Tips for New Healer/Level 50 AST?

Hi, not sure if this is the best place to ask but can any healer/AST mains share some tips for performing the role/job effectively at level 50? I'm a DPS main and always wanted to increase my versatility, so I unlocked WHM to try healing, eventually swapping to AST as soon as I reached Heavensward and loved it.

I don't know what my problems are, but nearing lvl 50 and jumping into a couple dungeons (Aurum Vale, of course lol and Stone Vigil Hard) I was having a hard time keeping my party members alive. The runs were so bad I feel like my party must hate me, and that maybe I'm too slow, and panic too much to play this role :(

Really love AST though, and don't want to give up but I'm scared of anything 50+. Asked my FC members for help, but nobody seemed interested in my predicament so hopefully someone can help me here. As this is my first MMO and I've only ever played DPS, I've been playing AST heals with these in mind:

- Applying Diurnal Sect regen on tank and begin casting Benefic at about 75% HP
- Essential Dignity and Benefic II are emergency heals when party member health drops considerably
- Helios and Aspected Helios available for patching party up post enemy AOE
- Lightspeed when crap hits the fan
- Swiftcast Ascend when someone dies
- Use Lucid Dreaming once MP drops below 75% at any time
- Esuna the debuffs away, especially poison, slow, paralyze, etc.
- Buff party members with cards (have not been able to even think about collecting the necessary seals for Divination as I'm too busy desperately healing!)
- DPS when possible, but this has been rare 50+
- Not to mention positioning, I am working on standing near everyone but sometimes they are so far away when they need the heals!

If there is any wisdom you can share that I am missing, maybe I can go in again with a better perspective of how to keep everyone from death and hopefully fewer wipes.

Really grateful for any insight, thank you orz

Seems like you've got the basics down for being new. Wouldn't stress too much about optimizing or dps until you get comfortable with the heals.

Probably you could get away with more Benefic IIs, it doesn't have to be emergency use. Essential Dignity has a cooldown, so yeah, that can be more situational. But Benefic II is just a stronger Benefic. More costly, and yeah, heals to MP ratio might be worse. But, if it saves you from having to rez... besides, should hopefully be doing ok enough to not be so stressed on MP.
75% is a bit high for worrying about HP too much, but, that can just be a comfort zone thing. And, this may also connect to pull size, or just knowing fights. Yeah, if tank is pulling a dozen mobs or more, you might not get much reaction time to heal, maybe is best to stay on it. Alternatively, just try asking tank to pull smaller until you get better at judging how hard things hit and how fast HP drops.

But I'm not really a healer myself, so my advice may be dubious. Just, thought I'd throw it out there before you drown in "here's how you should optimize for pro plays for endgame" type stuff.

Hi! Here's a few tips that'll help coming from someone who Main's Astrologian.
Never put a regen on the tank before a pull, you'll instantly pull aggro and end up getting hit which causes slight panic if the tank pulls a huge mob or etc. Always throw up the regen after the tank has aggro of the mobs.
You can pretty much get away with throwing up one Aspected Helio's to heal party members if party wide aoe. Trust in your regen to fill their HP bars off.
If tank starts taking too much damage for your single heals, throw up light speed then use benefic II since using lightspeed halfs MP cost of your spells.
Since Lucid dreaming is 60 second cooldown, you can pretty much use it once your MP drops below around 80% or 75% your choice!
You got the Esuna part correct!
Try weaving your card draws as you heal, might take you awhile to get used to but once you get the hang of it, you'll start loving it.
If the tank isn't taking much damage, you can use lightspeed into Gravity for dps on mobs then use Essential Dignity for when your tank HP drops near 50% or lower. Feel free to throw a regen on them to help with less healing
If your party members are too far away then they need to adjust to move closer, as long as you are alive and the tank is alive, it is the responsibility of your dps members to not make you walk through Egypt to heal them.
If you have any more questions, feel free to ask!

So i dont play a healer, i cant offer any healer advice. Im sure Hasrat and Mitsuki nailed it, do whatever they said(to be honest, i just skimmed their responses to make sure they didnt say what im about to). Youre having a hard time keeping party members alive? Im not surprised, your weapon is horribly outdated. You have, essentially, just about the weakest level 50 planisphere in the game. Weapon makes THE biggest difference in how effective your spells are. In general almost all of your gear is behind the curve - especially your jewelry - but the weapon is so much more important that upgrading it would give you a bigger boost then upgrading your whole right side(possibly a bigger boost then upgrading all your other gear, as your left side stuff is much closer to where you would like to be). So do yourself(and your future groups) a favor and get a new weapon. You probly have enough poetics tomes for an Ironworks, and if you augment that then you have yourself the 2nd best level 50 weapon. Failing that, a bit of gil could easily set you up with a Mythrite Star Globe(make sure to get the high quality). Hell, if you were on my server id craft you one myself.

Just incase you havent found them yet, Aelina and Auriana are 2 NPCs that work for Rowena in Revenants Toll. Theyre outside her building, basically at the top of the hill above the aetheryte. Auriana is your girl for armor and accessories, Aelina has weapons and assorted knickknacks. Ironworks gear is what youre after, and the currency for it is Tomestones of Poetics. Auriana you just pay straight up. Aelina you need to trade with. So for your weapon you basically buy 10 "Rowena's Token (Poetics)", and one Encrypted Tomestone(Auriana will sell you all of these for poetics tomes), then give those to Aelina and she hands you the weapon. To upgrade to the augmented version buy a Carbontwine(same menu of Auriana's that should have the tokens and encrypted tomes), then take the weapon and twine to Gerolt in North Shroud and he does the work(him or his assistant drake - i forget which one). Any ironworks armor you get can be similarly augmented with another piece of carbontwine(one piece per slot), and any accessories or shield can be boosted with a carboncoat in the same way. This is all done because this gear was among the best available back when 50 was the cap. Youll have similar options at 60(vendor in idyllshire) and 70(vendor in rhalgrs), and both of those will also accept poetics tomes for gear(poetics is the tome for top end outdated gear - once you hit the current cap youll start earning different tomes that buy the current gear).

Hope this helps, and welcome to the game!

edit: Just incase your gear was a cosmetic choice and not the best you have available, it might benefit you to learn the glamour system too. Theres a quest to unlock it either in Revenants Toll(mor dhona) or Horizon(western thanalan). You can set a piece of gear with good stats but a look you dont like to appear like a set that looks better. This is done with glamour prisms(or prisms AND the glamour dresser from your inn room). Ill avoid doing a whole write-up of it here in my edit, but its something that a most experienced players do eventually. Feel free to join us.

One point I'd like to make on skills like Essential Dignity: Do not save them for emergencies. For starters, they're not on the GCD which means you can use them to avoid spending a GCD on healing. On top of this, they're free. If you use them as your heal of choice whenever they're up you'll save a LOT of MP over the course of the run compared to if you sat on them for an emergency that never came. Also, if you're in a situation where you need an instant heal, chances are a number of other things have gone wrong and even that instant heal won't save you. Use it early to prevent accidents, not once the accident has occurred. The same goes for any defensive buffs you may have. You may be tempted to save them for "when I really need it", but often by finding little areas here and there where they may be of some use, you'll reduce your healing burden over the whole dungeon.