Scholar and Healing (ignoring the dps aspect)

[PaulH]

Hi,

I love to heal and have a WHM and SCH and levelling AST to 70 and have noticed that Scholar as mentioned is really quite tough to heal with since 4.0. I realise that there is thoughts and strong opinion around the lazy fairy healing bots of old and how SCH could dps with little need to worry about healing.

If we park the dps aspect and I guess utility does play a part in this and of course WHM lost out on a lot in this. What needs to be done? Do people think we need an increase with the healing output of either shields or physick? I just feel that the healing aspect of the job is off. Where as I can do content it is a struggle and I don't think the healing output is comparable to my other jobs and makes it more of a panic (sure some people like that).

I get people find the job clunky now and are not happy with the 4.0 changes but if we could sort out the healing potency I would be a very happy scholar at least in my opinion.

[Enla]

I don't even care about the DPS angle anymore honestly, I just want our potency to be buffed and more importantly for AST not to have better shields than we do and instant cast ones at that. Either half their potency to balance the instant cast or give them a cast bar like SCH's have. Likewise Succor needs to have a lowered cost as does Adlo, and Emergency tactics needs to be on a short cooldown or a more instant one. Don't even get me started on Fey Union and the other small potency buffs we need across the board. If we're no longer going to contribute to DPS as greatly as before, our heals need to be adjusted accordingly.

[MercuryAcetylene]

I don't even care about the DPS angle anymore honestly, I just want our potency to be buffed and more importantly for AST not to have better shields than we do and instant cast ones at that. Either half their potency to balance the instant cast or give them a cast bar like SCH's have. Likewise Succor needs to have a lowered cost as does Adlo, and Emergency tactics needs to be on a short cooldown or a more instant one. Don't even get me started on Fey Union and the other small potency buffs we need across the board. If we're no longer going to contribute to DPS as greatly as before, our heals need to be adjusted accordingly.

I was lvling AST the other day and you know what? I find it disgusting as to how more powerful the shields are to myMain. Back when SB was announced, I thought to myself, "Hey, why not lvl an AST? you know, for those times the team may need some of those cards, I can help them with that." now at lv62 on AST I notice my little NoctShield lasting a little too long when fighting mobs above my lvl. I sat there in Lochs to see how long it really lasted... took the 2 mobs 5 hits to get through and that wasn't even a Crit. I switch over to my i312 SCH and guess what? its gone in 2 secs... 1 Blargh hit. I took my AST and shelved it... I can't do this. It's like I'm cheating on my wife or something if I go AST. Hell, I would rather go WHM, at least then its a whole new experience with barely a shield to worry about. The problem is, I really hate WHM. it's still lvl 34 from what I remember.

[TaleraRistain]

I'm a WHM main but I also play scholar. SCH shields need some serious buffing. The thing that made SCH unique was their focus on preventing damage. WHM is the reactionary healer so we should excel in pumping out quick recovery, but SCH should excel in mitigating or preventing damage. AST is supposed to be a hybrid of them but has come to overshadow both classes in their unique areas.

[Enla]

I'm a WHM main but I also play scholar. SCH shields need some serious buffing. The thing that made SCH unique was their focus on preventing damage. WHM is the reactionary healer so we should excel in pumping out quick recovery, but SCH should excel in mitigating or preventing damage. AST is supposed to be a hybrid of them but has come to overshadow both classes in their unique areas.

Exactly. AST was supposed to be a unique blend that could do both jobs, just not /quite/ as effectively. Instead it's so overtuned that both WHM and SCH are overshadowed by comparison. It shouldn't go back to it's 3.0 days, but it does need some nerfs or balances to make the situation viable for all.

[Tashim]

With the current mp cost for adlo, it needs to have 50% more potency, *AND* auto-crit, to break even with astrologian.
Whomever thought it was ok for astro to get a base 2.5x multiplier on their shields, when sch only gets a 2x multiplier on a crit... needs to go back to school and learn math. Scholar is my favorite, and probably always will be, but I've lost alot of respect for SE in what they've done to it.

Excog needs to be reworked completely. There is no reason for it to consume aetherflow *AND* have a minute cooldown. one or the other, but not both. If its really, really important to have both, then its potency needs to be tripled to be considered for a place on my hotbar.

Fairy... no idea what SE was thinking. The new fairy gauge? near worthless. one skill that uses it? really, just one? and its not even amazing. if the potency was scalable with buffs, instead of a static ability, then maybe. But, with the delay in its animation, the inflexibility with its positioning, how fragile the fairy is to aoe damage.... That tether better auto-raise a target that dies with it on, or sacrifice the fairy to heal the target to full, or something spectacular to make up for all the pain and suffering that comes with trying to use it. Right now, I'm really enjoying Dissipation because the fairy isn't 20% of my healing anymore, so I guess there is that. but seriously, whomever came up with the ideas for the scholar changes... has NEVER played a scholar in any challenging content. It broke everything that was right, and focused on everything that was wrong with scholar.

[IanFrench]

With the current mp cost for adlo, it needs to have 50% more potency, *AND* auto-crit, to break even with astrologian.
Whomever thought it was ok for astro to get a base 2.5x multiplier on their shields, when sch only gets a 2x multiplier on a crit... needs to go back to school and learn math. Scholar is my favorite, and probably always will be, but I've lost alot of respect for SE in what they've done to it....

Along with Adlo, you also have free & 0GCD abilities like Lustrate for single target healing. This is the reason why Nact.AST 's Aspected Benefic has more potency.
And though aspected benefic is instant, it still has a GCD and not as flexible and quickly Lustrate.

Not to mention when critical heals, adlo still beats the aspected benefic.

[Liii]

Along with Adlo, you also have free & 0GCD abilities like Lustrate for single target healing. This is the reason why Nact.AST 's Aspected Benefic has more potency.
And though aspected benefic is instant, it still has a GCD and not as flexible and quickly Lustrate.

Our 3 free heals per minute are equivalent to both whm and ast cure2/benefic2 as well as medica/Helios. The thing is we don't have spammable heals available in a pinch which leads to us literally being unable to catch up on heals if shit goes south while stacks are down. Fairy is too slow acting to function as a healing boost in those situations unless you eat her for stacks.

Anyways, I'm finding that lustrate is becomong less of an oh shit button and more of a cure 2 for me because adlo is too freaking expensive to use more than 3 times (plus it's not good to use to top health off) and physick spam can't keep up with the rate tank health drops these days.

[EaMett]

After leveling SCH and WHM to 70 and currently on 63 with my AST I will say. SCH is in serious need of love.
It probably wouldn't take much. Maybe a slight adlo reduction cost and/or shield buff. + a trait that gives scholars a chance of retaining an aetherflow stack instead of consuming it. Perhaps 20% chance might be a good starting point? Or link it to some other mechanic.

[Guulu]

SCH really can't do some serious healing without aetherflow. Whenever I'm queuing, for example susano ex and omega V4.0, I'm hoping I won't bump into another SCH. If it really happens I can only hope another SCH is a healer main other than a SMN in disguise. Because the aoe damage is just overwhelming for a SCH to handle. Emergency tactics and indom both have 30s cooldown and succor really cost tons of MP, I basically need to use LD whenever it's up or I won't be able to do damage or even to heal. Aside from healing, shielding is quite frustrating as well since the adlo MP cost is increased. Also 300 potency shield with 120s cooldeown is not really helping, it's basically a 200ish MP less pure shield succor.

I have to say I feel that SCH got nothing in 4.0 but a chain strategem. Excog is only useful for tank buster, it is already mediocre for that but somehow it is given 60s cooldown, like seriously? I also find it often a waste for my aetherflow stack because it simply doesn't pop. Either being your co-healer is healing, or the tanks either get shielded or pops a CD and have like 53% health left.

Fey union is a joke that I barely use because it takes around 4s to activate and it ticks every 3s for like 5.5k healing. For 4s I can use lustrate, adlo and physick to make sure tanks stay alive, and tank it probably at full health now. The only use I find is when you are too far from tanks (lak ex) or you are occupied (susano ex). For me rouse + embrace spam is good enough for sustaining tanks' health, plus it has supirior range and fairy is free to use skills. I prefer rouse + embrace unless tank is taking some serious damage, but tank would be dead anyway since I only have at most 3 aetherflow available and fey union takes at least 4s to start its first tick (fairy need time to get there). Tell me why would I even need a skill that takes way too long to activate/build up and being weak at the same time?

lvl68 trait is also useless as SCH is likely to reserves stacks for upcoming damage. If team takes severe damage and your aetherflow stacks burned out so quickly it also barely helps. It's a 2s less cooldown for each aetherflow stack on average, for a lvl68 trait it seems just too weak.

I really love the concept of both excog and fey uinion, but they are just not strong enough to rely on. For healer i only play SCH and will only play SCH no matter what, just as I only play MCH as DD. Yes SCH can still clear contents (for now) but I believe it would take less effort to play as AST/WHM. SCH seriously need some buff at healing, in case you think my thoughts are pointless, I'm a lvl70 SCH with ilvl314 and I've cleared 4.0/4.01 content as a SCH.