Become Scholar without Arcanist.

[PurrinceLee]

Hi everyone!

This is my first post on these forums, I was told by support that my idea/request would be best placed here so I also wondered other people's views on this matter.

So, I was wondering/requesting if we would ever be able to be Scholar without having to start as Arcanist first?

In all games and MMOs I play the healer role/class and have followed suit here starting as a Conjurer with a wish to have all and only the healer jobs unlocked and playable. I suffer from OCD, without getting too deeply into that, but to then get Scholar and complete the list of healers in this game would also cause my Character Profile to have Arcanist/Summoner displayed on there which would cause me a lot of discomfort.

I understand this may seem bizarre or petty to a lot of you, I'm just curious if there could ever be a workaround or if it would ever be implemented

[fulminating]

If anything is decoupled from arcanist, it should be summoner. Thematically and in terms of their story summoner is a bit of a third wheel.

[Nizzi]

Unlikely to ever happen; SE doesn't like to touch the classes themselves much and hasn't removed Scholar from Arcanist despite reworking Arcanist completely, likely due to some coding issue or lack of an interest in creating another class for Scholar to have instead.
As it stands, your only option is to avoid getting Scholar.

[ForsakenRoe]

Before 6.0, I'd have argued for SMN to become the 'standalone, pick up at level 30' job. AFAIK the only prerequisite lorewise to 'being a summoner' is to have been bathed in a primal's aether at the moment of it's demise, which is a very specific set of conditions, hence there being so few people capable of being one. Getting to level 30, and completing 'Sylph Management' (the requirements to upgrade to a job), requires you have beaten Ifrit, so you'd have fulfilled the 'conditions' already. Just lock Titan and Garuda Egi quests behind 'you must have defeated this primal to take the next quest', job done.

Now contrast the lore stuff of SMN to SCH, which requires a mind suited to tactics, adaptability, good at logic, reasoning and mathematics, and you can see why ACN>SCH was the more natural path to follow as the 'upgrade'. Plus, it'd allow them to retool ACN into a healer class, allowing players who get into the game with the mindset of 'I want to play a healer' a second choice, instead of forcing them to play just CNJ, or forcing them to play a DPS for 30 levels, then weirdly swap to a healer several hours in.

Now they've gone back and reworked how ACN plays to be more like new-SMN, I can't see them doing any kind of split. IDK what their plan is, at this point I assume it's a case of 'sod it, it works as it is, and we can't be arsed to change it', so SMN and SCH will be forever tied together I think. If the 6.0 rework to SMN wasn't enough of a chance for them to finally sort it all out, nothing will be

[Rongway]

Unlikely to ever happen; SE doesn't like to touch the classes themselves much and hasn't removed Scholar from Arcanist despite reworking Arcanist completely, likely due to some coding issue or lack of an interest in creating another class for Scholar to have instead.
As it stands, your only option is to avoid getting Scholar.

There are no serious coding issues to consider here. It should be as simple as either (a) removing the base class flag from SCH or (b) copying SCH to a new job that has no base class. The rest is easy run-once administrative stuff such as setting each character's SCH level to their ACN level and SCH xp to their ACN xp to grandfather in anyone who currently has ACN leveled past 30, and maybe batch adjusting the equip flag on all SCH gear to the new SCH job ID if it changed because option B (probably wouldn't though).

Decoupling SCH from ACN should be so easy that the most likely explanation as to why they haven't already done it is that they don't want to deal with people complaining that they no longer get a twofer. I say just make all the new characters level SMN and SCH separately and ignore the complaints, but then the devs are much nicer than I am.

[PurrinceLee]

Thank you for this, its satisfying to know that it's not too much trouble for them to be able to do it. I've just got to hope they do it some day

[RyuDragnier]

If anything is decoupled from arcanist, it should be summoner. Thematically and in terms of their story summoner is a bit of a third wheel.

Tbh, it would have to be SCH that's decoupled. Arcanist is a DPS, SMN is a DPS, SCH is a healer. Plus if you look at all of the old Arcanist abilities, it now looks almost identical to SMN's skill list, while SCH's is vastly different.

[Faidid]

SCH was so much cooler when it had poison based dps abilities though--the SCH in 4.0 was my favorite job/class ever in any game. I absolutely loved it.

[DawnAeri]

Tbh, it would have to be SCH that's decoupled. Arcanist is a DPS, SMN is a DPS, SCH is a healer. Plus if you look at all of the old Arcanist abilities, it now looks almost identical to SMN's skill list, while SCH's is vastly different.

Yeah, they could have decoupled SCH from ARC, at this point the only similarities they have are both wielding a book and having pets, but like you mentioned the rest is different. Might as well do this for a better structure of jobs (one trick healer alts and all that).

[Connor]

I mean, level 90 Summoners still use Carbuncle, who is distinctly an Arcanist summon. Scholars, however, can only summon fairies.

So when it comes to deciding which one should stick with Arcanist and which one should go it’s own way…I know what I’d go for lol