Healer Limit Breaks

[_slowpoke_]

I've recently been thinking about how to make limit breaks more interesting, especially for healers. The thing is, healers rarely, if ever, get to use their limit breaks. I've played for about three months now, and I think I've used a limit break in battle as a WHM exactly once. Otherwise, it's almost always better to let a DPS player use it (which is rather boring in the long run), at least in my experience.

I would be interested in hearing stories or opinions about how people use or feel about the limit breaking as a healer. As I've said, I haven't played for long, so I've never done any progression content so far. Have there been fights where a healer LB was important, mechanic-wise (I heard a few fights in CoB needed a tank LB to survive some mechanics, but correct me if I'm wrong)?

[GeekMatt]

DPS LB is almost always the way to go--however, I've saved parties with healer LB 1, 2, and 3(especially as BRD which now has a DPS LB). As a tank, which is my main, I've had fewer practical uses for it.

One thing that annoys me about LBs is that people are constantly saving it, or afraid to use it. I've seen wipes happen where practically ANY of the LBs (tank being iffy) would have saved us. Healer coulda healed us all, DRG or even BLM coulda finished off the target, but instead we all died. It's a shame, but the fact is there's a lot of people out there who would complain if the melee DPS didn't get to LB, even when it's not ideal. In speedruns for example, I would much rather see a caster LB on a large pull, than a melee LB on a boss.

[Kietsu]

I've seen wipes happen where practically ANY of the LBs (tank being iffy) would have saved us.

Really? In my experience, in situations where I could have saved the fight with an LB3, I can't, because a DPS (usually a MNK for whatever reason) blew the load as soon as the meter filled.

[FoxyAreku]

As someone who cleared all of coil and having done all the current content except Ravana EX, I use my LB all the time.

While it is true LB1 and LB2 are pretty useless, LB3 is great and can easily prevent a wipe, though I will say there are some fights that it is unfeasible to win without a DPS LB, these are few and far between.

I remember several Turn 10 runs, for example, where someone derped on mechanics and I had to healer limit break to bring everyone back to get that last 10 or so percent off the boss. And just 2 days ago I was doing alexander floor 1 and all the DPS died due to a missile hitting and I used the healer LB, everyone rezzed, and we finished the fight.

Healer LB3 is very strong. If anything, the tank LB should get buffed or tweaked. The only time you ever use it is when mechanics require you to.

[MXMoondoggie]

Really? In my experience, in situations where I could have saved the fight with an LB3, I can't, because a DPS (usually a MNK for whatever reason) blew the load as soon as the meter filled.

That makes me want to punch a wall. In a fight with 40% left on boss, one Tank one Healer and one DPS down. If something goes wrong I might have to use LB3 to save the run. Try raising the other Healer then work on getting the DPS up because it's a SMN and could have with raising where needed and during that process some melee sees the LB bar fill and uses it instantly then dies because they got hit and couldn't move while the other Healer also goes down again. And everything goes downhill and party wipes.

I don't like having to tell people when to use a LB but I wish more DPS had the common sense to read the fight before they pull the trigger on it. It should be used to boost DPS when a fight looks a kill over used as soon as it's available.

[GeekMatt]

Really? In my experience, in situations where I could have saved the fight with an LB3, I can't, because a DPS (usually a MNK for whatever reason) blew the load as soon as the meter filled.

My example situations were mostly dungeons, ST, and WoD. I think it was one of the HW dungeons where the boss was near dead, we had a LB and we wiped--I see people afraid to use their LB all the time, especially melee who don't realize we've been doing a full clear and will have LBs for every boss including 2bar on final, so they don't touch LB until last boss.

WoDs Hydra fight; other two parties had nearly wiped, our party was all up but with heat wave or whatever the mechanic is, we were all near death and dropping, my BRD LB picked up the party, healers were able to sustain us from there and start rezing other healers.

[Kietsu]

I did have a Titan HM run yesterday that went really, really far south, and I ended up using limit break to give our WHM some MP to work with.

[Akyio]

Never ever used LB1 or LB2 as a healer, did use LB3 in my life several times and maybe a few times happened to save and get a win for a team. But mostly it's indeed for DPS, and DPS usually blow it as soon as possible

[LycorisSelunis]

I have only ever used it twice, lb3. Both to try and save some really bad groups in chrysalis who were wiping the floor like swiffers-which was bad because then they couldn't dps lb3 the tear.

I would like to use it more too. I feel like anytime I would use it to try and save a group I would get peeved on for 'stealing' it from the dps. Or it's one of the few fights you need a tank lb for a mechanic. I feel if people didn't feel tank/dps lb so necessary we could have more wiggle room for it but then again...you would only be using it for probably bad groups anyways since much of damage is avoidable.

[Kerrigen]

I saved a few Ravana Ex runs with healer LB3 and it's been mostly useful throughout, even though an obvious last resort. I just wish they removed the stupid amount of animation lock (on all 3 of them) because it'll get you killed very often.