Attention Scholars: Always place your Fairy!

[XNihili]

Is a placed Fairy healing cooldown faster than a Fairy you order around ?
If not, I'd rather have her around me and she is not lazing up with me as her boss.

[nocks]

Sometimes I find it's much more effective to stay 'on top' of the damage by manually directing the faery to Embrace. This means that she drops out of steady and will blow her cooldowns unless you reset Steady between casts (easier now, since patch) but I find it's sometimes more effective. Oftentimes I am either using Phys/Adlo on one person while I instruct faery to top someone else who is between 71-95% health, or I am pairing up my Adlo with an Embrace which was manually instructed to be cast. You can also circumvent the range issue by manually using Embrace. If you know your tank is going to be taking steady damage from a boss, it doesn't make sense to wait for him to be at 69% to trigger Embrace; just have the faery constantly be spamming Embrace on the tank, even if he's currently at 100%. By the time it lands, he'll have taken some damage.

If I know I need to save Whispering Dawn, though, I do place the faery and put her on Steady. That's only in fights with AE damage checks, though. For single-target fights I'd rather manually cast Embrace.

Worth nothing that I only use <tt> macros, and never use mouseover. I do this because you can't mouseover Embrace, and I want to be able to manually direct it as a part of my normal healing process.

[Terius]

This is seriously annoying, using Selene as much as possible, I have to constantly keep an eye on Fey Light to cast Fey Glow as soon as the first one runs out and she goes back to 'Guard' as soon as you cast one of those skills.

Target a mob, select 'obey'. Selene will now only use Embrace, you can activate other skills and she still wont spam anything else. Obey menas both faries will only use healing skills. (So for Eos she will still spam Dawn, so you need her in steady)

[Rainsford]

Is a placed Fairy healing cooldown faster than a Fairy you order around ?
If not, I'd rather have her around me and she is not lazing up with me as her boss.

It's not that the cooldown itself is faster, it's that her AI will respond quicker.

If you have her on Heel, she will often times take a 2-3 second wait time between casts of Embrace, and ANY movement you do prevents her from casting until she stands still.

When she's on Place, she will spam Embrace as long as someone is under 80% as quickly as if you were manually making her cast yourself.

[XNihili]

It's not that the cooldown itself is faster, it's that her AI will respond quicker.

If you have her on Heel, she will often times take a 2-3 second wait time between casts of Embrace, and ANY movement you do prevents her from casting until she stands still.

When she's on Place, she will spam Embrace as long as someone is under 80% as quickly as if you were manually making her cast yourself.

Really ? When I ask her to cast, she cast immediately and I ask her to cast before moving so she is always ready to cast even if I move.
Never had a 2~3s wait.
And I don't like to have people at around 80% either
But I will try to place her and let her do her stuff. And if people die, I'll refer to this thread

[Mamba]

I think the placement of the fairy and managing the abilities only becomes important once you hit 50 and even then only from Garuda onwards (maybe not even Garuda tbh) and I think this is why Scholars who haven't managed their fairies are up for a steep learning curve because suddenly it makes a difference if your fairy does and AOE buff to you and the fellow BLM standing next to you or the tank just before certain moves.

I guess in the end of the day it comes down to everyone's play-style. Sometimes I agree that things get so intense that it's better to let the fairy do it's thing with rouse up and you spam Psy and Ad as much as possible.. it is also very situational... there is no "one and only right way" to play with sch and that's what is great about it.

[Little_Lulu]

Why are people consistently making threads about this? lol.

Because KNOWLEDGE IS POWAH!!!

[Hysterior]

While I do agree that when she is placed somewhere safe, the result is 10 times better (you can move around and she still focus on the tank) I don't agree for every situation

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.

For Ifrit and Garuda I also prefer having her on heel (because Ifrit pushes her and Garuda and the tornados change places all the time)

No idea about Titan, haven't done it

So don't place your fairy if it will involve having to change place every 10 seconds or recast her because she died. If there is a relatively safe spot near the tank, go for it.

[Mamba]

For Ifrit and Garuda I also prefer having her on heel (because Ifrit pushes her and Garuda and the tornados change places all the time)

I place Fairy on Ifrit as it takes so little damage and is quick to just drop back to the tank when it gets knocked back (btw you will experience this in Titan a lot, so might as well get used to it now)
on Garuda, 1st half I keep fairy near tank and dps (between pillars so it heals dps also when adds are being killed), 2nd half I heel it as you run around and everyone is huddled up pretty much anyway.

On Titan, I recommend to use the placement even though the pixie gets knocked back during landslide. Just drop it back there and remember to use Rouse, the fight is tough on healers and you need the pixie to help keep the tank topped up at all times.
Some people dont use it like that tho, they prefer to keep fairy for the DDs while WHM and SCH takes care of the tank... Again, it really is up to your own preference.

[Monte99]

Steady maybe better for people that don't have a mouse/pad that they can configure. I am more effective specific a target, and I can tell it to heal one as I am healing another or have it double heal my target. With one pad key I mouse over heal and have fairy heal my target. Cool down doesn't change so embrace is going of the same speed.

As soon as I tell the fairy to heal something, it breaks the command(steady, obey and I believe place). Micro managing the embrace is much better then letting the AI choice it's targets, this is why you still see fairy's not on place. Since the cool down for embrace is the same either place or not, it doesn't work any faster for me. I am hitting the heal button as fast as embrace is up.

Now that the pet commands are off my GCD, I can add steady to the macro for my game pad. I need to test if it will cast embrace quick and then put the fairy back on steady as fast as it can cast it, without making blow its other cool downs for when I need it.