Hey all. Over the last few months I've been focusing on playing a Scholar. I've generally always healed in MMOs, and I find I really enjoy the SCH's play style. So far, things have been going alright, I've been progressing through lower tiers of content without too much trouble (up to Extreme Titan as far as primals, working through first Coil). I know none of the content I've done is too representative of end game, but I feel between my current experiences and reading here on the forum, I've made progress toward getting there, at least in a limited/casual sense.

Mostly...Recently, I've run into a few issues during duty roulettes that have gotten me concerned. Two times in the last week I've been thrown in HM Brayflox with a tank wanting to do SR pulls. Now, I'm used to the pull after the first boss, and generally that goes okay (minus moments when the MOBs all decide to jump the same target). The problem I'm experiencing comes from the first pull to the ramp. I just seem to be unable to keep up with the damage. I'm trying to use everything I can throw at it. Rousing my fairy and trying to focus embraces into the tank, both of Eos's buffs, Whispering Dawn, Eye for and Eye, Sacred Soil, etc. I'm not sure what main heal I should be focusing. I've seen some say alternate Adlo and Physic (with embrace on CD), some say focus Physic. I am of course throwing in Lustrates when available, but given the damage, I burn through Aetherflow quickly. I also leach the paralyze.

I guess I'm looking for other SCH's advice on how to handle that pull and any other instances of extremely high damage going into the tank. These last couple of failings have made me a bit nervous to try any SR groups on my own, and since most tanks in roulette generally split that first segment in half, I don't get too many times to practice.

I've also had a similar experience in HM Halatali. The tank pulled several groups to the bottom of the ramp in the room just before the first boss. Of course there, they then proceeded to take one of the fall maces to the face and get the vulnerability debuff. I tried to leach the debuff and recover, but the damage added up to quickly. Is there a way to get through that?

I also wanted to try and get some clarification on fairy mechanics. I've read a lot of threads in these forums, and the general advice I see is take control of your fairy heals. I always run with my fairies in Obey, and I have made macros to control cast their embrace. The problem I run into is when party members start to fall below the health threshold for when the fairies start to automatically cast embrace. Is there a way to stop this behavior? There are times it's fine, but also times I'd prefer to keep them on a different target, even if that target has slightly higher health at the time. I see a lot of people talk about macro-ing physic and embrace together. Does that control the behavior? Guess I'm trying to figure out how to maintain the best control of the fairy, even when multiple targets have high damage taken.

A few more other small tidbits I'd like to learn more about (apologies for the length of this post):
1. Do tanks take more damage when being hit from behind? I know in WoW, being hit from behind circumvents passive defensive stats, which can lead to more damage over time. I've had a lot of tanks in FF14, though, not seem to care. It feels like they're taking more damage, but I have no way to confirm this.
2. Our dots, while they are active, does their damage change if we swap out of cleric stance after casting them? Or do they maintain the damage established at the time of them being cast?

Thank you all for any information you can share. I enjoy the class and want to keep progressing with it, but these recent issues have caused me some concern.