Attention Scholars: Always place your Fairy!

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Originally Posted by sosowie

I'm not understanding what you guys are quibbling about then. As you've so aptly summarized here, one person is advocating placement to prevent delayed casts, while you're saying minimizing movements achieves more or less the same thing. And since you're both advocating micromanaging faerie heals when possible... what's the issue?

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It is quibbling, but there is an important distinction. This thread is advocating the placement of fairies after the primary reason for doing so was removed. While I may occasionally have an issue with my fairy taking damage because she is casting while I'm moving, that problem is NOT solved by placement (arguably, it's worse).

If you viewed the video, the other scholar almost runs to the other side of the area when Caduceus splits. That's a horrible strategy. Even worse, he pigeonholed his fairy onto one tank and did the same thing on the other tank. The fairy has no chance to keep the other tank alive alone. It also wouldn't help a white mage much. The fairy has pretty low throughput so it's best to use to spike in conjunction with Physick or to keep ppl topped off from incidental damage (for when Succor would be too inefficient to use).

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Originally Posted by FinagleABagel

When you have zero range issues and independent casting, what advantage does placing your fairy have over someone who doesn't place it but manually controls it in the same fashion?

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There is one advantage. She does in fact cast Embrace more frequently when placed. You however are correct in that if you don't have range limitations you can just manually control her. The one and only really quality of life advantage you have by placing her is that she will cast more often and STAY on steady and not cast Whispering Dawn because you are not forcing her to cure and thus not kicking her out of the stance. In a fight with no range limitations that is really the only advantage.

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Originally Posted by Maku

There is one advantage. She does in fact cast Embrace more frequently when placed. You however are correct in that if you don't have range limitations you can just manually control her. The one and only really quality of life advantage you have by placing her is that she will cast more often and STAY on steady and not cast Whispering Dawn because you are not forcing her to cure and thus not kicking her out of the stance. In a fight with no range limitations that is really the only advantage.

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That's what I thought...I pretty much never let Eos do her thing when in Coil. The AI is just too wonky and maladjusted to deal with Coil damage.

If I could define target priorities and HP thresholds (% of HP by job), then I think placing becomes viable again. I just can't get over the lack of such basic functionality that has existed in games for healer type pets for years....

Ok tried the placed fairies in the Stone Vigil. I don't know if I were more efficient but at least I was way way less busy and could afford to go AFK while in combat if I needed to.
Got to try at the Aurum Vale, this one is really going to mean something.

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Originally Posted by XNihili

Ok tried the placed fairies in the Stone Vigil. I don't know if I were more efficient but at least I was way way less busy and could afford to go AFK while in combat if I needed to.
Got to try at the Aurum Vale, this one is really going to mean something.

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The AI casts faster when they are placed. They might cast faster when they are in stay as well but I have never tested this. That is why you noticed you were doing less cause the faerie was in fact healing more often.

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Originally Posted by Rainsford

You guys are missing what I'm saying. It has nothing to do with distance/location. The Fairy AI behaves differently depending on if it's on Heel or Place. On Heel, it will often times wait 3-4 seconds between casting Embraces. If it's on Place, it will fire off heals non-stop with no delay until everyone is above 80%, and she will typically top people off since she will begin casting a second Embrace before the first one has even hit.

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Let them go about how they want to play, when they cannot down certain bosses due to a lack of healing/skill and understanding their role, they will understand they are missing a vital mechanic of their class. Moreover, this separates the good's from the bad's lol.. been known this since day 1 when i became a SCH Aug 28 lolz.

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Originally Posted by Maku

The AI casts faster when they are placed. They might cast faster when they are in stay as well but I have never tested this. That is why you noticed you were doing less cause the faerie was in fact healing more often.

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I'm pretty sure that the fairy was casting as much (if not more) before when not placed as it did with this run. I know because I was ordering any and every of its healing cast. The AI is not the best at picking the right person to heal but it's ok most of the time and it's way less stressful.

Just get a proper keyboard/mouse bind both your embrace and your pysick to the same key... and overheal like a baws...

Pros:

Split the aggro with your pet
600 (almost cure II) for 133 mana
Can heal 2 targets at the same time if you use a mouse over macro
More heals = more crits from fearie = more spell speed with trait
did i already say you heal with a potency for 133 mana?!

Cons:

Havent found one yet.


So yea i dont use place on my faerie only on some bosses where it actualy has a benefit like it not getting hit by aoe. For the rest i leave it by my side as an extension of myself.

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Originally Posted by Hysterior

you mentioned AK and I hate placing my fairy during the Demon Wall
I will always keep her on heel for that fight, the 2 other bosses I place her.

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Demon wall is perfectly fine, what I do is place her in the middle so she can reach any of us and let her do her thing. Casting Succor after each position change prevents her from being hit at all - adloquium blocks all damage since her def is insane, not to mention the HP. So far, the only fight where she died for me was hydra, when she landed in the ball of fire AoE.

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Originally Posted by FinagleABagel

Ignore the OP, she's wrong.

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OP isn't wrong if you let the fairy do her thing. Some people prefer to set her to full manual and direct her healing. Others (like me) prefer to adapt to her AI and let her be the support healer. Most of the times I manage to place her so that I can pop Rouse right before she casts whispering dawn etc. I'm not questioning manually controlling whispering dawn is more effective, but honestly, it's not that much of a difference. I can't talk about coil yet, but up to titan, you really don't have to tell her what to do. As long as you can anticipate what the AI will do.

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Originally Posted by Maku

The AI casts faster when they are placed. They might cast faster when they are in stay as well but I have never tested this. That is why you noticed you were doing less cause the faerie was in fact healing more often.

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It's not casting faster, it just appears so. If you have her on heel, she will move each time you move, even if it's only one step. She might not appear to be moving on screen, but what the code seem to do is tell her to move from x,y to x,y (i.e. not move) but it still does seem to reset her casting. On place/stay however, this check doesn't seem to be there. Which is why she is casting as fast as she can.

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Originally Posted by fnt

Just get a proper keyboard/mouse bind both your embrace and your pysick to the same key... and overheal like a baws...

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Better yet, just write a macro. Also usable on gamepad

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Cons:

Havent found one yet.

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Not being able to heal multiple players at the same time. What I do is not go for the target with the lowest hp unless it's critically low. The fairy (roused) will target that one - meanwhile I get the second lowest. Then switch, if needed (usually, it's not)

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Originally Posted by Soukyuu

It's not casting faster, it just appears so. If you have her on heel, she will move each time you move, even if it's only one step. She might not appear to be moving on screen, but what the code seem to do is tell her to move from x,y to x,y (i.e. not move) but it still does seem to reset her casting. On place/stay however, this check doesn't seem to be there. Which is why she is casting as fast as she can.

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So what you are saying is she casts faster when on place or stay because she doesn't have the movement check. ^^

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Originally Posted by Maku

So what you are saying is she casts faster when on place or stay because she doesn't have the movement check. ^^

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Yes. They should have made a proper moving check, that doesn't direct her to move to the same location as she already is at. Or at least that's what it looks to me.

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Originally Posted by Rainsford

OP

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using the place command is situational and i would not encourage a new sch to place their faery constantly.. instead i would encourage them to learn how to manually heal with her..

I use gamepad and i have my heal set to A and my faeries heal set to B.. if i need big heals i slide over the 2 to make one large heal from the both of us if i need a constant stream of heals i tap both one after the other..

In AK as you suggested to practise placing.. I only place my faery twice.. once on the wall you should place her in the middle as the floor aoe only gives heavy and doesnt effect her healing.. and i also place her next to the tank in the final boss (but behind the bosses head so she doesnt get hit) eos can solo heal the tank in this fight, even on cleric stance and i tend to DPS most of the fight (granted this is with my static group)

I barely place her at all in other places but get full use out of her manually.

I'd like to see some numbers placed vs. heeled (parser ?) for this, because as far as I can tell when someone is low and you are moving she stops and heals.

I'm now placing her every time I'm in a fight where people don't have to move too much and too far. You can still order her around even if she is placed but she won't move to heal someone who is too far away.
Still if you don't place her, asking her to heal before moving yourself is making her heal before the moving check (or she will move and heal if the target is too far).

Long story short, all the debate about placing Vs not placing could be averted if SE would just fix the damn AI, so that they didn't come out of steady and burn all their CD's if you try order them to cast embrace and/or let us macro pet commands

i dont ever see the reason to manually heal with the pet now i do place her it is better pop her to the side of the tank and she will heal her ass off put her in the middle she will heal everyone i will heal tank decent if you need more heals to tank pop her right next to it

I used to place the fairy constantly, but I haven't bothered since I hit 50 in 90% of the time. There are just SO many knockbacks that you will constantly be adjusting your fairy. I don't know if its just an issue I have or not, but I find the button to place her to be bugged a bit. Sometimes I'll click on it but it won't actually activate it, being no AoE indicator around my cursor. Sometimes I'll have to stop and click it 2-3 times which at least until the recent patch meant I had to stop healing for that time.

Now I just move myself to where the fairy will be the most useful, and manually avoid AoEs. It is MUCH easier than moving the fairy around all the time. If I see the AoE regen is almost off cooldown I just run in range of everybody and let her use it, then run away. I'm manually spamming "Embrace" as well, so she always moves close enough to heal someone. The only time I actually place her is at the last boss in AK, simply because I stand at a different statue than everyone else and when I have to hide, I'm out of range to heal.

Also I find that she dies VERY quickly if I manually place her, because she's always in range of AoE's

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Originally Posted by Soukyuu

Better yet, just write a macro. Also usable on gamepad

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If you mean keyboard macro, yes. If you mean ingame macro.. call me when you are able to.

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Originally Posted by Soukyuu

Not being able to heal multiple players at the same time. What I do is not go for the target with the lowest hp unless it's critically low. The fairy (roused) will target that one - meanwhile I get the second lowest. Then switch, if needed (usually, it's not)

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Your pet will still heal Critical target above the selected target... it just heals now instead of picking her nose while waiting for some to below 80%



So OT... yea placing your pet is better then let if float arround... but binding it this way is the best way.

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Originally Posted by fnt

If you mean keyboard macro, yes. If you mean ingame macro.. call me when you are able to.

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Hmm, I never tried to macro it because I'm against manual fairy control except for placing her.
Are you saying you can't do /ac Embrace?

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Originally Posted by peaches

Also I find that she dies VERY quickly if I manually place her, because she's always in range of AoE's

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The keyword here would be "sustain".

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Originally Posted by Soukyuu

Hmm, I never tried to macro it because I'm against manual fairy control except for placing her.
Are you saying you can't do /ac Embrace?

The keyword here would be "sustain".

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You cant, macro him in game. Thats why you need to keyboard to press 2 keys at the same time.

Any why against it? You giving out free heals... you faerie is now wasting most of his time waiting for some to need a heal...

I don't manual my fairy. I will place her sometimes, like in AK for the last boss I drop her behind the pillar. Aside from that I don't give a crap what she does. Good healer shouldn't rely on their pet. Although for the last boss in Ak all I do is remove the debuff and let her heal the tank and I dps.

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Originally Posted by Darkoray

I don't manual my fairy. I will place her sometimes, like in AK for the last boss I drop her behind the pillar. Aside from that I don't give a crap what she does. Good healer shouldn't rely on their pet. Although for the last boss in Ak all I do is remove the debuff and let her heal the tank and I dps.

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/facepalm
you need to stop playing SCH right now, just retire it if u honestly believe that you shouldnt depend on your fairy, if you dont maximize and depend on your fairy then you are simply a gimp undergeared WHM. That right there is why SCH isnt seen as OP because few players actually know how to play the job.

Really what you just said in whm terms would be " I dont use cure 2, good healers shouldnt rely on cure 2" because the difference between healing by yourself and healing alongside your fairy is the difference between a whm exclusively using cure 1 and using cure 1 and cure 2 when needed.


tldr; the fairy is the bread and butter of sch, if your not maximizing on its usefulness your not playing SCH right period.

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Originally Posted by Garnatian

There's no such thing as "Microing" your Fairy.

You get very little control over your Fairy and even things like Steadying it do more Harm than good because you can't use Embrace without it breaking out of Steady so you lose out on overall Healing.

Placing your pet gives you little benefit and even the benefit it provides has its consequences, i.e. it has to move to heal targets away from the Tank. You're better off placing yourself in the middle of the group so the Fairy can hit everything with Embrace and you can hit everything with Succor and just spend the entire fight spamming the Embrace hotkey in-between all of your heals.

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This is my experience so far (Only Haukke's and Brayflow with Scholar skills, sub-30 dungeons don't let me use any of the fun ones (Bane/Adloquim) I've discovered). I had some trouble with Brayflow though, because the tank is always on the move, and everyone else is staying to the edges... and it's a big boss fight arena... but otherwise I've found it's best to try to be half way between the ranged fighters and the melee fighters.

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Originally Posted by fnt

You cant, macro him in game. Thats why you need to keyboard to press 2 keys at the same time.

Any why against it? You giving out free heals... you faerie is now wasting most of his time waiting for some to need a heal...

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You can press 2 gamepad keys at the same time as well... that's not the issue here. They really should allow macro pet commands.

As for why I'm against manual healing, here an example: In WP yesterday, at the last boss, I didn't have to leave Cleric Stance/stop DPSing even though our tank dropped to ~1/6 HP after 4 stacks of everybody's grduge. Why? Properly placed + roused fairy had the tank up to full health before the king could stab him again. If I tried to manually control her, the tank would either have died or my dps would stop, because let's face it: humans are really bad at multitasking.

That said, I'm not saying for everyone to leave the fairy on auto. That's my decision, and as long as it doesn't cost the life of my party, I don't see why it should be a problem.

Just a random thought on the subject, I was having some talks with couple of players in Titan attempts and I mentioned it would be great to have an ability for pet to let it follow a target, that gave me a random thought what if SCH actually had an Enkindle, that which let the pet follows a target while continuing casting normally, maybe add an extra buff for each pet when its used for the followed target? if the target takes a fatal hit, the pet would sacrifice it self to prevent that hit and maybe recover some hp back, drawback would be ability goes on CD if the pet dies while following a target. I just figured this would be something like benediction. for those panic moments.

While I think it's an interesting idea, I have a feeling SE's intention with Lustrate was to be used in those "oh shit" moments, so I doubt they will be adding it.

Well this sort of blew up!

Again, because of the wonky AI, she will literally cast faster if placed. If your tank is at 10%, she will put out the Embraces needed to get it over 80% faster if she's placed than if she's heeled, since there's literally less delay in the casts. It's probably not intentional, but it's there.

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Originally Posted by FinagleABagel

*snip*

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Everything this guy said has been wrong. I'm not sure what fights he's doing where the Fairy is dying (since it shouldn't happen anywhere in BC), or why he's worried about "fairy overheal", but sheesh was that tough to read.

Also, you shouldn't ever be using Eos. Her HoT is weaker than what Medica II provides, and the heal buff is on such a long CD that it's pretty much useless. Selene makes you cast faster and makes stuff die faster. Eos is only useful if you have 2 SCH's since the haste buffs don't stack.

Roused HoT is pretty potent, so I don't agree there. You will appreciate every bit of HoT in encounters where all of your party members are hit, not only the tank. Selene is a better option for farming content where constant healing of all party members isn't needed. And even there, her AI deciding to silence i.e. Succubus across the floor is a huge nuisance.

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Originally Posted by Soukyuu

Roused HoT is pretty potent, so I don't agree there. You will appreciate every bit of HoT in encounters where all of your party members are hit, not only the tank. Selene is a better option for farming content where constant healing of all party members isn't needed. And even there, her AI deciding to silence i.e. Succubus across the floor is a huge nuisance.

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What content are you talking about where it would be needed? The only real AoE in Coil is ADS's, and it's very weak and easily countered with 1 Succor or Medica II every 10-15 seconds.

Maybe Titan? But there's such a long break in between Tumolts that you can single-target heal your group just as easily and, if you're worried about getting hit by plumes after the stomps, Whispering Dawn won't make a difference.

Again, Eos is useless. It seems like people who don't like Selene don't actually use her. The difference, especially as you gear up, is very noticeable.

I might have to try to use her more. Maybe then I'll see her use. But yeah, was talking about titan and tumult.

When it comes to placing her in battle, its situational. That has been my experience. A SCH needs their fairy to be optimized; remember the storyline? Not gonna do a spoiler here. To all up and coming SCH's learn placement of her now so that the learning curve does not become steep later... a post back in this thread mentioned it.

Let me clarify this before its misconstrued...know when its appropriate to place her or not to place her. It all depends on the flow of the fight and what the boss does. Ofc knowing the fight will help.

For what it's worth, I mostly use Selene. But I've found that Eos is useful on Titan, only because it frees you up to keep more DoT's up while staying on the move. There was enough time before Tumults to single heal everyone in between, but Landslide (and lag, I hope SE fixes the lag) would inevitably catch me mid animation at some point during the single heals, and then lag hit me even though I was a mile away by the time Landslide actually animated when I was using Selene.

With Eos, I would cast Adloquim from time to time, but was able to spend more time applying and maintaining DoTs than I was with Selene. I know that seems counter-intuitive with Selene's Spell Speed/Skill Speed Up... but that's the way it seemed to workout.

Placement is a highly situational thing. Personally, I prefer to have her follow me and micromanage every single spell cast from her - I can easily heal multiple targets that I WANT to heal at the same time. I also1 find that if I place her and just let her do her thing, my job becomes twice as difficult.

So I either place her in a safe spot and micromanage her, or have her follow me and micromanage her, or in some fights I even do both!

The trick to being a decent scholar? Micromanage your pet. Honestly, if you don't want to properly manage a pet just roll a WHM.

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Originally Posted by Tinker

Placement is a highly situational thing. Personally, I prefer to have her follow me and micromanage every single spell cast from her - I can easily heal multiple targets that I WANT to heal at the same time. I also1 find that if I place her and just let her do her thing, my job becomes twice as difficult.

So I either place her in a safe spot and micromanage her, or have her follow me and micromanage her, or in some fights I even do both!

The trick to being a decent scholar? Micromanage your pet. Honestly, if you don't want to properly manage a pet just roll a WHM.

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I place a lot because I find on literally everything other than Titan. (Have not done coil yet) My job becomes easier with her on place. That being said, once they make it so forcing a cure doesn't throw her into Guard making us have to click steady EVERY FREAKN TIME, I will also probably never place her again.

I place depending on how I feel.. If I'm bored I will place to make it more fun and really active manage but If I'm lazy I just let it follow and do whatever.

I mostly use Selene cause i like the group buffs and it's easier to manage then Eos, trying to control the rouse+increase healing buff+ aoe heal after each titan jump is annoying.. really wish they would just allow us to either a) right click and enable auto-cast on skills or b) if not on autocast, let us choose when to cast

It would solve all the issues and SCH's can become even better healers without having to press a skill, then guard, then press a skill, then guard. In the past couple of Ak's though I had to stop using Selene after Demon wall because I forget she likes to run off and silence the succubus... pulling all the mobs and bringing them to group if not on Guard!

i have not found a reason to micromanage my pet she seems to be doing just fine doing it herself i place and then heal whatever i feel like.... what i do is place her near tank or near a side of dps she heals fine keeps up her abilities and heals the tank hell place her in ifrit she heals like a boss

Coming back to this once again....I have plenty of healing throughput with my fairy on follow and manual Embrace. Turn 4 scholar.

Much like the Relic+AF2 vs. Relic+1 argument - it doesn't matter. There's no content in the game where minor slivers of efficiency will do anything.