How Does A Beginner Play Scholar Now?

Hi everyone!

I have a black mage alt but the dark arts aren't really clicking with me. So, I'm thinking of switching to a scholar.

I know, I know. A lot of players say they are the weakest of healers now and I'd be better of going with a white mage or astrologian. But that's not what I want to play!

Scholars impress me and I want to be one too!

I run Palace of the Dead a lot and every run I've ... uh... run with a scholar has gone well. They've saved my bacon numerous times, like when my party gets that damn disabling trap, luring trap combination and all hell is breaking loose. I think we are going to wipe and next thing I know, the scholar has kept everyone alive and we manage to fight our way through the chaos and get to the end of the floor.

With the above said, I'm not certain I actually know how to be a good scholar. I don't want to get off on the wrong foot and develop bad habits. So, can anyone give me a brief "Idiot's Guide to Scholar Post 4.0?"

I appreciate any tips! Thank you! :)

Read up on Scholar Macros.

Fairys are stupid, but Macros can make them slightly better.

The best advice I can give you is start micromanaging your fairy as soon as you start. Obey stance and mastering placements for using their abilities is key to being a good Scholar. Beyond that the best thing you can do is learn the fights, as your abilities will truly shine when you can throw up mitigation before hits or get your fairy started on casting abilities so that it goes off at the right time, vs too late or early. You also get a lot of burst healing, which learning to manage aetherflow and when to use those abilities vs buffing your fairy or using a gcd heal is also key.

Scholar is a very fun and busy job later in the game and is still decently busy early on. You wont get the huge healing numbers of a WHM, but there is plenty of satisfaction from some of the later ability combos :)

Edit: As the above post says, yes the fairy is stupid so the more familiar you become controlling her the better, and even then it can be a bit frustrating.

I wouldn't say that SCH is the weakest out of all three.
They just aren't as strong as they used to be before SB.

One thing I relearned post 4.0 are :
1. Don't use Adloquium too much. Well, you should still use it, but only use it when as the final touch when you're topping off the tank's HP before a tank buster.
2. Lustrate and Indomitability are no longer your emergency heal. Treat it more like an MP free heal instead of emergency heal.
3. Use Excogitation as a signal to stop DPSing. I usually put an Adlo when topping off a tank, and then put excogitation on him. And I continue by putting DoTs on the boss, cast some broils until Excogitation's effect goes off. Then drop DPSing to top off the tank with Lustrate and Adlo and put Excogitation back when it's off cooldown.
4. For healing DPSes, usually Indomitability is enough to bring everybody back to health. You can even do it while DPSing since it's a no-target oGCD skill.

This might not be new to healers, but : Use Lucid Dreaming when your MP hits around 50% instead of when you ran out of MP.

But yeah, as others have said it, SCH shines when you know the fight and know what's coming.

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Originally Posted by Lildragora

/snip

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I can easily confirm this. i started play FF XIV right before the release of stormblood and started with scholar as my main and I love it. Utilizing your fairy really helps a lot. Your fairy actually priories moving with you over healing, which can be quite annoying, so learn to place her soon.
Furthermore try to use everything at your disposal, even if some skills seem very situational (I'm looking at you Dissipation), but they still find their fair amount of uses.

[A SALTY (highly exaggerated) GUIDE TO SCH 4.05]

1) Hope your co healer is not an AST locked on Noct stance (roughly 50% of DF ASTs will pull this crap)
1.1) If your co healer is an AST who has removed diurnal from their hotbars, you remove all healing spells from yours (if a wipe ensues you claim you were under the impression that they wanted to solo heal)

2) You are not actually a shield/mitigation healer. That is a notion from the past. Ignore succor unless your MP bar feels disgustingly full (or if it procs from SS. OR if you need to ET it for extra aoe healing)

3) Fairy on sic, she won't do what you tell her to anyway

4) Toss out the occasional lustrate or indom so that no one can accuse you of doing nothing but spam Broil II (rez too if necessary)

5) Remove summon II off your hotbars permanently

???

SCH mastered, happy off-healing!

NOTE: This has been written after a monday evening spent farming omega (normal) where half my AST co healers downright refused to change stances - apologies if I mortally offend any readers.

NOTE #2: But seriously though, it is a very fun job - plays differently than HW for sure (dunno if you played it in HW), but it is still a good healer regardless of changes/nerfs, only a lot more reactionary/emergency button push-y than before. Hands down the "hardest" part of the job is micromanaging fairy and conciliate her cooldown abilities/fey union/dissipation (dissipation is arguably ignorable).

Good luck!

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Originally Posted by Spiroglyph

[A SALTY (highly exaggerated) GUIDE TO SCH 4.05]



NOTE: This has been written after a monday evening spent farming omega (normal) where half my AST co healers downright refused to change stances - apologies if I mortally offend any readers.

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LOL! Thanks for the humorous post. You made my morning, Spiroglyph. :D

Other posters: Thank you for the tips!

Several of you mention fairy placement. Would a macro like the following work?

/pac Place <t>

I personally would advise against fairy command macros :/

Fairy AI is clunky af, macros only worsen that - it is easier to bind basic fairy commands to your hotbar (heel, place, sic, obey etc.,), to make sure fairy does what you tell her to. For example if you use Place while fairy is in the middle of casting Embrace, Place command will be queued and will go through once she is done with her cast - this however does not happen with macros as they cannot be queued, so chances are you will have a tough time with this kind of thing.

I think the only macro I use as SCH is Embrace spam macro, and eveb those can get kind of a pain...

Stuff like combining your healing spells and fairy healing spells are flat out useless - she works on different cast times than you, and since macros cannot be queued if she is in the middle of a cast it will not work. They also suck for placement issues - if your target is out of range you will noy get a system error message stating this, instead the heal will go off but it will target yourself thus wasting MP/GCD.

Outside of embrace spam macros I can't really think of any macros that work efficiently with fairy, sadly :/ SCH has always been the healer job with the most buttons to press, this remains true in SB (although AST now have those fancy discard buttons).

Just make sure to run plenty of dungeons to practise fairy placement - fairy will withdraw if you forget to Heel after a pull, so after a few runs of you wondering where the hell she has wandered off to and wasting MP to resummon her you should be good to go :)

NOTE as the person below me states macros are also useful for swapping out fairy skills if you change between Eos and Selene. Completely forgot about those as I seldom use Selene...

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Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

LOL! Thanks for the humorous post. You made my morning, Spiroglyph. :D

Other posters: Thank you for the tips!

Several of you mention fairy placement. Would a macro like the following work?

/pac Place <t>

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Yes, that macro would work to place your fairy on a target. I personally prefer to ground-target (on a controller no less) my fairy, but everyone has their own preference.

The only macros you might need on SCH are for Resurrect and Summon I/II. You can set up a Resurrect macro to select your target first "<t>", then go down your list of party members "<1-8>". Depending on how you sort your party list, this will go tanks first, then healers, then DPS. It just eliminates the need to manually target them in combat. You can also put Swiftcast in before your Res actions.

As for Summon macros, they're mainly so you can swap out your pet action slots for the appropriate faerie actions (Eos or Selene). It saves on slots so you don't have to have both sets of faerie actions slotted at the same time. You can also put Swiftcast in before your Summon action.

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As for managing the faeries, you're going to want to micro-manage Eos from the get-go. She likes to waste all of her actions as soon as they're off cooldown (she's a ditz) when you'll ideally want to save them for the opportune time. Selene doesn't have to be micro-managed if you don't want to. She uses Fey Wind on cooldown in combat, Fey Caress (AoE Esuna) when there are debuffs, and she'll try to interrupt enemy casting with Silent Dawn (even if the enemy is immune).

I'm probably a naughty Scholar, but I almost always use Selene over Eos in most content (though "most content" is dungeons since I'm still leveling). I love Fey Wind and Caress, and I also love relaxing a little and not micro-managing my fairy all the time.

I disagree with the above two posted about fairy macros. Your fairies don't listen to you because your macros need to force them to stop casting what they are doign and cast your command instead.

Now, the only time this can be a pain, is if someone is VERY low, sometimes Eos will insist on casting embrace first anyways. But regardless, my Whispering Dawn, Fey Illum and Fey Covenant macro has saved my ass many times.

Also, one tip. Please, utilize your spells. Emergency Tactics is your friend. Deployment Tactics is also your friend. Big AoE coming up? Forget fucking Succor unless it's a small AoE (and even then just DPs the boss and use Indom), Largesse + Fey Illum -> Adlo (hopefully a crit) -> Deployment Tactics = like a 22k shield if it crits, a 11k shield if it doesn't. THIS IS NOT A SMALL SHIELD. It just requires decent forethought.

I appreciate all this wonderful information. I'm taking lots and lots of notes.

It is rather heartening to see there is some disagreement because this means there is flexibility in how to play a scholar. A healer with a rigid play style often leads to Bad Things Happening™ when encounters don't go according to plan.

Currently, I'm planning to use several of the macros on https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Scholar_Macros

If there is a better site, or if you have macros of your own, I'd like to hear about them. Information is power, after all! ;)

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Selene doesn't have to be micro-managed if you don't want to. She uses Fey Wind on cooldown in combat, Fey Caress (AoE Esuna) when there are debuffs, and she'll try to interrupt enemy casting with Silent Dawn (even if the enemy is immune).

I'm probably a naughty Scholar, but I almost always use Selene over Eos in most content (though "most content" is dungeons since I'm still leveling). I love Fey Wind and Caress, and I also love relaxing a little and not micro-managing my fairy all the time.

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*nods*

In the few dungeons I've healed as scholar on Kacho (before all these changes), I've liked Selene too. She's a joy to have in the right instance.:cool:

Little surprised that site doesn't have a Whispering Dawn macro as that's arguably one of the most important ones.

The one I'm using is...

/macrolock
/ac Rouse
/pac Steady
/pac Guard
/pac "Fey Illumination"
/wait 2
/pac Steady
/pac Guard
/pac "Whispering Dawn"
/micon "Whispering Dawn" pet

Whispering Dawn can be a bit of a nightmare without the right macro otherwise as the fairy will sometimes feel like doing an Embrace instead.

Also since I use a Gamepad I also have an Embrace macro tied to L3 so I can click that thing often even while moving.

(I'm going to have to try that Lustrate one out on the Wiki myself)

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Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

In the few dungeons I've healed as scholar on Kacho (before all these changes), I've liked Selene too. She's a joy to have in the right instance.:cool:

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Before SB you'd sometimes see SCHs with Selene out, have her cast her mini haste, Dissipate her and swap out for Eos. Kinda messes with the gauge now though :/
She's also cool for soloing (when you're killing things solo you'll hardly need tons of healing, so silence and cleanse can be useful so you can just keep Broiling without wasting an ogcd).

Not particularly fond of macros, but if you wanna try them out to see how you like them yourself, you could try out ground target macros for Shadow Flare and Sacred Soil :)

Basic example

/ac "Shadow Flare" <t>
/ac "Shadow Flare"

Watch out for target's positioning, though. If they're further than the distance allowed by the skill in question it'll default the target to YOU, and you'll be sitting in the middle of a sacred soil by yourself.

Other stuff to try are the common chat macros (for example if you're paired with another SCH, a chat macro warning that you're about to use Chain Stratagem could be useful to prevent overlap). Cheers

Only macros I use are to tie embrace to abilities I use

/ac "Lustrate" <t> (or whatever other spell/ability you want)
/pac "Embrace" <t>

In truth the fairy is clunky and best manually controlled since sometimes you have to press a fairy ability twice or three if unlucky. Tying embrace to your abilities though can sometimes be beneficial if she is not already casting. Another thing for a macro you can do is to bind embrace to a mousover and tie it to a keyboard button. That way you can target the boss and go about your DPS rotation while having the mouse cursor on a target and spam press the button to better direct her heals.

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The only macros you might need on SCH are for Resurrect and Summon I/II. You can set up a Resurrect macro to select your target first "<t>", then go down your list of party members "<1-8>". Depending on how you sort your party list, this will go tanks first, then healers, then DPS. It just eliminates the need to manually target them in combat. You can also put Swiftcast in before your Res actions.

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Please don't do this.
1. Your macro will go off on 1st dead party member, even if they have already been rezzed by other healer/RDM.
2. Priority matters. If you have one of the tanks and RDM dead, for example, and there are no tankswaps incoming in 10 seconds its better to rez RDM and let them rez tank after couple ticks of LD. BRD takes priority over any other DPS if you low on mana etc.

Selene is amazing for Karlabos in Sastasha hard for party cleansing that debuff he does. You do the first 2 rounds yourself and the third use will hit the entire party. You use the cleanse then and you should down him before its an issue again.

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Originally Posted by MahoSenshi

Please don't do this.
1. Your macro will go off on 1st dead party member, even if they have already been rezzed by other healer/RDM.
2. Priority matters. If you have one of the tanks and RDM dead, for example, and there are no tankswaps incoming in 10 seconds its better to rez RDM and let them rez tank after couple ticks of LD. BRD takes priority over any other DPS if you low on mana etc.

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It's more useful when only one party member is downed. It removes the need to manually target that one player to rez them. If multiple party members are unconscious, then healers should definitely be following a priority system and manually selecting their rez targets.

My original reasoning for using the macro was incorrect, though.

I use mouseover macros for the bulk of my heals. I also use a macro for my nuke spam that commands my fairy to cast Embrace on my target's target. Since I'm the type of player that is constantly mashing my nuke even between gcd's, it pretty much forces the fairy to heal constantly so for low level dungeons the tank (or whoever has aggro he he) always stays topped off. The higher level dungeons and raids that obviously isn't enough and I have to use my own heals as well but for general nuking it works really well. I don't care for using /pac commands in macors using my instant spells (such as Bio or Lustrate) though since it feels liek it causes a slight delay that doesn't seem evident with cast time spells.

Ultimately my main SCH macros consist of my mouseover healing macros, summoning macros for instant summons and setting obey, my res macro for instant mouseover ressing and announcement to party chat, my Shadowflare <t> macro, my Ruin macro with /pac Embrace, and a Whispering Dawn macro like the one posted by Supersun.

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Originally Posted by Spiroglyph

Before SB you'd sometimes see SCHs with Selene out, have her cast her mini haste, Dissipate her and swap out for Eos. Kinda messes with the gauge now though :/
*snip*

Other stuff to try are the common chat macros (for example if you're paired with another SCH, a chat macro warning that you're about to use Chain Stratagem could be useful to prevent overlap). Cheers

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Cool stuff! Don't worry, Spiroglyph. I'm not going to go nuts with macros. :D

I'm an old time holy priest from WoW and have seen what happens when a healer relies too much upon them. In fact, it's because of my personal experiences that I hate mouseovers. No. Just No.

I'll stick to my function keys, thank you very much. LOL

Later stuff added to avoid double post

I still leveling Charara as an arcanist to get the scholar job. Level 16! Woot! Soon, my friends!

The DoT play style of an arcanist is more enjoyable than the fixed style of a black mage. In scholar gameplay, when given an opportunity to dps, should I focus mainly on getting DoTS out or Ruin? Confused by having both a Ruin and a Ruin II... why do I have two direct damage spells?

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Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

The DoT play style of an arcanist is more enjoyable than the fixed style of a black mage. In scholar gameplay, when given an opportunity to dps, should I focus mainly on getting DoTS out or Ruin? Confused by having both a Ruin and a Ruin II... why do I have two direct damage spells?

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DoTs when it'll take approximately 24 seconds or longer for the enemy to die. Spam Ruin/Broil if the enemy is nearly dead.

Ruin will be upgraded to Broil for more damage later.
Ruin II is your option if you need to move while you still want to deal damage. With added bonus of being able to use oGCD moves like Lustrate or Energy Drain

I use physick and embrace macro on my heal target and it has always worked for me. also rouse plus whispering dawn is a nice healing over time buff

I would say that if you are learning SCH then pet micro-managing and macros should be the last thing you come to. Why? Well the SCH plays very different to the other healers in the form of its Aetherflow actions and also with the DOTs carried over from Arcanist. Once you start getting used to the rotations of everything that comes with SCH, then it's good to start taking more control over the pet and using macros. Going from another job to one with a pet can be quite a change at first so no one would blame you for having them on Sic (for SCH at least, not SMN) but eventually you'll find so many more things at your disposal when you get better self control of it all.

I'm a baby scholar! First thing I did was run a few PotD to get to 32nd level. That Swiftcast is just too important! It's now sitting right next to Resurrection on the UI. ;)

Got a question about fairy placement. In general, what's a good place for Eos? I'm thinking in back of the mobs with the melee.

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Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

I'm a baby scholar! First thing I did was run a few PotD to get to 32nd level. That Swiftcast is just too important! It's now sitting right next to Resurrection on the UI. ;)

Got a question about fairy placement. In general, what's a good place for Eos? I'm thinking in back of the mobs with the melee.

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Depends on the situation really. If the boss loves to target a random DPS to AoE, that might not be a good place to place Eos.
Try to find a spot that is far enough from the crowds, but enough for Eos to reach the main tank and as many DPSes as possible.

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Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

I'm a baby scholar! First thing I did was run a few PotD to get to 32nd level. That Swiftcast is just too important! It's now sitting right next to Resurrection on the UI. ;)

Got a question about fairy placement. In general, what's a good place for Eos? I'm thinking in back of the mobs with the melee.

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I'd say most important thing is to make sure you place it within healing range (within 15 meters is good). The fairy doesn't take too much damage from AOE's and it's only mainly a problem at lower levels since you don't have an easy indom + emergency tactics to handle non-shielded healing.

Avoid Embrace macros to be honest. In theory, it sounds like it would really increase your play efficiency. "I can tell my fairy to heal anyone on my party list!"

However, reality rears its ugly head and tells you pet A.I. in this game is really dumb. If any of your party members are below 80% HP, the fairy A.I. is literally uncontrollable. You cannot tell your fairy to focus heal the tank with Embrace. The fairy will heal whoever it wants, whenever it wants until everyone in the party is above 80% HP. It is not worth interrupting your fairy's Embrace cast as you lose out on heals per second.

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Originally Posted by lulunami

Avoid Embrace macros to be honest. In theory, it sounds like it would really increase your play efficiency. "I can tell my fairy to heal anyone on my party list!"

However, reality rears its ugly head and tells you pet A.I. in this game is really dumb. If any of your party members are below 80% HP, the fairy A.I. is literally uncontrollable. You cannot tell your fairy to focus heal the tank with Embrace. The fairy will heal whoever it wants, whenever it wants until everyone in the party is above 80% HP. It is not worth interrupting your fairy's Embrace cast as you lose out on heals per second.

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*Nods* I noticed this behavior also. Messed up all my embrace + spell macros. LOL

So instead, I simply put the fairy spells on my hotbar and and use them like extra scholar abilities. It's button bloat but it works.

I tend to just let my fairy do whatever, I look at embrace as more of a bonus. I might bother to micromanage embrace during rouse but in most cases DPS <80% isn't really a big deal since most damage done to DPS are either failed mechanics or scripted damage.

SCH has no shortage of instant oGCD's so it's easy to let people stay <100% and recover right before a mechanic, which also lets them dps more easily.

Indom is seriously amazing for this because it's almost a double-power instant Medica...2 targets is all it needs to be miles better than lustrate.

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Originally Posted by Dregenfox

*Snippers*

Indom is seriously amazing for this because it's almost a double-power instant Medica...2 targets is all it needs to be miles better than lustrate.

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That's pretty interesting! Overall, it sounds like you take a relaxed stance while healing, which is refreshing. Some of the things I have read made it seem like I'd have to be a multi-tasking machine to play a Scholar. EEK!

Severe fibromyalgia sufferers make poor multi-tasking machines. We need to stay relaxed in order to do things well.

As far as Indom, I cannot wait to get high enough level it check 'er out. The scholar toolbox is full of interesting abilities that I want to try using. It'll certainly be different from the reactive, raw healing power style of the white mage (and holy priest in WoW) I'm used to playing.