Scholar Aetherflow Issues

[Hatstand]

A while a side note, the justification that not having aerherflow accessible outside of combat will prevent groups from having to wait for aetherflow to come off cooldown doesn't hold water. If I was going to make my group wait, I'd still make them wait under the new system, so I could press aetherflow as soon as the combat started. There is actually no justification I can think of for this change.

[Hunky]

I agree 100%.

Scholars should have Energy Drain back, or at least a dps skill that can dump aetherflow stacks; otherwise, you might end up overhealing.

White mages are having a similar problem with lilies. With no offensive "afflatus" spell to use up our lilies, we have to sometimes overheal just to access afflatus misery, which feels like a waste to do.

[RoseyDevlin]

I think they should bring back shadowflare to use aetherflow on. I'm most annoyed by Fey Union, I use it on the tank and sometimes it works and sometimes not, during huge pulls this is grucial. Not only is it slow but having to constantly relook if it actually worked or not is rather annoying...

[Ceasaria]

If they bring back Energy Drain, better to be capable to do AoE too.

[Connor]

I still feel like an aetherflow dump that gives a buff of some kind to a single target or debuff to the enemy on a short cooldownwould be more interesting for Scholar than Energy Drain. It does the exact same thing of converting unwanted stacks to DPS, but still requires strategic use in terms of maximising the buff effect (who gets out the most out of this?) or debuff effect (which enemy do I want do debuff, what will the timing be, etc).

As for extra MP management, while I haven’t had too many issues with mp as a Scholar (mostly thanks to Recitation lol), what if they made Dissipation restore a large amount of MP (like 50% or something) to give it more weight as an ‘emergency use’ tool? Either that, or how about a DPS spell that’s on the GCD like Osmose with low potency (like 50-100), but restores mp instead of consuming it? That way Scholars can still have a damage focus if they’re low on MP. Something like that would allow it to be used more strategically than the old Energy Drain because it has to be weaved into healing rather than happening simultaneously. Like whether you want to use it immediately for a small bit of mp, or spam for lots, to prepare for using lots of Succor / Adlo, etc etc

[tikiwiki]

I still feel like an aetherflow dump that gives a buff of some kind to a single target or debuff to the enemy on a short cooldownwould be more interesting for Scholar than Energy Drain. It does the exact same thing of converting unwanted stacks to DPS, but still requires strategic use in terms of maximising the buff effect (who gets out the most out of this?) or debuff effect (which enemy do I want do debuff, what will the timing be, etc).

As for extra MP management, while I haven’t had too many issues with mp as a Scholar (mostly thanks to Recitation lol), what if they made Dissipation restore a large amount of MP (like 50% or something) to give it more weight as an ‘emergency use’ tool? Either that, or how about a DPS spell that’s on the GCD like Osmose with low potency (like 50-100), but restores mp instead of consuming it? That way Scholars can still have a damage focus if they’re low on MP. Something like that would allow it to be used more strategically than the old Energy Drain because it has to be weaved into healing rather than happening simultaneously. Like whether you want to use it immediately for a small bit of mp, or spam for lots, to prepare for using lots of Succor / Adlo, etc etc

sounds like youre suggesting the boring astro cards for sch at the top and sch doesnt have mp issues rn due to the current gear have a ridiculous amount of piety forced on it

[Connor]

sounds like youre suggesting the boring astro cards for sch at the top and sch doesnt have mp issues rn due to the current gear have a ridiculous amount of piety forced on it

It’s no more or less boring in my opinion, does the exact same as Energy Drain but a bit more interesting than just ‘press for damage’. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a direct damage increase either, there are tons of interesting kinds of utility they could add to an Aetherflow dump besides direct damage

As I said MP issues are not something I’ve come across personally but I’m aware others have said differently (though it was largely mitigated by the Art of War changes)

[Billythepancake]

It’s no more or less boring in my opinion, does the exact same as Energy Drain but a bit more interesting than just ‘press for damage’. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a direct damage increase either, there are tons of interesting kinds of utility they could add to an Aetherflow dump besides direct damage

As I said MP issues are not something I’ve come across personally but I’m aware others have said differently (though it was largely mitigated by the Art of War changes)

The reason people want a DPS aetherflow dump over a buff dump is because a DPS dump comes off as risk vs reward. Do I risk that extra damage but not have a heal later? the problem with the buff is that it doesn't have the same impact, especially if it were as spammable as a DPS option, because then it couldn't have enough of an impact to really be more than a "may as well, got nothing else to do with it I guess" (not to say ED never did fall under that, but it was much easier to be greedy and be punished for it than a buff would) If we can't have ED back, then I would suggest giving SCH 1 or 2 dots back (which I still want back regardless of ED or not) and then giving us something along the lines of fester. Make the DPS aetherflow more interactive, and you're rewarded for having your dots up.

[Silphax]

^ Yeah. They've been mostly unreasonable and prone to throwing out insults instead of actually discussing things in a level-headed fashion. It's appalling how people will take things personally when the discussion was, in fact, only about how SCH needs improvement.

[Granyala]

I think scholar's in an alright place right now as far as healing, but lacking a proper means of dumping aetherflow outside of overhealing is a bit obnoxious to play. I'd honestly prefer if they added Energy Drain back into SCH's toolkit

The fix that I want to see is harder hitting content so we need our stacks.

Probably won't be an issue in savage but in dungeons I regularly just overwrite my stacks with the next AF. *shrug* Feels weird, I agree but it's not the fault of the class design if content hits like wet noodles with self esteem issues.