Unpopular Opinion: Your failure to understand Energy Drain's Usage

[_forgotten]

Friends, healers near and far, it is time we have a heart to heart about Energy Drain. For I have seen far too many calls for it's removal, both here and in The Balance.

TL;DR: If you can't play Scholar because you smash Energy Drain too much, Play Sadge. Aetherflow heals are powerful and not a DPS loss when used properly.

Thesis: When you engage in an MMO, you want classes to be different. Consider the Melee, all of them have unique play styles with some similarities. Tanks as well, to a lesser extent. So when we consider healers, it makes sense to me that some healers are more difficult to pilot than others.

Who am I? I am a triple legend Omnihealer with an opinion.

Argument: For both regen and shielding healers, you have a "simple" and a "complex" class. I am omiting aesthetic from my post for I only care about playability. If a player learns how to heal on a "simple" healer, Good! They're strong and balanced and they pull their weight. If a player learns how to heal on a "complex" job, great, they're strong and balanced and they pull their weight. Please note: There is no difference in ability to clear content on "simple" versus "complex" healers. I am not saying that AST and SCH are "complex", simply relative to SADGE/WHM, they have more to consider. Therefore, should a playstyle fit a player seeking "complex" over "simple" playstyle, they should have a job option to fill that void.

Reasons:
1. Healer DPS is mandatory in early prog and even reclears in PF. Lets be honest, DPS and Tanks dont always pull their weight and sometimes healer DPS helps offset that. This is a healthy game design and should be kept as is.
2. Healer DPS on "complex" jobs requires a deeper understanding of in game mechanics, how classes operate, and how mechanics need to be resolved(including healing output).
3. There exists a subset of players that desire a "complex" gameplay loop that isnt just "turn my brain off and press my buttons."
4. Healing in ffxiv is not hard.
5. Energy Draining 3x every aetherflow CD is a DPS loss. Why: Because if it saves you, or your cohealer, a GCD heal, it is a DPS gain. 100 potency on ED will never out DPS a GCD DPS spell, therefore aetherflow heals are almost always better than a GCD heal option(*eyes lillies*).
6. Spend the time to learn complex jobs before complaining about their complexities.
7. Simplification is what took healers from 5 DoT's to manage to 1. Please, we really dont need more oversimplification.

Exemptions:
1. If you're a new healer trying to play a "complex" healer, more power to you. But walk into this challenge understanding that if you dont play your cards on a DPS who's bursting, or you're not using energy drain, you're not going to be a high "barser"(who actually cares about barsing in clear/reclear content)
2. TBD(i am no theorist, surely there are other exemptions).

[Atmaweapon510]

They reduced Energy Drain's damage to 100 back in Shb in order to make Ruin II + ED almost dps neutral with Broil spam. Now that all healers get a free oGCD, it's about time for Energy Drain's removal. I say this because of two reasons, playing as SCH and with SCH.

As SCH:
Dissipation. Dissipation should be something of an emergency button, one that you press when you've screwed up your resource management so you can recover. When Energy Drain becomes a dps positive however, you are severely pressured into eating your fairy for a quarter of every fight. This really sucks.

With SCH:
It is very, *very* apparent when they're dumping everything into Energy Drain. It's not bad at the start of a fight, but later on, when you hardly ever see Sacred Soil, it becomes readily apparent that your SCH co-healer is thinking that they're in some perfect play scenario where both healers can space out their other heals properly. Also, if your SCH is using Dissipation on cooldown, they are literally foisting more healing responsibilities onto you unless they spend all 3 aetherflow stacks on Lustrate. It's just an incredibly toxic environment that's not good for the game.

[NobleWinter]

It's wild, but you can use Dissipation on Cooldown without being burden to your cohealer. It's possible to use it as both a DPS gain and a healing tool. If a Scholar uses their healing tools to heal when necessary there is still going to be too many resources left over warranting Energy Drain. Learning how to balance things doesn't mean the skills are bad. It just gives room for growth. Let people have a class that actually rewards learning and improving. One bad run with a bad Scholar is not the end of the world.

[Archwizard]

The underlying issue of ED is that it remained with the intention of giving you a resource dump before your next Aetherflow, but its existence ensures that your resources have a healing vs damage cost.

So, the easiest way to deal with that is to replace ED with a new resource dump, and instead give SCH a new damage oGCD without an Aetherflow cost.

What that replacement dump is, is entirely up in the air. It just needs to be something with an evergreen value, that doesn't contribute to (or take away from) damage.
Could even skip the middle man and just be an Additional Effect on Aetherflow itself that converts any remaining stacks into a little bonus MP when activated. Lord knows SCH could use a few less buttons.

Hell, they could even do what SMN did and have Energy Drain replace Aetherflow, dealing damage when you use it. You already can't use it out of combat, next logical step.

[_forgotten]

They reduced Energy Drain's damage to 100 back in Shb in order to make Ruin II + ED almost dps neutral with Broil spam. Now that all healers get a free oGCD, it's about time for Energy Drain's removal. I say this because of two reasons, playing as SCH and with SCH.

As SCH:
Dissipation. Dissipation should be something of an emergency button, one that you press when you've screwed up your resource management so you can recover. When Energy Drain becomes a dps positive however, you are severely pressured into eating your fairy for a quarter of every fight. This really sucks.

With SCH:
It is very, *very* apparent when they're dumping everything into Energy Drain. It's not bad at the start of a fight, but later on, when you hardly ever see Sacred Soil, it becomes readily apparent that your SCH co-healer is thinking that they're in some perfect play scenario where both healers can space out their other heals properly. Also, if your SCH is using Dissipation on cooldown, they are literally foisting more healing responsibilities onto you unless they spend all 3 aetherflow stacks on Lustrate. It's just an incredibly toxic environment that's not good for the game.

As SCH: If Disipation is causing you issue then the problem isnt scholar kit, it's your understanding of how to pilot scholar as a class.

With SCH: Yes, a bad scholar who dumps all aetherflow in to ED is griefing, but it all that shows is a player's need to grow in knowledge and experience. Not a need for crippling changes to the class.

[_forgotten]

It's wild, but you can use Dissipation on Cooldown without being burden to your cohealer. It's possible to use it as both a DPS gain and a healing tool. If a Scholar uses their healing tools to heal when necessary there is still going to be too many resources left over warranting Energy Drain. Learning how to balance things doesn't mean the skills are bad. It just gives room for growth. Let people have a class that actually rewards learning and improving. One bad run with a bad Scholar is not the end of the world.

This, so much This.

[_forgotten]

The underlying issue of ED is that it remained with the intention of giving you a resource dump before your next Aetherflow, but its existence ensures that your resources have a healing vs damage cost.

So, the easiest way to deal with that is to replace ED with a new resource dump, and instead give SCH a new damage oGCD without an Aetherflow cost.

What that replacement dump is, is entirely up in the air. It just needs to be something with an evergreen value, that doesn't contribute to (or take away from) damage.
Could even skip the middle man and just be an Additional Effect on Aetherflow itself that converts any remaining stacks into a little bonus MP when activated. Lord knows SCH could use a few less buttons.

Hell, they could even do what SMN did and have Energy Drain replace Aetherflow, dealing damage when you use it. You already can't use it out of combat, next logical step.

I am open to more ideas like this, but I dont think using ED to gain a healing tool is the right fit either. I, for one, like differences in classes in an MMORPG.

[ManaSel]

Using Aetherflow on anything other than ED is a DPS loss in just the same way as using Lilies is a DPS loss on WHM, except it's larger(100 potency loss vs 85 potency for WHM). Optimal DPS for SCH is unloading all Aetherflow stacks on Energy Drain while not using any GCDs for healing. Is it better to use an Aetherflow stack on healing instead of a GCD? Absolutely, but that doesn't mean you aren't being punished for not using Energy Drain when doing it. Sage does not have this issue while having fairly equivalent heals in its Addersgall system.

ED, along with the Lily systems DPS loss, are just going to mean the other healer has to pick up the slack by design. This isn't as apparent on SCH since their healing is actually decent outside of Aetherflow.

I really don't get the need for the resource dump. You can still recast Aetherflow while you have stacks if you need the MP. If you just didn't need the heals you just didn't need them. You don't lose anything for not using them. This works totally fine on Sage. I DO dislike how they are so homogenized though.

[RinaShinomiya]

For both regen and shielding healers, you have a "simple" and a "complex" class.

Energy Drain isn't complex and it doesn't make Scholar complex. I really don't know what's up with Scholar mains and their stockholm syndrome of appreciating conflicting priorities in their toolkit that just make the job feel clunky and punish them for doing their job of healing.

Energy Draining 3x every aetherflow CD is a DPS loss. Why: Because if it saves you, or your cohealer, a GCD heal, it is a DPS gain. 100 potency on ED will never out DPS a GCD DPS spell, therefore aetherflow heals are almost always better than a GCD heal option(*eyes lillies*).

This is just nonsense. It still is a DPS loss, you're just losing 100 potency instead of 295 potency. It being a lower DPS loss is not an argument in favor of ED because lilies are even lower DPS loss, unlike your claims (85 potency vs 310 potency), and minmaxing WHM players still avoid these buttons like the plague anyway. Which is very cool of Square Enix to do because Lilies were supposed to strengthen WHM's class identidy as a GCD healer and instead it's just a really bad oGCD healer, now more than ever.

[_forgotten]

Energy Drain isn't complex and it doesn't make Scholar complex. I really don't know what's up with Scholar mains and their stockholm syndrome of appreciating conflicting priorities in their toolkit that just make the job feel clunky and punish them for doing their job of healing.



This is just nonsense. It still is a DPS loss, you're just losing 100 potency instead of 295 potency. It being a lower DPS loss is not an argument in favor of ED because lilies are even lower DPS loss, unlike your claims (85 potency vs 310 potency), and minmaxing WHM players still avoid these buttons like the plague anyway. Which is very cool of Square Enix to do because Lilies were supposed to strengthen WHM's class identidy as a GCD healer and instead it's just a really bad oGCD healer, now more than ever.

Point 1. I wont argue that certain aspects of scholar's kit doesnt make sense. Energy drain is not it. Not being able to use Fey Blessing or union during seraph is an example of where I see the conflict that doesnt make sense. Players who wanted Scholar without Energy drain got Sadge. I cannot understand the community's push to make Scholar a mirror of Sadge. Some of us enjoy the planning ahead aspect of Scholar. ED falls in line with this, along with seraph and dissipation.

Point 2. This "Using Aetherflow on anything other than ED is a DPS loss" mindset is one meant for clean barse groups. Not your average player nor your midcore statics doing clears/reclears. We agree that there is an opportunity cost to using an aetherflow on ED or a heal. What makes scholar fun is knowing which situation your in and adapting accordingly.