How to heal Tanks...

[Liam_Harper]

So, save SC for Raise? And PoM for Stone spam? I don't have Holy for quite a few levels...

Pretty much.

SC for Raise is a very good rule for PF. An 8 sec cast is a lot of downtime, however later on if you're confident you have a decent tank it's useful on large trash pulls. You can SC as you're coming to the end of a pull and Holy once the tank stops to catch all the mobs in a stun right away without cast time. Then you have a window to Regen, weave in Assize/Asylum/PoM and commence the Holy spam.

However that's a few levels away so you don't need to worry about that yet. Interestingly enough healing tanks only gets easier the further you go, both you and your tank have a much wider toolkit and some of the later dungeons are easier in general.

[Veis_Alveare]

Pretty much.

SC for Raise is a very good rule for PF. An 8 sec cast is a lot of downtime, however later on if you're confident you have a decent tank it's useful on large trash pulls. You can SC as you're coming to the end of a pull and Holy once the tank stops to catch all the mobs in a stun right away without cast time. Then you have a window to Regen, weave in Assize/Asylum/PoM and commence the Holy spam.

However that's a few levels away so you don't need to worry about that yet. Interestingly enough healing tanks only gets easier the further you go, both you and your tank have a much wider toolkit and some of the later dungeons are easier in general.

Very much this.

At level cap (which might feel ages away right now but really isn't) WHM is an absolute champ for dungeon healing. You do the damage of a mediocre dps, provide gigantic mitigation with Holy and generally have an answer for every situation.

Remember - the only HP that matters is the last one. People don't need to be at full health all the time. As you get access to skills like Regen and Asylum that heal gradually over time let them do more if the heavy lifting for you.

[ZeSeKa]

Is casting Stone during downtime worth it? It can mess up my Cure timing, after all.

[Rilifane]

Whenever nobody needs healing, try to dps.
Play it safe at first, see that everyone looks healthy enough and won't die within the next few GCDs and try to dps every now and then. As you get better you'll get a better feel for how much damage people take and when they are safe, regardless of current HP. Someone can be perfectly safe at 20% HP and someone can be in danger at 70%.
It's not important how much HP everyone has but rather how much damage they are going to take. And dead mobs can't hit anything, so see it as a more aggressive way of "healing".

Once you unlock Holy at 45 I strongly recommend dpsing at least for the first couple of casts because Holy stuns and stunned mobs can't hit the tank.

[AnotherPerson]

If I learned anything from Conjurer's storyline, if you DPS the enemy, then they can't hurt the party if they're dead.

Don't save Lucid as an emergency mana restore - Lucid is used as part of your rotation to manage MP.

Once you start unlocking your oGCDs like Benediction, don't save it for an emergency when you spam cure II to the point you run out of mana, use it when tanks get low by purposely not healing them because one Benediction can bring them to full HP rather than a couple of cure IIs - this both saves MP and saves extra GCDs to push the battle faster since DPS per GCD costs less MP - and Stoning the enemies to death (or Glaring) will reducing the number of times enemies can consistently hit the party - which means less MP spent.

When you unlock Holy at lv 45 as a WHM - use Holy at least up to 3 times on adds. Holy can stun enemies for 6 seconds - 3 seconds - and then 1 second. A total of 10 seconds of no incoming damage. That's basically an invulnerability per wave. Between Holy casts you can apply regen and let the regen do its thing, or cure II if the situation is dire.


You can throw a regen on the tanks once they grab aggro - but you can technically throw a regen on them before they grab aggro as long as you run up literally behind them at all times so they can AoE and take that aggro back instantly. The way ShB works is that as long as tank stance is on, tanks generate way more aggro than other jobs so healers don't really have to worry about aggro on a regen pre-pull as long as they run up behind the tank so the tank can pull the mobs off of them.

[Hysterior]

My usual recommendations for newer healers:
- Use all the oGCD skills at your disposal for your level, on cool-down (powerful AND free)
- You should never use Cure I (or equivalent) if you have better skills available, these are quite literally your worst healing skills, avoid as much as possible
- People do not need to be topped off all the time (applicable to tanks too). Let people regen by themselves unless some damages are incoming (and no, Medica 2 does not need a 100% uptime. The only dot that should be running 100% is your dps dot on the boss)
- Mana regen skills on cooldown, not when you need mana
- Encounters usually don't need as much healing as you think. Learn how to DPS as soon as possible, no group wants a level 80 healers that cannot dps at all.
- In parties with a co-healer, assume they will be a heal spam bot (see point above) and let them solo heal until you see that they need help (works 99% of the time)
- Don't use regen before a pull. Your tank does not need it and you will get aggro. Tanks need to go back to pick up the mobs you stole and he will hate you. No commendation for you!


For WHM:
- Benediction is not a skill that you rarely use, it is the most powerful single person heal in the game, and it is FREE! USE IT!
- Even only one Holy reduces healing needed for some time, use it (Spam it like Lalafells spam the "Happy" emote to annoy people)


Last one:
For Benediction, you need to find that amazing sweet spot.
Not too late that it fails and is applied when tank is dead, but not too early either.
Make the tank pee a little... then use it.

[ZeSeKa]

Medica 2 has regen for the whole party, right? Should I use that frequently?

But thank you all so far! I'm not that interested in commendations, but they're flyin' in, so I guess I'm doing something right.

[Hanayome]

Medica II is great to use in response to multiple or back-to-back party-wide AoEs since the regen ticks can usually top off your DPS without having to use any direct heal spells/abilities.

I'd try and save it for AoE damage situations when possible. Its an additional regen you can throw out on top of your regen, asylum, etc. if you're really struggling with keeping the tank alive, just keep in mind that its also one of, if not THE highest MP consumer(s) out of your spells. If everything is going right, however, Medica II should not be necessary for most trash pulls. That being said, if your tank is making your life miserable, you can throw it out and use WHM's many MP-restoring abilities to cope with the higher mana usage.

[Veis_Alveare]

Medica 2 has regen for the whole party, right? Should I use that frequently?

But thank you all so far! I'm not that interested in commendations, but they're flyin' in, so I guess I'm doing something right.

Happy things have been helping!

WHM goes through a sort of weird evolution as it levels where it starts off without any heal-over-time abilities then gets heal-over-time abilities (Regen, Medica II, Asylum) and then finally replaces the majority of it's heal-over-time abilities with better options.

Not to dive too deep but you'll get three abilities that start with the word Afflatus. Afflatus Solace is around level 52, it's a free Cure II potency heal that is instant cast. At 76 you get Afflatus Rapture which is a free Medica that is also instant cast. You're limited as to how often you're able to cast these (so they don't technically replace Cure II/Medica) but for every 3 you cast you get to use the third Afflatus ability - Misery. It's a 900 potency hit on your primary target that does reduced damage in an AoE around them to other enemies.

This means once you're at 74 you want to be using all the Solace you can for healing (and similarly over 76 using rapture) since not only do they cost no MP and are instant but they let you use your big Misery attack. For some context at max level a WHM's Misery can hit for upwards of 120k damage, higher than the max hits of many dps jobs. It's a really great damage tool.

So basically as you're leveling WHM you're given Regen and then Medica II and for a while they're the best tools for the job... but then they get outclassed in late game. For sure make use of them while you can but don't get so attached that you're shooting yourself in the foot and healing primarily with them even when you've got your better options available.

Also as an aside - in almost every dungeon encounter dps and healers take so little damage their natural HP regeneration over time in combination with an ability called Assize that you get in the 50s will be enough to keep you guys safe. Just like with tanks the only hit point that matters is the last one so just because a dps takes a few smacks from an enemy on a trash pull or a boss casts a weak room-wide damage ability doesn't mean you need to be popping out Medica II. It's crazy how little healing is actually needed in most content, at level cap many times I have to literally try to find uses for my Afflatus skills on WHM because there is so little damage happening to the party.

[Liam_Harper]

Medica 2 has regen for the whole party, right? Should I use that frequently?

But thank you all so far! I'm not that interested in commendations, but they're flyin' in, so I guess I'm doing something right.

Only when needed, don't fall into the trap of spamming Medica II. You use it when the party takes a heavy raidwide and you know another one isn't coming up soon. Then sit back, dps and let the HoT do its work. For this reason it helps to learn to map out fights as WhM as you get more familiar with mechanics. A full Medica II is a very strong heal if it ticks for the full duration, 700 total potency iirc and almost always better than Medica (except in dire emergency with medica II used already and no other aoe heal).

You don't want to Medica II if only the tank is taking damage, nor do you want to spam it as a "just incase" button, since that results in heavy overheal.

Later on you'll prioritize Asylum and Afflatus Rapture over Medica II, using Medica II only if you run out of lilies and Asylum is on cd.

Also a side note on Cure III, this has a very small range and tends to be difficult to use in PF. In most cases except emergency with a stacked group, Medica II is again better.