Any end-game healers use a controller?

Heya! I mainly play tank, which is very easy to play with a controller, DPS is similarly simple. Healing, on the other hand, looks like it'd be a much bigger challenge due to targeting, as you'd need a rather complex set of macros to be able to reliably target as quickly as someone using mouse-over macros.

For my secondary job I'd much rather go healer than DPS, as I never enjoy playing DPS, but I also want to be able to play with my 360 pad since I just find this game in particular much more comfortable with one.

My question is simple: Any of you do Binding Coil healing with a controller? If so, mind sharing some of your macro setups? I'm aware that thanks to the very long GCD, you can usually keep up, but for specific instances that isn't always the case, and I'd like to be as efficient as possible as to not hold anyone back. (For example, it always comes as a tremendous shock to people when they hear I use a controller, rather than "Oh, THAT explains it." I'd like to keep things like that.)

I'm WHM and I got down Caduceus now, I know it's nothing, but it's still the Coil.
Well, I just need my hotbar, I have one for attacking and one for focused healing.
I have Swiftcast and Virus for the worst moments, but with some coordination you can manage to heal everything well.
I think SCH is a bit harder though, due to the pet managing...
If you want to do the healer, just remember two things:
1. Don't underestimate the work you do, if a dps fails you just deal a bit less damage, if a healer fail the whole party dies.
2. Don't panic, just learn step by step and find your own way to heal.
And please, don't do like some assh*les I encountered on DF, that have some other class at lv50 and don't want to leave their precedent job, like lv50 BLMs that join dungeons as WHMs and dps mobs making everyone die XD

I'm tremendously familiar with MMO healing as it's been my primary role in MMOs for years and years now, but with this game in particular if I want to do it, I have to be able to do it with my controller, and if I'm gonna do it with my controller, I have to get it absolutely right or not try at all.

Healing with a controller is laughably easy. Just press up or down on the DPAD to select the members in your party and Voila! You only have the option of healing the people currently partied with you doing this method, so you don't need to scroll past enemines, pets etc and waste valuable healing time.

Now healing people in the open world who aren't partied with you, thats a different story.

I think the issue may be toggling. It is a bit tough for me...I keep a potion and ether on my healing bar in case I need em...I also have my DoTs and stun...rest I have heals. It's hard to pick which 16 to have up for the controller and which to have to the backup....I turn off the menu bar when my weapon is drawn so I just have 2 bars.
Do you keep swiftcast on main bar or second bar. (second bar is protect, raise, and things not used too often.)

I found healing with a controller very difficult. So I use a mouse and keyboard and use mouse over macros for healing. I also use razor synapse to key bind my pets embrace with adlo and physick so when I heal whoever I'm targeting is getting embraced while I heal another target. I also use synapse when using Selene. I alternate her two spells with a wait time of 31seconds. I couldn't do this easily if I was controller only. I found my reaction time lacking.

I heal w/ WHM on gamepad.

Really if you are fine using it on other classes you will be fine using it while healing. Really the biggest thing is to remember is that if you have to change targets do it while a spell is casting or the GCD is ticking away (usually the same thing).

One thing I strongly recommend is to keep long-cooldown abilities off your main bar, and use the HUD customization to enable one of the horizontal or vertical bars and put your long cooldown abilities on there. While you won't be able to hit them there while using a gamepad, you can use this to see the cooldowns when you aren't on that 2nd bar.

I have just 1 bar with cooldown and non-cooldown abilities, I don't have problems :3
But, as I said earlier, everyone has his own way to heal, if you're wont to this kind of videogame I'm sure you'll easily heal with a gamepad.

As a Scholar who uses a controller, I know the importance of your hotkey lay-out.

Personally I keep my first row for pet stance / heal moves. I find it helps best though if you keep 3 or 4 hotkeys the same no matter which hotkey bar you're on. Such as "Sprint, Cleric Stance, Swiftcast, target enemy." Those are the one's I find most useful spread out between the bars.

I feel controller SCH is at a disadvantage compared to KB+M just for precision+speed when aiming Shadow Flare, Sacred Soil, and Place. But in all other regards it doesn't matter.

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Originally Posted by YanDere

1. Don't underestimate the work you do, if a dps fails you just deal a bit less damage, if a healer fail the whole party dies.

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I know for certain in turn 4 if a dps anybody fails it will kill the entire party.

BUT I DIGRESS!

Healing on a controller is stupid easy except for healing people outside of your party. I prefer it over kb mouse always.

so far, at lvl 21 conj, i have no issues healing with the controller. i also use the 360 controller and love it. as one other person said, if you have to switch targets do it during casting. other than that its easy peasy.

My setup uses two cross action bars bars and one extra hotbar. The cross action bars both have all healing spells, aetherflow, and energy drain on the right side so I always have access to them. The left of the first bar is defensive cd and utility spells and manual embrace. The second bar has all dps spells(all macros) on the left. The extra hotbar has both fairy summons, limitbreak, a macro to set my focus to my targets target, swiftcast and surecast(macros), and some non combat abilities (return, teleport, etc).

The macros I use are as follow: Set my focus to my targets target (generally the tanks target). Summons with swiftcast.. Resurrect with swiftcast. Virus and all dps spells cast on my focus and my target if I have no focus.
I always set my focus to the boss so I can see his casts bar but can still freely heal the party. Same goes for why I macro to attack my focus. Some may prefer to just attack their targets target in their macros.

I do no pet management besides manual embrace (turned pet bar off) but could add place if needed. I generally only manual embrace when the situation calls for it. Otherwise I leave eos to herself and she does perfectly fine.

Oh yea thanks for reminding me Kafziel, if you are going to be playing SMN or SCH for the love of god turn off the pet bar. It is a gigantic pain the ass as it messes with your R1 rotations, and not having to deal with it is worth the trouble of finding a way to squeeze pet actions on your bars.

If you get used to hitting R1 + button/direction for swapping to a bar manually you can just do that for your pet actions while removing that set from your R1 alone rotation.

my main is whm and im using gamepad, im up to Turn 5 now, w/o any problems or slacking^^

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Originally Posted by Kydat

I know for certain in turn 4 if a dps anybody fails it will kill the entire party.

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Oh well, if you talk about BCoB, or even Titan p4, obviously dps can't fail.
But even in Sastasha, if the healer fails everyone dies, that's what I meant :3

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Originally Posted by m3eansean

Healing with a controller is laughably easy. Just press up or down on the DPAD to select the members in your party and Voila! You only have the option of healing the people currently partied with you doing this method, so you don't need to scroll past enemines, pets etc and waste valuable healing time.

Now healing people in the open world who aren't partied with you, thats a different story.

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Want to know how long would it take to switch from top to bottom...Because during coil turn 2, both tank need to pass aggro constantly. And if ur tank not super well geared , 2-3 second delay would kill him.

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Originally Posted by Krisstina

Want to know how long would it take to switch from top to bottom...Because during coil turn 2, both tank need to pass aggro constantly. And if ur tank not super well geared , 2-3 second delay would kill him.

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just re arrange party member in your list > problem solved

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Originally Posted by ebuu

just re arrange party member in your list > problem solved

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Quote.
I always put me-tanks-other healer-dps and I get to who I want in less than a second.
I'd like to move my self too, though.

I do and it works fine! :)

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Originally Posted by Krisstina

Want to know how long would it take to switch from top to bottom...Because during coil turn 2, both tank need to pass aggro constantly. And if ur tank not super well geared , 2-3 second delay would kill him.

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Really? If you rearrange your party list it is 2-3 taps of the D-pad to target a tank if you aren't targeting anything. If you have both tanks next to each other and are targeting one already you only have to hit D-pad once to switch between the two. I'm sure anyone playing this game and manages to beat titan and get into coil can hit a freaking button once fast enough to do the job, especially since you can switch tanks while you are mid-cast.

http://i.imgur.com/RrdB8vP.png

This is my hotkey setup atm. Each time a party is formed, I line up the healers on the top of the party list, and the tanks at the very bottom. To me heal priority is something like Me/Second Healer-> Tank-> Everyone else. So I line up like that which allows a simple 1-3 taps of up or down really quickly midcasting to switch. Cleric Stance next to Presence of Mind for DPS race mechanics. Limit and Return on the right side next to each other since those are rarely used. Middle is filler in general, Swiftcast being for my other hotkeybars as a solo DPS. Virus, SureCast and Eye for an Eye on that bar as the last useful skills to have around, that I can't fit on my hotkeys.

As for Holy, I have another identical Hotkey bar setup but I basically switched out Stone 2 for Holy, and thats two presses on my L1 button to switch to that bar, used mainly in like WP or any place AoEing is viable.

Cleared Coil up to Turn 5.

I think the best piece of advice I can give that hasn't already been given is if you use 2 or more crosshotbar sets (which you most likely will have to), place important spells like cure, esuna etc. on both sets in the same place so if you need to react fast you won't need to worry which set you're on to give out emergency heals.

I use a controller and it work fine in coil. I encountered a lot of frustration trying to target people not in my party for fates. Much of this was solved when I went into character settings to change my targeting options. I still scroll through a lot of players but I'm not targeting mobs or pets when trying to heal them.

I main WHM and am on a controller.

I have gotten to T4 and can beat T1 - T3 and heal in it np and no one ever even comes close to getting hurt when i go to heal them, I would think its simplier to heal using a gamepad cause if u set up your social party list like i do i just have to push down on the d pad 1 time before we start the battle and never even have to mess with it ever again for healing the main tank.

Also muscle memory plays a big role in it to, cause i am at the point where i can do all my WHM abilities without even having to look at where they are and know exactly what combo's i need to push in order to properly heal ppl.

So when it comes down to it i think there are 2 things that a WHM with a controller needs in order to play WHM as good if not better than WHM's on a kb and mous

1.) Set up your party list (group the healers, DD'ers and tanks together and put them in order from highest priority of needing heals)
2.) Just play your class and work up your muscle memory to where you don't even have to think about what you have to do and press to heal ppl.

The biggest tip I can give to anybody having problems with healing using a controller is REORGANIZE YOUR PARTY LIST. You can do this by going into the party members menu, selecting a person and then using the up/down arrows at the bottom of the window. For the longest time I healed without doing this and when I found out about it everything was so much easier. I'm currently in Turn 4 and find healing with a controller very very easy in comparison to keyboard.

If you haven't checked it out yet. Also take a look at the "Custom Target Filters" options. By default they are turned off but they are really really powerful once you get good at them.

I can not heal without my controller... I'm a failure without it.

http://i.imgur.com/N2o6trC.png

I am on Coil 5, I main both healer but right now I am more in to SCH

SCH has 3 Hotkey bars, WHM has 2 Hotkey bars
I use macro to get rid of one bar (depends on what fairy I use), I control my fairy even embrace it self

Bar 1 : Selene
Bar 2 : Eos
Bar 3 : DPS / Summon / Pet control

When I summon EoS Selene bar disappears , Vice versa
I have (hot key bar 7 8 9) on left corner, these has focus target / sprint / Sustain / Bane (surcast only on t5) / Heel ( Pet skill ) / SS / LB / reset macro / protect
such skills that are very institutional

every dps skill (include virus) are macro'ed so I dont have to switch target (/tt) but also has (/t) macro Just in case I have to target it self (turn 5)
I never had any problem solo healing Garuda & Titan, I do admit I dont do that well on Turn 5 but its not because I use controller,
personally I think controller suits better for healer than keyboard

Macro I use for summon

/macroicon "Summon II"
/chotbar share 2 on
/chotbar share 1 off
/action "Summon II" <me>

/macroicon "Summon"
/chotbar share 1 on
/chotbar share 2 off
/action "Summon" <me>

Macro on DPS

/macroicon "Ruin"
/ac "Ruin" <tt>
/ac "Ruin" <t>

(<tt> targets what you targeted are targeting, <t> targets what you targeted )

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Originally Posted by Xbob42

I'm tremendously familiar with MMO healing as it's been my primary role in MMOs for years and years now, but with this game in particular if I want to do it, I have to be able to do it with my controller, and if I'm gonna do it with my controller, I have to get it absolutely right or not try at all.

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It's all about what you are more comfortable with. KB and mouse players don't like controllers, and players familiar with controllers often don't like KB and mouse. it's all about your finger/button memory. If you are already more comfortable with a controller, then you will have no problem. Most of end game is more about understanding the battle mechanics and being with an organized party. And that's not even all of end game. Some of it is very easy.

PS3, there's some issues with switching hotbars and using an ability the split instant the hotbar is switched. You may have to tap the shoulder button an additional time. For Coil, IF you're a White Mage, I would recommend throwing things like Aero, Aero II, Stone II, and Fluid Aura off your Coil hotbar.

As others have mentioned, using the Directional Pad up and down will cycle through party members in range.

It's an acquired taste to be sure and some of us may have gotten used to it over the last few months, so it may seem easier now than once was.

I use a gamepad to heal coil and what not and it becomes second nature after awhile .. I love it personally

I play on pc with the ps3 controller as healer. It can take a little while to remember what button combinations do what once you have all the actions and abilities but once you do, it feels more comfortable than a keyboard to me atleast.