Feedback on SCH Design in Shadowbringers

[Aqua150]

It is no secret that a large portion of the player base is dissatisfied with the changes to the SCH class in Shadowbringers. I believe that this has much less to do with the strength of the job and more to do with how it feels to play scholar with its recent changes, in addition to what I perceive as some notable design flaws. The purpose of this thread is to provide some constructive feedback for what I believe to be the problems with SCH's current design which are in most need of attention from the developers. My perspective is that of someone who has been playing SCH religiously ever since version 2.0 in both casual content and savage raids. So, without further ado:

1. In my mind this is the absolutely most important issue: Scholar NEEDS to have Energy Drain back, or something similar to it to burn excess Aetherflow charges. Currently, the most desirable stack spenders (Sacred Soil, Indomitability and Excogitation) are on longish cooldowns, so that most often the only way to dump spare charges is Lustrate - the problem is that Lustrate is relatively weak and often is unnecessary overhealing. Furthermore, opportunities to weave oGCD skills without a DPS loss are so infrequent (with Biolysis lasting 30 seconds) that using Lustrate to burn stacks ends up extremely low on the priority list, when compared with other skills that need weaving; consequently, it is often best to literally ignore your Aetherflow cooldown because it is simply not needed. Because of this, the Aetherflow mechanic in its current form has become quite non-interactive and honestly not very fun in my opinion. I would add to this that optimal usage of Aetherflow (ignoring a powerful resource that is central to your job's gameplay) is incredibly counter-intuitive and, if a goal of the 5.0 changes were to make healers feel more accessible to beginners, I believe they accomplish the exact opposite of that.

2. This is largely related to Point #1, but currently there is absolutely no clear priority to which heals to use in which situation, because every single one of them comes with the exact same opportunity cost. In Stormblood, it was very clear that (at least in a vacuum), Whispering Dawn > Indomitability > Succor, because in that order they come with successively higher costs (Whispering Dawn cost nothing, Indom cost 150 potency via Energy Drain, Succor cost an entire GCD and lots of MP). In Shadowbringers, since Aetherflow is used only for healing and since all fairy skills require use of an oGCD, all of our oGCD skills (Whispering Dawn, Consolation, Fey Blessing, Sacred Soil and Indomitability) have the exact same cost and achieve largely the exact same things. So I find myself just picking one at random - We have 5 different hammers for the same nail, the element of decision making is completely gone and it feels very awkward!

Continued in next post...