A lot of the main issues with SCH are not being addressed with Endwalker

[Silver-Strider]

Like?

If the idea itself is to outright remove some of what little depth remains, then those alternatives ought to be at least very readily and vividly imaginable and that removal clearly a necessary step in bringing in those net positives.

I don't think Dissipation puts SCH "at war with itself" any more than any other choice of spender does. The fairy is, at the end of the day, a clunky HoT with exclusion windows that exist specifically because of Dissipation, and I see nothing wrong with a situational burst option by which to trade that HoT for immediate resource and added shield power (via Dis's healing mod) during any but the least opportune times. (And no, I don't think exclusion windows are a bad thing; they're largely what gives skills like Meikyo, Hypercharge, Perfect Balance, and Tri-Disaster their complexity.)

Lastly, before we disparage a skill for being "situational", let's note what's happened to those jobs, such as Monk, that have replaced their "situational" skills with those with minor but consistent gains that flow about as well as tarred chunks of rock. Replacements for situational "bloat" skills just to make their use more regular has only resulted in obligatory bloat, reduced choice and skill ceiling, and (even if merely correlatively) reduced fight complexity and/or diversity. Or, at best we get something altogether "new"... that in turn merely siphons away from what used to be more functional before that shiny "new" addition.

Honestly, I'd give SCH a system similar to SMN's Ruin 4 mechanic with slightly more depth to it.
So, each time SCH uses a pet ability (Whispering Dawn, Fey Blessing/Consolation, Fey Covenant/Fey Illumination) you gain a stack of Ruminate, up to a max of 3. Ruminate would deal damage equal to our nuke spell and applies the Virus Status effect once a minute. Replace Dissipation with a new skill called Conversion Tactics that we can use to exchange excess Ruminate stacks for Aetherflow, which we will have extra simply due to the fact we spend Fairy abilities faster than we'd spend Ruminate stacks with a soft 1 minute CD on the skill, and just like that, we have a much more interesting mechanic that converts Ruin 2 into a utility spell for SCH, still allows the accumulation of Aetherflow and while it would miss out on being a part of the opener due to not being able to use it without Ruminate stacks, the DPS loss of that would easily be negated by allowing for more liberal usage of Conversion Tactics throughout a fight to gain more uses out of Aetherflow abilities, which in turn allows for Aetherpact to be used more as well, saving even more time for DPS gains to occur, not to mention lowering the strain on Healers by the return of the Virus status effect which would help to accomplish the same overall effect of the heal buff from Dissipation.

[Shurrikhan]

Honestly, I'd give SCH a system similar to SMN's Ruin 4 mechanic with slightly more depth to it.
So, each time SCH uses a pet ability (Whispering Dawn, Fey Blessing/Consolation, Fey Covenant/Fey Illumination) you gain a stack of Ruminate, up to a max of 3. Ruminate would deal damage equal to our nuke spell and applies the Virus Status effect once a minute. Replace Dissipation with a new skill called Conversion Tactics that we can use to exchange excess Ruminate stacks for Aetherflow, which we will have extra simply due to the fact we spend Fairy abilities faster than we'd spend Ruminate stacks with a soft 1 minute CD on the skill, and just like that, we have a much more interesting mechanic that converts Ruin 2 into a utility spell for SCH, still allows the accumulation of Aetherflow and while it would miss out on being a part of the opener due to not being able to use it without Ruminate stacks, the DPS loss of that would easily be negated by allowing for more liberal usage of Conversion Tactics throughout a fight to gain more uses out of Aetherflow abilities, which in turn allows for Aetherpact to be used more as well, saving even more time for DPS gains to occur, not to mention lowering the strain on Healers by the return of the Virus status effect which would help to accomplish the same overall effect of the heal buff from Dissipation.

Let me double-check my understanding:

• Whispering Dawn (120s CD), Fey Illumination (120s CD), and --more importantly-- Fey Blessing (10 gauge / 1 Aetherflow cast) now generate pseudo-R4s called Ruminates, which can be banked up to 3 times.
• I'm not sure what "applies the Virus Status effect once per minute" is supposed to mean. Is this to say it follows a unique diminishing return timer? If it can only effectively be used once per minute, despite averaging roughly twice that in opportunities afforded, it's not going to feel like an opportunity afforded and an opportunity spent so much as simply a passive with a minimum threshold to readiness. That will definitely feel "clunky" to some.
• (I'm not sure what defines "excess" Ruminate stacks. Is this any more than a single stack, in which case we can only refill 2 Aetherflow at a time via Conversion Tactics?)
• Now we add Conversion Tactics by which to replace our Ruminate (which are merely instant-cast Broils with a 10% magic damage down that is only applied once per minute for an unknown duration) stacks with Aetherflow once per minute, which ideally must be woven between Virus opportunities and points at which you have 2-3 Aetherflow slots open (depending on the above definition of "excess Ruminate stacks").
• Note: This causes a Fey Blessing (or rather, the Aetherflow cast that generated that 10 gauge) to refund itself once per minute, if the conversion limit isn't already capped by WD and FI within the CT period (which would only be the case if CT can really only covert 2 charges of Ruminate). On the other hand, if CT can covert 3 at a time OR we are in scenarios where we'd never need Fey Blessing, CT's CD becomes utterly irrelevant, because Ruminate already holds up to a nominal 3 minutes' worth of charge.

I don't think jumping through extra hoops here to optimize normal play, without any reason to vary one's expenditure based on the timing or healing requirements of the situation, etc., (and, indeed, if all this comes at cost to ED and/or Dissipation, at cost to the ability to thus vary one's play), is particularly "interesting". You say this getting instant-casts from pet skills that can then be kind of sort of coverted to Aetherflow affords "utility skill" casts, but... it's just more Aetherflow, now with an exploitable loop by which to get in one more Aetherflow cast per minute so long as we play rather rigidly. I get currency trade hoops enough just buying a tome-weapon. I'd much rather just have a functional Embrace, functional pet actions, and a decently balanced R2 and Energy Drain than do an extra layer of reload cycles per minute that more than likely would oblige otherwise wasteful casts.

[Silver-Strider]

Snip

• Whispering Dawn and Fey Blessing are both on a 60s CD.
• Fey Blessing will no longer use Fairy Gauge in EW.
• Virus was an old cross class ability that SCH/SMN used to have that would apply a damage down debuff to the target for 10s but made the target immune to the status effect for 60s after it was finished. The immunity was there so that you couldn't chain the effect back to back. I just re-implemented it so as to prevent the same problem with Double SCH and to make the CD line up with 2/3 Fairy abilities.
• Conversation Tactics will allow you to exchange all your currently accumulated stacks of Ruminate for Aetherflow. The only real thing to consider would be whether or not we would need to burn a Ruminate stack for a Double Weave Window vs the single weave of Broil in EW for mechanics or just because of some excessive movement for mechanics.
• I purposefully didn't include durations, CDs or %s on my suggestions because I haven't done the math yet to make these suggestion as balanced as possible but for the sake of argument, let's make CT a 2 minute CD. Assuming a lack of needing to Double Weave with Ruin 2 or the lack of needing to utilize Fey Blessing, this means that within the 2 minute window, we would have at least 1-2 stack of Ruminate available for CT, assuming we used 1 Ruminate for the Virus Debuff, which would be logical given that most bosses will use at least 1 raid wide skill in that time frame
• Since I'm only suggesting the removal of Dissipation, ED would remain as is to still allow the same functionality of using CT to exchange Ruminate for EDs if you so choose.

Tell me, is getting rid of Ruminate stacks for CT any different than getting rid of the fairy for Dissipation when the ultimate thing is that they give you more Aetherflow, which seems to be the crux of your argument. Both function identically to one another with the only real difference being that CT requires a form of build up to it to reach its full potential but offers a useful utility via Ruminate vs Dissipation requiring no build up and blocking off building Fairy Gauge with its use. It's the same skill minus the anti-synergy but you feel that it forces wasteful casts but realistically the DPS gain over plain Ruin 2 and the added utility says overwise. It's busy work sure but adding an extra layer of busy work to Healers is all that the majority of us are asking for to help break up Broil spam so settling for just the basics seems like a waste really.

[Shurrikhan]

Tell me, is getting rid of Ruminate stacks for CT any different than getting rid of the fairy for Dissipation when the ultimate thing is that they give you more Aetherflow, which seems to be the crux of your argument.

One sacrifices significant healing over time and access to Fey Illumination, Whispering Dawn, Fey Blessing, and fairy tether.

The other sacrifices an instant-cast Broil that may carry a single-target damage-down debuff of at best 20% uptime.

See why sacrificing the one for Aetherflow would be mildly "situational"... but the other's sacrifice would amount to awkward-but-obligatory hoop jumping, since the relative cost is next to nil?

Virus was an old cross class ability that SCH/SMN used to have that would apply a damage down debuff to the target for 10s but made the target immune to the status effect for 60s after it was finished.

I'm aware, though admittedly I'd forgotten that it also affected Intelligence on ACN/SCH/SMN (and only Strength and Dexterity for others), unlike the later Addle. I still don't much care for having to look at the target's buffs to track when you can next spend your instant-cast Broils (Ruminate) for their full effect.

[Silver-Strider]

One sacrifices significant healing over time and access to Fey Illumination, Whispering Dawn, Fey Blessing, and fairy tether.

The other sacrifices an instant-cast Broil that may carry a single-target damage-down debuff of at best 20% uptime.

See why sacrificing the one for Aetherflow would be mildly "situational"... but the other's sacrifice would amount to awkward-but-obligatory hoop jumping, since the relative cost is next to nil?


I'm aware, though admittedly I'd forgotten that it also affected Intelligence on ACN/SCH/SMN (and only Strength and Dexterity for others), unlike the later Addle. I still don't much care for having to look at the target's buffs to track when you can next spend your instant-cast Broils (Ruminate) for their full effect.

No because to me Dissipation is both situational and still requires jumping thru hoops just to utilize successfully and for what? 3 Aetherflow and a 20% heal buff that only works on 3 skills. That isn't a choice. That's a clusterpuck that only works if I sacrifice my 1st born when the stars align under a Blue Moon. I see no benefit, only hindrance but don't think either of us will be able to agree one way or another on that.

[Shurrikhan]

No because to me Dissipation is both situational and still requires jumping thru hoops just to utilize successfully and for what? 3 Aetherflow and a 20% heal buff that only works on 3 skills. That isn't a choice. That's a clusterpuck that only works if I sacrifice my 1st born when the stars align under a Blue Moon. I see no benefit, only hindrance but don't think either of us will be able to agree one way or another on that.

But Dissipation is at least a trade of categorically similar things -- periodic healing for resources that can be spent on healing, rather than mobility (instant-cast Broils) for said resource.

Your Rumination, at present, is going to be little more than a trap, as saving 1.5 seconds of cast-time on a Broil is never going to be worth more than an Aetherflow stack. So you end up sacrificing two buttons -- one a trap, one a CD -- just to effectively grant Aetherflow per pet action cast. Given that we end up with effectively a non-decision, what is the point of those two extra hoops, as opposed to just allowing us to bank to 5 stacks of AF and having pet actions each grant an AF stack (assuming we even needed more AF, given that --because of our pet-- we already have a pretty combined damage-and-healing curve).

I'd argue that Dissipation should be slightly more worth using for curative purposes and faintly more usable generally; but, while those largest impacts to be had there would be on the fight designs themselves, that still leaves a lot of tuning levers in the skill's design. And that retuning, for it to better allow for the gameplay decisions it was originally intended for, does not require that we sacrifice choice in favor of free bonus resources we have to cycle through another CD in alignment with yet another CD, etc.

For instance, I'd argue that Dissipation should have a shorter duration and a more immediately usable effect towards shielding (as opposed to the whopping 30 seconds of a meager 20% healing buff) as to make it more viable for emergency or cheese heals.

Even if we needed to heal 100% of the time (we never do) and thereafter the pet would make up less than 20% of our healing throughput, we'd never drop the pet just to make up for that through our own GCD casts; we'd do it only for the immediacy and the effect on our shielding. So have the healing buff start higher, but fade with time (or casts made). Perhaps pair it with increases casting speed on Adlo and Succor. Whatever makes it useful more often, in the encounters/environments we want to push towards, for more than just better milking a raid window (though I am in no hurry to get rid of that capacity so long as it doesn't overwhelm our other needs or uses for Dissipation).

[Silver-Strider]

Snip

Rumination is designed to be more like a Macrocosmos for SCH in that its a DPS neutral skill with utility attached. Due to the weaker nature of Virus vs Macrocosmos, I felt it should be available more often to offset the disparity between the 2 skills but with a way to trade it off so that we aren't overcapped. The way I view it is that I'm getting rid of utility for Aetherflow but due to the nature of Aetherflow abilities having CDs that prevent spamming, you're only options come down to Lustrate or E.Drain so Utility vs Damage is the basis of the idea whereas it's currently Healing vs Damage. Now, I'm not fundamentally against the concept of Healing vs Damage but it has to be done right, which is where Dissipation currently fails at. An example of Heal vs Damage done right was old Cleric Stance where it was a quick toggle between the 2. That type of mechanic doesn't work with Dissipation because its a forced 30s of Cleric Stance with only 3 Aetherflow and a 20% healing buff to work with to try and capitalize on. In order to make it actually worth while would require making an extremely specific heal check that would force SCH to actively need Dissipation but because combat design in this game is such that bringing specific classes is not a requirement for completing content, that type of thing would never happen because it would create a rift between the healers; Why bring a SCH that would struggle with X mechanic when a WHM or AST could breeze thru it?

Shortening the duration of Dissipation would make it feel like less a choice and more an requirement for optimal play.
Increasing the damage of E.Drain while under Dissipation would just make E.Drain spam the only way to go with it and still wouldn't justify a 30s lockout of the fairy.
Increasing the Heal buff would just make Shield Cheesing a lot easier, even more so now that Protraction is a thing and Deployment now aligns with Recitation. A potency increase/decrease over time wouldn't really change that either because you only need 1 properly buffed shield to cheese a mechanic and once it becomes possible, SCH having the only way of doing this makes it pretty hard to balance between the other healers.

I cannot think of a single way to make Dissipation work in its current form without either being useless or borderline OP with nothing really in between. There's just no saving it.