Scholar Aetherflow Issues

[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.

[Gemina]

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.

It used to be that way when we had energy drain and bane. Those days are gone, and I don't see much need for aetherflow at all with the exception of limiting lustrate.

[Jerichai]

It used to be that way when we had energy drain and bane. Those days are gone, and I don't see much need for aetherflow at all with the exception of limiting lustrate.

It still is that way though, just diminished. Each lustrate you use is perhaps less uptime on soil or skipping a use of excog. You're having to factor if that spot healing is worth it over general raid wide sustainability. Or if you go all in on AoE skills, you may need to forgo excog and lustrate. I agree the system was better with energy drain and bane, but to say the current system forces no decision making is completely false.

[YanderePrincess]

Those days are gone, and I don't see much need for aetherflow at all with the exception of limiting lustrate.

I'm inclined to agree. The limiting of Lustrate could easily be done with the new charges mechanic, and probably done better that way. That just leaves Aetherflow as a tool for restoring MP, which could literally be any number of other concepts that would fit the idea of Scholar just fine.