Scholar: Returning to Roots

[ty_taurus]

So a while back I did a big thing about a different take on the healers, but that was messy, and I wanted to take a step back and look at the healer that started my journey in FFXIV: Scholar.

I have been here since the open Beta, and once the game officially launched, Scholar was what I played almost exclusively until Heavenwards where I grabbed Astrologian as well (and eventually White Mage in Stormblood).

In my opinion, Scholar has always felt a little messy HW onward, even if it was performing rather well. Now more than ever, it feels like the developers have lost the original identity of Scholar, and many of us feel frustrated on the way the job has been handled. I want to go over these issues as well as a cleaner solution that takes the Scholar back to their roots with a system that compliments their play style in a way that stands out against the other healers. Let's start with the issues:

1. The loss of DoTs through every expansion (and Bane).
2. The homogenization of Eos and Selene.
3. The unresponsive pet issues.
4. The counter-intuitive design of actions like Dissipation and the ineffectiveness of actions like Deployment Tactics

These are the overarching issues that umbrella all the rest. So what's the solution? Personally, I feel that the different healers should cater to different play styles. We've historically argued over healer DPS, but the way the game is designed does demand it to some degree. We ultimately do need to address encounter design as a whole to give healers more opportunities to heal, but DPS contribution should be considered when designing each job. For that reason, I think much like how the Scholar began, it should be treated as the DPS heavy healer who wants to spend more time directly DPSing. We could contrast this with Astrologian who I think should be designed to be more supportive and spread DPS boosts through GCD actions to give the healers who want to DPS as little as possible a healer to match their play style, but that's another topic. The point is, understand this design is assuming there would be a DPS-minimal foil to this design.

Let's talk about actions. I want to emphasize the importance of separating what is GCD (Spells) vs what is OGCD (Abilities). These ultimately determine how much time you can DPS by healing outside of your GCD, and I really want to make that an element to Scholar optimization. Additionally, I want to really make the Scholar a resource management healer like no other--where managing your aetherflow and fey gauge are both very important to your ability to keep your DPS contribution high while keeping the team healthy. So lets discuss tools.

Deployment Tactics and Emergency Tactics:
I want to rework DT and ET completely to be essentially stances you switch between or turn off based on your needs.
DT causes all your GCD spells (excluding Resurrection and Shadowflare) to be AoEs with a range of 15y for healing and 8y for DPS. As a consequence, potencies are halved and MP cost is doubled.
ET increases the potency of GCD heals (excluding Resurrection) by 50% and doubles the MP cost.
DT would be learned at level 10 while ET would be learned at level 15

GCD Healing Actions (Spells):
- Physick (No Change)
- Resurrection (No Change)
- New Epiphany (level 84 going into 6.0) - 700 Potency heal on the GCD but with a 45 second CD.

That's it. With the way DT and ET now work, you'll essentially be augmenting Physick when you need more potent healing that your abilities can't cover. Later when you get Epiphany, you'll have the ability to respond more aggressively in emergencies, but the point this Scholar is to stay DPSing through the use of your abilities.

GCD DPS Actions (Spells):
- Broil Spells
- Ruin II (Upgrade and Rename to Klaustra)
- Bio/Biolysis
- Miasma/Miasmolysis
- Shadowflare
- New Helix (Explained Below)
- New Nightshade (Level 86)

Because of the new DT, you can use it to turn your DPS actions into AoEs, so you won't need Bane or Art of War. This will reduce button bloat as a result.

Let's start with Helix. Helix is a weaker Broil, but it will change Broil, Bio, and Miasma into Aether Syphon, Spirit Syphon, and Mana Syphon respectively for 1 cast. AS is damage equal to Broil and restores Aetherflow, SS is the same but restores Fey Gauge, and MS is the same but restores a chunk of your MP. It's ultimately a DPS loss, but you need to use these tools as they're the only source of Aetherflow and Fey Gauge generation now, and you'll need to restore your MP as you use DT and ET especially.

Essentially, it's a new combo mechanic that will be the bread and butter of Scholar optimization--managing your resources through DPS so that you can stay DPSing. You'll need your Aetherflow and Fey Gauge to use your healing and mitigation abilities.

Nightshade would be a new GCD action every 60 seconds that does high damage to enemies standing in Shadowflare.

Aetherflow Actions (Abilities):
- Adloquium
- Succor
- Excogitation
- Chain Stratagem
- New Assuage (Level 90)

Since there's no longer a timer on how many stacks of Aetherflow you get, and you have to manually generate them, there's no longer a need for energy drain. Instead, Aetherflow will grant you the ability to use largely mitigation tools.

Adloquium and Succor would change to be abilities that are OGCD and that would now only grant a shield and not heal (the shield will be stronger to compensate for the lost healing). These are used to block damage so that you don't need to heal it in the first place. Assuage would be the level 90 capstone of 6.0 being an AoE Excog on a longer CD.

Lastly, Chain Stratagem would change to be a self buff only--one that would be smaler like a 5% buff, but would last longer and you could keep up on yourself. Since this Scholar would be DPS heavy, they wouldn't need raid-wide support tools like AST does, but it's something you'd want to keep up as much as possible to max your own DPS and enable more frequent Critloquiums. Speaking of which...

One new added trait, possibly the level 78 trait, could be that when using Adloquium while Chain Stratagem is up, it consumes the buff and gaurantees a critloquium.

Fey Gauge Actions:
- Fey Blessing (Replaces Indomitably)
- Fey Gift (Replaces Lustrate)
- New Fey Dawn
- New Fey Dusk

Fey Blessing and Fey Gift are just Indomitability and Lustrate but now with the Fey Gauge as a resource. Basically the Fey Gauge is your way of maintaining HP when the team has sustained damage without needing to stop your DPS.

Fey Dawn and Fey Dusk will merge with Sacred Soil in a sense to create a new identity for each faerie.
Eos can use Fey Dawn, granting a HoT effect to the party and reduces damage taken by the party by 10%.
Selene can use Fey Dusk, granting a movement speed buff and increases the amount of HP recovered by healing actions for the party.
Using Fey Dawn will cause Eos to change into Selene and vice versa, so your faerie will be shifting throughout the fight.

Lastly, Seraphic Veil and Angel's Whisper when Seraph is summoned will replace and mimic Fey Gift and Fey Blessing respectively.

Let's talk about buttons and what buttons would be merged. Here's a list of all the buttons you could possibly have on your hotbar:
- Repose
- Esuna
- Lucid Dreaming
- Surecast
- Swiftcast
- Rescue
- Physick
- Epiphany
- Resurrection
- Deployment Tactics
- Emergency Tactics
- Broil III/Aether Syphon
- Biolysis/Spirit Syphon
- Miasmolysis/Mana Syphon
- Shadowflare
- Klaustra
- Helix
- Nightshade
- Adloquium
- Succor
- Excogitation
- Assuage
- Chain Stratagem
- Summon Eos/Fey Dawn
- Summon Selene/ Fey Dusk
- Summon Seraph/Consolation
- Fey Gift/Seraphic Veil
- Fey Blessing/Angel's Whisper
- Sic
- Heel
- Place
- Away
- Limit Break
- Sprint

Total: 34 if all buttons are used.

Overall, the ultimate goal here is to reinforce the things that made many of us turn to Scholar to begin with--take advantage of that play style and design it in a way that flows together. Everything here has a purpose, and while this means dropping a lot of things to minimize bloat, many of those purposes have been merged into existing tools. For example, Recitation is gone, but Chain Stratagem now allows for a more constant crit buff on yourself to replace that.

[Truen]

Yes. Virtually everyone agrees with you on the 4 major issues you raised...but Square Enix ISN'T TELLING US ANYTHING!!!!!!

And, my LORD the SCH is boring to quest through, grind, and level.
Broil, broil, broil, broil...OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN sucks!

[HeulGDarian]

Yes. Virtually everyone agrees with you on the 4 major issues you raised...but Square Enix ISN'T TELLING US ANYTHING!!!!!!

And, my LORD the SCH is boring to quest through, grind, and level.
Broil, broil, broil, broil...OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN sucks!

i pray i really pray , that after all the outrage that happened about smn and sch, they understand that this time they messed up really bad . Almost every single change they did worsened the jobs.
However i think they re going to keep going this way and instead add to current version , effectively having them be reworked over the whole shadowbringers expansion.
Most propably though? nah they dont know what they are doing and theyll keep trying on their own , cause none of them play these jobs and they cant get any bloody info from forums when half the community is asking for complete different jobs unrelated to the current ones.

[Kabooa]

I would not call this a "Returns to the roots." I would even say it's a bigger departure.

Minor things
Eos and Selene are still basically the same, only Eos is just better, and you're forced to use Selene because you can't get back to Eos otherwise. Nobody wants to be Soldier's Paen.

Emergency Tactics applies to two skills, two skills you probably never want to use, one of which is a not inconsiderate cooldown. This is the realm of abilities that get cut.

Nightshade's fine. Probably just make Shadowflare change into it once it's down.

Big Thing
Making Aetherflow and Fey power compete with each other as well as competing with MP regen is going to lead to absolutely terrible results when-things-go-wrong(tm). I'm not seeing why Aetherflow can't remain a limited supply with a timer which in turn limits Fey Power.

Making them compete immediately calls into question, despite having no numbers, how efficient they are compared to each other. Remember that shielding is superior only if it prevents a death from 100% HP or prevents the application of a debuff, otherwise shielding and healing are identical.

If it costs a GCD to shield 40,000 damage, and it costs a GCD to heal 40,000 damage, there is no difference in the choice here. Either way you have to "Take the DPS loss" to do it.

If the two are equally powerful, then is it even a choice? This is the part that makes this scholar a more wayward version than what we have even now - the change of its resource acquisition, and how its resources competes with the rest of the kit.

You didn't have competing resources before - you had a competition of how you spent them. You got 3 AF a minute. Those AF turn into Fey Power. That Fey Power was effectively more healing. That more healing, used well, allowed you to do less of the healing yourself as the Faerie handled more of it, which in turn allowed you to focus more on damage spells.

But putting their sole generation onto what is effectively a filler spell, and splitting that between "Heals, Shields, or Damage" effectively removes not only choice in the player's actions but also the design consistency the job currently has.

I honestly don't see why you couldn't just slap Miasma, Shadowflare, and Bane back onto the scholar we have now and stop there. I'll dump on standalone DoTs as gameplay as much as ever, but it's more in line with the scholar's "Roots" than fundamentally rewiring its resource game.

[ty_taurus]

I would not call this a "Returns to the roots." I would even say it's a bigger departure.

Minor things
Eos and Selene are still basically the same, only Eos is just better, and you're forced to use Selene because you can't get back to Eos otherwise. Nobody wants to be Soldier's Paen.

Emergency Tactics applies to two skills, two skills you probably never want to use, one of which is a not inconsiderate cooldown. This is the realm of abilities that get cut.

Nightshade's fine. Probably just make Shadowflare change into it once it's down.

Big Thing
Making Aetherflow and Fey power compete with each other as well as competing with MP regen is going to lead to absolutely terrible results when-things-go-wrong(tm). I'm not seeing why Aetherflow can't remain a limited supply with a timer which in turn limits Fey Power.

Making them compete immediately calls into question, despite having no numbers, how efficient they are compared to each other. Remember that shielding is superior only if it prevents a death from 100% HP or prevents the application of a debuff, otherwise shielding and healing are identical.

If it costs a GCD to shield 40,000 damage, and it costs a GCD to heal 40,000 damage, there is no difference in the choice here. Either way you have to "Take the DPS loss" to do it.

If the two are equally powerful, then is it even a choice? This is the part that makes this scholar a more wayward version than what we have even now - the change of its resource acquisition, and how its resources competes with the rest of the kit.

You didn't have competing resources before - you had a competition of how you spent them. You got 3 AF a minute. Those AF turn into Fey Power. That Fey Power was effectively more healing. That more healing, used well, allowed you to do less of the healing yourself as the Faerie handled more of it, which in turn allowed you to focus more on damage spells.

But putting their sole generation onto what is effectively a filler spell, and splitting that between "Heals, Shields, or Damage" effectively removes not only choice in the player's actions but also the design consistency the job currently has.

I honestly don't see why you couldn't just slap Miasma, Shadowflare, and Bane back onto the scholar we have now and stop there. I'll dump on standalone DoTs as gameplay as much as ever, but it's more in line with the scholar's "Roots" than fundamentally rewiring its resource game.

Okay, so you make some good points, and as I was thinking about some of the things I agree with and disagree with regarding your critique. To properly explain, I need to start with something that I disagree with you on: shielding vs healing. The way the Scholar is currently designed, you're right. Healing and shielding are virtually the same unless the shield prevents an otherwise unavoidable death. Adloquium and Succor both consume a use of the GCD, so if that shield isn't necessary for survival, there's no use shielding allies when you could heal with OGCD abilities instead. This is ultimately why I wanted to change them to be OGCD actions that exclusively shield. This is because, if the shielding isn't competing with your DPS, then it actually does serve as a different purpose: making it so that you don't need to heal in the first place.

The problem that you revealed to me was that I ultimately ended up creating the same exact problem in a different part of the kit design. Your shields no longer compete with your DPS, but now they compete with resource generation for you OGCD healing tools. Essentially, this design needs to have resource generation for your shielding be its own thing and not compete with other resources.

This leads me to the Helix combo system for resource generation. The main reason I wanted something like this was because, as you brought up here briefly (and I believe have brought up in other threads), DoTs alone are not an engaging or intuitive gameplay style. Personally, I feel that adding a layer of resource management to the Scholar's DPS tools does make sense from a thematic standpoint while also tying their DPS tools and healing tools together. Based on what was discussed above, fey gauge generation would need to be taken off as a form of competition for aetherflow generation. If we just keep it as is, but maybe have it so that spending aetherflow gives you 10 gauge, but Fey Blessing/Gift require 30, perhaps that could make the additional healing feel valuable. Thinking about this more, and regarding your critique of Emergency Tactics which I completely agree with, I had a thought.

What if instead of having Epiphany as this GCD heal with a cooldown, Fey Blessing/Gift are actually made GCD healing spells that are also affected by Emergency Tactics, only with the caveat that Fey Gauge will allow them to be used OGCD instead? I figure this could be a better system then just having Fey Blessing/Gift automatically become OGCD when you have enough Fey Gauge to spend that way you have control over when you want to spend your Fey Gauge.

Going back to the DPS for a second, we could also make the combo for resource system more efficient by cutting out the added Helix spell and just turning Ruin II/Klaustra into it, and your DPS weave will also enable you to get either MP back or 1 Aetherflow stack inbetween uses? We could then drop it from a 3-way choice to a 2-way choice, and because it exists on your weave, you will naturally generate these resources as you DPS. I can agree that having a button to generate Aetherflow for when you need it can still be useful though, so perhaps that should return as well, and since we're talking about cutting out more bloat from this design, there's room for it easily.

Lastly we can talk about the Eos and Selene differences. Prior to Shadowbringers, their differences created an interesting dynamic where Eos was preferred by casual players and new players since she made healing easier, but Selene's DPS contribution made her effectively superior since Eos' healing and support were ultimately not necessary for surviving any fights. In essence, it's the same issue--one is flat out better than the other, but I agree that my iteration is actually worse having put it the way you have. At least with the old system, Eos had a purpose as a kind of training wheels for your Scholar, but here, Selene would be more of a reluctant benefit rather than something desired. I think it could work better if their buffs were simplified and Eos acted as the AoE regen while Selene brought Sacred Soil's DPS reduction. Then there's two play styles of either preventative or reactive healing, but would that be enough? Ideally, the two should feel like they each have a purpose and that one isn't objectively better in all forms of content, but I'm curious what you think could be the best way to move forward with them.

I'd like to hear more about your thoughts on this whenever you have the time.

[Kabooa]

I'm curious what you think could be the best way to move forward with them.

I'd like to hear more about your thoughts on this whenever you have the time.

I don't think Scholar has a resource problem. The Aetherflow -> Fey Power dynamic is fine, the primary issue is Fey Power doesn't have that much to it. However, rearranging the skills as you have alleviates this issue somewhat. Removing the competition of resource generation, in my opinion, allows you to better construct the kit without creating the illusion of choice.

So Spend Aetherflow -> Get Fey Power. This is fine. I would rather not move Succor or Adloqium off to their own land as for one, they're baseline tools that the Scholar should ideally have access to at all times, and two, they serve as a baseline from which to judge other tools by.

Helix seems to me as a natural "The Smarter Energy Drain" and having it shift your main skills is good. I've seen some talk of Damage-to-Healing and this seems a fitting place to put that sort of power fantasy.

Consider that Aetherflow currently has for selection

Lustrate
Indom
Sacred Soil
Excog
Energy Drain

Minus Energy Drain, which would become Helix in this example, these all have some pretty comparable baseline skills to work from. Lustrate - Ruin2/Klaustra. Sacred Soil - Shadow Flare. Excog - Bio. Indom - Miasma/Art of War assuming they retain the PBAOE identity.

So, the basic aetherflow loop is 3 / minute. Helix would be an instant GCD in this example, morphing your baseline spells into the Aetherflow OGCDs. So your basic approach is:

[DPS rotation] -> [Use Helix] -> [Weave desired Aetherflow Ability]. We can improve the potency of Helix so that it is higher baseline potency given that it is a limited shot ability. We could also make Helix a context target ability, allowing it to heal when targeting allies - Making it more flexible while also allowing you to dump during transitions so you can keep Aetherflow rolling.

There is the downside of this flattening the Aetherflow/Drain optimization, but I think the overall shift would be a bigger plus. Optimization will always happen, and it will always adapt.

From a UI perspective, this does add some encumbrance as you have to spend your Helix-enabled-ability during its weave window else you're just left with Broil, but I might be in the minority where I like that kind of thing. YMMV, and there's design room there. I'm generally a fan of consolidation where it can happen because it opens up room for more things.

As for the Faeries, that's a long and hard question. I'm pretty biased in that I think FF14's pet systems are a giant mistake given how much trouble they consistently have in their operation.

I'd overhaul them, but how it'd be done would change depending on what day you asked me.

Edit:

Deployment tactics being an "AoE stance" I kind of dig. It works in any capacity, be it a cooldown, a toggle, or even an aetherflow option. Lots of ways to implement this. Just figured I'd touch on it since I was focusing on non-expansion stuff in this post.

Emergency Tactics as a baseline is just in a strange spot. It's not something I'm comfortable removing, but trying to improve it in a thematically sensible fashion steps on the toes of other abilities like Recitation or Dissipation.

[ty_taurus]

So there are two main reasons I really like the idea of changing Adlo and Succor to Aetherflow actions that just add a flat shield rather than heal and shield. The first is related to that shielding vs healing difference I talked about above. With your Galvanize spells competing with DPS, you have to ask why would you take the time to use them when you could realistically use Lustrate, Indomitability, Fey Blessing, Summon Seraph/Consolation, Sacred Soil, Whispering Dawn, or Excotigation. Scholar has a lot of OGCD heals to work with, so the amount of times Adlo/Succor become worthwhile are very small, especially with modern encounter design not really pushing much healing or support requirements during smooth runs. The other reason is more of a personal preference. I kind of want to see the scholar's tools become more organized.

With the way I set things up, shielding and delayed heal are what your Aetherflow grants you along with Chain Stratagem while all your OGCD healing is on the fey gauge. It's more neat this way which is probably something no one cares about, but that scratches a certain itch I have because I really want things to be neatly lined up like that. Right now, your aetherflow can let you heal, mitigate, damage, or offer a delayed heal, which just is a lot of stuff to pack into one box. Maybe this is just silly reasoning.

The other option is the ability to keep Adlo and Succor but make OGCD shields that rely on your Aetherflow, but I personally want to try and cut out as much button bloat as possible, and I see the shift being a great way to to do that.

As for the faeries, I'd personally want to explore the option of removing them as pets and instead have be "spell effects" or something like that. Rather than have the separate model and AI, the faerie is an effect around your character that stays up permanently. Perhaps we could even change them to be sitting on your shoulder in situations where they would be following you, but also have the option to place them somewhere (in which they would teleport to that location). How easy or difficult this would be to implement depends on a few factors regarding how their system works though, and I could see it being a total pain in the neck to create while still feeling like your faerie is with you and not downgraded to a buff. That result would be the last thing I would want out of this change, but if done correctly, we could completely eliminate the pet unresponsiveness issue.

[Eloah]

I agree with only two of your 4 initial points; points 3 and 4. Points 1 and 2 are a bit arbitrary.

For point 1, it's the sense that, SCH, branching from a dps class use to have more DoTs, and in the long run deal more damage. But this was based on fight duration vs healer damage contribution. SCH had the best "sustained" damage because fights took longer than a few minutes. I'm not saying adding in another DoT is out of the question, but given the goal to allow healers to contribute more damage up front, and focus on healing, another DoT just for SCH is very unlikely. Especially, since most DoT were removed from the game, and most jobs only have one anyway.

As for point 2 regarding faerie homogenization. Ultimately, it wasn't about each faeries individual contribution, but which faerie granted the greatest dps boost. While it's easy to think Selene granted to best boost, other factors are in play as well. From ARR to SB, faerie usage went Eos, Selene, Eos, because per expansion that faerie offered to biggest boost to overall dps. In ARR, SCH was meh with heals, but thanks to the faerie's free healing, combined with SCH DoTs, healing and dpsing in tandem was easy with Eos, since Selene's dps boosts were split and only effected a small portion of overall damage output. However in HW, because SCH got some tools to contribute more healing if needed, and Selene's dps boost got an overhaul, Selene became the mainly used faerie. But when SB launched and the faerie was hit with the nerf bat, Eos became popular again since she supplemented some healing to allow SCH to dps more. Really what most people want is Fey Wind to return. And there is no reason it can't return and just be another faerie skill like the current ones.

As for the other two points. For point 3, yes the faerie ghosting is an issue that should be addressed. Additionally, the faerie needs a boost in potency. Nerfing her made "sense" when SCH was the only one with "free" healing. But now that each healer has skills on par with the faerie she is falling behind.

For point 4, I agree Dissipation is not a good skill and wish they'd change it. Personally, I'd like to see it become something similar to Assize and Earthly Star, where it deals maybe 250 potency damage and places a 500 potency shield on all allies. No heal. That I think is the biggest issue SE hasn't addressed, SCH wants more shielding skills.

For the other part of point 4, regarding ET and DT. I agree both skills are a bit meh, but turning them into stances isn't the answer. For starters, it's been proven over the years, stances such as you have suggested don't work. Either the stance change wasn't all that great, like Ninja poisons. Or one is clearly "always" better than the other, like the lost Tank-DPS stance. Stances only work if they act as mini cycles, like with Bard and SMN, or if they are meant to act as foils for another job, like AST sects. Plus if you give SCH stances, it might start to feel like a clone of AST in some regards. Not to mention as a healer, swapping between the stances you have suggested might cause more strife. If anything I think adjusting ET and DT to work on more skills would be more beneficial. DT could spread Chain Stratagem. And ET could be inverted somehow to just apply a shield when healing isn't needed.

I should really delve into that "rework" I've wanted to try for a while. As I feel it would address some common concerns, while maintaining the current systems the game is using, without going to far in any other direction.

[Absurdity]

For point 4, I agree Dissipation is not a good skill and wish they'd change it. Personally, I'd like to see it become something similar to Assize and Earthly Star, where it deals maybe 250 potency damage and places a 500 potency shield on all allies. No heal. That I think is the biggest issue SE hasn't addressed, SCH wants more shielding skills.

I think it's worth clarifying that SCH doesn't need more shielding skills but shielding skills that are actually useful. Outside of downtime it is not worth using shields when you have to spend a GCD or even worse a GCD to apply it and then a weaving window to spread it, the shields are nowhere near powerful enough to spend that amount of time on them. Why waste GCDs to shield when the aoe won't kill anyone and you can just heal the damage with planned oGCDs? Dissipation becoming an oGCD aoe shield wouldn't have that issue, just like Seraph's shield is pretty much the only really useful shield since you can weave it so worst case you're only losing 80 potency.

[Eloah]

I think it's worth clarifying that SCH doesn't need more shielding skills but shielding skills that are actually useful. Outside of downtime it is not worth using shields when you have to spend a GCD or even worse a GCD to apply it and then a weaving window to spread it, the shields are nowhere near powerful enough to spend that amount of time on them. Why waste GCDs to shield when the aoe won't kill anyone and you can just heal the damage with planned oGCDs? Dissipation becoming an oGCD aoe shield wouldn't have that issue, just like Seraph's shield is pretty much the only really useful shield since you can weave it so worst case you're only losing 80 potency.

Agreed. It's more about stackable shields, but yes the shields need a purpose otherwise, why bother. But that change to Dissipation cover both bases so yay. But the CD would need to be reduced to like 60s or so.