Proposed changes that would make SCH more intuitive and fun.

[Sovasin]

SCH is not fun to play at the moment and feels very clunky and frustrating. Here are my proposed changes, and the reasons behind them:

An action that gives you 3 stacks of aetherflow, only usable out of combat

Making aetherflow unusable out of combat was a really bad change. Dungeons feel awful, especially when mobs die just before your aetherflow comes off cooldown and you have to wait for the next pack. Keeping your aetherflow cycling every minute was a basic SCH concept that has been drilled into our heads for 6 years and this change runs counter to all of that. It feels terrible.

Yoshi-p has mentioned already that they can't code aetherflow to automatically fill after every wipe but an action like this should be a decent alternative. This would also REMOVE the need for SCHs to wait before pulling, as the action could be separate from Aetherflow itself.

SCHs having 3 stacks ready on pull was unique and was part of their job identity imo. Now aetherflow just feels like a regular cooldown.

[Sovasin]

Add an action that consumes all Aetherflow stacks in exchange for fairy gauge and MP or a nerfed Energy Drain.

Capping on aetherflow and having to blow it on random lustrates feels terrible. At the same time, Yoshi isn't comfortable with the amount of DPS healers were doing in 4.0 which is why I'm assuming energy drain was removed (and also because it caused SCH's heals to have an opportunity cost, which was Damage and MP).

An action that would immediately consume all remaining aetherflow stacks and fill up the fairy gauge would be an improvement, as it doesn't result in pointless overhealing and is effectively the same as pointless overhealing. It also allows you to dump stacks in one go instead of having to weave multiple heals. I think it would be good if this action would also restore MP depending on how many stacks you consumed, to help our MP economy especially in dungeons.

Alternatively, just add Energy Drain back into the game but without the damage component. We just need something to dump stacks on when unused - targeting the tank to lustrate and switching back to the boss is really annoying.

A good example of an action similar to this is MNK's Purification.

I'd also like to mention that if Quickened Aetherflow was still in the game this would be quite fun to use, as the cooldown would go down by multiples of 5 depending on how many stacks you consume, which would require a bit of thought as to how much you can delay using this action before the cooldown reduction would cause you to clip into your next aetherflow cycle.

[Sovasin]

Quickened Aetherflow needs to return.

This trait was incredibly fun to play with in sb and its removal was regrettable. Quickened Aetherflow doesn't actually make SCHs that overpowered. Yes, you get more stacks during a fight but you're still limited by the cooldowns on Indomitability, Excogitation and Sacred Soil. Getting more stacks during a fight just means you use more Energy Drains (and lustrates which were almost never used), causing an increase in DPS. With the previously proposed aetherflow dump this shouldn't result in an increase in DPS at all - it would just result in more MP, and more Fey Gauge.

Since we now have two uses for Fey Gauge the additional gauge generation would be much welcomed, and would encourage SCHs to use their gauge actions more often. This would also help strengthen their identity as a "fairy healer," something they are solely lacking now that fairies are untargetable and fairy actions are personal ogcds now. With the nerf to Embrace Fey Union will be used more often, so we really need more gauge generation.

[Sovasin]

Bane needs to return.

I think all healers in general need a way to spread DoTs somehow. WHM used to have Aero 3 which got removed and AST has none. It's a nice way to start a trash pull and to break up the monotony of spamming Art of War (if the mobs last long enough that you need to reapply dots). Manually dotting each enemy is incredibly boring and clunky with how dumb tab targeting is in this game. And with big pulls (like in MSQ roulette) I just skip the dotting step and spam AoW which is very boring. I don't find Shadow Flare too necessary - it was nice but the ground targeting system was clunky to use, and I doubt SE would want to give SCH too many AoE tools anyway.

Make Bane have a 100% chance of refreshing DoT duration.

Bane used to have a 20% chance of refreshing DoT duration upon spreading them. I think it would be quite fun to bane repeatedly, refreshing DoT duration on a pack of trash mobs until they die. This wouldn't affect raids as add phases generally don't last long enough for you to Bane a second time - it would purely make dungeons more interesting. To accommodate this change, Art of War's potency could be nerfed. By nerfing AoW you also wouldn't have to use AoW on two mobs, as AoW is currently a DPS increase on at least 2 mobs, which makes you run out of MP rather quickly.

[Sovasin]

Put pet actions back on the pet hotbar.

This was something that really made SCH's gameplay stand out from the other healers - they were the only healer who could micro their fairy while casting. This was very fun to play with and was what really drew me to SCH when I started playing it. Since fairy actions are now personal ogcds that have to be weaved I really don't see the point of the fairy - the only thing it does is Embrace, which is literally just a HoT. The rest of its actions are basically my own oGCDs.

Understandably this would reduce reliance on ruin 2, leading to higher DPS. To counter this, I propose the following:

Nerf Broil III to 275 potency.

With pet actions not being personal ogcds anymore you'd gain a Broil III every minute for Whispering Dawn, and a Broil III every 2 minutes for Fey Illumination. That's assuming you use them on cooldown, which won't always be the case. To counter these additional GCDs a nerf to Broil III should be fine.

[Sovasin]

Make the fairy targetable again, but reduce its healing received by 50%.

The reason why I'm suggesting this is for fairy/succor deploys. For those who are unaware of this - because fairies didn't take damage from most attacks in SB, you could use succor before a raidwide, and then use Deployment Tactics on the fairy to spread her shield back onto the rest of the party. This was a really cool interaction between you and the fairy that I absolutely loved. It also contributed to your identity as a "fairy healer" and was a fun optimisation to make. This is no longer possible as the fairy can no longer be targeted. I suggest adding this back into the game - however if SE considers this too overpowered they could reduce the healing received by the fairy to ensure that the second, deployed shield would be weaker than the first.

In addition to this, the fairy is difficult to see in combat now as her name doesn't show up above her anymore. I hope this can be fixed.

[Sovasin]

That's all I have. I'd like to stress that the actual potency of my actions don't matter too much to me - having an engaging playstyle is and should be the priority. Energy Drain could do 10 potency and I would still love to have it back in the game. If Yoshi thinks healers are doing too much DPS, that's fine and I would glady take potency nerfs. But the oversimplification of our playstyle and unintuitive, clunky mechanics that hinder efficient, fun play are very frustrating. They did achieve their goal of lowering our DPS but it was done by removing options rather than nerfing their potencies, leaving us with a sterile, empty playstyle that is literally less complex than our rotation in Sastasha during Stormblood.

Thanks for reading, and I'd like to hear what you guys think.

[Yulja]

That's a really great thread.

I would also say that for Banes case, we should get back Miasma, so Bio+Miasma can be spread again. Maybe both with less potency but atleast to get back the engagement and feeling for SCH. Also having Energy Drain is a must! With low potency and MP back, it just has to be done!!

Also the fact about having something out of combat like Aetherflow, they should just reverse the change they did and make Aetherflow be always useable. It's clunky and feels horrible atm.

I am 100% with you for the Fairy. The way she is like atm is not being a pet but a passive heal turret. Having the pet abilities on the pet hotbar is necessary to have a pet feeling(for SMN as well). I still don't understand why they even did that but they really should undo this change. Also seeing the HP bar of the fairy in the party frame is totally needed. Not noticing that the fairy is gone is just terrible.

Thanks for the thread btw!

Edit: english

[WaxSw]

I agree on everything but the "second" aetherflow outside combat, I think that they simply should remove the "Can only use in combat" restriction instead of giving us another skill that do the exact same. Hope the devs listen to the feedback and make changes for 5.05/5.1 version, right now scholar feels awful.

[Sovasin]

I agree on everything but the "second" aetherflow outside combat, I think that they simply should remove the "Can only use in combat" restriction instead of giving us another skill that do the exact same. Hope the devs listen to the feedback and make changes for 5.05/5.1 version, right now scholar feels awful.

That's what I thought at first, but apparently Yoshi is trying to remove the need for jobs to wait before pulling. That's why I suggested a separate action so it wouldn't put Aetherflow itself on cooldown, removing the need to wait for Aetherflow before pulling.