SCH needs some nerfs

[Limonia]

Sometimes I think they should just remove Energy Drain from Aetherflow (or remove it completely because it's an ACN ability anyway and put the MP on something else) and keep that only for healing.
I got too many SCH that only ever use their Aetherflow stacks for Energy Drain and nothing else because they would lose dps and MP if they did. If people are so low that Indomitability is truly needed and they still refuse to use it instead of Energy Drain there's something wrong. It is really great that they dps a lot but if they completely refuse to heal becaue of that they could also just go as DPS if everything the party gets is Selene's Embrace.
I'm also not talking about high-end speedruns here where every action is perfectly laid out beforehand but content where people could still mess up. I also personally believe casual or midcore content should not be neglected completely.

What do you as "experts" think about that? I only know that it's annoying to get a SCH as co-healer who refuses to heal and then uses Selene in content where getting heals would be nice, like in learning or casual farm parties. Do yo think content like that should be considered or should everything only be balanced around perfect play?

[LiddyGhu]

Sometimes I think they should just remove Energy Drain from Aetherflow (or remove it completely because it's an ACN ability anyway and put the MP on something else) and keep that only for healing.
I got too many SCH that only ever use their Aetherflow stacks for Energy Drain and nothing else because they would lose dps and MP if they did. If people are so low that Indomitability is truly needed and they still refuse to use it instead of Energy Drain there's something wrong. It is really great that they dps a lot but if they completely refuse to heal becaue of that they could also just go as DPS if everything the party gets is Selene's Embrace.
I'm also not talking about high-end speedruns here where every action is perfectly laid out beforehand but content where people could still mess up. I also personally believe casual or midcore content should not be neglected completely.

What do you as "experts" think about that? I only know that it's annoying to get a SCH as co-healer who refuses to heal and then uses Selene in content where getting heals would be nice, like in learning or casual farm parties. Do yo think content like that should be considered or should everything only be balanced around perfect play?

I don't think you can viably balance a class around players who don't play the class/ don't care about performing well with the class.
You're going to get annoying greedy healers in any content you ever do, regardless of job. I'm aware that it's more often than not scholars who do this, but even if you removed energy drain, let's face it, those players probably still wouldn't heal.

[Erakir]

What do you as "experts" think about that? I only know that it's annoying to get a SCH as co-healer who refuses to heal and then uses Selene in content where getting heals would be nice, like in learning or casual farm parties. Do yo think content like that should be considered or should everything only be balanced around perfect play?

Honestly I haven't seen any of the speedrunners in this thread suggest that we only look at that tip top of the iceberg. More that for non-savage content, every job is already more than capable and none of them have a ridiculous skill check to perform well enough to clear that content.

The mindset you're talking about isn't because of Energy Drain, but it certainly helps reinforce it in those with that mindset. I can't stand the type of healer who queues up for DF content, sees someone take extra damage and just glares because "I shouldn't HAVE to heal that" then proceeds to, you know - not heal them because it's not optimal. Believe me, I get it, it doesn't feel great to have to cast things you know are the things you want to avoid casting. I don't love when I have to Cure 2 spam for 10 seconds, especially when another healer says they could help but they'd lose malefic casts. I don't care what you lose, the tanks are dying right now for whatever reason. When I'm in content, I'm doing whatever I can to help clear it, and I'd say the majority of people I come across share that mindset. Yea, I'm gonna grumble at raising people non-stop in a 24m, but I *am* going to raise them if it's a net benefit.

In theory? I wouldn't mind some sort of change for SCH to push it more towards AF abilities only being for healing/mitigation - but you'd also have to redo/remove Bane on top of ED to do that, and yeah it'd of course come with rethinking MP restoration and potential damage tuning. At the same time I don't particularly mind it, either, and I'd still come across ASTs who stop healing someone because they didn't stand in the first Earthly Star in a trial roulette. Having a way to dump AF charges in a meaningful way that you forgot to use is likely something I'd keep in the game, though there are more options than direct damage.

On the plus side, every time you get a 'healer' like that you get to become better at solo healing and carrying DF parties through fights they had no right clearing~ Ah, Shinryu memories in 4.0.

[Limonia]

In theory? I wouldn't mind some sort of change for SCH to push it more towards AF abilities only being for healing/mitigation - but you'd also have to redo/remove Bane on top of ED to do that, and yeah it'd of course come with rethinking MP restoration and potential damage tuning. At the same time I don't particularly mind it, either, and I'd still come across ASTs who stop healing someone because they didn't stand in the first Earthly Star in a trial roulette. Having a way to dump AF charges in a meaningful way that you forgot to use is likely something I'd keep in the game, though there are more options than direct damage.

Ah, yes, I forgot about Bane. They could just make it independent from AF though and give it a longer cooldown. And the damage loss from not having Energy Drain would just make WHM and AST damage better in comparison. I guess you would need to remove Lord of Crowns from AST then as well... I personally wouldn't mind that though. As nice as it is to do more damage after getting an unwanted card, it's like with Energy Drain. Lady of Crowns just gets used on themselves at 100% HP to make space for Lord anyway. ;D
I would actually like it if they removed the damage from Assize and Earthly Star as well and put it somewhere else. I think because we already try to not cast any GCD heals, dpsing with oGCDs shouldn't come at the cost of losing healing oGCDs for it. I just seem to have seen too many healers trying to play like in parse runs in casual content with new players, but I digress...

On the plus side, every time you get a 'healer' like that you get to become better at solo healing and carrying DF parties through fights they had no right clearing~

But I'm having sooo bad luck with that. Really, EVERY time I get a full-dps co-healer it's in a party with multiple (new) players that don't know the mechanics (yet). Usually I'm lucky though and after like 3 wipes they finally start helping raising and healing a little. There's only so much I can do alone if people fail mechanics a lot.