I'm bored when I heal because I need more complex DPS rotations

[ASkellington]

Come on, if SE pitched 'hey we were thinking of making it so that if you use Swiftcast Verraise mid melee combo (or any of the later steps like Scorch), it doesn't break the combo', who'd say 'no I want to have the combo keep breaking'?

No one. But do I think RDM needs it on the same level as tanks did? No. For the sheer simple fact that RDM's primary job is NOT to help rez. You rez when you can. Do you have to rez the exact moment in your melee combo? Chances are 90% of the time no. You usually have 2 healers who have swiftcast Raise each.

Do I think it would be a welcome change? Sure. Do I think RAISE would be the skill to not break? Pfft no.

[Connor]

SCH more DoTs, SGE more damage rotation

I do agree with the idea overall, But isn’t this ultimately just the same thing?

If Scholar goes back to being a dps heavy DoT Plague Demon, doesn’t that make it ‘the dps rotation job’? We can argue one way or another, but DoTs still ultimately end up as conveyor belt rotations, Bio II, Miasma, Bio - Bio, Miasma, Bio II (the variable durations meant you simply reversed for reapplication times lol). Where does that leave Sage? Likewise if Sage becomes the premium dps healer, what does that make Scholar and its DoTs? I’m not sure ‘does the same but with with slightly more consistent numbers’ is enough of an identity for a job.

Moreover, the game’s sole remaining DoT class has just two damage over time abilities, has never had Bane lol , and uses a single button. It no longer has any interactions between DoTs and damage abilities (i.e old Sidewinder) and they don’t even affect procs anymore. Ultimately, I find it difficult to envision them adding Miasma, Bio I, Miasma II, Bane, Fester, and Tri-Disaster to Scholar when actual dps jobs aren’t even being asked to manage DoTs in such a way.

Which then leaves the question of ‘What do we do with Scholar?’ Apparently the devs answer to that is/was ‘absolutely nothing’ lol. Personally I believe Scholar should do what it says on the tin.

I don’t have the exact quote, but when Alka Zolka is asked what a Scholar is, he describes them as ‘taking the role of support’ and utilising ‘powerful healing and restoration magicks, which were hardly uncommon at the time’, and that ‘it was the use of fairies and the manner in which they employed them’ that set them apart as military tacticians capable of leading a small contingent against a significantly larger force. The Scholar should be a job with poorer healing and damage output than the others, but through tactical use of buffs/debuffs and working in synergy with the fairy they can empower their allies through fights they may never have otherwise survived. It can distinguish itself from Astrologian through focusing on buffs and debuffs that are more ‘utility oriented’ than Astrologian’s damage-focused cards

What’s what I think, anyway. Not that I won’t concede the most obvious point though, that ‘but that’s just Astrologian!’. Plus, everyone would ofc just stack the two support healers (or the two dps healers lol). But I feel like building on the identity Scholar has already tried to set out for itself will work better than forcing it into a SB Summoner shaped hole (which we all know is what the new caster will be lol)

[Katish]

Again, and I will repeat it for the umpteenth time...
DPS healers have already been proven to work with BLU mage healer in the current system, my BLU healer get this... has 14 (and sometimes more) DPS buttons... and I push them on cooldown while also healing, funny isn't it? Though no one is asking for that complexity...they just want something that isn't 1111111111. So about healer dps complexity it would not be complex at all even if they added 5 new dps buttons for each healer (which would be a start).

Raising fight heal requirements won't solve a thing when downtime is concerned, because for one: there will always be skilled enough healers that will always have downtime, and for two: gear scores will level that off to the point healers might not be needed as healing required levels off when gear score increases to the point we become replaceable if not already. And for three, the devs would have to rework every single piece of content in the past (and I don't see them doing so, given it would be a shock for newer players and would require more time than I see them caring to even give out.)

I definitely am a broken record at this point...but still feel I need to bring it home. Adding dps buttons won't make a healer heal less, unless they are bad (which then that's a skill issue, and that person should learn to grow into their job.)

[Nizzi]

But I feel like building on the identity Scholar has already tried to set out for itself will work better than forcing it into a SB Summoner shaped hole (which we all know is what the new caster will be lol)

Where are you getting this idea that SCH has "tried to set out" for a "utility buff/debuff" identity versus it's historic FFXIV and FFXI identity of a job that uses DoTs in combat? Expedient and Chain Stratagem?

[Aravell]

Because it is an either-or situation. The misconception is from the people thinking it's not.

At the very least, with these Devs and this type of design, it's VERY unlikely they could pull something off that wasn't.

Except it's still not an either-or situation. The devs have proven that they can create a satisfying healing kit with good interactions, a satisfying dps kit with room for skill expression and good fight design that requires healers to heal, all this was done back in SB. We're asking for them to go back to that good balance of design instead of trying to push all the complexity into the mechanics dance itself, which is clearly not working because you only progress a fight once, after you clear, you now understand the fight to the point that most of the complexity is already gone. (Also, the more complex moving parts they put into a single mechanic, the more limited the solution becomes, but that's another problem entirely.)

SCH was gutted slightly going into SB, but it was still decently satisfying to play. AST was extremely weak at the start of SB, but they managed to tune it properly eventually and it felt good to play. The only healer that sucked was WHM.

[Connor]

Where are you getting this idea that SCH has "tried to set out" for a "utility buff/debuff" identity versus it's historic FFXIV and FFXI identity of a job that uses DoTs in combat? Expedient and Chain Stratagem?

Embrava, Adloquium and Regen V say hi lol. Also wasn’t Scholar used either as a support healer or a skill chainer / magic burster with Immanence lol? So…it focused on buffs, debuffs and support lol. Helixes (Helices? Lol) were cool and valuable, but I don’t really think they were supposed to be the entire focus of the job. An important aspect, undeniably, but I don’t think they conceptualised Scholar as a ‘poison Mage’ in ff11 or ff14 lol.

Even if you don’t count ‘buffs that amount to generic healing’ like Whispering Dawn, Protraction and Excogitation (which honestly I think SE mistakenly categorises as ‘buffs’ rather than ‘healing’) you still have general damage reductions, magical damage reductions, critical hit rate against target increased by 10%, movement speed increase. Then if you start looking into things they removed, there’s AoE Haste, AoE Esuna and further debuffs like Enemy Silence (not particularly reliable but it existed lol), Eye for an Eye, Virus, Shadow Flare.

To turn the question back at you, where are you getting that Scholar is a job that uses DoTs in combat lol? The fact it used to share spells with Summoner? And if that were truly part of the job’s core design, how could the devs still think it does that with a single, uninteractive DoT lol? If anything it’s ‘historic identity’ is that of a versatile caster that can change tactics depending on the situation, i.e Dark / Light Arts, which in turn means it’s buffing, debuffing and attacking the enemy equally. But I don’t see how it could be categorised as an ‘offensive DoT job’ in either game really - it seems a little reductionist

[Shurrikhan]

At the very least, with these Devs and this type of design, it's VERY unlikely they could pull something off that wasn't.

"If the actor is explicitly incapable, the act is unlikely to succeed."

Well, no shit. But if we're to limit discourse solely to what we think the devs could likely pull off, what constructive activities could ever be possible here?

So, any counter here that doesn't rely on purposely damning premises? There's not a suggested change that you've made, either, that wouldn't be equally damned by that premise, after all.

They generally are [mutually exclusive]. If they weren't, you guys would support the "4 Healers Model" since it offers both.

Your model excludes some aspects of available depth from some jobs and other aspects of available depth from other jobs -- i.e., treats those aspects as mutually exclusive, when they wouldn't need to be if you just allowed each kit greater depth/agency in total instead of insisting on an equally low or barely raised skill ceiling.

It's not that people would support your model if increasing healing requirements and having more involved downtime options weren't mutually exclusive. They are not mutually exclusive, and your model tends to get crap for treating them as if they were.

To turn the question back at you, where are you getting that Scholar a job that uses DoTs in combat lol? The fact it used to share spells with Summoner? And if that were truly part of the job’s core design, how could the devs still think it does that with a single, uninteractive DoT lol?

The basis of its form of magic as established in this game tends to focus on the lesser wheel / not-directly manifest magics. ACN destabilizes enemies' aether as to debilitate both their physical (Bio) and magical bodies (Miasma). From there, SMN instead channels their Egi for access to more directly manifest magics and for means of more immediate (though often less efficient) release (see old Ruin III operating alongside Ruin I; Fester, Painflare) while SCH focuses instead on the imbued Aetherpool itself, thereby able to effectively boil enemies alive through those aetheric excesses and disturbances (Broil) they created. This doesn't get carried out very well in the gameplay, but that doesn't mean the setup isn't/wasn't there.

And no, the devs almost certainly don't think that that identity is covered by a single, uninteractive DoT. But they also probably don't think about identity, period, at this point.

[Connor]

The basis of its form of magic as established in this game tends to focus on the lesser wheel / not-directly manifest magics. ACN destabilizes enemies' aether as to debilitate both their physical (Bio) and magical bodies (Miasma). From there, SMN instead channels their Egi for access to more directly manifest magics and for means of more immediate (though often less efficient) release (see old Ruin III operating alongside Ruin I; Fester, Painflare) while SCH focuses instead on the imbued Aetherpool itself, thereby able to effectively boil enemies alive through those aetheric excesses and disturbances (Broil) they created. This doesn't get carried out very well in the gameplay, but that doesn't mean the setup isn't/wasn't there.

And no, the devs almost certainly don't think that that identity is covered by a single, uninteractive DoT. But they also probably don't think about identity, period, at this point.

So they established an identity for Scholar as an ‘aetherial poison Mage’ as you say…then removed all the poisons? That doesn’t add up to me lol. I don’t think the developers are that stupid. If they designed Scholar to be a DoT oriented offensive healer, I don’t get why they would then remove all the offensive DoTs? Unless there was more to it than just the DoTs. If they didn’t like it that much surely they would’ve done a Summoner style complete redesign to fit the ‘DoT attacker’ identity they had conceptualised? I find it hard to believe they said ‘fuck it, let’s take all the DoTs from the job whose identity is DoTs and give them nothing in return’. And before we pull Summoner into it, they do technically give something in exchange for the lost DoTs…it just sucks lol (Rite / Astral Flow spam)

I mean, putting aside that Bio and Miasma sound suspiciously like the perfect debuffs through such description (physical / magical damage reductions) isn’t this ignoring the converse?

Scholars utilise the manipulation of aether within a physical body / entity for a desired effect, through geometric formulae and/or Nymian script (it was written on Setoto’s fathers coat when you find it). Like releasing fire aspected aether to ignite an enemy

Does it not also follow that they would be competent in altering aether for a positive effect? I mean, isn’t altering someone’s aether to make them more resilient still the exact same thing as altering it to slowly unravel? So…debuffs and buffs lol. Gathering aether together to form a shield, corrupting/distorting enemy aether to weaken them or lower their resistances, reinforcing allies aether to weather stronger attacks, all whilst utilising the fairy for direct healing magicks. It still seems reductionist to me to just say, ‘Scholars are offensive attackers who utilise corrupted aether to inflict pain on their enemies’. It’s certainly part of the full picture, but it’s ultimately still only one half lol. It’s like saying Bards are either just Archers with lasers or Musicians who really likes
bows. Whether we like it or not, the identity (currently) is both lol.

I just don’t want to see Scholar get dismantled and replaced with a DoT Drone because of a preoccupation with one aspect of the job (that arguably wasn’t a major one). They’ve already ravaged Bard and Astrologian, I don’t want to see Scholar be next lol. I don’t even disagree with Scholar actually getting more DoTs. But I don’t want to see it reduced to a DoT Botter (lol) that just sits around pressing the same 3 buttons all day without actually having to do anything tactical or strategic. There should be a purpose to them beyond ‘hit every X seconds to deal damage’

[Shurrikhan]

...

To be clear, here, I'm not against reframing them to have more of a buff emphasis. I meant only to point out that the DoTs were very much interlinked with SCH's identity (albeit through ACN / the way XIV specifically chose to set up SCH magical arts, just like the natural-astral elements and White Magic are likewise interlinked in XIV) and why people may therefore feel strongly about them.

I'd agree that the intersections between both is where SCH would probably feel the most iconic and fleshed out. Current Galvanize doesn't really do any more with its current namesake than Bio/Miasma do/did.

For instance, between SGE and SCH, I would think the first would be more about multi-tasking with individually weak but highly responsive actions through its nouliths that could coalesce into synergetic techniques at time, while SCH's foresight would be a bit more long-sighted and more about investments into individual units to be exploited later.

Back in the day, I'd say DoTs were a pretty big part of SCH gameplay and there's ample opportunity for them to be more interestingly involved, but imo it'd be far from ideal to just throw the DoTs and Bane back onto the kit, improvement though it would be.

[Connor]

Back in the day, I'd say DoTs were a pretty big part of SCH gameplay and there's ample opportunity for them to be more interestingly involved, but imo it'd be far from ideal to just throw the DoTs and Bane back onto the kit, improvement though it would be.

This is how I feel as well. I’m not suggesting DoTs aren’t important part of Scholar’s identity but I also believe part of that is that there’s more to them than just the application of damage over time abilities.

Personally, I’d be happy with just Biolysis and a Second DoT, Miasmalysis lol? (Not that I can imagine how one would cause the breakdown of miasma lol). But to me, what’s most important is that they have a tactical purpose beyond simply applying them, like affecting damage taken or dealt, critical hit resistances, Slow, etc. Then with things like adapting Deployment Tactics (and giving it 2 charges lol) those tactical usages can influence how/when you use them, like refreshing them early to spread them to adds on spawn and making the most out of the debuffs (and damage over time). With buffs and debuffs competing for Deployment Tactics Scholars would (theoretically) have meaningful decisions to make over whether to spread buffs, debuffs, or try to spread both based on the context.

Of course there are some issues that arise, like ‘what’s the point of being able to spread debuffs when 90% of content is against a single enemy’ lol. Plus, buffs/debuffs getting math’d into oblivion so you have to use the ‘superior’ ones all the time every time. Not to mention the obvious issue of, if the debuffDoTs can both the applied together you just stick them on every X seconds and that’s it. If they’re mutually exclusive, then it’s still basically just using 1 DoT at a time, you’re just switching it up every so often. I won’t claim my idea of where Scholar should go are foolproof or flawless (not that many things are lol), but I personally believe that kind of design is what would see Scholar’s identity flourish most as a ‘versatile, tactical support healer’

Also as an aside, remember Miasma had that weird status effect tacked onto it in 2.0 - 4.0? I want to say it was Disease but I don’t exactly remember lol. I feel like this was part of their half-baked idea for ‘DoTs that function to weaken/debuff the enemy’, similar to the Slow effect on Shadow Flare. And likewise with shielding covering the ‘buffing’ aspect, even though it’s probably more accurately categorised as ‘healing’