Healers need an overhaul

[Shurrikhan]

<On the topics of SCH theme, Broil, Aetherflow, and ED.>

Admittedly, my take on these are probably the more odd. Simply put, I feel like SCH's toolkit capitalized far better on what themes it transposed from Arcanist that it ever managed to capture any of the metaphors of Orator (as per the theme dominant across non-ENG skill names).

Let me explain. Arcanist was originally introduced as a job without any aspected magics, what many fantasy series might variously call "primary" or "primal" or "Greater-Wheel" magics, limited instead just to "Lesser-Wheel" manipulations -- essentially, meta-magics. They primarily adjusted aetheric densities as could harden, still, or energize highly localized systems (as small as a single organ) of said Aether. Ruin simply propelled an orb of densified aether. Bio and Miasma were each no longer a poison, but simply unaspected magic, inducing aether sickness by destabilizing said aether's passage among an opponent's body.

From there, SCH and SMN diverged in an oddly fitting way. SMN opened channels in the worldaether to summon archons of particular elements and thus get around its restrictions by funneling its universal but unaspected magics through its summons and capitalize upon those summons through Aethertrails (filling a void of aspected aether through its universal, unaspected magics). SCH instead learned how to capitalize upon its understanding of pooling aether deliberately, allowing its resonance, reinforcement, or whatever one may call it to galvanize the initially spent mana (essentially, channeled/resourced aether, a bit like the difference between work and energy).

(And, of course, we got to see how a pairing of archetypes, world aether, and metamagics/unaspected magics created the mana plague among the Nymians, another interesting pairing between those two identities. The problem of shared EXP aside, the pairing was actually pretty damn neat.)

What was sad to me was simply how little SCH's addition, though, was capitalized upon. Rather than investing fully in that idea, it was applied simply to one skill, Adloquiem (then merely a Stoneskin-heal hybrid but at flat, rather than target-maxHP-dependent, shield value), and given the wrap.

But what if it had gone further?

• What if we could take the extra mana pushed into an enemy (say, via Ruin casts, etc.) and bring it... to a boil, not just destabilized but seemingly opposed aether conflicting actively within an opponent (as with, to a degree, the Nymians when struck by their plague)?
• What if we could pump shittons of MP into an ally and detonate that (into a healing pulse or whatever else) later?
• And, befitting that, what if we had far more control over our MP, if Aetherflow, Aetherpool, and Mana-galvanizing were all deep and integral components of its play?

I'd have loved to see them take those aspects and run with them, creating distinction even to the point of memery: "Nothing can oom a SCH, save for the SCH itself." I'd loved for them to have used all that, and more, to make SCH both all the more wildly bursty, deliberate, and preemptive.

[GrimGale]

Admittedly, my take on these are probably the more odd. Simply put, I feel like SCH\\'s toolkit capitalized far better on what themes it transposed from Arcanist.

Honestly, being able to apply and strategically detonate dots or hots at key moments for a DPS gain or an extra Shield seems like really fun and interesting gameplay.

I was never too fond of the "fey" aspects of Scholar, though I admit the idea of pairing up with a pet and heal is an archetype that is interesting and somewhat unique.

FFXI 's Scholar was all about regens, metamagic (In the sense that you can modify the potency, duration and effect of your spells by using stratagems) and weather effects with Helix spells and Klimaform.

Other Scholar iterations in the Saga revolve around Identifying monster weaknesses and gaining bonuses with the Libra and Analysis abilities.

Seems like SCH's identity is a bit all over the place in the series. It's a "caster" associated with books and grimoires but that's about it.

Like Sage it doesn't have much of a definitive identity when it comes to its function or gameplay, unlike WHM for example which is consistently the icon of support and resorarive magics.

They could have gone in any direction really, as long as they kept the book and spectacles.

[Shurrikhan]

I was never too fond of the "fey" aspects of Scholar, though I admit the idea of pairing up with a pet and heal is an archetype that is interesting and somewhat unique.

I feel like if not for some flavorful explanations across SCH's quests, its Fey aspect would have only tenuously linked to its thematic bases in XIV. Like SMN, it introduced a summon, but like its attention to aetherpool over aethertrails, it stuck only to metamagics / unaspected magics. The Selene/Eos choice, in turn, played a bit into the more decisive/tactical nature SCH originally suggested, but more than that it just seemed to harken back to the Light/Dark stance dance of earlier SCH iterations.

To be fair, that would still be totally fine if they just went further with it, such as by pushing Selene more to indirectly temporal aspects of metamagic, while Eos went more for aether "resonance" or whatnot (it doesn't matter which so long as the procedure selected is cohesively applied) to vivifying effect.

metamagic (In the sense that you can modify the potency, duration and effect of your spells by using stratagems)

This would be a perfect fit in XIV as well, and it has annoyed me to no end that we never got them. They don't even have to be direct actions, per se; they might instead be general strategies organically arrived at in gameplay, so long as the job questlines made some reference back to them.

and weather effects with Helix spells and Klimaform.

These, though, I'd rather leave to WHM, if only because of its Conjurer roots here in XIV.

Other Scholar iterations in the Saga revolve around Identifying monster weaknesses and gaining bonuses with the Libra and Analysis abilities.

These, too, should absolutely be a thing beyond just generic bonuses to damage or received-crit-chance. That said, getting full value out of that would probably take some heavy rework or addition to the game's undermechanics such that there'd actually be things worth figuring out about an enemy.

Just as a random spitball example, imagine if casting Libra on an enemy caused its attacks to pre-roll their Crit chances, and the party could see on the enemy (even if just by an red-orange [specials] or yellow-orange [autos] tint over them and/or a 3D icon above their head) that their next strike would crit, which would in turn be useful for quick on-demand mitigation. (Granted, at minimum 7s duration even for 25s CDs, the value of that niche, too, has decayed over time.)

Seems like SCH's identity is a bit all over the place in the series. It's a "caster" associated with books and grimoires but that's about it.

Indeed, but I do feel like we can still carve out something both compelling and cohesive between metamagics, stances (Selene/Eos, only rarely upgrading to offer the benefits of both), analysis, and stratagems.

[Rilifane]

personally i feel that when everything in a jobs design is perfectly smooth and on rails, the job suffers for it because it takes away decision making and planning. its why i hate how every single thing nowadays is on a 120s cooldown; the jobs need to hold everyone's hand because people cant be trusted to use their neurons for extra damage that ultimately doesnt even matter outside of savage and ultimate.

I couldn't agree more.
QoL is one thing but I miss having classes on different burst timers. It's too smooth now, it aligns automatically and extreme niche cases aside there is no thought behind raid buffs. It's just a thing on 2min cooldown with a different flavour and that's it.
One of the biggest things I miss is TA every 60s. It was fun to play around it and dump some extra dps in those 15s without sacrificing dps for the next 2min burst. Can I dump a Xeno or two without screwing my movement mapping or my 2min burst? Can I squeeze in a short AF line instead of going through a UI noodle phase during TA? Can I delay my next melee combo without overcapping to align with TA? Those were small things but they added another layer for everyone who was interested in it but made no difference. Not even in Savage because dps checks were never so tight that they relied on the BLM dumping a Xeno during TA.
It was entirely optional, even in endgame content.
But at least we had that option. Now it's just always comfy, too comfy for me. I wanted comfy I could just ignore these things and I did if I didn't feel up to it.

It is why I unironically prefer SCH over SGE by now because with AF heals vs ED there is at least a tiny bit of decision making involved although even that usually boils down to "just hold your stacks until AF is about to come off cooldown, done" now that there are no 90s buff windows to play around.

[Shurrikhan]

It is why I unironically prefer SCH over SGE by now because with AF heals vs ED there is at least a tiny bit of decision making involved although even that usually boils down to "just hold your stacks until AF is about to come off cooldown, done" now that there are no 90s buff windows to play around.

Yup. And if we still had the occasional raid buff off the 120s interval, there'd be a lot more for Quickened Aetherflow to work around and into.

[Nizzi]

they could do it the sage way and make them start with 3 stacks of aetherflow. no, instead take away their ability to have fun in even ways that dont matter.

This was what I was hoping would happen when I saw SGE had full stacks upon entering an instance and then later when they gave SGE full Addersting as well. I get that it would be basically 300 free potency for SCH now but I always assumed that the reasoning behind making Aetherflow combat only was because they didn't have the technology at the time. I only base that off the fact that they made that change and also removed Energy Drain, which eliminates the point of having it tied to combat at all if there's no DPS advantage to pooling Aetherflow. It was a DPS loss to use Aetherflow heals without Energy Drain at all in ShB too, so 0 clue what they were thinking with that one. Regardless, would it really be such a gamebreaker to just put it back to the way it used to be?

But yeah, I get "why" its like that but it feels pointless when they could change it back without much effort and do what they did to SGE to eliminate prepull 60s waiting or something. IDK, I know I'm weird but I would find it fun to play with Lustrate and Soil in towns and stuff. Sometimes it's fun just to blow all your heals on your friends when you're goofing around. I rarely have a reason at all to hit Lustrate due to Excog almost always invalidating it. At least let me use it in the city ;_;

[Shurrikhan]

This was what I was hoping would happen when I saw SGE had full stacks upon entering an instance and then later when they gave SGE full Addersting as well. I get that it would be basically 300 free potency for SCH now but I always assumed that the reasoning behind making Aetherflow combat only was because they didn't have the technology at the time.

So long as it's ultimately just going to come down to tuning, I don't hate not being forced (by starting each instance with 3 AF stacks) to blow 3 EDs almost instantly upon opening raid buffs to then AF and Disp for 6 more. But, I also wouldn't hate having that option.

[Nizzi]

So DSR has been solo healed by an AST, within the 6.1 patch cycle no less. Do people still believe that healers don't need an overhaul?

[Rolder50]

So DSR has been solo healed by an AST, within the 6.1 patch cycle no less. Do people still believe that healers don't need an overhaul?

Not only that, but even solo healing an ultimate, their most used GCD spell was STILL Fall Malefic.

[Nizzi]

Not only that, but even solo healing an ultimate, their most used GCD spell was STILL Fall Malefic.

In a cosmic sense, it's very funny that even solo healing the hardest encounter in the game, you cannot escape the 1 nuke spam of every healer. I wonder if Yoshida's next response will be "play a different game" if another healer question manages to end up on the list instead of being ignored.