Any suggestions for a new PVP healer?

[loreleidiangelo]

Quite frankly, getting zerged on by the entire enemy team while my own group does very little to assist is getting rather annoying, and I can see why no one wants to run healer in FL anymore. I play WHM for the Nexus light, but it seems like SCH has a vastly easier time in terms of survivability... Insta-cast Lustrates, a second healer in the form of the fairy, an AOE healing debuff on enemy groups, an AOE knockback... As a WHM, I have a SINGLE TARGET knockback every 30 seconds (not very helpful when there are 5-6 guys on you), a single-target sleep that can never get cast unless I blow Swiftcast/Surecast/Equinamity (also doesn't help against the huge groups that target healers), a heavy that that has the same problem as my sleep, etc.

Basically, if I don't get any assistance from my group I'm screwed. The ONE time I managed to Sprint and train a whole group of people around desperately trying to kill me while I kept myself topped off with Regen my teammates didn't take advantage of this at all, and half of them I later found out were in some completely different area (this might be my own fault for not understanding FL objectives just yet).

Regardless, it's pretty frustrating. Am I really reliant on my group in situations like this? Short of going full premade, it seems difficult to disengage when I have a whole cadre of stunning PLDs, sleeping BLMs and cast-interrupting BRDs/melee wrecking my face. Any advice?

I was a big PVPer in TERA, so I suppose I got spoiled by the amount of CCs/escapes every class in that game had. I'm trying to adapt in this one, as there never seems to be enough healers in all my matches, but I'm tempted to roll something else that actually gives me the freedom to PLAY, instead of just being picked off like bait.

[Sanghelios]

Ya, its a mess sometimes. Most of this happens, because the groups dont have a leader who tells them what to do. And because of this, everyone is focused on himself and runs around all over the place or attacking the bard next to him instead of killing the healers first. This makes your healing even harder because if your group doesnt play as team you will have hard times to hold them up (and yourself). The whitemate pvp-skills are really nice to hold out as a whitemage while all enemys are trying to zerg you down. Not sure if you use them, but you should.

I did ran in the same problem like you some while ago. Take the leader role in your group/alliance and tell them what they should do. This makes most of the runs a lot less messed up. Team A and C should have always 2-3 healers so you have one or two healers to heal you while you get zerged down. Dont even try to solo heal. That only works on B.

[loreleidiangelo]

Ya, its a mess sometimes. Most of this happens, because the groups dont have a leader who tells them what to do. And because of this, everyone is focused on himself and runs around all over the place or attacking the bard next to him instead of killing the healers first. This makes your healing even harder because if your group doesnt play as team you will have hard times to hold them up (and yourself). The whitemate pvp-skills are really nice to hold out as a whitemage while all enemys are trying to zerg you down. Not sure if you use them, but you should.

I did ran in the same problem like you some while ago. Take the leader role in your group/alliance and tell them what they should do. This makes most of the runs a lot less messed up. Team A and C should have always 2-3 healers so you have one or two healers to heal you while you get zerged down. Dont even try to solo heal. That only works on B.

I did manage to use moves like Attunement at nice times (lol @ watching almost an entire enemy team blow 3 GCDs on you before finally figuring out you're largely immune to damage), but like I said, it seems like these advantages are never pressed by my teammates. As you said, it's frequently the case where I'll have a whole cadre of people on me with full HP and swing my camera around to see my other healer nowhere in sight, two-three dead DPS on our team and the remaining ones focus-firing an annoying but largely-forgettable BRD or SMN. >__>

Do people usually respond well to declarations of leadership in FL? I don't feel like arguing with hotheads on TOP of getting trucked upon at every turn. @__@ On the other hand, if people respond well to it I may just start doing that. WHM is great bait, and I don't mind playing the role like that while the other healer keeps me up and our DPS pick off the enemy healers, but so often my groups are just "every man for himself" and that leads to some really stupid decision-making.

I tend to use the AOE skill speed reduction move when I'm getting crowded by tanks/melee. Purify I try to use to get off a Swiftcast Cure II/Med II/Bene if me or the group is hurting (I try to save it for when I feel the enemies have blown most of their CC, but it's hard to gauge). Equinamity I will use against either a group of zergers to try to turtle through a beating until I get some help (almost never works due to crappy group coordination >__>) or to get spells off on a pesky single harrier (eff you, BRDs). I freely admit to having no clue when to use the PVP rez or Sacred Prism...any suggestions?

I'm open to criticism about my ability, as I'm still learning, but my tools seem very limited against large groups, which is almost always what I face in FL.

[Zyphione]

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Unfortunately, this problem is very large problem for Frontline in many situation. I think is less your ability and more ability of your team? I do not know but is very common that nobody help healer from what people tell me.

Problem is most do not want to listen? or most get lost during fight and forget to protect healer? This very common.
When fight at flag sometime, team become very concern with defeat enemy player and do not help own healer but all flag fight depend much on team ability to help take people off you. If team do not help you then is nothing you can do unless want to find own way to make self useful. Maybe capture unguarded base? or guard own base? This only done if team really never help you and always die when you arrive at flag.

I use Prism when sit at flag area and during time MRD and other team DPS use cooldown, make it easier to heal and take lower damage. PvP revive is save for other healer since it do not give debuff when use, debuff very hard to heal through and not good idea if healer has it as HP lower and heal value also lower.

Is no advice for team who do not help or assist healer.
Even if we say you very good player and play healer very well, if team do not help you then you still be defeated every time. Maybe is less you problem but more other people and from people tell me, other people do not listen or do not have initiative helping healer and sometime tell you do not teach them how to play? Like this then maybe better to play with some friend. Even if 1 friend is better than none.

Maybe can try tell team at start of match? See if respond? Then plan as go along game. If want to give more situation you might have and need more opinion, can list out for reply.

[joshsecret]

welcome to healing FLs... you're gonna love it

ppl attack WHM before SCH. if you are in sight, they will get you.
wear tank jewelry. try for ones with crit and or det. parry is pointless.
place pvp points in vit as well if you're feeling froggy.
ice 2 + sprint
fluid aura + repose
dont be shy. not everyone there is pvp knowledgeable. ask the group to stay together. ask the tank to stay closer.
be cautious with purify. people like to make you waste it so that they can go in on you. i normally use it when planning my escape.
use LoS to your advantage. you would be surprised how long you can survive running around an object, using regen and swift+SS.
SS is a beast there. keeping SS up on yourself and other casters will help alot.
the best defense is a good offense, and if your casters arent being interrupted because they have SS up means they have a better chance wiping out their team.
above all else... you are there to heal. CC is great and helps the team greatly, however i have seen some WHMs next to never use anything but repose.. /sadface

[Stormrider]

Also you are saying the other healer is doing nothing. I highly doubt that. Tanks and monks over the last month have gotten better at playing. I am not sure when you start to resist stun. But as another healer i have been stun locked for over a minute.

Usually one healer is over 5k in hps. Make sure that you stand behind closer to the wall. They are more trained to tank pvp. Dps that move to far past the flag are dead, don't worry about them. Also have a marking hot key. If you are coordinated enough you can mark for the dps. Most people will generally attack whatever is numbered first.

If people are wandering around you are screwed in some fights. All you can do is keep them busy at flag feed them kills, so OP doesn't end up with 16 people on flag. Also your dps may not suck 2 (preferably 3) skilled healers can make most dps look like crap. Multiple (coordinated) blms are the best for multiple healer set ups.

[loreleidiangelo]

So, a bit of an update. I did 4 matches with my raid SCH in FL today... Huuuuuuuuge difference. Seriously, having a good healer assist is worth its weight in gold. We only won two out of four matches, cuz Adders on my data server are kind of poop (Maelstrom dominates just about everything >_>), but my SCH and I together held an outpost against 5 or 6 people until some of our party DPS were able to show up to pick them off. The advice I got from this thread was really helpful...a BLM pal of mine complained frequently about cast interrupts in FL, but with me trying to keep SS up on him as much as I can he's able to get some casts off and put some pressure on enemy healers. Being able to get the upgrades for Equanimity was massively helpful, too. Our last match was really tight at the end, and our OP was being harassed by both Flames AND Maelstrom (eep!), but by using both my PVP and PVE abilities wisely I was able to keep our group at full HP almost the entire time against double the amount of enemies. What a rush!

Queuing solo for FL doesn't seem like it'll be fun for me, but fortunately my raid SCH and BLM friend had a much better time grouping together than they had in previous matches they'd done solo, so we'll likely run as a group from now on. Thanks again to everyone who gave me their excellent advice. I'll work hard and try to improve enough to be able to hold my own in a variety of situations in FL.

It's too bad most people in this game are really afraid of PVP...it's a lot of fun. I did an ST afterwards at the request of an FC mate and was appalled at how boring healing it was. :/ Healing was stressful at first, but by keeping my nose to the grindstone I wound up overcoming a lot of my anxiety... Hopefully more players will do the same. Now my only complaint about healing in FL is that the queues are too long! Better PVP matching or riot!

[Sanghelios]

Yes, they are afraid of PvP. But thats mostly because of Wolfs Den. I also dont really like to play wolfs den, but frontlines is really nice. adders and flames always have problems to win frontlines. On your data center, maelstrom wins about 50-60% of every game. Queues are horrible, thats right. If you want to play frontlines, you can basicly only do it on peak times. I do have shorter queues when i play solo. With a group i always had extreme long wait times.