Help with big pulls in newer content

[Cynfael]

After continuing to struggle (and do worse?) in any SB dungeon above Siren Song, I think I will have to give up on all but an opportunistic Holy now and then and just spam heal. Parties may get mad but that's better than dead.

If you can put together a brief video example of what your pulls look like, that might help us better identify issues you may currently be having.

Also, I just noticed/remembered that you are on Faerie with me. Always happy to play with you sometime.

[tinythinker]

If you can put together a brief video example of what your pulls look like, that might help us better identify issues you may currently be having.

Also, I just noticed/remembered that you are on Faerie with me. Always happy to play with you sometime.

Thanks. Not sure I can do videos. If you want a first-hand observation sure

Honestly all of the advice has been really helpful... for level 50/60 dungeons. I know they are synched for me, super-easy kiddy mode, etc, etc., but, I can pull off what other people do in 4.x with about the same level of effort/closeness of calls and see my mistakes in real time and learn. I might still blow it (rarely) but generally I feel good about my chances and my ability to recover if something does go wrong. In 4.x there's just too much damage too fast to do more than heal spam unless I want a 50-60% chance (or higher in some runs) of wipes on pulls. I don't want to keep wiping parties in DF or having to ask for small pulls and still struggle. It's not fair to other players.

I like the story, art, music, and themes of FFXIV. The players mostly seem nice/friendly. But I'm slowly starting to dislike running dungeons/healing :/

[Tridus]

It's also very dependant on other people. It tends to average out over time, but if you have bad luck, it can seem like it's impossible to keep people up because it may very well be. Stuff in Bardam's hits like a truck if the tank isn't using gear from Bardam's because there is a huge defense stat spike. Ala Mhigo has a couple of mobs (like the Avengers) that hit surprisingly hard and if you get a huge room pull can turn into a mess quickly. DPS can help or hinder you. Tank cooldown usage is pretty important.

There's always more that we can do to heal better (except the top 1%, maybe, but I'm sure not in that group!), but that doesn't mean its all on you. If you get a run where all you can do is spam Cure 2 to keep the tank up, then do that. It happens sometimes.

You're on my data center, so if you want to try running together sometime, I can tank one of the ones you have trouble with and see how it goes.

[Cynfael]

I like the story, art, music, and themes of FFXIV. The players mostly seem nice/friendly. But I'm slowly starting to dislike running dungeons/healing :/

I’ll try to catch up with you soon so we can run something. Don’t give up yet

[tinythinker]

It's also very dependant on other people. It tends to average out over time, but if you have bad luck, it can seem like it's impossible to keep people up because it may very well be. Stuff in Bardam's hits like a truck if the tank isn't using gear from Bardam's because there is a huge defense stat spike. Ala Mhigo has a couple of mobs (like the Avengers) that hit surprisingly hard and if you get a huge room pull can turn into a mess quickly. DPS can help or hinder you. Tank cooldown usage is pretty important.

There's always more that we can do to heal better (except the top 1%, maybe, but I'm sure not in that group!), but that doesn't mean its all on you. If you get a run where all you can do is spam Cure 2 to keep the tank up, then do that. It happens sometimes.

You're on my data center, so if you want to try running together sometime, I can tank one of the ones you have trouble with and see how it goes.

Thanks for the kind offer. It's not all on me in any dungeon run as there are always three other players, but 1) failing gets in your head sometimes which creates its own "bad luck" and 2) after a large enough sample size you have to admit you are a significant part of the problem.

The head of my wee FC offered a week ago to take me into Skalla, which I had been avoiding, with he as tank and another FC member as a RDM. We got a random BLM from DF. My goal was to practice the advice from my FC and this thread and I was told my FC tank wouldn't be as squishy as a lot of the DF tanks, and... it went badly. He was as "squishy" (or non-squishy) as the rest. Which means the others probably weren't bad at all.

I think the tank died like 3-4 times (party wipes) and I died two additional times. The worst run since I tried a F2P MMORPG 3 1/2 years after banning myself from such games because of various reasons I had heard about (expense, learning curve, elitism, time-sink/addiction, etc.). Some game called RIFT. I was some class that had death imagery, having fun, even running group stuff at lower levels. Then apparently I was in a run where roles mattered. I was the tank, but didn't even know what a tank was (or any other part of the trinity, let alone taunting, enmity, etc). So that still gets #1 worst run ever which ended with an abandon and the words "Tank, you are stupid"

As an aside, not that anyone has suggested this, but I didn't create this thread out of a desire for pity from myself or from others. I figured though that I am not the only one with this kind of issue as a healer, whether WHM or SCH or AST. But when people talk a lot about how WHM is easy mode, or how healers get bored in leveling dungeons, it can create an impression that if you struggle you must have chosen the wrong job. Even if I forever stay a crappy healer for any content after HW, hopefully the advice and kind words will echo on to other people.

[MoroMurasaki]

I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth but I think maybe Tridus, myself and another DPS friend could take you through a few things to at least try to give you some input on what you're doing in terms of WHM healing. Tridus and I both main WHM and while we aren't super hardcore by any means I think we could give you some insight about dungeon healing for sure. If Tridus tanks, you heal and me and our friend DPS I think we could certainly try to evaluate where you're having trouble and give advice based on that.
You've got me on discord, let me know if you're up for it. I'll try to organize the rest for one night in the coming week or so.

I honestly think with as much effort and genuine desire to do well as you're putting into this there is no way we can't find some ways to help you out. This isn't pity or anything, all I see is a healer who needs to be able to take the training wheels off in a safe enviroment and I think we can do that as a group. Confidence is a big part of healing (especially healing while doing DPS) and you can't get that together until you have some positive runs under your belt.

Let me know. Hope I can help!

[Tridus]

As an aside, not that anyone has suggested this, but I didn't create this thread out of a desire for pity from myself or from others. I figured though that I am not the only one with this kind of issue as a healer, whether WHM or SCH or AST. But when people talk a lot about how WHM is easy mode, or how healers get bored in leveling dungeons, it can create an impression that if you struggle you must have chosen the wrong job. Even if I forever stay a crappy healer for any content after HW, hopefully the advice and kind words will echo on to other people.

Yeah, I get that. People also say that the two primals in 4.0 were super easy, but Susano Ex kept kicking me in the face for weeks until I figured it out. "Easy" is a relative term, although it doesn't always sound like that on the forums.

I think the tank died like 3-4 times (party wipes) and I died two additional times.

Ouch. Yeah, that's rough. But that's a good reason to run with some folks here, simply because it's easier for us to see what's going wrong if we're there in person.

[winsock]

After continuing to struggle (and do worse?) in any SB dungeon above Siren Song, I think I will have to give up on all but an opportunistic Holy now and then and just spam heal. Parties may get mad but that's better than dead.

For what it's worth, I think you're stepping in the right direction. Healing is the priority and the reason you are there. DPS is great, but also secondary. Parties are usually pretty understanding that big pulls may require big heals and big heals negatively impact your DPS.

I wouldn't forget about DPS altogether of course. When you're healing, focus on anticipating damage (starting a cast prior to dmg landing), being time efficient (i.e. don't use cure I), and limiting overheal (throttle the spam). Your opportunities for DPS will become more apparent over time.

[tinythinker]

For what it's worth, I think you're stepping in the right direction. Healing is the priority and the reason you are there. DPS is great, but also secondary. Parties are usually pretty understanding that big pulls may require big heals and big heals negatively impact your DPS.

I wouldn't forget about DPS altogether of course. When you're healing, focus on anticipating damage (starting a cast prior to dmg landing), being time efficient (i.e. don't use cure I), and limiting overheal (throttle the spam). Your opportunities for DPS will become more apparent over time.

I like to heal. One of my fav quests was for AST where literally your objective was to go around healing NPC soldiers who were out of combat and sitting at their camp. No battle, just heal these characters. I don't try to do DPS because I am bored, I try to stick to my rule of ABC (*flashback to Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glenn Ross*) -- Always Be Casting. If things are smooth and no one seems like they are in any serious danger, I do DPS on whatever healer job I'm on at the time. So while I may make mistakes or have bad luck on boss fights or trial fights on off nights, I usually feel pretty comfortable in making choices. No giant cluster of mobs to worry about. The only thing there is that I wish I could always see what the boss is casting even when the boss isn't targeted so that I don't switch back from the tank to see that "Super-Tank-Destroyer-Cleave" is already 90% done casting Yeah there are some physical gestures but I can get tunnel vision and don't know every boss by heart, so the text really helps when I see it.

In Heavensward (I was here initially for a few months in Spring 2016), I would usually just use Aero and Stone on trash pulls when I wasn't healing on my WHM. Tanks were synched and knew the fights and the DPS were synched and blowing everything away. So i just did my little thing on WHM and SCH and even though I knew there was more to learn, it was fine. No real complaints, at least not to my face. But now, Holy spam is generally expected to help mitigate damage by stunning mobs and helping to burn them down faster. Even well-geared, well-played tanks seem squishier (to me), and sometimes the AoE from the DPS is lacking. So, I was trying to find new ways to be helpful.

But yeah, I think I need to go back more to just healing pulls for leveling dungeons for a while since I keep getting dropped in 4.x content. I am getting good practice at doing the Holy spam thing in the 50/60 roulette, so maybe that will eventually translate over

[tinythinker]

I’ll try to catch up with you soon so we can run something. Don’t give up yet

I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth but I think maybe Tridus, myself and another DPS friend could take you through a few things to at least try to give you some input on what you're doing in terms of WHM healing.

Let me know. Hope I can help!

You're on my data center, so if you want to try running together sometime, I can tank one of the ones you have trouble with and see how it goes.

Thanks for the offers. I will keep an eye out for you. I play on Eastern U.S. time, and weekdays I usually am online for gaming at most from 6/7pm to 10-11pm and sometimes less, but weekends are usually much more open.

Basically I like to heal and healers have short queues, so it works with my limited schedule (which can sometimes be far less than the hours above). But if I ever do give up on healing (or a least on the notion of maining a healing job) I would definitely try to find another role. I do this for fun, which for me includes being useful and making progress, so I'll keep searching for a good fit.