Levelling Healer

[AskaRay]

Toooooo be honest, he best times I had running Aurum Vale were as WHM and as PLD.
Probably PLD because I can choose where we go (we're farming everything, you got it? I wanna level) and WHM because of Regen. If I could I'd marry Regen. I like playing SCH more often but if someone needs me to heal AV, I go as WHM.

[cgbspender]

Regen is the perfect friend in Aurum, yeah... and assuming you have a normal gear (as opposed to undergear), regen will perfectly match the stacks of poison. (2 stacks against 1st boss, 3 stacks for third boss), and you'll minimize the damages a lot, and all you'll have to do will be to throw now and then a medica or a cure.

[KisaiTenshi]

Best and worst stuff:

1) Because it's such a big whine point on THIS forum - You DO NOT have to DPS, no matter what anyone says. If they make a stink of it, you are better of leaving because they have no faith in their own DPS. Your job is Healing you, the tank and the DPS last.
1a) The worst healers are those who queue as healers just to get a faster queue, you will see this more typical of SCH, who then do little or no actual healing*, or let the fairy autopilot.
*If you get a SCH in a pre-level 30 dungeon, they don't have any SCH abilities to use. Just the fairy, so it's no different than ACN or SMN in those dungeons.
1b) The worst tanks will be those that don't turn on their tank stance immediately. Second only to those not wearing Tank gear in all left-hand slots.

2) If you do WHM and SCH, set up your healing skill bar the same (eg Esuna/Leeches, Cure/Physick, Medica/Succor, Cure II/Adloquium, Revive/Resurrect, Protect/Protect,Shroud of Saints/Aetherflow) to make use of "muscle memory" from one job in the other. Even though SCH skills are more about damage mitigation, and don't combo the same way.

3) Macro Swift-Revive/Resurrect on WHM, Swift-Resurrect on SCH.

/micon "Raise"
/ac "Swiftcast" <me> <wait.1>
/ac "Raise" <t>
/ac "Raise" <2>
/ac "Raise" <3>
/ac "Raise" <4>
/ac "Raise" <5>
/ac "Raise" <6>
/ac "Raise" <7>
/ac "Raise" <8>

I got that one off reddit. Mainly it avoids wasting the Revive if there are other targets in the party.

4) Macro Swiftcast-StoneSkin II on WHM

/micon "Stoneskin II"
/ac "Swiftcast" <me> <wait.1>
/ac "Stoneskin II"

Sometimes fails. Mainly because you have impatient speedpulling tanks, and anyone who dies in the first 60 seconds is just playing bad.

5) Macro Medica II into high power healing on WHM

/micon "Medica II"
/ac "Presence of Mind" <me> <wait.1>
/ac "Divine Seal" <me> <wait.1>
/ac "Swiftcast" <me> <wait.1>
/ac "Medica II" <me> <wait.1>

The only reason I have it set this way is it's just long enough to use before raid-wide damage (eg Ultima Weapon, Xande's Ancient Quaga, Cloud of Darkness)

6) Some dungeons are harder than others depending on what you play.
- Brayflox Longstop NM(Normal Mode) will tend to be a disaster if you have a new tank or new DPS. It's easier on WHM, but it will be the first instance of burning out your available MP, where as SCH will have to heal straight through the poison stacks.
- Cutter's Cry is harder to do on SCH since the only "regen" comes from the fairy, and it's possible to do without party healing, but you probably want party healing and leeches before attempting. WHM will already have Regen and Esuna.
- Aurum Vale... don't get me started. The very very first time I played this on DPS and got a SCH for a healer, and it took multiple tries because SCH is mostly shielding, not straight up healing. On WHM it's generally not a problem, but the bosses leave little room for error. This, like the final boss in Brayflox will test your MP management.

7) New Tanks ... and DPS tend to stand in AOE's. Not-new tanks will purposely stand in AOE's to be lazy, let them die once. If they overpull, let them die once. Your job is to heal, not compensate for laziness or incompetence. Which means...

8) Tanks and Healers want to be treated like princesses and it's better off to grin and bear stupidity from them than to create an argument that will just waste time. Don't take grief from DPS though. DPS players can be replaced, usually instantly. Tanks and Healers tend to vary from 90 seconds to 20 minutes to be replaced, depending on time of day.

9) The Healer often has to do more AOE dodging dances than the DPS. This has to do with Enmity tables, where the healer will tend to be the highest priority target any time the Tank isn't generating enmity.

10) Overhealing, Proactively casting Medica II, Regen, or doing Medica at inopportune times will tend to generate more enmity on you than the tank can deal with. The Healbombs are best saved for raid-wide damage, and not proactively used. This includes the Fairy on SCH (Whispering Dawn) which has the same effect as Medica II, minus the initial heal burst. Ideally you'd just stick to Cure I (WHM) or Psysick (SCH) until the healing target is below 50% to avoid overhealing. SCH is a bit harder, strategy-wise since Adloquium is not Cure II though it "fits" in the amount-of-HP-recovered slot if cast on the target before they are at 80%. The shielding effect apparently doesn't generate enmity (but YMMV.)

11) Field combat is awful as WHM and SCH(at least compared to SMN/ACN) since neither really do high power damage (SMN/ACN, the pet is supposed to contribute half the damage) or fast damage(Aero/Bio does work to tag single targets.) It's more awful trying to do FATE's since most DPS (eg BRD) can fire stuff, including their AOE's without delays. If you're doing the storyline and start as CNJ/WHM it will take a LOT longer than it will on a DPS-specific class. Typically many of the solo-DPS encounters will take twice as long, but you have the advantage of healing yourself, so the difficulty isn't quite as bad.

As a final note, you don't need to take anyones advise and can play whatever way you want to, but it's better to work together. Toxic people are bad people in general, so if someone starts trash talking you, ignore it, leave, but don't bother to engage them.

[Spoekes]

Please take any advice with a grain of salt.
Much you will read is biased by personal playerskill and bad/good experiences.

I applaud the effort Kisai has put into this reply, but some things, especially about the SCH play, low level dungeons and solo play may be true for him/her but they are nowhere near facts.

[Cynfael]

1. Let's practice full disclosure and mention that most of the "whine" regarding healer DPS comes from players who are either adamant about not improving their reactive and/or lazy playstyle or are refusing to consider and apply the tips and general information liberally provided to them.

2. Field DPS as WHM or as SCH is fine even at lower levels provided you use cleric stance. What time you lose by not having the output of a true DPS class you gain by being basically indefatigable. Then, at 45, WHM becomes a faceroll trash compactor with Holy.

[cgbspender]

I m afraid this is going the usual "do or do not dps". Sigh.

[Ghishlain]

1) Because it's such a big whine point on THIS forum - You DO NOT have to DPS, no matter what anyone says. If they make a stink of it, you are better of leaving because they have no faith in their own DPS. Your job is Healing you, the tank and the DPS last.
1a) The worst healers are those who queue as healers just to get a faster queue, you will see this more typical of SCH, who then do little or no actual healing*, or let the fairy autopilot.
*If you get a SCH in a pre-level 30 dungeon, they don't have any SCH abilities to use. Just the fairy, so it's no different than ACN or SMN in those dungeons.
1b) The worst tanks will be those that don't turn on their tank stance immediately. Second only to those not wearing Tank gear in all left-hand slots.

I am going to expand on this point.

Healer's primary function is to heal - keeping the party healthy and capable of fighting. An average healer will do just this and only this. This tends to lead to high amounts of idle time in high gear situations.

An exceptional healer will find means of maximizing their GCD-usage and doing "something efficient" with all their GCDs. This can mean many things such as:
(1) Healing harder if the group is taking an exorbitant amount of damage
(2) DPSing to ensure mobs / bosses die faster thus decreasing actual dungeon time and also decreasing actually healing time needed

Kisa Kisa is notorious on these forums for being on the anti-DPS train as a healer. While I do agree that healer's aren't expected to DPS, I also believe healer's should understand the dynamics of the fight and contribute as efficiently and effectively as possible to a party without putting the party health at risk.

7) New Tanks ... and DPS tend to stand in AOE's. Not-new tanks will purposely stand in AOE's to be lazy, let them die once. If they overpull, let them die once. Your job is to heal, not compensate for laziness or incompetence. Which means...

8) Tanks and Healers want to be treated like princesses and it's better off to grin and bear stupidity from them than to create an argument that will just waste time. Don't take grief from DPS though. DPS players can be replaced, usually instantly. Tanks and Healers tend to vary from 90 seconds to 20 minutes to be replaced, depending on time of day.

Please don't let your tanks die. They might be a crap tank, but being openly hostile towards them is just going to breed more toxicity and just drive everyone nuts. I personally just consider it a challenge, as a good healer is an adaptable healer. Being able to handle any situation (whether it be a dungeon mechanic gone awry or just piss poor play) is the mark of a good healer. Being able to grin and bear the bullcrap associated with the drama just puts you on a morally higher ground as well.

9) The Healer often has to do more AOE dodging dances than the DPS. This has to do with Enmity tables, where the healer will tend to be the highest priority target any time the Tank isn't generating enmity.

Factually false. Healer's have more to deal with because they have to deal with mechanics of a fight while keeping their group healthy - a particularly difficult task for some fights. However, mechanics that specifically target healers or not are different from each fight. For example, Earthshakers in T13 only target the DPS or the OT - never the healer (unless quite a few people are dead).

Now, if the healer's have the dodge more often due to poor enmity control, that could be the fault of either the healer (spamming Cures too hard) or the tank (unable to snap aggro effectively), but this is an entirely different discussion. You will run into moments where a low geared tanked won't be able to hold hate on a high geared healer or DPS due to the gear disparity. In fact, OP, you might even see this already as you do main BLM.

Please take any advice with a grain of salt.
Much you will read is biased by personal playerskill and bad/good experiences.

I applaud the effort Kisai has put into this reply, but some things, especially about the SCH play, low level dungeons and solo play may be true for him/her but they are nowhere near facts.

^ This

I m afraid this is going the usual "do or do not dps". Sigh.

Yeah, while it's a discussion that happens frequently, it's important for a new healer to understand the pros and cons of both and know what steps they can do to improve. If it attracts the die hard "OMG NO DPS" crew, I'm willing to fight that front for the sake of helping a new player get better.

Call me a masochist at heart~

[Yumi_umi]

I m afraid this is going the usual "do or do not dps". Sigh.

Ikr lel
But anyways try and practice in DF, imo the more u heal bad/ messy parties the more better of a healer u become. Because it'll force u to play 110% sometimes due to the fact tht sometimes tht dps or tank cannot dodge for their lives.

If u can heal a bad party then obviously u'll have a super easy time healing a good one.

[technole]

Please take any advice with a grain of salt.
Much you will read is biased by personal playerskill and bad/good experiences.

I applaud the effort Kisai has put into this reply, but some things, especially about the SCH play, low level dungeons and solo play may be true for him/her but they are nowhere near facts.

Agreed.

Brayflox NM is fine as SCH. As learning to manage Aetherflow stacks soothes the so-called pain of not having leeches. Although it is true having a bad tank and/or DPS in that instance will be the most punishing for either healer job because big mob pulls or the last boss just won't die in an appropriate amount of time. I'd even say a SCH will have an easier time dealing with mistakes during the last boss just because of Aetherflow.

Cutters Cry is so easy with SCH that with appropriate fairy placement during each of the bosses you actually can dps more or spot heal.

AV, even without regen you still can elevate some of the boss pain again with appropriate fairy placement and using Eos cool downs appropriately.


Nonetheless I get a bit tired of hearing SCH bashing in low-level content when I can manage it just as fine as I do with WHM.

[CycLee]

As it is true, that a healer who can support with some damage while keeping everyone alive is a big help in dungeons, a healer who understand that he is not capable of doing so is in some way better.

Healing imho is alot about experience and the right feeling for the situation. if i'm in a random dungeon (duty finder etc) i always wait for the 1st pulls to see what the tank is capable off, before i decide if i'm jumping in and spam my holy. And even if i got some experience, it happens once in a while, that i missread the situation and the tank just drop dead. So a dpsing healer can be a great help, but in special as a white mage it also means a decent risk.

i also suggest to have Cleric stance on a easy to reach shortcut, as it makes stance dancing a lot easier.

If you get to the holyspamming part, always try to launch your 1st holy via swiftcast. The incoming damage on the tank will stop as soos as the bang got off. And in addition, as you have to wait for the GCD to finish before you can start the next holy, the stuneffect will have ended before your 2nd holy explodes and will nearly instastun again. If you jast cast your holy the usual way, there will be 1 sec of stun remaining as the 2nd go boom and the stun will have no effect this time - wich means, the just the 3rd holy will stun again.

Using this you can get about 3-4 Holys out beforethe tank start taking full damage again.


BUT AGAIN: You are a healer, your job is keeping them alive. as long as you are not confident in dps'ing, or even it's just that you feel uncomfortable doing it -> leave it. There is not a single (non coil-)dungeon where it is mandatory for a healer to dps. it's just an extra to get the job done quicker.


If any group kicks you because they think it will take then to long if you dont, let them do so and hope that they will have to wait for half an hour for a replacement. or that the replacement also focuses on healing. or that the next one is just bad and they have to abort the dungeon ^.^