SCH is a mess, thematically and visually, and needs streamlining

[Succor]

Scholar is a great concept, but the class lacks a thematic or visual identity and is too messy.

Thematically, scholar is juggling too many conflicting themes: An arcanist, a combat healer, a tactician, a book mage... with high-tech floating hologram screens, poisons (?), magical fairies, and even angels (!). Bio/Biolysis are very disconnected from the kit, unlike the SGE/WHM DoTs; angelic stuff was more appropriate for WHM's holy theme. As such, SCH ends up being an incoherent jimble jamble of arcane, magic, and holy elements mashed together - without really convincing about any of these.

Visually, SCH spells are very contradictory and all over the place: Some skills cause arcane explosions, others biohazard, but others scatter fairy dust, sparkles, and channel angels. Shields look too futuristic for a book healer, and the floating hologram screens are way over the top; not to mention the cringey hologram glasses of Broil.

Spells use the entire color spectrum: some skills are blue and red; explosions are red, but Art of War is purple; Biolysis is blue-ish, but Bio is green; fairy dust is yellow, but the angel is blue; Selene's purple boots are just.... terrible; shields are transparent, but soil is blue; and several spells hardly have any visual at all. I feel so confused by the color scheme that I don't always know which skills are supposed to be mine when there is a visual clutter.

You can actually tell about this mess from the disparity of skill icons and names. Icons are all over the place aesthetically, and names are a weird mix of Latin healing words and English tactical vocabulary. If it were more consistent, like in JP, it would sound more scholarly, but now it just sounds confused. Though these elements are unlikely to change at this point, so not worth discussing.

Compare all this to SGE, who is thematically and visually so neat and organised. All healing spells are blue, damaging spells are pink. There is a clear theme of a high-tech physician, and all skills follow a naming pattern/convention. Even skill icons blend well together. To a lesser extent, WHM and AST are also quite consistent thematically. This comparison really shows the result of a class built from level 1-90 in one go (SGE), by one team with a clear vision, versus a class that has been slowly built over 10+ years by different dev teams with very different ideas (SCH).

Simple solutions: Pick a main theme color and stick with it, apply it to several if not all skills (and icons). Yellow could work (because of the fairy) but it doesn't really matter, as long as it's consistent. The fairies and the angel should have a similar color, all shields should have a similar theme, and attack spells should be more similar. IMHO names also need an overhaul to be more consistent but this is too much to ask for. Simple solution for me: Play sage kek.

[fulminating]

What do you mean? It’s an arcanist (poison tactician) that found a scholar (faerie tactician) job stone.

I don’t understand what you mean about the colour thing, warrior with its four buttons also uses every colour under the sun, white mage should be using brown, blue and greenish on its offensive spells alone not this bland sparkliness it’s been lumped with, ast has incredibly pretty visuals in a multitude of colours, sage is a mess on every level and it’s not like dps are any different (see samurai, dragoon, blue mage).

The mix of archaic words is probably meant to indicate that the job’s been lost since nym fell like at least 20 years before ARR.

Sage is clearly a new job that at best is copied homework and at worst an uninspired joke not even living up to how it was sold to the playerbase. It has not had time to develop any identity beyond “bad scholar” and until it gets a few expansions under its belt is not at all sensible to compare with the established healers (ast, the next most recent being added in heavensward).

[HyonaCookie]

Having a jobs actions only be in one colour theme sucks for people like me who have bad eyesight especially when you have to keep the hotbars a certain size so they aren't taking up half the screen. It might not matter once you have muscle memory, but for learning a job and having to glance at the hotbar every now and then, it is easier to mess up icons that have similar colours.

[NobleWinter]

I'm on the fence with Scholar. I love feeling powerful because it definitely gets the job done when you need healing but I do feel like it's a bit chaotic in terms of lore. Selene doesn't have a reason to exist. Seraph likewise has zero explanation about her origin. The ridiculously high tech animations feel silly coming from a class using a book and a quill pen. It's supposed to be a battle tactician but literally attacks enemies with a skill set nearly identical to to the other healers. One nuke, one dot like all the rest doesn't sound like a healer specializing in the "Art of War." I don't mind the colors and skills icons being varied tho. The hardest thing about Sage was starting a class at level 70 with every skill having a similar icon and animation. I actually like having skills that are distinct in name, icon, and animation. Scholar could benefit from being repackaged for sure. I've always thought that both WHM and SCH needed some help with the early animations. Medica and Succor did not age well just like most of the base kit they have.

[Iscah]

I find icons across most jobs to feel very disorganised and un-instinctive. A lot of them feel like the artwork was done at a much bigger size without consideration of how it looks shrunken down, and there's no pattern to combos or good visual cues of the effects.

It's been a while since I played Scholar, but I remember being specifically annoyed by all the faerie spell icons being slight variations of "faerie in a non-descriptive pose" on the same coloured background, with no visual or colour clues as to what they did. I don't think that much could be blamed on change over time.

[Alrin]

Only thing that we Scholars really miss is physical attack.

[Mesarthim]

Only thing that we Scholars really miss is physical attack.

Slap your enemy with the book. Slip a few weights inside of it for extra damage.

[Nizzi]

What do you mean? It’s an arcanist (poison tactician) that found a scholar (faerie tactician) job stone.

Pretty much this; before they decided to gut the DPS abilities from SCH, it had a very good spread of color coded abilities.



It was very nice - outside of a small amount of abilities like Ruin and Bio, you had a very general and uniform theme.
Purples and Reds for Attacks, and Greens for heals.

Scholar can very easily go back to this, especially now that SGE is the "high tech" healer. Make Biolysis, AoW II, Broil III/IV and Chain more in line with this and SCH doesn't have conflicting themes anymore.
SCH is also the only job in the game that switches class types, so I think it's more than fair to give it leeway where other jobs wouldn't.

[Kazemon15]

Here's an idea...instead of wanting to change the class cuz you don't understand it, maybe, I dunno....don't play it and stick with Sage? Crazy concept, I know...

[flowerfairy]

Actually, I think the different colors helps you identify your spells easier than if everything was melted into the same color, so I'm not exactly sure what the issue is with a colorful VFX and spell icons...

Thematically, SCH was a poison mage who chanced upon ancient magic used by tacticians accompanied with their fairy partner, like the other posts said. I think there was a good mix between the scholar, who had offensive and damage prevention abilities, and the fairy, who has supportive and pure healing abilities. It feels like two unique partners with different strengths, covering for each others' weaknesses. I think that's what solidifies SCH's identity as a battlefield strategist.

Unfortunately the poison mage stuff got nuked alongside individual control of the fairy (and one of the fairy's modes) and we're left with two entities that do the same thing, heal heal heal.

The floating holograms are a reference to FFXI SCH's Libra, which is scanning your opponent for weaknesses. It's meant to be imaginary. I don't think the shields look futuristic at all. It's hexagonal, which is the strongest structure in nature. I can understand Seraph being an issue thematically because it never really was explained where she even comes from. She's really lackluster for a fairy that you summon to raise everyone to full heal in your LB3. I agree with the Broil IV glasses, they look lame.