SCH Seraph vs Neutral Sect and Temperance

[Szylver]

Hi people. returning player here. is it just me or Seraph is useless most of the time? compared to AST Neutral Sect and WHM Temperance. I didn't tried any hard-endgame content or savage.

[Sebazy]

It’s decent, just highly clunky in use.

The biggest thing to note is that it has two charges on the shield, getting good value from that is key. You want to have Seraph out and ready well before the mechanic hits or you simply won’t get the shields out in time.

Secondly and further emphasising the need to not rush it. You want to avoid hitting it as your fairy is doing anything else as the whole seraph switch will merrily eat cooldowns for no gain if you’re not careful

[Szylver]

It’s decent, just highly clunky in use.

The biggest thing to note is that it has two charges on the shield, getting good value from that is key. You want to have Seraph out and ready well before the mechanic hits or you simply won’t get the shields out in time.

Secondly and further emphasising the need to not rush it. You want to avoid hitting it as your fairy is doing anything else as the whole seraph switch will merrily eat cooldowns for no gain if you’re not careful

Thanks. I see, yeah is kinda clunky.

[Recon1o6]

Its not seraph is most useless, its that selene got deleted and with her it seems the code that made the fairy useful

Don't be fooled btw, Seraph is literally just Rouse but glitchy and Temperance is Divine seal with double the cooldown in return for a 10% mitigation. Neutral sect is also very much the same but replace 10% mitigation with the other sect. Come a months time, that's gonna be your only way of accessing nocturnal sect unfortunately since SE decided they are going to delete it for no reason. (They claim balance to make 2 regen and 2 shield healer, but that distinguishing factor doesnt exist as all the healers have elemnts of each sect. So they deleted noct for no good reason)

[KDSilver]

Seraph is not useless.
The 2 charges of Dictame + seraphic veil are great but...

Good :
- oGCD
- Good potency for additional shielding or healing
- 20y (like medica II)

Bad :
- You can't taget who get seraphic veil...(so instead of target the tank for example, most of the time, it's wasted)
- Can't use Dissipation for emergency extra AF stack is needeed as well as Fey Blessing (even if those are also underwhelming)
- Cluncky/unresponsive/ghosting (so you don't have 22s of summon but realistically ~ 15 because of the summoning animation + when she vanish)

So on the paper it's great, but when playing it could feel worse than Temperence (which actively mitigate damage for 10% for the full duration + 5s after the timer is out and all around you in a big radius)

As for neutral sect, it is insanely strong it both kill Seraph and Temperence... but it's tied to your GCD so we can't really compare...

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Assuming I’m not taking account of EX or higher difficulty contents… depends on how you see it

”Is it useless?”

Yes, kind of. Because you don’t get to use it much—or even none at all in any content lower than Extreme trials. They are too busted/powerful for lower end contents. You also only gain their access in few select contents because it’s the current capstone ability. Synced any lower and you won’t get to use it. This sort of applies to Temperance & Neutral Sect, too.

No, because they provide you a mean to perform two ‘Succors’ in a relatively short window of time via oGCD. Seraph also have wider range of 20y as opposed to most healing AoE at 15y. Potentially even farther because it’s centered on your fairy. You can be sitting at the edge of arena and still AoE heal your party sitting on the other side through your fairy.

In order potential, personally I’d give it: Neutral Sect > Seraph/Consolation > Temperance.

[AnotherPerson]

ShB expansion-wise, all 3 are strong and have no problems potency wise, it's really more of a GCD vs oGCD thing.

Seraph is a buff to oGCD heals, so your heal + shields with consolation is free MP cost wise, just takes a weave slot or two.
Neutral Sect and Temperance last for a set duration and buffs GCD spells by giving it a better return value per GCD. This is also spammable if you have the MP for it. Temperance itself is a mitigation just from being on.

The only problem Seraph has is how clunky it could be in its toolkit, in addition to ghosting. There's a significant delay the moment Seraph is summoned + a significant delay when the skill gets commanded to its actual use, which can prove detrimental for weaving and for getting Consolation to activate before your Seraph expires within ~3 seconds. This is compounded when your Seraph moves, because it isn't healing if it has to move. You fairy also re-summons and has to be re-placed after Seraph if you placed them ahead of time (which can create some delay between activating the skill, and the time the skill actually heals).

Then Seraph suffers from the second problem - Conflicting sources of Capstone skills. Between Dissipation, Aetherpact, and Summon Seraph, all skills affect the fairy in some way. If you look at the skills in a vacuum, Dissipation vs Aetherpact or Aetherpact vs Seraph doesn't seem bad. Seraph and Aetherpact can't be used together, so you separate them. Dissipation and Aetherpact can't be used together, so you would alternate their uses.

However, if you look at them as a whole, the toolkit starts to fight itself.

Dissipation would hard-lock both Serpah and Aetherpact. You lose access to all of your Fairy Skills. This not only prevents Scholars from using whispering dawn/fey illumination, but also lv 70 and lv 80 capstone healing skills for 30 seconds.
Aetherpact would soft-lock Seraph and Dissipation. You would have to deactivate Aetherpact's healing to use Fairy skills or to use the other capstone skills.
Seraph would hard-lock Aetherpact and Dissipation. You cannot use Aetherpact or Dissipation under Seraph for 20 seconds.

In these instances, a large portion of your kit can no longer be accessed or used together with your other skills - which creates some clunkyness when you need more healing, but are not able to access them. This is a stark contrast to the other healers, where their capstone skill synergizes with some of their other skills.