Scholar Aetherflow Issues

[KilledByKangaroo]

I agree that it's annoying that we can't put excog on the tank pre-pull most of the time anymore. Even if the tank has pulled something the game still doesn't recognize that I'm "in combat" until I either heal the tank or hit an enemy so I have to do one of those things first for no other reason than to be able to use AF.

[Silphax]

Agreed. This was never an issue before because we had the ability to use AF outside of combat. With it gone, having to use a 3m cooldown ability that is already clunky by design at the end of a mob pull to get the same functionality... well, that's just bad game design unfortunately. It's not at all a required thing, but this would solve one of my own personal gripes with SCH, outside of an even more simplified rotation and unused resources being spent on overhealing or wasted cooldowns.

[Random_Guy]

the more I think about this the more I actually start asking myself why they even put the restriction on aetherflow for being out of combat only.
from what I read it was to stop parties from waiting before a fight so scholar could get his AF going into it and perhaps more, if that's even the case why not leave it as it was and just add the effect of Dissipation as it is now?

Course i could be wrong so I'm gonna ask here, does anyone have the reason why they even added this limitation of AF to begin with? If i knew more about the reason i would probably be able to give a more detailed response to this situation. Sorry if its seems really off topic but it feels like this question probably belongs here rather than different discussions.

[Nethereal]

the more I think about this the more I actually start asking myself why they even put the restriction on aetherflow for being out of combat only.
from what I read it was to stop parties from waiting before a fight so scholar could get his AF going into it and perhaps more, if that's even the case why not leave it as it was and just add the effect of Dissipation as it is now?

Course i could be wrong so I'm gonna ask here, does anyone have the reason why they even added this limitation of AF to begin with? If i knew more about the reason i would probably be able to give a more detailed response to this situation. Sorry if its seems really off topic but it feels like this question probably belongs here rather than different discussions.

It was sparked by smn's having an opener that related to the party being held up til it was off cd. Then Yoshi decided it would just be easier and better in general if all core mechanics were started at the beginning of the fight. As for dissipation I have no clue what you're talking about. dissipation can't be used outside of combat either due to the fact it gives you max aether and the fairy has nothing to do with aetherflow outside aetherpact.

[Taika]

I definitely think that having a DPS Aetherflow skill available (similar to what Energy Drain was before) would be the most important fix for current Scholar gameplay. As a Scholar, I feel like most of the time I am desperately trying to think of ways I could use my stacks without playing ineffectively (like using Lustrate on a tank with almost full HP). The stacks do get used during dungeon wall-to-wall trash pulls, but the issue appears in dungeon boss fights, primal and raid fights. For enjoyable gameplay experience, I should be able to use all three Aetherflow stacks meaningfully within the one minute cooldown, and right now it just isn't usually happening. And this issue only gets worse the better you'll learn the fight.


Other than that, and not related to the Aetherflow issue, I would love Scholar to get an AoE DoT ability, something similar to what we had with Shadowflare or Miasma II.

[Gemina]

We all know not having an aetherdump skill like energy drain is a problem. However, the glaring issue I see with aetherflow that I don't see many mention is the fact that three of its four skills are not only locked behind aetherflow, but also have their own cooldowns. I cannot stress enough how crazy it drives me when skills use multiple resources. DRK's old skill Dark Passenger was like this too having a long CD AND an extremely high MP cost.

I am ok with Indom, Excog, and Sacred Soil remaining aetherflow skills, but those CDs need to be drastically reduced; then just make all the skills share the recast timer. If we were to get ED back, it would make even more sense for them to set up aetherflow this way. I won't say the way it is set up now breaks SCH, but it's an annoyance I've had even before ShB and now that we also can't use it outside of combat, dealing with aetherflow is exactly that: Dealing with it.

[Deceptus]

We all know not having an aetherdump skill like energy drain is a problem. However, the glaring issue I see with aetherflow that I don't see many mention is the fact that three of its four skills are not only locked behind aetherflow, but also have their own cooldowns. I cannot stress enough how crazy it drives me when skills use multiple resources.

Same. CD or Resource. Pick one.

[Jerichai]

We all know not having an aetherdump skill like energy drain is a problem. However, the glaring issue I see with aetherflow that I don't see many mention is the fact that three of its four skills are not only locked behind aetherflow, but also have their own cooldowns. I cannot stress enough how crazy it drives me when skills use multiple resources. DRK's old skill Dark Passenger was like this too having a long CD AND an extremely high MP cost.

I am ok with Indom, Excog, and Sacred Soil remaining aetherflow skills, but those CDs need to be drastically reduced; then just make all the skills share the recast timer. If we were to get ED back, it would make even more sense for them to set up aetherflow this way. I won't say the way it is set up now breaks SCH, but it's an annoyance I've had even before ShB and now that we also can't use it outside of combat, dealing with aetherflow is exactly that: Dealing with it.

Good lord, no...we do not need to remove Indom's or soils's cooldown. Arguably SCH is venturing on OP when it comes to how much instant cast, MP free AoEs it has:

Indom
Sacred Soil
Whispering Dawn
Fey Blessing
Consolation (x2)

Cycling those should give you plenty of AoE damage coverage assuming you're using them well. And that's not factoring in more situation AoE mechanics and deployment tactics. If we were able to instant cast 3 Indoms a minute (and upwards of 7 if you include Dissipation and Recitation)...that would be straight broken.

SCH is already venturing into the territory of having too many answers to whatever encounters can throw at us, which honestly makes the class feel boring. It's another reason we need to opportunity cost of energy drain back to come back because it's too easy to just cycle between indom and soil...because what else are you going to use the aether on in a lot of cases.

[Gemina]

Good lord, no...we do not need to remove Indom's or soils's cooldown. Arguably SCH is venturing on OP when it comes to how much instant cast, MP free.

Let me see if I can be a little more clear. I am not actually suggesting that SS, Indom, and Excog have their recast times reduced to 2.5s, which is what I think some of you are under the impression I am stating. I actually never even stated what the recast times should be reduced to. What I am saying is that aetherflow skills already use aetherflow as a resource, and it is a flawed design to put skills in there that also have CDs. If the ability is so powerful that it warrants a CD, then have it operate free of aetherflow much like Chain, Deploy/Emergency, or Recitation.

After giving it more thought, I came to the inquisition of, "Why even have aetherflow at all?" With energy drain gone, we're all kind of scratching our heads about it: It can't be used outside combat, nothing to dump stacks on if we don't need the heals leading to overhealing, most of its abilities already have their own CD timer... seriously, why aetherflow?

[Jerichai]

Let me see if I can be a little more clear. I am not actually suggesting that SS, Indom, and Excog have their recast times reduced to 2.5s, which is what I think some of you are under the impression I am stating. I actually never even stated what the recast times should be reduced to. What I am saying is that aetherflow skills already use aetherflow as a resource, and it is a flawed design to put skills in there that also have CDs. If the ability is so powerful that it warrants a CD, then have it operate free of aetherflow much like Chain, Deploy/Emergency, or Recitation.

After giving it more thought, I came to the inquisition of, "Why even have aetherflow at all?" With energy drain gone, we're all kind of scratching our heads about it: It can't be used outside combat, nothing to dump stacks on if we don't need the heals leading to overhealing, most of its abilities already have their own CD timer... seriously, why aetherflow?

The cooldowns are there for balance. Aetherflow is there to make us thing about what kind of healing footprint we are going to have for the next minute. Are we going to focus on AoE? Single target? Mixture? With energy drain and bane we could also factor damage in that equation previously.

If you remove aetherflow, you take out one of the last mechanical expressions of "tactics" that are part of the Job's core lore and identity.