SCH in PvP Wolves Den synched i80

[KaitlanKela]

Repost from Healing Roles because relevance (and impatience)

That said, I was going to try to participate in Friday Night Fights for Primal DC today, but because of the queue times and only having subscribed recently, I have never been able to play PvP before. I can't seem to find a good informational article for the Wolves Den from a SCH point of view, and I'm having even less luck finding formation for the i80 synch verson. Having exactly 0 PvP experience, it's a bit overwhelming, I was kinda hoping to get some questions answered.

I am currently SCH 52 with full poetics left side and HW i114 healing accs (I'm still working HW MSQ, so yeah I'm not even level capped yet - I wish. u.u)

1. What gear should I be wearing? I think morale doesn't do anything in the synch i80, is that true? Should I be wearing VIT or SS instead of MND accessories? Is melding necessary?
2. What is the best way to keep everyone on my team alive? Any strategies or priorites? Any helpful macros to prevent me from fat-fingering critical stuff?
3. Which faerie should I be using? I need to be mirco-managing her but which skills should I use in what situations if I get cc'd? Also, should I place her somewhere or keep her with me?
4. Oh, gawd, anything in the way of general advice. Please. I'm so scared but I wanna try it. >.<

[Soular]

I don't have a lot of personal experience with 50 den, so I'll answer what I can.

1. VIT is huge for healers in PvP; Tanks will often not be the main focus of your enemy (and they have plenty of tools to dissuade people from attacking them if they are). Morale does work in item level sync, but it only raises the PvP gear's ilevel BEFORE the sync, ergo it helps with meeting secondary stat caps. I can't give a suggestion as to how much to wear, but I'd say 2~3 piece is preferred.
2. Don't play healer, can't comment.
3. Can't comment.
4. You are going to get focused a lot, just bear in mind that line of sight is a huge thing in WD. There have been so many times where I've shut down healers by just keeping their allies out of their LoS while my team picked them off, again this stems back to relying on your team to know this as well. Your PvP skills are your friend, Purify alone will get you out of so many bad situations you'll lose count, and it can be used on allies as well. A good teammate will toss you a Purify if they've seen you use it and you get stuck in a bad spot.

[DacienLxion]

As a Sch on WD at the start of the game i cast Adlo at 10 sec before the gates open on all of my team players instead of just doing succor. I always save my purification for when i get full swing by the tank. you have to keep running away from the dps and reapply adlo on yourself as long as you have adlo you can cast without getting interrupted if you do get interrupted use surecast and than adlo on yourself if your ally needs healing cast physick or lustrate. I mostly switfcast or use equanimity to use succor if i need to do some aoe healing or use the fairy aoe. I always use Eos and place her in the middle of the area at the start of the match, if i see that my fairy gets attacked i put her back to follow or when i see the enemy team has a smn, cause smn can put dots on your fairy and bane. When casting make sure you stop than cast adlo on yourself, most of the time when you run you will get interrupted cause you pressed your skill while running so make sure you stop before casting.

[KaitlanKela]

Snip!

Oh mer gawd this is great.

Thank both of you so much. I'll prolly still fail a LOT at first (at least I'm mentally prepared, right?) but now I feel more like I'll be learning/improving and less like dead weight on the floor.

[DacienLxion]

you get more experience with 4v4 by doing it alot ofc but whenever i die i think of another way to handle stuff and start thinking about what killed me and try to find a solution for it.
I hope my tips will help you with WD and Gl.

[Culfinrandir]

Wear VIT - you're the primary target and should expect everyone to mash you into the ground. If you live longer than one of your team members then you're almost godlike. ;P

See you on the battlefield, fellow Scholar.

[Selli]

I don't really play SCH, I do play WHM and AST so I'll do the best I can.

1. What gear should I be wearing? I think morale doesn't do anything in the synch i80, is that true? Should I be wearing VIT or SS instead of MND accessories? Is melding necessary?

I wouldn't worry too much about morale gear since it's just for fun anyway. Whenever I do WD I always use my PvE gear.

SS as in skill speed? Or SS as in spell speed? Because healing accessories still have spell speed... If you mean INT accessories, no. Absolutely not. You're the only one healing your group, so they need your heals. As for VIT, I personally only use VIT earrings on all of my classes for PvP. The ones I have are vit, crit, and det. I only use one, but the amount you want to use is completely up to you. Do keep in mind the more VIT you have the lower your heals are going to be, though as you are losing MND to gain VIT. Most healers I see stack crit and det in PvP for healing accessories, though.

If you use PvP accessories, yeah they should probably be melded if you intend to use them in the WD. But they're very different from PvE accessories as PvP has its own materia which boosts your resistances (as a healer stuns, sleeps, and silences are what you'd want to build resistances to as those are things you can't esuna/leech off). I'm not even sure if PvE melds work in PvP. o.o

2. What is the best way to keep everyone on my team alive? Any strategies or priorites? Any helpful macros to prevent me from fat-fingering critical stuff?

I don't use macros at all, so I'm not too sure about any. Maybe mouse-over macros for your fairy? Or having her heal the person you adlo?

As a SCH your instant heals and your fairy will be important. As a healer you're going to be chased... a lot. So standing still is going to make you a sitting duck. When it is safe to stand still to heal, do so, but most of the time you will be running in circles. So having control of your pet will be very important as she might be the only thing healing for periods of time.

Also raise as often as possible. If you're still alive and someone goes down, use your PvP raise. If that's on CD use your PvE raise (even though that is super not ideal for PvP at all). The more people on your team alive the better as the more people the enemy has to fight, and it makes it a bit harder for them to focus one person. I remember fighting an AST once who kept swiftcasting raises on her team and even though she couldn't keep them alive for very long, the fact that they were up meant that we had to get one of our DPS off of her to go kill them. It helped her survive for a long time.

Also Miasma II when you are being chased and throw out things like Bio when you can. Instant cast damage spells will help out your DPS and things with debuffs will help CC the enemy team, especially heavies.

3. Which faerie should I be using? I need to be mirco-managing her but which skills should I use in what situations if I get cc'd? Also, should I place her somewhere or keep her with me?

Since you're healing alone and there's a lot of damage, most people use Eos. Selene's Silence is pretty... meh and her AoE esuna I find more useful in 72-man PvP. Her speed boost can be pretty useful, but I think Eos's healing support is much more useful.

Iirc, you can't use pet actions while CC'd? I don't play SCH at all and I rarely play SMN, so I'm not too sure. :x I'd try to keep her buffs up as often as possible. I wouldn't really use her on sic either since having her blow all the buffs at once wouldn't really help you that much.

She should be with you. If she sits by herself, she'll just get DoTed up by everyone until she dies. And she won't be able to heal you behind the wall with it in the way.

4. Oh, gawd, anything in the way of general advice. Please. I'm so scared but I wanna try it. >.<

Don't be scared. I was nervous my first time in the WD, but it was really fun. I also went in with 8 friends so I told them to go easy on me... which they did not, don't trust friends, LOL. But the experience is very unique and fun, it'll get really intense and you're adrenaline will be going, but it's great. Especially when you're with people you know so you can give each other pointers and cheer each other on.

[KaitlanKela]

Selli, yeeeeesssssss, thank you.

[RedHerb]

Learn the battlefield well. If you know where pillars and walls are, you can dodge and weave between them to break line of sight, saving you precious seconds between Aetherflow and Swiftcast cooldowns.

[Dotsusama]

Remove Cleric Stance from your cross-class actions and pick Blizzard II. What I should have done more often last night, but saved me a few times, was (as SCH) kiting the other team behind a way, and casting so that they all get bound right as they get into LoS with me. Then I sprint all the way around to the other side, giving me time to top off myself, a teammate or two, and/or contribute DPS to whoever we're burning down (usually the other team's healer).

If you do get a spare GCD here or there, Miasma II is your friend. Little damage, but will reduce the effectiveness of the other team's healer. (The Heavy effect doesn't work in PVP, sadly.)