LIVE Letter Regarding DRG & AST Postponed Reworks

[SweetPete]

SCH is the only healer with 3 capstone abilities that fight each other. You cannot use multiples of them at the same time. Imagine if WHM couldn't use Plenary Indulgence or Temperance while Liturgy of the Bell is out. Or if using Temperance or Plenary cancelled the Liturgy. That is what it's like for SCH. We seal our other abilities when we use one of them, and is the only healer to suffer from this. That's just the tip of the iceberg too.

Seraph gets different names for Fey Illumination and Whispering Dawn, yet they share the same cooldown and potency as the original ones, meaning useless upgrades. We still have both Eos and Selene, despite them being the same fairy at this point. We are still the only healer screwed if we die right after using our class mechanic, because we have to wait up to 50s until it comes off cooldown (Aetherflow) before we can use ANY of our big heals. SCH is by far the one healer that needs the most changes in this game, and it's insulting to have it ignored for AST YET AGAIN, FOR THE SECOND EXPANSION IN A ROW.

True true.

[Nizzi]

SCH is the only healer with 3 capstone abilities that fight each other. You cannot use multiples of them at the same time. Imagine if WHM couldn't use Plenary Indulgence or Temperance while Liturgy of the Bell is out. Or if using Temperance or Plenary cancelled the Liturgy. That is what it's like for SCH. We seal our other abilities when we use one of them, and is the only healer to suffer from this. That's just the tip of the iceberg too.

Seraph gets different names for Fey Illumination and Whispering Dawn, yet they share the same cooldown and potency as the original ones, meaning useless upgrades. We still have both Eos and Selene, despite them being the same fairy at this point. We are still the only healer screwed if we die right after using our class mechanic, because we have to wait up to 50s until it comes off cooldown (Aetherflow) before we can use ANY of our big heals. SCH is by far the one healer that needs the most changes in this game, and it's insulting to have it ignored for AST YET AGAIN, FOR THE SECOND EXPANSION IN A ROW.

Really, the only capstone ability of SCH's that needs an upgrade/rework is Fey Union, and honestly it just needs to not kill the union upon execution of another skill so you don't have to constantly retarget and weave Fey Union to get full usage out of it. The lost Embrace potency as well needs to be factored into the skill and they need to make it where Eos/Selene go back to casting Embrace if the union's target is out of range instead of doing literally nothing.
Dissipation is Dissipation and honestly could go either way, the 3 Aetherflow stacks are very powerful and every other non SCH healer overheals so much at this point that even the lost Embraces are kind of negligible in the grand scheme of things. If they replace it with another DPS button though that'd be sweet because that's effectively what it is, it's almost never a healing tool.

In regards for the Whispering/Fey becoming different names, I figure this has to do with the way the pet system works - Seraph is likely considered a separate entity from Eos and Yellow Eos, and Whispering/Fey are not considered apart of that pet's toolkit - to get around this I assume they made the unique versions of those two abilities during Seraph so you still have the functionality of your faerie while using them, which would explain why you cannot use Fey Blessing during Seraph, because it used to be tied to gauge and Eos/Yellow Eos must be present for gauge to be spent - which is why Fey Union cannot be used while Seraph is summoned. Though it is also easily just as possible that Angel's Whisper and Seraphic Illumination were intended to be upgrades to Whispering/Fey and they changed this last minute so SCH players wouldn't hold those abilities for use only during Summon Seraph. What makes me think THIS is because Seraph has an upgrade to Embrace called Seraphic Veil that gives a shield along with the usual cure potency of Embrace, so it could go either way.

I do agree with you though; I have a thread on the healer forum about how SCH is probably one of the worst designed jobs in the game and shows that there's really not anyone looking into how it actually plays. It still baffles me that they didn't make summoning your faerie instant cast like it was for SMN back in ShB... making dying as a SCH uniquely punishing in a way probably no other job is. You lose all of your gauge, Aetherflow, your entire ability to heal freely, and casting anything after death makes you lose your 5sec raise invuln - leaving Scholar at the mercy of its cohealer because SCH has 0 way to heal themselves quickly and get back into the fight unless they want to lose their invuln. While I don't think this necessitates a rework of SCH, it does beg the question of: Why is SCH still this punishing upon death if the goal was to make healers less punishing for newer players? They could simply not make you lose Aetherflow on death or have Aetherflow's CD reset on death so you can quickly use an Excog or Lustrate on yourself and get back into the fight. SCH is the biggest example of why their intention of "making healing more accessible and easier for newer players by removing DPS buttons" has completely failed because SCH is still as punishing and instead is having less fun when they're playing well.

[IDontPetLalas]

SCH is the only healer with 3 capstone abilities that fight each other. You cannot use multiples of them at the same time. Imagine if WHM couldn't use Plenary Indulgence or Temperance while Liturgy of the Bell is out. Or if using Temperance or Plenary cancelled the Liturgy. That is what it's like for SCH. We seal our other abilities when we use one of them, and is the only healer to suffer from this. That's just the tip of the iceberg too.

Seraph gets different names for Fey Illumination and Whispering Dawn, yet they share the same cooldown and potency as the original ones, meaning useless upgrades. We still have both Eos and Selene, despite them being the same fairy at this point. We are still the only healer screwed if we die right after using our class mechanic, because we have to wait up to 50s until it comes off cooldown (Aetherflow) before we can use ANY of our big heals. SCH is by far the one healer that needs the most changes in this game, and it's insulting to have it ignored for AST YET AGAIN, FOR THE SECOND EXPANSION IN A ROW.

I never said SCH had no issues. I play ALL of the healers, personally I think ALL of the healers need changes which is why I want SE to look at all of them, and why I do not even want to get into a discussion of "MY healer first !!!".

As someone who started out as a SCH and lost so many skills, I happen to agree with both you and Nizzi in a number of areas- i just feel that there are common issue that would affect the main core of healer design until that is addressed, some of these points would be like putting lipstick on a pig. That speaks by the way to you comments as - oh SCH was ignored for changes again- well - AST was changed over and over - that's not necessarily a GOOD thing - change in and of itself is not always positive- if those changes are poorly considered then do you really want that? I don't. I would rather wait.

[RyuDragnier]

I do agree with you though; I have a thread on the healer forum about how SCH is probably one of the worst designed jobs in the game and shows that there's really not anyone looking into how it actually plays. It still baffles me that they didn't make summoning your faerie instant cast like it was for SMN back in ShB... making dying as a SCH uniquely punishing in a way probably no other job is. You lose all of your gauge, Aetherflow, your entire ability to heal freely, and casting anything after death makes you lose your 5sec raise invuln - leaving Scholar at the mercy of its cohealer because SCH has 0 way to heal themselves quickly and get back into the fight unless they want to lose their invuln. While I don't think this necessitates a rework of SCH, it does beg the question of: Why is SCH still this punishing upon death if the goal was to make healers less punishing for newer players? They could simply not make you lose Aetherflow on death or have Aetherflow's CD reset on death so you can quickly use an Excog or Lustrate on yourself and get back into the fight. SCH is the biggest example of why their intention of "making healing more accessible and easier for newer players by removing DPS buttons" has completely failed because SCH is still as punishing and instead is having less fun when they're playing well.

It's actually why I feel SCH needs a rework. It wouldn't take some small changes to fix this stuff, it'd need some big ones. AF would either need to be redesigned for SCH alone, or they'd end up having to replace the entire AF gauge with a new one so it's not so punishing. SGE has a less (but still) punishing system because you're not waiting for 60s just to be able to throw out a heavy heal, you're essentially waiting 20s to get a charge to do it. If it was me setting it up and we had to keep AF as is for the most part, I'd bring back Quickened Aetherflow as a trait that makes it so reviving from death instantly brings AF off cooldown, just to at least stave off that nuisance.

[Aco505]

there is zero affordance given at present to having two separate buttons for Wheeling Thrust and Fang and Claw

But consolidating them would close the possibility to choose which one to use and to make the 5th hit more relevant in the rotation, both mechanically and aesthetically. It would be a lost opportunity. I'd see the point if we were talking about Vorpal Thrust, as it's right now the only GCD that has zero purpose besides being the twin of Disembowel.

(MNK, thankfully, was spared the fixed XIV-style "combos", and thus actually needs its 6 ST buttons. DRG, on the other hand, needs only two buttons to retain exactly the same ST rotational depth it has now.)

The change to Gnashing Fang was warranted because it was a combo that is used once every 30s and required three buttons on a job that already has plenty of them and happens to also be a tank, which means needing a lot of space for utility buttons (e.g. it's not so uncommon to have more than one HoC in the hotbars, one for the GNB and one to target an ally).

If we go through this route, NIN (and RPR) also needs two buttons, SAM three, the tanks and MCH one... MNK is only spared due to their buff/debuff having a different duration, their GCD speed and the way PB balance works. You tweak that and theirs becomes a 3-button combo as well.

By keeping the WT and FnC buttons separate, we open a window for interesting future expansion and adjustments to the job's GCDs. By consolidating them, we just free up a button, which in the grand order of things doesn't really fix anything.

And to link it with one of the things Zaniel mentioned, I'm saying this as someone who suffers from RSI problems IRL as well as having bilateral CTS. The jobs that can actually make me tired are ironically healers and those where you just press the exact same key over and over.

[Floortank]

Been playing since the original 1.0 beta, LNC and then DRG.

I don't agree that DRG is perfect. It is what the game allows it to be. It has never made sense to me that it has a high risk move (Jump) that does mediocre damage. Building its entire ramp up on the back of Jump execution has been a flaw in the Job's design from the get go, a way of falsifying the Job's basis in Jump mechanics.

Don't get me wrong. I have highly enjoyed this Job, and play it more than any other. But it is not perfect. Untangling Jumps from the burst cycle would be ideal. Having so many oGCDs occur when you need to Jump to prevent your whole rotation from drifting would be ideal. It definitely is not perfect.

I take a "wait and see" approach to any rework.

[Shurrikhan]

Yes, NIN needs only two, SAM three, MCH one, but all tanks but DRK would still need two (Path+Eye, Goring+Royal/Atonement, Solid+Gnashing). No amount of tweaking would put Monk on such a system, because it has actual combos, not single decisions split across n button-presses as per XIV "combos".

But, I think you're missing the point here. The matter isn't simply that all fixed combos are button bloat (even if, yes, they are) but that due to how controllers work, some combos see much greater rewards from even a single point of consolidation. To fit ST rotation on a single palette, SAM would have to consolidate three skills. DRG, at present, can't use a single palette to fit even a single combo, and is only one point of consolidation away from that. That would make it a much more warranted system in which to potentially consolidate a single action, so long as (as per now) there are no affordances lost in doing so.

The only degree of slippery slope from consolidation depends on the combos themselves being changed, first, to not be button bloat. All retention of button bloat now would have to be in service of their somehow being changed to not be button bloat later. That's a fine idea, and preferable, imo, but it's dependent on something that goes against XIV design trends since HW, which have tended towards reduced nuance and increasing portions of job "depth" being mere pretense.



You've already heard my own suggestions, which move far nearer to the Monk side of things, away from fixed combos (whereby we spend 7 buttons on at most a single point of decision).

If button count were to be a key issue, I'd rather turn whatever is mostly fixed combo actions into consolidated keys while freeing up whatever we can separate from that, and make the remaining combo lines more flexible. Imagine, for instance, each true combo action being replaced instead by a Flurry or Momentum stack. You have three steps to do with what you wish, the third and later (Lance Mastery II) second of which proc a Dragon skill in kind. Mix and match from Flurry or Momentum skills as you like. Voila. Two combo keys, across 3 of up to 5 combo steps, could make up to 8 different choices in the context of the 2 Dragon skills, rather than 5 combo keys (7 if including the currently inseparable Dragon skills) making for at most a single point of decision (Do I buff+debuff or do I direct damage?).

(I can better explain this spitball system suggestion, if need be, after I return home.)

[Raven2014]

AST apm is perfectly fine in my opinion, it's actually the same as in ShB and as mentioned there's nothing wrong with some jobs having a busier playstyle.

In my opinion it is currently not. AST at the end of Shadowbringer is what I consider perfect. And they had to go and break it with the astrodyne none sense and change to minor arcada. This is exactly what I was afraid of when they announced DRG would get a "major" change in 6.2. Because I look at current DRG and I think the only outcome of a major change to it would be breaking it. It would be changes simply for the shake of changes.

So I'm glad I hope the postpone it (at least for DRG, I do think AST need some fix right now).

[Deceptus]

Really, the only capstone ability of SCH's that needs an upgrade/rework is Fey Union,

Hard Disagree.

Dissipation is a dumpster fire of an ability.

1) It's supposed to be used in Emergencies when you're out of charges and need heals. Except it only affects healing SPELLS not all healing so it only affects 3 "spells": Physic, Adlo, Succor.. SCH is an ability based job. Dissipation has been trash since it was implemented and is proof positive that the developers lack any real understanding of how the job actually plays.

2) Dissipiation used as a DPS cooldown: Before it was worth something but since the nerfing of Energy Drain to 100 potency, even if you used every single charge on ED, you'd only get 1 extra broil's worth of potency every 3 minutes, or an average of 100 potency a minute gain. And this isn't of DPS damage. This of healer damage. Not exactly meaningful in the grand scheme of things. And in doing so, blowing all your AF stack on DPS you lose out on a massive amount of healing and utility.

3) Using Dissipation locks you out of all fairy abilities, as well as Fey Union gauge.

4) Dissipation goes against the entire Job Identity of Scholar. The Scholar and the Fairy are supposed to work as a team to support.

Like others have said, the capstone abilities actively fight each other. It's not a cohesive job.

The quick and easy solution should be:

Dissipation: Gives you 3 AF stacks and increases all healing(and possibly damage) by 20% for 30s. Keeps your fairy. Hell, lose the fairy if you the devs are hell bent on losing a core part of your job I guess. The increase to damage would make up for it.

Capstone abilities are supposed to be strong.

[Merrigan]

... Wait, they are reworking DRG and suppressing some buttons on this class ?

please tell me I misunderstood.