No love for Sch

[Nethereal]

So the problems lie with the potential for Sage to be overtuned.


Which has nothing to do with SCH having no identity/bad design/a lacking kit.



Assuming they make content reward having an abundance of healing SCH will be favored, in content where you want more damage Sage will be favored. This seems fine to me, especially considering you can still take SCH in optimization settings and you can still take Sage in prog settings. You just won't be the best (in theory.)


Why does SCH have to be the best at both? Its okay for a job to be unfavored in certain situations. Especially so if despite that it is still viable.

I mean it doesn't really have anything to do with Sage so much as it has to do with you only pick SCH over Noct Ast for sacred soil, sometimes chain or if you don't want to deal with star/cards.
Having Sage added and SCH having nothing really changed makes people feel like that trend will continue.

You pick a healer that feels the worst to play for the fact it has 1 skill that makes mitigation charts essentially irrelevant.

[Euphares]

I mean it doesn't really have anything to do with Sage so much as it has to do with you only pick SCH over Noct Ast for sacred soil, sometimes chain or if you don't want to deal with star/cards.
Having Sage added and SCH having nothing really changed makes people feel like that trend will continue.

You pick a healer that feels the worst to play for the fact it has 1 skill that makes mitigation charts essentially irrelevant.

I think its a bit dishonest to reduce SCH's kit to being a soil bot, spreadlo and chain are also pretty decent, as are excog and indom as well as both fairy abilities (not fae gauge.) Soil is the peak of its kit though I can agree there. But that still doesn't explain why it should be reworked or how its kit is poorly designed. Saying SCH is bad when its still being picked in every optimal comp (which is the only time these arguments actually matter) is wrong in my opinion. Its identity is solid, and the devs not changing anything fundamental only proves this. Are there things that can be better? Yes, namely the pet AI, but the pet AI being bad is an engine problem because SCH isn't the only one who suffers from it.

Eh, I'd argue that all the healers currently have bad designs and will probably continue to be badly designed with the exception of maybe sage.

Healers have way too many healing tools for the amount of healing they actually need to do and barely any damage tools for the other 90% of the time where they're doing damage. Sure in terms of both numbers and job identity nothing is wrong, but playing a healer just feels... soulless?

But hey, maybe SCH and SGE have barriers that stack and SCH retains its current healing capabilities, making the meta SCH + SGE, and people will stop running WHM and AST, which IMO would be hilarious but also sad.

I mean that's a valid critique and I am def in agreement there, no reason for healer kits to have so many abilities and most of them being waysided because you never need them. But that has nothing to do with SCH itself needing to be reworked and more that healers as a role need adjustments.

[Nethereal]

I think its a bit dishonest to reduce SCH's kit to being a soil bot, spreadlo and chain are also pretty decent, as are excog and indom as well as both fairy abilities (not fae gauge.) Soil is the peak of its kit though I can agree there. But that still doesn't explain why it should be reworked or how its kit is poorly designed. Saying SCH is bad when its still being picked in every optimal comp (which is the only time these arguments actually matter) is wrong in my opinion. Its identity is solid, and the devs not changing anything fundamental only proves this. Are there things that can be better? Yes, namely the pet AI, but the pet AI being bad is an engine problem because SCH isn't the only one who suffers from it.

Chain is chain, its convenience is only having to be able to hit the boss relative to Divination.

Spreadlo isn't anything special (especially for people who have played SCH before it got reworked because it could remove mechanics) relative to celestial opposition. And if you're not using recitation it's especially not special.
Spreadlo requires a GCD for a 375 shield along with an oGCD. If you're lucky it will be a crit 375 shield if not AST is better because in those two actions you will have a 500 potency shield and more actual healing potency regardless of if SCH crits or not. Before pets were reworked spreadlo was much more useful and had many niche uses because you could deploy off fairy now you use it because it's your strongest shield, not because it's a good ability.

All aetherflow abilities and fairy abilities are quite fine except maybe Lustrate but there's nothing particularly special about them that AST doesn't match except Sacred Soil. So there really is no reason to pick SCH over AST unless:

don't want to deal with star/cards.

Noct AST beats SCH in everything except personal dps and mitigation. It has more consistent shields with less micromanaging, it heals more, it has an instant single target heal that does 200 potency healing and 500 potency shielding on demand that blows adlo out of the park unless it crits, and if you were to consider Star's skill ceiling it has the most room for growth and optimization out of all 3 healers.

The reason SCH is consistently picked is because the best composition for healers is AST and SCH because there's no need for WHMs super heals and big dps relative to the freedom of movement the other two healers give along with the combination of chain and Divination. You have to work quite a bit more on mitigation sheets if you bring a WHM AST comp vs a SCH AST comp.
It also just so happens that WHM is the best prog/leveling healer and is very easy and essentially takes no managing outside of blowing all your mana on back to back cure 3s.

So while SCH can be fun and people do have fun playing SCH now and again at the bare bones you pick SCH for Sacred Soil because the skill in and of itself is essentially two additional jobs worth of mitigation.
Not because you like micromanaging fairy and making sure its in range of your party when you press the button because it decided to stop moving to use embrace or because you enjoy the skill delay on fairy abilities, or because you enjoy making sure you don't eat your fairy abilities before you use seraph, or dear god after you use seraph, or because you enjoy pretending you like to micromanage fairy tether, or because you like to remind your party to stack on you so you can shield them with your super secret extra big shield that really is barely any better than succor unless you crit, or back in the day because you enjoyed wasting all your mana baiting for a crit adlo so you could ignore a mechanic.
Lightly glossing over another aspect of SCH it is the only healer that has to fight its own kit to properly optimize.

The list goes on, healers in general aren't fun for most, SCH is the least fun healer to play of the 3, soon to be 4. So if we were to fully go down this road at the same pace we are now the next meta comp is going to be AST & SGE with an occasional WHM.
Sacred Soil is good but it's not that good. Now that you have an option that actually provides mitigation that can be paired with AST you will have no reason to pick SCH.
So really SCH's identity is the fairy, Noct AST walks all over any other identity it used to have.

Though I do think the 1.5 sec GCD is going in the right direction and will help close the gap between all 4 healers.
A very big thing AST had over all the other healers was it had actual free healing due to their free weaves, now that every healer is being afforded that luxury it will be a lot better all around.

I'm using Fluid Aura regularly in POTD to get a free cast in before I get pummelled again.
It was a nice utility spell with a niche use, and I don't know why it gets deleted.. but removing options is not a good thing.

You don't have to have all your spells on your hotbars at all times. I have special layouts for deep dungeons, without anything I don't need there.

Currently, Scholar is actually pretty nice in DD (except for the damage, "green dps" my ass, lol), would be very cool if they doubled down on that.

I would usually agree with that mindset but if you literally only have 1 use for a ability that you get fairly early on in 1 specific instance of content then it really is just an eyesore.
I use it on bosses when I have a free cast because I'm bored. Now if it had an effect similar to BLM's sleep I would agree they shouldn't remove it but it really is too niche.

[Euphares]

Noct AST beats SCH in everything except personal dps and mitigation. It has more consistent shields with less micromanaging, it heals more, it has an instant single target heal that

If SCH provides tools that the other healers do not and cannot be found anywhere else, than it has value and a strong identity.


Currently, no other healer in the game can provide the same amount of mit with the same uptime. Noct Bubble is considerably worse than soil and worse than its Diurnal counterpart, considering regen ast still gets the mitigation while noct doesn't get the regen unless it channels.

Healing for more stops being a perk when its understood that every healer has an abundance of healing, but no content requires all of it. Mitigation is what groups value as it nullifies the need to GCD heal which is why SCH is currently favored.

Art of War is considerably better than Gravity as well in fights where healer damage actually matters (TEA for example.)


Furthermore, Noct Ast is being removed entirely and we still have no idea what Sage will be like entirely but we do know that it is an offensive healer who heals through offense. Which is nowhere near treading upon Scholar's territory or identity. So SCH essentially has zero competition for its niche (which is intended.)



Which brings me back to my original point; currently the job is strong and being picked frequently > it receives little changes and the new healer has a different identity > logic would dictate that SCH will continue to have a strong identity and excel at what it is good at > it doesn't need a rework.


Again the only point that I can agree with in regards to needing an overhaul is the pet AI because its currently really broken, but I have to reiterate that this has nothing to do with Scholar's identity or design.

[Nethereal]

If SCH provides tools that the other healers do not and cannot be found anywhere else, than it has value and a strong identity.


Currently, no other healer in the game can provide the same amount of mit with the same uptime. Noct Bubble is considerably worse than soil and worse than its Diurnal counterpart, considering regen ast still gets the mitigation while noct doesn't get the regen unless it channels.

Healing for more stops being a perk when its understood that every healer has an abundance of healing, but no content requires all of it. Mitigation is what groups value as it nullifies the need to GCD heal which is why SCH is currently favored.

Art of War is considerably better than Gravity as well in fights where healer damage actually matters (TEA for example.)


Furthermore, Noct Ast is being removed entirely and we still have no idea what Sage will be like entirely but we do know that it is an offensive healer who heals through offense. Which is nowhere near treading upon Scholar's territory or identity. So SCH essentially has zero competition for its niche (which is intended.)



Which brings me back to my original point; currently the job is strong and being picked frequently > it receives little changes and the new healer has a different identity > logic would dictate that SCH will continue to have a strong identity and excel at what it is good at > it doesn't need a rework.


Again the only point that I can agree with in regards to needing an overhaul is the pet AI because its currently really broken, but I have to reiterate that this has nothing to do with Scholar's identity or design.

The only thing SCH provides that other healers do not have is chain and fairy, every other healer has access to shields, healing, and mitigation. That's it. And fairy can technically just be seen as a regen.
Obviously no other healer can provide the same amount of mitigation because like I said Sacred Soil is essentially two additional jobs worth of mitigation compared to WHMs 1 or none depending on what level you're playing on.
So again what identity? That was scrapped when they removed DoTs you pick SCH because WHM has no mitigation.

There's no reason to even compare Sacred Soil to other classes mitigation since the skill itself is the reason you pick SCH. Obviously it blows everything else out of the park.

Yes mitigation is what groups value which is why WHM which either has 1 or none is not picked over SCH, or AST in meta comp. But just like healing mitigation stops being a perk when you no longer need to put it on a chart.
Additional mitigation that doesn't stop you from getting 1 shot is the same as additional healing. SCH is favored because WHM has no mitigation and low movement and there are 2 healer slots and 3 healers to pick from.
Art of War is arguably the best AoE of the 3 healers in relevant content which is fair because it's the least fun healer to play and requires the most weaves.

Noct AST being removed doesn't effect the fact SCH is probably going to be replaced largely by SGE.
Noct AST being better than SCH was just an unfortunate situation but the meta comp is diurnal AST with SCH and now with SGE coming out it will most likely be AST & SGE because SCH's mitigation like I said while good is not that good.

These are the identities that the current healers have:

WHM: Big & easy dps & heals.
SCH: Fairy & Sacred Soil
AST: Cards & Free casts.

[Euphares]

-snip-.

Downplaying their strengths isn't correct imo, every healer has mit and shields, but do they excel at it like SCH? The answer is no. SCH not only has the best 10% mit cooldown, but an additional 5% mitigation on top of a healing increase. No other healer has both of these. This is the reason to bring up Soil, because no other healer has anything as powerful. Therefore, its a unique strength the solidifies the job as the best mitigation healer. This is an identity and a design goal, and both are being accomplished. This is only further solidified by the fact that Noct Ast is getting removed and that Sage has a very different design approach from what they have showed us. I still do not agree with the idea that Noct Ast is better than SCH as I haven't seen this reflected anywhere, the only perk Noct Ast has over SCH is that Celestial Opposition doesn't require as much set up as Seraph. But its a moot point because groups don't want an abundance of shielding, they want mitigation. Which is why both Neutral Sect and Seraph are rarely used.

I'm not sure why you even bring up dots, dots have nothing to do with a healer's identity considering to my knowledge they never interacted with your healing, it was just free damage. The only healer who's identity is tied to damage would be Sage as its damage directly interacts with its healing and/or mitigation. They are also giving every healer the Malefic treatment, which nullifies the awkwardness of having to use a worse spell to weave.

Additionally, in optimized scenarios where groups are cutting damage down to the wire, there are very few situations where mitigation has a hard-cap on its effectiveness. Otherwise white mage definitely would be meta, lack of movement becomes irrelevant as these groups map out their movement anyways (BLM is meta for the same reason, despite having the same drawback.)

SCH is not favored because WHM has no mitigation(this isn't even true), SCH is favored because it has the best mitigation. Which is its core identity.


The only scenario in which this won't be true is if Sage releases in an overtuned/overloaded state, by which the fault would be on Sage's design rather than SCH being designed poorly/having no identity.

[Nethereal]

Downplaying their strengths isn't correct imo, every healer has mit and shields, but do they excel at it like SCH? The answer is no. SCH not only has the best 10% mit cooldown, but an additional 5% mitigation on top of a healing increase. No other healer has both of these. This is the reason to bring up Soil, because no other healer has anything as powerful. Therefore, its a unique strength the solidifies the job as the best mitigation healer. This is an identity and a design goal, and both are being accomplished. This is only further solidified by the fact that Noct Ast is getting removed and that Sage has a very different design approach from what they have showed us. I still do not agree with the idea that Noct Ast is better than SCH as I haven't seen this reflected anywhere, the only perk Noct Ast has over SCH is that Celestial Opposition doesn't require as much set up as Seraph. But its a moot point because groups don't want an abundance of shielding, they want mitigation. Which is why both Neutral Sect and Seraph are rarely used.

I'm not sure why you even bring up dots, dots have nothing to do with a healer's identity considering to my knowledge they never interacted with your healing, it was just free damage. The only healer who's identity is tied to damage would be Sage as its damage directly interacts with its healing and/or mitigation. They are also giving every healer the Malefic treatment, which nullifies the awkwardness of having to use a worse spell to weave.

Additionally, in optimized scenarios where groups are cutting damage down to the wire, there are very few situations where mitigation has a hard-cap on its effectiveness. Otherwise white mage definitely would be meta, lack of movement becomes irrelevant as these groups map out their movement anyways (BLM is meta for the same reason, despite having the same drawback.)

SCH is not favored because WHM has no mitigation(this isn't even true), SCH is favored because it has the best mitigation. Which is its core identity.


The only scenario in which this won't be true is if Sage releases in an overtuned/overloaded state, by which the fault would be on Sage's design rather than SCH being designed poorly/having no identity.

I'm not downplaying their strengths you are simply overestimating their actual value.

SCH doesn't even excel as the shield healer, Noct AST has more consistent, and a stronger shield opener in the form of triple shields.
The only time SCH ever beats AST in shielding is if they crit (and that only applies to adlo) and you're never going to be using recitation on adlo, especially not succor.
Adlo is 375 single target potency shield relative to Aspected Benefic's 500 single target potency shield. Succor is a 225 AoE shield relative to Aspected Helios's 250 AoE Potency Shield.
Aspected Benefic is instant and a total of 700 potency more than Adlo's 675. If we were to add Seraph they would have a 525 potency AoE shield relative to Noct AST's 500 with opposition.
The second stack of consolation can largely be disregarded since it doesn't stack because shields are only as worth as you not getting 1 shot.
If it was an aldo spread it would be 675 shielding which is actually a fair bit more than Noct AST which is understandable since it's 1 GCD + 3 oGCDs relative to Noct's 1 GCD + 1 oGCD.
This of course is not accounting for the reduced potency fairy does.
SCH excels at mitigation, not shielding.
Noct AST is a better shield healer than SCH. It shields faster, it shields are more consistent, requires less set up, can do it more often(60s vs 120s), and actually has stronger shields in the form of a triple shield opener, and barely loses in potency if at all when accounting for reduced fairy potency. Even without the triple shields Neutral Sect is one of the most busted skills in the game and blows Seraph out of the park.

Sacred Soil isn't powerful in the traditional sense, it's 10% mitigation with a 500 potency regen at cap. The reason it's so good is because it has 50% uptime.
It is in fact very unique that a 10% mitigation would be so readily available which is why you pick SCH, for Sacred Soil. It's the only thing SCH has over the other two healers.
Noct AST is getting removed because if it was allowed to stay you would especially not pick SCH and it makes more sense to have 2 regen healers and 2 shield healers.

Seraph is rarely used because it requires 2 oGCDs to even get a shield out and it's not even good and to effectively use it you need to have two different sources of damage to use the second stack of consolation.
Neutral Sect is rarely used because it requires GCDs for it to do anything. It's totally two different reasons it has nothing to do with shielding. Neutral Sect still blows Seraph out however.

DoTs had plenty to do with a healers identity it was one of the main things you had to keep track of, your two DoTs or in SCH's case 3. But the Devs gutted that in favor of a 2 button rotation.
WHM would never be meta because regardless of mitigation getting reduced returns because it will still be better than reduced returns on healing.

There are only two healer slots and only 3 healers to pick from and WHM has 1 mitigation ability that you only get at level 80. This is fact and also why SCH is favored because it has mitigation worth 3 jobs.
To put it simply if Sacred Soil was nerfed you wouldn't see anyone meta running SCH.
If you unironically can't see why Noct AST is better than SCH at anything then there's honestly nothing to talk about. Also Fey illumination is good but it isn't a major factor in why SCH is picked.