Any SCH mains here? How do you feel about SCH's place in SB?
I am a scholar main, and while decent keep in mind I am not part of some bleeding edge world 1st group.
The SCH theoretical DPS is actually greater than it was prior to the patch. Someone did a great analysis here:
Stormblood Healer DPS Breakdown • r/ffxiv
Just a note that I think he underestimated the % of DPS for SCH or did not calculate it correctly or again, he is assuming the stand still and do no other task outside of DPS. I think he did leave out a dot though
I find that to be fairly accurate, however the problem(for me) is that it does require you to stand there and nuke. But if I am soloing out in the world I can do that and burn better than before.
However, I personally took a HUGE DPS hit when it comes to practical DPS. Previously I had 4 dots(cross-skill aero). This means that during dungeons/bosses/etc, anything in the real-world where I have to actually heal or move around a lot, means I could stand dance, apply 4 dots fairly quickly, and then go back to moving or healing or whatever. While my up-time on them was not 100% like a summoner or EQ necro, by paying attention and using windows of opportunity it was pretty close. Those 4 dots did quite a bit of dmg per tick! If I didn't have stuff to do I usually could get 1-2 nukes in as well before needing to refresh dots.
I also lost a decent amount of AE, but I think everyone did there. I lost 1 AE skill, 1 dot that could be spread, and another one changed a little. Plus they did that thing where each mob hit by an AE lowers the dmg 10% or so.
Now the good news? It is much much easier to play and it "leveled the playing field" for most people(at least SCH which is all I can really talk about). So while my DPS was far above a pub n00b or whatever previously, now we are much closer. This is mainly due to there just being less dots/buttons/actions to monitor and keep track of. They seriously simplified things. Overall I am not a huge fan, but it's not game-breaking nor does it piss me off to the point of some internet-rant. I've already adjusted for the most part.
Only other issue I have a little of is mana regen, but it's not game-breaking either. I think this is a combo of them dropping the aether regen to 10%, the cost of the heal-shield going up, and the fact that I need to nuke more to do better DPS and nukes take more mana than the DOTs did. It's not killer and I'm sure it will change as I gear up, plus I have access to another mana regen cross skill that reduces hate, so it kind of balances out. Just something to be aware of during leveling process.
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I know people talk about the meta often, and how class X will be the only viable tank and DPS or whatever with each expansion/patch/raid, but the truth is FFXIV has no need for that during any play type other than bleeding edge savage-level raids. And even those "open up" to the normies as they patch and release the next set. The types of differences people are talking about are redit level autism things, any class does fine in 95% of the game.