Thread: Every problems with healers at 5.1

Astrologian...where do I start? Everything about its identity got removed between 3.5 and 5.0. The utility healer became a damage up bot where most of the time the numbers aren't noticable. While I am sympathetic to the devs wanting to reduce synergy, there's reducing synergy and removing it in all but name

Astrologian's other main problem is lack of mp tools particularly with nct sect

Potencies are finally up to reasonable levels for the most part in 5.1. Gravity is still weak though and its either needs a status effect or a potency boost for the first enemy.
Astrologian is the support in the healer trio, alongside Whm's super heals and Sch shields and dps. The current card system is soul crushing and as a ps4 player the play action did nought but hinder me.
From what I can see, a reasonable compromise on the old card system would have worked. Balance and spire were in need of a rework. I would offer these changes:

Balance: If given to a healer, boosts damage by 10%. If given to dps or tank, gives them a bloodbath style effect restoring hp each attack = 10% of attack potency.
Bole: Reduces damage by 10% for and heals the target equivalent to a 400 potency benefic.
Ewer: Restores 3000 mp to the target
Spire: Lowers the casting time for casters or the gcd for non casters (can't give a figure here, not very clear on gcd timings)
Arrow: Increases crit rate by 10%
Spear: Increases direct hit rate by 10%

Additionally, spread and royal road should come back, but royal road should be restricted to aoe at 50% potency or less.

Nocturnal astrologian is still inferior to Diural in terms of mp and its shields frankly are awful. Additionally, they aren't stackable unlike diurnal's regens.
Astrologian as a whole also lost its time mage stuff. Stun on CO and Time dilate were fun and useful abilities, particularly in mobs and raids respectively

Collective uncouncious needs some serious buffing given it roots the player, prevents them from abilities especially with the more mobile fights we're getting.

Scholar is in the same boat as Astrologian in that the entirety of its identity and many of its core skills got gutted. I'm not that experienced with Scholar but I can tell there's a few issues.
In addition, what the hell were the devs thinking adding a delay to the seraph? Seraph needs a slight boost to time and delay removed so we can get consolation done right.

Scholar I have noticed also has trouble dealing with a Drk's LD. Given the devs don't seem to be changing that any time soon I have brought it up. Lustrate plus some hopeful crits seem to be the way most Sch's try to remove the walking dead status.

Scholar's dpser of the healers also went to pieces in 5.0. I would suggest bringing at least one more dot to the kit again and bringing a buff to Art of war's potency. Bane as well.
As a final note, I would also think something for the scholar to use the fairy for a dps attack (could be very useful solo)

2/2

My main issue with AST is that the Play button was introduced and screwed up my hotbars. The class has enough buttons to push it would be nice if Draw/Play was the same button again.

Honestly, the scholar just is not fun to play anymore especially when doing pre-shadow bringer content and solo shadow bringer content. It is not fun to have a stale boring DPS management system, it is not fun to no longer be able to control the fairy simultaneously to the scholar when healing.

Originally Posted by Deceptus

SCH's capstone abilities clash and contradict each other rather than complement each other.

Dissipate removes the core aspect of your job. (Imagine if something completely locked out the Fire spells from BLM) and stops fairy gauge accumulation. I've never liked Dissipate. If you're in a position where you need Aetherflow stacks NOW, you're in a bad spot and losing your fairy is not what you want to do.

Fey Union is clunky, and slow.

Seraph makes Dissipate pointless.

The best part of Fey union is that telling your fairy to do literally anything else cuts it off.

Seraph remains clunky and still awkward to use in combat, I find myself always shielding extra because I never know if Consolation will be out in time. I can subscribe to the thought that Scholar is about thinking ahead, preparing well ahead after knowing the fight, but then it's something they could have communicated with after they made the pet hotbar react faster than ever in StB only to throw the whole thing out the window. Love reading about technical difficulties and how it was dealt with in software and and I'm sure there is a story here. I would like to think they are getting better at seperating SCH and SMN, but they still seem to share some code in the pet department and they can't be efforted to make it different. I would like to be proven wrong, but SE is still tight-lipped about this and healers in general.

Reading the LL digest I came across something peculiar:

"There were many varying opinions in the bard feedback that we received. For example, some players were fine with bard focusing on personal damage, while others asked for more party support in exchange for personal damage. Though we had an incredibly difficult time making a decision, in the end, we decided to keep as much of bard’s current personal damage as possible while adding support effects to their songs."

This sounds like the same heavy-hand approach SCH got and they made Bard a damage machine, but then some asked for some support options back. And they not only mentioned it but also implemented it in exchange for damage. Where is this mysterious group of players SE is actually conscidering concerns from and acknowledgning? If I could meet these players and ask how much it would cost to make them say 'Scholar is a clunky mess of bad decisions' and watch SE at the very least recognize concerns raised here. Like getting Selene back for support options. If their Balance Bot 3000 screams that Fey Wind's 3% haste, Fey silence and aeo esuna would throw the balance into turmoil then I have several ideas of what fat could be trimmed off, Chain Strat and Seraph for starters. Imagine the Live Letter: "Next we have a question from our Bard players: Why is Scholar a clunky.... oh Aha! Almost got us there! You almost made us talk about Scholars. Ha ha, nice try now go back to Broiling."

SCH class design:

-Fairy tether- locks your fairy out of her three core abilities in exchange for a mildly potent single target channeled heal that consumes resource and has limited range.
-Dissipation- locks the scholar out of her pet completely, in exchange for a full stack of aetherflow and 20% increased healing. Fairy gauge doesnt accumulate for the duration so those three stacks of AF lose their value.
-Summon Seraph- locks your fairy out of her Fairy tether and Veil abilities in exchange for stronger heals and two charges of mild Aoe heal + shield.

Nothing in SCH's kit builds up. They are just loose CD's that you spend.

Nocturnal is still bad.