I've been a SCH main since pretty much ARR after initially raising a DRG, occasionally dipping my toes in AST, only to come back to SCH due to the added complexity of the job.

Over the years, SCH has been suffering from three problems on the player side, and three problems on SE's side.

On the player's side, the problems was the increase in simplification of our favourite job, the unreliable lag when using fairy skills, along with receiving numerous skills that were extremely awkward to use and mostly pointless.

On SE's side was the problematic pet AI, SCH players that want conflicting things from the job, and a lack of ideas for the job itself.

Personally, while most jobs in FFXIV had received a major rework since their introduction, SCH was one of the few that never got one, and the only one of those that has needed a rework for years.

While I don't consider myself some sort of genius that can solve all of the SE development team's woes with a single post, here, I posit an idea as to how SCH can be reworked to satisfy as many people as possible.

The most fundamental aspects of SCH, personally, are three things: The fairy, aetherflow, and shields/mitigation. These three need to stay and continue to be a core part of the job, or it'll lose it's place.

The fairies are the core of most of SCH's issues. From both the player's perspective, as well as SE's, if my observations are anywhere near accurate.

Eos and Selene are the source of countless woes, from the lack of reliability, to their low potency. And from SE's perspective, nothing but frustration, as any fixes they might want to do wouldn't work without removing or at least lessoning the fairy's importance.

Personally, I think there is one way to do it: remove the fairy as a pet.

Now, while I say remove it as a pet, I don't mean remove it from SCH's kit, nor do I mean lessoning it's import. But rather, change the way the fairy works so that it's far more important than before, but in a way that won't be overwhelming to newer players, but still has space for veteran players to exploit advanced techniques. All the while without burdening the server infrastructure nor adding too much work to the development team.

First, remove the fairies AI in its entirety. It'll simply become a minion that follows the player around in duties with the additional benefit that you can place it elsewhere if you desire. The fairy would have to have a zero MP cost to summon for those players that place the fairy but forget to tell it to follow during dungeons though. It doesn't have to be instant like the SMN, as the cast time could be a way to enforce the healer to remember to move the fairy properly.

Second, all fairy skills become the SCH's own skills. The only caveat, is that the fairy acts as the source of the skill when it comes to location, but otherwise it is entirely the SCH's own skill.