Genuine Scholar feedback

[AlgernonBlackwood]

I'd honestly prefer if all the healers had an energy drain equivalent, but since that's very unlikely to happen, the next best option would be for SCH to not be uniquely penalized for using a major chunk of its toolkit. It works great in dungeons, but it's just not worth the trouble it causes when paired with a cohealer.

It distorts the entire healing meta for the same reasons AST's unique 1.5 cast times forced it to do everything in ShB, the situation is just reversed here, with every other healer having to go out of their way to accommodate SCH.

[NobleWinter]

I like Energy Drain and the choice it provides but I can't see why everyone is so stressed to get that 100 potency out of it. I lose 100 potency from swapping targets too slowly on a regular basis. Over an entire encounter if a Scholar uses only Energy Drain they get 4 or 5 thousand more DPS potency while multiple DPS classes can do 900 or more potency with a single GCD. If you're failing an encounter because you didn't optimize Energy Drain there are far more important things happening that need to be fixed first. No one should feel "stressed" to use Energy Drain. I like that I can blow stacks before refreshing Aetherflow but I'm not sad if I actually have to heal instead. I did wish they hadn't nerfed the damage from Energy Drain into the ground but clearly they couldn't think of a better solution.

[Hydrobyte]

Energy Drain isn't a DPS reward, its a DPS necessity to not be the weakest Healer from a DPS standpoint. You could remove ED and make Ruin 2 consume AF while dealing Broil potency Damage, now Scholar can move without sacrificing DPS (and make full use of expedient) or slidecasting, you have a AF dump and Broil's potency can be adjusted to deal higher damage based on the amount of DPS ED gave on average. I'd prefer an overhaul from the ground up but beggars cant be choosers ig.

Yeah I agree with you it is a necessity to match other healer's damage. But that's what I mean by reward, playing well and NOT having to use AF on healing gives you that capability to match or outdamage. It rewards good play imo. Ofc you could argue having a team that stands in AOEs and and makes you use AF would make that reward less tangible and I'd agree but the point still stands lol.
To changing it to be on Ruin 2, that's a pretty interesting idea and honestly I didn't think of that. Could be an idea worth talking about. But I didn't reply because the OP was workshopping interesting changes to ED, I replied because they were talking about "removing" it or "removing the damage" from it in its current state. THAT'S what I took issue with.

[JanVanding]

Please remove energy drain, or make it only restore mp. As someone coming from sage, and wanting to learn scholar: Energy drain feels really out of place/clunky. I understand the potency is very low, but the min max part of my brain suggest not to use those heals to do more damage. Please, just remove that inkling from my head and don't tie the healing resource to dps.

It feels good on white mage because the blood lily is rewarded from healing, not from not healing.

In higher end content MP management is extremely important because you'll be using MP constantly at a rate that Lucid Dreaming or natural MP tick will not keep up with since you cant have Lucid Dreaming on indefinitely.

This is a wall both SCH and AST ran into in past expansions which was forcing them to use sub optimal Piety gear because they would burn out of MP and the trade off led to losses in dps since Piety is a really bad sub stat over WHM who needed no extra piety at all due to have an extra MP regeneration method outside Lucid dreaming.

So if you want to Min/Max you'll need to note that MP Regeneration is extremely important part of your toolkit. No MP = No Dps, No Rezzes, No healing.

[Grimoire-M]

Really, the skill I want to make Energy Drain feel less bad is another DPS oGCD, which is treated as a part of SCH’s baseline damage. Let’s say it deals 300 potency and has a 30s cooldown. How do we make Energy Drain work with this? Well, we don’t. We make Aetherflow heals do. People who remember Stormblood Scholar and any of my posts from Shadowbringers know where I’m going with this. Bring back Quickened Aetherflow’s effect and slap it on this ability. Every time you heal with Aetherflow, you reduce it by 5 seconds, translating into 50 potency. It doesn’t completely negate the management involved (in fact we kinda want charges on this new ability for consistency), but it helps with SCH’s raid DPS and lessens the penalty of Energy Drain to the point you’re still healing over a WHM, without negating it entirely. In fact you get to juggle more things in your weave windows when fights are solved which is a good thing.

[Liam_Harper]

This expansion I leveled Sage first, then I picked up SCH and levelled it later. I imagine many who tried Sage are former experienced SCH mains and comfy on that class, so experiencing SCH from the perspective of a Sage player was interesting.

In many ways, SCH is absolutely "Sage but worse". Sage Sacred Soil is so much more superior it's not even funny. Sage GCD shields being instant cast is a massive upside. Panhaima is much less hassle than Seraph. The mobility is free. Taurochole gives more control than Excog. Overall I expected to hate SCH, but was rather surprised that I didn't.
SCH has a habit of some oGCD's locking you out from other oGCD's. Seraph will lock you out from Fey Union, Fey Blessing and Dissipate. Dissipate will lock out your entire fairy toolkit and Fey gauge generation. Fey Union gets broken by other fairy abilities. But in a way this made the class more interesting to play than Sage because you can't just blow your oGCD's blindly. You have to consider how they interact with other oGCD's or how it may affect the next 22-30 sec. You also have to consider the position of your source point (fairy). I actually liked that.

With that in mind, Energy Drain doesn't feel interesting. If you care about optimization, it just feels bad to aether heal. It feels like some heals have a penalty, while Sage feels like the whole toolkit is yours to enjoy. Without Energy Drain, Dissipate would be a far more enjoyable heal tool without that thought at the back of your mind "I should use this on cd, +300 potency, don't want to lose a use". The class already has enough oGCD management to keep the toolkit interesting.
The change I'd enjoy most is to remove Energy Drain and make Ruin II an Aether spender with equal potency to Broil. If you use Aetherflow while you still have stacks, they become Aethercharge (max 3) which can also be used to cast Ruin II. Give's SCH a bit of a mobility niche and just makes it feel good to play.

The other thing is, considering SCH oGCD's require more thought or management than Sage oGCDs, they shouldn't be worse. Fairy potency still exists (roughly 0.89x in a full party). This means Whispering Dawn is straight up worse than Physis II by a lot. Sage bubble is far better than Soil. Taurochole is better than excog. Fey Union being nerfed to 267 was unwarranted and Blessing should be a real heal and not just SCH's bad Horoscope/Plenary.
SCH should have powerful oGCD's that reward you for mapping them between the fairy, Place, Dissipate and Seraph. I'd buff Dawn, Union and Blessing significantly at the least and maybe expand soil radius.

Expedient is pretty good. I'm fairly sure I stated this was rubbish in the past, so I'll admit I was wrong. 20 sec is a lot of mobility when Sprint only gives 10. That said, Pneuma is ridiculously good too so both have their advantages, but it's a nice niche.

[Grimoire-M]

Honestly Panhaima really needs a stack nerf. Shave one off. Maybe two, but one for sure. It’s the strongest heal in the game at the moment. Though I guess AST has two competitors to that.

As for Scholar, Soil and Excog have their upsides versus Kerachole/Taurochole, and as bad as Protraction (is it is a weaker Benison at its absolute worst) it synergizes well with Scholar’s overall kit. I find that they’re still more reliable than Sage in spite of being weaker. Dissipation is a major factor in that. Sage has no direct equivalent to that.

Expedient is a prog healer’s best tool. It’s not a good speedkill button outside of dungeons, but far from worthless. It’s Temperance at worst and two-three Rescues at best.

[rewd]

Honestly Panhaima really needs a stack nerf. Shave one off. Maybe two, but one for sure. It’s the strongest heal in the game at the moment. Though I guess AST has two competitors to that.

Where did you get that from? Liturgy of the Bell is much stronger.

[Grimoire-M]

Where did you get that from? Liturgy of the Bell is much stronger.

Lilybell isn’t the same as a self-stacking shield that you can carry anywhere in the arena and also has 50% more downtime. Panhaima is the strongest cooldown because it’s doing more than just heavy throughput and also doesn’t go away if the healer that used it dies. Seraph is the worst of the bunch in throughput but in terms of QoL I’d take Seraph over Lilybell.

[rewd]

Lilybell isn’t the same as a self-stacking shield that you can carry anywhere in the arena and also has 50% more downtime. Panhaima is the strongest cooldown because it’s doing more than just heavy throughput and also doesn’t go away if the healer that used it dies. Seraph is the worst of the bunch in throughput but in terms of QoL I’d take Seraph over Lilybell.

You said "strongest heal" and Panhaima objectively isn't that.

You can keep moving the goalposts and set arbitrary conditions if you will, but I'll leave you have all the fun with it.