A question about healing!

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Originally Posted by Seoulstar

It may be boring, but at the same time. They are playing at their own pace..and a healer not DPSing in a dungeon won't result in a wipe..at least so far I haven't seen in my entire time of playing this game. But who knows..I can not speak for everyone. But anyways, I say it's not necessary because it truly isn't. I also said they can ease their way into it when they are comfortable. It is better to tell someone that than to say it is expected all the time. I use to be a healer that was extremely nervous to DPS. Until someone told me the exact same thing. Now, I DPS all the time. It doesn't hurt to be truthful to someone that is new than to give them this impression that it's DPS or be severely punished for it. Which sadly..I have seen far too many times on this forum.

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I very much agree here. I think the concept can seem scary to somebody who has little to no confidence, but there's oodles of space to build it before it becomes an issue.

I think my only requirement is that people aren't being lazy. If there's less or no DPS from the healer because they're new and aren't confidence enough to manage the two, I say "no worries".

But I think when there's only a handful of healing abilities too and if you've got the core understanding of how to heal, it could be good practice to throw in DPS attacks before that kit expands too, rather than trying to learn it when you've got more to juggle.

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Originally Posted by Aikeiko

Hello =D I was wanting to try healing, but I was told that I needed to be able to dps and heal at the same time, which kind of makes me nervous, especially in higher dungeons. I was also wondering when I should use Cure 2 over Cure on my White Mage (I don't have the healer I want yet, Astrologian)

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To be technical, healers possess very few skills that heal and damage at the same time. What you are really being told is that your GCDs should be used for damage when healing is not required. While this does apply to healing in general, it more or less refers to optimization of your kit and is emphasized at endgame.

The leveling experience can be, and will be different. Early on, you won't have access to all of your skills, which means you will have to resort to using GCDs to heal much faster, but this concept never changes throughout your entire time as healer in FFXIV. Only the amount of threshold it takes for you to resort to GCD heals.

If you are just starting out, the expectation of you should only be to keep everyone alive as best as possible. Keeping everyone alive while also dealing out a lot of damage is an expectation of experienced healers who have been doing it for a while, and have cleared various forms of content from easy to difficult. By difficult, I am referring to content that pushes YOU. You don't have to be Savage raider to be an experienced healer, but also know that running any form of PvE over and over again will create this expectation of you.

As for your specific question. Cure 1 is basically used until you either get Cure 2, or you don't have sufficient mana to cast Cure 2 (in which case you're likely screwed anyway). The idea of MP efficiency in regards to which heal you should be using is an antiquated concept in FFXIV, and it exists in the form of Cure 1, and the procs tied to it. You still need to keep it on your hotbars though in the case you are synced to a level below Cure 2 availability.

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Originally Posted by Saefinn

I very much agree here. I think the concept can seem scary to somebody who has little to no confidence, but there's oodles of space to build it before it becomes an issue.

I think my only requirement is that people aren't being lazy. If there's less or no DPS from the healer because they're new and aren't confidence enough to manage the two, I say "no worries".

But I think when there's only a handful of healing abilities too and if you've got the core understanding of how to heal, it could be good practice to throw in DPS attacks before that kit expands too, rather than trying to learn it when you've got more to juggle.

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We all have our own personal experiences, but I have seen (albeit extremely rarely) where the only DPS left was yours truly (the healer) and the tank, and while I give full credit to said tank- he would not have been able to solo the boss with both DPS floor-tanking.

That being said - my response was not to say that someone new to healer should think about doing better DPS that the DPS in there party. In fact, I clearly am saying - if you are new- add DPS slowly as you learn to heal.

Your last line expresses it extremely well.

If someone says that people are severely punished for not DPSing on the forums? I'm sure we can find all kinds of opinions, but the majority of people that I've talked to would expect both DPS and healing from a healer who has some knowledge of a dungeon, and outside of specific content that most players don't ever touch they aren't very demanding at that. As long as the party is alive we just have 3 simple DPS buttons to hit and perhaps 1 buff or debuff. It really isn't onerous. I just have to look at my summoner in comparison (that DPS rotation is a nightmare imo).

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Originally Posted by Aikeiko

Hello =D I was wanting to try healing, but I was told that I needed to be able to dps and heal at the same time, which kind of makes me nervous, especially in higher dungeons. I was also wondering when I should use Cure 2 over Cure on my White Mage (I don't have the healer I want yet, Astrologian)

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1. You are playing a 'Healer' role. Keeping everybody alive is your MAIN PRIORITY. Familiarize yourself with your healing kits & choose the right healing kit to heal. It's generally not needed to keep everbody at full health all the time, but if you have to start learning from there, it's much better than zero effort.
2. You got first step alright? Now the next step: resist the urge to top up everybody all the time and use that time to DPS until you need to heal again. Even if it means to leave them at 1 HP and still running around. (hyperbole) They don't die, so you're still doing your job.
3. Comfortable enough with 2nd step? Next, adjust accordingly. Encounters in FFXIV are generally scripted in a way you can plan out your heals efficiently to maximize DPSing. But players behavior are not, so be ready to react accordingly if mistakes happens. These are those times when you'll have a quick pop questions in your head such as "Can this DPS survive next unavoidable damage?" ; "How many GCDs left until next tankbuster?" ; "How much healing my random co-healer will pitch in after next major damage?" ; "Do I think this DPS is in danger of dying due to more mistakes?".

The only way to get these steps right is to play more and experience more. It won't always be perfect but don't worry, because we're not unicorns ;)

[Cure I] is your main healing spell for WHM until lv30 where you receive [Cure II] from its job quest. At that point, your usage of [Cure I] will diminish drastically, preferably zero usage beyond lv50+. Arguably not even worthy to provide a slot for it in your hotbar, because we have lv syncing. AST's equivalent of that is [Benefic I] & [Benefic II], same rule applies.

It's all about practice. Your first priority is keeping people alive, and not doing as much DPS is ok so long as you're aware that contributing to DPS is a goal you should reach. Start off keeping people alive, then move on to noticing what % of their HP your heals tend to recover and not healing until they drop below that (minimize overheals basically), and that will free up time you can use to toss out damage.

Thank you all for the tips and such =D I really appreciate it ^_^

As a side note
Benediction isn't a panick oh shit button, it's a tool like any other. If you spent the whole fight / dungeon not using it then it means you wasted an opportunity to full heal the tank with an ogcd. Same goes for asylum, it is not only for raid DMG (preferably tho)
For instance, if by using it on the first pack of monster it is up for the boss where there are a good opportunity to use it. Just throw it on the first pack to heal the tank, it is good free ogcd heal.

The core idea is to not let your ogcd go to waste. They are not panick button.

Also as a whm you have access to a lot of Regen, let it do it's job.

Many new whm pop a med2 then spam med1, leaving everyone with a Heal over time that will not heal anything because they're already full.

Also, your goal is to be sure people have enough hp to survive the next aoe.

If you know there is around 30s before the next aoe, no need to rush, just pop an asylum, assize or a medica2 and let the hot do its job. And no one needs to be full of the aoe isn't life threatening .

If everyone is at 80% and the ale barely does 40% of the party's health, you're fine, they'll survive

Finally, you'r not a baby sitter.
If someone dies from an attack they were suppose to dodge it's their fault.
Even if healing them prior to the attack could have saved them, it is their fault.
There is a big red aoe marker under their foot, if they can't move it's their issue.

The only thing the shouldn't die from are aoe they can't dodge.

You should deal damage whenever healing is unnecessary. Naturally, it's okay to start off skittish and unsure when healing is and is not necessary, and if you dedicate yourself to it I'm sure you'll be able to get used to when it is and isn't. Of course, try not to be so skittish that you never deal damage - the best way to get used to when you should and should not is by taking risks and trying it.

Worst case? You wipe, say "Sorry, pushing my limits a bit, I'll reel it back in there!" and move on.

As for when to use Cure I vs Cure II, you use Cure I when your MP is stretched so thin that you cannot afford to use Cure II, as its MP:Healing ratio is better and it has the chance to proc a free Cure II.

However, since Cure I's healing-per-cast is so much weaker, you generally want to avoid using it (Freecure is generally a trap) wherever you can, and instead use Cure II, Afflatus Solace (an equivalent to Cure II that costs a Lily instead of MP and has no cast time), Tetragrammaton (an equivalent to Cure II that has no cost but can be used only once every minute) and so on. This is because to heal the same as (technically slightly more than) a Cure II you need to cast Cure I twice, meaning if you instead cast Cure II you could have cast Holy, Stone, Aero, and so on as well, provided your MP can sustain this (it usually can).

As you level you will get more and more tools that both reduce the number of times you need to cast Cure II (sparing you from spending MP on it) and increase your MP efficiency (meaning spending MP on it is less draining on your overall reserves). This means that generally over time Cure I will see less and less use, unless you hop into super-hardcore Ultimate raiding or similar, where I hear the world-first players resorted to using Cure I to spare their MP... But if you're taking on the toughest content in the game, then you're probably experienced with and good enough at your class that you don't need my advice any more!

The biggest favor you can do yourself is to tackle fights with an idea of just healing. But pay attention to the instances where you don't need to heal. These are the places where you can safely insert dps. You can start with something as simple as the Aero DoT and insert some Stones if it's single target and some Holy if it's multiples.

WHM has strong heal over time in Regen and Medica II, so this can tick away doing a lot of the healing for us and allowing us to slip in that dps. If you take this approach, you won't fall into the tunnel vision mindset some healers do and find yourself not able to react well if unexpected things occur. We don't mitigate damage. We react to it. And getting comfortable with the amount your heals do, how effective your HoTs are, and studying the flow of the fight will allow you to easily drop out of dps mode to drop a heal and slide right back in again with little trouble.

So use your HoTs, keep your party's health at a decent level, and slip in dps when you've got windows where nothing is happening and you'll get comfortable with flip flopping in no time.

As for Cure II, I is still a bit useful after you get Cure II if you're in a high healing situation. If you're able to use Cure II as the primary heal and not be out of MP, go ahead and switch. Otherwise use Cure I as you need to. You won't really need it at higher levels since if there isn't immediate incoming damage, you can drop a Regen to do your work for you.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

Snip!

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Respectfully, I disagree with you on basically every point.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

The biggest favor you can do yourself is to tackle fights with an idea of just healing.

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Approaching things with so skittish an attitude will surely lead you to miss opportunities to DPS, and in all likelihood build bad habits in healing (typically by overhealing or healing when it will be nullified soon after). Instead, I would advocate looking at every fight with a mindset of "Do I need to heal this, or can I let it be?"

The first time into something, assuming you're completely blind, assume the worst and act accordingly, but take note of what happens - did I need to top everyone up after that raid-wide, or can I leave it to tools like Asylum? If a heavy raid-wide comes up afterward that executes anybody left low, you need to heal quickly, but on the other hand there might be a mechanic that sets everyone's HP to 1, nullifying all the healing you just did. If there's nothing for a long time except dodging, can you trust your party to dodge properly? In Duty Finder I'd likely say 'no', but if I'm playing with my friends I'd just tell them not to stand in fire.

By keeping this mindset, your focus is set on quickly finding the most efficient way to heal an encounter. This most-efficient way will, by the nature of healing, have the most space for DPS, and so by focussing on healing well you are also indirectly optimising your damage output.

(Split into two posts due to the extremely-limited character count, apologies)