Healer Role in Dungeons

[Evie91]

Please can someone help me to understand the healer role in dungeons. I thought my job was to just heal my team members but I've been told twice now that I'm healing too much. However, if I don't keep on top of healing, the tank dies and then I get a load of abuse. I'm not sure when exactly I'm supposed to heal if not when it's needed and why I'm not supposed to keep everyone's health at 100%?
Any advice would be helpful, thanks.

[Simaril]

If everyone were reasonably geared and skilled it sounds like you'd be fine. Since there's usually at least one or two bad players in the group, there are some things healers can and should do to compensate;

-Overhealing generates aggro. Generally, on trash and easy bosses I let the tank fall to 75% or so -- Learn how much you heal for, and let your target drop close to that many HPs before healing. Adjust according to how much damage the tank is taking and how quickly.
-DPS should take very little damage, so if you follow that same method you should rarely need to heal them.

If you find yourself standing around with nothing to do;

-Cast aero, and thunder on the target. Target of target macros work great.
-If there are two or more targets, that take some time to kill, and/or the tank is taking a lot of damage use repose on the second or third target.
-If there's a target that has to die quickly (bomb type mobs) and everyone's health is okay feel free to dps (stone II).

[sharazisspecial]

Use stoneskin more.

[Raiz_Cineris]

There is an absolutely HUGE laundry list of tanks out there that simply do not know how to keep hate on mob groups so if you spam heal, say, cure 1 you will take hate quite easily..

Also NEVER cast regen on tank while not fighting and NEVER stoneskin just before he is about to pull. THese will give you immediate hate.

All in all there are just a lot of terribad tanks out there that dont know how to do their role plain and simple and we need to be careful with our heals to prevent from gaining too much hate.. Its funny you are actually being blamed for their incompetence but it is what it is. Just wait till their health is 75% before tossing out heals and dont spam cure 2

[16bitBounty]

My play style is this:
Keep the tank at or above 75%, though depending on my dungeon knowledge i may let them get rather low.
Keep the DPS topped off, this is extremely easy after 35 when you get regen.
Do the Cleric dance in between popping heals and keep my Aero up and my Stone II's pouring out.

I never get complaints.

[Evie91]

Thanks! You've helped a lot

[Noni]

What works well is this: don't start healing until at least 3-4 seconds into the pull. Don't cast regen until about tank grabs hate on all the mobs. Cast stoneskin when last mob is almost dead and you wont walk into a ton of hate.

[Kako0404]

Spend the first few pulls to learn the tendencies of your tank. Figure out his/her Flash (for PLD) and Overpower (for WAR) timings. It's relatively safe to start healing after that. If your DPS gets hit don't panic, heal enough so the DPS don't get 1 shotted and let the tank work on grabbing the mobs back and then top off the DPS hp when you have a chance. If you pull aggro dont' panic either, healers are not that squishy in this game. Kite the mob back to your tank or u can fluid aura them. Communication with tank is key!

As long as you are not over healing, you shouldn't have to worry about pull aggro in main bosses unless they spawn adds. Most of your aggro should come from adds or trash mobs. Study the enmity gauge (the little vertical bar that appears on the party bar beside your class/job logo's when you target a mob on your enmity list). Also learn the colour representation of the mobs on your enmity list. If it's red the mob is on you, orange is be cautious.

[Donouchi]

"......
Also NEVER cast regen on tank while not fighting and NEVER stoneskin just before he is about to pull. THese will give you immediate hate.
....."

I want to go more in depth with what you are advising, I hope you don't mind.

He says to never cast Regen on the Tank or Stoneskin right before a pull because 99.9% of the time, this happens:

Regen(Right before pull) > Tank Pulls > Regen Tick > *That Regen tick just put you at the top of the Threat meter of every add that comes with the pull* > *Cue Benny Hill music*

The same reasoning applies with casting Stoneskin right before a pull where the Stoneskin could be applied right after the pull which would put you at the top of the threat meter on the adds.

[Teraluna]

Please can someone help me to understand the healer role in dungeons. I thought my job was to just heal my team members but I've been told twice now that I'm healing too much. However, if I don't keep on top of healing, the tank dies and then I get a load of abuse. I'm not sure when exactly I'm supposed to heal if not when it's needed and why I'm not supposed to keep everyone's health at 100%?
Any advice would be helpful, thanks.

You can heal....but - your major role is to take the blame, it is in the small print when you agreed to take on the healer role.