[Request] Can Scholar please get Miasma back?

[Nizzi]

One of the consistent changes that I see for people requesting on the forums in threads and across the internet in XIV communities is for a return of the skill Miasma. With the coming of Endwalker soon - Arcanist and Summoner will be losing their DoTs, and a total change to the Arcanist identity.
While there has definitely been a push to separate Arcanist/Summoner from Scholar, I think a positive direction for Scholar would be going back to it's roots of being more DoT centric in it's DPS output. Now that ACN/SMN no longer has this identity, it's free to go back to Scholar and alleviate some of the complaints about how boring Scholar can feel to play.


Giving Scholar back Miasma as a DoT with a timer that isn't on a 30 second timer like Bio/Bio II/Biolysis is would give the Scholar more to be keeping track of in battle during downtime when you're not needing to heal. This is good for 3 reasons:
1. It increases player interactivity and the need to pay attention. Right now, during DPS downtime, healers are focused on managing 1 30 second DoT and their 1 attack button. This can lead to healers "zoning out" due to focusing on pressing 1 button over and only checking when it's getting close to time to reapply the DoT. This second DoT would help alleviate this problem with Scholar players who are trying to maximize DPS uptime as much as they can and forgo healing, while also not being punishing enough that they feel the need to focus on their DoTs over healing.
2. More forgiving DPS for newer players. With the adding back of a second DoT for Scholar, the DPS potency that was loaded into Broil would need to be distributed to account for Scholar having Miasma back in their tool kit. This is a good thing, because healing would become less of a total DPS loss for players as long as their DoTs are ticking. Needing to drop Broil and heal becomes less punishing for the Scholar player and it makes having to perform their primary duty feel better, because they would be contributing more DPS with two DoTs than with their one DoT total.
3. Lore and thematics. Scholar's lore is seeped in plagues and disease. The job quests revolve around the Nymian plague and the job being a Tactician of Nym: giving Scholar more to manage in the form of a DoT like Miasma does both for "knowing plagues" and managing things on the field of battle. Scholar still has this aesthetic in it's current DoT Biolysis, and also in skills such as "Energy Drain" and "Ruin II", which are equally inline with this.

Note: I am not asking for Scholar to do more DPS than it is currently doing. Were Miasma to come back, the total damage should be distributed to where Scholar is doing relatively the same amount of DPS as before.

What you may be asking is this: Why would you want Scholar to do more work for the same amount DPS? Because not only do I want the job to feel more engaging to play at higher levels, I want the job to be more accessible at lower levels too for people who are getting a handle on healing. At lower levels, the presence of the faerie is already a powerful tool for newer players to get a handle on learning the job, so as they become less reliant on Lily for covering healing as they level up, the DoTs will be a good tool to ensure they can keep contributing DPS while learning to heal more.

In the 1 DoT 1 Attack meta of ShB, most of Scholar's damage is coming from Broil III, and it can feel incredibly punishing for Scholar when they actually need to heal. This will be alleviated some in Endwalker with the new cast times, but adding Miasma back would make it less punishing to have to use GCD heals when you need to use them or when you need to stop casting Broil for whatever reason that may be. If the current healing design is for healers to not feel punishing to play incorrectly, the gameplay of the jobs should reflect this in how they interact with their DPS toolkits in both lower and higher end content.

I know that this has been a common topic over the past two years; it is a testament to how popular of a change this would be for Scholar were it to get it back. All of the work for the skills is also already in the game: the status effects, the skill animations are fortunately shared between SCH/SMN and the skill icons are already in the game. This would be a very small amount of effort that would massively improve how the job feels to play. On top of this, the DoT aspect of Summoner would still exist in Scholar as opposed to no longer existing in the game, which would be a more easy transition for people who missed that aspect of Summoner, and leveling an alt job wouldn't be required as the jobs are still linked together.

If any of the developers read this post; please take this change into consideration coming into Endwalker as it would help the job immensely in both gameplay feel and enjoyment going into Endwalker.

[IanR]

perhaps in two years, or never will

[Doragan]

On a similar note, please bring back Aero III. And Bane. I can't believe we spent 2 years without them already

[NobleWinter]

I miss Miasma and Bane so much. Losing Selene was bad, but all the DoTs, Shadow Flare, and Bane was a nail in the coffin for any enjoyment I got out of Scholar. It feels miserable to play. I end up hitting Broil 3 times for a single cast cause my fingers want something to do but there is just nothing else to manage for such long periods of time. I remember clearly triggering fairy actions while casting dps spells in earlier expansions and this current version of gameplay is so slow and awful in comparison. How do you remove everything and give zero back except a glitchy Seraph and hilariously weak Fey Blessing. They had two years during Shadowbringers to think about a new direction for Scholar and apparently we're in for another two years for them to ignore Scholar in Endwalker.

[Sani2341]

I would love to have miasma back. Or a new DoT with a non 30s duration. it would be a rather simple change to take SCH from 'not going to torture myself with that for another 2 years' to 'I'll keep at it for a while longer yet, and SMN seems fun too' esp. if the claims from the media tour that the fairy clunk was improved hold true.

[inhaledcorn]

I really wouldn't mind a second DoT to juggle. Bio III as our single-target DoT, Miasma II/III as an AoE DoT (like Aero III, something I want back for WHM btw), Biolsysis and Shadow Flare as DoTs to use during burst phases (so they have 60s timers like Sonic Break). This can make things more interesting without making it DPS-levels of complicated. I can't say I haven't "zoned out" smashing one button and let the tank drop further than I mean to. I mean, when you get into a certain rhythm, you just keep doing it.

[MellowMink]

I would appreciate having a second dot again, that's for sure; it would add just a bit to the current complexity that's majorly lacking.

[Nizzi]

I really wouldn't mind a second DoT to juggle. Bio III as our single-target DoT, Miasma II/III as an AoE DoT (like Aero III, something I want back for WHM btw), Biolsysis and Shadow Flare as DoTs to use during burst phases (so they have 60s timers like Sonic Break). This can make things more interesting without making it DPS-levels of complicated. I can't say I haven't "zoned out" smashing one button and let the tank drop further than I mean to. I mean, when you get into a certain rhythm, you just keep doing it.

I would love this, it would be a lot of fun! In general if we can't get Bio III as a separate DoT, I wish they'd roll it into the Bio line that SCH has now, new players to SCH have to wait until level 72 to get any upgrades to Bio II, and now that ACN is losing it's DoTs, Bio I may as well not even exist. Maybe it's a pointless complaint, but SCH players play through all of ARR/HW/SB with the same DoT with 0 changes, that's pretty lame in my opinion.
Healers having an AoE DoT/their DoT becoming AoE would be fun too, I don't really see a reason why a job like BLM can have an AoE DoT but not healers, which all have their own DoT. I wouldn't even understand a justification of "healers shouldn't do more damage in dungeons" because they clearly don't care about tanks being able to do dungeons without needing healers to heal at all. At this point though, anything to end the monotony that causes healers to zone out while spamming their nuke would make me happy.

[KDSilver]

That's the very least I'm asking for SCH and WHM.
Aero III & Miasma.

[MellowMink]

That's the very least I'm asking for SCH and WHM.
Aero III & Miasma.

Miasma II would also be nice to see again, since it was a unique AOE dot that the game just no longer has accessible for any job.