Suggestions for Scholar Changes.

[Eccho]

Now I'm not QQing about being underpowered I love this class and feel it pairs with a White Mage perfectly. Keep in mind this is from an end game point of view. I am currently working my way through The Binding Coil

I do however feel there needs to be a few changes to the class and I was wondering what everyone else thought.

Traits
My biggest issue is with Traits. Most of them are pointless for the scholar job and others simply lower CD's. Enhanced intelligence for instance.. Yay now I can DPS better. I get that helpful dots are important I cleric stance and DPS my way through the whole of AK and Heart Phase in Titan but I'd much rather enhanced Mind or Vit or crit. It seems scholar gets the short end of the Spruce branch here.

Enhanced Intelligence = 3 wasted traits.

Fix - give arcanist a bonus to mind and int. then it would benefit both classes. 6 mind on a Summoner isn't going to break the class.


My biggest trait issue is with
"Enhanced Pet Actions" - 20% chance to increase spell speed by 20% when the pet deals Critical damage - duration 8 seconds.
This procs about 4 times in a long boss fight when I play summoner... the faerie would heal less often than an Ifrit-egi attacking.. would getting 8 seconds of random spell speed 4 times in a 12 minute fight be broken??

Decrease it to 10% SS for heals perhaps just make the trait do something.

Enhanced Pet Actions = 1 wasted Trait
Fix - Include Healing Crit to the trait.

I'd Like to see how another class felt with 4 of their traits missing.

Pet AI
This has been a big discussion in almost every scholar thread. but what exactly do people want changed just saying "better AI" doesn't provide a fix.

1.) Place. When you choose to place a pet somewhere it should attempt to return to that place after being knocked back or moved.
2.) Range. The faerie has the same heal range as myself. I can select a target at max range and command the faerie to heal the target. She will not however, heal by herself at that distance. The AI does not seem to be able to sense HP loss at max range.
3.) Terrain. My faerie seems to have difficulty healing on slopes. I'm not a programmer I don't have suggestions on fixing that one but I would like it addressed.
4.) greater variety of options. Allow us to click on and off the skills the pets can or cannot use instead of the option of 1 skill or 4.
- a heal this target only option could be useful but I'm not sure if that would be too broken.
5.) not being able to use pet commands while casting or in GCD. This especially effects me with Selenes' Silence. It is hard enough for me to watch 8 health bars plus a casting bar on a boss then to have to stop healing, target boss cast silience... realise she is mid cast on her heal.. can't interrupt her heal progress have to wait and hope for the best, pray a little and then cast silence by the time you get it off the skill you had to avoid has already killed everyone or your main tank is dead... The silence is great but so unmanageable - pushing silence should force her to interrupt her heal and I should be able to command it while casting. If I had my own silence I could walk out of a heal to interrupt myself and cast it. White Mages get knock back, bind and sleep. Would having our own silence be so bad?? Bringing me to;

Selene
Selenes silence is too unmanageable for it to be beneficial in fast passed precision fights. Her buffs are all about increasing speed I don't have time to wait for her to be ready to silence I need that silence STAT.
Her Buffs are amazing!!... however, she does not possess the intelligence to maintain them correctly and in a beneficial way. Both have a recast of 60 seconds and a duration of 30 seconds. only one can be active at a time. so essentially She can have either spell speed or skill speed up on an entire party at any given moment... Sounds great in theory but she refuses to use Fae Light without me manually selecting it. So for me to use her to her full ability she must be played on manual and I have to somehow find the time to tap her buffs every 30 seconds... Not like I don't already have 10328902384 things to.

Fix Give scholars a 40 second silence and replace selenes skill with something more beneficial. a gift of mana 50 mp every 20 seconds or a mini shield.
- I feel the buff issue is just a buggy mechanic. but she should attempt to cast a buff whenever in combat and when ever no Selene buff is on the party. This way she would alternate between the two constantly.


So those are my issues. Has anyone heard information on whether these might be addressed or what are your thoughts on the class.

[RitzNBitz]

Rather than fix pet AI, we should have toggles to their offensive and defensive active skills. That will allow us to set each one individually to manual and auto.

A healing circle showing where DPS should be to receive heals would be nice as well.

[Eccho]

That is a great idea for the aoe heals!! as red is bad and blue is friendly damaging aoes a nice green circle would be amazing. honestly what a great Idea.

[Morthis]

I imagine the classes are (or should be) balanced around the traits they get anyway, so I don't think this really matters. Most classes have some traits that aren't exciting or very good. As conjurer I get 1 less trait than you guys do, and one of my traits is "wasted" on allowing Raise in combat when Arcanist gets this by default. Does that mean conjurer needs 2 new traits as well?

I do agree on the pet AI though. I actually switched from Scholar to White Mage because the poor pet AI, clunky pet interface, and general micromanagement needed to make the pet not suck was driving me insane.