#i think I like this one a little more than the ''actual'' AST number 21

[carmineskiesandspidereyes]

(because I couldn't resist. y'all know I'm a polygun girlie at heart.) a softer trigun

[fleetingfigures]

Mitigation made Manifest - A Scholar Analysis

Hello everyone, and welcome to the first part of my analysis series! Today we're going to be taking a look at the titular Scholar job, as well as delve into how it works, what it excels at, what it comes short on, and how well it is designed!

In an effort to keep everything organized, I'll section off this post into 4 main portions. If you're on a computer, you can use ctrl+f (or command+f if you're on a mac) to search for the following headings:

[ Basics ] [ How Scholar Works ] [ Gameplay, Tips and Design ] [ Final Evaluation ]

With that out of the way, let us begin!

[ Basics ]

Before we dive into Scholar, I believe I must go over a few things, the first being the issue of Scholar’s origin. Scholar, and by extension, its sibling, Summoner, have a unique system wherein they originate from the same base class, Arcanist, and also share each others’ levels (i.e if you level Summoner to 71, your Scholar will also be 71). As per most jobs, many of the base class’ actions translate to its advanced jobs, but the issue comes in its respective role - Arcanist is a magical dps. For Summoner, this is a fine transition as they share this role, but for Scholar, it is a tad awkward. At no point in your time as an arcanist are you ever really taught how healing in FFXIV functions, nor is it ever your ‘job’. The only real healer you can even start the game with is Conjurer, and beyond that, if you want to pick up a healer on the side without a level skip, only Astrologian and Conjurer are healers right out of the gate. As such, It’s hard to recommend Scholar as someone’s first healer as its levelling experience does not translate to how healers are played effectively.

Though, on this topic of effective healer play, I also feel the need to describe XIV’s healing design. At its core, a healer’s job is to obviously keep the party, and most importantly their tank, from dying. But, this is where some issues arise. In higher-end content, a healer is expected to also carry their weight in terms of DPS, and should have comparable RDPS (Damage taking into account buffs/debuffs applied) to that of a party’s tanks. This brings me to the focus of XIV’s healer philosophy: One is to balance the healing they must do with the damage they output. Spending all of your MP on healing is forsaking your duty to at least deal some damage, and only doing damage will obviously cause your party to die. Healing is essentially a game of ‘how low can I go?’, and as you gain more experience and comfort in the role, you can push that threshold lower and lower.

As for more general terms to be aware of, I shall make a small list!

DPS/ADPS/RDPS: Damage per second/Actual damage per second/Raid-contributing damage per second. These are terms used mostly by raiders to quantify how much damage is contributed. For classes that have buffs and debuffs, their DPS/ADPS do not accurately show their true damage, but their RDPS takes into account the bonus damage their buffs and debuffs have granted. Slidecasting: A term describing the leniency that cast times are given in this game because of server connection. For all spells, you do not have to be sitting through their entire cast bar, as they can instead be cut short so that one can still move while in the last bit of their cast. When one can slidecast a spell is dependent upon the cast time of the spell and the spell speed of the individual. HoT/DoT: Heal over time, Damage over time. GCD/OGCD: Global Cooldown/Off-Global Cooldown. Spells and weaponskills operate off of something called a ‘GCD’. A GCD is essentially a lockout until you can cast your next spell/weaponskill. For spells, as they have a cast time equivalent to their GCD, you can cast another right after you finish the first. By default, this GCD is 2.5 seconds for every class, and is reduced by abilities and skill/spell speed. But for weaponskills/spells that are classified as instant, that GCD lockout can instead be used to move or to use OGCD’s, namely abilities, that aren’t constricted by the GCD. The use of OGCD’s during a GCD lockout is called... Weaving: Using OGCD’s during a GCD lockout. Using just one in this timeframe is referred to as a single weave, and using two is referred to as a double weave. For SCH, you want most weaves to be double weaves. Ghosting: The bane of all arcanist-based classes. Unfortunately due to the AI of pets in this game, there is a delay between when you input an action and when your pet performs it, and a general delay in all pet actions if you are moving and they have to catch up. Sometimes when inputting abilities too quickly or using a demi-summon as actions are queued (like Summon Bahamut, Phoenix Trance and Summon Seraph), the queued action will either be delayed or never go off, but will still go on cooldown. Hence the term ‘ghosting’.

[ How Scholar Works ]

Now with the basics made clear, we can get to the actual meat of this analysis! In FFXIV, there are two denominations of healers: Shielding and Pure. Scholar falls into the prior classification as most of its kit is themed around the prevention of damage. Adloquium and Succor, for example, heal less than White Mage’s Cure II and Medica II, but apply a shield equivalent to 125% of the health restored. As such, Scholar is less of a reactive healer, but more of a proactive one; they set up their resources in advance so that the fight flows with less chaos. Scholar’s base kit is as follows:

Ruin/Broil I, II, and III: Your standard damage spell for a healer. Cast this when you’re not healing. Bio/Bio II/Biolysis: Your standard DoT spell for a healer, ticks 10 times over 30 seconds. Make sure to always have this on the enemy, that is unless the enemy is about to go away, or will die in 15 seconds or less. if this spell sticks to a target for more than 15 seconds, then it technically has outdamaged 1 broil, thus making it a theoretical gain! Physick: The basic heal for a healer; heals for about 400 potency. Once you get to a higher level, you should realistically never touch this heal again. Adloquium (Lvl 30): Scholar’s ‘big single target heal’; heals for 300 potency while erecting a shield equivalent to 125% of the healing done (technically 675 potency in total). Shields generated by this are denoted by the ‘Galvanize’ buff. If this crits, bonus shields will be added as another buff called ‘Catalyze’. This shield does not stack with itself, Succor, Seraphic Veil, or Nocturnal AST’s shields. Succor (Lvl 35): Scholar’s AoE heal; heals for 180 potency and erects a shield equivalent to 125% of the healing done (technically 405 potency in total). Shields generated by this are denoted by the ‘Galvanize’ buff. Like Adlo, it does not stack with what was listed above. Ruin II (Lvl 38): An instant cast version of ruin. It’s potency upgrades as you level, capping at 200 at level 72. This spell is mostly used to weave OGCD’s, or to just generally move while not missing too many casts. Art of War (Lvl 46): Your standard AoE spell for a healer. Deals 160 potency to all enemies in 5 yalms and is instant. Unlike Holy, this spell is a DPS gain on 2 targets or more. Deployment Tactics (Lvl 56): As an OGCD, spreads the target’s Galvanize buff to all nearby allies within 10 yalms. Does not spread Catalyze. Emergency Tactics (Lvl 58): Transforms the shields from Adlo and Succor into a flat heal. Useful in a pinch, hence its name, and gives Scholar a chance at outputting fat heals. Chain Stratagem (Lvl 66): Where Scholar’s RDPS comes from. Applies a debuff to a target that increases the chance they receive critical hits from all allies hitting it by 10% for 15 seconds. Multiple of these cannot be applied to the same boss, and will overlap. Keep in mind its 120 second cooldown as it is crucial to getting better at Scholar! Recitation (Lvl 74): Your next Succor, Adloquium, Excogitation, or Indomitability will always crit. In the case of Succor and Adlo, they will also not cast mana. In the case of Excog and Indom, they will not require an aetherflow stack. Mostly used to cast excog/indom through a double weave, and is immensely useful to make healing easier. 90 second cooldown.

To build off of my last point of resources, it’s high time to introduce two of Scholar’s best friends: Eos and Selene! Eos and Selene, as per SCH’s Arcanist base, are the pets for this job. Unlike carbuncles and egis, they do not deal damage, but instead use their actions to heal, and are crucial to Scholar’s gameplay. Also like the other pets, their action potencies scale differently as opposed to the player’s. For example, Eos/Selene’s Whispering Dawn skill has a listed regen potency of 120, meanwhile WHM’s Medica II regen has a listed potency of 100. One would think that Whispering Dawn would tick for more than Medica II, but through my testing, it is only about 86.8% as effective (due to number variation in FFXIV, this percentage is subject to change). The factor in which pet scaling affects your fairy’s heal is about 64%. With that little disclaimer out of the way, the Faeries’ kits are as follows:

Embrace (Lvl 1): A 150 (96 with pet scaling) potency single-target heal. This is what your fairy will do with its free time. Whispering Dawn (Lvl 20): A 120 potency regen over 21 seconds (537 potency heal in total with pet-scaling). Due to FFXIV’s server ticks, HoT’s and DoT’s hit every 3 seconds, and as such, WD translates to about 840 potency (in terms of your pet’s scaling that is). This ability is activated by the player as an OGCD. Fey Illumination (Lvl 40): A buff that reduces magic damage taken by all allies in range by 5% and increases their healing received by 10%. Lasts 20 seconds. Dissipation (Lvl 60): Munch on your Fairy to gain 3 aetherflow charges and +20% healing magic. This does NOT AFFECT THE POTENCY OF YOUR OGCD HEALING. Your fairy will automatically respawn after the 30 second duration. Aetherpact & Fey Union (Lvl 70): Designate an ally as an OGCD to form a tether between them and your fairy. Your Fairy gauge will then deplete by 10 every 3 seconds to apply a 400 potency (256 potency with pet scaling) heal. This tether will break after the target is 15 yalms away, if you cancel it by using aetherpact again, or if you use another fairy skill. Fey Blessing (Lvl 76): As an OGCD, spend 10 Fairy Gauge to have your Fairy perform an aoe heal of 350 potency (224 potency with pet scaling). Summon Seraph (Lvl 80): As an OGCD, replace your fairy with Seraph. Embrace now becomes Seraphic Veil, a 200 potency (128 potency heal with pet scaling) heal + shield. Consolation (Lvl 80): Essentially Fey Blessing, but only available during Seraph. Heals for 300 potency (192 potency with pet scaling), and shields for the same amount. Has 2 charges per every Seraph summon, and the shield stacks with your own shields as well as a nocturnal Astro’s shields.

Now that those are out of the way, you must be thinking, “The fuck is fairy gauge and aetherflow?” Well, I’m glad you asked, as they’re both intrinsically tied to each other! Starting at level 70, every time you spend an aetherflow stack, you gain 10 fairy gauge, pretty simple, yea? As for aetherflow itself, every 60 seconds you can cast the skill named, well, Aetherflow, to gain 3 stacks of it and recover 1000 MP. These Aetherflow stacks can be used on the following OGCD abilities:

Lustrate (Lvl 45): A 600 potency heal. Very straightforward, and often not used because of the value of the other options. Energy Drain (Lvl 45): A 100 potency damaging OGCD. If you don’t need to heal, and you don’t think you need to heal for a bit, this is your go-to aetherflow dump. Also, if you’re attempting parses on Scholar, have fun using all your aetherflow on this. Sacred Soil (Lvl 50): Create a bubble that reduces damage taken by all allies inside by 10% for 15 seconds. At level 78 this upgrades to offer a 100 potency heal (500 potency heal in total). Only costing 1 aetherflow gauge, having a 30 second cooldown, and lasting 15 seconds, this skill is INCREDIBLY GOOD, especially after the level 78 upgrade. Indomitability (Lvl 52): A 400 potency AoE heal. Straightforward, but very effective because of its numbers. Excogitation (Lvl 62): An 800 potency heal that triggers when the target falls under 50% HP, or if its 45 second duration ends. While it feels awkward to use for beginners, its usefulness is immeasurable. It is technically a higher potency version of Lustrate, with a slight cooldown and delay, but fills a more ‘fire-forget’ niche. Very useful inside of all settings but remember, it will not proc if the target will outright die to the damage before it triggers (i.e if a tank takes a tankbuster at 51% health, and the hit does 60%, excog will not proc.)

[ Gameplay, Tips and Design ]

Scholar, as I have stated, fills the role of a preemptive healer, especially with all of the mitigation present in its kit, as well as the existence of Excog. As such, this job sees a greater increase in effectiveness as you yourself learn a fight compared to a pure healer such as WHM/Diurnal AST. If you know when the party/raid-wide damage is coming, and you prepare accordingly with... Say, A sacred soil and a succor, that is a good chunk of damage you or your co-healer won’t have to heal, thus affording both of you more time to deal damage. Inside of higher end content, like savage raids, having said mitigation is both invaluable for progressing through fights, as well as streamlining and perfecting them. For a while, because of that fact, SCH was the unofficial ‘king’ of healers for a very long time, especially considering there used to be a lot more damage inside of SCH’s kit (rest in peace almost everything that made it unique lol). The start of Shadowbringers was when SCH was finally taken off of its throne, not by AST like many would think (also because it took quite the hit), but by WHM of all things. Thankfully through a series of buffs since 5.0, SCH would begin to see themselves slowly climb back and situate in a comfortable position, but while Scholar is in a good spot now, that does not mean it’s perfect.

Scholar’s ability to heal pure HP is a bit lacking, especially so when dealing with attacks that place the party or specific players at 1 hp. SCH’s find themselves having to use multiple resources in trying to recover that lost HP, often losing much more damage uptime in comparison to WHM or AST (Which is why the ideal healing composition involves 1 pure healer and 1 shield healer). This usage of multiple resources also makes SCH a fair bit more punishing to inexperienced healers than AST or WHM. With the HP recovery of fairies being nerfed in Shadowbringers, much more of the agency is placed back upon the player, who in turn must pay attention to everything that the class has to offer. Obviously not all content is going to necessitate OPTIMAL PLAY, but with all the moving parts present within its kit, Scholar demands a bit more attention to be paid towards it and its skills.

Outside of a learning curve and lack of pure healing, Scholars are punished heavily for dying. Not only must they spend a GCD in resummoning their fairy, all fairy gauge and aetherflow stacks are also lost on death, and if aetherflow was on cooldown at the time, A SCH is going to not have a majority of their kit for awhile on top of having reduced healing due to weakness/brink of death. This once again lends itself to Scholar being less beginner-friendly as opposed to the other healers, even with the existence of freebie heals from your fairy.

Hell, speaking about fairies, therein lies an issue itself - Scholar being a pet class. Conceptually it’s awesome, but with how FFXIV handles pets/demi-summons and their AI, it’s also quite the hassle. Like I mentioned above, ghosting is a problem when it comes to pet classes, and if you don’t properly adjust around it, some of your cooldowns can simply just go poof. Weaving both Whispering Dawn and Fey Illumination in the same double weave will cause the one that’s cast later to cast quite a bit later. On top of that, if you’re moving while you’re weaving them, there’s a chance you’ll have to wait for the fairy to catch up to you to finally cast them (which is why placing your fairy pre-battle is very useful). And as a general rule of thumb, never use summon seraph right after you use Whispering Dawn or Fey Illumination. Wait until after you see the buff apply on everyone as using Seraph will cancel the queued action.

With all that being said, however Scholar is still highly effective in what it does, it just requires a bit of experience. While I can’t offer tutorials on every fight, there are a few general tips I can give for aspiring scholars out there!

[ Tips ]

(General Advice + Combos)

Double weaving on Scholar is rather straightforward, but if you're using Ruin II to do so after your Broil, it will be a technical DPS loss if you do not use an energy drain within the weave window! Broil III has a potency of 290, Ruin II has a potency of 200, and Energy Drain has a potency of 100. In weaving without the use of energy drain, you will lose 90 potency in comparison to if you were to cast another Broil III. Using Energy Drain will add another 100 potency, thus gaining you 10 potency overall. Of course you shouldn't always dump an aetherflow on energy drain when you're weaving, but it is something to keep in mind when you are aiming to do more damage!

- Healing Combos -

[Single Target] If you are AoE'ing, replace ruin II/Biolysis with Art of War!

[AoE Mitigation] (Shield + 5% magic damage mitigation + 10% all damage mitigation)

[Panic AoE Healing] (1029 potency AoE Healing) As a bonus little tip in regards to this, remember Scholar's AoE healing spell/ability priority! The above combo is when you cannot afford time for a regen, but if you can, follow this list. 1. Whispering Dawn (if you can afford time for the regen) 2. Fey Blessing 3. Sacred Soil (if you can afford time for the regen) 4. Indomitability 5. Succor + Emergency Tactics 6. Succor

Scholars luckily have a wonderful mobility tool in Ruin II which allows them to position easily, though at the cost of DPS. However, this loss is minimal compared to its cohorts, wherein WHM either has to clip their Dia or use a lily, and AST either has to use Lightspeed, or slowly shuffle over with Malefics. This makes Scholar a bit easier to navigate when learning fights! Don't be afraid to use Ruin II if you're looking to push for a clear or learn a mechanic better, as a dead scholar is worse than one that is losing dps.

A crucial part of Scholar's kit is actually Chain Stratagem. While it loses much of its usefulness in public groups, or those who do not exactly care for proper rotations, when you can coordinate buffs and opening combos, it provides a large boost in DPS for the whole party. Typically, the ideal time to use Chain Stratagem is upon your 4th GCD, and everytime it comes off cooldown after, but this can change depending on your group. Here is an example 4th GCD Chain opener.

(Dungeons)

While AoE’ing mob packs, you can keep your focus target on the tank. It will make it much easier to heal them in a pinch.

Sacred Soil is essentially a free 15 second long cooldown for the tank, that ALSO heals at level 78 and above. It’s very, very useful.

Using Excog and adlo between pulls will allow you to spend more time AoE’ing mobs

Don’t forget about your fairy skills, especially fey union. Lazy mode is using fey union after whispering dawn, fey illumination and sacred soil and then proceeding to press art of war until the cows come home.

(Trials/Raid)

Recitation + Excog on your main tank pre-pull. Many use recitation+Adlo and then spread the shield with deployment tactics, but you don’t need to use recitation for that! Catalyze is the bonus shielding a crit adlo creates, and cannot be spread. Therefore save your recitation for a free excog and use a normal adlo+deployment tactics afterwards.

Please, please, PLEASE, if you are in a static or raid environment, make sure you allies stand in Sacred Soil when they can. It makes all of your lives easier.

Pre-placing your fairy in the center of the arena is a good habit to get in, but if you need your fairy AoE’s while you’re away from the center, make sure to press heel on your fairy hotbar to make it follow you again.

[Design]

Outside of all that, there is a collection of miscellaneous things that I do want to prattle off in relation to this category, mostly being some design choices and ideas I had for the class going forward. So, let’s begin!

Why does Fey Blessing not become Consolation when you have Seraph out? They are essentially the same thing, and you CAN’T EVEN USE FEY BLESSING WHEN YOU HAVE SERAPH OUT. WHY IS FEY BLESSING AND CONSOLATION SEPARATE BUTTONS. ANSWER ME SQUARE ENIX, TELL ME WHY.

There should be another way to dump Fairy gauge. It would make the system a bit more interactive (A lot like how lilies got an AoE version as well as Afflatus misery with SHB).

We should be able to cancel fey union in the middle of a cast. Breaking the tether does not have an animation nor any animation lockout, and in my eyes is technically not an OGCD. With this change, cancelling fey union can be done on the fly and not require a weave so as to not lose uptime.

The delay upon shield application is a tad annoying, especially so in the use of deployment tactics. Sometimes, if you cast too late, the boss’ Aoe will eat the heal, but not the shield. And in the case of the latter, if you use deployment tactics too quickly, you’ll spread nothing.

Bring back fairy uniqueness ;-;

[ Final Evaluation ]

Now comes time for my final grading.

Going forward with these Class Analyses, I will grade the class upon a set of categories unique to their role (DPS, Tank, Healer). As such, in my grading of Scholar, I will judge it based on the following categories, on a scale of F-S:

Damage (Personal) - The damage they bring to the table by themselves. Damage (Raid setting) - The damage they bring based upon their RDPS potential Accessibility - How easy is it to pick up and play? Mitigation - How well can they prevent damage? Healing - How well can they heal damage? Fun - Well, is it fun? Fantasy fulfillment - Does it fit the class aesthetics/lore?

Damage (Personal) [7] - While not as powerful alone as White Mage, Scholar is not entirely dependent upon team mates for damage like Astrologian.

Damage (Raid Setting) [8] - The addition of chain stratagem to Scholar’s already decent damage takes that one extra step beyond.

Accessibility [4] - Starts as a DPS in Arcanist, has many unique functions and is punished heavily if they die in the middle of a battle.

Mitigation [10] - They’re the originator of shield healers, and definitely keep the crown. Sacred soil is always going to be ridiculous.

Healing [6.5] - Scholar’s pure healing is a bit lacking, but with Square’s fight design, any healer should be able to make it through a fight. Therefore, I cannot rate Scholar all too low in this category.

Fun [7.5, almost 8] - Keeps you engaged, but lacks the pizzazz of Astro and the oomph of White Mage. Still a fun class at the end of the day, though!

Fantasy Fulfillment [9] - As tactical geniuses in the lore, the feel of Scholar gameplay fits that ideal! Through your mitigation, pre-planned abilities, and setting up of fairy abilities, you definitely feel like a tactician controlling the flow of battle, though it does falter a bit with a lot of their old options being removed in SHB.

[ End ]

And with that, we are done with this analysis! As for my personal conjecture with Scholar, it’s one of my mains, and used to be my go to raid healer, that is until my static needed a bit more upfront healing for e12s prog awhile back. If you were to look at my FFlogs, you’d probably see an absolute deluge of WHM parses since it’s uhh... Kinda technically my new healer main, but I still love SCH I swear! Another thing that made me switch from SCH to WHM was the inclusion of a DRK in our static. The ability to instantly remove Walking Dead with one button is so much easier than blowing cooldowns on both healers. Though, technically, from a savage perspective, the highest damage team setup is SCH + AST (Mostly because boosting teammate damage will always do more than just being good yourself, especially this late in the tier).

Anywho... This is the REAL end of the analysis. Hope you enjoyed and if you have any suggestions, questions or things to address, just comment and let me know!

Yabi, out~

[fandomthesickness]

21 questions challenge

Tagged by @owlinadayswork

rules: answer the questions and then tag 21 people

nickname: Ok so I actually don’t have a name for myself? since I have the blog @fandomthesickness people have just called me Fandom but honestly, I don’t have a nickname. Y’all can call me whatever as long as it isn’t offensive haha.

zodiac: I am a Scorpio! A proud one at that.

height: I’m so close to 5ft I don’t know the exact measurement. Yea.. I’m short, but I’m too tired to care lol

last movie I saw: VICE. It’s the story about Vice President, Dick Cheney. Oh my goodness it was amazing, he’s a horrible person but the movie was frickin phenomenal.

last thing I googled: what is a WPA2 password? (spoiler, I figured it out)

favorite musicians: I DON’T KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME, Hoodie Allen, Dodie Clark, Two Door Cinema Club, Lorde, Wild Party, Panic! At the Disco, PJ

song stuck in my head: ‘Jump Up, Super Star!’ from the game Super Mario Odyssey (It’s a really catchy song don’t judge me I really wanna do a cover of it)

tbh that song gets stuck in my head A LOT and it always reminds me of the Tumblr user @your-1up-girl ahaha lmao

do I get asks? Yes but very rarely. I totally love it when I do though, makes me feel happy so please send me asks!

following: 365 people. I’ve had my Tumblr blogs (other than this one) for quite some time so I’ve followed an accumulative amount of people over the months and years.

amount of sleep? Um.. what is sleep? I don’t know her.

lucky number: 11! I was born on the 11th month of the 11th day and that number always meant good things in my life.

what am I wearing: I’m wearing my tan overcoat, my velvet crop top, and ripped olive green jeans.

dream trip: Europe hands down. I’ve been fantasizing about going there ever since I was very little. I have to go to Rome and see the attractions and Greece ruins of course. I have to go to Italy and Paris. Ah, I need to go.

Ooh! and London too!

dream job: A job that allows me to make a positive impact in the politics/culture or framework of the country I live in.

play any instruments: Yes! I have played the violin for most of my life, I’ve taken piano lessons for some time before stopping, I played Alto sax for one year, and in primary school, I took up the xylophone.

languages: Well Tamil is my native language but I speak a mix of Tamil and English at home. In school, I’m learning Spanish.

random fact: Hmm… uhhh… tbh I got nothing sorry.

describe yourself as aesthetics: dark colors like black, maroon, olive green, dark blue etc., earbuds in my ears at all times, Nintendo games, First person shooters, Super smash ultimate, Parks and Recreation, Avatar the Last Airbender, very few animes, Bee and Puppycat, big frizzy hair, headaches all the damn time, stressing over school, loud, short bean, glasses always on me, procrastinator hands down, hard worker, always distracted, follows studyblrs and tries to bullet journal but fails, can’t finish a tv show I have such little consistency,  tries to draw but fails miserably, friend treasurer, singing obnoxiously when no one’s around, night owl, most productive at midnight and after, i love cheese more than anything, basically tries way too hard to be Daria Morgendorffer, the most sarcastic being ever, wrongly accused of being angsty, a little intense, loves connecting with people, a m b i v e r t.

first fandom: hmmm.. I think Avatar since I’ve watched that show since I was like 7 years old when it was on Netflix. 

Here are the unfortunate souls I tag (I could not think of 21 people): @atrociousdecisionshavebeenmade @sakurasoasis @nessajjewell @plancehadachance @artistbydaydreamerbynight @born-in-olympus @legendarypotat @your-1up-girl  

[jdinzeo]

Glen Taylor Doesn’t Know Shit About Basketball

Glen Taylor maybe one of the worst professional sports owners of all-time and a pack of wolves is nothing without an alpha. During the course of his ownership in a state that is begging for sustained success in basketball, he has failed as the essential leader of the franchise.  

The Timberwolves have been around since 1989, next season will mark the 30th season for the franchise. Glen Taylor has owned the team for almost 25 of them compiling at the time this is being written 820 wins 1100 losses,  from 1996-2003 the wolves had 7 straight first round knock outs, the best showing would be the 2003-2004 season making the western conference finals and there after The wolves went on a 13 season playoff draught, a list that at one point had the buffalo bills (no longer on the list), the Seattle Mariners whom hold the record currently having missed the playoffs for 17 straight seasons last making it 2001 after tying their league record at the time with 116 wins, the Carolina Hurricanes have missed 9 straight but in their defense the last time they made the playoffs it resulted in a Stanley Cup and currently ended that streak.  For as much as I think Jimmy and Thibs were tools, that playoff run was nothing without them and that’s a hard pill to swallow. We got a taste of the playoffs but are flirting with another long drought if we don’t correct somethings.

One would blame the lack of success on a heap of different reasons wither it be the 9 different head coaches over Taylor’s tenure,  the numerous GM’s, Presidents of basketball operations or  whatever the meaningless title they’re given happens to be. the inability by this franchise to draft credible talent, with the exception clearly being KAT, KG, Love, JR Rider to a certain degree, Laettner, Zach Lavine(which we will get to later) Taylor has allowed some great talent to slip away by allowing stupid picks or trades to be made like Ray Allen for Marbury or drafting Ndudi Ebi with the #26th overall pick and passing on Kendrick Perkins, Leandro Barbosa and Josh Howard, now these names may not jump out on paper but all have had much better NBA careers than Ebi. Oh drafted Flynn over Steph Curry and in the same draft traded away ty Lawson. In 2010 they drafted Wesley Johnson passing on Cousins who was taken at 5, Paul George and Gordon Hayward.  Let not forget the Joe Smith deal costing us draft picks and our dignity in the NBA. Taylor’s inept behavior has placed this franchise in to a dark corner of misery and false hope.

If I go any deeper into this madness I may go bat shit crazy. The Wolves and Glen Taylor have made some of the most idiotic moves in sports. They got baited into offering a max contract to Andrew Wiggins who is in my opinion not a franchise player of this team, he is simply a role player, a mediocre one at that whose career average is 19.4 pts, 4.3 TRB 2.2 AST and shooting just 44% from the field and 33.2 percent from beyond the arc and a shit 73.5 from the free throw line. Aside from injuries a lot of fans called for Wiggins not Zach to be in the jimmy trade but I’d like Zach to know one thing, we miss you. .

If you take anything away from this, it should be The wolves fan base needs to start speaking up and demanding more or Taylor needs to sell, Taylor has allowed for numerous bonehead deals to go down, his failure hire long term coaching beyond flip, which flip deserves all of the credit for the success of this team.  And there’s number 21, the greatest basketball player to grace a wolves uniform has yet to see his number retired and basically has little to nothing to do with this franchise. When KG got to this team it was worth around 90 million dollars and when KG left it was worth 400 million. It’s time for Glen to take a long hard look in the mirror and consider what’s best for this franchise and a state that’s allowed him to do business.  Glen maybe a good businessman but when it comes to basketball, in the words of #21 Kevin Garnett “Glen Taylor doesn’t know shit about basketball.” An Actual Quote.

[junker-town]

The Mystics are a WNBA champion built to last

The Mystics built a championship team with Elena Delle Donne as the centerpiece.

Washington can be the WNBA’s next dynasty.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Aerial Powers wanted to be traded. It was July 2018, and despite playing for a Dallas Wings team loaded with talent like All-Stars Liz Cambage and Skylar Diggins-Smith, Powers wasn’t having fun. Her team was middling around .500, she felt pressured to score on every possession, and in her third season in the league, the No. 5 pick in the draft wasn’t improving.

“The system we played in Dallas,” Powers said, “It felt like if you got the ball, you had to score or you weren’t going to get the ball back. There was no ball movement.”

The stagnation held Powers to shoot a career-low 18 percent from three-point range and score just six points per game in her final half-season in Dallas.

The Washington Mystics swooped in to save her. Powers fit the mold of every non-Elena Delle Donne or Kristi Toliver piece the franchise has embraced; someone under-appreciated, overlooked and misused.

“We thought some of the offensive stuff efficiency-wise was because Dallas kind of ran loose,” Mystics assistant coach Eric Thibault said. “We thought putting her into our system, it’d be a little more obvious where the shots came from.”

Playing in the Mystics’ pace-and-space spread, Powers became an electrifying spark off the bench. Always one of the most athletic players in the W, Powers’ speed and shot-making ability suddenly became that much more dangerous playing alongside Washington’s shooters. Even when she struggled, she found a team that would build her up rather than tear her down. This is the type of confidence the Mystics instilled in their entire roster, from the biggest star in the sport to the supporting cast off the bench.

“The team all gets along,” Powers said. “There’s no drama. Everybody appreciates each other. If someone takes a shot and misses, it’s all good. We’re a mature team. We are taking good shots. It’s not like everybody’s going one-on-one all the time like it was in Dallas.”

“The stat sheet, throw that thing away. Nobody cares.” — Delle Donne

Powers was in the locker room on Thursday night popping a bottle of pineapple Ciroc after the Mystics had finally made good on their season-long goal. Washington was the best team in the W all year. This playoff run always felt like it needed to end in a championship, or it was a bust. With a decisive 89-78 Game 5 win over the Connecticut Sun, it finally happened.

In the middle of the party, Powers caught the attention of the closest rolling video camera. Her signature high-bun still in tact, she made clear contact with the lens.

“Thank you Dallas,” she said. “I appreciate you, Greg [Bibb, the team’s president and CEO] for trading me. This has been the best experience, and I don’t think I woulda got it with y’all, so thanks.”

The root of the Mystics’ 2019 success starts at the top. Head coach and general manager Mike Thibault is equal parts a basketball savant and player’s coach. He drafted his team’s Finals MVP, Emma Meesseman, with the No. 19 pick. He selected an All-Defensive guard from little-known St. Joe’s in Natasha Cloud at No. 15, and picked Ariel Atkins, a talent who wasn’t even invited to the draft, at No. 7.

But his most crowning accomplishment is bringing D.C.’s most talented basketball player ever, Delle Donne, to the Mystics via trade in 2017. The star wanted to move closer to her home in Delaware, and of course, she wanted a ring. But she wanted to do it in an authentically Delle Donne way. The 6’5 unicorn is as soft-spoken and humble as the face of a sports league can get.

“So many other coaches I’ve had said ‘you have to be meaner’ or ‘you need to yell at your teammates,’” Delle Donne said. “But [Thibault] said the exact opposite. He’s like ‘the best leader you can be is when you’re true to yourself.’ Whatever you’re comfortable being, be that for your team. That’s been a game-changer for me.”

For her Mystics teammates, Delle Donne has been the premier role model. In interviews, she’s quick to talk about how the team needs LaToya Sanders’ work on the boards, and how Meesseman was the missing piece the Mystics needed to win this championship. There’s a reason all season long, the Mystics’ locker room echoed a “Bahhh” sound like a goat whenever Delle Donne’s name was mentioned. Cloud even made her own sweatshirt to personally campaign for her MVP run.

“I don’t need to be the bad cop and cuss my teammates out,” Delle Donne said. “That’s not what I’m about.”

“If Elena was an asshole, everybody would still respect her because she’s that good,” Eric Thibault said. “But she doesn’t act that way. And because of that, nobody else acts that way. Why would you?”

“If Elena was an asshole, everybody would still respect her because she’s that good.”

In Game 5, Delle Donne led her team to victory with 21 points and nine rebounds despite a harrowing list of injuries. She was a fraction of herself, only able to move with the ball in straight lines, missing the lateral spring that typically moves her past defenders. Delle Donne had a mask over the nose she broke in June, a brace on the knee she deeply bruised in last season’s playoffs, and she was playing through a back injury that kept her out of all but three minutes of Game 2.

For the last week, she’d claimed to have a herniated disc in her back. But in the postgame press conference, Cloud went out of her way to “drop a bomb” — Delle Donne had actually herniated three.

“It’s important because when you’re talking about playing for the players to the left and to the right of you and being a leader on this team and pushing through to win us a championship,” Cloud said, “That’s a huge testament to her.”

Despite Delle Donne’s greatness in her first championship win, she wasn’t named Finals MVP. The honor went to Meesseman, who scored 22 points and dominated the Sun on fading hooks in the low block.

“When you went down with a herniated disc, Emma put the team on her back,” a reporter told Delle Donne after the game. “Correction,” Delle Donne interjected. “Emma put the team on her back in the first series, and she kept it rolling.”

Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images

The Mystics were tested to their limit across this five-game series with a rugged Connecticut Sun team. Alyssa Thomas was a bulldozer Washington never learned how to contain, Jonquel Jones was a nightly threat on the boards, Shekinna Stricklen was a flamethrower from deep and Courtney Williams’ mid-range prowess caught the Mystics offguard.

In Game 5, it looked like the Sun had cracked their code for good, leading by nine points with six minutes to play in the third quarter. A chess match all series, Curt Miller’s group threw Thibault’s into a tizzy, using Williams as a roaming defender. The Mystics were turnover prone, and their once-electric offense was reduced to iso-ball. Their record-setting offense only scored four shots from deep-ball range on 19 tries. But the Mystics’ greatness is more than their offensive system.

Washington works to perfection as a team, but its individual talent can overwhelm, too. Each player in their rotation is empowered to take over a game when the time calls. “No one on this team gives a crap about getting credit,” Delle Donne said. “Like the stat sheet, throw that thing away. Nobody cares.”

Sometimes it’s Cloud whose number is called. Most times it’s Delle Donne. On Thursday night, it was all Meesseman, who finished with 22 points on 13 shots.

The Belgian star cooked any defender thrown on her with an array of footwork so confounding it looked like she traveled. During her 11-point third quarter, she spun left and hung a fading two over Brionna Jones, faded over Morgan Tuck in the paint, and stepped through the side of Jonquel Jones. But that wasn’t it.

All life faded from the Sun on a Meesseman and-one late in the fourth. To put her team up three possessions, she dribbled past Jasmine Thomas, through the reach of Jones and clanked a runner on the left side home.

.@EmmaMeesseman (22 PTS, 3 REB, 3 AST) showed out today when it mattered most! #WatchMeWork #WNBAFinals pic.twitter.com/BqBVjSL77y

— WNBA (@WNBA) October 11, 2019

This was the year of Delle Donne and the WNBA’s first 50/40/90 shooter. It was the second year in a row that a modern, three-point centric offense pushed defenses to reinvent themselves. It’s the playoff run that put Meesseman on the map. And it showed the perseverance of a team that was swept in the Finals a year prior to claw its way back despite injuries to Delle Donne, Atkins and Toliver.

“There’s not just one way to beat us,” Toliver said. “We’re going to find a way.”

Next year, the WNBA is going to be a gauntlet. Breanna Stewart and Sue Bird, the teammates who swept Washington last season, are expected to return fully healthy for the Seattle Storm. The Las Vegas Aces, who took the Mystics to a close four games, will have another year’s experience. Diana Taurasi, sidelined with a back injury for most of the year, will rise again. Maya Moore’s future with the Minnesota Lynx looms, too.

The Mystics already have their place in history. This championship run can stand on its own greatness, or it can be just the beginning of something even bigger.

[viralhottopics]

Size matters: the evolution of the NBA big man

A new generation of seven-footers has shifted the balance of power in the NBA from the shorter guys but are these changes good for the game?

Last week, late in the first quarter of an NBA game in Detroit, Michigan, Myles Turner, the Indiana Pacerss 20-year-old 6ft 11in center, popped out to the top of the three-point line and hit a 25ft jump shot with an arc so high the cameraman had to raise the viewing angle to follow it. Less than a minute later, he hit another one from the same spot. Both shots were so smooth that neither of them even skimmed the rim. The field goals were no anomaly. Turner is shooting 41% from the three-point line, well above the league average of 35%.

More than a thousand miles west in Denver, Colorado, Nikola Jokic, the Denver Nuggets 21-year-old 6ft 10in center, stood with his back to the basket, 15ft away, and threw a no-look, over-the-shoulder pass to a cutting team-mate for a wide-open lay-up. The pass, more common in a Harlem Globetrotters game than an NBA one, was nothing new for Jokic. A three-minute YouTube compilation posted to the site last month highlights dozens of them. Jokic actually has some flair, said former NBA coach George Karl, whose memoir about his life in basketball, Furious George, was published this week. He throws some balls that only guards think about throwing.

Turner and Jokic, who both play Thursday at the O2 Arena in London when the Pacers and the Nuggets face off in the NBAs only game in the UK this season, are their teams representatives of a new generation of NBA big men, all roughly 7ft tall, who, to varying degrees of competency, can shoot three-pointers, pass, and dribble, a collective set of skills that has historically been the province of only guards. Their recent emergence, a result of the evolution of the NBA game, has become so widespread that its shifting the balance of power in the league from players several inches shorter, who have largely been the sports marquee names for the last several decades, to the tallest the game has to offer.

The New Orleans Pelicans Anthony Davis, 23, is considered the cream of this crop of players, but Giannis Antetokounmpo, 22, of the Milwaukee Bucks, has emerged this season as a rival candidate for the future face of the league, once LeBron James and Stephen Curry retreat from prominence. The New York Knickss 21-year-old Latvian star, Kristaps Porzingis, is another of these potential stars, as is the Minnesota Timberwolvess Karl-Anthony Towns, 21, the Philadelphia 76erss Joel Embiid, 22, and the Sacramento Kingss DeMarcus Cousins, who, at 26, is an old man among his peers.

Center until recently the only position a 7ft tall person would ever play produced the first nationally recognized legends of the NBA in the 1960s. These were its tallest players who could dictate the flow of a game both offensively and defensively by dominating the area several feet around the basket, such as Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, and, later, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

But with the rise of the point guard Magic Johnson, the small forward Larry Bird, and the shooting guard Michael Jordan in the 1980s and 1990s, the center became less of the focal point of NBA teams, until the position reached a nadir about a decade ago. By the end of Shaquille ONeals peak years in the mid-2000s, it seemed that the only requirement to play the position in the league was to be a 7ft blob of humanity, said Scott Hastings, the Nuggets television analyst and a former center himself, when I spoke to him by phone last week. No disrespect intended, but when youve got guys like [current Charlotte Hornets seven-footer] Roy Hibbert making all-star games at the center position [as he did for the Indiana Pacers in 2012 and 2014], the center position is almost dead.

In the early 2000s, the Dallas Mavericks Dirk Nowitzki emerged as the first seven-footer to be a dominant offensive player both close to the basket as well as from three-point range. Additionally, Nowitzki was skilled enough as a ball handler that he could effectively score on drives to the basket. He was the original prototype of the generation of big men that is emerging now. What made Nowitzki so revolutionary was that his offensive versatility created significant match-up problems for the opposing defense.

Spacing is so important in the game, Karl said by phone from Denver last week. Anytime that your center can bring [the other teams center] away from the basket where he has to defend is incredibly important to the spacing that you put on the court.

Larry Bird, now the Pacerss president of basketball operations, said from Indiana in a telephone interview last week: When the bigs stretch out there, youve got to guard them [with your bigs] and theres nobody protecting the rim. Its easier for these guards to get a cleaner shot at the basket.

Yet Nowitzki proved to be ahead of his time. Many players were drafted in his image, but none had the same impact. (Italys Andrea Bargnani was the most successful, but since he fell far short of Nowitzkis mark he was also the most ridiculed.) Meanwhile, an NBA rule change in 2004 that outlawed hand-checking above the foul line further weighted the game in favor of the smaller player. It allowed ball handlers, most often guards, to be more aggressive offensively. In hindsight, the most significant effect was that three-point-shot attempts, which had plateaued for several years prior to the rule change, began to increase. In 2004, the average number of three-point shots attempted by a team was 15 per game. This season it is 27.

Not long ago we were worried about the court being too small for these players, and there was talk about widening the lane and some people were even talking about widening the whole court, Bird said. But the three-point shot has changed everything.

Last year, the Golden State Warriors, who lost in the NBA finals, led the league in three-point shots made, at an average of 13 per game, which is an NBA record. The Cleveland Cavaliers, the team that beat the Warriors in the championship, made the second-most. Not surprisingly, most NBA teams have followed suit. The increase in three-point shots attempted this season over last (from an average of 24 per game to 27) is the largest single-season increase since 1994, when the NBA shortened the distance of the shot. (In 1997, the three-point line was extended back to its current dimensions.)

Out of a necessity for survival, NBA big men have had to adapt to the little mans game. As more players throughout the league shoot three-pointers, more centers do now as well. When Karl coached the Sacramento Kings last year, he was responsible for Cousins incorporating the shot into his game, after Cousins had hardly attempted any at all in his first four years in the league. Cousins now shoots five per game and makes a very respectable 37% of them. This season, even the last of the old-school centers, the Brooklyn Nets Brook Lopez and the Memphis Grizzlies Marc Gasol, have begun to shoot three pointers. (Lopez is hitting 36% of his; Gasol makes 41%.)

What makes the new generation of seven-footers so unique is that they have taken the adaptation process one step further: many of them have ball-handling skills that rival, if not surpass, Nowitzkis. When parked at the three-point line, they dont have to settle for a jump shot. Like a guard, they can drive to the basket as well.

The two best shots in basketball are the lay-up and the three-point shot, Karl said. And big guys are now becoming a very common proponent of both.

Yet with such dramatic developments in the game offensively come dramatic adjustments necessary defensively. And, as former NBA coach Jeff Van Gundy, now a basketball analyst for ESPN, observed in a telephone interview last week, most of the new wave of seven-footers mentioned above are on teams with losing records. What goes directly into winning that everybody overlooks is the impact of having enough defensive skill and mentality on the floor to complement the offensive skill, Van Gundy said, and how important it is, particularly talking about those guys as best players, that they exert as much energy into their defense as they do into their offense.

Van Gundy continued: Defense for a center today is harder than its ever been. What is being asked of these seven-footers is not low-post defense any more as much as it is transition and pick-and-roll defense, and being able to close to the three-point line and have good enough feet to be able to guard the dribble.

The game changes about every 10 to 15 years, Bird said. Its changing now, though not all of the changes may be for the best. The game is becoming very homogenous, Van Gundy said. Theres less differences in style of play Youre going to continue to see less and less low-post play.

How the NBA reacts to these changes will determine the direction the game takes in coming years. For now, its produced a generation of seven-footers who have redefined what an NBA center is yet again.

Read more: http://bit.ly/2igzswB

from Size matters: the evolution of the NBA big man