A lot of the main issues with SCH are not being addressed with Endwalker

[lisaa]

Yes remove energy drain. You shouldn't have to choose between healer and dps

[Shurrikhan]

Remove Aetherflow as an ability.

Energy Drain stays an ability (oGCD) has 3 charges, 20s CD, restores 5% MP per use. It grants 1 stack of AF. Deals damage with 100 potency to target.
<snip>
Or
Energy Drain becomes a Spell (GCD) has 3 charges, 1.5s cast, 20s CD, restores 5% MP. It grants 1 stack of AF. Deals damage with a 390 potency to target.

Don't these simply replace a once-per-minute obligatory weave with three per minute and no actual offensive/dump option?

If you have to use ED, regardless, it's already siphoning from your offensive ppm budget. In which all you've done is remove further MP / offensive potency options and sacrificed 2 weave slots per minute to do so.

[Silver-Strider]

Listen, the only way that you can make it so that you aren't shoehorned into using E.Drain before Aetherflow gets off of CD is if they make Aetherflow a Charge Ability; 2 charges of Aetherflow that you get every 60 seconds. They could legit get rid of Dissipation and replace it entirely with the 2nd charge of Aetherflow as your level 60 skill and you've solved the issue of Dissipation being this god awful skill that conflicts with your toolkit. This way, you can effectively hold off from needing to use Aetherflow immediately off of CD and can actually bank any stacks of Aetherflow that you have remaining should you need to actually heal but here's something that people need to realize.

E.Drain vs Heals has become an illusion of choice in EW. The mere existence of Aetherpact negates the actual choice involved in whether or not you use an Aetherflow Stack to heal or DPS because no matter what, that stack is ultimately being used to heal with Aetherpact at the end of the day and now that you can weave in Aetherpact with Broil, the choice of using Ruin 2 and losing DPS for Aetherpact is gone. I might lose some potency in regards to how much I'm actually healing but I'm losing ever more potency by not using that stack on E.Drain and refreshing Aetherflow on CD.

So stop trying to remove E.Drain. It's as much a Healing Tool as any other Aetherflow skill is.

[Shurrikhan]

< Mixed up posters >

Listen, the only way that you can make it so that you aren't shoehorned into using E.Drain before Aetherflow gets off of CD is if they make Aetherflow a Charge Ability

You have a full minute to spend your Aetherflow charges. If it is absolutely impossible to have any circumstance worth spending your Aetherflow on other than a last-second ED spam to dump charges, you're looking at either (A) a must-top-off-everyone-instantly cohealer or (B) a much, much larger issue in the game's damage intake tuning.

This indirect-at-most concern is not something you sacrifice weave-space, offensive spell potency, and actual choice for.

I'm cool with allowing 2 charges of Aetherflow. I'm cool with automatically losing Aetherflow and generating stacks every 20 seconds so long as they're bankable up to 5 and charge up to 3 out of combat (and begin instances at 3 stacks). I'm just not cool with turning Energy Drain into a more awkward Aetherflow.

E.Drain vs Heals has become an illusion of choice in EW. The mere existence of Aetherpact negates the actual choice involved in whether or not you use an Aetherflow Stack to heal or DPS because no matter what, that stack is ultimately being used to heal with Aetherpact at the end of the day.

That there is eventual further healing attached to both among the damage-dealing spender and the healing spender does not remove the difference between that initial damage or healing.

Energy Drain is not inseparable from Ruin II in particular; it merely requires weave space, just like any other oGCD. Energy Drain is no more balanced around Ruin II than are Lustrate or Excog. Broil providing that weave space as of EW does not remove any and all reason or ability to use Energy Drain; arguably, quite the opposite.

So stop trying to remove E.Drain. It's as much a Healing Tool as any other Aetherflow skill is.

I'm not. You're the one who suggested (albeit in just 2 of 3 takes) that it be turned, effectively, into a target-dependent Quick Reload. I'm asking to keep it an actual dump/damage option, instead of merely an obligatory resource-generation cast.

[Silver-Strider]

You have a full minute to spend your Aetherflow charges. If it is absolutely impossible to have any circumstance worth spending your Aetherflow on other than a last-second ED spam to dump charges, you're looking at either (A) a must-top-off-everyone-instantly cohealer or (B) a much, much larger issue in the game's damage intake tuning.

This indirect-at-most concern is not something you sacrifice weave-space, offensive spell potency, and actual choice for.

I'm cool with allowing 2 charges of Aetherflow. I'm cool with automatically losing Aetherflow and generating stacks every 20 seconds so long as they're bankable up to 5 and charge up to 3 out of combat (and begin instances at 3 stacks). I'm just not cool with turning Energy Drain into a more awkward Aetherflow.

I'm not the one suggesting that. I've only suggested removing Dissipation and making Aetherflow a charge ability so that you don't feel compelled to spend all your Aetherflow stacks within a minute to give you some breathing room to effectively bank your charges, if you so choose to do so. Damage intake is a massive problem in this game as far as healers are concerned and with each expansion offering more and more support to every class to further reduce it, damage intake just become less and less of an issue, hence the need for skills like E.Drain to exist in the 1st place.

That there is eventual further healing attached to both among the damage-dealing spender and the healing spender does not remove the difference between that initial damage or healing. Energy Drain is not inseparable from Ruin II in particular; it merely requires weave space, just like any other oGCD. Energy Drain is no more balanced around Ruin II than are Lustrate or Excog. Broil providing that weave space as of EW does not remove any and all reason or ability to use Energy Drain; arguably, quite the opposite.

The choice of healing vs damage is entirely dependant on an encounter and if you have still have Aetherflow stacks available as Aetherflow comes off CD. It's a loss in healing potency regardless if you use E.Drain or refresh Aetherflow with stacks remaining, only that 1 option at least refunds some of that lost potency vs simply letting it go to waste entirely. Removing E.Drain is a greater loss in Healing potency because of the existence of Aetherpact making any potentially lost stacks a bankable heal. The illusion here is that, people believe that E.Drain is taking up some spot that would be used for healing when in actuality, its saving you from losing that healing potency entirely by allowing you to put Aetherflow on CD immediately instead of delaying it for however long it takes until an opportunity pops up for you to burn that Aetherflow stack.

I'm not. You're the one who suggested (albeit in just 2 of 3 takes) that it be turned, effectively, into a target-dependent Quick Reload. I'm asking to keep it an actual dump/damage option, instead of merely an obligatory resource-generation cast.

That was GrimGale, not me.

[Shurrikhan]

That was GrimGale, not me.

Gah, I am so sorry. I got quote blocks mixed up. Or I cannot tell Hrothgar apart (despite the two very differently colored faces above and below).

...I have no excuse.

___________________________

To return to the slightly broader topic...

I'm still confused, though, why anyone would think Energy Drain ought have any effect on design decisions around having Aetherflow as a separate button. With the current maximum of only 3 resource charges held at a time, yes, it plays a vital part as a dump option, but there's no need to generate stacks via a separate button of any sort, I would think, so long as we could still sufficiently bank our resource charges to the extent we're used to.

The only advantage to having the button there was that we could bank up to nearly 6 charges' worth of actions (hold until the CD's nearly up, spend 3, refresh, spend 3 more). If we just allowed up to 5 charges to be held, with progress towards a 6th freezing just before completion until the 5th slot's space was cleared, we'd already have that capacity. There'd be no reason for the separate AF button (let alone any hybrid, far clunkier ED/AF as GrimGale suggested).

[FusionSamurai]

that doesnt change the problem of what to use the aetherflow on when you don't need to heal. overhealing is just a waste of resources. The ruin 4 system is a good idea though, synergy between doing healing and damage is something that the healers lack

Sage has literally this, but nobody is complaining about it. Sage has to burn all their stacks for mana, optimizing them to get the best healing.

[GrimGale]

Gah, I am so sorry. I got quote blocks mixed up. Or I cannot tell Hrothgar apart (despite the two very differently colored faces above and below).

...I have no excuse.

___________________________

To return to the slightly broader topic...

I'm still confused, though, why anyone would think Energy Drain ought have any effect on design decisions around having Aetherflow as a separate button. With the current maximum of only 3 resource charges held at a time, yes, it plays a vital part as a dump option, but there's no need to generate stacks via a separate button of any sort, I would think, so long as we could still sufficiently bank our resource charges to the extent we're used to.

The only advantage to having the button there was that we could bank up to nearly 6 charges' worth of actions (hold until the CD's nearly up, spend 3, refresh, spend 3 more). If we just allowed up to 5 charges to be held, with progress towards a 6th freezing just before completion until the 5th slot's space was cleared, we'd already have that capacity. There'd be no reason for the separate AF button (let alone any hybrid, far clunkier ED/AF as GrimGale suggested).

Eh, I don't think it makes it clunkier. It can be argued that having to chose between either using AF for DPS or Healing is part of SCH class design, but I don't personally think its a good niche to be the healer that is punished for using their healing oGCDs by losing DPS.
It's not a lot of DPS, but it's significant enough to make a difference. It would also remove Dissipation as an offensive ability which is IMO part of SCH issues.

As for the options I suggested, if having two extra mandatory weave slots taken by the ED is a problem (I personally think it breaks the Broil spam a bit, by having to weave some offensive options), I suggested just having ED be a 60s CD with 300 potency and granting 3 AF. You'd get all the potency from 3 EDs with the same APM than the old system.

Essentially these suggestions make it so there is no longer a choice between Healing or Damaging with your AF, which I think is a good thing for Scholar honestly. Ofc, that is just a matter of opinion, some people like that "punishing" aspect of Scholar, I think it just gets in the way and makes you feel bad for weaving healing in a job that is supposed to encourage weaving healing oGCDs.

Yes, you don't have an AF dump, but that could be solved by a trait such as something that gives you Fairy Gauge and MP based on how many stacks you have when re-gaining more AF stacks.

[Truen]

Sorry man, but I have to be honest with you. While I don't think the developers have actual ill-will against those who want to see healer changes--I do think they actively ignore us and have made this pure healing boring crap their sacred cow. Meaning, they'll never change it no matter how many people complain, stop playing healers, and/or post on the forums. We're stuck with this garbage 1-button spam for a long, long time.

[Shurrikhan]

but I don't personally think its a good niche to be the healer that is punished for using their healing oGCDs by losing DPS.

That's merely a matter of balancing, though. If their rDPS is balanced such that in a fight that needs very little healing, a SCH would stand at least even with an optimized AST, then it's that SCH's rDPS is "punished" by using healing oGCDs for heals, but rather that SCHs have a unique flexibility by which to dump otherwise excessive healing.

Now, if you make it outright obligatory by essentially siphoning offensive potency-per-minute to new-AF (which now requires a target and cannot be used during downtime), then yeah, of course it's going to take from the budget and of course you're going to be balanced around that potency.

Essentially these suggestions make it so there is no longer a choice between Healing or Damaging with your AF, which I think is a good thing for Scholar honestly.

And I have to disagree. I think that choice is a good thing. I'd sooner keep that choice on Aetherflow Stacks/Charges spending than the dull-as-dirt way that Fairy Gauge is generated (and, to be fair, has merely replaced what micromanagement we previously had on our pets and its higher ceiling for nuance).