Why is SCH becoming WHM, when SGE is just becoming SCH?

[NoxAeonia]

The job actions teaser and explanation this morning have me more confused as a healer than I expected. I've played Scholar since ARR, and always loved the warlock theme that Arcanists had. Scholar's loss of Miasma, Bane, and Shadowflare left both jobs without a core component that they shared for over 6 years. Scholar losing DoTs upon Shadowbringers' arrival is why we only have Broil IV and Art of War as realistic damage tools. High-end raiding sees Aetherflow used on more than just Energy Drain, which is still only 300 total potency every 60 seconds.

If Scholar had any other DPS tools beyond Biolysis and Broil IV, we wouldn't have been begging for Miasma or Bane for the last 4 years. Arcanist was introduced as the sole class with twin jobs that mirror two sides of a specific playstyle: pet actions and curses/enfeeblements. As of this morning, Sage has been announced to have a GCD instant-cast AoE DoT arriving in Dawntrail and Scholar was given a follow-up to their Chain Stratagem... on a 120 second cooldown... on a class that used to have Bio, Bane/Miasma, and Shadowflare. While they didn't confirm if the skill will be AoE, the skill effects point to that being the case.

Now, I'm glad Sage is getting what every Scholar has been begging for, but it seems like adding a new DoT trait to Art of War would have accomplished the same gameplay option for both barrier healers without the downright laughable addition that Scholar was thrown in comparison.

I hope Square Enix will sincerely rethink the direction of Scholar as it is less and less recognizable when compared to White Mage with each expansion, Seraphism being a disappointing example of this issue. We don't want to be broken or overloaded, healers just want their classes to have unique identities. Scholar hasn't seen a new tactical/tech skill outside of existing damage tools being upgraded since Stormblood and has been consistently given fairy magic that looks identical to White Mage's spells. And with Sage now claiming the former niche, Scholar is left in limbo "borrowing" half of two competitor's cohesive VFX kits.

If the goal is to make healers play similarly, give Scholar more recognizable VFX and give each class a comparable kit. If the goal is to introduce unique mechanics for each job, allow Scholar to reclaim the job fantasy that led to them being such a prominent force in the community's collective experience.

[Calysto]

The best way to play SCH is to use the Titania's wings nouliths

[NoxAeonia]

The utter truth to this... sobbing with Eos lol

[Deceptus]

Because they robbed all the SCH abilities, repackaged them, and gave them to sage.

[SeverianLyonesse]

I agree with all of this.

I don't know why the obsession with wings. Sage and Paladin already sort of had them. Now we are getting wings on WHM, SCH, and DRK. And none of them make any sense.

The one thing I will say is that SCH hasn't made *any* sense since they dropped the warlock traits and made it about fairies. There is nothing at all synergistic between a warlock, a tactician, and fairies/angels.

Now, we *could* have viewed Eos/Selene and Seraph as a kind of "holy magic" counterpart to SMN's more demonic looking summons. And we could even have extended the (angel) wing motif into upgrading Scholar's kit from other summons with that motif: Alexander (wings), Eden (wings). Even Diablo, the Warring Triad, and Athena could have synergized with Scholar's aesthetic. All of these are arcane, technical, or highly scholastic brings, they would have worked with Scholar to some extent, if only having Scholar "learn" some of their abilities. I would even grant Feo Ul or a fairy transformation as being more on point for Scholar.

This change is abominable. It not only totally misses the identity of scholar and makes it even more of a confused mess, but further leans on lazy "angel wing" garbage that is already overdone.

At least, AT LEAST this is equally terrible and ill-fitting as Summoner's sword-wing dragon. These are embarrassingly garbage additions to Arcanist.

[vetch]

Scholar is getting a mandatory White Mage robe. Astrologian is becoming tarot Scholar. Sage was already White Mage but now it's getting Aero 3. White Mage is... mostly remaining as-is, because it's already the ideal job for its target audience.

I don't know why the obsession with wings. Sage and Paladin already sort of had them. Now we are getting wings on WHM, SCH, and DRK. And none of them make any sense.

Developers who lack in creative integrity are shoveling popular symbolism into their game as a naked grab for attention.

[NoxAeonia]

Now, we *could* have viewed Eos/Selene and Seraph as a kind of "holy magic" counterpart to SMN's more demonic looking summons. And we could even have extended the (angel) wing motif into upgrading Scholar's kit from other summons with that motif: Alexander (wings), Eden (wings). Even Diablo, the Warring Triad, and Athena could have synergized with Scholar's aesthetic. All of these are arcane, technical, or highly scholastic brings, they would have worked with Scholar to some extent, if only having Scholar "learn" some of their abilities. I would even grant Feo Ul or a fairy transformation as being more on point for Scholar.

If we had been given an Athena stance, I could give them a minor pass as she at least resembles a fairy or moth. Hell, it would be cool as a Seraph upgrade. But we just don't need MORE passive healing tools - and we haven't since Shadowbringers first dropped. Please give us a Miasma or Bane equivalent (Just restore the icon and animations, we genuinely wouldn't care), and allow us the minor tactical choice between using Shadowflare or Sacred Soil once per Aetherflow cast. And maybe, just MAYBE, change Aetherflow to restore passively like Sage and White Mage, and move the MP restoration to all of our Aetherflow spenders so we have steady access to MP. Shadowflare and Sacred Soil are/were still our strongest uses of Aetherflow, so giving them a unique resource like Afflatus Misery or Minor Arcana would be fine.

[NoxAeonia]

I'm honestly kind of happy, and extremely disappointed, seeing people agree with me whenever I speak about this. It just goes to show how serious of an issue it has become. The class I have been playing since it was released is no longer the "warlock with a grimoire and summons", and has instead become the dumpster where Square puts whatever spells they don't think fit on the other 3 healers. The worst part to me is that we are still technically the best healer in the game in most situations - we just hate playing the class we love because it's not on the same plane of existence as where it started! They're so obsessed with making flashy spells for everyone that they forget no one wants a new "finisher" skill besides RDM, whos ENTIRE KIT is based around using their full finisher combo every 15-20 seconds on repeat. We have seen the fairy gauge become useless in any non-dungeon content due to healing being entirely optional. We have seen Seraph fall off in usefulness outside of continuous raid-wide mechanics for the same reason. And for some reason Fey Blessing, the most widely usable of this trinity, now isn't even tied to the gauge so we just sit at 100% for an entire Extreme, Savage, or Ultimate fight with no reason to nerf our fairy's team-wide healing abilities by casting Aetherpact.

Why is Scholar, arguably the most unique job in the game from ARR through Stormblood, now the Job with the least unique kit in its role? Why are we getting feathers added to our class VFX while WHM now has massive (fairy) wings, and Sage is the new Warlock? Summoner needed to be touched up and brought into a modern place, but it certainly didn't need its entire kit scrapped and replaced with an entirely new gameplay loop that has now become even more repetitive with the addition of a Diet Bahamut stance rather than allowing us to summon the THREE EXISTING PRIMALS that we have been sobbing and begging for since ARR. It just feels like they actually hate that people enjoy Arcanist s0 they decided to start (literally) ripping pages out of our books and telling us to make do with half of a story.

God only knows that Square will likely ignore us again, as I doubt we will even be able to pool enough voices to demand a change like when we had to riot for them to give Energy Drain back in Shadowbringers. Yes, game design is difficult and requires countless devs to work in tandem for the product to flow naturally. But when you have a job that is this old and beloved, with a devoted pool of us that have offered everything from minor gameplay tweaks to full-on reworks, there is no excuse for so brazenly giving us a "f**k you" and teasing these changes as if they improve either Arcanist specialization in any way.

[Supersnow845]

I'm honestly kind of happy, and extremely disappointed, seeing people agree with me whenever I speak about this. It just goes to show how serious of an issue it has become. The class I have been playing since it was released is no longer the "warlock with a grimoire and summons", and has instead become the dumpster where Square puts whatever spells they don't think fit on the other 3 healers. The worst part to me is that we are still technically the best healer in the game in most situations - we just hate playing the class we love because it's not on the same plane of existence as where it started!.

I am genuinely at the point where if they want to give SCH the SMN treatment then just make SCH crap for one expansion, watch the last vestiges of its playerbase abandon it then remake it

This terrible insistence (either by accident or not) of continuing to always make SCH the strongest healer despite having near no redeeming qualities anymore is getting really old. If they have such a bias towards SGE just put SCH out of its misery at this point rather than another expansion of “oh crap SCH got another spreadlo amplifier and can delete another ultimate mechanic better lock SGE out”

And I say this as a die hard SCH main who hates SGE

[ForsakenRoe]

I am genuinely at the point where if they want to give SCH the SMN treatment then just make SCH crap for one expansion, watch the last vestiges of its playerbase abandon it then remake it

This terrible insistence (either by accident or not) of continuing to always make SCH the strongest healer despite having near no redeeming qualities anymore is getting really old. If they have such a bias towards SGE just put SCH out of its misery at this point rather than another expansion of “oh crap SCH got another spreadlo amplifier and can delete another ultimate mechanic better lock SGE out”

And I say this as a die hard SCH main who hates SGE

The issue with that approach is that WOW did it, with Demonology during MOP. Even going so far as to say 'we'd rather you didn't play Demonology' as the reason they had made it like 15-20% less damage than the other specs (to try and get people to stop playing it). Instead, their statement of 'we'd rather you didn't play it' just caused those who were playing it to double down and carry on playing it. They could have nerfed Demonology to only do 50% of the damage of Destruction and Affliction, and those players would still play it

I'd also be cautious about any 'rework' mentions, considering what they've done did to AST, and their track record with previous reworks (SMN seeing complaints of being 'very shallow gameplay', people complaining MCH doesn't use it's gun enough anymore, etc), it's not like SE's knocking it out of the park with every rework, and so it's entirely possible that, should a rework to SCH occur, it'd somehow be worse than the current mishmash of abilities it currently has.