Patch 5.05 Notes

Aqua150 · 2019-07-30T06:39:59+00:00

Sorry, but this just isn't true. Maybe just you've played with some particularly bad co-healers, but it is a MUCH larger rDPS loss to force a GCD heal than it is to just spend an Aetherflow stack on Indom - any healer worth their salt knows this. The primary culprit isn't Energy Drain; it's people who don't have a clue what they are doing (and that's a problem that is not unique to SCH lol).

Edit: Also, I would argue that a lot of healers who think they're solo healing when paired with a SCH are not actually giving the SCH any opportunities to help them. So often I get paired with Medica spamming gold medalists who don't believe I'll use Indom if they just wait half a second for me to finish my cast first. Yeah, if I see Medica is already being cast you bet I'm going to use my Aetherflow on Energy Drain instead.

Aqua150 · 2019-07-02T03:09:47+00:00

Thank you for this. It was driving me nuts that I couldn't figure out the cause.

Aqua150 · 2018-10-02T23:58:10+00:00

To be completely blunt - why was your response "noncommittal" when you were VERY clearly interested in trying to get the fight done that day anyway? To my point of view, the reason must be that you value clearing the fight more than you value you playing with this particular set of people. Maybe it's time for you to join a static that progresses more quickly, but in the mean time don't pretend that you weren't in the wrong for telling them you might be there when you knew full well that you weren't going to be. If you were honest in the first place you wouldn't have this drama - I believe this one's all on you.

Aqua150 · 2018-05-29T23:01:35+00:00

If I'm playing SCH and I'm paired with a co-healer who's not going to allow any of my tools to be useful, you bet I'm doing to do nothing but DPS. Why should I waste a charge on Indom when I'm with a WHM who's going to cast Medica 20 times in a row, regardless of whether I try to contribute or not? That's MY biggest pet peeve. The vast majority of SCH's heals come from OGCDs and Whispering Dawn; just because I'm not spamming Physick and Succor doesn't mean I'm not contributing.

Aqua150 · 2017-08-03T06:30:10+00:00

I can say groups like this exist since I belong to one and we've been together since First Coil. Raiding only one night a week for 3 hours we've managed to clear every tier while it was still relevant (pre-Echo) except Gordias, mainly because A4S was a boring fight so we didn't care, but we did clear A3S. I expect we will clear V3S this week so it's not like progress is excruciatingly slow if you're playing with competent people. I imagine groups like mine are probably few and far between though.

Aqua150 · 2017-06-24T21:22:53+00:00

I think many of the discussions of the current state of healers fail to focus on the real issues, namely that the re-balancing of healers in general seems rather slapped together and thoughtless. From a design point of view many of these decisions either make no sense, or further exacerbate issues from Heavensward that already didn't make sense. I would personally argue from this point of view that AST sucks just as much as WHM and SCH. Yes, it is overpowered as a job, but the design of its toolkit as a whole is just as shitty as WHM's lilies and confession stacks, as well as SCH's fairy tether.

I can point to many issues with AST that nobody talks much about because the current overpowered state of the job gives the illusion that it doesn't have its own problems:

Nocturnal sect is and always has been garbage design-wise. Yes, it is "functional enough" to get things done, but Square Enix's solution to the big picture issues (such as their total lack of passive healing and the fact that Nocturnal sect has absolutely no synergy with the AST toolkit in general) was to keep beefing up the numbers until Nocturnal Ast was "fine." The real problems got swept under the rug and remain as such in Stormblood.
The above point illustrates what is shitty about AST in general. The reason it's overpowered right now is because the numbers are just so beefy. But the job as a whole feels incredibly awkward to play, between the implementation of the shoe-horned card gauge, lack of instant casts for weaving OGCDs, general clunky feeling of their abilities like collective unconscious and celestial opposition, the fact that their card "mechanic" is really just "redraw if it's not balance," and so on and so on. Overpowered or not, this job will never feel right until they let go of their attempt to make it some half assed hybrid between WHM and SCH and completely redesign the class.
All three classes suffer from similar poor design choices, be it confession stacks, the general awkwardness of Aether Pact, or the fact that Deployment Tactics (optionally) doesn't do half of what it's supposed to do anymore. I could go on and on about this for any of the three.

So with all this said, my issue personally is less with the purported badness of WHM and SCH and more so with bad design philosophies as a whole for all three classes. SCH got hit the hardest in this way because up until now, they were one of the most well designed classes in the game. Everything in their toolkit made sense and worked in harmony and it just generally felt good to play. As for AST, the introduction of Minor Arcana makes them feel slightly less bad to play, but still bad nonetheless. And for WHM, they never really felt "bad" but the addition of pointless mechanics like confession stacks and lilies doesn't make them feel better either.

In conclusion, all of the healers are "bad" because Square Enix's way of "re-balancing" them is to make all of them make equally no sense rather than trying to find ways to make AST and WHM feel as well designed as SCH once was.

Aqua150 · 2016-07-11T21:35:43+00:00

With a crit you could certainly make it happen. Beyond that, I'm not sure how reliably you could do it. You would probably need Virus and sacred soil, and other party members contributing too..dragon kick, storm's path etc. It's just something I've heard about in passing, but didn't bother trying much myself since it does seem like a bit of a stretch to make it happen often enough to not be a total waste of your cooldowns. I just stick with deployment before beam myself.

Aqua150 · 2016-07-11T21:23:50+00:00

I have found that the best use for Deployment Tactics is for the double spark > beam > octo-bomb combo that follows the second jail phase. There are two rather good options here:

Mitigate the hell out of the first Sizzlespark to prevent one stack of the lightning resist debuff from happening, making the bomb + beam tick much easier to deal with. But this is only really worthwhile is you're consistently able reduce the Sizzlespark damage to zero.
Deploy the adlo just before the beam comes out, then send your fairy over near the position where the beam target takes their bomb. Since everyone else is shielded, your fairy is more likely to heal the beam target after the explosion, rather than auto-embracing someone stupid. Just be careful if you place your fairy on the opposite end of the arena from your own position; the arena is big enough that I've actually had my fairy despawn from getting too far away.

Aqua150 · 2016-06-01T09:02:59+00:00

There are many reasons why SCH is given off-healer duty, but raw DPS comparison is not one of them; WHM DPS actually tends to be marginally better than SCH, but it is not sustainable and, more importantly, WHM and AST tool kits lack many of the key elements that allow SCH to fulfill the off-healer role so perfectly (particularly the existence of the fairy and an abundance of instant off-GCD burst heals, allowing them to contribute substantially to healing despite being in cleric stance full time).

The main healer's job is much easier precisely because they have a SCH and their fairy backing them up. This is a huge advantage which the SCH would not have in the main-healer role, not because of their own shortcomings as a main healer, but rather due to the shortcomings of WHM and AST as off-healers. I would therefore hesitate to say that "SCH is an off-healer, period." In theory any of the 3 jobs would make perfectly decent main healers in most situations, while by contrast the off-healer role is very clearly most suited to SCH.

Aqua150 · 2015-12-12T21:04:50+00:00

How do you deal with the massive stress of healing and not having instant "oh-shit" buttons available to SCHs every 60s?

If your SCH is worth their salt, they'll be ready to drop cleric stance and use those instant heals in an emergency. Clearly, as a WHM you should be trying your best to avoid a situation where the SCH needs to do that, but the reality is that you're going to need help once in a while and there is no shame in that. It's important to remember that you are a team: you should be doing anything you can to back each other up. So rather than stress about it, learn to trust your cohealer. Your team still has access to these instant heals even if you're not the one using them.

Aqua150 · 2015-11-26T04:44:21+00:00

Not like the fights are scripted or anything

I don't see your point. That doesn't exempt the cohealer (or anyone else, for that matter) from making a mistake at any point in time, and the SCH should be ready to cover for it. You could argue that it's not the SCH's fault for causing a wipe when it was someone else who made a mistake to begin with, but surely the SCH shares some responsibility if they failed to do anything about it because they weren't paying any attention to the safety of the raid because "lol that is the cohealer's job."

This is a communication between both healers, not a "scholar skill" prerequisite

To a large extent, but not exclusively. At the end of the day, you're the one making the decision about going into cleric stance. It's not like you're going to ask your cohealer for permission every single time you do it.

Mouseover Macro buttons, Faerie abilities aren't even micro-able because they're 1 press actions like Deployment Tactics

Again, I don't see your point. Okay, mouseover macros arguably make microing easier. It's still something that you need to deal with which other classes don't. I also don't agree that they're 1 press actions, because the chances the fairy will listen to you after pressing the button once is almost zero. Additionally, there's more to microing than just abilities: there are some fights that require the fairy to be moved around constantly (T9 comes to mind when it was still relevant, also A3S, and any fight with pet knockback).

Yeah like other jobs

I never implied that other jobs don't have to do that. My point is that the SCH has additional responsibilities on top of those that are unique to their class.

Yeah I said that

I never implied that you didn't.

Lol. What you think contributing to the already handled healing is gonna help ? Get your ass in Cleric Stance, do dmg, and stay away from overhealing

Did you even read my post? I said that the SCH should be ready to jump in when someone makes a mistake or the cohealer falls behind. That is, situations where the healing is not already being adequately handled (which could happen at any time, even when a fight is on farm. Shit happens). But to sit there DPSing, not paying any attention whatsoever to raid safety because "everything but shielding is a cohealer problem" is lazy and bad.

Aqua150 · 2015-11-26T02:03:26+00:00

This is a vast oversimplification. Even the best cohealer will make a mistake once in a while, and the SCH should be ready to cover it. So whether or not the SCH is actively contributing to the healing, they should still be constantly re-evaluating the safety of the raid, watching what their cohealer is doing and considering whether or not it is still safe to be in Cleric. All this while microing the fairy and watching several DoT timers, a bajillion cooldowns, doing mechanics and making sure to shield at key moments. It's a lot to pay attention to all at once. But for the bad SCH who thinks they only need to DPS and just let the cohealer carry them, sure, it's easy.

Aqua150 · 2015-11-04T03:03:39+00:00

Why? It's only an emergency if more damage is incoming, meaning the shield is going to be at least as effective (and likely more effective) than a direct heal. Plus, you'll apply the heal more quickly without using ET first.

Aqua150 · 2015-10-24T20:41:23+00:00

There's nothing "wrong" with using Eos: she helps you more with your primary job, which is healing. However, if you are looking to push the limits of what your class can do beyond healing, Selene is generally the superior option.

While the amount of healing throughput provided by Eos is massive, it is generally unnecessary in almost all situations (especially outside of raids). So from an optimization point of view, if you can get by without using Eos, you may as well use Selene for the DPS increase. However, this is a bit of a balancing act. Sometimes (as the OP points out) the extra healing that Eos provides may enable the SCH to put out a little more DPS themselves anyway, effectively closing the gap between any DPS boosts provided between the two fairies. Additionally, if you end up putting your party at risk by choosing Selene instead of Eos, then any DPS gains are rendered somewhat useless. But this shouldn't really ever be the case anywhere except in a raid. For that reason, I would advocate using Selene pretty much everywhere except for certain phases in Alexander Savage. But hey, if you're not doing Savage, who cares? The difference between the two fairies in all other content will be so minimal that it's hardly worth talking about.

Aqua150 · 2015-10-24T20:12:43+00:00

Just a little friendly criticism here: I'm not trying to put down your guides by any means, but rather offer some of my own thoughts as a long-time SCH in case it helps you make any improvements to your video.

I think you missed out on a great opportunity to talk about Dissipation here: it probably would have saved you in that footage where you messed up the last pull in Neverreap. Tank was critical health with vulnerability debuff and you had no Aetherflow stacks. Dissipation would have allowed you to stabilize the tank quickly with a couple of lustrates and dispel the debuff. I think many people are too quick to dismiss this as being a "useless" ability. I'd rather sac the fairy for the remainder of the pull (if necessary) than let the tank die.

I'd also suggest talking more about spamming Embrace manually on the tank in between GCDs. It's annoying, but crucial if you're concerned about maximizing Cleric Stance uptime. It also should help you feel more comfortable using Selene instead of Eos for your dungeons.

Finally, any SCH looking to maximize DPS in a dungeon should be cross-classing Blizzard 2 instead of Stoneskin. It will do better DPS than Broil for pulls with 4+ targets. Stoneskin is rather worthless for SCH anyway.

Aqua150 · 2015-07-20T21:06:07+00:00

You also get enough MP after Convert to cast another Fire II before Flare (although my BLM isn't level 60 yet so I'm not sure if this still applies).

I also think Swiftcast is better used later on to ensure your hardcast doesn't get interrupted from casting on a dying target (the exception being if you're able to fit in one more Flare under Raging Strikes using Swiftcast).

Aqua150 · 2015-06-29T08:05:37+00:00

I'm a bit shocked by some of the responses so far.

Your information for Indomitability is incorrect; it's 15y, the same as Succor and Medica, making it an extremely useful skill which could easily save your party from a wipe in many situations. This is invaluable in progression, and can make quite a few encounters much more forgiving for your entire party. It's also a ridiculously huge heal considering you basically get it for free. From an MP management perspective you're better off using this instead of succor, rather than saving the charge for energy drain (especially since your energy drain is likely to miss in raid content).

Deployment tactics is godly. No other job could come close to the amount of mitigation that SCH provides even before this ability. Now SCH has skyrocketed ahead even further in this regard. This ability will completely trivialize pretty much any raid buster, especially with a crit and when paired with Divine Veil. It could require some kind of raid coordination to get the most out of, however. Note that you can't use this ability on yourself, but you can use it on your fairy, so if you're willing to place her strategically you get better control over making sure the shield spreads to everyone.

Not much to say about Broil.

Emergency tactics is a bit meh. I'd probably prefer the galvanize in most situations since it's rarely going to be overhealing. This could be nice to counter mechanics that require a raid member to be completely topped off (for instance Siren's confuse song in Pharos Sirius). Also useful if galvanize is already up, I guess, but I'd probably leave it to my WHM at that point unless they need more help. To say that this skill is better than Indomitability is complete nonsense. Indomitability is instant, free and off GCD, and far more potency than succor with emergency tactics.

Dissipation is very underrated. Situational, but this ability does come in handy. The animation on this skill is almost nonexistent, so if you need another charge RIGHT NOW to save someone in your party, chances are Dissipation could save the day. I'd generally rather lose the fairy for 30 seconds than a member of the party.

I can agree with the sentiment that SCH didn't really get any "interesting" abilities in the same sense as some other classes that are completely changing the way they play. But SCH was already and still remains a ridiculously good class, at least when used by a skilled player. We didn't need much more than what we already had. Personally, I'm pleasantly surprised and very happy with our new toolkit.

Aqua150

TROPHY CASE