SCH, Eos or Selene?

[Sebazy]

Eos when learning
Selene once comfortable with the fight

Extreme oversimplification =(

The best fairy depends both on the situation at hand and your own play style.

If you're over geared for the content aka pretty much anything but Savage Alex now, it really doesn't matter, use the one you are most comfortable with and will remember to use!

For non trivial content then it starts to matter. A good way to think of it is to go with the fairy that compliments your playstyle as well as the content you're up against:

If you're learning new content and haven't really got the confidence in yourself (Or your fellow healer) to go into cleric stance then chances are Eos' heals will just be unnecessary and wasteful whereas Selene will bring a DPS bump to the party as a whole.

On the flipside, it's worth weighing up the MP savings via Eos particularly if you are DPSing significant portions of the encounter. If you can reduce/remove the need for ballad via handling those MP hungry AOEs with Eos alone you can not only increase your personal DPS, but the BRD/MCHs as well, this sort of optimisation will usually bring far more to the table than mindlessly going with Selene because.

TLDR: There is no best fairy, choose the one that suits both the situation and you.

[Cynfael]

If you go to Halatali Hard don't use Selene (Or at least make Obey), because at boss 2 you need to get blind debuff to prevent boss AoE, and if you make your Selene in Sic mode, she will auto Fey Caress and your debuff cured and you get petrification.

Another good reason why Sic is the devil and should not be used. Hilarious, though.

[technole]

Another good reason why Sic is the devil and should not be used. Hilarious, though.

That is pretty much the truth. The whole "Oh Selene, just sic" notion is not an optimal way of playing the job. Selene 3.0 has raised the skill ceiling just a bit. With phases that include lots of movement, and phases with stringent DPS checks why in the heck do you want Fey Wind going off during the initial pull of adds in Bis Ex? Or while you are dodging Ravana's flames?

[Ghishlain]

I know this is a post about semantics, but I feel it's important enough to bring up so someone can gauge the importance or not importantance of Selene and Fey Wind.

A lot of anti-Fey Wind sentiment comes from the fact that Fey Wind doesn't grant you an extra attack until your 34th GCD while the buff is active. In a standard 2.50 GCD, this means you get 12 GCDs per Fey Wind and thus you need three Fey Winds to get this extra attack. While this is true, I feel this is also a misconception that sounds more negative than it actually is. Consider the following below:

#1 - Fey Wind is a DPS boost even without the extra attack.
DPS is a measure of how much damage you do over the course of time (Damage per Second). If a player is capable of 30,000 damage in 30 seconds (1,000 DPS), with Fey Wind they'll be doing 30,000 damage in 29.1 seconds (1,030.9 DPS)*. Even after the buffs wears, said DPS will continue to have that 0.9s lead time until their next Fey Wind or they're forced to disengage for longer than their GCD due to mechanics and bringing them back on point with a non Fey Wind DPS.

*Disclaimer: Haste has no effect on DoT damage and oGCD ability recast, therefore the actual damage increase may vary depending on the job getting the Haste. Assumptions were made for the sake of easy math but regardless of the job there will almost always be a net increase as long as the DPS stays on the target for the full duration.

#2 - The Extra Attack comes sooner than expected
Fey Wind is a front loaded buff. This means you're always getting faster the gulf between a Fey Wind DPS and non-Fey Wind DPS grows. This can lead to an extra attack if mechanics allow for it.

As an arbitrary example - Let's say Living Liquid's phase transition is in 30 seconds and he's going to go invulnerable as he shifts forms.

Without Fey Wind, Living Liquid will go invulnerable just as your 12th GCD is available, thus netting the DPS in question 11 GCDs of attacks.
With Fey Wind, Living Liquid will go invulnerable just after your 12th GCD is consumed (29.1s mark), thus netting the DPS in question 12 GCDs of attacks.

Of course this is a very specific example but does work for a variety of examples. Need to dodge a mechanic that has you disengaged for longer than your GCD? If Fey Wind grants you an extra attack on the boss before you need to disengage, you are now ahead in the DPS due to this 3% haste.

The opposite is true too. In the above example if Living Liquid transitions at a 29s interval, then even with Fey Wind, it's not possible for the DPS to get that extra attack in, Fey Wind does nothing for you. If a mechanic pulls you off the boss before you get this extra attack, then you're pretty much doing the same damage with and without Fey Wind.

TLDR: Fey Wind isn't as simple as some players make it out to be and some thought and theorycraft has to be made by the SCH themselves to make the most use of it.

[FoxyAreku]

That is pretty much the truth. The whole "Oh Selene, just sic" notion is not an optimal way of playing the job. Selene 3.0 has raised the skill ceiling just a bit. With phases that include lots of movement, and phases with stringent DPS checks why in the heck do you want Fey Wind going off during the initial pull of adds in Bis Ex? Or while you are dodging Ravana's flames?

Selene was great on Sic before heavensward. I'd never use her on sic now though.

She even tries to esuna death weakness....come on girlfriend.

[Cynfael]

Selene was great on Sic before heavensward. I'd never use her on sic now though.

She even tries to esuna death weakness....come on girlfriend.

The lack of ability to use manual Embrace while on Sic made it a bit bad even before 3.0, tbh; not to mention having her blow her buffs ASAP regardless of whether or not downtime was imminent. She wasn't as tragic as Eos, but still pretty special.

[Tashim]

Alot of people clearly see the value of Fey Illumination, Rouse, + Whispering Dawn, and it is extremely strong, with eos, and well-timed Whispering Dawns, I can often match or surpass white mages for effective healing (although it does depend on the fight). This can be used for a number of different things, but right now, it seems that most are just using it to dps more. Which, I do as well. But, with a little coordination, you can save your whm or ast partner a fair amount of mana by coordinating party HoTs, to let them alternate with Eos. This can come in very handy of a number of fights where they have to be more concerned with efficiency.

thb, I don't really value Selene's group dispel all that much. yes, its handy once in a while, but there are no fights that require it, and its under-utilized a great deal. Her silence is pretty much a joke too, but with proper timing, and a cast-cancel macro, you can use it to cover someone who mis-used a real silence on a fight where those are needed. Her cooldown is too long to be useful as a primary interrupt on fights that require it.

What I find is often find overlooked, however, is Eos' Fey Covenant. 20% magic defense buff is very significant. While it doesn't do anything to mitigate physical damage, most party aoe is magical (with a few notable exceptions), but this makes it a great cooldown for many fights.

As for Selene's haste buff, it can be a helpful dps gain, but not if its a choice between you getting to dps or not. I find that its at most a 200 dps gain for most 8man teams (generalization, for sure), and I can do more than that single-target. If you can do both, then by all means, just be aware of what you're giving up to do so.

[Sidra]

200 dps? The most positive estimates of the buff are a 1.5% increase of party dps, in reality it's considerably less than that because of the speed not impacting dot or ogcd damage. But even that 1.5% would put a 6k dps party at 6090. Which is generally my problem with Eos vs Selene. Whispering Dawn, Fey Illumination and Fey Covenant - while they may not be necessary they are all noticeably potent and beneficial. Fey Wind on the other hand - and this coming from someone who is always parsing - I can't even notice the effect on the party, or look back on parses and tell whether it was even used or not. It's impact is so tiny that randomness and varying player executions just drown it out. If I am going to give up Eos' good stuff, I want to know Selene is actually helping the party dps, and it just doesn't feel that way.

[Tashim]

well, I find its around a 200 dps gain at the start of a fight with all cooldowns during the opener. So yes, that is best-case scenario, but I figured its better to evaluate it at its most potent, but my point is that I only use Selene if I'm also comfortable dpsing at the same time.

I completely agree with your assessment, I find Eos to be far a far better healing tool than selene is a dps tool. Its difficult to properly measure Selene's contribution, I just see my static's raid dps increase by about 200 for the first 60s of A1S when I use Selene vs Eos. It is a subjective amount, as they're not always doing flawless rotations, thats just a rough estimate. I usually use Selene just for that opener, and then eat her for some extra aetherflow, bringing out Eos afterwards.

[Cynfael]

Eos vs. Selene remains a rather basic flowchart:

- Will extra healing and mitigation cooldowns allow me to spend significantly more time DPSing when I might otherwise be forced to heal? --> Hi, Eos. Get to work.
- Will extra healing and mitigation cooldowns allow the party to survive something that could otherwise kill them? ---> Eos, we meet again.
- Will extra healing and mitigation cooldowns make minimal or no difference to the fight's healing requirement? ---> Welcome back, Selene. Eos is redundant.

The chief argument against using Eos by the end of 2.x was that the majority of fights had such low healing requirements compared to what both healer Jobs could dish out that the backseat healing fairy was rarely appreciated. Right now Eos is enjoying a little more time in the limelight since SCH's filler DPS went up hugely (i.e. Broil spam is worth it compared to Ruin spam) and Embrace alone doesn't currently fluff tanks as effortlessly as it did previously. On the other hand, I will still use Selene in any situation where I feel that Eos is overkill simply because a small DPS gain is always preferable to unnecessary CDs.