SCH aoe damage and cross-role

[Giniroryu]

I get they wanted to nerf our aoe damage, but a nerf is one thing and bad choice of design is another. This is not for complaining about "the meta" at all.

But I have this feeling that just regular dungeons are going to feel pretty boring without an aoe we can spam. Why take away Blizzard II from us? Nerf to Bane is already huge enough by itself (I wish they'd reconsider that and lessen it) and is not like Blizzard II was OP, it was just a nice extra to have and we could at least do aoe damage. Now it's going to be Ruin (II)/Broil (II) spam.

Why not give us a skill similar to Blizzard II instead the clone of Stella we have as cross-role? This could work and anyway we would have to sacrifice another cross role so it can't be broken. Even AST and WHM could benefit from it at lower levels (I know I used Blizzard II in some low level FATEs with WHM) since it looks like the cross role system is meant to be used changing the skills depending on the content we are doing.

[Volene]

The worst part about these nerfs is that they feel completely baseless. SE acknowledged that WAR and SCH were too strong and their place in a raid group was all but guaranteed and that they were going to address that and balance things (part of the reason we're getting no new healer or tank, too).

For SCH, its desirability comes from its ability to put out a good amount of healing without having to sacrifice any GCD to actually heal, meaning they have very high DPS uptime at the same time. There are many reasons for this. The fairy, powerful OGCDs, good mana recovery while DPSing through Aetherflow and Energy Drain, and the fact that most of SCH's damage comes from DoTs that keep ticking when you do have to spend GCDs to heal are all a part of this. This is where I expected SCH nerfs. Toning down the fairy (which they did, technically, but now that the Maim & Mend trait affects pets, we won't actually see a difference), reducing our MP recovery a bit (which, again, they did, but worst case scenario is that we'll have to cross-class Shroud of Saints, which both other healers will already do for certain), giving us new healing abilities on the GCD instead of OGCDs (no, we actually got Excog and Fey Union which will both allow us more DPS uptime), etc. No, of all the things that they could have nerfed on SCH, they chose... our AoE damage? Wait, what? This is the one area where we were already weaker than both other healers, and the one thing that basically does nothing for raid balance. This is why I don't understand it. The most this will do is make daily dungeon runs unnecessarily long and painful. Meanwhile, we get Battle Litany on steroids and other abilities that cater to our strengths while WHM gets lilies that reward sub-optimal play, further cementing our place in the meta. But that's okay, because we got a QoL nerf to ensure WHM remains the better healer to bring in 4-man dungeons...? I don't get it.

[Giniroryu]

Yeah, that's exactly how I feel about it You sumarized it pretty well: has nothing to do with raid balance, is just a tool they took completely away from SCH for no reason at all.

[MsTanya]

Current maim and mend trait already affects the fairy, its a straight up nerf. What I don't get is they claim no new healers/tanks because they want to really focus on balancing the ones they already have, which got my hopes up, but after seeing the nerfs to scholar, the awful misdirection of the white mage changes and the slew of astro buffs that were unwarranted and unneeded, its kind of like they don't understand what balance really is.

[Volene]

You're right, it does affect pets. Pets just have their own scale that's roughly 2/3 ours for stats, then, from what I read up quickly. Embrace might turn out to be nerfed after all. Keep in mind though that the Fey Union that's coming up is looking to be really strong. From Mr Happy's video, it looks like the fairy gauge fills 30 when you use Aetherflow, and then 10 when you use an Aetherflow action, meaning you'd get 60/100 charge every minute. Then, using Fey Union costs 10 per tick, so 6 ticks per minute overall, or 18 seconds. That's not bad at all, considering that the regen's potency has been translated to 480 per tick from JP tooltips. Obviously we can't know yet, but I think that might be the reason behind Embrace nerf. We'll get to use this new skill very often.

[MsTanya]

He starts that video at 30 gauge, it only goes up 10 per aetherflow action taken so if you get unlucky with the trait proc which I'm sure most will, then youre looking at 30/minute. From the same video you can see the tick is about 5k per so 15k per minute in single target healing its kinda underwhelming unless you charge up the entire gauge and use it all at once. Don't get me wrong, its a great ability, however it just makes me think if embrace hadn't been nerfed how close to that tether would a roused embrace have been. Plus the tether is an ability so it is unaffected by healing buffs ><. MTQcapture has dungeon footage with a scholar in it if you want to see new embrace and such, although its only level 64 it does show a few things, even though its not scholar perspective you can see potencies of heals and such.

[LegoTechnic]

They didn't want to nerf SCH AoE, they wanted to nerf SMN AoE, which is why Shadowflare got a cooldown and Bane got reduction. SMN still have painflare, Deathflare, and now Akh Morn that they can AoE with, giving them high potency blasts with spread out use as part of the class design. The problem is they didn't give a thought to what that would mean to SCH for some reason. This is why SCH is now normalized to the 2-DoT, 1 DD spam gameplay that WHM/AST have been using forever, but with an even further apparent lack of AoE burst.

And as a SCH, we shouldn't want homogenization. Don't ask for a Holy or a Gravity because giving all the classes the same abilities is what got us into this mess in the first place, so ask for something different and unique. The bane nerf hits SCH very hard, but we were never the AoE burst class, which is why SCH made the best dedicated healer for add phases in raids while the WHM got to blow off steam. SCH was a sustained damage class which was its difference, whereas WHM was burst and AST fell inbetween. But now with half the dots removed, SCH DPS is more or less just a sad and weaker version of WHM's DPS with none of the AoE potential, and this is the problem. Nerfing Bane wouldn't have been as bad had we been able to retain more than two DoTs, but doing both together is just telling us all to level and do dungeons as SMN, which at this point I suggest you get used to because people are going to hate seeing SCHs in dungeon roulette as the gear level increases and Holy/Gravity spam contribute to speed runs, though I don't imagine that will be an issue until months in the future.

[MsTanya]

I have been thinking the same thing with the bane nerf, it was a way to tone down summoners with all their aoe and we just happened to be caught in the crossfire since they haven't separated us from them yet. Hopefully it is still fixable. While homogenization is bad just having absolutely nothing to help clear trash in dungeons is such a hassle as a scholar and will make roulettes and overworld content a complete pain, while we may not want to copy pasta holy or gravity it makes sense we should get something in its place then rather than a ~20-80 potency dot tick on a group of mobs while spamming broil 2. I wouldn't mind an aether ability that interacts with the dots similar to summoner that would in turn help with the fey gauge and that way it wouldn't be completely spammable but at least it would promote synergy in our kit and fix the problem of our nonexistent aoe damage.

[Rubiss]

The worst part about these nerfs is that they feel completely baseless. SE acknowledged that WAR and SCH were too strong and their place in a raid group was all but guaranteed and that they were going to address that and balance things (part of the reason we're getting no new healer or tank, too).

Toning down the fairy (which they did, technically, but now that the Maim & Mend trait affects pets, we won't actually see a difference), reducing our MP recovery a bit (which, again, they did, but worst case scenario is that we'll have to cross-class Shroud of Saints, which both other healers will already do for certain), giving us new healing abilities on the GCD instead of OGCDs (no, we actually got Excog and Fey Union which will both allow us more DPS uptime), etc.

Maim and Mend always affected pets. Check the current tooltips. It's just that Mizzteq made a mistake (she made several in her coverage actually, it was clearly rushed). It's just a nerf plain and simple.

[KDSilver]

Honestly... if they want to nerf Bane okay so be it but...

It'll be a little sad to spam Broil II on single target when there 5 more ennemis.
I would have appreciate a little skill with 50 potency just like blizzard II to keep us busy doing actual aoe damages after the dots being spread.