How Is Scholar? An Impartial View.

Kaeko is a legend, he pulled near impossible things (soloing a salvage area on sch at 75) before others even thought about it (or was the first to describe them to such a level, whatever). if you want to get a deeper understanding of the jobs mechanics and its possibilities read his blog.
I only have sch to subjob level as of right now as Im mainly a blm when it comes to mage jobs but I consider taking it up too at one point.

just wanted to add that, read kanican, its worth it

I agree with this :3 It's a good read and very informative ^^

I can't imagine playing SCH without Spellcast. I can't think of a job which benefits from it more. It would just be macro hell without it. I tried it a long time ago, and I would just get lost in all my different macro sets (I think I was using 8) and get flustered.

So much of SCH gearing is based on situations: what Arts are you in? What strategems are active? Is Sublimation up? What about storms or Klimaform? etc etc etc. There are pieces which really are only worth equipping if you have certain strategems active (Savant's Bonnet for example). You can handle all that with a good xml file which greatly simplifies your play and improves your efficiency and performance.

All that said, SCH still isn't all that great and I only use it if my LS is shorthanded really really needs a healer and/or nuker (like once every 2 months?). It sits with RDM in this in between space of healer/nuker that isn't as good in Abyssea as WHM or BLM. Future content might see that change if we are out of Abyssea and don't need staggers and don't have atmas.

I considered leveling it in order to spam Impact with parsimony and alacrity to make it easier to do yamas+2 staff :<