Post Your Healing Horror Stories.

[Gamer3427]

Was healing The Aery earlier after a 30 min wait in the DF with a full party going in minus the tank. When we got in, we had a level 55 DRK. No problem there normally, since I actually find DRKs easier to heal than WARs 99% of the time. This was that other 1%.....

After he nearly died to the first two trash pulls with me having to use all my cooldowns between the two just to keep him up, I knew something was up so I checked his gear. At first glance, everything looked good. iLevel 130 equips on the left side, and while a pure STR build, good equips on the right. The only thing I noticed at first glance was his weapon being low at iLevel 90, but even then that wasn't that big of a deal. Glancing again and noticing that he had less health than our BLM though, (he was at 8k where our BLM was 8.2k), I still felt that something was wrong, so I checked again to see if I had missed something. That's when I saw it. He was wearing an iLevel 35 belt.....

Anyone who's ever played tank for any length of time knows that keeping your gear up to par is an absolute necessity if you don't want to die immediately. For comparison, and just discussing in terms of survivabilty, the belt he was wearing had less than half the defense, and 17 less VIT points than the level 50 belt you can easily buy from the vendor in Ishgard. Considering that this was a level 55 dungeon, however, most players would have upgraded beyond that through at least vendor or MB gear if they had no luck with drops. I'm well aware that a single piece of gear may not seem like much, but when you're healing a tank, those extra 50 points of defense makes quite a difference, not even counting the added health. If you're counting the health, then he was essentially 40 VIT points short if you take into account his ilevel 90 weapon as well, which equates to about another 600 HP.....

His reason for not upgrading gear that really should have been left behind well before he hit 50? He couldn't equip his level 60 ilevel 200 belt. When I mentioned that since he still had five levels to go before then, so he should probably upgrade after the run, he acted like I was the biggest idiot in the world for even suggesting something of the sort.....

The worst part of this run? He was actually a good tank when it came to getting and holding aggro, and while he didn't use his defensive buffs as often as he should, his rotation otherwise was fine. The main problem was that due to this set up, if I left him alone for more than a few seconds he was on the brink of death against every single mob he fought. I had no room to do much other than AoE heal the other party members unless I had my cooldowns ready to throw at the tank after the couple of seconds I cast a healing spell on someone else. Leveling both myself and helping friends level, I've run The Aery probably 20 or so times in the past couple of weeks, and never once have I had a tank that was so trying to have to keep alive. I guess it just goes to show that stats on gear aren't just there to make it look more appealing.....

[Plegethorn]

Ninja tank.

That is all.

[Fevelle]

Ninja running ahead, putting smokescreen on the tank and Silhouette on me. Didn't cure him one time after that, only esuned the bombs on Curator. Still had the audacity to say "talk about bad healers" and I still got 2 commendations.

[Selli]

putting smokescreen on the tank and Silhouette on me.

Wow. :\ What a jerk. Thankfully you can click off the Ninja buffs if they're on the wrong person.

[Fevelle]

Wow. :\ What a jerk. Thankfully you can click off the Ninja buffs if they're on the wrong person.

Playing with a controller in the middle of a big pull is quite hard to stop and click off the buffs, the problem wasn't Silhouette on me (really, I dare him try and make me get aggro with the 20 seconds silhouette, Shroud and Fluid Aura are a thing) but the smokescreen on the tank just before the pull. It made my blood boil.

[TruebladeNuke]

Ninja running ahead, putting smokescreen on the tank and Silhouette on me. Didn't cure him one time after that, only esuned the bombs on Curator. Still had the audacity to say "talk about bad healers" and I still got 2 commendations.

Ninja running ahead, putting smokescreen on the tank and Silhouette on me.

putting smokescreen on the tank

I don't even- *Faints*

...

*Gets back up*

I'd have commended you too if I was there. D:

[cgbspender]

A1 yesterday, in DF. A message pops up "someone is new". Okay then... I thought it was my cohealer as he barely had 8,5k HP. Reaching the oppressor and then one of the DPS asked whether there is a strat.

"Nah, buddy, we're just gonna have a nap"

And then I get a quick look at my cohealer's gear, as he obviously isn't the new guy, and was curious about why he had so few HP. At first glance, nothing wrong. Then I asked if maybe his gear could be broken. No reply. And there we go against the oppressor... I basically solo-healed the entire fight, as I soon realized that YES, his entire gear was broken. He tried to spam physic, which had close to no effect at all, and ran OoM after a couple of minutes (scholar!). The fairy would have been a bit of help, if only the DPS hadn't been dying again and again due to failing mechanics for the adds (we got the multi-debuff at every wave of adds, leaving at least 1 or 2 DPS on the ground) We made it to the end, with only myself, the tanks and one DPS alive when I saw someone in channel calling for "fucking LB3 Heal"... Sure mate, that's my intent, I can do my job fine, can you please do yours in the first place ?
Finally killing the oppressor, like 3 seconds before the enrage. Adrenalin...

[supertinkers]

I was at a low level dungeon(deepcroft) and there was no tank so the summoner took place as a tank and had the black mage dps as I am spamming heals like crazy. How we got though that dungeon was beyond me but it worked.

[doctor_jimbob]

Sohm Al run levelling my AST with a DRK who clearly had a grossly inflated idea of their ability. Didn't use Grit, used very few cooldowns, and was equipped with melded & strength accessories. I'd normally be happy with the last point, but not when cooldowns aren't being used. Still managed to get through fairly quickly with only one wipe, but not fun at all.

[technole]

Was healing The Aery earlier after a 30 min wait in the DF with a full party going in minus the tank. When we got in, we had a level 55 DRK. No problem there normally, since I actually find DRKs easier to heal than WARs 99% of the time. This was that other 1%.....

After he nearly died to the first two trash pulls with me having to use all my cooldowns between the two just to keep him up, I knew something was up so I checked his gear. At first glance, everything looked good. iLevel 130 equips on the left side, and while a pure STR build, good equips on the right. The only thing I noticed at first glance was his weapon being low at iLevel 90, but even then that wasn't that big of a deal. Glancing again and noticing that he had less health than our BLM though, (he was at 8k where our BLM was 8.2k), I still felt that something was wrong, so I checked again to see if I had missed something. That's when I saw it. He was wearing an iLevel 35 belt.....

I think it's because of a misconception about WAR healing. Usually it's just understanding what Defiance does for healers versus Grit and Shield Oath. The latter two reduces the tank's damage taken while Defiance doesn't. Defiance raises WAR HP 25% and adds 20% healing potency. So if the warrior isn't being healed or being topped off, the healer isn't taking advantage of defiance. Either way, it doesn't really mean they are harder to heal because they have more HP overall. Some healers come fixated by how much space is between full and remaining HP on their bar and already freak out when they are only at 14k out of 20k+ HP.

As for the DRK...Weapon is actually the biggest deal. It has the biggest gain for threat management and vitality. Having an i90 in a level 55 dungeon is actually unacceptable. Aery drops i133, and the previous dungeon was i130. Shoot they could have spent some gil in ishgard merchant or the drowning knight for an i115 sword at the very least. Healers should just stop carrying these bad/poorly geared tanks through content because they keep going by and making someone else suffer.