Scholar 6.0 Rework

[P0W3RK1D]

This is essentially my version of a good scholar rework -- a kit that focuses around Fun and powerful mechanics, tactics (as a scholar should be about), and putting more control and decision back into the player's hand.
never mind the potency values, those are just to give you an idea of how it would look, and as they are simply numbers they can always be adjusted for peak balance.

*Note: if i don't mention an existing spell or mechanic directly, then just assume it stays the same*

REMOVE: Deployment tactics
REMOVE: Energy Drain
REMOVE: Sacred Soil

BUFF: Broil 3: Additionally Broil will Stack a debuff that causes the enemy hit to take an additional 1% damage from all sources for 15 seconds, this debuff can stack a maximum of 4.

ADD: Studied Libra: Reveal the targeted enemy's elemental weakness for 25 seconds, additionally while this debuff is active the effected enemy takes 15% more elemental damage from its type weakness.

ADD: Dark flank: Strike a single enemy in melee range using a summoned aetheric weapon dealing 190 physical damage, If striking the enemy from behind them you will instead deal 300 unaspected damage and stun them.

ADD: Tactical Advance: Allies in a cone behind the caster gain a substantial shield that nullifies the next attack they are hit with, while, enemies in a line front of the scholar take unaspected damage and are slowed, additionally the scholar dashes a short distance forward in the direction of his target.

ADD: Aetherial Shift: Change a selected enemy's elemental weakness to an element of your choice for 20 seconds. When used on an ally, all of their unaspected spells, and physical attacks become the elemental type you have selected until the buff wears off.

CHANGE: Chain Stratagem: Chain stratagem will now deal damage to the first enemy hit, that enemy will receive a marker, and all enemies within 5 yalms of them will receive a "chained" debuff, while this marker is active chained enemies will receive 40% of all damage the Marked enemy takes.

CHANGE: Art of War: Creates a small puddle of Corrosive aether underneath the Scholar, up to 3 puddles can be created at any given time, enemies who stand inside these puddles take constant damage, and are inflicted with blind.

CHANGE: Dissipation: Consumes all active fairies to fuel the Fairy gauge, after which, every fairy consumed becomes un-summonable for the next 60 seconds, This cannot be used on Seraph. Consuming either Eos or Selene will fill the gauge 50%, consuming both will fill the gauge 100%

*The scholar would now be able to summon both Selene and Eos at the same time and control them individually, however having both fairies out at the same time comes at a cost of 10MP per second (5MP per second with only 1 fairy active)*

*additionally Scholars would now (again) be able to command the fairy to focus on a specific player (or enemy)*

ADD: Fey Ambush: (can only be used when 2 or more fairies are active at the same time) [Costs 20 fairy gauge] Creates A damaging gate that deals Unaspected damage to enemies in a triangle shape between The caster, Selene, and Eos, additionally enemies hit are inflicted with a confusion debuff for 8 seconds, the closer Eos, Selene and the scholar are to each other, the more unaspected damage the enemies trapped between them will take (minimum of 150 potency, maximum of 600 potency).

ADD: Fairy Gate: (can only be used when 2 fairies are active at the same time, this has no effect on Seraph) [Costs 3 fairy gauge per jump] Commands Selene and Eos to create a linking portal between the 2 of them, allies who touch Selene are immediately teleported to Eos, and vice versa. Teleporting to Eos creates a small damaging shockwave upon landing, equaling 90 potency of the scholar, Teleporting to Selene grants whomever teleported a small barrier that lasts for 10 seconds.
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Eos is a Single target healer and a buffing fairy that you can command, place, and order to focus healing specific targets, additionally while she is out the scholar gains a +5% healing, and casting speed buff.
Spells Eos has:
AS IS: Embrace

AS IS: Whispering Dawn

AS IS: Fey Blessing

CHANGE: Fey Illumination: Now instead of the reducing 5% magic damage taken, Fey Illumination instead removes 1 negative debuff from all allies within its radius

AS IS: Aetherpact/Fey Union
_________________________________________________________
Selene is an Aoe and single target Dps Fairy that you can command, place, and order to focus attacking specific targets, additionally while she is out the scholar gains a +5% Damage buff.
Spells Selene has:
ADD: Dawn Sparkle: Selene's auto-ability when commanded to target an enemy

ADD: Fey Libra: Commands Selene deal damage in a circle around her target. Enemies hit have their elemental weakness revealed for 10 seconds

ADD: Mystic Trap: Commands Selene to create a magical cage at the targeted location for 10 seconds. Enemies trapped inside the cage will be unable to move out of the cage until it disappears.

ADD: Fairy Impact: Commands Selene to charge to the Scholar, dealing unaspected damage to any enemy hit on the way, when Selene collides scholar it causes a small aoe explosion, dealing even more damage to those around the impact.
_________________________________________________________
Seraph is a 3rd fairy that SCH can summon along side Selene and Eos, Seraph has no MP cost, but consumes the fairy gauge while she is out, Seraph will attack when commanded to focus on an enemy, and she will create barriers over allies she is commanded to focus on.
Spells Seraph has:
CHANGE: Consolation: this spell changes to be Seraph's auto ability when targeting an ally. Consolation is now single target, and has about half of the original potency.

ADD: Halo Dart: Seraph's auto ability when commanded to target an enemy.

ADD: Etherial Trick: Seraph blasts her target in a straight line consuming fairy gauge, dealing damage to any enemy hit on the way, enemies hit have a 50% chance to become polymorphed into an immobile bush for 6 seconds.

ADD: Angelic Warden: Seraph charges over to the selected ally, channeling a barrier over them, consuming even more fairy gauge over time. While this barrier is active, the selected ally will not be able to take damage or die, however they also will not be able to receive any outside healing. Seraph will continue to follow the target, channeling the barrier until instructed to do otherwise, or the Scholar runs out of fairy gauge.

ADD: Seraphic Unity: (can only be used if both Eos and Selene are active at the same time, Using this Induces the same fairy penalty as Dissipation) Seraph consumes both Eos and Selene, becoming bigger and even more powerful . while in this new form Seraph will constantly radiate shields to all nearby allies, Activating Angelic warden becomes an area-wide effect, Etheric trick is wider, will do more damage, and the polymorph has a 100% chance to activate, along with this all of Seraph's basic attacks become amplified.
_________________________________________________________
Misc:
The scholar can now glamorize Eos and Selene into any of the fey creatures or simply into any color of fairy

Seraph can be glamorized to look like Titania, or Feo Ul

Scholars now have an additional battle pose they could take; (Them standing to their side with their left arm raised slightly above their hip, and their book weapon under their armpit (like a school-boy))
_________________________________________________________
with this rework, takes bigger skill gap, but never a dull moment, plenty to do on down time, and much to contribute to the fight, the style is both true to the lore and identity of the Scholar, and if i do say so myself, it would be fun and engaging to play.
*raises glass of Arizona tea*
Here's to Hoping and wishing upon a star that Square Enix does the Healer-Role Justice come 6.0

[inhaledcorn]

REMOVE: Deployment tactics
REMOVE: Energy Drain
REMOVE: Sacred Soil

But... why? As far as I can tell, you didn't remove Aetherflow, but you did remove the single most important tool to prevent Aetherflow waste? And you also removed two of the best healing/damage reduction tools Scholar has???????

BUFF: Broil 3: Additionally Broil will Stack a debuff that causes the enemy hit to take an additional 1% damage from all sources for 15 seconds, this debuff can stack a maximum of 4.

ADD: Studied Libra: Reveal the targeted enemy's elemental weakness for 25 seconds, additionally while this debuff is active the effected enemy takes 15% more elemental damage from its type weakness.

ADD: Aetherial Shift: Change a selected enemy's elemental weakness to an element of your choice for 20 seconds. When used on an ally, all of their unaspected spells, and physical attacks become the elemental type you have selected until the buff wears off.

I can already tell you that absolutely won't happen. Having a job that can basically have a 100% uptime Trick Attack is a bad, bad idea. And this game has already decided that there will be no elemental affinities (except in Eureka, and look at how great it turned out).

ADD: Dark flank: Strike a single enemy in melee range using a summoned aetheric weapon dealing 190 physical damage, If striking the enemy from behind them you will instead deal 300 unaspected damage and stun them.

That's... interesting, but I don't think "Scholar" when I see that. That's certainly something more for a melee job.

ADD: Tactical Advance: Allies in a cone behind the caster gain a substantial shield that nullifies the next attack they are hit with, while, enemies in a line front of the scholar take unaspected damage and are slowed, additionally the scholar dashes a short distance forward in the direction of his target.

This is something that would be better as an update to PLD's wing shield thing.

CHANGE: Chain Stratagem: Chain stratagem will now deal damage to the first enemy hit, that enemy will receive a marker, and all enemies within 5 yalms of them will receive a "chained" debuff, while this marker is active chained enemies will receive 40% of all damage the Marked enemy takes.

I admit that's actually kind of interesting, like an AoE Wildfire and Bane combination.

CHANGE: Art of War: Creates a small puddle of Corrosive aether underneath the Scholar, up to 3 puddles can be created at any given time, enemies who stand inside these puddles take constant damage, and are inflicted with blind.

Okay, but... what's our AoE filler spell now?

CHANGE: Dissipation: Consumes all active fairies to fuel the Fairy gauge, after which, every fairy consumed becomes un-summonable for the next 60 seconds, This cannot be used on Seraph. Consuming either Eos or Selene will fill the gauge 50%, consuming both will fill the gauge 100%

You... somehow made Dissipation worse than what it already is, congratulations. Even if Seraph's timer is based on the Fairy Gauge (which I'm honestly surprised it isn't currently), it's not worth losing 60s of, if going by your fairy changes, healing and dps.

Eos is healing fairy; Selene is damage fairy. It costs MP to maintain fairies.

And no one uses Eos.

The only thing I really liked is the Chain Strat change. Everything else is baffling (melee positionals on a caster???!?) or overall a bad idea.

[SweetPete]

The only idea I love is being able to summon both Eos and Selene at the same time. If SE makes that happen I will be living the best scholar life ever!

[Anhra]

I like the idea's posted by the OP, trough the MP consumption is basically nonexistent if its just 10mp/sec for both fairies. A Healer with at ilvl510 with ~1800 Piety regenerates arround 400-500 Mana every 5 seconds so the MP consumption would need to be alot higher than that or penalized in another way, like draining Fairy Gauge instead.

[dezzmont]

I actually get the disdain for ED. I think it would be ideal if 'wasting' it was like 'wasting' a Lily in most scenarios: WHMs don't use their lilies just to get Blood Lilly unless they already used 2, and don't have a way to avoid 'wasting' them. Likewise, SCH using ED instead of heal skills sorta 'warps' what the resource is for.

I also get why a lot of SCHs don't like this too mind, that warping is in its own way good, it adds a lot of skill to SCH to know when you need to use an aetherflow to save someone for a much bigger DPS gain than using ED and forces you to really think about what heals you need. I just understand the desire for no ED because of that weird tension.

[Saefinn]

I actually get the disdain for ED. I think it would be ideal if 'wasting' it was like 'wasting' a Lily in most scenarios: WHMs don't use their lilies just to get Blood Lilly unless they already used 2, and don't have a way to avoid 'wasting' them. Likewise, SCH using ED instead of heal skills sorta 'warps' what the resource is for.

I also get why a lot of SCHs don't like this too mind, that warping is in its own way good, it adds a lot of skill to SCH to know when you need to use an aetherflow to save someone for a much bigger DPS gain than using ED and forces you to really think about what heals you need. I just understand the desire for no ED because of that weird tension.

It's more that Energy Drain exists as an aetherflow dump, because people find themselves with an excess of aertherflow stacks with nothing to spend them on. It's an issue with Lilies as they don't have something other t han heals to spend on. I would say the safest time to use them is just before your next "Aetherflow" has finished its cooldown. You can either purge them into your DPS or if you need to heal in those moments, use them on that. That way you're not wasting anything not are you putting yourself at risk of having no Aetherflow stacks when you need them.

[dezzmont]

It's more that Energy Drain exists as an aetherflow dump, because people find themselves with an excess of aertherflow stacks with nothing to spend them on. It's an issue with Lilies as they don't have something other t han heals to spend on. I would say the safest time to use them is just before your next "Aetherflow" has finished its cooldown. You can either purge them into your DPS or if you need to heal in those moments, use them on that. That way you're not wasting anything not are you putting yourself at risk of having no Aetherflow stacks when you need them.

No, you don't understand. Aetherflow doesn't intrinsicly need a dump, and the 'dump' isn't actually a dump. It completely changes your relationship with aetherflow because now using Aetherflow for heals is a DPS loss.

This is, low key, why I am starting to level WHM. The fact you don't need to think about Lilies as anything but a healing resource is a feature, not a flaw.

Imagine if Aetherflow DIDN'T have a dump. You only used it on heals. Suddenly if you had aetherflow but no oGCD heals, the choice between using an aetherflow heal and a non-aetherflow heal is a no brainer, just use the aetherflow heal you dummy: they don't cost MP, they heal more, they have shorter recast timers.

But with a dump, suddenly every heal you use aetherflow on is a loss of an extra 100 potency, so your not just dumping aetherflow you didn't have, the entire class plays differently... Now you only use aetherflow to heal if it is actually required to keep someone alive. It is actually a pretty substantial change to the job to have it or not have it. Having a 'resource dump' is a non-issue, like you don't need a resource dump for say... MP or HP if your capped out from your regens. But ED makes it so you view the entire resource as a different type of resource, its now a DPS resource you can burn for emergency heals, and that reminds people that healers are green DPS in most content in a way that can make people feel weird, even though it is actually interesting and a good way to differentiate good SCH and bad SCH by how much they can ride that line and maximize ED usage.

This is also why they keep removing and adding ED back in: They don't like that it isn't a pure healing resource but its also super interesting and SCHs love it and it makes the job feel distinct, so any time they remove it people get upset. There is a lot more going on than just 'Oh I can spend my aetherflow to hit the button again and get more mana back.'

[Brightshadow]

The only idea I love is being able to summon both Eos and Selene at the same time. If SE makes that happen I will be living the best scholar life ever!

I would love that for a level 80-90 trait, and they need to give both fairies their own identities again.

[inhaledcorn]

No, you don't understand. Aetherflow doesn't intrinsicly need a dump, and the 'dump' isn't actually a dump. It completely changes your relationship with aetherflow because now using Aetherflow for heals is a DPS loss.

This is, low key, why I am starting to level WHM. The fact you don't need to think about Lilies as anything but a healing resource is a feature, not a flaw.

Imagine if Aetherflow DIDN'T have a dump. You only used it on heals. Suddenly if you had aetherflow but no oGCD heals, the choice between using an aetherflow heal and a non-aetherflow heal is a no brainer, just use the aetherflow heal you dummy: they don't cost MP, they heal more, they have shorter recast timers.

But with a dump, suddenly every heal you use aetherflow on is a loss of an extra 100 potency, so your not just dumping aetherflow you didn't have, the entire class plays differently... Now you only use aetherflow to heal if it is actually required to keep someone alive. It is actually a pretty substantial change to the job to have it or not have it. Having a 'resource dump' is a non-issue, like you don't need a resource dump for say... MP or HP if your capped out from your regens. But ED makes it so you view the entire resource as a different type of resource, its now a DPS resource you can burn for emergency heals, and that reminds people that healers are green DPS in most content in a way that can make people feel weird, even though it is actually interesting and a good way to differentiate good SCH and bad SCH by how much they can ride that line and maximize ED usage.

This is also why they keep removing and adding ED back in: They don't like that it isn't a pure healing resource but its also super interesting and SCHs love it and it makes the job feel distinct, so any time they remove it people get upset. There is a lot more going on than just 'Oh I can spend my aetherflow to hit the button again and get more mana back.'

Here's the problem: Aetherflow uses ties directly to another one of your skills (in this case, Aetherpact/Fey's Union). Without dumping those resources, you don't generate the amount of Fey's Union that the game expects you to. Granted, Fey's Union isn't that great a skill, but it's a part of SCH's healing kit. Without the Aetherflow "dump", you don't generate the amount of Fey's Gauge that you should. That's the problem with the removal of Energy Drain.

[SweetPete]

If SE wants to get rid of ED then why not just make unused stacks of AF go to the fey gauge. Will make things so much easier.