"Get in the circle healer!"

[NorthernLadMSP]

I do tend to stay in the circle with my party members, but I can also see OP's point. It can get really frustrating when you're in the cirlce and you have 2 tanks and 2-3-4 DPS on you.

BTW, to the person who's sole response was to use your non-interrupt skills, I have news for you. Every single one of those skills is totally interruptable by any class that has a stun or silence move.

[SeraviEdalborez]

BTW, to the person who's sole response was to use your non-interrupt skills, I have news for you. Every single one of those skills is totally interruptable by any class that has a stun or silence move.

Then don't blow them all at once. This is fairly straightforward logic. This is a big reason why Surecast is very important; low cooldown, not a huge waste if it gets eaten.

Unless your opposition is really smart (premade), they're going to waste a lot of stuns and silences front-loaded instead of near the end of your HP. So let them waste it when you have nothing up.

[Zyphione]

PSA: Healers can't get in the circle because there's tons of AOE there, and unlike DPS, the only instant cast spells we have are near worthless. Please stop asking us to do this, and please stop insulting us and dogging on us forevermore after we refuse and correct you on why we don't get in the circle. I can guarantee you that keeping you alive long enough to kill the enemies in the circle is more important than getting in the circle, dying in ten seconds, and then allowing the enemy to win the encounter and reclaim the circle ten seconds later.

The PvP FL community is very toxic with these players. Please stop, it's beginning to make me feel like I should just be another yolomeister bard/warrior/paladin/summoner or anything else that doesn't have any kinds of responsibility beyond focus the healers.

I am not understand some term use but I try to reply.
It is very possible for healer to heal inside circle unless enemy team you face have very good focus, which very rare. Dying also quite difficult if party has 2 other healer helping you but survival depend much on what class you are.

Both WHM and SCH survive different way and I feel OP very exaggerate? There is way to stay alive no matter where healer standing but circle is safest place in most case. If tank is not helping or dps is not helping then problem is not healer.

[Trypich]

OP, I can't like your comment enough. This is exactly how I've been playing and I can't stand it when people yell at me.

Get out of that circle! Don't make yourself a target.

[IveraIvalice]

You don't take suggestions well do you? Clearly you've made up your mind and posting here is just a way to get everyone to agree with you. Everyone should get in the circle if the location isn't occupied by your team. You only need to be in there until the flag is yours or neutral. The battles can last a very long time in some cases and a stalemate will only benefit the team who holds the flag. Once the flag is yours you can leave the flag while the others stay in until they put in more then your teams number in the circle.
Your priority as a healer is to keep your team alive yes, while the others is to dps primary enemies and such but your job as a team to benefit your alliance is to make sure that flag is yours.

I assume your going to insult me for thinking something other the what you do since you already did it to someone else here but try opening your mind alittle. It's pvp, there's more then one strat

[Uninstall]

A lot of people are ignoring the fact if you're not inside the circle, the enemy melees (yes, tanks are melees), whom are the main threats, will also have to get out of the circle to attack you. If you ever have more than 1 melee attacking you as a healer outside of the circle, you're already coming out ahead in terms of bodies in the circle vs your enemies.

[IveraIvalice]

A lot of people are ignoring the fact if you're not inside the circle, the enemy melees (yes, tanks are melees), whom are the main threats, will also have to get out of the circle to attack you. If you ever have more than 1 melee attacking you as a healer outside of the circle, you're already coming out ahead in terms of bodies in the circle vs your enemies.

That's true but if someone's saying to get in the circle it's because the flag isn't yours (the number in the circle is even or they out number your team/you are needed in the circle). What your saying comes after you have the flag

[Atreus]

It all depends if your DPS are good enough to make kills and have the balls to be aggressive. If not, your team shouldn't be at the point anyway. Healers standing on a point is for defense and neutral points, not capturing from another team.

[Stormrider]

As a personal preference i prefer to stand in the circle. I rush to be first there so i am hoping to get marked as 1. But then the other healer shouldn't stand near or in the circle at all. Lots of healers lately have been under 4k in hps. Which is fine but they need to be able to move and avoid. Second I don't care how much hp I have. If there is only one healer don't expose them by making them run to or past the circle. For using cool downs for casting I am half way decent. But you can get locked down, I always see people quote diminishing returns of stun but I am sure you can be stunned for almost 60 seconds before a resist.

As to the very main topic, get in the circle. I have never in 283 matches seen anyone say that.

[swordrain]

It's completely unfathomable how strategically inept the people who are calling me a noob are. It's mind boggling. I don't even know where to start with retorting all of this.

Let me open wordpad here and respond to every single one of these posters that don't seem to grasp the strategic importance of healers and how to weigh your combat resources.

This is generally why parties at A or C with fewer than 3 healers get steamrolled. Because you think you're not supposed to tank.

Wear VIT accs if you don't already.

W-what? Your team loses a teamfight when the opposing team lands a kill on a healer. That's just how it is. If it's 3 healers vs 3 healers in a 8v8 fight, it will be deadlocked until someone kills a healer. That's just how fights work. Saying a healer is making his team lose by not allowing the enemy team to score a kill on him? I can't even wrap my mind around this. It makes no sense. You need to seriously analyze what you just said.

"You didn't let them kill you so we lost!" That is literally what I just heard. I can't even.

PS I wear VIT accessories. I understand technical superiority.

Been doing tht way before FL was released lol
If i can handle 2 level 50 dungeon mobs wail on me without any pvp skills then surely i can use tht knowledge in FL with some of the techniques i picked up in WD.
And since we have all the pvp skills unlocked we can utilise them and have no excuses.
The only thing tht u probably can't survive is blm brigade chain flaring, group of melees jabbing u or a bunch of Wars ccing u and of course an LB without attunement.

Ppl just play by the book/ the meta too much. It's " how they were taught"
To play lol.

No, the things you learn in PvE have a bare bones minimum effect on your performance in FL because you can't predict the enemy behavior, PvP skills completely reset a class' function in certain areas, and certain skills become utterly worthless while others are now your bread and butter, while even others completely change how they operate on a basic level.

Example: A white mage's Medica II is used much more in PvP than it is in PvE
Example: A white mage should pretty much always be spamming Regen on everyone in PvP, even if they are at 100% HP in anticipation of an incoming group of enemies.
Example: A tank in PvP isn't enough to prevent a healer from being killed, the healer has to rely on CC, terrain, and sprint to escape being bursted down by an attacking group of players. A tank can't just stop them like they do in PvE. That's just not how PvP works. At all.

And I think your logic about "how they were taught" is the right idea. Except that people are just running into the circles because "that's how they were taught." Tanks/DPS aren't taking the time to even consider how their healer is going to keep themselves or their party alive for more than 5 seconds when they stand in the middle, but are so tunnel visioned by the acquisition meter they just start screaming GET IN THE CIRCLE NOOBS and then get mad when they lose a team fight with only 1 or 2 healers when the healers DO get in the circle, and say its the best strategy when it works when they have 4 healers stacked in the circle spamming endlessly. "It's just how they were taught!"

PSA: A Healer standing outside of the circle during a 4 on 3 attack just gave the opposing GC a bunch of points as they ended up holding the flag until you dropped one of them. A Healer standing outside the circle during a 4 on 4+ defense just gave the opposing GC a bunch of points because your team could not contest it and they just took it. A healer standing outside the circle just let an opposing player steal the flag because the guy snuck around the other side or broke through and everyone else was fighting on the ramp.

I have seen these things happen tons of times and every time I shout "Fight in the Circle" I'm not just shouting it at the healers, I'm shouting it at the Bards, Black Mages, Dragoons, Warriors, Paladins, Marauders, Summoners, Monks, Scholars and White Mages fighting outside the circle obsessed over a 3 point kill who just let the other GC accrue 100+ points during that 5 minute fight because they held the flag through the whole thing.

You are dead wrong. Let's weigh in the strategic value of various scenarios along your line of reasoning:

A) 1-friendly healer, 7 friendly damagers vs. 1 enemy healer, 7 enemy damagers
In this scenario it is impossible to advance on the enemy if all 16 people get in the circle because it will simply be deadlocked. The first healer to go into that circle will be instantly killed by the enemy team, and the team that still has their healer will outlast the team that doesn't, and will take the flag. In this situation you couldn't have taken the node because the enemy team ALREADY HAD IT. So OBVIOUSLY you aren't TAKING it from them until you kill them. They were getting points ANYWAY. You couldn't have gained anything from standing there, and you weren't losing anything by not standing there.

B) 2-friendly healers, 3 friendly damagers vs. 1 enemy healer, 7 damage dealers
Same thing. You are already outnumbered, so obviously you can't take the node. Even if your healers ran in there and committed suicide to stand there for a few seconds, it makes no difference at all. There are more of them than there are of you, so the node isn't changing.

C) 1 friendly healer, 5 friendly damagers vs. zero enemy healers, 5 enemy damagers
So you think you have the advantage because you outnumber them, right? Wrong. Five people focusing one healer is WAY more than enough to instantly explode that healer in quite literally 2 seconds unless that healer has cooldowns. Then, in order to survive a massive burst, the healer uses something like Attunment. Good, yeah? Wrong. The enemy also has cooldowns, and will use them right after that healer is vulnerable and kill him. Then it becomes a matchup against 5v5 without any healers, and there's a decent chance the enemy will again reinforcements, or will simply outplay friendlies. This is no way to guarantee victory.

I could keep running this over and over for hours. There's simply no situation imaginable where it directly benefits a team by directing enemy fire towards an exposed healer where it wouldn't serve the team better by having the healer be allowed to FREECAST and heal damagers instead, with complete impunity.

It's so important infact, that if you LOSE your healer, you will likely LOSE the teamfight. How exactly is this open to debate? This has been the case since...since...I don't even know when. It's just the way things are. Why does a bullet kill? Why is a rainbow made? Why does getting punched hurt? Why does losing my healer mean that I will die shortly after? Sure you could step-by-step break down the reasons but you don't really need to. It's just common sense.

By default a lot of people push for the healers to stand in the circle. But there's no single solution to it because it depends on the situation, we have to read what's going on and decide quickly. Most healers run straight into the and all attention is focused on them, usually if I'm on A or C and B is assisting their healer usually helps heal me or the other healer. If our team is heavy on AOE's and I see a bunch of monks come to the center I know they'll die but also know they'll tear into the healer. I've stood out so I can cure bomb, all their efforts on a healer standing in the circle becomes just wasted time if our AOE dmg is high enough. Or as a healer in the center I consider myself more as bait and try my best to heal with the abilities I have. Not saying I just stand there but compared to the white mage who isn't being kicked and punched...I do what I can.

Just because a strategy WORKS doesn't mean its the RIGHT one. You could put on a blindfold and shoot blindly into a crowd, and you may not hit anyone, but was it a smart thing to do regardless? In your example, yeah, maybe the mages didn't kill you. Maybe you drew fire onto you and let them attack with impunity.

But did you consider that the MAGES were doing the RIGHT thing by trying to kill you? Because they were. Where in that situation did you consider what would happen if the mages attacked a warrior on your team instead. The warrior would have taken damage, and would have been healed. Big whoop. If the mages landed a kill on you during that time, they would have just turned to that warrior and killed him, and what then? The warrior can't get healed because you are dead and the battle is lost. Meanwhile, if they DON'T shoot at you, your almost guaranteed a victory in that situation. Why would you risk losing just because #YOLO?

I am not understand some term use but I try to reply.
It is very possible for healer to heal inside circle unless enemy team you face have very good focus, which very rare. Dying also quite difficult if party has 2 other healer helping you but survival depend much on what class you are.

Both WHM and SCH survive different way and I feel OP very exaggerate? There is way to stay alive no matter where healer standing but circle is safest place in most case. If tank is not helping or dps is not helping then problem is not healer.

"Don't worry guys, they are too stupid to do the most obvious strategy to win!"

Why do I even bother? Oh well.

"Pray for the best, prepare for the worst." Someone who is concerned about winning is going to expect the enemy AND their teammates to do all the wrong things and adapt accordingly. A fundamental part of strategy is to punish your opponents' mistakes, while covering your own from being punished. Allowing yourself to be exposed to the enemy unnecessarily IS A MISTAKE. Killing a an enemy healer who does so IS PUNISHING A MISTAKE. It's precisely the RIGHT thing to do if you want to LOSE.

Then don't blow them all at once. This is fairly straightforward logic. This is a big reason why Surecast is very important; low cooldown, not a huge waste if it gets eaten.

Unless your opposition is really smart (premade), they're going to waste a lot of stuns and silences front-loaded instead of near the end of your HP. So let them waste it when you have nothing up.

I shouldn't even dignify this one with a response because of how insulting it is to the average human intelligence. What, you think that every healer who dies because they ran into 4 enemy DPS are obviously using all three of their cooldowns at once. Obviously, that's the only possible way it could happen, right?

Is this a joke? How stupid do you think people are? OF COURSE THEY AREN'T DOING THAT. Someone who has that as a problem is inherently SO NEW that they've probably got a lot more severe problems. Like running in a straight line.

And no about your second part, you once again severely underestimate the average human intelligence. Its simply instinct to attack when someone is vulnerable, and one of the ONLY times I get stunned is when I'm below 40% HP. People aren't stupid. They have basic fighting instinct. That's just the way it is.

OP, I can't like your comment enough. This is exactly how I've been playing and I can't stand it when people yell at me.

Get out of that circle! Don't make yourself a target.

I can't even believe this didn't get a single like. These forums are truly lost.

A lot of people are ignoring the fact if you're not inside the circle, the enemy melees (yes, tanks are melees), whom are the main threats, will also have to get out of the circle to attack you. If you ever have more than 1 melee attacking you as a healer outside of the circle, you're already coming out ahead in terms of bodies in the circle vs your enemies.

To expand on this point, since you understated the effect this has. What happens when you sprint out of a circle and a bard, warrior, paladin, and summoner all chase you through walls, around pillars, and you lure one of them and throw them off a cliff via knockbacks like fluid aura? Killing a healer to turn the tide is SUCH an obviously viable tactic, that enemies FLOCK to make a healer vulnerable, and the key to victory is to NOT be vulnerable, and make the enemy's attempts to make you vulnerable meaningless. Taking 2-4 enemies off of the flag to chase me around definitly turns the tide on the flag.

Even more so, if the DPS that were chasing the healer change their minds? The healer can punish them to help their team by sleeping them OUT of the circle, thus completely nullifying their numbers AND their presence at the same time.

But according to the people in this thread, it's better to just run in and die, yep.

It all depends if your DPS are good enough to make kills and have the balls to be aggressive. If not, your team shouldn't be at the point anyway. Healers standing on a point is for defense and neutral points, not capturing from another team.

This. I can't understand how people can't understand this. It's so basic.

That's true but if someone's saying to get in the circle it's because the flag isn't yours (the number in the circle is even or they out number your team/you are needed in the circle). What your saying comes after you have the flag

Removing enemies from the circle gains your team an advantage by allowing a smaller number of friendlies to capture a flag with less resistance. It doesn't matter if you have it or not, removing enemies from the circle will ALWAYS make capturing it easier, or holding it easier. Keeping them off of it while your DPS do their jobs and eliminate enemies is a tactical move, the longer you can stall them the bigger your advantage. If 1 healer can get 2-4 people to follow them around and NOT be on the circle, you've gained a serious advantage, especially if those 2-4 people are UNABLE to land a kill on the healer. It makes their entire attack the same as if they just stood there AFK. They accomplished nothing, while you relieved stress on your allies.

Again, even better if the 2-4 enemies change their minds and go back to the circle. A healer can sleep them before they get there, removing them completely from the battle for a short time, gaining even more of an advantage. Plus that one skilled fluid aura that sends one of them off a ledge and forces them to run all the way back and be unable to assist their team.

Thats true. Nothing else will ever work. Stay in the circle as much as you can. I only play healer and i always stay in circle (in a normal situation, not if it is hopeless ). And surprise, i can hold out there without getting nuked within five seconds. Learn to use your PvP skills, use fluid aura to kick dragoons out of the circle, run into enemys groups and use Aetheric Burst , run into your own group and use focalization, use swiftcast + divine seal for media 2 every minute. Use sprint to run around in the circle and by doing that cast a divine regen on some peeps, use your level up points to unlock all three levels of Sacred Prism and cast it somewhere in the circle so your whole team and you can benefit from it (Hell it gives you 40% less melee damage for almost half a minute), use divine breath to instant res another healer and besides all of this you still have the oh shit buttons benediction, equanimity, attunement and purify.I dont know, i dont see any reason for any class to stay outside of the circle. As you see, whitemages do have a lot of stuff they can do to hold out and help the team. Especially Sacred Prism is your way to go as a healer who can stand in the circle.

Just because you've gotten lucky and only played against bads who never target you doesn't mean the winning tactic is to simply disregard tactics in favor of the idea that your enemies are too stupid to attack you and your allies are strong enough to carry you. Relying purely on faith and luck is not a strategy. Having faith that your opponents are too stupid to fight you is frankly pretty stupid. Like a circle of stupid. I can't even take this reply seriously.

Optimally you should only use cooldowns when they give you an advantage. Example:
A) An allied healer is being focused, instead of nuke-healing him, you allow him to die and top everyone else with medica II, then instantly res the healer. Your archer dies.

B) An allied healer is being focused, he runs away and line of sights, healing himself now that he's broken away from the enemy. You top everyone around off with medica II while several people are kited by the healer. Your archer dies, and you resurrect him.

Which was the wiser decision? Come on. It isn't rocket science. Healers should TRY TO KEEP THEMSELVES ALIVE.

Now that I'm done retorting every single response, here's MY own input. A healer is EXACTLY what wins and doesn't win a teamfight. Typically the side with more healers wins. A healer that makes himself vulnerable doesn't help his team. Adding 1 more person to a circle in a gaggle of people just makes him vulnerable, and might as well be a DPS who can't do any damage with what they bring to the table in a vulnerable state. The challenge of being a good healer is being an unstoppable force that simply WILL NOT DIE and will NOT allow his team to die under his care. It is the challenge of granting his party invulnerability at its most fundamental idea, and the only way to remove that invulnerability is to kill them.

A healer should do everything to avoid being killed. Part of avoiding being killed is NOT standing out in the open waiting for the enemy to all target you and blow you away. The whole idea is incredibly simplistic and ridiculous. It's like listening to someone argue that marching lines of musket wielding colonial armies is a good way to beat a highly trained camouflaged group of guerilla fighters who simply can't be seen by the enemy.

Now imagine if you had just as many invulnerable guerilla fighters as you had marching colonials. Making yourself vulnerable is never a good idea unless you have something to compensate that vulnerability. A pair of healers against a group of 8 DPS is not strong enough to nullify the vulnerability of standing out in the open. The whole POINT of healers is to compensate for the vulnerability of damagers because damagers CAN'T HEAL. That's the entire foundation of healing in any MMO.

4-5 healers standing in a circle healing each other IS a good enough nullification for that vulnerability. You people are confusing HEALER STACKING with ACTUAL decent healerplay. Get real. Just because you've seen five healers stacked up on a circle healing each other endlessly doesn't mean that's the answer across the board. In small groups (which is what it usually is) healers have to play smart because we can rarely rely on our teammates for our own survival, that's our defining characteristic and OUR JOB. Standing there allowing ourselves to be killed and for our team to lose its serious advantage IS NOT the way to help our team.