Chain stratagem is underwhelming

[Reginald_Cain]

This ability should have always caused automatic crits. When you don't crit during this windows it feels awful and like im wasting the buff the scholar provides. Raid buffs really need more umph and flavor to them in general.

[Supersnow845]

Of all the awful 20 second 2 minute raid buffs SCH’s at least has claim to flavour as its thematic to their tactician theme

It’s still a pointless button that doesn’t need to exist though

[NobleWinter]

I'm still mad they tied our aoe dot to using a single target debuff in Chain Strat as if it makes any sense. I really wish they would at least lower the cool down on Chain to 60 seconds. It's been an incredibly boring addition to our dps kit since it's inception. Press and forget it on cool down cause we should be falling asleep pressing Broil.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

I'm still mad they tied our aoe dot to using a single target debuff in Chain Strat as if it makes any sense. I really wish they would at least lower the cool down on Chain to 60 seconds. It's been an incredibly boring addition to our dps kit since it's inception. Press and forget it on cool down cause we should be falling asleep pressing Broil.

Alternatively tie that to either Aetherflow, or make it an AF spender (mission impossible lol).

[Grimforth]

I'm still mad they tied our aoe dot to using a single target debuff in Chain Strat as if it makes any sense. I really wish they would at least lower the cool down on Chain to 60 seconds. It's been an incredibly boring addition to our dps kit since it's inception. Press and forget it on cool down cause we should be falling asleep pressing Broil.

I think the better question is why did they tie it to chain in the first place? Are they implying that they want players to use it on a single enemy in a pack and then aoe dot them?

[AmiableApkallu]

Are they implying that they want players to use it on a single enemy in a pack and then aoe dot them?

When one mob in the pack is noticeably tankier than the rest (which is how Dawntrail dungeon trash works...), that's not the worst idea, actually.

[Grimforth]

When one mob in the pack is noticeably tankier than the rest (which is how Dawntrail dungeon trash works...), that's not the worst idea, actually.

Possibly, but at this point everyone can basically just easily rip through mobs. The question is that after you use CS on the first mob, will CS be up in time by the time you reach the boss?

[Supersnow845]

Possibly, but at this point everyone can basically just easily rip through mobs. The question is that after you use CS on the first mob, will CS be up in time by the time you reach the boss?

Exactly, the “tanky” mob is often in the second pack, it’s almost never worth holding chain to put it on the tanky mob rather than just getting it on CD now and then when all the mobs group up then baneful them

[Carighan]

In general I feel FFXIV would benefit a lot from having fewer but more visually and directly noticable abilities.

Like I would not mind if Chain Stratagem was a significant portion of how a Scholar deals damage, being a support job doing it indirectly via forcing crits (and big ones at that) from other people.

Like say:

* Every time your critically hit with a direct damage ability, you have a 50% chance to generate a "Strategic Analysis" charge.
* Chain Strategem is now a buff, has 5s CD only, lasts 5s only. Using it consumes one Strategic Analysis charge. It is now an instant cast GCD.
* It applies "Chain Strategem" to all nearby partymembers but not to Scholars, not even other Scholars!: When someone under the buff with a direct damage attack (not necessarily a GCD!), they are guaranteed to land a critical hit and the damage percentage is increased by the Scholar's critical hit chance percentage, using the buff in the process. They also show a spell effect showing the analysis effects of Chain Strategem not on gaining the buff, but on the attack that consumes it, so it's even more obvious why your attack hits for such a large crit.

As this is a GCD, effectively Scholars would have an often-but-not-always 1-2 chain attack where the second portion is incredibly strong in parties, but not dealt by the Scholar themselves (the anti-Scholar part is necessary because otherwise SCHs could ping-pong each other charges and we'd all be running 2-SCH-groups). Potencies on actual attack spells need to be rebalanced to make room for this of course, but this way it's a near-constant source of super-crits while a Scholar is in your party, so it feels really impactful, of course balanced by the fact that the SCH themselves would be dealing very little damage, giving these crits is how they deal their damage.