Healer PVP: What works and what doesnt

[Wonderbound]

Hey guys, I'm looking to create a forum where people can share tips and information about how they handle healing (or killing healers) in PvP. While i know a lot of you would like to complain about how its unbalanced or whatever, I prefer to look for solutions to my problems. Therein lies the point of this thread, I'm looking to see if anyone knows any tips or strategies i do not.

[Wonderbound]

Some things I've learned over the course of PvP so far:
1. RUN, while healing may be your focus, the other teams focus is you so run first, heal later

2. pvp skills, Purify for one, saves lives...did you know purify also works on that pesky provoke? its also great with sleep, bind, and stun... check it out, i know its pretty much one time use but its made the difference between wins and losses for me

3. Line of Sight, attention scholars! Dps is using your fairy's line of sight against you, whenever you run out of line of sight people burn cool downs to kill you off...just sayin

4. embrace hotbar, always have this on your hot/crossbar so you can make sure eos/selene is healing you

5. PvP gear/materia, i havent gotten to work with the materia yet, but the gear helps you from getting crushed instantly, really, invest in some.

[Wonderbound]

6. Killing other whm/sch, A LOT of my wins come when i get the second or two to cast dots on the other healer, the game is all about outlasting them! miasma is great cause it slows them down.

7. swiftcast/bliz2, if your getting harrassed by tank and you have to prioritize your safety, swiftbliz2 is great for binding and getting away

8. Dont be afraid to tell your dps to bind tank for you, if you have brds, smns, or a tank, they can all greatly increase your survival



anyways, this is what i've learned so far in my uhhh 2 days playing, i run random matches mostly no premade group, so its always interesting to see the different styles of play. I've also been looking through the forums and see no helpful advice, just people complaining about how everything is overpowered....ok guys time to nut up or shut up... post your advice here...

[Nailkita]

I have to say against scholars, their miasma 2 has proven to be very effective against me, as I have no time to esuna the disease.

For WHM Sprint is your best friend.

Swift Cast sleep can be good, but even better is a swift cast holy to stun the melee that are trying to smash your face in. and then you can get a repose off.

when there's 10 seconds left on the prep timer I'll divine seal Medica II and then regen the party so that if I can't get at them in the first 30 seconds they at least have some hots on them.

The pillars are pretty useless... they're too small to be effective LoS for melee, they could be used to avoid a blm's sleep or ranged damage but otherwise you're going to be using the walls to get away from the melee.

Benediction carefully, I've had a few times where I burnt it to save someone, only for them to immediately turn on me to a point where I should have just hotted the other person and saved it for myself.

Be careful when using Fluid Aura a few times I've knocked someone back only to actually knock them right in my path. And when using fluid aura on only one person chasing you I'd recommend reposing them right after.

I'd say picking up the ability that prevents interrupts and the damage reduction space are your best first options

[Eredhyl]

blah ...

It is hard to be a healer in the PVP game. But I tried using Miasma 2 and suddenly I won 2 games in a row. So I'm guessing I will leave the cure to my pet and lustrate and attack the other healer with it. Also swiftcast+blizzard2 seems a really good potion

[Kalakbar]

PvPing as a WHM, as SCH suffers badly from no CC and also having a pet that's incapable of sprinting.

Tips!

1.) Always be aware of where the enemy tank is. Frequently, their only job is to CC you, so make sure you're always aware of where they are.

2.) Sleeping pets is an incredible way to neuter an enemy SCH or SMN.

3.) Surecast needs to be saved for when they are out of stuns/silences.

4.) Keep Medica 2 and Regen ticking as much as you can.

5.) Swiftcast Holy can save you from needing to Swiftcast a Res.

6.) Purify can save you from a full row of SMN dots AS WELL as the stun the enemy PLD just dropped on you. Use it.

7.) LoS as much as humanly possible.

[Rainsford]

Vitality! I went 30vit and wear my i90 armor/weapon with i70 Astral gear with full Vit. With food, my HP is about 5400~. I don't lose enough healing potency for it to matter, but there's tons of times where I'm knocked below 1k~ HP and able to recover when it would have been death without the Vit.

Also, as a healer, being able to eat more burst gives your team more time to kill their healer.

[Nailkita]

Oh has anyone made use of surecast? I completely forgot about it. surecast > blizzard 2 may be a great way to get melee off you for a while.

[Wonderbound]

Oh has anyone made use of surecast? I completely forgot about it. surecast > blizzard 2 may be a great way to get melee off you for a while.

i wanna try surecast/bliz2 but i dont have the space to do so, TY so much for your view from the whms perspective! I'm glad someone else is coming up with strategies and is willing to share information on here other than just myself!

[Nailkita]

I'm surprised at the complaints from the ranged that they have to kite, every other pvp I've played the healer would have to kite and hide, I do find the 100% interrupt is a bit ludicrous even 75% would be preferable. In general I would like interrupts to be something you have to plan for or at least not off auto attacks since our cast times are short.

What are your thoughts on stats?

I crafted myself a full set of PvP gear but found that it was a bit too much loss in health and stats compared to my WHM gear. I'm thinking spell speed is going to be the stat to stack for whm. Though we have a lot more instant casts than scholar I think being able to get a faster cast before a melee can get to you could make or break a round.

Piety is probably going to be negligible with rounds being so short.