Advice for starting PvP healers?

[tinythinker]

Hello, I've seen a couple of complaint threads about healers, but does anyone have advice? (I play WHM and SCH)

Looked up info elsewhere. Most is outdated except (for example, Cleric Stance is now disabled) for a great thread from last month that focused more on Astrologian but still had good insights for all healers. I wanted to try PvP when I started playing FFXIV last spring but it was kind of slow getting through the queue. I did find some helpful things out from my web search (including some clever SCH macros) there but additional insights are very welcome. Tried Shatter once last night and... ouch.

[Arthur_Gwen]

New healers plz don't use sch in solo or that will be a free loss

For whm... Yeah I also need tips let's wait together

[loreleidiangelo]

Hellon, I'very seen a couple of complaint threads about healers, but does anyone have advice? (I play WHM and SCH)

Looked up info elsewhere. Most is outdated except for a great thread from last month. I wanted to try PvP when I started playing FFXIV last spring but it was kind of slow getting through the queue. I did find some helpful things out there but additional insights are very welcome. Tried Shatter once last night and... ouch.

Frontlines/Shatter isn't a bad place to learn the fundamentals. I'll try to cover what I can here:


-Learn to love your PVP skills. Most notably, Purify. It's a skill that purges not just CC-type moves from your character, but also every debuff you have on you at the time. It's important to know when to use it and when to wait out certain CCs like Sleep. If your team is at ice and no one is in danger, it's safe to wait out Sleep/Stun. If your team is fleeing with an enemy GC hot on your trail and you are slept or Holmgang'd, you'll want to Purify and GTFO.

For other PVP skills, as a WHM (which I would recommend over SCH ATM, SCH has less options overall and a higher learning curve) Sacred Prism is god-tier and has a variety of uses. When fully traited, it has the healing potency of Asylum, but also packs on a 40% physical damage reduction on everyone who stands within it. It can be a great defensive tool for yourself, or for others. You CANNOT stack it with Asylum, so be forewarned.

Divine Breath is your PVP raise - don't use PVE raise! PVE raise still applies weakness, which means your target is at high risk of simply dying again immediately thereafter. Divine Breath has a long cooldown, but will not apply weakness, and can be really helpful in getting your co-healer back up if you have one during a dire strait.

Focalization has some pretty good use in Shatter, where casters are more likely to be attacking your team even during ice, due to their reduced damage on ice. I usually try to pop it at every "big" ice, though there are times I'll use it where there's a big brawl or something going on in mid and we're under attack. Focalization doesn't have as much use in Feast, where the meta for ranked is BRD/MCH as the ranged pick, but note that I still encountered a good amount of casters in 8v8 so you'll still use it there.

Aetheric Burst is...kinda eh. Maybe some vets will have some insight into how it works, but I myself don't use it much - just usually run into a group of melee at ice and fire it off.

Mana Draw will be your BFF unless you have a pocket BRD/MCH to give you MP. Get familiarized with using Assize for healing and MP too, not just DPS like it's usually used in PVE. PVP is super mana-intensive because you're flagged as "in combat" most of the time, which means your personal MP regen won't be so great. You'll need to have a good idea when to use your mana-restoring cooldowns.

Attunement is your tool for when you're focused hard but your team is still in the fight (don't use it if you get caught while trying to flee - you'll still die after it's over anyway and you just wasted a decent cooldown). It reduces damage you take by 90% and drastically increases your evasion rate, giving you 10 extra seconds to survive. The catch is that you can't move or perform ANY actions while it's up, which is why it's important to pop it only if your team is still around - your co-healer in Shatter can heal you up, or your tanks/DPS can try to peel the mob off you. If you are getting healed by your co-healer, CLICK OFF THE ATTUNEMENT BUFF AS SOON AS YOUR HEALTH IS FULL AND SPRINT AWAY. I can't stress this enough. The enemy won't expect a healer to click off Attunement, and they've usually blown their CC while it's up in Shatter anyway because people tunnel like mad - you have a VERY high chance of getting away if you are at full HP and catch the enemy by surprise by ending Attunement early, but if you wait out the full 10 seconds they'll be waiting to CC lock you again and delete you, this time for sure.


-Don't be a hero. Don't be a chicken either, per se, but learn to accept when someone is beyond saving. If a melee bumrushes an enemy team and starts getting chain CC'd, don't stick your neck out trying to save that person - all that will happen is that you'll draw attention to yourself and they'll dogpile YOU instead, which is usually more disastrous for your team. That said, if your team rolls out from a depleted ice and one of your teammates falls behind, keep them in sight distance so that you're there to help them if they draw the attention of one or two chasers. A healer and DPS combo can usually outlast 2 or 3 DPS for a long enough time where they'll get tired of chasing and leave. PVP is a lot about knowing when to save someone else vs when to save yourself first; it becomes easier to make those judgement calls as you get practice in.


-You can't DPS, but you CAN contribute offensively. See your team chasing a low HP target that's about to reach their group? Stone that person to apply heavy, and help your group get the kill! See a lot of enemy GC players getting shredded at ice? Sprint to their healers and Swiftcast a Holy, stunning them and preventing them from helping their dying team! See a BRD pecking away at an alliance melee with a bunch of offensive cooldowns up? Repose will take care of that problem temporarily! A wall of enemies on their mounts headed towards ice? Aero them individually to put a heavy on them (it's applied automatically to anyone who takes direct damage while mounted) or Swiftcast a Blizzard II to bind them in place before they get in range of the ice!

Your primary job in PVP is of course to heal - damage is heavy and unpredictable - but if your team is safe or on the offensive, you can certainly score yourself an assist by using your CC moves wisely. The best PVP healers are the ones who know how to do both. It goes without saying, but you can use your CC defensively, as well: bind people chasing you or a teammate with Blizzard II, or sleep them, or Fluid Aura a single attacker away. WHM is actually supremely good at defense in PVP.


-Don't panic if you start to take damage or a PLD starts chain-stunning you. Oftentimes it's a feint, designed to scare you into retreating while enemy GCs slaughter your team (usually melee, who will become out of range of you if you panic and get forced back too easily). PLDs and DRKs don't hit that hard; a WAR's double Fell Cleave combo sucks but you can always put a Repose on them when they pop Berserk or punt them away with Fluid Aura. The main idea is to stay relatively out-of-sight, out-of-mind, but always be in range of your team. Sometimes this is difficult - see again point 1 about knowing who to save and who to leave behind - but for the most part so long as you don't falter under pressure you'll be able to keep your team relatively safe. If a melee comes to the back lines to poke at you, have a care - they might be setting you up to LB you (most do it on ice, but just be prepared), and that LB is a good portion of your health bar, so if a melee starts heckling you don't retreat, but DO make sure you are keeping yourself topped off first and foremost. If your team is nearby, a melee won't stay long because they'll get massacred, so most of them try to do a quick burst into CC into melee limit break. While the limit break is going off, Swiftcast a Cure II on yourself or use Tetragrammaton...it'll heal you before the LB has a chance to hit. The melee who used the LB will be animation-locked for a few seconds after the damage goes out, so you should have time to heal yourself before they can be back on the offensive.


-Follow your party, for the most part. Healers are most frequently useful at mid and at ice spawns, not assisting with things like base captures and whatnot. Please don't be that healer that "guards" base...two good players can still catch you off guard and burst you down, and you have no way of taking them on yourself due to Cleric Stance being disabled in PVP. If you have to holler for people to come back and help you shoo people away from your spawn, then you might as well just leave one or two people there who are capable of taking care of anything that arises.

The map can be kind of a pain to figure out, because there are two "sections" - an upper section and a lower section. The "upper section" kind of goes in a circle around the perimeter of the map, and connects all 3 GC bases. It contains a handful of "small" ice node locations. All "big" ice spawns are on the lower section of the map.


-You will be using Cure II a LOT. A lot more than you ever will in PVE. Damage in PVP is fast, hard-hitting, and unpredictable in a lot of ways, so it's actually much better to overheal in ANTICIPATION of burst than to wait for your target to be half HP already. As you learn the flow of battle, so to speak, you'll be able to see that your tank in the backline stunning casters and healers during ice probably just needs a regen, but your MNK in the center damaging ice will need some serious healing if he starts getting attacked by 1 or 2 ranged. Your cohealer being hounded by a ninja might not be in IMMEDIATE danger, but be ready to heal them up right before or after an LB, just in case they get one. There are a lot of different scenarios, and as you get more practice you'll learn when people can make do with a Regen or a Cure, and when someone is absolutely going to need a Cure II or possibly even Tetragrammaton. Overheal is not nearly the sin in PVP as it is in PVE, though you obviously don't want to be so spell-happy as to go OOM.

This applies to your AOE healing in general, too. Group falling back, but getting pushed a little? Drop Asylum AND put up Medica II, just in case. And even then be ready to spot-heal with Cure or Cure II. I end most of my PVP matches with an overheal % that would make me embarrassed if I was doing raid content, but it can save lives in Frontlines. Don't be afraid to "pre-emptively" put out HoTs or Stoneskin your team obsessively. These are all things that really make a difference.



Blah, that turned out longer than I expected, sorry. I can try to answer any specific concerns you might have, but that's basically the gist of learning the ropes as a WHM in Frontlines. (Feast is a different beast, but practice in FL for now! Easier to hide in the back and mess around with your positioning and PVP skills.) Obviously, if any PVPers with actual skill want to critique anything I've typed, that's fine by me, but I do have a good amount of experience with Frontlines overall (been PVPing since 2014).

[Llus]

-You can't DPS, but you CAN contribute offensively. See your team chasing a low HP target that's about to reach their group? Stone that person to apply heavy, and help your group get the kill! See a lot of enemy GC players getting shredded at ice? Sprint to their healers and Swiftcast a Holy, stunning them and preventing them from helping their dying team! See a BRD pecking away at an alliance melee with a bunch of offensive cooldowns up? Repose will take care of that problem temporarily! A wall of enemies on their mounts headed towards ice? Aero them individually to put a heavy on them (it's applied automatically to anyone who takes direct damage while mounted) or Swiftcast a Blizzard II to bind them in place before they get in range of the ice!

Please don't... Just, no. Sleep their healers; we don't need their healers getting stun resist; bad enough DPS uses PVE rotation getting healers stun resist instantly

[loreleidiangelo]

Please don't... Just, no. Sleep their healers; we don't need their healers getting stun resist; bad enough DPS uses PVE rotation getting healers stun resist instantly

Hmmm. In my experience in Frontlines, tanks (especially PLDs) are the ones giving me stun resist within the first 10 seconds my team is on ice, haha. If you're talking about Feast, yeah, I can agree with that, but it seemed more like the OP was interested in Frontlines first.

[tinythinker]

Hmmm. In my experience in Frontlines, tanks (especially PLDs) are the ones giving me stun resist within the first 10 seconds my team is on ice, haha. If you're talking about Feast, yeah, I can agree with that, but it seemed more like the OP was interested in Frontlines first.

Yeah the Feast looks *amazing* but Frontlines seemed a better choice for a noob to start with.

[Zojha]

Yeah the Feast looks *amazing* but Frontlines seemed a better choice for a noob to start with.

IMO, a wise choice. Feast has a few extra mechanics that need to be learned. For the sake of completeness and education, a short list:

1. Medals
The win condition of the Feast. The team that has more medals at the end of the match wins. When someone dies, they will lose half their medals, which can then be picked up by the respective other team (indicated by a red or blue circle on the ground). If not picked up before the enemy respawns, the medals return to the one who carried them prior.
When a person carries many medals, they get a stacking vulnerability debuff, which increases damage taken. The severity of the debuff depends on the amount of medals carried - the more medals, the more damage taken.
The amount of medals each person has can be checked by pressing on the little icon of the duty description. It also appears automatically at the start, so if your screen is big enough, you can just put it somewhere and leave it on.

2. Culling Time
After a certain amount of time has passed without someone dying, everyone on the battlefield will get vulnerability stacks until someone dies. This is announced in advance in the chatlog.

3. Crates
There are four kinds of destructible crates in the Feast, one of which only appears in 8vs8. When destroyed, defensive supplies drop a blue circle that gives the first person walking over it a buff to their defenses. Offensive supplies drop a red circle and give an offensive buff. Medical supplies (8vs8) are a blue circle and restore HP. Finally, Adrenaline crates drop a circle that gives a boost to your limit break bar - This is usually taken by the melee DPS.
And since I am talking of circles a lot: Grey means this is something only the enemy team can take.

4. No free chat
I think it deserves to be noted that the Feast currently only allows pre-made chat macros, so you might need an extra hotbar for those. They can be found in the same menu as your PvP abilities (Default keybind: P).

[Llus]

Hmmm. In my experience in Frontlines, tanks (especially PLDs) are the ones giving me stun resist within the first 10 seconds my team is on ice, haha. If you're talking about Feast, yeah, I can agree with that, but it seemed more like the OP was interested in Frontlines first.

Yea, if PLDs are stunning you and you get resist; they're wasting time if their DPS isn't killing you. Same with wars that come out opening with brutal swing. The biggest problem though, is if healers holy the crowd - once the ice is down; everyone is stun resist and you won't be able to pick off many stragglers/lock down healers escaping/healing stragglers

[Cidel]

Divine Breath is your PVP raise - don't use PVE raise! PVE raise still applies weakness, which means your target is at high risk of simply dying again immediately thereafter.

OMG ^This.^
If I see it happen infront of me I'll say to not use it, but the sheer amount of people with weakness running around says there's a lot of guilty perpetrators out there not being punish-"corrected."






Maybe there's a couple mercifully rare exceptions, but this has been a big pet peeve for me.

[Zojha]

Well, it depends a lot on what you do, Feast or frontline, and what you already know. So without that knowledge, some general tips:

- Mark yourself so that your team members can see you. It helps your team members not to accidentally run out of line of sight of you.
- Stay with "a" group. A healer can't do much alone, so you don't want to be alone. Doesn't have to be your own group if another does the smarter moves.
- In Frontlines, it helps having the alliance display open to cross-heal.
- If you're being focused, don't wait with attunement until you're already low. But especially in frontlines, watch where you attune, so you aren't overrun.
- Melees have access to fetter ward, which prevents them from being CC'd during the duration - check their buffs before you use Fluid Aura or Aura Blast so you don't waste your CC.
- If you're WHM, Repose is another handy ability to keep people off your back. Again, watch fetter ward. Despite sleep being quickly broken, it can help chasing down targets too and you likely don't have much to heal if you are chasing people.
- Ranged cannot hit you when you're out of line of sight. You can use this to your advantage especially in the feast, but watch your own team.
- Fluid Aura and Aura Blast are particularly useful at cliffs, as they can throw people off.
- At best, aetherial burst can increase people's GCD up to 2,5 seconds. If you don't have PvP points to spare, they are better used elsewhere.
- Machinists can restore your mana via a PvP ability and if you ask nicely, they might just use it! Note: Not applicable for the Feast as of now.
- Don't try to save people who overextend. I do that mistake a lot myself and it never ends well.
- Don't be shy to use callouts like "Fall Back!" when you're OOM or things get too hot. People tend to tunnel vision and certainly don't watch their healers mana before charging in.

Uh...yeah. This might or might not be helpful to you, depending on what you already know.