Thread: Sch wishlist for 5.0

Originally Posted by Ftail

Making Indom a 300 heal would just mean people would never use it and only use Fey Cradle to help AOE heal when that's up every minute instead. This would result in pushing the healing burden onto the other two healers, meaning even lower DPS for them.

I've gone over why it's a fair trade in other threads already, but in short terms, optimal Healer DPS requires -both- healers to minimize their healing GCDs. Almost any oGCD resources they can apply to healing come first, even a 300 potency AoE heal. AST can single weave nearly on demand, and it and WHM both have limited windows where they can double weave, but usually they don't have a way to capitalize on it. Anywhere you can enable both of them to do in order to weave their cooldowns in takes priority over your cooldowns.

Let's take a look at what SCH brings:
- SCH, in exchange for its average personal DPS and weaker raw healing GCDs, has the strongest oGCD kit in the game currently, with a near monopoly on the best mitigation tools available to any healer.
- SCH is the only healer who can double-weave and still DPS while moving on demand irregardless of their position. This is why Ruin II hasn't been updated. And why I didn't include an update to it in my proposal. I'd only upgrade it if WHM and AST both got an equivalent to it.
- SCH is the only healer who can flex their healing resources into DPS on demand. Energy Drain enables them to maintain DPS while single weaving if they choose to use it. Miasma II makes it an actual DPS gain over straight Broil II spam, and allows them to single oGCD heal alongside it.
- SCH is the only healer who has access to oGCDs they can use without needing to weave either in with Ruin/Miasma II at all, and a free seperate GCD heal at no cost to them. The Fairies are almost overkill with the amount of value they provide on their own. For comparison's sake the WHM in an AST/WHM comp is guaranteed to use at least a seventh of their GCDs providing slightly weaker amounts of tank regen over the course of a fight. Which is why that healing pair barely exists. Hell, Whispering Dawn is seeing use as a tank regen. In Savage. The only way to address some of the extra value the fairies provide is to trim down some of SCH's other raw power. Indom and the excess Aetherflow they get in fights already are the primary culprits for this, and given both fairies have a near-monopoly on SCH's single target healing output, it would be fair to take away from a bit of that too to mitigate the AoE loss.


Now let's address each of my proposals:
- Overflow will allow you to bank Aetherflow and flex up to 12 stacks (factoring in Dissipation and an all but guaranteed aetherflow refresh) within 9GCDs (about 22s without any clipping factored in). This can be done in the opener, or at any time within a fight provided you're able to wait a minute for a natural Aetherflow refresh before spending anything. In more realistic terms it lets you flex your initial 3 aetherflow that you'd normally spend immediately anywhere you want in a fight bare minimum, and lets you consistently use Dissipation for extra value in jump phases with minimal loss. Do not underestimate this. Flexibility has more power than people give it credit for.

- The wording on Focus is very specific. It's 100% Crit Rate, without the single target clause that MCH has on Dismantle. This means you guarantee a Crit-Succor on your entire party or Crit-Adlo, both of which can be deployed (Succor requires you to use the Fairy, and is only realistically useful for back to back AoEs the same way PI was before the buff). This gives 45% more healing + Shield potency, the latter of which would be doubled in the case of the current Adlo, giving you an effective 870 potency shield on one target, which could be spread. The reason I removed Critlo is because that gives you a reliable way to basically double your party's effective HP, before factoring in healing bonuses such as Largesse/Mantra and so on. That's how good it is. No other healer could come close to competing with that. It has to be removed because of the kind of cheese that enables would all but kill AST/WHM. And even if you don't need it on a heal, at worst it's almost equivalent to a free Energy Drain in damage when used on Bio II (100% crit rate snapshots onto every tick), and that can still be spread via Bane when applicable.

- Fey Cradle is affected by pet potency, which puts it at 75% of what I stated, making it's '450 Potency' into 337.5 player potency in practice. Yes it will see use, but not more than Indom. In order to use it at all you need to spend 5 aetherflow to access it, and it comes at the cost of 862.5 HoT potency from Fey Union [(480 - 250 from Embraces you would've had access to) x 5 Ticks x 0.75 Pet Potency = 862.5 over 15s], which gives it some realistic tension. It will certainly see use because it's worth it, but the reason I added it at all was to help bridge the gap between Eos and Selene in terms of AoE healing. Realistically you won't be able to use it on cooldown either, due to not having enough aetherflow to spend in the first place, particularly if you plan to take advantage of Overflow. You'd actually have to use Dissipation on cooldown and save the Aetherflow you gain from it till after the Fairy lockout window was over to even use it once per minute. In practice, you'll average out to using it once every 70-75s, with some wiggle room on where it lands. It's fairer than it seems on the surface.

- Fey Covenant's changes actually make it 20% magic damage reduction across all party members. I don't know if you know this but the 20% MDEF boost works the same way Foresight did in Heavensward, actually granting about 6-10% damage reduction to everyone in practice. I moved it over to Selene because it makes more sense for a 'Support' style pet and she needs it more than Eos does. The AoE Esuna on Fey Caress is just as useless on Eos but having one useless ability helps when you want to break a Fey Union tether without having to weave it in manually, which is a minor buff to Eos. Selene will be better in instances with known back to back AoE healing that Covenant can help mitigate while Eos will retain her universally applicable 'healer pet' niche with minimal losses.

- As for Indom, please read the cooldown again. That turns it into an AoE Lustrate. That means you can use it back to back easily. Indom's short cooldown will let you use two in one GCD with some moderate clipping that's almost equal to equivalent to a swiftcast after a full-cast GCD in most cases. It hurts, but not as much as you think. You'd do it instead of making the WHM use Cure III for sure, and with Overflow letting you stockpile Aetherflow for the big AoEs, the hit will be marginal. You can avoid needing to clip at all sometimes with Fey Cradle while still weaving in an ED if you want to. You just wouldn't be able to rely on a single Indom, but you can adjust its use based on what your co-healer is able to provide alongside it.

- Putrefy replacing Miasma II is purely a nerf. Intentionally so. Ruin II is good already, and this intentionally makes it the better DPS spell to use without specific planning. Of all the changes I've suggested, this is the most contentious one, but it's necessary imo. ED + Ruin II is already a DPS gain over Broil II. Miasma II actively makes you want to use ED. My other changes alongside this make it more of a cost to do so, and there should be a cost to weaving. SCH has plenty of advantages over the other two healers that enable them to almost purely DPS as it is. A DPS hit isn't going to kill them given how powerful they are already.

Originally Posted by Grimoire-M

Overflow will allow you to bank Aetherflow and flex up to 12 stacks (factoring in Dissipation and an all but guaranteed aetherflow refresh) within 9GCDs (about 22s without any clipping factored in). This can be done in the opener, or at any time within a fight provided you're able to wait a minute for a natural Aetherflow refresh before spending anything.

This is a terrible idea, any good SCH does not just sit on their aetherflow stacks and half the fun of SCH is weaving those Aetherflow stacks into your play style.

Originally Posted by Grimoire-M

The reason I removed Critlo is because that gives you a reliable way to basically double your party's effective HP, before factoring in healing bonuses such as Largesse/Mantra and so on. That's how good it is. No other healer could come close to competing with that

I can live with Critlo being removed, this isn't the first time it's been suggested.

Originally Posted by Grimoire-M

Fey Cradle is affected by pet potency, which puts it at 75% of what I stated, making it's '450 Potency' into 337.5 player potency in practice. Yes it will see use, but not more than Indom. In order to use it at all you need to spend 5 aetherflow to access it, I added it at all was to help bridge the gap between Eos and Selene in terms of AoE healing.

I thought you wanted to add Fey Cradle because you were nerfing the only tier 2 heal SCH has into oblivion. But, making it cost 5 aetherflow stacks, is just a plain bad idea. I also appreciate how you want to change up the fairies though, I just wouldn't go about it this way. 5 aetherflow stacks is also 5 energy drains, which is such a massive waste of DPS, I would never use it.

Originally Posted by Grimoire-M

That means you can use it back to back easily. Indom's short cooldown will let you use two in one GCD with some moderate clipping that's almost equal to equivalent to a swiftcast after a full-cast GCD in most cases. It hurts, but not as much as you think.

SCH doesn't even have other tier 2 heals to compete with WHM or AST, and you want to nerf our only tier 2 heal into oblivion and force us to use 2 aetherflow stacks to cast it twice.

Look, I appreciate you putting deep thought into how to rework SCH. But, I dislike all of your proposed changes.

Originally Posted by Ftail

This is a terrible idea, any good SCH does not just sit on their aetherflow stacks and half the fun of SCH is weaving those Aetherflow stacks into your play style.

Having to spend Aetherflow frequently to keep the cooldown down (especially for DPS) undermines the value of using it strategically for healing in my opinion. I find it less engaging the more I play it. It's not like I'm hitting your playstyle either, just opening up options beyond it. I agree it's fun to spend a ton of Aetherflow in hectic raid burst phases, but what this would affect is what you're able to do in the interim. I didn't get rid of Quickened Aetherflow at all. In fact I made it easier to get full value out of it since you can now save a stack when aetherflow is <5s from coming off cooldown. During prog you're able to save the extra stacks till you know what you need and burn to ensure you don't overcap, and in speedruns you get to flex where your energy drains go across the fight to make your life easier.

Originally Posted by Ftail

I thought you wanted to add Fey Cradle because you were nerfing the only tier 2 heal SCH has into oblivion.

It costs 50 Faerie Gauge, not 5 aetherflow. You still need to spend 5 aetherflow before you can use it (hence why I said access, not cost), but it doesn't matter what you spend to charge the gauge. You're trading Fey Union uptime for it, nothing else. I could see making it cost less gauge (30 would be reasonable, since that's one AF rotation), but I wanted to make it difficult to use on cooldown because the Fairy already saves a ton of GCDs as it is.

I'd be fine with nerfing Cure III and Star too for what that's worth. I'd like the second tier of Star to boost the range instead of the potency, as an example. And Cure III could be brought down to 450-500 potency too, but it could be left alone just fine, honestly. It already costs a GCD anyways, pretending that having it available all the time somehow balances it out against Star or Indom is incredibly shortsighted given how powerful both are. You're trading out Stone IV casts for it. AoE healing in this game was already fine in Heavensward. At the moment it's getting overtuned, and toning it down in general would be good for the game as a whole.

Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

Eos and Selene really do need to be merged. But this would also mean getting the fairy nerfed most likely, which needs to happen anyway I guess.

Why nerf her if they merge ? oO
The only impact would (I hope) fairy appearance change (and maybe glamour ?) and having all spells on 1 single fairy, she would still do the same job as today but we would avoid the cast time for fairy switch (or, they could make her summoning faster so we would not have to waste swiftcast)

Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

Because fairy abilities share CDs, so even if you re-summon them in combat you're still limited by that? Like if you use the AOE Haste on Selene you're locked out of using Fey Covenamt for two minutes or whatever even if you swap Selene for Eos. Giving SCH access to all fairy spells without any adjustments would be a pretty big buff for SCH, notably in regards to that spell speed buff.

I see, but on the other hand, the abilities of Eos and Selene are pretty different so I don't see the issue if they do not share a common CD