SCH needs help

[Semirhage]

In all my years of playing mmos I've always heard mitigation is always stronger then healing. While I get it in some situations.

Game design ramble incoming.

This is true in theory, in a game design sense. Shielding is mechanically more powerful than direct heals or regens. What is meant by this is, take a straight heal. Keeping all other things the same (resource cost, cast time, targets, range, total potency, etc) and slap a shield on it. That heal is now more powerful than it was before. It's capable of salvaging more situations than it originally was. The opposite is true of a regen. Take a heal, parcel its potency out over time. It's now capable of salvaging fewer scenarios, because, again in a vacuum, its potency alone might get someone killed if it can't outpace the damage.

This is the root of why shielding spells are more resource-expensive than normal heals, and regens are cheaper. It's the price tag for mechanical advantage. Now, these can be priced in a way that makes the regens better outside the spherical cows world of the design vacuum, but it's why shielding is "better".

[Brandedblade]

Game design ramble incoming.

This is true in theory, in a game design sense. Shielding is mechanically more powerful than direct heals or regens. What is meant by this is, take a straight heal. Keeping all other things the same (resource cost, cast time, targets, range, total potency, etc) and slap a shield on it. That heal is now more powerful than it was before. It's capable of salvaging more situations than it originally was. The opposite is true of a regen. Take a heal, parcel its potency out over time. It's now capable of salvaging fewer scenarios, because, again in a vacuum, its potency alone might get someone killed if it can't outpace the damage.

This is the root of why shielding spells are more resource-expensive than normal heals, and regens are cheaper. It's the price tag for mechanical advantage. Now, these can be priced in a way that makes the regens better outside the spherical cows world of the design vacuum, but it's why shielding is "better".

This also plays very heavily into why SE seems to scared to do things like allow the old crit-lo with Recitation and their reluctance to reduce the mp cost of Nocturnal Aspected Benefic.

They seem determined to avoid a scenario like in world of warcraft where the formerly shield-oriented disc priest, while sometimes extremely weak at the start of the expansion, would grow extremely powerful and nigh meta defining by the end due to how much damage it flat out negated throughout a raid. Because of the nature of mitigation, SE is forced to compensate by making it more costly and/or extremely capped in its potential. That was an element I always appreciated about sch and how its balanced. But they seem to not get it down right with Noct Ast.

[KDSilver]

This also plays very heavily into why SE seems to scared to do things like allow the old crit-lo with Recitation and their reluctance to reduce the mp cost of Nocturnal Aspected Benefic.

While I won't lie, I loved old critlo, it was too powerful really. When you had it, you knew you could completly ignore the next raid wide aoe damage.
This is something that Ast and WHM couldn't do, and was a part of why SCH was prefered so much over Noct Ast aswell (still rng outside of the pull fishing crit indeed, but when it happened, that was a huge and safe plus).
Introducing a forced crit on several abilities while also nerfing critlo was a good move on their part I think.

So not a question of being scared or anything I think.
But from a healer perspective as a whole, I'd say, it was more for the balance.

[Brandedblade]

While I won't lie, I loved old critlo, it was too powerful really. When you had it, you knew you could completly ignore the next raid wide aoe damage.
This is something that Ast and WHM couldn't do, and was a part of why SCH was prefered so much over Noct Ast aswell (still rng outside of the pull fishing crit indeed, but when it happened, that was a huge and safe plus).
Introducing a forced crit on several abilities while also nerfing critlo was a good move on their part I think.

So not a question of being scared or anything I think.
But from a healer perspective as a whole, I'd say, it was more for the balance.

You're correct. Its absolutley a balance thing.

As far as being on topic. I think sch is still decently designed overall. The only major thing I can think of that scholar feels lacking in is not having a good emphasis on the fae guage. I'm rather fond of the concept of scholar being all about cycling your mp, aetherflow, and fae gauge in a nice loop to optimize both your damage and healing. To me sch has evolved from being a primarily shield focused healer to a resource and a cooldown management healer, so I wouldnt mind seeing them work out a system that further incentivizes creating said loop of resources.

[technole]

I stopped when OP said SCHs healing capabilities are lacking.
SCH probably has the best healing kit in the game. If you don't realize that you need to step back and question what you're doing wrong.

They never seem to figure out that Soil is the best oGCD heal in the game, it's unbelievable.

[Raylazer11]

Just sounds like you wanna play WHM to me. SCH has some issues sure I think everyone can agree with that. But 98% of what you said is unfounded.

[Whichi]

I stopped when OP said SCHs healing capabilities are lacking.
SCH probably has the best healing kit in the game. If you don't realize that you need to step back and question what you're doing wrong.

No they dont lol look at FFLOGS sch's healing is THE LOWEST in some fights the margin of healing difference is MASSIVE esp in the ultimate fights. . SCH is EXTREMELy lacking in the healing department right now vs the other healers.

They never seem to figure out that Soil is the best oGCD heal in the game, it's unbelievable.

You do realize that Soil is just Collective unconscious on astro except that you lose 150 potency everytime you use it right? how can it be better than collective when its literally objectively worse.
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[Whichi]

theres some really great points here OP. Don't listen to anyone telling you SCH isnt lacking statistics and data atm PROVE that scholar is by far the worst healer. World first shiva extreme even went ahead to skip SCH and used ASTRO / WHM in their group comp. The facts are that SCH has to give away 150 potency for every heal that isnt recitation and whm / astro do not WHM loses 300 for each set of lilys they use but in some fights that can even be a gain if theres multiple targets OR downtime. On top of glare / dia being insane. ASTRO doesnt lose ANYTHING to weave healing. SCH's tank healing is abysmal now and their mitigation is SUBPAR compared to astro.

[Brandedblade]

No they dont lol look at FFLOGS sch's healing is THE LOWEST in some fights the margin of healing difference is MASSIVE esp in the ultimate fights. . SCH is EXTREMELy lacking in the healing department right now vs the other healers.



You do realize that Soil is just Collective unconscious on astro except that you lose 150 potency everytime you use it right? how can it be better than collective when its literally objectively worse.
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While the Energy Drain cost is still there and I wont argue against that. The fact that it has half the cooldown and, as an aetherflow skill it also has the extra 375ish (I don't know the exact math since pet scaling) single target heal or extra 190-200ish aoe heal potency due to it adding to the fae gauge, I'd argue they are about even.

[Brandedblade]

theres some really great points here OP. Don't listen to anyone telling you SCH isnt lacking statistics and data atm PROVE that scholar is by far the worst healer. World first shiva extreme even went ahead to skip SCH and used ASTRO / WHM in their group comp. The facts are that SCH has to give away 150 potency for every heal that isnt recitation and whm / astro do not WHM loses 300 for each set of lilys they use but in some fights that can even be a gain if theres multiple targets OR downtime. On top of glare / dia being insane. ASTRO doesnt lose ANYTHING to weave healing. SCH's tank healing is abysmal now and their mitigation is SUBPAR compared to astro.

If the aetherflow heal allows both healers to not gcd heal, then it's a gain overall. Not to mention even with the aetherflow restriction theres also all the free healing from the fairy, and all aetherflow skills have extra effective potency thanks to... you guessed it, the fae guage