Just remove the fairy already.

[Riblet]

With the changes to the fairy coming in Shadowbringers, I think it's about time they just remove it. Reasons why:

#1. Pet no longer has HP or is targetable

The fairy is no longer a targetable, has any HP, or an aggro table. The SCH cannot use it for deployment tactics, or as add peal in FATEs / Eureka. It acts more like a minion at this point.

#2. Embrace

Embrace is now insta-cast and is no longer a button that can be used to individually target players. The result is less control but more mobility. Adding a trait to SCH that heals anyone within 25 yalms every 3 seconds with 0 aggro would do the exact same thing: an uncontrollable passive heal.

#3. Pet Skills on SCH oGCD

The nail in the coffin, pet skills are now oGCD skills for the SCH. No longer can you use Whispering Dawn while you are casting Broil or Adlo, you now have to use it at the same time you would hit Lustrate or Excog; while not casting. If they are going to act just like our oGCDs, then make them our oGCDs, not a more annoying version.

These are my thoughts. Make Embrace a trait, move all oGCD skills to the SCH. Dissipation and the new Super Fairy? Combine them into one ability. 2-3 minute cooldown where you gain 3 aetherflow and unlock new abilities for 20-30 seconds, kind of similar to how Dreadwyrm Trance was in Heavensward. We can keep the gauge, just rename it something like "static aether: aether that is left over from our aetherflow abilities that is gathered by the SCH". It would still allow the use of Fey Union but prevent the previous fairy oGCDs from working.

They are already killing off Selene in Shadowbringers, just take her sister too.

[ty_taurus]

nah im good

[LegoTechnic]

I have conflicts in this situation, but I don't want to lose the fairy. It's fun, and she's cute.

I can think of two moments specifically where the fairy being targetable came into play in major ways during challenging encounters, those being Titania and Brute Justice. With Titania back in ARR, her conflagration move required you to stack a number of people in the fire field to split the fireball damage and keep the stunned person from dying. Back then, this mechanic split among all "targets", so one of the fun benefits of having a SCH or SMN is that their fairies and egis counted as targets, so having them nearby reduced the split damage a little. My other example was Brute Justice, where I had the ignomious honor of unknowingly wiping the raid multiple times by positioning the fairy in the safe "run-to" spot during the 3rd phase merry-go-round. As it turned out, Brute's big beam laser could (and often would) target the fairy as if it were a player even though the laser did practically nothing to the fairy, and by putting the fairy in the safe spot we intended to run into (because the boss wouldn't kill it there), it occasionally caused the boss to beam the area as we ran into it. Once we figured this out it led to being able to laugh as lasers shot off to nowhere throughout the fight, but it was extremely frustrating not realizing what was happening and wiping multiple times to it.

As such, having the fairy be immortal is kind of a nice quality of life change, especially since it means the fairy will no longer die to cleaves, meaning now we can just stick it right up the boss's ass without caring one tiny bit about it being hit. We can literally sit it on top of the tank during Fey Union tether no matter what punch, stomp, dragon breath, or monkey fart they bust out, and that's convenient, because having the fairy die because it was too close to the tank is annoying. I will however miss being able to use the fairy as a threat diversion by splitting heal aggro with it, since I almost guarantee fairy aggro will from now on be associated as SCH aggro. This is a bit of a downgrade because SCHs are generally fantastic low-aggro healers with the fairy splitting the hate, especially compared to WHM. Also not being able to deploy shields off of it is a direct nerf to the class's options, though this is mitigated with the powerful crit-on-demand Recitation, which outweighs the loss of this function simply by existing. Seriously, if I know I can crit guaranteed, there is almost no reason I would ever choose to not guarantee crit-adlo a tank with convalescence or tank stance on to buff its strength, so the fairy as a shield terminal isn't a huge loss.

All that being said, what I do regret is the change towards making fairy abilities into player spells. Seriously, this was kind of a neat aspect of the fairy in general in that you were able to command it while doing other things. Using Whispering Dawn while in the middle of casting Broil was extremely fun. Making Embrace an instant cast is fine from a gameplay perspective because it means there's no more "embrace lag" when telling the fairy to do something else, but making fairy abilities into player-casted things like Fey Union just makes them feel like additional SCH spells, just with a targeting positional set where the fairy is. That's disappointing. It's not game changing, but it's very disappointing, and just not as fun a design.

It's also a little vexing that embrace can't be targeted, but with the fairy freely positional it may still be possible to "force" it to heal the tank by putting it directly behind them in the boss cleave zone, though this would probably prevent whispering dawn and such from hitting the rest of the raid. Still, might be an option to plan for.

[gman1311]

No, I like having a fairy around.

[Magnedeus]

So you basically wanna remove the fairy for the wrong reasons. And what about new players who play SCH for the first time? "Awesome i got a cool fairy pet!" "why can't i summon her?" "Who's stupid idea was this???"
If you take away something which is very important to the job and lore just because of some changes to certain skills, then you bascally killed the job as a whole. The fairy stays, end of story.

[Iscah]

You'd also have to completely rewrite the job quests if you remove the faerie. She's very central to it.

[Truen]

They are already killing off Selene in Shadowbringers, just take her sister too.

This is something that bothered me more than most other players I think. But it's just sad that instead of coming up with a fun and creative solution to fix Selene they just turned her Eos. If that's not lazy design methodology...then nothing is.

[Brandedblade]

With the changes to the fairy coming in Shadowbringers, I think it's about time they just remove it. Reasons why:

#1. Pet no longer has HP or is targetable

The fairy is no longer a targetable, has any HP, or an aggro table. The SCH cannot use it for deployment tactics, or as add peal in FATEs / Eureka. It acts more like a minion at this point.

#2. Embrace

Embrace is now insta-cast and is no longer a button that can be used to individually target players. The result is less control but more mobility. Adding a trait to SCH that heals anyone within 25 yalms every 3 seconds with 0 aggro would do the exact same thing: an uncontrollable passive heal.

#3. Pet Skills on SCH oGCD

The nail in the coffin, pet skills are now oGCD skills for the SCH. No longer can you use Whispering Dawn while you are casting Broil or Adlo, you now have to use it at the same time you would hit Lustrate or Excog; while not casting. If they are going to act just like our oGCDs, then make them our oGCDs, not a more annoying version.

These are my thoughts. Make Embrace a trait, move all oGCD skills to the SCH. Dissipation and the new Super Fairy? Combine them into one ability. 2-3 minute cooldown where you gain 3 aetherflow and unlock new abilities for 20-30 seconds, kind of similar to how Dreadwyrm Trance was in Heavensward. We can keep the gauge, just rename it something like "static aether: aether that is left over from our aetherflow abilities that is gathered by the SCH". It would still allow the use of Fey Union but prevent the previous fairy oGCDs from working.

They are already killing off Selene in Shadowbringers, just take her sister too.

Nope. The fairy's fine, sorry you dont like the Aesthetic.

[Pyitoechito]

They are already killing off Selene in Shadowbringers, just take her sister too.

Technically, Eos and Selene are not siblings. They're just different aspects of the same fairy.

[Deceptus]

Honestly, if the Fairy is the major balancing tipping point of SCH, it would probably be better to remove it or do like PVP does (it's not always there.)

Because SCH can never truly be balanced as long as the fairy is always there.