Quote Originally Posted by Kabooa View Post
I would not call this a "Returns to the roots." I would even say it's a bigger departure.

Minor things
Eos and Selene are still basically the same, only Eos is just better, and you're forced to use Selene because you can't get back to Eos otherwise. Nobody wants to be Soldier's Paen.

Emergency Tactics applies to two skills, two skills you probably never want to use, one of which is a not inconsiderate cooldown. This is the realm of abilities that get cut.

Nightshade's fine. Probably just make Shadowflare change into it once it's down.

Big Thing
Making Aetherflow and Fey power compete with each other as well as competing with MP regen is going to lead to absolutely terrible results when-things-go-wrong(tm). I'm not seeing why Aetherflow can't remain a limited supply with a timer which in turn limits Fey Power.

Making them compete immediately calls into question, despite having no numbers, how efficient they are compared to each other. Remember that shielding is superior only if it prevents a death from 100% HP or prevents the application of a debuff, otherwise shielding and healing are identical.

If it costs a GCD to shield 40,000 damage, and it costs a GCD to heal 40,000 damage, there is no difference in the choice here. Either way you have to "Take the DPS loss" to do it.

If the two are equally powerful, then is it even a choice? This is the part that makes this scholar a more wayward version than what we have even now - the change of its resource acquisition, and how its resources competes with the rest of the kit.

You didn't have competing resources before - you had a competition of how you spent them. You got 3 AF a minute. Those AF turn into Fey Power. That Fey Power was effectively more healing. That more healing, used well, allowed you to do less of the healing yourself as the Faerie handled more of it, which in turn allowed you to focus more on damage spells.

But putting their sole generation onto what is effectively a filler spell, and splitting that between "Heals, Shields, or Damage" effectively removes not only choice in the player's actions but also the design consistency the job currently has.

I honestly don't see why you couldn't just slap Miasma, Shadowflare, and Bane back onto the scholar we have now and stop there. I'll dump on standalone DoTs as gameplay as much as ever, but it's more in line with the scholar's "Roots" than fundamentally rewiring its resource game.
Okay, so you make some good points, and as I was thinking about some of the things I agree with and disagree with regarding your critique. To properly explain, I need to start with something that I disagree with you on: shielding vs healing. The way the Scholar is currently designed, you're right. Healing and shielding are virtually the same unless the shield prevents an otherwise unavoidable death. Adloquium and Succor both consume a use of the GCD, so if that shield isn't necessary for survival, there's no use shielding allies when you could heal with OGCD abilities instead. This is ultimately why I wanted to change them to be OGCD actions that exclusively shield. This is because, if the shielding isn't competing with your DPS, then it actually does serve as a different purpose: making it so that you don't need to heal in the first place.

The problem that you revealed to me was that I ultimately ended up creating the same exact problem in a different part of the kit design. Your shields no longer compete with your DPS, but now they compete with resource generation for you OGCD healing tools. Essentially, this design needs to have resource generation for your shielding be its own thing and not compete with other resources.

This leads me to the Helix combo system for resource generation. The main reason I wanted something like this was because, as you brought up here briefly (and I believe have brought up in other threads), DoTs alone are not an engaging or intuitive gameplay style. Personally, I feel that adding a layer of resource management to the Scholar's DPS tools does make sense from a thematic standpoint while also tying their DPS tools and healing tools together. Based on what was discussed above, fey gauge generation would need to be taken off as a form of competition for aetherflow generation. If we just keep it as is, but maybe have it so that spending aetherflow gives you 10 gauge, but Fey Blessing/Gift require 30, perhaps that could make the additional healing feel valuable. Thinking about this more, and regarding your critique of Emergency Tactics which I completely agree with, I had a thought.

What if instead of having Epiphany as this GCD heal with a cooldown, Fey Blessing/Gift are actually made GCD healing spells that are also affected by Emergency Tactics, only with the caveat that Fey Gauge will allow them to be used OGCD instead? I figure this could be a better system then just having Fey Blessing/Gift automatically become OGCD when you have enough Fey Gauge to spend that way you have control over when you want to spend your Fey Gauge.

Going back to the DPS for a second, we could also make the combo for resource system more efficient by cutting out the added Helix spell and just turning Ruin II/Klaustra into it, and your DPS weave will also enable you to get either MP back or 1 Aetherflow stack inbetween uses? We could then drop it from a 3-way choice to a 2-way choice, and because it exists on your weave, you will naturally generate these resources as you DPS. I can agree that having a button to generate Aetherflow for when you need it can still be useful though, so perhaps that should return as well, and since we're talking about cutting out more bloat from this design, there's room for it easily.

Lastly we can talk about the Eos and Selene differences. Prior to Shadowbringers, their differences created an interesting dynamic where Eos was preferred by casual players and new players since she made healing easier, but Selene's DPS contribution made her effectively superior since Eos' healing and support were ultimately not necessary for surviving any fights. In essence, it's the same issue--one is flat out better than the other, but I agree that my iteration is actually worse having put it the way you have. At least with the old system, Eos had a purpose as a kind of training wheels for your Scholar, but here, Selene would be more of a reluctant benefit rather than something desired. I think it could work better if their buffs were simplified and Eos acted as the AoE regen while Selene brought Sacred Soil's DPS reduction. Then there's two play styles of either preventative or reactive healing, but would that be enough? Ideally, the two should feel like they each have a purpose and that one isn't objectively better in all forms of content, but I'm curious what you think could be the best way to move forward with them.

I'd like to hear more about your thoughts on this whenever you have the time.