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

[RinaShinomiya]

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

Pressing ED between broil and dissipation to press more ED isn't complex gameplay and it's blatantly obvious these skills were made with a different toolkit in mind.

[RinaShinomiya]

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).

I think that in terms of GCD's, DPS skills that interact with Healing or Healing skills that interact with DPS are the way to go. That's why i liked the lilies on WHM anyway.

[Anhra]

Scholar (and Healers in general) should be, at least in my book, completely reworked from scratch. Im sick of having 4 Healers and all of them playing the exact same outside of surface level differences.

As for SCH, it should go for its DPS kit either full DoT themed, or no DoTs at all, every Healer has that same formula going on for their dps spells (1 basic dmging spell, 1 dot, 1 aoe and 1-2 lolgimmick spells), at least let each of them have their own unique Formula.

Second, Healing Spells. Theres way too many of them (14-18). On SCH side, i think it would be great if SCH had few Healing abilities which are really potent and may or may not have multiple charges, but at the cost of having really long CD and recharge time (would be compensated with skills such as, say Dissipation being reworked in a way where it grants lost charges for example) and the Fairies having both their unique kit, so that depending on the situation, one fairy is more suited than another.

Also, get rid of seraph. Seraph is just a filler ability that conflicts with the ideology of SCH's design philosophy as a "tactical healer".

[AFuzzyMu11in]

Scholar (and Healers in general) should be, at least in my book, completely reworked from scratch. Im sick of having 4 Healers and all of them playing the exact same outside of surface level differences.

As for SCH, it should go for its DPS kit either full DoT themed, or no DoTs at all, every Healer has that same formula going on for their dps spells (1 basic dmging spell, 1 dot, 1 aoe and 1-2 lolgimmick spells), at least let each of them have their own unique Formula.

Second, Healing Spells. Theres way too many of them (14-18). On SCH side, i think it would be great if SCH had few Healing abilities which are really potent and may or may not have multiple charges, but at the cost of having really long CD and recharge time (would be compensated with skills such as, say Dissipation being reworked in a way where it grants lost charges for example) and the Fairies having both their unique kit, so that depending on the situation, one fairy is mire suited than another.

Also, get rid of seraph. Seraph is just a filler ability that conflicts with the ideology of SCH's design philosophy as a "tactical healer".

Sounds like nerfs you are suggesting to scholar

[Anhra]

Sounds like nerfs you are suggesting to scholar

Not nerfs. overall changed.

Imagine it kind of like this:

You have as SCH, only 4-5 Healing Abilities, really powerful too, like,

1.Physick with 3sec cast time, 2000 potency and 60sec CD. 3 charges
2.Adlo with 2,5-3,5sec cast time, 2500 potency (5-10sec duration), 60-90sec CD and 2 charges.
3.Sacred Soil does 300-400 potency HoT for 10sec and grants the usual 10% dmg mitigation, 120-180sec CD
4.Excog same skill but triggers at 25% HP and with 2000 Potency 90-120sec CD
5.Aetherpact/Fey Union works the same as usual, but starts off healing with 200 Potency, and then the longer the skill is active (+100 Potency every 10 Fae Gauge drained while active), the better the heal becomes, up to 1500 Potency. This will be the only Skill not tied to a long CD and will be on GCD or up to 10sec CD

Thats all your healing tools you will have, now for the rest of the Kit, it will be skills that support those 5 in a way, where they are more flexible. As mentioned before, Dissipation could remove as usual the Fairy in order to gain charges back, but at the cost, of locking you out of Aetherpact and Fairy abilities for a while.

Deployment tactics could be reworked in a way, which grants the next Physick, Adlo or Excog a aoe effect in the same fashion as it does currently. 2 charges from the go.
Emergency tactics could work in a way in which it mimicks the previously used Healing Skill (all except Aetherpact)
Then, there will be Skills that help you build up Faerie Gauge, which will only build up from either using Fairy Abilities and/or certain dps abilities.

As for the Fairies themselves, i would suggest that Eos would provide ONLY Utility effects, while Selene uses Dps abilities. One Ability which both could have, is the Ability to use certain SCH Skills from the Fairy's current position.

thats how i'd suggest it without writing a whole Book about it, so that you get a general idea of what im talking about.

[Szylver]

and the Fairies having both their unique kit, so that depending on the situation, one fairy is more suited than another.

people are constantly complaining about fairy delay and clunkiness, so i don't understand when people ask to choose between one or the other mid fight. At this point imo i think its just better to have one fairy with all the spells.

[RinaShinomiya]

people are constantly complaining about fairy delay and clunkiness, so i don't understand when people ask to choose between one or the other mid fight. At this point imo i think its just better to have one fairy with all the spells.

It's a better solution to fix the delay issue rather than removing a whole fairy with a unique toolkit.

[Szylver]

It's a better solution to fix the delay issue rather than removing a whole fairy with a unique toolkit.

Unique toolkit? the only thing i miss from Selene is Fey Caress xD

[Anhra]

Unique toolkit? the only thing i miss from Selene is Fey Caress xD

Just because it has been poorly executed before, doesn't mean by any means, that the idea itself is bad on any account.

It did worked for SMN before Endwanker, before they decided to change it. And the way how pets worked in Stormblood (with being targetable and killable) would be perfect for SCH mainly because you could actually interact with it with spells as well (like adlo + deployment tactic).

All it would take on Squeenix's part, would be to give the Fairies more Spells and put them into the Pet Hotbar (as well as allow it to be set up however you want).

[Seaviy]

I'm glad for today's changes in Aetherpact, but what about other fairy skills. Whispering Dawn one of the key job abilities from the early stages of the game. But if there are a lot of mechanics on the boss or it is just big, in most cases when moving the fairy not enough radius to reach tanks. I think it should have the same radius as the Fey Blessing (20y)