SCH and the lack of impactful abilities, just me?

[E4EO]

Hi everyone,

I started playing FF14 again after a long hiatus, and after returning I decided to spice things up for myself to keep myself invested in the game, new gender, name, and jobs to experience, in this case SCH. But after playing and leveling SCH for about 2, 3 weeks, I’ve started to noticed that SCH abilities lack of impact, or umphth (umpth? How do you even spell that out), so to say, and I’m wondering if this is just me playing the job wrong or a problem with SCH at lvl 70. Let me explain more below.

WHM, my only 80 healer until I get SCH there in 9 more levels, has tons of instant heals and oGCD’s that are very useful in a pinch, things like Tetragrammaton, the Afflatus spells, Assize, Devine Benison, Temperance, etc, and even its DPS spells are more impactful, why does Dia do damage with Bio doesn’t? And there’s the fact WHM has Assize to begin with.

But then when I get to SCH, I notice that similarly impactful moves cost a crap ton of MP (GCD Shields) or cost Aetherflow/ Faerie gauge to cast, and with Aetherflow being on a 60 second oGCD or 180 oGCD with a restriction on Faerie use, it feels like the amount of time I can use these oGCD moves compared to WHM is limited. And now we can talk about SCH’s other moves, like the Shields and adjacent moves, Succor and Adloquium are good for before a pull, but spamming them during a super pull in a dungeon would drain your MP lightning quick, and using it over a oGCD in a trail/raid would just waste more time that could be used on DPS. There’s also the two tactics spells that I take issue with, Deployment doesn’t even bloody work half the time, and even when it does what are you supposed to use it for? Big AOES? It takes so long to case that half of the time you’d just be better off casting Succor, and the time you waste world likely be better off DPS’ing/casting a oGCD/letting the Faerie do the work with its auto attack or oGCD’s, Emergency works well in a pinch, but by the time the target member gets on low health and you decide to use it, they could have lost even more health or just be dead.

I could elaborate more but I feel you get the picture, so is this just me doing something wrong or is it a issue with SCH? I like the job and I’m definitely gonna get it to 80, hell im even gonna the final SCH Eureka weapon, but I just feel like somethings not quite right with either the job or myself.

[Risvertasashi]

...Saying WHM has more oGCD uses is an... interesting take. But I think there's one thing I should point out: Afflatus spells are not oGCD. They're more like regen; very much on the GCD, but allowing WHM some mobility when in SB, it fell very much behind the other healers in this regard.

As for SCH, when you combine its 3x per minute oGCDs with fairy abilities, it really does quite a bit off the GCD. And then there's stuff like Recitation that push that up even higher.

Spamming GCDs on SCH is definitely not the way to go. Adlo isn't meant to be used like that. It's pretty much the tankbuster (or with deployment tactics, heavy raid hit) counter. And, deployment works just fine, but like much of SCH, it is best when planned out. You are right that often it's better to just heal, but deployment can nonetheless be extremely valuable.

With that said, without knowing the detailed ins and outs of the jobs, WHM is definitely easier to get value from. Judging from your frustrations, for you I would recommend playing WHM. SCH has always been a very technical job; that's kind of "it's thing." For ease of play/value, SCH is really not the best choice.

[Sloprano]

I could elaborate more but I feel you get the picture, so is this just me doing something wrong or is it a issue with SCH? I like the job and I’m definitely gonna get it to 80, hell im even gonna the final SCH Eureka weapon, but I just feel like somethings not quite right with either the job or myself.

Welcome to 5.0 SCH, same principles applies as has been a sticking point to the job: When you know and can anticipate mitigation it works better with what you have at 70: Shields, Lucid Dreaming Sacred Soil, Excog, Indom, Lustrates, Whispering Dawn often as can, shiels + Fey Illum, Dissipation, Fey Union when fairy abilities on cooldown. If you run out of everything it's down to Physick, Adlo + ET to keep a tank alive, hoping everything dies in time.

,but you're looking at a job that had a ton of stuff removed. The oomph you talk about I found were thousand little ommph's that turned into a big OOMPH. Stuff like Cleric Stance, spreading three dots, Miasma 2, Shadowflare, spreading a full critlo, full pet control on seperate gcd and bar. The pet potency, the dots for killing faster and a ton of debuffs to reduced incoming damage from Arcanist like Virus, Blind, Silence, E4E and Shadowflare slow helped a lot. All that is gone.

You might find things slightly easier after Recitation, Sacred Soil trait and Seraph during 70-80, but they're all just more cooldowns. What used to be our constant bolstering skill, Embrace, has been further nerfed and lost the ability to manually target. Deployment Tactics can be very iffy: Dunno if it's the same thing you're experiencing, but after applying a shield you need to wait a little second for the server to register it, then you can spread it. It gets more worth to spread with Recitation, but since you can't spread the full crit, DT ends up as a slightly more powerful succor.

Working on knowing a duty or fights in and out will help you prepared skills in advance, leaving less to heal. Yet I wouldn't say you're wrong, your sentiments is shared since the 5.0 skills were revealed and even further back to 4.0. That the job lacks oomph.

If there are specific fights or pulls you have trouble with on SCH, give a reply with them here and can try going over it with the skills you have.

[E4EO]

Afflatus spells are not oGCD. They're more like regen;

Spamming GCDs on SCH is definitely not the way to go. Adlo isn't meant to be used like that. It's pretty much the tankbuster (or with deployment tactics, heavy raid hit) counter. And, deployment works just fine, but like much of SCH, it is best when planned out. You are right that often it's better to just heal, but deployment can nonetheless be extremely valuable

My apologies, I didn't read over my post twice and included some wrong info/not enough detail.

When I said the Afflatus spells were a oGCD, I meant to say that they are a instant GCD, giving them them more of a impactful feel than some of SCH'S kit. And I don't spam the shield moves, I use them as more tankbuster/aoe damage moves as you said, but this is one think that I feel lacks impact imo, these moves are hardly used in comparison to when I play WHM and use they're oGCD's instant GCD's.

And it's not that I mind complex/demanding jobs, but as I said SCH, at least at lvl 70, just doesn't feel very impactful compared to WHM, even when I'm being conservative with my Aetherflow.

[Blackheart]

Honestly i feel if they'd stop nerfing the fairy to hellfire and back, SCH would be better off.

[Eloah]

Honestly i feel if they'd stop nerfing the fairy to hellfire and back, SCH would be better off.

They need to give her a bit more of the current egi treatment. But sadly, an attack oriented pet is a lot easier to work with compared to a defensive/healer oriented one.

One thing I noticed since I've been trying to get back into knowing AST is how for both SCH and AST SE seems to semi gloss over their gimmicks compared to WHM.

With WHM, they are known for Regens and big bursty heals, and I'm sure many people can agree SE finally got them in a god spot now. But with SCH and AST they sorta fell flat.

SCH should be about Shields and the faerie, they pushed the faerie a little towards the forefront which is great, but SCH still only has one kind of "base" shield, Sacred Soil and Seraph aside. The Faerie needs more integration and SCH needs another stacking shield.

For AST, no one cares for this new card system, and most likely in 6.0 it'll change. But AST needs more card related skills. Plus they need to play up their whole sect gameplay. Celestial Intersection is a great skill and more need to be added like it. Why not have the cards offer a different effect depending on stance. Maybe a low 15s regen while in Nocturnal or a 5-10% damage reduction while in Diurnal, something to make them feel powerful in their own way.

Additionally, for all of the healers, some skills need either an overhaul, looking at you Fluid Aura, or a shuffle. Diurnal sect makes no sense if it doesnt work with anything until 4 levels later. And the faerie gauge needs to come into play a lot earlier

[Urthdigger]

The problem here is you're viewing Aetherflow stacks as this super limiting resource, when they're really not. You get 3 every 60 seconds, you can view that as one every 20 seconds, and that's not even including Dissipation. When you think of it as a 20 second recast, that is SUPER short for an oGCD. Also, once you get Recitation, keep in mind that removes the aetherflow requirement, so add in another that you can do every 90 seconds. With all three sources combined, that's 14 uses over a 3 minute period, or one roughly every 13 seconds.

In practice, especially if you manage your aetherflow abilities well, the bigger issue will be the recast timer of the abilities themselves: 30 seconds (So once each aetherflow) for sacred soil and indomitability, and 45 seconds for Excogitation. Note that these are still VERY short: You can afford to drop a Sacred Soil on just about every large pull and that ability goes a LONG way towards keeping tanks up (especially once it gets a regen at 78). Speaking of which, combine Recitation (at 74+) with Excogitation (You'll notice the former has twice the recast time of the latter, so you can use it every other excog)... and really you should be using Excog basically on cooldown on the tank unless you have a dire need to keep it (It's one of our few reliable ways to heal a DRK after Living Dead).

Next time you play SCH, I would like you to perform a thought experiment. Do not regard your aetherflow as something that must be conserved. Play with the idea that you MUST have the gauge emptied by the time Aetherflow is off cooldown, and do whatever you can to do so effectively while using Lustrate and Energy Drain as little as possible (Still use them, but look to your other abilities first). Keep Excogitation on cooldown (with Recitation on it as well once you get it), make Indom your go-to button for AoE heals rather than Succor, keep Sacred Soil going whenever possible. And with all this extra gauge, feel free to tether your fairy to the tank whenever they get low.

[Duskane]

also why do fairy have a cast time and cost MP while Egi do not?

[Billythepancake]

also why do fairy have a cast time and cost MP while Egi do not?

The SCH/SMN split is only allowed to be positive for the SMN. Any change that would be good for SCH is thrown out the window.

[EpicOverlord85]

The SCH/SMN split is only allowed to be positive for the SMN. Any change that would be good for SCH is thrown out the window.

God I miss 4.X Scholar