Experiencing new WHM paranoia. Halp!

[Danfingo]

I am by no means new to MMO's, but I am new to having a healing class as my main. I think I'm doing fine as a healer, having cleared everything up to HM Titan with less gear than was recommended, and with less difficulty than most seem to experience.

In the past I've always been a dps class where my responsibility seemed less - I didn't feel like I was helping children cross a six lane highway. On FFXIV, I seem to experience anxiety when joining groups, because I feel like everyone's life is in my hands. After the fights are over, I am riddled with self doubt about how good my healing was. I guess what I'm saying is: As DD I could parse my damage and see how I stacked against others in my group or guild. As a healer, some of my performance questions go unanswered.

To you great healers out there: am I alone on this? Lol

Maybe I'm just being crazy, but I would love to hear what you all have to say!

Thanks

Ky

[Ehayte]

I can't speak from a healing perspective, but from a Tanking perspective you are not alone, especially in the environment that this game has created. Most people are completely indifferent exceptional ability or performance, and are harsh and damning regarding sub-par or poor performance. "Perfect" is the absolute minimum that most DPS classes expect from tanks and healers. If something goes moderately wrong, the response usually goes something like this:

You take a CRAPLOAD of damage from a BUNCH of enemies because of a TINY mistake someone made!
Lolz Bard > ...
DoodSummoner 420xx69 > wtf?
Tank/Healer > Sorry guys, I tried my best but things just didn't go right/we had bad luck
Lolz Bard > u suk, noob - l2p
Lolz Bard has left the party!
DoodSummoner 420xx69 has left the party!
Tank/Healer > Sigh....have a good one.
Healer/Tank > See ya later : /

[Sareal]

I'm still fairly new to FFXIV's groups gameplay, but I experience the same thing, except it started out as the opposite, I couldn't help but think about how great I was actually performing...until I started noticing that maybe I was doing too much.

This feeling started to transform into self-doubt. Am I doing something wrong? I'm not experienced enough to notice all the mistakes that everyone makes yet so when we wipe I can't help but think it's my fault. Turns out I just get unlucky with less experienced groups. (Not that it's a bad thing in itself, but it does bring up questions about self-performance at times)

To answer your question, you are definitely not alone in this

[FifthDarkrum]

You get over it with time. After healing for years in multiple MMOs I'm pretty indifferent when the group wipes unless I fully know I did something wrong or could have done my healing in another way. Ask yourself: "Did we fail because there wasn't enough healing based on this encounter (AKA did you lose three people to Titan's stomp because aoe heals didn't come fast enough)?" The answer will give you a good idea of how you did healing the encounter.

If you just mean in general, win or lose, that's something you just need time and experience to get over. Use it to make improvements but don't let it become something you're obsessing about before, during, and after the fight because healing is not the end-all-be-all of whether people live or die (believe it or not).

[PetiteMalFleur]

You must run with some overly serious people! Come dungeon with me. I'll send you a friend request in game. If someone is an ass about my healing abilities, or anything else, they become a waste of mana to heal. It can be pretty hilarious when they become the only person to die in CM over and over. My static party know who's good side they need to stay on!

[Ghishlain]

A lot about healing (once you a reach a certain tier of skill) is about self reflection and thought. If no one complains, you're doing a good job. If someone unreasonably complains, ignore it and move on (this can and will happen, regardless of how well you play).

If you're doing a very poor job, most people will let you know you're doing so and some will try to help you improve.

Unfortunately, there is no straight forward metric to determine how "good" of a healer you are. However, once you get past this point and considered an acceptable player, how you improve is kinda up to yourself. Many times I exit through a dungeon and ask myself how I can improve. No one complained about my healing but I saw a few mistakes that I particularly disliked in my play style and would try to improve on that particular aspect to increase my efficiency. Again, no one complained but it was a task taken upon myself to complete.

People make mistakes, people do stupid things (I've died five times in a single HM Ifrit fight because after my first death, I got so off kilter that it affected my performance for the rest of the fight). Stay calm, take all criticism with a grain of salt, and continue to find avenues of improvement. If no one is complaining to you on a frequent basis, you're doing well for yourself. Now you're on your own to see where you can improve your performance.

[Bloodwillow]

If no one is complaining to you on a frequent basis, you're doing well for yourself.

The above I'd like to point out. People will tell you if you are bad, heh trust me. But if no one says anything, then take it as you are doing well. People will complain. They would rather blame the healer or tank for their death when they themselves screwed up and attacked the wrong mob. Stupid I know, but human nature.

[TwoEggs]

well as another healer I never worry bout it .. Its just a game and in by no means something to lose sleep over ... if u all wipe and u tried ur best u did good .. if u made a mistake and someone points it out as the reason just take it with a grain of salt and say it happens ill try not to let it happen again.. people take the game to serious sometimes like they are gonna get a box a cookies if they did something really good just like countless others already have done.. chin up.. eyes forward and do your best to not let others die...

[chronoz]

As a veteran healer from XI and in XIV 1.0, when I first started plaing in ARR I was pretty unprepared. The gameplay moves a lot faster and in the blink of an eye a tank or DPS can be killed if your not on the ball, needless to say this srsly affected my confidence when I first started XIV, but I knew it was me(nerves), being terrible for the first few days regardless of being a lvl 50 or not was going to happen, I got pushed off the wall 3 times in my first AK run as whm.

You don't know the fights, the debuffs, or where and when to stand somewhere. But after a few days and a few good runs you get your stride, calm down learn to use the games interface properly and relax. Just relax, focus on "easier" content for a bit till you feel confident then challenge something a little harder. I ran CM for a few days to figure it all out again. Now I do coil runs, just takes a bit of practice. GL.

[DivineAyumi]

As a healer main for 10+ years of gaming I always felt that healers have the "Babysit Job".

If DPS doesn't dodge abilities and gets hit, you have to heal them before they die.
If tanks miss a taunt or simply sucks, you have to keep Tank, DPS, and yourself alive regardless.
If you do pull aggro although you used up all "Reduce aggro abilities" you have to also take the role of a tank >_>

There is a very fine line that determines a good healer from a bad one at times, other times its very transparent.
(This will be left alone since there's so much to go into, lol)

As long as you know your priorities in a group, you'll be fine as a healer.
In Titan for example my priorities are:

Myself > Tank > Second healer(if any) > Bards(if any) > All the rest.

If a DPS dies in Titan 99% of the time is their own fault. As long as you're using your Medicas you are doing fine as far as healing DPS goes.

I personally tend to punish DPS by letting them die when they repeat the same mistake over and over again although they were told how the mechanics works. This includes tanks as well (assuming I can tank the content as WHM).
I've completed hundreds of AK runs without a tank since they keep falling to Demon Wall Repells.