So you hit 50. what are you doing?

[Aloreal]

*Disclaimer*
I recently hit 50. with few hours (sometimes only an hour to play per day) i would like to add some comprehensive advise for healers as they enter the 50s and what to do now. As i main in sch i will write it on my perspective rather than focusing on both but some general advise will be given out either by me or the myriad non trolls in the forums.
Do note that the tips i write down, if they are not from community, are my own personal tips from my own personal perspective. They might be constricting but they are my own personal preference and my own way of doing things (which are more on the safe/conservative side) There is a number of opinions on this thread that i give credit where it needs be and I have them full on contributed posts ofe people to have an idea of recurring matters and others opinion as well. This aint just a personal post, its a community post so do what you feel like its best but try to learn as I am learning as well
*End of Disclaimer*

So you hit 50. Good job. I hope for your sake you did not do any side jobs at all or else you are going to find yourself in a big disadvantage later on when you will want to level another class. especially a dps class.

So tip number 1. side quests on main class are useless, except the first city quests. do not do them. only ones you can do are the optional dungeons. search a wiki around for those. maybe a dance quest. but just that. Main and job is more than enough. (thee is some consensus on this Tip so make sure you read the posts regarding it)

Tip number 2. you are not the boss. trust me on this. even if you sync down in a dungeon you are still numerically different by +2 levels of numbers. you lax, its a wipe. or a hard time. Take your pick.

Tip number 3. macros. macros, especially as a scholar are a lifeline.
macro Rouse+Fey Illumination+Whispering Dawn. maximum amount of regen possible by SCH. helps in a tight fight. In addition macro physick with embrace. it will not override if embrace is already casting but if you can 'see' that a big attack is about to hit then macro it and use it. Pets cannot see, they can only react. Do remember that Whispering Dawn is 60 seconds cd and use appropriately even if everything else is in cd. it can help.

(There is some consensus whether macros can help or not. Thank you to Donjo for pointing this out. I also forgot to provide the mouseover macro that can help to heal 2 people at the same time. Please read on to the posts below to get an idea of how it cna work and different ideas for macros)

Tip number 4. Selene is potent. if you are geared and know the fight like the back of your hand. if not stick with Eos.

Tip number 5. addlo, then stoneskin, then addlo again. shield and ss stacks. it will give you much needed time to Cleric stance and dps as well which can help whittle down enemies. only do if you are confident.

Tip number 6. Pet in obey. always. keybind your pet bar and learn to use it well. if you are addloing a 90% target, embrace with pet at the same time. if you are using adlo something is coming.
In addition, position pet well. a good position on an SS pet with sustain is key to survival of your tank. the closer to the tank, the more priority it will give him. Also when you move your pet will not issue any healing until it stops moving. the downtime will kill someone.

Tip number 7. Aetherflow management. at lvl 50 you got 3. on a 1 min cd. so 'potentially' you are going to have 6 available to you from the get-go. pop one aetherflow cast as soon as you enter the game. even if you dont wait for it to be off cd until you do what you want to do its going to be pretty close to off cd. chances are those. Aetherflow is a pretty strong mechanic on sch, helps with the mana management and pops some of our most powerful spells. in some cases, when you got the experience of the fight, its good to opt for the Bane attack, as it will potentially hit all enemies with your dots. just remember to adlo, ss, adlo the tank before you pop the cleric stance and you will do fine.

Tip number 8. crossclass abilities. you hit lvl 50, but if you dont take protect, ss and swiftcast you are pretty much sub-assing it. stop what you are doing and get leveling those two classes until you got your major crossclass abilities. If in a full party with a white mage you can drop protect for whatever else, but solo, full aprty with scholar and especially pugs use it. everything else you need. swiftcast + res macro is a must. also swift + shadowflare is potent.

A note on shadowflare: you dont want it for the damage, you want it for the slow. 5% slow seems like nothing, but for the 30 seconds duration it pretty much cuts 1.5 seconds of attacks. now add this with loads of multiple opponents on shadowflare, all slowed, plus the increase in speed from selene and you potentially got a nice little offense/defense play right there.


General tip 1. Finish your damn job line. do it. it gives you your last AF pieces and lustrate, your 25% hp heal.

Now stop. and think: you got all your crossclasses? you got all the job abilities? if the answer is yes good.buy off the market some high level accessories. (ilvl 49 is enough to gt you through the main story content)
If possible get highest rank in your Grand Company and get a high ilvl weapon from there (ilvl 55)

General tip 2. finish your main story. if you didnt finish it, you cant start higher end content, you cant gather myth, you cant get higher ilvl gear.

Ifrit hard mode is the first challenge. farm him till the ifrit weapon drops. do not, even for a second, think you can tackle anything with less than the ifrit weapon. gc ilvl 55 weapon is not going to cut it.

(it was pointed out that even after Ifrit you can do without the Ifrit weapon. Thank you to Kuwagami. Please note that my views are on the conservative/safe side)

General Tip 3. that Hud. the middle of the screen should have everything you will need in a tidy manner, so you can see your position and have an awareness of what is going on. I personally have party, lb bar, emnity bar, target and focus target in the middle of the screen. Variations may apply, but minimizing the eye tracking as much as possible maybe the difference in correct positioning or a bad run. At least it will help relax your eyes more.

- Funny tips from the community posts. This tips are funny in context but can come in handy if the need arises.

protipforthelol#1 (By Kuwagami) : "Always assume everyone else is going to be so bad you're the only hope of the party". As a healer, it helps you getting aware of everything that happens around, like dps's HP bars instead of focusing solely on tank. As a tank, it helps you seeing a lot more than just the boss as a dps, it helps on reactivity and adaptability (preparing oneself to tank if the MT drops dead to allow a swift raise and maybe a win nevertheless)


- Contribution from the posts:

Regarding Tip 3...

Macros are not a lifeline. Sometimes, they're a crutch that keeps you from realizing your full potential. Combining abilities like that makes you less versatile. The way to be a truly excellent Scholar is to work at pet management until you can manage your pet just as well as yourself.

The Rouse + Illumination + Whispering Dawn macro is an excellent example of wasteful macroing. There are very few situations where you actually need this much regen on the party. At any other point, pressing this button basically wastes two of your most valuable cooldowns and causes Eos to do a ton of overhealing. You can get around this by making the macro fully separate from the previous skills in an oft-forgotten place on a hotbar to reserve it as an "Oh crap!" button... or you could just press all three buttons whenever you think you actually need all three.

Macroing Embrace on your single target heals: do not replace Physick and Adloquium entirely on your skillbars with such things. Doing so is a huge mistake. Sure, you no longer have to worry about focusing your pet on a single target for maximum heals, but it also gives your pet trouble with, well, healing the rest of the party. The best way to combine something with Embrace is to order your pet during the cast time. Forcing both on a single target is something that is not often needed, and your fairy is usually just fine Embracing whoever she wants most of the time. Additionally, this macro blocks off the most flexible thing a Scholar can do: Give two party members good potency heals at the same time. They're already worse with AOE healing than White Mages, and being unable to freely control your pet separately from yourself only makes it worse.

Here are some nifty things you can do instead:

- Macro your DPS spells to also Embrace the Tank.
- Macro your pet to Embrace a party member you have Focus Targeted.
- Macro pet cooldowns prefixed with the "Stay" command to interrupt the Embrace your pet is currently casting. Yep, Selene can silence after all!
- (Not sure if you can actually do this) Macro Eos to move to a location and immediately use Whispering Dawn/Fey Illumination there.

hmmm real tips now :

#1 : DO NOT JUMP !
I know it's tempting, I know a freaking quake or landslide or anything shouldn't hit you in mid air, I know that. However, in this game, jumping causes you position not to be calculated for the lengh of the jump. Ie, if you are in an AoE, jump while you're in, and do not hit the floor before the end of the cast, you're done for. (May have been fixed with 2.28, but I'm too afraid to check it)

#2 legacy camera is life.
Learn how to use it, it's so much more useful than regular camera... being able to run backwards is a huge advantage, do not waste it

As a WHM second... learn when NOT to heal. Spaming medica/medica II/cure/cure II/cure III will just deplete your MP. Not everyone needs to be topped up 100% all the time.

Learn to love the synergy with a SCH in 8 mans.

Learn both uses for Shourd of Saints in case you need either and don't be afraid to use it early if need be.

Stoneskin and more stoneskin and even more stoneskin - if you are aware of the fight and know that a tank is about to get hit by something big... cast it on the tank and they will take a lot less damage(this can be so helpful at managing something like mountain buster and whicked wheel).

The less you heal the more MP you will get back - thus not relying on MP batteries(aka bards(my main)), MP pots and Shourd of Saints.

If you need MP(and you are the one that knows if they need it or not - some are happy with 1k mp some want 50% of their pool etc...) have a macro preferably with a sound alarm next to it <se.1-15> that tells the party your MP percentage and requesting mage's ballad(and remember auto translate works in macros) if nothing else this can signal the tank that they need to pop some heavy CDs or even go Holmgang or the PLD skill to just grind through that. Use MP pots if you need to. Pop shroud if you get raised and pop a pot(I tend to rely on hi-elxisirs as both whm and brd) as well to get back into the healing game fast. If you can, drop a divine seal medica II and regen on tank at the same time so you have a breather for your MP to regen.

Divine seal - it's a great CD - learn when it's best to use it(my own choice tends to be medica II after big aoes that I know more damage is coming to the tank along with a divine seal regen on tank). Also divine seal+medica is basically a long range cure III.

Cure III know when to use it - it's rare usually. Cure and freecure should be your main unless you're doing something like speedruns.

This is absolutely false. I as well as many other have numerous level 50 classes and quite frankly, its EASIER to level up the alt classes after your first 50. I dont know about you but I've barely touched any side quests when I was leveling up my other classes. I have no problem with the tips you're giving, just dont give the newcomers false information. This may make them apprehensive is they're in a certain area and they want to explore and do all there is. But they won't because some guy on the forums suggested they "save some side quests" for a possible other class. Other than that, no problem and grats on your first 50! =^_^=

Couple of tips: It's not about knowing when to heal, but knowing when NOT to heal. New healers may not know but over healing produces aggro! A big no no. So be careful.

Tip 2: Save prescence of mind for rez, its cuts down the 8 second cast time to about 6.5 sec. Very nifty. But honestly you should just suck it up and lvl that thurmaturge to 26 and get SWIFTCAST. I'm victim of this and I know in some endgame fights 6 1/2 secs may be a matter between life and a wipe.

Tip 3: Pop Divine seal as much as you can. When you use it in tandem with SoS, you'll be fine.

Tip 4: Ignore the post regarding ifrit's rod.. If it drops, great. If not, no big deal. The ALKALUROPS is superior to this and you'll need it anyway for relic. In the meantime, Get the level 50 GC weapon and get thyrus when you can.

Tip 5: A good healer with a great pool of mp can dps too. If the crowd control is lacking, pop this useful combo (ONLY FOR A SHORT TIME, AND PAY ATTENTION TO AGGRO BARS AND HEALTH) : Cleric Stance, Shroud of Saints, Holy 2x. Then remove and get your ass back in healer mode. lol. This works great in places like AK and Halatali HM with lots of mobs. Other than that, a few stone II will do.

Going to copy/paste some stuff I wrote in another thread + some extra. I'm ilvl 103 or 104 right now, T6-8 on farm, progressing T9, for reference.


A bad whm is made by:
cure2/cure3 spammers - not using enough cure1 for freecure procs
inconsistent or nonexistent regens
poor timing for heals (many times you need to precast in prep for incoming damage)
poor use of cd's
overall terrible mp management

WHM main tank healing is from regen + cure1 + freecure procs:
You're going to run out of MP quickly if you spam anything, much less cure2/medica/etc. So keep regen up and sit on damage a little bit where appropriate (remember to only recast regen when safe to do so). Youll have to learn the pace of the fight to do this effectively, but basically, you don't want to cure immediately all the time. Regen and try to time cure1 for after hits, not even every hit. requires some coordination with the other healer. Use your freecure procs and know the limitations. Freecure is a free cure2, and the freecure buff lasts a good amount of time... Wait on the tank to take more damage before you use it. freecure is good to use in place of a cure1 or cure2 depending on the situation just because it is free -- but remember, it is a cure2 so watch your aggro. It's more ok to overheal with a freecure proc than a cure 2 simply because it is free -- but try not to use it until there is a cure2 worth of damage done to the tank if you can help it. Either way it generates 100% aggro of a regular cure2.
Keep in mind that while physic+embrace is about as powerful as a cure2 at the price of a cure1, the fairy can't embrace at the same rate as the sch's physics (it is slower). WHMs also have regen which people tend to forget to include in that. Regen should be up on a tank most all the time. And don't forget you can divine seal + regen for a really nice hp regen.

WHM main raid healing comes from medica 1/ medica 2 depending on the situation:
Under some conditions, a cure3 is great as well but shouldn't be the go-to raid heal due to its cost and radius. (a med1/2 is much better in many cases if people are spread out a little more and are more likely to also hit the tank where cure3 might not). Basically, you want to try to time your med1/2 to go off soon after the damage is done. Some situations call for cure 3 like in T8 if the towers get proc'd a little off and defensive goes off while allagan field is up. You want to land a cure3 immediately after defensive hits so the party can take the allagan field damage. Things like that. On the opposite end of the spectrum, for fights like T6 -- I use divine seal+med2 before chains+mark to help keep health high during chains. If several people start getting lower, I will position myself to hit them with a med1 before spit. Then med1 after spit. Usually, I can do the one med2 and one med1 though. The remainder of the med2 will finish topping everyone off. In fights with raidwide damage where you dont expect MORE raidwide damage, a med2 is good to get a little health up and then EVENTUALLY top them off. Also remember that some hp is naturally regenerated over time. Oh yeah, and like I said, timing can really help even on raid damage, so for the raid damage that interrupts casting (not actually all that many, but fireballs in T5 is an example as well as leviX's raid damaging move where you have to hit the switch for the shield) use surecast! Keeps you from being interrupted so you can time the aoe heal to go off right as the damage comes in and move right along.

WHM have their potency cd/ spell speed cd and/or regen+cure2 for low hp tanks:
Benediction can usually only be used 1-2 times in a fight, so use it wisely. For certain moves, stoneskin is important before a hit. Otherwise, use your cd's! Divine seal is awesome to pair with regen, cure1, cure2, med1/2. Not so much cure3 since its already so potent.

WHMs manage hate through paced healing and SoS:
Like I said before, pace yourself! Just because heavy damage occurs to the raid doesn't automatically mean you should be using cure3. And you shouldnt be sitting and spamming cure1 or 2 either. take it easy. time to the enemy's attacks. Learn the fight super well. Generally, SoS will keep your hate down if you use it regularly for mp as you should. However, sometimes shit happens and you will need to use it just to lose hate, especially if you accidently use something too potent as a new mob spawns! Additionally, stoneskin is practically free as far as hate goes. Use it for things like when the dreadnaught spawns in T8. Not always necessary of course, but it can be useful to keep hate down while providing som ehp to the tank.

WHM manage MP more through timing/pacing:
sticking with regen+cure1 as much as possible except for using that freecure proc. Good management of SoS is also extremely important. When you hit between 60-80% (up to you honestly) use SoS and use on cooldown/as needed. Some whms forget to use this often for mp. Additionally, it is beneficial to get some PIE from gear. Up to you how much. I personally go for det and pie over spell speed and crit. spell speed imo is not a great stat because its usefulness is completely avoided by my playstyle since I dont spam moves (generally) and since I try to time moves. Spell speed and spamming, again, will just blow your mp away with little utility in MOST situations. + you have that spell speed buff. And you should have swiftcast (I dont save that for raises. good to have for clutch raising, but its useful for so many other things too). The benefit of timing/pacing and basically sitting doing nothing occasionally is that MP regenerates over time (and based on your PIE). Additionally, if you want more PIE you can eat pineapple juice. It's inexpensive to craft -- only takes clusters and pineapples, so right now at least, its my go-to food. Finally, I try to take some Xethers or High ethers or something for mp restoration in case of emergencies or just things going wrong like too many deaths where my mp gets depleted too quickly. I almost never actually need them, but sometimes I use them anyways for good measure ha. Otherwise, some mind potions are good for a divine seal-like effect when you dont have divine seal up.

WHM dps is somewhat lackluster for single-target:
I generally leave single target DPS to my SCH buddy while I keep at the healing. Sometimes Ill throw something extra out too but not too much. However, WHM excel at aoe damage. Holy does not have a target limit like bane does, so it works really well on very large pulls while also providing a bit of cc (particularly useful for dungeons and killing trash quickly. and stun keeps tank from taking damage for just a bit as well). However, Regen needs to be put up possibly with divine seal before-hand because benediction and stoneskin are the only moves really that arent affected by the stance change. So you have to be extra careful on the timing. Takes getting used to. Cleric's stance dancing!

Both healers need to be using virus and eye for an eye:
appropriately and without accidentally both using it at the same time, so takes some coordination there. These skills are great in many situations and should not be neglected! But be careful because SCH virus has a little more utility, so in some spots they should definitely get priority on that move.

Raising:
the general order for who does raises is SMN->SCH->WHM but it doesnt have to be that way. If a WHM is doing well on MP they can raise just as easily. My group often does it with that priority but also based on who has swiftcast up. Interestingly, if none have swiftcast up, the whm could try to use the spellspeed buff and then cast it for a faster raise.

Again, SoS is for mp management as well as hate management. Try to save it for the mp if you can!! But it can be good to blow simply for emergency hate issues. I try to save it til I need it for mp, and sometimes I will be in the yellow or orange before I get to that, but it only matters in the end if you take hate and get hit. Just watch for that.

Be wary of your cast times:
Stoneskin has a longer cast time than your cures. Things like that. Also, learn when you can start moving again without interrupting a cast. this can really help you out! Also, for stuff like plumes: dont finish casting... GET OUT OF THERE or you're probably dead. If the tank needs an emergency heal right then, use benediction/swiftcast cure1/2, or pray sch lustrates.

And most importantly -- trust the other healer!
If you can't trust the other healer, you need to find a new one. or improve yourself (as maybe the actual case is the other healer can't trust you!). Healers work best if they are really in-sync with the fight's pacing etc. and also with each other. Knowing what the other healer is going to do helps you know what you need to do, so it may take a little time getting used to each other while also getting used to the fights. But it can really work well!




There's certainly many things to add, I'm sure. Reply if anyone else thinks of more tips

A big one I do that I noticed not many WHMs do is: When raising someone, try to get Protect and Stoneskin up on them as soon as they're up. It will go a long way toward avoiding the second stack of Weakness.

[Donjo]

Regarding Tip 3...

Macros are not a lifeline. Sometimes, they're a crutch that keeps you from realizing your full potential. Combining abilities like that makes you less versatile. The way to be a truly excellent Scholar is to work at pet management until you can manage your pet just as well as yourself.

The Rouse + Illumination + Whispering Dawn macro is an excellent example of wasteful macroing. There are very few situations where you actually need this much regen on the party. At any other point, pressing this button basically wastes two of your most valuable cooldowns and causes Eos to do a ton of overhealing. You can get around this by making the macro fully separate from the previous skills in an oft-forgotten place on a hotbar to reserve it as an "Oh crap!" button... or you could just press all three buttons whenever you think you actually need all three.

Macroing Embrace on your single target heals: do not replace Physick and Adloquium entirely on your skillbars with such things. Doing so is a huge mistake. Sure, you no longer have to worry about focusing your pet on a single target for maximum heals, but it also gives your pet trouble with, well, healing the rest of the party. The best way to combine something with Embrace is to order your pet during the cast time. Forcing both on a single target is something that is not often needed, and your fairy is usually just fine Embracing whoever she wants most of the time. Additionally, this macro blocks off the most flexible thing a Scholar can do: Give two party members good potency heals at the same time. They're already worse with AOE healing than White Mages, and being unable to freely control your pet separately from yourself only makes it worse.

Here are some nifty things you can do instead:

- Macro your DPS spells to also Embrace the Tank.
- Macro your pet to Embrace a party member you have Focus Targeted.
- Macro pet cooldowns prefixed with the "Stay" command to interrupt the Embrace your pet is currently casting. Yep, Selene can silence after all!
- (Not sure if you can actually do this) Macro Eos to move to a location and immediately use Whispering Dawn/Fey Illumination there.

[Andrain]

When I hit 50 WHM I rolled a tank! Getting to 15 wasn't so bad then my first pull in my first dungeon (Satasha) The Healer let me die, twas a white mage who had no skills and apparently didn't have Cure bound or some idiocy. Suffice to say I rolled an Arcanist got SCH and am working on my getting THM to 26.

As for the macro debate I've heard various things in various places and I've yet had an instance I've needed them so, well depends on what I'lll make my main I suppose, haven't decided. Haven't done any endgame content yet. Wanted to learn about other systems first to make me a better healer later.

[DarkLordCthulhu]

I wouldnt macro embrace with other heals like stated before. Instead keep it on your hotbar and learn how to split heals manually. Im able to do this on controller just took sometime to master it. If you do macro your embrace it should be mouse over macro so you can split heal on keyboard and mouse

The fey + rouse + wd is overpowered. Maybe keep rouse + wd in a macro but fey illumination separate. I'd also recommend keeping rouse (unmacroed) on your hotbar when you need extra fairy healing but not the AoE healing. I do however have fey illumination macro'd to the heel command. This is for when i have my fairy placed somewhere and i need Eos to come closer so i can get the effect from fey.

Macros seemed to fail from time to time. Maybe cause im controller? but my rez macro has caused some wipes so now i have swift rez manually. Ex: me thinking i swift rez somebody so I go back to healing, only to notice swift + succor/adlo/physick -___-. So while nice, macros can actually hurt your performance at times.

[Aloreal]

I do agree with the hurt issue on macros. sometimes they dont register, that especially is a foul most of the times.

And i forgot to mention the <mo>. i use the mouseover macro for embrace+physick. in a simple fight i heal two targets at a time. but when i want concentrated healing i use the macro specifically on the target i want to concentrate on. I prefer to leave the dps to die if it means the tank is alive. dps loss can hurt, but tank loss is wipe. its a choice.

In addition you can leave fairy to heal other members by lowering your button smashing by the factor of .2 seconds. takes some getting used to it, but if you are not using the <mo> it can be done

all my macroed spells I put in different bars to be able to click one at a time if i need to. especially rouse and swiftcast.

Generally i agree that such overhealing from Eos is a waste. but has saved in some moments, so i wouldnt get rid of it from my main keyboard. in addition i did say to manually learn to use commands of pets. the macro is there for the normal moments. if a very hard moment comes make sure to manually control everything.

[Kuwagami]

Ifrit hard mode is the first challenge. farm him till the ifrit weapon drops. do not, even for a second, think you can tackle anything with less than the ifrit weapon. gc ilvl 55 weapon is not going to cut it.

This is not true. I did everything up to titan with GC weapons or less, and it went fine. As long as you know what to do, you'll be fine.

In fact, GC weapon does a good job until there are real dps checks (ifrit can be cut by mage lb). For titan, you'll ant garuda's weapon over ifrit's one anyway

[Aloreal]

This is not true. I did everything up to titan with GC weapons or less, and it went fine. As long as you know what to do, you'll be fine.

In fact, GC weapon does a good job until there are real dps checks (ifrit can be cut by mage lb). For titan, you'll ant garuda's weapon over ifrit's one anyway

True enough. Ill edit the first post to add the points out. just to be on the safe side on my argument though:
I personally go in somewhere with the mentality of everything that can go bad, will go bad. everyone will die. ill have to carry. tank will be 3 shot.
It helps when i have experienced this little points as such i personally play it safe.

[Kuwagami]

True enough. Ill edit the first post to add the points out. just to be on the safe side on my argument though:
I personally go in somewhere with the mentality of everything that can go bad, will go bad. everyone will die. ill have to carry. tank will be 3 shot.
It helps when i have experienced this little points as such i personally play it safe.

Oh right you can always add that tip as a joke one (it works wonder though for some PUGs...) :

protipforthelol#1 : "Always assume everyone else is going to be so bad you're the only hope of the party". As a healer, it helps you getting aware of everything that happens around, like dps's HP bars instead of focusing solely on tank. As a tank, it helps you seeing a lot more than just the boss as a dps, it helps on reactivity and adaptability (preparing oneself to tank if the MT drops dead to allow a swift raise and maybe a win nevertheless)


disclaimer : this tip is not to take seriously. Other people obviously aren't total idiots and are perfectly capable of fulfilling the job. It just helps on reactivity

[Nicobo]

...so tip number 1. side quests on main class are useless, except the first city quests. do not do them. only ones you can do are the optional dungeons. search a wiki around for those. maybe a dance quest. but just that. Main and job is more than enough...

wow this tip so mean... ^^;

[Aloreal]

-SNIP-

Ill add a section with funny comments/tips so keep them coming ^^

wow this tip so mean... ^^;

Mean or not, its best to make a harsh impact than no impact at all