キャラクター
It feels a bit unsporting to be complaining about Scholar changes in 4.0 when White Mage got Raubahn-armed, but Scholar is my main, so it's what I can talk about with the most familiarity. Know that I have the utmost sympathy for White Mages and their new lily proc system.
AoE damage
The biggest change. Nerfed, and nerfed hard. Almost all of our AoE capabilities have been removed or gutted; seeing as this also applies to Summoner, I suspect this is due to Square Enix not liking the easy availability of AoEs in large dungeon pulls, rather than anything Healer-specific.
Bane now deals 20% less damage to every target other than the (singular) primary, down to 20% damage (ie 80% reduction) for the fifth target and beyond. Coupled with the reduction from three DoTs to two, I am wondering if it is ever going to be an effective use of Aetherflow stacks to Bane, as opposed to focusing on single-target and Energy Drain.
On the upside, at least I won't be ripping AoE aggro off Tanks in 30-45 content.
Shadowflare is now oGCD, instant-cast, on a 60 second cooldown. I used to put it up every time there were more than three enemies, but now I might have to save it for the times when a large horde suddenly appears, eg Dusk Vigil. Twelve help me if the Tank happens to move the enemies out of the area, though.
Cross-role skills
We get five slots. Protect is a given; I already receive my fair share of complaints in Sastasha Normal for slotting Cleric Stance first. With 4.0, Protect will likely be the first slot taken.
Leeches is gone, so Esuna gets the next one. Swiftcast is too useful, so that one is next.
Aetherflow has apparently had its MP restoration reduced from 20% of max MP to 10%. This will definitely impact Summoners, which makes me feel slightly guilty, since this is probably aimed firmly against Scholars, to bring its MP restoration abilities in line with the other Healers. Therefore, Lucid Dreaming (MP Refresh potency 80, halved enmity, 21s duration, 120s cooldown) might be necessary, depending on how the gameplay ends up feeling in 4.0.
That leaves one slot left for cross-role skills. The top contender here is Eye For An Eye, which looks more or less unchanged from when Arcanists had it, trait and all. What I'm curious about is whether Deployment Tactics will spread it around as well, or if it will only be used for (crit) Adlos this time. The tooltip says E4E is still spreadable, but I have no idea if that's accurate.
Largesse might be an option: increases healing magic potency by 20%, 20s duration, 90s cooldown. This is basically a quicker and self-only version of Eos's Fey Illumination (same effect, 120s cooldown). I presume it is stackable, but I wonder if there is anything in the game requiring that much heal potency. Might be interesting to see what it does for Succor, or a super-charged Adloquium.
Surecast would be interesting in involuntary movement mechanics, but I'm not familiar enough with those fights to reliably predict those. Rescue is way too situational to ever be useful. Break (50 potency damage, GCD, Heavy +40% for 20s) is pointless. And poor Cleric Stance (increase attack magic potency by 5%, 15s duration, 90s cooldown) gets pushed aside by all the other useful abilities.
Healing
Few changes to our basic healing kit up to 60. The biggest one is apparently the fairy's Embrace potency is reduced from 300 to 250. However, Maim and Mend (and its upgrades) now affect the pet as well, so it's at worst a slight reduction, and at best a slight buff. We also get Enhanced Mind traits as well like the other Healers, rather than the Arcanist version of Enhanced Intelligence. In fact, I think we get both.
From 60 onwards, we get Excogitation (at level 62): Aetherflow ability, instant cast, 60s cooldown, grants the target (must be other than self) the eponymous effect. If the target drops below 50% HP, Excogitation triggers, with a healing potency of 650, ie a bit better than Lustrate.
Assuming the Excogitation effect lasts a reasonable amount of time, I can see this as a way to plant one on the Tank at the start of battle, and proceed to DPS. It could also enable my passive-aggressiveness, by putting it on a DPS to imply that I do not trust them to stay out of AoEs.
Aetherpact (level 70) is the fairy tether we've seen, finally making use of the fairy gauge. Costs 10 fairy gauge to use, 10 fairy gauge cost per tick, and I've seen a value of 450 healing potency per tick. Again, put it on the Tank, proceed to DPS, and either Energy Drain or Indomitability to restore fairy gauge. To be honest, I'm not sure whether this will be more or less effective than a Roused Whispering Dawn, but maybe it'll be useful when Whispering Dawn is on cooldown.
Utility
Chain Strategem is obtained at level 66: target takes 20% more critical hits, instant cast, 15s duration, 90s cooldown. I wonder if I should be using it on cooldown, or wait for a more opportune moment.
I'm going to miss (Super)Virus. The physical reduction aspect of it is now in Feint, a melee DPS cross-role skill, and the magic reduction is in Addle, a caster DPS cross-role skill. No idea if anyone is going to bother taking them. At least Antivirus will no longer be a thing.
Sustain is gone. While this doesn't really affect me as Scholar, I dread to think what soloing Summoner is going to be like; Sustain was invaluable when I was new to Heavensward.
Scholar gets Broil 2 at level 64, which is basically Broil 1 with more potency (230), for apparently the same MP cost. Broil 1 also had its potency increased from 170 to 190. More single-target damage, but right now I don't really cast Broil (or Ruin) that much, since I seldom have the time to sit there and cast, as opposed to applying DoTs or healing or avoiding mechanics. The loss of Aero cross-class will hurt.
Ruin 2 has its potency increased from 80 (same as Ruin 1) to 100. Since it's still twice as much MP as Ruin 1 (albeit instant-cast), I doubt I'll be using it any more than I already do in movement phases.
The Enhanced Pet Actions trait for Arcanists is gone. It's the one which gives a Spell Speed bonus whenever the pet crits, whether damage (for Arcanist and Summoner) or healing (for Scholar). It was a nice little bonus, but far too infrequent to really matter, so I'm not that bothered. Summoner may be less sanguine, considering trying to squeeze in as many Ruin 3s as possible in Dreadwyrm Trance.
At level 68, we get a trait called Quickened Aetherflow, which has a 20% chance of reducing Aetherflow cooldown by 10s when we use an Aetherflow ability. That's actually pretty good, and might alleviate some of the MP issues caused by the MP restoration nerf. Maybe the devs just want us to use Energy Drain more.
Summary
Overall, it's not as bad as I feared, but not as good as I hoped. The Bane nerf and Chain Strategem will probably be the biggest changes, with cross-role skill synergies coming close behind. I've known Scholars were pretty powerful, but this just seems like a rebalancing between different aspects of the Job, rather than bringing the whole thing in line. It will take some time to get used to the new balance, and I do doubt that this will make it any easier on newer players, rather than shifting the skill ceiling.
The new gauges for Scholar seem to be there just to have gauges, until level 70, when the fairy gauge finally gets some use. I suppose it might be easier to glance at Aetherflow stacks, but I didn't have trouble with that anyway, even when new.
In context, however, Scholar got off with a wash. Compare this to Astrologian's ridiculous buffs (300% Nocturnal Aspected Benefic shield?) and White Mage's... I don't even know what to say. I can see White Mages having to spam Cure and Cure 2, even when everyone is at full HP, just so they have a chance to proc some lilies. I don't think such a degenerate case is what Square Enix was going for.
As for the AoE of Bane, that's how all AoEs started way back in 2.0, at least the heavy hitting ones (Bane, Holy, Flare). Not sure why they removed it if they're just changing it back, I guess they want to remedy casters being OP for dungeon speedruns.
Actually I was backwards on that. They added those damage reductions in later. And I suppose they thought Summoner was too strong since Flare is being buffed.
Bane is usually a DPS gain after a few ticks over Energy Drain.
Chain Strategem is the real kicker though. SCH was always a tad OP compared to every other healer, but this takes the cake.
SCH overall got nerfed a bit, but also got something added to compensate a bit. WHM got screwed hardcore. SE wants to shoehorn it into a pure healer spot but have yet to design a dungeon/raid where that has been needed.
Astro has been better than Scholar for a while, so no Scholar has not been OP.
Only if you got the right cards, which was heavily RNG based. Otherwise, AST was just a WHM basically; there was no harm in bringing it as it replaced a class at worse and at best provided something.
There's a pretty good chance to get the right cards though.
There's a decent chance, but it is still chance nonetheless.
Overall though, WHM got hosed. Unless SE designs more fights like 11S where you need a lot of heals going out... How WHM works doesn't mesh well with the fight designs.
I doubt they will, as they've already stated that they don't want to make any one job "required" for anything.
From what I can tell, Scholar got directly nerfed in some parts, but gained a few new toys for the expansion, and one single incredibly useful ability.
White Mage got indirectly nerfed in a lot of areas (eg core skills turning cross-role), and did not get anything useful in the expansion save for Thin Air.
Astrologian got buffed, buffed, and buffed.
(cont'd)
Degenerate case of spamming Cure for lilies aside, White Mage can more or less (cross-role skills permitting) heal as well as they do now. Some justified grumbling may be had over the loss of Stoneskin, and other changes, but nothing too serious.
But compared to what Astrologian got, it's no wonder White Mages are up in arms.
Very true Kupo, but that then relegates WHM back to where we are now. They do their job and they do it well... but very little content calls for it.
AST better get that shield buff reversed... that was... just insane.
so many players are worried about the DPS part of SCH. However, I was really upset about not even getting to the fairy gauge till level 70 and all it does is one move. I was hoping for more from our class. The fairy is what makes us different, but for the most part, the interaction with the fairy is the same. Great blog by the way.
I think the only thing keeping me from switching to AST now is spite, pride, and the fact that I bought the SCH pin. Honestly SCH had a very high skill ceiling and now it just feels like I'm doing my best to master a complicated job just to be all-around decent at heals and DPS.
