Potential Fixes to SCH's Ongoing Design Problems

[Dearche]

"Simple and complex healers"
Oh no. This is "Keep White Mage boring and make Scholar overpowered again" isn't it?



Getting whittled down to the point where you have effectively nothing interesting to manage is pretty bad design, isn't it? Scholar is the only remaining healer suffering from this catastrophe. Nobody else has seen such horrible game design for years. Wink wink. Wink wink.

Simple and complex doesn't mean boring vs overpowered, though admittedly it can.
There's actually a perfect example already in FFXIV that does this, and nobody really complains about it. The Casters have RDM as the simple and SMN/BLM as the complex.

What I'm pointing out is that, since we're going to end up with two pure healers and two shield healers, we might as well make one of each a simple, and the other complex.

And if you want an example of how to make WHM simple without being boring, how about if their GCD heals are buffed a bit, and each time they're casted, they give blood lilies? Afflatus Misery would have to be weakened a bit to compensate, and most of their oGCDs would have to be removed, but they'll turn into a slower healer with weaved offence that can be used a ton.

In fact, it would even help solve their boring DPS problems while making them entirely unique in play, all without making WHM newbie unfriendly.

[glamazon]

I like these ideas

[Deceptus]

Simple and complex doesn't mean boring vs overpowered, though admittedly it can.
There's actually a perfect example already in FFXIV that does this, and nobody really complains about it. The Casters have RDM as the simple and SMN/BLM as the complex.

Unless you're min maxing BLM is ridiculously simple as well.

[SweetPete]

Sch needs to be detached from arcanist for good. They need to stop talking about it and be about it. Aetherflow needs to go. Something needs to be done about pet responsiveness. Though, Yoshi said summoner is getting some rework and I’m sure it’s about pets and that will tinkle down to scholar too since it’s a pet job. Scholar will get a rework I’m hoping anyway. This current shadowbringers iteration of it absolutely sucks.

[GrimGale]

If we can have jobs without party utility like BLM and SAM that ditch out high dps, we cam have Helaers without party utility that ditch out high dps.

Sage seems to be going the route of "Selfish" dps with shields.

Having WHM be the selfish dps with regen/pure heals seems perfectly plausible.

[Semirhage]

If we can have jobs without party utility like BLM and SAM that ditch out high dps, we cam have Helaers without party utility that ditch out high dps.

Sage seems to be going the route of "Selfish" dps with shields.

Having WHM be the selfish dps with regen/pure heals seems perfectly plausible.

I agree this could work. The community would have to be okay with it in order to make it work.

The beginning of Shadowbringers doesn't give me much hope in that vein. Remember the AST/SCH threads baying for blood demanding the "overpowered" WHM get its personal damage nerfed because it was tooooooooo stroooooooong? The DPS seem content with their relative pecking order within their subroles. I have never not seen SCHs flip their lids when WHM gets to do significantly more damage than them. Because Scholar is "supposed" to be "the DPS healer". That's a perception that would need to change for it to work. Scholar can't be "the DPS healer" AND "the utility-rich healer" AND "the smart healer" etc etc etc. One of the major beefs I've had with Scholar as a job over past expansions is that community perception sort of hogged up all of the identity space due to being good at everything; it lead to a lot of "well you can't do this to improve WHM, that would be stealing SCH's identity!".

[dezzmont]

One of the major beefs I've had with Scholar as a job over past expansions is that community perception sort of hogged up all of the identity space due to being good at everything; it lead to a lot of "well you can't do this to improve WHM, that would be stealing SCH's identity!"

I agree with this beef. WHM's overall design also makes it the 'correct' job to be the high personal DPS healer, due to its obvious parallels to BLM with how its DPS rotation is almost purely GCD requiring every cast to come with commitment, while SCH is running around with a lot of weaving mobility, a variant of our GCD that can be used on the run, and a 'co-healer' who keeps up some maintenance heals even while we are DPSing as a key part of our identity that can't be removed when reworking oGCD healing.

Obviously, when you look at that, either the WHM needs to bring some ridiculous party utility, or it needs to do a LOT more DPS than the SCH to make sense. And because we don't want WHMs doing more DPS than dancers, its clear SCH's damage as part of its identity is.... 'wrong.'

A more complex offensive rotation can be part of its identity, or strong toolbox heals that let it spend more time DPSing, and I think the job should definitely be very 'active,' but that really shouldn't translate to potency.

The big issue, of course, is that a lot of nuance between the healers is lost in the current healing system. So small DPS gains on each other makes them the 'best' as well as the fact its much easier to 'enforce' a meta because you can, in fact, just switch to WHM from SCH with a day or two of practice and grinding, compared to making your RDM go SAM or SMN or whatever.

[Dearche]

Sch needs to be detached from arcanist for good

I agree with this. I don't really see why it's so difficult to do either. Just make SCH a classless job like all the newer jobs, and for those people who already has SCH unlocked, just make sure that they have the new SCH at the same level.

Maybe there's some sort of internal coding which prevents this, but I wish that SE would simply admit that if that was the case. Then we wouldn't be so frustrated about it.

I agree this could work. The community would have to be okay with it in order to make it work...

To be honest, this is entirely SE's fault though. Admittedly, it was originally caused by the complaints of dual SCH in DF, but SE's solution was to give big raw heals to SCH, rather than find some other sort of solution.

Being the DPS healer was just happenstance due to SCH's origins as ACN, but that didn't mean that the best solution was to just nerf SCH's damage. It wasn't like they were out DPSing the actual DPS (at least when they were equally skilled). Utility on the other hand could easily be shared. AST became the utility healer the moment it showed up, as it was part of its core identity. Any complaint regarding that only started when chain stratagem was introduced, and even then it was only one skill that wasn't connected to any SCH abilities, just the lore. And the idea of a unique preventative healer was destroyed as WHM got even better mitigation than SCH and a nice shield on top of that.

The only real identity SCH has left is being the broken pet healer.

Admittedly, if SE's real goal in ShB was to wipe out the existing preconceptions by wiping out any real identity and enjoyability of the healers before they actually fix things from a fresh plate in EW, then I would admit things might be worth it. But if that's true, then the changes we get better be REAL good to make up for these two years of tedium and anger, as SE'll have to earn back all the healers that gave up and quit to DPS.

Personally, I enjoy DRG, BLM, and SMN way more than playing SCH lately, and my persistence in my first love doesn't pay out in EW, I'm going to jump ship to being a DPS main from now on.

[Liam_Harper]

WHM doesn't even need to have ridiculous dps compared to the other two, but what gets to me most is how WHM is the least capable of healing while doing dps. As a WHM you don't get both, you pick one or the other. SCH suffers heal tax too, but can output a fairly decent hps without suffering too much loss. AST pays no heal tax at all. WHM however kills its heal output just to barely keep up with the other two on dps. Assize is blown on cd for damage, lilies are for movement or intermissions, your oGCD's rely on very limited weave windows and GCD heals are a 300 loss.

If WHM is going to be the 0 utility healer, it should be churning out both competitive dps and healing. AST does both easily and has utility. Currently WHM functions because AST carries it and SCH isn't everyone's cup of tea, but once we divide into shield/pure and WHM is competing directly with AST for one of two "Pure" spots, it's in trouble unless things really change. Why bring a healer that does one of two things and can't do the third when you have a healer that does all 3 simultaneously.

[Dzian]

Scholar is "supposed" to be "the DPS healer". That's a perception that would need to change for it to work. Scholar can't be "the DPS healer" AND "the utility-rich healer" AND "the smart healer" etc etc etc. One of the major beefs I've had with Scholar as a job over past expansions is that community perception sort of hogged up all of the identity space due to being good at everything; it lead to a lot of "well you can't do this to improve WHM, that would be stealing SCH's identity!".

SCH imo was basically the proactive utility dps. It wasn't about healing damage it was about preventing it. So in this guise it wasn't a healer at all. You has has fairy that could do some reactive healing when needed. And a fairy that was more utility and support.

The biggest problem with being proactive though is that's its ultimately far to punishing.. if you don't absolutely 100% know a fight script your done for. If you cast a shield the exact millisecond you see the cast bar going g off for a tank buster or raid wide. It's already too late to mitigate that damage.

This is where people complained that noct ast was superior with its insta cast Shields. Slightly weaker but infinitely more usable and effective. Though at one point I think they were even stronger than a school Shields.

Scholars were never meant to be reactive healers and thats why they gave them emergency tactics as a kind of oh crap button that could convert shields into raw heals in a pinch.. but they kinda killed that before they even implemented it by giving us indomnibility as well...

As for utility in general they've gutted and simplified so much that there's really no room to be unique and offer much by way of utility... resource management is all but gone. Crowd control is non existent... mitigation in general has become a joke.. the only thing utility can do is just make dps numbers bigger.. like how every set card now does the exact same thing.

Ast had some great potential andnits cards would have fine if some of them weren't deliberately restricted. Like Ewer my refresh but doesn't work on a blackmage or a dark Knight.... what the hell? That could have been interesting. Letting blms bust out an extra fire 4 or 2 or drk uses there arts more.. could have been a good card. And not just fodder for balance spreads.

Old school scholar fey wind was pretty good to. Serene was often a decent choice for that. And her aoe cleanse could have worked much better if devuffs actually lasted longer than 4 seconds. Someones paralysed. No point casting leeches or esuna as it'll have wear off in a couple of seconds anyway.

It was never meant to be the reactive style healer so there's the big gap in its identity. It was meant to prevent damage not heal it.