Scholars- Place your faeries

One thing that bugs me to no end in groups is when there is another Scholar in the group, and I see their pet following them around in combat. As I watch this, I can't help but think "This is probably one of the people who thinks the faerie is underpowered".

Protip- When used correctly, Eos is AMAZING. Not quite "this needs to be nerfed" amazing, but amazing enough that a buff would make it ridiculously overpowered.

There are 3 things you need to keep in mind with Eos:

1) She will prioritize following you over casting embrace. You will be moving a lot, therefor if she is following you, she will as well
2) She takes almost no AOE damage in comparison to you. On top of that, on the offchance a single target hit of doom kills her, swift cast + summon has her right back on the field
3) Even though her casting range is similar to yours, her realized range is far shorter. She will not heal the tank at your max range unless you tell her too. If you want auto-heals out of her, she needs to be right on him.


HOW TO PROPERLY PLAY THE FAERIE
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Posted this in another thread. If you do this, you will never have a complaint about the Faerie :) Its super easy to get used to.

Hotkey "Steady", "Embrace", "Follow" and "Place" in easy to get to locations (I use control keys for them).

Between every fight, activate follow, so the pet will follow you, and "Steady". With Steady active, the faerie will cast ONLY embrace and nothing else. The aggro drawer for Faerie is the AOE heal over time, so you want to keep that in check at first.

When combat starts, place your faerie near the tank, somewhere behind or beside the mobs being fought. Once the faerie is in place, force it to cast "embrace" on the tank. Remember- YOU force it to cast that embrace. Yes, it will normally cast that on its own, but upon being given a command by you it will immediately remove itself from the "Steady" command and begin casting its other skills on its own.

At this point, it will immediately cast all 3 of its major skills (the 2 buffs and then AOE regen). It will then, being placed appropriately near the tank, start autohealing the tank and anyone near the tank. At this point you can forget about it until combat is over. It will do a pretty decent job there

I ALWAYS place the fairy in the center of the room, or if it's a large room, directly behind or to the side of the boss. They can reach anyone that's hurt from there, and can heal more quickly than if they were following me while I was on the opposite side of the room from who needed healing. The buffs can reach across the entire room as well. (Well, Selene's can, I usually put Eos on manual, and place her near the melee's before she uses all her CDs, then back to the center)

It bugs me so much to see another Scholar with Eos following them around during a Primal fight... you know, cuz they're gonna beneifit from the HoT and defense buff but not the tank, because the tank isn't the one taking damage. >.>

Also seriously people, learn how to use Selene. -.- Keep her buffs on a constant rotation so she never overwrites the skill speed buff. You can have Selene's buffs up 100% of the time if you pay attention. Evene if you're not in combat, use her buffs to keep them on rotation. Fey Glow->Fey light when it ends->then if she's in combat, she'll auto cast fey glow because by that time it will be off cd, and fey light will have just ended. If not in combat, cast it anyway->Manual cast fey light again when glow ends because she doesn't cast it herself, rinse and repeat. You don't wanna wait for combat every time because trash fights typically only last around 30seconds anyway, and you'll likely only get a Fey Glow out of it, but keeping all the buffs on constant rotation helps balance it out so the melee's benefit from Fey Light as well.

I do this, but force cast on the tank- why force cast on boss?

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Originally Posted by ApolloGenX

I do this, but force cast on the tank- why force cast on boss?

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Because... REASONS! Gah noob, how do you not even know that?!?!?!?!ONE!!!

I keed, I keed. Nah, that was a typo =D Fixed. lol

Biggest problem is that the fairy always goes back to "guard" after you manually used one of her abilities. you would always have to use "steady" right after. seems when you obey her on a mob she doesn't use all of her skills as well, but at least whispering dawn which she wouldn't under "steady"...

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Originally Posted by Starkbeaumont

Biggest problem is that the fairy always goes back to "guard" after you manually used one of her abilities. you would always have to use "steady" right after. seems when you obey her on a mob she doesn't use all of her skills as well, but at least whispering dawn which she wouldn't under "steady"...

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Yea, this is true. I generally don't sweat it that much- as long as she's casting it when its off cooldown, I consider it good enough for government work until a boss comes around that really requires me, as a scholar, to drop mad AOE heals. And besides the beginning cast, I haven't seen her be a real threat issue for any tank, so I'm not worried about the ridiculous overhealing she's doing with that either.

But I can definitely see how it would irk folks.

Other posters have pointed out the problems I have with it - you almost have to hit "steady" after every embrace, which is quite irritating. However, in boss fights, I often want to save the Whispering Dawn for the right moment, and that means either neglecting to direct-control the Embrace, or having to press two keys every Embrace.

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Originally Posted by Tolmos

Because... REASONS! Gah noob, how do you not even know that?!?!?!?!ONE!!!

I keed, I keed. Nah, that was a typo =D Fixed. lol

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Oh, got it. For a second, I was thinking there was some kind of target's target going on - which would have been awesome... but I was surprised that I missed it being there. =-X

Really seems to depend on the fight, if I have to run far from the tank i'll place her. Otherwise she does fine on her own~

Or i'll stand with the DPS and let her heal them and AOE while I concentrate on the tank. There really is no one size fits all option~ as long as you get through the fight with no causalities of your own fault and adapt to changing encounters.

In some of these lower end dungeons I just stand close to the tank and DPS because her heals are good enough for most trash pulls.

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Originally Posted by RitzNBitz

Really seems to depend on the fight, if I have to run far from the tank i'll place her. Otherwise she does fine on her own~.

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One of the main downsides to this is that she will prioritize keeping up with you over healing. Meaning that if you are moving around, she may have healed 5-6 times if placed, but instead only healed 2 times because she will wait until you've stopped moving to cast the next spell.

The purpose of placing is primarily to increase her hps. It drops DRASTICALLY when she is kept on follow, completely ignoring the range issue.

For me, i would always keep her beside me for below reasons:-

1. Her AOE heal will miss most of the range dps and myself if she is placed with the tank.
2. In boss/primal fight with 'push' mechanism, she will get displaced and will stay there until further instruction which is very annoying to control.
3. As a tank healer, myself is more than enough, i would want her to focus on DPS/other healer instead.
4. Constant move doesn't mean you are moving all the time, when you stop, she will immediately 'scan' her surrounding for someone to heal, when she is casting her heal, you moving doesn't cancel anything. I could not imagine any fight that requires you to keep running.

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Originally Posted by Marcusow86

1. Her AOE heal will miss most of the range dps and myself if she is placed with the tank.

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Not if placed properly so she can get you and the tank. No matter where I am I always have it set up as a line "Me..............Eos/Selene..............Tank" This gives her the best range she can achieve and be effective.

Just quietly how do you place the fairy on ps3? I just recently unlocked scholar and I've tried targeting the tank and selecting place and when I move she just follows me. I've tried taking her off steady yet she won't "place" when commanded.

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Originally Posted by Mattiej

Just quietly how do you place the fairy on ps3? I just recently unlocked scholar and I've tried targeting the tank and selecting place and when I move she just follows me. I've tried taking her off steady yet she won't "place" when commanded.

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When you click place with a controller the right joystick(at least for me) becomes the mover. There is a white circle in the middle of the screen. Unfortunately we have to move our camera to move the cursor but you do get used to it. You will simply never place her or an AoE like Shadow Flare as fast as a mouse user though.

Thank you so much it was driving me a little crazy.

I use the controller on the PC and I'd love some way to be able to marco "place" to be centered around a target, such as the tank or a mob. Right now I'm really missing FFXI's assault command (I know smn has its own version of it, but it was great for healing with Garuda or Carby). I'd love to be able to write pet macros period.

I prefer to place Eos as well, somewhere central where she can reach everyone of the party. It does seem like she casts embrace more often when she is 'placed'. Putting her on steady is a must. Personally, I keep her on steady untill I need a big AoE heal. At which point simply cast Rouse followed by Fey Illumination. She'll follow up with Whispering Dawn automatically and when preceded by those 2 buffs, the healing output will be very impressive. And once again, in going with the general pre-emptive theme of SCH, you'll have to know and time your casts pretty good for maximum benefit.

Good advice but you really should be telling people to use Selene as well for the 30 % increase to spell and skill speed, its much more useful in a lot of situations and ramps up dps considerably. Eos does have her uses though.

I place the fairy sometimes, but it is not really needed. It is too much of a hassle to manually use the buffs too. I am always manually casting embrace with my heals for bigger tank heals or to heal two people at once. Timing of the spell speed buff is not worth losing the extra on demand healing the fairy provides.

I would probably use selene more often if I wasn't concerned about her using her silence at a terrible moment (specifically talking about a Chimera I hopped on SCH for because the two WHM couldn't get out of the bad) otherwise I find that I enjoy Eos more for her hot and defense cooldowns.

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Originally Posted by Elenamirr

I place the fairy sometimes, but it is not really needed. It is too much of a hassle to manually use the buffs too. I am always manually casting embrace with my heals for bigger tank heals or to heal two people at once. Timing of the spell speed buff is not worth losing the extra on demand healing the fairy provides.

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If managing the fairy is too much of a hassle why are you playing a scholar? That's like half the point of scholar (other half being sexy mitigation healing)

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Originally Posted by Nailkita

If managing the fairy is too much of a hassle why are you playing a scholar? That's like half the point of scholar (other half being sexy mitigation healing)

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Are you saying it is not a hassle to hit steady after every embrace so you can manually cast the buffs? If we could macro pet abilities I would do it, but it is just not worth it.

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Originally Posted by Gugnir

Good advice but you really should be telling people to use Selene

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That's right, unless you are fighting a boss that requires multiple silences or you have another Scholar in the party, Selene is the way to go (at least has been up to Garuda HM, haven't fought anything past that).

You can actually let her auto-cast too: she will cast her silence for anything she can interrupt, and will cast her spell-speed buff on CD, you can hard cast her skill-speed buff when the duration of the spell-speed buff wears off.

She requires a little more dancing around to be used effectively, but you'll notice the significant change in DPS. I haven't found anything 4-man that has required me to have the extra AOE healing (except afk healing lower level dungeons). And if you are in an 8-man the WHM can keep the AoE heals up (and Succor before the big attacks helps too). And, if you have another Scholar, one of you should be running Eos and one Selene.

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Originally Posted by Elenamirr

Are you saying it is not a hassle to hit steady after every embrace so you can manually cast the buffs? If we could macro pet abilities I would do it, but it is just not worth it.

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Yes the fairy needs some fixing and macros would make things easier, I do find it annoying to hit steady after I hit a whispering dawn or a buff. But overall the reason I have scholar is to micro manage a pet.

@Tolmos, Thanks for the info! I'm in the process of leveling my Scholar and I am trying to keep ahead of the game, in preparation for end game content, by reading as much as I can about the faeries and their control. Do you have any Coil experience? If so, do you use the information in your first post to heal all coil fights? It seems to me that manually controlling Eos' buffs would be the best use of rotating cooldowns. I was just curious if placing them near the tank as you suggest is enough to heal coil.

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Originally Posted by SlopOrion

~snip

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I'll have to try this in future fights, I wish you could turn off abilities you don't want to use though, because on Chimera and other similar fights I don't want to risk building resistances silencing the wrong thing.

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Originally Posted by Nailkita

Yes the fairy needs some fixing and macros would make things easier, I do find it annoying to hit steady after I hit a whispering dawn or a buff. But overall the reason I have scholar is to micro manage a pet.

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Yeah I get that, I am micro managing the pet though just not the way you are. I am pretty much spamming embrace all the time.

Honestly, when running pugs, I use Eos because people are stupid and stand in fires or targeting circles more frequently than is reasonable, and the bonus to defense and frequent aoe healing is nice. That said, I probably let her auto-cast more often than I should, and need to hotkey "Steady" so I can time her AoE heal better.

I still hope that someday they let us activate pet abilities while in the middle of our own casts.

Selene's usefulness seems questionable to me, I haven't tested with melee abilities, but I know the spell speed buff only knocked 0.09 seconds off my casting times on a spell with 1.98 cast time. That's less than 1/10th of a second.

That's so miniscule any amount of lag or input delay would render it useless. Surely the extra HPS output of Eos would allow me to dps more myself and provide more of a difference. I could really only see that making a difference in extremely lengthy fights, in which case you'd probably want Eos out for safety any way.

I'd love to be proven wrong and given a reason to use Selene more often though.