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!

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[Aqua150]

3. Seraph is a cool idea, but in some ways it feels clunky to use, because when she enters or leaves the battlefield she literally replaces Eos/Selene and this animation cancels whatever your fairy was doing at that moment. For example, if I use Whispering Dawn followed by Summon Seraph, Whispering Dawn will go on cooldown but I will not get its effect because the Seraph replaced my fairy before the animation of Whispering Dawn was finished. It feels incredibly awful to use a powerful cooldown and not get its effect. There are also other issues with the Seraph, such as the fact that it locks you out of a significant portion of the rest of your kit. Why can't we use Dissipation, Fey Blessing or Fey Union when the Seraph is on the field? Is there an actual reason?

4. Speaking of Dissipation, I find it a contradiction that the buff from Dissipation (and also Fey Illumination) doesn't interact with 90% of your healing toolkit, because they only affect "spells" and not "abilities." Scholar is by far more dependent on their "abilities" than any other healer, and sacrificing the fairy for 30 seconds seems a ridiculously huge price to pay for something that does near absolutely nothing for your healing throughput; even the extra Aetherflow that Dissipation generates will likely be useless due to no good way to consume the extra stacks (see point #1). To make things even worse, the Aetherflow generated by Dissipation can't be used to gain Fairy Gauge either. There exist skills in the game (e.g. Asylum) that affect healing done by abilities, so why does Dissipation not do this as well? Neutral Sect and Temperance do not come with any cost whatsoever - why does SCH have to pay such a huge price for the same buff, even when it does almost nothing for them? I would even go a step further and say not only does Dissipation DO almost nothing for SCH, it even actively punishes you for using it since the cons tend to heavily outweigh the pros. In its current state, Dissipation might be the single worst ability in the entire history of the game, both functionally and from a design point of view.

5. Ruin 2 damage should be buffed to about 210 or 220 potency - the primary purpose of this ability (aside from movement) is to create weaving opportunities for oGCD skills, without losing GCD uptime. However, with Ruin II at 200 potency it is better for most people (depending on their ping) to clip their GCD to use an oGCD skill, than it is to use Ruin 2 for weaving.

6. It appears the game prioritizes consuming Galvanize over Catalyze, which is frustrating because currently the best use of deployment tactics would tend to be on the main tank; if catalyze were consumed first we would not be at risk of deploying a shield which has been weakened by auto attacks.

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[Aqua150]

7. Seraphic Veil needs some adjustments. It seems a bit odd to add a shielding effect and simultaneously take away the ability to choose who gets it. Most of the time this shield will likely go to waste, not only because it might target someone who won't take any damage, but also because Seraphic Veil is now weaker than the shield granted by Consolation. The Seraph only lasts long enough to use Embrace 6 times and most of these will either go to someone who doesn't need it or someone who already has a stronger shield.

8. Yoshi in a recent Live Letter made a statement to the effect that co-healers were always picking up the slack for scholars in Stormblood, because scholars were too focused on "applying barriers." I bring this up because the 5.0 scholar changes appear to be consistent with Yoshi's statement - however, that statement has absolutely NO grounding in reality and I find it very odd to let such a myth shape job design decisions (if in fact they did). In actuality, scholars in Stormblood often did significantly MORE healing than their co-healer, due to the fact that it cost them almost nothing to access a powerful selection of healing tools on short cooldowns - Whispering Dawn cost literally nothing, while Indomitability cost them an Energy Drain (150 Potency) - meanwhile, WHM would have to sacrifice an entire GCD to do the same amount of healing, which amounts to much more than a 150 potency loss. Even if all abilities were on cooldown so that a GCD heal was required, the scholar would normally be the one doing it, because their GCD is worth less damage than a WHM's GCD, with Broil being less potency than Stone. So the truth is, SCH was the one picking up the slack for WHM, not the other way around (at least in a group that knew how to play effectively). Now in Shadowbringers, Scholar's healing throughput has become ludicrously high, perhaps to compensate for an issue that didn't exist in the first place, and I cannot help but ask why the job design has headed in this direction. The issue of sharing responsibility has far more to do with opportunity costs and almost nothing to do with "barriers versus pure healing" as was suggested in Live Letter 51. In fact, SCH's barriers are hardly at all the reason why they are desired in raids - they are certainly a perk, but high end play involves casting spells such as Succor as infrequently as possible. It is not clear to me that this aspect of healer synergy is well understood by the design team.

9. I think the DPS kits for all three healers need to be completely redesigned. In its current form it is mind-numbingly boring and, independently of how one feels about whether or not healers should be responsible for DPSing in group environments, the DPS kit is still essential for a significant portion of the game (all solo content and questing) and it should be fun to use WHEN IT IS NEEDED, whether that be in solo or group settings. I understand the desire to have simplicity in the healer DPS kit due to the fact that they have other responsibilities, but "simple" doesn't have to mean "not engaging." I think DPS skills such as Afflatus Misery are a step in the right direction because they interact with other skills in your toolkit in an interesting way.

Thanks to the devs for all the hard work they put into this game - I still love to play Scholar and enjoy a lot of the changes that were made for Shadowbringers - I would love it even more with a few minor adjustments!

[Alphras]

8. Yoshi in a recent Live Letter made a statement to the effect that co-healers were always picking up the slack for scholars in Stormblood, because scholars were too focused on DPSing. I bring this up because the 5.0 scholar changes appear to be consistent with Yoshi's statement - however, that statement has absolutely NO grounding in reality and I find it very odd to let such a myth shape job design decisions (if in fact they did). In actuality, scholars in Stormblood often did significantly MORE healing than their co-healer, due to the fact that it cost them almost nothing to access a powerful selection of healing tools on short cooldowns - Whispering Dawn cost literally nothing, while Indomitability cost them an Energy Drain (150 Potency) - meanwhile, WHM would have to sacrifice an entire GCD to do the same amount of healing, which amounts to much more than a 150 potency loss. Even if all abilities were on cooldown so that a GCD heal was required, the scholar would normally be the one doing it, because their GCD is worth less damage than a WHM's GCD, with Broil being less potency than Stone. So the truth is, SCH was the one picking up the slack for WHM, not the other way around (at least in a group that knew how to play effectively). Now in Shadowbringers, Scholar's healing throughput has become ludicrously high, perhaps to compensate for an issue that didn't exist in the first place, and I cannot help but ask why the job design has headed in this direction.

Do you know where he said that exactly? If that is true, the grasp Square has of the healers is worse than I thought.

[EaMett]

Also the fairy is sluggish and unreactive. I don’t know what it is but if I had to make a guess it used to cancel it’s embrace to use skills when ordered but now that embrace is instant it has to wait for the gcd to roll before it can cast. Feels so much worse.

[EthanMoonkin]

Very well put. I agree with everything you said. As someone who plays sch in an optimized environment. The difference in enjoyment between Stormblood and Shadowbringers is like night and day(pun intended). The ex trials show no signs of increased healing requirements, and in fact, I usually sit on aetherflow for almost 2 minutes because using one to heal would be a dps loss and a waste because it's not needed. If MAJOR changes aren't brought in the next patch for all the healers, I will be one of the many healer mains switching roles.

[Aqua150]

Do you know where he said that exactly? If that is true, the grasp Square has of the healers is worse than I thought.

I went back and checked the Live Letter and it looks like I had the quote slightly wrong, but it doesn't really change my point. The exact quote of his official translator is the following:

"With the scholar, they typically handled applying barriers, mostly, and they didn't really have the direct capabilities of healing spells. So the responsibility of healing tended to go to other healer jobs. Now, with the addition of more healing spells, now we're sharing the responsibility so it's not just the other jobs, but the scholar is now more able to heal so you can depend on each other."

Source: https://youtu.be/rewM-Z9bGhA?t=7993

I edited my original post to more accurately reflect the fact that Yoshi's statement was more about SCH's barriers than it was about DPS. Either way, it shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the way healers work together in reality and raises the same concerns regarding design choices in Shadowbringers.

[Rivxkobe]

I've only just recently gotten SCH to Level 70 but I've been wondering this for a while and would like an answer from people who main SCH and have played it more than I have.

What is the point of burning extra Aetherflow stacks right now? Why do we need to use Aetherflow on cooldown as we did before? We no longer need it for DPS, which is why we needed to ensure we never held onto Aetherflow longer than needed before, so I'm wondering why it matters if we hold Aetherflow for when we need the extra stacks/MP and why it matters if we use it when we still have stacks left over when we have no need to use them.

Also, I've stated this in another thread and I assume a lot of people don't like it, but: I feel giving SCH a spammable oGCD damage ability would be misplaced in this Expansion for healers. It would greatly increase their DPS since Healers have had their amount of DPS skills gutted though.

[Taika]

What is the point of burning extra Aetherflow stacks right now? Why do we need to use Aetherflow on cooldown as we did before? We no longer need it for DPS, which is why we needed to ensure we never held onto Aetherflow longer than needed before, so I'm wondering why it matters if we hold Aetherflow for when we need the extra stacks/MP and why it matters if we use it when we still have stacks left over when we have no need to use them.

There is a whole thread on this topic alone: Scholar Aetherflow Issues. You haven't missed anything about Aetherflow, it's pretty much a useless mechanic right now, all it does is give you back some MP (and MP really isn't an issue right now) and using the Aetherflow abilities increases the fairy gauge (which doesn't really offer anything useful either). So you might as well ignore it. That is why many Scholar players have been asking for them to add a meaningful Aetherflow dump ability.

[Rivxkobe]

There is a whole thread on this topic alone: Scholar Aetherflow Issues. You haven't missed anything about Aetherflow, it's pretty much a useless mechanic right now, all it does is give you back some MP (and MP really isn't an issue right now) and using the Aetherflow abilities increases the fairy gauge (which doesn't really offer anything useful either). So you might as well ignore it. That is why many Scholar players have been asking for them to add a meaningful Aetherflow dump ability.

Ah. Thank you. This helps a lot.

I was slightly misunderstanding what people saying then. lol

Edit: I was taking it they were saying we need to burn stacks because Aetherflow needs to be used on CD to be more effective, like before.

Instead I should of understood that they were saying that it feels bad to be holding stacks that are unneeded and not having a way to dump them so we can use Aetherflow on CD because it feels kind of wasted and less effective otherwise and dumping them on Lustrate or something else feels better than overlaping them or waiting to use Aetherflow but still feels bad.

Because compared to before SCH feels kind of janky with how its stacks work. Which I can 100% agree on. The number of times I've only used Aetherflow for MP when I've had 1-2 stacks left is kind of unreal.