How-To Guide: Scholar

Rhodes Scholarship
It’s unfortunate how very few people are picking Scholar as their new job class, because everyone seems to be playing Dancer. This is probably because Dancer makes a lot more sense at first. People see Scholar as a party member who can buff the party using mediocre buffs and has a few side cures and side nukes. However, Scholar is played much like a Red Mage. The difference is, the Scholar has to choose between dealing magical damage or healing the party every one minute, give or take. If the Scholar decides that during one fight, he should focus more on dealing damage, he or she can effectively change to Dark Arts and have an MP-consumption and casting time reduction for all Black Magic and also have an increase to Enfeebling, Elemental, and Dark Magic skills. This has a side-effect to increase MP-consumption and casting time of White Magic, however. Then, if the Scholar wants to use White Magic later, he or she can change to Light Arts and have the same bonuses to all White Magic as well as increase the skill cap of Enhancing, Divine, and Healing Magic. '''Please note: This is all on-the-spot information. As the job is still brand-new, new information must be gathered to make this guide more effective. If anyone wishes to change anything with more correct information than what is given, please do so.'''

Hume

 * The all-round human-based race works well with this job. They also seem to be the most used Scholar race for NPC’s. Scholar can work well as any race, and Hume is no exception. They have good MP, intelligence, and mind for spell-casting, as well as rounded HP, vitality, and agility for survivability.

Elvaan

 * High mind (for White Magic) and survivability is where this race shines. Its low MP and intelligence can be made-up by having a Black Mage support job and its mid-level race-specific armor.

Tarutaru

 * The short, brilliant-minded people make very magical Scholars. They have the highest MP and intelligence in the game, and high agility for survivability. However, low HP and vitality make them fragile, so hate control is a must. A White Mage support job can make-up for the loss in mind, and race-specific gear can help with survivability.

Mithra

 * People level Red Mage as Mithra a lot, so you should expect a lot of Mithra playing Scholar, right? Not really. I think most people level Mithra RDM for the artifact armor. However, Mithra make well-rounded Scholars, much like Humes. They have high intelligence, MP, and agility, yet low mind like their Tarutaru friends. RSE hands and legs are amazing for Mithra.

Galka

 * These large brutes don’t seem like they have the patience for sitting in a tiny desk and learning algebra. However, they can play Scholar very well too. Their low MP can be offset by proper use of the Arts for lower MP consumption. They have high mind and decent intelligence, so they work as well as any other race.

Weapon

 * Like their Dancer partner, they have three combat weapon skills. Though unlike Dancer, their combat skills are much lower. Their highest skills are a “C” in both Club and Staff, but as a mage, it doesn’t matter much. This means that weapon choice is all preference. Wands (Clubs) generally give MND and INT boosts, and the Pilgrim’s Wand can be very handy. Staves have higher damage and higher delay than club, which can be more useful when they don’t hit for as much. In parties, you would find staves that give HP and MP boosts, and at Lv.30, they’d work even better because of the grips.

Armor

 * Scholars get a very similar armor set to that of Black Mage, in that they can’t wear any harness, leather, heavy plate, scale armor, or even doublet armor. However, they can wear a broad variety of robes and cloaks. Hairpins generally work well for all mage-type jobs. Though it’s best to have a balance of MP, MND, and INT, I prefer having a lot of MP, so that’s what I go for. This is totally all choice though.

Advanced Job Quest

 * The overall quest is simple, yet expensive. You talk to the quest-giver, Erlene in Eldieme (S), position J-8 on the map, and you will get a cut-scene. Afterwards, purchase twelve 12-stacks of Rolanberries from the Upper Jeuno "M&P's Market" sales representative, Champalpieu, and then take those one hundred and forty-four fruits to a man named Tucker in Crawlers' Nest (S), position K-8. Trade him four stacks at a time. Take your 12-stack of Vellum back to Erlene, and get another cut-scene. Finally, use either Manafont, Chainspell, Azure Lore, or Astral Flow and talk to her one last time while it is active. Congratulations! You can now become a Scholar.

Soloing 1-10

 * Picking up a pole or club and some defensive gear would make soloing a lot easier. Since you don’t get either grimoire until 10, you have a lot more freedom in these levels. Also, you don’t start getting spells until Lv.4, so having a support job like White Mage until then is the best idea. Some have also chosen Bard for Knights Minne(1SCH) and Valor Minuet 1(6SCH) and DD jobs such as warrior for increased damage and survivability. The choice is up to you. Fighting more weaker monsters is a better idea for you as a mage. Decent challenges can be difficult using a club or staff. Dagger will be just as ineffective so pace yourselves by taking out Easy Prey as fast as you can. Personally with a Bard Subjob I rested about 4 times at the haul from level 9-10 due to Knights Minne.


 * Not to take away from the original person who posted this very helpful guide, but I have found on my own a few things that I believe will help with this job. Firstly, the job has two Grimorie's, which "suggests" that RDM is a more suitable sub job because of access to both white and black magic spells. Subbing this job allowed me to use both of the Light and Dark Arts abilities to my benefit. Instead of just sticking with EP's for quick leveling I was able to deal with many DC's and EM's quite nicely. I had also used SMN with some success, benefiting from Carby pulls and such, making some of my DC and EM pulls easier to deal with. Though with SMN sub'd I found it became more SMN job than SCH. With the spell options being rather short.

Valkurm 10-20

 * At 10 is when Scholar becomes its own job, which is faster than most jobs do. You get a choice of Light Arts or Dark Arts and immediately get one Stratagem. Stratagems are abilities you get just because you use a White or Black Grimoire. Stratagems do not have recast times. However, they have charges that can be used at any time. One charge takes four real life minutes to acquire and doesn’t need any special input. The Lv.10 Stratagem lets you cast one White or Black Magic spell (depending on which Grimoire you use) with half MP cost. Oddly enough, Regen is learned at Lv.18, and along with Regen II at 37, is the only case of Scholar learning a spell faster than one of the two polar mages. The job is played throughout the game like a Red Mage to the extent of main healing, buffing, and nuking.

Mid-Levels 20-40

 * Thankfully, Scholar is one of the very, very few jobs that can learn both Sneak and Invisible, and it learns them at 20 and 25 like White Mage and Red Mage. You even get Raise at 35. At these levels, both White Mage and Red Mage make good support jobs. With White Mage subbed, you can get useful spells like Protectra, Curaga, and Poisona, and it will buff your mind and MP. Black Mage subbed won’t give much, but the Elemental area effect Black Magic coupled with Dark Arts can be devastating. Also, at Lv.40 with Black Mage subbed, you get the job trait Conserve MP. You can never go wrong with the spell Warp, either.

Your AF Weapon

 * …Hasn’t been released yet.

Mid-High Levels 40-60

 * This is where your AF comes into play, and will hopefully be a great boon to Scholar just like all other mage artifact equipment. This is also the point in time where you have to do the infamous limit break quests assuming you haven’t done them already. At Lv.41 is where Scholar begins learning brand-new spells that only Scholars can learn. Between levels 41 and 55, you learn single-target spells that change the weather around that target to a specific element. Weather gives a boost to any weapon skill or spell that has the associated element, such as casting Blizzard in a snow storm. These spells aren’t supremely effective until you learn your next set of Scholar-only spells starting at Lv.61.

Your Artifact Armor

 * …Also hasn’t been released yet.

High Levels 60-75

 * As mentioned in the Mid-High Levels paragraph, you start learning a second set of Scholar-only spells at Lv.61. These are the “Helix” spells that deal elemental damage that is greatly affected by the weather and also gradually lowers their HP (like Poison). The last one you learn is at Lv.75 which is the light-elemental one. You end-up learning the fourth tier Protects and Shells, Cure IV, and the third tier elemental spells. When the Helix spells come into play, Scholar will probably become more on the damage-dealing side of the spectrum, but with Cure IV will most likely still be used in parties for healing magic as well. Though, the people who play this job are few and far between and not much is known about it at this point, therefore making judgement calls this far in advance nearly impossible.

End-Game

 * (Dynamis, Limbus, Salvage, merit parties, etc.)

White Mage

 * An obvious mage support job. It grants the user extra MP and mind, which makes the Scholar slightly more effective for healing, but still very ominous in Black Magic. The support job supplies Scholar with spells it can’t learn on its own, such as Curaga, Protectra, and Poisona. It also gives Auto-Regen and Magic Defence Bonus and the amazing Divine Seal job ability (by Lv.30).

Black Mage

 * Another great mage support job. Gives the Scholar a very handy boost to MP and intelligence, which makes them even more formidable on the Dark Arts side. Though Drain, Aspir, and all single-target elemental spells (that could be learned through a sub-job) are learned without the use of BLM support job, Black Mage gives access to area effect elemental spells, and enfeebles such as Bio and Rasp. Warp can save on travel costs and help in sticky situations. Also, it gives Elemental Seal for Black Magic accuracy, and the job traits Magic Attack Bonus and Conserve MP, both amazing for Scholar.

Red Mage

 * Gives a lesser bonus to MP, mind, and intelligence, making the Scholar more well-rounded. Also gives access to spells like Gravity, Dia, and Bio that Scholars can’t learn on their own. Fast Cast speeds up your casting and recasting time, which buffers Light/Dark Arts and cushions the increase of casting time from using opposite spells to the Grimoire in use.

Summoner

 * Very high MP and by Lv.50, the job trait Auto-Refresh lets a Scholar cast spells more freely. You will also receive a small number of enhancing magic that you wouldn't get otherwise. However, the loss of spells is larger than the gain, so the only real reason would be to have a larger MP pool.

Blue Mage

 * Blue Mage can set certain spells to buff stats and give the Scholar a wider variety of spells. This support job is mainly significant because of its unique spells that none of the other mage jobs can have on their own. However, offensive spells wouldn’t be very effective, since Scholar doesn’t get Blue Magic Skill on its own. Please keep in mind, though, that neither Light Arts or Dark Arts will work for Blue Magic.

Bard

 * Not as practical due to a very small MP pool you will have as well as being able to only cast one song which is very short and not to its full capacity. Your song enfeebles most definitely be resisted and you won't be able to take full use of having /BRD. Bard as a support job can be helpful in the dunes provided everyone now has a PL to accompany them. Valor Minuet I is unlocked at Lv.6 Scholar and can be a nice addition to help your party deal a little bit more damage. However, Bard as a support job does not have much of a practical use after dunes.

Red Mage

 * Subbing Scholar for Red Mage has some perks however it may not be the best sub for RDM. First off, switching between Light or Dark arts will reduce MP consumption giving a constant Conserve MP trait. The drawback is that your max MP will be reduced giving you a smaller MP pool to work with which can be remedied by MP gear and food. Also Scholar is helpful for merit party main healing. Regen II, Drain, and Aspir are the big three spells you gain by subbing /SCH. Sadly when compared to /WHM you will lose out on other useful spells such as Curaga I/II, -na spells, and Erase. However if you barely use these and spend more time just dropping Cure III and IV, then Scholar might be better for you for Regen II and maybe Aspir although there won't be many mobs you will be able to get the full benefit from Aspir but it is still nice to have.

Black Mage

 * Scholar sub will only enhance your enfeebling magic skill via Dark arts as well as reduce MP consumption of black magic spells. Also using Parsimony and Alacrity will be useful on Ancient Magic I/II by reducing MP cost and cast time. You wont lose your cure potential considering SCH does have cure spells. Like RDM you will lose out on your /WHM spells such as Erase, Curaga I/II, and your -na spells. /SCH would be great if your only purpose is to nuke with some light cures on the side. However, /SCH is limited, especially in soloing, in that you don't have access to Blink or Stoneskin for protection.

White Mage

 * Like Black Mage, White mages will get a bonus from the Light Arts as well as the job abilities Penury and Celerity. The same downfall of a smaller MP pool which can severely hurt WHMs seeing that they need as much MP as possible. /SCH does not add any spells that you should not already have by 40+ and you do lose out on some BLM spells such as -gas, Blind, and some nukes.  You also lose the ability to Warp, which is a sad inconvenience.

Your Two-Hour Ability

 * Your two-hour ability is called “Tabula Rasa”, which is Latin for “Clean Slate” and it is unbelievably useful. It optimizes both your White and Black Magic and allows use of all Stratagems. It’s like having both Light and Dark Arts activated simultaneously. Not only that, but it also allows all Stratagem use completely charge-free for the whole minute it’s active. Free use of Stratagems means you can cast all spells with half MP, half casting time, turn them into area effect, and simultaneously enhance their potency, while also having enhancements simply from higher skills and far less resists. The end-all, be-all two-hour ability for a fitting all-round magical job if you ask me.

Job Abilities

 * Light Arts/Dark Arts are both acquired at Lv.10. They can last forever and have a one-minute recast time, which prevents too frequent of a switch between the two. They are job abilities that open up other job abilities simply by having them active. With Light Arts active, all Enhancing, Healing, and Divine magic skills are enhanced, as well as a helpful MP-consumption reduction and casting time reduction for all White Magics. However, with Light Arts active, it will reduce the power of Black Magic, as well as heighten MP costs and casting times for the same line of spells. The opposite is true for Dark Arts, which increases Enfeebling, Elemental, and Dark magic skills and has a mirror effect with the MP and cast time factor in Light Arts.
 * Similarly, Light Arts and Dark Arts open up other job abilities, as I mentioned. These other job abilities include the Stratagems that are specific to each Art. These Stratagems each consume one ‘charge’, yet have no recast timer. The charge, however, has a four-minute recast timer. At Lv.10, only one charge can be stored at a time. By Lv.40, two charges, and by Lv.70, three.


 * Penury/Parsimony are the Lv.10 Stratagems for Light and Dark Arts respectively. Each one consumes one charge, which takes an additional four minutes to get back. What they do is reduce the MP cost by 50% of the next spell you cast. If Cure II is cast, it will only consume 12 MP with Penury active. If Fire is cast with Parsimony active, it will also only consume 12 MP. Though not very prominent in early levels, by metagame, this will become much more useful with spells costing over 100 MP.
 * Celerity/Alacrity are the Lv.25 Stratagems for Light and Dark Arts respectively. Like their Lv.10 cousins, they consume one charge each. They reduce the casting time of any spell in their respective Art by 50%. Again, a very situational ability, and most useful for such spells as Raise, Curaga and Escape (with BLM support job), reducing their casting time from fifteen seconds to only seven and a half. Combined with Penury/Parsimony, consuming far less MP after level 40 when you have two charges available.
 * Accession/Manifestation are the Lv.40 Stratagems for Light and Dark Arts respectively. Both of these Stratagems make your next spell cost 3x MP and take twice as long to cast. However, this is where your Stratagems become very useful and combo nicely (especially since Lv.40 is when you first get two charges). Accession transforms your next White Magic (healing or enhancing) into an area of effect, meaning Shell or Protect will instantly become much more potent on the party while saving a lot of MP. It can also be usefully used with Regen or Regen II, or even higher-tier Cures for a “Curaga” effect. Since it does not mean specifically Scholar-only spells, it also means Stoneskin and Blink will also be affected. If your party needs to sneak past a horde of Goblins, using it before Invisible will save everyone time. Manifestation is similar. It transforms your next enfeebling or damaging Black Magic spell into an area effect spell. Drain and Aspir can both be very effectively used with this when in easier areas, and Sleep in case of links. However, this is best used with White Magic.
 * Rapture/Ebullience are your final Stratagems for Light and Dark Arts respectively, and acquired at Lv.55. They simply enhance the potency of your next spell, depending on which Art is used. It is unknown at this time how much potency is added, but being such a high-level Stratagem, you can assume it should be quite a boost.
 * Modus Veritas is Latin for “measure of truth”, and is gained at Lv.65. It increases the damage done with Helix spells, while lowering the duration of their effects by 50%. It is currently unknown just how powerful Helix spells are, or how effective their HP-over-time reduction effect is, so it’s unclear just how useful this job ability is. (If anyone has any further info on the Helix spells, please jot down some notes here, as it will be greatly appreciated)

Job Traits

 * Resist Silence- a very useful job trait for any Mage. Even if it doesn’t completely resist the silence effect, it should at least have an effect on its duration, allowing you to pick up the pace on other mages where they can’t continue to cast spells. The chance to resist is quite low, but it’s better than nothing, and available at the early level of 10.
 * Clear Mind is another very useful job trait for any Mage. It enhances the MP recovered while resting. Scholar will eventually get up to the third of five tiers (maybe more?) of Clear Mind by Lv.50, meaning it will save a fair bit of downtime, especially if MP is used efficiently in the first place.
 * Max MP Boost grants the player a slight boost to MP. Though an additional ten MP may not seem like a lot by Lv.30, it can be enough to help in dire situations. It’s not a heavily useful trait, but it is a nice convenience.

Spells

 * Elemental Damage Spells are Black Mage’s bread and butter. They rely almost solely on this set of spells, as they are what deal damage and work best with magic bursts. This can be your main deal too if you want. Using Dark Arts will boost your Elemental Magic Skill to a high level, lower MP consumption, and casting time for all of them. You learn your elemental damage spells in the order of Stone, Water, Aero, Fire, Blizzard, and finally Thunder, and they will increase in tiers up to III for Scholar. Though each one is more powerful than the last, it’s not a good idea to simply rely on the most powerful one all the time. Monsters can resist spells that they aren’t ‘weak’ against, and this is a very commonly-occurring effect that can halve your damage and make the larger MP cost of a stronger spell less meaningful. It’s best to simply cast your highest tier spell that’s the strongest against a monster. Of course, if your highest Elemental spell is Thunder already, you shouldn’t cast Stone on it. Not that it’s a bad thing, but it’s about as effective as casting Cure I on a party member with half HP at that level. Keep your enemy’s weakness in consideration. Most monsters tend to be weak against ice-element in low to mid-level parties. Also, one last note about your elemental ‘nukes’ is to keep the hate threshold in consideration. Please keep in mind that Scholar is a mage, and mages have low defensive stats, but can take hate very easily with too much casting. Don’t spam Blizzard, Thunder, Blizzard, Thunder, etc on monsters. Using Blizzard, waiting for recast, Blizzard, waiting, etc, is a much more efficient use of MP and keeps hate at a minimum. Spamming spells will heighten the chances of a monster resisting your spells. The stat Intelligence (INT) affects this set of spells.


 * Cures are White Mage’s (and any main healer’s) biggest reason for being. Cures are the only way to heal people other than yourself in the entire game. Starting at Lv.5, Scholar will learn the first of four tiers of Cure (there are five, but Scholar only gets four). Expending MP will release a large multiplication of itself into an HP boost to your party to sum-up what cures do. Cure I has a ‘soft cap’ of 30 (meaning it will grow in power to 30, and then take a lot of healing magic skill and mind stat to boost it further), and costs 8 MP. Cure I and II have a 4-15 MP-HP ratio, Cure III has a 4-16 MP-HP ratio, and Cure IV has a .5 4-17.3 ratio. All four are useful all throughout the game for all jobs, and that includes Scholar. Use lower-tier cures to finish off a person’s HP if they take a minor hit, and higher-tier ones for really helping a party member. Although Scholar doesn’t get it on its own, subbing White Mage or using Accession will give you an area effect cure. Curaga is a White Mage exclusive line of spells that gives the party an HP recovery of one tier higher than what it says (Curaga II = Cure III in an area effect).
 * Protect and Shell are spells that no mage can go wrong with having. They plain and simply add defense and magical defense respectively. Scholar, like White Mage and Red Mage, gets all four tiers of both spells. However, like Red Mage, it doesn’t get the area-effect version (unless Accession is used). Since both spells are relatively low on MP consumption and last half an hour each, it’s best to cast them both and have them active on all damage-taking party members at all times (if Protectra isn’t available). If subbing White Mage, use the highest tier Protectra and Shellra on the party, and just your single-target, higher-tier Protect and Shell on the tank or other damage-taking party members.
 * Deodorize, Sneak, and Invisible are all spells that can save a lot of time, money, and characters’ lives. Deodorize is much less-used. All it does is makes you un-traceable by scent, which only really has an effect when you’re running from a monster or using Hide. Sneak will make you completely undetectable by sound, which a lot of monsters will hunt by. Sound-aggro is in 360 degrees, but shorter range than sight-aggro. Invisible will prevent any sight-aggro monsters from seeing you. Sight-aggro is a cone range in front of a monster, but is longer range than sound-aggro. Casting any spell will remove Invisible, so casting Sneak before Invisible is a must. Also, please note that when re-casting Sneak, remember to turn it off before casting, because it will not have an effect if you do not.
 * Regen is another very useful line of spells. It has a very, very high HP-MP ratio, and lasts a long time, making it so you do not have to cast Cure as often, or at all in some cases. it has a 4-33 ratio, which is over twice the potency of the first two Cures. What it does if you have never played any other Final Fantasy before, is gives the user a constant stream of HP every turn, or in our case, every tic (three seconds). Casting this on your main tank will alleviate a lot of cures. Though, keep in mind, it won’t last forever. You will learn two of the three tiers of Regen. Both of which are learned earlier than White Mage and Red Mage, and is the only case of learning spells faster than any other mage.
 * Drain and Aspir are very self-beneficial spells. Drain can end-up having a very high potency, and for 21 MP, can possibly have the highest MP-HP ratio. However, it only works for you, and it only gives a lot of HP return if it’s unresisted. It will suck an enemy’s HP and use it for your own. In some cases, it can have the highest MP-damage ratio, and can be way higher than your other spells. Having Dark Arts and high Dark Magic skill will really help, as will Intelligence stat. Aspir works similarly, except it drains MP instead of HP. This only works if the monster has MP, like a mage monster or a crab, or another player, etc. It consumes 10 MP to use, but will most often return more than it costs.
 * Raise is learned later than White Mage’s, but earlier than Red Mage’s. There are three tiers to the spell, but only one is learned by Scholar. If a player is unconscious as a result of falling in battle, Raise will wake them up and restore a small amount of HP, as well as 50% of their lost experience points (which are lost as a result of being knocked out). With Penury and Celerity, it can Raise for 1.5x MP and normal casting time as well.
 * Weather-Changing “Storm” Spells start at Lv.41, and are Scholar’s first of two sets of exclusive spells. Up until Lv.55, you will learn spells that can target any party member and change the weather around him or her. This can be quite significant for a White Mage or Black Mage in the party, or yourself. Even casting it on a melee party member can help resist spells or deal more damage. For White Mage, Aurorastorm will place light-elemental weather around him or her, thus giving a high chance of occasionally increasing the potency of Cure +10%. Voidstorm can enhance dark spells of yourself or a party’s Black Mage or Dark Knight to enhance the potency of Drain and Aspir cast on monsters. The other six elements mainly affect Black Magic, in that it gives a boost to damage of 10%. Storm spells are considered White Magic, so Light Arts will affect them the most. They fall under Enhancing Magic. (Does Rainstorm act as rain elemental weather, in that it gives a constant Deodorize effect? If it does, it can be cast on Thieves for during-battle Sneak Attack - Trick Attack - Hide)
 * Helix Spells start at Lv.61 and go up to Lv.75 as Scholar’s second set of exclusive spells. I'm still personally waiting on more information to come in on their respective pages, but from what I've read thus-far, they are quite useful. Geohelix consumes 90 MP, and whatever initial damage it will deal, it gradually lowers HP by the same amount over time. What else is known simply by its in-game description is the damage dealt is greatly affected by the weather. Hopefully, you'll cast the respective weather-changing spell on yourself before you unleash the poewr of your Helix spell. If anyone has info about the other Helix Spells (namely MP-consumption, cast time, recast time, and duration), I'd greatly appreciate it.