SCH in Crystal Tower

[Espon]

I disagree with this.. If you have one or two stacks of aetherflow before going into a fight and aetherflow is off cooldown then you effectively are starting the fight with 4 or 5 stacks of aetherflow. If you refresh them before you start then all you have done is waste those one or two extra stacks. The only time it is better to refresh before a fight is if you expect the battle to start longer than about 45 seconds from the time you refresh, since your aetherflow timer will have time to reset, or if you have zero stacks going in.

By the time it takes to start an encounter and use up 3 stacks, the cooldown on the skill will likely already be finished. If it's like any of my CTs, it usually takes about 5-15 minutes for everyone to get from the trash and into position to fight the boss.

[Mhaeric]

Eh, I disagree. I think it's best to always refresh. I see it like... how often do you really need all of your stacks (or any, for that matter) at the beginning of a fight? More often than not I find it's better to refresh, because by the time things get to the point where stacks are needed aetherflow will undoubtedly be off CD, giving me the full 6 effective stacks to use as needed.

Meanwhile, I get a free Sacred Soil and/or Bane and/or Lustrate at the start of every fight, or heck, even an Energy Drain. All of the abilities I use in the first 15-30 seconds or so of the fight are also free because of the Aetherflow refresh so soon in the fight. Aetherflow isn't something you should be waiting until you need the abilities that function off of it. It should be used as often as it is available, with any left over charges used instead of lost to a refresh.

That said, CT is a bit of a special case which I sort of alluded to in my post with mention of delays before a fight starts, since there's lots of running (and usually waiting) between boss fights, so I do refresh my stacks as I start running towards the next boss since I can expect the cool-down to be complete long before that fight starts. As a general rule of thumb, however, most dungeons there isn't that waiting period between fights, not even before the bosses, so I don't refresh until I use up all the charges.

[Lilysparkle]

That said, CT is a bit of a special case which I sort of alluded to in my post with mention of delays before a fight starts, since there's lots of running (and usually waiting) between boss fights, so I do refresh my stacks as I start running towards the next boss since I can expect the cool-down to be complete long before that fight starts. As a general rule of thumb, however, most dungeons there isn't that waiting period between fights, not even before the bosses, so I don't refresh until I use up all the charges.

You've said what I was going to reply with. Yes, my comments were stated explicitly regarding CT only, where time between fights is much bigger than in a normal dungeon (where I agree with your initial point a few posts back, and I wouldn't refresh willynilly). But in CT, the cooldown is usually reset (with more time to spare) before the boss is pulled. It's during these times where I feel sad that someone only has 1 stack or so, which was my point initially. It's not a big deal, just an observation. :>

[AldoVonAlexandros]

i use eos but no need to place it, i have macroed embrace on my healing skills, CT is huge and when i try to heal some one that is far i wont heal but eos will fly to the target and heal it, with behemot i place her near one of the tanks in the towers and depends if one of my tanks is the MT or if they are to separated, macroing is better than placing i belive, works for me

[Iymala]

Since 2.1, I now have my fairy (usually Selene) on follow. I use Obey-> Heel, and manually designate Embrace targets with mouse-over macros while manually commanding the speed auras as well. It's a bit more work, but with proper control a manual fairy is much better than a placed one.

This is exactly what I do. I also prefer Selene in almost every circumstance other than a heavy aoe fight and there really is not much of that in CT. Hell, EOS comes out for Extreme Titan and Ifrit... that is about it now. I have not had any issues with the fairy dying even during double plumes with obey>heel