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

[AnimaAnimus]

The way healing is set up in ffxiv you can play your class in a very versatile manner. As someone who is primarily a sch and have smn and brd as secondary jobs I would like to share a few tips.

1: Heal, its what your there for. Arrange your party list to suit your healing styles. Myself I click on the pt list so I group up tanks/healers/dps cause that is easiest for me. Find what's easiest for you and go for it.

2: Don't be afraid to ask for ballad and don't wait til your completely or nearly out of MP. Shroud of saints is nice for whm and sch has Aetherflow+Energy Drain. If there is no bard in the pt, whm needs to manage mp much more carefully than sch so utilize your free cures and stop spamming Cure II unless you need to. Regardless, don't rely on your bard to watch your MP. Make a "Ballad please!" macro to make things faster and easier. Blaming the brd for not watching your mp is usually just bad form.

3: SE gave both whm and sch multiple ways to help dps and nothing is more irritating when I am on a dps job than a healer who sits on their hands and does nothing if there is no need to heal. I will refuse to sleep mobs if your not going to do anything. DPS shouldn't be your main concern but doing absolutely nothing is a fail healer and typically will get you a boot if you are in one of our group pts. There is no reason not to dps if there is nothing else for you to do. When I am on sch I will dps as much as I can when there is no healing to be done and everyone appreciates it.

4: Watch your agro! There are small bars under your job icon that shows your agro level as well as colored icons next to the mob names. If you are pulling hate to easy, generally that means to slow down. For instance, don't spam curaga II in titan, even good tanks have a hard time holding agro if you curaga II spam. Usually a single Curaga is sufficient if there are two healers and this splits the enmity generated.

5: This one is for sch. Don't forget at 50 you get this handy dandy ability called Lustrate which restores a good chunk of hp to the target. You need Aetherflow to use it and it is a giant mp saver and can prevent wipes if used correctly. Have this ability in an easy to access slot since its good to use in emergency situations. Also utilize sacred soil when needed. I use this often in fights like primals when they do their big aoes. It saves mp and helps keep some players up.

6: Another one for sch. There are many times your pet will be useless at your side so don't forget to "place" your fairy in the appropriate spots. This can be done starting at 30 when you unlock sch. Place Eos near your tank or Selene near the pt members that will best use her buffs. You can move them around as well, once you practice a little you will be able to place and replace your fairies with minimal effort. Having Eos near your tank in some dungeons will provide enough healing for you to dps most the dungeon through, speeding up the kills and making things flow smoother.

7: I cannot stress this more!!! When you get hate, DONT RUN AWAY!!! Take the mob to the tank or stand still to allow the dps to take it off you. Only run away as a last resort! Running away from the pt, particularly the tank will get you killed and rightfully so. If you are running away from the ppl who can take the mob off you, you are a detriment to the pt and are just making things needlessly more difficult.

8: Stay in back, there is no reason for you to run head first into a group of mobs, that's what the tank is for.

9: Watch your surroundings. Sure you are watching hp bars, mp bars and so on but you also need to make sure you are in the clear so you don't accidently agro mobs in another room or that may sneak up behind you. Usually this isn't an issue but its good to keep in mind.

10: Know when not to use regen. When pulling a group of mobs there is seldom a need for regen as it will just get you enmity and cause the mobs to turn tail and come after you. If your tank is going to do a large pull, applying stoneskin prior to the tank pulling the first mob is your better choice. For sch a combo of stoneskin+adloquium is your go to.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Hopefully a few of these tips help and if you have more, please feel free to add some suggestions below!

[UlricCraft]

Your advice is very good, a nice post. Here's some 1 liners to further your points.

1. /psort
2. /p <mpp> MP Remaining, <<Mage's Ballard>> <se.5>
3. Cleric Stance, DoT's, Cleric Stance Off. Don't sit in Cleric. Don't do prolonged DPS. Holy is one of the most powerful spells in the game. Use it with caution. (MP)
4. Stoneskin generates 70 flat enmity. Use re-apply during first 10s if aggro is a concern.
5. Use Lustrate 3 times per minute. It is not an emergency heal. Avoid Sacred Soil unless you are expecting 1 massive hit. Lustrate is better.
   - Effective when there is a healing debuff applied. (T5)
6. No comment! Lrn2place.
7. WHM: Re-apply stoneskin, target self, Cure III whilst standing on top of tank.
   SCH: Stand on the tank, have EoS target you, manually control her heals.
8. No comment. (There are exceptions)
9. Good advice. Tank MP relates to enmity in some cases. Other healer MP relates to duration they can sustain, call Ballard if you need. Watch for roaming mobs, should be tank job.
10. Regen 5s after engage, apply only if 1 monster has 100% hp. Avoid carry-over into next pull.
11. Stoneskin just as the final monster is about to die. Nobody wants to wait 4s for SS to apply.

• Don't use Cure II unless you are desperate. It is an incredible drain on your mana! Very inefficient! Cure 1 and Divine Seal is your friend!

[Tempura_Bowl_Blues]

Good advice all, still learning the ropes of a healer.

[Shmunkster]

Generally good advice....one comment tho:

#3 - Sometimes I need to do nothing. Sometimes I've just healed like a mentalist from a tricksy situation, and my aggro is thru the roof. I will stand there and not heal, nor will i DPS, until I see my aggro drop. If SoS is up, sure, I will pop it - but its probs not, cos I just went bananas saving the team from a wipe......peeps who have done a healer role know this, but some tanks and dps might not - if they kick you from a PT because they see you standing there taking 10 secs to just balance that hate, because they don't know thats what you're doing; its not cool

So, only edit I would make to a very good list is:
Sometimes its OK not to heal, if it mitigates potential party problems....

[Shadaki]

I'm currently a 44WHM and I must say thanks for the advice! I have to agree with your point on #3. I try my best to stance dance in dungeons and dish out DPS as well. My main is PLD, so when I see another PLD not using Sword Oath when he isn't tanking it kinda hurts my soul as well, so I personally can't just sit there and do nothing if I'm not healing. Going off of that though, how do you feel about DPSing in 8 man raids and trials compared to 4 man runs?

[Raeanya]

I'm currently a 44WHM and I must say thanks for the advice! I have to agree with your point on #3. I try my best to stance dance in dungeons and dish out DPS as well. My main is PLD, so when I see another PLD not using Sword Oath when he isn't tanking it kinda hurts my soul as well, so I personally can't just sit there and do nothing if I'm not healing. Going off of that though, how do you feel about DPSing in 8 man raids and trials compared to 4 man runs?

I've found that in early 8-mans (CM, Prae, maybe even Ifrit HM), if the other healer is a higher iLvl, I can run the entire instance in Cleric doing strictly DPS, only dropping out of the stance on rare occasions to help when it hits the fan. Vice versa if I out iLvl the other healer. I'm sure that at some point that changes with the more difficult dungeons, but from my experience, the 8-mans that I have run can be solo healed.

[ariaandkia]

Quite often, I violate these 'rules', lol. My healing style is a tad different.

What is annoying is the lack of communication from most tanks. There is no: Oh hey, I'm attacking this group but once everyone is engaged, I'm going to aggro the entire map. It is just, they start attacking and then suddenly... they are running ahead, pulling everything. And then they yell at the healer for not healing them. And usually, if you cast regen, you'll get ALL the aggro (most in a second or two, the rest will follow shortly). So you have to let them die or have a party wipe.



1: Nice information, didn't know I could do that. Wonder how I'll do it on the ps4.

2: As for the bard MP request, I usually just tell the bard that if I'm standing in a very specific position to them, I need mp. Otherwise, I'll just type in caps: MP DEATH. Usually that gets their attention, lol.

As for spamming cure II... I often have to. Not even a choice. When the tank is losing 50% (or even 90%) of their health PER attack, I generally end up spamming cure 2 with divine seal if needed until I pull the aggro off the tank or until something dies. Usually I pull the aggro first. After which, I usually am low on mp and have heavy aggro and end up kiting the mobs until the dps kill them one by one. (or two at a time).

3 and 4: I find myself often not attacking or healing until aggro is generated. Problem is, a lot of tanks (even in late game dungeons - really until you hit level 50 dungeons, most tanks) don't generate aggro. I've had marauders and paladins alike who could not hold onto aggro against even one mob. I have a macro that tells the tank which mob is attacking me. With sound effects. I'll even run up to the tank. They do nothing. In fact, the mob often has NO aggro from the tank. Or so little aggro that their bar on the mob is black.

When you wait until the tank is almost dead (critical heal for sure)-I've waited until the tank was at 1 hp before. And ONE cure I takes ALL the aggro off the tank except the enemy that they are targetting... Or in the worst case scenario, all the aggro off the tank period (not counting aggro on DPS here), generally, that is what I see when I do dungeons with tanks I don't know.

7: DO run away if needed. But, choose where you are running based on the party and the situation. If it is necessary, run from the party. If necessary, run to the tank and let them get aggro off of you (if they are a good tank, they'll notice the 20 mobs you pulled off of them coming back to them and will try to hold aggro this time. If not, then you are probably better off running away).

8: Plenty of exceptions to this in non-end game dungeons. For end game dungeons, generally the tanks are good. Until then, generally tanks are horrible and you might as well do the tanking yourself (or kiting). I've been in parties so bad that I ended up soloing the first boss of Stone Vigil as a healer (there was no way I could heal the party before they got wiped out almost right away since we had no tank-the tank ditched us before the first mob group (after about 8 minutes of waiting for the tank to be ready) with an excuse about their slots not being correct), taking 30 minutes. (The boss even turned invincible a few times because people kept joining and then leaving and it would glitch the boss until someone joined-the health bar would disappear, I wouldn't be able to target it, etc.)

You CAN kite most enemies that matter and some bosses if you know how the boss works and keep on the move. I've "tanked" plenty of early game bosses as the party healer because the tank couldn't hold aggro at all.

Why do I say this? Because I've seen it all (well, maybe not all, but most). From tanks in Stone Vigil with level 1 weapon and NOTHING ELSE EQUIPPED - and didn't even change after we pointed it out, to tanks that "didn't know what skills were" - entire time, they only used autoattack- in Stone Vigil. And they had level 50+ blue gear equipped.

With those parties, you are better off not waiting for the tank to "tank" and instead might as well tank yourself or have a DPS tank. (You really can't prove that the tank is trolling unless they admit to it and I don't see the option of kicking someone for being a bad player-probably a good thing too since otherwise we'd be seeing kicks left and right).

9: Definitely pay attention to the surroundings. Often I've shouted, "INCOMING!" when something was coming up from behind the tank (or someone else). On the other hand, I've also taken aggro myself (mostly through walls though, so that can't really be helped since there is no way you can tell that they are there unless you already knew ahead of time) when a monster came up to the party and it was right when I was doing a heal I couldn't afford to cancel. Sometimes it would be sneaking up on me and I had to take the aggro to save the tank. Other times, it would be coming up on the tank and my heal would instantly switch aggro to me. Only one time have I pulled unneeded aggro and that was because I forgot that the tank hadn't already done a group of ambush mobs (usually the tanks do that group first either on purpose or by accident).

10: Regen is probably one of the most MP to HP efficient spells out there that doesn't have a long cooldown or requirement (Medica might be more efficient if the party is large enough). Stoneskin is a definite must though for a big pull. Keeps the aggro off yourself which can buy time for the tank to hold aggro (or notice that he never got aggro). What I generally do is try to keep regen on as much as possible and try to time it so that the regen ends before they work on the next group of mobs. And of course, try to stoneskin when the mob is dying.

====

If you need to let someone die to save the party, let them die-even if it is the tank. This means do NOT heal that person at all. Just pretend that they don't even exist. I've actually had times where I let the tank die during boss battles and I don't revive them. (Bray being one that this happens quite a bit). Why do I mention bray?) Well... Some tanks drag on the battle by dragging the dragon everywhere, including dragging the dragon on the poison pools. (try saying that 5 times fast!) Better to lose the tank in that case.

If someone is trying to kill the party by overpulling (I define overpulling as pulling more than the party can handle-I call barely able to handle as excessive pulling), I'll often tell the others to not attack the mobs at all (or hold aggro) and I'll simply let the person die and then work on healing.

Use medica when needed, but don't use it when you don't. The reason for this is that medica appears to gather aggro faster than cure. This is a bad thing unless you are trying to get aggro. That and medica is slower than cure as well as less powerful.

Use repose on enemies as needed. Sleeping an enemy can often work for reducing damage to the tank and reducing aggro on yourself. Sleeping can also cancel skills, stop enemies from moving, etc.

Use the Fluid Aura skill (the pushback) when needed-it can help quite a bit, such as cancelling skills of many enemies (do note: it can miss and many if not most bosses are immune to the pushback). But as it isn't part of the GCD, though it has a long CD, you can use it on bosses to help kill the boss faster. However, this means you need to get close to the boss which means that you need to be paying VERY close attention to what is happening.

Aero (1, not 2), is a godsend. It can help kill an enemy faster, has no cast time (though it inflicts GCD) and deals damage upon hit. This means you can use it to finish an enemy with low health, help tick an enemy's life down, etc. Since it has no cast time, you can use it while running so if a boss uses an aoe and you are in the aoe, you can cast Aero while running out of the aoe zone!

I recommend that WHMs take Virus at some point in their cross-class skills list. As well as eye for an eye. While these skills aren't the best skills to have, they can be very useful for a prolonged battle to save MP by reducing damage taken as well as potentially save the party.

Generally, don't cast stoneskin mid-battle. It costs a lot of mp and takes a while to cast (unless you have really high cast speed or use swiftcast). HOWEVER, do note that stoneskin is very useful despite this. First, it "adds" a layer of what is essentially bonus health. Second, if it stops ALL the damage of a skill that 'does damage and inflicts a status effect', it will prevent the status effect! This is a godsend, especially if you aren't healing right then for whatever reason or if the boss is charging up some really absurdly powerful attack and you know someone will die if they get hit by it. Similarly, skills such as Medica II (regen-it can save them if they will survive the initial hit), succor and sacred soil (reduce damage), (Why is it that in the cutscenes and story, it is the conjurers/white mages that use it, but only scholars get it in-game?) can help in those situations as well.

Especially for early, game, conjurers have access to a good assortment of skills assuming a little bit of work on various classes. Conjurers, as an example, have access to skills such as foresight? (I forget which one conjurers can use) and second wind and so on. These skills are extremely useful for a conjurer in the earlier game as if the conjurer takes too much aggro, you could activate all of them and have a few moments of near-invincibility (or super hard to kill and a quick heal). This can help a lot since early on, tanks tend to not hold aggro. Some try, most do not. Even among those that try, many fail.

[subteraneanbird]

Fun fact: It is against the rules, and considered harassment, to kick someone from the party for performance reasons. Please don't advocate people engaging in harassment.

I also find extreme issue with the idea that off-DPS separates good healers from bad. It doesn't. Effective healing does. Maybe you feel a healer should be off-DPS'ing. Except, that's not your call. It is an individual call made by healers as they evaluate the fight and their own comfort levels. Maybe the don't know the fight wel enough, or maybe the rest of the party isn't geared enough. In that case, there is nothing to fault them on for not doing off-DPS. Additionally, if you fail a DPS check, you should be looking at your DPS, not your healer to shore up that weakness. I DPS when I feel it is safe to do so, and when I am comfortable doing so. Everyone appreciates it just as much and I don't risk anything in the process.

I find a lot of your other advice too rigid. You are trying to make rules without exception for a role where almost nothing is without exception. As a result, a lot of this advice is much less useful than you think it is.

[Raeanya]

I think that ultimately it comes down to your own routine that you develop as you play. I am hardly the best WHM, and I make mistakes that cause wipes. But I have also ran plenty of dungeons where we've had no problems at all, and even a few that I have been praised for my ability to prevent a wipe or off tank, off DPS, and heal all at the same time. I haven't been playing that long, just a few months, and I still have a lot to learn. That is the key, just be aware of what you are doing, and look for ways to do it better. Situation will dictate the best action in all cases, so there really isn't a set rotation that anyone can give.

[Cosmoswan]

It's not really a tips but it's the most powerfull at same time :
If this week i fall into something who seems to me really difficult or i've not understood, I sacrifice a little of my party time of the day so to learn the strat on web and watch replay .