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

[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.

[Grimoire-M]

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.

The problem with your line of logic is Dissipation already rewards good play. Itjust doesn’t engage you in the same way Quickened Aetherflow does. The way Quickened Aetherflow works has no inherent cost, but it does has explicit punishment (delaying Aetherflow actions too long results in twice the cooldown loss. Dissipation, by contrast, has inherent cost (fairy uptime) when used, but doesn’t explicitly punish the player, because you can circumvent the cost through timing or mitigate that cost using the benefits it gives you. That is to say, Quickened Aetherflow forces you to accelerate your Cooldown, while using Dissipation is an explicit choice with trade offs. I value the latter, particularly as a healer, as those choices in aggregate allow for skillful expression. Quickened Aetherflow doesn’t do that.

[SpiralMask]

while i intensely disagree with the design direction, i can sorta see why they removed it--receiving complaints of SCH never actually using GCDs to heal with as quick and efficient as their freebies are, despite how this specifically enabled the class to both manage its suite of dots and engage with the fairy gauge mechanic (despite having only one whole action that used it). with the combat rebalance removing their dots, the need to free up yet more time to cast them was gone. which sidenote: using outsiders' perspectives to balance a class is really stupid and they should stop apparently doing that, since they've all but openly admitted that the office team doesn't particularly like/want to play healers (between content testing comments and the complete neglect of healers in LLs and articles).

of course this just further neglected the fairy gauge mechanic with the aetherflow dripfeed caused by the trait's removal, but that's okay there's still basically nothing that uses the gauge anyway!
real waste of potential if they're serious about SCH not doing damage as it's downtime activity, since managing the fairy gauge and associated skills would be an excellent way to fill their time that would've gone towards dps previously.

[Gravagar]

while i intensely disagree with the design direction, i can sorta see why they removed it--receiving complaints of SCH never actually using GCDs to heal with as quick and efficient as their freebies are, despite how this specifically enabled the class to both manage its suite of dots and engage with the fairy gauge mechanic (despite having only one whole action that used it). with the combat rebalance removing their dots, the need to free up yet more time to cast them was gone. which sidenote: using outsiders' perspectives to balance a class is really stupid and they should stop apparently doing that, since they've all but openly admitted that the office team doesn't particularly like/want to play healers (between content testing comments and the complete neglect of healers in LLs and articles).
...

I definitely agree that designing healers to appeal to non-healers was a foolish move, especially considering that it was tanks who had supply shortages, not healers. Not to mention a general void of healing-focused content creators invited to interview Yoshida during times like the media tour- it felt like backlash during that time period would've been our only chance to avoid both the past year and the next year of this drought. The entire handling of this situation is just so frustrating! Like, the fact that SCH can't aetherflow outside of battle because "I don't like my group's healer making me wait, so they shouldn't be able to do that" just makes me feel like I'm being bullied for playing the job the way it's designed. Why can't SCH just have an out-of-battle exclusive button that aetherflows but freezes your cooldown at 60s?

I've wanted more uses for the fairy gauge ever since it was introduced. Was glad to see some abilities that used it in SB2, but it's certainly not enough- not with things in their current state, for sure.

The problem with your line of logic is Dissipation already rewards good play.
...

I think the civil thing to do might be to agree to disagree on the point of QAF vs Dissipation. I get the impression that you're trying to tell me the advantages of Dissipation are intuitive and the disadvantages are easily dealt with, and I'm not seeing it. And you're telling me what I view as intuitive design in QAF is not great, I'm not seeing that either, and vice versa.

[NobleWinter]

Quickened Aetherflow and Dissipation are both highlights of Scholar to me. Dissipation fits nicely into that hole the fairy cool downs leave since they are all rather lengthy. In this current expansion where Embrace feels weaker than ever Dissipation by contrast feels more powerful than ever especially since the fairy comes back automatically. I hated when Dissipation required resummoning Lily. It was the most awkward capstone ability ever in Heavenward but it required thought and that was supposed to be the whole point of Scholar. Healing tactically with a more DPS centric orientation. Scholar healed while dpsing and Quickened Aetherflow reinforced that by allowing aggressive Aetherflow usage to be rewarded. Of course it was only Energy Drain that got used mostly but the extra damage felt good even if it was somewhat small. All we needed was another stronger DPS ability tied to Aetherflow on a 30 seconds cool down to make the system perfect. That's what Art of War should have been. An offensive Fey Gauge Spender to compete with Fey Union and Fey Blessing on top of our existing DPS kit from Stormblood.

[Grimoire-M]

Personally if QA were to return in some fashion I’d rather bake its recharge effect into said independent charge based DPS cooldown rather than explicitly tying it to Aetherflow again. Then you could have it proc off of more actions, like whenever you spend the Fey gauge or SCH’s healing spells. My problem with its effects on SCH’s healing power budget and resource management. As a pure DPS ability it’s fine. There’s a reason MCH got its own variation of it in their hypercharge windows. The base mechanic can (and frankly, should) be implemented in a less degenerate fashion.