Dev Team Feedback - SCH

[HyperiusUltima]

First and foremost, I want to thank Naoki Yoshida himself for the amazing interviews he did and being able to address the issue that resulted because of the poor display of SCH in the Job Action Live Letter. This is one of the main reasons why I like XIV so much as a game: Because it has a dev team that actually cares about the game and its players.

Secondly, I want to also thank the people who did videos for the media tour and gave us information on what to expect from the jobs(both good and bad) at least on a base level going towards Endwalker.


Now, we know SCH hasn't been doing well for Shadowbringers due to how clunky the job felt, along with the various disconnects in the job itself that are regressive; but I want to send some feedback to the Dev Team that is constructive regarding SCH from my own point of view based on my experience playing SCH in Savage and just in general.

One of the things that I always found fun about SCH was that it was an intricate job that involved technical execution, namely how you set up your shields, use the fairy and her positioning, and using the kit to its full potential to keep the party going. However, my issues lie with the interactivity of the kit in the 60s window after you have used Aetherflow. One of the longstanding issues has been that we have a button called Dissipation that deletes the fairy in exchange for a 20% Healing Buff and a full Aetherflow gauge - something that cuts out a part of our kit temporarily for 30s and forces SCH into a position where it has to use its expensive 1000 MP Adloquium or Succor if it had to use all its Aetherflow. While the MP Economy can be stable, there are times where Dissipation as a sort of 'panic button' isn't good compared to what other healers are capable of without cutting out their kits.

Removing the Fairy in particular removes the following:

- Access to Fey Blessing(AoE Heal for 10 Gauge, free in EW), Fey Illumination(5% Magic Defense + 10% Healing Buff), Whispering Dawn(AoE Regen), Fairy Embrace(ST Heal), Access to Fey Union and Seraph

That's a total of 5/6 buttons you're losing by using Dissipation, all for a 20% Healing Buff and Aetherflow. The other healers don't need to cut out their kits to do this because they have it baked into abilities that provide mitigation or another effect that is beneficial and isn't locked out. One of the things that I believe SCHs have wanted for a while was to address this issue in job design, and the current development build has not appeased them.

I think another reason why this is so is because the job flow is bad. When I looked at SGE in the development build, I could tell straight away the job flow is going to feel good when I play this job. When making comparisons, I can tell the difference between the interactions that the job has to do to be played at high skill level.

With the addition of Protraction(+10% eHP and healing buff) and Expedient(10% Mitigation, Speed Buff), it feels like SCH didn't get much at all in terms of the treatment that other jobs got. On a side note, there's a criticism of Expedient I want to say: When it comes to movement in both casual and high-end content, highly skilled players are not exactly wanting for movement if they've already planned it far ahead of time in a group strategy(this pertains to statics mostly, but also PUGs who are following developed strategies). The ability itself seems good on paper, but in practice how would one use the speed component? It'd be to escape possibly a large AoE, sure; or to avoid a mechanic faster. However, if in high-end content that Speed is not required, then the ability is just a mitigation ability that's dead in the water without the bells and whistles.

If anything, I feel like this movement utility SCH was given may not be as great a capstone as originally thought, considering nearly all of SCH's upgrades are literal traits that increase potency or apply a Recast reduction at certain levels. If anything, I think what SCHs want most currently is more Fairy Gauge usage since it currently is extremely lacking other than Fey Union.

Back to topic regarding SCH locking itself out of abilities, reworking Dissipation and upgrading Seraph to be able to use Union would be a very interesting choice since there are instances where you would want to use Union, but are limited to her AoE Shield Healing Charges for the duration. In fact, this brings a different idea to the table for Fairy Interaction by having the Fairy be able to provide a shield for a certain amount of Fairy Gauge. It'd be a different source, but it'd also give SCH better choices since SGE already has ST/AoE oGCD shielding in its kit.

At the end of the day, SCH just needs some attention to some of the major flaws it needs fixed so job flow can feel a lot better. With that, I'll leave this open to criticism and discussion.

Edit: Gonna compile any useful threads here that can be used for specific discussion rather than making it all one thread so it's easier to sift through(this doesn't mean make multiple threads at once on the same topic!)

Dissipation Discussion - Can we make it feel less punishing to use?

Expedient Discussion - Is there a need for Speed?

[ty_taurus]

My Thoughts on SCH:

SCH was my first job that I played almost exclusively during ARR, and I really loved the way it played. I liked being a more DPS-focused healer. I liked having a faerie companion. I liked that I had weaknesses to overcome with my lack of effective AoE Healing. I liked needing to use my barrier spells more frequently.

Over the years, I feel like SCH has never really felt like it was getting this new level of power. As mentioned above, each capstone ability has fought with the SCH's own playstyle. Dissipation and Fey Union don't feel like cohesive actions. They feel clunky and awkward to use despite their benefits. When we were in Stormblood, after some of the weaker areas of SCH's gameplay were ironed out, I felt like it was still ultimately a great job.

I will never understand why it was gutted the way it was in Shadowbringers. So much of its identity was torn out of it, and we never got anything of significant value to take its place. Why was Miasma removed? Why was Bane removed? Why was Shadowflare removed? Why were the faeries homogenized? Why was Galvanize spit into Catalyze? Why was Eye for an Eye removed?

I don't understand how SCH players were supposed to benefit from in all those removals. Was there even a single person asking for those changes?

Honestly, I feel like a lot of SCH just feels old and disjointed now. Aetherflow is fine, but we've got a healer with a large quantity of OGCDs and a faerie that give them the most amount of DPS uptime, yet they have nothing to do during that uptime. The faeries never really felt equal in the past, but it honestly feels worse having them be the same. The fey gauge is basically a screen decoration and nothing else. It's also possibly the only job to never have almost nothing that seems visually impressive.

EW hasn't even started yet, so I get that maybe it's too early to really complain. I just hope it gets overhauled like Summoner and Monk come 7.0. It really needs to be rebuilt and have new life breathed into it.

[Deceptus]

If anything, I feel like this movement utility SCH was given may not be as great a capstone as originally thought, considering nearly all of SCH's upgrades are literal traits that increase potency or apply a Recast reduction at certain levels. If anything, I think what SCHs want most currently is more Fairy Gauge usage since it currently is extremely lacking other than Fey Union.

This is extremely noticeable in 24 man content when your group's tank isn't the main tank.

You'll sit on 100 fairy gauge with literally nothing to spend it on except the odd fey blessing for raidwides because you can't apply Fey Union to people not in your party..

[CrimsonGunner]

My Thoughts on SCH:

I just hope it gets overhauled like Summoner and Monk come 7.0. It really needs to be rebuilt and have new life breathed into it.

why why must is be at 7.0 why cant healers receive the changes earlier like in 6.05 or 6.1 like ninja got or get the fixes they need like smn got,why must YOU HOPE it will address in 7.0 and not sooner.

[ty_taurus]

why why must is be at 7.0 why cant healers receive the changes earlier like in 6.05 or 6.1 like ninja got or get the fixes they need like smn got,why must YOU HOPE it will address in 7.0 and not sooner.

Perhaps they can get a mini rework, but I'm talking about a total overhaul, which they only do between Expansions. I'm talking about Summoner level changes.

[CrimsonGunner]

Perhaps they can get a mini rework, but I'm talking about a total overhaul, which they only do between Expansions. I'm talking about Summoner level changes.

ninja got an overhaul early, other classes got overhauls early but healers that suffer from issues can't get overhaul early?
my point is with this mentality nothing will be done, u wont get a overhaul even if u wait for 7.0 if nothing were to be changed or being shown directly to SE.

[ty_taurus]

ninja got an overhaul early, other classes got overhauls early but healers that suffer from issues can't get overhaul early?
my point is with this mentality nothing will be done, u wont get a overhaul even if u wait for 7.0 if nothing were to be changed or being shown directly to SE.

The Summoner redesign is for EW though... that was the example I was comparing it to. Was Ninja's rework like that one?

[Nizzi]

EW hasn't even started yet, so I get that maybe it's too early to really complain. I just hope it gets overhauled like Summoner and Monk come 7.0. It really needs to be rebuilt and have new life breathed into it.

A potential "rework" for Scholar scares me more than it excites me. We know what their current healer design is like, especially with Sage. Wouldn't a rework just simplify everything about Scholar while giving it nothing to do during downtime that it isn't already doing now?

[ty_taurus]

A potential "rework" for Scholar scares me more than it excites me. We know what their current healer design is like, especially with Sage. Wouldn't a rework just simplify everything about Scholar while giving it nothing to do during downtime that it isn't already doing now?

Could it possibly be worse than it is now?

[CrimsonGunner]

Could it possibly be worse than it is now?

they could remove all dps options sch will have with that current mentality of theirs but right now a rework is definitly what he needs in terms of his identity and kit.