Want healers to be more accessible? Add "Quickened Aetherflow" back in + more

[Grimoire-M]

Your points on WHM and AST are good. I disagree about SCH, on many points, but I'll stay on-topic: I'm iffy to recommend using Dissipation to anyone in most circumstances because deleting your fairy at the wrong time can cause you big problems. That's one of the main reasons why I'm absolutely baffled that Dissipation still made the cut when so many of Scholar's tools got gutted. What parts of SCH do you feel could get some breadcrumbs to help unify the kit and guide scholars to Good Plays without relying on external guides / videos / discord servers?

Actually press the buttons.

Seriously, Dissipation isn’t a bad cooldown. Learning how to use it isn’t going to magically make sense until you actively try to make use of it. It’s DPS and healing positive but actually requires thought. My problem with Quickened Aetherflow is that it trivializes SCH’s Cooldown management. That also includes Fey Union, which would be up way more often. It doesn’t make the class ‘hard’ as billy assumed I meant, it makes it brainless by completely mitigating the need to manage Aetherflow actions or Fairy Gauge at all. That’s my problem with it. Healers already barely have any resource management beyond their GCDs, why would you want to further trample on that?

EDIT: Was at work when I first wrote this, but to prove my claim that Quickened Aetherflow trivializes SCH's Aetherflow management, I'll demonstrate that it will do so even with Kabooa's suggestion to reduce it to 45s.

Stacks generated:
Aetherflow 3/45s -> 12/180s.
Recitation (Indom or Excog) 1/90s -> 2/180s.
Dissipation 3/180s.
Total: 17 Aetherflow stacks, 2 are limited to Indom or Excog.

Aetherflow spenders:
Sacred Soil/Indom 2/30s -> 12/180s
Excog 1/45s -> 4/180s
Total: 16, not factoring the use of on-demand cooldowns such as Lustrate or Energy Drain.

Now add another 25 seconds (Dissipation + Recitation's effect on Quickened Aetherflow as it existed in SB) onto that, which adds another aetherflow cycle every 6 minutes, roughly speaking. There's no reason to add such a ludicrous buff onto it again. SCH is already -barely- limited by Aetherflow as is. At that point the only reason Aetherflow exists is to add Energy Drains and Lustrates. We might as well add that in the form of an actual DPS cooldown instead, rather than bolster SCH's maximum healing throughput as a knock on effect.

As for how to improve SCH's gameplay, merge Dissipation and Summon Seraph, in addition to my previous suggestions (add a charge-based DPS oGCD, bring back DoT management). When you unlock Seraph give Dissipation 2 charges, and lower its cooldown to 90s. Force it to alternate between Dissipation and Seraph every other use. Forcing people to use one in order to get the other will make it clear why you should be alternating both. Another idea would be to make Deployment Tactics act as Bane when used on an enemy, with no drop off. That way you can justify leaving the cooldown alone.

[AdamFyi]

Healers already barely have any resource management beyond their GCDs, why would you want to further trample on that?

This so much. As cool as the trait was, I really didn’t like it because it fed you soo many Aetherflow stacks to the point where there was very low risk of being caught off-guard without any stacks. The recent post about healing values visualised gives a better idea on how much oGCDs heal for.

[ItMe]

AdamFyi (nice name), can you explain what "heal range" is in the graphs you linked?
Everything is pretty self explanatory, but I'm not sure I get that part.

[Grimoire-M]

AdamFyi (nice name), can you explain what "heal range" is in the graphs you linked?
Everything is pretty self explanatory, but I'm not sure I get that part.

In the case of Essential Dignity, it refers to its maximum potential heal (assuming no crits). For most other AST abilities as well as SCH's Fey Union it's the difference between using that ability for it's theoretical maximum value or its minimum. The regen values are also per tick, not total. It's also important to note that Fey Union can last longer than 100 gauge if micro managed...but realistically you're only using about 50-60 at a time barring slow big pulls in dungeons.

[ItMe]

Gotcha.
Thank you very much.

[Gravagar]

snip

You're missing my main point, as well as a detail from another reply I already mentioned. I don't care if you only get a 1s cooldown reduction instead of 5s per stack. The most important thing is that the trait rewarded good play. This thread is about discussing how to add mechanics that reward good play to areas where they are lacking, and perhaps discussing how to avoid the current pitfalls that reward bad play instead. I'm somewhat glad that Dissipation isn't the massive liability that it used to be, but I still greatly dislike any ability (like the old Riddle of Fire) that goes strongly against the core job design. If I had to pick between whether Rouse or Dissipation got axed, I would kill Dissipation with a smile.


But, yeah, you did edit in more details about improving SCH. I respect it. Personally, being forced to use an ability I already dislike for going against what is left of SCH's identity would make playing what used to be my favorite job even less palatable, but I do have to respect it. Still, I get that your argument is that the additional aetherflow from QAF and Dissipation combined is overkill. I'd rather have additional aetherflow from Quickened Aetherflow (even if it's not -5s/stack)and get none from Dissipation, if I had to choose what direction to go in. Largely, I say this because Dissipation has room to prove to be a bad play, if you use it right before a moment where you have a planned fairy CD usage. I'm focusing my thoughts on how to reward good play, not add punishments for bad play.