Scholar Healing Guide

[SynGrell]

Here is an actual example:
a player has a spell speed stat of 435.

Their Physick has a cast time of 1.93 seconds and a recast of 2.41.

After Selene uses Fey Glow, their spell speed stat will be 565.

Physick now has a cast time of 1.83 with a recast time of 2.28.

Even in situations where you don't NEED Eos, you should still be using Eos. Her buffs are far more useful and give you and your group extra "wiggle room". That will give your group insurance against unexpected mistakes and also increase your group's dps far more than Selene ever could.

[Havenae]

Not sure that anyone has mentioned this yet... But it seems many of you aren't giving Adlo the credit it deserves, and here's why.

This is how Scholar can very much excel at high damage situations. Adlo isn't just a shield, it's a stopper, or a damage interrupter if you will. Meaning it'll nullify further damage for the amount the shield exists. So if your tank is getting hammered the very first thing you should cast is adlo, stop the damage, patch up with embrace and physick, then end with adlo again, or weave it in if damage continues to rampage the tank. Yes it eats up mp, but you're a healer, your mp should be going to healing in the first place. Which leads me to my next point.


I run as a summoner sometimes, other times on my dragoon, and I have to say the multitude of scholars that dps first and heal second is sad. If anyone in your group dies because you were busy dpsing, you failed. I don't care what your gear level is or what content you've cleared, if someone dies on your watch because of you doing something other than healing , then you are being a bad healer. The fact that you some how bumbled your way through whatever turn of coil, or CT or whatever extreme primal doesn't give you the right to ignore your responsibilities, even in a lesser dungeon, and allow someone else to just kick over. It's both selfish and very rude. We're Scholars, we heal. Can we dps? Sure we can, but it doesn't mean we should. I'm not saying you can't dps, when you know everything is well and taken care of, just don't make it your priority.

And certainly don't tell the person who just died (because of you), "I'm sorry but I just had to DPS, you understand. Right?'


And finally, the advice about hotkeying embrace. DO IT. Eos can pretty much solo heal any dungeon below the lvl 30 (higher than that given gear) mark with you throwing stoneskins and adlo (when level trunicate allows) But only if YOU are smart about it. Put her on obey leave her to guard. She'll autocast when needed but still give you the ability to direct her when AI isn't kicking in yet. This gives you a lot of time in those dungeons to do things like knit, think deep thoughts or even dps if you like. Plus getting used to controlling your fairies allows you to do things like essentially split cast healing spells (like heal this dps with embrace while you heal the tank, or Eos/Selene heals this dps you heal another, ect...) and better facilitates DPSing while also healing. Because Some of you may not realize, if you smack a keybind to heal or dps, you can smack the embrace keybind while casting and the fairy will do it, there's no delay, there's no "You can't do that while casting" You can in a sense cast two spells at once with your fairy which makes you incredibly bad ass.

Also take a good long look at how to make mouseover macros. They essentially turn your party window into healbot (a healing addon from WoW if you're not familiar. Or grid +clique Which was my preferred addons set.) Which consequently makes healing a hell of a whole lot easier.

Extra: I agree with the above post. Selene really doesn't seem worth the trouble or the sacrifice of whispering dawn, our single solitary regen spell. I'd much rather Selene be a dps or even tank pet or something for soloing or in cases where healing isn't as paramount. Eos is really the more robust companion for the scholar where as Selene is situational at best.

[Haprimac]

Because Some of you may not realize, if you smack a keybind to heal or dps, you can smack the embrace keybind while casting and the fairy will do it, there's no delay, there's no "You can't do that while casting" You can in a sense cast two spells at once with your fairy which makes you incredibly bad ass..

For me DDing different target and healing another is difficult, so instead I replaced all my dps skills with macros that make me do the skill, say bio on my target and make Eos heal my target's target, who is usually the tank. That way I can pretty much dps every dungeon without casting a single physick. Though out of habbit, I always take cleric stance off for a second to cast adlo on tank before every pull and go back to dpsing. Works fine for me at least.

[Tranquil]

Even in situations where you don't NEED Eos, you should still be using Eos. Her buffs are far more useful and give you and your group extra "wiggle room". That will give your group insurance against unexpected mistakes and also increase your group's dps far more than Selene ever could.

I don't really agree with this assessment. I can get behind the line of thinking that safety comes first and that healing is our job, but when it comes to single-target heavy healing and or mild AOE-healing, you can take that on alone, never mind having a WHM there. Why would I use Eos for farm-content or assume the worst out of my team mates in such content, when both fairies heal equally well when it comes to single target healing? (Excluding for a short period of time when Eos has Fey on herself).

Also, Fey glow is certainly better than what you give it credit for -- all those reduced times for Fire I casts, GCDs for firestarters, SMN spells, etc., it does add up by the end of a longer fight. Having yours and the WHM's (and your fairy's) heals (and DPS-skills) casted faster with a lower GCD is also a nice side-bonus. You don't need "wiggle room" for content you don't need Eos for. A fey glowed Selene can keep up better with her embraces - stuff will also die a tad faster (extra fast if you DPS given the opportunity as you should), meaning less heals over time. That's one way to look at it. Not minmaxing your potential given the opportunity (ie. in content you don't need Eos) is just a tad mehh IMO.

[SynGrell]

The problem with that is, using Selene isn't "minmaxing" at all. Her buffs are simply that weak. Eos is better for single target healing as well; a properly placed and controlled fairy can make things extremely easy for the tank. Fey Illumination, Whispering Dawn and Rouse, in any combination, are extremely effective at making the healer's job much easier. That "wiggle room" you get from Eos means you have extra time as a scholar, time that can be used to throw out some dots. And even a single application of Bio, Miasma, and Bio II to the target will do more damage than Fey Glow/Light would give even with the whole group receiving the buffs. They are simply that weak. 0.1 seconds isn't going to make a difference in any significant capacity.

Here is some math to prove it:

[SynGrell]

Let's assume a Black Mage has enough spell speed to have their Fire I recast at around 2.3 seconds. Fey Glow will reduce that to about 2.2 seconds.

Now, even if we assume that Black Mage is able to stand and spam they would be able to cast over 1 minute:

60 seconds / 2.3 second recast = 26.086

time doesn't round, so 26 Fire I casts in that 60 seconds.

Now, Fey Glow can only be up 50% of the time since it has a 30 second duration and a 60 second cool down. With Fey Glow applied:

30 seconds of Fey Glow / 2.2 second recast = 13.636

30 seconds without Fey Glow / 2.3 second recast = 13.043

26. Exactly the same as without Fey Glow!!!!

So even if you assume:
1. There is no latency
2. There is no human error
3. That all spells cast will benefit from the reductions
4. That the fight has no movement
5. That the Black Mage is within range of Fey Glow

That Black Mage will still get precisely ZERO more spells cast per minute. Math doesn't lie; Selene is worthless.

[Tranquil]

Your math isn't entirely wrong, but the angle you approached this from is different to mine. It's not so much about the number of casts in the fashion you spoke of but about fewer interruptions and more leeway with slightly faster casts/GCDs (animation locks, when it comes to Fey light) and so forth. Dodge-heavy content or content wherein mobs get repositioned as your cast is going out (leading to interruptions) - that 0.15s faster cast can help you finish a cast you wouldn't otherwise potentially finish. We all know those situations where you land a cast on the run at the last second, feeling out that cast bar before moving so that the cast will still be finished. You are also not accounting in for off-GCD ability-weaving with the shorter GCD you have. It's just about that fluidity.


Minmaxing in healing context is not the same it is for DPSing - you don't want to heal the most you can, if you can already keep up with what you have. That is in essence Selene's niche. No one likes overhealing. Hence, one of your priorities in Selene-able content is the overall fluidity and the maximizing of off-DPS times. I am not arguing that Selene is your go-to fairy for maximizing HPS (that would be retarded of me), but that she is not worthless at all in content wherein you don't need Eos. In such content where you can get by with Selene, you will have plenty of single-target healing power with Selene herself (as the Embrace-potencies are the same anyway) and you will likely have the time to throw in dots anyway, having Eos there would not change the status quo. That is exactly why I only argued for the usage of Selene in 'farm content', ie. stuff wherein you can keep up with Embraces (roused or otherwise) and the odd 'maintenance-lustrate' at best, when closing in on that aether-CD.

For curiousity value - I use Eos for: T5, Ifrit EX, Titan EX soloheals, Ultima HM soloheals and Garuda EX soloheals after the first add-phase, swiftcasting an Eos out during the first spiny plume (starting off with Selene). Selene for pretty much everything else unless the situation so calls for. (eg. swifting Eos out in the last phase of Titan EX if the other healer gets LS'd out or if shit is hitting the fan).

[KiraVaela]

snip

Just curious, why do you use Eos for Ifrit EX (assuming 2 heal)? I mostly use Selene there to speed up clearing nails. In my experience this buys some time for people to avoid Searing Wind comfortably (source of most wipes along with dps check imo) if something goes a bit off.

Also, for T5, using Selene until P4 is what I do and from what I can tell, it makes a difference. Having few more seconds to shield people, regroup and prepare for next phase after killing Asclepius is very helpful. Although it is somewhat mp intensive and if that is an issue, I can see going with Eos from the start as the better option.

Overall, I feel the difference (people also tell me often they feel the same) between using Selene and Eos. So it's not only about numbes, but people most likely can sneak in a move here and there they would not have been able to otherwise.

[Tranquil]

Just curious, why do you use Eos for Ifrit EX (assuming 2 heal)? I mostly use Selene there to speed up clearing nails. In my experience this buys some time for people to avoid Searing Wind comfortably (source of most wipes along with dps check imo) if something goes a bit off.

Well, going by that wording, it sounds like you are doing Ifrit EX with stationary healers. We are doing the swapping at all times, so DPS has even fewer responsibilities (ie. not having the need to keep track of which healer has the sear), so getting out of the way of sears never is and never will be an issue, because us healers are literally tailoring our moments to fit the DPS's during the nails etc. (The only times we ever wipe if we even do wipe are related to tank swap fails during the last nail phases, but we one shot it most of the time comfortably).

I use Eos for Ifrit EX because I feel more comfortable with it given how the encounter pans out for us. I like to WD during the nails and I think Eos's buffs are decent for the fight - we have never wiped due to lack of DPS in Ifrit EX, ever, unless someone died to a derp-eruption or something during the last nails or something - which hasn't happened in weeks of farming for some bangles and or getting the weeklies. If anything, we need to be careful not to hit Ifrit's sub-10% enrage for the last set of nails. I usually off-dps 55-75 DPS on a SCH during the fight, having dots up nearly all of the time. Don't really seem to need Selene there.

As far as T5 goes, that's a fair assessment IMO, but I don't know if you're doing it with solotank (like us) or with 2 tanks and 4 DPS. We transition phases very smoothly with me using Eos and she is very helpful there in general, so if I were to whip out Selene, those smooth divebomb-transitions might get a bit iffy with a potential conflag up and all that jazz. The snakes and having the time to kill them (never mind conflags) has never been a problem either, with everyone's stacks being down by the time profusion is cast. I do have the leeway MP-wise, but there's no real need for me to use Selene there, at the moment.

Very much agreed with your last paragraph, which is in essence the point of my post above yours!

[KiraVaela]

snip

Thank you for very detailed response!

I'm actually used to the swapping too, but I play with different people all the time. So my experience is likely a bit different and I'm not completely comfortable doing DPS there, because I feel like I need to be ready for errors that happen here and there. Therefor I'm using Selene to make up for that (if that makes even sense). I will try Eos and putting some dots (this might bring a bit more dps, but it is probably a bit more risky?). Ideally I shouldn't worry about doing damage at all, but we do it 7man from time to time, so maybe that is why.

We are currently doing T5 with 2 tanks, so once again, dps is sub-optimal and so I use Selene to make up for that as incoming damage is splitted between 2 tanks. I would definitely go with Eos should we go with 1 tank.

It's always nice to discuss different approaches with well-mannered people, thanks for that.