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

[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!