Would SCH's SB kit be "good enough" now?

[ty_taurus]

Bane was at it's peak in HW. Between that, Blizzard II and Shadowflare a SCH could actually out AoE a WHM, often by a pretty significant margin at times. You were walking a knife edge balancing your Cleric uptime vs the lack of a stun ala WHM, it was way way more exhilarating DPSing as SCH back then as the pay offs was doing literal top tier DPS level damage (~1000 DPS in Neverreap, a figure which many actual DPS jobs struggled to hit). Stormblood relegated it back behind WHM, doing less damage, losing the risk vs reward dopamine hit and just never quite being the same really.

But Stormblood did make the change to Miasma II which made it very useful in single target, and there was a unique risk-reward factor because of its MP cost and use of Energy Drain over healing Aetherflow, a choice that actually felt good to make back then.

[Sebazy]

Miasma II was unique for sure and personally I think it was a good concept that should have been expanded upon rather than axed, but I don't think its risk vs reward factor ever really came close to Cleric.

[ty_taurus]

Miasma II was unique for sure and personally I think it was a good concept that should have been expanded upon rather than axed, but I don't think its risk vs reward factor ever really came close to Cleric.

Nothing will change my mind that if we had never had Cleric Stance to begin with, or if it had be removed in Heavensward but all the remaining DPS options still existed as they did, nothing would be different about the healer experience other than no one would accidentally wipe due to hitting CS twice by mistake, or do the same due to lag. If all forms of DPS are generated during Cleric Stance, then Cleric Stance doesn't actually matter. It's the same with protect. If your game is designed to have a perpetual 10% mitigation present at all times, then you don't actually have any mitigation because that 100% mitigation up time is ground zero.

EDIT: Actually, hot take... I think if Cleric Stance never existed, the healers would never have ended up in this state. If there was never a war between people who were afraid to use Cleric Stance and the people who expressed the necessity to use it, SE would never have gone on the anti-DPS action crusade during Shadowbringers. So Cleric Stance is why we have the healers in the state they're in. There, I said it.

[Sebazy]

EDIT: Actually, hot take... I think if Cleric Stance never existed, the healers would never have ended up in this state. If there was never a war between people who were afraid to use Cleric Stance and the people who expressed the necessity to use it, SE would never have gone on the anti-DPS action crusade during Shadowbringers. So Cleric Stance is why we have the healers in the state they're in. There, I said it.

I can get behind that take tbh++

It's a shame really, CS overall was a lame punishment mechanic that should have never needed to exist but at the same time it also added excitement and danger to gameplay for those that enjoyed that. If I get the tinfoil hat on, it could easily be said that Cleric Stance was SE showing their contempt towards healers right out of the gate from the start of ARR. It just didn't pan out at all how I imagine they hoped it would.

[ty_taurus]

I can get behind that take tbh++

It's a shame really, CS overall was a lame punishment mechanic that should have never needed to exist but at the same time it also added excitement and danger to gameplay for those that enjoyed that. If I get the tinfoil hat on, it could easily be said that Cleric Stance was SE showing their contempt towards healers right out of the gate from the start of ARR. It just didn't pan out at all how I imagine they hoped it would.

Lost Seraph Strike I think did what Cleric Stance was trying to do infinitely better. It's a burst window that has a risk-reward factor, but is not a 100% uptime type system. You only get limited buff windows to use it, but you want to make sure it's safe to do so. Having it be on a flat cooldown does complicate things, however, since there's incentive to use it on cooldown and thus eliminating the choice in making those risks. If we perhaps instead had a meter that you build throughout a fight, and toggling it on increased damage by something more tame, like 20%, while decreasing healing output also by 20% to be less punishing, or perhaps just a little more like 30%, you could have a far more meaningful type of risk-reward system. The meter has no cap, or just a really high cap, but you only get so much "Cleric Stance Time" per fight, it would ultimately be unbound by hard cooldowns and give you the freedom to use it at your preference. It would give you the the of decision making that I think you're trying to describe. I don't think it would actually work out that well with FFXIV's audience at all, but would be far better than what it ever had been, I think.

[Renathras]

But, I did answer...

I'm not trying to be antagonistic, but it is a yes/no question. What I'm trying to figure out is if:

1) SB SCH was truly great, and would satisfy people, that it was more or less perfect and timeless,
2) SB SCH was not truly great, but was just okay, and would only be a starting point as it wasn't really timeless or really great, actually,
3) SB SCH was not really that good at all, and people are more grasping for something different than ShB/EW SCH but don't genuinely want THAT, they just think they do/rise-tinted goggles/etc it.

I suspect, personally, that it's (2).

Maybe that would require a pair of questions, though:

A) Would SB SCH, exactly as it was then, ported into FFXIV now wholesale, be good enough for people as is?
B) If not, would it be a good starting point?

I suspect the answers are no and yes, respectively, lending to answer (2) above.

(As to the examples, SPECIFICALLY in the case of DRG, it's because they think the Job is more or less perfect already, not that they fear SE can't make a good advancement on it; they don't want it changed because they really like it now. At least, that seems the general consensus from all I've seen of DRGs and even SE's reason given for reworking it is that it's basically too perfect so there's nothing to add, which is them basically saying they have to break it so they can pursue perfection again because it's already obtained it.)

Personally I think using the Stormblood version of Scholar would cause nothing but issues and ultimately just hold the class back for no real reason. Obviously it needs more than what it has now, but going backwards won’t actually solve anything. I won’t go too much into it because I know nobody will ever agree but I think the belief that Stormblood Scholar was some beautifully crafted complex healer dps combo, and not just an accidental mess because of the SMN/SCH separation issues that people just happened to like, is mostly down to people having trouble resolving in their mind that the devs really did just mess up that bad with things and had absolutely no idea how to deal with it.

I think this is sorta what I'm getting at.

It's praised as being a high level of perfection, but I think that if push comes to shove, people would very quickly decide it wasn't and start complaining again. "solutions" that don't actually solve things are not really solutions.

(As an aside: I feel this same thing for SCH. 5.5 SCH somehow worked, but it was a Frankenstein's Monster hodge-podge that worked entirely by accident, forged by chance and luck, held together by duct tape, bubble gum, and wishes. A lot of people liked it, and I don't think they should have outright removed it as they did, but it was a messy accident, not a coup of design and inspiration.)

Mate. The answer is yes. Stormblood SCH with the new additions...

...would not be Stormblood SCH.

So the answer is no.

I'm not being obtuse, contrarian, bored, or trolling. I was wondering if people would actually believe SB SCH was the best thing (even now) since people appeal to it all the time. What I'm getting from this thread is that it is not, and people would still want changes to it, meaning it was not perfection, or near-perfection.

So the answer is no.

I think the first thing to getting change is for people to be honest about what they want. Being dishonest, whether intentionally lying or accidentally (having convinced oneself of something that isn't quite true), means it's very difficult to develop actual solutions since the solutions proposed and proffered are for the dishonest (again, not necessarily intentional) desires. Meaning we need to cut to the root of it and see what actually IS what people want.

The answer is no: People would not like SB SCH ported exactly as it was today.

People seem to want that as a base, but with additions and changes made to it, before they would accept it as sufficient. That seems to be what most people are saying.

I think that's the starting point we need to be at, then.

Nothing will change my mind that if we had never had Cleric Stance to begin with, or if it had be removed in Heavensward but all the remaining DPS options still existed as they did, nothing would be different about the healer experience other than no one would accidentally wipe due to hitting CS twice by mistake, or do the same due to lag. If all forms of DPS are generated during Cleric Stance, then Cleric Stance doesn't actually matter. It's the same with protect. If your game is designed to have a perpetual 10% mitigation present at all times, then you don't actually have any mitigation because that 100% mitigation up time is ground zero.

EDIT: Actually, hot take... I think if Cleric Stance never existed, the healers would never have ended up in this state. If there was never a war between people who were afraid to use Cleric Stance and the people who expressed the necessity to use it, SE would never have gone on the anti-DPS action crusade during Shadowbringers. So Cleric Stance is why we have the healers in the state they're in. There, I said it.

Honestly...I kinda agree with this entire post of yours, Ty (and Sebazy in agreement).

Personally, I think Cleric (and Tank damage stances) were originally introduced by the Devs for when soloing and weren't intended to be used in group play. When the meta shifted to where that was the norm, they were removed, Cleric in SB and damage stances in ShB. While I don't have proof of it, I think it probably was the original intent of those things.

If we perhaps instead had a meter that you build throughout a fight, and toggling it on increased damage by something more tame, like 20%, while decreasing healing output also by 20% to be less punishing, or perhaps just a little more like 30%, you could have a far more meaningful type of risk-reward system.

This, on the other hand, I disagree with: This was basically Tanks, and what players decided was "correct" play was being in damage stance as near to 100% of the time as they could and damn the expense. In the case of Tanks, it meant more net damage to the party. While one can note that came at the expense of Healer damage with them having to heal the Tanks more, the point remains that the playerbase decided correct play was maximizing damage stance uptime ignoring or in spite of the downsides.

I have a feeling that we'd have that same thing happen again here.

[ty_taurus]

I'm not trying to be antagonistic, but it is a yes/no question.

And yet there's nuance to the answer because it's not a clean yes or no. Why does adding context to an answer bother you? Would scholar players be content with Stormblood Scholar reintroduced with some light consolidation, such as merging Bane with Deployment Tactics, to make room for the key actions that were gained in Shadowbringers/Endwalker--or more specifically, would it make them happier with that than what we have now? Yes.

Does that mean it's the best possible future for scholar? No. We talk about wanting old Scholar back because we are tired of seeing jobs gutted and ruined time and time again. We could ask the question: "What would you prefer, Stormblood Scholar with the actions from Shadowbringers/Endwalker added to it, or a completely reworked Scholar?" And you asked "Why?" Which is an important question to ask, I feel confident saying the most likely response would be something along the lines of "because a rework will just make it worse." Not because a rework can only be worse than where we currently are, but because there is little faith that square can successfully rework a job anymore.

[Renathras]

And yet there's nuance to the answer...

No, that's answering a different question.

EDIT: I feel like if I don't delete what I originally wrote here, it will side-track things. So let's just get to it with nothing to distract:

.

But, for better or worse, we have our answer.

"No, SB SCH would not be acceptable today.
"However, it could be the basis for something that would be acceptable were changes/modifications made, and even if none were, it would still be preferable to what we have today."

Do you disagree with that statement?

EDIT2:

The clownshoe's just desperate for any win because he's not used to hearing "yes" as an answer because all he gets is "no" to his 4 healer spiel.

This is why we can't have nice things.

What exactly is it that you're trying to argue? I'm really not understanding what is unclear about what I've said.

That SB SCH, if implemented exactly as it was into the game now, would not end complaints about SCH and would engender additional requests for further changes.
...which, don't get me wrong, isn't a terrible thing.

But it's a different thing than saying that SB SCH was the height of healer and a thing to strive for.

[ty_taurus]

No, that's answering a different question.

EDIT: I feel like if I don't delete what I originally wrote here, it will side-track things. So let's just get to it with nothing to distract:

.

But, for better or worse, we have our answer.

"No, SB SCH would not be acceptable today.
"However, it could be the basis for something that would be acceptable were changes/modifications made, and even if none were, it would still be preferable to what we have today."

Do you disagree with that statement?

No, and I think I made that abundantly clear in 4 other posts now:

The simplest thing you could do in regards to restoring scholar's identity would look something like this:

...

The above changes would do a lot of good toward placating scholar players; however, it only really achieves restoring scholar to what it used to be. It'll just feel like we went back to the high point, but that the job has not really evolved or grown since that point.

It would be better than it is now, but also bittersweet because it would mean we spent 5 years driving around in a circle only to arrive back at our starting point.

People would probably be excited to see the return of spells like Miasma, Miasma II, and Shadow Flare, but there would be a feeling of defeat seeing that the job has effectively been in a 6 year state of stagnation in a game that's supposed to grow and change.

--or more specifically, would it make them happier with that than what we have now? Yes.

What exactly is it that you're trying to argue? I'm really not understanding what is unclear about what I've said.

[OgruMogru]

The clownshoe's just desperate for any win because he's not used to hearing "yes" as an answer because all he gets is "no" to his 4 healer spiel.