Scholar changes

[Freerider]

Yeah that's for sure. Debating going to play a tank or dps. They got all the fun toys this expansion while ours were taken away.

[technole]

That's a factor in my decision too, as the healer exodus could be interesting. The lack of a new job in four years, then homogenizing the jobs, and if they don't uplift the healer difficulty of raids significantly it's going to be boring and bleak.

[Ceasaria]

Yeah energy drain loss was pretty large, not just for the sake of MP and small damage but the job actually had an "opportunity cost" for spending Aetherflow.

Now the hard rotation will be Soil, Excog/Indom, Soil, Soil....until your eyes bleed.

Yeah, the use of GCD will become rarer than ever for the duo healers.

[Hanayumi]

Why is dissipation still a thing when we're getting more fairy reliant skills and loosing out on energy drain? Slap a 20% magic damage on that sucker or something... good lord, rarely used for yet another expac...

[RyuDragnier]

Why is dissipation still a thing when we're getting more fairy reliant skills and loosing out on energy drain? Slap a 20% magic damage on that sucker or something... good lord, rarely used for yet another expac...

We lose the aetherflow trait that reduces the cooldown by 5s everytime we use an aetherflow skill. Meaning it might actually be used now, especially with the fairy coming back after it's done.

[Knoahl]

We lose the aetherflow trait that reduces the cooldown by 5s everytime we use an aetherflow skill. Meaning it might actually be used now, especially with the fairy coming back after it's done.

We also lose the ability to build fairie guage while it is unsummoned, yayyy /s oh and it doesn't affect our aetherflow spells with the healing increase as they are abilities and not magicks lmao

[Hysterior]

Actually start to think that it could be fun to solo heal more content in 5.0.
4-men dungeon are probably going to be boring but 8-men content could be a bit more exciting as a solo healer

[dezzmont]

Aetherflow abilities might be important enough that eating your fairy makes sense, assuming healing costs are going to be 'WoWified' and healing has a 3:4 mana percentage used-Hp percentage healed ratio outside of outliers like maintenance regens. If you internalize how little healing that gives you, you might find you seriously need to just blow through all your aetherflow, your fairy spells, and then eat that fairy for another emergency aetherflow+low manacost boosted physic spam if you miss-managed mana at any point. The piety changes have the potential to make misuse of mana significantly less forgiving.

[Fyce]

I honestly think if they just return energy drain to sch we will be in good shape. It will just be a little boring to play.
The reason I started playing sch is because I was bored of the simplicity of whm. So much for that.

They can't really put it back.
The removal of Energy Drain (and Bane) goes inline with the new tools WHM received in the form of Afflatus skills. The goal was to make healers be able to heal without sacrificing DPS (or not much). Both changes to WHM and SCH achieve that.
The only difference is that in order to make it work, WHM received new stuff, while SCH got their removed. Feels bad, but in the end, both can now press more healing buttons without feeling bad about it. And, to be honest, it should've been like that a long time ago.

The only way to go forward but still keep Energy Drain would be to make it not cost Aetherflow. Just a standard oGCD for MP and DPS to weave with Biolysis/Ruin II. Because putting it back and let it cost Aetherflow would go against the idea that healers shouldn't feel bad for using their healing tools.
Could you imagine if Assize healed the enemy and cost MP instead of dealing damage and restoring MP? That's pretty much what it feels like every time you'd spend an aetherflow stack on something that wasn't Energy Drain (or Bane).

Whatever the case, now it lies within SE to tune encounter design in a way that pressing these buttons is relevant. And also to add more interesting stuff in healer's kit related to that new paradigm (probably in 6.0, and hopefuly with a new healer). SCH have to swallow the pill in the meantime.

Oh and, if you ask about AST: I don't have a clue as to what happened to them. Maybe SE thought that they were doing okay regarding "they can heal and not feel bad about it"? Like, giving ED a second stack, having ES, CU and CO might be good enough somehow. I just still don't really understand the huge CU nerf given that Asylum and more importantly Sacred Soil received buffs. But as they say "potencies may be changed" so... /schrug

[Ilenya]

Whatever the case, now it lies within SE to tune encounter design in a way that pressing these buttons is relevant. And also to add more interesting stuff in healer's kit related to that new paradigm (probably in 6.0, and hopefuly with a new healer). SCH have to swallow the pill in the meantime.

I feel like this isn't the type of pill we are meant to swallow.

Oh and, if you ask about AST: I don't have a clue as to what happened to them. Maybe SE thought that they were doing okay regarding "they can heal and not feel bad about it"? Like, giving ED a second stack, having ES, CU and CO might be good enough somehow. I just still don't really understand the huge CU nerf given that Asylum and more importantly Sacred Soil received buffs. But as they say "potencies may be changed" so... /schrug

I always thought Earthly Star was AST's analogue to Asylum and Sacred Soil since it came out. I suppose the other skill (Is it CU?) from AST may fit more closely for sure now, though.