A (Probably Terrible) Idea to Help SCH class identity

[AdamFyi]

Not to defend the guy, but they aren’t technically wrong. :o

If their goal is to clear the encounter, then as long as it’s cleared, it should be fine. This is more towards the casual side of play. Could he perform better? Absolutely. It just depends on where each player‘s priorities lies. Would they rather play it safe to guarantee a higher chance to clear? Maybe. Stuff like that is what it boils down into. There’s always room to improve though.

If they're truly content with how healers are, then they wouldn't be looking here in the first place or even comment.

I mean, I’m pretty content with Healers right now, but I like popping in to read everyone’s ideas, opinions, and perspectives. Personally, I think this is the most balanced iteration of Healers that we’ve ever had. Definitely far from perfect, and definitely could use a ton of QoL to make the gameplay more interesting. Stuff like giving Sch a Faerie Gauge spender that does damage, or something to refund potency loss on Energy Drain, for example.

I just don’t agree with adding (de)buff bloat to everything without considering its impact lol. For reference, Divination’s 4~6% damage up buff already gives like 800+ rDPS alone, and Chain Strategem gives about 700+ rDPS.

[Gravagar]

I mean, I’m pretty content with Healers right now, but I like popping in to read everyone’s ideas, opinions, and perspectives. Personally, I think this is the most balanced iteration of Healers that we’ve ever had. Definitely far from perfect, and definitely could use a ton of QoL to make the gameplay more interesting. Stuff like giving Sch a Faerie Gauge spender that does damage, or something to refund potency loss on Energy Drain, for example.

I just don’t agree with adding (de)buff bloat to everything without considering its impact lol. For reference, Divination’s 4~6% damage up buff already gives like 800+ rDPS alone, and Chain Strategem gives about 700+ rDPS.

I mean... Yeah, it's hard to be imbalanced when everyone's kits are a pared-down WHM, except one has glasses and the other has a frisbee. I just don't find being this balanced to be all that fun- me and my "false thoughts" (lol) remember a time where things were better.


The amount of each damage buff is more of an extrinsic to me. Intrinsically, buffs in this game have such tiny numbers compared to other games that I don't think I'd feel a difference between a 1~3% divination and a 4~6% one, and if lowering divination's amount is what needs to be done to add room for, say, getting AoE cards back... Yeah I'd welcome that without a second thought.


Definitely, definitely, far from perfect. Much further from perfect than late Stormblood healing. Definitely want more fairy gauge spenders, myself, too, in Stormblood it felt like they were hyping up "job gauges for EVERYONE!" hard, and Scholar's did not live up to the hype at all, due to the whole, one-ability-only-lol thing. Thinking about it, that was the first case of a fairy command being an oGCD instead of a parallel GCD... and man am I not happy that things have gone in THAT direction

[AdamFyi]

I just don't find being this balanced to be all that fun- me and my "false thoughts" (lol) remember a time where things were better.

That’s totally understandable. Just because I think it’s the most balanced iteration, doesn’t mean that others will find it fun.

if lowering divination's amount is what needs to be done to add room for, say, getting AoE cards back... Yeah I'd welcome that without a second thought.

That’s generally what needs to be done in order to actually add more (de)buffs. The potential strength of (de)buff stacking is just too strong (which is why they reduced it). They’d probably have to take away power from the base kit to compensate i.e. reducing the potency of Broil/Ruin/Biolysis/ED or even nerfing Chain Strategem again.

Definitely want more fairy gauge spenders, myself, too, in Stormblood it felt like they were hyping up "job gauges for EVERYONE!" hard, and Scholar's did not live up to the hype at all, due to the whole, one-ability-only-lol thing.

I was genuinely hoping that Fey Blessing would be a counterpart to Fey Union. It’d channel an AoE heal near Eos/Selene that drains the Faerie Gauge while active. Was one of the things on my wishlish for Sch back during Stormblood. I’ll take Fey Blessing for what it is, but it’s not super satisfying to use sometimes lol.

[Rilifane]

Not to defend the guy, but they aren’t technically wrong.

If their goal is to clear the encounter, then as long as it’s cleared, it should be fine. This is more towards the casual side of play. Could he perform better? Absolutely. It just depends on where each player‘s priorities lies. Would they rather play it safe to guarantee a higher chance to clear? Maybe. Stuff like that is what it boils down into. There’s always room to improve though.

If we are looking at FFlogs, we are doing it for endgame content. Not for story dungeons. So while clearing the content is the only goal in casual content and not everyone performing decently is perfectly acceptable to a degree because there is no hard requirement to clear, in endgame content just aiming to clear it somehow and not paying attention to your own performance is just dumping more responsibility on others to the point of silently asking for a carry.
The goal of every clear party in PF is obviously to clear but someone slacking is putting the team at a disadvantage from the start and one they may not recover from.
Honest mistakes happen all the time but a team with some people performing way below average will not be able to salvage them as easily, if at all. Doing the minimum required for a clear if most others perform well is not enough in endgame content.

First clears are often messy semi-carries and they performed poorly. That's okay, everyone started somewhere.
But from then on it's everyone's own responsibility to improve independently from others. Even classes like Nin, Dnc or Ast which depend quite a lot on others performing decently have enough they need to work out alone. If the others perform well, too, great! But the first step is always to look at themselves.

Well u see thats the trap of fflogs. It can tell u numbers but nothing about the ppl u were playing, their performance and the situation of the fight. Especially when u are pugging. Countless of times i had to give up dpsing to save a run cause the other healer was so focused to parse his glare that was useless to heal. Countless of times i rezed again and again greedy dps dieing like chickens in joke mechanics to get 1 extra gcd for their parse. Countlesa of times i had to babysit a tank that doesnt know what mitigation cooldowns are. So yeah i get your point. Everyone can improve and perform better. But to perform better u need from everyone in your party to equally try to perform. Its not a solo job. Not saying that fflogs is evil, just saying that it can easily disorient ppl from their first goal which is to kill the boss

I think you're underestimating the amount of things FFlogs and xiva can tell you.
You can see exactly who died at which time and to which mechanic, you can look through the cast tabs of other players and look up when and how often they used mitigation, you can see who took how much damage from mechanics, you can even watch a full replay and see how people positioned themselves and get an idea about their gear by how much their HP dropped during certain mechanics.
You have a full timeline for every single button someone pushed in FFlogs and xiva.
Reconstructing a fight based on all these informations is rather easy.

And improving in endgame content is first and foremost everyone's own responsibility. You do not need everyone in your party trying to equally perform better to improve yourself - this is your responsibility. Trying to put at least part of the blames on others is only going to hinder you.
I had some really chaotic parties with people dying countless times, positioning themselves poorly, not using mitigation, tanks with poor gear and bad cd management but all of that doesn't keep you from things like using powerful oGCDs, paying attention to your uptime, regulary refresing your dot etc., if you try.
Your performance starts with yourself, not others. The better you are, the easier it will be to handle every type of party, from the smooth steamrollers to the chaotic bunch of headless chicken.

[AdamFyi]

Just aiming to clear it somehow and not paying attention to your own performance is just dumping more responsibility on others to the point of silently asking for a carry.
The goal of every clear party in PF is obviously to clear but someone slacking is putting the team at a disadvantage from the start and one they may not recover from.
Honest mistakes happen all the time but a team with some people performing way below average will not be able to salvage them as easily, if at all. Doing the minimum required for a clear if most others perform well is not enough in endgame content.

I mean, did you take a look at the guy’s clears? Average of 4 deaths per clear, with most of them ending in majority of the group having greys in damage.

As I said before, the only thing I really agree with the guy on is forgoing a few casts of Broil if it keeps people alive and gets the party through the encounter — and not doing the bare minimum. Those few missing Broils aren’t going to make or break the fight unless it’s week 1 world prog, Ultimate, or the other players in your party are also slacking. Maybe it’s a difference in mindset, I suppose? PF has been pretty bad recently cause of the content drought. I’ve seen a decent number of deaths and wipes in endgame content due to negligence to heal which is kinda unfortunate. :o

[MorganG]

Additional rework ideas for some SCH skills:

Summon Eos/Selene: Remove these abilities and tie Lily to our job stone so that when we choose SCH or are revived from death our Faerie is instantly called with us. Replace Summon Eos/Selene with a "Conversion" type skill that would change Lily from one form to the other, also changing some of her abilities. (Essentially, turn the faeries into different "stances.")

Emergency Tactics: Rework into a 15y radius oGCD that consumes Galvanize, Catalyze, and Seraph Veil and converts them into health. This would allow SCH to keep a lot of their shield healer identity and give them some potential burst healing when shields aren't necessary.

Dissipation/Summon Seraph: I like the idea of combining these skills. Instead of just eating your Faerie and locking you out of your faerie skills, you replace her with Seraph and gain some Aether stacks. Could also be combined with my original idea in the OP and turned into the "burst damage" window for SCH, or maybe just a Dreadwyrm Trance/Lightspeed style mobility tool.

Whispering Dawn/Fey Illumination: Keep the base abilities, but also give them a bonus depending on whether Eos, Selene, or Seraph is out. Eos Whispering Dawn grants a burst of healing and then a regen, Selene applies a regen and debuffs enemies in range, Seraph gives the regen plus damage mitigation. Fey Illumination for keeps the 5% magic damage mitigation, but Eos keeps the extra heals, Selene gets extra shields, and Seraph applies both.

Fey Union/Aetherpact/Faerie Gauge: Maybe more than any other skill in our kit, these need a big rework to feel impactful. Following my previous suggestions Eos and Selene would apply different effects based on which "stance" you're in, but I'm at a loss as to how to differentiate them. Seraph should be able to use a version of these skills as well, but perhaps her version of Aetherpact would be instant instead of channeled so she's not animation locked during her summon time. A DPS ability tied to Faerie Gauge would also feel much better.

Just some ideas I had while playing the other day.

[YusiKha]

Additional rework ideas for some SCH skills:

To add to/alter your list

Deployment Tactics: Change effect from spreading shields to restoring galvanise effects to full strength and duration, including broken ones.
That would put it in the same niche as Horoscope and Plenary, make it reminiscent of the old Fairy Deploy, and make it a skill worth using outside of raidwide vuln stacks.

Emergency Tactics: Just have it apply a buff so it can be used before or after the shields. Also SCH is not a shield healer, it's just a healer with shields.

Dissipation: Combining a DPS & Healing tool isn't a very wise choice, in my opinion. Especially when it's a long cooldown one, as it will be used on cooldown for the damage portion and the additional healing is just gravy. See Assize and Earthly Star for examples. Assize is the worst of the two, as it has much less leniency in its usage.
If you were to change it, I'd say have it inflict debuffs on the Lily instead of outright removing her. Maybe a healing debuff that Seraph isn't affected by.

Your 'burst damage' idea isn't going to work either, I'm afraid. As healers, we'll need to be ready at the drop of a hat to drop everything and dedicate our GCDs to healing or raising. It'd be straight unfair to pile everything on our cohealer under the guise of 'lol burst phase whatcanyado?'. A more flexible kind of burst could work, like MCH's Hyperdrive and Automaton Summon, but our rotations are already full of 'spam 1 button X times', and we deserve something more than that.

Fey Gauge Actions: If you want to keep these different, and also give SCH an actual 'shield healer' archetype, you could have Eos apply weak barriers with a short duration. If these barriers are broken, a Selene-only healing buff is applied. Selene's Gauge actions would be direct heals made to follow the damage.
(oh btw Eos would totally be the shielder of the two "The sunlight of Eos doth soothe and shield." "The moonlight of Selene doth silence and strengthen.")

[Kazukiyashuo]

If you want braindead gameplay, there's classes for that. I'd much rather healer gameplay feel rewarding in the part of the content that doesn't have to do with heal checks. Even if they do give us additional DPS tools, you can spam GLARE/Broil/Malefic to your hearts content.

You healer do be rewarding ,that doesnt have to heal checks. Can you hear yourself? Thats how healer being rewarding by keeping your friends alive

[Kazukiyashuo]

Honestly they just seems like a troll as they mentioned in another thread something also negative. Or maybe one of people who are contrarians for the sake of arguing. If they're truly content with how healers are, then they wouldn't be looking here in the first place or even comment.

They were searching for reactions, just ignore them.

Troll cause i have a different opinion? It would be better if i agreed to something false ? Visit tanks forums . There u may understand why such posts are pointless. Not gonna repeat myself. Healers dps was always easy and repeatable as it is now. Nothing dramatically changed to make sense of such posts. From the other side u should be happy u still have ruin to weave as other healers got only 1 skill to dish out dps.

[Kazukiyashuo]

I don't mean this in a nasty way, but you could do with watching fflogs yourself. At a glance, you're not only low on dps but you're healing inefficiently too.

For WhM you need to use Benison whenever you get a chance to weave it, it reduces heal load. Make use of Plenary for big raidwides. Don't use Medica, it's weak and a last resort, your priority is Rapture (with Plenary if you need more power), Medica II and let the HoT do it's thing or Cure III if people are grouped up and there's big damage, for example Blasphemy's pulse damage on e7. Use Presence on CD, it's only good for Glare spam really.

For AST you need to up your Card usage, it's a core mechanic. Don't ever let Lucid just sit there, you need mana as AST. Use Celestial Intersection more frequently. Do not hold Earthly Star, it's a ridiculously good ability.

Your uptime ranges from 55-65%, so that's at least a third of the fight you're doing nothing. Your group isn't dying and doesn't need heals, so filling it with dps only helps your team. Aim to always be casting something and cut down on hesitations or extended downtime dodging mechanics. 85%+ is a good goal.

Again, not to be nitpicky, plenty of potential as a healer. Just some friendly advice since you're doing Savage.

Well u see thats the trap of fflogs. It can tell u numbers but nothing about the ppl u were playing, their performance and the situation of the fight. Especially when u are pugging. Countless of times i had to give up dpsing to save a run cause the other healer was so focused to parse his glare that was useless to heal. Countless of times i rezed again and again greedy dps dieing like chickens in joke mechanics to get 1 extra gcd for their parse. Countlesa of times i had to babysit a tank that doesnt know what mitigation cooldowns are. So yeah i get your point. Everyone can improve and perform better. But to perform better u need from everyone in your party to equally try to perform. Its not a solo job. Not saying that fflogs is evil, just saying that it can easily disorient ppl from their first goal which is to kill the boss