Miasma II: A skill reborn right

[sumiree]

first time felt so useful in dungeon when tanker did a triple pull

[Eloah]

I do like this new version of Miasma II, the only issue I have is the melee rang I have to be in to use it. I wouldn't mind if SE gave it a cast and allowed us to be out of that range, but with familiarity to the dungeon and trash areas it shouldn't be as big a problem as it might seem initially. But nice work SE a change for the better.

[Azell]

Terrible annoying skill, cost way too much, last way too little and melee range lol only useful for 4 man dungeons, terrible skill for raid. I just wanted my 3 dots back, separate bio 2 and bio and i'd be happy even with the bane nerf.
"ok, stop crying about the aoe nerfs, get miasma 2 back, nobody ever used this shit so here a potency buff and shut up, but because you made me do this change you are going to suffer with the most annoying skill in the game" - Yours truly SE. :insertevillaugh:

[Riyshn]

Terrible annoying skill, cost way too much, last way too little and melee range lol only useful for 4 man dungeons, terrible skill for raid. I just wanted my 3 dots back, separate bio 2 and bio and i'd be happy even with the bane nerf.
"ok, stop crying about the aoe nerfs, get miasma 2 back, nobody ever used this shit so here a potency buff and shut up, but because you made me do this change you are going to suffer with the most annoying skill in the game" - Yours truly SE. :insertevillaugh:

Um? This is pretty much tied with the new version of Quickened Aetherflow for the best thing to happen to SCH in the expansion. It still does respectable damage in you can afford the MP to spam it on 3+ enemies (Remember that old Blizzard II was nearly the same (proportional) MP cost and was only 50p). Costs less than Holy/Gravity and actually does more damage than those two if you let it tick all the way (no falloff), letting you deal with other things for a few GCDs in between, like keeping the tank/party alive. In raid it allows you to cast Energy Drain without clipping the GCD with Broil II or losing potency with Ruin II.

[Sylve]

I ran some napkin math, so please correct me if I flub these. (For theory purposes, these at level 70 MP costs with hypothetically perfect timing.)

Miasma II beats both of the other DOTs on a DPM standpoint, with 1000 total potency-per-minute vs 700 and 750 for base-values for Bio II and Miasma respectively. And that's not even taking the Bane scaling into effect.

The problems are twofold:
First, Miasma II is horribly inefficient for MP. I ran some numbers of Damage-Per-Minute:MP ratios for various numbers of enemies and gave up after I hit 50. It's that bad. We already have problems with MP efficiency, and this doesn't help.
Second, the 5y radius. Add 15y range to our AoE heals. That's 20y. We aren't going to be getting those max-range folks parked out at 25y from the boss without moving, and that costs time.

Well shit, Its almost like they acknowledge that we healers want to contribute more to DPS when not actively healing, But also don't want us to just spam DPS moves to the exclusion of healing and MP management ...
Also, why would you cast it more than once per 10~ seconds? Yeah that potency is nice, But the DoT ticks are also nice ...
Also, What exactly is bad for SCH's MP right now? Granted, Im only 64 on my SCH, but i can enter a boss fight with 10% MP and dps while healing the whole time without running out of MP. Does this change somewhat at 70?

[DynamoAce]

I'd say don't spam it unless you're really confident in your MP recovery, but I've really enjoyed using it just at the right times.

[YenNox]

Also, What exactly is bad for SCH's MP right now? Granted, Im only 64 on my SCH, but i can enter a boss fight with 10% MP and dps while healing the whole time without running out of MP. Does this change somewhat at 70?

Nothing is bad with our MP management. It actually gets a bit better at a level 70 geared Scholar. Only if I really mess up (e.g. when I'm sleepy) I get MP problems.
I love Miasma II. Okay, I don't use it much on raids and boss fight, only when there are a few adds and then most of the time only once, but it's still a great asset. And many people do 4- man dungeons on a daily basis, so this skill definitely has a lot of uses.

[Fernosaur]

We think too much alike sometimes Fern xD

I caught the rdm fever, but I'll level sch now. Maybe enjoy it.

Dude! I was actually thinking of coming back to the forum to tell you about my first raid night as SCH. I ended up raiding on SCH temporarily because one of our healers is having issues and won't be able to make it for a while, so I'm covering for them while another friend subs me as OT.

Edit: Holy shit super long rambling incoming! Read in if you wanna see some SCH positivity for a change.

Once we were done, I kept thinking about you cause I really, really felt SCH is a lot like old SCH now. Miasma II is... dude, THE WEAVES! It definitely is the new Aero/Bio, lmao. You will definitely have some MP issues if you abuse it too much, but with a ranged DPS using Refresh whenever needed this isn't even a real problem. It even helps them manage their enmity lmao.

The new Aetherflow trait is INSANE. I honestly felt a bit overwhelmed at first cause I kept seeing Aetherflow ready while I was sitting on one or two stacks due to old habits from progression. It seriously adresses some of the bigger MP issues that came with the high MP costs, and our gated utility being more readily available is wonderful. Likewise, while I still think the Indom buff was super unnecessary, it is definitely noticeable and I won't complain one bit.

Chain Stratagem and Cleric Stance (I just noticed they both have the same acronym so when I next say CS I'm referring to Stratagem) are also more or less interesting, since you have a little burst phase now, and timing CS with raid buffs is fun and something SCH didn't really get to do during prog before bc lol Selene.

Excogitation isn't super amazing, but it's a very potent burst heal and it's reeeaally good for scripted mechanics. For Twin Bolts in particular it sees a lot of use, since I can top the OT off without even actually having to worry about when I need to weave in spells. I just preemptively put Excog on him whenever I have to do Bio II, and then use Fey Union to top him off, letting the WHM top the MT off with a single Cure II and going back to DPSing. I found this is an extremely efficient way of handling tank busters, since the same could be done even in a situation in which only one tank is hit. Honestly, I think SCH is gonna be the de-facto healer for busters, since with those two skills in conjunction the other healer doesn't even need to worry about precasting.

Another thing about Excog which was useful to me during raid was that, if you know someone's gonna need a big heal in the next 45 seconds (which is honestly a massive time frame in this game) and Aetherflow is about to go on CD, you can use Excog on them and have a mechanic covered almost a minute in advance, and getting back some MP and resources. You could argue that that use of Excog could have been an Energy Drain and it'd be the same case, but in this way Excog actually helps you cover for possible mistakes. If you end up using the next Aetherflow on ED anyways? No loss. But if someone else fucks up and ends up eating your stacks to cover for mistakes, then you covered the mechanic with Excog and still had stacks to deal with surprises. Also, even if it is you who fucks up and you die, Excog remains as a buff so you'll even heal from the grave, lmao.

On the same note, I think people don't give enough credit to Fey Union. The response time is super garbage, but as with a lot of the more powerful fairy skills (looking at you, WD), it's just a matter of knowing the fight and trying to preemptively time it to the best of your ability, taking this delay in consideration. It would be great if it could be more reactionary, but being so used to WD's delay, I didn't find myself too bothered by this except in a couple of situations in which it was really bad. Fortunately, since I never really thought of it as an on-demand emergency ability, it didn't matter much that it was late. It's literally an Embrace on steroids to top someone off with relative speed without wasting GCDs. This is pretty welcome after the Embrace nerf. Again, more healing efficiency.

Anyways, I'm just rambling now. I only came here to encourage you to try SCH out again. I think you definitely will not be disappointed. There are a couple things I still miss from the old times, but I don't long for HW Scholar with sadness anymore. It's more like rose-tinted nostalgia now, hahaha. Even in dungeons! I had originally levelled WHM as my healer for doing roulettes and whatnot, but with Miasma II and Excog buffs, I think both of them are equally enjoyable and powerful. I'm really really happy.

[BlueMageQuina]

Radius is too small. Either raise the radius or the DOT duration to make it worth my time. I shouldn't have to run up to each enemy individually to use it /exaggeration and if I were to do that, the damage should last a while.

[Riyshn]

Radius is too small. Either raise the radius or the DOT duration to make it worth my time. I shouldn't have to run up to each enemy individually to use it /exaggeration and if I were to do that, the damage should last a while.

You people saying this realize that it's really just a superior version of the Blizzard II we've been using up until SB, right? No one ever complained about that being a 5y PBAoE. They even cost about the same relative MP, in proportion to our MP pools.