WAR trying out WHM, Looking for advice and answers to some questions.

[Krakatoah]

I've been pretty much a one-trick chocobo until recently as I was sticking with Warrior and not really full-timing any other class, but since I decided to go grab Awareness from Paladin I've actually gotten curious about giving Conjurer and eventually White Mage a proper college try.

...Though I certainly picked an interesting time to be giving a role I've never really touched ever in any other game a go so basically this is going to be my 'Baptism of DRKness' with what's eventually coming up on Friday, either way I have some questions to ask below in a seperate post due to the 1000 character limit. Thanks for reading in advance! (if this is against the forum rules, I'll make changes as requested.)

[Krakatoah]

1. I've only done two Low Level Duty Roulette runs with my Conjurer so far and I've been using Cleric Stance when healing wasn't needed and switching it off when it was needed, should I keep doing this?

2. A friend who's a White Mage for my static's coil runs has been said that I'd be a better Scholar with my habit but after getting Arcanist to level 15 I felt like I wasn't doing well, does this get any better after unlocking Scholar with my habit in mind?

3. What should I be doing when I inevitably encounter some problems with the group? The tanks for those two Roulette runs for example couldn't hold threat very well, I'd imagine some DPS will be far worse than that.

4. I've been told that it's a good idea for me to pick up Swiftcast from Thaumaturge, other than insta-res I'd like to know if there's other tricks I could use with this ability?

5. Finally, once I've managed to get to 60 and feel confident...What would be a good encounter to use as a 'Final Exam' of sorts?.

[Divine_Ultima]

1. Yes, if you're comfortable stance dancing by all means continue.
2. idk what habit you're talking about? dps as a healer? keeping cleric on all the time?
3. Having tanks not being able to hold aggro is gonna be a problem you'll encounter every so often so its something you kinda just have to get use to. Make sure you aren't over healing or casting regen's before pulls. As far as bad dps go while you're healing, sometimes you have to pick up slack (1st boss in wp comes to mind if dps don't kill the spears fast enough, the boss spams them. help out undergeared dps or bad dps with ur offensive skills. Only if healing isn't required of course)
4. YES, swiftcast is a must. other than swiftcast raise, I used it when I dps for a quick holy or a medica 2 and back to dps'ing. I most often use swiftcast on stoneskin 2 tbh since tanks don't like waiting for stoneskin >_<
5 idk, AV lol, coils, /shrug

[gehrtalert]

1. Stance Dancing is always helpful. You'll fudge it up sometimes but dont give up because of it.
2. I'm assuming you are talking about stance dancing. I've been told is easier on SCH but i couldn't tell you from experience.
3. Low level roulette just suck. No skills... low level gear... don't take anything thing that happens in a low level roulette as a sign of your lack of ability.
4.Swiftcast is usefull in many ways. Insta rez, insta holy for a quick mass stun... insta heals... its just instant awesomeness period.
5. T5... Titan Ex.. i haven't done any of SCoB so i wouldn't know about those.

[416to305]

I'll chime in too!

1) I do Cleric Stance like this all the time, especially lower level dungeons as you can usually just hit the tank with Regen and then DPS yourself as generally the other DPS's don't take that much damage. Later on as well it is still helpful as there's many times where you don't need to be healing non stop at 50 so keeps you busy. You just have to time it and what not to make sure that if something goes south, you can get out of it and heal the tank, as you never would want someone to die because you were DPSing. It's also helpful in bosses like Ifrit with the nails, or Titan with his heart, as sometimes you get bad DPSs that just don't attack them, so since no one really takes tons of damage at that stage, I will flip to CS and then attack them as well just to help out.



2) I can't comment on this as I haven't done coils yet but for me personally I have no interest in Scholar so never played it.

3) I think chances are the problems are due to it being low level like the others said. You're going to get people who just started playing, saw the description of a tank and then picked that, having no idea what to do. My first class was BLM, and as this was my first MMO I didn't even know what roles like tank, healer etc were. As you progress more it will change, just don't over-cure as that will cause you to pull aggro. Also if you use Regen, always give it a bit after the tank pulls before you hit it, so that he has full control of aggro.

4) Agreed with the last poster, Swiftcast you definitely need. I use it 95% of the time for rez, but there's tons of other times you'll want it. To spam Holy quickly is one, or other times I find myself using it is if the party takes huge damage that you weren't ready for, or just huge damage in general where everyone's HP drops really low, I'll swiftcast and then Medica II, sometimes followed up with a normal Medica. There's also Surecast but I find I've never used that and haven't ever had a need for it. When I played as BLM you were non stop getting your spells interrupted, but I don't notice that with WHM.

5) Hard to say on this one, not sure what happens at 60. For me I did BRD first so I had done a bunch at 50 already and had tons of tomes so I was pretty geared hitting 50 as WHM. I would say though Titan HM not EX as a basic test of skills, as it has dodging, pre-emptive healing when Titan jumps in the air and so on. I say not EX because I'm not even kidding I've tried it at least 10 times via DF and every single time we've had to vote abandon because the party has no idea what they are doing, and wipes so much that the gear is shot. I've all but given up on trying it, as it doesn't even seem that hard but no one ever knows the fight and it's become a huge waste of time for me spending 30 mins on it just to have everyone abandon.

[Phileas]

Scholar and White mage both have dps capability and can equally stance dance. The only difference was that scholar had Lustrate which was not affected by the -20% healing debuff of cleric so theoretically Sch could heal in cleric nearly all the time. This has changed in 3.0 with Lustrate now having healing potency and not straight % heal. SCH in 3.0 will now need to drop cleric to use lustrate - so basically stance dancing is more or less equal between the two at max level. My rule of thumb is to gauge how much damage the overall party is receiving. If its not much, after the tank has enmity post pull, I'll pop divine seal regen on tank, perhaps medica 2 on DPS then hit cleric to holy the mobs away.

Sometimes you cant do anything about a bad group. You can try and advise and suggest strategies (in a polite way) and if they won't listen or you keep getting the same results then it probably wont go anywhere and you should abandon.

Swiftcast is mandatory.

[416to305]

Divine Seal + Regen is definitely the way to go on the tank if you're planning on spamming Holy to do big damage to a group. That 30% heal potency bonus is a big help. When I started as WHM I'd see people saying to do this on this forum, but I didn't really look into the cool down time on it, and just assumed it was one of those 2 or 3 minute cool downs, but at 1 minute it refreshes really quickly and has become a huge help.

[Cynfael]

SCH in 3.0 will now need to drop cleric to use lustrate - so basically stance dancing is more or less equal between the two at max level.

Just pointing out that the change to Lustrate doesn't affect SCHs who were already stance-dancing to the max. The majority of your stacks should be spent on Energy Drain, anyway, and as far as we know, the fairy continues to be unaffected by its master's use of Cleric Stance. Dropping CS to throw a Lustrate (or more likely just Adlo or Physick) isn't a big deal or much of a departure from the current routine. The only thing we can't do now is camp CS while using Lustrate exclusively for direct heals, which wasn't really ideal or necessary, anyway.

With WHM receiving what we believe to be a % heal (Tetragrammaton) and being able to cast a passive Regen field (Asylum), their ease of stance dancing should increase, though. ACC will probably still be a big problem unless they've changed the stat distribution on healer gear without telling us. Crafted ftw, I guess.

Edit: Apparently Tetragrammaton is a potency-based spell, so scratch it off the "cast while in CS" list.

[Saseal]

1. Stance Dancing FTW - just don't tunnel vision and only do it when you feel comfortable - don't feel pressured to DPS if you get that anxious feeling that you shouldn't.

2. <_> WHMs stance dance all the time (though, I'm finding them farther in between, recently) - unless you're camping cleric, or tend to be more DPS aggressive with healing rather secondary (I can get like this, on some dungeons that I've run a million times). I think we'd have to see how you played to get an idea what they're referring to.

3. In the later WHM levels, you'll end up with Shroud of Saints. While this is an mp regen tool, it also decreases enmity. You can use it if your hate it really high on a monster and having a hard time getting rid of it (such as due to being forced to heal bomb the tank or someone else). If you get hate, shrouds didn't work or is on CD - run to the tank and lead everything to them so they can flash/overpower it off. If they don't..... I don't think theres much you can do except Holy-stun the monsters once and hope they get the idea.

4. I've used swiftcast for emergency medicas - for those times when you -know- an unavoidable room-wide AoE is about to go off and everyone needs HP boost... and not stacked for Cure III (or just not enough time for even Cure III's short cast time).
You can also use it with Holy as an emergency stun. I do this in the CT raids most often, when extra ADDs spawn part way through the fight and everything turns to me (due to regen or whathave you).... or to another healer, etc. It a.) is bright, flashy, noisy and says "HEY LOOK AT ME, HALP" to show there's enemies to be grabbed, b.) stuns them so you or the person can get away/heal themselves. Basically a self defense mechanism for yourself or another.

5. Titan EX, terri-bad groups in WoD, T5..... I find T5 easy these days - minus not paying attention...... but for a 'final exam' it's pretty okay. Situational awareness, use of pre-casting cures, use of tool kit (Divine Seal for the tank heal debuff + Death Sentence, Stone 1 to slow Death knights) and MP management.... because you'll be spamming Cure II on some tanks (I find it easier for some and harder to heal on others) between Death Sentence, heal debuff+Death Sentence, snake mob (moreso if single tanking), raises from twisters/divebombs/deathknight touches, hatch hits, etc. Won't be that bad on mp at all, if your group is good, but I've had some where I was dry by the time it hit the snakes phase. -_-
That said, T5 isn't bad or hard and will probably be easiest cake int he world at 60. But it will test you a bit on paying attention to both the party list and focus-target casts and symbol targets mechanics from so many one-hit-kill mechanics (Twisters, wall-hitting from unluckily situated divebombs, Deathknight touches, unsoaked fireballs, etc), instead of staring at only one or the other.

[Risvertasashi]

1. I've only done two Low Level Duty Roulette runs with my Conjurer so far and I've been using Cleric Stance when healing wasn't needed and switching it off when it was needed, should I keep doing this?

2. A friend who's a White Mage for my static's coil runs has been said that I'd be a better Scholar with my habit but after getting Arcanist to level 15 I felt like I wasn't doing well, does this get any better after unlocking Scholar with my habit in mind?

3. What should I be doing when I inevitably encounter some problems with the group? The tanks for those two Roulette runs for example couldn't hold threat very well, I'd imagine some DPS will be far worse than that.

4. I've been told that it's a good idea for me to pick up Swiftcast from Thaumaturge, other than insta-res I'd like to know if there's other tricks I could use with this ability?

5. Finally, once I've managed to get to 60 and feel confident...What would be a good encounter to use as a 'Final Exam' of sorts?.

1. Generally, yes, extra DPS can only make dungeons go faster. If someone complains (some tanks like to be topped up all the time), maybe stop until that party is over for the sake of harmony.

2. Scholar is considered to be the more technical job, similar to Warrior vs the more traditional Paladin. That may have been what he was referring to.
If you like WHM, I would just continue, and eventually try SCH too. If you don't like WHM, then give SCH a shot. Basically SCH has two GCDs to manage (your own and your pets), is very friendly to stance dancers, and rewards in depth knowledge of its workings (so does WHM but SCH stuff can be a bit more complex).
Again, WAR vs PLD is similar conceptually.

3. Do your best to heal it and keep the group together. I actually think it's groups like these that highlight a great healer's ability to make a fail group into a (barely) passable group. Have alcohol on hand. Do not start pointing fingers even if someone is to blame, and even if someone else points the finger at you.
If they're really pushing you past your limit, bite the 30 minute penalty and leave.

4. Swiftcast really is a must skill. I do not understand why some healers brag about gimping themselves by not having it. Anyway, aside from instaresses, it's also a "can cast anything on the move" skill (Stoneskin II is a good choice between pulls). Or, say, you misjudge something and need that medica to fire right now... Swiftcast.

5. T13 is currently pretty much the be all end all heal check in the game. In the new duty finder, make sure you check the option to sync to the minimum level, however-- level 60/i170 will trivialize it.