Scholar Question

So, I've played Scholar for a long time and love the class. I am thinking of making it my main.

However, I was looking for opinions/thoughts on one main aspect that I've seen varying responses for in the past.

The question is, is it best to macro Embrace in with Physick and Adlo? Or is it best to keep Physick and Adlo as solo skills?

In absolute terms, without considering player skill/capacity/preferences, I think it'd be hard to argue against keeping them separate and micro-managing everything. If you can keep up with it mentally and physically, more flexibility is pretty much always better. And the lack of action queuing in FFXIV's macro system means macros will always have (very slight) delay that raw abilities don't.

But if you can't keep up with all that (or decide it's not worth the effort), and macros increase your personal performance, go for the macros. It's not an enormous difference, so it's a question of whether that small difference is bigger or smaller than the difference it makes in other areas (i.e., you feeling overwhelmed or not, this vs. freed up mental/physical capacity to pay attention to other important things).

I have Physick and Adlo by themselves and a macro on another bar for Embrace+Physick and Embrace+Adlo. I also have another mouse over macro where I heal my target and Eos/Selene throws Embrace on whoever I'm mousing over.

I have these for situational fights though. Typically I can keep the faerie on Sic and do just fine with no issues. However if I know there is going to be a heavy AoE coming I'll put her on Obey early so I can Rouse+Whispering Dawn. Not to mention its nice to throw her on Obey, Adlo+Embrace the tank, then switch to DPS...etc...etc.

The macros are nice to have regardless. Good luck!

I forgot to mention, I'm on PC but play with a controller, so space is a bit more limited than with keyboard/mouse.

I prefer Embrace+Adlo/Physick macros when either intensive tank healing or multi-task healing is required, but I don't find it very necessary when partying with a WHM at end-game. WHMs tend to top incidental damage off without my having to "split heal", so I'll often let Selene do her own thing for such fights since her silence is useless in those situations.

Eos should never be allowed off of her leash, regardless. At best she only blows her cooldowns to little effect; at worst she does WD at the start of a major add phase and causes anything from annoyance/inefficiency to death to ensue.

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

Eos should never be allowed off of her leash, regardless. At best she only blows her cooldowns to little effect; at worst she does WD at the start of a major add phase and causes anything from annoyance/inefficiency to death to ensue.

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Thanks for the response. I never let Eos do her own thing. She's always on Obey.

My main question is, when she's on Obey, do most Scholars just let her Embrace on her own, or most do the macro thing so that everytime you cast Physick/Adlo, it is paired with Embrace.

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Originally Posted by NorthernLadMSP

My main question is, when she's on Obey, do most Scholars just let her Embrace on her own, or most do the macro thing so that everytime you cast Physick/Adlo, it is paired with Embrace.

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Either manually cast Embrace or macro it onto whatever. Waiting for Eos to auto-cast Embrace is asking for trouble.

Embrace+heal macros really don't do as much as people think they do. If anyone in your party is below 80% hp, your faerie will auto-heal and there is nothing you can do to stop her. Faerie commands do not queue. The added embrace in those macros only does anything when everyone in your party is above 80%. Everything else people think that macro is doing is actually the faerie acting on her own.

If the tank is above 80%, I would rather command my faerie to heal while I dps, so I use a separate command.

If you want to be truly efficient and minmax your micromanaging, you won't macro Embrace to any heals. I have a keybind for a directly targeted Embrace, which I hammer in conjunction with whatever I am using my own GCDs on when I have the tank targeted, as well as having a target's target Embrace macro keybound, which is what I hammer when I have whatever mob targeted and DPS away. If you want your fairies to pump out maximum HPS, you will religiously press your Embrace keybinds all the time, no matter what you are doing (excluding stopping the keybind hammering only when you need to use a fairy-cooldown).

It's kinda annoying to spam the Embrace button imo. Atm I'm just using a macro for Embrace+Adlo/Physick, but I should use a Razer Naga macro to loop Embrace I guess.

If only they could add a /cancel or /stopcasting thing for the macros, it would be amazing to cast instantly the fairy's GCDs without spamming our buttons because the fairy is casting Embrace or moving or fapping etc...

For me, the bundled heal macros serve double duty, since I'll initiate them while moving or animation-locked by another cast if I want to manually heal two targets at once.

Of course, this isn't always useful or needful due to how the fairy's AI works, but it's a great way to top people off when they're just above the auto-healing threshold or to prioritize healing if more than one target has taken enough damage.

i manually control every abilities, it just seems easier to control the timings

The only thing I find myself macroing Embrace to is my DPS skills with a <f> target. This way I can force her to keep my tank topped off while I DPS. I tried having my heals tied in with it and just didn't really see the point. There have been very few times where I NEED that little extra bit of healing on my target, and when I really need it, I just hit Embrace myself.

I would much rather have Embrace free to heal up a secondary target while I'm casting a heal on someone else. Not to mention since I rarely have them in Sic, if I have Embrace tied into my heals I have a harder time getting the other fairy abilities to actually fire off because it puts Embrace on a near constant cast which locks out my chances to make her cast buffs.

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Originally Posted by Utsu

If only they could add a /cancel or /stopcasting thing for the macros, it would be amazing to cast instantly the fairy's GCDs without spamming our buttons because the fairy is casting Embrace or moving or fapping etc...

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Keybind (Or click, if you can't fit it in) "stay" onto your bar. If you mash stay while she's casting an ability or moving, she'll stop anything she's doing, giving you the 3 second cooldown of embrace to use whatever cooldown you want. Lets me use Selene's silence reliably, for example.

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Originally Posted by Tranquil

If you want to be truly efficient and minmax your micromanaging, you won't macro Embrace to any heals. I have a keybind for a directly targeted Embrace, which I hammer in conjunction with whatever I am using my own GCDs on when I have the tank targeted, as well as having a target's target Embrace macro keybound, which is what I hammer when I have whatever mob targeted and DPS away. If you want your fairies to pump out maximum HPS, you will religiously press your Embrace keybinds all the time, no matter what you are doing (excluding stopping the keybind hammering only when you need to use a fairy-cooldown).

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This. I've experimented with every method discussed and I've learned that micromanaging embrace (as well as other fairy abilities all on their own) is the most effective way to balance your overall throughput. Whether I'm tank healing, raid healing, handling mechanics, or dps'ing, I can maintain a very solid level of control over everything my fairy does.

Embracespam macro is best macro. Never put macros onto GCD actions.