Scholar Aetherflow Issues

[Nethereal]

Well, the issue with locking SCH out of Aetherflow is that it locks it out of its major healing toolkit. The other healers aren’t locked this way: AST still has their healing tools (Earthly Star, Celestial Intersection, CU, COpp); they can still Draw cards (just not obtain seals—this, while annoying for openers, at least makes a little bit more sense: they don’t want us prepping buffs...you know, aside from DNC who can do that); WHM can still access Tetra, Bene, Divine Benison (they just can’t generate lilies, but the oGCDs should be their first line of defense in terms of healing anyways, then Solace/Rapture, then GCDs). The other two healers have access to their major healing cooldowns outside of combat, but SCH doesn’t. And while I’m not a SCH main, I still feel as if it’s a problem because it makes the job just feel clunky and not nearly as smooth as before. But this is my opinion.



Yes, I do all that you list here. However, it’s still cumbersome to have to engage in combat, then Aetherflow, then Excog, then continue on my way while the tank gather stuff. Especially since none of the other healers have to do anything this convoluted: AST can pre-pull Celestial Intersection/Noct Aspected Benefic, WHM can pre-pull Divine Benison. They don’t have to be engaged in combat to use these skills in their toolkit. So, for me at least, it just doesn’t make sense why SCH is locked out of a lot of its healing toolkit while the other two are not.

I also want to voice how annoying it is to pop Aetherflow as the last mob in a trash pack is dying to have fresh stacks for the boss/next pull, but the game server ticks you and registers it too late—which doesn’t give you the stacks nor put it on CD. Had that happen several times to me tonight. Quite annoying...

This honestly seems a little intellectually dishonest. I can say for a fact for me at least Sch does not feel as smooth as before mainly due to Fey Blessing but having to press 1 button while the tank pulls and then use Excog is honestly not that different. If you feel entering combat is tedious you probably don't have your keybinds set up conveniently.

And then talking about how the other healers can pre-pull shield, are you trolling right now? Sch has been the shield healer since release and it has never had an oGCD shield. Honestly it just feels like you're not respecting Sch's full kit. Even though the first pull is the most annoying Sch easily has the most oGCD's to use through a dungeon maybe even more than both healers have put together, is that fair to the other healers? If you really want a instant shield, use swiftcast.

Having said all this I want to remind you of something you clearly forgot existed. Recitation. You can use it outside combat despite it allowing you to use aetherflow abilities freely. You get where I'm going with this right? Considering you don't believe you should hold onto your oGCDs for emergencies I'm surprised you completely overlooked this.

As for the criticism of not having anything to dump your aetherflow into besides healing? Get with the program, that's how Whm lilies work too.

[Silphax]

This honestly seems a little intellectually dishonest. I can say for a fact for me at least Sch does not feel as smooth as before mainly due to Fey Blessing but having to press 1 button while the tank pulls and then use Excog is honestly not that different. If you feel entering combat is tedious you probably don't have your keybinds set up conveniently.

And then talking about how the other healers can pre-pull shield, are you trolling right now? Sch has been the shield healer since release and it has never had an oGCD shield. Honestly it just feels like you're not respecting Sch's full kit. Even though the first pull is the most annoying Sch easily has the most oGCD's to use through a dungeon maybe even more than both healers have put together, is that fair to the other healers? If you really want a instant shield, use swiftcast.

Having said all this I want to remind you of something you clearly forgot existed. Recitation. You can use it outside combat despite it allowing you to use aetherflow abilities freely. You get where I'm going with this right? Considering you don't believe you should hold onto your oGCDs for emergencies I'm surprised you completely overlooked this.

As for the criticism of not having anything to dump your aetherflow into besides healing? Get with the program, that's how Whm lilies work too.

That's the crux of it all though, really. Aetherflow easily gates half of your toolkit and limiting the amount of aetherflow you can get out in a dungeon makes the buttery smooth gameplay of SCH as before run into some odd hiccups in practice. As stated before, SCH functions with this restriction. It's only a matter of being able to function as smoothly as it had for six years without this unwarranted change. WHM has more immediate access to their oGCDs with the use of Tetra, Bene, Assize, and DB. You only have a mere three abilities locked behind lilies now, not a staggering half of your healing toolkit.

Recitation is great and nobody is contesting that, but it's a 90s CD. This makes for a great tool to use on Excog pre-pull, or on Indom for a chunky aoe heal but it doesn't replace the out of combat functionality that AF used to have.

[EaMett]

Indom without a cd and stacks would be broken. Just saying. Meta would be solo heal sch.

As for the criticism of not having anything to dump your aetherflow into besides healing? Get with the program, that's how Whm lilies work too.

Not even remotely comparable. The healing component of afflatus skills is irrelevant to the gameplay. It's only bonus. If tomorrow you took away all the healing from the skills and removed rapture to only keep solace as an instant cast that does NOTHING (short of huilding the blood lily), it would still be a cornerstone of WHM gameplay and be used regularly. Afflatus skills are basically a Ruin II with healing attached. Actually, not only that but it's a better Ruin II since it can be used to single weave and has no mana cost.

Even if that weren't readily obvious. The fact that lilies allow for some form of dps and AF does not should've been a good clue that they aren't the same.

[Gemina]

Indom without a cd and stacks would be broken. Just saying. Meta would be solo heal sch.

Nah. AST can already lightspeed+helios with nearly the same potency as Indom. I also said that the aetherflow skills would all share the recast timer, so you can't just mindlessly spam Indom. Aetherflow within itself already limits Indom usage, there really isn't a need for an excessive CD of 30-45 seconds when aetherflow itself is on a 60s CD, and can't be used outside of combat.

[EaMett]

Nah. AST can already lightspeed+helios with nearly the same potency as Indom. I also said that the aetherflow skills would all share the recast timer, so you can't just mindlessly spam Indom. Aetherflow within itself already limits Indom usage, there really isn't a need for an excessive CD of 30-45 seconds when aetherflow itself is on a 60s CD, and can't be used outside of combat.

I made my post before reading yours. What recast timer are we talking about here? Also lightspeed has it's own cd and 15 s uptime, different from having access to your kit whenever. One thing is certain, indom on AF without cooldowns definitely would not work. That's potentially 12 indoms every 3mn (6 in a row) in addition to fairy skills.... not gonna fly lol.

[Gemina]

I made my post before reading yours. What recast timer are we talking about here? Also lightspeed has it's own cd and 15 s uptime, different from having access to your kit whenever. One thing is certain, indom on AF without cooldowns definitely would not work. That's potentially 12 indoms every 3mn (6 in a row) in addition to fairy skills.... not gonna fly lol.

The recast timer I'm talking about currently does not exist. It would have to be implemented if AF skills had their CDs reduced. I never disclosed what it should be, only that all AF skills would share that timer. Lightspeed isn't any different from AF in the sense that they are both used for burst healing. The true difference is LS is on a 120s CD, but can have 20s shaved off it through Essential Dignity. They would balance out quite well if AF skill recast timers were reduced.

Let's go ahead and say that doing this would make SCH AF skills too OP. That's fine; so remove indom as an aetherflow skill if that is the case. The point remains the same that it is a flawed design to have skills utilize multiple resources, and also extremely annoying. It makes a job feel clunky.[/QUOTE]

[Hatstand]

As for the criticism of not having anything to dump your aetherflow into besides healing? Get with the program, that's how Whm lilies work too.

And when I play WHM I often wish I had some way to dump my lilies on dps, too. Alternately, I'd love it if the lily gauge filled up based on dps done, rather than just over time, like the blood lily fills based on healing. This would make a lovely synergy between the healing and dps components of the class, I feel.

[EaMett]

And when I play WHM I often wish I had some way to dump my lilies on dps, too. Alternately, I'd love it if the lily gauge filled up based on dps done, rather than just over time, like the blood lily fills based on healing. This would make a lovely synergy between the healing and dps components of the class, I feel.

It's technically DPS. Because of how you build up to misery each healing skill can be considered as a 225 potency dps skill. So if you're going to use and ogcd (bene, tetra, DB, assize) weaving it into an afflatus skill is a DPS gain over clipping your glare even if you just use it overhealing a random target.
If you're runing around and can't dps you can also just burn your lilie stacks and it's equivalent to having a 225pot instant dps skill so long as you use misery.

To me, sch right now is just a class that has a bunch of minor inconveniences that individually aren't that bad, but together they add up in a way that makes the class less than enjoyable to play.

Some really impact the gameplay and optimization though. Ruin II in it's current iteration is such a pain to use, it's just not fun. It pushed you into using ogcds in pairs or otherwise clipping your GCD. The later is obviously crazy clunky and doesn't feel right, because 1- clipping sucks, 2- muscle memory is a bitch when unlearning something. The former although it's an optimization opportunity, is just a pain to deal with in it's current iteration because you need to evaluate the true value of your second weave on the spot. Things like "well I can gain from placing SS over the tank anyways" is a falacious thought process because you're basically taking a dps loss for something that may not be necessary. Especially if you party with a WHM (which you most likely will) as they NEED to spend assize and afflatus skills on a regular basis.
It'll work just fine when we sit down and spreadsheet our CD use with our party but that's a lot of trouble for something that could be fixed with a potency tweak. Especially considering WHM afflatus skills work propperly for this purpose AND heal (healing aspect is normal since it's gated behind ressources, but just saying).

Not having a stack dump is a HUGE inconvenience. It completely removes the risk/reward aspect of the gameplay. Having one would make things more fun, allow for a bit more optimization, fix dissipation in a single target scenario, fix the weaving issues we have. Things like not having anything to weave which feels horrible, or helping make ruin II more relevant by giving you the option to stack dump into your single weaves to make ruin a dps gain and not a loss. etc..

AF out of combat can't even be compared to the comfort of say.. being able to control seraph embrace to target the mt, or even correcting some of the bugs with fairy skills going on CD but never hitting the party. AF out of combat is so low down the list.