Basic Principles for WHM - What and what not to do.

[cgbspender]

Regarding this guide : It is not done yet. I'm still working on it, but it takes time. It also takes input and suggestions, which you should feel free to share by commenting below. I will edit it progressively. What's missing is a paragraph about macros, about rotations - even though, I believe, intuition prevails. What I will deliberaty not write anything about is "potency". I hate using maths and datas to write guides. It speaks, imo, to no one but a few overzealous players. A paragraph with tips and advice from experimented lvl 50 healers will also be added (using UI at its best, or whatever can help about "healing") Formatting in progress, more data will be included. Feedback much appreciated.

I - Preface

Okay ! So you're looking forward to Heavensward and you feel like it's the right time to start levelling a whm, to get a feel about healing. And you are certainly right about that. The sooner you get to try a healer's job, the easier it will be when you actually switch to Astrologist.

But that needs a quick warning. You may or may not remember (I DO) all those times you've been bitching at healers back when you were a dps,or a tank. Those times you were votekicking your healer just because he couldn't keep up with those massive 25-mobs pulls you so wanted. You'll understand soon enough he wasn't the only one to blame.

So, at the moment, you're a level 50. a FRESH one. Yeah, but content's become easy these days, and you think that, with a few more ilvls, you can join WoD and do wonders, just like what you did with other jobs. Could be. But I doubt it. Worse even, you 've had enough grinding in the past and you already have a full i120 set to gear your WhM. Congrats then, you just made a huge jump from i50 to i120. (Poor us...)
As you have been claiming for decades, healers are responsible for everything. Your job is to - not only - keep your party alive, but first and foremost, have your party make it through the fight you're in, successfully.
Now let myself be clear enough. If you NEED to let one of your mates die to achieve that goal, do without regret.

"Why would I need that, if I'm good enough a healer ?"

Right. You make a point. However, you could potentially be the best healer in the world, with the best gear ever, but with a poor party, you wouldn't make it anyway. As long as Dps won't dodge crap, as tanks won't tank adds and as long as any mistake is done (frequently), and generally as long as parties won't apply a fight gimmick, your life isn't gonna be easy.
The good news is, you should easily spot who's doing it wrong. As you'll be watching everyone's HPs bars most of the time, along with keeping an eye on the battlefield, and while still dodging every AoE yourself, you'll be able to tell in no time who's not trying hard enough to avoid AoE or who's being under attack because the tank just does nothing to get the enmity back.

II - You and your party

WhM are notorious for having to handle their mana, and that can prove rather difficult if you aren't paying enough attention to a few principles, among which :

- Use Shroud of Saints whenever possible, starting from about 80% (rough estimation). This will regen your mana greatly up to 100% or close to that in a few seconds. That will allow you to use it again countless times before you actually reach a critical amount of mana. And as a bonus, Shroud of Saints reduces the enmity you generate. It's very important to keep in mind that Shroud of Saints is not a "Danger Button" that you push when you have 15%. If you wait that long, it's already too late.

- Don't overheal. I see this way too often. If you can get away with a mere "regen", or cure I, then do it, there's no reason to cast a Cure II or even Cure III just for the sake of having a tank at "100%". From a tank's PoV, it certanly doesn't matter whether he is a 90, 95 or 100% of his life. And it shouldn't for you either. All that matters is to keep him healthy enough to be able to undergo an unexpected critical blast (65% and more).

- Use Freecures. You should have noticed by now, after casting a few Cure I, you'll sometimes trigger a free "Cure II". It lasts about 15 seconds. If the tank has 95%, what's the point ? Casting it immediatly would be a waste. Instead, wait until the last seconds, a lot of things can happen in 15 seconds, and a lot of harm done to your members. You will likely need that free Cure II. Same goes for Cure II, triggering free Cure III. Casting this, however, is debatable, considering the amount of enmity it generates. It can be a great idea to restore a few melee's HPs nonethless. Cast on the the tank, all players in range will profit from it.

- Try to not generate enmity. Harder said than done, I know. Every action you make generates some. This principle goes in pair with the overhealing issue. Unless you have specific reason (such as Cutter's Cry second boss), having mobs all over you isn't generally a great idea. At level 125, I sometimes deliberately get aggro on myself.
Castrum's second boss, is one of those. When I'm paired with a fresh i50 tank who has around 4k HP, I usually override his off-tanking by casting a huge aggro-generating action. I'd rather make sure everyone stays alive by doing that, than see my tank having issues with grabbing them all. Plus, I find it much easier to heal myself with 6k HP, than to heal a tank at 4k, who will requiere a total focus on himself and drain my mana like hell. As said before, my goal as a healer is to make sure we make it through, by whatever means.

- About preemptive casts : you are NO scholar. That should say it all. While a SCH's job is to mitigate damages with precasts skills, your job as a WhM is to restore HPs immediatly, on a low scale (cure I, regen) or on a high scale (Cure III, benediction and such). There's always that time, just before the pull, when everyone is being re-buffed with stoneskin and such. I sometimes come across white mages who seem to feel it's the right thing to do to cast Medica II or Regen before the tanks actually pull. IT IS NOT RIGHT. Why ? First, because you're messing with the tank's pull. You are generating enmity unecessarily while no one needed any cure, and there's absolutely no reason for that. Second, mana management, there's no reason to waste any mana, as insignificant as it seems to you..
The only pre-casts you could possibly do are "Eye for an Eye", "Presence of Mind", or "Divine Seal, which will all prove very efficient if the tank is a massive-puller.

- A few macros can help. Say that, unfortunately, you're running WoD with some players who keep dying. If multiple raises have been draining out all your mana already, the last thing you wanna do is to use "swiftcast + raise" when another player just did (or the opposite). It would be a great loss. And you could have raised someone else instead.
If you are unfamilar with macros, there are plenty of good topics and threads on forum about how to create one. There is a possibility to have it displayed in the chat box (even with a sound) who you are raising, or anything you like. (request for Ballad's Mage, etc)

- Last but not least, pay attenion to your position : you are a ranged player, and position is one of the major keys to success. "Yeah, so what ?". So you don't have to jump into melee to heal. Don't follow the tank blindly. Keep a safe distance between him and yourself. You can heal from far enough anyway. Don't take the risk to get shot by an AoE. You can run to him anytime, anyway, to cast a Medica if needed, then go back to your position.
On the opposite, if you get aggro, do NOT run away. This is one of the few occasions that you'll need to get close to him, to make it easier for him to get aggro back. You don't want the tank to be forced to run around and be forced to chase mobs after you, while they all are casting AoE all over the place. It will help no one, and will likely waste every melee's and tank's cooldowns. Do I need to mention, you will have a hard time casting any cures while on the run ? So don't, just don't.
Now sometimes, there are a few tanks who will just don't care and stand there without trying to get the mobs back. It will happen regularly. There's at least 4 solutions for you :

- Try to reduce the amount of healing (that will decrease the enmity generated)
- Use Shroud of Saints (will reduce enmity as well)
- If it's just one mob or two, sleep them when possible.
- Mark them. Even if the tanks don't care, marking them will give the dps a clue of what's going on and they are likely to come to you for a rescue.

III - Achieve greatest things as a team

As explained previously, regarding "raw healing", a white mage will lose to no one. However, the difficulty of most endgame contents requiere teamwork. Some of your mates can help you improve your healings beyond limits. This is what the upcoming paragraph will be about, as recognizing the buffs they provide matters a lot.

Warriors :

Defiance : Increases maximum HP by 25%, while lowering damage dealt by 25%. Increases HP recovery via curing magic by 20% for self.
Using certain actions while under the effect of Defiance will grant Wrath. Each unit of Wrath increases critical hit rate by 2% and HP recovery via curing magic by 3%.

Bloodbath : Converts 25% of physical damage dealt into HP

Thrill of Battle : Increases maximum HP by 20% and restores the amount increased

Paladin :

Shield Oath : Reduces damage received by 20%, while lowering damage dealt by 20% and increasing enmity.

Cover : Take all physical damage intended for another party member. Can only be used when member is closer than 10 yalms.

Convalescence : Increases HP restored by spells or actions by 30%.

Sentinel : Reduces damage taken by 40%

Bard :

Mage's Ballad : Refreshes MP of all nearby party members while lowering own damage dealt by 20%. MP is drained while singing. Refresh effect is lost if party members move out of hearing distance, and ends upon reuse.

Monk :

Mantra : Increases HP recovery via curing magic by 20% for self and nearby party members. (Effect 10% below level 48)

Summoner :

Eye for an Eye : Erects a magicked barrier arround a single party member or pet. Barrier Effect: 20% chance that when barrier is struck, the striker will deal 10% less damage

Black Mage :

Apocatastasis : Reduces a Disciple of War or Magic party member's magic vulnerability by 20%.

IV - Your own skills - In-depths
V - Possible Macros & Extra commands in skillbars

[VanilleFang]

I had thought about doing something like this before because most of the guides I see online for WHM are terrible and we don't have any job specific threads like they do in the DPS forum.

That aside I have a few things to point out.

1. Shroud of Saints actually cuts your current enmity in half. It doesn't reduce the amount of enmity you generate when it is active, it instead cuts it by 50% the instant you use it. This makes it a good tool to avoid pulling hate or making your OT's life easier in some encounters. It does have a nice refresh on it though.

2. You mention a "few" macros but don't really go into detail. I personally only use a macro on my Raise spell to inform people who I'm raising so I can't really help much with this. Sorry.

3. I don't recommend using Repose. I used it a bit when I was leveling but found that it was generally a waste of MP. Other players either ignored it or they were casting a lot of AoEs. The only dungeon I really found any use for it was in Thousand Maw.

4. It may be a good idea to go into depth about certain spells that may otherwise seem useless or less useful. I'm referring mainly to Cure III, Stoneskin, and Eye for an Eye. These spells are kind of big question marks to newer healers and it could be useful to discuss when they are useful and how they function.

Edit: 5. You need more info about SCH in here. Mainly Eye for an Eye being a scholar ability as well, and all of the different buffs they bring and what they do (eg. Fey Illumination, Sacred Soil, Galvanize, Few Glow), because these are important for a WHM to know. Just like its important for a SCH to know what a WHM brings and what their buffs do.
I may think of more later. There are a lot of opinions in this forum though so you shouldn't only take my word.

[KisaiTenshi]

Suggestions:
Mark which Tank skills are the "Tank Stance", as players who have not leveled a tank will not immediately notice a reason why a Tank might be taking extreme amounts of damage is that they aren't in the Tank stance.

In the same line of thinking, mark which Scholar skills/Fairy Buffs increase HP recovered, as new WHM's might not be taking advantage of those buffs in 8-man/24-man parties.

[Spoekes]

Divine Seal, combine it with regen and medica II (situational), short CD (60s), don't develop a habit of saving and underusing this.
Cure III, even if only 2 players take damage worthy of a ~Cure II and they stand close, it's already more Mana-efficient than 2 Cure IIs and in one GCD.
Cleric stance, what it does, how to queue it in between casts, when to utilize it, how to react if you accidentaly (bad timing) switched it on.
Benediction and the dreaded animation before it goes off
DPS rotation that tries to incorporate Fluid Aura
SpeedRunning how to deal with it as WHM

Learning how you spend your mana and GCDs: when to use two cure I instead of one cure II, when to spam cure II, comes by practice.

The list of skills could need berserk and it's evil brother pacification. WARs will love you if you time esuna right.

- About preemptive casts : you are NO scholar. That should say it all. While a SCH's job is to mitigate damages with precasts skills, your job as a WhM is to restore HPs immediatly, on a low scale (cure I, regen) or on a high scale (Cure III, benediction and such). There's always that time, just before the pull, when everyone is being re-buffed with stoneskin and such. I sometimes come across white mages who seem to feel it's the right thing to do to cast Medica II or Regen before the tanks actually pull. IT IS NOT RIGHT. Why ? First, because you're messing with the tank's pull. You are generating enmity unecessarily while no one needed any cure, and there's absolutely no reason for that. Second, mana management, there's no reason to waste any mana, as insignificant as it seems to you..
The only pre-casts you could possibly do are "Eye for an Eye", "Presence of Mind", or "Divine Seal, which will all prove very efficient if the tank is a massive-puller.

I could be wrong, but whenever I read the word "pre-cast" it was in the context of: Try to time your cast so that it will heal at the same time damage hits.
What you write about medica II pre-pull i.e. is right, we should just all be in-line what "pre-cast" stands for.


Some kind of gearing advice would also be nice.

[Sebazy]

Should add stoneskin to your preemptive casting list. That extra wiggle room is a boon when DPSing.

It's likely also worth mentioning that even unnecessarily spamming small cures can be a hinderance, this is particularly problematic for sub level 30 GLDS.

Same goes for Cure II, triggering free Cure III. Casting this, however, is debatable, considering the amount of enmity it generates. It can be a great idea to restore a few melee's HPs nonethless. Cast on the the tank, all players in range will profit from it.

Nononono, overcure is absolute trash. I use Cure III in very specific circumstances regardless of if overcure is up (It usually isn't), using it just to burn that proc is going to be inefficient and mostly wasteful. In 4 man content that mp is likely better spent on DPS/Stoneskins, whilst in 8 man raids, you'll just be hurting the BRDs dps the moment they have to sing ballad for you.

[Spoekes]

Nononono, overcure is absolute trash. I use Cure III in very specific circumstances regardless of if overcure is up (It usually isn't), using it just to burn that proc is going to be inefficient and mostly wasteful. In 4 man content that mp is likely better spent on DPS/Stoneskins, whilst in 8 man raids, you'll just be hurting the BRDs dps the moment they have to sing ballad for you.

yes yes yes! You should try to incorporate it as best as possible.
Cure II -> 650 potency @ 266 MP
Cure III -> 550 potency @ 505 399 MP

Whenever 2 people stand close enough and took damage worthy of a about a cure II, cure III can do the job in one GCD at lower mana cost.
It's of course situational, but I feel Cure III is getting bad reputation and is pushed into a niche spot for wrong reasons.

[Sebazy]

Where are you getting 399mp from?

And don't get me wrong, I have no issues with Cure III (Used it to do my 2.2 Titan EX solo heal back when it was considered to be really bad).

[Spoekes]

I'm at work so google. What does the tooltip say?
Anyway I'm quite sure it already pays off with 2 peeps healed and you care to be GCD efficient.

[Sebazy]

Oh, it's 505mp =(

And not really, certainly at 50 I rarely see melee with hate long enough to break stoneskin as far as 4 man content at level 50 goes. It's either on the tank, on me or on the blm (and usually as good as dead by the time it's immune to holy stun). Pre 50 Cure III is just too MP hungry whilst in 8 man stuff, it's rare that even the melee DPS will be within cure III range of the MT. *Except for specific stacking points and such where I'm likely going to be using a Cure III regardless*

[MXMoondoggie]

Cure III is only useful when people stack together and even then if you are stacked with them you might as well just use medica. If I'm not standing with them for whatever reason then I'll throw a cure III on somebody and hope to god they stay stacked long enough and don't dart around before the hit happens XD. Guide probably needs to talk more about preemptive stoneskin,virus etc instead of saying "That's the Scholar's job" it's what they are good at but what if you have no Scholar? One of you is going to have to figure out when to reduce damage on the Tank.

Odin has a nasty Tank specific attack and while doing the main story you will encounter Chrysalis which has one too in triple spark. Knowing when to protect the Tank can make life easier since you don't need to do a panic heal and god forbid waste benediction on a situation where you don't even need it.