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

[Nizzi]

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.

If you're not going to bother reading, I'm not going to bother answering anything you're asking.

[Yukarine]

I just wish the devs and yoshi p would acknowledge that people aren't happy with what they are doing with scholar.
When scholar players were rightfully upset by the Endwalker live letter and job action trailer, not only did all the FFxiv content creators that were invited to the media tour miss the point entirely, so did yoshi p when he adressed it.
No one is upset about scholar not being "powerful" but about having to put up with the lack of identity and jank job design that seems to work against itself.

Despite the outrage about their "We didn't know what to do with scholar" statement and the following feedback during 6.0, nerfing expedient and giving white mage dps neutral afflatus misery for 6.1 sure was more important. And ontop of that astrologian will get yet another pseudo rework come 6.2.

[Silver-Strider]

why is it your favorite job? .

Aesthetics?
Lore?
Nostalgia for what the job used to be capable of?

A Military Strategist that planned out its tools to devise a plan of success was one of the better defined fantasies this game used to have. Nowadays though, the job is a shell of its former self and while people still like the theme of the job, it's far from what it used to be.

why is it capable of healing content successfully

Because SE isn't so incompetent to let a job be unviable? Just because every job can clear content, doesn't mean the job is designed well at all. People still complain about Blood Weapon and Wildfire because those skills are poorly thought out. Dissipation, Aetherpact and Seraph all cut off parts of SCH's toolkit when they're active and are poorly thought out skills. Eos and Selene being 2 separate buttons when they're purely cosmetic options now is poorly thought out. Energy Drain contesting Healing is poorly thought out. It can function but the hoops you have to jump thru in order to do so are staggering. To blatantly come here and say "You are just being dramatic" expresses a level of ignorance to very real issues with the job as a whole and doesn't do the job any favors.

[D6Damager]

A Military Strategist that planned out its tools to devise a plan of success was one of the better defined fantasies this game used to have.

I still think you have to plan ahead since we still have abilities that are tradeoffs/opportunity costs.

[Silver-Strider]

I still think you have to plan ahead since we still have abilities that are tradeoffs/opportunity costs.

The amount of planning is a shell of what it used to be though. Virus rotation, Eye for Eye+Deployment, Stoneskin+Addlo shield stacking, DoT management, etc. was just so much more engaging than anything they have now.

[MintnHoney]

And ontop of that astrologian will get yet another pseudo rework come 6.2.

Oh yeah, can't wait for yet another failed attempt at gutting AST in an effort to appease some undisclosed players who needed this "rework," which inevitably requires the dev team to buff AST's potencies beyond what should ever be needed in an effort to keep even the smallest population of healers, leading to yet more complaints from the other healers that AST gets everything while ignoring that we've basically lost our entire job's identity multiple times for these changes that, from what I can gather, no one seems to have actually asked for.
In a weird way, them "not knowing what to do" with SCH is a blessing (though I still hard blink at that statement). God only knows what they would do to SCH with their haphazard design intentions.

[Silver-Strider]

Oh yeah, can't wait for yet another failed attempt at gutting AST in an effort to appease some undisclosed players who needed this "rework," which inevitably requires the dev team to buff AST's potencies beyond what should ever be needed in an effort to keep even the smallest population of healers, leading to yet more complaints from the other healers that AST gets everything while ignoring that we've basically lost our entire job's identity multiple times for these changes that, from what I can gather, no one seems to have actually asked for.
In a weird way, them "not knowing what to do" with SCH is a blessing (though I still hard blink at that statement). God only knows what they would do to SCH with their haphazard design intentions.

I could still think of a million ways they can still screw over Healers and it saddens me. At this point, if it wasn't for my house, I'd probably end up cancelling my sub and just playing when a new expansion came out and yes, I mean expansion and not just a patch cycle

[ty_taurus]

I also don't feel like I really understand what Scholar's aesthetic or thematic identity is supposed to be, on a topic independent of gameplay. What is a Scholar? If you were to sit someone down and give them a single description of the healers, what would you say genuinely encapsulates what Scholar does?

White Mage: Holy flower mage
Astrologian: Astrological fortuneteller
Sage: Sci-fi laser medic

For Scholar, does "military strategist" really say anything about what Scholar does? If not, what does Scholar do? Also, I find it odd that White Mage seems to pick thematic or named aspects of Scholar to take for itself. Of all the flowers on this Earth, they chose to make White Mage's gauge lilies, the name of Scholar's faerie. They also adopted "Seraph Strike" for Bozja and PVP. And Sage basically came in and took the very subtle futuristic aspects of Scholar and evolved them into what feels like something that Scholar could've been much sooner perhaps.

[QooEr]

I also don't feel like I really understand what Scholar's aesthetic or thematic identity is supposed to be, on a topic independent of gameplay. What is a Scholar? If you were to sit someone down and give them a single description of the healers, what would you say genuinely encapsulates what Scholar does?

White Mage: Holy flower mage
Astrologian: Astrological fortuneteller
Sage: Sci-fi laser medic

For Scholar, does "military strategist" really say anything about what Scholar does? If not, what does Scholar do? Also, I find it odd that White Mage seems to pick thematic or named aspects of Scholar to take for itself. Of all the flowers on this Earth, they chose to make White Mage's gauge lilies, the name of Scholar's faerie. They also adopted "Seraph Strike" for Bozja and PVP. And Sage basically came in and took the very subtle futuristic aspects of Scholar and evolved them into what feels like something that Scholar could've been much sooner perhaps.

if you go back to its roots, scholar had a few things going on.
from arcanist it inherited spreading poisons and disease. pvp revived this aspect.
from arcanist it also inherited being a pet job. scholar's greatest strength used to be able to heal while casting dps spells cuz the fairy was independent. the fairy now.... i mean i guess it lets you have heals come from the center of the arena always i guess.
finally the lore says its supposed to be a strategist. the flavor is mostly lost in the english translation, but looking at the japanese spell names gives you a good idea of how its supposed to tie together.


if you ask me, i think scholar just needs more focus. it lost all its poison themes, but it didnt really lean more into the fairy, and the eng translation also removed the stragegist flavor on all but chain stratagem, deployment/emergency tactics, and art of war.

[Teno]

ARR and then HW were the epitome of healer design for scholar. Not too many oGCDs, tons of diverse offensive options, a REAL fairy, and micro-management if you wanted to push it further. How I dearly, dearly miss this gameplay.

Crit adlo spread was admittedly super strong but popping it off a well positioned fairy was an amazing feeling.

Dots+spread+shadow flare+thunder/aero was a seemingly simple kit but it felt so satisfying just putting it all down and watching it tick. Not counting the non negligible book smacks. Plus stance swapping in combination with timing everything well.

Even your standard faceroll dungeons felt good, it was all so much more engaging. It was probably then that the military strategist aesthetic made the most sense.