Any tips on how to play scholar?

[Risvertasashi]

Mostly being afraid to screw up and wipe my party. It's my first time playing as a healer in any MMO.

From your forum profile stats... though I know it doesn't update quickly, it seems you're pretty new. So the basics then.

- Physick is your basic single target heal. A min/max technique is to let the fairy heal all it can and DPS instead of using this. But don't be afraid to use it as needed. Once you're level 50+, Lustrate is an off-global, instant heal that will save you time and MP.
- Adlo before big damage on the tank, also use it prepull if you want. If the tank is taking really heavy damage, alternate between this and physick. (You don't spam cast aldo because delay effects/snapshotting might result in a wasted shield. And if it crits... you don't want that wasted either.)
- Succor, ideally, *before* party-wide damage happens. This does, however, require you to know the fight somewhat. Focus target the boss so you can see when he might be casting something that hits the raid. Sacred Soil can not only be used to further reduce damage, but also as a cue for your party to stack up for those party heals.
- When you get Emergency Tactics, you can use that to turn Succor into a pure heal. But Indomitability is oGCD (off global), so ideally you probably want to use that. Until you get these abilities (and even after), Whispering Dawn is an excellent party heal. Whispering Dawn should always be paired with Rouse (they have the same cooldown timer).
- DPSing as a SCH is mostly about keeping your DoTs up (Bio/Bio2 and Miasma), and then filling with nukes (Ruin/Broil/Broil2, Ruin2 if you need to move). Bane and Shadowflare for AoE. Miasma 2 can be worth it on even 1 target if you're really trying to minmax DPS. But don't tunnel vision and forget to heal.
- Get in the habit now of using Aetherflow as soon as it's ready. When it's nearly ready, you might as well use Energy Drain to help keep your MP up if you still have unused stacks.

Welcome to the healing family. Good luck, have fun-- and don't let the inevitable bad experiences ruin the good ones.

[M0rty]

snip

Just bought the game...
But only the base game because I wanted to know if it was worth the sub

[Risvertasashi]

Just bought the game...
But only the base game because I wanted to know if it was worth the sub

Welcome to the game. If my previous post is using too much terminology or something, or if you have any more questions in general, feel free to ask.

[M0rty]

Ok so what does off global mean?

[Risvertasashi]

Ok so what does off global mean?

This game works on the basis of global cooldowns (aka GCD). This is a shared, 2.5 second cooldown between nearly all skills and spells. When you push physick, for example, you'll see the clock animation appear on most of your spells, not just physick. It might be more noticeable if you use swiftcast + physick -- even though Swiftcast made the spell instant, you're still locked out of casting most things until this global cooldown expires.

Off global, or oGCD skills/spells, aren't on this cooldown. This means you can use them even when you see that clock animation going. One of scholar's strengths is that it has a lot of off globals. They're also almost always instant, so you can use them while moving.

When you get Ruin 2, you might notice it's not stronger than Ruin and it costs more MP. But it's instant, so while you're waiting for that GCD to come off cooldown, you can use Energy Drain, Lustrate, Indomitability, or other such skills. (This technique is called oGCD weaving).

A practical example: Resurrect is a very long casting spell, so using Res with Swiftcast is a natural pairing. If someone in your party dies... let's say you swiftcast resurrect them. You can't cast normal spells for about 2.5 seconds because of the global cooldown... but you could still use Lustrate if you wanted to heal the tank before then.

[Vyriah]

If you want to go SCH, be prepared to do things in a really weird way. One good way of thinking with scholar is trying to understand what makes all the differences between one spell and an another. There's not really a staple SCH play as they have too much skills that do too different things, but understand in what situation this one will be usefull while this other will not is the key.

The bad news is SCH works in a weird way. The good news is you would not likely need to really get that before late game content, so you have all the time to get used to it. So take your time, and learn by experiencing before tryng to search autority on how to play it.

But their can some advice to apply :
- Keep fairy on obey. It's tempting to play freewill Selene and everyone does that once in a while when boring dungeons happen. But then, Getting used to using fairy as part of your kit is good thing to do early when the game isn't really busy yet.
- Keep your UI clean. SCH is a lot distracting and have a lot of spells. Keeping an interface that you're confortable with will really do wonder, espacially in panic scenario. Never mind, I'm not sure how all this works on PS4. Gamepad SCH may be a bit difficult to pull, but it may be worth starting early.
- Get used to panic scenarios. SCH is an incredible emergency healer, but it's healing output is actually lower than the other two healing classes. But there's some tituation you can save. And there's you also absolutly can't do anything about. But that's okay, youre not Jesus just some person with a book.
- Use eatherflow when it's up. If you wasted a stack, that means you're to conservative. If you needed a stack while it's on cooldown you overused something. The proper usage of eather flow is your dramatic inner battle that will ultimatly lead to enlightement. Same as above, don't get furstrated to find yourself over or under using eatherflow based skills. That's something you learn with time, just keep the though in mind.
- People will yell at you. Don't listen to them. People will give you advices. See how much they work for yourself.
- Use you heal boosting spells (mostly largess and fey illumination) for physiciks spam and for shield. It won't work on anything else. Boosting physicks is better when there's a lot of small mob, boosting shield is better when there's sudden huge damage.
- If you're playing Eos, use rouse and whispering dawn (the party wide HoT) together. They have the same cooldown and work well in conjonction.
- If you use addloquium and then deployement tactics just after, it won't work because the game didn't register the shield being and your target. But if you use a instant casting spell between the two (such as addloquium > bio > deployement tactics) it will always works.
- Some advice you will see here won't makes sense right now. But it's okay, note them somewhere and get back to it later when you think you're understanding better what it means.
- People live, people walk on yellow circles, people die. That's how it is. There's no reason to feel bad if you wipe on anything, that's part of the game. You'll learn better when you face something you have trouble with than.
- The tanks will run through the dungeon pulling every single monster he find without noticing you're a new player and this will be scary. You may tell the party you're new player.
- Lot of the player you'll find in dungeon are leveling other classes. That means they don't necessarly know what they're doing better than you. So does though. But a lot them just do things as they feel and eh. You should do the same, you'll get better later.
- Use the friend list. You ran an dungeon with another new player ? Friend list. That chill tank explained every single boss even though is running this lame dungeon for years and want to get it done fast ? Friend list. You opened a party finder and ended talking all the evening with just that only player who joined before noticing all slot where set to BLM only ? Friend list. Just sending random invitation is weird, but having a good network of player, who know players, who know players, etc will help you a lot at some point in the game. Joining a FC or some LS is also a good, but it's better to know some player before that.
- It was supposed to be some SCh tips but since I saw you were a new now it's a lot general advice. Maybe thing you already know from some other games, but if it culd be usefull.

[VanilleFang]

If you're playing Selene, use rouse and whispering dawn (the party wide HoT) together. They have the same cooldown and work well in conjonction.

Tips are generally okay. I just wanted to correct that Selene doesn't have Whispering Dawn. Eos does. Selene is pretty much pointless atm.

Also...

Get used to panic scenarios. SCH is an incredible emergency healer

Is kind of a weird statement. SCH is a prevention/mitigation healer. You should be using Adlo before a big hit goes off, not after.

[Vyriah]

SCH is a prevention/mitigation healer. You should be using Adlo before a big hit goes off, not after.

I wasn't thinking about that especially, but really panic scenario.
Second healer is dead and mechanic is coming, every one failed at something and everyone is low HP with vulnerability, tank lost aggro and boss is now playing tag with WHM or BRD, tank pulled stanceless and no everything is hitting you. Real, basic scenario, your commom day to day event here in eorzea. Remember that Aurum Vall is a thing and is basically a 15 minute long panic scenario.
What you're talking about is more routine raid content gameplay. It's good to apply, but not quite the first that will cross your mind when your say autotrad hello, activate sword oath, pop sprint and proceed flash at the face every single lezard he finds in Stone Vigils. More than straigh mitigation healer (something that NocAST does too) it's more of a toolbox healer right now. You can do amazing things in really specifics scenarios.

And yeah Eos, not Selene.