Tips for a first time Scholar?

[Vlady]

Scholars are a world of fun. Having a pet that acts as a healer has been a class dream come true for me in mmo gaming for almost a decade. I have only played scholar in 2.0 and love every minute of it. I have my pet hotkeyed to my naga razor buttons and manually heal with her while i can stay in cleric stance 90% of the time in dungeons. Really gives the feel of the scholar being more of a support/dps then actual healer. Its the only class I have ever played where I did not feel like the healer.

I just wish my fairy could be replaced with a floating grimoire. From ff 11 sense it would make more sense for us to using a floating spell book of healing spells over a fairy pet. Itleast put in flavor abilities like glyphs in wow that lets us alter our fairy to be a floating casting spellbook.

[VanilleFang]

I don't find Stoneskin at all useful on my SCH bar. In any situation where you really need Stoneskin, you will likely have a WHM to do it better, so I have Aero instead.

Wait.. You have Aero instead of Stoneskin? My brother who uses SCH has both. What do you have as your cross classes? Protect, Aero, Swiftcast, Surecast, and Cleric Stance? Surecast is far more situational than Stoneskin, as is Blizzard II... And if you think about Speed runs in dungeons a SS + Adlo before a pull is pretty nice. Stoneskin is a good spell if you are in light party and solo content. Much more so than any other cross class spell they can pick instead.

I'm pretty sure everyone will tell you to at least have Protect, Aero, Cleric Stance, and Swiftcast as just the basics on a SCH. The last space, imo, is best spent on Stoneskin. Protect is pretty useless outside light party/solo content too (more so than SS even) so I could understand that being replaced with Surecast.

[Alisi]

I think you're over thinking it just a bit. For the daily, you'll probably be in dungeons lower level then you'd get Adlo or Succor so you'll only have the feary/physick heal. Whispering Dawn will be good enough of an AOE heal until you're in dungeons that allow you to use Succor. Basically, anything pre-manor is a cake walk.

Adloquium applies a shield which means you have to heal less. You can imagine when you'd want that. Proper usage of Adloquium probably involved letting the shield go before using Adloquium on that target again (unless you know you're going to crit or it's about to fall off -- that second is more of a tank thing since they burn them shields fast.)

The only problem I've encountered is in Braylock without any sort of poison cure. We don't get Leeches until level 40 and we can't take that talent from CNJ (most parties don't seem to realize this.) That's been the biggest thing I've encountered or most annoying thing.

[Gamer3427]

While I'm not reading through the other posts right now as I don't have time at the moment, I will give you advice on how I play Scholar.....

Take advantage of "Aetherflow" letting you restore MP. Also, if you're desperate you still have Energy Drain at your disposal as well.....

Your primary goal when healing as a scholar should be damage prevention more than anything. Succor and Aldoquium grant a shield equal to what you heal, which means a barrier that absorbs the damage rather than simply restoring health. Therefore it can be helpful to cast it succor before a fight as well as stoneskin to have two damage layers before people start losing health. The barrier will always be drained before stoneskin is, so you can keep people from even losing that effect if you handle it right in small fights. Also, damage mitigation from using Sacred Soil can be a big benefit. Scholars don't have the raw HP restores that WHM do, so preventing damage serves better than damage control after the fact. Use Lustrate as an emergency heal if someone's HP drops below half, with prioritizing the tank first, followed by your second healer in full parties. I also prioritize summoners next, as they can potentially toss a revive in if you're busy or if you get killed by a stray attack, though this is a personal choice. As for a fairy, I go with Eos just because I like the extra healing help for when I'm in a bind, though I don't micro manage her like some people do.....

I also try to keep Shadow Flare up if the enemies can be affected by it, since the slowing effect means less damage potential from them, and thus easier to heal for you......

This is just my personal style, and I'm sure there will be plenty of people on here that disagree with me, but I've rarely had problems with it, and most of those stem from me simply not paying close enough attention......

[Jim]

As others have said, swiftcast is a must, also if you are going to be playing sch full time, then control your faries, and learn how to time aetherflow.

[DarkerOrange]

Words.

I find Surecast very useful tbh, there are some fights, like EX primals, where being able to cast a spell through the interupt makes life easier.

Ofcourse I would rather drop protect, but DF parties seem to go mental if they don't get their beloved protect.

Also, Succor does about the same amount of protection for the party and takes 1/4 of the time. *Shrugs* Different strokes I guess.

[Gamer3427]

Words

Your statement doesn't make much sense, unless you mean stoneskin and just keep saying protect instead for some reason. If so, then you're somewhat right, and somewhat wrong. The barrier from succor/aldoquium is based on your healing abilities and is faster to cast, but it has a short duration even if it doesn't get knocked off. Stoneskin on the other hand has a half hour duration which means you don't have to worry about it disappearing off of your party members without you babysitting it. To top it off, Stoneskin and the succor/aldoquium barrier can be stacked, meaning an even greater damage mitigation for your party if you cast stoneskin before the fight and just use succor during to keep that barrier up, while you focus on healing the tank who's taking enough damage to break through the barriers. If used in conjuction, it's pretty easy to go through quite a few fights with only one or two people even losing stoneskin entirely, meaning you don't have to actually heal them, or risk them getting killed if the tank turns a hard hitting AoE the wrong way.....

I can see an argument for not bothering with stoneskin though, as it is time consuming to cast it on everyone before a fight, and everyone seems to be in such a rush every time they run a dungeon, so I guess not worrying with it appeals to such people....

If however, you did mean protect and not stoneskin, then you clearly have no idea how protect works, and I would be very concerned if I ended up with you as my healer......

[DarkerOrange]

SCH protect in low level duties is not worth using most of the time, but I'm not getting into that debate right now.

Plus, anything sub-50 is so mind-numbing easy on SCH that untraited Stoneskin is really not needed, and with current gear anything that isn't FCoB is getting the same way.

[Spoekes]

If however, you did mean protect and not stoneskin, then you clearly have no idea how protect works, and I would be very concerned if I ended up with you as my healer......

They mean protect.
In low level dungeons you must make a choice: Protect or Cleric Stance.

Every seasoned SCH will take Cleric Stance over Protect or StoneSkin.

If you feel you need protect for low level dungeons where that choice is to be made, then you clearly have no idea how to play SCH effectivly, and I would be very concerned if I ended up with you as my healer......

[DarkerOrange]

Thank you Spoekes :P haha. Cleric Stance should be your top priority as a cross class skill at low levels IMO, cos your fairie can solo heal anything below lvl 40 really.