Scholar has the worst design of any job in the game, and here's why.

[FusionSamurai]

This is going to be a fairly comprehensive post about how poorly designed Scholar is in 5.0.

Before I begin on my long winded post about how awful SCH is now, I need to get a few disclaimers out of the way. I know, Endwalker is coming, but I do think that continuing to hammer on why the current job isn't well designed is important. Furthermore, it is important to note that while SCH feels absolutely awful to play now, numerically (in terms of raid dps) it is doing well in raids.

Now, with that out of the way, allow me to present a long rant about how bad the design of this job is.

Scholar has the most restrictive kit of any job in this game right now.Seraph locks you out of using Fey Union and Fey Blessing, as well as Dissipation.Dissipation locks you out of using Fey Union, Fey Blessing, Whispering Dawn, Fey Illumination, as well as Seraph. This feels awful because Dissipation is a small dps gain in general, and a fairly large dps gain when used when you are forced to move in raids and the like.

For the record, I'm not necessarily against Dissipation losing some healing for a while, but the issue with it comes from the fact that this is stacked ON TOP of the other abilities that already lock you out of your kit. When all is said and done, this job locks you out more than any other in the game, and it feels awful.

Since I'm on the topic of locking people out of abilities, Fey Union feels terrible as well. While it doesn't actively lock you out of abilities, it soft locks you, or the ability is cancelled. If you execute any other fairy action, Summon Seraph, or Dissipation, you cancel the tether. This is all well and good when you need to break tether, or you are fine with it, but the issue comes when you don't need union broken. It makes Union feel so much worse to use because it doesn't automatically retether when it is broken, which is really frustrating.


On top of locking you out of your abilities, you don't get gauge when you use Aetherflow stacks when you use Aetherflow-based abilities when you are in Dissipation. I partially understand why, it counts as you not having the fairy, and you can't generate fairy gauge with no fairy. That being said, the entire idea behind Dissipation is to grant you free stacks and healing. WHY does it not generate gauge? On top of other things that feel bad, Dissipation only increases spell-based heals. These are the ones on your GCD, so it doesn't boost any of the Aetherflow heals you get from it.