How can I help beginner Healers in Dungeons

Hi Guys

My main is War lvl 60, I wanted to ask you healers how I "could" help new healers to avoid future mistakes in dungeons or Raids. As and example I read alot in party chats Heals should turn of claric stance, wich ill be honest dont know the proper use of it. Since I constantly try to learn as a tank I want to learn how to help other new players as they often say, people dont care, or its their problem or people instantly leave as they see they are rly new to ff xiv. I specifically ask about healers as i have easier knowledge on dps due to my Wife, but healer is yet a very complicated way for me to support in anyway for beginners or guide them.

Ill say thank you in advance and thank you for keeping us alive.

Taka Karasu

The easiest way to to explain your actions. Example: pls don't cast or cast Regen while pulling or you will draw enmity. You can also advice on times, based on gear and difficulty, of when and how cleric stance works. However. pls keep in mind all healers work differently and have different skill sets. If you have healing jobs raised it may help you get a perspective of how they work. After all a person who has experience in that job will be taken more seriously than one that isn't. Here are some basics that I teach;

WHM; know when to to cast and times that it's ok to have cleric stance. Avoid Regen until pull is completed and learn how free cure works.

SCH: Know your faeries attributes and what triggers them.

AST: Know your cards and stances. Learn how royal road works.

Know cross classes, learn fast cast it is a MUST.

Teach them how to dps.

For brand new healers, there isn't much to say. Most gear at low levels have similar amounts of mnd/int so it usually isn't a big deal if Cleric stance is on all the time.

Their starting skill sets are pretty straightforward​ too. Ex. CNJ gets cure 1 for heals and that is about it.

Just make sure they aren't​ pulling aggro by healing too early or generating excess threat+wasting mp via overhealing. Make sure they are keeping you in range + in LoS. Always a plus if they contribute to DPS.

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Later on, the loss of MND in cleric stance causes a hefty healing penalty. Healers should activate heals out of cleric stance and activate DPS abilities​ in cleric stance.

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Toward vet status, you're working on optimizing dps, making compromises between MP efficiency and time efficiency, anticipating damage, working dat CC, etc.

Its the age old question "why do we fall?". My perspective isn't really trail by fire, more over let them learn at their own pace. In my experience those who want to push their class will, those who rather be more casual about it will. Lets not forget the rudimentary mantra of FF14, each dungeon/raid encounter is different and requires learning all on its own.

So I wouldn't fret if you wipe in a dungeon because the pull is to large, or you die to a tank buster with CDs applied, or even in the case you die purely because an inexperienced healer is in cleric stance. My approach is, if they ask for tips Ill lend them my ear, otherwise I'm a tacit onlooker

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Originally Posted by AegisKiddo

Its the age old question "why do we fall?". My perspective isn't really trail by fire, more over let them learn at their own pace.

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Pretty much this. Be there to offer help/advice if asked (or they're clearly struggling, but it still pays to be diplomatic)... otherwise, let them learn as they play.

There are some common gotchas, though. For example, in DD, that Frog pull/stuff after the first boss can hit a lot harder than people expect in a leveling dungeon, especially since the crystals mean almost no healing is needed in the first part. (You'll see this again in Stormblood, people will wipe when they think they can treat leveling dungeons like endgame dungeons.) I've encountered a few newbie healers in SV that think Cure III is a better Cure II, and so on. Clear mistakes like that, maybe give them a nudge in the right direction.

Allright, ill keep this all in mind thank you very much for ur help and opinion.

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Originally Posted by ManuelBravo

Example: pls don't cast or cast Regen while pulling or you will draw enmity.

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As a healer main, with some minor experience in tank, I don't see why there are all these complaints about Regen while pulling. I mean, don't put Regen on the tank right before he pulls the first group of mobs, that's just silly. But as far as I know, it's pretty standard practice to Regen the tank during large pulls to keep his health up. As a healer main, I've done it both ways, but a good tank can grab aggro on everything even with Regen on, and from a healer's perspective, doing a long pull with no Regen can get really dangerous. For example, the last pull of Baelsar's Wall. If the tank doesn't use cooldowns, he can get destroyed when everything piles, and even with cooldowns it is occasionally dicey if there is enough damage done during the pull.

Anyways, the main point is just that tanks should be able to pull with a Regen. It's not that hard to just use Flash/Unleash as you walk by and grab everything, even if they aggro on the healer for a split second at the start.

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Originally Posted by NocturniaUzuki

As a healer main, with some minor experience in tank, I don't see why there are all these complaints about Regen while pulling.

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I think you missed the point...for a beginner. It's a good practice to avoid for early levels, unless your tank is a vet and even then some tanks fail to understand the aoe enmity moves and rotations. Once they gain experience they can move to raid pulling and large pull tactics. remember every player is different, and the point is to teach. I can main any Tank / most DPS / and Healer roles so I can back up my statements. However, our level of experience and how we obtain it varies on various factors. Beginners need experience as solo, dungeon, and raids. As a healer you too should be able to gauge a tanks capability by their actions, gear, and how they pull. So Regen helps, they just have to learn when and how to use it properly.

As a tank, you can help newbie healers by making clear you're not going to get angry at them if they mess something up while they're learning. I appreciate it a lot when I see a tank encouraging a new healer to practice DPSing and not to worry in case something would go wrong and the tank would die. In practice, you can also help by using your own cooldowns well (obviously to reduce the healing required) and by letting a new healer know beforehand if you're switching to DPS stance and will be taking more damage.

Being an anxious healer myself, the biggest piece of advice I can give you is to let him/her know it is not the end of the world if you die, or the party wipes. Wipes, tank deaths, and being yelled at tend to be the biggest fears. If your healer is overly worried about messing up, guess what they're going to do? Even to this day, if I enter an instance and the tank is being polite and considerate, it just melts a ton of that anxiety away.

If your healer announces that they are new to the instance, that is the perfect opportunity for you to take a minute to explain the boss fight mechanics to them when you get to them. Don't ask if they know the fight, they don't. They can read a guide and they are still not going to know the fight. Also, no ignoring mechanics.

Recognize that the action is going to be 10x faster for a new and/or anxious healer, which will increase the margin for their error. Because of this, you want to start your trash pulls easy and not pull multiple packs. Just because you don't normally run as healer doesn't mean you don't know how healers can make things tougher for you. If the new healer is spamming medica, fluid aura, casting cure 2 when only cure 1 is needed, it is ok to let them know these things. The healers that want to grow and get better will be receptive, especially if you were polite to them in the beginning. I promise.

One thing I like to let new healers to see is how they don't need to compulsively overheal. If I notice a healer casting a cure right when I take even minor scratch (especially in the early dungeons where nothing hits all too bad) I suggest them they can let my health drop a bit more, like maybe 1/5 or so, before they heal. That it's quite ok if they wait my health bar to have room for the whole heal, before they use it. I know some overhealing happens near always, that's quite ok, but wasting 80% on every cast is just lot needless enmity to their way.

The best thing you can do is communicate with them. When I run my mentor roulettes as PLD (I main healer), I communicate with the healer about what I'm going to do. Am I about to do a large pull? I'll drop a waymark and let everyone know to stay here and that I'll be doing a large pull. Am I going to use hallowed at some point? I'll communicate that as well. I don't have fancy notification macros about "I'm invincible", blah blah. I just let them know ahead of time.

If I see a point in which they could do something differently or improve, after a pull, I'll take the time to explain it to them. (IE: are they using medica II when there's literally zero AoE damage happening? Explain that it may be a waste of their mana and their time could be better spent tossing out some dots in cleric stance). Try to be as constructive as possible and never sound condescending. It can be difficult, as we communicate through text, but try to toss in some smiley faces here and there, and that should lighten it up. Another point to drive home, as a WHM, it's important that they don't fall behind on healing, and to use Shroud of Saints for MP management.

And the biggest thing you can do for a new healer, is to not expect them to know what they're doing. Don't expect them to know that a tank buster is gonna hit you hard, make sure you have CDs readily available. Don't expect them to keep you topped off, and don't expect them to stance dance proficiently. The best way to ease them into learning to stance dance, is to encourage DoTs. It's the easiest thing for them to do at this stage.

Regarding regen pre-pull, I simply click it off. It's not an issue for me.

Depends on what you mean by new.
Teaching new healers how much of a beating a tank can take, and how obsurd their healing potency is in comparison.
What cleric stance actually does, not necesarilly when to use it, thats something you kinda have to learn on your own as healer.
Range of their aoe spells and positioning.
MP management
how their mitigation spells work, stuns/slows/damage downs
how to handle longer pulls, aka do not regen on the run, cure/physic if you must, sprinting ahead and stoneskin/adlo between mob gaps even better.

How mistakes can and will happen, and how to react to them with the appropriate amount of panic skills.

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Originally Posted by NocturniaUzuki

Anyways, the main point is just that tanks should be able to pull with a Regen. It's not that hard to just use Flash/Unleash as you walk by and grab everything, even if they aggro on the healer for a split second at the start.

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It's while pulling, not throughout the fight. I've had numerous healers Regen AND Medica 2 prior to a pull...and its like seriously......fine, you can tank everything then, cuz the first thing i lob at, everything else is going straight for that healer and flash, unleash and DEFINITELY overpower wont catch them all then the healer panics and runs around while youre trying to get aggro...... It's totally fine after the first aggro hold (flash, overpower,unleash) to Regen.

I'm both a Tank and Heal main. Honestly, you dont fully understand tanking or healing until you do BOTH jobs. Having the two perspectives will make you both a better tank, and a better healer :) just make sure your healer is comfortable with healing and don't over press the fact they need to DPS if theyre NEW. But sometimes even older players need gentle reminders :)

I main a WAR, and am slowly raising a Conjurer and Arcanist, since I haven't decided which healer I want to be yet. Thinking of what I would tell a new healer from the perspective of what I'd want to be told by my WAR and it really boils down to a few simple things:

• In DF roulettes, expect slop. Sloppy tanking, sloppy DPS, and yeah, sloppy heals. Getting bent of shape about slop in DF is like getting bent out of shape at the airport because of TSA lines. It's part and parcel of the experience, expect it, accept it, don't blame people. Which leads to...
• Don't yell at your healer. When slop happens, sometimes you die. It isn't permanent, it's maybe a 2 minute setback in the duty, and it isn't all the healer's falt. So the best thing to say is nothing, or maybe "no worries, let's keep having fun, etc." Which leads to...
• Don't yell at your healer. Seriously. Stop it. Don't do it. Your nightly DF roulettes are not the final stage at the DOTA International or the CoD world championships. No trophies or prize money being handed out for finishing Halatali in 11 minutes instead of 13...so relax.
• When in doubt, be nice to your healer. It will go farther towards achieving fun than yelling will.

In maybe 1 in 4 DF groups for content >= Sunken Temple, I have to use potions, spam my personal heals/CDs, something, and still end up dying more often than not in those cases. I figure it's a new healer, I figure they already feel bad, and I figure my yelling does exactly nothing to help them figure it out. So I tell them to not worry and have fun, and almost every time, we succeed where we had just failed and nobody had to feel like crap over it.

tl;dr - life is short, have fun, don't yell at your healer.

1) You can click regen off. If they put it on you or it's staying on before a pull, turn it off and tell the healer that it's for his own benefit-- the mobs will zerg him as soon as you pull if its on.
2) Stoneskin is your friend. I'm not very keen on the scholar, I usually go whm but I may phase into AST soon, but even in Cleric Stance, stoneskin will block its full damage. Thus, if you tank needs a "heal" and you can't get out of cleric stance, pop a stoneskin to buy you some time and quick cast it if you need to.
3) 50% while it varies from healer to healer, 50% is my magic number. If the tank is at or below 50%, I will pop out of cleric for a heal, a regen, and go right back to dps (if the fight seems like it will last that long.) 50% assures I will have enough time to get out of cleric stance, cast my heal and assures the tank has enough HP to survive any random spikes of damage.
4) WHMs don't get Shroud of Saints until level 38 which is insane. If you're in content lower level than that, realize that your whm may not be DPSing because he/she knows that we don't have a mana regen ability yet. Can you still do it? Of course you can, but it makes MP management a lot harder. =/
5) (WHM only) When you're low on MP, use cure instead of cure 2. Yes, it heals less, but the chance to pop Free Cure for a free Cure II is there and that could be the ticket you need to get through to your next shroud of saints or ether.
6) (WHM only) Fluid Aura can be a tank's worst nightmare and shoot mobs out of DPS AoE. It's not that big of a problem in high level content since the whm is mostly going to be using Holy to dps, but healers that use it in low level dungeons improperly can do more harm than good. I only use fluid Aura in 3 situations low level: 1) I have an undergeared tank and he can't handle all the mobs and I don't have repose yet. 2) The DPS are being jerks and waking up my sleeped mob and the tank just can't handle the damage. 3) A mob has wandered over to me and fluid aura will shoot him back within range of a tank. In high level areas, bosses are immune to the push so it's fine to use on bosses and the like.
7) (WHM only) Why NOT holy? Yes, it costs a lot of mp. Yes, you need to be in cleric stance for it to do any real damage, but it stuns ALL the targets in the area for 3 seconds. This interrupts casting and skills making it easier for everyone not to take damage and the 3 seconds is plenty of time to cast stoneskin on the tank before your next holy which you NEED to wait before casting again anyway or your stun won't take effect. Even if you're only comfortable casting it once or twice per pack of mobs, that's enough to really get your tank some breathing room while there's lots of mobs on him/her.

That's all I can think to add atm.