No love for Sch

[RyuDragnier]

You say I blow things out of proportion but you somehow include Seraph (A pet?), Sacred Soil (mitigation) and Fey illumination (magic mitigation) as Shields.

Scholars have access to three shields.

Adlo
Succor
Consolation

That's it.

You and I both know for a damned fact that SE is also looking at mitigation as a form of shield for the "shield healers". They wouldn't give us so many mitigation tools if they didn't.

[Mhiro]

Most of what SCH lost over the years are things that didn't belong to them or were a result of being connected to ACN, a beginner dps. The small bit that was SCH only that it lost was Selene being functionally different from Eos. But everything else people miss? Cleric Stance, protect, aero, etc...cross class skills. Eye for an eye, DoTs, Bane, Shadowflare....ACN. if Scholar had never been an extension of acn and instead had it's own beginner class like say, Student or Novice something, these pieces wouldve never been part of SCH's kit. I havent mained sch since 3.5 and I'm also disappointed in how sch has been handled, but even I can see what most people are missing isn't Scholar. You miss Arcanist. (And Selene).

[Alpheus]

It also lost a lot of pet functionality like being able to weave pet CDs that made the Job feel smoother to play and we never got any of the other clunkiness that accrued addressed so it just felt like it got clunkier and clunkier as it had things added to it.

[Schan]

(..)
You say I blow things out of proportion but you somehow include Seraph (A pet?), Sacred Soil (mitigation) and Fey illumination (magic mitigation) as Shields.

Scholars have access to three shields.

Adlo - a 375 potency chield
Succor (a weak aoe shield at 225 potency)
Consolation (subject to the pet tax, 200 potency shield afterwards)

That's it.

And have access to 4 Regens (counting the fairy as a "regen")
Fairy / Seraph
Whispering Dawn
Sacred Soil
Fey Union

...
Let me fix that for you real quick:

Scholars have access to 4 shields.

Adlo - a 375 potency chield
Succor (a weak aoe shield at 225 potency)
Consolation (subject to the pet tax, 200 potency shield afterwards)
Seraphic Veil (Seraph) - a 200 potency heal + shield (replaces Embrace)

That's it.

And have access to 4 Regens (counting the fairy as a "regen")
Fairy (Embrace)
Pet Skill (Whispering Dawn - for Eos / Angel's Whisper - for Seraph)
Sacred Soil
Fey Union

Seraph does give shields when healing normally so adding the pet to the shield "table" should be acceptable especially if you are adding Eos to the regen "table"

You people can keep arguing all you want but at least base off your arguments in correct information that you can find by reading your skill tooltips. Please.

[Sotaris]

SCH.. Scholar... what is this class? I thought it was removed from the game years ago.













/s

[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.

[Alpheus]

You and I both know for a damned fact that SE is also looking at mitigation as a form of shield for the "shield healers". They wouldn't give us so many mitigation tools if they didn't.

IDK, I mean mitigations work in tandem with shields to give them some durability but I don't think that makes mitigations, shields. I get what you're saying though even if I don't personally see it that way, you're not entirely incorrect.

[Jirah]

Now that SMN lost maisma and bio....can like SCH have it?

[Alpheus]

No the only scraps SCH is getting is Noct AST's Dome trait where the mitigation lingers even if people run away from it (which is essentially what SCH's EW mitigation skill is gonna be but now with Peloton fringe benefit instead of the regen that drops off once the AST Dome is finished deploying/AST moved).

[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.