FFXIV FF14 Scholar Job Guide 2023

Indomitable

A Thorough Guide To Scholar

Tobio Okuma

This is a guide for the Scholar Job in FFXIV. The goal of this guide is to give insight into how the job is operating in our current raid environment. I will go over all of the job’s skills and describe their usages, as well as break down how Scholar interacts with other healers. I will go through small optimizations, useful macros, and more. This guide is oriented towards people of any level of play.

Of course, there will be some general “how to heal” in this guide, as it is vital to point out the style that SCH uses in its healing. This guide will also go into some pretty in depth things in regards to healing. A lot of this will be assuming you are in an organized group and can coordinate with your cohealer.

I will also be addressing certain inefficiencies in regards to Scholar play in hopes that they will allow people to avoid common mistakes.I will include sections on useful tips/tricks that can improve your overall experience playing Scholar.

This guide will have a LOT of information in it. Feel free to jump around it as necessary to things that are relevant to you. The table of contents will be color coded as to allow easy navigation, as a document this size can be overwhelming.

This guide will continue to be updated going into 5.0, though it will take some time after the expansion drops to get it fully adapted to changes.

Feel free to drop by The Balance discord to ask any questions regarding Scholar or any other job. The mentors and members will gladly help with anything from general questions to log analysis. You can also feel free to message me on discord, FusionSamurai#3427 as well.

Acknowledgements

A massive thanks to Snes Ambros’ia for the work they put in to make this guide possible. The writing, editing, and support was a massive help in getting this finished. Without you, this would not have been completed. I can not thank you enough.

A special thanks to Momo Sama for his help, especially on the section regarding raid buff alignment and opportunity costs. He also made the graph of party mitigations. On top of that, he also proofread this behemoth of a document. Check out his Twitch and YouTube.

Thanks to Zyrkhan Dar’locke for his help in translating my ramblings into English and proof reading my spreadsheets. His AST guide was also a great guideline into how I could approach writing this kind of guide.

Alevia Rohan for bullying me and putting up with my bullying. Also she proofread it as well. Check out her Twitch.

Nemekh for their spreadsheets. Everything we know is because of the hard work you do theorycrafting. Math is hard, but you make it understandable. His Twitch, where you can watch him play SMN.

Video Games, for writing the original SCH guide at the start of 4.0, as well as providing the graph for Critical Hit. You inspired me to write this guide. Can watch him play SCH on his Twitch..

Ayesa Faile for having the Fey Covenant math, as well as answering my stupid questions when I first joined The Balance.

Thanks to all the groups and people I’ve run with who have made me the player I am today. Thank you for putting up with my endless memes and terrified screeches.

Everyone on The Balance for teaching me what I know and helping me to get better at the game. Without you I would be nowhere near where I am today.

Table Of Contents

This table of contents will be organized by color for the sake of easy navigation.

Green = Beginner: Not doing Savage or Extreme Content

Yellow = Moderate: Learning or clearing Savage or Extreme Content

Red = Advanced: Class / Raid Optimization

What Does Scholar Do?

Scholar at first glance appears to be a complicated job, especially for people who are just attempting to get into healing for the first time. Scholar hotbars are often extremely full, which gives the impression that they have many abilities. While this is true, many of them do not get much use in current content. Scholar at its core is a fairly simple job.

Scholar’s main identity revolves around the usage of two fairies, Selene and Eos, which passively heal. These two enable Scholars to pump out incredible damage while constantly having a mini-regen coming from the fairies. On top of this, Scholar has many tools that allow them to quickly heal incoming damage.

As a Scholar, you will be juggling a resource known as “Aetherflow”. You get 3 stacks every 60s, and they give you access to your most powerful abilities. Each time one of these abilities is used, the cooldown on Aetherflow is decreased by 5 seconds. These are your bread and butter abilities that will cover the overwhelming majority of your healing in raids. Each Aetherflow ability we use grants us 10 Aetherflow Gauge, which is used to execute a powerful single target regen with Fey Union.

We also have many tools that can be used to mitigate incoming damage, though most of the time it is unnecessary. There are specific circumstances in which shielding is useful, which will be addressed later in this guide.

The combination of its powerful healing options and raid utilities make it a force to be reckoned with. There are virtually no circumstances that Scholar is a bad choice for a healer slot. It is consistently powerful through early progression, weeklies, as well as speed kills. Scholar has been present in almost every world first clear, the only exception being Neo Exdeath, which really speaks to the power of the job.

Basically, this job is absolutely bonkers when played properly. And getting good value out of its stills doesn’t require you to be a top tier player. There are a few core basics that will push you to become a solid player. This guide will address those, as well as more advanced things for those seeking to push their gameplay to the next level.

Actions

This section will go through every skill that Scholar has, explaining the pros and cons of it. This should give a good general understanding of what each is and when they are used. This section will be separated into GCDs, OGCDs, and then pet abilities.

This section will be separated based on their interaction with the GCD. If the spell makes the GCD roll, it will be listed as a GCD. If it can be used between GCDs with no impact on the GCD, it will be listed as an oGCD.

DPS GCDs

This is your primary spell that you will be casting during any given encounter. This is your filler DPS spell that you cast when your DoTs are already ticking and nothing else needs to be done.

This is the spell that we use to weave oGCDs with. It has a base potency of 100 and a damage over time that adds up to an additional 100 potency, 200 total. It is instant, which gives you 2.5s to throw in things like Energy Drain or Excogitation. Weaving Energy Drain with Miasma II is a DPS gain.Be wary of the MP cost associated with this though, as that cost adds up fairly quickly. Using Energy Drain with this results in it being pretty safe MP wise though. DPS wise, as long as you get 1 tick out of Miasma II, it is worth more than Ruin II. MP wise this isn’t great, generally you want to let this DoT tick its full duration, or at least not clip it until there are >6s left on the duration.This also doubles as your AOE DPS tool.

Note that the full duration of Miasma II is only 30 potency less than Broil II (230). This minor difference is important for oGCD utilization that will be discussed in further detail later.

Ruin II is honestly a pretty bad spell. It is an instant cast, which means that you can use it to weave oGCDs, but we have other options for that. Generally, this gets used if we are forced to do extended movement away from the boss. Unless certain conditions are met, this skill can be a trap for newer players, as weaving with it is a definite loss over alternatives. There are situations where it can be useful. It can be used before the boss goes untargetable if there isn’t enough time to get a Broil II cast.

This ability has a tiny amount of initial damage, 20 potency, but applies a damage over time that will add up to 280 potency over the course of its duration. It has a 300 net potency if it is allowed to tick its entire duration.This should virtually always be ticking on the boss, with a few exceptions. Miasma must tick for 18s for it to be worth more than a Broil II.

Yet another DoT. The net potency of this is 350. Similarly to Miasma, it should be almost always ticking on the boss, with a few exceptions. (More on this later). It also is instant cast, which means the time after it is done can be used to reposition yourself for incoming mechanics. This must tick for 21 seconds to be worth more than a Broil II.

DPS oGCDs

This is going to be the primary use for your Aetherflow stacks. It boasts 150 damage potency, as well as 1,200 MP and a small heal. The heal on this can be nice, as it can sometimes keep you from having to GCD heal yourself. This along with Aetherflow is SCH’s method of regaining MP outside of Lucid Dreaming. This increases your Aetherflow Gauge by 10.

After recent changes, Shadow Flare got an additional tick once it is placed. This skill has 5 ticks of 50 potency, with one when it is placed for a net potency of 300. This only does damage so long as the boss’ hitbox remains inside the AOE it places. It can be worth it to hold this ability if the boss is about to be moved or is about to go untargetable for a short time.This skill has a 60s cooldown, which means if used properly, it should consistently line up with Bio. Use Bio to weave Shadowflare, basically. It is also worth noting that this skill cannot be used at the same time as your other ground AOE, Sacred Soil.

Bane is an interesting ability. It costs you one Aetherflow stack. It increases your Guage by 10. It spreads your Bio and Miasma to all targets that are near the target you execute bane on. This skill really doesn’t get many usages during raid situations. The potency on this ability is entirely reliant on how long the enemies you are using it on will survive. Most adds don’t last long enough to really get value out of it.

If the boss leaves the arena and summons adds, it’s likely not worth it to use two GCDs to DoT one add and then Bane them when you can spam Miasma II. It really depends on the kill time for the adds. If the boss is still targetable and it summons an add, it is possible to get great value out of Bane-ing pre-existing DoTs onto the add. As long as the potency is greater than 150, it is a gain over using Energy Drain. You’re honestly better off spamming Miasma II in most AOE situations.

Healing GCDs

This is your first heal, a carry over from being an Arcanist. This is probably the worst heal in the Scholar kit, and should be avoided if at all possible. The only time this gets used is when you don’t have other options available at the given time and you’re out of MP.

This is one of the most influential abilities Scholar has. This spell heals the target for 300 potency, then adds a shield equaling the amount healed (300 Potency). A critical heal will double the shield. This shield can then be deployed to the entire party. It is not generally worth it to fish for critical adloquium.

MP wise, this ability is pretty pricey, so fishing for a “Critlo” is not generally advised. This shield does not stack with Astrologian’s Nocturnal Field, regardless of the potency of either. If you have a 60,000 Adlo shield, it will be overwritten by a 500 Nocturnal shield. There are specific circumstances that using Adlo is fantastic, but generally we attempt to avoid using this skill if at all possible.

In progression, it can be used to cushion tank busters, especially before tanks have their cooldowns properly mapped out. Other than that, its generally only used as a deployment tool. It is also rather harsh on MP, another reason to avoid it. If it is being used to cheese mechanics, fishing for a Critlo CAN be done, but is generally not advised, as it is a lot of lost damage potency and it costs a ton of MP.

This is Scholar’s only GCD heal for area of effect healing. It is also a fairly weak heal, with only 150 healing potency. That being said, it provides a 225 potency shield on top of its healing. This becomes a 375 potency direct heal when Emergency Tactics is used, but even without Emergency Tactics the effective heal is 375 total potency. Spamming this too much is extremely taxing on both your MP and DPS.

Ideally Succor should be avoided in favor of other less costly options, such as Indomitability. However, there are times where shielding is necessary. Some examples of this are when the party won’t survive without shielding, or when the party has to be at 100% HP. It also is beneficial for one health mechanics, as those do not eat shields like they do health.

Healing oGCDs

This is your first heal that is off the global cooldown. It increases your gauge by 10, as all Aetherflow abilities do. This is a 600 potency heal, which is fairly powerful. This only heals a single target, but has more potency than any of your GCD based heals. Generally though, it is preferred that Excogitation be used over Lustrate, as it has a greater potency. Lustrate is still a powerful panic button in case someone takes an unnecessary hit or you need some emergency tank healing when alternatives are on cooldown.

Lustrate is still very useful through. It also has the added benefit of a 1.00s recast, which means it is possible to spam multiple in quick succession if such a scenario demands it. (Ideally this doesn’t happen often, but mistakes do happen).

This is one of the reasons Scholar is such a powerful job. Again it increases your gauge by 10. The net heal from this is 4,000 potency across the entire party. This is extremely powerful, and with a short 30s cooldown, it is available for most raidwide hits.

This is your strongest source of AOE burst healing. It is vastly superior to casting multiple succors. This does not have to be cast, as with all oGCDs, which means that it can be weaved with Miasma II for minimal DPS loss.

This is the strongest single target heal in Scholar’s entire kit. It of course increases your gauge by 10. This ability procs for 800 potency in the case that your target drops below 50% health, or automatically heals them if the timer on it wears off. This is an incredibly useful tool, and virtually foolproof. You can place this on the tank at any time and get some value out of it. Unless the tanks is full health, you will ALWAYS get something out of Excog.This is useful for healing tanks out of Holmgang/Living Dead, as well as just healing after a large tank buster. If a tank is low at any time, Excog can be used to safely and quickly give a large burst of HP.

It is worth noting that this will not heal someone through a oneshot. If they have 51% health and take a tank buster that is more than their health, Excog will not stop their death. In such a case, opt into lustrate to get their health up.

Emergency tactics gets a worse rep than it deserves. This skill turns the shield on your next Succor/Adlo within 15s into additional direct healing. This means that it essentially turns Adlo into a 600 potency heal and Succor into a 375 potency heal. This is fairly useful if your cohealer dies during progression and you need to utilize back to back succors – the first one can be a normal succor, while you use ET on the second to get the full potency of the heal without losing any to shielding that already exists on the party. It can be used to assist in breaking a DRK out of Walking Dead. It has a few situations that its very useful but these are typically more niche scenarios.

One of the other added benefits of Emergency Tactics is that by turning the shield into a direct heal, the potency is applied immediately to party members vs having the shield delay. This is very important at times where the heal window is very tight before damage goes out, such as multi-hit raid busters or something like Chaos’ Dark Crystal phase, where you have a very brief window to heal the party after destroying the orb and shields will not apply in time before damage.

This is also extremely good for instances of mechanics that bring the party to one health, as it can be combined with an Indom for a rather insane burst heal. This and Indom are the primary methods of burst healing for Scholar. The name really describes this skill, it is used in emergencies for a burst heal, and it does that job fairly well.

These two go together because they are quite literally the same ability. Aetherpact is the command from the Scholar and Fey Union is the ability executed by the Fairy. This will tether Eos/Selene onto your target, funneling a powerful heal over time onto them. This heal is subject to pet scaling, which means it is not as strong as the potency implies.

This is a useful tool that can be used to greatly cut down on healer GCDs that are required. It is used generally to heal tanks through auto attacks, as the ticks from Fey Union are stronger than Embraces. If the party are all at low health, this can also be used to funnel the fairy’s healing on to the tank, as Eos/Selene will heal ANYONE below 80% health, this allows you to force her into healing the desired target. Note that using any of the fairy’s other abilities will break the tether. Aetherpact can be cast again to end Fey Union early. Aetherpact is subject to an oGCD slot, but Dissolve Union (What replaces Aetherpact while it is active) is not. Do note, however, that Dissolve Union will still create a minor clip if utilized after a non-instant cast because it is still a non-pet function. However, Dissolve Union has no oGCD animation lock so the impact is very minimal. In addition, fairy skills other than Embrace can be used to cancel Fey Union. The fairy can not move while casting this ability, but if it is cast on a target that is out of range, the fairy will move into range to execute this skill.

This increases the potency of your fairy’s embrace by 40%. I say embrace because that is the only aspect of the fairy’s kit that is boosted by this healing increase. This skill should basically be used on cooldown. The extra healing over the course of the encounter really adds up.

This does not increase healing on Whispering Dawn. Do not hold this to line them up. Do NOT use this if you plan on using Fey Union in the next 20s, as they do not interact with each other, which results in wasted Rouse time.

Utility Spells/Abilities

Fairly self explanatory. This is something possessed by every healer, as well as Red Mage and Summoner. Generally, you want to avoid hard casting Resurrection if at all possible. Swiftcasting it will minimize your loss. That being said, don’t leave a DPS down for 20 seconds waiting for your swiftcast to come back.

MP wise this is also really pricey. If you have a RDM/SMN, see if they can get the raise, especially in progression settings, as it really snowballs your MP to have to cast raises.

Sacred Soil is another use for your Aetherflow. It increases your gauge by 10. This skill generally feels like a wasted stack. Unless you will not survive without it, or it saves you a GCD heal, it feels unnecessary. This can not be used at the same time as Shadowflare, so be wary of when you will need both of them. It also has a small chance of giving you a free Succor, which, while nice in theory, is not used often in practice.

This is one of the strongest aspects of Scholar’s kit. This can be used to spread the effect of Galvanize from one target to the rest of the party. (Assuming they are within a 10y radius). This means that you can heavily mitigate incoming damage by casting an Adlo onto someone, be it a tank with healups, the DPS, or a fairy, then sending it to the entire party. Ignore the Eye For an Eye bit on this skill, it’s not really used for that.

This skill is fairly self explanatory. This increases the rate at which the boss will take crits by 15%. This is a new utility that was added in Stormblood, and another aspect of the Scholar kit that makes it so influential. This skill gets used at around 6.5s in the opener, and then is used on cooldown. With a 120s cooldown, it lines up naturally with Trick Attack and every other major raid buff. Be sure to communicate with your team when this skill is coming up.

Eos’ Abilities

Note that all Fairy abilities outside Embrace are off the GCD.

This is your pet’s primary ability. Eos and Selene both have the exact same potency for Embrace. They will spam this ability every 3s on anyone below 80% health. It will prioritize the Scholar over anyone else, as their death kills the fairy. This ability is subject to pet scaling.

This ability is very useful. It has 7 ticks of 120 potency, for a total of 840 potency. This is subject to fairy scaling though, which means it has an actual potency of 588. This regen is not increased by Rouse or any other healing increase. This is very useful for healing the party during downtime if there is no raid damage coming.

This ability increases magic defenses of your party. This is especially useful because many tank busters and almost all raid wide instances of damage are magical. This can be very effective for mitigating incoming raid damage. It is important to note that it increases magic defense stat by 20% rather than reducing incoming magic damage by 20%. This means it is more effective on casters and tanks than it is physical dps. At item level 400, the damage reduction values are as follows:

Tanks – 16.7% reduction
Casters – 8.8% reduction
Physical DPS – 6.7% reduction

This increases the amount of healing you deal with spells. This does not boost abilities such as Lustrate, Excog, Fey Union, or Indom. This ability doesn’t increase much in the SCH’s kit, but is very useful for cohealers. Communicate the best usages of Fey Illumination with your team to maximize its benefit. It can be stacked with other heal increases such as Largesse for a multiplicatively powerful shield or regen.

Selene’s Abilities

Note that all Fairy abilities outside Embrace are off the GCD

Literally the same as Eos’.

This ability has virtually no real uses. The silence on it has only been useful on one raid in Stormblood, O7s. The primary function of Silent Dusk is to Cancel Fey Union without clipping your GCD or forcing a weave window.

This has a few more uses than Silent Dusk. This will cleanse detrimental effects from everyone in the party, at least, ones that can be cleansed. This had more effect in A11s, where it could be used to cleanse the Limit Cut debuff. Now it has a few niche uses, but not too much going for it. Similar to Silent Dusk, this can be used to cancel an active Fey Union.

This is the main appeal to Selene as a fairy. For the loss of healing and mitigation that Eos has, you get Fey wind. This is a rather small increase, but adds up over the course of an encounter. With 50% uptime, it can lead to a sizeable gain.

Other Abilities

This ability does not heal or DPS directly, but enables your entire kit to function by giving you stacks of Aetherflow. This also gives you 10% of your maximum MP back, so it also functions as an MP management tool. The recast of this is shortened by 5s every time an Aetherflow action is used, so it effectively has a 45s recast time.This is an oGCD.

This spell summons Eos to your side.Summon II summons Selene to your side.

This skill is meant for Summoners who are trying to solo content with Titan-Egi. This doesn’t have much usage for Scholars.

Dissipation is a weird mix of a healing ability and a DPS ability. It sacrifices your fairy, which can be extremely detrimental if done at the wrong times. This ability will receive its own section later in the guide. The healing increase and extra Aetherflow stacks means that this can be used as a panic button if things go wrong and you have no Aetherflow available.

Role Actions

Cleric Stance was gutted from its Heavensward counterpart. Now it acts as a small DPS gain every 90s. It is nothing crazy. It is used prepull for our opener, and then gets used on cooldown. It is an oGCD, and should be weaved with Miasma II, Bio, or Ruin II. (Preferably not Ruin II).

This can be used to fill the gap and give yourself a “Break” on MP. Otherwise literally anything is better. This is a GCD.

Use this prepull, then use it again if someone dies. The mitigation this gives can be the difference between life and death, especially in a progression setting.This is a GCD.

This has usages inside of dungeons more than anything. It can be used to cleanse certain debuffs, such as the burn in o3s. (That nobody should get). If you have a BRD, they can cleanse a debuff without wasting a GCD, so this is relatively niche in a raid setting. This is a GCD.

This is your primary way of regenerating MP. It will slowly tick up mana over its duration. It also allows you to drop threat. SCH threat generally isn’t a large problem, but some encounters, such as Neo Exdeath and Ultima Weapon (Ultimate) could be sketchy at times.This is an oGCD.

Swiftcast is one of your most important role actions. This allows you to instantly cast the next spell. This is a tool for movement, primarily. It is also used to quickly revive a fallen ally, and can be used to quickly get a heal out before a coming mechanic. It can also be used to set yourself up for future weaves by making your next Broil II instant. This is an oGCD.

Eye for an Eye isn’t too great of a skill. That being said, the only downside to it is the oGCD slot you sacrifice in order to use it. You’ll hardly feel the difference this makes. You can throw it on the tank if you have a free oGCD slot, but again, it really doesn’t make a difference.This is an oGCD.

This is also one of your most important role actions. This can be used to increase your spell’s healing potency by 20%. Under this (and only this), Adloquium has a 360 potency, and Succor has a 180 potency. Healing increases such as this do not work on oGCD heals such as Lustrate. This is an oGCD.

Surecast can be used to prevent most knockback and pull effects. This includes the knockback in Omega Male/Female. This allows you to not lose a cast during the knockback. (Or prevents you from having to use Miasma II as you get knocked back to minimize the loss). This is an oGCD.

This is potentially an interesting role action. There are some strats that require it, such as Unreal Hello, World in Final Omega. This will pull the target to you. There are a few more usages for this skill that will be touched upon later.This is an oGCD.

All About DPS

There is an old joke that Scholar is a green DPS. Oddly enough, that isn’t far from the truth. All of the healers in this game have great damage potential. Instances of damage in this game are very spread out, which allows healers to abuse their powerful oGCD healing tools to handle healing while they DPS. The amount of incoming raid damage is consistently decreasing as expansions progress. This allows healers to push their DPS numbers ever further. Healer DPS is very important. It can be the difference between clearing and a hard enrage, especially in earlier weeks.

In a lot of ways, healers are the most influential jobs in any party. Two good healers can seriously carry raid DPS if their DPS players are lacking, or can push their group even further beyond fight requirements. High healer DPS can also provide a safety net in the unfortunate event that a DPS or tank dies. (As long as the death wasn’t because of healers DPSing).

Healer DPS is very important. I can not emphasize this enough. Fights in this game are extremely scripted, with a constant stream of auto attack damage on the tanks and spikes in overall raid damage going out. The amount of damage the party takes is also fairly scripted, with around a 5% damage variance, it is still extremely consistent. Fights work on a timeline, certain mechanics always happen at certain times. Some fights have two possible timelines, such as O7s and O9s, but they still remain consistent.

You can abuse the fact that these fights are so scripted to increase your own damage. After a massive raid wide, there are often large gaps before the next instance of party wide damage. If there is a large amount of time before the next set of raid damage, do not heal the party to full. Allow regens or off global cooldowns such as Indom, Earthly Star, Collective Unconscious, or Asylum handle the healing. During this downtime, you only need to keep the tank healed, which can generally be handled with a regen from your AST/WHM and your fairy’s healing. (Remember to Rouse and Fey Union)

Opener

-7s Summon Eos+Fey Wind (during summon cast)

-5s Infusion of Mind+Cleric Stance

-2.5s Miasma

-Bio (Energy Drain+Shadow Flare)

-Broil II

-Miasma II (Chain Stratagem+Energy Drain)

-Broil II (Swiftcast)

-Broil II (Energy Drain+Aetherflow)

-Broil II

-Miasma

-Miasma II (Energy Drain)

Credit to Video Games.

This is the standard opener for Scholar. This will be used in 99% of fights. There are a few fights where you can not get off a proper opener, such as O6s. If you can not precast, like in O6s, skip the first Broil II. In this case, do not bother clipping your Miasma. The same applies when you are doing your re-opener later in the fight.The final Miasma II only has an Energy Drain weaved with it, you are free to place whatever you need there.

(Sample opener timeline through first Aetherflow usage. Note Chain Strategem timing before Bard uses Iron Jaws)

This opener opts into a Broil II->Swiftcast->Broil II. While clipping your GCD is not generally advised, doing so here allows us to avoid another clip. Clipping Miasma before its duration is complete allows it to be refreshed under all raid buffs, which results in higher damage.

There is another opener. It is a Miasma II lip opener.

-Precast Miasma

-Bio II (Energy Drain)

-Miasma II (Swiftcast + Energy Drain)

-Broil II (Chain Stratagem + Shadowflare)

-Miasma II (Energy Drain+Aetherflow)

This opener is the fastest way to put Aetherflow on cooldown. It allows you to get Shadowflare under raid buffs.This is less used, but it is a viable opener.

After the opener is complete, attempt to maintain high DoT uptime. Weave Energy Drain with Miasma II or when you refresh Bio. You can weave Energy Drain with Ruin II if you’re forced to move, though it is generally not advised, as it is a DPS loss over alternatives.

When people ask how to increase their DPS. The biggest problem is either a low CPM or too much healing. CPM stands for “casts per minute”. Ideally this number for Scholars should be around 30. Anything less and you are losing casts throughout the course of an encounter, which harms your DPS significantly. In an 8 minute encounter, a person doing 27 CPM is losing 24 casts compared to someone doing 30 CPM. If all of those were Broil IIs, that results in over 5,520 lost potency.

The line most people use is “Always Be Casting”. If you are doing nothing, you are losing either DPS or HPS. Literally anything is better than doing nothing. There is no excuse to be idle. Again, low CPM and unnecessary healing are the primary contributors to low healer DPS.

There are a few things to know in regards to maximizing your damage potential and getting the most casts off during an encounter. If you finish casting a Broil II, and the boss is going to go untargetable in one or two seconds, using a Ruin II is absolutely better than getting nothing. In the given scenario, it is impossible to get a Broil II off, so any potency is better than none.

Bosses teleporting or jumping across the map works in a very similar fashion. Most of the time, it will break your cast when they teleport, as they are no longer targeted. If your Broil II cast is going to be cancelled by them teleporting, opt into Miasma II or Ruin II. As long as the boss is targetable on the arena, the DoT will tick. This will guarantee you get at least SOMETHING out of that missing GCD. This is generally the only time that Ruin II is used. When the boss is going to disappear for an extended period of time, it can be used to get one last instance of damage as it leaves. It is not a giant gain, but it can add up. Other than that Ruin II should be minimized as much as possible.

How DoTs Work

FFXIV revolves entirely around server ticks. Every 3 seconds the game will apply the damage from DoTs that you have ticking. This is why DoTs that are applied at different times tick at the same time. You can end up losing DoT ticks because of how they work. Generally, we tend to clip our DoTs. This means to reapply them before the entire duration on the boss has ended. Your goal is to have your DoTs re-apply at around 1s left on the duration.

DoTs also have a feature we call “Snapshotting”. This means that DoTs retain any buff that they had even after said buff falls off. For example. If Miasma is used under the effect of Trick Attack, the Miasma will retain the 10% increase in damage even after Trick falls off.This works both ways. If Trick Attack is applied AFTER Miasma, it will not have the damage buff. This applies to any damage increase, meaning Cleric Stance, Chain Stratagem, Battle Litany, Trick Attack, Contagion, or even Potions. Heal over times work in the same way.

Bane takes this and applies DoTs to all enemies around the target. The snapshotting effect applies here as well. Bane’d DoTs will retain their buffs for the entire duration. This isn’t used practically anywhere now, though.

DoTs almost never tick when the boss is untargetable.

If the boss is about to leave the arena, it can be more beneficial to allow your DoTs to fall off.There are a few exceptions to this, such as O5s, but for the most part this is a consistent rule.

Bio II must tick for 21s for it to be worth more than a Broil II
Miasma must tick for 18s for it to be worth more than a Broil II

This means that if your DoTs are falling off before the boss leaves, it is not worth it to refresh unless you can get those durations out of them. If you can’t, then opt into pure Broil II spam. This is a small thing, but it adds up, especially when there are numerous times during an encounter when the boss leaves the arena.

The GCD and Weaving

FFXIV has a 2.5s GCD. This is the time between your casts before you’re allowed to do another, and is affected by Spell Speed. The main reason this is being mentioned is that some skills are off the global cooldown. These oGCDs are not tied behind the GCD, but have internal cooldowns.

Clipping your GCD is when you do an oGCD after a casted GCD. This causes a delay before you can execute your next action, and results in a DPS loss. The loss isn’t enough to warrant never clipping your GCD. It’s generally preferred that we avoid clipping, but sometimes it is necessary to optimize damage.

Weaving is when you use an oGCD after an instant GCD. For example, you can use Miasma II, which is instant. This gives you 2.5s to use any oGCDs you want with no penalty. Weaving is ideal for maximizing your DPS. To double weave means to use two oGCDs between your GCDs.

All of this is very important to Scholars because most of our healing is off the global cooldown. Energy Drain is also off the global cooldown.

Generally, your priority for weaving is-

Miasma II + Double weave
Miasma II + Single Weave
Ruin II+ Double weave
Broil II + Clip
Ruin II + Single Weave

Bio II also allows you to weave, but it’s a lot less on demand than these other options. Weave with it when it is available. You should generally never hold it to give yourself an opportunity to weave. When it is going to fall off of the boss and needs to be renewed, it takes first priority for weaving.

With all of that being said, you shouldn’t Miasma II (Energy Drain)->Miasma II (Energy Drain). Ideally, you don’t want to refresh Miasma II before the duration ends. If you really need to clip Miasma II’s duration, do so when it is below 6s, as it should be a gain over Broil II clip at that point. If the boss is about to go untargetable, it is worth more to Broil II->clip than it is to Miasma II->Weave. This is because your DoT on Miasma II will not tick when the boss is untargetable.

You generally have enough time after using Aetherflow to never have to clip Broil II->Energy Drain. You have 45s to burn your Aetherflow abilities before you lose value out of the Quickened Aetherflow trait. (5s off Aetherflow’s cooldown after each AF ability is used). Broil II-> Energy Drain can be used if your Miasma II will not get enough ticks to outweigh a Broil. The same 6s rule mentioned above applies here.

If you need to dump your stacks quickly, Broil II->Energy Drain is your best bet for doing so. If Aetherflow comes up right before the boss goes untargetable, you should spam Broil II->ED to quickly drop stacks. The same applies to your Dissipation during the final burn of an encounter.

. Swiftcasting Broil II can be used to give yourself an extra slot to weave. Doing Miasma II (Energy Drain+Swiftcast)-> Broil II (Rouse+Energy Drain) is extremely useful for maximizing your potential damage. Doing Broil II (Swiftcast)->Broil II (double weave) can be used if refreshing Miasma II would be a loss.

How Fairies Work

Fairies are one of the primary draws to Scholar. They provide a constant passive regen at no cost to the Scholar. In addition, Eos offers mitigation and a party wide heal over time, which can save numerous healer GCDs.

Fairies have what we call “Pet Scaling”. Fairies heal at about 70% of the potency of their Scholar. Because of this, the potencies on their skills are less than what is advertised. The 250 potency of Embrace is actually closer to 170. Whispering Dawn is closer to 84 potency/tick, or 588 total potency.

Fairies are also boosted by potions and food that the Scholar consumes, as well as raid buffs such as Battle Litany and Mantra. They keep the stats that the Scholar had when they were summoned, meaning that Eos’ Embrace will remain at full power even after the Scholar has removed all of their gear. (Until they re-summon her)

Eos’ Embrace will automatically target anyone in your party below 80% health, but she will always prioritize her Scholar. She will also prioritize herself if her health drops below 80%. This can be a bit of a hassle as she will heal unwanted targets before she heals the tank, even if the party is in no danger of death. To prevent this, you can use Fey Union after a raidwide to guarantee her healing is funneled on to the desired target.

Any non-Embrace ability that you have the fairy use will cancel her current cast, no matter how far she is into it. Keep this in mind when you’re trying to have her cast Whispering dawn, Fey Illumination, etc. Selene has more options for you to use to cancel her cast than Eos, as two of her abilities are throwaways.

Always keep fairies on Obey.

Eos’ AI does not understand how this game works. In its little head, it thinks that anyone in the party taking damage means that it’s time to use Whispering Dawn, Fey Covenant, and Fey Illumination. Keeping her on obey means that you can control when she does her actions, which allows you to get more value out of her abilities. Selene CAN honestly be left on Sic without much as much detriment. It is still bad play, as it prevents you from being able to use her abilities to cancel Fey Union. The only downside is that she will use her Fey Wind on cooldown, even during downtime, which is a DPS loss.

Treat the fairy’s skills like they are an extension of your own tool kit. You aren’t micromanaging anything. You’re using your extra skills. This makes understanding how to use Eos/Selene much easier.

Always place Eos/Selene at the start of an encounter.

Eos/Selene will prioritize following the Scholar over healing the party. To avoid this, place her in the center of the arena. This will maximize the number of Embraces she gets during the course of an encounter. Be careful though, as most cleaves can hit the fairy, which usually results in her death.

DO NOT MACRO FAIRY SKILLS TO YOUR GCDs.

It’s good in concept, but absolutely abysmal in practice. Macros can not be queued. This means that there is a delay between macro’d GCDs that costs you a significant amount of DPS. Macros are extremely clunky in this game. There are a few that are useful, such as mouseover macros for Deployment Tactics.

If you need to have Eos/Selene Embrace someone in particular, such as a Paladin with Divine Veil up, you can use what is called place cancelling. Place cancelling is relatively self explanatory, you place Eos, which cancels her current cast. While she is moving, spam her Embrace onto the desired target, she will then opt into healing them instead of what she was originally going to heal. This also works with mouseover Embrace macros, which is a lot more practical. This is useful for getting Divine Veil without using a GCD on the tank, especially when the party is at low health.

Fairy skills share cooldowns. It is important to know that if you use Fey Wind prepull and switch to Eos, Fey Illumination will be on a 60 second cooldown. Likewise if you did the same for Eos->Selene, Fey Wind would have a 120 Second cooldown.

It is an odd interaction, but it is something we have to deal with. Having one of your abilities on a longer cooldown than it actually has is weird.

Eos Vs. Selene

You have two possible options for your pet, them being Selene and Eos. Selene only offers Fey Wind, a small DPS increase for the raid, whereas Eos offers healing utilities and mitigations. Generally, the more healing intense the encounter, the more favorable Eos is.The less healing intense the encounter, the more favorable Selene is.

Eos is considered to be a better fairy for progression. The extra healing from Whispering Dawn is extremely useful, as are Covenant’s magic defense and Fey Illumination’s 10% increase to healing. These are especially potent in early progression, when the party lacks health and defense stats. Eos is always a solid choice.

Selene gets used in encounters where there isn’t as much healing required, or if both healers are optimized around her. In fights such as O5s, there is not much value to be had from Eos’ Whispering Dawn, as the fight is spaced out enough that a well placed Earthly Star or Collective can cover all of the healing.

However, as you attempt to optimize and push your play further, you can begin to opt into Selene, even on more healing heavy encounters. You may get forced into doing extra healing. A few Indoms or Succors will not outweigh the gain from Selene. This is especially true if the Fey Wind gains the party an extra GCD on the boss before it goes untargetable.

It is hard to exactly quantify the gain when everyone gets an extra GCD on the boss, as every GCD has a different value. Gaining the Ninja an Aeolian edge is worth a lot of damage, but a Heavy Swing on the Warrior isn’t worth nearly as much. Gained GCDs across the party makes for a fairly significant gain, and it will absolutely negate the extra healing that had to be done to compensate for the loss of Eos.

To get the most value out of Selene, you’ll need to organize your healing with your cohealer to minimize GCDs spent healing and figure out what to substitute for Whispering Dawn where you would have used it.

Which fairy you want to use is entirely reliant on your goals. Eos is fine for comfy weekly clears. Selene is if you want to optimize and push your damage further. Eos is extremely comfortable when you’re unfamiliar with your cohealer. Generally, Selene is only strong if there is organization with healers, as it is important to know what needs to be adjusted to make up for the loss of Whispering Dawn.

Likewise, if you are using Eos, always communicate where Whispering Dawn is ticking. Many players heal while Whispering Dawn is ticking. This results in the HoT being mostly overheal, and causes a DPS loss in the GCDs they used to heal. Communicating where HoTs can cover healing is important for maximizing your effectiveness.

Fairy Swaps

Fairy swapping is not often done. During the middle of combat, you lose a GCD swapping fairies, which is an instant 230 potency loss, more if the summon was hard casted. That being said, there are some times that swapping in the middle of a fight can be acceptable. These situations mainly revolve around instances where the boss is not targetable. If you are using Eos as your primary fairy for an encounter, swapping to Selene during downtime for Fey Wind can be beneficial. This is what we do pre-pull to get Fey Wind at the start of an encounter.

For example, in O7s, before the Ultros add spawned, it was possible to dissipate for additional Energy Drains on the boss before the add. During the time after Ultros died, you had time to summon Selene, use Fey Wind, then swap back to Eos.

This applies to most any instance of downtime. As long as you have the MP needed to support spending 2,400 on two summons, it is a gain. It is a very small gain, but it is a slight gain. Again, this gain could be worth a lot more if it nets an extra GCD before any further downtime.

Many fights have opportunities for this kind of swap.Some include-

Exdeath’s Decisive battle
Kefka’s Graven Image
O5s add phase
O7s when the boss flies out of the arena
O9s after the Dark Crystal dies
O10s at the end of Divebombs
O11s during Delta Attack

Opportunity Costs

To truly describe how healing functions within this game, one must first understand the idea of opportunity costs. An opportunity cost what is sacrificed when a choice is made. This is extremely prevalent in healing, and makes up the basis for how healing is done.

Every Succor, Physick, or Adloquium has not only the MP cost associated with them, but they also cost you the 230 potency that would have come from casting Broil II. This is the opportunity cost of using a GCD heal. This is also one of the biggest losses for healers. Too many GCD heals will cost a lot of DPS over the course of a fight. This is why one of the biggest causes of low healer DPS is unnecessary healing.

Generally, oGCD heals are much more efficient than GCD related heals. Scholar’s entire kit revolves around what is called Aetherflow. Almost nothing is free, though. The opportunity cost of using one of your Aetherflow stacks on Indomitability is 150 potency of damage and 1,200 MP, both lost from not using Energy Drain.

That is not to say that using Indom is bad. Actually, it’s quite the contrary. The 150 potency lost not using an Energy Drain translates to saving a GCD that would have been a Succor. This GCD becomes a 230 potency Broil II, which results in a net 80 potency gain.

This 80 potency gain applies to any GCD heal you can replace with an oGCD. Scholar has the most expensive oGCD heals of all of the healers, with Rouse’d Embraces and Fey Union being our only “free” source of healing. That being said, they are still more efficient than using GCDs to heal. Everything has a cost. People like to believe that Whispering Dawn is free, but it does in fact have a hidden Opportunity cost, that being Selene’s Fey Wind.

For more on opportunity costs, I recommend checking out Momo Sama’s Healer Optimization Guide.

OCs for CoHealers

Before this guide is continued, let one thing be absolutely crystal clear.

There is no “Main Healer” or “Off Healer”.

This definition is a relic of the past and should not exist now. Both healers have one combined kit that is used to heal the raid. This interaction is important, as many players act as though they are the only healer, or as if they aren’t supposed to heal because they are a Scholar. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

It is important for you as a Scholar to understand some of the basics of your cohealer. Because of this, I recommend you check out Zyrk’s Intro To Astrologian. It will give a lot of insight into how their kit functions. There is no proper White Mage guide at the moment, but one will be linked here as well when one is made.

Both healers should be working together to maximize overall raid DPS. This means using whatever has the lowest opportunity cost to benefit your cohealer. A 150 potency loss from using an Indom can result in a net gain of 70 potency for AST and 100 potency for WHM.

Healing is all about minimizing losses. On Scholar, eating the 150 potency loss results in a gain for your cohealer, which in turn is a gain for overall raid DPS. With both healers minimizing losses, the increase in raid DPS is massive. This results in much better kill times and more comfortable clears.

Single Target Healing Priority

Healing is all about following a priority system. oGCDs with no cost are usually the first to be used, with the ones with the highest cost, GCDs, being a last resort. Below is a list of all single target heals, listed based on their damage potency lost.

This provides a good example of what healing priorities look like. Your goal as a team of healers is to minimize costs, which will in turn maximize your potential damage. There is a system of priorities used to determine what heal should be used at any given time. The priority is of course scaling down from whatever costs the least to what costs the most. GCD heals have the lowest priority, though there are some circumstances in which a GCD can outweigh an oGCD, discussed later.

Priority (Single Target)-

Tetragrammaton/Essential Dignity/Benediction
Fey Union/Rouse
Aspected Benefic/Regen
Lady Of Crowns
Excogitation
Lustrate
Synastry+Benefic II
Benefic II
Cure II
Adloquium
Synastry+Benefic
Benefic
Physick
Cure I

This is more or less the priority system used to judge what single target heals should be used in a given situation. The only reason Cure II is above Physick is raw potency. Casting a Physick isn’t going to heal enough in most circumstances. It would likely require you to cast another heal, which is why it is lower on the priority system.

While it isn’t listed, proper usages of White Mage’s Devine Benison can save heals throughout the course of the fight. If it were put on the list, it would be around where Fey Union is.

Unless your cohealer is holding Benediction for a Holmgang or Living Dead, it should be one of your highest priority heals. It has quite literally the highest potency of any heal in the game, and should be treated as such.

When organizing and optimizing heals, you’re generally going to use this priority system for determining what heals are necessary for a situations. There are some niche situations that can also apply with AOE regens. Which will be addressed later.

Keep in mind that Fey Union may need to be held as a tool for forcing Eos/Selene to focus on your tank when the party is low. Be wary of all the cooldowns, GCDs are generally a last resort for healing, as they cost the most in terms of damage potency.

AoE Healing Priority

It took more columns to make a chart to map out how effective oGCDs are. It requires more information in general to get the full picture. Because of this, adding a full picture with the chart will end up looking awful. The charts for both single target, AOE, as well as the math for later topics such as Deployment Tactics, check out my Spreadsheet.

Priority- AoE Healing

Earthly Star/Whispering Dawn
Asylum/Collective
*Earthly Star (Uncharged)
Indom
*Assize
*Aspected Helios
*Cure III
*Medica II
Succor
Emergency Tactics Succor
Helios
Medica

This is your general priority for AoE healing. Anything with a * has a caveat to their potential rankings. This is more prevalent in AoE healing than in single target healing, as more factors come into play here.

Assize has an asterisk because it is a DPS tool first, it should be treated as such. Its 45s cooldown means that significant delays will result in a very large DPS loss,as well as misaligning it from raid buffs. It is not worth it to hold this, as the loss in DPS is not worth the healing. Making it fall out of raid buffs is a loss for the rest of the encounter, every usage after will lose potency.

An uncharged Earthly Star can be a gain over using an Indom. Earthly only loses 50 potency for being uncharged, whereas a usage of Indom is 150 potency. This isn’t a very common application, but it can be useful if you’re looking to Min/Max your DPS potential. If Earthly comes off cooldown a few seconds before a raidwide, it can be beneficial to place Earthly and immediately Detonate it if it will get you above the HP threshold for survival.

Aspected Helios or Medica II can potentially be a gain over using an Indomitability as well. They have 1,280 and 1,600 more potency respectively than Indom. If the potency of an Indom won’t get the party to the threshold to survive an incoming raidwide, but Aspected Helios or Medica II would, they are a gain over using Indom. In this case, Indom would have likely forced you to use another AoE healing tool as well. This is also a relatively niche thing, but it can again be important when considering how to maximize your healing potential.

When there are no raid wide instances of damage incoming, it is fine to let Whispering Dawn or Collective Unconscious tick the party to full during downtime. This is superior to using Indom or a GCD heal. Using collective to mitigate a raid wide and letting it tick to heal the party is incredibly useful when there is downtime.

Cure III is over Succor in this case. The reasoning for this is that the raw healing potency from Cure III can make it better than a Succor. If you’re trying to top the party before an AOE, Cure III will generally do the job better than a Succor. If you need a small amount of healing before a raidwide, opt into Succor.

Medica II can take priority over Cure III if the WHM can swiftcast it, otherwise the 3s cast time makes it undesirable in terms of overall potency and how much potency you lose for using it.

How Shielding Works

Shielding in its most basic sense acts as an extension of our own health. This means that when we take damage, the shield will take damage before our actual HP bars do. For example, if we have 10,000 health, and a 2,000 shield, a 3,000 hit would leave us at 9,000 health. Multiple shields stack additively, meaning a 6,000 Succor Shield and an 8,000 Shake It Off results in 14,000 net shielding.

For Scholar, we have two methods of shielding. Adloquium heals for 300 potency and then provides a shield equalling the amount. If it crits, the shield is doubled. Succor shields for 150% of the value healed, so a 150 heal and a 225 potency shield. A 4,500 succor will have a 6,750 shield, whereas a 9,000 Adloquium will only have a 9,000 shield, unless it crits.

Shielding has a few interesting aspects to note. One of which is the delay before a shield actually applies. This can be to both the Scholar’s benefit or their detriment. If Succor is cast too late, the delay on the shield may mean that it won’t take effect until after damage has already happened. For mechanics such as Ion Efflux in O12s, a shield can be life or death for the survival of the party. Heals and shielding do not apply at once They go based on distance to the Scholar.. This can result in server ticks killing people when the last person to get the shield doesn’t have it registered when the raidwide happens. This usually can results in a death.

This delay in itself is not always a hindrance. If there are two back-to-back raid wide instances of damage, it is possible to time a Succor so that the heal will get the party before the first hit, and the shield will register after the damage. Heals apply as soon as the cast completes (though they do not hit everyone at once).

Nocturnal AST Shields override SCH shields, they do not stack.

This is important because you could have a 50,000 shield on someone and a 500 NOCT shield would override it. It is extremely frustrating that this interaction is a thing, but it has been like this forever. The shield size is irrelevant. NOCT/SCH don’t go well together unless the group has a set plan for shielding that prevents this interaction from happening.

When To Shield

A common mistake that new Scholars often make is an excess of Shielding. This is common even into the middle levels of Scholar play. Many Scholars attempt to shield incoming damage, especially large instances of damage. This is not always necessary, and is often a loss. Shielding is generally not needed for most raidwides.

The party will not survive without shielding.
Shielding one instance of damage prevents having to heal another.
You have no oGCD options for AOE healing.
You’re opting into strategies to cheese Limit Break.

An example of scenario one include Ion Efflux spam at the end of Final Omega.These mechanics generally require some kind of shielding to survive comfortably. This is especially true during early clears, as your defense stats and health haven’t scaled to their maximum yet.

The second example is if shielding a mechanic could save you a GCD heal. This is especially prominent in instances where a deployed Adloquium is used, as a crit Adlo can basically negate the AOE, preventing any further healing from being necessary.

The third scenario ideally never happens. Casting Succor or Adloquium to cover not having an oGCD heal is unfortunate, and rarely happens, but there are some times that we have to take the loss and use it.

The fourth instance is for highly optimized groups. This involves taking what should be lethal damage, but surviving it due to your shields. This means that if you take a 55k hit, but only have 51,000 and a 6,000 shield, it generates an absurd amount of limit break.

How Healing Buffs Work

Healing increases, such as Largesse and Fey Illumination, increase the amount your healing spells will heal. There are many ways to increase the amount of healing your spells will do. This is an important distinction. Spells are your casted heals, such as Physick, Adloquium, and Succor. Abilities are your oGCD heals, such as Indomitability and Excogitation.

These increases ONLY increase your spells. Using Largesse does not increase the amount of healing that your oGCD spells will heal. This means that you should only use Largesse if you have the intention of casting a heal manually. The general rule is, “If you cast it, it will be increased by heal-ups.”

These can be categorized by who uses them and who they benefit. Largesse will increase any casted heal done by that healer. Fey Illumination will increase the healing received by anyone with the buff it gives. Monk, Warrior, Bard, Scholar, Tanks, and Healers all have ways to increase healing.

Healing increases, such as Largesse, scale multiplicatively, not additively. This means that stacking these will result in massive heals, which can be extremely helpful when you want to maximize the potency of your healing.

For example, Adloquium is 300 potency. When used with Largesse, the potency becomes:

300+(300*.2)=360

If we decide to add in Nature’s Minne from a Bard, another 20% increase, the math then we get:

360+(360*.2)=432

It is important to know the difference between them being additive and multiplicative. If they WERE additive, the potency would have been 420. The more percentage increases you add in, the more the math begins to stray from the actual value.

This is all important because this also scales into how can address certain mechanics. Your shields will scale based on how much you heal. This means that stacking Convalescence, Largesse, Nature’s minne, and Defiance can result in an Adloquium with a potency of 622.08. This Adlo has a higher healing potency than your Lustrate, and provides a shield equalling that value. This shield being Deployed to the entire party can negate entire mechanics, especially if this 622 potency Adlo crits.

The loss from casting this Adloquium is still 230, the lost Broil II. That being said though, this shield can prevent another heal from having to be used, especially in the case of a crit.

Being able to stack these healing increases results in some insane numbers in terms of shielding. Stacking Largesse+Fey Illumination+Mantra turns Succor into a 237 base heal and 356 shield. If you are going to have to use GCDs to heal, it is worthwhile to use these to maximize the value of your GCDs. If you’re going to be forced to take a loss, better to get the most out of it.

Deployment Tactics

Deployment Tactics at face value is fairly simple. It will deploy the effect of Galvanize off of the target and spread it to anyone in a 10 yalms. When reading the tool tip, the general idea behind this skill is obvious. You cast a shield, such as Adloquium, then spread the strong shield to the party.

This will spread the Current value of the shield to the party. This is important. If you put a shield on the tank, then that tank gets hit by an auto, the shield will be much smaller. A surprising amount of Scholars make the mistake of casting an Adlo onto the main tank and deploying a weaker shield because of autos.Generally, you’ll try to deploy off of the tank that is not tanking the boss at the time.

Deployment Tactics can also be done off of the fairy. This is important for situations where tanks can not go to a position where a deploy will hit the entire party. This is especially important when you consider that many AOEs do not damage the fairy. An Adlo can be casted onto the fairy, then be deployed after a raidwide. This allows you to get a fully powered shield onto the party after a raidwide. This is useful for things such as O12s’ “Hello, World”, as the fairy will not take damage from the initial cast.

There are other reasons that knowing where fairies take damage can be important. One of these is the usage of Deployment Tactics on Succor. This generally confuses many people, but there are some instances where using Deployment Tactics on Succor is actually superior to using it on Adloquium. These are not extremely frequent, but are nice when it is applicable.

This is a spreadsheet showing the potencies of Adloquium or Succor Deploy. Do remember that this is assuming that the deploy happened off of a fairy that took no damage from an AOE. Also, this assumes that things like Mantra, Largesse, and Minne weren’t used. It takes four 20% healing increases (Largesse, Minne, Defiance, Convalescence) for an Adlo deploy to beat a raw Succor deploy. It is extremely powerful when circumstances allow.

This does not, however, mean that you should use Succor as your primary spell for deploying. There are very specific circumstances that Succor deploy is powerful, and others where Adloquium is superior.Using Indom/Star is always preferable to using a GCD, but they aren’t always up when they are needed.

Succor deploy shines when there are multiple AOEs that happen quickly. It especially shines when there are three back-to-back AOEs. You can allow the first AOE to happen without any shielding. Then you cast Succor to give your party a shield. This guarantees the healing potency is not wasted. After the 2nd AOE, assuming the shield on the fairy was not eaten by the AOE, you can deploy off of the fairy for another 225 potency shield.

This type of deploy is very consistent. It has less usages during the current raid tier. In O6s there were numerous places that this type of deploy was strong. In O7s it could be used on the triple Defractive Plasma. In the current tier, the one spot where it truly shines is during the finale of Omega M/F. When you are using tank LB to cheese the meteor, you can Succor after the damage, then deploy after Cosmo Memory so that you have a guaranteed shield on Laser Shower without another GCD being used. In this case, you needed the shield to survive Cosmo Memory. The Deployment Tactics is nice because it is a 225 potency shield essentially for free.

So basically, Succor deploy is strong when there are back-to-back AOEs that won’t damage the fairy to remove its shield. They aren’t incredibly frequent, but again, it is a very useful thing to know for circumstances where it applies. Ideally triple back-to-back AOEs are where this shines the most. It can get use during double, but can have less value, especially if the initial heal from Succor isn’t actually healing anything.

Adloquium deploy is strong in other circumstances. Adlo is better if you need a lot of upfront damage reduction. It is also better if you will not survive without the stronger shield from Adlo. Adlo can also potentially save healer GCDs if it crits. In this circumstance it is better to Adlo deploy over a Succor deploy.

In O12s, for example, most Scholars tend to use Deployment Tactics on “Hello, World”. There are many reasons for this. The party will be taking an absurd amount of damage across the board throughout the course of the mechanic. The party will also be spread out during this mechanic, making an eight man Succor deploy near impossible. To further push it ahead, a critical Adloquium can result in saved healer GCDs throughout the course of the mechanic, as the only healing that is required at that point is the final Ion Efflux of the mechanic. The party is too spread out during the mechanic to get heals to everyone, further pushing Adlo deploy ahead.

Another place where Adloquium deploy was strong was during the Tumults in The Weapon’s Refrain (Ultimate). A critical Adlo can potentially save your cohealer a GCD heal. On the topic of Ultima Weapon, there is a strategy for handling Ultimate Predation where you allow the entire party to be hit by one of Ifrit’s dashes. This is extremely heavy hitting, and requires high shielding to survive. This is another case where Adlo deploy is extremely strong.

It is also worth knowing that if you attempt to use Deployment Tactics too early, it will have no effect. This can be a problem if your strategy for healing requires a shield. If this happens, it is unfortunate. Communicate the mistake to your team and compensate by doing extra heals. It sucks when this happens, so attempt to avoid it.

Deployment Tactics also spreads An Eye For An Eye. This is a much less important aspect of the ability. This can only proc on physical damage, which makes it really weak in our current raid environment, where most AOE damage is magical. This is why I say that it is really not worth mentioning its interaction with Deployment Tactics.

MP Management

MP management isn’t particularly hard on Scholar. We have a lot of options to regenerate our MP and a pretty constant flow of MP through Aetherflow and Energy Drain usage. Dissipation is another tool for MP regeneration, but should only be used in extremely dire circumstances. On top of this built in MP regeneration, we also have Lucid Dreaming, a 15s MP refresh on a 120s cooldown.

Aetherflow should be used as soon as it comes up. You risk losing an enormous amount of damage, healing, and MP by not keeping this ability on cooldown. Every Aetherflow ability you use will reduce the recast on Aetherflow by five seconds. This means that stacks must be used within ~45 seconds of using Aetherflow to gain the full effect. Not taking advantage of this trait can cost Aetherflow usages over the course of an encounter, which is negative in DPS and HPS, as well as MP efficiency.

Dissipation is not a great way to gain back MP, and should only be considered in extreme emergencies. Using all three gained stacks on Energy Drain grants 3,600 MP. Resummoning the fairy costs 1,200, which results in a +2,400 swing for MP. The loss of Embrace can result in more healing being required, which can damage efficiency. In the case of an MP Dissipation, there will usually be a DPS loss. If not for the Scholar, but their cohealer having to cast an extra heal to compensate for the loss of Embrace for the duration.

There isn’t particularly an “optimal” time to use Lucid Dreaming, as its really dependant on how you’re healing a fight. Depending on differing strategies, different people could need it at various places. With that being said, don’t hold Lucid for half of an encounter. Ideally you would want to get as many uses out of it as possible, while holding it when it is needed for a specific portion of the encounter.

Having problems regarding MP is often due to either too many Succors, or too many Miasma IIs. Succor is not very MP efficient, which is yet another reason to avoid using it if at all possible. The 2,040 MP cost is extremely significant, especially if it is being spammed for AOE healing.

Miasma II is an interesting case. It has a 1,680 MP cost, which means that many uses add up in terms of MP costs fairly quickly. However, when used to weave Energy Drain, the cost is effectively only 480, and it is DPS positive. Miasma II is the best tool that Scholar has for weaving oGCDs. Using it with Energy Drain and any other oGCD that is required is ideal, but there are sometimes when we aren’t afforded that luxury. Attempt to avoid doing non-ED Miasma IIs unless necessary.

Dissipation

Dissipation is an interesting ability. It sacrifices your pet and grants you three Aetherflow stacks. It also grants a 20% increase to healing spells for 30s. During this 30s you can not resummon Eos or Selene. The healing increase from this cannot be clicked off. This is an extremely situational skill. It has a few niche uses, and is very useful when it is good.

The major downside of Dissipation is the loss of Embrace. This means that when used at the wrong time, it can force either the SCH or their cohealer to do extra GCDs to heal. Assuming that the fairy would have gotten 10 full embraces during the 30s downtime, you’re missing out on ~1,750 net potency on the tank. This GCD lost guarantees that Dissipation is a loss.

Generally, Dissipation is only a gain in these situations-

There is no incoming damage on the tank, so the loss of Embrace isn’t relevant.
The extra healing from Dissipation saves a GCD heal.
You are absolutely desperate for MP.
Emergency heals are desperately needed.

These are the general instances where Dissipation can be used. This provides the broad guideline as to where Dissipation can be used for a gain. There are several examples of each particular instance.

For instance one, there are many possible examples, as this is the most common time to use it. If the boss is getting ready to go untargetable, it is almost always a gain to use Dissipation. This is because the loss of Embrace during down time is not really relevant. Being able to summon back Eos/Selene during the downtime is also a significant gain, and is important for minimizing the losses around Dissipation for optimal usage.

In our current raid tier, there are many instances where this happens. In O9s, after casting Bowels of Agony, Chaos will leave the arena. During this time, the add phase happens. Dissipating before he leaves will net you extra damage before he leaves, and you can summon as his ultimate happens so that you never have to drop a Broil II cast for it. In O11s, Dissipating after the second Fey Wind nets extra potency on the boss as well, and the fairy can be summoned during Delta Attack.

The same thing applies during the final burn of any encounter. Generally, Dissipation is done within the last 30ish seconds of a fight to gain one final burst as the boss dies. Not doing this is essentially wasting potency. The boss can’t be targeted after it dies, and it won’t be able to auto long enough to kill the tank. This is the most common usage of Dissipation.

For instance two, look at fights like God Kefka. During the first Forsaken, Dissipation was incredibly powerful, as it could save a GCD heal due to the 20% increased healing. This also doubles for instance two, as the tank was not taking autos during this time, and was covered entirely by AOE healing. During O9s, many Scholars opt to use Dissipation to get a stronger shield for the second Earthquake. This saves a GCD heal, especially when combined with tank shields such as Divine Veil and Shake it Off.

The third example was discussed much earlier. Generally it will be a ~2,400 MP gain to Dissipate. This often forces your cohealer to cast extra heals to compensate for the lack of a Fairy, so this use is extremely niche.

The final scenario is more of a concern in progression. A well timed Dissipation can easily save runs, especially when your cohealer dies during AOE healing heavy parts of encounters. Examples of this are Almagest in Neo Exdeath if your cohealer dies.

The math behind how much of a gain Dissipation is is muddled. Your goal is to get full benefit out of Quickened Aetherflow, which means that ideally you need to burn off six stacks within 30s of an Aetherflow cast. It is extremely hard to do this without clipping several times. This muddles the exact math. Depending on when its used, you can have tools such as swiftcast to avoid a few clips, so the exact math varies for different uses.

On top of this, the extra -15s on Aetherflow could net an extra usage throughout the course of an encounter, which would add even more of a gain to this ability.

In a perfect vaccuum, in a wonderful universe, Dissipation with a summon when the boss is untargetable is a 450 potency gain. The clips will reduce this potency pretty significantly, but it is still virtually always a gain when you aren’t going to be punished for the loss of the fairy.

We do not use Dissipation when the boss is targetable unless it saves a healing GCD. If you have to resummon while the boss is still targetable, you are losing at LEAST 230 of the gain.That is if you swiftcast the summon. If you hard cast it, due to its ~3s cast time, additional potency is lost. This should result in a 270ish potency loss from resummoning. On top of the clipping, it ends up being either barely neutral for DPS.

Movement

Movement is another place that many Scholars struggle to master. Scholar has a lot of strong options for moving. We aren’t quite the “I can run around the entire arena for 10s-20s while spamming my primary DPS spell and lose absolutely 0 DPS” that AST has, but we don’t get destroyed by it like White Mage.

There are four options to handle movement in a raid setting. What you will use will vary depending on many various factors. For example, how quickly you need to move and how far will play a big role in deciding which movement option will be best suited for a given situation.

In terms of movement, Scholar has, in no particular order, Miasma II, Bio II, Ruin II, and Swiftcast. These are all tools that need to be considered when movement is coming. Miasma refresh timing works the same as mentioned earlier. It’s generally alright to clip the Miasma II DoT if it is below 6s on the DoT. Bio CAN be used for movement, but it’s generally not unless reapplication lines up with when movement is required.

If you are being forced to break off of the boss, always try to start with Miasma II. It can be planned ahead to not have it ticking so that you aren’t clipping the DoT. This gives the Scholar 2.5s to move. This also gives a chance to use oGCDs. Miasma II (Energy Drain+Swiftcast)->Broil II is essentially 5 seconds of free movement. The Energy Drain isn’t always there, but it is nice for minimizing the MP cost of Miasma II.

Swiftcasting and eating a Broil Clip is superior to using Ruin II. The second Broil II can also be used to weave as well. If you have more time to move, it is possible to Miasma II, then Broil II (Swiftcast)->Broil II, which covers a lot of ground.

Bio II can be used for movement if the duration is at 9s or less. At that point, the previous DoT will have done more damage than a Broil II. However, you are eating a 105 potency loss (35/tick*3 ticks) if you do this. It is better to just let Bio II tick out and use it for movement if it naturally aligns with movement. Clipping this DoT means it also loses alignment with Shadowflare. While this isn’t inherently a bad thing, it is very convenient that they naturally align.

The idea generally is trying to cut out as many Ruin IIs as possible, as its 100 potency is really not worth it when you can do literally anything else.

Another trick for movement is called “Slidecasting”. This is abusing the spaghetti coding of the game to get casts off as you move. To do this, you simply move when the duration of your cast is less than .5. It will not cancel your cast at this point. Doing this over and over lets you slowly move across the map while maintaining DPS. This will take some getting used to, and you can lose casts if you aren’t careful.

How Mitigations Work

Mitigation is one of the most important aspects to raiding. Reducing the damage taken by an attack reduces the healing required, which then increases the amount of DPS healers can do. It is important to know how mitigations work, and how much mitigation is needed for any given mechanic.

Mitigations, similarly to % healing increases, scale multiplicatively downward. This means that they are subject to diminishing returns. What does this mean? Each % mitigation you stack reduces incoming damage by less than the last used.

For example. If the party is going to take a 100,000 hit, a tank using Reprisal will reduce the damage of this by 10%, or 10,000.

(100,000-(100,000*.1))=90,000

This means the hit is now 90,000. If the Scholar now uses Sacred Soil, it will reduce the 90,000 damage by 9,000, making the new value 8,100.

90,000-(90,000*.1)=81,000

Another 10% mitigation will further reduce the benefit.

81,000-(81,000*.1)=72,900

The damage reduction will continue on this downward curve. This is what is called diminishing returns. A few of them graphed out looks like this. Note that this is showing how much damage will taken with all of these mitigations being stacked on top of each other.

This means that stacking too many of these reductions is actually a major loss. There are currently no mechanics that absolutely require all mitigations to be stacked at once. The closest thing is Morn Afahs in the final phase of Unending Coil. Even then, you only need three 10% mitigations+Succor to survive.

Sacred Soil is generally avoided unless absolutely necessary. Everything being used on one AOE means that there will be nothing left for the next. Using too much on one attack can mean that an extra heal might be necessary for future damage.

It is important to map out everyone’s mitigations to maximize the effectiveness of them while not wasting them. Using a Sacred Soil when there are already numerous mitigations stacked on an AOE will likely not save a heal. Communicate with your party when things should be used to maximize their uses and effectiveness.

Party Mitigations

Everyone has some form of mitigations. This was a change going from Heavensward into Stormblood. The developers wanted to take some of the responsibility off of the healers and give it to the rest of the party. Because of this, every job now has something they can use to reduce incoming damage taken.

Below is every mitigation for Tanks/Healers.

Table courtesy of Momo Sama.

This visual really shows how much responsibility needs to be on the DPS and tanks in any group to help reduce incoming damage and help mitigate. If a tank drops dead after a buster, it is worthwhile to check and make sure that these mitigations were present. Especially in fights like O10s, Palisade and Feint can make a MASSIVE difference in the damage that a tank will take from the the tank buster.

Make SURE your DPS are using these mitigations. This is important for all healers, including Scholar, as your party members using their tools is essential for you to maximize your potential damage output. Proper usage of these tools can result in a fairly significant gain for healer DPS.

Treat party members like Eos. They will absolutely never use their tools where you actually need them unless you specifically tell them to use them. As a healer, you need to be vocal and specify where a mitigation will save you a heal. For example, if an AOE requires Shielding, it can be better to have Shake It Off, as it saves a Succor cast.

Second Wind and Bloodbath are also important tools when it comes to saving GCD heals. Proper usage of these skills can save healing over the course of an encounter. Bloodbath essentially heals the user for 22% of all damage dealt for the entire duration. Across all skills used and auto attacks, this results in a fairly large amount of healing. This can be used to cut healing out, especially if the user only needs a small amount of extra health to survive a coming AOE.

Things like Feint almost always have some purpose in an encounter. If all of the tank busters are magical, Feint and Palisade can be used on heavy auto attack segments of the fight to help ease healing. Do not underestimate how much healing is saved through auto attack Feints throughout the course of an encounter.

Ask your DPS where they are using these skills, and if you think there is a better place, tell them. Check logs to make sure they are actively using their skills, if they aren’t, tell them where to put them. This is not negotiable. They have these skills for a reason, and need to use them. If they aren’t, they are not maximizing their effectiveness and are holding the entire group back. You can clear while not using these abilities, but it makes the entire run infinitely harder than it has to be.

Raid Buffs

Raid buffs are one of the most important aspects of raiding in FFXIV. The meta of XIV revolves around stacking raid buffs for massive burst windows. Most DPS jobs, bar Samurai and Black Mage, have an ability that increases DPS for the party. Tanks lack direct raid DPS increases, as does WHM. Generally, jobs that have these buffs are preferred over alternatives. These are always on cooldowns with multiples of 30s, which means they will all eventually line up if used properly on cooldown.

Listed out, all major raid buffs are-

Raid buffs, like most other % increases, scale multiplicatively. This means that a Broil II under Trick and Foes is around 261 potency. Stacking these is the best way to maximize their benefits. Again, notice that all of them are on thirty second intervals. This means that when they are all used properly, they will naturally align, causing strong burst windows that will be your biggest DPS phases.

Scholar has two raid buffs. Chain Stratagem increases the rate at which the target takes critical strikes by 15% for 15s. Fey wind is a slight haste buff that adds up to a pretty significant gain over the course of the fight.

Critical Hit is a stat that scales multiplicatively in terms of DPS gain. The more of the stat that you get, the more frequently you will crit, and the bigger the multiplier on those crits. Stacking multiple of these can result in absolutely crazy damage numbers.

Fey Wind is used in every pull before the encounter begins. A Selene->Eos swap before the pull has virtually no cost. This isn’t a massive gain, but it is something. A gain is a gain, and we take what we can get. If you are opting into Selene 100%, it is a much more significant gain, especially if it gains GCDs over the course of an encounter.

Buff Alignment

Generally, raid buffs should be used on cooldown. This is because everything will naturally align if they are used properly. Here is a graphic showing off exactly how it looks when raid buffs are used on cooldown. This is done with only NIN/BRD/SCH/DRG for the sake of making a smaller chart.

This is assuming a 12 minute pull. This shows exactly how all of these buffs will naturally look when used on cooldown. Buffs don’t actually happen at 0 seconds, Chain Stratagem goes out at ~6.5s. The choice to use 0s for the sake of this chart was just to give an easier time showing how raid buffs align.

Raid buffs should almost always be used on cooldown. Holding on to raid buffs for extended periods of time can deny usages throughout the course of an encounter. This is a very large loss in most circumstances. With that being said, there are a few instances where raid buffs can be held. Listed out, they are-

The buff comes up during an add phase.
Slightly delaying a buff can allow for better uptime without losing a usage.
Holding it can allow for a better opener on a later phase.
Using it on cooldown will result in a usage where you can not get good value.
There will not be time for another usage, so delaying it allows for a greater burst window.

The first is the most common. Gaining extra burst damage on the boss is always superior to using it to damage an add. Certain raid buffs, like Trick Attack, can often be used on adds because they have a short cooldown and will be back before the boss returns to the arena. For the sake of Scholar, it is safe to always hold Chain during adds for the burst window when the boss returns. Fey Wind can be used on adds if it will return before the boss returns.

The second is less common, but is still useful. There are certain times in encounters where there is limited uptime for some party members. This can be problematic, as it limits the gain you can get out of your buffs. During scenarios like this, it can be beneficial to slightly delay usages to get the full duration out of the buffs. This is, of course, if you won’t lose a usage because of the delay. This entirely depends on your group’s kill time if you will lose a usage.

For an example of scenario #2. This applies for specific kill times.. If the kill occurs at under 7:00, but over 6:15, when the last set of buffs fell off, there is around 40s worth of time that raid buffs COULD potentially be delayed if necessary without losing any uses.

There are several times this has actually been applied within the current expansion. During Exdeath, Chain Stratagem came up during the Black Holes phase. This was awful for uptime, as multiple people were being forced to move during the mechanic, as well as a mechanic that required healers to top the party. Holding Chain here to get it during Meteor, where there was no other outgoing damage, was a pretty sizable gain.

Another example of this is the second Celestriad in God Kefka. This mechanic forced the party to break away from the boss and move into positions that weren’t friendly for positionals. Delaying Trick and Chain here resulted in better usage.

The third scenario mainly applies to Ultimate raids. The structure of all current Ultimate tier raids has been two or three minibosses before a final encounter. These minibosses tend to be extremely short, with Twintania in UCOB at around a three minute enrage. While you could use the second Chain Stratagem on her, using it there would mean that it wouldn’t be up for the Nael opener, which was a significant loss. The same applies for Garuda and Ifrit in Ultima Weapon.

The fourth scenario mainly involves instances where you can’t get the full value out of a usage. These include where the boss will go untargetable in the middle of the duration or if the boss will die during or immediately after a usage.

Take for instance, this eight minute pull. If the boss dies at 8:00-8:10, you aren’t getting the full value out of the final Chain. In this instance, you will be getting four full usages of two minute cooldowns, and three full usages of three minute cooldowns. Because you’re not going to get the full value out of the last Chain, it is worthwhile to hold earlier usages. This results in one less Chain over the course of the encounter, but it allows for three full burst windows with Trick+Chain+Litany. The lost chain isn’t that much of a loss due to how gimped it was going to be anyway. This does require the DRG to hold their second Litany for 60s.

This basically guarantees three massive burst windows, which is extremely effective for increasing raid DPS. Of course, this is all subject to change based on party composition. Having 90s raid buffs changes the timings in such a way that it allows for full use of the 90s buff windows. Below is an example of one such setup using MNK. This setup has the same three major burst windows, but loses a Trick Attack through the course of the pull.

The fourth and final instance of holding raid buffs is easier.. If you are not going to get another usage of raid buffs during the encounter, it is best to get that last usage when other buffs are active.

If this pull ends at 9:20-9:59, there is no possible way to gain another Chain Stratagem during the course of the encounter. The final Chain used only falls under Trick Attack. Holding this Chain an additional minute to get it with Battle Voice and Litany will result in higher damage overall than if it was used properly on cooldown.

Again, these changes need to be communicated with the party, as a delayed Chain will not be as effective if the party does not know that it is happening. This can be especially important for BRD, which relies on Chain for increased chance of Procs during their songs.

The final scenario also applies to Cleric Stance, which, while not a raid buff, is important for maximizing your personal DPS. If your last Cleric Stance happens between Trick Attacks or under no buffs, it can be worthwhile to hold it for the last burst window for a tiny gain. This isn’t very significant, but any gain is a gain.

Stat Priorities

Your priority as you attempt to gear is always going to go something like this.

Weapon Damage
Main Stat
Piety (to threshold needed to heal an encounter)
Crit
Direct Hit/Determination
Spell Speed
Piety

This is basically the main priority stat wise.The above list applies heavily to when you are gearing and attempting to get to BIS. During progression, generally you will take whatever has the most item level, as the main stat difference is extremely important. The difference between the high quality crafted chest piece and the Omega Coat of Healing is 37 Mind. Almost no amount of substat will make up for that loss of main stat.

There are some very niche situations where you will hold on to a lower Ilvl item. The main situation of this is for Piety reasons. If getting the Omega Coat costs you the 271 PIE from your crafted coat, it can be beneficial to hold on to the crafted coat until you’ve made up for the Piety loss elsewhere in your set.

Weapon Damage

Weapon Damage is the most important stat for every class in terms of damage. For healers, there are some niche situations where a higher item level weapon will be worse due to inferior substats. Scholars face this dilemma in the current tier. Our tome weapon, while boasting higher weapon damage, has an abysmal substat selection. The Crit/Det Suzaku book actually outweighs the WD gain from the 390 tome book. This is because unless you desperately need the PIE from the tome book, it is a dead stat, and SPS is generally not a desirable stat. Because of this, it is worth more to keep the 385 Suzaku book unless you can augment the 390 book into a 400.

Main Stat

Main stat is the second most important stat, generally. It plays a massive part in how much damage we deal, as well as how much we heal. Generally we opt into whatever the highest item level gear is because it has more of this main stat. There are some BIS sets that opt into crafted accessories. This is because the main stat loss here is MUCH less significant than on body pieces and weapons. A crafted ring only has 15 less main stat than a savage ring. This, combined with the extremely high amount of substats that can be gotten through crafted rings make them a valuable option. The overmelds on these pieces can often meet substat tiers that couldn’t have been gotten otherwise, which can be a sizeable increase to DPS.

Piety

People vastly underrated how useful Piety is as a stat. People often say “Piety is a dead stat”. This is both true, and untrue at the same time. If you run out of MP, you will be unable to DPS or heal. Because of this, Piety is actually the most important substat for healers up until a certain threshold. Once you get to the threshold required to get through a fight without running out of MP, Piety becomes a dead stat.

Many people think that because there are sets that run extremely low MP, it is a useless stat. The extreme speedkill sets that go with almost no piety are meant to be used in groups that will do everything they can to reduce healing. This means that those healers have many more Energy Drains to help support their lack of MP. Playing with a low PIE set is extremely risky in groups that aren’t attempting to optimize.

Finding the right amount of PIE for yourself takes a lot of trial and error, it is useful to keep other pieces available so that you can sub in more piety if it is needed. This is also incredibly important for progressing in Ultimate Raids.

Piety scales slightly differently for each healer class dependent on their MP Modifier. For SCH this is 119, for AST and WHM it is 124. This is a small difference, but does impact the required piety gains to maintain a neutral pie/sps ratio if you want to reduce your GCD. The function for calculating MP is as follows (courtesy of TheoryJerks).

MP = ⌊ ( Job _{Job, MP} / 100 ) × ( ( 6000 × ( PIE – 292 ) / 2170 ) + 12000 ) ⌋

Increase piety also increases the amount of mana regenerated naturally in battle. Natural MP regen is 2% of max mp every three seconds, so increases to piety impact not only your maximum cap but also the amount you recover over the course of a fight. As a rough estimate, each point of piety gives you 3-4 MP (roughly 3.33 per point, floored) and it takes roughly 15 piety to see an increase to your natural MP regen. In simpler terms, a Piety VI materia will give you ~130MP and an extra 2-3 points of MP in each natural regen tick (or up to 60 extra MP per minute).

Critical Hit

Critical Hit is our most influential stat when it comes to DPS and healing. The more of this stat that you get, the more crits will happen, and the harder they will scale. Because of this, crit scales multiplicatively. Because of this, the more of it we stack, the greater returns. This stat is further benefited by the interaction with Adloquium.

Credits to Nemekh.. Source.

This shows how crit scales. The more crit obtained, the more damage they will deal and the more it happens. This chart exemplifies that gain. Stacking multiple crit buffs results in massive gains in in terms of DPS gain. This is the most important substat for Scholar. This stat also has the benefit of its interaction with Adloquium. While this is an important interaction, it is not why crit is taken. It is, however, a very nice bonus that they work so well together.

Spell Speed

Spell Speed is a double edged sword, particularly for healers. In a vacuum, spell speed is a powerful substat as it increases the damage done by auto attacks, damage over time (DoT) attacks, and healing from healing over time (HoT) spells while also reducing your cast and recast time, meaning you can (in theory) attack more often. As a result, it appears to be a stat that scales quadratically, similar to critical hit. However, it is important to note that there are two “tiers” to spell speed scaling: One of these tiers impacts your DoT/Hot and AA damage scaling, while the other is your GCD tiers. GCD tiers are the largest direct gain to Spell Speed, but these tiers are very far apart relative to other substats. As an example, DoT/AA Scaling tiers are ~25-27 points apart, but GCD tiers are generally 60-70 points apart instead (For 2.5s cast times specifically). In BiS calculations, SPS melds are exclusively done to meet GCD tiers rather than the very small DoT/AA scaling tiers. See graphs below for examples of spell speed scaling (courtesy of Nemekh, source).

(DoT and AA Scaling shown above relative to Spell Speed, note the small multiplier even as numbers grow exceedingly high)

(GCD tiering for various cast times with increasing Spell Speed)

With that said, the largest benefit of spell speed (GCD reduction) is also the greatest detriment, for multiple reasons. First, substats function as a “zero-sum game”. This means that any stats you put into Spell Speed are taken away from other damage gaining stats such as Determination, Critical Hit, and Direct Hit. Consider now that the largest gain to spell speed is gaining GCDs to deal more damage. By reducing the impact of your other stats in favor of gaining more casts, you’re also directly increasing the dps losses from losing casts due to movement, clipping, canceled casts, or boss mechanics. As a result, optimizing higher spell speed requires much greater attention to positioning for mechanics to minimize unnecessary movement and canceled casts. It also requires more thorough planning of your GCDs and oGCDs to minimize clipping.

Second, reducing your GCD also means it is necessary to have more piety to maintain your mana economy. Piety, while a very important stat for healers, is also the only “zero dps” substat. Again, recall that substats are a zero-sum game. Any stats put into piety are being taken directly from critical hit, determination, and direct hit. This means that if a spell speed meld or piece of gear forces you to add piety to compensate, you are likely taking an overall hit to your dps vs utilizing another substat instead. Regarding piety/spell speed balance – Scholar mana economy is fairly decent and party comp plays a factor in your GCD/PIE ratio, but each GCD tier increases your mana usage by an estimated 0.4% to 0.5% over the previous tier. To compensate, if you are at your “wall” in terms of current GCD/Piety ratio, you’ll want to increase your piety by at least 18 points if you want to reduce your GCD by one tier (ex: 2.37 to 2.36). As a result, an decrease of two GCD tiers will typically require one extra Piety VI Meld to compensate for the increased GCD assuming you’re at the limit.

Finally, reducing GCD can also create clipping issues for oGCD heavy classes. Scholar is in a unique situation where it is heavily reliant on oGCDs and reducing the GCD too significantly can create serious clipping concerns, especially when utilizing Energy Drain in consecutive weave windows because Energy Drain has a 3s cooldown (unaffected by your GCD tier). As your GCD decreases, the time available to fit in double weaves also decreases, which can create clipping issues when double weaving oGCDs. Clipping your GCD is a direct potency loss, and if your spell speed tier means clipping is inevitable you will want to consider going with a slower GCD to make weaving more viable.

Determination

This stat increases damage dealt and healing dealt and the det base functions as a divisor for other primary stats (increasing det has no impact on these other stats, however). The damage gain from Determination is linear. This means that it does not scale as quickly as critical hit in terms of damage gain. Below is a chart with the damage gain from determination.

Credits to Nemekh. Source.

Determination is not a bad stat. It just does not scale at the rate of crit. DET is a consistent increase in damage/healing, whereas Crit is an RNG gain. Crit will likely always be better, but DET is solid. It is the “base” substat, even utilizing a lower base value from other substats (Det base at 70 is 292, same as primary stat vs 364 for crit/dh/ss).

Direct Hit

Direct hit functions as sort of a “mini crit”. It is essentially 25% increased damage when you get a Direct Hit. It scales linearly. The damage gain is consistently 25%, but the more DHIT you obtain, the more likely they are to occur. When going for maximum damage sets, it is better to opt into direct hit over spell speed or determination.

Credits to Nemekh. Source.

Direct Critical Hits are the real star of having DHIT. Both of these occurring at once can result in +20k Broil IIs. These are fairly common in the opener, when all crit buffs are stacked together and Battle Voice is coming out of the BRD.

Vitality

While not listed out as one of our most important stats, VIT has its own niche. During progression, VIT can be melded onto all accessories to increase health. This is important for early prog, as there are some instances where you will survive mechanics with VIT melds that you wouldn’t have without. This can save many deaths. Vitality melds in prog are an absolute must until you have enough health from other gear to remove them.

Determination Vs. Direct Hit

This was a controversial topic during early parts of 4.0. Most DHIT builds have less than 1% higher damage than those with DET, and have less than 4% reduced healing. Honestly, you won’t feel the difference either way. For maximum DPS for speed kills and optimized runs, DHIT is absolutely better DPS wise. That being said, the difference is so tiny, you really won’t be able to tell. Pick whichever you prefer, and stop arguing about which is better.

Useful Macros

Generally, macros are frowned upon. Macros are not handled well in FFXIV. If you macro your healing/DPS spells, it means they can’t be queued. This means there is an extra delay before the next cast, which results in a DPS loss. That being said though, there are quite a few useful macros that improve quality of life. Repeated lines in macros will improve responsiveness. None of these are mandatory, but they can make life easier.

There are different types of Macros. <tt> will basically will target whatever has aggro on what you have selected. <t> will target whatever you have targeted. Mouseover <mo> will go on whatever you are hovering your mouse over.

Shadowflare target macro

This macro makes it to where you don’t have to click the ground to place shadowflare. It will automatically place it where your target is standing, in the center of their hitbox.

Manual Embrace macro for main tank

Useful if you want to heal a tank above 80% or heal specific party members.

Manual Embrace mouseover

This is useful for when you need to proc Divine Veil on the PLD. It allows you to save a GCD. You may need to place cancel in order to get the fairy to do what you want. Also useful for healing party members over 80% health manually.

Excogitation mouseover

Useful way to use excogitation if you don’t want to stop targeting the boss. You can hover your mouse over them on the party list and use it without ever having to deselect the boss.

Lustrate Mouseover

Basically the same as a mouseover macro for Excogitation. Good if you need to emergency heal.

General Tips

There are lots of small things that can be really helpful for playing any job, especially healing. A lot of these will be repeats from things earlier, but it is worthwhile to repeat them to drill them in.

Keep your GCD rolling. If you have 3s where you didn’t do anything, that is a Broil II lost. Your CPM, or casts per minute, is one of the most important part of playing this game. Most people who come asking why their DPS is low are simply not casting enough, which is resulting in a ton of lost DPS.

Don’t be afraid to trust Whispering Dawn to heal the party. It is a massive amount of healing. Don’t heal during its duration if possible, as its ticks are wasted if you use an Indom to cap the party during the duration.

Remember to use Rouse on cooldown and use Fey Union and Excogitation. They are powerful tools that a LOT of Scholars seem to forget. Use them to your advantage. Roused Embraces heal for a lot. Keep it on cooldown unless it overlaps Union.

Communicate with your party. Always let your party members know what you are doing. Let your cohealer know that they don’t need to heal if you are going to Indom. Let the party know you are going to delay a Chain Stratagem. Communication is absolutely key when playing in a raid setting. You need to be vocal about things that will make the raid easier. If moving a Divine Veil will save a healing GCD, let the PLD know. They can not make your life easier if they don’t know what will help you. The same applies to all DPS mitigations. Tell them where to put things.

Additional Resources

These are some additional resources that are useful for anyone attempting to further their play. There will be guides for general healing, AST, as well as optimization guides. It is worthwhile to look into these, as they are useful guides from talented players.

Zyrk’s Bullshit Guide to the Principles of Healing

A general guide to the principles of healing by Zyrkhan Dar’locke. It is a fairly long read, but if you’ve managed to slog through 80 pages of Scholar, it is also a worthwhile read. It has many of the concepts discussed here, but in much greater detail. It also goes much further beyond the scope of this Scholar guide. I highly recommend anyone read it.

Healer Optimization Guide

This video guide by Momo Sama is incredibly useful for learning how to optimize with your cohealer to push for higher dps. This video is the holy grail of information in regards to optimizing. This is a MUST watch for anyone wanting to learn how higher level play operates.

Intro to Astrologian

A guide to Astrologian by Zyrkhan Dar’locke. Reading this as a Scholar can be useful, as it gives insight into how their kit operates. Knowing your cohealer’s tools well is important for maximizing the effectiveness of your own play.

FFXIV 70 Statistic Intervals (Public)

Large spreadsheets done by Nemekh and the Theory Jerks. Useful for seeing how much of a substat will net a certain gain.

Healing Analysis:O9S O10S O11s

A video of Momo going through two encounters from Omega: Alphascape speed runs and analyzing their healing strategies. Very useful if you want to see the mentality and thought process behind high level healers.

Healer spreadsheets

My spreadsheets that were used in the process of making this guide.

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