Scholar: Returning to Roots

[DBriggs304]

What is the issue with SCH? Genuine question. I have an alt and played sch for the first time and am currently level 54 I think.

Their healing output doesnt seem that great. Am I doing something wrong? I feel like I couldn't heal tissue paper...

What has changed since they were..."good" I guess.

[ty_taurus]

What is the issue with SCH? Genuine question. I have an alt and played sch for the first time and am currently level 54 I think.

Their healing output doesnt seem that great. Am I doing something wrong? I feel like I couldn't heal tissue paper...

What has changed since they were..."good" I guess.

I think it's important to note that the healers aren't necessarily "unfun" at the moment. The thing is though is that they used to be a lot more fun. For scholar, it comes with them having their DoTs culled from 5 down to 3 before reverting it to 4 in SB, and now down to 1 and we've lost the ability to spread that where we used to be able to spread 4 of the original 5 to nearby enemies. Additionally, Selene and Eos used to have different tools. Not all of these things are just "perfect," but the point is that Shadowbringers reduced the individuality of the healers to try and balance them/make them more approachable. That's not a bad thing to want of course, but the way that it was done just hurt the jobs for those of us that were playing healers already. White Mage is actually an exception as it's a bit better than what it was in Stormblood, though some do still miss Aero 3

[DBriggs304]

I think it's important to note that the healers aren't necessarily "unfun" at the moment. The thing is though is that they used to be a lot more fun. For scholar, it comes with them having their DoTs culled from 5 down to 3 before reverting it to 4 in SB, and now down to 1 and we've lost the ability to spread that where we used to be able to spread 4 of the original 5 to nearby enemies. Additionally, Selene and Eos used to have different tools. Not all of these things are just "perfect," but the point is that Shadowbringers reduced the individuality of the healers to try and balance them/make them more approachable. That's not a bad thing to want of course, but the way that it was done just hurt the jobs for those of us that were playing healers already. White Mage is actually an exception as it's a bit better than what it was in Stormblood, though some do still miss Aero 3

Thanks for answering!
They dont seem to have a lot of skills...

[Jonnycbad]

What does "Art of War" even mean? What am I doing as the Scholar to inflict damage on multiple enemies?

In Japanese, SCH's Art of War is "Poisoning Arts" so I imagine the skill is basically a reskinned Miasma II but it would be awkward for SCH to have a skill called Miasma II without a Miasma 1, hence the name and theme change.

[HeulGDarian]

In Japanese, SCH's Art of War is "Poisoning Arts" so I imagine the skill is basically a reskinned Miasma II but it would be awkward for SCH to have a skill called Miasma II without a Miasma 1, hence the name and theme change.

i dont think the one poisoned when casting that is the adds

[Eloah]

Uh Miasma II was there since day 1 for Summoner and Scholar. It wasnt until it was removed at the start of SB and people complained that it was reinstated for Scholar only.
As for Bane, it's not so much about functionality but about style and theme. There's a difference in the style of spreading DoTs vs a single AoE, and literally no one was asking for that to be changed. Functionally, Art of War is fine, but it is probably one of actions in the game most devoid of any theme, lore, or personality. What does "Art of War" even mean? What am I doing as the Scholar to inflict damage on multiple enemies? Astrologian is crushing several enemies with a sphere of intense gravity. White Mage is conjuring pure light aether to sear and briefly disable nearby enemies. What's Scholar doing?

Miasma II in its initial form was garbage. I don't know anyone who used it for its intended purpose, on SMN or SCH, similar to the origianl Tri-Disaster/Tri-bind, the skills were just poorly implemented. Miasma II was given back to SCH in SB not because SCHs wanted a DoT back, but because their AoE was severely diminished going into SB. Giving SCHs back Miasma II was SE's solution.

Also as far as "Art of War" is concerned. Yes the name is odd, and as someone pointed out the name in Japanese is technically "Poisoning Art", but you do remember that SCH is a Military Tactician, right? I mean the name is odd but it does kinda fit. Maybe keeping Miasma II's animation and making the name sound like a combination of Poisoning Art and Art of War might of been "better", since Art of War sounds more like a trait or something then and actual skill. But it's still a skill that fits within SCHs lore. Which begs the question, Why does SMN still have poisons in their repertoire.

I think it's important to note that the healers aren't necessarily "unfun" at the moment. The thing is though is that they used to be a lot more fun. For scholar, it comes with them having their DoTs culled from 5 down to 3 before reverting it to 4 in SB, and now down to 1 and we've lost the ability to spread that where we used to be able to spread 4 of the original 5 to nearby enemies. Additionally, Selene and Eos used to have different tools. Not all of these things are just "perfect," but the point is that Shadowbringers reduced the individuality of the healers to try and balance them/make them more approachable. That's not a bad thing to want of course, but the way that it was done just hurt the jobs for those of us that were playing healers already. White Mage is actually an exception as it's a bit better than what it was in Stormblood, though some do still miss Aero 3

I think you are misremembering some of the information. SCH in 2.0 started out with 4 native DoTs, Bio, Miasma, Bio II, and Miasma II; the first 3 being single target and the last one being AoE, a bad AoE mind you. They were able to cross class two DoTs from THM and CNJ, Thunder and Aero. So in total they had 6 DoTs, though only 5 were of any significant use. But in 2.1 Thunder was removed as a cross-class skill so that dropped SCH down to 5 DoTs, Bio, Miasma, Bio II, Miasma II, and Aero; with it being kept that way until Stormblood. During 2.X and 3.X SCHs were able to cast Bio, Miasma, and Bio II on a target and then use Bane to spread the DoTs to other targets, then they would hard cast Aero on all targets, and spam their filler spell; Ruin in ARR and Broil in HW. It's worth noting that Miasma II has always been an AoE DoT, and was never spreadable by Bane. But the potency of Miasma II in ARR and HW was not worth the cast, as it only did 20 potency up front and 10 potency for 15s, totaling 70 potency.

Once Stormblood was launched, SE adjusted the cross-class system and moved over to the Role System. With that change SCH lost access to Aero. But what SE also did was make it that skills would upgrade now, so as to avoid button bloat. So instead of needing spells like Ruin and Broil on your bar, one would just automatically upgrade to the other. The same is true for DoTs. Bio II became and upgrade to Bio, and SE removed Miasma II from both SMN and SCH. so when SB launched both SCH and SMN only had 2 DoTs. However, unlike SMN who had other ways to AoE, SCH only had Bane now, and their AoE was severely lacking. SE then added Miasma II back in as a SCH only spell, but adjusted to potency to be 100 potency up front and 25 potency for 12s, totaling 200; which was on par with Holy and Gravity at the time. SE made Miasma II a spell that fit well into SCHs kit, finally.

But with Shadowbringers launch the Miasma, and Miasma II were removed, simplifying healers DoTs to 1 and adding in a more potent burst spell in Art of War.

So to break it down, In ARR 2.0-2.1 SCH had 6 DoTs. From 2.1-HW 3.5 SCH had 5 DoTs. In SB SCH had only 3 DoTs, and come ShB SCH has only 1. And truthfully Miasma II doesn't even register as a proper DoT until SB.

Thanks for answering!
They dont seem to have a lot of skills...

His answer is a bit misinformed. Here is a more accurate account of how things happened. As for the reason for the skill culling it was done by SE to try and prevent skill bloat, which semi worked. As for healers, come Shadowbringers, SE wanted to try and focus them to heal more. Was it successful, meh, but in later portions of the game you might not notice the "lack" of buttons as much as you do when you first start out. I'd say stick with it as long as you enjoy it. I've been a SCH since I basically started and even though I've had some RAGE!!! i still love it.

[ty_taurus]

I was also including Shadowflare as a DoT and not really including Thunder or Aero, though you're right about the original Miasma II

[Absurdity]

I was also including Shadowflare as a DoT

You could probably argue about that one endlessly. Is it a ground target aoe? But it deals tick damage, so is it a DoT?

[ty_taurus]

You could probably argue about that one endlessly. Is it a ground target aoe? But it deals tick damage, so is it a DoT?

I mean yeah, it's damage over time within the area, and I would consider that a part of Scholar's old DoT arsenal, but it's honestly just semantics really. And if I didn't make this clear before (not specifically as a response to your statement but in general), I don't meant to imply that we should go back to having 6ish DoTs or anything. It was certainly not a bloat issue back then, but today is a different story. More to the point that reducing them down to only 1 is overkill.

I mentioned this earlier, but I also want to stress that DoTs alone were never really enough in terms of making healer DPS more thoughtful or engaging, but as a part of Scholar's identity it does make sense to retain them in at least some sense. Personally I feel that Broil, Biolysis, Miasma/olysis, Ruin II, and Shadowflare make for a great core DPS, but just needs some level of engagement added to the system. That or if we are going to cut actions, replace them with something that brings that engagement. As far as Bane is considered, I'd rather find some alternate way of spreading those DoTs via a trait or something to save on the button slot since SCH has a lot of buttons to manage, especially since you optimally want to use pet actions as well.

[Brandedblade]

The common theme I've seen around what scholar does have is "cooldowns" and "resource management"

You manage your faerie, which while simpler then it used to be, is still a set of cooldowns that radiate from an external target. where not only are the cooldowns important, but also positioning.

You manage aetherflow, which even if in alot of situations is just dumped into Energy Drain, is still a resource that needs to be maintained, managed, and optimized in the use of, and the reward for doing so is mana sustain whether directly through energy Drain and the cd, or indirectly by healing for "free"

and Finally, you have fae guage, which while limited in what it's used on, is still a resource that you build by using your kit and spent on free healing.

This is the system I hope SE expands upon. instead of merely adding back old flavor spells for the sake of nostalgia and an extra button to press. SE has the potential to expand and the increase the synergies of these resources and make that the loop and complexity of the class.

The thing I ultimately want to see is a bigger emphasis on the fae gauge, give the scholar more ways to generate the gauge, while also giving the scholar more ways to spend it. For example, something simple like "Casting Broil on a target afflicted by your dot(s) generates 5 fae guage" If we want to add dots, they should not be there merely for the sake of having them, they should be something that the scholar is rewarded for maintaining.

We can even sneak a few of our old spells into the system this way, for example, making shadow flare an aoe aetherflow spender or making it faerie flavored and attaching it to Fae Gauge as a situational dump skill (name that comes to mind is Fae Hurricane, if you're wondering)