Overwhelmed by mechanics, healing and dps

[Almagnus1]

If you really want to learn the ropes with healing WHM is by far the easiest to manage because the class is so straight forward and dead simple compared to AST and SCH.

AST tends to be a bit more complex, and if you're getting overwhelmed, may be better to start simpler and return to AST later one when you feel confident with WHM.

I can't comment on SCH because I'm better at murdering teammates than healing them =D

[Aiscence]

If your healing parse is so big, I can't imagine your overhealing tho. if you look how fights goes, there's generally an aoe, a tank buster (generally in that order, can be reversed) then random mechanics where damage can be dodged or a few people will be targeted, then again an aoe, a tankbuster. (even in dungeons)

So between 2 mechanics there's generally a huge time, like 30 seconds (how many time do you see more than 2 or 3 aoes in a 3 min boss fight in dungeons). 30 seconds is 12 GCDs. And in most occasions, you only need 1 or 2 heal at worst to heal your group back to full (don't forget you aint alone in 8+ man content).

The biggest mistakes people do when beginning healing is: the tank must be full hp all the time. if you dont attack or heal you ll see the speed that its hp goes down, outside of tankbusters, every heal that put them over 100% is basically a waste, so just aim for 90% and heal them when they get under 50 or smth unless you see a tankbuster (if you're an ast, you can easily weave a dignity, and if you have a scholar with you, they ll probably get very pissy if you dont let their excog pop by not letting the tank goes under 50%).
The second one is to have regens always on (aoe regens or on tank) "just in case": everything on this game is scripted/timed. if you do the same fight 100 times, unless there's two patterns (but then it's the same, just x2), everything will always be at the exact same second in the fight, nothing is "a surprise" even if you don't know the fight, an aoe just happened? there's two solutions: the boss cast a second one back to back, or he wont for a while.
And the third one is: if there's a regen, let the regen do it's job. if you put an aoe regen, then heal again on top of it, the regen was a waste and thats a second gcd you could have used to dps.

Those are generally the most basic mistakes and advice I can give. People wont die by a random thing, and if they die because they did a bad, it's their fault? as a healer your job is to heal the mandatory damage, not the oopsies of a dps that isnt doing their job. I think when people begin to understand that, they begin to be less stressed about healing and they get better naturally. I generally only look at the hp bars when a mechanic or aoe damage happens, the rest of the time I m just pressing 1.

(there's other things like never move more than you need to when there's an aoe, if you move 1meter further than the line, that's a dps loss, if your GCD isnt constantly rolling, it's a loss, etc)

[Cabalabob]

When you’re learning a fight don’t worry so much about dps, your job is to heal, focus on that, play your cards, maybe throw out some DoTs and maelfics when you feel like there’s some downtime in the healing, but for the most part you’re a healer and outside of savage content your dps doesn’t mean that much.

Once you’ve got the fight down and you know what damage is coming when and you know when and where to move for mechanics, then you can start to optimise your healing and focus more on dps. I like to think of healers as a manual car slowly shifting gears as you get more comfortable with the fight.

[Bright-Flower]

When you’re learning a fight don’t worry so much about dps, your job is to heal, focus on that, play your cards, maybe throw out some DoTs and maelfics when you feel like there’s some downtime in the healing, but for the most part you’re a healer and outside of savage content your dps doesn’t mean that much.

Once you’ve got the fight down and you know what damage is coming when and you know when and where to move for mechanics, then you can start to optimise your healing and focus more on dps. I like to think of healers as a manual car slowly shifting gears as you get more comfortable with the fight.

This. DPS is something to work in when you're comfortable with content. Focus on just keeping yourself alive by doing mechanics and healing the party of course, and let the dps come when you're comfortable.

Having healer dps is all well and good, but not if you're stressing yourself out or stretching too thin while getting used to thing.

[Jaelommiss]

This. DPS is something to work in when you're comfortable with content. Focus on just keeping yourself alive by doing mechanics and healing the party of course, and let the dps come when you're comfortable.

Having healer dps is all well and good, but not if you're stressing yourself out or stretching too thin while getting used to thing.

Hard disagree. Mindlessly mashing Glare/Broil/Malefic is a healer's default action and should be automatic until a healing action is needed. Even in Savage it's almost always safe to wait one or two or five GCDs before healing. There's plenty of time to assess the situation while casting.

Dropping a cast to move or not renewing a dot in time is normal while figuring out the fight's cadence but there's no excuse to stand idly while learning because spamming a singular offensive spell has no cognitive load. It's arguably harder to actively look for opportunities to attack than to do it by default. Press '1' until [mechanic/dot refresh/personal CD] is dead simple.

Edit: Dealing damage seems a lot more complex and intimidating than it really is. In truth it's not much more difficult than jumping. You can test this for yourself. Grab a couple of friends to run a dungeon, and just endless mash the space bar to jump. Stop jumping when you need to heal, then continue jumping. You'll see that after a couple of dungeons it doesn't take any thought at all to jump continuously. Dealing damage as a healer is the exact same thing. Spam one key, stop to heal, then continue spamming it.

[NobleWinter]

They really compared healer dps to jumping continuously and it was both compelling and accurate. Give yourself more time and everything will fall into place. One day you'll chuckle about how scary healer dps was.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Hard disagree. Mindlessly mashing Glare/Broil/Malefic is a healer's default action and should be automatic until a healing action is needed. Even in Savage it's almost always safe to wait one or two or five GCDs before healing. There's plenty of time to assess the situation while casting.

Dropping a cast to move or not renewing a dot in time is normal while figuring out the fight's cadence but there's no excuse to stand idly while learning because spamming a singular offensive spell has no cognitive load. It's arguably harder to actively look for opportunities to attack than to do it by default. Press '1' until [mechanic/dot refresh/personal CD] is dead simple.

Edit: Dealing damage seems a lot more complex and intimidating than it really is. In truth it's not much more difficult than jumping. You can test this for yourself. Grab a couple of friends to run a dungeon, and just endless mash the space bar to jump. Stop jumping when you need to heal, then continue jumping. You'll see that after a couple of dungeons it doesn't take any thought at all to jump continuously. Dealing damage as a healer is the exact same thing. Spam one key, stop to heal, then continue spamming it.

Different players learns their way to better at different pace. That being said, I still agree that the minimum expectation of healer DPS is: "Press 1 button until somebody needs healing."
At the very least, keep that Glare/Broil/Malefic rolling as much as we can. Nevermind keeping DoT uptime on spot nor even trying to manage stuffs like SCH's Aetherflow and AST's cards. Those can wait until they're used to keeping their dmg spell rolling. One can be surprised with the increase in their numbers from just keeping that one button jammed!

[Brandedblade]

Different players learns their way to better at different pace. That being said, I still agree that the minimum expectation of healer DPS is: "Press 1 button until somebody needs healing."
At the very least, keep that Glare/Broil/Malefic rolling as much as we can. Nevermind keeping DoT uptime on spot nor even trying to manage stuffs like SCH's Aetherflow and AST's cards. Those can wait until they're used to keeping their dmg spell rolling. One can be surprised with the increase in their numbers from just keeping that one button jammed!

I tend to recommend the opposite, start with popping dots and start spamming nukes as you get more comfortable myself.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

I tend to recommend the opposite, start with popping dots and start spamming nukes as you get more comfortable myself.

I used to do this until I met few players who actually just flat out early on Friday refresh their DoT everytime they have to make a tiniest movement. At that point straight Galre/Broil/Malefi would flat out over the early refreshed DoT. Hence mine suggestion.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

crap I’m on phone and cannot edit those typos out lol
I was meant to say this:

I used to do this until I met few players who actually just flat out early refresh their DoT everytime they have to make a tiniest movement. At that point straight Glare/Broil/Malefic would flat out win over the early refreshed DoT. Hence mine suggestion.