So I mained sch in ARR and I haven't touched a healer since then. I decided to level my white mage up. Any tips or guides for how to play it?
Printable View
So I mained sch in ARR and I haven't touched a healer since then. I decided to level my white mage up. Any tips or guides for how to play it?
I'd say just read the tooltips. Healers don't really have rotations per se, you just play how your team allows you to. Your DPS will always be your DoTs followed by a nuke spam. You can weave in PoM to increase your DPS at that point too. As WHM have infinite mana now, using Cure II is almost better in all situations as it guarantees you a Lily. Also try keeping up a Regen on the tank at all times, and use Tetra whenever it's available. It should allow you more time to DPS as opposed to wasting GCDs on Cures.
Someone here is bound to tell you to ignore the Lily Gauge, but don't listen to them. A lot of WHMs are still being salty for no reason.
What role abilities do you use (in other from left to right).
The playstyle is nearly identical to Heavensward WHM, if you've seen or heard about that at all.
Healing priority: Regen > Cure > Cure II. Regen is most efficient, Cure II is least efficient. If you have Healing over Time (HoT) effects up, such as Regen or Medica II, try to resist the urge to top people up unless there's actually more damage coming.
Use your oGCDs, such as Tetragrammaton and Asylum, to avoid spending MP on normal heals when you can. Take note that Largesse does not affect oGCD heals, but pairs excellently with Regen and Medical II. If you're below a certain MP threshold Lucid Dreaming should generally be used on cooldown (you'll get a feel for this). Benediction ignores all healing debuffs and can be used to avoid interrupting DPSing if you like.
Assize has three purposes: DPS, free healing, MP recovery. If you, for example, use it in place of where you might cast medica... you avoid spending 1680 MP and get 10% MP back on top of that. You can also just use it purely to do damage. You don't usually want to hold this ability in reserve for long.
Presence of Mind pairs excellently with Thin Air, for either AOE heal spam or DPS.
To add to what Risvertasashi said, don't forget your DPS abilities! Holy is very powerful AoE DPS spell, and in addition to that it stuns all the enemies for a bit so your tank won't be taking any damage. Aero III is your AoE DoT, so use that with Holy and Assize for AoE damage. For single target, keep your Aero DoTs up and spam your strongest Stone spell.
I personally use the following:
Lucid Dreaming
Esuna
Protect
Eye for an Eye
Swiftcast
As long as your healer is 50, you have access to all role abilities regardless of level sync you're in so order doesn't matter too much anymore.
There is no CD reset when you swap out role abilities in the middle of a dungeon so it's possible to apply Protect and then swap it to something else that you find useful for the particular instance. Esuna isn't always necessary but I find it's good practice to keep it on your bar until you discover which dungeons you need and don't need Esuna for.
I don't find Largesse particularly useful for WHM at the time of this posting (I haven't done EX Primals yet) as the large majority of the WHM kit at 70 will revolve around ability-type heals which aren't affected by Largeese.
...TBH I use it more out of habit than tested effectiveness. What really hurts now is.... with the 90s CD, it no longer lines up with mechanics on a 60s cycle, 1 minute cycles being a trend that Susano continues...
But for a newcomer to the class, it is definitely worth remembering it only affects spells, and oGCD heals are not classed as spells.
Thanks for the tips just seems like it's so hard even though I know it's probably not lol.
Your options will vary depending on your level and gear to be honest (not to mention your tank). There's some good advice here overall. I'll just offer an alternate "rotation" of sorts for dungeons. This is fine if you can spare the mana. At higher levels mana isn't an issue but it might be while you're leveling.
On pack pulls Largesse > Regen > Medica II (with or without swiftcast) > Aero III > Holy (your hots will regen a bit of hp during the stun) then just dps and use your ogcd to keep the tank up if you need. Of course the above is to be adjusted depending on the damage the tank takes, you may need to cure I/II and/or benison etc. etc.
As a general rule I also tend to refresh medica II and regen when I don't have the timings down for an encounter. It's clearly best to medica II after damage hits but there's no harm in maintaining it even if everyone is full HP while you learn your class and the encounters (and have the mana).