SCH as a poison-themed healer

[ty_taurus]

This seems like a whole lot of redesigning to make Scholar fit into the ‘poison Mage’ hole.

Why not suggest a new healer class at this point? Doesn’t it make more sense for a new healer to be specifically designed around such a playstyle than to take an existing healer and change/remove almost everything in it’s toolkit until it looks the way you want it to?

Once upon a time, SCH had 7 DoTs including cross-class actions: Bio, Bio II, Miasma, Miasma II (AoE only), Shadowflare, Aero, and Thunder. It's a job that stems from ACN, a class that originally was something of a poison mage. And it currently has a very lukewarm identity that is stepped on by both WHM and SGE currently in different ways, so what exactly are we losing? A healer with an identity crisis that's playstyle revolves around taking a nap during non-savage content because your faerie does all your healing for you?

Additionally, jobs have been reworked in the past. Saying that it's impossible for a job to be reworked is silly because it has happened many times and will continue to happen (whether we like it or not). It's also not impossible that they may back petal toward old SCH's identity either because they've also back petaled before on specifically HW's bow mage. They reworked the physical ranged role to be casters in HW, most people hated that, and they took that away. I'm not saying that this concept as I have written it is specifically a guarantee or anything, but it's a concept that follows the rules of FFXIV's job design.

While my faith in seeing a change of this magnitude for the healers is slim, there is way more scrutiny regarding job design as a whole as of EW than we have ever seen before, and I'm inclined to believe there will be some amount of reevaluation going into 7.0 because of that criticism. I do believe this will affect the healers as well, I just can't say exactly how.

I like it a lot, it reminds me a little of my concept with less of a focus on pet positioning but a much more fleshed out downtime kit. Good work!

Some thoughts:

I think it's worth clarifying the situation with Aetherflow out of combat or at the start of a duty? I'm still convinced that blocking Aetherflow out of combat was a spiteful change that could have been made more reasonable if the SCH zoned/reset with full Aetherflow charges to compensate for it. Where do you think this sits with your concept?

On multiple dots, I'm of the mindset that SE deliberately trimmed everyone's dots down and moved away from dot centric classes to ease server load and make it harder to hit debuff limits in certain situations, so whilst I do like the thought of multiple dots again (Especially with offset durations) I don't think it's something that's likely to happen at this point. As an alternative, what about granting Bio increased potency when cast on a target that is fey marked instead of bringing back Miasma? Scourge's additional resource usage and duration difference is already a plenty decent improvement I think?

I'd expand on the above by having a thundercloud style effect on Bio's Fey Mark application chance so that when it procs, it leaves a short duration (Say 6 seconds?) debuff on the target that does additional damage if you refresh your dot on that target in that window. That alone will stop your dots always being refreshed at a content 30 second cadence, introducing some variance at all levels of play which is only a good thing if you ask me.

Ardor and Pain are good stuff. Same with Scourge and Meltdown (Especially if the range is fairly short). Bane's return is something I'll always be onside with although I'm not really sure about Toad?

Instead I wonder if it'd be more interesting to make Bane spread Fey Marks as well, then switch to having 2 AoEs, one having Ardor's bonuses and the other being regular filler. With Fey Mark's charges and short cooldown, you're like to be able to use Ardor 3 times in a trash pull. Shortening the crit buff to say 12-15 seconds would reward savvy spacing of Marks as well with a pretty tangible benefit.

Overall though, great work, it's a neat concept and has some real potential IMO.

Thank you for the feedback. Having full Aetherflow for the start of the duty does make sense, and that's probably a good addition. I'm trying to picture the opener with the build as-is, and it's a bit detailed, but I think that' a good thing. Personally, on the topic of multiple DoTs, I see that reasoning. I think there needs to be more solutions regarding the buff/debuff limit, but I think the game deserves a dedicated DoT job in some capacity and finding ways to try and allow that to work is more ideal than saying it can't exist. Regardless of where SE stands on the same issue. One way I can think of a solution while still having Bio, Miasma, and Scourge in this concept is to redesign how the DoT works a little. Instead of each spell applying a different DoT... what if we do something like this. Bio and Miasma apply 1 stack of Virus each that has no duration; only 1 stack can be applied by each spell. When used on a target with Virus, Scourge increases the stack count by 1 and turns it into a DoT of 50 potency per stack for 30 seconds. This condenses all 3 DoTs into 1 debuff. It makes the application more rigid since you need Scourge to trigger the effect, but it would address that problem. What do you think?

As for Toad, it's really there more for Flavor and wouldn't work on anything that wasn't trash mobs, but could be really great for SCH in deep dungeons. It doesn't work on bosses of course, and has more limited application than WHM's stun, but I would like to see each healer have a different flavor of a more fun disabling debuff like Stun that are applied in different ways. By attaching it to something that has a consistently valuable effect elsewhere, it doesn't create a Repose like situation where the button has no purpose 99% of the time.

I like making Fey Marks stack. It also prevents any situations where two DoTs trigger it at the same time causes 1 to go unused, and shortening the crit buff could also make the job more engaging consistently since there are no varied DoT timers, especially with the debuff suggestion above. If needed, you could also give it the Storm's Eye treatment and have the crit buff extendable to a certain point. I'm not sure if that would be necessary or not, but it would make Ardor usage more flexible. That said, I don't think we need a filler AoE button separate from Ardor. I know it makes AoE scenarios slightly less engaging than single target, but I'm really not a fan of buttons that are designed exclusively for AoE because it just makes them dead buttons in single target, which is a significantly more prominent and important format in this game. It was more about trying to give a reason for the AoE button to exist in single target environments.

[Jamini]

A healer with an identity crisis that's playstyle revolves around taking a nap during non-savage content because your faerie does all your healing for you?

This is uh...really not true.

At 80+ content the faerie does almost no healing. It's more likely that you are just paired with an over-tuned warrior who is self-healing to victory.

I'd still love to see more dots, hots, and shields to track over the current design! Don't get me wrong. But being hyperbolic in replies doesn't help your case.

[Silver-Strider]

This is uh...really not true.

At 80+ content the faerie does almost no healing. It's more likely that you are just paired with an over-tuned warrior who is self-healing to victory.

I'd still love to see more dots, hots, and shields to track over the current design! Don't get me wrong. But being hyperbolic in replies doesn't help your case.

It's not totally hyperbolic though.
Your most used Healing abilities on SCH are the Fairy abilities since you minimize the usage of Aetherflow as much as possible. Between Whispering Dawn, Fey Blessing, Seraph/Consolation and Aetherpact, the Fairy does do most of the healing in most casual content. That isn't to say you aren't throwing out Recitation boosted Excogs and Indoms prn but it's not totally outside the realm of possibility that the fairy can do it all solo, assuming the Tank isn't paper mache.

[Jamini]

It's not totally hyperbolic though.
Your most used Healing abilities on SCH are the Fairy abilities since you minimize the usage of Aetherflow as much as possible. Between Whispering Dawn, Fey Blessing, Seraph/Consolation and Aetherpact, the Fairy does do most of the healing in most casual content. That isn't to say you aren't throwing out Recitation boosted Excogs and Indoms prn but it's not totally outside the realm of possibility that the fairy can do it all solo, assuming the Tank isn't paper mache.

Minizing Aetherflow use is very much a high-end raiding tactic. Mostly for parsing. Yes, you can lean on your coheal or tank's ability... but ultimately it does show when you do! Especially to your coheal!

For example: https://www.fflogs.com/reports/qrk42...1&type=healing

Overall it's a great parse. I won't shake a stick at that one bit. Especially since you tend to lean into the regen healing. However the healing parse definitely makes it look like the WHM was taking a bit more of the heavy lifting.

The bad? Overheal. Lots of it. Faerie abilities are notorious for overhealing (30-40% isn't uncommon). Almost all of your whispering dawn was wasted, half of your fae blessings, 80% of Seraphic veil... A lot of your healing just went into thin air.

You also didn't really take advantage of a prepull or downtime deployed shield, which tends to put a lot more stress on the party.

Compare: https://www.fflogs.com/reports/vwZ2P...ing&source=108

Obviously, your parse is higher than mine. (Again, 74% is awesome. I will never detract from that!) I can fairly confidently say that you're probably a fair bit cleaner at keeping your GCDs rolling and keeping your dot on point. Your party also was a fair bit more skilled which certainly helped (I am jealous of your kill time!)

But you will notice that with two deployed crit adloqouim, my faerie heals immediately get beaten out heavily by Galvanized? With almost none of the shield wasted due to timing them for big raidwide hits? I used indom about twice as often as well. Frankly rarely do I bother with recitation on it anymore. Recitation excog or recitation crit shields I find a LOT more reliable, with indom being more of "Raidwide just hit, immediate response." sort of thing.

You also did not once cast Sacred soil, which is fairly morbid considering just how powerful that is.

Now what exactly am I getting at, comparing two parses like this? Scroll over to the damage portion of both parses.

https://www.fflogs.com/reports/vwZ2P...one&source=108

https://www.fflogs.com/reports/qrk42...-done&source=5

(cont)

[Silver-Strider]

Parse

Tbph, I wasn't even aware someone had parsed me lol. I know my SCH gameplay isn't perfect and I will never admit to being a top tier SCH either. IIRC during this fight, the WHM was a bit sporadic in their healing, overriding some of my own heals with theirs, such as using Rapture when Whispering Dawn was active or would already have Asylum up that I didn't feel a Soil was necessary. It's not so much that I was trying to optimize my Aetherflow usage in the fight but rather trying to play around the WHM so that we wouldn't overheal (which still failed horribly lol). Lack of communication and coordination was the culprit more than anything.

[Jamini]

Tbph, I wasn't even aware someone had parsed me lol. I know my SCH gameplay isn't perfect and I will never admit to being a top tier SCH either. IIRC during this fight, the WHM was a bit sporadic in their healing, overriding some of my own heals with theirs, such as using Rapture when Whispering Dawn was active or would already have Asylum up that I didn't feel a Soil was necessary. It's not so much that I was trying to optimize my Aetherflow usage in the fight but rather trying to play around the WHM so that we wouldn't overheal (which still failed horribly lol). Lack of communication and coordination was the culprit more than anything.

Such as it is! Either way my point remains that Aetherflow is a healing resource first, DPS distant second. While it's great to optimize for damage (and we should!) saying SCH should rely too heavily on the faerie is really doing the job a disservice.

SCH has fantastic throughput when played well. (See, for example, the Rubicante solo SCH clear) A lot of people just...want the bare minimum or less of the job. Which is a shame really.

Also, even doing on-content clears of savage puts you in something like the top 20% of all players in a job. This game has A LOT of players, and the vast majority don't raid.

Re: Asylum and Soil, those two actually pair really well. Asylum is a 10% healing up, Soil is a 10% mitigation so not only is there no HPS lost... but Asylum actually boosts soil's regen if people are damaged during at least part of its duration. It's not like stacking Kera or Collective Unconsiousness where you lose mit effectiveness from the stack. Though if it's being used at a poortime then the healing may get wasted to overheal.

[Sebazy]

Re: Asylum and Soil, those two actually pair really well. Asylum is a 10% healing up, Soil is a 10% mitigation so not only is there no HPS lost... but Asylum actually boosts soil's regen if people are damaged during at least part of its duration. It's not like stacking Kera or Collective Unconsiousness where you lose mit effectiveness from the stack. Though if it's being used at a poortime then the healing may get wasted to overheal.

God yes, Soil and Asylum did a ton of heavy lifting especially throughout Eden. They synergise almost too well.

[deston07]

You also did not once cast Sacred soil, which is fairly morbid considering just how powerful that is.

This is the reason I strongly dislike Scholar right now.
I main Sage but when my co-healer is missing we PF normally leading to me WHM.
Almost all of the Scholars I have met recently just burn Aetherflow on ED's never using soil.

I loved Scholar in Shadow bringers was my main then, I very much dislike it now.