Let's talk Scholar: Changes, Class fantasy and Abilities

[Tobalito]

All of these tank comparisons don't really get to the issue because no tank really has the issue SCH has. The closest being DRK and even then if played well they don't lose anything.

What if tanks burst phases locked you out of using mitigation for 30 seconds?

What if tanks used their gauge for dps as much as mitigation.

Sure these things can be played around, they have for many years in many iterations. That being said all of these tank comparisons are missing what SCH has. A clear and definitive sacrifice of one thing for the other.

Even if you play well, even if you manage to figure it all out and play Momo levels. At the end of the day there is a clear sacrifice of damage for healing that other healers don't have. You may call it fun, you may think it's OK and it gives choice, but it's counter to our kit and it's bad design

[AFuzzyMu11in]

All of these tank comparisons don't really get to the issue because no tank really has the issue SCH has. The closest being DRK and even then if played well they don't lose anything.

What if tanks burst phases locked you out of using mitigation for 30 seconds?

What if tanks used their gauge for dps as much as mitigation.

Sure these things can be played around, they have for many years in many iterations. That being said all of these tank comparisons are missing what SCH has. A clear and definitive sacrifice of one thing for the other.

Even if you play well, even if you manage to figure it all out and play Momo levels. At the end of the day there is a clear sacrifice of damage for healing that other healers don't have. You may call it fun, you may think it's OK and it gives choice, but it's counter to our kit and it's bad design

Here comes the raiders again with their hyper focus hyper optimized take. I'm pretty sure this is why raiders don't decide balance, because you would ask for everything to be consistent, zero rng, optimized, and then you would become bored and then say it needs to be changed aka the raider circle of never having satisfaction.

[rewd]

What if tanks used their gauge for dps as much as mitigation.

Tanking would be fun again and instead of having a bloated mitigation kit with overpowered cooldowns, you'd try to get away with the least amount of mitigation needed in order to DPS as much as possible. Essentially, a less annoying stance dancing that would reward personal skills and that could also reintroduce synergies between jobs. Sigh, if only...

[Tobalito]

Here comes the raiders again with their hyper focus hyper optimized take. I'm pretty sure this is why raiders don't decide balance, because you would ask for everything to be consistent, zero rng, optimized, and then you would become bored and then say it needs to be changed aka the raider circle of never having satisfaction.

Nah I think im being pretty consistent in clear in what I'm asking

Thank you for your insight though

[Silver-Strider]

I really wish Eos and Selene were unique again and it wouldn't even be that hard if they really wanted to.

They could make Fey Illumination and Fey Covenant separate skills again and give 1 to each Fairy and make Fey Blessing a Shield or a Heal depending on the fairy. Leave Whispering Dawn and Embrace unchanged and there we go.

[Jybril]

I think SCH needs more faerie play tbh. SCH also suppose to be the "summoner" healer too and
they don't mess with the faeries much at all. They stripped them. I really do miss how the faeries has some utility too.

So my idea is to have our friend Titania/Feo Ul to be our pet and then have like Oberon, the "Queen" of Faeries replace Eos and Selene.
It'll be like SMN, you just have them pop up for some special spell and stuff.
Titania can be more DPS and Oberon more Supporty spells or vice versa.
(Though, Feo would probably want US to be their Oberon lol)
I only mentioned Oberon being 'Queen' because Titania is already the King.
Didn't think too far in it but I mean...Titania and Oberon would be cool, yeah?

[Kabzy]

I think SCH needs more faerie play tbh. SCH also suppose to be the "summoner" healer too and
they don't mess with the faeries much at all. They stripped them. I really do miss how the faeries has some utility too.

So my idea is to have our friend Titania/Feo Ul to be our pet and then have like Oberon, the "Queen" of Faeries replace Eos and Selene.
It'll be like SMN, you just have them pop up for some special spell and stuff.
Titania can be more DPS and Oberon more Supporty spells or vice versa.
(Though, Feo would probably want US to be their Oberon lol)
I only mentioned Oberon being 'Queen' because Titania is already the King.
Didn't think too far in it but I mean...Titania and Oberon would be cool, yeah?

While this would be interesting, lore wise SCH isn't a summoner in the typical sense. Each SCH soul stone is meant to have one unique faerie attached to it that has two aspects - sunlight/moonlight. Hence Eos and Selene, and then Lily being the actual one.

I'd rather they didn't go down this route with SCH if I'm being honest. They couldn't even keep Selene unique, they can't handle it. And the newest iteration of SMN only further proves that. In my opinion, giving back as much as possible from the 2/3.x iterations DPS wise would be a massive improvement. Even if they didn't want to do anything to actions, just giving quickened aetherflow back would make things more interesting.

[OtakuSempai]

I'd rather have Energy drain work exactly like it does on summoner to justify it being combat only or make Aetherflow build up automatically and get rid of the button alltogether.
Dissipation as a DPS skill hinges on ED existing which only really exists because Scholar would have a Aetherflow overstacking problem and since Aetherflow is tied to Fey gauge its a bigger problem than it is on Sage. Id rather untie the fey gauge from Aetherflow abilities, get rid of ED and overhaul Dissipation to be an actual DPS ability instead of this wishy washy "GCD heals are getting boosted but we restore your ogcd resources instead" the skill just doesnt make much sense if ED doesnt exist and even then 3 ED make up for 1 Broil.
I'd also make it so adlo becomes instant cast when used under Recitation. It feels unneceserily clunky compared to SGE doing the same with ZoE & Eukrasian Diagnosis.

I'd also prefer if the fairy didnt have to be summoned every time the scholar dies & enters an instance. It wastes a GCD and a hotbar button for no reason. Yes the fairy doesnt get afflicted by post death weakness but i don't think thats a good tradeoff. On that note, proper fey glamour would be much welcome. Losing all access to Carbuncles once hitting level 30 is just weird and a bigger fey variety would also be welcome.

For the love of god why do players insist on SCH being even more braindead? Please no.

[OtakuSempai]

Tanking would be fun again and instead of having a bloated mitigation kit with overpowered cooldowns, you'd try to get away with the least amount of mitigation needed in order to DPS as much as possible. Essentially, a less annoying stance dancing that would reward personal skills and that could also reintroduce synergies between jobs. Sigh, if only...

Coming here to pile on.

Hoooooooly f**ck SE please pay attention to this. Make tanking great again.

[Connor]

I’d like them to reinforce Scholar’s support/utility to differentiate it from Sage. Return skills like Eye for an Eye, Virus, Fey Wind and Caress for Selene, give Selene that short duration damage buff Alphinaud makes his Carbuncle use as an Academician. Make Chain Stratagem cost Aetherflow but with a shorter cooldown or create a new skill that increases targets crit rate by 3% as a support Aetherflow dump so our entire play style isn’t completely dominated by Energy Drain. Giving it support skills that are more versatile / tactical in usage would still allow it to act as a support without becoming an Astrologian clone:

I think that if Scholar got a new DoT spell it should have an additional effect like reducing damage dealt by the target. To be honest, I also also think it’s maybe a little unrealistic to expect Scholars to be able to cast Bio I, Bio II, Biolysis, Miasma and Miasma II, each with its own individual uptime, considering that’s more than double the amount of DoTs the games only remaining DoT DPS class has. And as I said at the start of my post we already have a ‘ffxiv-style-dps-healer’, so it seems pointless to try and push Scholar down the same road which would pretty much require a total rework to accommodate returning all the old Arcanist skills (otherwise it would have 2X as many abilities as any other job and people are still complaining about button bloat in EW as it is).

One idea I thought would be cool for a new dps ability would be a shield that explodes on breaking, dealing damage to nearby targets. It could have no upfront healing so it doesn’t replace Adloquium, and would need a fairly high potency to accommodate requiring a gcd to set up. But I just think something like that would be a nice way to accommodate a wider variety of Scholar players, by tying dps and support together, which isn’t something any other healer currently does (Sage arguably but that’s direct healing).