Lag, MP shortages and other annoyances.

Okay, so I've played FFXIV for about a month so far. I like playing as a White Mage by myself. I enjoy it, but you know what I haven't enjoyed? Playing in teams for the story missions!! Could someone advise me if I'm doing something wrong? Because I've tried Titan a couple of times and each time it's been wipe out after wipe out, because the whole team starts to die left right and centre and I just don't have the MP to keep them all alive, it's like I'm constantly healing one after another until the MP is gone and I have to slow down. Besides that, the lag in getting away from attacks in time and how the rock prison can get you, I'm at a loss. The only other MMO games I've played have been PSOBB and PSU, and they were pretty easy really, there wasn't much to a healing role and I could rock an attack magic class there. So.... too different a system?
Have no idea if this works on the same principle in fate parties so I have simply avoided them like the plague.

For story mode Titan, if people are getting knocked off tell them to watch Titan as well as the floor as he will very visibly turn around to do a Landslide and if you watch him you can see that it is coming maybe a half-second or so before the AOE zone appears.. You can also have people stand right behind him so if they get knocked back they don't get knocked off but it isn't recommended.

Titan is all about conserving your MP as it is likely more AOE than you are used to. Try to get ahold of some Ethers, use them early so that another will be up later in the fight and you will be able to reuse it. A big thing is to remember you have access to Regen now and if your tank is properly geared you usually don't have to worry about them if you Regen them, just avoid casting it on the rest of the party until later in the fight.

Another big way to conserve MP is to use Medica to get people healed up from Titan's stomps. Medica is more efficient if you need to heal 3 or more people. Just make sure your party stays fairly close together. There is no reason to spread out far from each other as the only AOEs you need to be dodging (Landslide), hit the entire arena ( Stomps), and Weight of the Land (Small circle underneath 2 players). Only the latter is dangerous if you bunch up together, so make sure everyone stands near each other but not on top of each other.

ok
Make sure you use Shroud of Saints http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Shroud_of_Saints to get the Mana refresh effect. Suggest you first use it after you've lost around 1000 mana, then use again as soon as it's off cd.
Stock up on Ether potions, x-ether or mega-ether
Have you allocated all your bonus points? Probably have, just checking.
Eat some food - check these for the stats http://ffxivrealm.com/guides/healers...nd-potions.28/ Piety affects maximum mana points, Mind affects magic potency, Spell Speed speaks for itself. I'd concentrate on the first two for your issues.

Now healing - try not to overheal, The temptation is to spam Cure II, when a lot of the time Cure I will keep things up. Remember, dps will have less health than the tank so a Cure I spell will likely get them back to health. People don't always have to be at full health to be ok.
Again, do not spam Medica just as a general fix when you see the party take some damage. Keep the tank up, then a couple of Cure I's on the dps guys when the tank is safe. You could choose to regen them but watch the enmity with this.
Use your skill boosts:
- Presence of Mind, bit crappy this one but better used than not
- Divine Seal, a 30% healing boost should never be ignored. If the tank is not looking well, SwiftCast -> Divine Seal -> Cure II can be a lifesaver, literally. (I've got this macro'd).

Incidentally, make sure you have Swiftcast, it's a lvl 26 Thaumaturge cross skill. About the most useful cross skill of them all - A must have.
Cast StoneSkin on everyone before you start, helps and better than not doing it.

Hopefully other healers can add their tips here to help you.

But remember the healer rhyme:
If people insist on standing in the goo
There's not much you or anyone can do

So if dps are just getting repeatedly blasted by not moving out of the aoe, then don't waste your mana on them. You'll use it all up just to see them do the same thing again. Priority Tank + You, then dps.

Estellios is right when talking about Medica - if you need to heal several people. If a couple have taken damage, say tank + 1 dps, then separate heals will do fine - as they may need different levels of healing. The trick all the way through any instance is not to waste mana overhealing.
It has two knock on effects.
The first is pretty obvious - you're going to have mana issues,
The second is threat. If you have hot's ticking away on people when not much is happening - be prepared for boss attention. Hence the caution note on Regen - and Medica II when you get to using that. Another reason to use Shroud of Saints.

Thanks for the pointers. I'm working on Thaumaturge to get the skill as we speak. Also I had no idea I could get anything better than hi-ethers yet, so thanks also for that. :D

You don't have Shroud for story Titan...syncs to 36 and Shroud is at 38. Mostly about making sure people don't take avoidable damage.

Nothing you can do about rock prison except do one of the sound effects in a macro to make sure DPS switch.

:( Yeah that rock prison move is a menace.

I went through a similar struggle with Titan story mode. IMO, Titan story mode is really the first time that WHMs have to struggle with mana issues. Titan will force you to really start thinking about triage. You will quickly realize the goal isn't to keep everybody topped off (thought that's important before his "stomps"), the goal is to keep everybody alive. That DD that's at 60-70% health during the middle of a phase? Do nothing! He hit 40% health? Throw a regen on 'em (tip: MUST get regen :D).

If there is such things as "gear checks" and "dps checks", etc., Titan is a "triage check" for WHM. It's important to know when you can even let the meters stay for a while. There may very well times when everybody in your party is sitting at 70% health and that is fine. Triage, triage, triage. All of this is more difficult if you have DD that are staying in the red and getting hit by entirely avoidable damage.

Most of all, patience :). And if you are in an FC, run it with your FC :).

I did Titan at 34, not even having regen. Ugh. It was a wipefest, but not due to lack of healing -- DPS kept getting eating landslide and we didn't have enough damage to kill the heart, unless I spammed Stone II at it, which leads me to the next point...

As a WHM, mana management is a pain, even after you get shroud. Yeah, I use shroud early and often, and I'll probably have enough mana to keep healing through any fight (of course this also means I usually won't be able to use it as an aggro dump). But if things go pear-shaped and I have to Raise people in combat (with swiftcast) or even add some DPS to help burst down adds to make up for the group's low DPS... I'll run dry and have to spam Cure on the tank, praying for that 15% Freecure proc.

It's not fun being in a less-than-optimal group and feeling helpless about it because if I want to DPS to help things die faster (or actually rez someone who got one-shot by an avoidable boss mechanic), I'll kill my mana. Not to mention the potential aggro problems...

If you are using Shroud of Saints correctly then honestly the only thing that will be killing your MP is Raising people. I always try to keep up DPS even in the story mode fights and never have any issues as long as Raise isn't needed. If you have to throw out more than 1 anyway, typically your party isn't doing so hot in the first place and needs to do their part to not get hit by AOEs.

In 8-man stuff you will usually have a BRD which alleviates the problem a ton.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Estellios

If you are using Shroud of Saints correctly then honestly the only thing that will be killing your MP is Raising people. I always try to keep up DPS even in the story mode fights and never have any issues as long as Raise isn't needed. If you have to throw out more than 1 anyway, typically your party isn't doing so hot in the first place and needs to do their part to not get hit by AOEs.

In 8-man stuff you will usually have a BRD which alleviates the problem a ton.

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Oh, I can keep aero + aero2 + thunder on the boss without really running out of mana (and those abilities don't really do that much damage overall)... what really hurts the mana bar is when I need to assist in burn situations, which means Stone II and Holy.

My experience with Holy in particular was that I could cast it MAYBE once on a boss fight - more than that, and my mana bar would disappear if the tank wasn't overgeared (and thus needed more than just divine seal + cure / regen and the occasional freecure to keep up). There were fights like Aurum Vale's last boss (or Garuda storymode) where adds need to die ASAP, and if the DPS can't take care of them, the group is hosed. It's annoying to have this powerful AOE spell at my disposal, and yet know that if I use it, I won't have enough mana left to keep the tank up.

Bards never seem to use the mana song in DF pugs, even when asked... could just be my luck though.

Do you know how some people will say that certain encounters are a "tank, DPS, or healer check"? Well Titan story mode is a group competancy check. Everyone in the group has to perform to a certain level in order for the fight to be a success. No one person can "carry the fight". If you lose someone, then the performance level goes up for everyone else left so everyone needs to pay attention to keep the fight as easy as its going to be. If your party keeps failing, its no one person's fault...this encounter will test the party's ability to find it's errors and make corrections. Some will do this better then others and everyone has their breaking point when "enough is enough". Learn what you can, where you can so in the future you'll be part of the solution.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Imakles

Do you know how some people will say that certain encounters are a "tank, DPS, or healer check"? Well Titan story mode is a group competancy check. Everyone in the group has to perform to a certain level in order for the fight to be a success. No one person can "carry the fight". If you lose someone, then the performance level goes up for everyone else left so everyone needs to pay attention to keep the fight as easy as its going to be. If your party keeps failing, its no one person's fault...this encounter will test the party's ability to find it's errors and make corrections. Some will do this better then others and everyone has their breaking point when "enough is enough". Learn what you can, where you can so in the future you'll be part of the solution.

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idk about that. When helping w/ Titan story mode for my friend our healer wen't off at the second hop. But between my awesome paladin cures, and a few physics from our black mage we three manned titan without a "healer". Took a while but more then doable. However what you said is mostly spot on.

Also: When he leaps into the air, the closer to the outside edge you are, the less damage you take. This goes for everyone in the party and can save you a medica cast each leap. Just make sure u don't stand in the blinking red area, or you'll fall off as the arena shrinks. Also picking up regen will help you a ton.

Don't you also get a debuff after being broken out of the rock that has to be Esuna'd or is that hard mode only?