How can I reach my full potential as a healer?

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

I disagree. In many if not most cases, crit will only overheal if the WHM is already overhealing. Crits can help with keeping tank up with only Cure 1s and regens and they're a blessing with rare AoE heals and Medica 2 regen ticks.

If crit isn't overhealing, then you're reactively healing or you're late with healing. If you Cure 1 for 1300, a crit will heal for 1950. That's nearly 2000 hp worth of damage on the tank. Unless that's from some big spike damage (T6 swarm, T8 lasers), you're reactively healing. If the tank took that much damage, the fairy will be throwing an Embrace at the tank as well for 700-800 recovery. Then there's only 1200-1300 recovery remaining, perfect for one Cure 1. A crit would mean overheal for you or the fairy, which is equally useless. Even more overhealing (and mp/gcd waste) if the scholar throws in an adloquium or physick as well. Even with full crit build you'll have roughly 25% crit ratio with average healing of 1299 (1461 crit corrected). In a determination-piety hybrid build (roughly 15% crit rate) you'll have an average healing of 1329 (1428 crit corrected). Full crit has a -slightly- better crit corrected average healing for each mp spend, but is unreliable and doesn't even occure that much more frequent than a det-piety hyrbrid build (source). Det-crit hybrid build? Possible. But with less crit and more det, your crit becomes less reliable. There's no obvious benefit from crit as a white mage either, unlike scholar. (it's not like stoneskin crits for double effect or medica crits for double duration).

tl;dr: Control and plan your heals. Crits are cool to see, but not something you should plan or rely on. Piety, however, gives you a reliable mp sustain (which also means happy bards that don't have to ballad)

[monochromicorn]

Crit is bad for WHM.
Examples
If it takes 1 heal to top off group/tank/target, It is undeeded and can only add more threat (a real issue in progression).
If it takes 2 heals, Three possibilities exist.
1. First heal crits, maybe it only takes 1 heal now, possibly still takes 2, uneeded threat.
2. Second heal crits, bad even more threat.
3. Neither heal crits, worthless.

So just off the bat, 2 out of three times its worthless, and even then it might not help.

Remember your 100% reliable group survive-ability rate is a function of non crit heals / per time. In fact, stacking VIT would prove more effective then crit gear.

the only time you should have a problem with hate is if the tank is bad. ive had crit heals with medica 2 on over half the party sometimes, and ive never taken hate. as a tank, i havent had problems keeping mobs off the healer, even when they crit. i can crit while healing MT, it helps, because he might take a hit that only allows me to healer 300-400, even though i crit for almost 2k on a cure 1. crit is a very great thing, beaten only by determination. i dont see why people are so against it. spell speed is essentially useless, as it takes way too much to make even the smallest difference. piety isnt as big of a deal, considering i have about 4.5k mp, add the 2-3 SoS i can do in most fights, that puts me up by another 3-4.5k. determination increases the base heal, and crit offers a chance for an almost double amount. for me, it is also DET>CRIT>PIE>SS

[Brianmj]

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/23...d32c3591cb.jpg

OMG, hahaha.To think that the majority of my post conjures up such sentiment so succinctly is... not good. Oh Shrek, your values have screwed me over for the worse.

[Taika]

If crit isn't overhealing, then you're reactively healing or you're late with healing. If you Cure 1 for 1300, a crit will heal for 1950. That's nearly 2000 hp worth of damage on the tank. Unless that's from some big spike damage (T6 swarm, T8 lasers), you're reactively healing. If the tank took that much damage, the fairy will be throwing an Embrace at the tank as well for 700-800 recovery. Then there's only 1200-1300 recovery remaining, perfect for one Cure 1. A crit would mean overheal for you or the fairy, which is equally useless. Even more overhealing (and mp/gcd waste) if the scholar throws in an adloquium or physick as well.

In a real situation the tank is usually taking constant damage and heals have to keep them high enough not to die. The damage the tank takes varies greatly depending on boss crits etc. There is no way to predict every hit the tank is going to take and cast a perfect combination of heals for them. There's also no way to predict the exact combination of heals the other healer will use. That's why it makes no sense to say "in this situation you'll need to cast 2 non-crit cure 2s, then 1 cure 1 and then 1 cure 2 again". It's also not "late healing" or "reactive healing" to choose to not heal tank to full right after every single auto-attack hit they take. What I aim to do is keep tank in comfortable HP range with cure 1s and regen (and stoneskin before ravensbeaks, for example) for as long as I can, then using cure 2 if they get dangerously low. It's effective MP use and crit does help with it.

What I agree on is that crit is not something a WHM can rely on in the sense that you shouldn't count on a heal critting or otherwise the tank will drop dead. However, crit is far from useless and getting those crits makes it possible to go on for longer with cure 1s and regens instead of having to use more MP consuming heals. Piety has its merits, but as long as you're within comfortable MP range to get through a fight, the rest of it doesn't really add anything to your power. I don't find spellspeed to be useful for my healing style. So DET > CRIT > PIE > SS it is for me.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

What I agree on is that crit is not something a WHM can rely on in the sense that you shouldn't count on a heal critting or otherwise the tank will drop dead. However, crit is far from useless and getting those crits makes it possible to go on for longer with cure 1s and regens instead of having to use more MP consuming heals. Piety has its merits, but as long as you're within comfortable MP range to get through a fight, the rest of it doesn't really add anything to your power. I don't find spellspeed to be useful for my healing style. So DET > CRIT > PIE > SS it is for me.

As you mentioned: There's no way to predict every hit the tank is going to take. So there's also no way to predict a crit heal to come at the exact time the tank takes a crit hit. The odds are already low that you get a crit cure without overhealing. Add in the odds that the tank takes a crit hit and you throw out a crit heal makes it even more unlikely it won't overheal.

You mentioned that crit is nice to have, but not something to be relied on. That's one hell of a contradiction. While I agree that a crit is a nice bonus, I can't agree that it has more stat weight as it cannot be relied on. Piety, however, gives you a 100% reliable increased sustain. Once you get closer to i110 BiS, you won't need "crazy healing numbers" any more. Even T9 is doable with two i95-96 healers (without blowing 3 lustrates each claw, as mentioned in another topic). Have enough piety that satisfies your own bias; Making healing comfortable. Everything else in determination. For idea's, go to this topic, as Vid already crunched the numbers.

I'll end this "debate" with you right here, unless you find some points where your arguments is no longer contradicting themselves.

[Taika]

As you mentioned: There's no way to predict every hit the tank is going to take. So there's also no way to predict a crit heal to come at the exact time the tank takes a crit hit. The odds are already low that you get a crit cure without overhealing. Add in the odds that the tank takes a crit hit and you throw out a crit heal makes it even more unlikely it won't overheal.

This situation only applies if you cast a heal for every hit the tank takes and your heal numbers would match perfectly the damage the tank is taking. In that theoretical situation crits would mean overhealing. However, if you do not cast heals for every single hit, they don't have to match. And there, regen and cure 1 crits help. That's what I'm talking about. If anything is overhealing, I'd say it's keeping tank topped up at all times when it's not needed.

You mentioned that crit is nice to have, but not something to be relied on. That's one hell of a contradiction.

No it's not. As you said, it's a nice bonus when you're not overhealing: it lets you heal more for less MP. At the same time, it's nothing you can rely a tank's life on. That's what I meant.

Piety, however, gives you a 100% reliable increased sustain.

That is true, and so does DET. Which makes DET the best secondary stat, in my opinion, because it always adds to your heals. PIE always adds to your MP, but after you've reached a comfortable MP number (as I have), the rest of it is worthless. PIE is obviously needed, but when WHM has enough MP, they should go for things that add to their healing power, and only things available for that are MND, DET and CRIT.

I'm not claiming that CRIT is even one of the most valuable stats for WHM, all I'm saying is that it's not nearly as useless as some people make it out to be and I've personally found crits more a blessing than trouble.

[ZeratoTyrael]

About crits being unreliable.... i'm pretty sure we've all known that since day 1, the whole purpose of crit is to be unreliable. To say crit is borderline useless isn't even close to correct. You can't predict them but when they do happen YOU CAN ADJUST ACCORDINGLY. Not everything is a simulation and not every run is exactly the same or with the same people. If you look at what crit actually gives you you'll see that it's throughput and efficiency wrapped in one random package for SCH AND WHM as well, anyone who has played a game where heals crit can tell you that. SCH gets alot more use out of it, but it's still not a bad stat for WHM, not even close. The only stat I'd say is "bad" for either healer (well casters in general aside from some BLM build I think I heard of) currently is Spell Speed because it's gawd awful in small amounts and the current meta doesn't need faster casts, just well timed casts.

[Lyrinn]

Crit makes Cure into a Cure II and Medica into a wide area Cure III. Not only do you save MP when you score a crit but you also save a GCD in any situation where you would have needed to chain Cures. That GCD saved can then be turned into time for DPSing or applying Stoneskin or what have you. As Zerato said, you don't rely on crit just as a SCH doesn't rely on Adlo crits, you simply react and adjust accordingly.

And on the topic of overhealing, unless you do something stupid like a Medica or Cure II at the very start of a fight and it crits, your tank should still have no problem holding hate with equal gear. If he does, go find a better tank.

[Staris]

the only time you should have a problem with hate is if the tank is bad.

Ignorance is bliss.

If you didn't have threat issues during t9 progression, you didn't do it without 110 weapons and 3 months of drops/soldiery gear.

Which is more like digression from the topic (full potential) than progression. Go back in time and do it when your item levels are 93- 96 then talk to me.

[Tranquil]

Ignorance is bliss.

If you didn't have threat issues during t9 progression, you didn't do it without 110 weapons and 3 months of drops/soldiery gear.

Which is more like digression from the topic (full potential) than progression. Go back in time and do it when your item levels are 93- 96 then talk to me.

This is very true.