advice needed. MP shortage

I just did garuda recently (storyline version) and the first castrum DF fight for the main storyline. I've noticed that if I'm healing a pld, I have no problems. But when I'm healing a war/mrd, I find that I run out of mp usually around 1/2 to 1/4 of the main mob's life. I've been stacking mnd gear hoping that more hp healed per cure would offset the the mp cost but I'm either doing it wrong or that isn't working out. Any have any good advice?

my philosophy is to keep regen and stoneskin up on the tank and dps and you shouldnt need to use too many cures- pop shroud of saints whenever you can - when you do need to cast cure, make sure you use the lowest tier that will do the job - preferably 1 so you can take advantage of free cure - dont medica unless absolutely essential

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Originally Posted by Laume

I just did garuda recently (storyline version) and the first castrum DF fight for the main storyline. I've noticed that if I'm healing a pld, I have no problems. But when I'm healing a war/mrd, I find that I run out of mp usually around 1/2 to 1/4 of the main mob's life. I've been stacking mnd gear hoping that more hp healed per cure would offset the the mp cost but I'm either doing it wrong or that isn't working out. Any have any good advice?

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Use regen. If a tank bitches, inform them to they can click it off if it's still up when they go to pull. If they still bitch, tell them to stop sucking so it's so necessary. A good tank has no regen issues anyway.

Of course, with your issue, without seeing your gear and how you play, as well as the tank's, we can't see what the problem is.

I will say this, WHM has more MP issues than SCH, and WARs are worse tanks than PLD on the eHP side of things, even including healing.

Sorry, I should have mentioned that I almost always keep regen on the tank (and other melee's when I have the free time). Stoneskin I don't usually have a chance to cast during battle. It seems like it comes off almost immediately when the tank gets hit by a boss-type mob. Not to mention the casting time is so long, a lot of times the tank will be near death (from full health) when I cast stoneskin.

My advice would be to utilize Shroud (MP regen effect if I recall) and to focus on mana efficinecy. Every time you over-heal, you are basically wasting mana away. Larger heals will take a lot more MP to achieve less of a result then say 2 heals of a lower level heal. Its all about balancing out your mana usage and limiting your large MP drains for emergencies and minimizing the over-healing you do.

I'd also recommend leveling up Thm in order to get access to Swiftcast. Its very usefull for a 'oh shit I need my largest cure now without a cast time' moment. Or when idiot dps stands in the fire and we need to quickly get them back up.

I don't have issues, stoneskins mp cost= cure II mp cost. Cure II heals 1k health on avg stoneskin is a 20% rune on target so if target has less than 5k health its a waste. Regen tank and melee dps taking melee ae damage or anyone not taking constant damage and let them regenerate. Cure1 and regen on tank use divine seal during spike damage NOT bigger large MP cost heals

Fix log settings so you can see dmg taken by tank only next time you run with a war and watch if they get hit by spike dmg that should be avoided. Its probably not you so much as the tank being bad. Also as others have said be smart with your MP and take advantage of free cast C2 and Crit C3's. You can wait till war is almost dead and C3 with divine seal for an incredibly efficient cure.

I find with WAR tanks whm is put to max use, since they have such a large HP pool you can really hold off on the heavy MP cures and time them with abilities to get the most out of your MP.

Shroud of Saints+Regen. Use it. You can get 250+ HP per tick. Just use that, cast it on the tank and whoever else seems to take damage a lot (usually melee), and you have a few seconds to wait for your mp to come back up a bit, tossing Cure 1 when needed. Also, keep Stoneskin up on yourself when you have a free moment. I've survived so many hits that would've otherwise killed me just because I have Stoneskin on myself 75% of the time.


Shroud of Saints+Regen on party before you Raise someone is fantastic if you don't have Swiftcast yet. (My current Raise combo: Shroud of Saints->Regen on tank, Regen on DPS that takes most dmg, Regen on me(depending on situation) Presence of Mind->Surecast(if you have it)->Raise)

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Originally Posted by Jarlax

I don't have issues, stoneskins mp cost= cure II mp cost. Cure II heals 1k health on avg stoneskin is a 20% rune on target so if target has less than 5k health its a waste. Regen tank and melee dps taking melee ae damage or anyone not taking constant damage and let them regenerate. Cure1 and regen on tank use divine seal during spike damage NOT bigger large MP cost heals

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18%, but yeah even then it's not efficient for use in battle unless it's to save a big hit when your MP is overflowing, you're right.

re: stoneskin - I see it as banking a cure to be proactive, so I dont have to scramble on the big hits. I guess I havent seen any problems with MP keeping it up - maybe i've just been blessed with good tanks

No reason to cast stoneskin in the middle of a fight, unless your buffering the damage of a specific attack-like intro into p2 garuda.

Like others have said, manage your cooldowns. Keep running dungeons and as you get better gear and a better feel for mana managment through practice you will find yourself not as mana-starved.

Sometimes its just a bad tank. I mean WAR are harder to heal than PLD, due to a lack of damage negation, this is where a SCH helping you out as a WHM should work, giving them the negation they lack, but honestly, I've seen WAR that were hard to heal, and WAR that were easy to heal, and I have to believe that depends on their own player skill and knowing how to effectively play WAR without being a hot hp mess. Still going to take more dmg than pld regardless, but I notice a lot of time a SCH and WHM working in tandem to heal a WAR, is a lot easier for both healers, than two whm, or two sch (definitely easier than two sch, two whm only prob is over heal)

Shroud of saints is key. It is a very good mana regenerating tool and as soon as Fall to about 75% mana, I use it to regen to near full

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Originally Posted by Bigpurpleharness

18%, but yeah even then it's not efficient for use in battle unless it's to save a big hit when your MP is overflowing, you're right.

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I disagree, but I don't see it just in terms of hp per mana efficiency. Take a look at mechanics. There's something Stoneskin can do that Cure2 can't -- it effectively extends the top range of the tank's health. Got a little downtime and know the boss throws huge attacks on the regular? Been a while since you've seen the big hit and know one's coming up? Got a near-full bar with nothing to do? Get a Stoneskin on that tank. That next major hit won't land as hard, making the rest of your reaction and rotation easier to manage.


Back on topic, as far as managing HP, try Shroud at 75% -- and if you've got a Bard, ask for Mage's Ballad. Healing WAR over PLD is a mana-intensive task; they trade a lot of mitigation for that deeper HP pool.

Are you using cure 1 over cure 2? For me I just focus most of my healing on the tank with regen and cure one. I'll only use cure 2 if I get a freebie or the tank ate a big aoe and is at risk of dying in the next two hits. Throw regen on other party members without cure unless they are very low and need the need the extra boost. Remember regen will give them about 1000hp healing so even at half health they should be fine unless the they are continously taking a lot of damage. Use the healing buff to help the party recover from a large aoe instead of spamming medica. Try to avoid medica if you can. I also agree with the use of stoneskin. I throw it up on the whole party before moving into a new area. It reduces my need for initial healing. I'll reapply it to the tank and dps during "down times" as well.

Also, don't try to keep everyone at full health. If they are at half health but not taking damage use regen, or cure 1 if your mana is depleted, and they'll be fine.

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Originally Posted by SzaaKarna

re: stoneskin - I see it as banking a cure to be proactive, so I dont have to scramble on the big hits. I guess I havent seen any problems with MP keeping it up - maybe i've just been blessed with good tanks

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As well as passively healing 6.7k + HP war tanks then SS is amazing 8p Definetly a situational tool.

Please help! I am also having a horrendous MP shortage problem. I was barely able to make it through Brayflox and I greatly fear the rest of the dungeons because I know that there's no chance I will be able to get through them without running out of mana and popping a hi-ether at every possible opportunity. I hope that this Saint's Shroud ability is good, I am only level 36 so I have 2 more levels before I get it. Anyway, my question is should I respend my stat points? As of now, I have put every single point into Mind. When I reach level 50, should I put 100% of my points in piety instead? I do not see what use I will be as a healer who runs out of mana every 5 minutes so I guess this is what I have to do right? I used to love being a healer but now I can't solo long leves or do dungeons without being out of mana after 2 fights so the fun is really gone. It sucks having to stand there and watch the dds die because you only have enough mana to heal the tank.

It depends on how you are running out of mana in dungeons. Are you DPS or tank for that matter, taking lots of damage they should be dodging (get out of red)? Are you using Cure 1 mostly? Are you spaming medica? The only boss/fight I had trouble with before i got shroud was the last boss of blayflox - and that is just a *****, most people will run low on that fight.

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Originally Posted by Laume

Sorry, I should have mentioned that I almost always keep regen on the tank (and other melee's when I have the free time). Stoneskin I don't usually have a chance to cast during battle. It seems like it comes off almost immediately when the tank gets hit by a boss-type mob. Not to mention the casting time is so long, a lot of times the tank will be near death (from full health) when I cast stoneskin.

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Don't use regen on DPS unless you ABSOLUTELY have to. If they take a random AOE hit, heal them with a cure 1, if that doesn't top them off, they don't need to be topped off - they aren't the one tanking - they SHOULDN'T be taking much damage except random hits, others they should be dodging. Using this philosophy you have the chance to proc free cure more too for Cure 2's on your tank if needed.

Stoneskin should only be used in a handful of situations:
1) prepull on everyone
2) mitigating a large damage mechanic that is unavoidable
3) if you have nothing else to do and your MP is full

Stoneskin is not MP efficient. Nor is stoneskin efficient because of the time cost (3 seconds vs a 2.5 gcd of regen or cure I). The only benefit of stoneskin is, like others mentioned, it effectively raises the max HP of a player. Regen is MP efficient and Cure I is MP efficient. The proc you get from Cure I costs no mana. Sure that proc is hard to time, but if you're really blasting the tank with heals (spamming Cure I) you'll eventually get 1 that is well timed and it does help with MP. So for generic healing, just keep regen on tank and only cast Cure I if he drops to ~80% or below.

Another issue that hurts whms, is they often try to heal through curses/diseases. Ensuna those b****es and save yourself MP that way.

I'm coming at this from the tank's point of view and I would like to know just how much more efficient Cure I and Regen are compared to Cure II and Stoneskin. Does anyone have the level 50 MP costs of each spell available?

The reason I'm curious about this is that I would like to know to what extent a tank smoothing out their overall damage intake can help a healer. If I could somehow make it so that I take the same damage overall but eliminate the need for Cure II in order to prevent a death, how much mana could I save you?

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Originally Posted by Mariwanna

Please help! I am also having a horrendous MP shortage problem. I was barely able to make it through Brayflox ...

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I never had any issues until Titan. Tried it last night for the first time and I suspect that it was our DPS that was the primary issue, because after they died, the tank and I seemed to do OK for a while.

Haven't seen it suggested, but maybe eat some food with +piety? Not sure how much this really helps. Really though, sometimes it is just bad players or inexperienced players that can't get out of stuff, causing you to heal a bunch. I've been lucky in this regard, rarely having to group with people I don't know.

PS - I'm dumping all my points into Mind right now.

I think it goes without saying that the biggest factor in MP usage is your group. Is the tank holding aggro? Is the dps taking avoidable damage/debuffs? Are you taking avoidable damage/debuffs? are you using CC or breaking CC early? Some boss fights seem like it's unavoidable to burn through mp quick, but if you are running out on trash pulls, there is most likely a problem with your group not performing properly. If you find yourself spamming Cure II or Medica or Esuna(all of which burn mp pretty quickly when spammed) try suggesting a different strategy to your group(which I know can be tough in a PUG) but that is most likely the problem, the fights are not being mechanically handled properly for your group make up(classes/jobs) or for what your tank is able to handle. The most frequent time I run out of mp is when the tank has no idea what they are doing, it makes all the difference to have a competent tank.

Thank you for the suggestions. I am now lv 41 with my WHM and after getting that Saint's Shroud ability at lv 38 it has been a lot better. I personally only use regen on the dps when I don't have a chance to heal them because I am focusing on the tank. I also think my problems were resulting from my gear and/or the tank's gear being too weak. Once you have a geared group, healing is a breeze and I will always like it better than tanking.

If anything, you've got it the wrong way round: Regen on the tank helps to keep them healed up without burning through your MP (Regen+Cure on recharge is roughly comparable to Cure II on recharge but a lot cheaper), whereas Regen on DPS will quite often end up overhealing them (unless they're still being targeted) when a Cure would have done the job. Regen on the tank also makes it safer to divert your attention to the other party members for a few seconds.

I usually have no problems with MP except on Garuda, but I usually steal the limit break and that effectively solves that problem and gives me some lee way. I keep everyone buffed with stoneskin after every pull and ESPECIALLY before a boss fight. DPS should be smart enough to avoid all avoidable dmg, same with tank. But if there is a situation where I know it's about to get hairy, I usually keep a regen/cure1 on the tank, and cure 1 on most dps when they get low. BUT if there is a situation where they have to chase adds, I usually just toss em a regen and move back to the tank.

I think MP shortages could come quicker with the following: (referencing pre-Coil content)

* Tank is undergeared.
* Healer is undergeared, emphasis on weapon's spell damage.
* Allies get hit with avoidables and you assist in their recovery.
* Mid-combat Raise.
* AoE healing used when single target could have been more potent.
* Chain curing in Cleric's Stance.
* Not using Divine Seal more liberally for chain curing.
* Warrior is not using self-healing abilities and/or is conservative with offensive cooldowns.
* If the Warrior is doing the above, then keeping the Warrior topped off would rob him of his self-healing abilities and may require more MP than letting him help save you some MP.

I think in the OP scenario, one or both of the last scenarios are happening.