Am I coiling it wrong? (a WHM OOM question)

First the introduction,I am a WHM, currently progressing in coil, up to turn 5, my allagan gear consists of only the ring (damn you RNG), and my ilevel 90 equips are as below:
Cleric circlet
Cleric robes
Hero rings
(I like Spell Speed ;_; )

The rest are DL items.

Although I am able to clear up to turn 5, 1 thing I notice is, for every single turn, I will most likely go OOM if there's no mage's ballad. So my question to experienced coil healers is this:
Is this normal? Is there anyway for me to improve my mana management?

I'll list down where my mana goes completely bonkers for each turn as below:
Turn 1) 3 Stacks and above, I am pretty much Cure II ing 80% of the way.
Turn 2) ADS at 50% and below, same reason above
Turn 4) Double Dread, Cure II 100% ;_;

Any advice is highly appreciated!!

I haven't clear turn 4 yet but I think for WHM, skill-wise there is very little to improve.
It's not very likely to overheal much in coil, so the only way to save/generate mana is to use Shroud of Saints and Divine Seal whenever it's up. Maybe also drink one bottle of high level ether?
I mean what else can we possibly do...

Let your scholar do the AoE work on Turn 2. I see a lot of mistakes there....

Hmm currently for turn 2, I'm the raid healer (AoE heals when I judge members' hp is too low to take a laser, healing whoever eats lasers), but most of my time is spent on the tanks as well, and it's the last 50% that gets extremely hectic, I tried using Cure I + freecure proc Cure II combo, but the tank just.....dies if i just heal like that.
I gotta alternate between Cure I and Cure II, and sometimes even double Cure II to ensure the tanks will not die, and this is probably the part where I'll go OOM without the aid of Mage's Ballad.

you are not supposed to handle this alone
You should have a SCH and BRD there to support you MP-wise

You probably overheal a lot.

You probably aren't maintaining uptime on your regen.

You probably aren't using your cooldowns correctly.

You probably aren't using shroud correctly.

You probably aren't reading your other healer correctly.

You probably aren't reading your tanks correctly.

Your tanks are probably not using cooldowns correctly.

Your DPS are probably lacklustre, extending the durations of fights and taking a toll on your mana

Your DPS are probably getting hit by avoidable damage.

Any number of these options can mean you are run out of mana. Scholar AoE healing being superior to WHM AoE healing is a myth, they each are better in different scenarios.

Turn 1 you should have no troubles with tank healing using Cure 1 up until 3 stacks. Then at 3+ stacks, you can get your eye for an eye, virus running back to back. Your tank has cooldowns of his own too. You should be striving for a clean split (0 stacks). Your shroud usage should be around Max-1500 mana. Attune Caduceus' Animation hitting so you can cancel spells, or get the heal in just after damage comes in. DPS Can bait tailswipes to reduce incoming damage.

Turn 2, your tank swaps could be inelegant, your tanks could be taking too much avoidable damage. Players should not be getting hit by piercing lasers. How many stacks do tanks go up to? Generally it's better to get the tank to swap when his stacks fall off, unless a repelling cannons is soon, then it's best to take it straight after a repelling cannons. If it's just a stack-off swap, you need to be a bit more on the ball of who ADS is currently hitting.

I understand that no one person should shoulder all the burden, and I assure you my team's bard and sch is doing a fantastic job (we did clear up to turn 5 :P).
What I am asking is, is there anything else that can be done to improve my mana management on a PERSONAL level :D.

Why don't you want mage ballad?

Well if the bard does not have to Mage Ballad, he can use it on Foe's requiem instead, increasing damage for our mages, and will not reduce his own damage.
And it's more of a personal improvement I wish to attain to better manage my mana resources, rather than a "I cant beat turn X help!!" problem.

1 thing Zezeba pointed out that I'll take note is, reading the bosses' moves, currently I just follow a strict healing rotation, cure I + proc cure II for easy moments, cure I + cure II for oh shit moments, and cure I +Cure II x2 for OH MY GOD moments. But if I can read the enemies attacks, (example, know when a rotor swipe from dreadnought is coming), can precast the appropriate spell ahead of time, but I guess that may take lots off practice + attention .

I have most of my spells on Mouse over macro

this way I can target the boss and see him casting the big moves so I can Q up a cure II

Pretty much knowing the fight typically helps you /expect when s??? about to hit the fan

but the best tip is coordination with your other healer, this is the mp saver right there

To Thunderz,

Why don't you use Focus target (Shift+F) instead? unless you're a ps3 user, then I feel your pain ><
And problem in coil is, those big moves, such as rotor swipe from dreadnought, has no cast time, its similar to Mountain Buster =\

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Thunderz

this way I can target the boss and see him casting the big moves so I can Q up a cure II

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I personally prefer always having my tank as primary target
For the mob attack I changed the chat settings and display only 2 things: party chat and attack the monster is making
So that I can see what he is doing while still having my tank as focus
I am not trusting that /mo healing

It sounds like youre doing it right.
Part of MP management is knowing when to ask for support.
Weather it be more heals from SCH or MP Songs.
Also, try to use Shrout of Saints as much as possible.

I personally use my first SoS at 90% MP. Then at ~70, 50, 30 (asks for MP song at this point), 10.
In turn 4 I can use about 3-4 SoS. I don't really run out of MP or step into the danger zone I would say (~20%) until the 2nd Dread is dead.

For Turn 1 and Turn 2 (down to ADS), I just throw Regen on the Tanks and let the SCH do most of the work.
When things begin to get harder (Cadaceus' split, etc.) then I begin using heals and such.

But not having a BRD for Mana support is something you should look into since it doesn't just help you but others as well.

To DivineAyumi:
How are you using up to 4 SoS in turn 4? I am currently using 3 times throughout the entire fight:

1st time : During 1st dreadnought, use it to regen mana back to full
2nd time : When few seconds b4 last phase hits, to recover mana, as well as reducing emnity of the dreadnought (I am MT healer), so MT can focus more on building aggro for last phase dread.
3rd time : Enrage phase, reducing emnity of the last dreadnought when i am MEDICAAAAAAAAAAAAAing.

Thank you!!

To CalvatE :
We do have a bard who is more than happy to provide us with MP song, its just that, I'm always the 1st that requires his support, so I am looking into ways to better manage my mana, so he can MP song less.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DreamWeaver

To CalvatE :
We do have a bard who is more than happy to provide us with MP song, its just that, I'm always the 1st that requires his support, so I am looking into ways to better manage my mana, so he can MP song less.

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That's always good to do, but we'll pretty much be the class that requires it first unless we're not doing much. TP regenerates so fast and if BLM didn't have Astral Ice, they'd be the ones who need support first.

Don't feel too bad about needing support, tis' better to receive it than not be able to heal.

I think for Turn 1 with the DPS burn, it is an unplanned way to overcome the fight (instead of each group feeding slimes). For this, I think heavier heals will be required as the result of the risk.

And short of carrying a Mega Ether (may be enough MP between Shrouds), I cannot think of anything technique wise AND on the individual level that will let you have more MP during these parts of the fight.

Turn 1:
1st: Time your heal. Boss have motion. If you can pre-cast cure to land after tank get hit, you'll save a lot of MP.
2nd: You can time your Shroud, Divine Seal and PoM. Divine seal + medica2 + regen at 3+ stack help a lot but beware of too many medica2 will result of OOM.
PoM + Cure should also do the trick while Divine seal cooldown.

Turn 2:
We divide our heal between 2 healers, 1 mainly focus on each. While my tank take dmg, other do the raid heal, and the same manner to the other tank as well.

Usually, I use my 1st shroud after after rot. The fight end pretty much quickly if you have melee LB3 after 25% hp. Divine seal + medica2 usually do the rest of the fight after LB for raid heal. so you can focus on tank only after that. and boss will pretty much dead. If no one is dead, or miss silence then I don't need ballad. (base on tank that can avoid most of boss avoidable aoe skill)

Turn 4:
I think basically the same as you, but I have full MP before enrage with shroud ~ 30-50 sec on cooldown ( use after beginning of last phase). Still, I can outlast w/o the need of ballad. Don't know your strat but I don't use medica. I use medica2+cure3 when enrage (last DN ~70-80% hp) and last DN will pretty much dead before the need of shroud (OOM when dead).

Also, our strat might be a bit different at last phase to ease up MP of healer. We use DN+Knight & DN+Soldier on each tank. I heal on DN+Soldier and help throw regen around until enrage to have full MP (after soldier break and knight dead).

The funniest thing is that, our group have 3 bards 1 dragoon but don't let bard sing ballad.

Let the SCH fairy handle dps that get hit occasionally.
Make sure to have general agreement with your SCH when/who you'r supposed to heal and who they heal to not overlap too often.

Once again, having the fairy top off players is the best way to save mana for both you and the scholar, so don't be too quick to jump on that guy which took a single hit and has no aggro on him.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DreamWeaver

To DivineAyumi:
How are you using up to 4 SoS in turn 4? I am currently using 3 times throughout the entire fight:

1st time : During 1st dreadnought, use it to regen mana back to full
2nd time : When few seconds b4 last phase hits, to recover mana, as well as reducing emnity of the dreadnought (I am MT healer), so MT can focus more on building aggro for last phase dread.
3rd time : Enrage phase, reducing emnity of the last dreadnought when i am MEDICAAAAAAAAAAAAAing.

Thank you!!

To CalvatE :
We do have a bard who is more than happy to provide us with MP song, its just that, I'm always the 1st that requires his support, so I am looking into ways to better manage my mana, so he can MP song less.

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My first one is in-between first set of spiders when you just engaged (I use 4 Holys during that)

Honestly your raid group probably just needs more gear and experience. I found that when I first started coil I needed mana song for all the fights. However as we all got more geared and I got used to the incoming damage, I needed it less and less and now we are at the point where our bard will only use foe requiem in turns 1-4 since we no longer require mana song at all whatsoever(except for inbetween the balls pre ADS, but that's a bit different since I am usually dpsing them lol). The biggest difficulty was my tendency to overheal with too many cure 2's at times. Once I overcame this things got a lot easier. The one that took me the longest to stop needing mana song was probably turn 4. I pop shroud at 3 times during that fight. First is wave 1 after holy spam. Second is wave 4 during holy spam, and Last is when/if I feel I need mana again which seems to be a bit random based on the fight.

Try pushing yourself to heal less and extend the time before you need to pop shroud a little more each time. It can be dangerous but with a little experimentation you will get a much more solid understanding of the incoming flow of damage, and if you mess up, you always have benediction to fall back on.

Thanks everybody for their feedback!!
I am slowly but surely reducing my need for Ballad, I guess with more T1~4 clears, the feeling of "I better Cure II or the tank will die!!" will subside :D.
Turn 5 on the other hand.... is a different beast >_>, with virus on each Death Sentence, as well as sacred soil, the tank may still get 1 shot by DS, (tank hp at 6.5k with food, he got sucky drops).
Guess gotta practice on those Just In Time Stone Skin to combat the RNG gods >_>.

Once again thanks everybody for their useful feedback!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DreamWeaver

I'll list down where my mana goes completely bonkers for each turn as below:
Turn 1) 3 Stacks and above, I am pretty much Cure II ing 80% of the way.
Turn 2) ADS at 50% and below, same reason above
Turn 4) Double Dread, Cure II 100% ;_;

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As a WHM mana management, especially over sustained fights is always going to be an issue unless they change the way Shroud works and make it scale with gear. This being said, PIE should be your most important stat after MND. Mulled Tea (HQ if you can afford it) should be your go to food. You should look to pick up your AF2 pants also as it will give you a huge PIE boost. SS is great, I love it, I think it is more beneficial than most people give it credit for, that being said it is not as important to have SS over a larger PIE boost. PIE is currently our only scaling mana regen, and the larger the mana pool we have the longer we can sustain through a fight.

Now to address the issues you are having more specifically.

Turn 1 - You should be able to manage 1-2 stacks with just Cure, and the occasional Cure II. You should not be needing to use your healing cds during this phase. You should also not be dumping to much mana into healing before the split. Obviously, you want to keep your tank alive and people up, but if you enter the split with low mana already you'll usually end up with issues.

At 2 stacks I generally Virus, then Seal + Cure + Cure II + Cure + Cure II is generally enough to keep the tank up with no issues. (This may be different depending on the gear your tank has). Once Seal falls off, I E4E. The reason I generally wait this long is because you don't really need the mitigation until then. I usually even throw a heal or two at the other tank as well.

With your current level of gear you will probably still need a ballad if the dps is not burning down the splits fast enough. Also use Shroud liberally. At 4700 MP or so I usually use Shroud at around 3100 MP. As long as I am not spamming Cure II it is enough of a regen boost to keep me sustained in the fight. Do not call for a ballad unless you are around 1500 MP.

Turn 2 - ADS 50% - Something is really wrong here if you are having to spam Cure II during ADS. The only time you might need to cast multiple Cure II is if the ADS is at 3+ stacks or the Tanks take multiple sources of damage at once. This sounds like you may be overhealing a lot here, or the other healer is not following a good rotation.

If I ever call for a ballad here it is usually at 1200-1500 MP and the BRD will Battle Voice it. Again, liberal use of Shroud is important here as you can usually get 2 Shrouds in during this fight.

Turn 4 - Double Dread. While you can Cure II spam the 2 Dread phase you shouldn't necessarily need to do it. Some of this is going to depend on RNG and how often your tank dodges/blocks. Generally, as soon as the 2 Dreads drop the MT picks up the second Dread then Hallow Grounds. I'll top him off with Cure, then right before Hallow Drops I'll Seal+Regen then E4E him. A Rotation of Cure II, Cure II, Cure while seal is up generally handles any healing issues and will allow me to sneak in a few free Cure IIs. In addition,

I time my Shroud uses so that it is coming off CD right around the time the second Dread drops. If you can time this during the same time as the MT has Hallow up it is the most beneficial, but I wouldn't sweat it if it isn't either. As Seal is falling off I will generally PoM and continue healing, then finally end up rotating to straight Cure II, with an occasional Cure if the tank is topped off. Now, depending on our DPS even with BV Ballad towards the end I am generally near OOM during the pulse phase. However, when our core group is on with all of our top dps, we can actually beat pulses and I usually have plenty of MP by the end.

Just a quick run down of T4 mana management.

P1 - I Cleric Stance + Holy until at around 3100 MP. I swap out - Shroud.
P2 - Seal + Cure, Cure II, Regen, Then Cure with an occasional Cure II when needed. Stoneskin MT right before the Dread drops.
P3 - I solo heal MT after spiders are fed. Seal + Cure, Cure, Cure II rotation. Once you get this timing down it is incredibly easy to heal. Shroud generally comes off CD during this phase. I save it. SCH goes Cleric Stance and DPSs with the occasional Aldo on the MT + EoS.
P4 - I E4E the MT. Pop Shroud once threat is established. BRD Ballads towards very end of the Phase. I am usually nearly topped off.
P5 - I heal MT. Cure, Cure, Cure II (no cds).
P6 - Second Dread drops. Tank Hallows. I Shroud when it is available. I call for BV Ballad at around 1200-1500 MP.

For Turn 4, I'll give more details for our strat that doesn't use any ballad.

P1 - Pop shroud right of the bat, and keep tracking engage time so u won't kill spider too fast. (each phase = 1 min unless u kill faster).
P2 - I let MT tank only knight, dps tank soldier at MT side. I heal OT Knight+Soldier (Seal). MT & DPS is handled by SCH.
P3 - (Seal) Duo heal since our group has no problem with dps. Side note that DN has WS off GCd that might be suck if solo heal (3 attack in a row)
P4 - Holy x2-3 -> Shroud
P5 - (Seal) MT on DN (heal by SCH), DPS tank soldier @ mid OT tank Knight. (I heal both OT & Soldier)
P6 - MT tank DN (P5& Eat Spider) + Knight heal by SCH. OT tank DN (P6 & Eat Spider) + Soldier heal by WHM. Pop shroud after first few heals to reduce aggro & regen some MP + both tank hallowed.
DPS order is LB rook -> soldier + dot Knight -> Knight -> DN (P5) @ MT -> DN (P6) @ OT.
WHM prepare backup Benediction on MT if needed in case SCH screw up. After soldier is down, WHM rest MP with regen on both tanks and cure I only. After DN(P5) is down, everyone stack up at whm and medica2+cure3 when enrage. (shroud is back to pop reduce aggro from cure3)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DreamWeaver

Thanks everybody for their feedback!!
I am slowly but surely reducing my need for Ballad, I guess with more T1~4 clears, the feeling of "I better Cure II or the tank will die!!" will subside :D.
Turn 5 on the other hand.... is a different beast >_>, with virus on each Death Sentence, as well as sacred soil, the tank may still get 1 shot by DS, (tank hp at 6.5k with food, he got sucky drops).
Guess gotta practice on those Just In Time Stone Skin to combat the RNG gods >_>.

Once again thanks everybody for their useful feedback!!

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You always know when Death Sentence is going to hit, so just prep a Stoneskin to land about a second after the attack before she readies Death Sentence (otherwise it won't take effect until AFTER the tank takes the damage). At 6.5k HP, Stoneskin will absorb about 1170 damage.

If you want to upload a video of your gameplay I can look through it and tell you what you're doing wrong.

Thanks Zaft for your input :D.

Well previously we didn't know about pushing Twintania to P2 at a specific timing, so was pretty messed up =\ (IE, Fireball then straight DS, cant precast SS due to medica 2 casting, or....DS happens after a conflag has been burned down, I gotta choose between healing those DOT damage in preparation for next fireball, or prep the tank for DS).

But now with proper push timing, I don't have too much things at once on my plate, and can focus precasting SS for DS :D.

My best suggestion is to work closer with your SCH. As a SCH I will let the WHM know when I can solo heal to let him save MP, he just keeps Regen up in that time. There are lots of times when a WHM can sit back and let the SCH go ham and regen MP, just have to work it out with him as SCH can almost always stay close to max MP.

As for turn specific stuff...

T1, let your SCH handle heavy healing till the split, at that point your MP should last long enough
T2, our group personally has the WHM heal the aoe dmg, but he heals it with Cure/Regen, not Medica, and I focus on whichever tank is tanking. This usually goes until 25% or close to it, at this point WHM starts big aoes/cure 2 and MP shouldn't be an issue before the fight is over.
T4, this one is mostly communicating with each other to let the WHM know when he can take downtime. Especially at the end when it is just the one dreadnought before the AoE starts.
T5, same as above.

My advice is SHROUD!!!! Use it whenever it's available, it regens MP quickly. Also, don't be afraid to make a mage's ballad macro if you're still having problems with MP.

Btw on turn 5 as well, we can't really afford to save mp there except during the quiet phases.

Just a handy tip for turn 5. A perfectly timed cure 2 on death sentence(start casting when ds is 50%-70% casted), will result in the full cure 2 being applied after the ds hits. It's a great way to pop your tank up fast. Once you get the timing down you can even sometimes get a stoneskin to land right before the cast of ds followed by the cure 2 for maximum mitigation.

Another tip for when those ds's are poorly timed with conflags, is to sure cast a medica 2 during the fireball so that they land at almost the same time. This ensures that whoever goes in conflag won't die, and gives you time to focus on the tank for ds.

If possible, try to record your runs and in your spare time go back to take notice if your reactions/behaviors if you want to make some improvements.

To Vladimus:
I read about the "Just in Time" Cure for DS, but seems unable to pull it off, (i usually start my Cure II cast around 55~60%), best I seen is tank HP go down, then immediately go back up due to my heal, and it's still affected by the Infirmity debuff =\.
2nd tip I am aware of it as well, thanks!! :)

To Fyreus:
I would love to do so, but I am already averaging 23 FPS with my laptop, I think if I start recording, the FPS will be hit so bad that it'll be unplayable, I'll surely take your advice if I manage to get a better rig in the future.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fyreus

If possible, try to record your runs and in your spare time go back to take notice if your reactions/behaviors if you want to make some improvements.

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This is exactly the reason I started streaming my games.

I was able to correct a lot of mistakes, such as:
-Not casting regen at all times.
-When is good to cast regen and when is not.
-How often to cast regen.
-Was regen my best choice of ability or could I have used another skill instead?

Same rule applies to all my other skills.