Perhaps fix Eos and Selene's AI?

[Larkeicus]

I don't know if this thread is a necro but I just started playing as SCH and for the life of me, I cannot put into words my frustration with Eos' and Selene's AI. Something has to be done with their blasted Embrace. Make it INSTANT cast other than having it have a cast time so that MACROS can actually be a legitimate tool for what us SCH's are trying to do with our faeries (micromanage them). Don't even get me started on SCH's resourcefulness. Our abilities are by no means lackluster; diverse in fact if a tad situational, but no regen whatsoever? Really? (not including Whispering Dawn here because our faeries do whatever they want apparently.) I think an overhaul is in order SE. I like SCH so far but our damn faeries are deterring me from ever loving the class at all. Raise Selene from the dead and do something with Embrace please?

[Riyshn]

Agree and disagree. AI in general could definately use some work, as could Selene's kit overall. Your idea of making Embrace instant and allowing the other skills to be used during it's GCD is one that's come up before, and other than someone else who suggested a total overhaul of how the fairy works that essentially turned it into a complicated set of buffs instead of a pet, it's probably the cleanest single fix SE could make. It's true that Whispering Dawn is the only true regen SCH has, but it's also the second strongest AoE regen in the game (second only to CU, which is on a much longer cooldown and requires the caster to stand still). The other healers with easier to use regens (WHM, D.AST) also don't have access to on-demand shields like SCH does. There's also Embrace, which acts as a free psudo-regen that will usually have ~80% uptime, and can be traded out for Fey Union to increase it's strength at the cost of flexibility.

SCH actually has the most diverse toolset of any of the healers, which is one of their greatest strengths as well as their greatest weakness. SCHs have a tool for every occasion. ...1 tool, for each occasion, and you better use the right one at the right time, or you're probably screwed.

EDIT: You're going to get people raging that your use of macros is unoptimal and a sin against gaming. Please ignore them. Combat macros are a tradeoff: speed for flexability. Could I train myself to not use mo/tt macros on my spells? Yeah, probably, but I value the flexibility and fluidity that they allow me more than I value the couple extra GCDs I would get from not using macros allowing my spells to queue as opposed to button spamming to get as close as I can to the GCD with macros. Know what you're getting out of it and what you're giving up, and make the decision based off that.

[Larkeicus]

Agree wholeheartedly I should've bit my tongue when I stated SCH had a lack of resourcefulness. All SE should really do is have Embrace interruptible when I give Eos or Selene an order. I give zero shits about anyone else's thought on micromanaging macros. They're there to be used as a tool for flexibility. There is an obvious flaw here, and it should be snuffed out.

[era1Ne]

While the fairy can be unresponsive and square should try to fix it just for QoL reasons, i don't see why scholar can't micromanage the fairy today and workaround the issues with the AI. What do you want to achieve? Maybe i can help?

[Larkeicus]

Pet responsiveness, really. I mean trust me; I've tried every macro in the book. /Pac Steady and /Pac Guard. The Ol' /Pac Stay or /Pac Heel. Quite frankly even upon spamming an order, their Embrace will interrupt, but they'll just go right back to casting it and ignore the macro order or order outright. Precious seconds are precious seconds. A lot can happen while I'm standing there like a Star Marmot mashing Fey Illumination and Whispering Dawn.

[era1Ne]

Pet responsiveness, really. I mean trust me; I've tried every macro in the book. /Pac Steady and /Pac Guard. The Ol' /Pac Stay or /Pac Heel. Quite frankly even upon spamming an order, their Embrace will interrupt, but they'll just go right back to casting it and ignore the macro order or order outright. Precious seconds are precious seconds.

Personally i wouldn't use macros and as bad as it sounds accept, that eos loves embrace more than your command. If you do, then you can plan around that most of the time and cast skills like whispering dawn earlier, so when the boss does dmg you have your reggen up and running. I understand this can be annoying, especially when you want to do FC to mitigate dmg and the fairy rather wants to embrace the world than doing what you want her to do and for this reason the fairy needs an QoL change.

A lot can happen while I'm standing there like a Star Marmot mashing Fey Illumination and Whispering Dawn.

You don't have to hit the fairy skills multiple times, because in most cases* she will queue it and then cast the skill after she is done with embrace. Also keep in mind that your GCD and the fairy GCD are not linked and you can cast skills while activating fairy skills. So for instance you could cast a dmg spell like broil, while you order the fairy to do an skill of her toolkit. No need to stand around

* She will be really dumb, if you want to activate two fairy skills in a very small timeframe. In those situations you probably have to smash the button to activate the skill. Another reason why she didn't do what you wanted is if she is currently running, because you a) are to far away and b) didnt position her yourself. She will most of the time try to get back to you, before casting embrace. By the way, do not worry about positioning her in HW or stormblood raids, because the fairys can't be hit by 90% of the attacks anymore. This was only a problem in realm reborn content. Nowadays as a rule of thumb, cleave can kill her, but aoe attacks not. This means you could position her in the center of o1s, despite the fireballs you as a player have to avoid now and then. The fairy won't be hit by them.

I hope this was helpful and as i said, don't use macros, since they make the fairy more unresponsive as she already is and the macro is another reason, you have to smash the fairy skills. If you have further questions pls ask

[SilentVoice]

yes, the stupid embrace AI sometimes is a plain performance killer. i wish it could get interrupted if player chooses to use something else. while MC\HC player can argue that it is not a problem (yes it is), impossible sutiations happen a lot more frequently in all kinds of content, where the stupid embrace got somebody or everyone killed, because order to use FC or WD was delayed or ignored whatsoever

[Larkeicus]

You don't have to hit the fairy skills multiple times, because in most cases* she will queue it and then cast the skill after she is done with embrace.

Is this true? In my endeavors to make a macro designed to interrupt their Embrace's, i neglected to realize this. I never noticed that, i thought it was the macro working when it wants to. If she truly does queue commands then that makes this whole lot easier to deal with. And when you say "Don't use macros" do you mean macros for Eos and Selene in general or just Embrace macros?

[Larkeicus]

yes, the stupid embrace AI sometimes is a plain performance killer. i wish it could get interrupted if player chooses to use something else. while MC\HC player can argue that it is not a problem (yes it is), impossible sutiations happen a lot more frequently in all kinds of content, where the stupid embrace got somebody or everyone killed, because order to use FC or WD was delayed or ignored whatsoever

I agree. Some say to just use their skills before an encounter. But if i do that then all that aggro comes charging right at her with tooth and claw.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

Is this true? In my endeavors to make a macro designed to interrupt their Embrace's, i neglected to realize this. I never noticed that, i thought it was the macro working when it wants to. If she truly does queue commands then that makes this whole lot easier to deal with. And when you say "Don't use macros" do you mean macros for Eos and Selene in general or just Embrace macros?

It is, you can easily try it out yourself. Try and place your fairy somewhere far away and cast Embrace (without macro) right after before she gets to her destination. You'll notice she won't cast Embrace till her move command has finished. The same applies when you use heel or when you are moving around a lot. Queuing commands gets a lot clunkier with actions, however. Movement -> action is perfectly fine. But action -> action like Embrace -> Whispering Dawn doesn't seem to work. With this in mind, for every action aside from Embrace I believe it's perfectly fine to have Macros for the other three abilities. Commanding the fairy to stay cancels the current embrace cast without the need to wait for it to finish casting. Just remember the heel the fairy before you strut off into the sunset and abandon her.