No love for Sch

[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.

[Euphares]

-snip-

At the highest level of play healing boils down to being able to get away with the least amount of GCD healing and the most amount of damage, SCH is favored because it has the best mitigation on top of having decent shielding when the situation requires GCD healing. It also has good OGCD regens.

Even in E10S, the fight where shields are perhaps most important, most groups still have the AST as diurnal because at the end of the day mitigation > shields and SCH has more than enough shielding to cover the hardest shield checks. Some groups do have Noct Ast/SCH as their healer comp, but these are very rare and clearly not necessary as there is no wiggle room, you either mit entirely or the entire group gets damage down, nullifying the speedrun. The precedence is that SCH is the best shield healer (which also includes mit in its identity btw) in the game right now, regardless of the number of picks. If the argument is going to be that SCH is badly designed enough to warrant an overhaul the above cannot be true.

All of the potency values you listed aren't really relevant, GCD heals are almost never used except in pre-pull. And OGCD wise, passive regens are better than ogcd shields, because mitigation is superior hence why vast majority of Ast's are diurnal.

If mitigation is so valued, and SCH is the best mitigation healer, then this is its identity and it is filling a desirable niche. Based on this, there is zero evidence suggesting that it is lacking in its job. Saying that soil's value is contingent on its cooldown is a moot point because we are judging holistic value of abilities, which cooldown is apart of. Watering down tools to prove a point isn't very honest either, neither are what-if scenarios.

Seraph is rarely used because it requires a loss of DPS to use effectively if I recall, the same applies to Neutral. It is the same reason for both.

The only aspect that Noct Ast wins over SCH is having better ogcd shielding, but that's one spell and its hardly significant or top groups would be using Noct Ast over Diurnal.

The whole point of this thread was to say that SCH received "no love" and that the job is in a bad spot, this isn't true because SCH is meta right now. Saying this will be true in EW is up for debate but isn't based on any evidence aside from "because Yoshi-p hates Scholar."

There is more evidence to suggest Sage will fill a niche of an offensive shield healer, which is a completely different identity from Scholar which is a defensive shield healer. Which means that the only way Scholar will be out of a job is if Sage is overtuned, which again has nothing to do with Scholar's design. The biggest flaws of Scholar's current kit is pet ai, which I believe warrants concern and discussion over, but is still indicative of the game's engine not supporting pets well.

[Truen]

For those that want to see the Sch changes that it so badly needs, simply do not play Sch. Devs generally take a look the numbers when complaints are made...

SCH is trash-tier now. If you want to play something designed so a 9 year old can handle it-- SCH is for you. If we want to see an overhaul we need to drop the SCH like a bad habit so they can see people aren't playing this garbage.

[Nethereal]

At the highest level of play healing boils down to being able to get away with the least amount of GCD healing and the most amount of damage, SCH is favored because it has the best mitigation on top of having decent shielding when the situation requires GCD healing. It also has good OGCD regens.

Even in E10S, the fight where shields are perhaps most important, most groups still have the AST as diurnal because at the end of the day mitigation > shields and SCH has more than enough shielding to cover the hardest shield checks. Some groups do have Noct Ast/SCH as their healer comp, but these are very rare and clearly not necessary as there is no wiggle room, you either mit entirely or the entire group gets damage down, nullifying the speedrun. The precedence is that SCH is the best shield healer (which also includes mit in its identity btw) in the game right now, regardless of the number of picks. If the argument is going to be that SCH is badly designed enough to warrant an overhaul the above cannot be true.

All of the potency values you listed aren't really relevant, GCD heals are almost never used except in pre-pull. And OGCD wise, passive regens are better than ogcd shields, because mitigation is superior hence why vast majority of Ast's are diurnal.

If mitigation is so valued, and SCH is the best mitigation healer, then this is its identity and it is filling a desirable niche. Based on this, there is zero evidence suggesting that it is lacking in its job. Saying that soil's value is contingent on its cooldown is a moot point because we are judging holistic value of abilities, which cooldown is apart of. Watering down tools to prove a point isn't very honest either, neither are what-if scenarios.

Seraph is rarely used because it requires a loss of DPS to use effectively if I recall, the same applies to Neutral. It is the same reason for both.

The only aspect that Noct Ast wins over SCH is having better ogcd shielding, but that's one spell and its hardly significant or top groups would be using Noct Ast over Diurnal.

The whole point of this thread was to say that SCH received "no love" and that the job is in a bad spot, this isn't true because SCH is meta right now. Saying this will be true in EW is up for debate but isn't based on any evidence aside from "because Yoshi-p hates Scholar."

There is more evidence to suggest Sage will fill a niche of an offensive shield healer, which is a completely different identity from Scholar which is a defensive shield healer. Which means that the only way Scholar will be out of a job is if Sage is overtuned, which again has nothing to do with Scholar's design. The biggest flaws of Scholar's current kit is pet ai, which I believe warrants concern and discussion over, but is still indicative of the game's engine not supporting pets well.

Why would you ever run Noct AST with SCH? Obviously if you're running a AST SCH comp you'll have the AST on diurnal because Diurnal sect AST is better than Noct in oGCD healing potency, it just so happens that Noct AST is a better shielder than SCH.
More mitigation than SCH? No. There's no reason at all you would ever run double shield healer because they simply don't stack enough to warrant the lost in HPs from having a regen healer, GCD or oGCD.

I've given you the math that SCH is in fact not the best shield healer and is the best in mitigation and you've dismissed it and simply chalked it up to "It doesn't matter what the math says SCH's identity is the best shield healer."
If you're not going to be genuine and keep moving the goalpost why are you having this conversation right now? Mitigation is not the same as shielding regardless of how you feel about it.
Mitigation is reducing the damage you take and shielding is making your health bar bigger therefore reducing the damage your actual health bar takes, effectively they're almost the same thing but the distinction is important and blurring the lines in your favor does nothing.

The above can be true because we're simply discussing the potency of the kit not how the kit functions. Just because a broken hammer can break bottles and hammer nails better than a mallet does not mean the hammer isn't broken.
Just because something still works does not mean it's exclusive and cannot work while broken. SMN wasn't even as bad as SCH and it got a complete overhaul. Same with how they removed cleric stance and removed DoTs on healer.
All of that stuff worked, but it still got removed. Because just because something works or is better than something else at doing something does not mean it's actually working properly or good.

Moving the goalpost again. Also I think you're confused if mitigation is superior than why are regens better oGCDs ? It's irrelevant because like you said mitigation is superior.
The real reason the vast majority of ASTs are Diurnal is because Diurnal has more potency than Noct because it's the regen healer and you'll always pick SCH over WHM in meta so there's no reason to double shield.
Once again there are 3 healers and 2 healer slots.
And like you said if GCD heals are almost never used then Noct AST is an even better shield healer than SCH because they have an oGCD shield every 60 seconds were as SCH only has an oGCD shield every 120 and is almost always a dps loss the other requires a GCD & an oGCD to even work.

Mitigation is very valued that's why the healer with the least amount of mitigation is not picked, because there are only 2 slots for healers.
It has nothing to do with how good the other two healers are and everything to do with what the healer being left out lacks.
There is zero evidence in your mind because you clearly have a bias towards SCH.
I mean truly if you think the only aspect Noct Ast wins over SCH is having better oGCD shielding then there really is nothing to talk about. You can't be impartial to the data let alone yourself.
Really though it's the opposite Noct Ast is better than SCH in every way except movement(technically) and mitigation and the sole reason for that is Sacred Soil.

SCH is meta because WHM loses to both healers in meta aspects, not because SCH has any unique individual worth.
What that means is that when SGE releases if it has anything remotely comparable to SCH, SCH is going the way of the WHM.

[Sighearth]

The fact that SCH and Sage both have more Regens than actual Shields yet for some reason are referred to by the devs as the "Shield / Barrier" healer shows how disconnected they are from reality.

I mean, we already have small shields, big shields, aoe shields, single target shields and oGCD shields. What more they can add? You can only have so many shield options. Besides, shields are for a niche situation, its potency like other heals but you only need shields if you were going to die otherwise. Regens are more efficient but have the cost of time imbued to them. Thank God shield healers have more regens. A shield healer is a healer capable of having shield uptime on demand thats it.

[QooEr]

I mean, we already have small shields, big shields, aoe shields, single target shields and oGCD shields. What more they can add? You can only have so many shield options. Besides, shields are for a niche situation, its potency like other heals but you only need shields if you were going to die otherwise. Regens are more efficient but have the cost of time imbued to them. Thank God shield healers have more regens. A shield healer is a healer capable of having shield uptime on demand thats it.

you can have shields that function differently. scholar's shields always miss out on some potency because of the heal component. why doesnt the ostensibly de facto shield healer have anything like shake it off or gobskin or even tbn? in fact neither sch nor sage have any pure shields.

you mention how shields are for niche situation only, but its not entirely true. you can have a shield act as effective hp. if you shield someone for 300 potency before a raidwide it's functionally the same as healing them 300, given that theyre not at full hp. Which begs the question, why dont they give scholar actual ogcd shields? instead it ​got fey blessing


im not saying shield healers shouldn't have access to pure heals because things like living dead and white hole exist, but when a so called shield healer only has a single shield option (galvanize) and only gets a third one at level cap (seraphic veil) it makes the distinction feel nearly useless

[Yeol]

SCH is the king of oGCD heals. Shields on the other hand are a different matter. You hardly need shields in most content. There are a couple of mechanics at endgame where you actually need shields or else you die, but that's about it.

If they change their design approach and actually make shields mandatory for 30% of the mechanics, things might change.

What's currently happening:
- Maximizing mitigation.
- Maximizing oGCD heals.
- Maximizing regens between mechanics.
- Shields? Only use them if it means death while maximizing all the above.

[Anhra]

I do wonder at which mechanic that needs "in-combat Peloton"? Savage? Ultimate?

A bit late on my part, but it is going to be alot of fun casting this when doing the tightrope mechanic in dohn mheg's final boss, provided, it is avaiable at that point.

[Araxes]

As someone who painfully played into top 100 with Scholar back in 3.X I must say i too am very dissapointed. Scholar was always my choice of Healer even tho it always felt inferiour to other Healers. Now, again it feels like it has been almost forgotten. Slap a new speed buff onto it, done.

If they had given SCH at least some animation reworks so that it would at least look as nice as the other healerjobs... nope. Of course there will always be scholar players, but they will keep declining especially now with sage.

[Epowerj]

For me, the upcoming EW changes are disappointing on a purely subjective level. Scholar has been the lamest (imo) healer for a while now, but it was still my favorite job because of its lore and identity as the tactical barrier healer that is able to pull off advanced moves using their fairy. This is despite how clunky it feels sometimes and how unimportant the fairy is most of the time.
Now, Sage seems to be intruding on Scholar's niche, eroding its identity even more, and Scholar isn't getting anything back to make up for it. No new moves that really compete with Sage's cool factor, nor any moves that give its identity more definition. I wanted to see at least something new and flashy to do with the fairy, but instead I got a lame speed buff that I didn't want.