A (Probably Terrible) Idea to Help SCH class identity

[MorganG]

Whether you're fine with the current balance of things or not, it's undeniable that SCHs fall behind WHM and AST in both damage and healing. Are they unplayable? Absolutely not. Despite knowing they fall behind, they're still my personal favorite healer to play. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't like to see some changes.

But SCHs are in a poor place. Shield healing has been intentionally nerfed. They still have plenty of ogcd heals, but their DPS and HPS compete for resources. They now have the lowest healer DPS. Their capstone abilities don't work together, and their kit doesn't play nice with itself. And that's not even getting into the faeries or Seraph ghosting skills.

So, given the current state of the game, how do we give SCH a comfortable spot among healers without horning in on the identity of the other healers or completely throwing the balance of the game back to having a completely undesirable healer? After replaying FFVIII, I think I have an idea of how to do it. (And if you already hate this build up, there'll be a tl;dr at the bottom.)

I couldn't help but think of my main class while playing the game. Most especially Rinoa turning the flower petal into a feather reminded me of the aesthetic similarity between our faeries becoming/being replaced by Seraph. And this idea, specifically, came to me while building Rinoa post Sorceress powers.

Y'see, when you unlock Rinoa's 2nd limit break she goes into a state similar to Berserk. Her spells are 5x stronger than usual and her magic uses none of the usual resources. She'll only cast offensive magic she has equipped, which results in her often being built with one or two of the strongest spells that she'll only cast during LB and a load of healing/support magic for when you're building her LB up. I'm sure by now you can see where I'm going with this.

If WHM is all about consistent aDPS while healing, and AST the more support focused rDPS healer, SCH should be the healer with the "burst damage" window. By reworking the (mostly useless) Faerie Gauge, the SCH could build into a burst damage phase by using their healing Aetherflow skills. This would mirror the old SMN, would reward SCH for healing (which SE has stated is their desired goal for healers), and make building Faerie Gauge a far more interesting and rewarding part of our kit.

Obviously, changes of this magnitude wouldn't see the light of day until 6.0 (if at all), but I think if "Shield Healer" is no longer a route SE wishes to take, and since Pet Healer is buggy and either uninvolved (if the pets are too strong) or mostly flavor (if the pets are somewhat weak), this could be a valid path for the future of SCH.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I'm sorry in advance to all the people who are already mad at me for even suggesting it. Pls give Eos a gun. Thnx.

TL;DR: The SCH could be the healer with a burst damage form to contrast with the WHM consistent DPS and AST support focused rDPS.

[ItMe]

Why not just bring back stances?
Just make them SCH only.

[YusiKha]

... It's undeniable that SCHs fall behind WHM and AST in both damage and healing...
... They now have the lowest healer DPS...

Only when alongside a WHM, actually.
SCH+AST is roughly equal to WHM+AST, and both pairs are used in speedkills. The issue is that White Mage and Scholar don't play nicely together.

SCH should be the healer with the "burst damage" window

Scholar had a damaging identity already. Damage-over-time effects.
In Heavensward, Scholar had access to 5 DoTs (Bio, Bio 2, Miasma, Aero, and Shadowflare was a spell) which were all stronger than Broil. (WHM & AST only had 3 DoTs, 1 of which was solely a weaving tool)

Now if you want to look in older games for inspiration instead, Scholars typically had a form of 'Scan' which would tell you foes' stats, HP, weaknesses.
Scan lifted wholesale wouldn't work so well in FFXIV, and would be changed into a personal buff or enemy debuff (in fact, it may be Chain Strategem already).

Both things could be combined, so that Scholar had multiple running DoTs which seeked out weaknesses in the enemy, which could then be activated for a personal damage boost (think BLM Thunderclouds), or further party buffing.

[Seraphor]

Speaking of VIII, give SCH the Meltdown spell.
Increases damage dealt to target, like a mini Trick Attack and stacks with Chain Stratagem (maybe off CD every other CS)

While we're at it, give them a skill (or an effect of an existing skill) than can consolidate all Miasma ticks at once, it'd be like a Tactics skill for dps, can even cost aetherflow if it has to.

Bane wouldn't hurt either.

[MorganG]

Speaking of VIII, give SCH the Meltdown spell.
Increases damage dealt to target, like a mini Trick Attack and stacks with Chain Stratagem (maybe off CD every other CS)

While we're at it, give them a skill (or an effect of an existing skill) than can consolidate all Miasma ticks at once, it'd be like a Tactics skill for dps, can even cost aetherflow if it has to.

Bane wouldn't hurt either.

I like these ideas!

[Liam_Harper]

The issue is that White Mage and Scholar don't play nicely together.

Why is that exactly? Genuinely curious.

[Rilifane]

Why is that exactly? Genuinely curious.

The issue is less that WHM + SCH don't play well enough together because both have great tools for healing but rather AST playing far too well with both of them, making WHM + SCH pale in comparison to an AST + X duo.
WHM and SCH both less mobile than AST and have to pay opportunity cost for their oGCDs outside of dot refresh and ED Ruin II; something AST doesn't have to worry about with the free single weave after every Malefic.
With WHM + SCH it's "Well, one of us has to bite the bullet..." everytime someone needs healing. Even with extremely good coordination, dps loss is inevitable.
AST + X suffers from next to no dps loss because AST can cover the bulk of required healing without worrying about having to align it with movement for no cost while the other healer focuses on filling the few gaps and planning their healing around times when they have to use Lilies/ Ruin II for movement anyway. With an AST, SCH and WHM can play to their strengths.

Looking at my latest kills, Earthly Star alone always healed between 1,5-2m. I had a co healer on E5s who had absolutely no qualms with dumping almost all the responsibility on me, not using a single fairy heal safe for one Aetherpact, no Seraph, Excog or anything. He healed less than our DRK with TBN and it was fine. I only hardcasted three times and that wasn't even neccessary and more for safety than anything else.

[Grimoire-M]

The issue is less that WHM + SCH don't play well enough together because both have great tools for healing but rather AST playing far too well with both of them, making WHM + SCH pale in comparison to an AST + X duo.
WHM and SCH both less mobile than AST and have to pay opportunity cost for their oGCDs outside of dot refresh and ED Ruin II; something AST doesn't have to worry about with the free single weave after every Malefic.
With WHM + SCH it's "Well, one of us has to bite the bullet..." everytime someone needs healing. Even with extremely good coordination, dps loss is inevitable.
AST + X suffers from next to no dps loss because AST can cover the bulk of required healing without worrying about having to align it with movement for no cost while the other healer focuses on filling the few gaps and planning their healing around times when they have to use Lilies/ Ruin II for movement anyway. With an AST, SCH and WHM can play to their strengths.

Looking at my latest kills, Earthly Star alone always healed between 1,5-2m. I had a co healer on E5s who had absolutely no qualms with dumping almost all the responsibility on me, not using a single fairy heal safe for one Aetherpact, no Seraph, Excog or anything. He healed less than our DRK with TBN and it was fine. I only hardcasted three times and that wasn't even neccessary and more for safety than anything else.

This suggests to me the real problem is Tank Mastery, as well as fights using auto attacks less frequently (They do hit harder, you can feel it as a non-tank immediately). Part of what made SCH busted before ShB (and what made AST/WHM bad) was how useful it was to have passive tank healing...which the fairy provided for free. Quickened Aetherflow fuelled Fey Union and Lustrate spam when it was useful, with Rouse putting it into excessive levels of free padding. Even bad tanks do take considerably less damage than before, which has had the knock-on effect of making tank healing even less useful, and Tank Mitigation perhaps feel frivolous, but because it's free, it still gets used, and healers feel the effects of that. WHM/AST struggled in the past precisely because they needed to keep Regens up consistently, which had an overbearing GCD tax. Now? Barely even need thrice nerfed Embrace, save specific situations where mechanics and tank busters do interact with autos appropriately. And AST got Intersection to compensate.

[Liam_Harper]

The issue is less that WHM + SCH don't play well enough together because both have great tools for healing but rather AST playing far too well with both of them, making WHM + SCH pale in comparison to an AST + X duo.
WHM and SCH both less mobile than AST and have to pay opportunity cost for their oGCDs outside of dot refresh and ED Ruin II; something AST doesn't have to worry about with the free single weave after every Malefic.

Correct me if I'm misunderstanding but that sounds like AST is simply the superior healer, not only able to heal without dps loss but also heal enough to cover a fair bit of the co-healers share too? In the case of WhM/ScH the issue then is that there isn't an AST to shoulder the actual healing for free, so they can spam dps. While a WhM or ScH can shoulder extra healing, it takes a heavy toll on dps.

That sounds like bad design personally. Would it be better to extend the 1.5 sec cast time to Glare and Broil III too? There's the argument of homogenization or class identity, but clunkiness never seemed like a great identity for a class and they could differentiate in other ways. WhM in particular is incredibly immobile even compared to caster dps such as BLM and cannot avoid some clipping.

[AdamFyi]

Correct me if I'm misunderstanding but that sounds like AST is simply the superior healer, not only able to heal without dps loss but also heal enough to cover a fair bit of the co-healers share too?

Somewhat. The biggest weakness for Ast is that they have to put in much more effort compared to Whm and Sch, along with their poor MP sustain. It also depends how well you know other jobs and their burst windows — putting cards on them at the right time to get the most out of them. Stuff like that.