Shadowbringers day 2

Day 2 of the FFXIV 5.0 expansion early access.

I am level 74.5 on SCH/SMN, have completed the first 2 dungeons and first trial, and have completed the Aetherflow hunt in 2 of the zones.

The story, the music, the maps, and the overall theme of the expansion so far have all been fantastic. I'm certainly having a lot of fun playing.

As far as the Scholar job goes, it's ... complicated. Healing is still good, especially now that I have access to Recitation. MP management is a little worse than in the last expansion, but not overly difficult to deal with. The increase of required healing in older content has made some roulettes more difficult than they used to be just 3 days ago.

Healing in the new dungeons is challenging; I'm having to make use of my full kit to keep the tank and the party alive, including keep Lucid Dreaming effectively on cooldown if I want to do AoE damage or had to rez someone. The damage rotation is, as expected, boring - I'm basically playing AST, but on SCH. Art of War is a nice skill that I enjoy using, and while its animation is fine, I find the sound effect a bit odd. Broil 3 and Biolysis have outstanding animations that SE did well by. The lack of an aetherflow dump other than Lustrate, however, is painful.

The changes to pets are also complicated. I rarely had any problem with the faerie taking enough damage to be close to dying, and I enjoyed micro-managing Embrace during periods of low healing. Additionally, the "pet skills" now being subject to casting timers on the SCH (and SMN), using them feels more clunky altogether as I have to weave them instead of just queueing them up during casting Broil.

So overall, the expansion is great and SCH is ... just okay.