General healing guides/mindsets

[BeautifulNerf]

I'm not sure why you're stressing out during the 50's dungeons. Maybe disable in game music, install the Free Youtube downloader, download "FFXIV OST Snowcloak Theme ( The Warrens )" from youtube, play it on repeat in the background, then try running those dungeons again?

[Judge_Xero]

I think what you are finding is that if you have been playing a DPS class for a while your brain has to adjust to the randomness of healing. That is why it feels like a clusterfuck. You are not just popping skills in a rotational order.

Basically you just have to heal long enough to get different levels of healing experience which is not just something you can do on a Dummy.

[BeautifulNerf]

If you answered yes to, "Can you handle (whatever) dungeon easily..." Then what is it that's causing you issues? The ability to quickly respond to main healing plus adding DD? If that's the issue. Maybe try DDing the first 25% of the dungeon (if that becomes too stressful), switch to main heals only, then switch back to applying DD the last 75% of the dungeon. Until you get comfortable enough to know when to DD, and if you can safely DD with that party (because some groups just suck).

[BeautifulNerf]

"I have no idea, either. Healing seems to be a clusterfuck of everything I do as DPS plus several more things and more people, which is where the beginnings of a headache come in. That's why I think it's more about my approach or theory. There just has to be an easier way."

You're thinking to hard about it. Just break it down like this. Can you handle the (whatever) dungeon easily if you only focus on heals? If no. Is it because you're not familiar with (said) dungeons boss's/abilities? Is the tank pulling more than you're comfortable with (like training the entire floor)? Are you having occasional MP issues?- All of these things can be addressed and simply fixed.

[BroodingFicus]

The thing with healing is, it isn't often about you. As DPS its all about your rotation and your job and nothing else. If you screw up, you blow a cool down. If you screw up again, you expect to be (hopefully) healed and once you know the fight that's pretty much it. You can maintain your rotation and dodge/complete mechanics and all is well. If the tank or healer screw up, it isn't on you. Healers are reactive so none of that applies. Knowing the dungeon is important not because it'll be easier to maintain a rotation but because it better equips you to focus on fixing the 'whoops' moments of not just yourself but of your party members as well. At the point when you are well geared and knowledgeable about the fights, ease of healing can still fluctuate wildly depending on the party. Everyone is well geared and dodging mechanics? Beautiful. Usually I can DPS some and never fear anyone is going to drop dead. That usually only happens in premades. I'd say 90% of the time there are under geared party members, people who don't know the fights, tanks who speed pull without using cool downs and all manner of tom foolery going on in DF. Your comfort in a dungeon is only half the battle. My advice if you are finding you get stressed out while healing is:

A. Watch for the new to dungeon messages. Yes sometimes its just someone on an alt but having someone who doesn't know the fights means you should be much more cautious about stance dancing in bosses until its clear they aren't about to eat floor and twice as ready to heal them.
B. Examine party members. Especially watch casters that are barely the correct item level. Like you, they can't take as many hits so its nice to be aware of who might need a bit more attention if a massive hit is incoming. There are times I'll use eye for an eye on these sort of people instead of the Tank if I don't think they can survive.
C. On the same sort of note, if you notice a DPS is prone to standing in nasty orange markers be conscious of that fact and in dodge heavy sections, tag them with more HoT's/shields etc.
D. Wait a few pulls to start stance dancing unless you're running with friends you can count on (or who will laugh if you all drop dead). One pull at least gives you the opportunity to settle in and gauge how much damage your tank can take, how good he/she is at utilizing cool downs and the average DPS for the party which could effect how you need to manage you MP. During the first pull I'll sometimes cap a tank off and then start counting and see how many seconds they take to drop to half. Do that a few times and it'll tell you if you have time to DPS. If you notice during that first pull that it takes a lot longer than usual for DPS to kill things and your MP slipped sorta low, you know DPS might be harder because MP conservation is going to be more important.

Long story short, it takes a lot of watching and being ready to react. You may not always have the opportunity to DPS and it isn't always going to be because of anything you've done wrong or because your comfort level isn't at 100% yet. My WHM is item level 203 and I've run Void Ark over and over but I didn't enter cleric stance once in my run today because my co-healer was only on her 2nd run of the place and clearly still having a lot of trouble with mechanics. It'll happen no matter how good you are personally. I feel like to enjoy healer to its greatest potential you have to have a bit of that masochist in you that clicks 'join in progress' for low level roulette even when you don't need it just in the hopes that you can pull a win out of a hopeless situation and look like a magician.

[BeautifulNerf]

I love you Broodingfocus. Very articulate and correct. +1 on your comment.

[BeautifulNerf]

This thread is amazing. <3 Do I smell a meme war?

[JenniLeFur]

To briefly get us back on topic: Have you considered rolling a SCH? I have no experience on WHM as I only got it high enough to get stoneskin/the unicorn, but compared to AST, I find it much easier to stancedance in level 50 dungeons on my SCH. You have your little fairy healbot taking care of things while you dps, or dealing with the dps that stood in shit just as you really really need to get that tank back up from getting his face chewed off. Since their skills are unaffected by cleric stance, you can have them on obey and almost literally do two jobs at once. (I.E Have the fairy cast a singletarget heal/group heal while you finish your dps cast.) You also get a handy 'oops I waited too long to switch cleric's off' button at 50, which makes the 50 dungeons a lot easier.

Of course, my AST is only 52, so I don't know about stancedancing at 60, but I suppose that's not entirely relevant at the moment anyway.

[bardaboo]

Yeah. With astro and whm your job gets harder depending on tank gear and CD usage. Sch doesn't depend on that so much, thus making it easier to dps