Veteran opinions on Scholar?

[Anhra]

Dunno, I personally think Scholar has Sage beat in multiple obscure ways; Scholar has significantly more personal mobility, once you're out of Icarus on Sage you're a sitting duck and Sage's Ruin 2 equivalent is locked behind Addersting stacks so if you need to move for prolonged periods of time as Sage and don't have any stacks of Addersting well rip your dps. Scholar still has Chain Stratagem which will almost always be better than Sage's personal DPS.

Regardless of how janky Scholar plays it will likely still reign supreme and probably tear Sage apart by miles because it has Ruin 2 on demand and also still has Chain Stratagem. Scholar also has better MP economy than Sage but that's if MP costs and MP regeneration don't change from media tour to live.

Sadge isnt out yet and things are still subject to change, so we cant say anything about any potencies or mana costs yet.

As for SCH and the rest of the Healers, none of them have truly mana issues, since mana costs are rather low and mp regen is imo, too powerful.

And Chain Stratagem is way overhyped for what it does. Literally every Job, has by default a decent amount of crit rating ( and most people slot in crit materia anyway) so what good is turning that 30%ish critrate into a 45%? Personally, i dont notice anything when i use it so i might as well remove it along with seraph out of my hotbar.

[Catwho]

SCH main.

I used to have a crappier connection than I do today. (New computer and wired ethernet have made it much better.) I liked having the fairy as an emergency backup. Sure, her heals are wimpy, but a wimpy heal is better than no heal, and as a spot healer on a DPS in between raid wide attacks she's actually quite good.

Fixed fairy positioning means you can keep her in the middle of the arena in instances where healers and tanks have to split. For her basic cure this is kind of pointless, but with the tether on it's useful for keeping tanks alive.

SCH's biggest strength used to be its complex and meaningful rotation, giving it a low floor and a very high ceiling. SE stole that from us and we are now stuck Broiling as much as white mages are stuck Glaring.

I still like the aesthetics and the lore of the job, and I'll probably continue to main it because I'll get it to 90 as my freebie since SMN is going to be my first job through MSQ (for raid static purposes.... sigh.)

[Kolsykol]

I am not a SCH main but I honestly think it's fine with the one exception....


GIVE SHADOWFLARE BACK.
I still to this day feel its absence...
And also Energy Drain looks outdated as hell, which it is.

[Gemina]

My opinion on the job is I am confounded on how it can still be so powerful despite all of its flaws. I am not sure if it means that you can toss just about anything into a healer role so long as it has the tools to meet healing requirements, and still have offensive capability during downtime; or if SCH is just such a broken job that it hotfixes itself during combat. If it didn't have the drawbacks it does, the other healers would basically have no advantages over SCH.

The weakness of SCH in terms of it's healing and mitigation is low stamina. In a single healer scenario, this is compensated for by ending battles quickly and they have a potent AoE and Chain to assist with this. With another healer to help out, it can really ease the pressure in drawn out healing scenarios that would otherwise exhaust the SCH and not leave them with much to continue to sustain the group. I enjoy this aspect about SCH, and that seems to be the way they are going with the barrier healers as a distinctive weakness they possess.

My own thoughts on its DPS output is I am in the minority when it comes to the abilities it has lost over time. I don't care. I played SCH when it had all that stuff. Even Blizz 2 from THM and Aero from CNJ. I used these abilities when SCH had them, and they didn't provide me any more engagement than in its current form. Eye for an Eye alone provided more satisfaction than all of those DPS skills combined, and I was far more upset when we lost that skill, and the ability to deploy it. However, this does not mean that I agree with the devs decision to gut the job of its ACN roots. Nuking those skills does not just magically change the mindset of the players who enjoyed playing ACN on the way to unlocking SCH.

Ultimately, I see SCH as a healer through and through, and I prefer for its abilities to be focused on support. They want us to not feel neglected, but it is difficult to see things that way when blatant issues about the job have not been addressed, and most of us will be salty for the next two years thanks to the showcase. I won't go into all the issues it has here as you just wanted an opinion on SCH.

[GrimGale]

My opinion on the job is I am confounded on how it can still be so powerful despite all of its flaws. I am not sure if it means that you can toss just about anything into a healer role so long as it has the tools to meet healing requirements, and still have offensive capability during downtime; or if SCH is just such a broken job that it hotfixes itself during combat. If it didn't have the drawbacks it does, the other healers would basically have no advantages over SCH.

The weakness of SCH in terms of it's healing and mitigation is low stamina. In a single healer scenario, this is compensated for by ending battles quickly and they have a potent AoE and Chain to assist with this. With another healer to help out, it can really ease the pressure in drawn out healing scenarios that would otherwise exhaust the SCH and not leave them with much to continue to sustain the group. I enjoy this aspect about SCH, and that seems to be the way they are going with the barrier healers as a distinctive weakness they possess.

My own thoughts on its DPS output is I am in the minority when it comes to the abilities it has lost over time. I don't care. I played SCH when it had all that stuff. Even Blizz 2 from THM and Aero from CNJ. I used these abilities when SCH had them, and they didn't provide me any more engagement than in its current form. Eye for an Eye alone provided more satisfaction than all of those DPS skills combined, and I was far more upset when we lost that skill, and the ability to deploy it. However, this does not mean that I agree with the devs decision to gut the job of its ACN roots. Nuking those skills does not just magically change the mindset of the players who enjoyed playing ACN on the way to unlocking SCH.

Ultimately, I see SCH as a healer through and through, and I prefer for its abilities to be focused on support. They want us to not feel neglected, but it is difficult to see things that way when blatant issues about the job have not been addressed, and most of us will be salty for the next two years thanks to the showcase. I won't go into all the issues it has here as you just wanted an opinion on SCH.

Honestly, most people complaining about the lack of DPS skills would be happy to have any other tool to fill the healing dowtime. That is the case for AST. There aren't as many people complaining about AST being a Malefic spam-fest because even though cards only come every 30s, they require enough attention to play properly to take your mind off the one-button spam. (And are still a tool that reinforces AST's class fantasy as a Diviner)

Giving SCH and WHM more support abilities will not serve to distract people from the Glarebroil spam if those abilities have longer CDs than 30s. Anything used less often will not take away that Glarebroil x12 then Dia/Biolysis

[Deceptus]

Sadge isnt out yet and things are still subject to change, so we cant say anything about any potencies or mana costs yet.

As for SCH and the rest of the Healers, none of them have truly mana issues, since mana costs are rather low and mp regen is imo, too powerful.

In current content.

Synced down, if you're always casting like you should be and you only Lucid Dreaming? SCH and WHM absolutely have mana issues. AST doesn't because they added an MP regen on Draw at lvl 30.

Changing Aetherflow from lvl 30 to lvl 45 really hurt the MP gain on SCH.

[Gemina]

Honestly, most people complaining about the lack of DPS skills would be happy to have any other tool to fill the healing dowtime. That is the case for AST. There aren't as many people complaining about AST being a Malefic spam-fest because even though cards only come every 30s, they require enough attention to play properly to take your mind off the one-button spam.

Giving SCH and WHM more support abilities will not serve to distract people from the Glarebroil spam if those abilities have longer CDs than 30s. Anything used less often will not take away that Glarebroil x12 then Dia/Biolysis

Indeed, which is why I know that if SE just gave healers a few more buttons to DPS with, it would only satiate those who don't require a lot of engagement, which won't be anyone looking for more of said engagement.

Ironically the key to this engagement is exactly what you pointed out, which also just happens to be what makes ALL the jobs engaging in this game. It isn't necessarily DPS, but rather interactive toolkits in which to perform their duties. AST is without question the most engaging healer of the three, and has the least amount of offensive capability on its own. Meanwhile, SCH and WHM have passive job gauges that are dependent on time instead of skill and attentiveness. It is quite literally like telling someone that there is a sale on donuts over on 10th street, and they turn around and ask you where it's at.

Once it finally dawns on them to also make the job gauges of WHM and SCH more interactive and rewarding, they will solve so much in regards to the healer boredom issues. AST, which was once the absolute worse healer in the game and just a complete and utter mess has become the epitome of how a healer in FFXIV should operate.

[GrimGale]

Once it finally dawns on them to also make the job gauges of WHM and SCH more interactive and rewarding, they will solve so much in regards to the healer boredom issues. AST, which was once the absolute worse healer in the game and just a complete and utter mess has become the epitome of how a healer in FFXIV should operate.

Yes, but if they give us more healing options with those more interactive and rewarding new gauges, it won't fix anything. The second problem is we have too many healing tools and too little to heal. AST's system is rewarding because it can be used at any time, since a DPS buff is welcome pretty much anytime you can hit an enemy. (And it only gets more rewarding if you time it properly, but its not a requirement for it to be useful)

[Brandedblade]

Based on all the response I'm getting, I get that the job is viably not fun to play at the moment.
I'm a dps and quick-action person myself, I guess none of the healers available right now is for me, Sage however seems quite promising as they heal through doing damage. Thanks all!

In the meantime I'll try out the support class Bard.

I would still recommend you try out scholar, while all healers reward players who are proactive, SCH is especially potent in how it rewards your preemptive play. Playing SCH properly really does make you feel like you always have a trick up your sleeve to respond to fight mechanics. However, word of advice, the official forums are not the best place to ask about SCH. There are some jaded old souls who miss the good ol' days and are rather eager to attack those who have remotely have positive opinions about it.

Worst case scenario? It gives you practice for sage since SCH and SGE are lining up to be mechanically similar in the way they handle healing with the biggest two differences being the faerie being a focal point for some of your cooldowns and the difference in how they generate their Resource Stacks (Aetherflow being frontloaded and tied to a 1min cd and Addersgall being generated 1 every 20 seconds). Alot of people like to praise Kardia but it's basically the same thing as the faeries auto-heal except you trade the ability for it to always be going off in the background with being able to mark targets for it.