WHM returned player help

Hello all.

I am close to wrapping up my Samurai and wanted to do WHM as 2nd toon. I did play it as main till lvl 51, but I will say rather badly up to mediocre. I do strugle with that DPS and healing buissiness mash up so I wanted to hear some ideas how to setup my UI efficiently and how do you actualy play , like switching targets and players and stuff like that. As former WOW healer I did it , well differently than here. TO note I use gaming mouse with 12 side buttons. I also use CTRL as "modifier" to get 2nd lvl of buttons while I play my Samurai now.
From what I can remeber I hated names also. I mean, Heal 1, 2 and 3? RLY? Whose bright Idea was that?
Nwm.

Please, any advice is most welcome aswell as link to good up to point and simple guides you know on youtube. I saw alot of those that go in picky details and that got me even more confused. So yea, simplicity :) After all I am DPS mainly. ;):cool:

Hey. o/

True WHM healing gameplay IMO doesn't begin until level 52 where you get Secret of the Lily. These are 3 gauge resources that go up over time in combat - one per 20 seconds - and give instant healing. I don't think you get much to do with them outside of Afflatus Solace, which is a single-target instant heal. You can get rid of Cure I completely, Medica II sees uses and IMO will continue to until you get your AoE Lily heal (Afflatus Rapture), Cure III is a MP-hungry AoE that you can use Thin Air on to make it cost nothing but honestly in my opinion Medica II will be the better substitute.

On how to heal dungeons, I follow certain tips. I put the tank on focus, try to learn all the defensive icons to know if they'll be in danger or not. If they slip to 40% or low, slap them with a heal. If the situation is tight and I see no defensives on them, at 10% or so I hit them with Benediction, a spell that tops them off to max. All the while, you can do damage. Medica II early on can be used to heal up for group-wide damage, but do replace that with your AoE Lily heal once you get it.

WHM healing is very "GCD" focused - know how when you use certain abilities, some go through a brief timer and some are still usable? WHM's damage abilities - Aero/Dia, Holy and Stone/Glare trigger the GCD, and so do the instant Lily heals. There will be some outlier abilities that you can still use while the timer is going on - things like Benediction, Tetragrammation and other spells at later levels. In the White Mage Job Guide or tool-tips, if they are on GCD they will be shown to have a recast of 2.5s, and if they are not they'll show as Instant cast and a longer cooldown recast. So hypothetically, if you see the tank go low on health you can use Stone on your enemy, and then hit him with Benediction right when the cast ends (as Stone's cast is shorter than the GCD - 1.5 second cast, 2.5 second recast). Other healers can do more direct healing when all the while doing damage. Being able to do a GCD ability and then using an "off-GCD" is called weaving.

It sounds complex, but this is really how healers have to continue doing both damage and healing at the same time. WHM facilitates it relatively lesser, but you're not completely helpless. I played Holy/Discipline Priest in WoW in 9.0, and the gameplay there is different because it's somewhat impossible to do this sort of global cooldown weaving given the shorter time.

Remember your ABC - Always Be Casting.

Also, I would suggest holding off on reading full-length guides until like, level 60-70. The sheer girth of spells may overwhelm you, so progressively going through your Job and learning that way would make you feel less uncomfy. Many Jobs tend to really expand and even transform in gameplay when they reach Stormblood.

Hope I helped.

Thank you this helps, but I guess many many more people will need to suffer in PUG's so I can perfect my skills hehe.
Also, I presume you use focus macro for tank and heal with F keys 8I mean switching from player to player?
So I guess my Cure 1isi almost out of date as I am lvl 51 on WHM I guess?

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Originally Posted by TommyH

Thank you this helps, but I guess many many more people will need to suffer in PUG's so I can perfect my skills hehe.
Also, I presume you use focus macro for tank and heal with F keys 8I mean switching from player to player?
So I guess my Cure 1isi almost out of date as I am lvl 51 on WHM I guess?

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cure 1 is outdated as soon as you get regen. regen heals almost 3x as much as cure 1 for the same mp cost, and those 15 seconds happen faster than you think. unless the boss is casting a big attack on everyone in this right moment just use regen over cure 2 for single target on party members and dont panic over people not being at 100% hp.

for mob pulls just put regen on the tank and start holy spamming. holy stunning the enemies pretty much gives the tank 10 seconds of invulnerability. after than weave holys between cure 2s. if mobs die faster youll have an easier time healing

Thank you. I am getting used to weawing slowly on samurai, so i guess on WHM should not be much harder

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Originally Posted by TommyH

Thank you this helps, but I guess many many more people will need to suffer in PUG's so I can perfect my skills hehe.

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You might try Duty Support. It lets you run with three NPCs (for example, Thancred, Estinian, and Y'shtola) instead of real people.
It's a little slower than running with real people, but not bad, and the NPCs don't mind suffering.

I use it sometimes to level my DPS classes; it's faster than waiting for Duty Finder and the NPCs all know the mechanics well enough.

Sidenote: I started this game as Conj/WHM, and took WHM to 90, but I prefer Sage now.

Good point Ill try that.

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Originally Posted by Silverbane

You might try Duty Support. It lets you run with three NPCs (for example, Thancred, Estinian, and Y'shtola) instead of real people.
It's a little slower than running with real people, but not bad, and the NPCs don't mind suffering.

I use it sometimes to level my DPS classes; it's faster than waiting for Duty Finder and the NPCs all know the mechanics well enough.

Sidenote: I started this game as Conj/WHM, and took WHM to 90, but I prefer Sage now.

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I don't recommend trying to learn healer doing it with Duty Support just cause they tend to single target and single pull. You won't need to heal at all. Probably won't even need to toss a regen. You'll just be Stone/Glare/Holy/ spamming the entire time.

Just do things with a group and let them know you are learning. Best way to learn is "trial by fire". You will make mistakes...and that's fine but going easy is not doing you favors.

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Originally Posted by Renalt

I don't recommend trying to learn healer doing it with Duty Support just cause they tend to single target and single pull. You won't need to heal at all. Probably won't even need to toss a regen. You'll just be Stone/Glare/Holy/ spamming the entire time.

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Perhaps, but IMHO it's still better than trying to practice being a healer on a striking dummy (is that even possible?)
And you get EXP and loot for your trouble.

Assuming Duty Support functions similarly like Trust NPCs, you can also pull more for your tank to raise the bar on your whim. Mind you that you’ll get slapped a few times (usually..) but normally it’s not enough to kill you before your tank manage to rip the aggro off you.