Attention Scholars: Always place your Fairy!

[cainejw]

If you check your raw HPS after a BC run with your Fairy set on place, you'll blow away WHM's without accounting for Shields. If your Fairys on Heel like a dumby, you're going to struggle to keep up.

Ah, the parse whores are among us. Gotta have that bigger number or you're just not good, right?

[Rainsford]

Ah, the parse whores are among us. Gotta have that bigger number or you're just not good, right?

If by parse whore you mean "seeing how effective a job your doing so you can adjust and improve" than yes. If you're doing Turn 4 and a tank keeps getting killed by the double Dreads, seeing one healer doing 1/4 the other healer indicates that something needs to be adjusted.

The point of the thread is to point out that most SCH's are losing out on a significant portion of their healing by doing things like juggling Steady or keeping their pet on heal. But, thank you for your constructive words.

*snip*

If you target a mob and hit Obey, she will not cast anything but her healing skills unless she is resummoned, you zone or you press Sic. If that's not working for you, then you're not targeting a mob when you press it.

And you can still have her manually cast when placed. The difference, of course, is that the AI will auto-heal and react quicker than you could.

Let's say you're doing Turn 1 and the snake has split, and you have one healer per tank. Placing Selene in between the two will let her cast reaction heals as soon as someone drops below 80%, and she will spam it until they top off with significantly less delay than if she was Heeled. You can still be pre-casting Embrace on a tank to top them off, but you want to be able to throw down Sacred Soil, move around/etc with her keeping her full reaction speeds, and having her on Heel or toggling Steady causes you to lose this.

Finally, again, use Selene. There's no content that Eos's weak HoT or long duration Heal buff is useful for. If you're having any trouble healing stuff as a Scholar, than your issue is how your managing your fairy (and, if you're toggling Steady while keeping her on Heel, I've already diagnosed the problem).

[nocks]

The point of the thread is to point out that most SCH's are losing out on a significant portion of their healing by doing things like juggling Steady...the AI will auto-heal and react quicker...

While I appreciate your thoughtful discourse on the subject, parts of your claim seem to defy logic. I am in total agreement that leaving the faery placed will prevent movement and therefor not disrupt her Embraces. However, the AI only allows the faery to cast Embrace on targets who have around 75% of their health. In all instances where everyone in your group has between 76-99% health, the faery will do nothing. It only seems reasonable that by manually directing your faery to cast Embrace in those situations, more healing will be achieved than letting the faery sit idle, which is all her AI will allow her to do. Also, since the last hotfix, the faery can be fully directed during your cast times, eliminating concerns about slowing down the player's actions.

[XNihili]

I'm not sure if parsing who had the biggest cure is a really good way to know how efficient a healer is.
If there are no mobs around while we are moving to our next target, I don't usually heal people and let the auto-heal works.
Sure, I can cast a big fat Physick for a better parse. Like DPS who used to use a big one hit Weaponskill on almost dead mobs in FFXI.
But we have better use for our MP, haven't we ?

[cainejw]

If by parse whore you mean "seeing how effective a job your doing so you can adjust and improve" than yes. If you're doing Turn 4 and a tank keeps getting killed by the double Dreads, seeing one healer doing 1/4 the other healer indicates that something needs to be adjusted.

See, this is the problem with people who only look at parse numbers and wave around their epeen. You are the problem.

FFXIV healing is different from WoW healing. It is not about getting large numbers so you can feel better about yourself. It's about delivering the right heals when you need them. If you are sitting there and lording your parse numbers over people as a sign of your superiority, you're a problem.

Putting Eos in one position and never moving her or moving her only in case of knockback is, frankly, pigheaded. It ignores the fact that the fight is dynamic. It is always moving. Sometimes, Eos has to move, too. Sometimes, Eos needs to follow you. Other times, the arena is small enough that she can be placed and never moved. A "good Scholar" will not plop Eos in middle of the room, micromanage her at all times, and then come on the forums to report how great they are. A "good Scholar" will look at the fight, look at the mechanics, and judge the best way to approach it for the team. After all, we're the job that changes strategy. We're not the job that lazily slaps Eos down or runs around with her regardless of mechanics.

If you remove your head from the rear end of your parse numbers, you'll actually find that management of Eos should depend less on how important you want to feel and more on situation. Place Eos if the fight calls for it. Move with Eos if the fight calls for it. If you're not moving, Eos doesn't need to be placed. You're not "helping" future Scholars by telling them what you do, saying it works and is a massive success, and then telling them they HAVE to do it or they're "bad" is not helping.

And for the love of all that is good, stop using your crappy parses to tell people how to play, hm? There's enough growing elitism without people like you dictating what everyone else should do to get a larger parse instead of being adaptable to the needs of the group and the fight.

[nocks]

See, this is the problem with people who only look at parse numbers and wave around their epeen. You are the problem.

She didn't actually say about 95% of the things you accused her of, to be fair. I think parsing is a valid way to see healing done in a fight, if the parse is read correctly. Say, over the course of a single boss fight, and if you look at actual healing done and not over-healing. If, at the end of the day, a parse shows that a healer is keeping the tank alive better than another, in all likelihood that parse has identified the healer with the best strategy. However, I do agree that looking at raw healing output (which includes healing done to players already at full health) is not an accurate way to measure a healer's ability. In many fights, a healer's DPS should also be taken into consideration - but parsing will show that, too. Parsing is just using data to determine outcomes. Complaining about parsing is like complaining about getting grades on a test. If you want everyone to get a smiley sticker and a pat on the back, then that's fine - but I suspect you will get better results by analyzing data and seeing what is or isn't working.

[FinagleABagel]

Ignore the OP, she's wrong.

With the change that allows independent activation of skills between the player and the pet, there's zero reason to place your fairy ever again.

Put Embrace on the hotbar and control her. Yes, this means you lose precise timing on the other skills - but whatever. It's far easier to micro Embrace than to constantly flip your fairy stance while placing and moving her to avoid unnecessary AoE damage. Yeah, this means you are going to have hit two buttons at once - or in rapid succession...but I'm sure everyone is an experienced healer and doesn't balk at that.

With the change, there's no question that longterm throughput on a single target is now higher on the Scholar. Game is much easier now that you can heal multiple people without having to wait for a cast bar.

Until I'm given the option to manually define heal priority and % HP loss for activation I will not rely on any sort of AI. I can do it better myself.

[nocks]

Ignore the OP, she's wrong.

With the change that allows independent activation of skills between the player and the pet, there's zero reason to place your fairy ever again.

While I totally agree that manually controlling the faery is best, I believe you will still interrupt her casts every time you move while she's casting, so it might still be best to place her during boss fights.

[FinagleABagel]

While I totally agree that manually controlling the faery is best, I believe you will still interrupt her casts every time you move while she's casting, so it might still be best to place her during boss fights.

Extremely rare, if it even matters at all. There's barely a cast on Embrace anyway! I did notice that if a target is out of your range the fairy will move on her own to heal the target. Caused a rather embarrassing surprise pull on ADS last night...

I've definitely not noticed it when I'm moving in battles. Also, you are a healer not a marathon runner. You should only be doing very slight tweaks in movement. Keep it to an absolute minimum.

[nocks]

Extremely rare, if it even matters at all. There's barely a cast on Embrace anyway! I did notice that if a target is out of your range the fairy will move on her own to heal the target. Caused a rather embarrassing surprise pull on ADS last night...

Rare or not, I'm interested in the best way to use the faery. You will also notice that she's got a really short range on who she will automatically cast Embrace on, and if there is an instance where you're distracted and not able to manually direct her (after all, we're talking about consistently hitting embrace every 3 seconds for an entire fight, which could be several minutes long) she'll at least backup to AI in those situations. I personally think the best strategy here is to place the faery near the group, but also to manually direct her heals.