LIVE Letter Regarding DRG & AST Postponed Reworks

[RyuDragnier]

AST needs more than "just some buttons merged", it's actually worse off in some ways than SCH. It really wouldn't make sense to overhaul (i.e. make major changes to) SCH alone and not look at the affects or consequences to the other healers, which is why I hope that this is why AST changes are being delayed until 7.0 even though it means living with the present state for a while.

SCH is the only healer with 3 capstone abilities that fight each other. You cannot use multiples of them at the same time. Imagine if WHM couldn't use Plenary Indulgence or Temperance while Liturgy of the Bell is out. Or if using Temperance or Plenary cancelled the Liturgy. That is what it's like for SCH. We seal our other abilities when we use one of them, and is the only healer to suffer from this. That's just the tip of the iceberg too.

Seraph gets different names for Fey Illumination and Whispering Dawn, yet they share the same cooldown and potency as the original ones, meaning useless upgrades. We still have both Eos and Selene, despite them being the same fairy at this point. We are still the only healer screwed if we die right after using our class mechanic, because we have to wait up to 50s until it comes off cooldown (Aetherflow) before we can use ANY of our big heals. SCH is by far the one healer that needs the most changes in this game, and it's insulting to have it ignored for AST YET AGAIN, FOR THE SECOND EXPANSION IN A ROW.

[Nizzi]

SCH is the only healer with 3 capstone abilities that fight each other. You cannot use multiples of them at the same time. Imagine if WHM couldn't use Plenary Indulgence or Temperance while Liturgy of the Bell is out. Or if using Temperance or Plenary cancelled the Liturgy. That is what it's like for SCH. We seal our other abilities when we use one of them, and is the only healer to suffer from this. That's just the tip of the iceberg too.

Seraph gets different names for Fey Illumination and Whispering Dawn, yet they share the same cooldown and potency as the original ones, meaning useless upgrades. We still have both Eos and Selene, despite them being the same fairy at this point. We are still the only healer screwed if we die right after using our class mechanic, because we have to wait up to 50s until it comes off cooldown (Aetherflow) before we can use ANY of our big heals. SCH is by far the one healer that needs the most changes in this game, and it's insulting to have it ignored for AST YET AGAIN, FOR THE SECOND EXPANSION IN A ROW.

Really, the only capstone ability of SCH's that needs an upgrade/rework is Fey Union, and honestly it just needs to not kill the union upon execution of another skill so you don't have to constantly retarget and weave Fey Union to get full usage out of it. The lost Embrace potency as well needs to be factored into the skill and they need to make it where Eos/Selene go back to casting Embrace if the union's target is out of range instead of doing literally nothing.
Dissipation is Dissipation and honestly could go either way, the 3 Aetherflow stacks are very powerful and every other non SCH healer overheals so much at this point that even the lost Embraces are kind of negligible in the grand scheme of things. If they replace it with another DPS button though that'd be sweet because that's effectively what it is, it's almost never a healing tool.

In regards for the Whispering/Fey becoming different names, I figure this has to do with the way the pet system works - Seraph is likely considered a separate entity from Eos and Yellow Eos, and Whispering/Fey are not considered apart of that pet's toolkit - to get around this I assume they made the unique versions of those two abilities during Seraph so you still have the functionality of your faerie while using them, which would explain why you cannot use Fey Blessing during Seraph, because it used to be tied to gauge and Eos/Yellow Eos must be present for gauge to be spent - which is why Fey Union cannot be used while Seraph is summoned. Though it is also easily just as possible that Angel's Whisper and Seraphic Illumination were intended to be upgrades to Whispering/Fey and they changed this last minute so SCH players wouldn't hold those abilities for use only during Summon Seraph. What makes me think THIS is because Seraph has an upgrade to Embrace called Seraphic Veil that gives a shield along with the usual cure potency of Embrace, so it could go either way.

I do agree with you though; I have a thread on the healer forum about how SCH is probably one of the worst designed jobs in the game and shows that there's really not anyone looking into how it actually plays. It still baffles me that they didn't make summoning your faerie instant cast like it was for SMN back in ShB... making dying as a SCH uniquely punishing in a way probably no other job is. You lose all of your gauge, Aetherflow, your entire ability to heal freely, and casting anything after death makes you lose your 5sec raise invuln - leaving Scholar at the mercy of its cohealer because SCH has 0 way to heal themselves quickly and get back into the fight unless they want to lose their invuln. While I don't think this necessitates a rework of SCH, it does beg the question of: Why is SCH still this punishing upon death if the goal was to make healers less punishing for newer players? They could simply not make you lose Aetherflow on death or have Aetherflow's CD reset on death so you can quickly use an Excog or Lustrate on yourself and get back into the fight. SCH is the biggest example of why their intention of "making healing more accessible and easier for newer players by removing DPS buttons" has completely failed because SCH is still as punishing and instead is having less fun when they're playing well.

[RyuDragnier]

I do agree with you though; I have a thread on the healer forum about how SCH is probably one of the worst designed jobs in the game and shows that there's really not anyone looking into how it actually plays. It still baffles me that they didn't make summoning your faerie instant cast like it was for SMN back in ShB... making dying as a SCH uniquely punishing in a way probably no other job is. You lose all of your gauge, Aetherflow, your entire ability to heal freely, and casting anything after death makes you lose your 5sec raise invuln - leaving Scholar at the mercy of its cohealer because SCH has 0 way to heal themselves quickly and get back into the fight unless they want to lose their invuln. While I don't think this necessitates a rework of SCH, it does beg the question of: Why is SCH still this punishing upon death if the goal was to make healers less punishing for newer players? They could simply not make you lose Aetherflow on death or have Aetherflow's CD reset on death so you can quickly use an Excog or Lustrate on yourself and get back into the fight. SCH is the biggest example of why their intention of "making healing more accessible and easier for newer players by removing DPS buttons" has completely failed because SCH is still as punishing and instead is having less fun when they're playing well.

It's actually why I feel SCH needs a rework. It wouldn't take some small changes to fix this stuff, it'd need some big ones. AF would either need to be redesigned for SCH alone, or they'd end up having to replace the entire AF gauge with a new one so it's not so punishing. SGE has a less (but still) punishing system because you're not waiting for 60s just to be able to throw out a heavy heal, you're essentially waiting 20s to get a charge to do it. If it was me setting it up and we had to keep AF as is for the most part, I'd bring back Quickened Aetherflow as a trait that makes it so reviving from death instantly brings AF off cooldown, just to at least stave off that nuisance.

[Deceptus]

Really, the only capstone ability of SCH's that needs an upgrade/rework is Fey Union,

Hard Disagree.

Dissipation is a dumpster fire of an ability.

1) It's supposed to be used in Emergencies when you're out of charges and need heals. Except it only affects healing SPELLS not all healing so it only affects 3 "spells": Physic, Adlo, Succor.. SCH is an ability based job. Dissipation has been trash since it was implemented and is proof positive that the developers lack any real understanding of how the job actually plays.

2) Dissipiation used as a DPS cooldown: Before it was worth something but since the nerfing of Energy Drain to 100 potency, even if you used every single charge on ED, you'd only get 1 extra broil's worth of potency every 3 minutes, or an average of 100 potency a minute gain. And this isn't of DPS damage. This of healer damage. Not exactly meaningful in the grand scheme of things. And in doing so, blowing all your AF stack on DPS you lose out on a massive amount of healing and utility.

3) Using Dissipation locks you out of all fairy abilities, as well as Fey Union gauge.

4) Dissipation goes against the entire Job Identity of Scholar. The Scholar and the Fairy are supposed to work as a team to support.

Like others have said, the capstone abilities actively fight each other. It's not a cohesive job.

The quick and easy solution should be:

Dissipation: Gives you 3 AF stacks and increases all healing(and possibly damage) by 20% for 30s. Keeps your fairy. Hell, lose the fairy if you the devs are hell bent on losing a core part of your job I guess. The increase to damage would make up for it.

Capstone abilities are supposed to be strong.

[Nizzi]

Hard Disagree.

Dissipation is a dumpster fire of an ability.

Dissipation is Dissipation. I don't think it's an amazing ability, but I wouldn't really say it's a dumpster fire either.

1. I think it's become muddied a bit because back in Heavensward when it was added, the only outright healing you were getting from your faerie was Whispering Dawn/Embrace, but now additionally you have Fey Blessing, Fey Union, and Consolation from Seraph, making it more than just the total 1800 potency of the lost Embraces, but a loss of all of those abilities as well for 30 seconds. And if you've burned through Whispering, Fey, Seraph, 2 charges of Consolation and you also have no gauge/gauge isn't helpful, things have gone bad to a point that the added Aetherflow likely isn't going to be able to salvage since I would assume Indom/Excog/Soil are probably on CD as well, unless the SCH had no stacks before things went belly up.

2. I think Dissipation being used pretty much solely as a DPS cooldown is a consequence of there being so much overhealing from every other healer job (SCH isn't free of this either but Energy Drain's existence encourages less overhealing than the other healers) that often times the loss of your fairy just isn't felt because your cohealer can cover for that 30s where Recitation/Protraction won't because of the ridiculous amounts of free healing. If anything it's really just an issue of encounter design in general where SCHs can usually get greedy with Dissipation and there's not really a DPS loss because of it - if its usage at poor times forced the SCH or their cohealer to have to use GCDs to heal, it is a loss, but how often does this really happen now when all of the healers have incredibly bloated healing kits? You can almost always use Dissipation during untargetable phases because the loss of Embrace isn't relevant at that point, though this seems to become more and more niche with newer encounters.

I would agree that the nerf on ED from 150 to 100 mid ShB made Dissipation feel even worse for usage as a DPS tool, and honestly one of my largest gripe with SCH changes from ShB to EW (outside of the job still being incredibly boring DPS wise) is that they removed Energy Drain's ability to be used as an MP recovery tool at all, which completely removed one half of Dissipation's "emergency" usage. The times I felt Dissipation shined as an emergency tool was when I would die, get raised and would quickly need to recover MP to get back into the fight. I still really don't understand the reasoning behind this change and think its very stupid honestly, and has resulted in making SCH a bit more punishing on death, but I digress. Dissipation should give 2000 MP just like hitting Aetherflow does. It'd be something, at least.

3. I think this is an issue with the Faerie Gauge than it is one with Dissipation, because Dissipation came first. More than anything though it is definitely a shining example of how little thought is put into how healer kits work - how did this get past testing in Stormblood, and how has it continued into Endwalker? I seriously struggle to think there's any legitimate design choice on the fact that you don't gain gauge when Eos/Selene aren't present other than they never bothered to figure out how to make it work - just like they didn't bother to make Fey Blessing work during Summon Seraph even though it's been completely removed from the gauge, leaving it no different than Whispering/Fey Illumination as a cooldown.

[IDontPetLalas]

SCH is the only healer with 3 capstone abilities that fight each other. You cannot use multiples of them at the same time. Imagine if WHM couldn't use Plenary Indulgence or Temperance while Liturgy of the Bell is out. Or if using Temperance or Plenary cancelled the Liturgy. That is what it's like for SCH. We seal our other abilities when we use one of them, and is the only healer to suffer from this. That's just the tip of the iceberg too.

Seraph gets different names for Fey Illumination and Whispering Dawn, yet they share the same cooldown and potency as the original ones, meaning useless upgrades. We still have both Eos and Selene, despite them being the same fairy at this point. We are still the only healer screwed if we die right after using our class mechanic, because we have to wait up to 50s until it comes off cooldown (Aetherflow) before we can use ANY of our big heals. SCH is by far the one healer that needs the most changes in this game, and it's insulting to have it ignored for AST YET AGAIN, FOR THE SECOND EXPANSION IN A ROW.

I never said SCH had no issues. I play ALL of the healers, personally I think ALL of the healers need changes which is why I want SE to look at all of them, and why I do not even want to get into a discussion of "MY healer first !!!".

As someone who started out as a SCH and lost so many skills, I happen to agree with both you and Nizzi in a number of areas- i just feel that there are common issue that would affect the main core of healer design until that is addressed, some of these points would be like putting lipstick on a pig. That speaks by the way to you comments as - oh SCH was ignored for changes again- well - AST was changed over and over - that's not necessarily a GOOD thing - change in and of itself is not always positive- if those changes are poorly considered then do you really want that? I don't. I would rather wait.