fresh 50 sch looking for advice on how to up my game!

[Asdamine]

Hi, all of those are legit questions and I will answer them the best I can. Since you have excluded Coil in your question, I will simply answer in terms of Primals and CT - the only 8 men+ contents that are within moderate, to high, difficulty.

- if tank is topped off and has an adlo/adlo+stoneskin on him, do i have enough time to pop into cleric's to get a bioII/miasma/bio on enemy? maybe even a bioII/miasma/bio/aero/shadow flare if my adlo crits?
For Primal, you will not have the time to DPS because the tanks will be hit like a truck on a consistantly basis. Adlo and stoneskin will be gone within a matter of seconds. Only instance you will do DPS will be e.g. When Garuda is alone without the sisters or when Titan do the "about-to-fart" stance with two gaol. As for CT, you can pretty much have cleric stance on permenantly if the other healer has healing duty.

- because of the debuff it gives, should i be regularly using shadow flare or is it better to use my bubble for Sacred Soil?
This has been a debate for a long while on the healers forum. But frankly, the use of shadow flare over sacred soil or the other way around is COMPLETELY a personal choice. Personally, I would use sacred soil simply because I am a healer, and it is my job to negate damage and heal damage.

- i plan on getting my CNJ to 34 for stoneskin [+DAT UNICORN THO] but would playing CNJ/WHM to 50 really give me much insight on how to SCH better? [generally, i've always felt like playing other classes will make you better at your own i.e. learning to tank made me a better dps, etc.] because lvling cnj right now is just patience testing
I don't think it would assist you much in playing a SCH, simply because both classes are standing on the same POV. It would help you immensely if you play a tank, as it did wit mine, to know the habit and little tricks tanks do in a fight and how they move. If you really want to argue on WHM/SCH, I would say... it helps you to know you are better of raising than WHM. :P

- when is it more mp efficient to stoneskin the tank instead of adlo? how often will i have enough time to get both on him (assuming that i don't have the luxury of a whm in my group)?
I would say use Adlo instead over stoneskin, definitely. 1) Adlo gives heal, with an additional shield that gives the same amount of the heal on adlo. 2) if you scored a crit heal on adlo (my normal crit is 1.3k), you will place a shield on the double amount of the crit heal (meaning, it will be a 2.6k shield). Since cross class stoneskin only gives 10% (plus, it doesn't heal). A 10% on a normal pld tank of 6k HP would only be 600 stoneskin, now, you know where I am getting at.

- for what fights is it better to have my fairy placed vs having him on heel?
None, unless you expect yourself intentionally getting hit and want to avoid Eos getting hit as well. The only situation crossing my mind is Turn 1 whereby the boss occationally spits at you.

- any other general tips?
Macro Rouse+Whispering Dawn and the other Eos skill (which I forgot the name) for max AoE heal and execute in one button.

Macro Virus with a party announcement so that there will be no overlap/waste Virus when boss has immunity (especially when your macro is target's target, other healers usually use that too to not bother with targeting the boss and back to the tank).

Macro Physick+Embrace together to maximise heal (but some people prefer to be on seperate buttons with Embrace of mouse over for multi-heal. Personally, I do that mouse over macro for embrace on seperate button but I also macro it with physick since I often lack the awareness to press Embrace, the macro will do it for me instead.)

Get Swiftcast - NOW! NOW! NOW!

^And I mean, really get it NOW!

^^NOW! TODAY!

^^^ I will do you a favour, you are now barred from healing in any end game content until you get it! OK?!

Final advice, do not be stingy on using aetherflows on lustrate. I have seen many SCH let the tank die (accidentally or willingly) because they thought they should save it for the "oh-shit" moment. Well, tank died, that is "oh-shit" enough.