Am I doing something wrong with healing dungeons?

[Darkdrover]

Hi all,

Just wanted to ask: Are MAR/WAR tanks supposed to take tons of damage quickly? it seems like even if im spamming Cure, on trash packs if its a MAR tank, 3 seconds and its basically a wipe. I am new to healing in FFXIV, I have ZERO problems healing GLA, but with MAR, it seems like I cant do anything except spam Cure as fast as I can, if others take damage I throw a Medica in. I pay attention to the threat markers, but even noob healers know that spamming Cure is a great way to get a facefull of mob. So I guess my question is this: does healing MAR/WAR get easier, or is it nothing but a Cure spamfest? im CNJ btw..

[Jyoeru]

If this is happening often, then it could be a spell potency issue. In lower-level dungeons, make sure your tank has Stoneskin up. Use repose whenever you can. And use SS as a primary heal if you find threat easy to pick up.

[EveAlexandra]

The difference between healing a WAR and PLD is very noticeable, lacking the damage mitigation of PLDs it can be surprising how big the chunks of damage they can take with each hit.

But even with that, if you had to spam cure to keep a MRD/WAR alive it's almost certainly a bad tank. You'll be surprised at how some tanks take tanking way to literally and soak up all the heavy damage aoes instead of dodging them.

[Alpheus]

Tanking via base class most mitigation comes from simply having up to date gear and while this always holds true throughout a tank's career it's noticeable in the early levels because they have none of their damage mitigation tools. Although GLD does have 1 damage reduction action (I'm talking like early game dungeons). When I leveled CNJ (and later WHM) I never noticed too much of a discrepancy between having to keep either of them alive.

It doesn't sound like its your fault based on what you said but then again:

"It's just that you're a healer in a MMO which means you don't matter...until you do and by then its completely your fault your group lost."

Anyways j/k on that last bit I think you'll be fine although all the above advice is very sound advice and you'd do well to take it. Best of luck on your healing career and don't let it get you down when you have a bad run. We all have them.

[Sinaloa]

It depends to the tank by a large margin. Gladiators stun eg. is for interrupting spells but the Marauders stun is a very good tool for mitigating damage and should be Held on CD unless rupting is mandatory. Also the Gladiators CD´s are obviously good - so they use them. Marauders are similar good but they tend to either don´t use them or all in them instead of cycling them.
My observations as leveling the healers.
Gladiator is imortal. Marauder is fine.
My observations as leveling the tanks.

[Maelwys]

Hi all,

Just wanted to ask: Are MAR/WAR tanks supposed to take tons of damage quickly? it seems like even if im spamming Cure, on trash packs if its a MAR tank, 3 seconds and its basically a wipe. I am new to healing in FFXIV, I have ZERO problems healing GLA, but with MAR, it seems like I cant do anything except spam Cure as fast as I can, if others take damage I throw a Medica in. I pay attention to the threat markers, but even noob healers know that spamming Cure is a great way to get a facefull of mob. So I guess my question is this: does healing MAR/WAR get easier, or is it nothing but a Cure spamfest? im CNJ btw..

Basically, prior to level 30 there is a major difference in survivability between the two tank classes (at this point GLD and MAR not PLD and WAR).
MAR doesn't have anywhere near as much damage mitigation as GLD does - they can self heal a bit, but take more damage.

At level 30, MAR gets access to Defiance (via WAR). In terms of survivability this puts it AHEAD of GLD until level 40, when GLD gets Shield Oath (via PLD).

At this point, WAR works by having more HP and being healed for more (Defiance) PLD works by taking less damage in the first place (Shield Oath)
The actual percentages of their Health bar should be reduced and restored to roughly the same places though (with a VERY slight edge to PLD in terms of healing received).

After level 40, both classes are pretty much the same now survivability-wise after patch 2.1... especially at 50 (endgame).
WAR has a big mitigation occasional-use cooldown in Vengance, a very regular smaller one in Inner Beast, and more self-healing.
PLD has a much larger number of occasional-use cooldowns, the ability to self-cast Stoneskin, and a GCD Stun.

Bad PLD players will last longer than bad WAR players. Decent players are roughly equal, with PLD better at certain content (example: Turn4 MT) and WAR better at others (example: Turn5 MT).
At endgame in an "Ideal" party setup, you'll take one of each - one WAR and one PLD.

[Moontide]

I've often noticed the same problem in dungeons.
And then I realized that my Cleric Stance was still active.

[Tzain]

I leveled MRD and GLA to 30 recently using only dungeons and at pretty much the exact same time. (The GLA leveled in the dungeon first, collected the gear and then that same gear passed down to MRD, so the MRD actually had it easier being overgeared).

The thing that I most noticed while doing this was that the MRD was substantially more "squishy" while using the exact same gear and running the exact same content in the exact same way (my style/tactics don't change that much between the two). To generalize the difference between the two, GLA has defense but lacks offense(threat) and MRD has more Offense but lacks Defense(block/cooldowns).

As a healer, there is only one thing you can do to help this situation.
REPOSE.
Repose is your best friend, learn it, love it, macro a /emote to tell which <t> you are putting to sleep.
Reposing a target or two will make healing a much easier job.
You will every once in a while find a tank that will not adjust their tactics to account for CC/Sleep, or even openly ridicule it. Please realize that these are extremely bad players and any poor performance is on them and not you. Players that know even the most BASIC of MMO play know how to handle CC. It's considered a core thing to know, like pulling and holding threat.

[ladymoreta]

I've often noticed the same problem in dungeons.
And then I realized that my Cleric Stance was still active.

Haha been there, done that! More than once.

Make sure you have the best gear you can afford, focusing on Mind. It gets much easier after you have Stoneskin and Regen, but spamming cure is really all you can do early on.

[PetiteMalFleur]

If they are taking a lot of spike damage it's one of two things: either their gear is really really bad, or they're getting hit in the back. When I see a tank continuously turning their back to groups of mobs I'll politely ask them to position mobs in front of them. It reduces damage considerably. Damage mitigation based on percents is meaningless in low level dungeons and practically meaningless in level 50 dungeons. To me a good war was very easy to heal through content like AK. (before 2.1) If they were getting hit in the back though, well forget it. Paladin I could somewhat manage despite bad tanking but a WAR tank would drop like a rock.

Or you were in cleric stance.