SCH QOL changes for 5.35/5.4

[Shurrikhan]

Personally, I vastly preferred Miasma II over Art of War, but the sooner we get Bane back, the better (not that I see anything mutually exclusive about the two).

I'd just offer also that I'd rather see Bane reworked a bit. While I'm at, I'd rename Bane to Contagion, because that makes many orders of multitude more sense. Bane sounds like an exploited vulnerability -- the exact kind of thing you'd expect from a "magic resistance down" debuff previously given to, of all things, Contagion.

Contagion: Summates and evenly splits the durations of your DoTs among the target and all nearby enemies while inflicting them with Aetheric Plague.
Area of Effect: 12 yalms, target-centered.
Cooldown: 10 seconds (scaled with GCD speed)
Additional Effect: Doubles the duration of DoTs on the target.
Aetheric Plague Effect: Causes the victim to split the remaining duration of the caster's damage over time effects afflicting them among enemies within 12 yalms upon death.

Voila, now you actually want to spread multiple DoTs initially, enough to have sufficient duration to cover all enemies over the full cooldown. And you can still get some use out of it as a means of getting off another two Ruins per DoT period when you don't need MP.

Naturally, do couple this with a returned second DoT (rather than leaving all that strength in, say, a 600 potency DoT alone), such via as the aforementioned Miasma I and it's upgrades. Ideally, leave one at an 18s CD.

[Danelo]

I know I’m late to the game on healing jobs but for all these years I’ve heard sch is the shield healer along with being more dps oriented (not so much in shb)... I was just in a party with a ast who refused to switch to regen aspect So he was throwing up shields too. I couldn’t help but notice that their party shields eclipsed mine every time by a bit. Am I missing something? This is job identity of sch, in part, so shouldn’t it be better than the switch hitter, AST? If not then why would anyone bring SCH anymore?

... something better than “but the farie” bcs that thing is glitchy as can be.

[Gravagar]

I know I’m late to the game on healing jobs but for all these years I’ve heard sch is the shield healer along with being more dps oriented (not so much in shb)... I was just in a party with a ast who refused to switch to regen aspect So he was throwing up shields too. I couldn’t help but notice that their party shields eclipsed mine every time by a bit. Am I missing something? This is job identity of sch, in part, so shouldn’t it be better than the switch hitter, AST? If not then why would anyone bring SCH anymore?

... something better than “but the farie” bcs that thing is glitchy as can be.

Fun fact: even if they swapped to Regen stance, they still have access to shields. If anything, they'd get access to MORE shields. They can essentially adlo one person (TL note: your tank tbh) every 30 seconds, completely free. It's an oGCD, so no GCD cost and no MP cost. If we're discounting "but Seraph," because Seraph has not earned our respect and is not invited to our discussion... then yeah, SCH's shield heal identity gets thoroughly trounced. Not even by the other shield healer, but a regen healer- I rate SCH's situation a hardcasted Absolute Yikes III, perhaps even a IV.

[Danelo]

Thanks for the info - had no idea it was that bad. What was SE thinking...

[Semirhage]

I mean, has Scholar ever *really* been The Shield Healer? Yes, it has GCD shield spells which was a notable difference between the two healers in ARR, but it's also always had Whispering Dawn and Embrace, which are rough mechanical equivalents of Medica 2 and Regen. Apart from Seraph, Scholar has two shield spells, both of which it's had since ARR. I'd say SCH's big thing was its oGCD healing flexibility for much, much longer than it was "shields". It's almost like calling WHM The Crowd Control healer because it had a bind, a stun, and a sleep.

[Gravagar]

I mean, has Scholar ever *really* been The Shield Healer? Yes, it has GCD shield spells which was a notable difference between the two healers in ARR, but it's also always had Whispering Dawn and Embrace, which are rough mechanical equivalents of Medica 2 and Regen. Apart from Seraph, Scholar has two shield spells, both of which it's had since ARR. I'd say SCH's big thing was its oGCD healing flexibility for much, much longer than it was "shields". It's almost like calling WHM The Crowd Control healer because it had a bind, a stun, and a sleep.

SCH had two, AST had two, but SCH had Deployment Tactics, Eye for an Eye, and Sacred Soil in its favor. They've got a lot more abilities themed around putting something between you and a pissed-off boss to make you take less damage, whereas WHM has more abilities related to topping you off afterwards. This has been a pretty strict dichotomy in job design since ARR, with the newest healer (no longer very new at all) just fitting in as either one part of that dichotomy or the other. I mean- believe me, I was hoping Shadowbringers would either introduce a new healer that shatters the dichotomy meta, or radically redesign AST to be a true Third Type of Healer instead of WHM stance or SCH stance. It just didn't happen, though.


I do think, outside of the dichotomy, though, that your point would support an argument for SCH having a weak identity at the moment. Everyone has oGCD flexibility for days right now. Lustrate isn't so special when AST has two charges of Essential Dignity, nor is the burst healing impressive considering WHM can instant cast cure 2s and still weave a Tetra in. I think SCH should have a strong argument in favor of being "The Shield Healer," certainly a lot stronger than it has right now. It definitely needs some fixes to get there.



If we were talking about ARR/HW PVP, I would absolutely call WHM the CC healer, since it had a heavy, a knockback + bind, an aoe bind, a stun, and a sleep. People who sat on the back lines and only healed were only scratching the surface back then, but that's a total tangent.

[bundythenoob]

SCH had two, AST had two, but SCH had Deployment Tactics, Eye for an Eye, and Sacred Soil in its favor. They've got a lot more abilities themed around putting something between you and a pissed-off boss to make you take less damage, whereas WHM has more abilities related to topping you off afterwards. This has been a pretty strict dichotomy in job design since ARR, with the newest healer (no longer very new at all) just fitting in as either one part of that dichotomy or the other. I mean- believe me, I was hoping Shadowbringers would either introduce a new healer that shatters the dichotomy meta, or radically redesign AST to be a true Third Type of Healer instead of WHM stance or SCH stance. It just didn't happen, though.


I do think, outside of the dichotomy, though, that your point would support an argument for SCH having a weak identity at the moment. Everyone has oGCD flexibility for days right now. Lustrate isn't so special when AST has two charges of Essential Dignity, nor is the burst healing impressive considering WHM can instant cast cure 2s and still weave a Tetra in. I think SCH should have a strong argument in favor of being "The Shield Healer," certainly a lot stronger than it has right now. It definitely needs some fixes to get there.



If we were talking about ARR/HW PVP, I would absolutely call WHM the CC healer, since it had a heavy, a knockback + bind, an aoe bind, a stun, and a sleep. People who sat on the back lines and only healed were only scratching the surface back then, but that's a total tangent.

to add onto this, I think if Noct AST is going to be the "shield healer", then SCH should have its former debuff identity return.

Allow Chain stratagem (and future stratagems) to be spread to enemies via deployment
Give AoW the old Virus Debuff for some more flavour. this would make it useful to apply during single target to break up the broil spam
bring back eye for an eye as a passive that gets applied to adloq/succour to make up for weaker shielding values compared to Noct AST
make shadowflare a fairy gauge spender that debuffs enemies to give alternatives to sacred soil

things like that. you can make SCH more interesting without buffing its shield values, so long as its utility and dps makes up for its lower heal potencies.

[Shurrikhan]

...

Likely blasphemy, but... what if we traited SCH's Bane (assuming it'd ever be allowed to return) into, say, "Pulse", which could work on allies or enemies both, and removed Deployment Tactics?

Pulse: On an enemy, Pulse summates and evenly splits the durations of your damage-over-time effects across the target and all nearby enemies while inflicting them with Aetheric Plague. On an ally, Pulse summates and evenly splits the value of your absorption effects across the target and all nearby allies.
Area of Effect: 12 yalms, target-centered.
Cooldown: 10 seconds (scaled with GCD speed)
Additional Effect: On enemy, doubles the duration of DoTs on the target. On ally, refreshes the value of the absorption effect to its maximum.
Aetheric Plague Effect: Causes the victim to split the remaining duration of the caster's damage over time effects afflicting them among enemies within 12 yalms upon death.

Give Miasma (or even Miasma II) a no-DR slow effect (not split from Miasma itself), stronger than was previously held by Shadow Flare, to reduce white damage taken. That'd apply to SMN as well, but SCH could go one step further by, say, allowing shields to be recharged by a portion of damage dealt by enemies inflicted with unaspected damage-over-time effects. There'd be a bit of anti-synergy in the redundant slow, but added synergy in shielding while the SMN Banes. Deployment Tactics would no longer be so "brokenly" powerful that it has to hold Adlo back, but its feature would now be a frequent and integral part of the kit, effectively offering at least another Adlo's worth of shielding at the cost of a single Aetherflow. Naturally, yes, let Pulse spread Chain Strategem, or even replace Chain Strategem completely with something a bit stronger that already iconifies a sort of well, series of kills.

Personally, I don't need SCH to be "the shield healer" so much as I want it to just be a healer that uses some form of strategy, with plenty of potential synergies. I want it to set up, and reap. Shielding, and effects that deepen shield-based gameplay, seems a good place to start, but it doesn't have to be the only.

[Semirhage]

SCH had two, AST had two, but SCH had Deployment Tactics, Eye for an Eye, and Sacred Soil in its favor. They've got a lot more abilities themed around putting something between you and a pissed-off boss to make you take less damage, whereas WHM has more abilities related to topping you off afterwards. This has been a pretty strict dichotomy in job design since ARR, with the newest healer (no longer very new at all) just fitting in as either one part of that dichotomy or the other. I mean- believe me, I was hoping Shadowbringers would either introduce a new healer that shatters the dichotomy meta, or radically redesign AST to be a true Third Type of Healer instead of WHM stance or SCH stance. It just didn't happen, though.

Sure, but what I mean here is, does two shield-creating spells make an identity? Scholar has always had nearly as many HoT spells as it has shield spells. Post-ARR (up until the Seraph shield) has only added even more regens. I've always found this community definition of "Shield Healer" versus "Regen Healer" to be really...odd, because you have two healers with both single target and AOE shields and single target and AOE regens, and one healer with a boatload of regens and...one single target shield.

If that difference had any starkness to it, you'd expect to not see too many regens on the Shield Healers, but they've got TONS of them, and have for quite a while. Not saying they should have them taken away or whatever, just that it's a weird, misleading definitional distinction if you set up the healers to split into these "specialization" boxes, but the shield healers also borrow extensively from the other box.

[Gravagar]

to add onto this, I think if Noct AST is going to be the "shield healer", then SCH should have its former debuff identity return...

That sort of change would get me to pick my codex back up. What initially drew me to SCH in ARR was saying "I want to have some cool debuffs, this job seems to have that kind of thing going on." My goal shifted from being an effective debuffer to being an effective shield healer, though, due to feeling like the regen/shield dichotomy was inescapable, as well as SCH slowly losing that part of its identity over time. I'd be happy to see that aspect return to the forefront too.

Sure, but what I mean here is, does two shield-creating spells make an identity? ...

I think it's mainly because Noct AST and SCH do not play well with each other or with composition duplicates due to the main parts of their kit overwriting other uses. WHM and Diurnal AST issues of this kind are barely noticeable by comparison; even Diurnal AST shields stack with Noct AST or SCH shields. I don't think these restrictions have ever really made sense, since the thing that makes them feel like such a defining characteristic to everyone is what they cannot do (stacking does not work and overwrites instead) rather than what they can do.