Scholar Healing Rotation, Ability Priority, and Cooldowns — Endwalker 6.4
On this page, you will learn how to best use your healing spells in single-target and multi-target situations to keep your party members alive during fights. We also cover cooldown usage, ensuring the best usage of them, as well as differing damage levels, to allow you to adapt your healing as necessary as a Scholar Healer in Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker (Patch 6.4).
Healing Priority
Disclaimer: This guide is focused on level 90 Scholar play. Not all of the principles and advice mentioned here are applicable to every level of play.
Scholar has a very straightforward general healing priority:
Free oGCD heals → Aetherflow oGCD heals → GCD heals
This can be thought of based on the cost of
each of these categories. Free oGCD heals cost no damage potency, but they generally
have longer cooldowns. Aetherflow oGCD heals cost 100 potency (the damage of one Energy Drain)
but have shorter cooldowns. GCD heals cost 295 potency (the damage of one
Broil IV)
or even more in multi-target scenarios, and often cost significant amounts of mana
as well, but these have no cooldowns besides being on the GCD. The job of you and your
cohealer is to minimize the costs that the two of you combined are paying to keep
the party alive. Remember that other party members can contribute to this by using
their own healing and mitigation, it is not just on the healers.
Free oGCD Healing
These are the abilities that make up your first line of defense. You want to maximize effective usage of these in each fight. They will be separated into single-target and AoE categories, but remember that AoE heals can and often should be used for single-target healing as well.
Single Target
Protraction
Protraction increases the target's max HP by 10% and restores the same amount, and it also increases the healing the target receives from all sources by 10%.
- As it is based on the target's max HP, it is most effective when used on a tank, but it can be used for spot healing on other party members as well.
- The 10% healing buff is also very useful, and any
Excogitation or
Aetherpact applied during the buff will snapshot this effect. This buff can also be used to buff an
Adloquium for extending to the party with
Deployment Tactics.
Recitation +
Excogitation
Recitation removes the Aetherflow cost of
Excogitation and guarantees that it will be a crit. This is a very powerful single-target heal and can be applied in advance as normal for
Excogitation.
- See the Aetherflow Healing section for more info on
Excogitation.
Aetherpact(Fey Union)
- Fey Union is a Healing-over-Time (HoT) effect that heals the target every three seconds for the cost of 10 Fae Aether.
- The Faerie will not move or cast
Embrace while performing Fey Union, and using any other faerie ability will cancel Fey Union.
- This is most effective when a target is taking consistent damage, such as a tank taking auto-attacks, or when the target is low but does not need to be healed up immediately.
Area-of-Effect
Summon Seraph +
Consolation
Summon Seraph replaces your faerie with Seraph, buffing her healing autos and allowing the usage of
Consolation twice while she is on the field.
Consolation is a strong AoE heal, providing half raw healing and half shielding. It originates from your faerie and has a very large range at 20y, covering most or all of a standard arena if your faerie is centered.
- It is best to use
Summon Seraph during repeated raidwide damage so you can maximize the benefit of each
Consolation.
Recitation +
Indomitability
Recitation removes the Aetherflow cost of
Indomitability and guarantees that it will be crit. This is a powerful AoE heal and the most common usage of
Recitation in raids.
- See the Aetherflow Healing section for more info on
Indomitability.
Fey Blessing
- This is a moderate strength AoE heal that originates from your faerie and has a very large range at 20y, covering most or all of a standard arena if your faerie is centered.
Whispering Dawn
- This is a strong HoT that originates from your faerie. It will oftentimes be your go-to AoE heal due to its strength and relatively short cooldown.
Aetherflow oGCD Healing
These are the heals you go to when your free healing can not cover incoming
damage appropriately on its own. Their cost is relatively low at 100p, and
you will be using these often during progression, especially in harder fights and
during healing checks. They will be broken down into single-target and AoE categories,
but Sacred Soil is the highest priority Aetherflow heal in both
situations.
Single Target
Excogitation (non-
Recitation)
- This is a powerful delayed heal on your target that triggers when either their HP dips below 50% or the duration expires.
- This will not prevent the target from being one-shot if they take enough damage from a single hit to kill them while above 50% HP.
- This is your go-to single-target Aetherflow heal, assuming
Sacred Soil is on CD or is being held for AoE healing.
Lustrate
- This is a moderate heal with a near-instant CD, allowing it to be used whenever you have Aetherflow stacks.
- This is your fallback single-target Aetherflow heal, used when your
Excogitation is on CD or when you do not want to use a longer CD to spot heal someone.
Area-of-Effect
Sacred Soil
- This is an extremely powerful ability, combining a strong HoT with mitigation on a very short cooldown.
- It gets an extra tick of healing when placed, making it six total ticks over 15s.
- This is your most powerful usage of Aetherflow for healing. During progression, it will be used a lot, so do not be shy about throwing this up for basically every raidwide at first and pulling it back as you get more used to the fight.
Indomitability (non-
Recitation)
- This is a moderately strong AoE heal.
- You will avoid spending Aetherflow stacks on this when possible, but it will still be used semi-regularly in progression and during healing checks.
GCD Healing
These are your last line of defense heals. Using them often is a huge drain on both your DPS and your mana, so you want to avoid using these when possible. At the same time, they are your only on-demand source of shields, which means you will still be using them to prepare for hard-hitting mechanics during progression. Remember to try to balance your DPS and the party's safety properly, and then try to focus on removing these first as you get more comfortable with a fight.
Single Target
Adloquium
- This is your standard single-target GCD heal, providing both pure healing and a larger shield portion.
- This should be rarely required for actual single-target healing. It is commonly used when someone eats a mechanic or was just raised, or when a tank makes a major mistake.
- It can be used with
Deployment Tactics to turn the single target shield into a party shield, a very powerful tool during progression and in preparation for the hardest-hitting mechanics.
Physick
- This is a weak single-target GCD heal that does not cost much mana.
- You never want to use this and should almost never have to. The only use
cases are if you are running out of mana or if someone needs immediate healing,
you have no oGCD heals available, and
Adloquium would be too slow.
Area-of-Effect
Succor
- This is your only AoE GCD heal, providing both pure healing and a larger shield portion.
- This can be used during progression for hard-hitting mechanics as a safety net. Otherwise, it is simply your last fallback and will mostly be used during healing checks.
Changelog
- 30 May 2023: Updated for Patch 6.4.
- 17 Jan. 2023: Updated for Patch 6.3
- 20 Apr. 2022: Updated for Patch 6.1
- 23 Feb. 2022: Guide added.
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Tonto Draksbane, a FFXIV healer theorycrafter and player, and Scholar and Sage mentor on the Balance Discord. You can find him for questions in the healer channels there.
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