A question about healing!

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

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.

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Playing a Healer reactively is quite possibly the worst way to play a Healer. It leads to second-guessing, indecision, not planning your resource expenditure, and plenty more things that will make healing the fight harder, and to top it all off it will lower the damage you do as a knock-on effect of all of these.

While Scholar and Astrologian have more in the way of shields than White Mage, that is not to say that White Mage should not be being just as proactive.

Have you ever played The Chrysalis in i90 gear on White Mage? This was the trial that really hammered this home for me, back in early Heavensward when I first started playing. Double and Triple Spark were doing so much damage to the Tank that they would die almost immediately, and so I had to learn the spells' timing and cast Cure II such that it would hit the Tank after the first Spark, but before the second, and then later when Triple arrived I had to do this twice back-to-back.

Had I been reacting to the Tank taking damage, I would simply not have had enough time to cast before the second/third Spark hit and deleted them, and we would wipe. By quickly learning when in the spells' cast I could begin my own to hit during the delay, I learned to act proactively, allowing me to keep the Tank alive.

Additionally, I'd like to mention that with the removal of Cleric Stance, Healers no longer have a 'DPS mode' that they're locked into, any such phenomenon is entirely a player-sided problem, and one I suspect born from this kind of thinking. Abandon the concept of having two 'modes' and fuse them together. Any time you don't need to be casting a healing spell, cast a damaging one - you can always cancel out of it if you realise you actually need to be doing something else; three-and-a-half Stones and a Cure II is better than zero Stones and a Cure II, after all.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

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.

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As I touched on a little previously, don't think of it as a 'DPS phase' and a 'Healing phase', but rather think of it as 'Healer gameplay', all in one soup. If you wait for windows in which nothing is happening to deal damage, you will end the fight with no damage done. Find the points in the fight that you need to be healing or doing mechanics, and work backward from there - any point at which you're not healing and not doing mechanics is a point you should be dealing damage.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

We don't mitigate damage. We react to it.

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We, absolutely, 200%, can and should mitigate. It's in our kits, so let's not sleep on it if it can save us a few GCDs we could've spent DPSing in the long run and therefore MP.
This also applies to DPS btw, thinking about DPS mitigating is even more outlandish than thinking about healers mitigating but addle, feint, troubadour and the likes to name some common ones should be used too.

ABC of healers and casters: Always Be Casting
If you have nothing to heal > PewPew
Use your MP regen on cooldown

Start small, ensure your dots are on boss 100% on the time
When you have access to Holy, give at least one on each pulls (Stunned mobs = no damages)
Avoid using Cure 1, prefer oGCD heals when you have them. Cast heals only when you have nothing else to heal with.

You will soon realize you dont need to heal as much as you think. People dont need to be topped off all the time
Plan when you use Benediction, the best single heal in the game (and free!). Let the tank lose damage, use it before it is too late.

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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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I don't want to discourage you, but out of all the healers astro is the hardest to master. It's not impossible for everyone...astro just has A LOT going on. Cards, Heals, DPS. Like most of the posts in here I would say learn the basics before you learn the advanced. Here are some tips I have adopted from others over the years.

1. Learn how strong your tank is.
2. Diurnal or Noct? it doesn't matter. Some will say you need to run Noct for High end, but I have run diurnal in savage and extremes. Both work fine, but need a different playstyle. Noct can be an MP hog I find, but others have really mastered Noct.
3. Get very familiar with your cards, learn what each one does, and which party member benefits the most from each one. Read the tooltips and understand the job gauge. Learn the class icons and what DPS they represent (ranged,melee,caster)
4. Believe it or not but Cards are an Astros form of DPS also. If you aren't using your cards your not helping DPS. If you are sitting on draw off cooldown your not helping. Draw and Play as much as you can, plus it fills your MP.
5. Seals can be a pain especially if your fishing for a certain seal to complete your divination. Don't sweat it. That's just RNG for ya. Pulling the perfect seals get's much easier when you get sleave draw. And some astros forget they have minor arcana.
6. Macros! Find some macros that work for you. Focus target is a great way to macro your DPS buttons. Target through target is slick way to toss out a combust or malefic while not leaving the tank or party member.

Astro is insanely good at healing for some odd reason, and has some of the best heals to toss out when your in a tight spot. I would watch some guides on astro if that's going to be your main healer.

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Originally Posted by Tweets

Additionally, I'd like to mention that with the removal of Cleric Stance, Healers no longer have a 'DPS mode' that they're locked into, any such phenomenon is entirely a player-sided problem, and one I suspect born from this kind of thinking. Abandon the concept of having two 'modes' and fuse them together. Any time you don't need to be casting a healing spell, cast a damaging one - you can always cancel out of it if you realise you actually need to be doing something else; three-and-a-half Stones and a Cure II is better than zero Stones and a Cure II, after all.

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I think it's incredibly easy to DPS on astro. I thought it was a huge pain to switch stances and pop cleric on and off. Cleric stance being gone has allowed healers to really push out the DPS now, at least I find anyway.

It is infinitely easier for me to DPS now that I don't have to swap to a stance and back out. Weaving heals and DPS is also infinitely easier, as for astro it can get troublesome with cards to manage while DPSing and healing. It used to be way better with Heavensward/Stormblood cards (miss royal road), but those days are gone.

Astro DPS is split with cards and normal spells (malefic, gravity). Combust is a one off as it needs no cast time and should be no excuse for combust falling off...it's so easy to cast.

I personally get bored on WHM as I miss my cards :D