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Good morning/evening everyone!
Since the servers are down, and quite frankly I'm bored, I'd like to take some time and review healing from levels 1 to 30 while giving a special mention to ACN heals. This guide will be aimed towards:
> informing you of stat/skill priorities taken by healers under level 30 to maximize your healing potential
> suggesting healing strategies and overall setup of UI and keybinds to make healing "easier"
> providing years of healing insight in a simple manner
Keybinding and UI:
This is, in my opinion, one of the MOST important aspects of healing. Keybinding your heals and spells so that you don't need to look at them (or even click them via mouse) will make you a better healer! How you might ask?
1. Keybinds: Keybinding allows you to focus on your party's heal bars while effectively tossing out heals. Nothing is worse than having to manually click your abilities while trying to heal. Not only does it waste time but it keeps your eyes away from the party's health bars.
TIP: As an ACN/CNJ bind your heal to a key that is easily accessed through your left hand. Keys 1, 2, 3 and 4 are fantastic binds for heals or spells that you intend to use excessively. They're close to WASD and will fall into muscle memory in a flash.
Author Note: Get creative with your keybinds! Use shift modifiers and tie them to number and letter binds (SHIFT+1 / SHIFT+A). The more bind you have the more abilities you'll have access to on the fly.
2. UI: It goes without saying that seeing your party's health bars is of absolute importance. Tailor your UI so that your eyes don't have to go out of their way to see party HP (CRTL+HOME while in the UI editor will allow you to scale each element of your UI).
Healing as a Whole
Healing is: keeping your party's health greater than or equal to 0. With that said it seems like it would be an easy task. Fortunately it isn't (otherwise no one would play a healer). Mechanics like monster aggro, boss abilities, and band tanks will make healing an exciting, although sometimes frustrating, role. So what can you do to be a "better" healer? Let's examine each class before we go on to healing strategies:
CNJ:
The "go-to" healing class of levels 30 and below, CNJs excel in keeping their party's HP high and bright. With an assortment of powerful single targeted and AE heals, a dispel, and traits that give bonuses to MIND, they are the preferred healer of the lower levels. Where a ACN's heal will Physick for a mere 100hp a CNJ's Cure will heal around twice as much (200ph). That being said CNJ healing is MUCH easier than ACN healing at lower levels.
ACN:
An ugly duckling (with no happy ending), the ACN leaves much to be desired below 30. With no trait bonuses to MIND and only a single heal ACNs lack in pretty much every aspect of healing. The only notable skill of ACNs is that they have a 20% mana restore on a minute CD. Although are drastically inferior to a CNJ they can still heal every low level instance with the proper build and awareness.
Healing Strategies:
Over-healing:
Consider the following: you have a mana pool of 100 and you can cast a heal that heals for 100, with a cost of 10. If you play it right you can heal a total of 10 times for 100 hp each time. In total that a possible 1000 points of health that you can restore to any given party member. So I ask you: Would you use your heal if it only restored 10 points of health?
No, you wouldn't.
This is where over-healing comes into play. In the ideal world every heal that you toss out should heal its full amount, if not close to it. Each you that heals beyond 100% is waste of mana. This aspect is particularly important to CNJs as they have no true form of mana regeneration at low levels.
TIP: Cast your healing spells before a fight and get a general idea of how much each of them heal for. Look at your tank's HP, as well as the rest of your group's hp, and try to gauge when you should heal them to maximize your health-restored to mana-cost ratio.
ACNs: Don't worry so much about over-healing since you'll have access to a 20% mana restore (1min CD). Instead worry whether or not your spam healing can keep a tank / group members alive. Without a AE heal you'll have to sacrifice healing time on your tank to keep other group members up and running. If your tank is around 70% hp or above you should be safe to throw a heal to a party member in need.
Threat and Timing your Heals:
When a tank runs into the battle make sure to let him get aggro on all of the monsters in the engaged fight. Healing a tank right as he/she goes into battle is a sure fire way to pull aggro. If the tank fails to do so let them know! Communication will alleviate many of the problems that you'll encounter.
Making your Character and Stats:
Healers should focus on the following stats:
DET >> MIND >> PIETY >> VIT
Determination - Give your character higher spell damage and healing power (useful for when questing, etc.)
Mind - Direct healing bonus (This is especially important for ACNs since they don't get as much mind as CNJs)
Piety - More mana means more heals! It could be argued that this is a better stat for CNJs since they don't have access to a mana regeneration ability but in the end it's up to you what you'd rather have.
Vit - In the case that a monster gets on you it helps to have a fair amount of HP to take a few hits.
Races:
If you want to be picky about it add the characters VIT, PIETY, and MIND together while valuing vit as only half a point. For example:
VIT 10 / MIND 10 / PIETY 10 = 25p
Vit is important but it is outweighed by MIND and PIETY therefore we need to assign it a lesser value. Ideally you'll only take damage through boss mechanics / AE that are unavoidable assuming your tank is good.
Stat Distribution:
ACN: MIND MIND and MIND. Don't bother with the other stats. ACNs need the boost in MIND to make their Physick heal for more. Without points in MIND you risk not being able to keep everyone alive.