Scholar: Returning to Roots

[Brandedblade]

The common theme I've seen around what scholar does have is "cooldowns" and "resource management"

You manage your faerie, which while simpler then it used to be, is still a set of cooldowns that radiate from an external target. where not only are the cooldowns important, but also positioning.

You manage aetherflow, which even if in alot of situations is just dumped into Energy Drain, is still a resource that needs to be maintained, managed, and optimized in the use of, and the reward for doing so is mana sustain whether directly through energy Drain and the cd, or indirectly by healing for "free"

and Finally, you have fae guage, which while limited in what it's used on, is still a resource that you build by using your kit and spent on free healing.

This is the system I hope SE expands upon. instead of merely adding back old flavor spells for the sake of nostalgia and an extra button to press. SE has the potential to expand and the increase the synergies of these resources and make that the loop and complexity of the class.

The thing I ultimately want to see is a bigger emphasis on the fae gauge, give the scholar more ways to generate the gauge, while also giving the scholar more ways to spend it. For example, something simple like "Casting Broil on a target afflicted by your dot(s) generates 5 fae guage" If we want to add dots, they should not be there merely for the sake of having them, they should be something that the scholar is rewarded for maintaining.

We can even sneak a few of our old spells into the system this way, for example, making shadow flare an aoe aetherflow spender or making it faerie flavored and attaching it to Fae Gauge as a situational dump skill (name that comes to mind is Fae Hurricane, if you're wondering)

[ty_taurus]

The common theme I've seen around what scholar does have is "cooldowns" and "resource management"

You manage your faerie, which while simpler then it used to be, is still a set of cooldowns that radiate from an external target. where not only are the cooldowns important, but also positioning.

You manage aetherflow, which even if in alot of situations is just dumped into Energy Drain, is still a resource that needs to be maintained, managed, and optimized in the use of, and the reward for doing so is mana sustain whether directly through energy Drain and the cd, or indirectly by healing for "free"

and Finally, you have fae guage, which while limited in what it's used on, is still a resource that you build by using your kit and spent on free healing.

This is the system I hope SE expands upon. instead of merely adding back old flavor spells for the sake of nostalgia and an extra button to press. SE has the potential to expand and the increase the synergies of these resources and make that the loop and complexity of the class.

The thing I ultimately want to see is a bigger emphasis on the fae gauge, give the scholar more ways to generate the gauge, while also giving the scholar more ways to spend it. For example, something simple like "Casting Broil on a target afflicted by your dot(s) generates 5 fae guage" If we want to add dots, they should not be there merely for the sake of having them, they should be something that the scholar is rewarded for maintaining.

We can even sneak a few of our old spells into the system this way, for example, making shadow flare an aoe aetherflow spender or making it faerie flavored and attaching it to Fae Gauge as a situational dump skill (name that comes to mind is Fae Hurricane, if you're wondering)

The scary thing we need to keep in mind when we theorycraft new tools or resource groups is that DPS trumps Healing unless that Healing allows more DPS than the DPS alternative (i.e. Aetherflow healing like Lustrate means less GCDs need to be spent on healing and thus are more DPS than Energy Drain, when used at the right times at least). The same would be true with damage associated with the Fey Gauge. That's not to say it can't play out, but we definitely need to pay close attention to costs and CDs because the second something like Fey Hurricane gets added is the second that Fey Gauge management now revolves around ensuring you have max uptime on Fey Hurricane.