By: Kirana Fiore (Hyperion)

Introduction

As a Scholar you want to place your attribute points into MND to boost your healing potency, others will argue that VIT is a viable choice, but this is my tutorial so I will base it off my standards. A Scholar has the option of using two types of fairy pets, Eos and Selene, which one you use is entirely up to you and your party make-up. There are no set healing rotations when using a Scholar and your decisions are situational, however, there are some basic instincts you will need to adopt to be a successful healer.

Fairies

http://xivdb.com/?skill/165/Summon Eos: She is your healing SUPPORT pet! I cannot stress SUPPORT enough as often time’s players and Scholar's mistake her as a substitute for BURST healing. This is absolutely not the case when using Eos. Despite popular belief you should be using Eos as little as possible, for having to pull out Eos means that your WHM is weaker or your PT members are simply not dodging critical damage moves enough and the extra support is deemed necessary.

Re-evaluation: Since the release of patch 2.4 I still find that Selene is the more viable fairy to use as a Scholar. The 30% Spell/Skill Speed she provides every 60 secs can push the damage you need in T10 - T13.

However, Eos has become useful for the new Hard Mode Dungeons (Snowcloak, Sastasha (Hard), and The Sunken Temple of Qarn (Hard). There is no real need for DPS racing and some of the new bosses pack a pretty powerful punch.

http://xivdb.com/?skill/150032/Embrace: This pet ability restores a targets HP with a Cure potency of 300. This is best used on obey, however, in the Sic stance it works fine. Obey allows you to target a specific party member for your pet to heal rather then relying on them to randomly select who is closest to her with the most damage.

http://xivdb.com/?skill/150033/Whispering-Dawn: Is an AoE party Regen for 21 seconds with a healing potency of 100.

http://xivdb.com/?skill/150034/Fey-Covenant: Increases magic defense to yourself and your party by 20% for 20 seconds.

http://xivdb.com/?skill/150035/Fey-Illumination: Increases cure potency on yourself and your party members by 20% for 20 seconds. This is one of Eos's most USEFUL abilities, specifically in the Twintania fight, which is the only fight I really recommend using Eos since Twintania's Death Sentence puts a serious reduce healing potency debuff on your tank.

http://xivdb.com/?skill/170/Summon-II Selene: This little golden girl is your PARTY support pet! If you have to put Selene away for any reason your party is bad and you need to tell them to fix their shit or your party is doing too much damage due to speed buffs and pushing mobs into phases too soon. It is very common for your melee to burn their TP when using Selene so tell them to monitor that on their own accord, it is not your job.

http://xivdb.com/?skill/150036/Embrace: This pet ability restores a targets HP with a Cure potency of 300.

http://xivdb.com/?skill/150037/Silent-Dusk: Silences target for 1 second.

http://xivdb.com/?skill/150038/Fey-Glow: Increases spell speed to yourself and your party members by 30% for 30 seconds. Cannot be used while Fey Light effect is active.

http://xivdb.com/?skill/150039/Fey-Light: Increases skill speed to yourself and your party members by 30% for 30 seconds. Cannot use while Fey Glow effect is active.

The Fey's make a noticeable difference in speed, as it is 30%, and since the patch it has been easier to leave Selene on auto pilot as she no longer casts Fey Glow and then waits for Fey Light to be manual casted by the user. She will still use Fey Glow first, but once it is down she will immediately cast Fey Light. The cast radius is 20 yalms and in most battle arenas you can be safe in knowing that it will reach everyone.

http://xivdb.com/?skill/176/Rouse is a pet ability that should be used every time it is available as it increases cure potency and damage dealt by 40% and renders the pet immune to stun, sleep, bind, heavy, paralysis and disease. Note that Succor also Galvanizes your party's pets.

Scholar 101

As a Scholar your job is not just healing it is tank and party damage mitigation! That means you prevent damage before having to restore HP using your healing spells.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to learn to manage MP using Adloquium as your primary healing spell. I often see a Scholar spamming Physick and the tank falling to the ground dead because the hit they take is higher then the HP they have. How do you make a tank take less damage (say it with me now) YOU MITIGATE IT!

A beautiful perk about Scholar is that some skills, such as Adloquium and Succor, restore HP and mitigates damage. As a Scholar you need to understand the difference between your two mitigation spells and the effects Crit procs will have on them.

http://xivdb.com/?skill/185/Adloquium will erect Galvanize and will nullify damage to the SAME amount of HP restored, however a CRITICAL Adoloquium will erect Galvanize and will nullify damage for DOUBLE the amount healed.

Ex. If you heal a normal 960 HP Adloquium the effected member will not take 960 HP damage for 30 seconds. If you Crit for 1,600 HP the effected member will not take 3,200 HP damage for 30 seconds.

http://xivdb.com/?skill/186/Succor is an AoE Galvanize effect, it is of a much smaller potency then Adloquium and if Crit'ed the effect DOES NOT double damage mitigation. However, when using Sacred Soil there is a 20% chance that the next Succor will cost 0 MP for 10 seconds.

http://xivdb.com/?skill/190/Physick is your one single target healing spell and has a 400 healing potency as well as a 30 yalm casting range. If geared correctly you can Crit Physick for 2,600+ HP, more usually on WARs, but still it can happen.

http://xivdb.com/?skill/188/Sacred-Soil is your mitigation diamond in the rough! It must be placed meaning you must place it on the ground to a designated area. This "bubble" will reduce the damage you and your party members take by 10% when standing INSIDE the bubble, but it only lasts 15 seconds and has a 30 second cool down. Note that you will sacrifice 1 of your 3 Aetherflow's so use wisely.

Three http://xivdb.com/?skill/166/Aetherflow can be obtained every 60 seconds and will also return 20% of your maximum MP upon its use making Scholar a self sustaining MP machine.

http://xivdb.com/?skill/189/Lustrate is a Scholar's oh shit! heals. They will heal for 25% of the effected persons HP and cost 1 Aetherflow each. Some people will argue that you should save your Aetherflow's for Energy Drain, but managing your MP and the frequent use of the Aetherflow ability does not render this a wise option. Save your Aetherflow's for Sacred Soil and LUSTRATES.

Lustrate is not a main heal….if you are a Scholar running around in Cleric Stance DPSing and thinking that you can get by on just busting out Lustrates you're being a baddie, need to re-evaluate your role and switch to Summoner.

Some other notable abilities a Scholar should use and are often forgotten are as follows:

http://xivdb.com/?skill/169/Virus: Reduces targets STR, DEX, INT and MND by 15% for 15 seconds. Once Virus is down target will be immune to Virus for 60 seconds.

http://xivdb.com/?skill/175/Eye-for-an-Eye: Erects a magicked barrier around a single party member or pet for 30 seconds. Effect: 20% chance that when barrier is struck the striker will deal 10% less damage.

http://xivdb.com/?skill/187/Leeches: This is the Scholar Esuna! I have a lot of Scholar's say Huh? when I tell them to leeches the debuff. This is my biggest pet peeve!

Cross Class Abilities:
http://xivdb.com/?skill/122/Cleric-Stance

http://xivdb.com/?skill/123/Protect

http://xivdb.com/?skill/129/Stoneskin

http://xivdb.com/?skill/150/Swiftcast

http://xivdb.com/?skill/143/Surecast

No ifs ands or buts these will benefit you the most so just stick with it.

Advanced Scholars

At some point in time when you are comfortable in a fight you will find pockets of time to DPS and boy can you hit hard! Scholar does not have burst damage, but they have the use of many DoT's and if inflicted on your target properly and frequently enough you can help give your party the damage push it needs in the heat of battle. Your standard rotation should be…

Single Target:

Group Targets:

Food

Best Food Option 1
The Best Gil Can Buy: http://xivdb.com/?item/9332/Flint-Caviar-HQ
Cheap Bastard: http://xivdb.com/?item/4656/Apkallu-Omelette-HQ

I like flint caviar because it really gives you a nice Crit Boost and if you are just starting the FCoB, you can't have enough Crits. However, Borax isn't the easiest thing to get so it can be quiet pricey.

Best Food Option 2
The Best Gil Can Buy: http://xivdb.com/?item/9330/Triple-Cream-Coffee-HQ
Cheap Bastard: http://xivdb.com/?item/7573/Sachertorte-HQ

If you really feel you are hitting a Crit overkill, you're wrong, and want a nice beefy heal with a hint of extra MP sit down and grab a cup of Cream Coffee. The extra DET and PIE bonus never hurt anyone. Again, like Borax for Flint Caviar, Roasted Coffee Beans seem to be scarce in Eorzea.

The Sachertorte is the lower grade comparison, but it still requires a Master Crafter so your not going to save a whole lot of Gil with this type of food.

Gear

There is already so much debate on Crit/Determination/Spell or Skill Speed, unfortunately as a Scholar you won't escape it. So this next section is based solely on my opinion and the results I have received in my time playing as a Scholar.

Best in Slot (As of 2.4 Update)

NOTE (Gloves)

Both are excellent selections for your SCH, but it is really up to ones personal preference. You either take the MP boost or the DET boost. From the pieces I've selected you are already gaining quiet a bit of PIE and to sacrifice more DET is not something I would do for more PIE. So I'll stand by my BiS for now.

References

For fantastic gear comparisons use Final Fantasy XIV - Gear Calculator
Gear/ability links provided by XIVDB a Final Fantasy XIV Database!

Guide Updates via player feedback credited to Yukari (Hyperion) & Filtiarne (Hyperion).

For fight strategies please reply with a request and I will formulate a strategy for you to follow to the best of my abilities in a post!