"There wasn't much we could really do with SCH"

[Alpheus]

It hurt when they said there wasn't much they could do, but SCH still has a lot of bad lock-out problems with Dissipation vs. Fey Union vs. Seraph. Sometimes, you just even sit on full Fey Gauge because no one needs single target healing, but Fey Blessing is always on cooldown so it doesn't heal enough when you need AoE healing. This happens especially when things are going wrong, or in random parties in general.

They did add a mitigation buff AoE skill that also has a movement speed skill, but it's just.... eh...
Succor is still pretty mediocre too as a shield skill.
Supposedly though, there's a LOT more movement heavy mechanics (due to nearly all jobs getting some form of mobility skill), so mobility might be a huge thing in Endwalker where this skill will get a lot of value (whether because people need mobility or because you need to mitigate dmg).

I'm sorta expecting an encounter design adjustment here because of the number of mobility skills we got this expansion, so dodging and moving will be a pretty big core focus compared to previous expansions. Even reaper has a couple of dash-teleport mechanics, and Ninja got an extra with Raiton-infused weaponskill. Note: MNK has a dash but it's also conditional to moving around to party members or the enemy. That's pretty huge since it'll imply there will be moments where MNK will have to rely on others to reposition for uptime as a melee DPS. Sage having a dash would also imply healers will be moving a lot more than before too.

Still... I'll just go unlock Sage, maybe play the other healers, then go tank/DPS. SMN, MNK, Sage and Reaper definitely looking way more fun at the moment.

Even if what you say pans out, the only Jobs that will benefit from the SCH movement buff will be MCH (gave its dash to its robot what a nice MCH) WHM AST and SCH, feels like to me they should have just given them all a dash instead if "movement heavy" fights really are in our future. I suppose we'll see how this all pans out but I'm not feeling optimistic to put it lightly.

[AnotherPerson]

Even if what you say pans out, the only Jobs that will benefit from the SCH movement buff will be MCH (gave its dash to its robot what a nice MCH) WHM AST and SCH, feels like to me they should have just given them all a dash instead if "movement heavy" fights really are in our future. I suppose we'll see how this all pans out but I'm not feeling optimistic to put it lightly.

Yeah, this is where I'm sorta skeptical. Are there specific party members that aren't targeted for heavy movement mechanics, so players will have to adjust on a case-by-case basis? How often will sprint be used? I figure healers will lose uptime somewhere here. Outgoing unavoidable damage has to be high enough / frequent enough to necessitate shields, or players have must have some trouble avoiding lots of dodgeable AoEs that start necessitating shields when healers cannot hardcast.

The only difference I noticed for Endwalker SCH was that the faerie skills seem to cast a lot faster than currently. However we also don't see the Fey Gauge being consumed whenever they cast Fey Blessing. Neither did the Faerie use Fey Blessing between Embraces, so... I can't tell if it truly did become less clunky or not.

[dezzmont]

Not every ability is going to be valued by every player group the same. While in high end groups an in combat speed boost is redundant, it adds value to sage in public groups by allowing them to assist teammates with less mastery over mobility.

It is a lovely ability and while I think it makes more sense in BRD, it adds value to SCH and fits well into their toolbox identity, and SCH is still powerful. The problem is more SCH has a lot of jank that makes the job... unpeasant and this is totally insufficient to make the job interesting based on what we have seen, and we really needed to hear about QOL fixes more than anything else.

[PaulH]

I cant seem to find anything - was there any mentioned or implied improvement in faerie AI?

[Saefinn]

I disagree. I know all you negative Nancy's are burnt out and all. But like it or not they did mention a few things.

Broil will have a cast time reduction meaning that it's much easier to command the faeries actions and weave your actions.

They made passing mention to adjustments to their shielding values and the pet ai. While we ofc do not know what this means yet that means they are at least acknowledging that people are complaining about the pets ghosting and the shielding being anaemic.

the fact they've set up SCH to be the "utility" of the shield healers with them having Chain Stratagem and the new Damage Reduction/Movement Speed cooldown. What will ultimately determine this assessment will be what the 'single target buff' it gets versus what sage gets.

Not to mention in the trailer itself it showed that Fey blessing no longer costs Fae Gauge.

So no. They made their stance firm. They do not want to bring the classes back to heavensward level complexity. What scholar was shown to get may not be what you personally wanted, but other then the vagueness of the adjustments and whether or not sch will provide more rdps then sage means that they are absolutely improving from 5.0.

I mean, it is unfounded, because there is a lot they could have done with SCH. There's been 3 years worth of feedback on what they could do with SCH.

The issue of course is they're not improving on the areas of complaint. Not all of the feedback was for a 3.0 or 2.0 SCH, even if it's what I personality wanted, even some of my own feedback has taken into consideration they want to move on from that. Heck, a couple of ideas I had posted before are on Sage.

The big problem that's going to carry over from 5.0 is downtime. I feel like if they announced that healing would be rebalanced so you're healing more and DPSing less even on lower end content then much of what people find boring will be alleviated.

Now, you could say "but maybe that's what they're gonna do" but be in the ShB I made the same point about the changes during that media tour and resided on the possibility they'd do that...but they kept consistent with their encounters. The only think they've said they'd do this is on high end content, which IMO is where it's less of an issue. They've not shown that there's going to be anything to improve the monotony of healer DPS, when you're running content where your DPSing 60% to 80% of the time, I'm just not seeing how they're improving the SCH experience.

Sage might be a saving grace because they said my magical words but...my concern is still that DPS monotony.

And there's plenty they can do there. It's not even complicated or complex. If anything it is more approachable than the ideal solution to this problem (which is a rebalance things to make healers well...heal).


And it surprises me when you can do 60% to 80% of a run DPSing where said DPS is dull as heck, that there's not much they can do. If healers are going to have more DPS focus, give more variety in DPS and loosen up some of the complexities on the healing side. To me if I'm not getting much use out of the majority of my toolkit, that's a design issue.

[Deceptus]

So apparently it was a mistranslation but a massive one.

But still, seeing the massive rework to summoner, how well Sage looks, and then that line?

It just smacks of incompetence.

[Recon1o6]

I cant seem to find anything - was there any mentioned or implied improvement in faerie AI?

Yoshida mentioned updating the pet ai as "one of the few things we could do" to sch.

[FilDaFunk]

I played Scholar because weaving was interesting - I had to carefully think about when to heal, preferably going for bio refreshes. Every movement was calculated so I used up both weave windows.
Now all of this doesn't matter.

[Mindiori]

The quote won't age well. It's basically the polite 'Idgaf'.

Because obviously anyone with a brain still installed knows full well it isn't the case. They could have shored up some of the dead/redundant abilities. Or made it a little more entertaining in its role than paint drying on a wall. Which would have essentially been anything at all. Lol. At this point the job is abandonware comparatively.

[ItMe]

I disagree. I know all you negative Nancy's are burnt out and all. But like it or not they did mention a few things.

Broil will have a cast time reduction meaning that it's much easier to command the faeries actions and weave your actions.

This is so huge for me.
I've loved playing AST, but have felt completely unable to play the other healers well because their weave game was so much more restrictive.
This change is really gonna open SCH back up for me and I'm actually quite excited for it.

the fact they've set up SCH to be the "utility" of the shield healers with them having Chain Stratagem and the new Damage Reduction/Movement Speed cooldown. What will ultimately determine this assessment will be what the 'single target buff' it gets versus what sage gets.

Half of the tactical theme of SCH used to be in move names (some of which didn't survive localization) so I think it's real cool to see that theme realized in their kits a little more ~