se does not understand scholar

[tikiwiki]

I have played sch since arr and i think in the current state sch is a class of conflicting mechanics and poorly thought out skill removals. I feel as though the two most fun aspects of sch have been removed this expansion more complicated dps and fairy management, and they have been replaced with nothing.
AETHERFLOW
So a big complaint of aetherflow now is that we've had no way to dump aetherflow and have too much of it so were sitting on our aetherflow cd while holding stacks still because there isnt enough healing to justify spending it and theres no dps option to just burn it on now, this was a problem that has had no need to exist since it was created by skill removal
FAIRY
so many people complained about pets not responding well but during stormblood se did a great job and the pets felt the best they ever had, now during shadowbringers pets feel worse than they did in arr the pet has to wait on the embrace gcd now and the skills end up being super delayed and when you have skills like mitigation that means its unreliable and hard to actually use for its purpose.
With the pet changes too scholars lost the option to control who eos is embracing and its annoying when an aoe goes out and i have a regen topping off the party i don't want the fairy healing a dps whos gonna get topped off soon i want her healing the tank who is still eating auto attacks and to accomplish that now id have to weave and spend gauge and this lack of control feels worse with seraph when she just spams seraphic feil on a dps who isnt gonna take more damage so shes just doing a 200 pot heal vs the 400 shes supposed to do because of the barrier its even more frustrating, and this has no need to be an issue we had an option to control embrace for the previous 3 expansions.
NEW SKILLS
So i dont think im saying anything controversial when i say scholars new skills are incredibly underwhelming with one exception recitation people have asked for a force crit skill since arr and it feels like the one skill where se listened to what people wanted, the other new skills though are incredibly dissapointing broil 3 and biolysis could barely be called new skills theyre just new animations for the skills healers get every expansion, Fey blessing is a weaker indom with a longer cool down
and the clunkiness of fairy skills, summon seraph has the fairy issues i mentioned and her consolation has the same issues as any other pet skill and the two chrages are rarely useful, as well as with fairy skill delay there are easily times where seraph just will be slow on consolation and the barrier will not apply for the damage you wanted it to eat and if that happens its weaker than fey blessing.
1/2

[tikiwiki]

DPS
I think its bad that we lost dps options i loved the amount scholar had i get the devs dont want healing to be about trying to heal as little as possible and trying to put out crazy damage, but that doesn't have to do with our actions that requires significant changes to the game and its fight design at a core level not removing class actions because now the situation were in is that healing feels like stormblood and heavensward, which means if you didnt play those healers are spending most of our time dpsing but now we have less dps skills than ever.


I wish i could be writing more positive things about scholar it has been my favorite class since arr, but square enix does not seem to understand what healers want we saw how much they failed in stormblood with white mage, and now in shadowbringers they are failing with astrologian and scholar. I also wish i could say i think the classes will be fixed and most of the playerbase will be made happy but i think the problems run too deep for both and will be left to rot like 4.x whm, hopefully i will be wrong but i expect we will have to wait 2 years for 6.0 to get significant fixes and hopefully feedback will be listened too instead of se beating a dead horse and failing to change what healing in xiv is about.
2/2

[Nethereal]

I assume you're going to edit your original post not create another one.

Edit: nvm.

I'm not sure SE understands any of the healers really I feel they're trying to go in a certain direction and they just threw the ball and wanted to see where it went.

[lordcruxis]

This isn't that they don't understand, considering that the job is what they want it to be, it's that there's a conflict in what players want and what squenix wants. I'm under the impression that squenix specifically didn't want offensive aetherflow dumps on sch, and it's possible that they don't think aetherflow should be used on cooldown, this obviously conflicts with what players think, but they made the job, and they are allowed to do what they please with it.

That said, I wish they'd convey what their intentions are.

[Ayesafaile]

I finished leveling Red Mage yesterday, and was somewhat disappointed by how little the job has changed in Shadowbringers. Then I realized it's probably a good thing, because at least they haven't gutted the job for two expansions in a row like Scholar.

[tikiwiki]

I finished leveling Red Mage yesterday, and was somewhat disappointed by how little the job has changed in Shadowbringers. Then I realized it's probably a good thing, because at least they haven't gutted the job for two expansions in a row like Scholar.

thats exactly how i felt with rdm

[Sebazy]

I'm not sure SE understands any of the healers really I feel they're trying to go in a certain direction and they just threw the ball and wanted to see where it went.

This.

I honestly don't think the job design team actually understand how healers are played or the direction they are pushed in at the end game. There's a huge disconnect here.

[Hatstand]

This.

I honestly don't think the job design team actually understand how healers are played or the direction they are pushed in at the end game. There's a huge disconnect here.

What’s worse is that they don’t understand how to change our behaviour. We dps because it’s better than spamming emotes, and we have time in which those are our options. Removing most of our dps tools won’t stop us from dpsing. It’ll just make us bored. If they want to change our behaviour, they need to change the way that is optimal to play. And doing that would require a retune of the whole game (gotta keep that old content passable). Honestly it’d be better at this point to accept that they’ve created healers who dps and cater to that.

[Brightamethyst]

This isn't that they don't understand, considering that the job is what they want it to be, it's that there's a conflict in what players want and what squenix wants.

This is one of the biggest issues the game has in general (not just with healers.) The devs tend to double down on the the "intended design" even when it conflicts with normal gameplay.

Adding more healing tools and removing DPS options clearly says that they want healers to heal more and DPS less, but they didn't change the battle systems or fight mechanics to accommodate that play style.

[Hawklaser]

This isn't that they don't understand, considering that the job is what they want it to be, it's that there's a conflict in what players want and what squenix wants. I'm under the impression that squenix specifically didn't want offensive aetherflow dumps on sch, and it's possible that they don't think aetherflow should be used on cooldown, this obviously conflicts with what players think, but they made the job, and they are allowed to do what they please with it.

That said, I wish they'd convey what their intentions are.

I just want to reference FFXI's Ninja job here. As I do believe the devs stated at one point its design intent was to be a high sustained dps job with a couple of thematic and mitigation tools. What did the players do? Used it as an evade tank. Eventually SE adapted to how the players were using it and gave Ninja more gear and tools for tanking.

Now with FFXIV, they seem to be going the other way currently and trying to force us to adapt to their design intent. Well, that is going to be a tall order for them to succeed with. As they either will need to make content hard enough all but the most skilled groups with the most skilled healers require constant healing, or introduce some other non-damage thing for healers to do and contribute.

The last option, which seems like it is being rejected is accept that healers can and will dps during healing lulls, and want it to also be somewhat engaging.