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

[Sanguisio]

Congrats on joining the SCH group.
Warning wall of text, but as helpful as I can be.

- what's the progression of 8-man content i should be tackling right now (in order of difficulty, i guess) so i can up my scholar game?
I suggest doing mog, you will learn about multi target healing, debuffing, and mitigation without too much pressure.

- 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?

this is one is debated alot. IMO it depends on the tank for instance a stone skin is more effective on a War due to higher health so the mitigation/casttime is more efficient than on a PLD, however a PLD can usually get away with not being healed constantly as they do take less (I know its almost proportional to WAR, but team morale plummets when they MT with low HP) so you can DPS a bit. Best thing to do if you are planning to dps, is to prior to the fight make a macro which forces Eos or Selene to turret heal the tank only, then do this sequence, stone if you wish, Aldo, then when shields go set her off with the macro (my fairys heal 900-1.2k with rouse) while having lustrates on stand and you can safely go into cleric and dps for a while, and pop a lustrate of when needed, when dpsing as SCH I would suggest stick to DOTs and Energy Drain if needed.

- because of the debuff it gives, should i be regularly using shadow flare or is it better to use my bubble for Sacred Soil?
if the mob is affected by slow, go with shadow flare on the basis if they are slower it means less healing is needed along with the other benefits, for big hits (hellfire, aerial thingy etc) sacred soil.

- for my super on-point scholars - about how much off-dps can a scholar clock in on the average 8-man fight while still being an effective healer?
without figures id say you will clock about 2/4-2/3s of a SMN potentially if you use lustrates and micro manage your fey.

- 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
It would help by having you know when your buffs are appreciated, when the point at when their MP is reaching danger zone so you need to step up your healing if you haven't been already. But honestly you won't learn anything you wouldn't learn from talking to one.

- 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)?
If you have nothing do, and your DOTs are up, use stoneskin.

- for what fights is it better to have my fairy placed vs having him on heel?
I always place my fairy, it boosts her effectiveness if she doesnt have to move anywhere. So make her range covers both healers and the back/flanks of the mob so that any AOEs hit everyone.

It would help by having you know when your buffs are appreciated, when the point at when their MP is reaching danger zone so you need to step up your healing if you haven't been already. But honestly you won't learn anything you wouldn't learn from talking to one.

- 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)?
If you have nothing do, and your DOTs are up, use stoneskin.

- for what fights is it better to have my fairy placed vs having him on heel?
I always place my fairy, it boosts her effectiveness if she doesnt have to move anywhere. So make her range covers both healers and the back/flanks of the mob so that any AOEs hit everyone.

make sure you are rotating Virus, E4AE and sacred soil when doing single target single healing on heavy mobs as it will help alot.
If you can manage with just physick, just use physick. However that doesnt mean if you are using physick the WHM or SCH should have to make up the difference with Cure 2 and Aldo.
Synchronicity with SCHs is the best healing couple imo, for big AOEs, just split team between you and Aldo just before.
If you can, micro manage you fey to get the most of their abilities. E.g its pointless having her use WD without rouse, or Fey light/glow during an boss animation or when the last mob is almost dead.
Keep aetherflow on CD, you need to blowing those stacks every minute.
If you are going to DPS, somehow let other healer know.
If you can, heal SMN pets. If a SMN can save swiftcast, they will usually use it to raise, which saves you MP, and it also allows them to keep DPS up which return means less overall healing needed as mob will die quicker.

[Kyomih]

Sanguisio, you can just edit your first comment with all the text you want to add. There is no word count in edit mode.

[Ardan]

As a healer is there a reliable way to target SMN's Egi? I play on PC using a gamepad.

Edit: Nevermind me, figured it out.

[Judge_Xero]

For being concerned about tossing up DOTs etc while you have free time. You can practice first by tossing them on while not in Clerics. If you get Bio Miasma and Bio II up and then Bane it to multiple mobs it's better than nothing. Can also start in Clerics to toss out Dark Matter on the pull then switch. You can then move up to timing when you will use Lustrate stacks so that you can have full heals while in Clerics.

[Hysterior]

what's the progression of 8-man content i should be tackling right now (in order of difficulty, i guess) so i can up my scholar game?
CT for free i80 every week, then anything that cap your myth tomes (450 a week). Once at least i70, you can tackle Bahamut.


is there some way on the ps3 that i can rearrange the party list so that i have MT in slot 2 and OT in slot 8?
Haven't played on PS3 for long time but should be a way in the communication/social section of the main menu. You should be able to drag and drop names up and down. I always sort the list before every fight.

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?
I personally do. I have all my skills macroed. All my attack skills can be cast when targeting the tank (using <tt>) and I added a embrace <t> macro on thos attack ones. So basically, whenever I attack. the fairy heals the tanks. So for trash mobs, I almost don't even need to heal. Ex: did AK the other day, I was in CS the whole time attacking while pet was healing. Just throwing a Lustrate here and then when he took more damage that she could heel.
But i would say this: attack when your are confortable doing so. I would have never throw any attacking spells first time i was doing titan. I was too busy running, healing... now tthat i know the fight well, i am much more aggressive. So first Heal, then when situation is in control, attack to make the phases go quicker.

because of the debuff it gives, should i be regularly using shadow flare or is it better to use my bubble for Sacred Soil?
For beginning of a fight, even primal X i would use Swiftcast+Shadow flare because i dont think that either your pet or team member will die soon so you can use that swiftcast for something else. sacred soil is useful when people take lot of unavoidable damage. But sacred soil help pushing to other phases quicker. So I would use accordingly

for my super on-point scholars - about how much off-dps can a scholar clock in on the average 8-man fight while still being an effective healer?
I never use parser so i can't say but as mentioned before, i try to put dots whenever possible so it sure helps a lot

- 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
To me, every job helps me play the other ones better. I did not know what skills tank used until I level mines. And I can now now when the WHM is slacking because I play that role too

- 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 can't think of any 4-man content that need me to stoneskin during the fight... I do before but never during. And in 8 man it really should be WHM job so stick to adlo.

for what fights is it better to have my fairy placed vs having him on heel?
I have her on heel quick a lot when i know there is a good spot where she can reach people without getting damage or place where she can WD on most people. For CT i would have her on heel most of the time but will place her for bone dragon because I just from platform to platform and she can get poison) but that's it on top of my head. For most dungeon she is on heel. only place during poisn-heavy dungeon like aurum vale. For bahamut i place during T1 bosses (ADS and twintania) and then during T5. T2 and 4 she follow me. For primal X I have her on heel for garuda, place (our of the arena on left side, near the 11 superbomb) for titan x and i try to go to ifrit as WHM lol but I guess placed is better for that fight too.

any other general tips?
I use loads of macros and that helps me a lot
- all my attacking spells can be use when i target the tank (and therefore attack the target of the tank) and heal the target with embrace. This allow me to heal simple wounds while making wounds of myself on mobs.
- all my healing spells are also macroed with embrace and i also have macros for Eos (Rouse+fey illu+WD) for Selene i use her 2 skills every 30sec manually

[Cookar]

I strongly disagree with macroing multiple abilities together in one keybind. For instance, I saw a suggestion to macro Rouse, Fey Illumination and Whispering Dawn together.

You have to understand that in 8 man content, you will usually be taking on the role of tank healer with the white mage usually handling raid/aoe healing. There will be times when you want to rouse just to increase the effectiveness of your tank embraces. There will be times when you want to fey illumination to boost the effectiveness of single target heals by you, eos and the white mage. To have them all macroed together limits your ability to react to different situations correctly.

Instead of macroing these types of abilities together, keybind them to similar spots. For instance I have:

Rouse: ctrl-r
Fey Illumination: ctrl-t
Whispering Dawn: ctrl-5

[Cookar]

I don't know why but the forums don't want me to go over 1000 words. Anyway to finish the above thought, with those keybinds I can still quickly get off my big aoe hot by pressing ctrl r->t->5, but maintain the flexibility to use those abilities separately if I so choose. The same thing applies to macroing embrace into physick or adloquium. By having a separate keybind for embrace, it is easier to split heals or spam embrace while dpsing in cleric stance.

[Anova]

You can click the "edit post" button to add more after you post. The 1000 word limit only applies to the initial post. Don't ask me why.

I think it's fine to have a macro for everything (for those situations when you really need it). But as Cookar said, you may find it better at times to have the skills on individual basis for those situations where just a rouse, illumination, or a whispering dawn is enough. Of course, that is assuming you have the buttons to include all the hotkeys you want. Experiment and find a happy combination of automated macros and ability versatility that works for you.

[DBthaONE]

Selene's "embrace" cannot be macroed on ps3. It's a bug that I hope gets fixed soon. Therefore, I actually no reason not to leave Selene in sic mode. She's pretty good managing the speed buffs, her silence can be unreliable (not happening exactly when you need it), and you can't macro her most important ability. However if you wanna macro it, you're more than welcome.

They fixed the issue with Selene's embrace for ps3 in patch 2.16 although it wasn't mentioned in the patch notes, or I haven't found it mentioned in the patch notes. Thus, I would like to retract my advice about not leaving Selene in obey mode. Personally I don't think I will use Selene in any more other than sic, but you are welcome to try to use her as you see best.

I strongly disagree with macroing multiple abilities together in one keybind. For instance, I saw a suggestion to macro Rouse, Fey Illumination and Whispering Dawn together.

You have to understand that in 8 man content, you will usually be taking on the role of tank healer with the white mage usually handling raid/aoe healing. There will be times when you want to rouse just to increase the effectiveness of your tank embraces. There will be times when you want to fey illumination to boost the effectiveness of single target heals by you, eos and the white mage. To have them all macroed together limits your ability to react to different situations correctly.

Instead of macroing these types of abilities together, keybind them to similar spots. For instance I have:

Rouse: ctrl-r
Fey Illumination: ctrl-t
Whispering Dawn: ctrl-5

I hope you realize TheHomieData is Most likely playing on ps3. They may be using a mouse and keyboard (although I have no idea how) in which case binding may be a feasible action. However if it is not....

[Riyos]

If you are grouped with a warrior tank watch their debuffs, you can cleanse off their silence from their enhanced damage self buff. I forgot the name of their buff.

5 secs of patification after 20 secs of berserk. Actually it's not essential to leech the pacification, mainly because it's only a 5s debuff. Do it only when it's a safe moment, everyone is full and you have nothing to do. The war will probably love you for this, but as i already said, it's not essential nor very useful.
A thing that is instead VERY useful is to use lustrate with war's Thrill of Battle. ToB gives him 20% of HP(healing him for that amount) for 20 seconds. And more HP means stronger Lustrate.