Stormblood Scholar could be back in 8.0

[Silver-Strider]

I would argue that it isn’t unbalanced and more so that if you are the cohealer of a sch that uses all his AF stack for ED then you gonna have a really unfun time. Also if you ever wanna get a really high log as sch you effectively have to screw over your go healer and pump all AF into energy drain letting your co healer do almost all healing and gl finding a healer in PF that takes this kind of abuse.

I mean, one look at the forbidden website shows that isn't even true. 99th percentile SCHs have upwards of 30+ ED usage and still are healing because they have their fairy abilities, Seraphism, Recitation, etc to heal with that they just don't need the excess AF stacks for anything else. You aren't abusing your Cohealer, especially with how low the healing requirements were for this tier of Savage, since you have more than enough tools heal with outside of just AF.

[Sylvain]

I mean, one look at the forbidden website shows that isn't even true. 99th percentile SCHs have upwards of 30+ ED usage and still are healing because they have their fairy abilities, Seraphism, Recitation, etc to heal with that they just don't need the excess AF stacks for anything else. You aren't abusing your Cohealer, especially with how low the healing requirements were for this tier of Savage, since you have more than enough tools heal with outside of just AF.

However 99th are usually done with group that can properly coordonate mitigation and healing.
I don't think you could reach that number (or let say just do the exact same healing rotation) by randomly pugging without the other healer doing some extra cover because in all likelyhood mitigation will be uncoordinated and some things will be overly mitigated and some won't.

So far however, what unfolds is that even if using 100% of your flux for either ED or heal, it neither makes you a healing or dps god. Hence the recent talk about "the illusion of choice". Unless chasing those 99th+ percentile, using your flux to heal as needed works just fine and won't make you parse gray. Best case scenario tbh.

[Supersnow845]

However 99th are usually done with group that can properly coordonate mitigation and healing.
I don't think you could reach that number (or let say just do the exact same healing rotation) by randomly pugging without the other healer doing some extra cover because in all likelyhood mitigation will be uncoordinated and some things will be overly mitigated and some won't.

So far however, what unfolds is that even if using 100% of your flux for either ED or heal, it neither makes you a healing or dps god. Hence the recent talk about "the illusion of choice". Unless chasing those 99th+ percentile, using your flux to heal as needed works just fine and won't make you parse gray. Best case scenario tbh.

Okay but still what nobody has explained to me is if using 100% aetherflow doesn’t make you a healing god and 100% ED doesn’t make you a DPS god why do people continue to say it’s unbalanced and problematic.

If anything the fact that ED reigns in SCH’s healing potential but ED isn’t strong enough to make chadding your Co healer really worth it is exactly the type of balance an ability like this should be going for

Removing it does nothing but skyrocket SCH to SGE levels of problematic healing output and removes avenues of optimisation for people who like SCH to benefit people who already can just play “SCH with no energy drain” as SGE right now. Excessively using ED when you shouldn’t isn’t grounds to remove ED it’s a mark of a bad healer, when someone excessively spams medica 2 we don’t ask them to delete medica 2, we say that person is a bad healer

[Sylvain]

Okay but still what nobody has explained to me is if using 100% aetherflow doesn’t make you a healing god and 100% ED doesn’t make you a DPS god why do people continue to say it’s unbalanced and problematic.

Because balanced would be that all 4 healers when played optimally deal the same amount of damage and healing.


So then we need to define what is "playing optimally".

If we say "Playing optimally" is "being able to keep the group alive without the use of gcd heal (lilly being an exception), then in that regard, healers are perfectly balanced because it is possible to heal through any content without one healer being more susceptible to use gcd heal more often than another. If a WHM has to do an MedicaII, in all likelyhood AST will have to do an aspected helios. Same goes for shielding more especially with Deploy / Zoe.

But this isn't really what we define as playing optimally is it?

Most people here would consider playing optimally being, "doing the most damage".
Currently, there's an assymetry within healers regarding healing at the expense of dps or vice versa.
WHM, AST and obviously SCH can sacrifice healing to enhance their DMG.
Sage cannot.

So indeed I would agree, there's an unbalance because Sage can reach peak healing without dropping its dps compared to other healers and most notably SCH due to both sharing the "shielder" sub-role.

If a SCH uses all his AF, he gets 1 extre EF over sage through the use of dissipation over Rhizomata (risotto as I call it), it can exceed Sage healing output through the use of 1 extra "flux ogcd" every 3min.

While I don't think it should be called an illusion of choice anymore because there's simply no choice there. Your goal is to heal while dps-ing as much as possible. The first and number one priority is to heal which means that assuming all things being equal between SCH and SAGE, if to pass through a fight, SCH had to use 24 AF to heal, Sage should have had required the same amount.
This would mean both healer are perfectly balance healing wise. They required the same ressource for the same result.

There's no illusion of choice, the fight required a set amount of healing, both managed to get through using the same amount of flux-ogcd, there's no choice. The SCH couldn't have chosen to heal less to do more ED as it would have resulted in a wipe due to a lack of healing. Both played optimally, using the bare minimum amount of healing.

The difference now is the DPS. The Sage cannot use the leftover flux to DPS, it has to randomly throw some [whatever]chole to regen mp whereas SCH can dump them into ED enhancing its damage which at face value means SCH is at an advantage. SCH can further enhance its damage whereas sage cannot.

Excessively using ED when you shouldn’t isn’t grounds to remove ED it’s a mark of a bad healer, when someone excessively spams medica 2 we don’t ask them to delete medica 2, we say that person is a bad healer

I would agree, the issue isn't ED.
The issue is that there's a clear assymetrie and no one can agree on where both healer should stand.

So the real question is, since sage cannot further enhance its damaging capability through an equivalent form of ED, where should SCH stands compared to it?
Basically, what should be the "default" amount of ED usage per fight?
This is the issue, because it is a totally arbitrary number. No matter what you feel is right for no matter the reason, the end result will be that there will be scenarios where SCH < SAG and some where SAG < SCH.

If we consider that SCH and SAG dps should be based around using 0 ED, then any EX and Savage will end up with both probably being "tight" at first due to a lack of gear, but as gear increase SCH would irrevocably outDPS Sage ans its ED using would slowly go from 0 to "maximum uptimal usage". Basically, the optimal healing would result in more ED as gear increases.

The same problem occurs if you want to consider SAG and SCH dps being equal when using 100% ED, then that strictly put SCH at a disadvantage especially so when the dps will matter the most, early on in a fight.

If you pick any value in between, why that value? ED usage will evolve as gear increases beside in ULT so will ED contribution.

The issue comes from here as you pointed, SAG can go 100% healing without repercussion, its damage is fixed. (If anything it's a net positive over other healers as doing a gcd-heal refunds an Adderstring which can be of some help vs what ruinII offers).

To some extent the same issue arise with WHM and AST with Assize and Earthly Star

Due to the assymetrie, Sage and Scholar CANNOT be balanced dps-wise.
Sage being the "most stable" as in, it cannot enhance its damage by healing more optimally, where should Scholar stands compared to it?

Same goes for WHM and AST to some extent. If anything, WHM AST and SCH should be systematically compared to sage.

So in fact, if all healers but sage can further enhance their DPS by wasting heal, (ED, Assize, Star), the easiest solution would be to actually give Sage ED xD.

[Supersnow845]

Up until your last line my entire interpretation of your post was basically “this is just reading to me like SGE is the problem for having no flux capacity and then you basically all just said it at the end

SGE is too static because any amount of addersgall beyond what’s needed to clear is just wasted healing the SGE can’t weaponise, I don’t see that as a SCH problem I see that as a SGE problem, sure there are situations where a SCH overuses energy drain but that doesn’t make the skill actually problematic

Any healing SGE does beyond the max needed is just wasted, SCH can dump it off as excess damage, to me that reads that SGE is the badly designed one

[BabyYoda]

So in fact, if all healers but sage can further enhance their DPS by wasting heal, (ED, Assize, Star), the easiest solution would be to actually give Sage ED xD.

Or remove the choice and keeping the role in stable state.

[Supersnow845]

Or remove the choice and keeping the role in stable state.

Stable compared to what

Healers have always existed in a space where DPS and healing are in constantly flux based on party quality and gear

SGE being basically forcibly locked into maximum output at all times is the anomaly here

[BabyYoda]

Up until your last line my entire interpretation of your post was basically “this is just reading to me like SGE is the problem for having no flux capacity and then you basically all just said it at the end

SGE is too static because any amount of addersgall beyond what’s needed to clear is just wasted healing the SGE can’t weaponise, I don’t see that as a SCH problem I see that as a SGE problem, sure there are situations where a SCH overuses energy drain but that doesn’t make the skill actually problematic

Any healing SGE does beyond the max needed is just wasted, SCH can dump it off as excess damage, to me that reads that SGE is the badly designed one

Imagine of we have old kit dark knight.. but you consume 3% of your health to do 3% extra damage, it is underwhelming and doesn't reflect any meaningful change.
And how you balance dark knight now to other tanks?
Either you give all tanks same kind of skill or you remove this mechanic completely.

Keeping it will cause balance issue or homenization issue

[BabyYoda]

Stable compared to what

Healers have always existed in a space where DPS and healing are in constantly flux based on party quality and gear

SGE being basically forcibly locked into maximum output at all times is the anomaly here

I have no problem making jobs more skill based.. but not as cost of the main reason why this job exist.

Choice should be around 2 similar things but will make an impact on the fight.. like:

Do I have to use shield or regen?
Do I have to use shield or mitigation?

Not like:

Do I have to choose between damage or healing.

[Sylvain]

Up until your last line my entire interpretation of your post was basically “this is just reading to me like SGE is the problem for having no flux capacity and then you basically all just said it at the end

Well I do believe it's important to phrase things properly to be sure we're talking about the same thing.
However I didn't say "Sage is the problem", I said the asymetry is. And sure it comes from a single job but the problem could also be fixed by making Star and Assize do 0 damage and removing ED.
That would kill that optimisation but would at least solve the whole drama regarding ED usage.

SGE is too static because any amount of addersgall beyond what’s needed to clear is just wasted healing the SGE can’t weaponise, I don’t see that as a SCH problem I see that as a SGE problem, sure there are situations where a SCH overuses energy drain but that doesn’t make the skill actually problematic

Any healing SGE does beyond the max needed is just wasted, SCH can dump it off as excess damage, to me that reads that SGE is the badly designed one

It's a SCH problem because we compare scholar and sage together all the time.

If you make SCH damage based of 0 ED usage, the it should exceeds Sage by using ED, sage will complain, get a buff which would lead to Sage out performing 0 ED SCH, so you'd "have to" use ED, sparkling yet another bajillions threads about ED.

Sage not having ED is definitely, also, a SCH problem.

Or remove the choice and keeping the role in stable state.

There's no choice.
If you used ED instead of keeping them to heal, it is litterally the equivalent of throwing away your ogcd heal as any other healer and wonder why you can't heal.

ED's function is "once you're done with healing, dump the excess with that".
That's not a choice, Sage also does this by throwing Druochole to regen mp. It is the exact same thing, except that one does damage and one doesn't.

But you can't choose to do more damage. if you "choose" to make more damage at the expense of healing (and a real expense), people will die.

Do I have to choose between damage or healing.

You litterally do that every gcd