Tips for a first time Scholar?

[spelley]

Hey everyone,

Just started leveling my first Healer in any MMO: the Scholar. I have him up to 33 and have run a couple dungeons, but want to ask people's opinions to make sure I'm not doing anything particularly stupid! For reference, I have a level 50 DRG up to i108 gear so I know general game mechanics etc.

Faeries
Currently, I am using Eos when doing dungeons/group content. I am doing this because I lack any sort of AoE healing until lvl 35 and can do the quest for Succor, so for now I can use Whispering Dawn in emergencies.

Questions: Once I get Succor, should I switch to using Selene? Currently I have the faeries on Heel & Obey. I have heard that for Selene I should use Sic as it alternates it's skills appropriately?

Dungeon - Trash Pulls
First of all, I cast Protect when I first enter the dungeon and re-apply if I have to (usually at final boss if it's been a slower fight). I also usually let people know I'm newer at healing so to please be patient with me (also a cue for them not to pull massive groups). Right after the previous pull/right before the pull, I cast Adloquium for the shield, as I don't yet have Stoneskin. I swap to Cleric Stance and apply my 4 dots (Bio II, Bio, Miasma, Aero in that order), using Bane right after the Miasma and before casting Aero. I then either starting casting Ruin or swap stance and start healing. I burn through any remaining Aetherflow stacks with Energy Drain and refresh it when it is about to come up.

Questions: When should I use Adloquium during a fight? I have been doing it so far only when they get below half (where a single Physick won't heal them) so that I can "catch up" on healing while the shield is up. Otherwise I've been sticking to Physick. Also, is my DoT rotation fine? I want to make sure I'm doing "appropriate" DPS when possible.

Boss Fights
I do everything from the above, except I also am (more) prepared to cast Fey's Covenant and Whispering Dawn in case of AoE/incidental damage. I reapply my dots when I can, and throw out Virus when I see an AoE is going to hit or the boss enters a heavy-damaging phase, along with applying Adloquium.

Questions: Not much to ask here. Basically, is there anything else I should be doing aside from the obvious "avoid AoEs/do mechanics"?

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Thanks!

[VanilleFang]

I don't play SCH but from what you've said it seems like you are doing pretty good. The only advice I can give at the moment (I'm heading to work/Just got up) is that you will want to get Stoneskin and Swiftcast as soon as possible. I don't know what your thoughts on THM are but I hated leveling it, but Swiftcast is too good a spell to give up and is well worth it. Other than that? You'll probably need to get out of the habit of spamming Energy Drain. You learn other Aetherflow spells, one being Lustrate.

[spelley]

I don't play SCH but from what you've said it seems like you are doing pretty good. The only advice I can give at the moment (I'm heading to work/Just got up) is that you will want to get Stoneskin and Swiftcast as soon as possible. I don't know what your thoughts on THM are but I hated leveling it, but Swiftcast is too good a spell to give up and is well worth it.

How "required" would you say Swiftcast and Stoneskin are? Would I be negligent to ignore them until I get closer to 50, or are they fairly "required" would you say?

Other than that? You'll probably need to get out of the habit of spamming Energy Drain. You learn other Aetherflow spells, one being Lustrate.

I only spam Energy Drain just as Aetherflow is coming back up, so as to not waste the stacks. I plan to save at least 1-2 stacks of Aetherflow in order to cast Lustrate when it's needed.

[Khorneflake]

In my opinion swiftcast is nice to have pre lvl 50. Its pretty much required in endgame tho. You dont want to waste 8(?) seconds hardcasting a raise.

[Cynfael]

I find Selene fairly blah for low-level content since no one has high base Spell/Skill Speed, making her % buff even more marginal of an increase. The Silence is useful for a handful of fights, but you have to already know when you're going to need it since she may or may not already have another action queued when you want it. For higher level content I almost always run Selene just because that marginal buff is preferable to completely redundant healing; Eos stlll has a place for encounters where you feel that you require the extra cushion or where it's worth summoning her to help buff up for a mechanic that your progression group is just on the edge of surviving.

Sic is horrendous for Eos, sub-optimal for Selene. With Selene you can get away with it if you want, but I'd encourage you to get used to manually activating her buffs so that you can benefit from using Embrace manually as well. I use a keybind for both buffs so that I only have one key to press to cycle the appropriate buff.

You usually want to cast Bio last in your DoT opener if you plan to Bane since you will spread it with more time remaining.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

Questions: Once I get Succor, should I switch to using Selene? Currently I have the faeries on Heel & Obey. I have heard that for Selene I should use Sic as it alternates it's skills appropriately?

Selene's not exactly worth using till level 50 and is better for 8-man content. The increased spell-/skill speed isn't exactly grand, especially in lower level dungeons. Eos isn't -that- much better either, but having whispering dawn available would help you more than the 30% speed buff from Selene - Even if only the tank is benefiting from Whispering Dawn when used.

Questions: When should I use Adloquium during a fight? I have been doing it so far only when they get below half (where a single Physick won't heal them) so that I can "catch up" on healing while the shield is up. Otherwise I've been sticking to Physick. Also, is my DoT rotation fine? I want to make sure I'm doing "appropriate" DPS when possible.

Kind of depends on how you play, really. I cast like 3 times as much Adloquium over Physick, but there are Scholars out there who have it inverted or rarely cast Adloquium at all. Depends on how aggressive you'd want to play.

In case it might give you some ideas:
Adlo up the tank pre-pull.
Spam fairy's embrace on tank once he/she tagged everything (combined with Rouse if you have it available)
Cleric's on -> DoT up -> Bane -> Cleric's off -> Adloquium tank while still spamming embrace.
If tank's not full, adlo/physick, if full, back to cleric's and blizzard II spam (if there's 2 or more targets, otherwise Ruin spam) or DoT up again and bane.

Reminder: This is how I run dungeons as a scholar, it may or may not be suitable for you.

Questions: Not much to ask here. Basically, is there anything else I should be doing aside from the obvious "avoid AoEs/do mechanics"?

There's not much to do aside from that while leveling to 50. The learning curve becomes exceptionally steep as a healer once you reach level 50, though. Come back once you've reached that level and got some new questions.

Edit:
Also, this is a good note:

You usually want to cast Bio last in your DoT opener if you plan to Bane since you will spread it with more time remaining.

If you're planning to DoT multiple targets, it's better to apply Bio II and Miasma before Bio. Because Bio is instant, you could use Bane while locked in GCD: Cast Bio II -> Cast Miasma -> Bio [locked in GCD] -> wait 0,5s for Bio to apply -> Bane.

[Sanguisio]

Hey I main SCH and SMN hopefully I can help out a little.

Cure wise it is good to think of Adlo like the SCHs version of cure 2, the potency is 300 but in actual fact its 600 due to the shield. So if you ever find you arent keeping up with the dmg throw in some adlos and that should help.

Lustrates are great but I wouldnt get into a habit of using them when not in cleric stance or on big mob pulls.
-The healing potency is the same as in cleric you can quite easily be casting DOTs etc and use lustrate if thats how you want to heal a portion of the fight.
-When tank is taking lots of dmg, they will help with keeping the health up if adlo and physick arent doing it. (But this usually means your adlo/physick ratio is wrong)


In regards to stone-skin, its handy but not really necessary unless you looking to solo content. WHM stoneskin is way better than SCHs and will usually be in charge of applying stoneskin to the party as needed

In a party with SMNs, MNKs its good to ask if they want selene or not as SPS does little for SMNs, and MNKs can run dry of TP with selene so while it may contribute some dps at the beginning it will lead to a dps loss at the end unless there is NIN. It is sometimes more useful if you have a good WHM to go pretty much full DPS with Eos to help the WHM.

Again swiftcast is great to have and kinda expected as a healer. But you can get away without it by timing your raising, there has been times when swiftcast has been used for DPSing and I have just had to hard rez party members while relying on a buffed fey to manage healing with the WHM.

DPSing it's good to use aero dot as well.
And if you can blow your stacks on energy drain as you should have aetherflow back up by the time you need it so its pointless sitting on stacks with aetherflow off cd

[Sida]

How "required" would you say Swiftcast and Stoneskin are? Would I be negligent to ignore them until I get closer to 50, or are they fairly "required" would you say?

While Swiftcast can be used for all sorts of emergency casting, it really shines when you need to battle resurrect people. And as a healer, in later content, you will need to battle resurrect people. So yeah, it's not awfully bad if you won't get to it before later levels but that's just postponing it.

[DarkerOrange]

I don't find Stoneskin at all useful on my SCH bar. In any situation where you really need Stoneskin, you will likely have a WHM to do it better, so I have Aero instead.

[Seryl199]

Sounds like you are on the right path. I tend to stick with Eos, and I cycle through her cooldowns fairly aggressively to maximize my dps uptime. Even with Selene, I'd recommend keeping her on obey, so that you can manually embrace for higher hps, and again, more dps uptime. Leaving Selene on sic however isn't a too terrible though, she does manage her own buffs fine, but I find mismanaging her buffs once in a while is a worthy sacrifice for embrace spam.

For DPS'ing, I go Bio II > Miasma > Bio, in descending order of DoT duration. Since Bio has no cast time, I'll bane here, or energy drain if it's a single target, then start applying Aero on mobs, starting with the target that has the lowest health left. I tend to use an Aetherflow stack with every Bio, since it lasts 18 seconds, and will keep you regularly using stacks without burning them too quickly in 60 seconds, and without letting them pile up. If I have unneeded Aetherflow stacks, I try to burn them on Aero casts since, like Bio, it has no cast time.

Pre-buffing right as the pull ends is a great practice, and if you cross class Stoneskin, it's nice to throw that on too, time permitting. For in battle Adloquium use, I use it as a one off heal, to provide a buffer while embrace, and possibly whispering dawn patch up the rest, and I can return to dps, or to slow down incoming damage when I need to patch things up, be it healing the tank or leeching debuffs etc. I only cast Physick when spot healing, or when my target is already galvanized.

Also, healing is largely based on your decision making ability. Unlike dps where you follow a rotation (you do have a damage rotation, but you also have other responsibilities), you need to know your toolkit to know what to use when. That said, experiment with different things, try healing in different ways, be open to suggestion and constructive criticism, and develop a strategy that works well for YOU. If you can reliably keep everyone alive, even through mistakes, patching up and preventing wipes, you are doing well. If you can add damage on top of that, great bonus.