Scholar Please Fix

[deston07]

Definitions:
Mitigation (mit) - Reduces Damage
Nullification (Shield) - Absorbs Damage

Game Mechanics:
- Mitigation can reduce the amount of damage shields need to absorb.
- Damage over Time (DOT) - Damage is calculated on the initial application of affliction.
- Damage over Time due to the way it is calculated on the initial application can be mitigated on the initial impact,
Giving mitigation for the full duration of the DOT regardless of mitigation buffs lasting that long.

(Many do not understand the difference I had to define/explain)

Why Scholar is awful in its current state:
Discourages the use of mitigation (Sacred Soil 10% mit - Cost: 1 Aetherflow)
Encourages the use of Damage (Energy Drain 100 Potancy oGCD - cost 1 Aetherflow)
Sacred Soil can only be applied in situations raid groups can stack or stay relatively close together, discouraging the usage additionally.

(Sage has Kerachole 10% Mit, 15 sec Buff, 30 Sec cool down, gives mana 7% - Encouraging usage - doesn't cost damage - does not require strict group placement)

Temporary / Easy Fix:
Fey Illumination / Seraphic Illumination
- (Physical & Magic) 10% mitigation
- Reduce Cool Down to 60 sec
(Sage has 60s Cool down on Physis II, why is Fey Illumination different? along with doing less)

Expedient
- Reduce Mitigation to 5% (To Counter balance)
- 50 or 100 potency Heal over time

Over the course of a Savage/Ult fight, the lack of mitigation compared to Sage is significant, forcing healers and DPS to heal more in comparison.

Optimized coordinated groups do fine with Scholar.
However, in party finder or lack of coordination to the same degree, it is far more obvious scholar needs help.

Long Term:
Give healers damage buttons, They are boring and unsatisfying to play!

Edit: Was 6% MP Kerachole -> Changed to 7%.

[fulminating]

What are you talking about? Sacred soil is scholar's best ability bar none, it is already superior to kerasoil because it gets an extra server tick of mitigation and the heal over time. Moreover aetherflow (20%mp restore every minute) encourages better play than it's/all/greek/to/me restoring 7%mp on cast, with 3 possible casts per minute as you're not burning resources just to not run dry.

Sage was already buffed because it simply did not have the mitigation output of scholar in DSR so they stapled a shield onto holos.

[ForsakenRoe]

Comparing the 2min mitigation+healboost Fey Illumination to 'its a regen' Physis, instead of 'its a mitigation and shield' 2min Holos, is definitely a take, Physis is Whispering Dawn, both 60s, Physis lasts less time but ticks are stronger

Unless you're comparing them because 'they both have a heal boost' but that's kinda... I don't think people use Fey Illumination for the healing boost do they

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

[…]I don't think people use Fey Illumination for the healing boost do they

If possible to take advantage of? Yes. One of the few examples I could think that I personally do was to drop it during heavy movement phases like Purgation phase in P7s & 4 vents in P8s p1. It helps my co-WHM’s Raptures juust slightly & sometimes my own Spreadlo when its use coincides. In a way, I think of Illumination as my co-WHM’s cooldown more than my own so if they want it at specific phases I’d try to comply because Raptures is one of the larger bulk of their healing portion & I don’t think any other healer GCD heals as much as they do to take advantage of that healing boost.

Otherwise, I usually prioritize its mitigation… or for funzies? Drop them at the butt end of trash pulls in dungeon so I can have fatter Adlo on tank & myself. Runs to next pull, wait for the adlo on tank diminishes, then spread the adlo from myself so the tank have another layer of shield. Bonus point if one of those Adlo crits + if it’s also paired with Dissipation!

[NobleWinter]

Lmao I use the heal boost from Fey Illumination but I mostly run dungeons so it tends to be the button I press before Dissipation to power thru the end of large pulls when the tanks cooldowns have run dry and I'm forced to hardcast a few Adlo's

[deston07]

Sacred soil is scholar's best ability bar none

Sadly yes..
You still have to be under soil to get the benefit, while many of Abyssos attacks require groups to spread further than Soil can reach, for a longer duration than 1 server tick.
There are quite a few non-savage fights that require spreading further than soil can reach.

Many Scholars limit soil usage to save Aetherflow,
for more Energy drain usage.
while
Sage has no reason to really limit Kerachole usage.
7 Addersgall per 2 min, giving 4 usages of Kerachole + 3 more Addersgall for what ever you like every 2 min.
Why would sage want to hold on to addersgall? There is almost no punishment for over use of kerachole.
Big Hit? Physis II + Kerachole generally solves it.
The consistent 10% mit + HOT make both heals life significantly easier.

Savage and Ultimate are practically the only content that require Scholars to actually know how to resource manage. so most scholars do not know how to resource manage.

Comparing the 2min mitigation+healboost Fey Illumination to 'its a regen' Physis II

(SCH) Fey Illumination - (120 CD) Increases healing magic potency of all nearby party members by 10%, while reducing magic damage taken by all nearby party members by 5%
(Only Magic Healing / Mitigation)

(Sage) Physis II - (60 CD) Gradually restores own HP and the HP of all nearby party members. Cure Potency: 130
Additional Effect: Increases HP recovered by healing actions by 10%
(works for magic and physical actions)

Expedient is more comparable to Holos than Fey Illumination.

[fulminating]

Many Scholars limit soil usage to save Aetherflow, for more Energy drain usage.

Many Dark knights and gunbreakers don't mitigate during their burst because they're out of weave slots. I don't really see a solid argument for change based around people deliberately shooting themselves in the feet.

The counterpart to fey illumination is very probably holos, particularly considering that the shield was stapled on. On 6.0's launch they were both 120s CD 10% mit, with the slight difference that fey illumination gave a healing boost at the cost of not affecting those uncommon physical raidwides. I think that would be dominion 1 and dominion 2 ? - nothing else springs to mind.

[Elucesta]

Scholar doesn't need everything sage does. God forbid we have some differences in healers lol, sage has all of that mitigation because its a mitigation/regen healer. Its shields are weak, scholar has potent shields/regens. The both have their strengths and weaknesses, if you want more mitigation play sage. I'm just against 1 class having something just because the other class has it. Its seem like a take thats based on fear of exclusion imo

[ForsakenRoe]

Scholar doesn't need everything sage does. God forbid we have some differences in healers lol, sage has all of that mitigation because its a mitigation/regen healer. Its shields are weak, scholar has potent shields/regens. The both have their strengths and weaknesses, if you want more mitigation play sage. I'm just against 1 class having something just because the other class has it. Its seem like a take thats based on fear of exclusion imo

Firstly, saying 'SGE is a mitigation/regen healer' when SE split the healers into Pure and Barrier, means that the split is a failure designwise. We all knew that though.

But besides that, Succor is 200p, 160% shield (total of 320p shielding), E.Prognosis is 100p, 320% shield (so, again 320p). Similarly, both Adlo and E.Diagnosis are 300/180%, (540p total shield), with the 'if you crit you apply a second copy of the shield'. The only real 'stronger shields' argument that can be made is Deployment Tactics, but you can kinda mimic that by using Zoe on E.Prognosis (bumping it to 150/320%, totalling 480p). I guess you can purposely hold Recitation for a crit Adlo, but then you deprive yourself of eg Recit-Indom. Meanwhile for OGCD shielding options, SCH has Consolation (2x200p) and... oh, that's it actually, huh weird. SGE has Holos (300p), Haima (5x300p, ST), Panhaima (5x200p, AOE). If you think SGE doesn't have 'strong shields', you can make up for it by the fact it has twice as many OGCD shield options to use for AOE

And what 'potent regens' does SCH have that SGE doesn't? W.Dawn is 560 over it's duration, Physis is 650, in a shorter duration, and has the 10% heal boost. Meanwhile, Kera and Soil are both 100p per tick, for the same duration. Are we really going to nitpick and give the win to SCH because of the 'ground-effect instant tick' phenomenon? Or is it entirely down to Fey Union?

We do need the healers to feel different. But when the tools are so similar, the comparisons are blindingly easy to make on a tool-by-tool basis, and it seems SGE comes out slightly ahead on most things. At this point, SCH seems (to me at least) to have only one advantage: you can heal without being nearby, using the fairy skills. But that counts for very little when the other healer is usually forced to go to the side where 'you can't reach as SGE' so they can handle it. Like, wow, you can heal the opposite side in Ruby Light 5 as SCH but not as SGE. But it's not an issue, because your cohealer's over there anyway.

Again with the same argument. It’s getting old, we’re not getting more DPS buttons, it’s not going to happen. I would rather give SCH more DPS buffs other than chain stratagem than more oGCD/DPS tools. Would rather give that to SGE instead. So if you want more DPS, SGE is there, PLAY IT!

When the expansion was announced, and we got the info that we'd have the Pure/Barrier split, my first thought was something like this:

WHM - Burst healing
AST - HOT/delay focused healing
SCH - mitigates by buffing allies eg. Soil, Expedient, Eye4Eye, Fey Illumination
SGE - mitigates by debuffing enemies via attacks, eg Virus, Disable

Instead we got SCH 2: Slightly less jank edition.

[Elucesta]

And scholar is not awful in its current state btw. Its a very powerful and viable class. Its just a bit slower paced and requires more thinking. I feel this post was a tad hyperbolic. Not trying to come down on you at all, so I apologize if it seems that way. But personally I think both healers are fine as is. I really recommend you play sage of you genuinely feel this way though