Scholar -- the game at 50 and beyond

[Xilrasis]

First of all, I apologize for not placing this post in the separate thread, but I wanted to create one that focuses on the class at 50. As with any MMO, development from 1-50 is a very small percentage of the game and, while things may be underpowered or overpowered then, the game really starts here at 50.

This being said, I am Xilra Sis, a scholar on Gilgamesh, a non-legacy server. Up to this point, I have done more Amdapor/Praetorium runs than I would like to count. I have done all of the hard-mode primals, and the entire relic line, and began to poke my head into Binding Coil of Bahamut. I'll address my concerns/comments one by one for each scholar mechanic. So here we go!


Pets
First and foremost, while pet control is better in this game than almost any other game I have played at release, it is still abysmally clunky and a cause for problems. When I issue a move command to my pet to place it in a safe-ish spot, it should move there and stay there. If it gets knocked back by a mechanic, it should move back. Pet buffs have entirely too short of a range to not position them properly, and encounter mechanics are extremely unforgiving for pets being out of place. They get debuffs (Paralyze/Slow), take massive damage from some mechanics, and are all around a burden to use at best. This is the #1 issue that needs to be fixed.

1) Pets need to be able to properly be set to an obey status. Using abilities tends to reset this. The pet AoE heal has far too long of a cooldown for it to use it with reckless abandon whenever it feels like, and so do the cure / magic defense buffs. The pet aoe regen is essentially the Scholar's only "bulk" aoe heal (which I will address later).

2) Pets need to be able to be set to focus heal a specific target, or more easily allow manual control. I don't want my pet spamming embrace on raid members who just took an AoE hit that is going to be 100% healed to full by the White Mage's Medica II while the tank is taking spam 1500-2000 damage hits. Our heals are intentionally weaker due to having the pet supplement, but we have no way to control where those heals actually go.

3) Whispering Dawn has entirely too long of a recast. I would not be unhappy if the potency was buffed slightly, the cooldown reduced (30 seconds?) and the duration reduced to 15 or 18 seconds instead of 21. As of right now, the pet (when not manually controlled... and that issue is addressed above), likes to use it when only she or one other person has taken damage, and completely wastes it.

4) The heal/magic defense buffs are great... but once again, need to be controllable. Wasting a 120 second recast when zero damage is occurring is frustrating at best.

5) The support fairy abilities are lackluster. They provide roughly a 5% reduction in cast time/GCD IF the buffs hit the raid. The range is short and, again, autocast is unreliable at best. The skill speed buff also will not autocast, and must be manually activated whenever the spell speed buff wears off. Clunky.

6) Finally, I would LOVE it if we could at least get some form of basic attack pet, or some basic attack on our fairies. A white mage fully DPSing can do a substantial percentage of an actual DPS's damage, and even be competitive on AoE, but Scholars are relegated to doing a tiny fraction because such a substantial portion of the base class's damage derives from pets, and the options available (DoT stack then ruin spam) are not exactly damage machines.


Scholar Abilities
This topic is a mixed bag for me. Scholars have a few nice abilities, and a few bad ones, but they also seem to suffer from something no other class does: Their base class is built for damage, not for healing, and as such all of their key abilities must come only from their job quests. This means that we have a ton of ability bloat, but not really a whole lot of abilities tailored to our roles. I'll ignore the damage abilities because they play such a small role for the class, but I will try to address all of the abilities (except leeches, for example, since it is pretty much a one function ability).

Physick
There really isn't much to be said here except that it is extraordinarily boring. We pretty much spend 90% of our time casting Physick, and here is where the base class problem comes into play: We will never receive a trait to affect it (i.e. freecure) and as such it never really changes. It isn't the highest HPS spell we have, but for bulk healing where HPS isn't an issue, its pretty much the only button worth pressing, because Adloquium is going to tank your manabar quick, fast, and in a hurry.

Adloquium
My primary issue with this ability is the mana cost. I understand it isn't supposed to be ultra-efficient, but our abilities have such TINY base potency. The shield is great, don't get me wrong, but the crit effect has such little effect (due to very very small crit rates since very little gear has crit for healers) that it may as well not exist. It is higher HPS than Physick on the first cast only, and until the bubble gets popped you have to turn back to spamming Physick again. I find myself using this a very small percentage of the time, and usually only during extremely high tank damage or pre-casting shield for abilities (AoE on Titan on low HP characters, Tank nuke on Titan, etc). I would rather the base potency be increased slightly and the crit effect removed, or physick combo into it somehow... but it is extremely boring in its current state, and these are supposed to be our two bread and butter heals.

Succor
This ability is my real beef with the class. Coupled with nearly uncontrollable pet healing, this is our only practical, controllable AoE heal. 150 potency. 300-320 healing (plus a shield) with mostly darklight gear and a relic weapon. For how much mana? I only really ever cast Succor when I want to pre-shield for an AoE, and thats it. White mage AoE healing is so far and away better that I don't even bother most of the time, and just continue happily spamming Physick on the tanks while he heals everyone to full with a single Medica II. It would be nice if the shield was already present that it converted the shielded amount to healing, or something, so that it was at least on par with Medica I and we had an ability to do some sort of bulk AoE healing, even if it weren't on par with white mage. Also, the combo from Sacred Soil isn't awful choice since you will generally use the two in conjunction.

All that I ask is that when the group takes 2000 AoE damage, I have some way to heal them other than spamming Physick on everyone individually, or spamming 150 potency Succors on top of my already existing shields. I love the shield mechanic, but we take a huge effectiveness hit because of it.

Aetherflow
No complaints here. I actually really like the Aetherflow mechanic and how it gives you a choice between mitigation bubble/lustrate/mana regen. This is one of my favorite aspects of the class. It isn't too limiting or crippling, and give us a choice of 3 solid abilities to utilize and makes us think about when to do so.

Lustrate
Honestly, I think this is the only ability that sets us apart from WHM in a group setting. It has saved people (especially tanks) more times than I can count. Percentage based, is not affected by healing-reduction, and a 1 second global. This ability is the primary reason I can justify my position in a group over a second WHM. The second being able to pre-shield the raid with a small bubble for large AoEs (which, really, isn't generally make or break YET, and the shield is only ~300-350 HP)

Energy Drain
Mana regen. Awesome. Except when you have two bards, where mana is basically not an issue anymore. Need mana? Call for mana song. Otherwise, this is one of the other abilities that gives us our oomph over white mages.

Sacred Soil
Pretty clear cut, straight-forward ability here. Nothing to complain about. Occasionally has marginal usefulness, but still solid overall for high damage phases.

Eye for an Eye
A little unreliable, but more damage reduction is never a bad thing. Cooldown is perhaps a little long for what the ability is, but summoners can cast it too. No real complaints here, either.

Enhanced Pet Actions
On paper, good. In practice, awful. I see this proc maybe one time per encounter. The pet heal so rarely crits that this may as well not exist. Probably another relic of having a DPS base class, but i'm not sure if this even procs all that much for Summoners.


Summary
Overall, I believe that Scholars definitely have a niche they will be able to fill, but based on past experience in MMOs, the lack of bulk AoE healing will kill them as end-game healers in the end. This should definitely be looked at in some way, either through modifying the Succor effect, fixing Whispering Dawn/Pet Control, or through addition of other abilities/effects. Making pets more controllable would be a huge quality of life change that really needs to be present for scholar to be truly viable. Instead, I spend most of my time healing or recasting my pet, or leaving it sitting on autocast because there is no other way to really reliably manage it.

Also, even though it isn't a huge issue, I must reiterate the DPS point. As WHM, you can substantially increase the speed of dungeon runs by contributing your DPS. As a scholar, you really can't. I hope this is addressed in some way, and on a similar note, the support pet should really be more effective in some way rather than adding a marginal dps increase at a small range (coupled with difficulty of control/survivability for pets).

[Celauta]

Overall do I think that SCH needs more power? No.
Do I think some adjustments need to be made? Yes.

Biggest things that I think need to be adjusted/fixed/implemented:
Pet Scaling with SCH/SMN/ACN gear
Pet Control Macros
AI Commands that don't fail (as in don't revert back to auto-cast everything after I hit the aoe heal or w/e)
Enhanced Int changed to Enhanced Int/Mind depending on Job

These are my biggest complaints with the class. I have no issue with the abilities and how they work really. Just on the pet not scaling (properly?) and the AI and lack of macros for pets.

-Chaz

[Xilrasis]

The pet scaling is okay, I find. I almost don't even have to heal anymore in Amdapor keep except in 1-2 situations. Sadly I can only do ~30 dps while not healing! The only intrinsic issues I have with the class are the lack of any bulk AoE cure (I don't want to be a WHM... but I would like to be at least reasonably self sufficient) and pet control (manual heals and pet liability). Both could be somewhat resolved in the same fix. Its frustrating having my "ideal" solution to AoE healing an 8 man group be spamming Succor 7-8 times, whereas a whitemage can heal nearly any DPS a full HP bar with a single Medica II, or a Medica + Swiftcast Cure III if stacked properly. I don't want to be the same class... I just want to feel like i'm not fighting a losing battle the whole time when AoE healing.

Also, as for your Enhanced INT/MND concern, the job crystal gives you a substantially higher MND for SCH than it does INT for SMN to make up for this. It ends up being comparable numbers.

[Skies]

Xilrasis I think that you kind of hit one of the most differentiating part between the Scholar and White Mage.
Scholar needs to heal relentlessly, you DON'T stop healing for a single moment. At least from what I gather of the concept is that, at it's heart, you have to keep running your heals and mana regen as fast as humanly possible. You're a frantic healer.
White Mage needs to pace their healing nukes, they got huge and fantastic heals, they heal sparingly and do something else in the meantime.

Some of your changes could pretty much erase those differences. I'm not saying i've got any right to talk, i've only got one bit of experience with Scholar, being DD in a party with it in Longstop. Everything went perfectly, until the scholar fumbled his buttons just once, and then the tank died (I know what happened since i'm friends with the scholar, guy was always a pro healer since 1.0, was trying to see if he liked SCH or WHM more), which shows what the playstyle should more or less be?

[Cariborne]

I don't really see WHM healing people to full with a single Medica II, as a whole it doesn't heal that much and is more used for Mass Applying Regen. But I've always looked at Scholars as the tank healers, and AoE Bubbles and not meant to AoE Spam everyone up like the White Mage is instead being a bit more surgical and focusing tanks. Kind of like a Holy Paladin from Wrath meets Discipline Priest for those who've played WoW. I'm pretty sure you're doing as much healing if you take into consideration how much damage is being absorbed by your constant shielding. In WoW people cried that Disc Priests didn't heal that much compared to others, and when people started to see how much the Shields actually absorbed they felt much better.

As for your DPS, I don't know what to say. White Mage can spam Holy for AoE to help out, but Stone II is kinda lackluster for Single Target, maybe as you get more stats your dots will deal significant DPS for Single Target bosses? I know Ruin sucks :P

[rylai]

If they managed to fix obey I'd be much happier with the class.

[Celauta]

Ya I just noticed the pet scaling issue on here shortly after I posted. So that's now a non-issue. As far as the idea I see about us being "Tank" healers where WHM are "Group" healers. That makes me feel better and I can see that working out properly. But that's for 8-man content. For 4-man content we just spam Physick and hope that people are smart enough to avoid aoe? Unless they give us better pet control (to use it to heal a dps randomly or to force it to focus only on the tank one or the other) then group healing is not efficient/easy to accomplish w/o the tank dying or getting really low at least sometimes. Either way I just really think pets need to be fixed overall with macro abilities and some better AI.

[Xilrasis]

A few replies (and it will be my last for today, because of 3 day limit...)

1) Rylai -- Yes, obey desperately needs to be fixed (And hello, Rylai!)
2) Cariborne -- WHM can do 100+ DPS on single target encounters, and are competitive with BLM for AoE encounters. They just can't quite sustain it as long. A scholar is lucky to push 30 DPS. Admittedly, this is a secondary concern.
Additionally, Medica II + Regen from it is HUGE healing on the entire group, and I can usually ignore everyone once they have been hit by it unless another ability is imminent and they will end at full HP.
3) Celauta -- I agree that we are solid tank healers, but we're not "Far and away" above a WHM in the same way they are better than us at AoE.
4) Skies -- I pretty much non stop cast. If I have to stop, I feel like i've done something wrong. This is both a good and bad thing, for different reasons.

[hamsteak]

for the cooldown i think virus needs at least a 20 sec duration for smns and schs who apply it (it could be added through supervirus)

our lack of high potency aoe healing is annoying, thinking about leveling a whm to do 4 mans with to save myself anymore headaches

we NEED to be able to control our fairy while casting, half of the time she'll just heal whoever and it's annoying to have to cast my heal -stop to manually press her heal - cast my heal - stop to tell her to use her magic defense buff (the buff range is pitiful...), i find myself sometimes having to spam physick on the tank and stopping in between because i can't control her while casting hinders my usefulness

the fairy is also really slow... in fact, all of the summons are slow except for the ifrit-egi, they need to be more responsive since i'm always moving my fairy around to use her buffs since the radius/range is such crap

[Crescent_Dusk]

Succor is really bad, and Adloquium costs too much mana. Embrace could see it's recharge cut in half.