Advice!

[quemyle]

Have started playing again since December after not being able to play for about 9 months. I have been focusing on DoH and DoL but I want to continue on the main story. I have been practicing a little with my WHM. The lower level dungeons are easy but the dungeons over Lv 30 is where I'm kinda struggling. Should I focus on healing only. Or when I have chance do some dps. Going to do Cutter's Cry and Aurum Vale for my Grand Company stuff. Any help or advice would be grateful

[PetiteMalFleur]

If you feel comfortable with dps then please do so. If you feel your party is at risk because you dps then just focus on healing.

[Bolf]

It all depends on the tank really (and to some extent the rest of the party I.e. Are they dodging ages?) judge it from the first couple of pulls, if you're keeping them up comfortably, it's worth chucking a few attacks in. I tend to stick stoneskin and regen on early in the pull, switch stance then throw a couple of attacks in then assessment whether I need to switch back or just reapply stoneskin and carry on.

It's not really essential to dps in these dungeons but it's good to practice and familiarise yourself with a bit of dpsing so that when you get holy you're perfectly comfortable with using it on larger pulls in lvl 50 dungeons.

[quemyle]

Thanks for the replies. This will help me heaps in what judgement I should make. I'm used to switching between healing and dps so I will continue.

[DreamWeaver]

I would advice getting the Level 35 Job skill (Regen) ASAP before you try out any stance dancing.

This will enable you to dps while some healing is still being done on the tank.
It will also teach you when NOT to cast regen. (Hint : When the last add is dying soon, do not refresh your regen).

[Raminax]

For Cutter's Cry and Aurum Vale in particular...

Learn to love Regen, and make a habit out of refreshing Stoneskin between pulls (or when the last enemy is about to die). These two will extend the time you can stick around in Cleric Stance for a good while.

For Cutter's Cry, I hope you've been keeping your Esuna button healthy. Second boss and onwards has a fair amount of debuffs to remove, especially if the party plays poorly on the last boss in there. Paralysis is a bitch to deal with if left unattended, and Heavy will make it all the harder to dodge future AoEs. You might also be expected to kite adds on the first boss; simply Regen the tank and yourself, maybe a Cure (II) to solidify threat, and then Sprint in circles around the edges of the room while the rest burn the boss.

For Aurum Vale, there's nothing particularly interesting going on there healing-wise, though it does give you a chance to showcase how amazing Holy is (depending on how shoddy the AoE available to your DPS is). There's lots of stuff that needs to die quickly to prevent unnecessary pain, such as the seeds on the final boss. Otherwise, roll Regen on the group to counteract various DoTs and have fun cursing the melee who can't dodge 100 Tonze Swing (and Esuna'ing the noobs who can't dodge Glower or Eye of the Beholder). :P

[ErnestoGiovanni]

Something that I think is important, always just Heal your first time through a dungeon, or when your trying new playstyles. It gives you time to look at windup animations and see how long it takes before the hit registers and look at names of moves with focus target on. People say just healing is boring, I say it gives you a lot of time to learn important details. It will let you stance Dance as its called and you will know at a certain point when a boss or enemy uses a move you should be casting a cure because at that moment the targets HP won't move which lets you do SO much more having that knowledge. and a tip I found very important, in the in-between dungeons where Shroud of Saints doesn't do much, use cure one repeatedly, it slowly chips away qt your mp and use cure ii with those freecures otherwise they blow big chunks of your mp.

[Sumimi]

As "boring" as some people say healing is. I find that healers actually have the most things to do when doing content.

Not everything is rainbows and unicorns, and there's a fine difference between those who forsee incoming damage, and those who heal after the damage. The biggest things for healers is to always be aware of the situation. This applies the most to us healers, less so for tanks, and even less for DPS. This isn't to say that situational awareness can be completely ignored, but the more you have the better.

My advice is simple: Be aware of your surroundings, including your party, as much as you can. This includes, and is not limited to:

• Incoming AoE
• Incoming Big Hits
• Monsters that Patrol
• Debuffs
• Buffs
• Your party's likelyhood of ignoring a mechanic and getting hit.
• Chance of someone non-tank pulling aggro.
• Tank's willingness of popping defensive cooldowns.
• etc...etc...

You'll find that you'll have a much easier time supporting a group if you know what their habits are. Yes this applies to DF parties as well.

I say simple, but in practice it's much harder when it comes to the more difficult dungeons. Even more so if you're learning.

[VanilleFang]

For Aurum Vale, there's nothing particularly interesting going on there healing-wise, though it does give you a chance to showcase how amazing Holy is (depending on how shoddy the AoE available to your DPS is). There's lots of stuff that needs to die quickly to prevent unnecessary pain, such as the seeds on the final boss. Otherwise, roll Regen on the group to counteract various DoTs and have fun cursing the melee who can't dodge 100 Tonze Swing (and Esuna'ing the noobs who can't dodge Glower or Eye of the Beholder). :P

Ha. Haha. Hahaha.

Yeah okay.

@OP: Aurum Vale is Healer hell. Brayflox is the first gate (Especially if you are a SCH), but Aurum Vale is full-on Hell. Its not exactly hard, per se, but its definitely healing intensive and you have to watch your team at all times.

[Raminax]

Ha. Haha. Hahaha.

Yeah okay.

@OP: Aurum Vale is Healer hell. Brayflox is the first gate (Especially if you are a SCH), but Aurum Vale is full-on Hell. Its not exactly hard, per se, but its definitely healing intensive and you have to watch your team at all times.

I genuinely, honestly, sincerely, earnestly never thought of Aurum Vale as any harder or spammier than other Dungeons. I suppose I'll count myself as lucky enough to have people with basic reading comprehension and common sense with circles on the ground.