DPSing as a healer - best practices

[Sirantha]

I know there's a lot of debate about whether healers should DPS or not, but forget all of that!

I commonly find myself with a bit of downtime in between heals in the content I'm running (since I'm mostly just doing WP at the moment). For that reason, I usually make sure the tank is doing okay, hit them with a Regen, then switch out to Cleric Stance and start my normal rotation of DoTs and a Stone II or two if I can fit them in, all the while switching out to heal if I need to. This seems fine to me.

However, in a few runs recently, I've found that the moment I switch into Cleric Stance, the tank takes a huge spike of damage for one reason or another, which leads to me becoming a bit flustered (I'm a nervous MMO player!) and scrambling to switch out of CS to heal the tank up. The rest of the run I'm more reluctant to switch into DPS, since it happens a few times and throws my confidence.

Is this normal? Got any tips for best practices?

[Sirantha]

As an additional note, I know we should only be DPSing when we feel comfortable and when it's situationally appropriate, but I want to be the best healer I can be!

[LiadansWhisper]

The huge spike of damage generally means one of a few things:

1) The tank is undergeared. You can mitigate this by examining him when you get into the dungeon. If the tank is really undergeared (or lacking a good weapon), you may wish to be more cautious about your stance dancing (perhaps saving it for bosses).
2) The tank stood in fire. Sometimes tanks stand in fire. I've heard various excuses, but when you have three mobs doing an AoE attack and the tank is just chilling in it, there's going to be some hell to pay. There's nothing you can do to mitigate this, since it's the tank being a derphead.
3) The tank failed to use a mitigation CD when they needed it. Which would have caused the tank to take more damage than they intended to take. Some tanks honestly believe that they don't need to use CDs on trash, and will refuse to do so. They're kind of hell on wheels.

You could try doing a few initial pulls to see how the damage works out on the tank before stance dancing. You could also try asking the tank if he's comfortable with you DPSing (which would hopefully give him a clue that you will be stance dancing, and thus he needs to stop swimming in the fire). Ultimately, the best way is probably to run with a static group if you can get away with it. That way, when your PLD tank stands in all the things, you can yell at him on Mumble for dropping to one health before popping Hallowed Ground. >.>

Not that I know ANYTHING about that or anything.

[Taerra]

Some tanks honestly believe that they don't need to use CDs on trash, and will refuse to do so. They're kind of hell on wheels.

I run into SO many of those, it's not even funny. Makes it that much harder to heal even when NOT stance dancing.

[Ed_N_Ants]

I do the stance dance all the time... If I can get the extra hit in there its gonna happen and thats the ways it is... However you need to play the people your playing with if the tank is not avoiding the damage then you need to stop dpsing and concentrate on healing the tank... You can bring it up to their attention but that usually leads to bitterness and a bad run... I use alot of duty finder because im still low level progressing through the story and most of my FC is end game... Personally as long as the tank is pulling hate then I just do what i can depending on there play style...

[kro]

Use Stoneskin liberally while in Cleric Stance. Stoneskin always shields for a set amount (18% of max HP) even in cleric stance.

Use <tt> macros to reduce the amount of target switching you need to do. <tt> = target of target. Here's an example:

/micon "Stone II"
/ac "Stone II" <t>
/ac "Stone II" <tt>

The first line enables the Stone II icon for your macro. The second line casts Stone II on your target if it's an enemy. The third line casts Stone II on the target of your current target (you cast on whatever your tank is attacking). This lets you deal damage and heal without ever having to switch targets manually in a party. If you're solo, it functions as usual.

Learn what tank cooldowns do and memorize what the buff icons look like. This lets you know when the tank won't need heavy amounts of healing. This is especially useful in WP speed runs.

Know the abilities of the enemies you're fighting so that you can predict spike damage. For example, the Tonberry King's ability Everyone Grudge deals ~1,000 dmg per stack regardless of abilities like shield oath and rampart. If that boss has 4-5 stacks, get out of Cleric Stance and make sure your tank is topped off and has Stoneskin. If you understand all the possible sources of incoming damage, it's easy to know when you're free to deal damage safely.

[Tursiops]

Use Stoneskin liberally while in Cleric Stance. Stoneskin always shields for a set amount (18% of max HP) even in cleric stance.

Yep. My healing usually follows this pattern:
1. Top off tank
2/3. Add Stoneskin/Enter Cleric Stance
4. Aero II -> Aero I
5. Stone II; repeat until tank's Stoneskin is gone.
6/7. Reapply Stoneskin/Exit Cleric Stance
goto 1

If we're down to just one target, I'll stay in CS and switch over to playing pure DPS. Can't let 400+ INT go to waste

Of course, this is all conditional on the rest of my party. If they're well-geared and I trust them, I'm not super concerned about them taking a ton of damage. If I get a bull-headed tank who won't wait for me to cast Stoneskin before pulling mobs, I tend to just stick to pure heals.

[peaches]

I find this MUCH easier to do as a Scholar. I can literally dps for 90% of AK and WP, even through most bosses. For the most part my fairy does all the healing - the tank will be sitting around 50-70% hp constantly, but he rarely ever spikes lower unless he gets hit by something, and if he does I just pop a Lustrate or two. Pre-shield before pulls with Adlo and Stoneskin and I can dps any trash, and it works almost as well on bosses.

As a WHM I find it a lot harder to do. Regen doesn't cure quite as much as the fairy and when it falls off you have to jump out of CS to reapply. Really the only way I've found that works is pre-shielding with Stoneskin, popping CS and tossing out Aero2/Aero, then back out of CS to top off the tank, apply Stoneskin and Regen directly after, then back to DPSing. It can get pretty hairy sometimes though, especially when you hit CS and the INSTANT you do the tank takes a large spike of damage, and you can't switch out of it for another 3 seconds or so.

[coffeeking]

I just cast Aero 1 and 2 and heal relaxed.

all a healer can do with dps is speed up the run, during a boss much dps would drain our MP too much. (as a WHM idk about the other classes)

you might want to think about that before putting in more effort then even required.

[Estellios]

Honestly it depends on your party and the boss in question. If you use Shroud of Saints as soon as you are missing around 800-1000 MP and continue using it every time it is up your MP lasts quite a lot longer. If you have a BRD in the party then MP shouldn't be an issue at all in any situation and you can just go nuts.

For some bosses, like the boss of Aurum Vale and the flan boss in Wanderer's Palace, WHM tossing out a Cleric Stance Holy or two is a huge advantage despite the MP cost.

That said, if you are in a party where people aren't as geared and fights take longer, you will definitely have to be judicious for bosses. During most trash pulls though you are perfectly fine nuking if your tank is geared appropriately.