8 man duties - what do two healers do?

I forced myself to do something way out of my comfort zone - main as a healer (WHM). My character is currently level 57 (thanks to road to 70 buff) but I have just completed The Howling Eye so the next duties I face are 8 man ones.

The quandary I face is what do the two healers in 8 man duties do? Does one focus on the tanks and the other the DPS or do they somehow cover all bases?

I ask this because in all my years playing FFXIV as a DPS I've never heard the healers discuss who does what unlike tanks who sometimes discuss main and off roles.

You'll generally find one of two things happens in most 8 man levelling duties.

1) Both healers will aim to heal everything with minimal attention paid to the other healer. Given the healing requirements outside of EX and Savage are generally rather lenient, this typically works out absolutely fine.

2) One healer ends up carrying either because one is effectively afk, dead or just expects the other to have it covered and wants to DPS instead. Again, in most duties, it's really not a problem and personally I'm actually quite glad if my co-healer isn't helping because it adds a little more pressure and enjoyment. Later on in the end game there are examples of fights with healer specific mechanics that will require both to be on the ball, but that's generally not a thing in normal modes and MSQ content.

Thanks this explains a lot - I'm also suspecting that in such duties the primary role is of course to heal (as there are more potential targets to take damage) instead of DPS during "downtime"

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Originally Posted by Bearded

Thanks this explains a lot - I'm also suspecting that in such duties the primary role is of course to heal (as there are more potential targets to take damage) instead of DPS during "downtime"

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The problem is more or less that a lot of content has non existing heal checks. You can pretty much go brain afk if you are a experience healer.

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Originally Posted by Bearded

"downtime"

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In standard (non Extreme+) duties, the primary contributor to how much downtime you have will be party skill. If nobody eats any unnecessary damage, you can heal most fights using nothing but a regen on the main tank and oGCDs to cover the unavoidable raidwide damage. If people take avoidable damage, you will need to spend GCDs on healing.

Of course your primary function is to heal people; but in reality this is very easy to do without GCD heals unless people fail multiple mechanics.

It's simply a failsafe to make sure that you'll still pass the encounter even if both of your healers are awful. The second healer remains superfluous even up through Savage raids most of the time.

One of the biggest complaints about healing in this game is that you have too many healing spells and barely anything to heal. So there's no real point to planning out resources when both of you have way too many of them. A lot of it is just learning by practice. Maybe you'll throw out a heal for a raid-wide, but it turns out that your WHM just happens to be using Assize at that particular time in the fight. So next time, you just don't.

Tanks get debuffs and tank busters to ensure that both of them will have something to do, or that only one will be an effective tank at a time. Healers get nothing of the sort.

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Originally Posted by Boizinho

It's simply a failsafe to make sure that you'll still pass the encounter even if both of your healers are awful. The second healer remains superfluous even up through Savage raids most of the time.

One of the biggest complaints about healing in this game is that you have too many healing spells and barely anything to heal. So there's no real point to planning out resources when both of you have way too many of them. A lot of it is just learning by practice. Maybe you'll throw out a heal for a raid-wide, but it turns out that your WHM just happens to be using Assize at that particular time in the fight. So next time, you just don't.

Tanks get debuffs and tank busters to ensure that both of them will have something to do, or that only one will be an effective tank at a time. Healers get nothing of the sort.

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I mean if you are look at it from a neutral point it’s funny as hell. Healer players are like the toddler that they still hold at the hands so they don’t trip and fall (almost infinite mana and a lot of other jobs can rezz and some can in a dire situation even heal) and then on the other hand you have tanks we’re if the boss has a tank swap and the other tank sleeps pretty much all people die pretty fast ( had a lot of times in diamond ez we’re both tanks eat the buster and just get one shotted). And the dps are the cool kids that can do almost whatever they want and do some mechanics in 99% of the content. But yeah from a neutral standpoint it’s funny when you are a healer main you hate it.

Welcome to Healers’ World.

My personal short answer would be: to DPS & contribute in general until there’s a need to heal your party.

Long answer: everybody else that replied before me sums it up pretty well.

I may go on further, but I’d rather let you shape your own view & take on Healer Role by playing it (Shout out to you for deciding to give it a try).

And I really do hope you can find ways to enjoy this role, genuinely. Happy healing. :)

Basically you see who can do more damage between you and the other healer.

I usually dps most of the time, keep a regen on the MT and hit an aoe heal when raidwide stuff happens. You may or may not need to toss a substantial heal on the tank once in a while, or on a dps who ate something painful. It’s quite stress free, I’ve enjoyed the 8 man duties and usually found my initial anxiety, which I always have with new content, had been wholly unnecessary :) Hope you’ll have fun!

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Originally Posted by Bearded

I forced myself to do something way out of my comfort zone - main as a healer (WHM). My character is currently level 57 (thanks to road to 70 buff) but I have just completed The Howling Eye so the next duties I face are 8 man ones.

The quandary I face is what do the two healers in 8 man duties do? Does one focus on the tanks and the other the DPS or do they somehow cover all bases?

I ask this because in all my years playing FFXIV as a DPS I've never heard the healers discuss who does what unlike tanks who sometimes discuss main and off roles.

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It used to be a discussion between two healer and how they focus on what members to heal. Now the healing are too powerful and players generally over gear, I never have to do that again. The only time I get a wipe as a healer is either i screw up mechanics or many other players screw up mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

My personal short answer would be: to DPS & contribute in general until there’s a need to heal your party.

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This is how I handle it. Often it means 100% offensive uptime because my cohealers have a compulsive need to top everyone off even when the next damage is more than 30 secs away and everyone has a hot active.

Regen on the healer, maybe Medica II on the party (particularly if the boss goes untargetable and you need something to do), DPS while watching the party status bars until it looks like healing is needed.

Also sometimes you can make use of the fact that Holy doesn't need a target to start casting – I like to anticipate the feathers spawning in Garuda's battle so it explodes and stuns them as they appear.