Pet Placement....

[RoseM]

I main in scholar, and I find the knockback mechanic really annoying for pets too. Generally I use Heel on 95% of the contents, the rare exceptions are:
Levi ex, due to the annoying debuff on OT
T5, for fireball soaking, and place them out of the pit to avoid making them walk into the wall during divebombs (Yes they are silly enough to do that)
T9, to absorb the beam dmg

1. While placing pets might sounds like a fancy trick it does take away a large amount of healers' awareness and makes them worse healers.
2. Heel doesnt really reduce pets' healing efficiency in those butt clenching moments, cuz they will still prioritize healing over movement.
3. Some knockback mechanic will push pets into somewhere infront of the boss and inside their cone attack range, which usually means an instant death. Your pet is always safer when hes following you.

[Tranquil]

1. While placing pets might sounds like a fancy trick it does take away a large amount of healers' awareness and makes them worse healers.

How so? Sure, if someone forgets to re-Place their pet for optimal buff ranges or just derps with it in general - I would agree, but I would actually argue the exact opposite: having your pet on Heel is an easy way out of any of the re-Placing and minmaxing that a competent Place-user would have to do. If one is unable to include minding their pet and its placement in their "awareness", then that means that person doesn't really have good awareness levels to begin with.

2. Heel doesnt really reduce pets' healing efficiency in those butt clenching moments, cuz they will still prioritize healing over movement.

Heel reduces a ton of your healing efficiency. A pet will prioritize healing over moving in situations where someone has already dipped, but the fairy-AI is a lot less receptive when using Heel, when compared to Place. This applies for all commands. Also, if you move around, you have a harder time using manual Embrace-spam and having your pet minmax its HPS, as your pet will also move around with you. That constant Embrace-spamming is more important for keeping up a good flow in terms of cruise-controlling and off-DPSing than having it heal over movement when the damage has already been done (to sub-80% HP to trigger auto-Embrace).

3. Some knockback mechanic will push pets into somewhere infront of the boss and inside their cone attack range, which usually means an instant death. Your pet is always safer when hes following you.

Sure it is safer with you, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't analyze the terrain each time and put it at the optimal spot. Misplacing your pet in Titan EX or T8 is pretty much the only place I can think of where this might happen. Even then, infrequently and with bad positioning of it.

[giantslayer]

2. Heel doesnt really reduce pets' healing efficiency in those butt clenching moments, cuz they will still prioritize healing over movement.

Yes and no. I have tested this extensively and here are my findings:
1. If Eos is already casting, she will finish before moving.
2. If you give her a command while she is moving, she will stop to cast.
3. If none of those conditions apply, she will return to your side prior to resuming auto-casting.

[RoseM]

Yes and no. I have tested this extensively and here are my findings:
1. If Eos is already casting, she will finish before moving.
2. If you give her a command while she is moving, she will stop to cast.
3. If none of those conditions apply, she will return to your side prior to resuming auto-casting.

Thx for the info. While the 1st and 2nd one are def true, I tend to have a different opinion on the 3rd one. From my personal experience I tend to believe pet will stay chain casting Embrace as long as there are still low-hp ppl around her, even after you moved to a different spot (and ofc she's set on Heel). To prove that, I just checked some raiding vid I saved, and this is very likely to be correct.
I would be thankful if someone could provide stronger evidence over this topic. I myself might test this in game as well..

[Tranquil]

I tend to believe pet will stay chain casting Embrace as long as there are still low-hp ppl around her, even after you moved to a different spot (and ofc she's set on Heel). To prove that, I just checked some raiding vid I saved, and this is very likely to be correct. I would be thankful if someone could provide stronger evidence over this topic. I myself might test this in game as well..

It's more about the fairies being far less receptive on Heel than they are on Place. Also, while I personally spam Embrace manually on cooldown regardless of the current HP-levels, a fairy will turret and chain-cast slightly more vigilantly when you have Placed it (without micromanaging it). How often do you have situations wherein most people are low HP and are not topped off? Not too often. I would use single-target healing on the MT as the most relevant example seeing as most of the phases and times of a given fight, it's about that single-target healing.

It's mostly empirical, but I have always found out that fairies are less receptive to your commands in general (such as popping their cooldowns) when they are on Heel, vs. Place. Becomes pretty apparent when doing stuff like Titan EX and trying to pop fairy cooldowns fast - there's just that small delay that there is not when you have a fairy on Place (that happens in all content). On one hand, having a fairy on Heel is an easy way out especially in encounters like Titan EX, due to no re-Placing needing to be done, but it definitely affects the overall rate at which you Embrace, having to move out of the way a lot anyway, as well as the mentioned cooldowns. It's definitely a bit hard to pinpoint it super-fast, but having mained a SCH since release, it's how I and some people I have talked to feel.

I'm on my cell right now and I can't be testing or researching extensively, but I googled in haste and found one old semi-relevant anecdote.

[RoseM]

It's more about the fairies being far less receptive on Heel than they are on Place.
I googled in haste and found one old semi-relevant anecdote.

The vid was interesting. The problem with it is in both vids the pet ended up tanking all of the mobs.Pet set themself really low on healing priority, and thats why they seemed to be hesitating everytime they casted Embrace on themselves..
I just did 2 sets of test myself in MD:
In the 1st one, I let Selene tanked all 4 mobs just like the vid did, and came up with the same conclusion that when it comes to pet-self-healing, Place does boost up HPS, and therefore is a superior choice over Heel.
In the 2nd one, I made sure to generate a large amount of enimity before I called out Selene, so she was healing me the whole time instead of herself. What happened was her performance was the same on Heel and on Place.

[Tranquil]

-snip-

Well, good that you tested it out, but the source material is very dated, nearly one year old. Having had been on cell at the time, I merely resorted to a quick google search in hopes of demonstrating how people have felt about a fairy's vigilancy in either mode, Heel or Place, and these text-based anecdotes came up.

I didn't even watch any of the linked material myself, just throwing it out there.

At any rate, I can give you a quick empirical anecdote: I used to do T8 with a Heel'd Selene for a bit to see if it was any different. I struggled hitting 240-250 HPS with a PLD MT. When I returned to doing it with Place, the numbers hop to 270-280 HPS consistently. Both of these had the same party composition (ie. no WAR MT to inflate HPS), no clutch Mantra differences or anything. I used the same set of gear throughout these weeks, with the same MD/MND/DET values. In both, I am spamming Embrace on cooldown, whether via a target's target Embrace-spam macro or directly targeting the tank.

T8 is a fight during which you are mostly still. Even then, being completely still, my fairy is more reactive to my Embrace-spamming and cooldown popping on Place than it is when on Heel. (Even when popping a tower, I continue doing my Embracespam).

Disclaimer: all of these numbers were naturally calculated with a pen and paper. :^)

[RoseM]

It's mostly empirical, but I have always found out that fairies are less receptive to your commands in general (such as popping their cooldowns) when they are on Heel, vs. Place. [/url]

In regards to casting latency, I put "/stay" before every buffs, it stops pets from w/e they are doing atm and orders them to use the skill instantly. So the latency is not a problem to me anymore.

[giantslayer]

Thx for the info. While the 1st and 2nd one are def true, I tend to have a different opinion on the 3rd one. From my personal experience I tend to believe pet will stay chain casting Embrace as long as there are still low-hp ppl around her, even after you moved to a different spot (and ofc she's set on Heel). To prove that, I just checked some raiding vid I saved, and this is very likely to be correct.
I would be thankful if someone could provide stronger evidence over this topic. I myself might test this in game as well..

Here's how I tested it: I had a friend join my party and use equipment changes to keep hp below 80%. I then experimented moving around. If I placed my faerie away before using heel so that I had a head start and didn't give Eos a chance to catch up, I could walk past the ally and Eos didn't heal at all.