Playing SCH is so awkward and bad

[CrimsonGunner]

snip

i think you are kinda missing the point the healers are trying to say.they don't just want dps tools, they want to use more skills during healing downtimes.

the reasons why people tell you about dot managements is probably due to the fact that was what SE mostly gave healers and cause the arcanist/scholar identity which was mostly a dot mage so having different dots and re-apply them in different times and managing them was a part of a scholar identity along side his healing ability and not to mention managing their pet,selene and eos which had different tools and not being the same as they are now.

you mention DRK which i read people complain about it being too similar to WAR ,this is the same thing most healers are complaining about.
yes SE simplify too much, its isn't just a matter of losing an oGCD or just a dot and yes it is especially poor poor selene since what they made all the healers is identical to WHM and remove what was different and unique in their game play.

with selene and eos being the same,they removed a certain element from the pet management,making basically the fairy good for is just oGCD healing only.
there are also certain issues with the pet management that also upset people like unable to control the fairy embrace which is auto cast without any preferred target among its issues.
as for dot management,people still loved to have different dots to apply for scholar since as i said before was tied to his identity as a dot mage due to its roots from arcanist.

what the healer community asking(at least how i understand this) isn't simplified the jobs but actually request proper and unique game-style and kit for each of the healers while still being balanced(each class will make up for what the other is lacking).
it isn't just a matter of more or less buttons to press but actually have an interesting play with their jobs.(those who chose scholar loved having the dot management aka debuffer , AST being the varied card buffer and WHM straightforward game play) .

my point is that just like DRK issue of being too similar ,the same problem is with all the healers jobs. pressing only broil/malefic/glare and apply 1 dot isn't a rotation, the healers want skills during down time, not just dps but buffs and debuffs as well.
those that choose the healers roles come for the complexity: keeping people alive,improve the party by applying buffs on members and debuffs on enemies and lastly if all is applied we dps for help.

as for too much healing downtimes , it seems that it became a fact in the healer community that its because of SE scripted fights and the encounter design fault (at least from what i read) and would love it to change so there will be more healing to do but knowing SE it most likely won't happen which is probably the reason why you stumble less about blaming how encounter works.

hope it helped you understand us better Melichoir

[Melichoir]

Snips

So some of this gives me the impression that the issue isnt the dots, oGCDs, or the like, but identity of class and QoL on fairy management. Which leads me back to another point regarding the identity of the SCH. I think there is a misconception of what arcanist and SCH are. I dont think "Theyre a dot mage" but rather theyre a mage with a pet that has some dots. If you view SCH in this light, it has an identity currently. Much like WHM and AST. Adding back in DPS skills doesnt emphasize that pet usage, it emphasizes having a pet heal for you while you deal damage. You become an caster with a healing pet, dots or not. I think that this concept does appeal to some healers. You can have your cake and eat it. But this outlook may not be what Devs had in mind for SCH (or even arcanist). Im just not sold that the devs wanted SCH to be a dot mage who leaves the healing to their pet and this outlook was simply something the player base latched onto because of how strong fairy healing was and oGCD healing.

If its about QoL to fairy/pet management, and having more to do, you can solve that by fixing the pet management system and possibly reworking how the pets operate. You wouldnt need to change encounter design if it was approached if thats a concern. As a thought experiment what if pets were reworked to deal damage as long as party HP was above 80% and it was MORE efficient dps for you to be making sure party is above 80% to keep pets engaged and then use skills on the fairy to assist in your healing at the cost of damage. The choice is do you heal or do damage, and how often do you use pet healing at the cost of their dps.

Or how about if they let you choose embrace targets where you have to manage your fairys embrace so you dont drastically overheal, add different restorations to the fairies (A shield fairy and one with aoe regens) and you can insta cast swap them with fairy gauge so you can pull out the fairy you need depending the situation. Seraph being on a long CD because its literally both fairies at once. If were talkinga bout identity, why does it have to be about using dots and not about managing your pets?

As for Encounter design, itll get changed if people start demanding it. If we keep defaulting it being a class issue, they wont address encounter design. Theres plenty of ways to make SCH have an identity and more interesting outside of "We need our Miasma, old Selene, and Shadowflare". But Im not seeing these points typically. It's just a rehash of what SCH was.

[Crushnight]

I think I get what you guys are getting at broadly, its just I feel that its a ...flawed way of looking at things? I know that comes off as condescending, but its partly the way Im seeing this. Its like arguing that when something was ultra clunky, it's still good due to how much APM or how many buttons to press. My understanding of SMN is that this is the problem - to much going on. More buttons can be interesting, but it tends to sidestep other issues such as "Is this even well designed?" What Im feeling is that this feels like the illusion of gameplay, rather than actual gameplay. Like how for a while in games everything was a QTE. Like there wasnt deep thought for on keeping straight shot buff up. Is it gonna fall off? reapply before anything else. If you can get a straighter shot crit, great. Its something to do but its not meaningful skill.

Id say that yeah, if we want to debate if things got simpler this xpac, sure. I think thats the case. I have my complaints about DRK personally, but I think the thing Im not connecting with here is simply how this is being framed. This isnt like DRK, as an example, where you had managing 2 buff windows, ontop of mana pool management that couldnt be remedied by someone elses raid buffs, oGCD usage of DA (as in where you use it in the oGCD) paired with Tank CDs and aggro management, but now its just Put on Grit, use that Standard DPS combo, and spam EoS until youre down to 3k mana, and use Delirum and Spamotard BS. The skills shifted into much less interesting versions of themselves, aggro management is now a joke, youre not really managing mana anymore, you dont really have to care about how oGCDs are used, etc. Im not seeing my blind spot on this when people are saying "Oh, we lost an oGCD that was used on CD, and a dot that was mana heavy, poor poor selene, therefore the class is substantially less interesting." What Im asking is where is the big nuances that define a substantial differences between 4.x SCH vs 5.x SCH? Cause I can do that with DRK, but Im having difficulty doing that with SCH, even after reviewing guides on SCH from 4.X, particularly since some of these nuances seemed like bad game design. Not that DA spam was good design. It certainly wasnt, but some of the things buried in there were. There was more meta thought to it. You could do more damage doing DA earlier in the GCD. Things like that.

So if there is something akin to this, then Id be interested in hearing that. But the "Well I needed to use this skill on CD, and that dot was kinda mana intensive" isnt telling me that there was much deeper things going on.

I'll try to explain this from my AST perspective with a bit of the other healers. The cards were changed to be simpler to use but it was changed badly, as the cards lost their greater impact but also have been made worse to use especially for controller players.

They changed the fishing from 92% for trying to get aoe balance (which wasn't the only useful thing just the most desired) to 76% for 3 seal divination, this could look like an improvement but it does not feel like an improvement to a lot of AST players heck 3 seal divination is such a small increase over 2 seal divination(even 1 if that unlucky which can happen) it feels so lackluster getting that card luck over how it used to be.

Draw and using the card(Play now) are now separate buttons which makes it unlikely you'll accidentally use the card early with a double tap but adds a slightly longer delay to use the cards, fix one problem add another the staple of ShB AST, also with cards being only single target as a controller player you have to cycle through the party list or use macros this becomes mandatory for openers and every 6 mins of a fight in 8 man content due to always going to have to click up/down 4 times due to how the party list is structured, this is very cumbersome and a major issue that sadly is not being addressed by the development team.

Cooldowns are also being forced into scenarios that should never be forced into Lightspeed is not being used purely for movement or for fast heals/dps, you have to save it for the opener and every 6 mins in a fight or you are going to have an atrocious time with Sleeve Draw heck just Sleeve Draw in general, the opener is especially bad because you have 4 gcds to get 3 seal divination and with 24% chance to get it without redraw(another ogcd) it requires a lot of work for a very small payoff combine this with needing to select party members individually and it is the worst designed job for controller players during those points(job gets way more manageable after opener/6 mins but still saying that feels bad after 3.0-4.XX AST).

You also have to wait for the server to register both you and your card target to be in combat (1 server tick) for you to acquire any seals if unlucky this can cost you a seal in the opener if you act too quickly, but when you only have 4 gcds you have to act quickly in the opener.

You then have the stuff they took away like Time Dilation and old Celestial Opposition where you cannot interact with your buffs anymore, the buffs are both AST's buffs but not AST's buffs at the same time, those two skills were simple but added a lot to AST's playstyle because it added small decisions on what buffs do i extend (HoTs/dmg reduction on tank or dmg up on Dps or extend my own mp resoration etc), it wasn't huge nor was it difficult to gauge what would be appropriate to do but it added something to AST that no other healer could do.

SCH has had similar issues with its fairy they tried fixing a problem (Which fairy is better) but created more from it (Lack of variety/decision making, ghosting issue), this has sorta been sch's big loss over the years losing their decision making skills from DoTs, fairies and to deal damage or heal with stacks(sorta revised now with energy drain back).

Ogcds are so powerful on healers right now and fight design has not really changed since Creator that healer downtime has only increased as they add more ogcds but instead of making healer downtime more interesting they simplified it as well for all healers, this is where a lot of the healer problems are stemming from we want more to do during this period and since encounter design seems off the table then people ask for job changes instead.

TLDR healers as a whole feel like they tried to take a step forward but took 3 steps back even WHM hasn't really moved, it still is prone to powercreep if AST gets buffed too much.

[Billythepancake]

As for Encounter design, itll get changed if people start demanding it. If we keep defaulting it being a class issue, they wont address encounter design. Theres plenty of ways to make SCH have an identity and more interesting outside of "We need our Miasma, old Selene, and Shadowflare". But Im not seeing these points typically. It's just a rehash of what SCH was.

Encounter design will not change to require more healing, because to do that would make the game more difficult, and would drive away a huge chunk of this game's playerbase. This game has a lot of casual people in it, people who do not want to be challenged, and there is nothing wrong with that, I have no qualms with anyone who just wants to have a good time in a game, experience the story, and move onto the next game. To make things more difficult to give those of us who are bored more to do, would drive those people away. The only fights that can be considered even somewhat difficult are Savage and ultimates, (and even those seem to have gotten easier, so far*, in this expansion, to better allow more people to do them.) It is another reason I do not ask for content to be harder, hell, when I look at the amount of people who complained Titania normal was too hard on launch day, I know I cannot expect SE to do a sudden 180 and make content challenging. It is why I ask for more to do in my class, so when I have to do normal content, which is what, 99% of the game? 90% at minimum, I have SOMETHING to do. I do not want less people to play this game, but I DO want something to do no matter what content I'm in. I shouldn't be relying solely on the 5 fights that come out every 6 or so months just to have something to do.

[CrimsonGunner]

So some of this gives me the impression that the issue isnt the dots, oGCDs, or the like, but identity of class and QoL on fairy management.

if SE were to make scholar be more of a pet management class then all the options you said would be welcomed and will probably reduce the sadness of losing the varied dots.

with making embrace be controlled(i think it was in previous expansions that embrace could be targeted on who to cast), making selene and eos be different with switching options(with solving the issue of which fairy is better) and keeping carbuncle from arcanist (making the pet deal damage when all party hp is above 80% might be difficult to program, it more simple to just give the previous summons) would give scholars something to do instead of maintaining dots during downtimes cause they have different pets to manage during those times.

those who wish the old skills back(old selene,miasma and shadow flare) just want more pet managements and more dot managements back.
it means that they just want SE to give scholar more things to do during downtime then just spam broil ,like they used to do.
i would love if scholar had varied pets to control and meaningful interactions with them ,like you said their charm is being a caster with pets. (it is more enjoying for me to manage an attacking pet then applying dot)

as for encounter design changing ,as said before requesting to change it will effect the entire playerbase as Billythepancake said but also a change of that magnitude will probably require to change every dungeon/raid/trial and who knows where else they implemented it in the game which basically require a full rewrite of the game and the expansions which i highly doubt SE will do,it would be much easier for them to just make a new game without the encounter design.
so changing encounter design will probably not gonna happen and if it can it will be at later expansions

[FoxyAreku]

Over half of these are problems that scholar has always had. Blame pet lag (and embrace always being auto even if you don't want it to be). I don't know if it's even possible for them to fix it at this point.

[Gemina]

Encounter design will not change to require more healing, because to do that would make the game more difficult, and would drive away a huge chunk of this game's playerbase. This game has a lot of casual people in it, people who do not want to be challenged, and there is nothing wrong with that, I have no qualms with anyone who just wants to have a good time in a game, experience the story, and move onto the next game. To make things more difficult to give those of us who are bored more to do, would drive those people away.

If this was SEs assessment, I'd tell them they're getting wrong. Changing encounter design to require more healing doesn't make it more difficult. It puts more pressure on healers to perform their primary role. ShB exacerbated a healer issue that's been around for a long time now, and it's the downtime. Because of this, it isn't even the game's casual healers, or the strong healer minded that worry me if SE was the switch things up; it's actually the optimal healers who have grown so accustomed to weaving offensive skills between ogcd healing. Not necessarily because I think they can't handle the healing requirements, but rather that they have the biggest adjustment to overcome.

Bad job and encounter design is how things like the AFK SCH back in 3.0 was exploited. When I think back on it now, this was like a seed that has now blossomed into the healer issues we have today. It should have been crystal clear at this point to the devs that healers were bored, and something needed to change before it became a blob-like menace. Keep in mind that 3.0 SCH was the most powerful version of it to date. All those skills didn't prevent the SCH from being bored to tears, and going AFK to let Lily handle the payload.

It would be more accurate to say SE is afraid to put more pressure on healers, but I don't think this is true either. Dungeon bosses like Mist Dragon are a testament that SE isn't afraid to put their thumb down on those who bare a green icon. Just about everything that has been nerfed in the game is a result of player's screaming for those nerfs, and I would wager the majority of those gripes come from savage raiders who feel the casuals can't handle the content.

SE has a lot to take in mind when it comes to encounter design, and no one wants to look at themselves as the reason why things remain stagnant and more simplified than ever. Reflect on this the next time you queue up for something and one or more players leave immediately.

[KageTokage]

I do hope 5.1 reworks SCH in PvP so it actually feels similar to how it does in PvE because Aetherflow only being able to be generated by using a defensive ability that requires you to be in melee range of your targets is ridiculously counter-intuitive.

[Enla]

I do hope 5.1 reworks SCH in PvP so it actually feels similar to how it does in PvE because Aetherflow only being able to be generated by using a defensive ability that requires you to be in melee range of your targets is ridiculously counter-intuitive.

This, so much this... Like don't get me wrong, I love that ability and take great amusement from using it around big ice spawns in Shatter where the rest of the teams cluster together- but my aetherflow shouldn't come from it. Healers in Frontlines in particular shouldn't be in a situation where they have to be surrounded just to get part of their kit.

[SomeRandomHuman]

I'm just gonna point out that for PvE if scholar was as bad as its being made out to be, then why do people try to avoid white mage + astrologian for raiding? 8D

I'm not saying that it has no issues as some of the fairy problems have existed since 2.0, but scholar is still the best healer of the 3.