Healing Ultima is intense.

This is not a difficult fight to heal once you get over the initial omg-lazers-and-stuff-everywhere! panic. The "difficult" thing is to understand that people will get hit by unavoidable AoEs but that's ok as long as healers know to prepare for them. My issue with this fight was that I was focusing too much on AoE heals (because I was panicking when everyone was at half HP) instead of keeping tank topped up for the big move which resulted in both our tanks dying multiple times during our first victorious rung. Still, the fight is easy and we were able to recover from all of the deaths without many issues. Nothing in the fight is very difficult to evade even though it may feel scary at first.

So for healers, just precast AoE heals and regens so that you know all DDs will be safe and make sure to keep your current MT topped up for the big hits coming every minute or so. And don't panic.

I wish there was more fights like this, this fight is so fun to heal through. I myself haven't experience any problem with healing, if i absolutely have to move i keep swift cast up so i can cure while moving. Alot of things I have noticed that might be why some healers cant heal as effectively is they try to get way out of the way of ground aoes and the laser and stuff. What you need to realize is this fight must be so insanely finely tuned that you can be just one pixel away from the aoe or laser and you wont get hit, so instead of running like 5 feet and than stop to heal you only need to move like a centimeter at most. You really don't have to move that much.

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Originally Posted by Espon

This usually happens if you start healing the moment you stop moving because the game thinks you're still moving. Best to wait about half of a second before you begin casting.

You can also take advantage of this in the opposite way where you can start moving about a half second before a spell finishes casting.

If I really need to cast a heal, I'll usually eat one of the eruptions and then heal myself up after.

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That could be it. I do take advantage of the healing on the move trick. Never thought about the opposite causing problems like that, but it makes sense. Thanks for the tips everyone.

Most problems I have with healing this fight is DDs getting hit by avoidable AoEs (see: Ifrit's dash), killing most in one hit. Ultima is the only fight I use swiftcast when it comes off cooldown (normally with divine seal + medica II for lasers/airships or tank purge/aetheric boom), so I can't use it to raise them ASAP. This results in a lower-than-normal DPS and so we pass the 10-minute enrage timer he has :<

It's also nice to have tanks who can avoid and cast stoneskin. It's a fun fight to heal through though, definitely.

I don't even care about DDs getting hit by AoE crap because, most of the time, it won't kill them and I'm busy prepping AoE heals (or they have whispering + succor shield on) anyways.

My biggest concern is undergeared tanks on this fight. I had a PLD earlier today with full DL and the base relic. He had 5.5k HP. Defractive laser could easily take him from 90% to dead if he didn't manage his cooldowns or if I didn't babysit him every single second of the laser phases where the other tank wasn't tanking.

The biggest culprit is that tanks are pretty damn lazy and don't avoid things like plumes, Garuda, lasers, etc. You shouldn't be moving Ultima when he starts to use defractive since it's conal, but before then you should at least be trying to avoid the Garuda + Titan combo. Quite annoying to see how certain fights have made tanks complacent.

I feel like most tanks don't know how to manage their cooldowns for defractive because they have no idea when it's going to hit. If you kindly inform them that it begins at the very beginning of the laser phase and happens periodically after that, most get it. I'd also suggest saving virus for this and not for tank purge. The only tank purge that is deadly is the one that goes off after one of the aetheric booms. This only happens if your DPS is slow, though.

I honestly really love healing this fight. ^_^

HM Ultima is one of the easier fights I've been in and it's a lot of fun. Did a chain of 8 Ultima runs yesterday with half FC and half puggers we grabbed from Revenant's Toll. All runs had been successful. Only wiped like 2 or 3 times total due to stupid mistakes, but otherwise, it's been almost flawless, usually had 1 deaths per run, once had no deaths at all. Also had both tanks die within a minute of each other and me and another healer were able to get them back up and we still cleared it. It's all about everyone knowing how to avoid stuff and for healers to manage their heals and keeping on the move.

Regarding to someone mentioning eruptions chasing both healers, haven't seen that happen to me yet, though I've been chased by eruptions and I always go for the outside circle towards the back. However if critical heals is needed for a tank, I will stop and eat an eruption just to pop that heal and move on again, because I know I can live through that hit. Heck, near the end, I ate 2 orbs and one of his cone beam attack all at once and I still lived through that. Does this mean everyone else should just become lazy and take hits? no, because it'll means I have to heal those and drain my mana more, but for me to take a hit, I'm prepared for it, as I know ahead of time to respond in such, but I would not do it often anyhow for it just means more mana drain.

Furthermore, did not need ballard song at all. Had a bard put that up, to which I asked him to remove it for we did not need it. It's all about managing your mana and using shroud whenever you can.

I've gotten through this with my scholar and DF white mage twice.
The hardest part for me was the lazers because I had to constantly be dancing around instead of healing
THis is where lustrate came in handy when the tanks were taking hits.
I think when the 4 airships fall down its the most difficult because you can't see anything lol.

Otherwise the only real "challenge" was in the end when the tank has to do his LB so that people can take the exploding orbs in time.
I still find this easier than Titan Hard mode for some reason :(

utltima bane is fun and easy, garuda em is intense

Ultima HM is my favorite fight to do, and heal! It gets intense, since I'm one of the unlucky bastards with FIOS lag, but I love the fight ^^
Medica 2 has it's great moments on the fight, namely when you're about to run into the balls, or the ships are coming down. Otherwise just dodge :)