SCH Pet Managing, Do you do it?

[Espon]

Most of the time just placing your fairy and using Embrace is fine. The reason for placing her is because she tends to respond slower, especially in situations where you have to move.

Although you can just let her freely cast, I like to keep her constantly casting heals on the tank, allowing you to heal up damage much sooner. Overhealing is a non-issue since she does very little threat and it costs no MP.

I find Obey works better than Steady to prevent her from blowing cooldowns for the simple fact that it doesn't reset her tactics every time you do something. Simply target an enemy, use Obey (she won't aggro if you haven't pulled yet), then put her back on Heel (or Place her) and she'll remain that way until you resummon her. Eos will still use Whispering Dawn in this state, but Selene won't use any of her cooldowns. I find doing this for Selene is more important since you don't want to accidentally mess up silencing DRs, and it stops her from overwriting her Skill Speed buff if you're a bit slow on the timing.

[Rainsford]

Use Selene.

Put her in Obey.

Done.

[Ninix]

I never, ever manually cast Embrace. The pet controls are simply too clunky for me to bother. You can't macro them, you can't mouseover heal with them, there's a quarter second delay between when you press the button and when the pet casts the spell, and if Eos is chain casting her heals automatically she'll ignore your orders anyway. Also, her heal is on a slightly longer cast time than mine, which just makes the whole thing even more annoying to deal with since it doesn't line up with my own casts.

However, I *do* manually position the fairy as much as possible, because her auto-healing works way better when you do that. I also put her on Obey and Steady at the beginning of the fight so I can control her buff usage myself (typically with Rouse > Fey Illumination, which causes her to leave Steady mode and cast Whispering Dawn herself). The buffs are too useful to waste.

2.1 will introduce pet macros, which might make micromanaging each Embrace cast a more attractive solution. But that's only if I can shut her AI off *completely*, and if the command delay is reduced or removed. If that doesn't happen, I won't care very much. I've successfully healed through all of the content in the game including Twintania by just managing the buffs and letting her spam Embrace on whoever she wants and it works great. I can see it being much more useful in PvP though.

[ceiimq]

I only tend to use Selene these days, so I have her on Obey and alternate her speed buffs manually. I'll try to place her, but in fights that are hostile to that having her follow me doesn't seem to cause much trouble. I use embrace manually to either keep her casting when everyone is topped off (overhealing as a scholar is never bad) or direct her to a particular party member when several people got hurt. I also have her silence on my hotbars as a very last resort, but it's not very reliable.

I might use Eos again if I ever get partied with another scholar, but since there are only white mages in my FC this isn't happening for now . At any rate, the way I used to manage Eos was: either there's a big spike of full-party damage coming at some point in the fight in which case I'd keep her on Steady and save all her cooldowns for that, or if the fight just requires steady (no pun intended) healing I'd leave her on full auto.

[Karnage720]

if you dont control your fairy you are bad.

I dont agree with this at all. We're not DPS(SMN) where NOT managing your pet affects yours damage. We're healers and, personally, apart from manually casting embrace, I dont feel that I need to micro manage the fairy. The broken system vs what you get from it is not that great a benefit for me to do so. When they fix it, I will use it but again, not even necessary. Now if your party is dying, THEN your bad. But if your party is up and running and your not micro managing, how are you bad?

[Taerra]

I don't! I moved from SCH to WHM /snicker

But more seriously, I used to only place her and let her do her job. She is rather smart when placed and I can't be bothered mashing a million buttons + my fairy.
As for selene, by default after her summon she is already in steady I think (she uses embrace and cast speed buff) and I would manually trigger haste buff.

[MagusVandel]

I dont agree with this at all. We're not DPS(SMN) where NOT managing your pet affects yours damage. We're healers and, personally, apart from manually casting embrace, I dont feel that I need to micro manage the fairy. The broken system vs what you get from it is not that great a benefit for me to do so. When they fix it, I will use it but again, not even necessary. Now if your party is dying, THEN your bad. But if your party is up and running and your not micro managing, how are you bad?

Glad someone else plays this way. And incidentally, the only time the parties I have played with ever wipe completely is generally when the server is laggy beyond reason, or the other healer dies, I swiftres, and they res into an aoe and die again. That is just bad luck.

[Nukocafe]

I only ever micromanage Selene when I want to switch between casting fey light or fey glow (depending on the party make up)
For Eos though, I let her do whatever she wants. Usually it's good enough to heal the tank(s) in auto-pilot if she's near them.

Once pet macros come in though, I'm macroing all of Selene's buffs and immediately adding "obey" after each one because I'm sick of her constantly spamming one over the other at will.

[Airal]

I micromanage Selene more often than Eos honestly. That's only because Selene refuses to use the Skill Speed buff on her own, though. If I can get a party that lets me separate the two skills simultaneously I'll even use Place to get the full effect on the proper party members, but that's usually a hassle and no one bothers except for my FC friends.

I do use Place and Obey in larger fights so they won't move or use the cooldowns needlessly. Particularly things like Titan where the cooldowns are very useful when used properly. I see no reason in letting such a powerful tool be thrown around willy nilly when it can be utilized in a proper manner in an important situation.

[Tahldon]

As roughly as Azell put it, I must say that I agree with his statements nonetheless.

I never let my fairies do things on their own, I find that I am able to better maximize their abilities if I dictate what they do, when they do it, where they should be, and where I would like it to happen. More often than not, I am able to heal two people simultaneously by dictating who I want Eos/Selene to heal and by healing another person, myself. When I feel that I want healing potency boosted 30% in a rough situation (as just one example, I will say Coil T4 on the enrage timer), I have Eos do so.

When I run into a battle, I immediately target an enemy and jam Obey, because I don't want my fairies doing anything I did not command them to do. Both Embraces are on my bar as well as their other abilities where I can get to them by keystroke or mouse-click (depending on what ability I want at the time).

Now, I won't outright say that those of you who do not manage your pet meticulously are "bad", per se, but I feel like there's a lack of maximization by just letting the pet do as she likes and just placing her in a general area. There are just little things that can happen, such as if you have to step a tad bit too far away from her and you cannot use Rouse on her, All that time Rouse is available and not able to be used is wasted healing potential whereas Eos/Selene could be healing for 800+ HP instead of 500-ish HP. These are just tiny samples of not maximizing one's heal-ability, of course.

I always tell people that SCH is a "busy job", but that's because there are very rare seconds where I'm not pressing a keystroke to do command my characer or my fairy to do something. Even in instances where I am DDing, I still dictate where I want the fairy heals to go. While Miasma II/Bio II's cast bar is going, that's an opportunity for me to click a party member and heal them with "Embrace", then click back to the enemy, cast the next spell and repeat, then go back into my normal healing rituals.

Even for friends that I invite into the game, I advise them to never let their pet do things willy-nilly. I won't call it negligence, because that's too strong a term I'd like to use, but I definitely do not agree with letting pets do what they will.