Because why not: A Moderate Proposal - SCH

[Renathras]

Expedient, if nothing else, is a 10% mit buff for 20s that sticks to allies, addressing one of the weaknesses of SCH: that people need to stand in Soil for the mitigation.

This. People always forget the damage reduction component of Expedient. It's a 20 second Soil that doesn't require standing in. When the Sprint was 20 seconds - in combat 20 seconds Sprint - it was amazing. I used that in 6.0 for ZodEx (meteors) and HydEx (chakrams, probably her most difficult mechanic, as well as the stack/spread in the final phase) and they made things go WAY more smoothly. Like, they were often the difference between success and wipes. Expedient is one of the most powerful abilities we have in our arsenal. It's absolutely worth the level 90 spot. Especially compared to stuff like Aetherpact and Dissipation.

I'm glad the OP responded with what they see the issues of SCH as being. I think it's fun to sometimes imagine specific toolkits or adjustments, but I prefer to focus on what we enjoy and what we don't enjoy with what's there when trying to give constructive dev feedback.

I think it's instructive to do both. There are things I love about SCH. It has tools for most any situation. It really nails the fantasy of protecting your allies, not just patching up their boo-boos, both in the Job quests, the mechanics of mitigation and shielding, and even the VFX of the various abilities (Succor looks a lot more shielding than Eukrasian Prognosis, for example, with the latter sending a wave of energy out but Succor specifically forming bubbles around each party member; and, of course, there's Soil's ground effect bubble with the flittering barrier animation around the border).

It also does a good job of presenting a tactical field officer leading and augmenting troops in battle, coordinating with their adjunct subordinate, Eos. I always thought that, not the DPS, was SCH's hallmark and class fantasy. It's also why I hate Dissipation as a skill, since it rejects that core of SCH's gameplay and fantasy (working with your faerie partner) and why I dislike Energy Drain optimization, since that actively works against Sacred Soil, one of the Job's iconic moves that I love using.

And unpopular opinion: I actually liked the ShB changes to SCH, and the EW making the pet more responsive.

Those are the things I love about SCH, I think.

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As for the thread:

There are a lot of people here who want all the Healer Jobs dps focused with more dps rotations. I'm not one of those people. I've been advocating for a while for one to be left alone, and agree with the YouTuber Misshapen Chair's video of why healing in FFXIV is bad and his solution ("Probably White Mage."), and I actually like Healers as they are now.

But after repeated attempts to gain traction with the "leave one of the Healer Jobs alone" having failed, I considered an alternative. Changes to one of the already most complicated ones that MOSTLY leaves it alone, but maintains the general level of complexity and playstyle today by trading away a bit of SCH's existing clunk (complexity...sorta, more artificial complexity/difficulty) for a slightly more interesting rotation and smoother overall mechanics to kind of meet in the middle as a bridge we might collectively agree on. I long thought SCH would be the LAST choice to leave more or less alone since people liked its HW and SB incarnations, but these changes are largely a nod to those while striking a middle ground.

And based on how well they've been largely received, I'd say it's a bridge that could work to reach compromise into something everyone can accept and at least be somewhat happy with, as it were.

Were stormblood lillies the single most prominent case that made players doubt the devellopers actually played the classes they designed?

Probably.

No matter what the perception, they were the absolute worst possible idea. WHM in ARR was fine and in HW was decent, just outshown by AST's utility and heals. WHM just needed a few buffs. Instead, SB was when they decided every Job was getting a Job Gauge ([VOICE=Oprah]"You get a Job Gauge! And YOU get a Job Gauge! AND YOU get a Job Gauge! EVERYONE gets a Job Gauge!!!"[/VOICE]), even if the Job didn'd need one and what they came up with was worse than not giving one at all. With Cleric Stance toggle going away, all WHM needed is what they've needed before and since - a party damage buff, a party mitigation buff (instead they removed Protect and Stoneskin), slightly better MP economy (oddly, they got that right with Thin Air, only to make that the ONE downgrade for WHM from ShB to EW...), and slightly buffed damage output.

To this day I'm convinced before SB they were told EVERY Job HAD to have a Job Gauge, and they literally had no idea what to give WHM, so Lilies were born out of that. It righted itself with the ShB and 6.1 EW implementation, but WHM didn't even need that in 4.0. There was no reason at all for it.