SCH needs some nerfs

[Jinzhu]

snip

I know what you said and I mentioned that even if it was 1s it would still be bad. Succor is a tier 1 spell and the equivalent of Helios/Medica, not Indom. Regarding clipping, you using 2 back to back isn't going to magically make it better. Aspected Helios and Medica 2 will still be better than using 2 for reasons I already stated. SCHs equivalent to a tier 2 spell like ASP H and M2 is Indom and you making it 300 potency is just going to push the burden onto them as the healing potency per damage potency isn't worth. Making it cost 2 Aetherflow stacks and keeping the healing the same would also be bad since it'd be 300 potency for a 500 heal which still wouldn't be worth.

I never compared Succor to Aspected Helios/Medica 2? Even then it doesn't matter because you SHOULD still compare Succor to Aspected Helios/Medica 2 since that's SCHs only GCD AoE heal and you NEVER use Medica/Helios in an optimized environment EVER. This means WHM/AST AoE heals only consist of ASP H/M2. It doesn't matter that their HoTs when it only takes 12 seconds for it to outvalue Succor especially that there is hardly any situation in the game where you would utilize succor > ASP H/M2. Succor is 375p /hGCD for 230p damage while ASP H is 660p/hGCD for 220p damage and Medica 2 which is 700p/hGCD for 250p damage. Just because it takes time for it to outvalue a Succor doesn't matter since most damage in this game doesn't happen within 10 seconds of each other and actually statistically most damage happens 30-60s apart from each other. The average distance between AoE damage in O9 is 40 seconds, same for O10 and O11. 12 is actually worse because there is small burst damage every few minutes and no damage for 60+ seconds.

I know that oGCD usage is the problem. I've stated in this thread before that Earthly Star and Collective are the sole reason you can use 0 indoms in 9-11 without hurting your cohealers damage. Ironically enough if you make Indom cost 2 Aetherflow stacks or change it to 300 potency you're indirectly nerfing WHM as well since it would be even more of a struggle to optimize healing with them them due to their lack of efficient healing tools. Which would make AST+SCH comps even stronger.

[Jinzhu]

The fairy guage is pretty pointless, but it does still directly tie in to your use of aetherflow and rewards you with a massive single target regen. Obviously you were going to use aetherflow regardless, but the point is the guage encourages that.

Now imagine the guage only filled through the use of Physick casts, something a SCH almost never casts and is in no way beneficial to the job. That's pretty much lilies, it's not only useless but goes against how a WHM should even be played.

I disagree I think the fairy gauge is pretty good and not useless. It's linked to the strongest regen in the game, Fey Union. Locking it behind Aetherflow is good design which means you can't abuse it too much and it's part of the core rotation of the job. I'm sure they'll add more to it come SHB too. Like you said the problem with Lilies is that it's locked behind GCDs but that's not the only problem. The main problem is that it reduces certain skills recast times which is horrible design, especially on healers. The problem with recast on healers is that 1. You're not even Guaranteed an extra use if you use it on CD and 2. Because you map out your healing cooldowns even if they do come up early you're not just going to use it. You're going to save it for effective healing. You're not just going to use Asylum when the party is full HP and there's no damage going out. Same with Tetra. If anything this skill really effects Assize and DB. Which leads to another issue. As soon as you use it on one of the skills, Assize, Tetra, Asylum or Divine Benison it eats all your lilys. So if you have a coordinated spot where you want to use a CD like Asylum but don't want to use your lily's on it then you're screwed.

[Grimoire-M]

-snip-

It wouldn't make AST/SCH comps that much stronger when you now get the option to fit Assize alongside a single Indom with no overhealing at all compared to what you would've had to do before in a SCH/WHM comp. Assize's damage potency is equal to its healing potency, which makes it strong enough that you would treat it as a damage cooldown all the time even if that meant overhealing, except when you have absolutely no other way to save a healing GCD within a reasonable amount of time. This is in comparison to Star primarily being used for its ability to avoid needing to use another AoE heal alongside it in the first place, because that full charged heal at the right time is simply worth more than the extra damage you might get from aligning it with TA, while Assize will almost never have that opportunity in Savage regardless of which healer you're paired with (all the more reason to buff its healing and nerf its damage). While ES can heal mechanics on its own when fully charged, Indom and Cure III are already more than capable of handling the majority of those mechanics by themselves. And when paired with an AST, WHM gets to use Assize in those situations where it's somehow not enough, while in that ES situation the SCH or AST has to pop another cooldown that typically isn't Star and Indom paired together, or use a GCD to avoid risking overhealing.

And yeah I should've used Indom with the Med II/Aspected Helios comparison there, not Succor. The point still stands that you're not using HoTs unless you can afford the time to, and I don't think it needs to be said that popping an Indom is still going to be better because you still get to use Bio II/Miasma II/Ruin II to weave indom in during that period while the other healer gets to DPS as well. SCH also has Whispering Dawn for those situations anyways and even with pet potency it's still more efficient than an Indom. It doesn't force a clip like CU does, it has better uptime due to the lower cooldown, and also has a larger range over CU. That's not even getting into the fact that Asylum is laughably bad in comparison to both at the moment.

And for what it's worth, every one of SCH's aetherflow cooldowns currently is better than ED in terms of a DPS gain, because the GCDs you gain from using them in the first place makes it more worthwhile. This is true even of the 300 potency Indom I've suggested. Even if you're using Ruin II this is still true, because you can always make sure you get to double weave inbetween a single instant damage GCD whereas your co-healers do not have that flexibility whatsoever. 150 potency worth of damage and 80% of the MP cost one of your healing GCDs later on doesn't make up for your cohealer needing to fill the gap unless you already had the aetherflow to spare because of the fight itself not putting enough pressure on you. At the moment, all of SCH's Aetherflow heals are all so good that you don't need to spend all of your Aetherflow to handle Savage fights, which is contributing massively to the sheer amount of Miasma II spam SCH gets away with in practice. Nerfing ED's damage wouldn't change that, and I don't feel Miasma II can really be nerfed in a way that doesn't destroy its initial purpose. Retuning ED into another ability that explicitly doesn't deal damage or only buffs Ruin II's damage would also help, but that replacement would still be used because that's a massive MP boost to fuel Miasma II spam.

I agree that the Gauge isn't pointless either. A single Fey Union tick is often enough to save a tank from an auto-attack post-buster. However, making Fey Union cost Aetherflow on cast is a giant nerf that would essentially remove it from the game. After all, why use it when you can just manage Rouse better? It would accomplish what we're both after, sure, but in a way that's even worse than simply toning down Indom in the first place. It takes 50 gauge to break ahead of Excog (assuming that ordering the fairy to use it also charges the gauge, otherwise its 60), and that's still spread over 15s, and you'd be encouraged to use as much Aetherflow as you could during the time you had it in order to continue to pad out the healing so you can minimize how many times you have to cast it, and it stays on one target as opposed to Rouse and roots the Fairy in one position once cast. And if you lose a tick due to movement you've essentially wasted any advantage you could've gained from using it compared to just asking your co-healer to regen the tank and be done with it. That is true of the current version but you can interrupt it at any time with only a minor 30 potency lost for using Aetherpact later on. This proposal loses a Lustrate/ED/Excog alongside that and those abilities are just plain better, particularly Excog.

There really isn't a better option than simply nerfing Indom or removing Quickened Aetherflow. What that nerf will be is debatable but I'm leaning towards my 300 potency/1s CD proposal simply because it's the easiest change to implement and accomplishes every intended goal without making SCH so bad they're unusable, despite what you think of it. They have the aetherflow to spare. And it's still a healing oGCD on a class with a plethora of instant cast DPS spells to double weave it in. It's a DPS nerf, not the end of the class.

On the subject of Earthly Star itself, I think it actually needs a third stage. Not for the healing potency, though. I'd scratch the potency boosts altogether and leave it at the initial healing and damage values regardless of what stage it is in to bring it more in line with Assize and Indom. Instead, each stage increases the range of the Star, starting at the current range, growing to normal AoE heal range in the second stage, then Medica II range in the third. That's an appropriate nerf, not really changing its use case, but gives you more situations where you can use it if you plan ahead.

And we all agree WHM needs love. Lots of it.

[EaMett]

Faerie gauge is amazing >.> If anything it's annoying because I want to use it all the time. Also wish it would tie in with the faerie's gcd.. but hey would probably be too much to ask for.

[Maltothoris]

So with the latest live letter, it looks like whm is getting buffs along with the mnk and the mch. Other than that, we're getting assurances that the lily and overheat thing are getting looked out. The only thing they're changing is potencies. It will probably be more on the lines of the ogcds(probably assize, asylum and tetra) and maybe regen than anything with damage unless they really thing its that bad of a disparity in the healing dps department.

Well, I'm a bit surprised there are job adjustments this time around. Basing off of what they did in 2.5 and 3.5, they usually never do them this late into the expansion. Last time I recall was back in 2.45 when they made all those buffs to the dragoon cause of how much of a liability it was back in Final Coil.( Was never fun looking forward to Nerve cloud after the add phase during that) So it's a bit strange for them to be doing it here. Well, the only thing we can do is what and see.

[Jinzhu]

Well, I'm a bit surprised there are job adjustments this time around. Basing off of what they did in 2.5 and 3.5, they usually never do them this late into the expansion. Last time I recall was back in 2.45 when they made all those buffs to the dragoon cause of how much of a liability it was back in Final Coil.( Was never fun looking forward to Nerve cloud after the add phase during that) So it's a bit strange for them to be doing it here. Well, the only thing we can do is what and see.

Yeah it's weird because while i'm glad they're doing buffs finally, there's no real reason to do them this late. Progs over, most speed kill groups are dead and Echo is like two months after 4.5. I guess it'll help those echo PFs to not lock down certain jobs. I'm more worried how bad these buffs will affect Ultimates as they are the only content that really matter at this point. If you don't know, the AST buff in 4.3 severely skewed the balance in UCoB making the fights only DPS check a big joke and made recovering from deaths to meet DPS checks easier. Then in 4.4 with the Collective and Lord change it just dominates with no competition since it's cooldowns work so well in that fight. I never understood people running WHM in UCoB especially after 4.4 when AST is just more comfy with all the new QoL changes they got. I guess WHM is easier and more comfy at a basic level but Cure 3 isn't really needed when you can Lightspeed Helios and have infinite mobility. The only time I see Cure 3 outweighing that is during add phase and even then with some simple planning you can turn that around.

[Lyth]

The ideal time to release balance changes is actually when nothing is at stake, as opposed to the day of a new tier or Ultimate release. That way, players have time to get used to the changes, and you have time to process feedback. You can afford to try some fairly risky experiments as well. Regardless of whether it shows no significant effect or if it skews the balance, you still have time to tone it back in March or April and try something different if need be.

A part of me is curious, too, to see what might happen if they actually tried something less conservative. What would happen if you tied Lily generation to Stone IV and Holy casts, and the number of Lilies continuously sped up the rate at which your recasts counted down, as opposed to at the time of activation? You'd have a sort of Stone-based Greased Lightning system. You could afford to throw out something odd and see what happens without consequence. It might fall flat, but at least you have time to refine it before the expansion hits.

[Niceville]

SCH doesn't need a nerf.

[LeonTrifang]

U-Uh I just started..... maining sch....... But there seems to be a huge war over it...... it also sounds like if I don’t use my fairy, then it will make people less upset because a lot of people complain the fairy is unfair.

[EaMett]

U-Uh I just started..... maining sch....... But there seems to be a huge war over it...... it also sounds like if I don’t use my fairy, then it will make people less upset because a lot of people complain the fairy is unfair.

Going about it the wrong way. You're willingly not helping the people you play with by doing this.