Which Fairy IS better?

[Rainsford]

Selene is ~ALWAYS~ better than Eos.

Let's do the math. Assuming it's an 8 man run with both you and the WHM using Physick/Cure for 1000 HP, and we are going over 2 minutes. For the purposes of this, we are worried about tank healing, and I'll explain why after. To make it clear, I'm using a 2 minute interval since Eos's buffs are up for 20s every 120s. Since Selene's are on a 30s cooldown, the Spell Speed buff will be up for 60s total over the 120s trial.

Selene: Fey Glow shaves .15s off my GCD, and is up for 60s. Over that time, the decreased GCD gives me the equivalent of four free actions. Assuming both me and the WHM use all 4 actions on heals, that's a roughly 8000 increase in HP.

Eos: Fey Illumination is up for about 8 actions over that 2 minutes. Assuming you and the WHM use every action for a heal, it's 200x16 for 3200 added healing. Assuming a 650~ Embrace, that's another 1040 healing done. Two Whispering Dawns will heal for about 4200 overall. Adding them up, using Eos gives you an extra 8450 healing on the tank over two minutes.

So, using Selene means that your tank will receive 450 HP less every 2 minutes compared to Eos if you maximize each buff for healing.

Of course, realistically, we know this won't be the case. Lots of that HoT healing will go into overheal (especially if the tank is topped off), and heal-bombing the tank with FI up like you must to maximize it's gains means that any time spent casting anything else, or any overheal, makes Selene's buffs more attractive.

So, accounting for overheal, Selene is marginally worse to significantly better at tank healing than Eos. When it comes to MT healing, this pretty much makes them a wash, if not giving Selene a slight edge thanks to her giving you more opportunities to do other things besides heal bomb.

But what else do they bring? Well, Whispering Dawn does hit the whole party, but is about 2000 HP regened over 20 seconds. I can't think of scenarios where that's particularly useful. What situations are there where mechanics are causing party members to take damage that doesn't need to be quickly healed by a higher potency spell, or can be delayed in healing until there's less pressure on the tank? Maybe ADS's Vacuum Wave? But, realistically, it's only saving you from casting 1-2 Succors every minute, and that's the fight where the skill is most useful.

Of course, trying to use WD effectively means you either can't save WD for when you need it or you need to be hitting Steady after every Embrace pre-cast on the tank (which you should be doing!). With Selene, I can slam the Embrace key constantly so the Fairy is always working. With Eos, this requires me to hit an extra key every time. Is that quality of life annoyance worth 1-2 Succors every minute on the fight that the skill most shines in?

As for Fey Covenant, it's virtually useless from what I can tell. Even if it acted as a straight damage decrease, 20% over 20s makes it less useful than Eye for an Eye, and since there's no fight where a tank or any party member is constantly getting hit by magic damage that risks your party (with the exception of some Turn 5). So, the skill is as useless as Silent Dusk.

So Eos gives roughly equal tank healing and some marginal group healing (that I can't think of a useful application of).

On the other hand, Selene will give a 3.5-5% increase in damage from your party. Additionally, if you use even one CD on non-heals during FI or end up overhealing significantly, Selene becomes hands-down better for healing.

So, from an objective standpoint, I'm not sure why anyone is using Eos on anything, much less calling Selene "useless."

Sorry for the grammar, btw. Exhausted. If there's any glaring error, feel free to point it out.