I don't think I'm cut out to be a healer. x_x

As long as you keep your party alive you're not a failure of a healer as you are doing what your real is meant to do. As someone else said, dpsing is something advance, and I still think it's not something you're supposed to do. It's just something extra that you can do if you want to further push yourself and just make a dungeon go somewhat faster. Unless you're doing raids and ex fights, then that's entirely different story. I'm just hoping this doesn't turn into another one of those topics.

Care because there is a lot of ex dps/new tanks (because of the wait time) out there that don´t use defensive cooldowns, pull 3 mob stacks, use bullcrap 270 trinkets without even know the reason...With these kind of tanks you rly don´t have much room for dps...So relax AND ENJOY the game, have fun with the role you are playing otherwise why even bother ^^

From what you've said it seems like you're doing all you can to keep the party alive, leaving you no time to dps. This is perfectly fine and does not reflect badly on your part whatsoever. As many others have said, our primary job is to heal. If healing is all we have time to do then we're doing our job. DPS only when there's time open to do so. Just follow the ABC rule: always be casting. If you're always casting, even if it's only heals (and not overhealing) then keep doing what you need to do.

If you're too nervous to dps, don't be afraid to hold the damage for a while. I usually find time to dps if I have time in instances, but I still refrain from dpsing at all in Royal Menagerie for example simply because I'm afraid that people will need constant healing due to horrible past experiences. Should I be? Honestly recent runs have been smooth, but I still don't dps as much as I can and no one has complained and enrage hasn't been hit either.

Ease into the healing part first before easing into dpsing. If you want to boost your confidence queue into low level instances where you're almost certain to have time to dps for learning purposes.

Healing at the beginning of an expansion is always stressful since ilvls are low, especially during big pulls with bad/mediocre party members. It will only get easier so hang in there!

I'm having a bit of a similar problem myself. Only, I'm not a new healer by any means. Been maining healer for about a year now, and thought that I had gotten quite experienced at it. During HW, although I never touched the 8 man raids or even ex primals, there was nothing in the way of normal content I wasn't confident about healing. But with SB launch.... holy crap, it's been rough.

Got AST and WHM both to 70, and while I haven't wiped any groups, my confidence in my astro skills is very much shaken. It's this horrible, stressful struggle, and while some of it is certainly gear and not everyone knowing all these dungeons in and out yet, eh, it makes me seriously doubt whether I was ever as good at this job as I thought. WHM on the other hand, woooo, pretty much zero issues, no matter how bad the tank or dps are.

Basically, OP, I just wanted to share that even more experienced healers have issues too. Take your time, get used to the healing part of things. Then start adding in some dps when you feel safe to do so. Start with dots, and then move on to Gravity spam. It's a lot of fun when you have the breathing room to do it. :). But ofc, always keep on an eye on your mp! Not good to go OOM when heals are still gonna be needed. ;)

Firstly, don't need to feel bad if you can't dps while having to heal people. Healing takes priority. Beside the whole "healers should dps" in my opinion should really be read as "healers should dps when possible". And whenever i see people saying non-dps healers are bad they meant the healers who do absolutely nothing when the party doesn't get hit with anything, or the one spamming heal when everyone is full HP.

Secondly, SB mobs hit hard. Especially start from lvl 65 you will see a major jump in difficulty to keep tank alive if the tank keeps mass pulling as they did in lower level dungeons. Sometimes when tank mass pull i don't have time to dps either. However, if that happens with every tanks, or every runs, or even when they pull moderately, then you might want to improve your way of using/planning cool-down :D Don't hesitate using a cool down for trash pull, you don't need that heal power at boss anyway.

Edit: Just re-read your post and you said that you have trouble dpsing even in boss fight? I checked out your character. If you keep using the i270 weapon at that level you will struggle a bit. Suggest getting a crafted HQ one if you can't get it from dungeon. That will help easing it a little bit :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DxS7eT_ky4

just gonna drop this off here

Hey :)
If you're still leveling, I'd keep my focus on learning your healing tools first and getting to really know them and how they work - as a healer your primary role is to HEAL, and this in leveling dungeons is important to keep in mind for the following reasons

-just as you're leveling other people most likely are as well, meaning they probably are also still getting to know their role, and WILL mess up, and your job as a healer is to try to heal people through any unavoidable or unnecessary damage taken to ensure a clear with as few wipes/deaths as you can avoid
-gear matters. Not only yours - if the tank is also leveling, s/he's probably using leveling gear, meaning s/he'll be squishier than if s/he was synced
-as I mentioned people are leveling - they might not know their rotation, or when to aoe or when to use cooldowns; all these things could make your life as healer harder. The longer things take to die the more pressed you'll be for MP, for example

imho right now what you could focus on is building muscle memory in regards to your basic healing spells and panic buttons. In the same manner DPS classes build this memory for their damage rotation, with time you'll get used to mashing a massive heal button when necessary without even having to look at your hotbar :P

Healer DPS is a thing that is nice to have, but is in no way mandatory and should be grown into, IF you're interested in it. If you are, ease into it slowly, you don't need to measure your damage output to the DPS'.

ENDnote: you should know that when it comes to DPS uptime AST is actually a weird little job, really. You have so many OGCD things to do, insta heals insta shields insta mega buff cards insta regen bubble!... keep in mind that having DPS windows, come on more easily on WHM, for example, as they can triple stun mobs as damage dealing and mitigation (if they can't hit you you can hit them), and SCHs waste like 6 seconds to spread dots. :P

Not sure if this post makes sense. It's saturday morning and I'm sleepy. Just wanna make you feel not as bad about this because really healer DPS is so situational it should not be mandatory, specially for people LEARNING the classes

Healer takes a ton of practice to get good at too. Ive mained healer since i started way back when and i still occasionally miss a spell then oops tank is dead. May not be popular opinion, but healer is the hardest job in my opinion we have to keep track of mechanics, our mana, and up to 23 crazy other players dropping things on each other. My advice is to get a little more comfortable with your job and the dps will come with practice. For instance one dps trick with astro i use is to prep for a stellar detonation then lightspeed gravity x3 pop stellar then rotate right back into healing.

Don't worry too much about DPS while leveling, it will come with time when you get more comfortable with healing first. :)

That said, what's your healing strategy for normal pulls? Which abilities are you using and when? Which sect are you using?

What I've done on AST (Diurnal) is (when the pull is finished, can Benefic I/II during pull between groups if needed so that tank will end the pull with as close to full HP as possible) start with Aspected Helios on tank (with Largesse if up) and placing Earthly Star where the tank is and use AoE Balance or Arrow if available. Also Eye for an Eye on tank if it's up. I also use Celestial Opposition if it's up to increase buff times and stun all monsters so that the tank won't take damage for a bit. Then I spam Gravity (might cast a Benefic II on tank before starting Gravity spam) while being prepared to Essential Dignity the tank when needed (I also keep an eye on ES and detonate it or let it detonate at a good time), also Benefic II if needed in addition to that. If the tank seems to be going down fast, I lightspeed Benefic II spam.

I'm not very experienced AST (only really played it in SB), but this has worked well for me in both leveling and expert dungeons with tanks who speed pull.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Taika

That said, what's your healing strategy for normal pulls? Which abilities are you using and when? Which sect are you using?

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Basically at the moment I wait for the tank to pull everything they want to pull, but if they start taking a lot of damage fast, I throw Regen AB on them, otherwise I wait until they stop pulling to put Regen on them. I'll start with Benefic 1 to keep them over 80%, but if he takes more damage than I can heal, I'll use Benefic 2 instead. If they take an especially large chunk of damage I'll use Essential Dignity. I throw in Earthly Star to supplement healing as well as do damage and I use any Lady of the Crowns I get as a back up Essential Dignity to use when ED is on cooldown.

For AOE I'll use Helios unless the team is taking consistent damage or they took a big hit and are safe for a while before another hit comes, for those times I use the regen Helio. I use Nocturnal Sect for older dungeons as it seems more effective and usually the shield lasts for a whole pull or a good bit of time on a boss fight.

Currently I'm up to Doma Castle and my first attempt at this went fairly smoothly (even had more moments where I could fit in dps, though the dps kept rushing off ahead of the tank). Currently I'm swapping between leveling up and doing the Anima quest for Ast cause that final weapon looks really cool. I'm feeling a lot better about Ast now, even went and turned him into a sexy pirate Ast, which perked me up some lol.