Holy Spam in Wanderer's Palace Speed Runs

[Cerick]

The route I take is to keep stoneskin on tank in between pulls.

While you are running to next group, cast stoneskin and sprint to catch up. wait a second for tank to get agro, then regen and

holy - stuns
holy - removes stun
holy- stuns w/ less time stunned
holy- removes stun
swiftcast holy - stuns

It works best as long as you go in odd numbers, 2 holys is going to prematurely end your stun and leave tank to more dmg inc. Holy animation is very slow so you can easily get the 3rd casted and swap out of cleric stance and start healing before it actually goes "off" 3 stuns them again for 2 seconds and lets you catch up on healing if you need.

If you can go past 3, then you should definitely go to 5 and swiftcast the 5th, if you can go past that depending on tank health then go to 7 and swiftcast the 7th.

Use benediction early in the dungeon if needed and it will be back up at the end.

Boss #2, take the time to stoneskin tank, pop a regen then NUKE NUKE NUKE and run in to Holy the addds 2-3 holy's will decimate the adds, the DPS shoudl never touch the adds and the tank should not really need much healing. If done right, you should never have to deal with the second set of adds.

also, keep in mind you are / should be in cleric stance for holy spams, make a hotkey to easily swap out / in cleric stance.

[Ebon_Drake]

I'm not dropping 20% DPS the entire run so you can spam Holy on every fight through out the dungeon.

Sorry.

[Garnatian]

I'm not dropping 20% DPS the entire run so you can spam Holy on every fight through out the dungeon.

Sorry.

Why? WHMs have the best AoE in the game and even then you don't need to keep it up the entire time.

You should realise that the main reason people want you for Speedruns is for Holy, otherwise you're not worth taking over another BLM.

[Ebon_Drake]

Why? WHMs have the best AoE in the game and even then you don't need to keep it up the entire time.

You should realise that the main reason people want you for Speedruns is for Holy, otherwise you're not worth taking over another BLM.

You misunderstood what I said.

I don't mind running mages ballad on occasion.

That being said, The last WP run I ran the AF2, relic+1 Whm that joined my 3 party group from the duty finder certainly had a macro that spammed Holy the entire run. That or his finger was bleeding from jamming the key for so long. The first set of trash tonberrys he started spamming holy and didn't stop the entire run. He cried for mages ballad before we got to the second set of trash. I turned it on. He continued to spam Holy until he and I were both out of mana. He could barely keep the tank alive the entire run because he had no mana to heal. We actually wiped on some trash towards the end because he was so busy spamming Holy the tank dropped due to lack of heals (from the WHM having no mana). sure we beat WP, the tank (sitting next to me) was complaining the entire time that he had to fight really hard the entire time to keep agro. Also, like I said, this was a DF group and no where did we imply that we would be speed running.

If Holy is such an amazing AOE that it outputs more damage than the 20% of the DPS I'm losing the entire run requiring me to be nothing more than a mana battery for the WHM I feel it's too powerful and needs to be nerfed. White Mage is not a DPS class and shouldn't be used as such. If they are used as a DPS class then adjustments need to be made in my opinion to tone them down so they can be used for healing and not feel they are required to DPS everything to the point of hurting the group.

[Pinworms]

I'd rather the healer worry about healing due to the fact the tank has died on almost every speed run pug I have done. Then that trying to shave off time just added another 3-5 min.

[Raminax]

That was just a moronic White Mage, Ebon Drake. Contrary to popular belief, Holy spam does not a good White Mage make. A White Mage that recognizes when enough DPS is enough and switches over to actually healing is the good person.

That said... It's probably a truth that nothing can really match a White Mage's AoE potential when you remove (or at least greatly lessen it) one of its' primary drawbacks, i.e. the high mana consumption. I'm personally quite happy if a Bard just activates Mage's Ballad while we're running (conveniently not considered in combat) towards the next "stop" in the instance, so to speak. However, the rebellious Bards that do Army's Paeon and think their 110 damage Wide Volleys come close to my 600 damage Holys make me quite wroth.

[Eclair_Xysha]

Sounds like a lot of work just to save a few minutes.

It is. But my idea is to hurry up if the tank decides it's a speed run via DF.

@Op: use holy especially on the little puddings. CLERIC DAT. It's amazing. But priority first. If you some how can't (because I have never had a tank died on me yet when I holy the puddings) then I think something is wrong. But if you guys have FULL gage of LB and you have dragoon (or any melee dps I think but I only see dragoons do it) they can LB right as soon as you start. Like don't have the tank pull. Dps pull with LB and the puddings adds should come out asap. Start spanning holy twice or three times. While tank grabs agro and then you should be good. And when the pudding spawns again holy spam. You should only holy spam that boss 2 times. Like first add spawn and the second. If it takes any more to do that, DD is not enough from dps. If you have a bard they can help you when you spam aoe.

That is the only major advice I can give you with holy spamming in WP if your tanks hp is just draining away. If you think you can pull out holy once in a while during mobs it's cool. But know it's mp draining and your party should know better than to have you risk draining a lot of your mp and risking the party's hp.

[Kinseykinz]

You CAN Holy each AoE-killed pack of mobs and the Flans provided that:

1. You are a solidly geared/skilled WHM who knows how to quickly switch between CS and Healing...and who can on a moment's notice drop a Benediction/Cure II Bomb. So if WHM is NOT your main class, you probably are better of heal-spamming.
2. Your tank is solidly geared/skilled and knows that they need to help the healer out with skilled use of their cool-downs. If your tank is a sponge, you will HAVE to spam Cures to keep them standing.
3. The DD's in your group aren't stupid, and can somewhat swiftly,burn down an AoE pile of mobs....without pulling hate or standing in MoB AoE damage areas.
4. You understand how and when as the healer to actually use Holy...and that 'Holy Spam' really means 2-3 Holy's per AoE pull.

If all of this seems to be true, then, and only then is it worth the risk of Holy usage during the AoE pulls to get a 13-16ish min run. Otherwise, better to have a 100% survival, but 17-20 minute run.

[Cerick]

I'd rather the healer worry about healing due to the fact the tank has died on almost every speed run pug I have done. Then that trying to shave off time just added another 3-5 min.

there is a balance, the WHM needs to know when to stop holy dps and heal. The faster the mobs die though, the "less" healing required. I would never run a full pug and spam holy though and I don't recommend joining a pug with a random healer that you don't know who is going to spam holy. I run w/ my FC and on rare occasion have to pick up 1 person, so we know our play style and we know exactly what we are doing on each step of the dungeon based on our party setup. Don't have to type instructions to a pug cause FC is on voice.

[Kinseykinz]

If Holy is such an amazing AOE that it outputs more damage than the 20% of the DPS I'm losing the entire run requiring me to be nothing more than a mana battery for the WHM I feel it's too powerful and needs to be nerfed. White Mage is not a DPS class and shouldn't be used as such. If they are used as a DPS class then adjustments need to be made in my opinion to tone them down so they can be used for healing and not feel they are required to DPS everything to the point of hurting the group.

Except this 'high' DPS comes at a high cost, both in Mana and in Risk. The spell is semi-slow and has a long animation lock. It eats a fair amount of mana on a party role that while able to regen Mana, can only do so on an ability CD timer. Lastly, since the role is a Main Healing role, switching from Healer to DD takes time and is risky...so it's a spell that can only be used in situations where the party can sustain the damage from mobs while the WHM is DDing. Lastly, the spell is really only 'worth' its cost/risk on multiple mobs. WHM isn't known for it's single-target DPS.

So are there situations like solo AoE farming, 'Trash Mob AoE's', Flans, and Garuda's Plumes where Holy is sexy? Yup.
Is Holy OP overall? Nope. Not when you factor in what it costs/risks each and every time it is used.