Tips for new (and some not-so-new) healers

[Raeanya]

but yes, healers, dps if u are confident enough to do it

This. When I was just starting out, it was a lot to keep track of between healing and cleansing. There were a few times that I was asked (sometimes politely, sometimes not) to DPS and I would throw an Aero out every now and then. Now that I have more experience playing the game, I spend much more time stance dancing. People need to realize that some players just haven't gotten used to recognizing when they have a window where they can provide some DPS yet. Even now, there are times where I throw some DPS, just to realize that my tank is super squishy and I need to spam cure to keep him up.

[ariaandkia]

but yes, healers, dps if u are confident enough to do it

I definitely will DPS if I see a chance to, but... there are two factors that make me not DPS.

1) Party can't handle losing cure for a second. When I don't have time to cast regen, I don't have time to DPS. (Generally, if I'm not spamming cure 2, I'll throw on a regen and use a cure 2 to make up for the lost time as a quick patch up and then I can cure 1 or dps or both. If I'm spamming cure 2 just to keep the tank from dying, I don't have time to do anything else. Don't even say "Why not swiftcast regen?" or "Why not swiftcast cure 2?"

2) I'm saving some MP for in case something goes wrong. It has saved the party more than once when I had that extra MP for when something went really bad all of a sudden (tank dc'ed, main DPS dc'ed, etc.).

3) As I mentioned before, aggro control. When my DPSing will end in all the enemies killing me as one, I'm not going to add to my enmity.

[LalaLeChat]

I'll DPS when I'm familiar enough with the fight and the party is not taking too much damage and I know I can spare the MP. But when I'm new to the dungeon or the party is taking a lot of damage then I rather err on the side of caution and focus on heals than risk a wipe. I'd be quite upset if I got kicked for that. You wouldn't kick a dps for not healing.

[Kelya]

You wouldn't kick a dps for not healing.

Completly agree.

Though I'm part of the healers DPS'ing side, healers don't have to DPS in a common situation with correct conditions. Here is my personal analysis :

Why ? Because as said before, they save MP first : begining to spam DPS really consumes a lot of MP if you aren't aware. And if you're not spamming, the 2 or 3 spells you'll land are just DPS'ing nothing. Then, DPS jobs are here to DPS and if the party needs some extra dps, there is a problem with one or all of them. When healers got some troubles and the situation is tense, do we ask our DPS to help healing ? No, because unless few skills (Mantra, Eye for an Eye, Virus...) they haven't the ressources to heal.

Then you will say "yep but healers have ressources to DPS". Exactly, but they have because they just need to up lvl50, to be able to do some FATES and some solo quests, atma book ect. These ressources are MAINLY here to help the healer himself on his SOLO fights.

However, I'm the first one to help DPS when I can but don't forget it's only depends on the situation, because even if you spam your DPS spells, you won't ever do 50% of the dps a DPS job would do. So your help would still be negligible. Again, its depends on the situation, the fight, the duration of the fight, the duration of your dps rotation ect....

Ofc, it doesn't apply on low level dungeons when you will spend most of your time DPSing instead of healing (Regen / Fairy is enough) and on SPEED RUNS where you can spam Holy after having prepared your tank. I love Holy and I love doing Speed runs, but you can't do it on HL content where your DPS gonna be very weak for the reasons I explained. Thus, this will be more efficient to keep your MP.

[Noni]

I'll DPS when I'm familiar enough with the fight and the party is not taking too much damage and I know I can spare the MP. But when I'm new to the dungeon or the party is taking a lot of damage then I rather err on the side of caution and focus on heals than risk a wipe. I'd be quite upset if I got kicked for that. You wouldn't kick a dps for not healing.

Agreed. I have the problem now that because I am WHM all other healers think it is fine to let me solo heal without even asking....They stay in cleric the whole time. When people sometimes wipe I am blamed : ( So I too wish healers would know when to dps and when not to.

[Cynfael]

Agreed. I have the problem now that because I am WHM all other healers think it is fine to let me solo heal without even asking....They stay in cleric the whole time. When people sometimes wipe I am blamed : ( So I too wish healers would know when to dps and when not to.

That's good point, too. As bad as lazy healers who don't DPS during downtime are, the healers who tunnel vision on DPS are usually worse.

Healers are powerful and versatile. Being able to predict the flow of a fight and use the right skills at the right time, both healing and DPS, makes a truly great healer.

[Ashkendor]

Agreed. I have the problem now that because I am WHM all other healers think it is fine to let me solo heal without even asking....They stay in cleric the whole time. When people sometimes wipe I am blamed : ( So I too wish healers would know when to dps and when not to.

That's tantamount to admitting that Scholar doesn't bring as much to the table as White Mage as far as healing goes (which it totally does). Even in dungeons where I'm in cleric stance a lot for DPS, I swap out and Succor fairly often as well as abusing the hell out of the fact that Lustrate is unaffected by the penalty from CS. I mostly DPS on bosses as there generally aren't as many surprise moments of damage there (I generally only DPS on fights I already know). Many of my skills are macroed to work "through" the tank so to speak by casting on my target's target; tanks that swap targets often make Bane not very useful for me in trash pulls. Sure, I can target the mob and DoT/Bane, but if the tank takes a big hit I then have to switch back to them quickly. In a lot of cases I find it better to just avoid that and use my Aetherflow stacks on Lustrate instead.

[Kelya]

Another tips to come back to the subject, is as a healer you should learn to trust your healer partner and work with him. It doesn't apply on DF and PF where you don't know the other healer that can appears to be lazy or very bad, but if you're going to discover some HL content with a static/frequent party, then you should heal by always keeping in mind the idea that the other heal is doing stuff as you do !

Look at his cast bar a lot, don't hesitate to interrupt your spell to use another (or nothing depending the situation). The worse thing to get is loosing your Benediction as WHM if the SCH has already Lustrate Benediction should ONLY be used if you don't trust your SCH partner or if he informs you he doesn't have any Lustrate up.

Things like this will happen a lot so the best thing you can do and must do is communication. Communicate with your partner so that you both don't overheal or loose big CD for nothing. Doing this, you will see that most of the time, you WON'T need to use Cure II (unless it is a proc) and save a lot of MP as WHM.

For example if your tank is at 50% HP suddently, always think the other heal will want to heal him just as you will. So rather than Cure II him, just Cure I is enough, added to the Cure I/Physick of the other healer, the target will be topped correctly, and you or him will not be overhealing.

Being a good healer also means sharing healing stuff correctly and efficiently with your other healer (only apply on HL content though, with ppl you often play).

[Ashkendor]

Benediction should ONLY be used if you don't trust your SCH partner or if he informs you he doesn't have any Lustrate up.

You could always look to see if the SCH has Aetherflow stacks, but it can be hard to think of things like that when things are just starting to hit the fan. I know I sometimes end up tunnel visioned on damage control and neglect things like my mana or what the other healer is doing.

I blame the fact that I'm not a healer main, honestly. >.>

[Madeiner]

Something is wrong here guys.
I only recentely turned 50.
In most story dungeons, and in about 50% of bosses, i'm second dps as a scholar. I don't heal almost at all in trash mobs, and when i do, its ONE adloquiom after my DPS rotation (4 dots, ruin2+energy drain; added shadowflare and miasma2 now that i'm 50).
On pulls that have 3-4 mobs, i'm usually first dps above everyone else.
Now that i'm 50, i use lustrate for healing through trash so i dont even need to remove cleric stance.
8 man content, i have never removed cleric stance unless in desperate situations. The WHM can heal solo very fine, and my dps is on par with the others.