Thread: Some advice to healers.

I've been playing MMOs for over ten years now. I always choose a healer class as my secondary class to make myself more useful to my guild/linkshell/free company/whatever. Whether it be on an alt character, or like in FFXI/XIV where you can have multiple classes on a single character. I've never chosen to be a healer as my main class, but I enjoy doing it enough that I don't mind being asked to come to anything as a healer when needed. If there's one bit of advice that I can give to any healer in any game, and especially in this one because I have never see so many healers that need to hear this bit of advice in any other game, it's don't panic. Now, I'm not saying that every wipe is the fault of a healer. Far from it. Everyone makes mistakes. Tanks miss something that wipes the party. DPS does something stupid and it wipes the party. Just plain old bad luck wipes the party and it's no one's fault. But lately I've been seeing a lot of wipes in FFXIV that could have been avoided had the healer not panicked, kept his head, and kept on healing. Whatever happens, whatever is going on, your party needs you to be in control, on top of things, and doing your job. Because when a healer panics, freezes up, and starts making mistakes because of it, a probable wipe becomes a definite wipe. Not every wipe can be saved, but a lot of the time, if you've got a healer that is really on the ball, standing firm, and doing everything that he can instead of freaking out and locking up, you can pull through.

So, here's a few tips I've learned over the years and throughout several MMOs for how to keep yourself from panicking while healing.

1.) Trust your tank. I know, some of them suck, it's true, especially in lower level dungeons, but the majority of them are at least decent, if not excellent at their job. Trust your tank to be able to keep aggro no matter how much you have to heal him, or to regain it quickly if he happens to lose it.

2.) Don't be afraid to take a few hits. I see this all the time, a mob runs for the healer, and the healer runs away instead of standing his ground and doing his job, and then everyone dies because he's not healing anyone, and only thinking about running away. Sadly, I see this in lvl 50 fights and instances a lot more than I see it in lower level ones. Stay put and do your job, and trust everyone else to do theirs. Most of the time, a tank will run straight for any mob that breaks off of the pack and runs for someone and do everything in his power to regain aggro on it, so don't sweat it. Help is coming, take a few hits for the team and keep on healing.

3.) Make a healing priorities list. This is really important. If more than one person gets hit with something big, you'll be wanting to heal the right person. If more than one person dies, you'll be wanting to rez the right one. If you heal a DPS when a tank is low on HP, the tank might die. If you rez a DPS instead of your other healer, things are going to get pretty interesting for you. My list looks like this: Tanks > Healers (including self) > DPS, and when EVERYONE is hurt AoE heals. If a DPS dies because you're healing a tank or a healer, you can rez them later and recover a lot easier than if a tank or a healer dies.

4.) Don't be afraid to ask for ballad. If you're running low on MP, and don't think it'll last to the end of a fight, and there's a Bard just shooting away without singing a song, tell him to do his job. I play as a Bard main. Sometimes I lose myself in what I'm doing, and don't notice the healer is low on MP, a friendly reminder is always far more welcome than a wipe because the healer was too timid to ask for help. The key word here is "friendly". Try not to be a dick about it. Even the best of Bards need to be reminded sometimes. I always try to keep on top of it, but I'm not perfect. Every now and then you'll get one that refuses to play songs because it lowers his DPS, but most of them will play a song if asked.

FFXIV has the most chaotic fights of any MMO I've ever played. It can get confusing, and hard to keep track of everything. And that makes it really easy to panic as a healer. But if you keep your cool, and keep on top of what everyone else is depending on you to do, you can usually pull a party out of a pretty nasty situation and keep on truckin'.

And other healers, feel free to add in your own tips and tricks for keeping on top of things.

Nice post. To add to number 2, whenever I pull hate on WHM, I typically run to the tank, bringing the mob with me. Makes it easier for the tank to grab it back.

Good tips, I would add:

1.) Avoid using Fluid Aura if you're conjurer/whm (The water knock-back attack).

This is typically annoying to everyone else in the party and should only be used if you're back far enough that the enemy will end up very close to the tank at the point that it's bound.

If you have a moment the better option would be to run towards your tank with the mobs to close the gap and make it easier for them to grab hate back.


2.) Don't forget Stoneskin.

As long as you do well managing your MP, Stoneskin can really help mitigate damage and turn "OH SHIT" moments into less serious ones.

It can also be helpful as an indicator of which DPS in the party typically takes the brunt of the damage so you can keep that in mind for your healing orders.


3.) Try to encourage your party.

If someone seriously drops the ball, try to be patient the first couple times. Let the tank know you have their back, don't make the DPS feel disposable, treat everyone like they're a team (unless they prove otherwise).

Originally Posted by Yumi_umi

snip

If you wanted to do damage, you could cast Stone 2 for 20 additional potency.

If you know how to use it tactically, fine. But 95% of the time I've seen it used it's been used in an unhelpful way.

It is -much- more effective to trust your tank to grab back the hate and keep doing your job then to give your tank and DPS more mob positioning to worry about.

It is fine to use in an emergency, but most of the time it's not worth the extra unpredictability for the tank.