How To Train Your Faerie: A Comprehensive Guide

[giantslayer]

How To Train Your Faerie

UPDATE 3/31/2016

It has been too long since I last updated. I had started working on a big update after Heavensward dropped and didn’t get around to finishing it. In my defense, the update I was working on was fairly substantial.

There was an issue in 3.20 where Heel/Place macros didn’t function properly. That was fixed pretty quickly. (Thanks, SE!)

Updated and rewrote guide to be current with 3.25. Primary changes:

- Added Table of Contents.
- Updated wording in a lot of places.
- Reorganized guide with sections by type of macro.
- Added section on space saving macros.
- Added section discussing combining multiple abilities with macros.
- Added sections for Expanded Cross Hotbar and “Assist.”
- Interrupt macros for Fey Covenant and Fey Illumination that didn’t work properly in 2.5 now work again as of 3.0 (sorry, shoulda updated this a while ago).
- Pet ability to queue a command if they are in process of casting an auto ability works for SMN pets as well, so macros are no longer needed for proper function of Contagion. References to Garuda have been updated.
- Modified Embrace macros to use <t> to prevent pet from self-healing if you heal yourself by having no target selected.
- Modified macros to place /micon at the end so that macro executes faster.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. General Pet Commands
II. In-Depth AI Behavior

a. Command Queuing
b. Auto-Healing

III. Faerie Macros

a. Cooldown Interrupt Macro (recommended)
b. Cooldown Queue Macro (not currently recommended)
c. Embrace Queue Macro

IV. Healing Macros

a. Embrace + Heal Macros
b. Mouse-Over Macros

V. Targeting And Attack Macros

a. To Macro Or Not To Macro?
b. Attack Macros

VI. Pet Space-Saving Macros

a. Heel + Place Macro
b. Commanding Multiple Pets From A Single Macro

VII. Non-Pet Space-Saving Macros

a. Pros
b. Cons
c. Evaluating Combinations
d. List Of Space-Saving Macros

VIII. Miscellaneous

a. Expanded Cross Hotbar
b. Assist
c. Garuda

Current as of Patch v3.25

Faeries seem to be the least understood aspect of the Scholar class. I had a very hard time finding in-depth information online. For many of my questions, I had to devise tests to find the answers for myself. This is basically the faerie guide that I had looked for, but couldn’t find.

This guide is intended for intermediate to advanced players. I am mostly assuming that you are familiar with the basics (e.g. what your abilities do, what macros are, focus targets, etc). Information on these basics is very easy to find online. The purpose of this guide is to delve into the deeper faerie mechanics that most guides don’t. The first sections will deal primarily with faerie mechanics and macros. I included other macros not directly related to faerie stuff in later sections.

One more note is that I am a PS4 player. While most of this guide is helpful for all users, some parts may be more relevant to controller users, especially things related to targeting.


PART I: GENERAL PET COMMANDS

The initially intimidating set of commands on the pet bar ultimately boils down to three parameters that you control by commands:

1. Use of Cooldowns (Sic / Obey).
2. Whether to attack or not (Steady / Guard).
3. Movement / Positioning (Heel / Stay / Place).

A. Sic / Obey

On Sic mode, you cannot control your faerie’s use of actions (including Embrace). This is not recommended for two reasons:
1. Faerie will blow her cooldowns at generally non-strategic moments (e.g. as soon as they are ready) and with 60 and 120-second cooldowns, you won’t usually have them when you really need them.
2. You cannot manually command Embrace, so she will not start casting until an eligible target in range falls below 80% health.

On Obey mode, your faerie will still auto-cast Embrace (more on that later), but will not use her other skills without your command. You can also command her to use Embrace when she isn’t doing it automatically. The rest of this guide assumes your faerie is on Obey.

A side note for Summoners and Arcanists: Sic and Obey also function as attack commands for their pets. If you command a pet to “Obey” while an enemy is targeted, it will attack that enemy.

B. Steady / Guard

Guard mode is basically the standard mode where pets can attack stuff, and Steady tells your pet to stop attacking. Attack commands, such as Sic or Obey, will change the pet back to Guard mode. For Scholars, however, there is no difference between these two modes because your faerie has no attacks and will still auto-heal on both.

C. Heel / Stay / Place

Heel is the default mode where your pet follows you around.
Stay commands the pet to stay where she is at the moment you issue the command.
Place commands your pet via targeting reticle to move to a specific place and stay there.

If your pet is on Stay or Place and affected by any knock-back or forced movement, she will NOT move back to where you placed her. It is generally recommended to use Heel on encounters where this is a factor.

Movement and positioning are important for two reasons. The first reason is to ensure party members will be within the relatively short radius of her abilities. The second reason is that, like you, she cannot move while casting. Eos can spend more time healing if she isn’t moving.

Pets take reduced damage from most AoEs. Pets currently have immunity to ground damage zones, which used to be the fastest way to kill your faerie before they made that change. Frontal cones are usually the primary thing to be mindful of. If the boss has knockback attacks that the faerie will be caught in, I usually avoid using place.


D. So Which Commands Do I Need On My Hotbar?

For Scholar, you need Heel, Place, all three cooldown abilities (preferably on macros), and Embrace (either on its own or macro’d with something else). I use a macro for Heel and Place to be on the same button to save space (more on that later). You need Obey, but it doesn’t have to take a precious space on your main bar since you only need it immediately after first summoning your faerie (faerie will stay on Obey if you resummon in the same play session). I stick my Summons on a separate bar and put Obey on that. You can also macro Obey into your Summoning if you desire (example macros listed in a later section).


PART II: IN-DEPTH AI BEHAVIOR


A. Command Queuing

Originally, faeries* had no capability to queue commands you issued while in the middle of casting Embrace. As of patch 2.5, that has changed… sort of. If your faerie is in the middle of an automatic casting of Embrace and you hit one of her three cooldown abilities, it will now queue and she will execute it when she finishes Embrace. However, if she is in the middle of a manually commanded casting of Embrace, she still does not queue. If you are going to optimize healing output by manually spamming Embrace, it is important to utilize an approach that works for both.

You cannot queue a casting of Embrace. You can only queue cooldown abilities.

*Note that Garuda operates the same way. Since no one manually casts Wind Blade, Garuda is effectively fixed and can queue properly without macros.


B. Auto-Healing

When you or an ally (including the faerie) in your party within range is below 80% HP, your faerie will automatically cast Embrace. Your faerie will prioritize healing you over other people or herself, and if your hit points are above 80%, she will heal the person with the lowest percentage HP.

My testing has identified two very significant problems/bugs with Embrace:
1. Embrace only has a range of 25y instead of the 30y listed range.
2. Auto-casting of Embrace only occurs within a range of approximately 21y.

This explains why sometimes she is on the ball with healing and other times, she is doing nothing while people are dying. I tested this for both pets on both Sic and Obey. I have submitted this as a bug report back in February of 2015 and like to think it might be fixed someday, but I am not holding my breath.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...57#post2795357

If you manually command your faerie to heal someone outside 25y, she will fly into range, heal, and fly back to where she was previously placed or to your side if on heel.

Again, here are the conditions for your faerie to auto-cast Embrace:
1. Party member within 21y is below 80% health.
2. Faerie is not moving (most of the time at least—my test results were not 100% consistent).
3. Embrace is not on cooldown.

The instant those conditions are met, your faerie will start casting. Since you cannot queue a casting of Embrace, commanding her to cast Embrace right before her cooldown is up doesn’t do anything. If the conditions for auto casting are met, there is basically nothing you can do to control her casting of Embrace.*

*There is technically a split second between when the cooldown expires and auto-cast happens where you can command her to heal someone manually. This window is approximately the same as the time it takes to move from one line of a macro to the next. To pull this off, your timing must be perfect and even button mashing yields inconsistent results. Naturally, we all have better things to focus our attention on in the heat of battle and macros cannot properly fix this.


PART III: FAERIE MACROS

The primary purpose for using macros for faerie commands is to fix what I believe are flaws or deficiencies in how the default faerie control works. With an understanding of how auto-casting works (and how little can be done to circumvent it), and that queuing of cooldown abilities only works during auto casts but not manual casts of Embrace, there are two primary goals we are using macros to accomplish:

1. To be able, at any moment, to press the button for a cooldown ability and have it execute reliably.
2. Cast Embrace on a target above 80% HP or at a range greater than 21 yalms.

There are two basic approaches to training: Interrupt Macros and Queue Macros.


A. Cooldown Interrupt Macro (recommended)

This is my preferred approach for cooldown abilities. The goal is to have your faerie drop whatever she is doing immediately and cast that ability.

There are five commands that will interrupt a faerie from casting Embrace: Steady, Guard, Heel, Stay, and Place. Place is not useful for this purpose. Stay and Heel work very reliably in macros: even if the command is the same mode the faerie is already on that movement mode or it prompts no actual movement, it still cancels. However, these are also movement commands. Ideally, we want our interrupt to be independent of movement.

The good news is there is a perfect interrupt macro. Before I wrote this guide, this was not common knowledge and I learned this from Manuka on the Official FF14 Forums.

/pac Steady
/pac Guard
/pac Whispering Dawn

This is basically a perfect interrupt macro. It works, is immediate, is not breakable, and does not mess up movement settings. The only downside is the error message that briefly displays on the screen.

This can be used for any faerie cooldown abilities. In Patch 2.5 (when they first rolled out the queuing function for faeries), this macro stopped working right for several abilities, but that was fixed in 3.0.

If you are interested in the nitty gritty details of how/why this works, read these next couple paragraphs. Otherwise, skip to the next section.
If you will remember from the first section, Steady and Guard are two sides of the same coin. If you flip from one to the other, it interrupts the faerie. If you issue a command for the mode she is already on, it does not cancel, so you can’t use Steady or Guard alone in your macro like you can for Stay. This macro will basically switch modes and then execute the ability immediately.

Since both commands are on the macro, one of them will work and interrupt, allowing the faerie skill to go off immediately. The other command that does not work will generate the error, “That order has already been given.” Since Steady and Guard cannot be executed back to back in rapid succession, you will always get that error from one of the commands, but that is nothing to be worried about.



B. Cooldown Queue Macro (not currently recommended)

This is generally not preferred over the interrupt method for cooldowns, but it can be applied to Embrace and can conceivably be useful in other situations (like in 2.5 when the interrupt didn’t work for several abilities). I don’t recommend this over the interrupt approach, but I’ll keep it in the guide as an alternative.

The basic premise here is there is a 1 second window between when Eos finishes casting Embrace and when she starts it again, and we want to set up multiple commands spaced out so that one of them will hit during that 1-second sweet spot. By writing our macro with an immediate cast and two casts separated by 1-second waits, we can achieve this. Here is a crude diagram:

. . . . x--------------x---------------X
0---------------1---------------2---------------3
0-Casting Embrace--------------2-Cooldown----3-Starts casting again

Example:
/pac “Fey Covenant”
/wait
/pac “Fey Covenant”
/wait
/pac “Fey Covenant”
/micon “Fey Covenant” pet “Eos”

I used to recommend this method for controlling Garuda, but that is not necessary anymore.


C. Embrace Queue Macro

This is the same concept as the queue macro above but for Embrace. The nice thing about using a queue macro for Embrace is that you can hit it once while your faerie is still casting Embrace, and know that she will get off another cast when she finishes. I much prefer this to button mashing or having to watch my faerie’s cooldown timer. This macro is very handy for keeping the tank topped off while DPSing from Cleric Stance.

Remember that if a party member within 21y is below 80% health, Eos will auto cast Embrace. If those conditions are met, you have no control over Embrace whatsoever. Manual control of Embrace is for two situations:

A. Healing when no one is below 80%.
B. Healing someone outside 21 yalms.

/pac “Embrace” <t>
/wait
/pac “Embrace” <t>
/wait
/pac “Embrace” <t>
/micon “Embrace” pet “Eos”

The <t> ensures that if you have no target selected, your faerie will not execute the command (instead of self-healing). Unfortunately, this does not prevent self-healing when an enemy is targeted.

/Micon is placed at the end because each line of a macro is read/executed with a split second delay in between. Having it at the beginning delays the macro unnecessarily by a fraction of a second. It works just fine at the end.

Two things to keep in mind with this:

1. If you execute another macro, it will stop this one in its tracks. Since I use macros for my attacks, I will usually start casting my own spell first then hit this macro.
2. Your faerie will cast Embrace on whatever you have targeted at the time the macro executes that line. If you are switching around targets looking at enemies, this can cause her to do a self-heal. For this to work well, you need to be able to keep the tank as your main target.

There is a reason why I stopped at three casts of Embrace on the macro. If you put a fourth cast of Embrace on your macro, it can result in her casting twice, which may be undesired if healing a DPS. Since your global cooldown is 2.5 seconds, using the three casts means that when the macro is finished, you are only half a second away from casting another one of your spells anyways (which, if you use a macro for attacks, would cut your embrace macro short if you had made it longer).

Utilizing a macro like this requires you to keep the tank (or whoever you want to heal) targeted constantly. A good Scholar can DPS while spamming Embrace on the tank. If you use this macro, you will need an appropriate method for targeting your attacks while the tank is your main target. Towards the end of the guide, I explain how my targeting scheme works.


PART IV: HEALING MACROS

A. Embrace + Heal Macros

These are rather popular. I have a better version (so don’t copy/paste and use this one), but the most basic form you will see online is:
/micon Physick
/ac Physick
/pac Embrace

Until discovering the range issues for Embrace (25y range, 21y auto-cast range), I didn’t see a lot of point to them because if you are casting heal on someone, they are probably below 80% and Eos is already doing it on her own. Knowing what I know now, I use my own version of this macro as a means of partially compensating for the bugged range of Embrace.

Some people macro this into everything under the sun, like Leeches or Lustrate. Since there are situations where I would want one without the other, I don’t do that. Also, being able to queue Lustrate properly is really nice in a panic situation so I avoid using a macro for it. I just use this with Physick and Adloquium.

Some people will just use this macro and don’t have a dedicated Embrace macro to save space. To use Embrace without the attached Physick/Adlo, you can either start casting something else first then hit your Embrace+heal macro or do it while moving so that your heal cannot successfully execute.

Embrace is on a 3-second cooldown, but your spells are on a 2.5-second cooldown. The basic Embrace+Heal macro works great on the first cast, but if you immediately cast again when you finish your spell, Eos won’t be ready and her cast won’t execute. You can hit your macro again in mid-cast when Eos is ready, but each successive cast will bring her cooldown another .5 seconds out of sync with yours. Since this is hard to keep track of, the end result is you either mash the button or miss opportunities to cast Embrace. Integrating a queue macro eliminates these problems.

Here is my improved macro:

/ac Physick
/pac Embrace <t>
/wait
/pac Embrace <t>
/wait
/pac Embrace <t>
/micon Physick

The use of <t> prevents the faerie from self-healing herself when you have no target selected. This way, you can heal yourself by having no target without possibly triggering faerie self-heals (although chances are good she will likely be busy auto-casting on you anyways, so situations where this would make a difference are rare).

/micon is placed at the end because having it at the beginning delays your macro a split second unnecessarily.


B. Mouse-Over Macros

I’m a PS4 player, so I can’t use these and can’t say I recommend them, but they do sometimes sound nice. Since quite a few PC players swear by these, I will include the basic macro here:

/ac Physick <mo>
/ac Physick <t>
/pac Embrace <mo>
/pac Embrace <t>
/micon Physick

I wouldn’t recommend attempting a queue macro with mouseover, because if you move your mouse around, you could end up healing someone else or, worse yet, targeting a monster, triggering a self-heal for Eos. I think this type of macro works better for a White Mage than a Scholar because they don’t have to worry about pet commands.


PART V: TARGETING AND ATTACK MACROS

For the scholar more than any other class, it is important to have a solid approach to targeting. Scholar is the only class that will find itself in a situation where it needs to have two separate targets simultaneously: one for faerie healing and another for DPS. The basic game targeting system does not accommodate this well, especially for us console players, so I have turned to macros for a solution.

I am a PS4 user, so this section may or may not be useful for keyboard and mouse players. It is possible that my setup may be designed around problems that don't exist with a keyboard and mouse.

When it comes to creative macro-based targeting arrangements, it is best to do them with attacks rather than heals. Why? Because if an attack is executed with an invalid target (an ally or nothing), it simply won’t go off and the macro can move on to the next line. If a heal is executed with an invalid target (an enemy or nothing), then it will target the caster for a self-heal (which will trigger Eos to heal herself, not you). The whole self-heal thing was nice when you were playing by yourself at low levels, but it is now an annoyance.

All of my healing abilities are set so that I have to actually target the person I am healing. This ensures no unintentional self-heals as well as no situations where I can’t take control back from the macro (like if you prioritize focus target or party position numbers for heals). I then have attack macros that enable me to attack while keeping the tank targeted.


A. To Macro Or Not To Macro?

Some people say to never macro attack abilities because you lose the ability to hit the button in advance and have the ability execute immediately upon being ready, resulting in a loss in DPS efficiency. That is true, but the amount of loss in efficiency depends on the player’s skill. With good timing and practice, it is possible to execute fast enough to have hardly any loss to DPS. I have tested macro and non-macro and found the difference for me was not noticeable (got this thing on muscle memory after doing it for years with macros).

Furthermore, the importance of a small loss in DPS efficiency is debatable for a healer. I don’t use these macros as a DPS (SMN), but as a healer, healing is my primary job, not DPS. An arrangement where I keep the tank targeted while DPSing allows me to react considerably faster with healing than if I had to switch targets back to the tank. On a general level, I will gladly sacrifice a tiny amount of efficiency in DPSing for more efficiency and faster response in healing.

Lastly, the alternative to this involves a LOT of target changing if I’m going to be DPSing and manually commanding Embrace at the same time. Aside from having the potential to drive a person insane, doing this also is very clunky and inefficient, and you’ll lose much more efficiency on both the healing and the damage. At least that is the case on console. PC players can probably pull that off using a mouse with much less issues.


B. Attack Macros

For designing my attack macros, there are several goals I have:
1. I want to be able to keep the tank targeted for faerie healing purposes while casting attacks.
2. I want to be able to stack my 3 DoTs and Bane on the same enemy, while having the tank targeted, and have it still work if the tank is rotating targets.
3. I want to ensure I can take control back from the macro and specify whom to target if I need to.

Here is how I do it:

/ac Bio <t>
/ac Bio <f>
/ac Bio <tt>
/micon Bio

First line is a good old-fashioned <t>. This means that if I have an enemy actually targeted, that will always take priority over the rest of the macro. Manual control: check.

Having <f> as my second line on the macro allows me to designate a target I want to attack, regardless of what anyone else is doing or who I am targeting. If I want to pile my DoTs and Bane on an enemy, I will designate him as my focus target and then switch back to the tank for Embrace and all my attacks will hit my focus.

Lastly, having <tt> means that if I am targeting the tank and don’t have a focus target specified, then my attacks will hit whoever the tank is hitting. I use this when I simply don’t care who I am hitting and just want to attack something.


PART VI: PET SPACE-SAVING MACROS

A. Heel + Place Macro

/pac Heel
/pac Place
/micon Place pet Eos

This is another one I learned from Manuka. This is a space-saving macro, so that you can use one slot instead of two for these essential commands. If you want to Place your pet somewhere, this will pull up the targeting reticle for you. If you want your pet to Heel, then you just cancel out of the targeting reticle.


B. Commanding Multiple Pets From A Single Macro

All of your pets have the same number of abilities. To simplify life and save space, I write commands for multiple pets into the same macro. For example, here is my Whispering Dawn / Silent Dusk macro:

/ac Rouse
/pac Steady
/pac Guard
/pac “Whispering Dawn”
/pac “Silent Dusk” <t>
/pac “Silent Dusk” <f>
/pac “Silent Dusk” <tt>
/macroicon “Whispering Dawn” pet Eos

The basic concept for this section is to have one set of four macros command both pets. Embrace automatically works with both pets in a macro. The downside is you can only have the icons for one pet, but that is a minor tradeoff. You can put the command for the other pet onto a hotbar if you want to be able to see it.

For Summoner, since their basic attack is automatic, I have Obey on my hotbar as an attack command in the same slot I use for Embrace. I used to use a set of 4 macros to command all 3 Summoner Egis, but since Garuda doesn’t need macros anymore, I have my summoning macros change which commands are on my bar (macro is included later in this guide).

A side-note on Rouse: I never use Rouse on Eos without Whispering Dawn. If you use Rouse on its own, your faerie can get in 6 casts of Embrace with a total of 720 extra healing (6*300*.4). Adding 40% to Whispering Dawn to that gives you another 280 over time and Eos can still do 5 casts of Embrace on top of that, for a total of 880 extra healing. The real value, however, is in party healing. 280 x 4 party members = 1120. 280 x 8 party members = 2240. The opportunity cost of how much healing you lose on Whispering Dawn without Rouse is simply too high IMO to use Rouse without it. On top of that, they also both have 60 second timers so they will always be ready together if you use them together.


The other multiple command pet macros I use are:

/pac Steady
/pac Guard
/pac “Fey Covenant”
/pac “Fey Caress”
/micon “Fey Covenant” pet Eos

/pac Steady
/pac Guard
/pac “Fey Illumination”
/pac “Fey Wind”
/micon “Fey Illumination” pet Eos

Feel free to make your own and combine the abilities differently so that each one is on the button that feels most natural to you.


PART VII: NON-PET SPACE-SAVING MACROS

Of all the classes in the game, Scholar and Summoner have the most difficult task of Cross Hotbar management. For the PS3/4 player, there is simply not enough space to fit everything you need in the 32 slots of your Cross Hotbar and Expanded Cross Hotbar (see Section 8A if you don’t know what that is). Here are all the things you have to fit:

18 class actions
10 job actions
5 cross class skills
2 generic actions (sprint + limit break, which is arguably non-essential, but really important on the rare occasion when you need it)
4 pet abilities to manually command
3 essential generic pet commands (heel, place, obey)
42 total.

That is not going to fit on two Cross Hotbars. Certain abilities are not needed as readily and can be put on a 3rd Cross Hotbar that will require switching to go access:

Summon 1
Summon 2
Protect
Obey
Sprint
Limit Break
(I also put Swiftcast on bar 3 to access quickly for summons, but I also have it on my main bar so we won’t count that in how many spaces we are saving.)

That brings us down to 36 abilities for our 32 prime slots.
At this point, we have two options:
1. Start prioritizing and putting more abilities into Cross Hotbar #3.
2. Use macros to save space.


A. Pros

1. Saves space.
Console players need to make everything fit and this is one way to do it. In my mind, these are a lesser evil than sticking abilities I need quick access to on the 3rd cross hotbar.


2. Some abilities actually pair together naturally.
A great example of this is Eye For An Eye and Deployment Tactics. Having them share a button actually makes it easier to keep track of mentally, rather than harder.


B. Cons

1. Abilities do not “queue.”
Normally, you can hit the button for an ability a good half second or so before your character is actually ready to use it and your character will queue the ability to use when they are ready. With spells that have cast times, it’s easy to see the bar and tell if your character is busy or ready to do something else, but with everything else, there is an unseen cooldown of a half second or a second before you can execute another ability. Abilities on macros don’t queue, so if you hit it too early, it just won’t work.


2. If your timing is wrong, you may execute the wrong ability.
Macros execute each line in sequence with a split second delay in between. Say we are working with the following macro:

/ac “Eye For An Eye”
/ac “Deployment Tactics”

Let’s say you had just hit Virus before using this macro and you hit this macro a little too quickly so Eye For An Eye can’t execute because it’s too soon. If you timed it just right (or wrong), then a split second later when the line for Deployment Tactics comes up, it might be ready to go. The end result is that Deployment Tactics goes off instead of Eye For An Eye.


3. You have to adjust your timing around the macro.
Multiple ability macros require a certain degree of player discipline and skill. You can't just hit the button whenever and take for granted that it will work. You have to learn the timing and not hit the ability too early. This takes time and practice. I’ve gotten used to mine and they serve me well, but I can’t necessarily recommend all of them to everyone. It is also worth noting that some of these are pretty safe and you can mash the button, but others require being careful.


C. Evaluating Combinations

Combining two abilities together in a macro should not be taken lightly. I usually cringe when a macro thread comes up on the forum. Remember that the purpose is to save space while keeping everything you need readily accessible. Here the main guiding question I use:

Are there any situations where I would want to use Ability 2 without using Ability 1 first?

For example, are there any situations where I would want to use Deployment Tactics without using Eye For An Eye first? Not really. The only thing that comes to mind is if I’m cutting it close to shield the party from an AoE and want to skip E4E to save time. Ideally, I would want to make sure I have time to do both and have decided to work on my timing as a player instead of leaving the abilities separate. I have thought it through and deemed it an acceptable trade for the space.


D. List Of Space-Saving Macros

One little note: For most of these macros, if you hit it once (not too soon of course) and the first ability is available, it will just execute the first one. You will have to hit the macro again to execute the second ability.

Without further adieu, here are the multiple ability macros I use (in addition to the ones from Section VI). Again, some of these do take practice to get used to and they are not for everyone.

Swiftcast / Resurrection

/ac “Swiftcast”
/ac “Resurrection”
/micon “Swiftcast”

This is actually a pretty neat macro with almost no risks. If you don’t have a dead party member targeted, then the Resurrection part does nothing and you can just use this as Swiftcast. You still have to be mindful of the timing and lack of queue (although you can compensate by mashing the button). The two downsides are that you can’t use a Res announcement macro if you take this approach and that you can’t tell if someone is in range for Res by seeing if the icon is lit up or not.


Broil / Ruin

/merror off
/ac “Broil” <t>
/ac “Broil” <f>
/ac “Broil” <tt>
/ac “Broil” <t>
/ac “Broil” <f>
/ac “Broil” <tt>
/ac “Ruin <t>
/ac “Ruin” <f>
/ac “Ruin” <tt>
/micon “Broil”

The premise behind this is once you have Broil, you won’t want to use Ruin I unless you are level synced down and don’t have Broil. I have Broil taking up 6 lines of macro so that creates a little ghetto queue so I have a little leeway to hit the button slightly early and have it still work. If I time it too early, I may end up with a Ruin I, which isn’t a big deal.


Eye For An Eye / Deployment Tactics

/ac “Eye For An Eye”
/ac “Deployment Tactics”
/micon “Eye For An Eye”

This one works pretty well. Just be careful not to hit the button too soon, as with all of these.


Energy Drain / Aetherflow

/merror off
/ac “Energy Drain” <t>
/ac “Energy Drain” <tt>
/ac “Aetherflow”
/micon “Aetherflow”

Whenever I say stuff like “these aren’t for everybody,” this is the macro I have in mind. On the one hand, passes the test of "would I ever want to use Aetherflow without burning my remaining stacks on Energy Drain?" On the other hand, this one has taken more effort to get used to than any of the other ones. However, I’ve got it down now and it would be more hassle for me to get rid of it than to stick with what I’m used to. Biggest thing to be aware of (beyond the normal timing) is the 5 second cooldown for Energy Drain if you are trying to use multiple Energy Drains. I don't use my usual <f> target line on this one anymore because I've accidentally pulled with it.

This is actually a lot more dangerous for a Summoner than for Scholar because accidentally refreshing Aetherflow instead of firing Energy Drain can mess up a Summoner’s Aethertrail Attunement stacks, whereas it’s not a huge deal for Scholar. I probably wouldn’t recommend this one but if you’re hard up for space, this is an option you can consider.


Physick (or Adlo) / Embrace

If you use these macros (refer to Section IV for more info), then you could get away with not taking up a button for a dedicated Embrace spam macro. I have enough space so I still have a dedicated Embrace button, but this is what I would probably recommend to save a slot instead of using the Energy Drain / Aetherflow macro. To use Embrace without Physick on this macro, you would simply hit the macro while you were busy moving or casting something else so the Physick part couldn’t go off.


Don’t forget about some of the pet based ones from the previous section. I won’t put them in full detail since they are discussed up there, but I will just list them here:
Heel / Place
Rouse / Whispering Dawn / Silent Dusk
Fey Covenant / Fey Caress
Fey Illumination / Fey Wind


PART VIII: MISCELLANEOUS

A. Expanded Cross Hotbar

This is an absolute necessity for controller users. This feature enables you to access a second cross hotbar by using L2 and R2 together, effectively giving you easy access to 32 abilities, which is barely enough for most classes and not enough for Scholar or Summoner.

Character Configuration -> Hotbar Settings -> Cross -> Expanded Hold Controls

First you need to check "Enable expanded controls with simultaneous L2 and R2."

Next you need to decide what L2+R2 and R2+L2 will do.
What I do is set them to Cross Hotbar 2 Left and Right, respectively.

My basic setup is Cross Hotbar 1 is my regular one, Cross Hotbar 2 is my expanded one, and Cross Hotbar 3 is for stuff I don’t have room for in the first two and don’t need quite as readily accessible. I also make sure all 3 of those are not shared between classes.


B. Assist

This is a neat little command. What this does is it changes your target to whatever your current target is targeting. So for example, if you have the boss targeted, using Assist will switch your target to the tank (hopefully he’s the one who has aggro). Now that the tank is your target, hitting Assist again will switch back to the boss if that is who the tank is targeting. This has many uses, one of which is for healing people outside my party. If I am in a Fate or a 24-man, I can use Assist to target whoever the boss is attacking. Another good use for this is to make sure you’re still on the boss’s target by just hitting this thing twice. When there are tank swaps that may or may not happen, this helps you stay on the ball.

The really nice thing about Assist is you don’t have to waste one of your precious Cross Hotbar slots on it. While Assist can be used in a macro, you can instead assign R3 to Assist and then set another preference to activate first person simply by zooming in and out with the camera (which I actually prefer as it is less jarring than using R3 to activate first person).

To assign Assist on PS3/4, you have to go to the System Preferences and go into controls to reassign the R3 button.


C. Garuda

Garuda used to have issues with not being able to queue abilities and I had a little guide for macros for her. That is no longer necessary. The difference between Garuda and faeries is that the faeries can’t queue cooldown commands properly if they are in the middle of doing a manual casting of Embrace. Since Garuda’s attacks with a cast time are all auto-cast, never manual, the built-in queue works fine 100% of the time for her.

Other Summoner pets don’t have these issues because their auto attacks are all instant.


CLOSING

Thank you for reading. I hope this guide was helpful for you. Feel free to post with feedback.

[VanilleFang]

I don't SCH but this looks like a useful guide. Lots of stuff I personally didn't know, and found interesting. I was thinking of playing some SCH on occasion so this could be helpful.

[Sebazy]

I'll be giving your interrupt macro a go methinks, been using /heel for a while now and it's a nuisance in certain situations. Ta =)

[DarkerOrange]

Thank you for sharing that interrupt macro, have been using heel but that is so much more convenient Selene's buffs now go off when I ask her to do them AND she doesn't move to the wrong places haha.

EDIT: Also, forgive me if I'm being blind/stupid (delete as appropriate), but did you ever explain why there are several Silent Dusk commands in your Whisp macro?

[Tranquil]

It doesn't really matter if you interrupt with Stay/Guard/Steady, just don't do it with Heel. Guard/Steady have no difference on a SCH (auto-Embraces still happen) and Stay won't do anything to override your previous Place -command, as your fairy is there anyway (and you would have Placed her anyway).

@DarkerOrange: it's so that his/her Silent Dusk will still go out regardless of who the SCH is targeting at present.

Anyway, I think there's some good information in here for many a person and the content is good, though I can't really stand behind all this macro-reliance on a personal level (like the DPS-ones for instance). Maybe it does help more if you're playing on a controller though, with more limited space and being unable to execute commands simultaneously like with KB+M. Still, good write-up, OP, should help clear up some misconceptions/shed light on some things for people who don't know about this stuff on a mechanical level.

[DarkerOrange]

Ahhh, I see. Stupid it is then :P

I wouldn't say I'm reliant on my macros, but stuff like <mo> and interrupts make life much simpler.

[giantslayer]

The problem with Stay is if you forget to switch her back to heel. I know people get used to it, but I prefer not to have to remember in the first place. There are also fights where I want Eos to follow me.

As a controller user, my optimal setup may differ from a PC user. I'm gonna update the intro to mention I am on PS4.

[Tranquil]

The problem with Stay is if you forget to switch her back to heel. I know people get used to it, but I prefer not to have to remember in the first place. There are also fights where I want Eos to follow me.

Just curious, in which fights would you prefer to have Eos (or any fairy) on Heel?

Also, having macros is fine and I am not calling out macro-users in any way, I have some too. (Though TT-Embrace is the only healing related one I use apart from /Stay interrupts). The side-remark I made in my previous post was mainly me voicing my opinion concerning macros and that the more macros you have, the clunkier the result will likely be, with less control and precision available to the SCH (this mainly applies to stuff like macroing your dots etc., or macroing things together with heals and the like, instead of just having a TT-Embrace spam macro and calling it a day, or manually spam targeted Embrace with a keybind).

But as mentioned, each to his own, and being on a console/controller, some macros can help achieving a more dexterous playstyle.

[Layla-chan]

I love the place/heel macro and how you can use guard/obey as an interrupt, I had been using stay/heel in separate macros, this will really streamline everything! Thank you!

As contribution, /macrolock is a great command to use in some macros. It basically locks out other macros from being activated until all lines below the /macrolock line has been done, and thus can protect certain faerie commands from interruption.

For example, my macro for Whispering Dawn (converting it into "Steady/Guard" interrupt) is

/macroicon "Whispering Dawn" pet Eos
/macrolock
/pac Steady
/pac Guard
/pac "Whispering Dawn" <wait.2>

This ensures that WD gets cast even if you accidentally mash the button or even press another macro with interrupt. However, since /macrolock will prevent you from activating another macro until the macro with it has run through, macros using this command may interrupt your Embrace + Heal macros, which is one reason I do not use such macros.

Other reasons for me not using Embrace + Heal Macros are these babies:

/focustarget
/echo Embrace eternity, <f>!
/pac "Embrace" <f> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <f> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <f> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <f> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <f> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <f> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <f> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <f> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <f> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <f> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <f> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <f> <wait.2>
/echo <p> asks: Should I heal again, Mistress? <se.11>

/echo Embrace eternity, <2>!
/pac "Embrace" <2> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <2> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <2> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <2> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <2> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <2> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <2> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <2> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <2> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <2> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <2> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <2> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <2> <wait.2>
/echo <p> asks: Should I heal again, Mistress? <se.11>

/echo Embrace eternity, <3>!
/pac "Embrace" <3> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <3> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <3> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <3> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <3> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <3> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <3> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <3> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <3> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <3> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <3> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <3> <wait.2>
/pac "Embrace" <3> <wait.2>
/echo <p> asks: Should I heal again, Mistress? <se.11>

These macros force my faerie to heal my focustarget, Tank 1 or Tank 2 (respectively) for 5-8 consecutive times (see the wait 2 secs? They work as "cooldown ques" per the terms used here) unless another macro is used to interrupt it. This lets me focus on healing other members of my group as needed. Of course when I use another macro I have to reapply one of those macros if I need to.

[SeraviEdalborez]

Other reasons for me not using Embrace + Heal Macros are these babies:.

I pitched this exact style of macro over 6 months ago and everyone thought it was pointless because it "doesn't let you use other macros". Glad to see at least one person understands the value in it.