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I am not that far into SCH currently. My question is about the pets Eos and Selene though. According to my FC as of the Heavensward patch (and 3.2+) having to micro manage your pets is somewhat not required? Mind you, some of these people are level 60 SCH and say they have never used "obey" or if they have it was rare. So, my question is using "Obey" for your pets required like SMN? Or, is using "Sic" just okay as well?
Obey for hard core content. Sic for pretty much anything else or like some I see they strictly use obey in all content because they like having control.
Below 40 you can get away with sic, but I encourage you to start as soon as you can. Selene and Eos will cast embrace whenever someone drops below 80%, regardless of her stance. Don't listen to the people who say not to micromanage. Fairy AI is good for embrace and that's it. She will not use her cds effectively. Be a great scholar and take control. I would also advise commanding Lilly to embrace even if the tank is above 80% as a sort of precast, since she won't naturally do it.
There isn't anywhere it's required for casual content from 4-mans to non-savage endgame you'll be able to pass content just fine.
That said you'll get more performance out of the fairy by controlling her manually. This statement applies much more to Eos than Selene. To understand what you get (or don't get) out of controlling manually you need to really look at their abilities. You also need to understand that the fairy's default behaviour is to just use abilities at the first opportunity, generally the moment they come off cooldown.
Selene
Silent Dusk (Silence): The command delay makes landing this very hard, and in some cases actually impossible for short casts unless you can predict and pre-issue the command. Not a huge gain for manual control.
Fey Wind (Attack Speed Boost): Generally this is something you want to be on as much as possible, so you want to use it as soon as possible. There are fights where you might want to hold this to put on more damage at specific time but these are more the exception than the rule. In fact since the fairy AI doesn't have any other buttons to worry about she is often better at using this right away than you are.
Fey Caress ("Esuna"-like area debuff removal): This would be pretty powerful if all it did was removal a single debuff without eating your GCD. However this is an AoE that can really clean things up like no other ability. While generally it's fine to just let her remove the first thing she wants, there are specific situations where sitting on it for the right moment can be a real life saver.
Eos
Whispering Dawn (AoE Regen Effect): This is most useful when it lines up with AoE damage or when you know the extra healing will help for upcoming pressure. It's also useful to be able to make sure it lines up with Rouse to get extra potency. While auto-used it's still a nice boost to overall healing, you get huge boosts in performance from manual control.
Fey Covenant (20% Magic DEF Boost): This only does anything if magic damage is actually incoming. This means if just spammed when it is up it generally does nothing unless it's a fight where everyone is constantly taking magic damage. You stand to lose almost all of the benefit it offers if not controlled manually.
Fey Illumination (20% Healing Boost): Like with whispering dawn if left to auto-cast its just a nice overall healing boost. However 20% is huge when saved for the right moment as it affects all healing spells including yours those of any other healer. Saved for when you know big pressure is coming it can be a night/day difference for the entire group. Even in casual content saving for when you just want a somewhat bigger Whispering Dawn (along with rouse) can make your run feel smoother.
So while manual control isn't required and might even be better to leave off in many cases with Selene, it's going to get the most out of Eos. I think it also brings a very unique feel to the job's healing tool kit and it's worth experimenting with as a freshly minted Scholar.
Assigning these abilities to hotkeys also goes a long way to making manual control much more manageable.
If I'm using Eos, she is always on obey, because her abilities can be situational and it's a waste to use them all at once. With Selene I'll usually leave her on Sic all the time if I don't need her aoe esuna or silence. Or if we're more than halfway through a trash pull or a boss is about to phase change I'll put her on obey so she won't waste her skill/spell speed buff and then just put her back on Sic once it's needed.
Yea just use obey, huge waste of your fairys cooldowns if the fairy is on sic.
If I am using Selene I will keep her on Sic, If I am using Eos I will set her to Obey. The AoE Regen spell likes to rip hate off tanks that aren't paying attention during the pre-pull phase and it feels like a waste to just let her throw it out when the tank takes 100 damage.