack spell you use for like 90% of a fight.

I basically called this the second I saw they finalized what they were doing with healer spells.

[Lodi]

I basically called this the second I saw they finalized what they were doing with healer spells.

Boy, this thread did NOT age well.

I still remember all the "who cares about having two dps buttons, you're going to heal so much you won't even have the time to use them", I knew they were wrong but not that badly.

Can we get 4.5 back?

[Sloprano]

After playing the new version of SMN, I honestly think this is going to be the best way to go. Some may not like it, but the current state isn't optimal.



I basically called this the second I saw they finalized what they were doing with healer spells.

It was an early stage dread when a friend posted some leaks and I asked "Is there more? There has to be more, right?" Then the media tour embargo lifter and I read with dread on almost every single impression of Scholar: "This isn't so exciting, but I don't player healer so maybe those of you who do will like it." Cue five months later we got a built-in delay to Seraph.

I mean I would very much rather be online enjoying Scholar right now hadn't writing about the job and trying to get SE's attention be that much riveting than playing the current iteration.