Some advice to healers.

I've been playing MMOs for over ten years now. I always choose a healer class as my secondary class to make myself more useful to my guild/linkshell/free company/whatever. Whether it be on an alt character, or like in FFXI/XIV where you can have multiple classes on a single character. I've never chosen to be a healer as my main class, but I enjoy doing it enough that I don't mind being asked to come to anything as a healer when needed. If there's one bit of advice that I can give to any healer in any game, and especially in this one because I have never see so many healers that need to hear this bit of advice in any other game, it's don't panic. Now, I'm not saying that every wipe is the fault of a healer. Far from it. Everyone makes mistakes. Tanks miss something that wipes the party. DPS does something stupid and it wipes the party. Just plain old bad luck wipes the party and it's no one's fault. But lately I've been seeing a lot of wipes in FFXIV that could have been avoided had the healer not panicked, kept his head, and kept on healing. Whatever happens, whatever is going on, your party needs you to be in control, on top of things, and doing your job. Because when a healer panics, freezes up, and starts making mistakes because of it, a probable wipe becomes a definite wipe. Not every wipe can be saved, but a lot of the time, if you've got a healer that is really on the ball, standing firm, and doing everything that he can instead of freaking out and locking up, you can pull through.

So, here's a few tips I've learned over the years and throughout several MMOs for how to keep yourself from panicking while healing.

1.) Trust your tank. I know, some of them suck, it's true, especially in lower level dungeons, but the majority of them are at least decent, if not excellent at their job. Trust your tank to be able to keep aggro no matter how much you have to heal him, or to regain it quickly if he happens to lose it.

2.) Don't be afraid to take a few hits. I see this all the time, a mob runs for the healer, and the healer runs away instead of standing his ground and doing his job, and then everyone dies because he's not healing anyone, and only thinking about running away. Sadly, I see this in lvl 50 fights and instances a lot more than I see it in lower level ones. Stay put and do your job, and trust everyone else to do theirs. Most of the time, a tank will run straight for any mob that breaks off of the pack and runs for someone and do everything in his power to regain aggro on it, so don't sweat it. Help is coming, take a few hits for the team and keep on healing.

3.) Make a healing priorities list. This is really important. If more than one person gets hit with something big, you'll be wanting to heal the right person. If more than one person dies, you'll be wanting to rez the right one. If you heal a DPS when a tank is low on HP, the tank might die. If you rez a DPS instead of your other healer, things are going to get pretty interesting for you. My list looks like this: Tanks > Healers (including self) > DPS, and when EVERYONE is hurt AoE heals. If a DPS dies because you're healing a tank or a healer, you can rez them later and recover a lot easier than if a tank or a healer dies.

4.) Don't be afraid to ask for ballad. If you're running low on MP, and don't think it'll last to the end of a fight, and there's a Bard just shooting away without singing a song, tell him to do his job. I play as a Bard main. Sometimes I lose myself in what I'm doing, and don't notice the healer is low on MP, a friendly reminder is always far more welcome than a wipe because the healer was too timid to ask for help. The key word here is "friendly". Try not to be a dick about it. Even the best of Bards need to be reminded sometimes. I always try to keep on top of it, but I'm not perfect. Every now and then you'll get one that refuses to play songs because it lowers his DPS, but most of them will play a song if asked.

FFXIV has the most chaotic fights of any MMO I've ever played. It can get confusing, and hard to keep track of everything. And that makes it really easy to panic as a healer. But if you keep your cool, and keep on top of what everyone else is depending on you to do, you can usually pull a party out of a pretty nasty situation and keep on truckin'.

And other healers, feel free to add in your own tips and tricks for keeping on top of things.

Nice post. To add to number 2, whenever I pull hate on WHM, I typically run to the tank, bringing the mob with me. Makes it easier for the tank to grab it back.

Good tips, I would add:

1.) Avoid using Fluid Aura if you're conjurer/whm (The water knock-back attack).

This is typically annoying to everyone else in the party and should only be used if you're back far enough that the enemy will end up very close to the tank at the point that it's bound.

If you have a moment the better option would be to run towards your tank with the mobs to close the gap and make it easier for them to grab hate back.


2.) Don't forget Stoneskin.

As long as you do well managing your MP, Stoneskin can really help mitigate damage and turn "OH SHIT" moments into less serious ones.

It can also be helpful as an indicator of which DPS in the party typically takes the brunt of the damage so you can keep that in mind for your healing orders.


3.) Try to encourage your party.

If someone seriously drops the ball, try to be patient the first couple times. Let the tank know you have their back, don't make the DPS feel disposable, treat everyone like they're a team (unless they prove otherwise).

Yesssss. Healers, please stop kiting. I'm a scholar main, but sometimes I play warrior or paladin just to change things up for dungeons. If you start kiting a mob around, I am not going to chase you to get it back.

Also, don't be rude to a bard if they don't notice low mp for ballad. I've seen so many bards called names for missing this in dungeons, and it's ridiculously rude and uncalled for. It's very easy to go tunnel vision or zombie when farming a dungeon for the 3058350835th time.

A few other tips.

If there's a giant add spawn coming up during a phase for a fight, try not to cast HoT spells like Medica II or Regen. Especially for primal fights, because this makes the tanks job a lot harder and usually on those fights it only takes 1 or 2 shots for us to get picked off.

Arrange your party list! I know this sounds silly, but I like grouping up different types near each other so that I'm not sorting through the pt list everytime I need to find someone to heal. I always have tanks on the bottom, DPS in the middle, and healers on top.

Focus target macros help out a lot! Especially during fights where we have to heal the whole party while trying to keep the tanks up. Because it doesn't require us having to mouse up to their name, we can simply press a hotkey real quick and continue what we were just doing just as fast.

Arrange your hotbars so that your most essential spells are within finger reach of your basic movement hotkeys (asdw) This way you can move around and reach those most important spells as quick as possible. Sometimes that quick second you took to click it with your mouse is all it takes for the tank to wind up dead. Your sprint ability is a very commonly overlooked ability by mages, but it really helps during fights that require fast reaction and quick mobility. (Titan Extreme, Turn 2, 5, etc) Try to assign that ability to a hotkey you can reach really quickly. I know it saved my butt a lot in Titan Extreme.

WHMs don't forget your Divine seal. This baby is your gem, and is neglected far too much. Pair it up with spells that have HoTs to get the most bang for your buck like Regen and Medica II. Don't forget that it has really short cool down, so don't be afraid to use it whenever it' s up!

Be very careful with how you manage your MP. For WHM's never wait until you've dropped down to 1 or 2k before throwing on a shroud. Always pop it on around 60-70% to to maintain a healthy regen while you're curing.

Yes yes yes. All are things that every healer should know. I can't say how sad it makes me when a healer is afraid to take a hit and just runs until everyone is dead.

One thing I would add, the party list has an auto-sort function that sorts the party on tanks > healers > dps. I take it a bit further and macro stuff like cure and stoneskin on member 2 via the <2> macro target (the tank in 4-mans). Helps with keeping SS up on those dungeon runs where you want to just stay in cleric stance and dps while throwing out SS on the tank in between.

Lol a lot of whms need to learn how to properly use fluid aura right.
It's to push back mobs that are attacking you.
Knowing this^ if you are in the back healing and some baddie aggros to u then u have all the right to defend urself and use it to push it back towards the tank.
My fluid aura usually crits for 300ish lol!
Key points to know:
- is the enemy immune to bind/ knockback?
-where is your tank? Besides or far away from you?
-are you facing the right way so that your fluid aura shot will push the enemy towards the tanks?

Only bad whms don't use/ don't know how to use it.
Stop teaching other whms to not use it as yoshi put it in the game to be used.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Yumi_umi

snip

---

If you wanted to do damage, you could cast Stone 2 for 20 additional potency.

If you know how to use it tactically, fine. But 95% of the time I've seen it used it's been used in an unhelpful way.

It is -much- more effective to trust your tank to grab back the hate and keep doing your job then to give your tank and DPS more mob positioning to worry about.

It is fine to use in an emergency, but most of the time it's not worth the extra unpredictability for the tank.

I love using Fluid Aura in the Turtle Guildhest. Love shooting it towards the incense patch.

Another thing that healers should do is create macros with sounds. Both Healers have access to some pretty good mitigation tools, however they can be rendered useless if one or the other is not paying attention. During a fight a lot could be going on and sometimes we overlook things (we are human :) ). Macro for when you use Virus or Eye for an Eye will help the other healer/DPS know you used it so they don't waste theirs. The resurrection/raise macro is also helpful so someone doesn't blow their own Swiftcast or waste MP raising the same party member.

Again we are in a party so we should work together and help each other out whenever possible.

Also if you have high hp like mine small mistakes like tank facing titan the wrong way during a swap and resulting in half the party including you getting MB'd means nothing but a little lol wut?
And stfu about being a gimped whm ^^ cuz now we have i100+ gear for the same instances we have been doing in our i70-90 gear since they were released.
Seriously its not that bad stacking vit for old content including turn 5.

Pretty good write-up there, OP. All common sense things as a healer main (or should be), but these insights should help some people. The part about not kiting is probably where most healers go wrong the easiest - easier for the tank to reclaim aggro if you don't move, so they can actually get actions on the mob instead of chasing it. Especially if you kite with sprint.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MoraClaret

If you wanted to do damage, you could cast Stone 2 for 20 additional potency.

---

Except that Fluid Aura costs no MP and has no casting time. I agree in that CNJs/WHMs should not be knocking enemies around without a good reason, but this spell is great for extra damage for when you know it's going to be the killing blow, or on Knockback-immune creatures.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MoraClaret

Snip

---

Thats because 95% of the time the whms u run with don't know how to use it, it's an instant attack ( not affected by silence ) and it costs no mp. It has a short cool down and adds bind.

Also you can help dps if a baddie is attacking em as you can push them back while the dps have time to get away and for the tank to "finally" notice that there is a monster hitting their squishy caster dps .

How to squeeze out a whm dps rotation for a 1 on 1 fight?
[cs] fluid aura -> stone 1 -> aero 2 -> aero 1 -> stone 2 -> stone 2 till fluid goes back up.
Stone 1 only for the slow effect if possible. Other than that it's better to have your 2 dots up and then stone spam.
Imo whms need to learn how to tank so they can keep their cool when something attacks them.
We have swiftcast and stoneskin HoTs, shroud and fluid aura/ blizzard and virus/ eye for eye.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Astralos

Except that Fluid Aura costs no MP and has no casting time. I agree in that CNJs/WHMs should not be knocking enemies around without a good reason, but this spell is great for extra damage for when you know it's going to be the killing blow, or on Knockback-immune creatures.

---

I'm not sure how people think this is even worth it, but whatever. Making enemies randomly lurch around isn't good for party flow, period.

In my opinion, healers should strive for a controlled flow and help their party stay calm, not add to the chaos.

Honestly, as a SCH ( and suprisingly the other server I have played my bard on has never even heard of this) I let my fairy heal the DPS. They get minor bumps and bruises along the way, but I focus my hardcore attention on the tanks (especially end game)

if everyone is in good standing, I throw some dots around to help out. The quicker the mob goes down, the less I have to heal.
Now if your DPS likes to stand in every red cone/circle/aoe everywhere,then I'll toss some physicks their way. I never had a problem c:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Yumi_umi

Snop

---

Not really sure what point you're trying to make.

First of all, I assume this thread is about typical party play -not- advice on how to 1 on 1 effectively with whm.

Second, if you're tank is competent none of this is necessary as they will typically have the aggro off you after 1 or 2 hits which can usually be absorbed by Stoneskin.

Fluid Aura is obviously useful in a solo setting, or if your tank is totally oblivious, but that's not at all what I was talking about.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MoraClaret

I'm not sure how people think this is even worth it, but whatever. Making enemies randomly lurch around isn't good for party flow, period.

In my opinion, healers should strive for a controlled flow and help their party stay calm, not add to the chaos.

---

I'll have to agree with you. When a WHM uses fluid aura and I'm the tank, I have to pause in my rotation and chase after it. While that is happening, DPS is still pounding away and will get hate on everything else. Especially at lower levels.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MoraClaret

I'm not sure how people think this is even worth it, but whatever. Making enemies randomly lurch around isn't good for party flow, period.

In my opinion, healers should strive for a controlled flow and help their party stay calm, not add to the chaos.

---

I agree with not "making enemies randomly lurch around", which is why I stated the exceptions.

On the topic of Fluid Aura, it's a great chess tool for well versed WHMs:

Benefits
-Free (no MP, off GCD, 30s recast)
-Can be used with Silence
-Binds/Knockback targets

This can be used in a variety of ways. The most obvious is the fact this adds to your DPS at no cost to the WHM. This is great to do the finishing blow on a target were the knock back will not hamper anyone's ability or add confusion (but humorous to watch a dead body flying across the scream). Or use it on mobs that are not affected by the knock back as a free attack.

Secondary uses include using this as a "Get over here" or "get out of my face" card. When used on target that uses ranged attacks, this can be used to pushed the ranged target into the tank if position us bad. Alternatively, if the WHM moves beside the tank and uses Fluid Aura to bounce the last marked target away, that's still the potential of 3-10 seconds that this target is off the tank (depending if the target can be knock backed and binded) and still keep the target within the front arc of the tank for parry / shield blocks.

It's got niche uses, but should be considered as a method to control the flow of a fight when used properly. When used improperly, well, let the chaos ensue, heh.

Overall, great advice in the thread. Should probably be posted in the healers forum too for posterity sake :)

quick note: not all DPS are equal on rez priority.

SMN>Other DPS
BRD>Other DPS

As between BRD and SMN, it depends on the situation (who will be rezzing WHM or SCH) and how many other dps are still down.

1) Stop using Swiftcast solely for ressing.

You have many solid options on the proactive healing front like setting up Medica 1-2s, Cure2-3s, adlo, a succor. (More WHM stuff)

With a cd of what 60 seconds? You have many things you can do in generally any fight.

2) Stay near your tanks when there doing big pulls. If they sprint, you do as well.

3) Make macros. Some skills like Prescience of Mind on WHM, get 0 attention. Making a macro combining Divine Seal-> Prescience of Mind can really form powerful quick healing which is very useful on big pulls or some of those critical healing moments that need to be attended to asap.
Even if you make the macro, Divine seal will always be able to come out when its off cd despite having a different timer then Prescience of Mind, which for that the best recommendation id have would just putting prescience of Mind on another hotkey to monitor the cd.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daenerys_Sedai

quick note: not all DPS are equal on rez priority.

SMN>Other DPS
BRD>Other DPS

As between BRD and SMN, it depends on the situation (who will be rezzing WHM or SCH) and how many other dps are still down.

---

False. Since a brd without MP will not be able to ballad you anyway. A smn without MP can not rez, and swift cast he would immediately need it for his pet for any effective dps.

All DPS are rez equally in priority without a given content framework.

Screaming all you want at a brd without MP will not give you ballad. Screaming all you want at fresh raise smn is equally pointless. Though a brd with an ether potion maybe give you a few seconds of ballad, not much effect in the end.

I agree with raising SMN as a priority. It's true they won't have mp, but they can easily use ether. They can also use aetherflow to quickly replenish mp and then use drain.

I know if I play as SMN and die that is what I do. It takes a few seconds.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KyahAlmasy

A few other tips.

If there's a giant add spawn coming up during a phase for a fight, try not to cast HoT spells like Medica II or Regen. Especially for primal fights, because this makes the tanks job a lot harder and usually on those fights it only takes 1 or 2 shots for us to get picked off.

---

I've been in DF where we were seemingly doing a normal run and my routine is to divine seal + regen then SS the tank before dpsing.. and out of nowhere the tank will drag the mobs into another group while the regen is still ticking.

If they want to do that they should learn to click off regen or upfront say they want to SR so i'll just leave out regen until I know it's safe.

I agree with the healer taking hits to some extent, however...

I make it clear after several times of that happening, that I am going to heal myself prior to anyone else and I will be the last one dead.

This usually fixes this, and funny enough, the dps have started tanking mobs off me after and it makes for some fun.

In the Lost City of Amdapor, anyone can clear the Depressed debuff by using /comfort on the person afflicted with it.

Also, I'd rather save swift cast to raising folks because you never know who is gonna die. At 1 min cooldown it doesn't seem that much. But if somebody dies the x secondsmit takes raise someone will still result in a wipe.

Quote:

---

In the Lost City of Amdapor, anyone can clear the Depressed debuff by using /comfort on the person afflicted with it.

---

Heard about this before, tried it, it did nothing.

Quote:

---

2.) Don't be afraid to take a few hits. ... Stay put and do your job.

---

I'll add here, if you want move, at least go to your tank and not the opposite side.

Quote:

---

3.) Make a healing priorities list.

---

Here, I'll add: Tank always first, and the intelligent dps second. I said intelligent, not best performing, because a dps who steal aggro from tank, and when tank uses its CDs to regain aggro but the dps still continue to dps as nothing happens, he deserve to die and tank will get again aggro then with a single skill. You spank, you tank!

Quote:

---

4.) Don't be afraid to ask for ballad.

---

Yep, I'm main Bard too and don't know healer's mana tricks and resources, so just ask for ballad if you know you need it. I usually do it when healer at 25% because I think the healer have now all his tricks on cd. Don't ask me ballad at heart phase :P

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by kukurumei

False. Since a brd without MP will not be able to ballad you anyway. A smn without MP can not rez, and swift cast he would immediately need it for his pet for any effective dps.

All DPS are rez equally in priority without a given content framework.

Screaming all you want at a brd without MP will not give you ballad. Screaming all you want at fresh raise smn is equally pointless. Though a brd with an ether potion maybe give you a few seconds of ballad, not much effect in the end.

---

smn should be top priority, aetherflow for instant mp

even if the cooldown isnt up, waiting a few tics to get another swift raise off
is really a wonderful thing.

When face tanking a mob, consider applying adloquium or stoneskin to yourself instead of a regular heal. The barrier effect will prevent your spells from being interrupted while you cast, as well as keep you safe. As previously mentioned, abuse swiftcast! Unless you're saving it for a very specific moment, use it for a snappy medica II or a heal while on the go. It's too valuable to leave untouched for a whole fight

Fluid aura works great on hysteria add on levi ex fight

one thing that has helped me out alot as a healer is making "self heal" macro. having to heal yourself while your focused on keeping the tank up can be challenging especially if you take a really big hit. not sure how a whm one would look but for my sch i made

/ac "Lustrate" <me>
/pac "Embrace" <me>
/wait 3
/pac "Embrace" <me>

it may seem like overkill, but this macro ensures that i can top myself off after even the biggest hit. having the fairy cast embrace twice is a little bit of a buffer in case i dont have a aetherflow up for lustrate or if the dmg i took was particularly big

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Seryl199

When face tanking a mob, consider applying adloquium or stoneskin to yourself instead of a regular heal. The barrier effect will prevent your spells from being interrupted while you cast, as well as keep you safe. As previously mentioned, abuse swiftcast! Unless you're saving it for a very specific moment, use it for a snappy medica II or a heal while on the go. It's too valuable to leave untouched for a whole fight

---

False, at least for aqu. Since 30 seconds of galvanize is more or less redundant, and waste of mp and heal power (you will do about 30% less healing with aqu vs physick). And Nothing will ever stop an interrupt end game, because any hit a healer gets will exceed 10% of their health if not 50% of their health.

Basically it only sounds good, but will never be practical, when it's needed, it's inadequate. If something is sure to inturrupt a healers spell, it's going to be a a big hit so massive it will bypass any shield put up.

And swiftcast is also semi false. Content wise there are(almost always) certain instances you want a swiftcast up for, otherwise you blow it on a rez. More for scholars then for whm.

Usually there is a unofficial rule that the Sch save swiftcast for Rez, and the whm saves it for medica2/cure3. So a Sch should always hold on to their swiftcast either 1: pet 2:rez 3: back to back succor.

If 1,2,3 are not used, then all the better, but holding on to it must be made at least for one healer out of two(The sch usually).

A basic application of that is Levi-ex. The sch always hold on to a swift, never using it because if anyone dies, they must be rez asap, and definitely before going into the water. While the more important whm, can choose to swift for any emergency Medica2 especially phase 2 where there is a hard aoe spam on it, threatening to kill anyone. (Not having a swift on the phase 2 spam, will surely wipe the group, as surely as not having 7-8 people)

Holding on to swift in dungeons is probably stupid, but any end game content, it's a unspoken rule. Hold on to it, and use it in emergencies only is vasily superior to blowing it and then not having it. (usually back to back succor/medica for phases)

In then end, it's a totally false analysis because anything hard, it's going to be false, and anything easy, it makes no difference and it's false in the sense it will not make a difference.