Scholars used to be awesome; I hope 7.0 goes back to the basics.

[TheDustyOne]

*sniff* It's okay, I'm only deeply hurt and my soul is shattered, I'll live. I was also a Highlander at the time, so different avatar probably would've thrown you off.

It kinda reminds me of the thread on meaningful decisions; I think the closer you make that gap between "playing correctly" and "screwing up everything", the less weight and meaning that gameplay decision has as it ends up taking away the consequences of those decisions. Someone could play abysmally and still end up with better damage simply from crit RNG because of how small the difference in output would be if it ended up being as small as 60p per minute. That to me doesn't scream "meaningful gameplay", but something so sanitized that the only way to screw it up would be to just never press buttons. At some point, the player should be expected to learn how things work, especially after 90 levels and 4 expansions + base games worth of content. I don't blame you though for making that concession with your WHM design whenever you bring it up, as it ultimately still has a skill ceiling to work towards and I'd at least have more fun with it than current WHM just from breaking up the Glare spam.

I remember a long time ago seeing a game designer talk about player input/decision making and expected output, and that you shouldn't go for a direct "twice the input = twice the output", but more like, twice the input = 15-20% extra output or something along those lines. I think it was an old Extra Credits video from like 2013? Can't fully remember. Although, I think that was in the context of fighting games and MOBAs, so those values probably aren't all that useful, but still, it's something to ponder in regards to expected player input (skill floor) and optimal player input (skill ceiling).

[Aravell]

I honestly don't understand why we care about what people who think a 60 potency difference is too much thinks at this point? 15-20% difference between standard and fully optimised is more than a fair deal, especially considering that people at this moment can do 50% of the expected value of 150++ casts of spamnuke and still clear almost all content. The only content where a 15% difference would cause an enrage are week 1 final floor savage or ultimates, and if people are tackling those pieces of content, I think it's fair to assume that they should know their class very well.

[ForsakenRoe]

I honestly don't understand why we care about what people who think a 60 potency difference is too much thinks at this point? 15-20% difference between standard and fully optimised is more than a fair deal, especially considering that people at this moment can do 50% of the expected value of 150++ casts of spamnuke and still clear almost all content. The only content where a 15% difference would cause an enrage are week 1 final floor savage or ultimates, and if people are tackling those pieces of content, I think it's fair to assume that they should know their class very well.

I'm not sure how many people on these forums care, but I'd expect that SE pays a lot of attention to those kind of players. Because they're not just wrong in their assertions, they're loudly wrong, and proudly wrong at times. Wouldn't surprise me of SE was working off of garbo data because of people completely misunderstanding stuff. Reminds me of 'TBN is a DPS loss' in SB, it had the potential to be, yes, in very specific situations that 99% of players would not ever have to worry about, and the loss was miniscule. But because of the game of telephone that happens with info filtering down from worldfirst/hardcore/midcore/casual, the nuance all got stripped out until we were left with 'TBN bad' and people refused to use it full stop. And now if you mistime it, it costs you 500p, which is like 40x as much of a loss as it was back in SB. And that's assuming it WAS a loss, because it could just as easily have been a gain depending on the fight timeline

I don't blame you though for making that concession with your WHM design whenever you bring it up, as it ultimately still has a skill ceiling to work towards and I'd at least have more fun with it than current WHM just from breaking up the Glare spam.

Thanks, but I have it on good authority that what you think is a 'concession' is actually the starting negotiating position. Yeh, I couldn't believe it either. But sarcasm aside, the fact that people object to values so small that they don't even jeopardize clears (they are literally for the sake of 'haha funny coloured number go up'), kinda just shows, to me at least, that it doesn't actually matter to the people objecting. They'd object over it being a literal DPS gain of one. It's the principle of the idea they object to, rather than the balance. And with that comes the issue: The door to a whole swathe of design options is closed, painting the class design into a smaller and smaller corner.

If my suggestions, where a player who chooses to hit Glare instead of Banish loses an average of about 7p per GCD is over the line, (which doesn't even consider the possibility of 'the player in the example saved it by a GCD to have it for a mobility moment, turning the 7p loss into a 343p gain), if that single digit loss of potency is too unacceptable, then what hope is there of any kind of additional nuance for the role? All we have to look forward to instead, is the reveal of stuff we don't need, probably new healing tools, because as has been demonstrated a million and one times, and let me put this on a seperate paragraph for emphasis:

Yes, you CAN clear week 1 Savage and Ultimates with several Medica2 casts! Yes, you can clear with 25+ Succor casts! In fact, and this might be a surprise for some, the fights are tuned with the assumption that you WILL have those casts, for safety!

I've previously predicted that we, as WHM, will get two new skills in DT. At 96, 'Salt and Light', allowing us to press Asylum a second time while it's down to do a burst of healing, and at 100, Purgation, which will be a copypaste of Pneuma in function, but instead of 600p, it will be 500p plus 500p as a 15s regen, for a total of 1000. The issue with this, or with any 'more healing tools are added' outcome with DT, is that we don't need more healing tools. We already have enough, you could even argue 'we have too many'. But SE will likely give us even more, because they don't know what healers actually need

We have, as WHM, THREE versions of Cure2 with various slight nuances to differentiate them (Cure2, Solace, Tetra), and TWO versions of Medica (Medica, Rapture). Oh, but we can't have an additional DOT or short CD GCD because 'the hotbars are too full already'. But hey, at least we still have things like Synastry on the bars, god forbid we prune that shining beacon of AST gameplay

[Ayche]

Healers did twice as much damage as the rest? Double damage compared to dps?

2x compared to their role colleagues.

[BRVV]

2x compared to their role colleagues.

Ah thanks i missunderstood.

[Aravell]

Snip

That's why I firmly believe that people who do not partake in optimisation should not speak in matters of optimisation, because the only input they'd have is based on second-hand (possibly wrong) information or even worse, they firmly despise all forms of optimisation and they hate every suggestion in the conversation, meaning conversing and trying to convince such an individual is a waste of time for all involved. It would be like asking a vegetarian their opinion on what kind of meat dishes you should serve, you're not getting any good input from that.

Yes, you CAN clear week 1 Savage and Ultimates with several Medica2 casts! Yes, you can clear with 25+ Succor casts! In fact, and this might be a surprise for some, the fights are tuned with the assumption that you WILL have those casts, for safety!

This part is true, but with some exceptions. There were times where healer damage optimisation was actually of some concern, such as Gordias and week 1 P8S with certain party comps (maybe TOP too, idk, didn't do it), but in the vast majority of situations, you're right, healer damage optimisation is barely given a thought when the party wipes to enrage. The people who push back against giving healers more of a skill ceiling often weave a fantasy tale about how healers who just want to heal will no longer be able to clear content if any difficulty is added, but that simply is not the case given that there's evidence of healers who panic and end up using more GCD heals than needed and they can still clear savage floors.

[Renathras]

"literally didn't even belong to Scholar"
according to who, you?

I could be wrong, but I think he means "they were cross-class, not part of ACN/SCH abilities". Thunder (when it could be used) was cross-classed from THM, and Aero was cross-classed from CNJ. Other than that they had, what, 4 at any given time? Bio 1/Miasma/Bio 2/Shadowflare (which prevented using Soil), and at some point somewhat traded Shadow Flare for Miasma 2, but Miasma 2 was more a movement (if you had abundant MP) dps gain tool than a staple of the rotation, and Shadow Flare was (a) not exactly part of the rotation at any point and (b) not really a DoT; it'd be like counting Doton as a DoT.

.

SOME people liked what they had in the past.

Though I think you misjudge Connor. He typically has been supportive of restoring SCH's old kit to it.

Everyone says 4.0 Scholar is the ultimate iteration of any job in existence, because it had a bunch of DoT spells ( two of which literally didn’t even belong to Scholar ). Apparently said DoT spells are literally the only thing Scholar ever needs to become the most played job 2024.

Except I specifically remember people in 4.0 constantly complaining about wanting more DPS abilities, Fester, Bane, Tri-Disaster / Iron Jaws, DPS Fairy, DPS stance dancing.

When is it ever going to be enough lol. I don’t understand the obsession with turning Scholar into a Heavensward Summoner with a couple of oGCD heals

Obviously same. I know I'm more on the "I play healers to heal, not to be budget DPS" side of things, but it really is...strange to me. I do think my SCH suggestion for a while back (or Grimgale's in the "design one new ability" thread) are fair points. Especially if we're in a world where we're requiring WHM to be like BLM and AST and SGE to be DPSers as well. SCH + 1 DoT is at least still in the realm of sanity. I do think there's an odd opportunity to have SCH/SMN packaged together for people that don't like crazy stuff, but it seems historically so...odd...considering neither were ever famous for that. Would have made more sense just adding Geomancer to CNJ and making GEO/WHM fill that role, imo.

(I do think my and Grimgale both going with the "Make Ruin 2 into a light DoT at the end of the main attack so it's still a movement tool but can also be used to optimize a bit more damage" for SCH is a nice idea for a little direction.)

EDIT:

Remember back in 4.0 when...

I remember WHM sucking and SCH being clunky and convoluted without a very clear identity and lots of people complaining about it. Though personally, I'm mixed on what they should do with SCH at this point, either winding back the clock or giving it the SMN treatment so they fit together and making the other healers more complex instead...

Meanwhile it's White Mage players that have the reputation of being DPS greedy far more than the other jobs.

To be fair, there are some nuanced reasons for that. WHM is the most played, meaning people are more statistically likely to run into a bad one. In 6.0, there was that bad balance with Misery (that they later fixed) but contributed to that reputation which still lingers. WHM also has less in the way of oGCDs and almost no pre-emptive healing abilities. That is, on SCH, I might cast a Succor or Deploylo since even if the party is at full health, it can be beneficial (e.g. I know the PF group has messed up a mech right after it, people have vuln stacks, etc), while WHM has no such abilities. Medica 2 can KIND of be used preemptively, but more to heal damage taken after the attack IF the WHM has to move immediately and the party spread so they couldn't just cast the Medica 2 after the attack...and even there, you have other stuff that does that better. SCH also has a lot of mitigation tools (which logs counts as healing) and has its own slate of HoTs and field effects it can use, which are also on shorter CDs (Dawn's CD is 2/3rds Asylum's; Soil's is 1/3rd) [Aside: I know Asylum heals a lot and buffs healing...but 90 sec for one of the few spells of its type WHM has is kind of absurd). And the ONLY outright party mitigation it has is Temperance.

So WHM has a lot of times where it doesn't really have anything to cast before attacks to mitigate, cushion, or potentially save players (Aquaveil, Benison, and Temperance are it), and after the damage hits, their co-healer's "anything" is going to also be healing, reducing the amount of effective healing WHM does. For example, SCH uses Soil, which mitigates the attack and heals people after it, while WHM waits for the attack and hits Medica 2 the GCD after it. SCH's still doing about as much healing and also gets credit for the mitigation.

[Raikai]

Decided to give a go on Scholar for the harder content and... I don't know, the job feels bittersweet for me. It does have amazing things that hype me up, but at the same time, it does have some glaring questionable aspects.

- Aetherflow is the biggest offender for me. Might be a design that works for other games, but for XIV in specific, the choice to spend a precious resource between damage or healing/utility feels as bitter as AST having to deal with Minor Arcana. I think they should just redesign this to be tied to damage and give Lustrate 2 charges. I'd like to see if they could come up with something more creative than 'just press a button for 3 charges of Energy Drain'.

- Seraph feels badly designed for me with the way the damage profile goes off. It seems that I can get Consolation's full potetial for multi hit AoEs, but those aren't that many. I feel that it could be way more useful if it was just 1 use, but a just a bigger heal and the shield was something auto applied once the Seraph got summoned. Also why Fey Blessing can't be used with the Seraph is something I don't really get.

- Fey Union seems to be so niche, which is weird for something with a dedicated gauge. The only time I actively remember it exists is for dungeon wall to wall pulls to help pad the tank off. Maybe it could see a new action added in Dawntrail to spend the gauge to channel a smaller heal for the whole group? Though makes me question: do healers even need new healing actions at this point?


Some aspects I really like:

- Fairy does triage healing for you. In fact, I feel it would be interesting if the Faerie Gauge could receive a new toggle action to give Eos stronger Embraces, maybe each costing 20 gauge.

- Ruin 2 is amazing for prog when you're still learning where you need to be and adjusting on the go.

- I remember Expedient being so meme'd on but it's actually one of the most powerful utilities in the game when it's fully taken advantage of.

- Deployed Recitation-Adloquium may cost me a gcd, but the feel of that gargantuan shield completely soaking a mechanic is only comparable to Microcosmos instantly negating a heavy aoe hit.


I'm actually really curious to see where Scholar can go in Dawntrail. Together with White Mage, they both feel like the healers with the least room for growth. Sage is pretty new and Eukraisa itself opens to a lot of new things, and Astrologian is getting reworked anyway.

[fulminating]

-It's not a precious resource. you get 4 and 2/3 each minute kind of. Sage is there if you want to heal meaninglessly to keep your mp up. I like that there's still some semi-meaningful decision to resource management somewhere, even warrior doesn't have gaugecloser anymore to its detriment.

-seraph is stupid for the same reason summon bahamut is stupid. They took rouse away for the spectacle of a somewhat gaudy and less effective fairy.

-fey blessing used to cost fairy gauge. this was changed for some reason.

-You seem to be describing rouse.

Rouse, recast 60s
Increases healing magic potency and damage dealt by pet by 40%.
While roused, pet will be immune to stun, sleep, bind, and heavy.
(Stormblood release:
Immunity to the effects "Paralysis" and "Disease" has been removed.)
Duration: 20s

-I don't think anyone with any degree of familiarity about raid design was memeing on it for the effect, but the way it was presented in the trailer. The button being hit and a lalafell walking forward slightly faster was not as visually impressive as e.g. warrior's somersault or machinist throwing circular saw blades around.

-it used to be bigger

adloquium:
Shadowbringers release:
MP cost has been set at 1000 MP.
Barrier absorption has been increased from 100% to 125% of the amount of HP restored.
The additional effect "When critical HP is restored, damage nullification is doubled" has been changed to "When critical HP is restored, also grants Catalyze, nullifying damage equaling 125% the amount of HP restored."

I'm surprised you think sage has room for growth (and scholar doesn't) when it has clung to the scholar model so tightly so far. Scholar design peaked in probably stormblood or heavensward and it's been downhill ever since. They could literally just dust off the old action set and noone would complain.

[Renathras]

I'm surprised you think sage has room for growth (and scholar doesn't) when it has clung to the scholar model so tightly so far. Scholar design peaked in probably stormblood or heavensward and it's been downhill ever since. They could literally just dust off the old action set and noone would complain.

....

<looks over at https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ood-enough-now >

...uh...hate to break it to you, but apparently, a lot of people would complain. While there were a lot of yes answers (with changes), when I restated the question as the narrowed topic of just dusting off the old action set, it as a more resigned acceptance while also complaining.

I still think it's worth doing, but it does seem people would complain about it at the same time.