SCH concept changes

[KarmaYraeon]

Continuation of my other post for AST.

• Dissipation

Just make it affect all HP recovery via healing actions, even if it means reducing it to 15%. I generally just don't like this ability to begin with in the first place tbh.

• Energy Drain

Rather than using Aetherflow, it mimics Summoner to help streamline the differences between them and free up a button;

Energy Drain (60s);
Deals unaspected damage to target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 300 for the first enemy, and 60% less for all remaining enemies.
Additional effect: Aetherflow III
Additional effect: Restores 20% of maximum MP.

• Fey Union

Allow it to be cast on enemies to deal a little bit of damage rather than heal, or afflict a damage debuff/incoming dmg buff for allies, as to give sch more opportunities to spend fey gauge.

• Gap Closer

While it was a consideration for a while, playing Sage and having Icarus at my disposal really cemented the thought that other healers should have one too, if only for the convenience of keeping up with a running party. Nevermind the mechanical benefit.

• Recitation

Duration increased from 15s to 30s, and reduces the cast time of Adlo and Succor by 2.5s. Recast time increased from 90s to 120s and give it 2 charges.

• Selene

Separate Selene from Eos;
Fey Action 1 (60s cd) becomes Whispering Dawn for Eos, and Gentle Caress for Selene
Fey Action 2 (120s cd) becomes Fey Illumination for Eos, and Fey Wind for Selene
Seraph imitates the Fey Actions of the faerie that is active when Summon Seraph is used.

Gentle Caress;
Gradually generates a barrier around all nearby party members that lasts for 3s after Gentle Caress ends.
Potency: 50
Duration: 21s

Fey Wind;
Afflicts all nearby enemies with Paralysis.
Duration: 20s

Fey Union;
Gradually restores HP of party member with which Selene has a Fey Union.
Cure Potency: 100
Additional effect: Erects a magicked barrier which nullifies damage equaling 150% (180% at lv. 85) of the amount of HP restored.

• Tactics

Since scholar fundamentally plays around with its shields more than sage, I figured it could do with more variety. For example;

Exploitation Tactics (90s CD);
Grants Volatize with the next Galvanize status.
Duration: 15s
Volatize effect: Deal unaspected damage to attacking enemies equal to 20% of damage suffered to Galvanize effect.
Additional effect: Grants Vulcanize with the next Catalyze status.
Duration: 15s
Vulcanize effect: Deal unaspected damage to attacking enemies equal to 10% of damage suffered to Galvanize effect.

[Osmond]

You know what, that doesn’t sound bad at all. Sacrifice a button and consolidate to energy drain with a big nuke w/ a fall off. Gets rid of the bloat.

Nah on the gap closer, expedient is good enough.

Hmm, don’t want them to change recitation. They can just change the code to make Aldo/succor instant…..but increase the MP as a trade off.

The fey union change….the shield can work, but will have to nerf the cure potency as a trade off.

[ForsakenRoe]

just doing quick maths cos I like the sound of some of these ideas, particularly the last one, my broil does around 9.5k, and my succor does around 4.8k, making a shield of 7.7k (ish). If we were to use this move on succor, I assume it'd apply the Volatize status to every player? In which case, it'd do (7700 / 5) * 8 damage, which would be like 12k. Which is fine by me, it fully refunds the lost broil, but I guess the problem is that if it's a dps gain in any way, it'd be expected to use it on CD for logs like Earthly Star. Though, with a 30s duration on shields, I guess it's probably fine? Is the 'duration' listed under Volatize the duration of Volatize on allies, or the duration of the ability to apply Volatize? Because if it's the former, I think it should match the duration of the shield it applies, and if it's the latter I think it'd be hilarious for stuff like Curtain Call, Terminal Relativity, etc. Times where you have to shield in quick succession during week 1, as the shield would get popped every GCD and your DPS would actually increase instead of decrease. SCH is already plenty strong on DPS though, so maybe knocking it down to 10% on Volatize too, so the shields are 'damage loss but not quite as much' would be less nails in the coffin for SGE

But since it'd allow us to use succor without screaming about how awful it is to have to use succor, I support. Also, if we did Exploitation Tactics > Recitation > Adlo > Deployment Tactics, would that spread the Exploitation to everybody? With my gear, that'd mean (11800 * 1.8) = 21240, * 8 = 169920. Divide that by 5 to get the 20% and that's about 34k lmao. Then we have to add 10% of 21240 for the Catalyze, giving us a total of about 36k. Even at 10% for Volatize we'd end up at almost 19k, double that of a Broil. Usually I don't like to get too hung up on maths when ideas are being floated but like this I think it'd end up being a button we press every time we're about to do Deployment Tactics and nothing else, similar to how Zoe only ever seems to get used on Pneuma for SGE. I'll still take it though, just so SCH shields feel less jank to use. And it'd fit in the lore to explain how they fought off the blackmages so easily because that bit never made massive sense, but if the black mages blew themselves up on the SCH's barriers, that does make a lot more sense

[ty_taurus]

Some general thoughts on the ideas:

Dissipation
- Dissipation has been and always will be a terrible concept. It makes no sense gimping your own sustained healing and cutting off access to several actions to increase your healing output through other methods. It's like buying a $10 bill for $15. I see no reason to try and salvage it when it should just be pruned. Making its healing impact more significant makes it slightly better, but it's a tumor that's better off excised than sterilized.

Energy Drain
- It's a simple suggestion that's been brought up before and would be totally fine. One issue not being resolved though is the constant environment where the current ED feels unhealthy to continue existing, but losing it makes Aetherflow management feel sloppy when you waste unused stacks on Lustrate or overcap on unused Aetherflow. Making ED the new Aetherflow like with SMN does actually exacerbate this issue because you're now more heavily pressured to use ED on cooldown as it's a part of your DPS rotation, essentially. A small suggestion:

New action: Energy Shock or some similar name.
- This is a GCD DPS spell that deals Broil potency damage to your target and 50% less damage to all enemies nearby the target.
- Consumes all remaining Aetherflow. For each stack of Aetherflow consumed, provides some type of stacking buff. A few ideas for this stacking buff:
1. Increases the value of your next Galvanize by 3%/6%/9% depending on Aetherflow consumed.
2. Decreases the cooldown of your next Recitation by 5/10/15 seconds upon use of Recitation.
3. Restores 4%/8%/12% of your maximum MP.
Or something along those lines.

This new action would give a way to burn Aetherflow that doesn't create an awkward priority system. The reward for using it needs to ultimately be worse than using Aetherflow on Aetherflow actions, but pushes the value forward into one future use of something so you get something out of unused stacks.

Fey Union
- I disagree here. Firstly, this creates the same issue that you're trying to resolve with removing ED as an Aetherflow spender, because now your Fey Union healing is competing with DPS. I feel the Fey Gauge should either be removed completely, or it should be reworked into SCH's healing resource gauge while Aetherflow shifts to an offensive resource gauge. I see what you're trying to do by making the Fey Gauge something worth remembering that it exists, but this isn't the right solution.

Gap Closer
- I agree with Osmond, a gap closer doesn't really need to be on SCH. SGE has it because of Phlegma, and it feels aesthetically fitting on SGE, but I don't really see a valid reason to put it on SCH, especially when SCH largely outperforms SGE as it is.

Recitation
- It's fine.

Selene
- Always in favor of giving Selene a different set of tools, and I do respect that this does not include any offensive buffs that would make Eos feel invalidated, though I think there's more room to consolidate here. I'd have Fey Illumination and Whispering Dawn merged, but remove the magic damage reduction aspect, and have Eos' two unique actions be that and Fey Blessing. For Selene, I don't necessarily think the barrier angle really fits with Selene. In most casts, the difference in whether you're applying a regen or a barrier with your faerie are two shades of the same flavor, and so it ends up feeling superfluous, generally. Instead, I'd suggest making Eos offer more healing and Selene offering more utility. Merge the removed magic damage reduction from the combined WD/Illumination over to Selene's debuff and have her inflict a debuff along with a magic damage dealt down effect so it has universal applications and isn't exclusively just a trash mob button (also I personally like the idea of having SCH inflict Toad instead of Paralyze since it's not going to work on any enemies that matter anyway). Then instead of a barrier, I'd honestly move Expedient over to Selene. I know most people would probably disagree, but I think it makes the choice between Eos and Selene far more meaningful when you're deciding between more OGCD healing or additional utility, especially considering Expedient is always a luxury, but never a requirement. Perhaps just make it the sprint and move the mitigation elsewhere to something SCH always has ready.

Exploitation Tactics
- I'm not sure if having damage based on damage taken is a good thing because it creates a lot of very cheesy situations. It should probably just be flat potency striking enemies that hit your target. That said, it's an interesting way to create incentives on barrier application, especially since it can potentially make Adloquium a DPS gain, though that also can create a weird and potentially dangerous incentive, not to mention how much damage it could deal when applied with Succor since it would supposedly affect the entire party. You'd be getting large DPS gains every 90 seconds and barriers when SCH is already a much stronger barrier applicator with its GCDs than SGE. Charges could help, but you'd probably also want it for burst windows. Honestly, I worry this might cause more harm than good even though it's an interesting idea. That's kinda the unfortunate aspect to healer DPS meta, it's very difficult to combine DPS and healing as the healing ends up being wasteful in pursuit of more DPS.

Overall
- There are a few good ideas here that could smooth out some of the clunk that SCH faces, but not all of it, and in some cases may cause different, new clunk in place of the old clunk. It also isn't going to address SCH's non-existent gameplay loop which is what all the healers really need to focus on with reworks, but I do admire some of the creativity here.

[Sparkthor]

I think an other way to simplify atherflow management :

Aetherflow : grant 2 stacks of aetherflow, restore 1400PM. 40s cd, 2 charges. Max 3.

By doing this, we keep aetherflow a dynamic mechanic, but it solves the urge to use it on cd and create more opportunity to manage Aetherflow. I think we could get rid of energy drain as we would only have 2 lustrate to waste on worst scenari every 40s (which would be rare on ex and savage content)

I agree dissipation is a mess and could simply be removed. I think of something to replace it, but it was way to similar at recitation which i think is a nice ability.

I think fey union could be a classic cd which make the fairy put an huge regen on someone for a few second. It would make it usable when Seraphine is out and free the gauge, which in my opinion could be used as full offensive. My though would be for some of fairy gauge, Ruin 2 is improved to fairy broil which is a instant cast, stronger than broil with aoe decrease. As it, SCH would get a moving and double weaving spell with no dps loose. It could also help feeling wasted lustrate not so waste.

I cannot think of a good separation between Eos and Selene, the only i got in mind would be AOE vs Single target heal, but it would need both summon to be instant ability.

[ty_taurus]

I don’t think that Aetherflow change fixes the issue. It makes gaining Aetherflow more flexible, sure, but it’s still not giving you a way to spend that Aetherflow, which the reality is, you don’t always need them, even in Savage.

It’s not going to help when you pull Smileton, for example, and still can’t spend them because there’s literally no one to heal for an entire boss fight.

[Sparkthor]

Sage got the same issue and need to use Druochole once every 20s for MP regen and I never saw many complains on this especially. What's why i think flexibilty got more chance to happen than getting something like you proposed.

[ty_taurus]

Sage got the same issue and need to use Druochole once every 20s for MP regen and I never saw many complains on this especially. What's why i think flexibilty got more chance to happen than getting something like you proposed.

It’s not a problem in the sense of it’s not a direct hinderance, but it’s very sloppy design and doesn’t feel good to use. A well-designed healer should never promote over healing, and optimized play should always result in an overhead value that is as close to 0% as possible, taking into consideration that sometimes necessary healing may bleed over slightly.

[ForsakenRoe]

It’s not a problem in the sense of it’s not a direct hinderance, but it’s very sloppy design and doesn’t feel good to use. A well-designed healer should never promote over healing, and optimized play should always result in an overhead value that is as close to 0% as possible, taking into consideration that sometimes necessary healing may bleed over slightly.

But on the flipside, is there actually anything 'wrong' with just overcapping eg: lilies or sageblobs? Like, if there's no healing needed for 30 sec as WHM and I'm at 3 lilies, I don't burn a lily just because I'm capped. Maybe that's incorrect because haha Misery, but lets say I'm at 2:20 in the fight and this happens, the raidbuff window isn't for 100 sec. So me burning lilies to get a Misery prepped for 3:00 doesn't seem necessary to me. The only thing it'd be useful for is keeping it lined up that 'ok I've used all the lilies for 'this minute' so I know I'll have up to 3 to use to have Misery up in time for 4:00' but I can't be bothered with all of that and just use Misery when it's ready (unless I know raidbuffs are soon and I can afford to hold it till then). I don't go out of my way to purposely blow Lilies 2 GCDs before the raidbuff window just to force a Misery, because I PF stuff and I'd rather have them available in case the Tank forgets a CD for the TB+Bleed, or a DPS stands in something they shouldn't, or someone doesn't go to their Dog Jump in time and a tank gets that horrific DOT for 30s. Maybe that's not 'optimal' but I don't play in an environment where 'optimal' is possible to achieve, and I've still had fairly ok logs despite playing so 'horribly suboptimally' so /shrug

SCH is a less good example because it's a lost Energy Drain, and 10 gauge (lol), but overcapping is not going to be the end of the world really. SGE though is just 'you get 700 mp'. So if I'm at max mp, and I'm capped on blobs, I don't use one just to use one, I leave them capped. In case I need to spare an unexpected Druochole for something. This also means my Rhizomata usage over the fight is pretty awful (because I'm capped so often), I wish Rhizo would work in a way that doesn't risk overcap as badly. Recitation doesn't suffer this problem, it's like they thought 'damn we gotta make Rhizomata feel different from the thing we blatantly copypasted over from SCH, lets make it have infinitely more chance of overcapping the player that'll make it feel different'.

Overcapping would be bad in a design where it's designed that you want to avoid overcap, but SE has designed the classes in a way where it feels more like 'ah well who cares', because losing healing resources to the void and then having a wipe because of that lost healing resource would be too stressful for the players. So they made it to where overcap doesn't matter at all. I can go through an entire savage fight with Thin Air, Divine Benison capped at 2 the whole time, and Lilies capped out at 3 for like 50% of the fight. My log will be garbo, because I'd have to cover with Medica 2 a bit more, but it's possible, because SE designed it to be possible that way. Maybe not P8S in week 1 gear (well definitely not because the HP was scaled wrong lmao), but I bet it'd work in P5S in week 1 gear

[ty_taurus]

It’s true that the raw concept of over capping isn’t inherently a bad thing, such as with a cooldown like Rhizomata in your example, but both Aetherflow and Addersgall are tied to MP management, which to be fair, is not a prominent concern for healers, but forgetting or not using these resources does cause you to loose MP restored over time.

The problem with this is you don’t know if something bad will happen and you need to throw out raises to try and salvage a botched run. This isn’t a common occurrence either, but the best thing to do is to ensure you’re getting the most MP out of your kit so that you’re as prepared to handle circumstances like that, and pick up the habit of doing that always so that you’re not forgetting to do it when it matters.

If Aetherflow and Addersgall had no connection to MP management, or anything other than specific resource management, it’d be perfectly fine to let sit at cap. It wouldn’t necessarily be a beacon of exciting gameplay either but it wouldn’t feel bad to not have a spender of sorts.

Overhealing also doesn’t actually have a negative impact, so your argument makes sense. If it doesn’t really matter, what’s the problem? Well, from my perspective, it just doesn’t feel good or make me happy as a gamer to know that sometimes I’m just going to burn heals I don’t need. There’s a lot of players who want to feel that the way they’re using their tools is as tactically as possible—that nothing that’s used is going to waste, so to speak. So when you’re wasting healing just to get some MP back, it feels sloppy and defeating—that there was no way for me to make use of both sides of that action and that translates to a negative moment in my gameplay.

Not everyone feels this way, but I’d argue it’s a fairly common way to feel for a lot of gamers. In Persona games, for example, I don’t want to accept someone’s invitation to hang out if I’m already at the point of being able to advance my relationship with that character. It’d feel like wasting the points I earned because they don’t cross over to the next rank in that social link. It’s the same mentality.