No love for Sch

[RyuDragnier]

my bestie, who plays a sch main healer, thinks SCH is fun, is looking forward to the added buff and doesnt think the job is in any way "broken"

I play healers and main whm, have little interest in SGE because it looks like the combat healer the people who whined about SCH losing its dps focus have been waiting on. SCH always was a barrier healer. what more did you expect them to get?

Fixes to multiple abilities in the kit that clash. More Fae Gauge spenders so it's not such a worthless thing, for as of right now it's only used for Fey Union and Fey Blessing, one of which is only single target and the other a 60s cooldown, neither of which you use all that often. Maybe a new flashy ability that looks good, which we did not get.

I'm hoping for the kit fixes and fae gauge being more useful, but those are things they could have stated as bullet points during the Live Letter. Which btw, they did not do, only telling us that the speed boost was also damage mitigation, and they also outright admitted that they don't know what they can do with Scholar anymore.

[Fukuro]

just leaving this here
https://youtu.be/eApcdeIyQRg

[White_Wolf_X]

Don't know what you guys are talking about the new gap closer is amazing.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...oks_fantastic/

[Euphares]

Genuinely don't understand why people are in such disarray over SCH.

They literally said that they are building upon the foundation that Shb laid, and currently SCH is in a fine spot, its still picked pretty frequently and its abilities are still good enough to be used in optimization situations. The worst parts about the job that I've observed are simply pet AI and needing to use Ruin 2 to weave. Both of which are being changed (the pet one is a maybe though.)

I don't see DRK players whining, when they arguably got even less new things than SCH. Its just a sign that the job is probably well designed enough to not need changes.

Not to mention, we haven't seen any of the new traits yet, which can really make a big differences in how a job feels.

SGE is obviously going to steal the spotlight because it is a new job and they want people to actually play it, but there is value in jobs remaining stable design-wise. Not everything needs to change drastically otherwise we get another AST situation where the playerbase is always torn over new vs old iterations.

If you are a SCH main currently, nothing should stop you from being a SCH main in EW because they still have their identifying features (big group shields and mitigation tools.) If that's not enough for you then I question why you would ever consider maining the job since from what I gather that has always been the intended identity since it was implemented.


Just my 2c.

[RyuDragnier]

Genuinely don't understand why people are in such disarray over SCH.

Because they outright admitted they don't know what they can do for the class anymore. The devs outright admitted they don't know what to add to one of the base game classes. That means that not only do they not know how to fix it, but that it's likely going to get hit with a rework sometime either in EW or by 7.0.

[Euphares]

Because they outright admitted they don't know what they can do for the class anymore. The devs outright admitted they don't know what to add to one of the base game classes. That means that not only do they not know how to fix it, but that it's likely going to get hit with a rework sometime either in EW or by 7.0.

What about it needs fixing though? Its a shield healer that has strong mitigation and shields with a pet that enhances its mitigation and shields. Current SCH covers that just fine.

That segment doesn't read to me like "this is broken" more that "this job is meeting all our design goals and we are unsure how to be innovative with additions without losing the identity we want." They would be right, there isn't a whole lot they can add to the job without it becoming cluttered, so they defaulted to unique utility that is still in-line with the theme (new movement speed ability.)


Summoner gets changed so much because prior to its upcoming iteration it didn't seem to ever meet its intended design identity, SCH isn't nearly in the same boat.

[RyuDragnier]

What about it needs fixing though? Its a shield healer that has strong mitigation and shields with a pet that enhances its mitigation and shields. Current SCH covers that just fine.

Dissipation removes your fairy and gives you Aetherflow stacks. But you need your fairy out to get Fae Gauge buildup using Aetherflow stacks. You need your fairy out to use Seraph, your level 80 ability, which will then lock out the Fae Gauge moves. You need your fairy out to use one of your party regens and a party mitigation, which do not get stronger when you use your limited time Seraph form of your fairy. Fae Gauge only has 2 moves, neither of which are used much at all despite this, one of which is the weakest AoE heal in the game and has a 60s cooldown, the other a tether to a single target that the fairy will end the second you use any other fairy ability. Lustrate, Excogitation, Sacred Soil, Indomitability, Energy Drain, are fighting to use the 3 Aetherflow Stacks. The entire kit fights with and contradicts itself instead of working together.

[ToodlesElNoodles]

Are there situations in which you need to pump all 3 (Dissipation, Fey Union, and Summon Seraph) at the same time?

Genuinely curious.

[Euphares]

Dissipation removes your fairy and gives you Aetherflow stacks. But you need your fairy out to get Fae Gauge buildup using Aetherflow stacks. You need your fairy out to use Seraph, your level 80 ability, which will then lock out the Fae Gauge moves. You need your fairy out to use one of your party regens and a party mitigation, which do not get stronger when you use your limited time Seraph form of your fairy. Fae Gauge only has 2 moves, neither of which are used much at all despite this, one of which is the weakest AoE heal in the game and has a 60s cooldown, the other a tether to a single target that the fairy will end the second you use any other fairy ability. Lustrate, Excogitation, Sacred Soil, Indomitability, Energy Drain, are fighting to use the 3 Aetherflow Stacks. The entire kit fights with and contradicts itself instead of working together.

Dissipation not letting you build gauge seems intended to me, the whole point of the ability is to sacrifice your pet in exchange for making the Scholar more powerful, which it achieves. Its not contradictory more-so its just a tradeoff for using the ability. Scholar is supposed to be a tactical healer and sacrifice is part of tactical gameplay.


Seraph letting you use gauge moves on top of also having enhanced fairy abilities and Consolation would most likely require a re-tuning of the class which would probably include nerfing the default fairy and its abilities.


The fairy gauge is only underwhelming because nothing in the game requires so much healing, blessing could get numbers tuning, and union just suffers from crappy pet ai but is still often used to prevent reliance on gcd heals to recover from tank damage.


Aetherflow abilities are fine because you are supposed to make a tactical decision with your resources. These abilities are balanced by the fact that you cannot use all of them and the ones you do use you can only use sparingly. If you could just fire and forget them, the job would once again need re-tuning which would result in all of them getting watered down which wouldn't be pleasing to anyone. And this design falls in line with the tactical, shield/mit healer identity.

The only aspects of SCH's kit that is underwhelming are fey blessing due to being undertuned, and Lustrate due to never needing to ST heal so much, in addition to overall bad pet ai due to the game engine. None of these are symptoms of SCH's design not creating a solid identity and none of these issues warrant a groundbreaking rework or the addition of groundbreaking new tools.

[Alpheus]

As disappointed as I am due to the job trailer as a SCH main, what bothered me the most was how they were laughing and chuckling the whole time, it was like they weren't taking it seriously and just considered it a joke but I get it, Yoshida-san was tired AF he and the Devs and the comms team bust their ass working on this game I enjoy. So if these small moments get them to laugh and chuckle then I'll let them have it, they work themselves to the bone as it already is and they've long since earned any moment of levity that comes their way as they continue to work hard. But they should have tempered expectations when it came to SCH (and WHM), the last thing we heard from the Devs about healers in general was around 5.0 launch where they said they wanted to bring the healers to about the same level before they do anything drastic and to be fair to them a lot of the issues people brought up were implemented but they were given to Sage but yes they did listen, and rather attentively given that Sage has more than 1 DPS button.

But to go from "We wanna even things out before we do any more" only to then hear from them (in the run up to the following expansion 2 years later [give or take]) that "Oh we couldn't really think of anything" absolutely gutted me and I know I'm not alone in feeling that, I am personally not gonna give the Devs any grief, and just accept the disappointment as I have for 3 expansions now (going on 4) and just accept the fact that they simply don't have the means to give SCH the attention I would wish them to, whether b/c they're putting fires out everywhere else in the game or not being able to find a Dev team member who mains a healer/act as an advocate for the healer role during their meetings or because given balance considerations the more interesting things they do come up with are deemed unfeasible.

I'm still gonna play SCH, level Sage and if anything ditch WHM since AST changes seem to be up my alley (Starfall is one of my favorite spells in FF franchise history after all). I'll only walk away from SCH if the healer community with any seriousness wants to boycott the Job, otherwise I'll keep playing SCH even if it does get unpopular (unlikely but Sage is their first real competitor for the role of shield healer so if anything it's simply a realistic possibility this expansion), as an FFXI player I'm used to SCHs being a rarity given their lore in Vanadiel so seeing fewer of them won't bother me personally. I just wanted healers to have a dash for mobility cuz I personally enjoy expressing my fight knowledge with those movement tools provided on other classes and roles and hey a healer was given one this expansion, just not my healer (but they did give one to SMN hah) so I'll just have to get used to it. Just like how I got used to the Devs constantly looking over SCH's shoulder making sure we weren't capable of any busted shit for balance reasons for the last 8 years or so ( balance concerns which were 100% valid), but it didn't make the Job experience pleasant knowing that they'd just take more and more away from the Job w/o giving it much of anything in return the way other Jobs got treated when removals had to occur for them (for the most part). To say nothing of how ever since 2.0 WAR has gotten nothing but close attention and given buffs just because the 2.0 cover Job faceplanted upon its debut(and yet that close attention persisted long after it was fixed in the 2.x patch series, I wish other Jobs had that kind of attention). It just sucks that for something monumental like the job action trailer where every Job gets a chance to shine SCH just ended up looking like a joke. But I'm not gonna give the Devs any grief over it, they have enough problems to solve and even though I feel slighted I'm personally not gonna add to their plate.