SCH and the lack of impactful abilities, just me?

[Billythepancake]

God I miss 4.X Scholar

Same. I loved the idea of a healer that stemmed from a DPS. I don't see why people say that was a "mistake" I thought it was really unique and fun. Now we're just here to spam broil and be sad

[MPNZ]

This is just basically what most jobs are like right now since niche situational skills keep getting removed every expansion for a more pure focus on roles, which may bebecauseSE just doen't want players doing things that are off script (skilled or knowledgeable use of abilities) due to low expectations of the userbase's skill level and that players would might then be judged and ridiculed for

Same. I loved the idea of a healer that stemmed from a DPS. I don't see why people say that was a "mistake" I thought it was really unique and fun. Now we're just here to spam broil and be sad

This is pretty much true, but being tied to balanced with summoner makes doing so difficult according to the devs. IMO, they should just seperate them, allow sch and summoner to keep skills up to lv 50 (sans summons as SCH's really should operate differently) and then branch them off in seperate directions with preperations for this starting at lv 30 to 50

[Eloah]

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.

What really irks me isnt so much the cast time, it's the fact that we still have those stupid summoning animations that are element specific, just give me a generic summon animation already, grrr...

God I miss 4.X Scholar

Wow, that is saying something, considering at 4.0 launch SCH was in horror shape. Maybe we could get a nice mix of the positives they added with what was sadly removed... maybe.

This is pretty much true, but being tied to balanced with summoner makes doing so difficult according to the devs. IMO, they should just seperate them, allow sch and summoner to keep skills up to lv 50 (sans summons as SCH's really should operate differently) and then branch them off in seperate directions with preperations for this starting at lv 30 to 50

I can't tell if you support the split or are against it with this comment. On the one hand, you are right balancing both was the main issue the devs were having. But on the other hand, your suggestion is how they were designed in the first place.

The one thing SE should do, that it looked like they were going to start doing in Stormblood, is have skills with identical themes, but different effects based on which job is using it. Each has an Aetherpact skill, each also has a spread skill too(Bane/Deployment Tactics), and now each has a "higher" summon. That's a connection they need to maintain.

Also, for those who aren't aware, or still advocate for them to be "separated", they already have been. Coding-wise a complete separation would be difficult. But adding new code to adjust things to not affect the other is simple enough. That's why SCH now has a completely different set of skills now, and only shares Resurrection with Arcanist.

[kujoestars]

I see the title and all I can think of is how just a few days ago, while tanking Keeper of the Lake on roulette, we somehow managed to not get a shield generator for the entire Midgardsormr fight. And we we still won in one go because our healer who was a SCH casted their shield spell for both insta-kill attacks. I was very pleasantly surprised and grateful we were saved from what could have been a massive wipefest because the SCH used the right spell at the right times.

Based on this alone, I would argue that SCH is pretty darn impactful.

[MPNZ]

I can't tell if you support the split or are against it with this comment. On the one hand, you are right balancing both was the main issue the devs were having. But on the other hand, your suggestion is how they were designed in the first place.

The one thing SE should do, that it looked like they were going to start doing in Stormblood, is have skills with identical themes, but different effects based on which job is using it. Each has an Aetherpact skill, each also has a spread skill too(Bane/Deployment Tactics), and now each has a "higher" summon. That's a connection they need to maintain.

Also, for those who aren't aware, or still advocate for them to be "separated", they already have been. Coding-wise a complete separation would be difficult. But adding new code to adjust things to not affect the other is simple enough. That's why SCH now has a completely different set of skills now, and only shares Resurrection with Arcanist.

It's a combination of both. Both jobs should have ACN as a base (1-50 should be 70-88% identical in abilities), but the difference is like between developing medicine and rocket fuel: they're different applications of that field of chemistry and having them seperate after lv 50 would make it easier to specialize in their fields way better than it is currently

EDIT :

Just a nitpick - ARC is Archer, ACN is Arcanist.

TY

[YusiKha]

It's a combination of both. Both jobs should have ARC as a base (1-50 should be 70-88% identical in abilities), but the difference is like between developing medicine and rocket fuel: they're different applications of that field of chemistry and having them seperate after lv 50 would make it easier to specialize in their fields way better than it is currently

Just a nitpick - ARC is Archer, ACN is Arcanist.

[Malmstrom]

I believe the word you were going for was "Oomph".

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/oomph

oomph noun
\ ˈu̇m(p)f \
Definition of oomph
1: personal charm or magnetism : GLAMOUR
2: SEX APPEAL
3: PUNCH, VITALITY

[Sloprano]

This is pretty much true, but being tied to balanced with summoner makes doing so difficult according to the devs. IMO, they should just seperate them, allow sch and summoner to keep skills up to lv 50 (sans summons as SCH's really should operate differently) and then branch them off in seperate directions with preperations for this starting at lv 30 to 50

Can I ask if you have a source for that? I'm genuinely curious since I kept hearing the same thing in 4.0 as to why SCH got the shortest straws, but looking at the history I can't seem to make it fit that they'd be hard to work with. SMN and SCH has gotten different stuff indepdent of their roots since 3.0, and neither of SCH or SMNs new stuff had "ACN" as eligble job. Though it had the odd stuff in HW when Broil had to be manually swapped with Ruin under level 52.

5.0 really struck as the big ACN divorce, with only shared responsibility of Ressurection, and with that breakup we got the uncomplimentary stuff like losing AF and ED at level 30 then relearning them at level 45.

I'm curious for previous mentions of Scholar in older interviews to try and paint a picture of how SE sees the job because if they care about anything beyond the massive amount of oGCD cooldowns lining up with orchestrated raid dancing steps it's hard to imagine they care.

[Saefinn]

As it was brought up, I'm not a fan of the divorce between SCH and SMN.

I felt the whole "DoT Mage" thing was more SCH than SMN and that SMN got it because of SCH and not the other way around. FFXI SCH was a DoT mage as it had the most powerful DoT's in the game. The whole 'plague' thing is closer to SCH's lore than it is SMN's too. And SMN has grown to be more Bahamut and Phoenix mage focused than a DoT Mage, which makes sense because SMN's background is that it is meant to be more pet focused.

And my healing style in FFXI's SCH was somewhat similar to mine in XIV where I weave my DoT's in my downtime (though I am simplifying here as FFXI's SCH was multi-faceted). Pop a DPS stance, weave in my DoT skills and then pop back to healing stance to top up people's health.
In XI that was:
Firestorm->Dark Arts->Klimaform->Ebullience->Pyrohelix->Modus Veritas->Light Arts->Heal
In XIV that was:
Cleric Stance->Bio->Bio II->Miasma->Bane (If AoEing)->Shadowflare->Miasma II (If AoEing)->Drop Cleric Stance->Heal
And the result in both was "DoT's doing maximum damage while I heal"
So DoT's definitely felt more like a SCH thing. And I liked this homage, because although FFXIV SCH is very unique to FFXI's SCH, it had its cues to it, because it's supposed to be the same job but a different interpretation of it.


However, I have been thinking on how SCH could feel more impactful and based on my current problems with SCH and some of the feedback I've already given and the desire to respect current healer design, I think something along the lines of the below could work as an improvement:

Bring back Selene as a utlity faerie, then give her skills that do the following:
Fey Amaurosis - Applies a Blind effect on a single enemy
Fey Affliction - Applies Disease and Slow effects on a single enemy
Fey Wind - Increases skill and spell speed of nearby party members
Aetherpact (Selene) - Increases Biolysis Damage Received on foe with Biolysis effect applied

And in additions to this, make the following adjustments:
Emergency Tactics - Transforms the next Galvanize and Catalyze status into HP recovery equaling the amount of damage reduction intended or transforms the next Biolysis spell to deal of the damage intended to be dealt over time to be dealt at once.
Deployment Tactics - Extends Galvanize effect cast on self or target to nearby party members or extends Biolysis and Fey Affliction effects cast on enemy to nearby enemies.

With the obvious rDPS increases, my expectation would be that WHM and AST get boosts too, which I think gives more room to give them nice things they need too.

The advantages I see here would be:
- New abilities to use in our downtime with status effects (and a throwback to 2.0 SCH), if not resisted and are made to be effective, like on BLU then this could be useful. This is good for trash pulls and general damage mitigation. On bosses, I propose status affects apply to auto attacks, but not mechanics instead of being flat out resisted.
- Selene is useful again, and probably more useful than she was before.
- For less confident healers and for more heal intensive fights/phases Eos is a choice and this would play exactly as it does now. Meaning the skill floor stays where it is.
- There's no real extra emphasis on DPS as our number of DPS skills remain the same, but gives us more to do that can support the party.
- No new buttons are needed
- We can make use of skills we don't normally make use of during less heal intense situations.
- We self nerf our heals for said situations without needing to apply a nerf across the board where it might negatively impact less confident healers and fights that are more healing intensive. If the nerf is not enough, having Selene summoned could weaken overall heal potency as a penalty, but only if it's not enough.

It might not be as complex as I might make it if I was only satisfying myself, but I think it respects current SCH design and keeps the skill floor low whilst raising its skill ceiling with a bit more versatility and doing it whilst recycling skills we're not taking advantage of to break up the 1 button spams without making SCH DPS OP like it used to be. And IMO would be a step in the right direction.

[ReiMakoto]

Firestorm->Dark Arts->Klimaform->Ebullience->Pyrohelix->Modus Veritas->Light Arts->Heal
In XIV that was:
Cleric Stance->Bio->Bio II->Miasma->Bane (If AoEing)->Shadowflare->Miasma II (If AoEing)->Drop Cleric Stance->Heal
And the result in both was "DoT's doing maximum damage while I heal"
So DoT's definitely felt more like a SCH thing. And I liked this homage, because although FFXIV SCH is very unique to FFXI's SCH, it had its cues to it, because it's supposed to be the same job but a different interpretation of it.

Slight nitpick, you used aero as well as a single target dot on sch, and iirc, blizzard 2 was actually better than miasma 2 for sch's aoe. But yeah being a many dot mage was what i liked about sch
Edit: actually blizz 2 might have just been for when miasma 2 was already up, iirc miasma 2 was 70 total pot, and blizz 2 was 50?