Basic Principles for WHM - What and what not to do.

[Ghishlain]

@Spoekes + Kisai

Thanks for the test.

And Regen is worse for Enmity generation which is why you'd only want it ticking on one target. I don't play a tank so I don't know what the general opinion is other than "Inappropriate Heal bombs = bad Healer"

Because of the fact Regen is a HoT, it's enmity generation is a progressive staircase upwards and not an immediate burst of enmity thus making it easier to manage for a tank. Good tanks will know how to snap aggro past the threshold and a tank's natural combat rotation should over come any ticking HoTs on any one/two/three targets.

That being said, enmity control is a responsibility of everyone. Tanks need to be aware when they have to make use of snap aggro to get hate and non-tanks need to realize at which instances they may get hate and choose their skills/spells appropriately.

Also, I disagree with the comment about only having Regen on one target at a time. Good tanks will always have a fairly strong enmity lead on the healer unless the healer (WHM specifically) is intentionally playing poorly by spamming Medica / Medica II / Cure III. If you have a poor tank, you'll know immediately and thus your job as a healer has just gone up the difficulty curve immensely.

[Parawill]

Cure II -> 650 potency @ 266 MP
Cure III -> 550 potency @ 505 MP

Whenever 2 people stand close enough and took damage worthy of a about a cure II, cure III can do the job in one GCD at lower mana cost.
It's of course situational, but I feel Cure III is getting bad reputation and is pushed into a niche spot for wrong reasons.

The usage of Cure III is situational in terms of time efficiency vs. death. In most cases when dealing with mana efficiency vs. death, there is no need to Cure III. T11 is a great example of mana efficiency (with a Scholar Fairy) as Regen + Cures (and Embrace, wont forget about 'chu Fairies) is generally enough to keep up both tanks in exception to a lolcrit or lol-vulnstack which then shifts mana efficiency to time efficiency, where your Cure III would be sublime.

Why tank again? No ones talking about the tank.

2 players got hit by around 2k damage and stand close enough -> Cure III wins in MP cost and GCDs used against 2xCure II, medica will not be enough, if you need those 2 players full asap for whatever reason.

You said 2 people in the post (granted I didn't read from post 1 to current, but it leaves room for interpretation which is where your "tanks" are coming from).

Anyways, in a situation like that it also depends on the time of the next incoming damage. For the stacking-megaflares after T13 Divebombs, I have some groups taking splash damage (avoidable damage), which forces me to Cure III since it has a 30y (+6y radius) on the stacking players. It's time efficient (and mana efficient) as you stated, but also because now you don't need to spend 798+ mana raising people :P. But yeah, Cure III has it uses. The best part about White Mage is adapting and shifting your play style to many situations.

I've shifted to two Medicas for Megaflare into Rage in some T13 groups as they don't stack efficiently enough for a Cure III!

Cure III vs Cure II
I agree with Spoekes, Cure III on two targets is generally slightly less MP AND slightly less HP rolled up in a single GCD. Obviously, once you're in the 3+ valid target range, Cure III > Cure II (though these situations tend to be rare outside of specific scenarios)

Absolutely agree.

Cure III vs Medica
Depends on the HP lose. While Medica does provide less HP it can overall be more MP efficient and generate less over heal (threat) in a single GCD. This judgement is dependent on the power of the arena sized attack and the composition of your party (you're going to have a hard time hitting ranged DPS with Cure III).

Just adding on, you need to factor in reactive times of your group and also positioning. Like you said, ranged DPS will be harder to hit with Cure III since you need to factor in whether or not they will stack (or be close) for an incoming heal. But yay for call-outs! I get to move my party like chess pieces ^_^

I use a lot of comparisons because I feel it's important for WHMs to understand their options and not get pushed into a specific answer for what can be several differing scenarios. The WHM toolkit relies on standing still and casting so a good WHM will need to understand how to make the most use out of each GCD to maximize their efficiency while matching a player's play style and minimizing overheal/threat/MP loss.

Once again, I agree. White Mages aren't static with their healing. Their tool set has a lot more utility than most people think and FCOB definitely shows the importance of adaptation for a White Mage. We get hit with healing enmity vs. tank enmity (not you Eymmi or Neo... If you read this anyways), time constraints and mana resource management. It is super fun!

I've gotten comfortable enough to be throwing Holys on Gusts in T13 too. People start laughing, but I'm practically near full-mana if everything goes 100% as planned.

And Regen is worse for Enmity generation which is why you'd only want it ticking on one target. I don't play a tank so I don't know what the general opinion is other than "Inappropriate Heal bombs = bad Healer"

Regen is amazing! I've never pulled anything off aside from needless Regens on people who could've been just topped off with passive health regen. There are times where you can just ignore healing since there can be enough time for character natural health regen to just top themselves off.

<insert Ghishlain's comment about Regen in his last paragraph because that is exactly what I would've said>

[Yare]

Shroud of Saint: Use SoS based on %MP left will work for easy leisure dungeon runs, old raid contents and troll tower triology. I recommend using SoS based on mana burning rate and situations. A few examples:
Happy holy spamming sessions or healing intense fights – shroud after casting the first holy or first two cures even when more than 90% MP. Because mp consumption rate in these situations is faster than shroud’s mp restoration rate.

Short boss fights – I don’t shroud when boss has less than 20% HP and I have about 60%+ MP (unless there’s a suicidal dps or boss is going to do more intense damages near the end).

Tough long boss fights (raids for just barely geared w/o echo bonus) – shrouds and ether potions need to be timed and used strategically so that bard doesn’t have to sing ballad in the middle of intense dps check component of fights.

[Yare]

Regarding which aoe healing spells, I find it very situational in difficult contents and these are the factors to consider: 1. Necessity of topping team members off right away, 2. Placements of team members, 3.casting time, 4. Potency and characteristics of different aoe heals, 5. The nature of the fights (i.e. is it a mobile fight? Is the add going to pop? If there’s adds popping, I avoid allowing medica 2’s HoT remains on party) 6. Should divine seal, swift cast or presence of mind be used. That’s why I like healing difficult content b/c I enjoy applying healing strategies and developing spell combos.

Then again, I am that lazy WHM who uses medica 2 for all aoe damages in troll towers so I can eat ice cream while dpsing by pressing four different keys.

P.S. Newbie question: how do I get ride of the 1000 character limit?

[Ghishlain]

P.S. Newbie question: how do I get ride of the 1000 character limit?

You can edit your post to bypass the 1K character limit.

[cgbspender]

Thanks everyone for all the feedback until now, I'll keep adding adding your ideas as the thread develops (will make an update tomorrow, I think). I'm really amazed by the direction it went btw, about cure3, regen and so on. They are all very interesting point of views, some of which I share, some not, but still, they will be included on first page. I'm not sure yet about "how" i'll format it, maybe insert a paragraph "situational healing" that will specifically let the reader judge and understand that the mechanisms can vary depending on the situations.

Also, someone mentionned (1st page) :

1. Shroud of Saints actually cuts your current enmity in half. It doesn't reduce the amount of enmity you generate when it is active, it instead cuts it by 50% the instant you use it. This makes it a good tool to avoid pulling hate or making your OT's life easier in some encounters. It does have a nice refresh on it though.

If you have anything to prove this, I'll likely hear it. Not that I don't trust you, but why 50% and not 40 or 60, or even 80% ? It's the kind of data that is always hard to confirm as we don't have a precise gauge of enmity, and it represents extensive tests.

[Ghishlain]

Thanks everyone for all the feedback until now, I'll keep adding adding your ideas as the thread develops (will make an update tomorrow, I think). I'm really amazed by the direction it went btw, about cure3, regen and so on. They are all very interesting point of views, some of which I share, some not, but still, they will be included on first page. I'm not sure yet about "how" i'll format it, maybe insert a paragraph "situational healing" that will specifically let the reader judge and understand that the mechanisms can vary depending on the situations.

You'll probably want to kinda go through a case by case scenario for each type of "heal" on a White Mage's toolkit, especially with Medica / Medica II / Cure III as they all serve different niches and aspects. For example, Cure III was a great tool back when Titan EX was the hardest content at the time (still great now for the fight, but not as required). Medica and Medica II have differing potencies, ranges, and costs but generally serve under the same niche. I tend to use Medica more now a days on lower level content for raid heals since it costs less MP and you generally don't need the HoT ticking on Medica II. Things like that to help flesh out that bit.

[VanilleFang]

Then again, I am that lazy WHM who uses medica 2 for all aoe damages in troll towers so I can eat ice cream while dpsing by pressing four different keys.

This is what I was referring to when I said Medica 2 is my most used AoE heal. xD Raid content is so easy right now. I heal, obviously, but besides making sure the main tank is alive + has Regen (and E4E and such if the MT is in in my party) I pretty much just DPS. The boss uses a strong raid-wide AoE? Take off CS, Divine Seal > Swift Cast > Medica II > Cleric Stance. Unavoidable damage is so inconsistent in the raids right now. Look at Cloud of Darkness...

[KisaiTenshi]

P.S. Newbie question: how do I get ride of the 1000 character limit?

You can edit your post to bypass the 1K character limit.

What I do is I copy the entire post into notepad, remove everything but the first sentence in the post (10char limit), and then immediately edit it and paste the entire thing from notepad.

This is what I was referring to when I said Medica 2 is my most used AoE heal. xD Raid content is so easy right now. I heal, obviously, but besides making sure the main tank is alive + has Regen (and E4E and such if the MT is in in my party) I pretty much just DPS. The boss uses a strong raid-wide AoE? Take off CS, Divine Seal > Swift Cast > Medica II > Cleric Stance. Unavoidable damage is so inconsistent in the raids right now. Look at Cloud of Darkness...

Benediction and Cure III almost get no love from me, and Medica 2 is only ever used in boss rooms with room-wide boss mechanics as part of a Divine Seal/Medica II macro. I find healers using Medica II on trash, or right at beginning of a fight, are just playing poorly and making the tanks job needlessly harder. Same with not having EOS on Obey.

CoD is incredibly easy if people know the mechanics, and as a healer, all you need to do is stand on the meteor spots because you can immediately heal yourself. The hardest fight in WoD is Angra Mainyu, because you can't keep raising people who are ignoring the instant-death Hokey Pokey game mechanics.

[Parawill]

The hardest fight in WoD is Angra Mainyu, because you can't keep raising people who are ignoring the instant-death Hokey Pokey game mechanics.

My friends and I play a little game called "guess how many raises/resurrections will be used." I think the highest we've reached (actual count) was 57 collectively on Angra Mainyu.