My take on the simplicity of healers and the healer problem

[VerdeLuck]

1. You are literally talking about the top 0.01% of all players in the game. SCH and AST only begin to pull away from SGE and WHM when you get to the top 15% of all players who even bother to have cleared savage fights. Right off the bat that's a very small number (something like 10% of any game's population even raids, and fewer will clear even one fight in a tier. Much less all of them.)

And the problem with this is the community sees these stats and takes away that AST and SCH are better than WHM and SGE if the healer isn't bad. the only scenarios where they're better is when the healer player is bad and parsing low so why settle? Do they want to settle with a bad healer player?
I get these stats but the reality is not what you see on fflogs. Tell that to any MCH player who braves PF when technically MCH is better in unorganized groups and gets asked constantly to swap to BRD or DNC.
People in PF groups and in casual/midcore groups absolutely do not care that technically at the level they play at it's negligible, and those are the groups people have to interact with when they attempt to play endgame content.

[Nizzi]

It's a bit ridiculous how much people complain about how homogenized healers are and how boring they are and then in the same breath complain and whinge about Energy Drain and Dissipation. I've gotten to the point where I've accepted that this is absolutely the job design that this community deserves, because heaven forbid jobs be unique and do different things. SCH has an opportunity cost and has to leverage its healing kit differently than the other healers? This can't be allowed! SGE, WHM, and AST don't have opportunity costs! Fix it! The 100 potency is ""punishing"" and I need this game to reward me with the best results immediately without any effort or thought! I don't want any decision making present if it means I'm not getting the max amount possible out of my job with no effort!

And you all wonder why everything is going the way of Summoner.

[VerdeLuck]

It's a bit ridiculous how much people complain about how homogenized healers are and how boring they are and then in the same breath complain and whinge about Energy Drain and Dissipation. I've gotten to the point where I've accepted that this is absolutely the job design that this community deserves, because heaven forbid jobs be unique and do different things. SCH has an opportunity cost and has to leverage its healing kit differently than the other healers? This can't be allowed! SGE, WHM, and AST don't have opportunity costs! Fix it! The 100 potency is ""punishing"" and I need this game to reward me with the best results immediately without any effort or thought! I don't want any decision making present if it means I'm not getting the max amount possible out of my job with no effort!

And you all wonder why everything is going the way of Summoner.

If homogenization keeps the jobs I like from being considered the bad ones by the community and keeps me from being asked to swap off it, then by all means bring more homogenization. Having to level and gear a job only to find out that this other job is actually better and yours is not viable, optimal, or wanted by the general population of the game is not fun at all.

[Silver-Strider]

I've commented in the past about SCH's reliance on Energy Drain. There are virtually 0 ways it can be removed without several adjustments across the board for it to work.

Dissipation is worthless enough as is but removing Energy Drain essentially makes it a dead skill entirely. Between the CDs on Aetherflow Skills as well as their limited use during fights, you will almost never burn all your Aetherflow stacks every minute outside of things going poorly or solo healing. As such, Dissipation would see even less usage since there's almost no benefit to using the skill since the Aetherstacks it grants are mostly not needed but in order to not delay stalling Aetherflow usage, you'd need to have burnt thru 6 Aetherflow in less than 1 minute, which unless you are spamming Lustrates for whatever possible reason, is not happening in almost any instance short of a Tank with Broken Gear, in which case it wouldn't even matter. Couple this with the fact that you cannot build Fairy Gauge or use Fairy Abilities, the value of Dissipation drops exponentially. Speaking of the Fairy gauge, removing Energy Drain would either require needlessly overhealing with Lustrate to build it at a reasonable place or just have it build even slower by overwriting unused Aetherstacks so as to not delay Aetherflow. Aetherpact is already a lackluster ability with how slow it is to build up but coupled with the infrequency of damage to justify its usage, I don't see how making it even worse is a good thing for the skill when it needs more moments it can actually shine in. Finally, despite Energy Drain's low potency, it still accounts for ~2-3% of SCH's damage so there's that to consider as well.

Unless you can address all of these issues, there isn't a way to remove Energy Drain without a full rework of how SCH works.

[Coatl]

And you all wonder why everything is going the way of Summoner.

This just makes no sense to me. Was it unique when dragoon's jump locked them in place for a whole weekend? Some things need revisiting.

This is the double standard this community has always used for WHM versus Scholar/AST.

WHM is bad and it should be better. I don't think anyone would argue this point.

Dissipation is worthless enough as is but removing Energy Drain essentially makes it a dead skill entirely.

They don't have to remove energy drain. They can just make dissipation not lock out part of SCH's kit maybe? SGE has a skill which gives them resource back and it doesn't cost them anything.

Or hell make it so dissipitation overcharges our aetherflow. They can have some fun with it.

[Deceptus]

Oh the all-important faerie gauge, however will we cope without it for 30s? It's not even like whispering dawn gets cancelled if you use dissipation while it's active.
And temperance costing a lily would be interesting - now that they're on 20s generation it lines up exactly with the duration. There's no reason white mage shouldn't also have opportunity costs if it makes it more interesting. Why do people go on about making healers more interesting and then turn around to suggest that they be made even more braindead?

When did I say they should be more braindead? I WANT healers to be engaging. I want healer kits to be cohesive.

So yeah you're right, they should absolutely make the system they designed for SCH matter and be engaging(Fairy Gauge).

I've commented in the past about SCH's reliance on Energy Drain. There are virtually 0 ways it can be removed without several adjustments across the board for it to work.

Disconnect Energy Drain from Aetherflow and make it an exact copy of Phlegma (2 charge system). This gives SCH some early level AoE but doesn't let them spam it (because CBU3 doesn't want healers to spam aoe at low levels apparently).

Aetherflow still allows for mana regeneration, Energy Drain can still be used.

[Rilifane]

Because capstone skills are supposed to be rewarding, not punishing. No other job has that limitation.

While I think that Dissipation is outdated in several ways because they haven't looked at the skill since they first implemented it one bit I also don't think everything that in any form limits you, forces you to adapt, pay opportunity costs is automatically punishing.
Having something to think about is a good thing in my opinion. And we should keep in mind that even with these limitations, SCH is not just able to hold up just fine but even outperforms other healers if done decently well. And isn't that one definition of "rewarding"? Being able to shine when doing something well?
Not every healer has to get rewarded in the same way. I don't mind if SCH is the only healer that still has opportunity costs, toolkit lockouts and limitations as long as all healers have something to work towards.

But since we currently have 3 healers that can use all skills willy-nilly without any restrictions whatsoever I can see how SCH's kit looks "punishing".
Still, I don't think it's a good habit to treat everything as "punishing" just because it isn't easy, straightforward and has no limitations. As fulinmation said, not everything has to be handed on a silver platter. I'd rather see Dissipation adjusted so it's a bit more suitable for the current encounter and toolkit design, not taken away or turned into something that can't interfer at all with how you use skills.

[elioaiko]

SCH needs a straight up ground up remake. It's design is very antiquated and punished in ways the other healers aren't. And I understand that it's supposed to be a risk/reward situation but quite frankly, no other healer has penalties.

SGE's kit feels a lot more fluid and has regens on half of its kit, not to mention Kardia is a better Eos when it comes to healing a specific target. And Addersgall is not attached to damage so there is no ED optimization.

AST is only punished for not playing cards, and maybe not utilizing your OGCDs properly. Neutral Sect straight up gives shields and regens with no downside.

WHM's lily skills are no longer punishing to use so they can use it whenever neccassry for healing/movement/weaving.

SCH still only have two uses for the fae gauge. And one is on a 60s CD.

The fact that the devs said in the liveletter concerning SCH changes before EW dropped, that it didn't need many changes.

The job is a shell of its glorious days.

[Conchoidal]

SCH still only have two uses for the fae gauge. And one is on a 60s CD.

Aetherpact/Fey Union is the only ability to use the Faerie gauge as of 6.0, since Fey Blessing had its gauge cost removed.

[Nizzi]

SCH needs a straight up ground up remake. It's design is very antiquated and punished in ways the other healers aren't. And I understand that it's supposed to be a risk/reward situation but quite frankly, no other healer has penalties.

SGE's kit feels a lot more fluid and has regens on half of its kit, not to mention Kardia is a better Eos when it comes to healing a specific target. And Addersgall is not attached to damage so there is no ED optimization.

AST is only punished for not playing cards, and maybe not utilizing your OGCDs properly. Neutral Sect straight up gives shields and regens with no downside.

WHM's lily skills are no longer punishing to use so they can use it whenever neccassry for healing/movement/weaving.

SCH still only have two uses for the fae gauge. And one is on a 60s CD.

The fact that the devs said in the liveletter concerning SCH changes before EW dropped, that it didn't need many changes.

The job is a shell of its glorious days.

Counterpoint: Every other healer that isn't Scholar needs a straight up, ground up remake. They all suck majorly. AST, WHM and SGE are horribly awful jobs that encourage vomiting out heals and not properly thinking about how to leverage or use your kit well. There's no "punishment" for playing Scholar. Contrary to popular belief within this playerbase, having a skill ceiling isn't a bad thing. This is why Black Mage is the only job that retains any sort of complexity, because for every other job, people whine about it being "punishing" for not giving them immediate rewards, where as the Black Mage community response to misusing your tools is "Plan better for next time."

It's clear you don't like Scholar. That's fine. It's clear that you think SGE and the other healers are better. Your "more fluid" and "better Eos" feels worse to me in every way. I hate Sage. I genuinely think it is the most insipidly boring job this game has ever introduced. Phlegma is boring. Kardia is boring. Addersgall is painfully boring and uninspired. Eukrasia is a boring gimmick that exists solely to consolidate a DoT and fails to do anything interesting at all, like everything about Sage. To me, everything about Sage sucks. It's aesthetics suck, it's gameplay sucks worse than any other healer, all of its buttons are not fun to press or plan and it is BORING.
If you don't like Scholar, play Sage. Scholar doesn't need a rework; Scholar isn't "punishing", you just need to plan better next time - Scholar isn't for you, and that's fine. Sage isn't for me, so I just play Scholar because Scholar has what I'm looking for in a healer. Isn't that what we want in jobs? Diversity and unique playstyles?