How to heal Tanks...

Heyaz again!

So, most of the time Instances go well. But sometimes, there are some really, really awful tanks. Any advice on how to deal with:

- undergeared tanks

- jittery tanks

- selfish (is that the term for that?) tanks

- a combination of the above

My gear is decent enough, so I can outheal most stuff. And a SC Raise is always possible. But y'know how it goes sometimes...

Thanks in advance

For undergeared tanks there's not really any answer. If you're at the point where you're spamming heals and it's still not enough, even with your gear being solid, then you have to accept that there's nothing you can do. Just get them to pull smaller packs, and suggest upgrading their gear as soon as they leave the dungeon.

For selfish tanks, I assume you mean tanks that don't bother with cooldowns and just expect the healers to do more work? If so, again, all you can really do is talk to them and try to get them to mitigate a little more. If you get hit with a "You don't pay my sub", then at least you tried, but you're not the jerk in this case.

For jittery tanks do you mean tanks that aren't all that confident and are maybe not using cooldowns optimally? In cases like that, again, explaining that dumping all of your cooldowns at once instead of spreading them out isn't ideal, or using your big 30% ones when there's only 2 enemies left from a 7-mob pull is a waste. The problem I found with jittery tanks, however, is they take the "You can use fewer cooldowns" and dial it to 11 and accidentally become selfish by overcompensating.

All in, it's mostly a communication issue. If you're absolutely sure that your gear is up to speed and you're outputting as much healing as you can, then the only issue lies with the party. Especially at your current level, which I assume isn't much higher than the 30 White Mage. For any general tips at that level I'd say try and keep Regen on the tank while you're fighting if you can spare a cast on a slower spell, as that ticks in the background for more healing than Cure 2 over its duration. And try and save Presence of Mind for moments when the tank should be out of cooldowns, but still taking heavy hits. Cure is more MP efficient than Cure 2, if running dry on MP is the issue, so while Cure 2 is a bigger heal bomb and is real good for keeping tanks topped between casts of Stone, it's a massive drain on your own resources if you need to go ham with it. You get a free-proc trait for Cure that lets you cast Cure 2 for free on a 15% chance which really helps with MP management. Also you should be using Lucid Dreaming from your role skills early and often. Don't keep it until you're already out of MP: much like tanks and their Rampart it's better used to prevent problems, not solve them. So if you use it at about 7000 MP it will tick in the background and keep you well stocked.

Eventually you'll get more tools to deal with it, but for now more than later, dungeons are very dependent on the party: you can't heal a tank wearing tissue paper, likewise a perfect tank will still have issues if their healer runs dry after 5 seconds. And it's all well and good both being ideal, but it won't matter if the DPS don't kill the enemies quickly enough and everyone runs out of cooldowns and the like. This last point is also something to take into account: if you're doing Tam-Tara or the like and the tank pulls wall to wall, that's fine if you have, say, a Red Mage and a Machinist, since they have great AoE attacks at that level and can kill everything really quickly. But if you're with a lancer and a rogue they can only kill enemies one at a time so if they pull a massive group then they have to deal with the massive group for longer.

tl;dr- communication and managing your MP.

To emphasize the core of Metsonm's point: communication is key, regardless of what kind of tank you're running with. It tends to solve most issues, and if they're unresponsive or belligerent then you at least know you gave it a fair attempt. Sometimes we just have to bite the bullet and pull more than our own weight, but luckily this happens very rarely at higher levels in my experience.

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Originally Posted by Metsonm

For any general tips at that level I'd say try and keep Regen on the tank while you're fighting

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Moreover: I'm sure this is what you meant, but just to avoid confusion for OP's sake I want to chime in and clarify that one should ideally not use Regen pre-pull. This can easily net you aggro before the tank has had a chance to establish it. Wait until they've got them, then pop it. Just something to be aware of as a new White Mage that will make your tank thankful. =)

Good luck to you OP!

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Originally Posted by ZeSeKa

Heyaz again!

So, most of the time Instances go well. But sometimes, there are some really, really awful tanks. Any advice on how to deal with:

- undergeared tanks

- jittery tanks

- selfish (is that the term for that?) tanks

- a combination of the above

My gear is decent enough, so I can outheal most stuff. And a SC Raise is always possible. But y'know how it goes sometimes...

Thanks in advance

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If the problem is purely behavior, try talking to them. Unfortunately, there is a risk of people getting 'defensive' (aggressive really), but hopefully they'll be responsive and there aren't exactly much in the way of other options either.

Undergearing can be the toughest one, if they're really undergeared, and unfortunately there's just very little you can do about it.

Pretty much just hope your gear is good enough to outheal stuff, and that you and the DPS can tank stuff if it comes down to it. This is much easier in 50/60/70/80 dungeons, and can be much harder in leveling dungeons, due to the relative sync points of them.

But in the end there are limits to what's within your control. Minimum ilvl requirements help, but they're a bit low for tanks. Though it's very rare this happens, if I do get a tank that's so atrociously geared I can't keep them up once my oGCDs have been burned through... well, that's a prompt for me to leave. A 30 minute duty finder lock is better than some alternatives, and past a certain point it's just futile.

But sometimes there can be exceptions, like a well geared DPS that both has the output to hold aggro and enough tankiness thanks to that gear. For the rest of them, well, just heal like mad.

But just to emphasize: don't feel obligated to stick around if there's someone making a run so awful it's thoroughly ruining your experience. Doing something else for 30 minutes can be better than sticking through something that makes you not want to play anymore.

- undergeared tanks
Heal as normal. Very likely will have to resort to GCD heals to keep alive. Do so. Tight DPS windows. Do so only when safe, which is usually when the enemy is casting something, but this will likely give you a much needed breather. If the tank still dies after resorting to GCD heal spam; you'll have to let them know that the pull is too large for the group.

- jittery tanks
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by jittery. I'm guessing take a little bit to hit the gas pedal? Just be patient if this is the case.

- selfish (is that the term for that?) tanks
Just roll with the punches. Raising a stink about the situation makes you just as bad.

- a combination of the above
A combination of the above

- My gear is decent enough, so I can outheal most stuff. And a SC Raise is always possible. But y'know how it goes sometimes...
Just keep it up. Over time, you will learn to quickly gauge how much punishment your tanks are able to take. All in all, do your best to support them. There are very few, if any situations where you don't do this.

Thank you!

Most of my problems come from undergeared tanks pulling half the dungeon and then getting smacked around really hard... Or running out of my sight and disrupting my Cure.

Should I always save PoM for Raise, btw? Casting Cure or Cure 2 doesn't take that long.

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Originally Posted by ZeSeKa

Thank you!

Most of my problems come from undergeared tanks pulling half the dungeon and then getting smacked around really hard... Or running out of my sight and disrupting my Cure.

Should I always save PoM for Raise, btw? Casting Cure or Cure 2 doesn't take that long.

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PoM is usually thought to be more of a DPS cooldown. For Raise, ideally you have swiftcast.

That said, if swiftcast is on cooldown, PoM+raise is an OK combination - but I would not recommend going to it before swiftcast.

No, PoM is nearly always used as a dps cooldown. For example, getting more Holy casts on a large trash pack or extra Glares on a boss. Remember dps on trash pulls is important since Holy will stun all mobs, giving you a nice window where your undergeared tank isn't taking damage and the adds can be burned down.

Speaking of Cure, once you unlock Cure II you generally prioritize that. Freecure is a trap. This is especially true for an undergeared paper tank where Cure spam probably won't keep up with the damage. If it burns you out of mana, the run was probably hopeless, but remember to keep using Lucid on cd.

So, save SC for Raise? And PoM for Stone spam? I don't have Holy for quite a few levels...

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Originally Posted by ZeSeKa

So, save SC for Raise? And PoM for Stone spam? I don't have Holy for quite a few levels...

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You will find that as you gain more skills, it'll become a lot easier to deal with the tanks you have issues with while also being able to put out a lot more damage on things too.
I see you're only 30ish? By 50 it'll be great and by 80 you're unstoppable!

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Originally Posted by ZeSeKa

So, save SC for Raise? And PoM for Stone spam? I don't have Holy for quite a few levels...

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Pretty much.

SC for Raise is a very good rule for PF. An 8 sec cast is a lot of downtime, however later on if you're confident you have a decent tank it's useful on large trash pulls. You can SC as you're coming to the end of a pull and Holy once the tank stops to catch all the mobs in a stun right away without cast time. Then you have a window to Regen, weave in Assize/Asylum/PoM and commence the Holy spam.

However that's a few levels away so you don't need to worry about that yet. Interestingly enough healing tanks only gets easier the further you go, both you and your tank have a much wider toolkit and some of the later dungeons are easier in general.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Pretty much.

SC for Raise is a very good rule for PF. An 8 sec cast is a lot of downtime, however later on if you're confident you have a decent tank it's useful on large trash pulls. You can SC as you're coming to the end of a pull and Holy once the tank stops to catch all the mobs in a stun right away without cast time. Then you have a window to Regen, weave in Assize/Asylum/PoM and commence the Holy spam.

However that's a few levels away so you don't need to worry about that yet. Interestingly enough healing tanks only gets easier the further you go, both you and your tank have a much wider toolkit and some of the later dungeons are easier in general.

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Very much this.

At level cap (which might feel ages away right now but really isn't) WHM is an absolute champ for dungeon healing. You do the damage of a mediocre dps, provide gigantic mitigation with Holy and generally have an answer for every situation.

Remember - the only HP that matters is the last one. People don't need to be at full health all the time. As you get access to skills like Regen and Asylum that heal gradually over time let them do more if the heavy lifting for you.

Is casting Stone during downtime worth it? It can mess up my Cure timing, after all.

Whenever nobody needs healing, try to dps.
Play it safe at first, see that everyone looks healthy enough and won't die within the next few GCDs and try to dps every now and then. As you get better you'll get a better feel for how much damage people take and when they are safe, regardless of current HP. Someone can be perfectly safe at 20% HP and someone can be in danger at 70%.
It's not important how much HP everyone has but rather how much damage they are going to take. And dead mobs can't hit anything, so see it as a more aggressive way of "healing".

Once you unlock Holy at 45 I strongly recommend dpsing at least for the first couple of casts because Holy stuns and stunned mobs can't hit the tank.

If I learned anything from Conjurer's storyline, if you DPS the enemy, then they can't hurt the party if they're dead.

Don't save Lucid as an emergency mana restore - Lucid is used as part of your rotation to manage MP.

Once you start unlocking your oGCDs like Benediction, don't save it for an emergency when you spam cure II to the point you run out of mana, use it when tanks get low by purposely not healing them because one Benediction can bring them to full HP rather than a couple of cure IIs - this both saves MP and saves extra GCDs to push the battle faster since DPS per GCD costs less MP - and Stoning the enemies to death (or Glaring) will reducing the number of times enemies can consistently hit the party - which means less MP spent.

When you unlock Holy at lv 45 as a WHM - use Holy at least up to 3 times on adds. Holy can stun enemies for 6 seconds - 3 seconds - and then 1 second. A total of 10 seconds of no incoming damage. That's basically an invulnerability per wave. Between Holy casts you can apply regen and let the regen do its thing, or cure II if the situation is dire.


You can throw a regen on the tanks once they grab aggro - but you can technically throw a regen on them before they grab aggro as long as you run up literally behind them at all times so they can AoE and take that aggro back instantly. The way ShB works is that as long as tank stance is on, tanks generate way more aggro than other jobs so healers don't really have to worry about aggro on a regen pre-pull as long as they run up behind the tank so the tank can pull the mobs off of them.

My usual recommendations for newer healers:
- Use all the oGCD skills at your disposal for your level, on cool-down (powerful AND free)
- You should never use Cure I (or equivalent) if you have better skills available, these are quite literally your worst healing skills, avoid as much as possible
- People do not need to be topped off all the time (applicable to tanks too). Let people regen by themselves unless some damages are incoming (and no, Medica 2 does not need a 100% uptime. The only dot that should be running 100% is your dps dot on the boss)
- Mana regen skills on cooldown, not when you need mana
- Encounters usually don't need as much healing as you think. Learn how to DPS as soon as possible, no group wants a level 80 healers that cannot dps at all.
- In parties with a co-healer, assume they will be a heal spam bot (see point above) and let them solo heal until you see that they need help (works 99% of the time)
- Don't use regen before a pull. Your tank does not need it and you will get aggro. Tanks need to go back to pick up the mobs you stole and he will hate you. No commendation for you!


For WHM:
- Benediction is not a skill that you rarely use, it is the most powerful single person heal in the game, and it is FREE! USE IT!
- Even only one Holy reduces healing needed for some time, use it (Spam it like Lalafells spam the "Happy" emote to annoy people)


Last one:
For Benediction, you need to find that amazing sweet spot.
Not too late that it fails and is applied when tank is dead, but not too early either.
Make the tank pee a little... then use it.

Medica 2 has regen for the whole party, right? Should I use that frequently?

But thank you all so far! I'm not that interested in commendations, but they're flyin' in, so I guess I'm doing something right.

Medica II is great to use in response to multiple or back-to-back party-wide AoEs since the regen ticks can usually top off your DPS without having to use any direct heal spells/abilities.

I'd try and save it for AoE damage situations when possible. Its an additional regen you can throw out on top of your regen, asylum, etc. if you're really struggling with keeping the tank alive, just keep in mind that its also one of, if not THE highest MP consumer(s) out of your spells. If everything is going right, however, Medica II should not be necessary for most trash pulls. That being said, if your tank is making your life miserable, you can throw it out and use WHM's many MP-restoring abilities to cope with the higher mana usage.

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Originally Posted by ZeSeKa

Medica 2 has regen for the whole party, right? Should I use that frequently?

But thank you all so far! I'm not that interested in commendations, but they're flyin' in, so I guess I'm doing something right.

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Happy things have been helping!

WHM goes through a sort of weird evolution as it levels where it starts off without any heal-over-time abilities then gets heal-over-time abilities (Regen, Medica II, Asylum) and then finally replaces the majority of it's heal-over-time abilities with better options.

Not to dive too deep but you'll get three abilities that start with the word Afflatus. Afflatus Solace is around level 52, it's a free Cure II potency heal that is instant cast. At 76 you get Afflatus Rapture which is a free Medica that is also instant cast. You're limited as to how often you're able to cast these (so they don't technically replace Cure II/Medica) but for every 3 you cast you get to use the third Afflatus ability - Misery. It's a 900 potency hit on your primary target that does reduced damage in an AoE around them to other enemies.

This means once you're at 74 you want to be using all the Solace you can for healing (and similarly over 76 using rapture) since not only do they cost no MP and are instant but they let you use your big Misery attack. For some context at max level a WHM's Misery can hit for upwards of 120k damage, higher than the max hits of many dps jobs. It's a really great damage tool.

So basically as you're leveling WHM you're given Regen and then Medica II and for a while they're the best tools for the job... but then they get outclassed in late game. For sure make use of them while you can but don't get so attached that you're shooting yourself in the foot and healing primarily with them even when you've got your better options available.

Also as an aside - in almost every dungeon encounter dps and healers take so little damage their natural HP regeneration over time in combination with an ability called Assize that you get in the 50s will be enough to keep you guys safe. Just like with tanks the only hit point that matters is the last one so just because a dps takes a few smacks from an enemy on a trash pull or a boss casts a weak room-wide damage ability doesn't mean you need to be popping out Medica II. It's crazy how little healing is actually needed in most content, at level cap many times I have to literally try to find uses for my Afflatus skills on WHM because there is so little damage happening to the party.

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Originally Posted by ZeSeKa

Medica 2 has regen for the whole party, right? Should I use that frequently?

But thank you all so far! I'm not that interested in commendations, but they're flyin' in, so I guess I'm doing something right.

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Only when needed, don't fall into the trap of spamming Medica II. You use it when the party takes a heavy raidwide and you know another one isn't coming up soon. Then sit back, dps and let the HoT do its work. For this reason it helps to learn to map out fights as WhM as you get more familiar with mechanics. A full Medica II is a very strong heal if it ticks for the full duration, 700 total potency iirc and almost always better than Medica (except in dire emergency with medica II used already and no other aoe heal).

You don't want to Medica II if only the tank is taking damage, nor do you want to spam it as a "just incase" button, since that results in heavy overheal.

Later on you'll prioritize Asylum and Afflatus Rapture over Medica II, using Medica II only if you run out of lilies and Asylum is on cd.

Also a side note on Cure III, this has a very small range and tends to be difficult to use in PF. In most cases except emergency with a stacked group, Medica II is again better.

Seeing as you're a lv 30 ~ 31 WHM I believe I should probably tell you this.

WHM lv 30 - 34 is completely different from WHM lv 35 onward.
At lv 32 to 34 at Brayfox with -leveling/average gear- you would be struggling to heal as a WHM- mixing cure, cure II, and Stoning enemies when applicable. On big pulls, it would be very abnormal if you still had MP even if you managed your MP with cure for efficiency and cure II for immediate healing. I usually go from 1200 to 5600 MP by the end of a big pull, even using lucid and sometimes potions depending on tank gear and how well the tank plays with mitigations. This is at the same time maximizing damage output to speed up the fight. Cure II is expensive, and freecure being a trait only encourages this kind of playstyle at this level because mana is very difficult to manage for a WHM who has no oGCD healing. Brayfox is really a big checkpoint for White Mage especially to get accustomed to recognizing the speed at which incoming damage is being thrown out so you don't waste excessive mana.

HOWEVER --

This is because you don't have your strongest healing tool at your disposal at this point - the regen. Once you get regen at lv 35 + in an instance like Qarn - you will see a huge difference in how much you need to heal actively vs letting your regens heal the damage instead while you using Lucid Dreaming. In a big pull, I could use regen and sometimes throw a cure II or a cure while mostly DPSing because regen is effectively a weaker cure that's ticking for 15 - 18 seconds (200 potency per tick, which means 6 ticks = 1200 potency heal over time). Regen is also a 500 MP cost skill as opposed to Cure II for 1000 MP at 700 potency. From lv 35 onwards your healing tools only expand so it becomes much easier to heal after that.

Thank you, everyone.

Any advice on how to deal with Tanks that can't (or won't) hold aggro?

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Originally Posted by ZeSeKa

Thank you, everyone.

Any advice on how to deal with Tanks that can't (or won't) hold aggro?

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if you're not by the tank and you pull aggro, run to the tank and bring the mob to them. if they are aoeing they should be able to snatch it off them.

if the tank isnt using their tank stance, politely remind them to turn it on. however if they still do not turn it back on, then I'm sorry, you cant fix stupid and you're just gonna have to deal with it or leave and take the penalty.

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Originally Posted by ZeSeKa

Any advice on how to deal with Tanks that can't (or won't) hold aggro?

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This cannot happen anymore, either their forgot their stance (their fault) or your had some HoTs on the tank like Regen before they started pulling (your fault).

Can't count the amount of times a Tank didn't turn on Stance and spammed single target attacks...

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Originally Posted by ZeSeKa

Can't count the amount of times a Tank didn't turn on Stance and spammed single target attacks...

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I've noticed this when playing DPS in roulettes. Tank has stance on... but somehow I pull hate. Apparently they're single target attacking, or only auto attacking after the first couple of attacks.

Only thing you can do is try to make a tank friend to queue with...

Assuming that you soldier on during those runs with weirdo tanks, you can always Repose enemies that aren't being attacked to ease your healing burden. If they're actually trying and struggling, stick close to the tank so they have an easier time getting the mobs off of you. One less thing for the tank to focus on when you aren't running around everywhere! :p

Otherwise, about the only thing you can really do is gently remind them to put on their Tank stances and use their basic AoE. As Larek said, it's pretty difficult to mess up aggro as a tank that's actually putting in the minimum of effort; they have to be trolling at that point, or they aren't even trying. Gear is hardly an excuse either - you'd have to probably be at least an expansion behind compared to the rest of the team for aggro to be an issue for a trying tank.

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Originally Posted by ZeSeKa

Can't count the amount of times a Tank didn't turn on Stance and spammed single target attacks...

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That happens to me sometimes but its a DF thing. I'll have it on when I go into a dungeon but when it "commences" it'll be turned off. I think it's a level sync thing or if I'm to far over leveled for the dungeon I'm in. It doesn't happen in every dungeon but sometimes I forget to check to see if the game was nice enough to turn it off for me.

Yes upon level sync it'll be turned off.
I've been caught with it off too, thankfully I keep an eye on enemy lists and if they aren't glowing red it's a pretty strong indicator of what's happening.