Scholar Guide

See also: Healer Guide and Guides

This is a guider covering basic mechanics for Scholars, updated for Shadowbringers.

Offense

• Your basic damage spell is   Ruin (later upgraded to   Broil (Lv. 54)) and your DoT spell is   Bio.
  • Keep your DoT ticking on the enemy; reapply it when it is about to fall off.
  • Like all healers, keep spamming your basic damage spell when you don't need to use a healing GCD; optimize your healing so that you can deal as much damage as possible.
• Your AoE damage spell is   Art of War (Lv. 46). Walk into the middle of mob pulls and spam it.
• You can always use   Energy Drain (Lv. 45) to squeeze in some extra damage when   Aetherflow (Lv. 45) is back and you still have stacks left.
• Keep using   Chain Stratagem (Lv. 66) on cooldown to boost your party's DPS.
•   Ruin II gives you time to walk/use oGCDs, but it is otherwise weaker.

Healing

There are two types of healing:

• with Spells, which puts you on the global cooldown (GCD), thus costing you and your party one Broil's worth of damage as well as your MP;
• or with Abilities, which are off the global cooldown (oGCD) and are free in terms of MP.

oGCDs are further divided into two types:

• Fairy healing (abilities that cause your fairy to heal);
• Aetherflow healing (which consumes Aetherflow stacks generated by   Aetherflow or   Dissipation).

A good scholar manages their fairy abilities and Aetherflow so as to maximize oGCD healing potential.

Fairy

• Your fairy constantly auto-heals damaged party members.
• She is not affected by the battle.
• There is no difference between Eos and Selene.
• Effective and frequent use of fairy healing spells is a significant boon to the Scholar.
  •   Whispering Dawn (Lv. 20) is a great free AoE heal - it doesn't cost you any mana or cast time.
  •   Fey Illumination (Lv. 40) can mitigate raidwide damage and help you top off your allies after.
  •   Aetherpact (Lv. 70) forces your fairy to repeatedly heal a target, probably the tank; excellent for tankbusters and large pulls.
    • It consumes 10 Faerie Gauge per heal; each use of Aetherflow generates 10 Faerie Gauge.
    • Note that any other fairy healing abilities will interrupt Aetherpact.
  •   Fey Blessing (Lv. 76) is an almost-free AoE heal, consuming only 10 Faerie Gauge.
  •   Summon Seraph (Lv. 80) adds shields to her auto-heal, and lets you use two AoE heal+shields for free within its 30 second duration.
•   Dissipation (Lv. 60) removes the fairy temporarily, giving you three Aetherflow stacks and bonus healing. She'll come back after Dissipation is over.
• You can place the fairy at the center of the boss arena, but don't forget to get her to follow you again before you leave or she'll be unsummoned.

Aetherflow

All of the following cost 1 Aetherflow to cast:

•   Lustrate (Lv. 45) is a spammable single-target heal.
•   Indomitability (Lv. 52) is a potent AoE heal, but it is on a 30s cooldown.
•   Excogitation (Lv. 62) lasts for 45 seconds and automatically triggers a strong heal on the target when they are below 50%. It should be used as much on cooldown.
  • Note that it does not trigger if an attack would bring the target from above 50% to 0% instantly - the target would die.
  • It is a great candidate for   Recitation (Lv. 74).
•   Sacred Soil (Lv. 50) reduces party damage taken, but it becomes truly useful at Lv. 78, when it gains a regen effect.

Healing GCDs

•   Physick is your basic small heal.
  • Unless you are completely drained of MP and have no other healing abilities, casting Physick is a waste of time.
•   Adloquium is your basic heal+shield, with a chance of becoming much more powerful under a critical hit.
  •   Recitation (Lv. 74) guarantees that critical hit.
  •   Deployment Tactics (Lv. 58) can be used to distribute the Adloquium shield to nearby party members, though the range is limited.
•   Succor is a small AoE heal+shield.
  •   Emergency Tactics (Lv. 58) can turn the shield of Succor and Adloquium into healing, which can be useful if you need to cast Succor on the party twice in a tight spot.

Older guides:

• Scholar Guide/A Realm Reborn
• Scholar Guide/Heavensward
• Scholar Guide/Stormblood