Looking for Tips, Tricks, advice for beginner healing and Scholar-specifically

[EmmetOtter]

Thank you EaMett. I appreciate your response.

Laphicet, while you provide some great answers to my questions which I genuinely appreciate, its unfortunately ruined by the negativity mixed into it. Hopefully that's not your usual "you" but just you having a bad day and it leaked out in an unintended way. I've had those days and leaks myself. I will raise my glass of wine and toast to you and wish you a better day tomorrow, and yes I know that sounds hokey but I just did it.

Whenever I see a statement like this I always feel its important to test it especially when the test is simple to do.

You can't use multiline action macros as there is no guarantee on the execution order of each line.

That sounded like you were suggesting the order of execution is random and I decided to test that against the trio of striking dummies next to the Summerford Farms teleport in Middle La Noscea with the macro below:

/ac Ruin <mo>
/ac Ruin <f>
/ac Ruin <t>

If I had a valid mo, 100% of all attacks went against the mo. If I didn't have a valid mo, it hit the focus 100% of the time. It only hit the target if there was no focus or mo. If I changed the line ordering, it always executed top-to-bottom in a predictable fashion.

The only way I could see that as "random" is if the <mo> or <f> was untargetable: like out of range or or no LOS. That kind of "random" is still a strong reason to use just 1 line macros like you are suggesting though.

I would like to hear from others.

Thanks in advance.

[Canadane]

I would like to hear from others.

Don't use macros because they cannot use the native skill queuing. They'll sooner fail than save you.
Macros are made intentionally to be worse in battle. They are best used for slower things, such as crafting rotations.

[EaMett]

That sounded like you were suggesting the order of execution is random and I decided to test that against the trio of striking dummies next to the Summerford Farms teleport in Middle La Noscea with the macro below:

/ac Ruin <mo>
/ac Ruin <f>
/ac Ruin <t>

Sorry, I should have elaborated to make testing more straightforward. The reason the order isn't guaranteed is because the macro will always cycle through each line one at a time from the moment you press it. In effect the following scenario is what could happen with the macro above:

- You cast a spell, 2,5s GCD STARTS
- You use your ruin macro, /ac Ruin <mo> fails because gcd is in effect
- /ac Ruin <f> fails because gcd is in effect
- GCD ENDS
- /ac Ruin <t> runs

As you can see above, you could have had a valid <mo>, a valid <f>, and you still would be throwing a ruin on <t>. It actually becomes impossible to manage if you're a key masher.
Furthermore, like others have said, it's even worse with a spell like ruin/broil that you will cast over a hundred times as it doesn't queue after your other skills. (Aka your client won't run the skill right after the previous one ends, there's a small delay that once compacted over 100 times amounts to a significant loss)

And to clarify some of the negative comments about healers above. The healers in the current expansion display a significant flattening (in terms of cognitive flow) towards the upper tiers of skill. In other words, healers are easy to play and can be taken for a spin in content that is above the player's pay grade without too much anxiety, but they don't scale well with skill, and in the upper tiers they are pretty boring. With that said healers will serve you well as you work your way up that ladder. And once you do hit those upper tiers, you can just come here and complain with the rest of us lol. We'll greet you with open arms.