SCH, Energy Drain, and 6.0

[Absurdity]

I imagine this impression is one reason why WHM remains popular to this day, but I'm baffled where it comes from. WHM is rarely ever the king of heals and damage. It even has to lose a lot of damage to do strong healing and vice versa. AST is the king of everything right now compared to WHM. Both SCH and WHM will need a viable niche going into Endwalker.

Probably because most people don't look further than "Glare = big numbers = big damage and Cure Two = big numbers = big healing" without ever thinking about the cost that is attached to WHM's big heals.


When you consider that a majority of the people playing this game don't do much more than maybe read their ability tooltips it's easy to see how this myth about WHM is still going strong.

[Rilifane]

Probably because most people don't look further than "Glare = big numbers = big damage and Cure Two = big numbers = big healing" without ever thinking about the cost that is attached to WHM's big heals.


When you consider that a majority of the people playing this game don't do much more than maybe read their ability tooltips it's easy to see how this myth about WHM is still going strong.

And that's a big "maybe".
Outside of niche Cure III and Bene, WHM doesn't have any signifcant heal power over the others and certainly not for free. I think it's more of a "Since I don't have any utility/ support, I must be the strongest in dps and hps" without actually comparing numbers and how much of that healing is free.
Many people think using Solace is a dps gain, Assize is for healing and/ or when you need MP or that Cure II is inherently stronger than Bene II or Adlo. Which is true for the latter but SCH also has the fairy and the auto heals + Adlo are roughly equal to the other spells just spread to two seperate actions.

I have no idea where they'll go with AF/ ED but with how adamant they are about SCH using AF for healing we might see the decision making tied to AF scratched altogether. It would be a shame because it's nice to have something where you need to weigh your options and be prepared to get bitten in the back if you miscalculated.
It seems to be a case of this "What people think I'm doing/ What I'm actually doing" meme with SE thinking we generally spent AF on healing when in reality we squeeze it for every ED we can, otherwise they wouldn't have removed it twice and nerfed it so Ruin II ED is barely a dps gain over Broil.
Or maybe it gets a major rework like WHM lilies got from SB to ShB after it's clear that we are not going to use it as intended and they don't seem to like heal/ support competing for the same resource as damage when it mostly gets used for damage anyway like old cards and now AF.

[Recon1o6]

WHM's main attractors compared to the other healers are twofold

1. No barrier to entry. You can start the game as a conjurer, but you can't as an Ast, Sch or soon Sge
2. Its the only healer that didn't get worse in shb. Its not improved though. Its just functional on the healing side now and the dps kit is broken (misery being a loss, insufficient weaving windows etc) whereas in SB it was the healing kit that was broke

Sadly SE don't have a healer dev, (or a tank one i suspect) and the quality of the playerbase in terms of skill in shb has drastically deteriorated as a result of the dumbing down across the board


Sch meanwhile, the devs are actively trying to destroy it and Astro since they like numbers and the mythological statistical balance over fun. Consequently the repeated ED loss.

You can tell they don't have a healer dev, as they fundamentally do not see how it breaks the Sch job removing ED. Even though its been an intergral part of the kit since always.

If they actually gave a damn, they'd decouple Summoner from Arcanist and not Scholar, scrap everything they did to Sch in shb and start again from SB

[inhaledcorn]

Here's the thing, it's not good to discourage a specific way of playing, rather to encourage another. If they want us to use Aetherflow on healing, they need to do two things:

1) make using oGCD heals easier to weave

and 2) reward the player for doing it.

These ideas already exist on other jobs. SCH really needs the same casting mechanic that AST has (ie: shorter cast times vs the GCD) to make the weaving viable (especially since SCH is so heavily reliant on oGCDs to heal especially with fairy skills also now being skills that need to be weaved), and, like on DRK with TBN and WHN with Afflatus skills, a refund on using Aetherflow on something not Energy Drain. This would fix so much of SCH's current clunkiness, even though SCH has a lot of other problems I think it will take an expansion rollover to really iron out.

I do agree that I think SCH and SMN should be completely separated from each other, though, and make SCH either a stand-alone job that can unlock at 30, or introduce a new base class and new starter healer just to even out the starter role distribution a tad.

[ItMe]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is SCH the only class that can spend its resource on DPS or other?

PLDs meter is only used for tanking actions (cover, shelltron, intervention).

WHM has lillies and blood lillies, but one is for healing and the other is for DPS.

DRK can use its MP to deal damage OR to tank... but if you use it right tanking "refunds" the MP by giving you a free The Damage button.

All the jobs have their resource wrapped around a single function (like PLD using its meter for tanking skills), and SCH is (I think) the only class that can choose wether to spend its resource on DPS or something else... and it seems like a lot of SQEX's issues with Energy Drain stem from this and wanting to make SCHs resources get in line with a single function.
So I fully expect to lose Energy Drain in 6.0.

[inhaledcorn]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is SCH the only class that can spend its resource on DPS or other?

PLDs meter is only used for tanking actions (cover, shelltron, intervention).

WHM has lillies and blood lillies, but one is for healing and the other is for DPS.

DRK can use its MP to deal damage OR to tank... but if you use it right tanking "refunds" the MP by giving you a free The Damage button.

All the jobs have their resource wrapped around a single function (like PLD using its meter for tanking skills), and SCH is (I think) the only class that can choose wether to spend its resource on DPS or something else... and it seems like a lot of SQEX's issues with Energy Drain stem from this and wanting to make SCHs resources get in line with a single function.
So I fully expect to lose Energy Drain in 6.0.

This is part of the problem, yes. However, Energy Drain is necessary due to SCH's Fairy Gauge which directly feeds off of Aetherflow usage. Without Energy Drain, you don't generate as much Fairy Gauge as you should each minute. Then again, you can largely ignore the Fairy Gauge and nothing really changes since it only affects how long you can use Fey's Union for. Fey's Blessing being tied to the Fairy Gauge is something that still baffles me to this day since it's just a kinda weak AoE heal on a 60s cooldown. If it was just an AoE version of Fey's Union, I can understand why it costs gauge. If it was just an AoE heal, I can understand the cooldown. I cannot understand why it has both of those things.

Anyway, if they decide to expand the Fairy Gauge further (which I kinda which they would since there's a good idea here), Energy Drain (or something like it) needs to stay. SCH, as they intend it, wouldn't be able to function.

[Billythepancake]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is SCH the only class that can spend its resource on DPS or other?

PLDs meter is only used for tanking actions (cover, shelltron, intervention).

WHM has lillies and blood lillies, but one is for healing and the other is for DPS.

DRK can use its MP to deal damage OR to tank... but if you use it right tanking "refunds" the MP by giving you a free The Damage button.

All the jobs have their resource wrapped around a single function (like PLD using its meter for tanking skills), and SCH is (I think) the only class that can choose wether to spend its resource on DPS or something else... and it seems like a lot of SQEX's issues with Energy Drain stem from this and wanting to make SCHs resources get in line with a single function.
So I fully expect to lose Energy Drain in 6.0.

The only problem with that logic is that, by removing energy drain like they tried to in 5.0 is that aetherflow becomes a useless mechanic, you may as well not even have it. And, if it is unique that SCH has a "I can use this resource for DPS or healing" how's that a problem exactly? What's wrong with a class being unique? Isn't that the entire point of having multiple classes.

Of course, that makes way too much sense, and SE is incapable of balance if the classes aren't carbon copies of each other with different sparkle animations, so yes, it probably will be removed in some misguided attempt to force all aetherflow stacks to be used for healing, only to have that tired idea fail again, and this time either just double down on it and just say "no, screw you, how DARE you optimize and get better at your class" or learn their lesson a 3rd time and return energy drain again.

[ItMe]

Anyway, if they decide to expand the Fairy Gauge further (which I kinda which they would since there's a good idea here), Energy Drain (or something like it) needs to stay. SCH, as they intend it, wouldn't be able to function.

The only problem with that logic is that, by removing energy drain like they tried to in 5.0 is that aetherflow becomes a useless mechanic, you may as well not even have it.

I agree... as far as Shadow Bringers SCH is concerned.
Who knows what kind of changes they'll make for Endwalker. Far as we know they're gonna rework the whole system and it won't even have aetherpips anymore.

And, if it is unique that SCH has a "I can use this resource for DPS or healing" how's that a problem exactly? What's wrong with a class being unique? Isn't that the entire point of having multiple classes.

I agree, though iirc they've expressed it's a pain to balance content around so, since they've tried giving it the axe twice I'm expecting another attempt in 6.0.

[elioaiko]

If they remove ED again, it's truly telling that they don't understand how healers are played. While I do miss the fairy being targetable, it was problematic as in the fairy could die to anything for any reason. Making pets immortal should be right way to go as its less of a buggy mess, which is ironic considering how buggy it is now with ghosting.

At some point, what is the purpose of the fairy now? Embrace is weak now and the fairy only acts a beacon. All of your spells come from you. I do miss being able to command the fairy to cast it's oGCDs while I fight the enemy. It felt unique in that the fairy felt like a seperate entity. With how much of a mess they did to ShB SCH, I'd only imagine it'll be shunned by Sage if that turns out to be more powerful and less clunky.

Also WHM as some posts above is NOT powerful in healing, at least on an optimal scale. I hear this all the time from people who couple the idea that WHM is the king of healing and damage when in reality SCH and especially AST outheal WHM in an optimal environment. Their strong heals are tied to their GCD heals and Lily heals are a DPS loss even with Misery. Yes, it's less painful than actually using a Cure/Medica/Cure 3 heal, but it comes at a cost. WHM has the best damage but at the cost of their "big" heal ability. For as long as SE holds onto this idea that WHM has little to no weave windows, Assize, Asylum, Benediction are the only things WHM has on the other heals.

This is why AST is desired among healer combos because it is the only healer with that can dps, buff AND heal the fight without suffering a DPS loss. Both SCH and WHM desperately need something to help them weave their skills better.

[Cabalabob]

I kinda wish they’d just make energy drain consume all remaining stacks and deal damage/restore mp based on how many stacks were consumed. So we can literally just use it when aetherflow comes off CD to get rid of our remaining stacks before refreshing it.