Scholar is a horribly designed job and shows zero thought goes into healer design

[Nizzi]

Why do I say this? You're probably thinking something along the lines of "No, Scholar is the best of the healers! It's meta and in optimized settings it does the highest rDPS!"
Ignore all that - numbers on a third party website does not make something designed well, nor does it make it fun.

Scholar is, in my opinion, one of, if not the worst designed job in this game. I struggle to think that there's actually any meaningful thought put into its design. Of course, I believe we can say this for every healer, but Scholar is egregious in how little thought is put into how it plays by the developers. Forgive this huge wall of text, I have a lot of opinions on my favorite job.

Scholar and Leveling

Scholar is the ONLY job in the game whose DPS kit does not change at all from A Realm Reborn to Endwalker. From level 46, when Scholar unlocks Art of War, Scholar gets a total of 0 new DPS abilities. Scholar's gameplay loop does not change at all. The same things a new Scholar player is doing for a majority of their time in the Crystal Tower raids at level 50, they will be doing exactly the same thing in the new Myths of the Realm raids in Endwalker. This isn't an exaggeration or being disingenuous, SCH's DPS kit plays exactly the same. Nothing is added to it. Skills may change names from Ruin to Broil or Bio to Biolysis, but nothing changes about them. White Mage, Astrologian, and Sage all get a small amount of new skills that do DPS as they level - Scholar gets nothing, making leveling on Scholar feel unrewarding and boring.

Scholar and AoE
Speaking of Art of War, did you know that Scholar is the only job in the game with only 1 AoE button? Yes, no other job in the game has only one button in their AoE rotations. Even the other healers have buttons that are apart of their AoE rotations, like Assize, Phlegma, Earthly Star, etc. Once you get unlock Art of War, be prepared to hit it like it owes you money - you will not be doing anything else DPS wise in AoE situations EVER!

Scholar and DPS options
Continuing to harp on how no thought has gone into this job, look at SCH's DPS options.
At first glance, they appear relatively homogeneous with the rest of the healers, Sage especially. 1 DoT, 1 Nuke, 1 AoE, 1 "movement tool" and 1 oGCD. On paper, SCH has exactly the same amount of DPS tools as the others, or even more, but in reality, how SCH interacts with its DPS kit compared to the other healers limits how SCH wants to use them. SCH never wants to hit Ruin II at all; it's a wasted button with no meaningful reason to exist anymore other than to punish you for having to use it. The "optimization" for Ruin II is literally "don't use this button." Further, SCH's 1 oGCD attack is tied to healing, meaning that not only is healing with Aetherflow a DPS loss for SCH, but if you have to rely on Aetherflow heals, you only get to spam Broil over and over with 2 Bio refreshes per minute. This ends up just feeling needlessly punishing for Scholar players, as your downtime is effectively hurt for having to dip into healing with Aetherflow. Scholar simultaneously has an incredibly bloated healing kit, while also punishing you for using it.

Scholar and (de)buffs
Scholar is one of two healers with raid utility in their kit outside of raw DPS. Astrologian has two buffs, and Scholar has a debuff. Unlike Astrologian however, Scholar's buff is borderline useless outside of Raids/Boss Fights. Astrologian has Divination, which is a party wide buff that increases everyone's damage by 6%. This can be used in both AoE situations and Single Target situations, and it's always useful to have going. You can use this for dungeon mob packs, dungeon bosses, in raids, it's ALWAYS useful. Astrologian also has an identity based around its single target player buffs with its cards. Likewise, since this is a damage buff, this is useful in all situations. You'll use cards during dungeons, bosses, raids.
Scholar doesn't have this luxury with Chain Stratagem. Because it is a single target enemy debuff, it only affects 1 mob in dungeon packs, solo duties, and doesn't help your AoE rotations at all. Of course, this doesn't mean you shouldn't use it, but it leaves it feeling incredibly lackluster and worthless. It's very easy for a Scholar player to forget it exists outside of single target encounters because of the inability to put this debuff onto big mob packs.

I understand that dungeons and multi mob situations are not the focus of XIV job design; Savage level encounters are how they're tuned and designed. Scholar just has a kit that is so incredibly slanted towards being single target it makes it even more of a slog to play when you have to engage in these types of encounters.

Scholar and its systems
Aetherflow/Energy Drain DPS loss has been touched on already, so I won't go into it again other than to say that in a vacuum, I don't hate Energy Drain nor do I particularly want it removed.
Rather, the focus of this is how none of Scholar's systems interact in a cohesive, rewarding manner and instead seem tacked on with little thought about their place in Scholar's kit. At the least, you can say that Energy Drain rewards you for understanding the prioritization of healing with your faerie first, but for the rest of Scholar's systems, they interact with the kit terribly.

For starters, the obvious first button is Dissipation. It's been complained about endlessly, and it's not really a secret for why people don't like this button. Personally, I'm ambivalent about it, but I will say that Dissipation is FRUSTRATING to use. Being "optimal" requires Scholar to not heal for 30 seconds every 3 minutes so Scholar can dump out 3 more Energy Drains. This can lead to cohealers being incredibly annoyed and overwhelmed with Scholar players not healing at all randomly. If the supposed reason for Scholar losing Miasma, Shadow Flare, Bane, etc was because "the SCH would be DPSing away leaving the WHM to heal" why did Dissipation, the button that literally prevents Scholar from utilizing half of its oGCD healing kit, stay in instead of being removed and keeping something like Miasma or Shadow Flare? Further, this button can be punishing just to accidentally hit, but it's not something you can leave off your hotbars or somewhere you won't ever need to hit it, because the 3 Aetherflow and GCD healing potency boost do have their gains if things have gone belly up.

Secondly, the entire Faerie Gauge and Aetherpact are out of place and annoying to use. Sure, Aetherpact is the best Single Target HoT in the game, but it effectively locks you out of using every one of your other faerie skills unless you want to retarget and recast Aetherpact back on your target. It also keeps your faerie from casting Embrace, so you need to factor in the lost healing whenever you use it. You also cannot gain Faerie Gauge when your faerie isn't active, which is annoying and seems like an arbitrary restriction they didn't bother testing or fixing. Is there a legitimate gameplay reason for this? It doesn't seem like it.

Seraph is like Dissipation in a way in that it locks you out of parts of your kit. If you use Seraph, you'll be unable to use Dissipation, Aetherpact, and Fey Blessing. I can understand not being able to Dissipate Seraph, and maybe even why Aetherpact wouldn't work, but why doesn't Fey Blessing work? What's the logic behind this? Is it because it used to have a 10 Faerie Gauge cost and they didn't bother adjusting that limitation when they changed the skill in EW? It seems arbitrarily pointless that Seraph cannot use Fey Blessing, especially when they went through the effort of giving Seraph unique versions of Whispering Dawn and Fey Illumination that do the exact same thing, ensuring that you can still use them while Seraph is active. Did they just not want to bother or did nobody notice this when testing Scholar?

Conclusion
I feel very bad for someone who loves Scholar as an aesthetic and wants to be a Scholar main, especially if they're a new player. All of the healers suffer from a lot of problems at the moment, and by and large it is the worst designed role in this entire game. I just can't help but wonder when playing Scholar though; what thought did they put into this job? For as much simplification as the game is seeing currently, why have none of these things been addressed?

tl;dr give SCH Miasma and Bane back and 10/10 best designed job in the game

[QooEr]

kind of odd that scholar went from one of if not the best designed job in the game at the start, to... this.

scholar used to be my "secondary" job in heavensward and Stormblood. it felt insanely rewarding to play right and it felt like i could keep getting better at it every time because it just had so much depth. Shadowbringers came around and i now hate scholar so much its the only healer i havent leveled yet.


please for the love of god condense/cull useless healing buttons and give us back DoTs, bane and alternate fairy abilities.

[Sebazy]

It's amazing really. Through ARR and HW, SCH was an absolute masterclass to play. It had a higher skill floor than WHM for sure, but the sky was the limit for it's skill ceiling and it had so much potential if you worked at it.

From SB onwards it really does feel like SE did it dirty with each and every expansion release.

[Silver-Strider]

If the argument for not adding DPS skills for healers is because of Button Bloat, let's address it.

Turn Dissipation into Low Level Recitation that doesn't crit or work with Addlo, making Recitation a solid upgrade.
With Dissipation no longer a button, return Miasma 1+2+3 and make it an AoE DoT by default.
Remove Energy Drain from the Aetherflow System and just have it be a skill with 3 charges that becomes active after using Aetherflow.
Using Energy Drain will deal AoE damage and turn Ruin 2, Art of War and Bio into Ruination, Shadowflare and Bane.

• Ruination will deal damage equal to Broil but also debuff the target to deal 5% less damage for 15s, kind of like Reprisal.
• Shadowflare puts a Slow + DoT on all enemies hit.
• Bane puts Bio on all nearby enemies.

Fey Blessing, I feel, should have turned into Consolation while Seraph is out just like Whisper Dawn and Illumination turn into their Seraph equivalent skills.

Aetherpact should be reworked so that it summons your unused Fairy to just Embrace spam the target while your current fairy is totally unaffected and can use her own abilities as always.This way, even using Seraph shouldn't impede us from using it.

While Selene could just be turned into a Glamour like the old Egi system allowed Carbuncle Glams, I want her to be at least somewhat more unique again, even if minorly.

• Have her Whispering Dawn that lasts longer but has a lower upfront potency.
• Return Fey Covenant and have it be an inverse of Fey Illumination granting more mitigation but less Healing Received.
• Fey Blessing becomes a Shield effect instead of a Heal.

[elioaiko]

kind of odd that scholar went from one of if not the best designed job in the game at the start, to... this.

It is very ironic but not shocking. They've destoryed SCH and it's so mindless to use. People who like it now never played SCH pre-ShB and will not know the power it had.

I'd argue the same for AST as well, the only difference is that it's become too difficult to play and not for the right reasons.

The devs have been at odds with the healer community and will continue to be until they royally screw WHM again and even then they barely care about their "beginner" healer.

Like I don't understand how you can take their dots, individuals fairies and having actual control over them. People always try to convince me that the fairy is better now when it's likely just a minion that's a beacon. They took being able to make them Embrace your target of choice, being able to have them cast their OWN skills into of having to weave them constantly.

It's applauding how much they've changed SCH for the worst and sadly people just pretend like it's fine because it's not the worst healer in content.

I wasn't a huge fan of SB SCH, but if I could I would pick right back up because that the last bastion of decent healer design left aside from time mage AST.

[Marxel]

I agree that the DPS rotation for SCH (and other healers really) is lacking. I’m leveling it now and I do love it but didn’t touch it prior to finishing EW and maxing my main jobs. I like how “hands-off” it feels, relying on the fairy more and planning around her. Granted, I’m only 68 for SCH so not an expert. I’d love some more DPS buttons since all we do is Broil/Art of War and Energy Drain spam when Aetherflow is back up. Maybe something that combos off of Energy Drain or requires Energy Drain be used a few times? Kind of like Blood Lily, we use Energy Drain three times and get to use a big AoE falloff nuke.

[Deceptus]

It's amazing really. Through ARR and HW, SCH was an absolute masterclass to play. It had a higher skill floor than WHM for sure, but the sky was the limit for it's skill ceiling and it had so much potential if you worked at it.

From SB onwards it really does feel like SE did it dirty with each and every expansion release.

Agreed, but instead of bringing every other healer UP to SCH's lvl, they brought every healer DOWN to AST's.

[IceBlueNinja]

I always felt sch was clunky even though I started on sb days as a whm then moved to ast. the fact noct ast shield was instant via aps bene or even asp helios via LS made me like wow and sch had to be on the whole pre cast thing. then shadow bringers beef up noct stance shields making 2 stack via asp heli and celes made sch a meme as their only other aoe shield after succor was seraph or a spread alco via crit and either stance gain regen and shields via 74 skill intersect knocking out both whm and sch hard Its spells is lacking in beauty compared to the other 3 healers.

Though I can be some what a anime fan boy.
Books as weapons just never applied to me, I wish whips or staffs was a smn weapon like generic ffs but i guess book do fit its role hence its name sch. Being lock out of your skills for using your pet is just dumb. Smn do not suffer this at all though I may be wrong as rdm is my fav magicial dps. My fav job in all generic ffs being a mix of blm and whm.

[Anhra]

Id rather wish that SCH gets reworked from scratch, rather than wishing for mediocre old skills back. Even with miasma 1+2, shadowflare and heavy it was still a bad designed Job with no actual identity. It had a little bit of everything and the same overstuffed healing kit we know even today.

[Bonkleberry]

I do not even need to read the wall of text to point out how absurd this thread is. You are claiming that SCH is both horribly designed and your favorite job in the opening statement. You are also pointing out that numbers on reporting websites show the SCH is capable of healing, which is their role. So, if SCH is as horribly designed as you may claim it to be, then why is it your favorite job and why is it capable of healing content successfully? The truth is, you want SCH to play a specific way and the job is "horribly designed" to you until those changes happen. You are just being dramatic.