Why does SMN have Physick?

[Eloah]

They did mention they want to split the two jobs completely. It just hasn't happened yet.

In general I would not be surprised if in 6.0 the arcanist branches are changed so SCH or SMN just becomes its own job or something that you can pick up without any requirements, and if Arcanist is still around they will hone it down more on healer or DPS. Every patch they move them further and further apart as it is so they may be content to just allow this anomaly to remain. New expansions are a great chance to make sweeping changes.

The issue with this is that the jobs are completely separate now. They are only linked through the skill Resurrection, which while odd is good, since that skill doesnt need to change between the two jobs. As people have mentioned, Energy Drain is different between the two, Ruin II as well. Even Aetherpact is different but that was different from the onset, since it came post 2.0.

The reason Physick is still lackluster on SMN is unknown. As it was said before it feels more like an oversite than anything else. Both SMN and SCH do need a bit of "work" ease the transition that is being created now, since they are completely split, but there are no issues any more regarding changing one changes the other. Player wise, they are split. But most likely codingwise they are still linked to avoid the hardships that would come about with a complete split.

[dinnertime]

I doubt they will separate Summoner and Scholar because that is the selling point of Arcanist. Anyway, there is no need to separate them because Scholar has their own versions of Arcanist skills, like how Scholar's Physick is labeled SCH and not ACN. Like Eloah said, the only thing both jobs share from Arcanist is Resurrection.

SMN still keeping Physick is a mystery, but honestly this is just another case of the devs leaving behind questionable or redundant skills/abilities, like Fluid Aura.

[Myon88]

It's honestly strange, and a little sad. They bothered to downgrade (and yeah, it's a complete downgrade) summoner's aetherflow to energy drain all for the sake of differentiating smn and sch. So they can clearly expend the effort if they want to, even though smn got the short end of the stick there. But when it comes to physick which is as close to literally useless as a skill gets now, they leave it be.

[Rarrum]

Physick is very still useful pre-50-ish when doing Palace of the Dead solo runs on SMN.

[Ryaz]

I'm just surprised they haven't put in a trait for SMN that makes Physick scale of intelligence instead of mind. Would be an easy fix, you'd think.

[Silverquick]

I'm just surprised they haven't put in a trait for SMN that makes Physick scale of intelligence instead of mind. Would be an easy fix, you'd think.

This is actually a long story, and all of it has to do with SCH not necessarily SMN.

First of all, understand that SCH does not really have any direct heals other than Physick. The SCH's heals are all shields/pre-heals like Adlo/Galvanize and Succor. Its got a couple of direct heals that are stronger... but they're Aetherflow abilities so limited use. Their version of Egi Assaults are things like Regen.

SCH isn't really a strong healer, its a preventer. So boosting SMN Physick would in essence give him similar healing power to an SCH.

Why is this important...

Well back in the day, SCH used to have similar DoT power to the SMN. They used to have both Bio and Miasma... and Bane. They nerfed it and removed it to where the SCH only has Bio now and no Bane to spread it to other targets. Which I thought was stupid, SCH is not as strong of a healer, meaning they had to focus more attention on Healing than WHM.... and previously you'd play SCH by throwing out your DoTs and then Bane it out to other targets... then just focus your attention on healing.

Which of course was the point. SCH was supposed to be like that precisely because its healing ability was not as good as WHM.

So this also swings both ways. SCH was stripped of its DoT abilities... and SMN just left with a healing spell that is completely worthless post 50th. This was their attempt to "split" the two. It was in my opinion dumb and hurt SCH a lot more than SMN.

[dinnertime]

So this also swings both ways. SCH was stripped of its DoT abilities... and SMN just left with a healing spell that is completely worthless post 50th. This was their attempt to "split" the two. It was in my opinion dumb and hurt SCH a lot more than SMN.

They could literally still have kept SCH having more than one DoT if they labeled it as a SCH skill instead, it's just they chose not to so they can homogenize the healer role.
Same for ACN/SMN. They could've removed Physick on ACN because SCH has their own version of Physick, but for unknown reasons they didn't.

[Crushnight]

This is actually a long story, and all of it has to do with SCH not necessarily SMN.

First of all, understand that SCH does not really have any direct heals other than Physick. The SCH's heals are all shields/pre-heals like Adlo/Galvanize and Succor. Its got a couple of direct heals that are stronger... but they're Aetherflow abilities so limited use. Their version of Egi Assaults are things like Regen.

SCH isn't really a strong healer, its a preventer. So boosting SMN Physick would in essence give him similar healing power to an SCH.

Why is this important...

Well back in the day, SCH used to have similar DoT power to the SMN. They used to have both Bio and Miasma... and Bane. They nerfed it and removed it to where the SCH only has Bio now and no Bane to spread it to other targets. Which I thought was stupid, SCH is not as strong of a healer, meaning they had to focus more attention on Healing than WHM.... and previously you'd play SCH by throwing out your DoTs and then Bane it out to other targets... then just focus your attention on healing.

Which of course was the point. SCH was supposed to be like that precisely because its healing ability was not as good as WHM.

So this also swings both ways. SCH was stripped of its DoT abilities... and SMN just left with a healing spell that is completely worthless post 50th. This was their attempt to "split" the two. It was in my opinion dumb and hurt SCH a lot more than SMN.

See that doesn't work since patch 5.05 there has been 2 different Energy Drains functionally different yet named the exact same, Physick could've had something similar happen, they could've removed it since functionally useless(even to sch it is the last resort gcd heal), could've made it scale of int instead of mind they have the power to have two skills named the same to do that, could've given Physick on acn/smn a different effect.

They just haven't done anything it oversight, laziness or so low priority (but then how did it survive 2 expansions of culling and yes ik fluid aura is still a thing)

[purgatori]

This is actually a long story, and all of it has to do with SCH not necessarily SMN.

First of all, understand that SCH does not really have any direct heals other than Physick. The SCH's heals are all shields/pre-heals like Adlo/Galvanize and Succor. Its got a couple of direct heals that are stronger... but they're Aetherflow abilities so limited use. Their version of Egi Assaults are things like Regen.

SCH isn't really a strong healer, its a preventer. So boosting SMN Physick would in essence give him similar healing power to an SCH.

Why is this important...

Well back in the day, SCH used to have similar DoT power to the SMN. They used to have both Bio and Miasma... and Bane. They nerfed it and removed it to where the SCH only has Bio now and no Bane to spread it to other targets. Which I thought was stupid, SCH is not as strong of a healer, meaning they had to focus more attention on Healing than WHM.... and previously you'd play SCH by throwing out your DoTs and then Bane it out to other targets... then just focus your attention on healing.

Which of course was the point. SCH was supposed to be like that precisely because its healing ability was not as good as WHM.

So this also swings both ways. SCH was stripped of its DoT abilities... and SMN just left with a healing spell that is completely worthless post 50th. This was their attempt to "split" the two. It was in my opinion dumb and hurt SCH a lot more than SMN.

I approach the classes/jobs from a lore-first perspective (which isn't to say that balance isn't important, but I'll leave the technical stuff to the players who excel in that area), so this attempt to split SCH and SMN doesn't sit well with me at all. Having only picked up these jobs quite recently, I don't have the history with how they have evolved/devolved over successive patches the way you guys do, I only know that I was shocked when I unlocked the jobs and found that so little ACN kit carried over into SCH, and that things like Energy drain worked completely differently between the two, etc. Then I discovered that there used to be a lot more carryover between the two, and thought "well, that makes a lot more sense than what we have now."

I particularly 'miss' the opportunity to cast more DoTs as a SCH, because this would make thematic sense given the origins of SCH, and give you something to do other than constantly casting ruin spam. Conversely, I'd either like to see Physick scale off INT, or perhaps be replaced with Adloquium to make up for the poor healing potency (though I quite like Titan's shield, so this would not be my preferred option).

[dinnertime]

or perhaps be replaced with Adloquium to make up for the poor healing potency (though I quite like Titan's shield, so this would not be my preferred option).

That would make no sense because Adloquium is a Scholar-exclusive ability. Also the last thing we need is people complaining that Summoner is getting too many defensive tools which will persuade the devs nerf, or worse rework the job again.