[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Originally Posted by Ziero

Wait, you honestly think SE will give Sch pre-existing spells for their group 2 merits?

Spells that other jobs get at full potency from just leveling up?

Group 2s are spells, abilities and traits that are completely unique and customized to each job.

Me, I'd expect a trait that allows use of strategms with a chance to not use up a charge, a trait that somehow enhances the weather buffs, and either a new JA per grimoire or two new, unique, job specific spells.

Last I checked, Addendums were unique to SCH. Happen to know any other jobs that can get full access to the -na Spell. Sleep, Sleep II, Erase and Dispel purely through the main job?

Also, SCH's Accession is pretty much ninjaed from BLU's Group 2 category at birth. Not to mention BLU gets Jettatura as a spell while BST gets Terroize as a Group 2 merit. COR was raising tiers on Dia and Bio before RDM even got Tier II enfeebling merits and also had Rolls that PLD and DRG eventually got of the spell Reprisal and the merit ability Strafe respectively. Only difference between Reprisal and Gallant's is that Reprisal encourages sheild block and isn't blaze spikes, but at its core, it was inspired by Gallant's Roll. And that was juse a spell added to the main job, not merit.

All COR's Group 2s exist to enhance existing Job abilities. Hell, it has more JAs than any other in the game, technically. SCH is a JA Mage, moreso than any other mage in the game, why wouldn't the Group 2s focus on improving thier job abilities.

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Teir II Helix spells would be incredibly broken, SCHs can already pull UFOs out of the sky on thier own with the Helix spells they do have. I played with Hpemdes last night and fed them 330 Helix spells, then boosted it with MV for 660 per tick. SCH Helix spells practically are thier AM spell line. SCH can already boost the potency and halve the casting time, so I don't see a benefit to getting another tier.

For weather spells, I don't think a second tier is right there either. First, we have the sea obis that can already be exploited. I think instead that enhancing the duration of Storm spells would be much better because they really don't last long enough as they currently stand and they're annoying to recast.

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Aksannyi: I don't really see a problem with the Accession-na ability. Its true that SE should lower the recast time on Divine Viel, but also remember that Accession is one of many JAs a SCH can use and in a healer position, I find that I'd still rather just tend to -na spells manually and use Accession to buff rather than status cure.

Side note: Caedarva Mire Level Sync PTs can burn in hell. I've stopped taking invites there for merits because people think I'm some kinda status cure babysitter that gets them out of bringing Echo Drops. Buy em, I got better things to be doing.

Also, as a SCH, I don't want Haste anyway. As I said, I'd rather put it to things like Stoneskin, Regen or Phalanx. Having to dole out Haste would mean I'd probably have to drop Phalanx half the time. Not to mention it would rape my MP a lot more. No thanks.

And SE hardly has shown this job any favortism, in my opinion. At least, not since March.

We have no access to Salvage gear (nor does DNC for that matter, what the hell?), practically no ZNM armor, Yigit Body is no good to us for nukes, I don't know why we get Genbu's Shield, no abjurations yet, either.

So Ixion's Cloak, Vicious mufflers, Kirin's Pole/Alkalurops and a handful of Assault and Nyzul gear are all we really have to aspire to.

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Originally Posted by Yellow Mage

Also, I'll cry myself if Scholar gets any pre-existing spells for their Merits (for all parties involved, in fact), or a tailor-built sidegrade of one, for that matter (BBQ's "Manifestation-compatible Ice Spikes" . . . no, just, no).

I think tanks would disagree.

Final Side note: I like that RDMs are more scared of SCHs than everyone else.

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If there was another kind of magic to have, I would think Daytime/Nighttime magic would be rather appropriate. There's quite a bit of gear that has Nighttime latents on them. Weather/Time effect gear still needs to be more plentiful. though.

[Callisto]

I'd love for SCH to get Haste and Refresh, so that they can be backline support bitches while I can finally break out the Sword and slap some things around with minor support responsibilities. That said, not going to happen. I personally think they'll come up with something relatively unique, hopefully not as bad as NIN's.

I'd expect something along the lines of a boost to Storm spells or maybe Helix duration. If they were going to lower recast timers for JAs that's something they would have done in Group 1.
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Also I just wanted to point out in the SCH vs. RDM department, SCH is rather dependant on RDM as the generally accepted optimal subjob, whereas /SCH is handy for some situations as RDM but easily done without.

[Aksannyi]

Originally Posted by Callisto

I'd love for SCH to get Haste and Refresh, so that they can be backline support bitches while I can finally break out the Sword and slap some things around with minor support responsibilities.

Bite your tongue!

And personally, I just want SCH to stop stepping on my toes as a WHM, not so much as a RDM, which will always have a place in endgame. WHM does seem to be getting phased out, if you want to admit it or not, there are people on BG and on Hades (and probably elsewhere, but where's my experience?) who say that WHMs are useless.

Noooooooooo!

Of course, most of the SCH I've encountered on Hades are complete crap, but the good ones make me feel really inadequate at times.

I would really appreciate if SE would separate DV and let us use it more often. I'm not putting merits into DS recast because there are much better places to put my merits, but I do wish I could use my DV capabilities more often.

[Yellow Mage]

Originally Posted by Nataka

It's not quiet as easy for a summoner to cast Hastega since pets dont really position themselves perfectly all the time.

"{Gather together.} -> {Garuda} or no {Haste}."

That should bring any melee faithfully drooling to Garuda's side (possibly for more reasons than Pavlov thought of . . . ). That stuff's like crack, I have heard.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Originally Posted by Aksannyi

Of course, most of the SCH I've encountered on Hades are complete crap, but the good ones make me feel really inadequate at times.

Bad SCHs play it like a WHM and nothing else, really. Of course, all bad healers think healing is just about tapping a cure macro.

I was in Mount Z last night and a BLM PT was using a 52 SCH as a weather spell whore. Way to show people what we can do, guy, don't take a real PT or nothing.

They were also stealing my puddings at times, which I did not appreciate. I shouldn't have R2ed one of them after that, but I took the high ground >.>

Leader of my last endgame shell took SCH to 75 and not only used /NIN with it for Uggy Pendant fight (still died a lot, lol), but when we went to merit with him, he not once used Accession Stoneskin or Phalanx. Seriously, you have a bunch /NIN users here, how can you not at least be using Accession Stoneskin? You'd save a ton of MP.

[Malacite]

Originally Posted by Omgwtfbbqkitten

Leader of my last endgame shell took SCH to 75 and not only used /NIN with it for Uggy Pendant fight (still died a lot, lol), but when we went to merit with him, he not once used Accession Stoneskin or Phalanx. Seriously, you have a bunch /NIN users here, how can you not at least be using Accession Stoneskin? You'd save a ton of MP.

Personally I love it when SCH do Accession + Enblizzard for bird parties. That extra ice damage can really add up if you have a lot of fast hitters.

[The Mauva Syndicate]

Not just birds, pretty much anything that has an elemental weakness can benefit from it.

[Vyuru]

I wouldn't mind it if Sch got a weaker form of Haste to work with, kind of like how Blu get Refueling.

I wonder if we will be seeing tier II Helix spells for Sch, except I'm betting that they may also include some kind of enfeeble as an added effect or something like that.

Or perhaps they'll get Ultima

[The Mauva Syndicate]

Originally Posted by Vyuru

Or perhaps they'll get Ultima

See I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.....

[Clever Ninja]

SCH is getting Meteor.

[Aksannyi]

SCH will get Meteor and Breakga.

God I will kill myself or the devs.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Not really understanding the angst here:

In all the areas SCH is competitive with other mages, we tend to be played completely different, retaining only one particular aspect - we can hold back MP and get it back like crazy. Additionally, that aspect is shared with all other mage jobs via subjob.

On top of that, whatever I chose to specialize in comes with a consequence. If my focus is Dark Arts, I cannot use status cures on myself unless I'm subbing WHM. Subbing WHM makes for some really crappy nukes. So there's this balance within the subjobs themselves. If I want to use the best of the subjobs - RDM - I actually become more dependant on Addendum: White and Black to do what I do.

When the focus is nuking, while Ebullience is indeed awesome, its far better for me to be making use of Parsimony and Alacrity than Ebullience. Kaeko's blog will also reflect this perspective. I team up with Zero from LBR every now and again on puddings and we're quite capable of duoing chain #5s because of this. The weather spells help a bit, too.

Zero revealed to me last night able to make use of BLM/SCH with another BLM/SCH and RDM to make mincemeat of Up in Arms. BLM/SCH can do some amazing things with AM/AMIIs if they don't hide behind thier Blink and Stoneskin so much.

What BLM does in raw power, I can only achieve though liberal use of Parsimony, Tier IVs, Helix magic and Alacrity + Aspir. Ebullience is just for epeen by contrast.

SCH main healing is a totally different ballgame than WHM or even SMN. I don't have access to Cure V, I won't make frequent use of Cure IV, so I have to approach main healng differently. Cure III is the best Cure for SCH to use and if I need to use it, I do so with Rapture, but that would come at the cost of a strategem I could be using for Accession, so I don't often do that, either, and just use standard Cure IIs, IIIs, and Regen II if any curing is needed.

It takes /WHM and Rapture and Divine Seal for my Cure IV's to exceed a normal Cure V and its honestly suicidal and comes at the expnse of Phalanx. Rapture is impressive, but not always the best thing to use.

Accession status cures aren't really all that either, its far better for me to ahere to status cure priority like any other mage would than blow a strategem charge on tossing out -na spells. Its not like -na spells are thet costly and now we also have /DNC out there for most status removal, too.

WHMs complain about Accession versus Divine Viel, but really, blowing DV on status cures is often just wasteful as blowing a strategem on them. Any situation you're frequently dealing with status cures, AoE status cures only offer a very temporary reprieve from having to cast them again.

As for SCH vs. RDM - we're still pretty distant in the enfeebling department and I'd honestly say our black magic enfeebles are probably the stronger and less commonly used as enfeebles go. Out of all the strategems I have, Manifestation has the least amount of incentive to be used.

AoE Gravity, Sleep and Bind are arguably the best ways to use Manifestation. Manifestation Aspir is just like Rapture Cure IV - a deathwish. A great way to get a big hate spike on a lot of targets really fast.

Accession and Manifestation have large hate spikes. Its less noticable with Stoneskin of Phalanx, but part of that's in the timing and the rest of it is -enmity gear. Manifestation enfeebling seems far less forgiving.

And if I blow it on this job, I go down as fast as a SMN, if not faster since I have no pet I can use to drop enmity with. Only difference there is when I get back up, I only have to make 700 EXP back up.

[LilithAngel]

Originally Posted by Aksannyi

SCH will get Meteor and Breakga and Ultima.

Fixed.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Screw that noise, give us X-Zone. If I can't warp people, let take the ones I don't like and banish them to the void.

[Malacite]

^^ granted my SCH is still 37 (largely because I'm going for Maat's cap, because I absolute fucking LOVE SCH) it seems you and I are on the same page about it BBQ.

I don't get all the hate about the job either. Sounds to me like people just haven't given it enough of a shot for themselves much like with PUP, or they'd understand the subtle yet prevalent differences of a SCH vs other mages.