Tips for new (and some not-so-new) healers

[ariaandkia]

Quite often, I violate these 'rules', lol. My healing style is a tad different.

What is annoying is the lack of communication from most tanks. There is no: Oh hey, I'm attacking this group but once everyone is engaged, I'm going to aggro the entire map. It is just, they start attacking and then suddenly... they are running ahead, pulling everything. And then they yell at the healer for not healing them. And usually, if you cast regen, you'll get ALL the aggro (most in a second or two, the rest will follow shortly). So you have to let them die or have a party wipe.



1: Nice information, didn't know I could do that. Wonder how I'll do it on the ps4.

2: As for the bard MP request, I usually just tell the bard that if I'm standing in a very specific position to them, I need mp. Otherwise, I'll just type in caps: MP DEATH. Usually that gets their attention, lol.

As for spamming cure II... I often have to. Not even a choice. When the tank is losing 50% (or even 90%) of their health PER attack, I generally end up spamming cure 2 with divine seal if needed until I pull the aggro off the tank or until something dies. Usually I pull the aggro first. After which, I usually am low on mp and have heavy aggro and end up kiting the mobs until the dps kill them one by one. (or two at a time).

3 and 4: I find myself often not attacking or healing until aggro is generated. Problem is, a lot of tanks (even in late game dungeons - really until you hit level 50 dungeons, most tanks) don't generate aggro. I've had marauders and paladins alike who could not hold onto aggro against even one mob. I have a macro that tells the tank which mob is attacking me. With sound effects. I'll even run up to the tank. They do nothing. In fact, the mob often has NO aggro from the tank. Or so little aggro that their bar on the mob is black.

When you wait until the tank is almost dead (critical heal for sure)-I've waited until the tank was at 1 hp before. And ONE cure I takes ALL the aggro off the tank except the enemy that they are targetting... Or in the worst case scenario, all the aggro off the tank period (not counting aggro on DPS here), generally, that is what I see when I do dungeons with tanks I don't know.

7: DO run away if needed. But, choose where you are running based on the party and the situation. If it is necessary, run from the party. If necessary, run to the tank and let them get aggro off of you (if they are a good tank, they'll notice the 20 mobs you pulled off of them coming back to them and will try to hold aggro this time. If not, then you are probably better off running away).

8: Plenty of exceptions to this in non-end game dungeons. For end game dungeons, generally the tanks are good. Until then, generally tanks are horrible and you might as well do the tanking yourself (or kiting). I've been in parties so bad that I ended up soloing the first boss of Stone Vigil as a healer (there was no way I could heal the party before they got wiped out almost right away since we had no tank-the tank ditched us before the first mob group (after about 8 minutes of waiting for the tank to be ready) with an excuse about their slots not being correct), taking 30 minutes. (The boss even turned invincible a few times because people kept joining and then leaving and it would glitch the boss until someone joined-the health bar would disappear, I wouldn't be able to target it, etc.)

You CAN kite most enemies that matter and some bosses if you know how the boss works and keep on the move. I've "tanked" plenty of early game bosses as the party healer because the tank couldn't hold aggro at all.

Why do I say this? Because I've seen it all (well, maybe not all, but most). From tanks in Stone Vigil with level 1 weapon and NOTHING ELSE EQUIPPED - and didn't even change after we pointed it out, to tanks that "didn't know what skills were" - entire time, they only used autoattack- in Stone Vigil. And they had level 50+ blue gear equipped.

With those parties, you are better off not waiting for the tank to "tank" and instead might as well tank yourself or have a DPS tank. (You really can't prove that the tank is trolling unless they admit to it and I don't see the option of kicking someone for being a bad player-probably a good thing too since otherwise we'd be seeing kicks left and right).

9: Definitely pay attention to the surroundings. Often I've shouted, "INCOMING!" when something was coming up from behind the tank (or someone else). On the other hand, I've also taken aggro myself (mostly through walls though, so that can't really be helped since there is no way you can tell that they are there unless you already knew ahead of time) when a monster came up to the party and it was right when I was doing a heal I couldn't afford to cancel. Sometimes it would be sneaking up on me and I had to take the aggro to save the tank. Other times, it would be coming up on the tank and my heal would instantly switch aggro to me. Only one time have I pulled unneeded aggro and that was because I forgot that the tank hadn't already done a group of ambush mobs (usually the tanks do that group first either on purpose or by accident).

10: Regen is probably one of the most MP to HP efficient spells out there that doesn't have a long cooldown or requirement (Medica might be more efficient if the party is large enough). Stoneskin is a definite must though for a big pull. Keeps the aggro off yourself which can buy time for the tank to hold aggro (or notice that he never got aggro). What I generally do is try to keep regen on as much as possible and try to time it so that the regen ends before they work on the next group of mobs. And of course, try to stoneskin when the mob is dying.

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If you need to let someone die to save the party, let them die-even if it is the tank. This means do NOT heal that person at all. Just pretend that they don't even exist. I've actually had times where I let the tank die during boss battles and I don't revive them. (Bray being one that this happens quite a bit). Why do I mention bray?) Well... Some tanks drag on the battle by dragging the dragon everywhere, including dragging the dragon on the poison pools. (try saying that 5 times fast!) Better to lose the tank in that case.

If someone is trying to kill the party by overpulling (I define overpulling as pulling more than the party can handle-I call barely able to handle as excessive pulling), I'll often tell the others to not attack the mobs at all (or hold aggro) and I'll simply let the person die and then work on healing.

Use medica when needed, but don't use it when you don't. The reason for this is that medica appears to gather aggro faster than cure. This is a bad thing unless you are trying to get aggro. That and medica is slower than cure as well as less powerful.

Use repose on enemies as needed. Sleeping an enemy can often work for reducing damage to the tank and reducing aggro on yourself. Sleeping can also cancel skills, stop enemies from moving, etc.

Use the Fluid Aura skill (the pushback) when needed-it can help quite a bit, such as cancelling skills of many enemies (do note: it can miss and many if not most bosses are immune to the pushback). But as it isn't part of the GCD, though it has a long CD, you can use it on bosses to help kill the boss faster. However, this means you need to get close to the boss which means that you need to be paying VERY close attention to what is happening.

Aero (1, not 2), is a godsend. It can help kill an enemy faster, has no cast time (though it inflicts GCD) and deals damage upon hit. This means you can use it to finish an enemy with low health, help tick an enemy's life down, etc. Since it has no cast time, you can use it while running so if a boss uses an aoe and you are in the aoe, you can cast Aero while running out of the aoe zone!

I recommend that WHMs take Virus at some point in their cross-class skills list. As well as eye for an eye. While these skills aren't the best skills to have, they can be very useful for a prolonged battle to save MP by reducing damage taken as well as potentially save the party.

Generally, don't cast stoneskin mid-battle. It costs a lot of mp and takes a while to cast (unless you have really high cast speed or use swiftcast). HOWEVER, do note that stoneskin is very useful despite this. First, it "adds" a layer of what is essentially bonus health. Second, if it stops ALL the damage of a skill that 'does damage and inflicts a status effect', it will prevent the status effect! This is a godsend, especially if you aren't healing right then for whatever reason or if the boss is charging up some really absurdly powerful attack and you know someone will die if they get hit by it. Similarly, skills such as Medica II (regen-it can save them if they will survive the initial hit), succor and sacred soil (reduce damage), (Why is it that in the cutscenes and story, it is the conjurers/white mages that use it, but only scholars get it in-game?) can help in those situations as well.

Especially for early, game, conjurers have access to a good assortment of skills assuming a little bit of work on various classes. Conjurers, as an example, have access to skills such as foresight? (I forget which one conjurers can use) and second wind and so on. These skills are extremely useful for a conjurer in the earlier game as if the conjurer takes too much aggro, you could activate all of them and have a few moments of near-invincibility (or super hard to kill and a quick heal). This can help a lot since early on, tanks tend to not hold aggro. Some try, most do not. Even among those that try, many fail.

[AiChyan]

Quite often, I violate these 'rules', lol. My healing style is a tad different.

What is annoying is the lack of communication from most tanks. There is no: Oh hey, I'm attacking this group but once everyone is engaged, I'm going to aggro the entire map. It is just, they start attacking and then suddenly... they are running ahead, pulling everything. And then they yell at the healer for not healing them. And usually, if you cast regen, you'll get ALL the aggro (most in a second or two, the rest will follow shortly). So you have to let them die or have a party wipe.

1: Nice information, didn't know I could do that. Wonder how I'll do it on the ps4.

God yes I hate it when tanks don't inform me of their plans -.- learned this the hard way and now I'm always tense when healing SR prone dungeons because any kind of pulls could happen at any point of time.

as for the party sort there is a button in the party screen or you can use /psort