Tossing an aero here and there

I'm new to healing, actually just considering picking it up but I did it on a different character.

I only got to level 30. I was just wondering, how difficult at endgame (ex primals and all of coil) does it become to toss an aero on the enemy every now and then? I rarely see healers do that and on ps3 it seems so easy. Is it mana problems? Or do things really get that intense?

You won't have the acc to reliably stick every Aero. Plus your Mana is better spent healing (if I had a dime for every pug WHM that did Holy spam in T4........)

There's a few factors.

1) Your DPS if you aren't in Cleric Stance is too insignificant to be worth using, considering the fact that it will take an entire GCD to apply Aero (where a lot can happen)
2) Using Cleric Stance has a 5s cd, meaning swapping to it for a single Aero STILL wastes a GCD. Using Aero II after means you've spent 2 GCD not healing, which can bite you.
3) Not being aware of the fight means you're not familiar of the fight's burst damage, meaning you won't know when to safely DPS.
4) Almost all of the content in the game can be cleared by even 3 DPS, or 4 suboptimal DPS. If you aren't clearing DPS checks, it is in no way on the healer to meet that check.
5) Quite a few fights (like a lot of Coil) are so healing intensive that stopping healing can wipe the whole group.
6) Using Aero hurts aggro management, which is especially detrimental to a WHM
7) While knowing the fight and smart use of Shroud can mitigate it, it is definitely possible to hit OOM on higher content as a WHM. DPS spells are often the equivalent cost of a Cure.
8) WHM single target DPS is lacking even with CS. If you're doing anything it would be AOE, and that's only doable+relevant during Garuda EX.

The amount of DPS time you get as a healer is dependent on how comfortable you are with your skill and equipment as well as the skill / gear level of your party. Bear in mind that healer DPS is lackluster without Cleric's Stance and that upon activating Cleric's Stance, you won't be able to turn it off for five seconds (two global cooldowns). Additionally, Cleric's Stance likes to "stick", in the sense that it's hard to turn off and sometimes the button feels unresponsive. But clicking it too often may turn it off then turn it back on immediately, thus screwing you as well. There's a bit of nuances to Stance dancing that takes some time to practice and learn.

However, Stance Dancing and DPSing is one of the most common ways to reduce healer idle time in over geared situations. For some people, the amount of idle time hampers the enjoyment so they enjoy pushing the class to the limit, while other are perfectly happy completing their role as a healer. Make decisions based on your comfort level and play style :)

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Originally Posted by NintenPyjak64

You won't have the acc to reliably stick every Aero.

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This generalization is false. Healers have perfect accuracy in all content outside of Coil (where your focus should be more about heals than DPS while you get comfortable with the content).

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

This generalization is false. Healers have perfect accuracy in all content outside of Coil (where your focus should be more about heals than DPS while you get comfortable with the content).

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Since the question was for Endgame, mainly Ex primals and Coil, he won't have it for Coil 1-5 nor Levi Ex. I've tried DPS as WHM before (even using some Astral accessories that had accuracy already on them) and noticed many misses in T2. Garuda, Titan and Ifrit, you can DPS, infact if you don't DPS in Garuda you're not using your 100% potential, and in Titan I focus on healing but I occasionally throw Aero and Aero 2 on the back Gaol where my partner healer is sealed Since all Titan is doing is lifting his leg. In Ifrit if you skip a beat then you could potentially let your tank die to triple fire breaths (I don't do the fight often enough to know exactly when those are coming)

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Originally Posted by NintenPyjak64

Since the question was for Endgame, mainly Ex primals and Coil, he won't have it for Coil 1-5 nor Levi Ex. I've tried DPS as WHM before (even using some Astral accessories that had accuracy already on them) and noticed many misses in T2

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Ah, I missed the bit about specifically end game (me reading much too fast). Having not done Levi EX, I can't vouch for how accuracy is like in Levi EX, but for the other EX primals, accuracy won't be an issue. I've personally found my accuracy better in T4 than T2 because I find T4 is more of a "kill all trash possible" pull versus the boss gauntlet of T2. I have noted an irritable amount of misses in T2 but not so much in T4. In fact, once I stabilize my tank in P2 and P5, my DPS adds quite a significant margin of damage to the Soldiers. I can count the amount of times I've missed Energy Drain on the Dreadnaughts in a single hand over the course of 15+ runs of T4 too.

Mileage may vary depending on player and play style, DPS if you feel comfortable but don't lose focus on the main goal of a healer, especially in content designed to trash people, hard.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

...but for the other EX primals, accuracy won't be an issue....

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Edited my post to better reflect this

Oh and Levi Ex seems to have the same acc requirement as Twintania oddly enough. Good thing you healers are getting accuracy with your 2.2 equipment

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Originally Posted by NintenPyjak64

Oh and Levi Ex seems to have the same acc requirement as Twintania oddly enough. Good thing you healers are getting accuracy with your 2.2 equipment

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...that's a scary thought. lol. I guess I know what I WON'T be doing in Levi EX, even after I get comfortable with the entire fight (though I will admit, haven't read anything about this fight yet, just finished 2.2 over the weekend)

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Originally Posted by NintenPyjak64

(if I had a dime for every pug WHM that did Holy spam in T4........)

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The only time i EVER do this, is if the dps sucks even with the 10% buff and we wipe the 1st time. though if this little push the 2nd time around doesnt help, then the whole thing is doomed to fail anyways.

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Originally Posted by Legacy_Wolfwood

The only time i EVER do this, is if the dps sucks even with the 10% buff and we wipe the 1st time. though if this little push the 2nd time around doesnt help, then the whole thing is doomed to fail anyways.

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I've seen healers do this with awesome DPS before Echo. They ended up running out of MP quickly and start crying to the BRD for Mana song during P4/5

Besides Aero, there's one thing a lot of WHMs seem to forget about (minus the annoying ones who use it on mobs): Fluid Aura. No MP, no cast time, no knockback if it's used on a boss, and it's off-GCD so the only risk is getting close to the boss, and there aren't many bosses I can think of where it's dangerous to do so. 150 potency every 30 seconds is fairly negligible but free damage is free damage, especially if you can pull off Cleric Stance beforehand.

well, you will have acc problems, not a big diference if u throw an Aereo and theres always that screw up the fight, and u dont want to be on cleric stance cd when u need to throw an emergency healing, u can dps on dungeons, it speeds up things, but on ex primals and coil? meh, its not necessary, maybe with spiders at t2, maybe, u can use Aereo with <tt> but like I said, not necessary

Thanks that makes things very clear :0 much more than I expected.

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Originally Posted by Lyrinn

Besides Aero, there's one thing a lot of WHMs seem to forget about (minus the annoying ones who use it on mobs): Fluid Aura. No MP, no cast time, no knockback.

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This ^^^^^^^^^
I just hate it when whms stand there going durrrrrr and healing like it's their only option.
Yoshi put dps skills on a whm to be used. Sure there is a time and place but that doesn't mean you can't practice using it in all fights.
Every content except 2nd coil, mog ex and levi ex has echo now.
If you still can't find time to dps even with 25% echo then you are a bad whm.
Damage is still damage and last time i remembered, damage only kills the boss / adds faster.

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Originally Posted by Yumi_umi

Yoshi put dps skills on a whm to be used

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For solo content yeah...otherwise it would be even worse than soloing as GLA/PLD.

its nice on dreadnaughts t4 if you're in an average group thats borderline on clearing the wave
and titan ex if your group isn't reliably pushing phases before jumps/bombs

but most times if it's safe to cast aero it's probably safe to cast stone2 instead [few occasions it isn't], which is nicer for the spike of dmg (much better for breaking people out of gaol, clearing the superbombs etc.)

aero, aero 2, and stone 2, even with the high miss rate, reliably change turn 9 phase 1 from 6 to 5 meteors for my group with our current gear.

Making healing... easier.

Now eventually I'm sure we will have enough gear to hit 5 anyway, but then the goal becomes 4? lol

The problem with doing DPS in raid level content that you do not outgear is that you may do more harm than good.

The advantage obviously is that a healer in cleric stance can put out decent numbers if motivated to do so. Things dying faster = good. If DPS is borderline on some sort of check, some healer DPS might help. I've run in groups where one of our healers would solo heal for a bit while the other threw some dots up (ie. the big mecha things in t4, the big snake in t5)

But the disadvantages are several. You'll find yourself stuck in cleric stance unless you're careful. You'll be on recast cooldown when someone gets hit. You'll have less MP to manage difficult situations. You might be tempted to blow cooldowns improperly. You pull extra threat. Your spells might simply miss and waste time. You might get distracted from something else you should be doing. Etc.

In a general sense I would suggest leaning on the side of caution unless you're certain that the extra dps will be helpful. DPS checks are generally designed around 4 competent players beating on it, and keeping your reaction time sharp and your MP high helps a lot against the unexpected.

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Originally Posted by givemeraptors

For solo content yeah...otherwise it would be even worse than soloing as GLA/PLD.

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Lol what are you smoking?
We all solo'd content as it was required for some quests etc
In T5 because of echo we can do about 1300+ dmg or 1500+ crit.
That's still a lot of damage that can be added to twin's health, the snake's health, etc
With the new accuracy on healer gear; it's like telling us "guys don't be scared! More accuracy is on the way so you can dps!"
Like the only times our cures/ buffs miss is when lag happens etc.
Why else would there be accuracy?

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Originally Posted by NintenPyjak64

I've seen healers do this with awesome DPS before Echo. They ended up running out of MP quickly and start crying to the BRD for Mana song during P4/5

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Either your healers are bad or your tanks are bad (not using cooldowns properly). I use Holy all the time for the first set of mobs (and sometimes after the first dread if the group is doing well) and never have mana issues. If your tanks know when to pop cooldowns at their most effective times and your healers know to conserve mana and not overheal a tank (trust him/her to do the job properly), then a couple Holys here and there won't hurt you.

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Originally Posted by Yumi_umi

Lol what are you smoking?
We all solo'd content as it was required for some quests etc
In T5 because of echo we can do about 1300+ dmg or 1500+ crit.
That's still a lot of damage that can be added to twin's health, the snake's health, etc
With the new accuracy on healer gear; it's like telling us "guys don't be scared! More accuracy is on the way so you can dps!"
Like the only times our cures/ buffs miss is when lag happens etc.
Why else would there be accuracy?

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Remember though that healers and tanks have the lowest natural DPS. The upside for tanks is that they can take hits while DPSing. Healers on the other hand can only wear cloth armor. They NEED cleric stance to match caster DPS so that mobs die quickly before they land too many big hits. This is essentially why Cleric Stance exists, so givemeraptors is correct.

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Originally Posted by NintenPyjak64

Plus your Mana is better spent healing (if I had a dime for every pug WHM that did Holy spam in T4........)

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I use about 4-5 Holys in t4 and never need ballad. The key is to use Shroud immediately after the first Holy on the bugs in the first phase.

Regen->Cleric stance on>Manual cast Holy->Shroud->Swiftcast Holy->cleric stance off>healing/standing around, maybe another Holy in cleric stance if tank didn't need that much healing. Should end with almost full mana again by the time the Knights and Soldiers drop. Shroud should be available again by the time the first Dreadnaught is dead. *uses shroud*

After the first dreadnaught when the rooks and spiders come. Regen->Cleric stance on->Manual Holy->Swiftcast Holy->Cleric stance off. After that it becomes healing intensive and I don't use any more Holys. I usually have around 3200 mana when the second dread drops, and by the time the fight is over I never go below 2k. It's really just about knowing how to use Shroud in the beginning and using it immediately after it's off CD continuously through the fight.

And yes, this is in pugs.