How Does A Beginner Play Scholar Now?

[Kacho_Nacho]

I appreciate all this wonderful information. I'm taking lots and lots of notes.

It is rather heartening to see there is some disagreement because this means there is flexibility in how to play a scholar. A healer with a rigid play style often leads to Bad Things Happening™ when encounters don't go according to plan.

Currently, I'm planning to use several of the macros on https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Scholar_Macros

If there is a better site, or if you have macros of your own, I'd like to hear about them. Information is power, after all!

Selene doesn't have to be micro-managed if you don't want to. She uses Fey Wind on cooldown in combat, Fey Caress (AoE Esuna) when there are debuffs, and she'll try to interrupt enemy casting with Silent Dawn (even if the enemy is immune).

I'm probably a naughty Scholar, but I almost always use Selene over Eos in most content (though "most content" is dungeons since I'm still leveling). I love Fey Wind and Caress, and I also love relaxing a little and not micro-managing my fairy all the time.

*nods*

In the few dungeons I've healed as scholar on Kacho (before all these changes), I've liked Selene too. She's a joy to have in the right instance.

[Supersun]

Little surprised that site doesn't have a Whispering Dawn macro as that's arguably one of the most important ones.

The one I'm using is...

/macrolock
/ac Rouse
/pac Steady
/pac Guard
/pac "Fey Illumination"
/wait 2
/pac Steady
/pac Guard
/pac "Whispering Dawn"
/micon "Whispering Dawn" pet

Whispering Dawn can be a bit of a nightmare without the right macro otherwise as the fairy will sometimes feel like doing an Embrace instead.

Also since I use a Gamepad I also have an Embrace macro tied to L3 so I can click that thing often even while moving.

(I'm going to have to try that Lustrate one out on the Wiki myself)

[Spiroglyph]

In the few dungeons I've healed as scholar on Kacho (before all these changes), I've liked Selene too. She's a joy to have in the right instance.

Before SB you'd sometimes see SCHs with Selene out, have her cast her mini haste, Dissipate her and swap out for Eos. Kinda messes with the gauge now though :/
She's also cool for soloing (when you're killing things solo you'll hardly need tons of healing, so silence and cleanse can be useful so you can just keep Broiling without wasting an ogcd).

Not particularly fond of macros, but if you wanna try them out to see how you like them yourself, you could try out ground target macros for Shadow Flare and Sacred Soil

Basic example

/ac "Shadow Flare" <t>
/ac "Shadow Flare"

Watch out for target's positioning, though. If they're further than the distance allowed by the skill in question it'll default the target to YOU, and you'll be sitting in the middle of a sacred soil by yourself.

Other stuff to try are the common chat macros (for example if you're paired with another SCH, a chat macro warning that you're about to use Chain Stratagem could be useful to prevent overlap). Cheers

[Lildragora]

Only macros I use are to tie embrace to abilities I use

/ac "Lustrate" <t> (or whatever other spell/ability you want)
/pac "Embrace" <t>

In truth the fairy is clunky and best manually controlled since sometimes you have to press a fairy ability twice or three if unlucky. Tying embrace to your abilities though can sometimes be beneficial if she is not already casting. Another thing for a macro you can do is to bind embrace to a mousover and tie it to a keyboard button. That way you can target the boss and go about your DPS rotation while having the mouse cursor on a target and spam press the button to better direct her heals.

[MahoSenshi]

The only macros you might need on SCH are for Resurrect and Summon I/II. You can set up a Resurrect macro to select your target first "<t>", then go down your list of party members "<1-8>". Depending on how you sort your party list, this will go tanks first, then healers, then DPS. It just eliminates the need to manually target them in combat. You can also put Swiftcast in before your Res actions.

Please don't do this.
1. Your macro will go off on 1st dead party member, even if they have already been rezzed by other healer/RDM.
2. Priority matters. If you have one of the tanks and RDM dead, for example, and there are no tankswaps incoming in 10 seconds its better to rez RDM and let them rez tank after couple ticks of LD. BRD takes priority over any other DPS if you low on mana etc.

[demonofelru]

Selene is amazing for Karlabos in Sastasha hard for party cleansing that debuff he does. You do the first 2 rounds yourself and the third use will hit the entire party. You use the cleanse then and you should down him before its an issue again.

[Pyitoechito]

Please don't do this.
1. Your macro will go off on 1st dead party member, even if they have already been rezzed by other healer/RDM.
2. Priority matters. If you have one of the tanks and RDM dead, for example, and there are no tankswaps incoming in 10 seconds its better to rez RDM and let them rez tank after couple ticks of LD. BRD takes priority over any other DPS if you low on mana etc.

It's more useful when only one party member is downed. It removes the need to manually target that one player to rez them. If multiple party members are unconscious, then healers should definitely be following a priority system and manually selecting their rez targets.

My original reasoning for using the macro was incorrect, though.

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

I use mouseover macros for the bulk of my heals. I also use a macro for my nuke spam that commands my fairy to cast Embrace on my target's target. Since I'm the type of player that is constantly mashing my nuke even between gcd's, it pretty much forces the fairy to heal constantly so for low level dungeons the tank (or whoever has aggro he he) always stays topped off. The higher level dungeons and raids that obviously isn't enough and I have to use my own heals as well but for general nuking it works really well. I don't care for using /pac commands in macors using my instant spells (such as Bio or Lustrate) though since it feels liek it causes a slight delay that doesn't seem evident with cast time spells.

Ultimately my main SCH macros consist of my mouseover healing macros, summoning macros for instant summons and setting obey, my res macro for instant mouseover ressing and announcement to party chat, my Shadowflare <t> macro, my Ruin macro with /pac Embrace, and a Whispering Dawn macro like the one posted by Supersun.

[Kacho_Nacho]

Before SB you'd sometimes see SCHs with Selene out, have her cast her mini haste, Dissipate her and swap out for Eos. Kinda messes with the gauge now though :/
*snip*

Other stuff to try are the common chat macros (for example if you're paired with another SCH, a chat macro warning that you're about to use Chain Stratagem could be useful to prevent overlap). Cheers

Cool stuff! Don't worry, Spiroglyph. I'm not going to go nuts with macros.

I'm an old time holy priest from WoW and have seen what happens when a healer relies too much upon them. In fact, it's because of my personal experiences that I hate mouseovers. No. Just No.

I'll stick to my function keys, thank you very much. LOL

Later stuff added to avoid double post

I still leveling Charara as an arcanist to get the scholar job. Level 16! Woot! Soon, my friends!

The DoT play style of an arcanist is more enjoyable than the fixed style of a black mage. In scholar gameplay, when given an opportunity to dps, should I focus mainly on getting DoTS out or Ruin? Confused by having both a Ruin and a Ruin II... why do I have two direct damage spells?

[Iveriad]

The DoT play style of an arcanist is more enjoyable than the fixed style of a black mage. In scholar gameplay, when given an opportunity to dps, should I focus mainly on getting DoTS out or Ruin? Confused by having both a Ruin and a Ruin II... why do I have two direct damage spells?

DoTs when it'll take approximately 24 seconds or longer for the enemy to die. Spam Ruin/Broil if the enemy is nearly dead.

Ruin will be upgraded to Broil for more damage later.
Ruin II is your option if you need to move while you still want to deal damage. With added bonus of being able to use oGCD moves like Lustrate or Energy Drain