GraceHorizon

Grace Horizon

@GraceHorizon

Axe cat

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FFXIV Warrior main, practicing Sage, Pictomancer and Reaper enthusiast. Avatar by @rabbitlegs .

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GraceHorizon
@GraceHorizon

Scholar 90

I leveled Scholar/Summoner to 90 a couple days ago. I played them both as I was leveling, but I focused more on Scholar because it was more complex. I’m posting first about Scholar because I don’t expect to know the job better in the next few days. I actually feel more solid on Summoner, but I’m delaying posting about it for a little while so I can try out my last few abilities, at which point I think I will have a fairly complete basic understanding of the job.

Like Sage, Scholar is a barrier healer, and since I usually heal on Sage I had a lot of the basic ideas down already: shield and mitigate before an attack, top off afterwards as needed, etc. Comparing the two, though, Scholar’s protective abilities are slower to use and require more forethought — on Sage, when I see a partywide coming, I generally have time for both Eukrasian Prognosis and Kerachole, but on Scholar it’s longer and more laborious to apply Succor and Sacred Soil. (For some reason I had a hard time remembering that Fey Illumination existed…) But on the other hand, a Scholar also has more ability to dish out big heals when they didn’t get their protections up in time. Emergency Tactics is a lifesaver when you mess up, and its cooldown is so short that it’s almost always ready when you need it. Another way in which Scholar feels slower is the cast times, of course — almost every Sage ability I routinely use is instant cast, so Sage is far more mobile even before taking its gap closer into account.

The other big difference between Scholar and Sage is the fairy. It had some major positive and negative sides both for me. On the positive side, it’s a much more flexible source of trickle heals than Kardia: the fairy will heal anyone who isn’t at full health, autonomously, and powerfully enough that at low levels a Scholar can do an entire dungeon without casting a healing spell. On the negative side, though, fairy-based abilities emanate from the fairy, not the Scholar. This gives them flexibility, but it also adds complexity to the job. I never properly acquired the habit of positioning the fairy, and instead just had it tag along with me, which was less than optimal.

All told, right now I think I’m about at the same point on Scholar as I was on Sage a month or two in: I can use it adequately and keep people alive, but I’m not conversant with its full tool set. I’m probably not going to play it much more any time soon, but leveling it has been good in a few ways:

  • I better understand how Scholars work, and know to do things like stay closer to the center of the arena when a Scholar is on duty, to make their fairly placement easier.
  • I’m more proactive with my partywide shields on Sage — I found it a necessity on Scholar, but even if I can usually get a Sage shield up quickly enough on short notice, it’s still one less thing to worry about if I do it ahead of time.
  • I enjoyed the Scholar job quest stories. It’s no Dark Knight, but the job quests are more engaging than average and have a lot of interesting lore about Nym and the War of the Magi.

Summoner writeup to come!

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in reply to @GraceHorizon's post:

arbitraryreign
@arbitraryreign

I feel like post 70, instants are your best friends as healer, so they are my first lines of defense.

I should use EP more often, but I generally don't. (The recast time after Eukrasia nullifies the cast time without it IMO, so it's only good if I have the wherewithal for preparation.) Maybe I'm not a good healer, haha, but my party is typically alive!

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OniLink
@OniLink

I am a SCH main and tbh I don't position my fairy? She has good enough range to heal basically everyone anyways. If I can reach someone for a heal, so can she. And people should be staying close enough to the healer for heals anyway.

There's a lot of really good instant heals for SCH at higher levels. If you'd like I can give you an overview of how I use my abilities. My methods probably aren't perfect but...

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OniLink
@OniLink

Ok this ended up being a VERY long infodump post... i'm so sorry...

Before I go over the individual abilities, my rough usage is:

During bosses, on cooldown of Recitation + Deployment Tactics, I use Recitation -> Adloq on Main Tank -> Deployment Tactics on Main Tank. Make sure as much of the party is in range as possible.

During trash packs, on cooldown of Recitation, you should probably use Recitation -> Excog on Main Tank.

During most fights, when the Faerie gauge hits 100, use Aetherpact on the Main Tank. This will focus your Fairy on one party member for a bit so... it's pros and cons.

During bosses, use Chain Strategem on cooldown. Massive damage boost for the whole party!

During trash packs when the party stops moving, and during bosses, I prefer to keep Sacred Soil up on cooldown. Really good passive shielding and at higher levels passive healing. There are likely more optimal ways to use it, such as sticking it after Whispering Dawn in my priority order, but.. I just like having it up.

When the party needs heals, I use heals in the following priority order:

  1. Fey Blessing
  2. Whispering Dawn
  3. Indomitability (until out of Aetherflow)
  4. Succor
  5. If Succor isn't fast enough, Dissipation to eat your Fairy and get more Aetherflow so you can go back to Indom

When one person needs heals, this is my priority order:

  1. If they don't have a shield, use Adloq, then use Adloq whenever their shield breaks
  2. Lustrate (until out of Aetherflow)
  3. Physick
  4. If Physick isn't fast enough, Fey Blessing if available
  5. If that's not enough, Whispering Dawn if available
  6. If that's not enough, Dissipation to eat your Fairy and get more Aetherflow to go back up to Lustrate

A smarter player than me might stick an Emergency Tactics + Adloq combo somewhere in there, maybe between 3 and 4.

When your ability Aetherflow is about to come off cooldown, use any remaining Aetherflow stacks on Energy Drain (even better if Chain Strategem is up) then use Aetherflow.

Now for the individual abilities and my thoughts on them! So in no particular order:

  • Fey Illumination: I'm bad at using it, but you should use it before any BIG heals. Small maintenance heals aren't really worth using Fey Illumination for, but those are usually done by the Fairy anyways.
  • Chain Strategem: Not healing, but a massive 20% bonus damage for the whole party for a bit!
  • Physick: A lot of people say it's worthless. It's not. It is good supplementary healing with higher potency raw healing than succor. If you just need a little extra to top off a party member and they already have a shield up, Physick CAN be useful!
  • Adloquium: It's a FANTASTIC ability, with the shield being the backbone of playing SCH. Crit heals doubling the size of the shield before accounting for the increased heal from it being a critical is also incredible. But... it's also very expensive with that 1000 MP. That can become a problem in some circumstances.
  • Succor: Adloquium but the whole party! The shield is smaller but it shields everyone! Better as soon as two people need a shield. Physick gives better raw healing until three people need heals. I... actually barely use Succor tbh except in emergencies! And that's because....
  • Recitation: Oh I love Recitation. Every 90s, gives a free guaranteed critical cast of Adloq, Succor, Indom, or Excog. I'll go over how I use Indom and Excog in a bit. For Recitation, Because of that guaranteed crit heal, I primarily use it for Adloq specifically. Because Adloq gets the doubled shield size before the critical hit bonus on a crit heal, Recitation -> Adloq gives between raw heals and shields a GUARANTEED 1380 potency heal before accounting for the crit hit bonus. Speaking of, you should dump a TON of crit hit materia on your SCH. It benefits so much from crit hit because of the double shield on crit heal.
  • Deployment Tactics: The other reason I use Recitation on Adloq and the reason I don't use Succor except in emergencies. At Endwalker levels, this has the same cooldown as Recitation. It takes any Galvanize (non-crit) shield on whoever you are targeting and spreads it to EVERYONE in the party. A Recitation -> Adloq on main Tank -> Deployment Tactics combo gives 300 pot healing on main tank, 1080 pot shield on main tank, and 540 pot shield on everyone else in the party. That's a very good setup!!! That will keep the ENTIRE party going for a bit!!!
  • Emergency Tactics: Gonna be honest I basically never find use for this. I know it's useful, but it's... well, an emergency ability. If people need raw heals, I have other options that are basically always enough.
  • Whispering Dawn: Very good after a raidwide to help top the party up. I usually use it if another of my abilities doesn't give enough healing.
  • Excogitation: It uses 1 of your aetherflow gauge but gives a "shield" to whoever you use it on. How the "shield" works is if they drop below 50% HP or if the ability's timer wears off, it automatically gives them an 800 potency raw heal. Pretty nice on main tanks, esp in trash packs. Some people swear by a Recitation -> Excog combo as opposed to my Recitation -> Adloq -> Deployment Tactics combo. Both have merit. I think Recitation -> Excog may be better in trash packs with big pulls while Recitation -> Adloq -> Deployment Tactics is better in bosses, esp if they have a lot of raidwides.
  • Fey Blessing: THIS is my primary healing ability. Beyond using the Recitation -> Adloq -> Deployment combo on the 90s cooldown to keep that massive shield up for everyone, I use Fey Blessing to do any actual party healing that's needed. It's an instant cast, 60s cooldown, 320 potency raw heal to everyone nearby. No MP usage, no aetherflow usage, just immediate raw party heals. If I use this and people still aren't sufficiently close to full for my tastes, that's when I use Whispering Dawn.
  • Lustrate: Emergency single-target healing only. Preferred over Physick, but it uses 1 aetherflow. 600 pot raw healing is very nice though!
  • Indomitability: Same as Lustrate but for the whole party. 1 aetherflow, 400 pot raw healing to everyone nearby. I only use it for emergencies if both Fey Blessing and Whispering Dawn aren't enough to get people up where I want them fast enough (esp cause Whispering Dawn is a heal over time).
  • Aetherpact: The sole usage of that Fairy gauge iirc, a tether heal on a party member. She'll stop healing all party members in favor of whoever you tether her to. Pretty good when you're sure the only one who'll be taking the bulk of damage is the Main Tank.
  • Sacred Soil: Not just a ground shield, at higher levels it heals too! I prefer to have this up on cooldown, placed centered on the boss/trash pack if possible so the tank is on one end and the rest of the party is at the other end, behind the enemies.
  • Summon Seraph: I don't use her ;; Apparently using Seraph switches her from healing focused to shield focused, so that can be useful? But? I... don't use her ;;;
  • Protraction: Good to use on cooldown on the Main Tank, I'm bad at that.
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GraceHorizon
@GraceHorizon

Thank you, that’s very interesting! I don’t think I ever did any duties above level 70 while I was leveling — I did it off alliance raid and MSQ roulettes, while leveling roulette went to sub-50 jobs — so I didn’t even get to use a lot of these abilities. I knew about a lot of them, but it’s cool to see how they get used in practice.

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GraceHorizon
@GraceHorizon

Also fairy location gives me anxiety because I’m used to being very mobile on Sage, and positioning myself to catch everyone in my AoE heals/barriers/mitigations. Similar on White Mage with its AoE heals. I run to a spot on Scholar, activate Whispering Dawn, then someone in the party doesn’t get regen because the fairy was still catching up, and they and I both feel sad.

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