Have we given up on SCH?

[lulunami]

DoT management on older SCH was more fun than Broil spam SCH. I believe that is the crux of the complaints.

SCH used to have 5-6 DoTs to upkeep.

[Hatstand]

DoT management on older SCH was more fun than Broil spam SCH. I believe that is the crux of the complaints.

I've seen two schools of complaints: DoT management is more fun than nuke spam; and our heals are too powerful, which makes healing require too little of our time and attention. Rolled together, you have a problem where our toolkit is focused around the buttons that relate to our "primary function", as opposed to being in proportion to the amount of time we spend using them. If we had more offensive options, or more involved offensive options, to match the greater amount of time spent on offence as healers, or if healing actually required 90+% of our time and attention, it wouldn't be so bad.

Although, even if they do actually increase the healing requirements, I still think healers should have a better dps kit than they currently do. There will always be content you know too well to make mistakes in or are overgeared for or whatever, and thus the possibility of great deals of downtime should always be acknowledged in healer job design.

[Silver-Strider]

I really can't find anything particularly upsetting about SCH in its current form that wouldn't be nitpicky honestly.

I miss having more to do and maintain during downtime than Broil Spam but not to a point that I find the class less engaging to play. I miss Bane and DoT management but I've gotten real good at playing "How Low can the Tank go" before feeling at risk for their life, except when I get paper tanks which are the only times I feel fully justified burning so many CDs to keep the party going, despite how often people prefer to run outside my Sacred Soils, be too far for Whispering Dawn to hit, etc. Instead of focusing on maintaining my DoTs, I'm now just trying to optimize my healing effectiveness by monitoring my healing tools more, making sure I get Recitation/Deployments lined up for Raid damage or getting those LD DRK from collapsing; its a different form of engagement than before. My only real complaint is how negligible I've found Seraph to be as I totally forget to use her sometimes and it doesn't effect my overall experience with the class at all.

So sure, buff Seraph, but I just don't really feel like SCH is really all that bad now.

[Heliantheae]

I've played SCH more or less since I've started. It was my main job since 3.3. But it's just not fun anymore. Our heals are really strong and oGCD so we're left with like three things to do when we're not healing which is like almost the entire fight. I loved running roulette because good or bad group it was interesting. Now I get a good tank, I'm bored and if I get a bad tank, I'm bored and stuck for awhile.

On the other hand, all the DPS and tanks I've leveled have been a blast. It might just be I'm bored of playing the same job after three years and half years. I haven't completly given up on SCH, but it won't be my main job this expansion. Might not even be my main healer, WHM was more fun to play.

[Lagomorph]

Give up? You make it sound like the class is broken beyond repair. The scholar was not in some rut. We heal and dps just fine and even got our aetherflow dump back. Is it perfect? No but I am not gonna throw a tantrum like many other people on the forums.

No, the class is not broken beyond repair. The class is broken and SE refuses to repair it. Big difference there, buddy.

[Wawachume]

It's not that I'm exactly happy with where scholar is, but...I don't know. I guess my lack of complaints stems from a variety of sources.

First, I just don't feel like starting any threads myself. Other people are starting astrologian threads, so I talk about astrologian.

Second, I'm more okay with scholar at the moment than a lot of people, probably because I started playing it in mid-to-late Stormblood, so it hasn't changed that much for me. And I was never really in it for the pet management anyway. (In fact I probably have more pet management now than before because there are things I can do with an immortal fairy that I couldn't handle with the old one.)

Third, I'm not really sure what changes I'd make. I want bane back, definitely. If I can also have a second DoT I'd be cool with losing art of war, since I like the strategy of DoT-spreading over the spamminess of an AoE nuke. Other than that, I don't know, really.

I guess I'm kind of bored---aside from the non-combat content which is still fun---but that might not even be the result of class mechanics.

Fourth, I still like scholar better than its competition. Sometimes I feel like I want to play white mage because its simplicity is more elegant than problematic, but I doubt I'd stick with it long. Even if the mechanics didn't get boring, I still prefer the lore and glamours of scholar (Anemos Orator's Coat FTW).

[Hatstand]

._. I really wish the devs would say ANYTHING. What healers really need is a voice that isn't momo. Momo, as amazing at the game as he is, only cares about optimizing, everything else is second bananas, so long as SCH can optimize and do it well, then it will be fine in his eyes, and it'll be fine in the eyes of the people who follow him, so there needs to be a voice that opposes his that says "no, SCH and the other healers AREN'T fine", but gl to anyone who attempts to get the following, heh.

It irritates me that "angry healers" is kind of a becoming a meme. Over in the 5.08 update comment thread they joke about how angry healers are going to be that they didn't get any fixes, then the dps mains proceed to complain about how their class still doesn't do enough damage, or feels too clunky to play, or whatever. Are our opinions less valid than theirs (in their eyes) because there are more of us trying to be heard? Because we've been asking for longer and therefore our requests are getting repetitive? Because they don't care about our issues and therefore we are an annoyance?

And yet, because of that perception any healer that tried to get a following being critical of the current healers would be ignored by the non-healer community at best and actively shouted down at worst.

[CrimsonGunner]

i'm not that experienced with the scholar but tbh the scholar kit feels like a mess to me and really dont reflect him or his lore that much.

the 2 fairies are identical ,other then just extra ogcd heal that just follow you around i don't see any other use for them.
for a tactical support class who has pets and shields , he feels like its mostly him and the pet is barely an extra and his skilled don't really reflect any tactical versatility.

when i picture a scholar i picture something like an alphinaud vibe that need to come from his kit ,that the scholar and the pets should have coordination and although he is a weak healer and dps he makes up with it by strengthening his team with his strategy and tactic.

but with the kit right now it feels more chaotic rather then tactic:

1.i feel like the pet is extra and is there just to follow you rather to be a diverse tool that the scholar can really use.
for example the fairy can be an extension and allow scholars to have an increase range to apply heals then the other healers,or have the 2 fairies different kits for support.

for a support class that uses summons and pet as his tool,i expected the scholar to have more interactions with his pets,have them attached to party members or maybe have some combinations skills with them rather then just follow their master and execute skill on demand.

2.the scholar kit is mostly casting heals rather to be diverse, heals are important but there should be more then just heals to him like certain buffs that he can use for different situations ,they don't have to be important raid buffs like damage/crit or even be a party buffs but rather be diverse skills for any situation like speed,cc negations the healing potency of the fairy is rather nice different skills that show adaptability and reflect some tactics in his kits.

In summery,my personal opinion is that the scholar kit really feel that it doesn't represent him and need to be rework and the devs need to think about what his play style should be.
there are good skills in his kit and as people mention they love but i feel that right now with the scholar kit the devs haven't figure what direction the scholar should take.
should he be of a pet class and have more pet skills or maybe give him more self cast skills,what the true point for his pets?
i guess the end result will be probably the same as the other 2 and will give him a kit that is identical and as right now make the pets as ogcd skills but for a tactical and advance job i guess i expected him to have more situational skills(not necessarily more dps/dots skills) and a rather complex play then the other supports.

[supaiku]

I think it's kinda ironic that in the name of balance they homoginized the healers and made them more boring to play than they already were, yet the balance right now is worse than it was at the end of Stormblood. Current Ast is in a worse position than Whm was before Shadowbringers launched.
To me it also looks like the devs don't really now what to do with the healers. They say they don't want Scholar to dps so much, yet in a lot of fights it was (/is?) the healer with the higher hps and there is not enough damage outgoing to tell us to stop dps. Eos and Selene are the exact same now because that is balanced. They took away energy drain just to give it back to us. :S

[Sloprano]

It irritates me that "angry healers" is kind of a becoming a meme. Over in the 5.08 update comment thread they joke about how angry healers are going to be that they didn't get any fixes, then the dps mains proceed to complain about how their class still doesn't do enough damage, or feels too clunky to play, or whatever. Are our opinions less valid than theirs (in their eyes) because there are more of us trying to be heard? Because we've been asking for longer and therefore our requests are getting repetitive? Because they don't care about our issues and therefore we are an annoyance?

And yet, because of that perception any healer that tried to get a following being critical of the current healers would be ignored by the non-healer community at best and actively shouted down at worst.

Angry healers have been a long-time thing, have you gotten your "Angry Healers" monthly? To answer your OP, no, I'm still championing for SCH changes though that sort of evolved because I want to have 1. A healer with almost unlimited potential and fights that makes me have to think of how to utilize it all. 2. Fights that require a lot of movement 3. Make all the non-end game content be about the content not the carrot daily reward at the end with random dangerous patrols and chest with random loot and xp.

It has been disheartning to go now two months and neither gotten a concern raised at LLP or even a community manager just popping in going "Hey, how are you enjoying healers?" or "We are not planing any changes right now." The silence is deafing. I am still reminded of how gutted SCH is every time I log in to do stuff with the FC, which is great for taking the mind of, and now even some new players picking up sch are complaining about having nothing to do bu Ruin spam.

It started with Stormblood and I'm still in favor of getting 3.0 Scholar back. I'm more than happy to see Recitation, Catalyze, Fey Blessing, Excog, Fey Union go in return for the versatility of the slow dots, slow/heavy/virus debuffs, pet hotbar with own gcd, Selene. List just keeps on growing. If it is hard to balance around the finely tuned raid fights the current skillset could be a seperate system like PvP they tweak by the numbers.