Teach me how to SCH

[Darksword]

As a career SCH, allow me:

Generally a SCH is going to use 3 hotbar sets. One with all your heals and buffs, one with pet commands, and one with damage spells and self-use items like Hi Elixirs and Spine Drops.

SCH is much more versatile as a healer than WHM is (and I like WHM). The name of the game is to use your shieldcures like Adloquium and Succor to cover the party for a second while you put up DoTs on the enemies. During this phase your Fairy can handle any minor heals that go through the shields. Once your DoTs are up, the enemies are taking damage while you go back to healing. Rinse, Repeat.


How a SCH deals with mobs:

Fairy is ALWAYS on Obey > Steady. This lets her cast her heal on her own, but also lets you command her special moves at will.
>Adlo the tank
>Tank pulls and AOEs
>Succor, Rouse
>Shadowflare, Bio II, Bio, Miasma, Bane
>Physic and Adlo tank, top everyone up.
>Reapply DoTs or cast Ruin depending on how many mobs are left. Aetherflow as necessary.
>Repeat.

On bosses is where things get a little rough for SCH. We make murdermeat out of trash mobs, but we only have one "big" cure spell (Lustrate), and we can only use it 3 times per minute. We also don't get it until level 50. Our other abilities are little better than Cure I from WHM. Most boss fights are going to boil down to:

>Adlo the tank and Succor everyone else.
>[Place] Fairy somewhere convenient within reach of everyone.
>Apply DoTs to the boss on the pull, but depending on the team you may not have the chance to reapply them. Remember that you're a healer first.
>If someone other than the tank is taking minor damage (>75%HP remains), let the Fairy handle them unless they actively have hate from something.
>When the tank takes damage, cast Adlo and then Physic. The first heals a bit and then shields them while Physic goes off to heal more as the shield prevents their HP from dropping further. This one-two punch is our equivalent to Cure II.
>For minor AOE damage to the party, cast Succor. and let your Fairy top everyone up. For major AOE damage, precast Sacred Soil (a barrier than totally nullifies 10% of all incoming damage in a fixed AOE) while using Rouse and commanding your Fairy to use Fey Illumination and then Whispering Dawn. Fey grants you and the fairy both a 20% healing power buff. THEN you use Succor and the Fairy uses Whispering Dawn, which is an AOE regen that you just boosted by 60% with Rouse and Fey. That can fill the whole party up from near death in just moment. Pulling off this combo of moves while everyone is in the double digits and not letting anyone die is one of the key tests of a SCHs skill.
>If the tank or someone else is getting sledgehammered and is about to die, use Lustrate. This skill uses up your Aetherflow stacks, but each use recovers 25% of the targets max HP, it is instant, and has virtually no cooldown. You can take the tank from 25% to full in less than one second. Lustrate is also good if you're curingbombing the tank and someone else suddenly takes a big hit. You can use a Lustrate to heal them instantly (and let the Fairy top them off) without having to wait for a GCD to get back on the tank. Same too if someone like a DD is tanking an add and you're dodging AOEs and can't wait for cast time for a regular heal.
>If you're using SCH properly you're going to be burning some MP. Don't be afraid to use Energy Drain, especially on bosses. On HM Garuda I always burn by first stack of Aetherflow on ED after the first phase and all the Succoring/Physicing/DoTing that goes on. That makes sure that I'm at full MP by the time the sisters appear.
>Sometimes Curebombing is the only way to go. Healers naturally hate to do this because it burns tons of MP and generates lots of hate, but there are times when planting yourself in one spot and wearing the finish off your Succor button is the only way to get through a rough spot. Our heal potency is weak, so at the worst of moments you may have to make it up with volume.
>You NEED Swiftcast, which you probably already have. Its for more than Raise though. Swiftcast > Shadowflare is great for trash and Swiftcast > Succor > Succor is powerful for AOEs. If the tank is getting creamed and you're behind on your rotation, Swiftcast > Adlo > Lustrate to get caught up.
>Virus reduces all the boss's stats by 15% for 15 seconds. Use it right before BIG damage or big AOEs. Right before HM Titan Stomps is probably the perfect moment, it can knock almost 80 damage off each Tumult.
>Eye for an Eye is best right at the start of large trash pulls. Like that one hallway in Haukke HM where you get like 6 mobs linking. What E4E does it puts a status on the targeted player, and every enemy that hits him in the next few seconds has a CHANCE to get stuck with a debuff that drops their damage by 10%. The more mobs hitting him at once, the more powerful its effect because more of them can trigger it. Also good for bosses with lots of tanked adds. Drop it on the OT and keep them alive a little longer.
>Try to use Shadow Flare a lot. The damage it does is weak, but it causes a Slow effect on any mobs in the effect area that can prevent a lot of damage. Its active mitigation, and probly my favorite spell.
>If a bunch of adds are on you, use Miasma II. Its am instant, circular AOE around you and causes Heavy, letting you run away from the mobs so the DDs can handle them.

And always remember: "When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Rouse Their Fairies."

[Bigpurpleharness]

Micro your pet. Microing your pet makes you the king of single target heals, and it allows you to use their abilities correctly, instead of blowing whispering dawn when everyone is missing 100 HP.

If big AoE damage hit, you focus the tank while allowing the WHM to AoE people back up. Feel free to toss a succor for the shield, but then let the WHM do their thing. Their medica curb stomps succor, and your ST heals curb stomp theirs. (SCH can bust out embrace, physick, and lustrate on one CD for pretty much a Benediction 3 times per minute it necessary, and Physick/Embrace alone have the potency of cure 2, with two chances to crit to boot, and for much less MP!).

If someone dies, raise them first, a WHM doesn't have near the MP management SCHs do.

Sacred Soil big unavoidable AoE damage. (EM 2 hours, for example). Remember to use Aetherflow, not forgetting that is the key to having infinite MP (Unless half your group is eating avoidable damage everytime).

Again, seriously, don't spam your shitty AoE heals if the tank is taking damage and you have a WHM, that is without a doubt the one area they are just better than SCHs on, AoE healing. Dunno why, but as a WHM/SCH main, this makes me rage when a WHM is STing the tank after AoE damage, or a SCH is AoEing when the WHM is topping people off.

[Fricca]

Hey. It all depends on your play style.. You just have to play it harder to be comfortable with it... I was WHM at first and now I love SCH more since it keeps me more busy.. (total opposite of what I was anticipating at the beginning)

Anyway, Eye for an Eye is better with mobs (say, for WP speedruns). It lasts for 30 seconds and has a 20% chance of inflicting -10% damage debuff on whatever hits your target. It should save you a lot of effort healing through mobs... As for bosses use virus instead; its single target and 100% sure debuff.

[alhandra]

snip

as a career scholar myself i was going to chime in with an informative post like this. but this person is pretty much spot on and i dont really see much more to contribute.

[Hitome]

Step 1: Summon Eos
Step 2: Use Obey on a target
Step 3: Use Heel
Step 4: Use these three macros:

/macroicon Physick
/ac "Physick" <t>
/pac "Embrace" <t>

/macroicon Adloquium
/ac "Adloquium" <t>
/pac "Embrace" <t>

/macroicon Succor
/ac "Succor" <me>
/pac "Embrace" <t>

/macroicon Embrace
/pac "Embrace" <t>

Step 5: At level 50, use lustrate like you would benediction except you have 3 potential lustrates + another 3 if you have aetherflow up
Step 6: Use sacred soil when you know heavy AoE damage is coming up
Step 7: Drag rouse, whispering dawn, fey illumination, and fey covenant onto your bars somewhere.
Step 8:

If you know heavy AoE is coming up, have succor prepped way in advance + pop sacred soil, and pop rouse + whispering dawn
If you need extra healing power for you and your fairy that your WHM normally has access to, pop fey illumination (even better if it is during rouse)
If you know heavy magic AoE damage is coming up, pop fey covenant

Ex.) Titan HM
Use sacred soil and fey covenant when he jumps up for geocrushes
Use a roused whispering dawn for stomps pre-heart death
Use fey covenant on tumults post-heart
Use fey illumination whenever you want extra healing power on your succor, physick, or adloquium and/or want to give the other healer a boost in healing power. I usually save this when I know the WHM will be using medica or medica 2 (basically, during heavy AoE)

Really important: unlike all your other abilities minus embrace, whispering dawn has a cast time and CAN be interrupted. So make sure you account for this. Example: Garuda using aerial blast will interrupt whispering dawn. Landslide will interrupt whispering dawn. Using place will cause Eos to interrupt whispering dawn.

You can issue commands to your fairy while it is on the move. So I will rouse + place and then hit whispering dawn. This means she will not cast whispering dawn until she gets to the place I told her to go. Good for when you need to move and can't get near people yourself.

There's much more to it than this. This should get you on the right path, though.

[Ri_ri]

Refill bars
?
Win loot

[LazyMemories]

Bumping my thread because I have a new question. So my post is Edited if you'd like to answer thank you

[Hitome]

Yes you stick all that in one macro. Make each line separate (it should be copy-pastable). Name it whatever you like and choose the icon by clicking on the tan looking box next to the macro name.

You can use macros wherever you like. What that macro will do, if you used obey + heel on a target, is make you cast physick on that target and at the same time issue the command to your fairy to cast heal on him as well. This effectively gives you a cure 2. Actually, better, since both of your spells have a chance to crit. It's even better when paired with adloquium which is a shielding spell. So not only do you get the shield but you get a heal with it as well.

And it's even better when your fairy has been roused. Or if it has been roused and has fey illumination on it. Basically, you can overcome the single target cure problem with a few tricks. If you find that your target's HP already is topped off when you begin to cast physick, you can cancel your cast by moving and your fairy will still heal the target free of charge. Sometimes when I'm in the middle of an action (like DPSing), I'll spam my physick button on a target I wish to heal and it will have my fairy heal for me so I can continue doing other things. I really like the succor macro because I can target the tank while I cast the AoE heal, having the fairy heal the tank and me heal the raid.