How does one overheal exactly..?

Yeah, sounds like a stupid question, but I'm a long time healer from FFXI, looking to finally go back to the thing I've always been good at and I need to get an understanding of what this truly means, as healing in FFXIV is obviously different..

Basically overhealing is any time you use a heal that would result in the other person gaining more health than their max, or when you heal someone with a full health bar.

Alseid more or less got it. Coming from FFXI and with a lv.60 blm in ffxiv, you have some understanding about how precious MP is and how enmity works.

Overhealing makes it much harder for tanks to maintain enmity on their target and wastes your MP. It is generally much more preferable for the healer to either stand still and do nothing or use attack spells than to heal 2000 hp every time the tank takes 500 hp worth of damage.

Alright I was cap happy in FFXI(so to speak). Will have to lower my "healer's threshold". Yep, unlike tanking, I actually know a thing or two about healing thankfully lol.

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Originally Posted by Anova

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Right, but also wrong :P

Overhealing doesn't necessarily make it harder for the tank unless you're seriously trying - mindless AoE healing when no one took damage, for example. If anything, it's more like a dps job constantly dealing damage;

When you deal damage instead, every point of damage you deal is equivelant to 2 points of hp restored in terms of enmity. Dealing damage may actually result in more enmity building than single target healing, but shouldn't be an issue if the tank at least knows how to press 123 over and over.

A healer overheals the same way a dps overkills.

Like popping a level 3 limit break to do 50000 damage on a boss with only 50 hp left.

Do notice that every healer has in a sense a natural level of overhealing. Generally speaking, a WHM or a Diurnal AST is expected to overheal more than a SCH, for instance, as DoTs usually cause overhealing, whereas shields help reducing it. Ofc there's also the fact that SCH usually DPS, but my point is still valid to some extent. If you have access to a parser, the most important statistics you should look at as a healer is OverHealPct in my opinion. Assuming you're keeping the party alive, the lowest that % is, the better.
Take a look at this, by clicking on the hyperlinks you'll find all the data you need the have an idea of how each healer job should do in that regard.

I think the reason you're unfamiliar with this is that the pace of battle in FFXI seems roughly 5x slower than FFXIV. I haven't played FFXI past level 10, but I imagine you would actually have to try to overheal because incoming damage in that game seems to be designed to be roughly equal to what can be healed at the same rate. In FFXIV, incoming damage will come in much more rapidly than FFXI, but your healing spells' amount will always be much more than the raw incoming damage overall (by roughly 2x) in normal gameplay. So in other words, HP bars are filled so dramatically fast compared to FFXI that you never need to be constantly healing for normal gameplay.

Honestly, overhealing is not a big deal and no one should ever be getting on your case about it. You really can't run out of MP from just healing unless the tank decided to pull 3 or more groups in a Level 47+ dungeon. MP management is as much of a serious deal as you want to make it, like also casting damage spells in addition to healing spells. The only stupid thing you could do is casting area healing spells when only 1-2 people could use healing.

are people getting sensitive about overhealing now because tanks have trouble with enmity in heavensward?

I don't know if they are or aren't. I can count how many healers have ripped aggro from me on one hand, as a tank.

I have gotten some healers that just maintain Medica II on the tank like it's Regen. It's annoying. I'd understand if they were doing that to DPS longer, but they weren't doing any damage, just generating a frustrating amount of enmity.

Over heals?

Divine Seal + Medica II + Regen + Asylum + Assize, then proceed to PoM and Cure II/III and Medica bomb the tank in rapid succession. While there is a single enemy.

:D




But seriously, almost everyone is going to overheal one time or another - whether it was a misjudge of how much HP was lost, miscalc on how much HP was going to be lost, two healers healing at the same target over each other, or setting up HoTs to DPS, like what I do - when I know a tank is going to pull big - like first/second island of Neverreap - I divine seal just before they grab the last sucker, wait till they tag everything (or try to >_>) top off with a cure or two, slap DS'ed regen on, Asylum for the long haul, Holy (minus if bees...) + Aero III, etc and if I have the mind for it, re-apply DS'd regen right before DS runs out - so that boosted regen lasts a few seconds longer in the mass mob... and then begin wrecking things/stance dancing (depending on the tank). I'm sure there's a fair bit of overheal there from HoTs alone - especially towards the end if the DPS is faster to down some of the mob than what I'm used to - and if the tank is actually using cooldowns/geared properly... but it allows me to help DPS while not having to worry too much (that's not going to fix all/make tank immune for those mobs, though)

I also find if I get psyched out somewhere in the run, I'll start overhealing a little.... New to trial/dungeon, extremely rusty at a trial/dungeon, not used to being over geared for content and my brain is still very "wait, what? <_> so easy?" (MS 8 mans....), paper tank, a wipe was done, some mistakes were made, my own mistakes were made (such as getting caught with my pants down ala Cleric when a heal was suddenly badly needed and having an 'ohshit' moment) --- in which I then get a bit conservative on the DPS for a while... etc

However, when I see healers cure spamming because a hit or two took a smidgeon of HP, non-stop, I have to cringe.... that's really overhealing....
I usually wait for 75%-ish (sometimes I miss and heal sooner... because -->) with expectations of the HP bar getting lower before I can heal it (because by the time cure/cure II is cast, it would be below that - 65-50%, depending on mob).

Overhealing in FFXIV doesn't inherently mean you're playing badly, it usually comes from Medica II which is far more MP/time efficient than any type of heal even if the amount of healing a party needs is barely more than the initial heal. Same with Whispering Dawn. It's only "bad" if you're, say, Cure IIing someone who could have been topped off with a Cure I (and even then that's sometimes just not wasting your Cure II proc!), or if you're wasting heals by throwing heals out on someone who has Regen on and will survive to the next time they get hit by a mechanic.

Try not to look at overheal too much in this game IMO, there are a lot of HoTs and auto-heals that go out. If someone's overhealing in a negative way, you can tell it's in a bad way without looking at overheal %s or anything.

Worst example of overhealing that I've noticed when I'm tanking. You're at full HP, tanking a boss with bloodbath on as a Warrior and the healer stands and spams Cure I on you instead of DPS >.>.
That is an awful healer.

As a Whm or Ast under diurnal, your going to overheal. Its how the HOT system is pretty much built. I will start casting a Cure/Benific at 80% or if they get down to 60% or I /know/ they're going to be nailed; I instead start with Cure II/Benific II. I always have a Regan/Asptected Benific on my tank; will usually toss that on an injured dps too unless they're ~ 65% or below. If I can, I will keep Medica II/Aspected Helios on tank (party bonus sometimes) are larger pulls or bosses. Does it Overheal? absolutely; but knowing that I dont have to immediately panic if I have to avoid stuff or finish off a dps cast? Worth it. Until I oh shit with Clerics. >.> Then I'm probably spaming Level II spells and praying I caught it fast enough.
That said: Overhealing in XI was nearly impossible (regan lol) WoW, Rift, and a few other mmos which names just escaped me; Overhealing is common. Dont let it freak you out. If you have MP, No One is dead/dying, DOTs are up, your fine.

The worst over healing I've seen is in T9 when during the golem phase the healer would spam medica 2 so much that when nael came back to the field he'd jump on the healer killing the entire party instead of the tank. That fight is what taught my statics healer to use shroud of saints properly.

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Originally Posted by Pells

A healer overheals the same way a dps overkills.

Like popping a level 3 limit break to do 50000 damage on a boss with only 50 hp left.

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Yeah lets go LB3 a lvl 1 Marmot :p

In the rare instance I encounter a two-shottable newbie or scrub tank, then I'll overheal like nobody's business. XD

Overhealing = healing more than the needed amount to reach max HP.

On the big numbers it's bad cause it generates extra enmity, more than normal healing and it's a waste of MP and time you could use DPSing.

Thought it's something that always happens. Few examples: the tank is nearly topped off but you want to add a Galvanize for the next hit, multiple HoTs to feel free to push with DPS.. It's not a problem but you have to be aware of situations, if you are barely geared for the fight better stay safe on the MP or if adds are going to spawn and you don't want all of them on you better go softer on heals.

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Originally Posted by Lyrica_Ashtine

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not quite. iirc, single target healing gives 0.6 enmity per 1 hp healed, and double for every overhealed hp.

In the example given, overhealing 1.5k hp per gcd gives more hate than anything you could do to throw damage then heal the 2k hp lost in one heal.

There is a reason why the #1 method to get max reward on hunts is getting 8 stacked WHM to spam cure 3 :p

(also #1 method to reset mobs back when hunts were introduced)

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Originally Posted by DreamWeaver

False.

Per HP healed is always 0.5 enmity, regardless of overheal or actual heal.

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I checked back and was going to edit anyway, but you're right on overhealing. For the heals themselves, it's not a flat out 0.5.

Cure and the HoT (regen and medica 2's HoT) are 0.5 enmity, but every other heal is 0.6 enmity for a WHM.


(if this is still up to date)

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

not quite. iirc, single target healing gives 0.6 enmity per 1 hp healed, and double for every overhealed hp.

(also #1 method to reset mobs back when hunts were introduced)

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False.

Per HP healed is always 0.5 enmity, regardless of overheal or actual heal.

I suppose it's worth mentioning that as a SCH, overhealing in dungeons amounts to the 300 potency Adlos you pop on the tank before each pull so you can pretend to be a SMN for a few more seconds.