Why do so many healers not use specific abilities?

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Originally Posted by Limonia

Hello!

For a while now I've been noticing that many healers just don't use specific abilities. Either only very rarely or never. Recently, I've also been in many practice, clear and then farm parties for Suzaku Ex as a healer and I've noticed this about my co-healers even more.

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I'm going to guess it's from sheer ability bloat.

I myself am guilty of this somewhat. I really don't use E4E as much as I should, mostly because I haven't had it for so long and perhaps partly because it's yet more clipping to play around. And well, when you have 4 hotbars of ability, it's hard to not neglect something now and then.

But I hope SE doesn't use that as an excuse to axe Benison come the expansion, I love that ability...

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

I'm going to guess it's from sheer ability bloat.

I myself am guilty of this somewhat. I really don't use E4E as much as I should, mostly because I haven't had it for so long and perhaps partly because it's yet more clipping to play around. And well, when you have 4 hotbars of ability, it's hard to not neglect something now and then.

But I hope SE doesn't use that as an excuse to axe Benison come the expansion, I love that ability...

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I'm going to agree with this here too as a WHM specific complaint. Both SCH and AST have tools that allow them to use oGCDs without clipping with either no DPS loss (AST) or small DPS loss (SCH). WHM doesn't have the same tool to use so they have to be particular picky about the what abilities they want to use when to avoid clipping when possible.

If anything, the change to having all the role actions available to WHM was an indirect nerf to WHM just because you WANT to use all the abilities, but only have maybe... 6 GCDs in a minute where you can use abilities without clipping anything (3x Regen and 3x Aero II)

I am also very guilty of not using E4E often either, lol.

Mostly the skills i forget to use are ones that have specific functions that i just don't need. For SCH its the skill that sends the fairy away. The only real use i can see for that is one that probably doesn't exist: using it after you're raised and your fairy is dead (you probably cant use it in that case--i assume your pet has to be summoned for it to even light up).

For AST, its the skill that ties you to a single-target, who then receives a portion of your overall heals. This is for tanks i guess and it just never lasts long enough for it to really be effective. Also sleeve draw and a few of the card discard skills. I only use the discard skill for the initial draw and not spread or rr.

For WHM its actually Cure 3. Mostly its Heal Buff skill + Medica 2 or 1 and i actually save it for those instances. I use the heck out of Asylum in dungeons especially during large trash pulls. Asylum + regen + medica 2 = thin air quickened holy spam with no need for healing. Pack dead. :3

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Originally Posted by Limonia

AST: Earthly Star. Most times I got ASTs as co-healers and most times they didn't use Earthy Star at all (and no, it's not that I'm spamming Cure III for raid-wide AoEs and they think Earthy Star is not needed - they rather cast Helios 2x). Some of them used it sometimes. Very few used it regularly. Yes, it's kind of more difficult to use than a normal healing spell that immediately takes effect. But if they can't plan when to place it, they could at least use it for the damage instead of ignoring it completely.

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Ah, RIP, I'm one of those ASTs. It's not that I don't like earthly star, or even forget about it. Outside of [savage] raids, I simply don't have the fight memorized and with 10 seconds needed to get the full benefit of the heal, I usually end up using just helios or plopping down Collective for that instant regen and going back to what I was doing. Times when I have remembered an AoE is coming up in 10+ seconds, but below 20, I plop it down ... and my co-healer spams the party to full HP, wasting earthly star (and making me cry just a little inside). The damage off of it is free, sure, but it mostly boils down to wanting to use it when it'd potentially be the most effective, which is with an incoming AoE.

Earthly star needs some prior knowledge of the fight, and sometimes will not be used on CD because you want to keep it for a specific raid AOE.
For instance i only use it in Suzaku Ex for that share after individual marked players, because most parties groups back in the back of the boss and I know people will be there. But during the colours phase it is a nightmare to optimize haha. On O9S i use it for big elemental attacks (especially the earth one as tanks and heal need full heal), akh morns on O10S...
Maybe I could milk one for free DPS or tank AA healing in between those specific times, but I have yet to look into it.
And it also depends, if you have a WHM you can ruin an Asylum / Medica II with an Earthly Star, and with a SCH you can have your ES rined by an indom too...

I genuinely thought me and my WHM FC chum were the only people who used Divine Benison, and I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who actually used Plenary Indulgence since day one. It's a free arena-wide heal that is quite powerful if stacks are managed right.

Also, PoM > Cleric Stance > Thin Air > Holy spam FTW.

Clipping could be reason for WHM,if they're DPSing heavily. The thing is, using Divine Bension and such really clips into your GCD if you're not using it after Aero. I'll gladly clip it for a Thin Air or PoM, but Divine Bension and Asylum are sadly things that I'll put off a bit at times because it clips into my GCD.

SCH and AST don't have this problem with clipping, so that's probably why you notice skills being used more on them and less on WHM.

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Originally Posted by tdb

My brain handles Thin Air a bit differently because its benefit depends on what you do while the buff is active. In an attempt to optimize it I often end up not using it at all, which is certainly not optimal. Unlearning bad habits takes a lot of effort.


I get skittish if the entire party has taken a significant amount of damage. If Medica II is about to end or already ended I use that; if not then Assize if it's available or will be in a couple of seconds; otherwise Medica. In many cases such damage occurs in situation where the party will be grouped up so Cure III would be a better choice, but I haven't quite finished wiring my brain to properly recognize those situations yet.

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I could be misunderstanding and if I am I apologize - you mention if Medica II is ending or has just ended you will use it but if not you use Assize/Medica. While I would never fault anyone for overhealing via Assize if you have a Medica II ticking you don't then cast Medica, do you? It's not super clear, as I said I could just be misunderstanding.

As for Thin Air you're right to prioritize it for times where you need to spend a lot of MP quickly. I rarely use it during boss fights in dungeons for this very reason, preferring to save it for trash packs and Holy. Holy is by far the best bang for your buck that you're going to get out of Thin Air in a dungeon situation unless you find yourself chain raising and even then it's debatable.

I think what you do with Thin Air is exactly my own problem with Largesse - I tell myself I might get more bang for my buck later with it but then later never comes and I've just wasted an entire use of it or more. It's definitely a hard mindset to leave behind.

As for being skittish when people have taken damage I use an 'innocent until proven guilty' philosophy with pugs - I trust them to not eat avoidable damage until I see them do so more than once. At that point I then weigh my options as to how much extra effort I will have to spend keeping them alive instead of just swiftcasting a raise after they die to teach them a lesson. I know it's optimistic and not for everyone, just offering my take on it.

One thing I noticed immediately after the 5-slot role skill restriction was lifted was I felt like I went backwards a bit on the learning curve. Granted, I am also still leveling. So in addition to the role skills I also have my new SB abilities I am working into my gameplay as well. Result: missed skills, misused skills, and just a general trip to derp city. It's better now, but there was a definitive adjustment period despite that I already had all skills set to my crossbars anyway.

That being said, I will also mention that there are times where I make adjustments to my crossbars, which can produce the same derps. I do try to plunge into lots of solo content to get things into muscle memory, and try to bring FC mates along for such situations.

The more a skill is used, the better we get at using it. So abilities like Rescue with really long cooldowns and limited situations to use it has many healers misusing it, mistiming it, or not using it at all. For more common skills like our gcds and ogcds on a short timer, I tend to notice when they are misused rather than not used, and this is largely due to the sound effect, which means I need to be familiar with it. I don't notice any derps from DPS players right now unless they take unnecessary damage. That's it. When/if I start playing these jobs, I will notice a lot more when I hear or see their skills firing off when they shouldn't.

Other than that, I am too dialed in on what I am doing to pay attention to what my team is NOT doing unless what they are not doing is clearly making things go south. I'm not a babysitter, and I am relying on the playerbase to know their jobs so I can concentrate on mine.

As a not-so-great Astrologian (I’m a Scholar when it comes to healing), I often find myself forgetting to set earthly star at the right moment whenever I’m pulling and placing cards, especially if Sleeve Draw is up. I also tend to forget to weave card draws between Malefic III’s and end up clipping my gcd looking at who gets what (as a PS4 player I can’t just throw Balance on the highest DPS, because I don’t know who it is).

I assume other healers that forget to use skills like Asylum / Earthly Star / etc are in a similar situation, they’re focusing too much on one thing to realise that doing something else is just as a good (if not better).

Like I said though, I’m not exactly the greatest Astrologian lol, and I imagine the majority of them don’t have a problem with weaving cards and/or Earthly Star between Malefic III casts.

I’ll also say that I’ve never really experienced this as a Scholar, maybe because it’s so much easier to weave stuff between gcd’s with Ruin II / Miasma II