Newbie trying at healing with Scholar

[Gemina]

Excuse you. You should stoneskin the party the party before every pull. You're wearing yafaemi gear and dungeon jewelry on your healer so maybe if you did actual raids in this game you would know something as simple as that.

*sigh* But the OP isn't even close to touching raid content with her healer, or has made any indication about wanting to do them. Not everyone does, but everyone does have to go through the leveling stages, and I've never seen any healer stoneskin the entire party before every pull in this content. Not even WHMs who get SSII. This would slow things down immensely. In 50 roulette, you'd be lucky to get two of them off before you're left in the dust.

[Ghishlain]

@Stoneskin versus Blizzard II debate:

Blizzard II will give you more mileage overall in dungeon runs. Four targets with Blizzard II will out pace Broil's damage and supplement your killing potential once DoTs have been applied and Bane'd. You'll rarely need Stoneskin in a dungeon and any time you may need to mitigate anything in a dungeon, Adlo is more than enough for it.

For any 24-mans / 8-mans, you're generally better with Stoneskin. The extra (and longer than 30s) mitigation that Stoneskin provides has benefits to weakened players and can allow them to survive things that are normally not survivable in a weakened state.

Since you'll know what sort of content you'll be participating in, you can adjust your cross class appropriately prior to engaging said content.

[VermilionHaru]

Hello everyone

I opened the thread because I seek for help and I was looking for some suggestions.
So could you stop discussing whether to use skill X in Dungeon/Raid Y or not? It seems a bit out of topic.

Currently I turned my Arcanist into a Scholar and I switched all the attributes from Int to Mnd.
What I'm struggling with are the skills that I should use for doing regular PvE such as Quests, Dungeons, Trials, etc.
About dps, should I just use DoT skills like Miasma/Miasma 2, Bio/Bio2? What about Ruin and Ruin 2?
Also I don't understand the management of my familiar. Do I have to use Selene or Eos? It seems like that Selene is more like the support and Eos is the pure healer.
While using "Obey" will Eos still cast the healing on the party member? What should I be aware of?


Thank you for your replies.

PS: I'm not a hardcore player and I would say that I'm still a beginner since I don't understand a lot. Scholar is also my first Healer class and my 2nd class that I've really wanted to play.

[Ghishlain]

When DPSing your first priority would be to apply / reapply your DoTs. 100% DoT uptime is ideal but may require some practice and situational awareness. Also don't reapply DoTs unless they're at around 3 seconds or less remaining on the duration. Obviously you won't be able to reapply DoTs in a period where the tank / party is taking a lot of damage. In lull periods where you don't need to reapply DoTs ot heal, use Ruin to fill in gaps in DPS and use Ruin II as a means to move for mechanics while maintaining damage.

When players talk about pet management, they mean to use the pet cooldowns in a way that are beneficial for yourself and your party. Usually this means keeping your Fairy on Obey and micro managing your Fairy to do things for you. Even on Obey Eos / Selene will automatically use Embrace once players go below a certain HP% threshold but since Fairy's healing is free, it's generally best to make a macro of sorts that allows you to spam the Fairy embrace regardless of the targets HP%.

This can be done in two ways

(1) as a mouse over macro.
(2) as a macro you use say every 15-20s that automatically spams embrace on a specific target

I personally use three macros - two that spams heal on the 2nd and 3rd slot (where my tanks default too) and a mouse over macro for more spot healing for collateral damage non-tank players may get during an encounter.

Afterwards, it's a matter of managing each fairy cooldown and using them in an appropriate scenario. ie Rouse (an ability you'll get later that boosts the power of the pet temporarily) + Whispering Dawn are a great way to get people up to full health after an AoE. Just take into account that is it a HoT and if anything requires immediate healing, you should step in to help your fairy out as well.

As you have rightfully noticed Selene is more of a support while Eos is a pure healer. Both have their applications though the common consensus is Eos tends to give you more DPS uptime and thus your individual contribution from your DPS will be more beneficial than Selene's buffs. I won't go into the theorycraft of that at this point but just know that's how most people approach fairy selection.

From a more generic healer standpoint - your ability to heal well comes with your ability to adapt and learn to all the situations you'll be faced. A good healer will be able to keep the party health in good state, minimize overhealing (and by extension resource waste), and still contribute heavily via DPS during lull periods. Don't expect to be able to do all of this on your first attempt, but these provide a good guideline on what to aim for and how to optimize for. Translating that into SCH speak, you'll want to understand what your fairy is capable of doing and what you (as the master) need to do to compliment your fairy's healing to survive the encounters.

[VermilionHaru]

I did my first dungeon as Scholar.
Tbh it was really exhausting (I never thought that!).
I set Eos to Obey, and in the beginning of a pull I always try to use Bio 2, Miasma, Bio (with Cleric Stance, in this order) then spread it to the close enemies.
After that my Tank already lost 1/3 of his health bar lol.
What can I do better? How can I improve the mechanic?
Also is there a way to let Eos spam Embrace to every party member that has already lost some HP? (I struggled with "Embrace" the most.)

[VanilleFang]

...

Proper understanding when to dps and heal takes practuce, and sometimes your tank is just the sort of tank that won't let you dps effectively. From what you said there isn't much else you can do. Just keep an eye on your teams health and heal as needed.

Your tank losing 1/3 his health bar isn't bad. He's still a long ways off from dying. The best you can do is dps for as long as is comfortable, then heal, then return to dps. It's really hard to explain because you kind of get a "feel" for it and everyone is different.

As for Embrace? It has a recast time of 3 seconds, so you can't really spam it.

There's something that hasn't really been mentioned so far, in regards to healing. Your team doesn't need to be at 100% at all times. Generally you can ignore healing dps directlt. You can usually allow HoTs/Eos heal them, at their leisure. And your tank is generally fine with 50% of their HP, unless they are particularly squishy or they stand in a lot of bad. It's best to get onto the habit of understanding the amount of damage going out and knowing if your team can take it at their current HP levels. Again, it comes with practice.

[Vulcwen]

...

If a tank is down to 60-70% there is nothing to worry about (aside from tankbusters). Eos/Selene doesn't auto-embrace below 80%, so you'd expect that at this point the fairy is casting it. You can manually trigger embrace by putting it on a keybind, you can macro it for mouse-over (if you play KB/mouse) or the target's target to so you can spam it while DPSing. You can also make a macro that spams it a few times for you, but I'd not recommend doing that. However, focussing on micro'ing embraces takes away from more important things to learn, auto-embrace does it's work fine most of the time.

As a rule of thumb, if the tank drops below 50% within the first 2 gcds (aka, the tank is bad).. get out of cleric and start healing, and be very wary to go back to cleric. If he loses about 30% every 2-3 gcds, wait for the tank to drop to ~30% before healing him (it means if you fuck up cleric, you can still save him.. maybe), unless you know heavy damage is incoming. If you plan on applying all DoTs in a row, it's good top off the tank and give him a shield first so you have some buffer.

What you'd have to learn is estimating how quickly a tank is dropping.. based off this estimation you can decide whether it's safe to continue DPSing or whether the tank heals heals, or whether you should spam adlo's (you do this if you're struggling to keep up) or go with adlo -> physick (is more MP efficient, and prevents early shield overriding). This can also be extended to other situations.

The better you get at predicting damage, the more efficient you can heal and DPS.

[Gemina]

My OP was a bit hasty, and kinda started. the debate so I apologize for that. The healer community isn't exactly a unified one. Many debates here.

Anywho, I'm curious which dungeon you tried first. If you had access to bio II then I am guessing Haukke Manor, or worst, Brayflox. Again, I think it's really important you participate in the early dungeons where damage isn't as punishing. It's a huge difference that you spent 30 levels dpsing as ACN opposed to WHM who has already been healing since day 1.

As for embrace, the big reason people spam it is to get the spell speed buff and can't be bothered waiting for HP bars to drop below 80%. You can also squeeze it in during any of your many 2.5 second cast time abilities. This is more advanced SCH play and I wouldn't worry about it too much until you become proficient with controlling your fairy's other abilities.

It can be very difficult to predict incoming damage in the leveling stages, let alone a PUG. But just know it is perfectly OK and good to make mistakes if you learn from them. It's also perfectly acceptable to interrupt and offensive spell to go into heal mode. It might make the difference between keeping your tank up, or letting them drop

[Ghishlain]

Out of curiosity what dungeon were you running on SCH? Probably easier to gauge "what's up" if we know what dungeon you ran since some dungeons are harder to heal versus others.

Your "difficulty" to heal will also depend on your party and their skill level. If you're wanting to "spam Embrace to every party member that has already lost some HP" that sounds to me either your DPS aren't dodging AoEs properly or your tank isn't holding hate well and thus you're having to heal more than needed as normally you shouldn't need to spam Embrace on DPS, just spot heal them on occasion. Of course that could be me misinterpreting that statement too.

This is what I use for my "spam Embrace on tank macro"

/pac Obey
/echo <pet> >>> <2>
/pac Embrace <2> <wait.1>
/pac Embrace <2> <wait.1>
/pac Embrace <2> <wait.1>
/pac Embrace <2> <wait.1>
/pac Embrace <2> <wait.1>
/pac Embrace <2> <wait.1>
/pac Embrace <2> <wait.1>
/pac Embrace <2> <wait.1>
/pac Embrace <2> <wait.1>
/pac Embrace <2> <wait.1>
/pac Embrace <2> <wait.1>
/pac Embrace <2> <wait.1>
/echo ---Healing Completed---

I pretty much tap this macro as soon as the tank establishes hate on all the targets. Repeat as necessary. The <2> represents the second party member which is your tank if you use the default party organization. Change as necessary and use a <3> (or appropriate number) if you want a second macro in a two-tank 8-man party.

This is the macro I use when I want to spot heal a player that isn't covered with my two tank macros above:

/macroicon Embrace pet Eos
/pac Embrace <mo>
/pac Obey

And of course as the other posters have mentioned, understanding the limitations of your fairy healing and your tank / parties capabilities will help you evaluate the best course of action - which in turn will come with just more practice.

Keep at it

[VermilionHaru]

Hello everyone

I pretty much use the standard settings except for the layouts.
For those I use 3 vertically hotbars and 1 horizontally hotbar (for LB, etc.).
I play on the PC and use the keyboard to cast the skills.
Recently I just played Haukke Manor until 32 (current level). After that I got tired and went offline.

@Ghishlain:
Could you explain what a mouse-over macro is please?
And why do you wait 1 second in the first macro when the cooldown of "Embrace" are 3 seconds?
Isn't it better to wait 3 seconds then recast "Embrace"?

I don't quite understand what the 2nd macro does. I would be thankful if you could explain that to me too.


Thank you for your replies