Tips for Healing in CT

Because I'm really, really tired of watching healers faceplant into the floor for stupid reasons. I'll admit that solo healing CT is a lot more entertaining than using Medica II and afking for 30 seconds, but come on, a lot of this stuff is basic and not difficult.


Valefor's Tail Swipe can be Esuna/Leeched.
Should the tanks be positioning them properly? Yes, but in the event that you have a troll or one of the tanks is just outright bad, immediately Esuna as many people as you can save, top yourself off quickly, and then heal everyone else back up. You have no excuse to be dying to the DoT, and stop trying to power heal through it.

Bone Dragon applies Disease shortly after pull and it can be Esuna/Leeched.
It's amazing and sad how many people leave disease up on the MT. You can power heal through it but why bother? Stop being lazy.

Stop spamming Medica II.
This is for the WHMs. You only need to Medica II once and then Medica once more if needed (it usually isn't). In particular, do not Medica II right before the eyes on bone dragon or the iron giant on Acheron spawn.

One healer can DPS on Atomos.
You really don't need two healers for this. One dedicated healer or two half-heal, half-DPS healers is more than enough. Alternate Regen/Adloquium/Stoneskin and you're good to go.

Magic Pot at Thanatos can be full healed with just two Lustrates.
This is for the SCHs. If, for whatever reason, you neglect to heal your pot normally, then you can double Lustrate it to break the tether. If you have a SCH in your party and your pot gets chained all the way to Thanatos, that SCH is bad and should feel bad.

Behemoth (A): Don't stand near the comets when the Iron Giant is up.
The comets will periodically explode and burn anyone nearby. Don't take unnecessary damage, please.

Behemoth (B): Comet Burn can be Esuna/Leeched.
Same deal as with Valefor's Tail Swipe. You have no excuse to be dying to the DoT, which shouldn't be on you to begin with.

Virus Acheron at the start of each phase.
His first few attacks seem to chunk hard. Be prepared for that damage, especially if the tank isn't well geared. After those few hits, the rest of Acheron's attacks are weak and he spends half the time channeling anyways.

(WHM Holy and then) step off the platform after Ancient Flare goes off.
You can stun the giant, and then run out of the way in case your tanks don't turn the Iron Giant to avoid the cleave.

Acheron always uses Quake after Megiddo Flame and Quake III after Moonfall Slash.
Pre-cast your Medica/Medica II/Succors please. People shouldn't be dying to the hands because they got grabbed at 500 hp because you took 5 seconds to react.



Valefor's Confusion and Comet Burn are the two that annoy me the most. So many healers just sit there trying to heal through it and let everyone else die when all it takes is a few Esuna/Leeches to save everyone.

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Originally Posted by Nailkita

Please keep your Magic Pots Focus Targeted so you can help out if the other healer is otherwise occupied.

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To add to this, you can focus target Acheron as well to see which attack is coming up - it's useful even outside of CT (e.g. Hydra). You can also FT your MT or OT if your party isn't doing anything big (e.g. Bone Dragon, Behemoth if both your tanks are on towers).

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Originally Posted by reality_check

If you're an Scholar -- keep shadowflare down on behemoth 100% of the time. There probably isn't a summoner doing it and he's one of the few bosses in the games that can be affected by slow (there are other crystal tower bosses too, but behemoth is the most important one for this as tanks really don't die on other fights.)

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I like using medica 2 in fights like behemoth, bomb, archeon because i can then go full dps. Dont remember ever getting big aggro problem nor oom

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Originally Posted by Hysterior

I like using medica 2 in fights like behemoth, bomb, archeon because i can then go full dps. Dont remember ever getting big aggro problem nor oom

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Medica II by itself is fine. Spamming Medica II when you just applied the AoE regen is stupid. I swear half the WHMs I get stuck with don't even have Medica on their skillbars.

If the tanks are good, they'll pick up the adds quickly Medica II or not, but that's leaving a lot to chance and makes things unnecessarily more difficult for the tanks. It's just bad practice. Don't even get me started on the WHMs that use Medica II right before a pull as if they're SCHs.

Also, full dps during atomos. Dont stay there waiting for damage to heal.

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Originally Posted by Lyrinn

Behemoth (A): Don't stand near the comets when the Iron Giant is up.
The comets will periodically explode and burn anyone nearby. Don't take unnecessary damage, please.

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Yes, please.

I don't think it's strictly periodic though. I think what happens is that Iron Giant has a ranged attack, and it's when that attack hits a comet that there's AoE damage+burn.


Regarding not casting Medica 2, I don't have an issue with that. OTs who are bad at pulling are going to be bad at pulling. Good tanks can pull adds off of you before you're even touched, regardless of whether or not you're the first to pull aggro with a HoT. This applies to any fight I've seen, so far.

I've take time to understand that you can heal and raise others teams via the alliance menu , and it's really the best thing i've managed to , so to upgrade the chance of survie ^^ .
And Yeah on atomos just cast regen an full dps on adds, i love this boss.
On behemot ,just cast regen on towers tanks ,hop medica 2(^^) and switch dps . (then recast regen, also on mt/ot if need , dps again , hide, med 2 , etc.. )

On the Thantos thing, I usually handle it fine with lustrates, but it seems lately tanks have been pulling thantos over to one side beside Pot A, and good lord, if the pot is next to thantos please help, I burned through 6 lustrates and was stuck spamming adolquium/physic to try and save it and received no help from the other healer.

Please keep your Magic Pots Focus Targeted so you can help out if the other healer is otherwise occupied. Lately it seems like tanks are ignoring the adds leaving them on healers, and the pots are dying more often, the last 2 weeks of CT I'm amazed thantos gets downed as there's usually only my team's pot left alive and then just barely.

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Originally Posted by Nailkita

Please keep your Magic Pots Focus Targeted so you can help out if the other healer is otherwise occupied. Lately it seems like tanks are ignoring the adds leaving them on healers, and the pots are dying more often, the last 2 weeks of CT I'm amazed thanatos gets downed as there's usually only my team's pot left alive and then just barely.

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This exactly. I've actually stopped healing my party for the most part during Thanatos now and usually leave it up to the other healer to handle because I know that pots are going to die otherwise. I just run marathons around the outside ring of the stage to make sure none of the pots are dead yet. Sometimes I see nearly dead pots hanging out right beside thana and no heals are dropping on it and i feel like facepalming. I know you need to heal your team but you shouldn't be ignoring basic fight mechanics in the mean time. ><

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Originally Posted by Nailkita

Please keep your Magic Pots Focus Targeted so you can help out if the other healer is otherwise occupied. Lately it seems like tanks are ignoring the adds leaving them on healers, and the pots are dying more often, the last 2 weeks of CT I'm amazed thantos gets downed as there's usually only my team's pot left alive and then just barely.

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That's a good one. I forgot to list it because I focus target everything so it's second nature to me. I'll add it to the list if you don't mind.

This one hardly even bares mentioning, but as a SCH you can bump up your damage by a fair amount in Atomos (which saves the tank almost as much trouble as healing does) by placing your fairly about 3/4ths of the way toward Atomos. She doesn't need to be on the platform, so why leave her there? You can then micro her, or just leave her on auto (she'll pick up the piddling damage your damage dealers are taking even on auto and even keep the tank up without any outside help in my experience) and focus more on taking down the adds with the rest of the back group.

Could you give tips about when and when not use regen? It may be very useful since the maps are big and people may be out of reach, tanks away from each other, and tanks won't lose aggro easily, but the abuse can also be dangerous in some circumstances (attract aggro from Bone Dragon, or from Giants, Nemesis,...)

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Originally Posted by JonBigwood

Could you give tips about when and when not use regen? It may be very useful since the maps are big and people may be out of reach, tanks away from each other, and tanks won't lose aggro easily, but the abuse can also be dangerous in some circumstances (attract aggro from Bone Dragon, or from Giants, Nemesis,...)

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In what situation would you ever get hate from the Bone Dragon as a white mage? I keep a Regen on the MT at Bone Dragon and at Behemoth at all times. Many times I see no Regen on the MT except for mine, and many times when I MT these fights I see no Regens on me at all, so I'm sure the tank will appreciate it. Aside from that, I use Regen on people that were out of reach of Medica 2 if/when I use it (usually at behemoth), Regen on the MT in my party during Allagan Bomb (not necessarily 100% of the time), and I cast Regen on any MP sponges in my party that inexplicably run into every AoE. The only other situation I can think of is someone needing cures, but I have to move out of some AoE (since Regen is instant and I can cast it while moving).

I use Regen all the time in CT and never take on hate. It's perfect for a lot of the situations in CT, especially at Bone Dragon and Behemoth (along with Medica II).

The only times I can think of to not use Regen would be on tanks who are about to mob up all of the homunculi or valars in the first two rooms.. Wait until after the names turn red, then cast it.

Two things I've found:

WHM
On the West Path, as soon as a tank gathers the elementals and the valar, you have one of the better AoE damage spells in the game. Get your hate on. And for most pulls, there is no earthly reason to not pop Cleric's at the start, toss a few Aeros, and go back to healing.

SCH
Shadow Flare's slow effect is noticeable, even if the spell's dot from a scholar isn't. If none of the SMN are casting it and you don't think you'll need Sacred Soil, put the mob in a snowglobe.

Honestly, the only time I can think of that Sacred Soil is useful in Acheron's Moonfall Slash, because of the Quake III that follows. The rest of the time that the party takes a large enough spike of damage to make SS more efficient than Lustrate, the party's taking damage that a) can be avoided (Meteor), or b) shouldn't be happening (Platinals, Allagan Napalm).

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Originally Posted by Lyrinn

Magic Pot at Thanatos can be full healed with just two Lustrates.
This is for the SCHs. If, for whatever reason, you neglect to heal your pot normally, then you can double Lustrate it to break the tether. If you have a SCH in your party and your pot gets chained all the way to Thanatos, that SCH is bad and should feel bad.

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This, oh this so much. I hate when I'm in party with a SCH and have to heal spam the pot myself...wasting time and mana I could use to heal the party, while maybe the scholar is doing nothing or just healing the party. Please, if a scholar is in the party whm shouldn't be the one ehaling the pot possibly.

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Originally Posted by Lyrinn

Behemoth (A): Don't stand near the comets when the Iron Giant is up.
The comets will periodically explode and burn anyone nearby. Don't take unnecessary damage, please.

Behemoth (B): Comet Burn can be Esuna/Leeched.
Same deal as with Valefor's Tail Swipe. You have no excuse to be dying to the DoT, which shouldn't be on you to begin with.

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So frustrating as a healer seeing someone get the burn so you esuna it off only to have it reappear a couple seconds later, because they didn't move away.

I normally identify the SCH as the main pot healer (whether I'm on sch or whm) and focustarget it at the very least while using ss and adlo.

Also, though it hasn't been said here, I would like to clarify the point that comet burns can only be removed from players, not the comets themselves. I know that wasn't anyone's idea here, I'd just like the clarification.

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Originally Posted by MagusVandel

Also, though it hasn't been said here, I would like to clarify the point that comet burns can only be removed from players, not the comets themselves. I know that wasn't anyone's idea here, I'd just like the clarification.

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I really wish you could Dispel and Heal comets :P

On Behemoth, if you get aggro on an IG as a healer, don't run all over the area getting comets destroyed. Go straight to the OT and give them time to get it off you.

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Originally Posted by Vivi_Bushido

I forget the names of the demons themselves; but on the Allagan Bomb fight right before Behemoth, I've been seeing tanks get poisoned; and nobody is using Esuna to cure them.

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Sadly I've noticed this isn't exclusive to that fight/CT. Esuna/Leeches, use it please!

Also, I am a firm believer that all WHMs should have Regen on the MT at all times. I've yet to see anyone taking hate for it. Particularly in the Behe fight, pop Regen on the tank!

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Originally Posted by Nyaanyaa

In what situation would you ever get hate from the Bone Dragon as a white mage?

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Speaking as a Tank, you usually don't actually get hate (barring something VERY wrong happening) but what happens is that the MT is a PLD and uses Shield Swipe.

The Pacify effect causes issues with the Bone Dragon's AI - namely the "Cast a ranged AoE ground patch on a random target" ability. The dragon can't use the ranged ability due to being pacified, but it still knows that it should be attempting to attack that randomly-picked target... so the result is that the dragon happily ignores the MT and runs away to use a melee autoattack on someone halfway across the map. The MT actually still has hate, and the dragon will run back to them a few seconds later... but to someone not keeping a close eye on the hate display it looks just like sudden aggro loss.

Also, the more conscientious CT healers amongst you might want to take a quick glance over this - The bone dragon fight has a particularly nasty mechanic to watch out for in the last tanking phase called "Chaos Breath". (the TL;DR version is that the MT will suddenly take an amount equal to 70% of their current maximum HP shortly after you see the boss cast Evil Eye, so be sure to get them well topped up. Happens once every 30 seconds on that phase!) :)

gotta say, a 9k+ WAR with six Regens on him (yes, it works cross-party) is a thing of absolute beauty.

CT as a healer is painstakingly boring, I don't even get why people need this, they must be really really really bad. I mean don't get me wrong I've encountered some people who are really bad. Healing parties that can't heal their main tank is just way more likely. Like having two healers but for some reason they can't heal the MT through KB; when two good healers can heal the MT and the Iron Giant easily, not even well geared maybe mostly ilvl 70.

Only thing i've really learned from CT is when your a white mage on bone dragon save shroud of saints because tanks and dps will leave you to die once you pull skelly's or even the floating eyes when dps is slow.

Today i went into CT for the first time as bard to find how bad healers are at their job...
KB fight - healers used cure II on low damaged party members and used medica II multiple times instead of swapping to cure III or medica I once the tick was applied and was out of MP within a matter of minutes while i got no heals and died from the electric floor.

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Originally Posted by zaviermhigo

CT as a healer is painstakingly boring, I don't even get why people need this, they must be really really really bad. I mean don't get me wrong I've encountered some people who are really bad. Healing parties that can't heal their main tank is just way more likely. Like having two healers but for some reason they can't heal the MT through KB; when two good healers can heal the MT and the Iron Giant easily, not even well geared maybe mostly ilvl 70.

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I've been leveling BRD lately, and I can say there are a lot of bad healers out there, which is absolutely frustrating as I'm leveling because I give them advice on how to heal better and they ignore me - because what would a DPS know about healing :rolleyes: - and then they expect Mage's Ballad 2 minutes into a boss fight. My options are either to wipe by not giving them MB or give them their mana crutch and feed their bad habits. CT is no exception.

As a sch and our awesome mana management I would promote that if you see another group dying - go ahead and run over and pick them up/raise them. (Especially their healers.) It can save a wipe from happening.
Also don't be greedy on heals. Heal other tanks.

I actually was in a group today on my dd and a SCH healer in my PT was joking that the other grps tank was dying on bone dragon. (He was MTing it.) Please just because your group is not doing anything, do heal others. Especially on behemoth. v.v;
Makes me want to be on my healer 24/7 to help other groups live on. lol

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Originally Posted by Sirantha

Sadly I've noticed this isn't exclusive to that fight/CT. Esuna/Leeches, use it please!

Also, I am a firm believer that all WHMs should have Regen on the MT at all times. I've yet to see anyone taking hate for it. Particularly in the Behe fight, pop Regen on the tank!

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With either WHM or SCH I usually focus target the MT for the fights with a single boss. Like you say on BK even with only 3 WHM that's a 450 potency heal every 3 seconds. So definitely a huge help for the party with the MT

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Originally Posted by Hysterior

Also, full dps during atomos. Dont stay there waiting for damage to heal.

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You're out of range if you're on the platform. No range attack goes far enough. Which is why the tank has to pull adds a little closer.

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Originally Posted by LunarEmerald

You're out of range if you're on the platform. No range attack goes far enough. Which is why the tank has to pull adds a little closer.

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What he probably means is full DPS on the adds. As a WHM, you can spam Stone II in Cleric Stance and use Stoneskin after every add kill. If the tank does take a fair amount of damage after Stoneskin is broken, turn off CS, use Divine Seal + Regen (+ one Cure if necessary) and go back into Cleric Stance. As a SCH, you can do the same thing with Stoneskin but your fairy should be able to solo heal.

I chose to be conservative in my original post, but if the tank is geared and both healers are comfortable with Cleric Stance dancing, both healers can go full time DPS.

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Originally Posted by Maelwys

The dragon can't use the ranged ability due to being pacified, but it still knows that it should be attempting to attack that randomly-picked target... so the result is that the dragon happily ignores the MT and runs away to use a melee autoattack on someone halfway across the map. The MT actually still has hate, and the dragon will run back to them a few seconds later... but to someone not keeping a close eye on the hate display it looks just like sudden aggro loss.

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Interesting! I think the dragon does not choose randomly, and the Giants also don't, at first when I started to use regen liberally (after usually not using it) I started to get attacked by Giants in King Behe, and sometimes (very seldom) the Bone Dragon run up to me, hit, and back to his place. Nemesis and Thanatos also target you much more if you happily cast regen a lot. When I cast regen with care, only when I think it is needed, this happens much less or does not happen.

I came across another interesting one last night, when queued for a Duty Finder CT (me on my SCH, queued with a WAR friend)

On the "Corridor" fight; We were on Party C and Party B wiped twice in a row.
On the next attempt, my Warrior friend joined party B to help out; so I sent Eos in with him.

It turns out that the corridors are close enough together that you can place a fairy in the next corridor and manually tell it to spam heals on the other alliance party's members - it'll be outside of "Rouse" range but not out of range for you to issue ability commands. Since with the latest patch you can now tell your fairy to cast Embrace on non-party members, this means that technically a really good SCH can main-heal two corridors at once.

I ended up getting my fairy to main-heal their party (via Embrace spam on their tank who I kept focus-targeted, plus the occasional Whispering Dawn) whilst I main-healed our party (via normal targetting and Physick/Adlo/Lustrate). If I'd been a bit more practised I would've probably gotten away with using Cleric Stance too... :p

I go full out DPS during Atomos and I would recommend both healers doing so. Just heal with Stoneskin and you'll be fine. If you have more than 2 melee DPS it will offset the challenge.

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Originally Posted by Kako0404

I go full out DPS during Atomos and I would recommend both healers doing so. Just heal with Stoneskin and you'll be fine. If you have more than 2 melee DPS it will offset the challenge.

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Scholars have this easy. I just sit in Cleric Stance, place the fairy within range of where the tank pulls, and let her heal. I use Lustrate to help out the fairy if absolutely necessary, since Lustrate doesn't require dropping Cleric Stance for full effectiveness. As an added bonus, if DPS is slow enough on the adds so that the previous one is still alive when the next appears then I use all 3 DoTs and bane them to the new add, and then refreshing any that are about to fall off on the new add. If DPS is fast and they're dropping before the next add spawns, then I just Bio once and Ruin spam each add. And obviously maintain Shadowflare wherever the tank likes to pull to.

WHM can cast regen on the pots, too. I haven't healed CT myself but my WHM friends say tossing regen on the pots helps them save a lot of mana.

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Originally Posted by Discover

Today i went into CT for the first time as bard to find how bad healers are at their job...

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Bad healers? More like bad DPSes out there.

Played more than 10 times in CT last night, seen enough DPSes and even ranged one taking obscene amount of damage and making the healers heal their ass off and ressing them until almost OOM.

When you got a good party (that doesn't take damage for nothing) and if you're lucky to pair up with another WHM (I'm playing WHM), keeping the whole team up with 2x Medica II = AFK and have some finger food lol. If paired with a SCH, make sure whole team is stone skined + galvanized should be good enough.

Some great tips, some ones that need to be revised.

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Originally Posted by Lyrinn

Stop spamming Medica II.

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Medica 2 spam is great in crystal tower. It has 5 yalms more radius (10 yards total more reach) than medica. If you're not running out of MP or pulling, you should probably be using Medica 2 in crystal tower because the battle fields are so large.

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Originally Posted by Lyrinn

Acheron always uses Quake after Megiddo Flame and Quake III after Moonfall Slash.
Pre-cast your Medica/Medica II/Succors please. People shouldn't be dying to the hands because they got grabbed at 500 hp because you took 5 seconds to react.

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Succor won't absorb any of Acheron's AoEs. Neither will Stoneskin. Not sure if it's a bug or intended.

My personal tip:

If you're an Scholar -- keep shadowflare down on behemoth 100% of the time. There probably isn't a summoner doing it and he's one of the few bosses in the games that can be affected by slow (there are other crystal tower bosses too, but behemoth is the most important one for this as tanks really don't die on other fights.)

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Originally Posted by reality_check

Medica 2 spam is great in crystal tower. It has 5 yalms more radius (10 yards total more reach) than medica. If you're not running out of MP or pulling, you should probably be using Medica 2 in crystal tower because the battle fields are so large.

Succor won't absorb any of Acheron's AoEs. Neither will Stoneskin. Not sure if it's a bug or intended.

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Yup, Medica 2 is awesome in CT. As long as your team is not a complete flop, if you happen to have 2 WHM, just both WHM keep Media 2 up on the team and the healers can practically AFK for a while.

As for Succor/SS, noticed that for Archeon too but I can't recall which attack of his actually can break the SS.

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Originally Posted by Ooshima

Yup, Medica 2 is awesome in CT. As long as your team is not a complete flop, if you happen to have 2 WHM, just both WHM keep Media 2 up on the team and the healers can practically AFK for a while.

As for Succor/SS, noticed that for Archeon too but I can't recall which attack of his actually can break the SS.

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Only his physical attacks will be absorbed by stoneskin. All his AoEs will bypass shields.

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Originally Posted by reality_check

Medica 2 spam is great in crystal tower. It has 5 yalms more radius (10 yards total more reach) than medica. If you're not running out of MP or pulling, you should probably be using Medica 2 in crystal tower because the battle fields are so large.

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When I said spamming, I meant literally spamming. You don't cast 3 Medica IIs in a row because you're expending more MP for a weaker heal. You use Medica II to apply the AoE regen and then Medica if needed. And yes, I've seen healers (sadly) spam Medica II *looking at you 1-tower-down-on-Behemoth* and then wonder why they can't keep up.

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Succor won't absorb any of Acheron's AoEs. Neither will Stoneskin. Not sure if it's a bug or intended.

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Only Quake and Quake III bypass shields, but I mentioned Succor more for the AoE heal component (shield doesn't hurt either is someone gets grabbed after).

I'll add the Shadowflare tip to the list if you don't mind.