Noobie SCH has some questions please

[Artaniss]

Hey all got a 37 SCH and I almost have a complete set of battle mage gear.

My question to you vets am I supposed to use Adlo before a fight on tank and if so how often do I keep adlo on tank?

When do i cast Adlo and when do i cast physick? Also how often do I use embrace via my fairy?

I am a little confused because at this level I dont have crit gear so therefore my adlo doesnt block a lot of damage and the mana cost is high to keep casting it like a WHM cast cure lol. Please any help would be great.

[Ghishlain]

Hey all got a 37 SCH and I almost have a complete set of battle mage gear.

Welcome to the SCH club

My question to you vets am I supposed to use Adlo before a fight on tank and if so how often do I keep adlo on tank?

You should try to Adlo before a pull, though in some cases you might not be able to due to tank impatience or just slow reactions. Just don't try to put Adlo on as s/he is pulling as you'll pull hate at that moment.

When do i cast Adlo and when do i cast physick?

I feel you should cast Adlo any time where you feel your HP is a dangerously low HP (like 50% and under) and if you feel your tank can't take another barrage of hits from the trash. Adlo is almost equivalent to Cure II in terms of "effective HP" recovery (it's total 600 potency when not-crit when you include the shield aspect vs 650 on Cure II). Generally speaking, when you cast Adlo, you want to cast Physick next then go back to Adlo until your tank is at a good HP value. This is because the mob(s) might not be able to break the Adlo shield just yet so you're not making use of the whole shield.

Also how often do I use embrace via my fairy?

Pretty much, 100% of the time after the tank has received and secured hate (usually after one Flash / Overpower). There are a variety of macros you can use to facilitate this and this post / guide is probably a good place to start.

I am a little confused because at this level I dont have crit gear so therefore my adlo doesnt block a lot of damage and the mana cost is high to keep casting it like a WHM cast cure lol. Please any help would be great.

Good general advise to have is to have a style you're comfortable with. Over time, you'll eventually learn to gauge how squishy a tank is, how hard a boss / trash pack hits for, when you need to heal and how, and how to control your fairy. This all requires experience and time to grow your skill set.

Do not get discouraged and do your best to keep your head up. You're going to trip sooner or later, just make sure to get up and keep going afterwards. Good luck~

[peaches]

Well I always Adlo before the tank pulls, and Stoneskin too if you have it (you should definitely get it if you don't). If it crits, you have a ton of mitigation before you actually have to heal.

First off, you should always be manually using Embrace. I'm using a controller, so I put Embrace on X and Physick on Square, so I just spam X (embrace), and when I need to actually heal I press Square and X at the same time. On the keyboard you can macro Embrace and Physick together if you have to, or just put Embrace on your hotbar, or put it somewhere easy and constantly click it. If you do this, often you won't even need to heal.

Adlo is sort of tricky to know exactly when to use it. You can't spam is, or you'll run out of MP. If you KNOW a bit hit is coming soon, Adlo right before. If the tank is taking super heavy damage where you're spamming Physick and Embrace and he's still dropping like a rock, use Adlo every few casts. If you're planning on DPSing, Swiftcast Stoneskin then cast Adlo to give as much protection as possible.

In general Scholars do MUCH better if you know exactly how the fight works. If you know there's unavoidable AoE damage coming, succor before. If there's BIG single target damage incoming, whether it is on the tank or a random target, either Adlo everybody just in case, or be quick and know you'll have to use it.

Another useful trick - if you want to DPS and you know the damage isn't super heavy, macro ALL of your DPS abilities. I consider this to be NON OPTIONAL for good scholars. The macro I THINK would be like this:

/micon "bio" Use whatever ability name obviously, this us just an example
/ac "bio" <t>
/ac "bio' <tt>
/pac "embrace" <t>
/pac "embrace" <f>

This make is so you can target who ever you want - tank or enemy - and be able to damage the enemy, and cure the tank. If you're targeting the tank, you'll DPS his target while using Embrace every time you use a DPS ability. If you're targeting a specific enemy - maybe helping kill an add really quickly that the tank isn't targeting - then you FOCUS target the tank and switch your target to the enemy. Eos will then cast Embrace on your focus target, the tank. Do this for EVERY ability - Ruin, Bio, Miasma, Etc.

[DarkerOrange]

Just a quick note, you should not macro Embrace to your skills, you should learn to control Embrace separately.

[giantslayer]

/micon "bio" Use whatever ability name obviously, this us just an example
/ac "bio" <t>
/ac "bio' <tt>
/pac "embrace" <t>
/pac "embrace" <f>

This make is so you can target who ever you want - tank or enemy - and be able to damage the enemy, and cure the tank. If you're targeting the tank, you'll DPS his target while using Embrace every time you use a DPS ability. If you're targeting a specific enemy - maybe helping kill an add really quickly that the tank isn't targeting - then you FOCUS target the tank and switch your target to the enemy. Eos will then cast Embrace on your focus target, the tank. Do this for EVERY ability - Ruin, Bio, Miasma, Etc.

This macro will not work the way you described. If you have an enemy or no target selected, any healing ability targeted on <t> will trigger a self-heal for the caster (Eos in this case). What is happening in battle is if the tank is below 80% when embrace comes available, she is auto-casting on the tank. When the tank is above 80%, Eos is actually healing herself when you use that macro. You don't have to take my word for it: go out and test it.

I use creative targeting macros for my attacks but never for heals. My approach is to have the tank be my target and use focus target to stack all my DoTs and bane on a single enemy. Example:

/micon Bio
/ac Bio <t>
/ac Bio <f>
/ac Bio <tt>

Just a quick note, you should not macro Embrace to your skills, you should learn to control Embrace separately.

For attack skills, I agree 100%. For Physick and Adlo, I was originally of the same opinion until I learned more about how faeries operate. I have Embrace macro'd into those two spells, but not for the reasons everyone else does.

My reason is the bugged 20y radius for auto-healing. If any allies within 20y are below 80%hp, you have zero control over Embrace due to auto-healing and everyone's arguments for and against such macros are all moot points. If everyone is above 80%, I won't cast Physick or Adlo: I will just manually command Embrace if someone needs healing. Outside of 20y, however, Eos will sit on her hands and watch your allies die if you don't command her. The natural response to that situation as a player is to manually cast Embrace along with my own spells at long ranges. Putting Embrace together with Physick simply does what I would be doing anyways and gives me one less thing to think about in battle.

[peaches]

This macro will not work the way you described.

Are you positive? I could swear I had it working fine on PS4, but I switched to PC and don't have my macros set up yet, so I just wrote what I figured would work. Would it work if you switched the <f> to the be before <t>? Does Eos not follow <f> macros?

That is the only time I would macro any heal to any other ability, because it would be an easy way to make sure the tank gets constant heals while DPSing. Even if the Focus Target one doesn't work, it would work absolutely fine if you keep the tank targeted, and use <tt> for your attacks, but keeping <t> on the second like for when you're soloing or something.

Literally my only other heal macro is Rouse+Whispering Dawn.

[giantslayer]

Are you positive? I could swear I had it working fine on PS4, but I switched to PC and don't have my macros set up yet, so I just wrote what I figured would work. Would it work if you switched the <f> to the be before <t>? Does Eos not follow <f> macros?

I am positive. Every time you think it is working, it is actually just Eos auto-casting. The issue is not that Eos does follow <f> macros. The issue is the <t> line will execute a self-heal so it will not have a chance to execute the <f>. I have not tested to see if <f> will trigger a self heal with no focus target, so I am not sure whether it will work the other way. It is easy enough for you to test. Just make a macro with /pac Embrace <f> as the only line and see if it makes Eos heal herself or if nothing happens. If I had to guess, I think it would probably self-heal.

The other issue with having the tank as your focus target is that you can't focus target to watch the boss's cast bar. Doing easy content or trash, you could spend most of your time DPSing, but in a tough fight, your main target will fluctuate as you heal people so you won't be able to consistently keep tabs on the boss without focus target. Most of the time it doesn't matter, but in some fights (like T5+6), it is necessary to see what the boss is casting.

[peaches]

Snip

Okay, from the sounds of it the issue is Eos thinking <t> is her target, not mine - which of course, her target is nobody, so it targets herself.

So is there no way at all to macro Embrace with a DPS skill so that she heals your target, while you DPS the tank's target using <tt>? If not, the only solution is to use a numbered target, like <2>. This would only work in specifically either 4 or 8 man, as the positions on the party menu change. OR, the solution would be to focus target the tank, and manually target the enemies. You'd leave <f> as Eos' target, get rid of the <t>, and sadly you would have to swap your focus target back to the boss once you're done DPSing, which could get pretty annoying.

Either way, I feel like I need to get some version of this working. It is just too useful to have Eos spamming Embrace on the tank - even is he's full health - while you're dpsing, just in case.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

Okay, from the sounds of it the issue is Eos thinking <t> is her target, not mine - which of course, her target is nobody, so it targets herself.

Not quite. The macro's <t>, <tt> or whatever syntax is being used is the one that would apply to the player. I just tried this myself to be 100% sure: Have the fairy /sic on something, it has a target. The macro with embrace <t> would still heal whoever I would target - As long it's a legal target for healing. So giantslayer is right.

Additionally:
if you would macro 3 macro's in a row as <t>, <tt> and <ft>. Whichever is becomes a legal command will be executed first and all the others ignored. Meaning: If you have a monster targetted, the fairy would just cast Embrace on herself. Much like how you would heal yourself if you would try and heal an illegal target (ie: enemy). The only exception that the next line would be executed would be if the first one would contain an error. An error such as not having anyone targeted.

edit: Also, fairies -do- have a target. Have it /sic on a target and check your fairy:

[peaches]

Snip

So then.. It would work having embrace being on <t> in the same macro as something like Bio being on, with the DPS ability using <tt>, while you target the tank? I'm not playing at the moment so I can't really test it.