Quote Originally Posted by Silver-Strider View Post
Honestly, I'd give SCH a system similar to SMN's Ruin 4 mechanic with slightly more depth to it.
So, each time SCH uses a pet ability (Whispering Dawn, Fey Blessing/Consolation, Fey Covenant/Fey Illumination) you gain a stack of Ruminate, up to a max of 3. Ruminate would deal damage equal to our nuke spell and applies the Virus Status effect once a minute. Replace Dissipation with a new skill called Conversion Tactics that we can use to exchange excess Ruminate stacks for Aetherflow, which we will have extra simply due to the fact we spend Fairy abilities faster than we'd spend Ruminate stacks with a soft 1 minute CD on the skill, and just like that, we have a much more interesting mechanic that converts Ruin 2 into a utility spell for SCH, still allows the accumulation of Aetherflow and while it would miss out on being a part of the opener due to not being able to use it without Ruminate stacks, the DPS loss of that would easily be negated by allowing for more liberal usage of Conversion Tactics throughout a fight to gain more uses out of Aetherflow abilities, which in turn allows for Aetherpact to be used more as well, saving even more time for DPS gains to occur, not to mention lowering the strain on Healers by the return of the Virus status effect which would help to accomplish the same overall effect of the heal buff from Dissipation.
Let me double-check my understanding:
  • Whispering Dawn (120s CD), Fey Illumination (120s CD), and --more importantly-- Fey Blessing (10 gauge / 1 Aetherflow cast) now generate pseudo-R4s called Ruminates, which can be banked up to 3 times.
  • I'm not sure what "applies the Virus Status effect once per minute" is supposed to mean. Is this to say it follows a unique diminishing return timer? If it can only effectively be used once per minute, despite averaging roughly twice that in opportunities afforded, it's not going to feel like an opportunity afforded and an opportunity spent so much as simply a passive with a minimum threshold to readiness. That will definitely feel "clunky" to some.
  • (I'm not sure what defines "excess" Ruminate stacks. Is this any more than a single stack, in which case we can only refill 2 Aetherflow at a time via Conversion Tactics?)
  • Now we add Conversion Tactics by which to replace our Ruminate (which are merely instant-cast Broils with a 10% magic damage down that is only applied once per minute for an unknown duration) stacks with Aetherflow once per minute, which ideally must be woven between Virus opportunities and points at which you have 2-3 Aetherflow slots open (depending on the above definition of "excess Ruminate stacks").
  • Note: This causes a Fey Blessing (or rather, the Aetherflow cast that generated that 10 gauge) to refund itself once per minute, if the conversion limit isn't already capped by WD and FI within the CT period (which would only be the case if CT can really only covert 2 charges of Ruminate). On the other hand, if CT can covert 3 at a time OR we are in scenarios where we'd never need Fey Blessing, CT's CD becomes utterly irrelevant, because Ruminate already holds up to a nominal 3 minutes' worth of charge.

I don't think jumping through extra hoops here to optimize normal play, without any reason to vary one's expenditure based on the timing or healing requirements of the situation, etc., (and, indeed, if all this comes at cost to ED and/or Dissipation, at cost to the ability to thus vary one's play), is particularly "interesting". You say this getting instant-casts from pet skills that can then be kind of sort of coverted to Aetherflow affords "utility skill" casts, but... it's just more Aetherflow, now with an exploitable loop by which to get in one more Aetherflow cast per minute so long as we play rather rigidly. I get currency trade hoops enough just buying a tome-weapon. I'd much rather just have a functional Embrace, functional pet actions, and a decently balanced R2 and Energy Drain than do an extra layer of reload cycles per minute that more than likely would oblige otherwise wasteful casts.