Which Fairy IS better?

[COSMIC_RENEGADE]

Depends on the dungeon and situation.
Do we need more Dps with support from Selene? Or do we need more heals from EOS?
I love the equally but my friends say EOS is like a goodie girl and Selene is the hardcore chick with a bunch of unmentionable variables.
So they'd rather do selene over eos. :< Poor EOS I still love her.

How bout both? hehe

[Rainsford]

Selene is ~ALWAYS~ better than Eos.

Let's do the math. Assuming it's an 8 man run with both you and the WHM using Physick/Cure for 1000 HP, and we are going over 2 minutes. For the purposes of this, we are worried about tank healing, and I'll explain why after. To make it clear, I'm using a 2 minute interval since Eos's buffs are up for 20s every 120s. Since Selene's are on a 30s cooldown, the Spell Speed buff will be up for 60s total over the 120s trial.

Selene: Fey Glow shaves .15s off my GCD, and is up for 60s. Over that time, the decreased GCD gives me the equivalent of four free actions. Assuming both me and the WHM use all 4 actions on heals, that's a roughly 8000 increase in HP.

Eos: Fey Illumination is up for about 8 actions over that 2 minutes. Assuming you and the WHM use every action for a heal, it's 200x16 for 3200 added healing. Assuming a 650~ Embrace, that's another 1040 healing done. Two Whispering Dawns will heal for about 4200 overall. Adding them up, using Eos gives you an extra 8450 healing on the tank over two minutes.

So, using Selene means that your tank will receive 450 HP less every 2 minutes compared to Eos if you maximize each buff for healing.

Of course, realistically, we know this won't be the case. Lots of that HoT healing will go into overheal (especially if the tank is topped off), and heal-bombing the tank with FI up like you must to maximize it's gains means that any time spent casting anything else, or any overheal, makes Selene's buffs more attractive.

So, accounting for overheal, Selene is marginally worse to significantly better at tank healing than Eos. When it comes to MT healing, this pretty much makes them a wash, if not giving Selene a slight edge thanks to her giving you more opportunities to do other things besides heal bomb.

But what else do they bring? Well, Whispering Dawn does hit the whole party, but is about 2000 HP regened over 20 seconds. I can't think of scenarios where that's particularly useful. What situations are there where mechanics are causing party members to take damage that doesn't need to be quickly healed by a higher potency spell, or can be delayed in healing until there's less pressure on the tank? Maybe ADS's Vacuum Wave? But, realistically, it's only saving you from casting 1-2 Succors every minute, and that's the fight where the skill is most useful.

Of course, trying to use WD effectively means you either can't save WD for when you need it or you need to be hitting Steady after every Embrace pre-cast on the tank (which you should be doing!). With Selene, I can slam the Embrace key constantly so the Fairy is always working. With Eos, this requires me to hit an extra key every time. Is that quality of life annoyance worth 1-2 Succors every minute on the fight that the skill most shines in?

As for Fey Covenant, it's virtually useless from what I can tell. Even if it acted as a straight damage decrease, 20% over 20s makes it less useful than Eye for an Eye, and since there's no fight where a tank or any party member is constantly getting hit by magic damage that risks your party (with the exception of some Turn 5). So, the skill is as useless as Silent Dusk.

So Eos gives roughly equal tank healing and some marginal group healing (that I can't think of a useful application of).

On the other hand, Selene will give a 3.5-5% increase in damage from your party. Additionally, if you use even one CD on non-heals during FI or end up overhealing significantly, Selene becomes hands-down better for healing.

So, from an objective standpoint, I'm not sure why anyone is using Eos on anything, much less calling Selene "useless."

Sorry for the grammar, btw. Exhausted. If there's any glaring error, feel free to point it out.

[Zaresin]

Reading some of these posts was painful.

Selene is ~ALWAYS~ better than Eos.

Let's do the math. Assuming it's an 8 man run with both you and the WHM using Physick/Cure for 1000 HP, and we are going over 2 minutes. For the purposes of this, we are worried about tank healing, and I'll explain why after.

Selene: Fey Glow shaves .15s off my GCD, and is up for 60s. Over that time, the decreased GCD gives me the equivalent of four free actions. Assuming both me and the WHM use all 4 actions on heals, that's a roughly 8000 increase in HP.

Actually fey glow and it's counterpart are each 30 seconds with a CD of 60 seconds. That might affect your calculations. Just wanted to point that out. But overall you had a well thought out post. People underestimate Selene and in my opinion if you are leaving your fairy on steady to only heal when some gets below 80% you're doing yourself and your party a disservice as you are doing less healing overal. Don't treat your fairy as a "Oh Shit" button. Treat them as a partner and work in concert with each other. Until they overhawl the pet UI that means apps like synapse are a necessity to even use a game mechanic efficiently.

[Rainsford]

*snip*

Sorry I didn't point it out better, but I accounted for that. If you read it again, you'll see that I talked about comparing the two faires over 120s, of which Eos's buffs are up for 20 and Selene's are up for 60s each (twice for 30s over a 2 minute period).

Sorry for not being more clear! If any of my math is brutally wrong, I hope people correct it. If not, I hope to see some more Selenes out there!

[cainejw]

Selene is not always better than Eos. Why do I say this?

Selene can actually lower DPS on combo-heavy classes like Monk. She can also cause issue for White Mages who spit out more heals quicker than expected.

The best faerie to use is the one you've tested. Yes, that is vague. Yes, it's on purpose. Neither faerie is best in all circumstances. Likewise, no scholar heal is the best heal for all situations. You have a tool chest from which to draw, not a checklist to follow.

And frankly, I would not use Selene with the intention of her healing being superior to Eos. It is not. However, Selene can help YOUR healing. However, you have to really be cognizant of the fact that your faerie effects more than your stats, healing, etc.

[Miridori]

Selene is better for support and dps but I dont think she is better in term of healing.
Yes, mathematically she can give you more healing during her 60s of Fay Glow during two minute period. However, no one spam heal for the whole 2 minutes.
Eos Illumination is only 20s. Together with Rouse, you can get thru a very spkiy period. (high stack boss turn 2, high stack ads or accidental high-voltage, turn 4,...)
So I personally think Eos's healing boost is more effective for healing. Not to mention it is more mana-friendly.
There are use for both. I don't think one is definitely better than other. It also works with the play style of player: want more control and use embrace manually? Selene. want to keep your cool down and react appropriately? Eos.

[Rainsford]

*snip*

Let's say you're fighting ADS, the tanks turn it on accident and one tank gets stuck with 5+ stacks. If you and the WHM straight heal-bomb them, they really shouldn't die if they are decently geared. I've personally never faced a situation in BC where the tank died from lack of heals because we just couldn't pump out enough HPS.

What will kill you during a phase like this is having a healer get targeted by a laser, or having a paralyze interrupt your heal. In both of these scenarios, casting quicker makes it less likely that you'll miss a cast because of a mechanic.

Also remember that, at the end of the day, the best way to beat a boss encounter is to kill it quickly. The faster it dies, the less likely someone is to mess up.

I guess what confuses me is why you see so much "Selene is garbage and I never use her" from people who have obviously never tried. In 95%+ of cases, Selene is going to win out, even on progression content.

[Shados]

*snip*

If selene actually increased dps, or actually made you cast faster, there would be a point to this. Obviously faster kills are better, no one will debate that. However, the increase is so small, that you cannot just say "If i chain cast spell for the duration I get a X% boost to dps". DoTs tick at 0.3, people's pings are often 0.1~, people are dodging during the duration and moving around, wasting part of it. At the end, in a fight like Titan, if you used her buffs perfectly the entire time, you'd be lucky if someone got a single extra cast off. And YOU might have been able to do more damage with your own spells if you didn't have to save someone's butt.

So realistically, Selene doesn't really add any more damage, and in the worse case, she might reduce it.

[Rainsford]

*snip*

I don't get this. You start by suggesting that she doesn't increase dps/make you cast faster, when it quite literally does. Are you arguing that someone with a 2.3 GCD will do identical DPS to someone with a 2.1 GCD?

Selene's buffs impact DPS more than the switch from i60 to i70 accessories. They are ~massive~ compared to the boost you get from food. Yet people still do both. Why is that?

Sure, DoT's tick every 3 seconds, but quicker cast time = they are up sooner. You get more casts in before having to refresh. There's no downside, only upside. And lag? Yea, ping is always there, but the quicker your cast time, the less likely you get caught in mechanics. If you want to talk about Titan, lower GCD's mean Gaols break faster. Heart dies quicker. The fight ends sooner. Sure, you need to move and lag is a factor, but a lower GCD means you have more time to avoid Plumes. Landslides aren't as likely to interrupt casts. Every .1 of a second I'm in front of you, it's less chance that I'll have to cancel a spell because of a mechanic.

Of course, you also need to consider that, in BC, the vast majority of the fights are spent stationary. When it comes to Turn 4, the extra skill or two everyone gets on the first Dread can be the difference between a win and a lose for a progression group. As someone who has done BC on both SCH and BLM, having Selene out makes my life significantly easier.

So realistically, Selene doesn't really add any more damage, and in the worse case, she might reduce it.

How do you come to this conclusion? How does adding a stat decrease your damage? Again, is player A with 500 Skill Speed going to do the same or less damage than player B with 625 Skill Speed?

And I feel like I quite thoroughly went over why, over the course of a fight, Selene's HPS gain is similar to or greater than Eos's. Pay attention when you're in BC or go watch some videos from a SCH's perspective. Watch as Eos just blows her CD's whenever she wants and yet there's never an issue. Even in Turn 4 examples where SCH's save FI for double dreads or WD for the final phase, it all goes into overheal.

Sorry if I came off abrassive, but when you're coming at it from a standpoint of "Selene may actually reduce damage", I'm sort of baffled. Of the wipes that don't happen because of mechanics (getting knocked off by landslides, people getting gibbed by Plumes, Allagan Rot, etc), I'm willing to say that nearly all of them happen because of failed DPS checks. Go plug the numbers into any damage formula, and it's tough to argue empirically that Selene isn't a noticeable improvement on DPS.

Of course, if you can give me an example of you failing a heal-check because you didn't have Eos's buff up, then I'd love for you to show me. If not, I'd appreciate a critical view of the two choices and a reason why you disagree aside from "Selene lowers damage."

[Nehael]

I use Both.

On Titan for instance, I start with Selene to help the global dps up.
Right after the heart is down, I instant cast Eos and use every CD she has. Once passed the first array of plume, I keep Eos up, but keep her under control with the steady mode.