Did people even ask for changes to AST, like they do / did for MNK and MCH?

[Deceptus]

i for one am still ultra salted over the DRK and SCH gameplay identity changes, and the lack of necessary QOL updates to bring DRK and SCHs leveling kits up to par with their fellow jobs has left me in a state of barely wanting to play the jobs that brought me to love this game. I seriously hope that some of the insane amount of money this game generates get put into hiring at least one competent developer for both tanks and healers, because the future won't look so bright if they continue to rely on reluctant DPS devs to balance the role.

SCH had one of the best designed kits in 3.0 and a lot of 4.0. Instead of bringing the other healers up, they nerfed SCH down.

[Grimoire-M]

SCH had one of the best designed kits in 3.0 and a lot of 4.0. Instead of bringing the other healers up, they nerfed SCH down.

And in a lot of ways (Mostly QA) it was warranted. Tank Mastery and the VIT gear changes solved more of the problem than people give it credit for though. Those on top of the SCH nerfs and the general reduction in healer complexity are what make everything absurd.

[Gravagar]

And in a lot of ways (Mostly QA) it was warranted. Tank Mastery and the VIT gear changes solved more of the problem than people give it credit for though. Those on top of the SCH nerfs and the general reduction in healer complexity are what make everything absurd.

No job deserved what SCH got. I wouldn't wish this kind of rework on even BLM, with their privilege status as Yoshida's Job of Choice that leaves even en-Balanced, Partnered samurais green with envy.


I mean, yeah, cutting the effectiveness of shields in half via under-the-hood changes was definitely a nerf. The reason people don't give them much credit is because the nerf was underhanded and wasn't written down in the patch notes. Can't argue with the point that the shadow nerf, plus homogenizations, plus over-simplification, plus SCH-specific kit evisceration were total overkill.

[KDSilver]

SCH had one of the best designed kits in 3.0 and a lot of 4.0. Instead of bringing the other healers up, they nerfed SCH down.

Not gonna lie, 3.0 was my favorite.
I can understand 4.0 and still like it in some ways.
But 5.0 is big NOPE. I can go with some "nerf" such as Critlo and the fairy is they felt like SCH was too powerful. No problem. But cutting so many skills ? I'm sorry but that's not gonna work. DoTs ? Real Fairy managment ? Hello ? They even tried to rob Energy drain from us.

[ShinShimon]

No job deserved what SCH got. I wouldn't wish this kind of rework on even BLM, with their privilege status as Yoshida's Job of Choice that leaves even en-Balanced, Partnered samurais green with envy.


I mean, yeah, cutting the effectiveness of shields in half via under-the-hood changes was definitely a nerf. The reason people don't give them much credit is because the nerf was underhanded and wasn't written down in the patch notes. Can't argue with the point that the shadow nerf, plus homogenizations, plus over-simplification, plus SCH-specific kit evisceration were total overkill.

Hey, at least SCH still exists. Old AST is as dead as old MCH, and nobody asked for it.

[Gravagar]

Hey, at least SCH still exists. Old AST is as dead as old MCH, and nobody asked for it.

??? Old SCH is just as dead as those other ones, though?

[Grimoire-M]

No job deserved what SCH got. I wouldn't wish this kind of rework on even BLM, with their privilege status as Yoshida's Job of Choice that leaves even en-Balanced, Partnered samurais green with envy.


I mean, yeah, cutting the effectiveness of shields in half via under-the-hood changes was definitely a nerf. The reason people don't give them much credit is because the nerf was underhanded and wasn't written down in the patch notes. Can't argue with the point that the shadow nerf, plus homogenizations, plus over-simplification, plus SCH-specific kit evisceration were total overkill.

I'm more bothered by the sheer lack of need to tank heal beyond minimal resources and busters. Tank Mastery essentially replaced the HW fairy while being even more boring for both tanks and healers overall. But the general shift of mitigation duties onto DPS as well as the condensation of autoattacks to specific windows (often with none at all going out during mechanics the entire group has to juggle) also aids in that matter. It simply felt more fair in ShB where Tanks were guaranteed to have their DPS stance on most of the time so they actually got wrecked if you didn't maintain regens or fairy positioning near them. SCH's healing capabilities were overbearing, but in particular they never needed any help tank healing at all (which, again, mostly stemmed from Quickened Aetherflow's effects on their power level). I would be fine with more evenly distributed autos that hit for less alongside a change to Tank Mastery to be influenced by stance, letting tanks choose to go ham on DPS like they used to at a defensive and aggro cost. So long as we retained every other change we got, save the ShB launch nerf to Embrace, I think SCH would be in a decent position just by virtue of reintroducing the regen tax on AST/WHM again.

[Gravagar]

I'm more bothered by the sheer lack of need to tank heal beyond minimal resources and busters. Tank Mastery essentially replaced the HW fairy while being even more boring for both tanks and healers overall. But the general shift of mitigation duties onto DPS as well as the condensation of autoattacks to specific windows (often with none at all going out during mechanics the entire group has to juggle) also aids in that matter. It simply felt more fair in ShB where Tanks were guaranteed to have their DPS stance on most of the time so they actually got wrecked if you didn't maintain regens or fairy positioning near them. SCH's healing capabilities were overbearing, but in particular they never needed any help tank healing at all (which, again, mostly stemmed from Quickened Aetherflow's effects on their power level). I would be fine with more evenly distributed autos that hit for less alongside a change to Tank Mastery to be influenced by stance, letting tanks choose to go ham on DPS like they used to at a defensive and aggro cost. So long as we retained every other change we got, save the ShB launch nerf to Embrace, I think SCH would be in a decent position just by virtue of reintroducing the regen tax on AST/WHM again.

We do agree that this is mostly an encounter design issue, I think, and not a job design one. Right?
I'd be happier living in the timeline where WHM, AST, and encounter design in general were all buffed to keep pace with SCH, than the one where SCH gets disemboweled but encounter design actually becomes less healer-taxing rather than more... that being the one we're on now. The former sounds a lot more interesting to me.


I'd much rather see a reset of SCH to Stormblood, and pretend Shadowbringers didn't exist, than see this horridly broken edition of SCH evolve. It has very little job identity currently- not a whole lot better than a Great Value White Mage whose mom lets it have two minions!

[ShinShimon]

??? Old SCH is just as dead as those other ones, though?

Hey, you still have shields and your fairy. The AST changes are comparable to removing Lily entirely and giving you a pet mosquito, which gives a single random party member a 5% damage resist buff every 30 seconds.

[Gravagar]

Hey, you still have shields and your fairy. The AST changes are comparable to removing Lily entirely and giving you a pet mosquito, which gives a single random party member a 5% damage resist buff every 30 seconds.

that's exactly what they did though???
I'm partially joking here, buut....

Until Deployment Tactics or something lets me deploy a whopper of a shield that makes my party go "whoa, that was awesome. Woweee, I'm really glad we had a scholar here," I'm going to say that aspect of SCH is dead. If I want big shields, I play Diurnal AST, because AST has the best shields and no one can stack single target shields higher more than Diurnal Regen Astrologian in particular.


Until there's some reason why I would want to use a fairy ability from the fairy, instead of myself, I'm going to say the pet aspect is dead. I used to like that the fairy was a parellel GCD that I could issue orders to while I was doing Scholar Things (tm). If I want to have defensive and regenerating oGCD abilities, I play, again, Diurnal AST, because their oGCD menu doesn't have a ~50% potency tax or any ghosting issues.