Beginner healer class?

[Magnedeus]

In most mmos that i've played I've tanked and dps, but never healed. And I want to give healing a try. What would be a good healer class for a beginner? A few more things I'd like to know from experienced healers out there:

1. What's my main stat?

2.What are the do's and don'ts of my role?

3.besides healing what other things will the group expect from me? That's all I could think of at the moment. Any other advice would be appreciated.

[Tridus]

In most mmos that i've played I've tanked and dps, but never healed. And I want to give healing a try. What would be a good healer class for a beginner? A few more things I'd like to know from experienced healers out there:

Welcome!

White Mage (or Conjuror when you get it) is the simplest one in terms of how it works, because it doesn't have extra mechanics like cards to think about. It's got heals, and damage. Usually that's the easiest one to start with. It's also the only one that starts at level 1 (Astrologan starts at 30, and Scholar requires getting Arcanist to 30).

1. What's my main stat?

Mind. Below 50 most caster gear will have it, and at 51+ all healer gear will have it.

2.What are the do's and don'ts of my role?

Do keep people alive.

Early on it's about getting a feeling for how much damage people are taking and how often you have to heal to deal with that. If Cure can heal for 200 points, you probably don't want to heal someone who is only down 50 with it, since most of it will be wasted on overheal. While that's not the end of the world, it's something you can learn to reduce later which frees up more time to do something else.

The role skills you'll want are Swiftcast (for instant raise if someone dies in a fight), Lucid Dreaming (the primary MP restore for every healer), Esuna (removes debuffs that have a white line on top of them, others can't be removed), and Protect (party buff). More experienced healers often swap Esuna out if they know it won't be needed in a given dungeon, but early on I recommend keeping it all the time because you may not know when you need it and when you don't.

3.besides healing what other things will the group expect from me? That's all I could think of at the moment. Any other advice would be appreciated.

If you find yourself standing around waiting for damage to heal, use your DPS spells. Every healer has at least one DoT and a nuke. You don't want to run yourself out of MP doing that, but every little bit helps speed things up and it's a good skill to practice. That said, if you are finding healing is keeping you busy, forget about damage and focus purely on healing.

If you're finding a tank hard to keep alive because they're pulling too much stuff, say something. Polite communication goes a long way, and honestly most folks in levelling dungeons are pretty nice.

I recommend frequent dungeon running, both due to your fast queue and for the healing experience. PotD also works, but it's not quite the same experience as healing the dungeons are.

Lastly, if you're not sure how something works, ask. We're friendly.

[MoroMurasaki]

WHM is a simpler and more forgiving healer to play in general. Lots of oGCD heals at higher levels means you have multiple potential "oh sh*t" buttons.


Mind is your main stat which determines healing and attack magic potency. Secondary stats for healers are vitality (more health), crit (more frequent and powerful critical heals and attacks), spell speed, piety (more MP and therefore higher mp regen), determination (stronger overallcasts/abilities) and direct hit (purely a DPSing stat).

On WHM I like crit and a bit of spellspeed, for a newer healer you might look a bit more at piety so you have more mp to play with. Don't worry about direct hit, it doesn't naturally occur on healer gear. Prioritize a Mind upgrade over anything else.

I don't want to derail your thread into a healer dps debate but just know that some groups will expect you to contribute DPS and that most career healers do it. You have amazing AoE potential on a healer in post-50 particularly with Holy for WHM, Gravity for AST and Miasma II for SCH. You can always outdps a tank in AoE once you have those, especially on a large pull.

Healing has a sort of "peak" in performance when you are reliably keeping everyone alive which is quite easy to hit in this game. DPSing as a healer is a way to keep being useful beyond that. Particularly on WHM as they dont have cards (like AST) or a pet (like SCH) to manage. I would say a good goal to start with as a healer is keeping your damage over time abilities up.

Do not feel pressured to DPS as a healer if you think it will cause a death.

There is almost no situation that a healers DPS is going to make up for the DPS loss of a dead DPS and if your tank dies it's often a wipe.

More experienced healers often swap Esuna out if they know it won't be needed in a given dungeon, but early on I recommend keeping it all the time because you may not know when you need it and when you don't.

I feel some shade being thrown my way here :sideeye:

I joke, all of Tridus' advice is great.

If you ever have healer questions feel free to add me on Discord, it's in my signature and I'm always down to help! You're on my server so I'll run with you if you'd like to try it out.

[Hestzhyen]

CNJ/WHM is the simplest to learn- raw power, no special mechanics or quirks. You can focus on healing or doing damage as you need to without the extra overhead that comes with playing SCH and AST.

1. Mind, comes naturally on all the shared caster/healer gear and of course healer-specific gear. It affects the potency of your heals and your DPS spells, so get as much of it as you can. Healers care about having good weapons too- try not to slack off on upgrading now and again just because you're not a damage-oriented role.
2. Do: keep people alive, help out with damage if no one's at risk of dying if you toss a few DPS spells, mind your aggro (heals generate a lot of it!) Don't: over-heal to stave off boredom, cast HoTs (Regen, Aspected Benefic) before or during pulls- wait for the tank to stop and tag everything before you start healing in earnest
3. Number one, keep people alive. Do whatever it takes to save people despite their best efforts to kill themselves. Number two, help out with damage if you're sure you can do so without people dying. You'll get a better feel for when you can DPS safely as you play more. Take it easy at the start and get more comfortable with it as you go along. Number three, some fights, people will expect you to handle mechanics so DPS can keep hitting the boss, like the second boss of Stone Vigil. Learn what they are and if you aren't sure, don't be afraid to ask. Most people would rather take the time to explain rather than risk wiping and having to start all over again. Number four, tanks usually pull big. If your gear isn't up to snuff for that say something at the start to prevent tears and salt from wiping.

If you're ever feeling overwhelmed doing mechanics, trying to save people, and trying to throw out some damage, just focus on keeping people up. If that means letting someone sit at half health or less for a while then so be it. You're there to keep people alive, not full HP all the time.

[Krovoc-The-Destroyer]

I have little to add that people haven't already said, but I will say this. Play them all (once unlocked) and then decide. Everything is harder to play when you don't enjoy it, and everything becomes easier when you do enjoy it. That's why until RDM I've sucked as DPS in this game, even though in other MMOs I can DPS. RDM is fun, which gave me a spring board into other DPS classes (Namely MCH). Same is true for tanks. I don't care for PLD or WAR, and so I'm not very good at those, but I am a fairly good DRK. I'm got super top tier, but I'm quite good. Same goes for healers. I don't care much for WHM, and I'm fairly lack luster at it. I'm luke warm towards AST and am just above average. But I'm one of the best SCH's I've seen, because I love SCH.

DRK is my steady, but SCH is my paramour.

[Tridus]

Oh! Don't put Heal over Time spells (Regen, Medica II are examples) up in between pulls. That will make it harder for the tank to grab enemies since they'll immediately go for you. Put up Regen after the pull.

If you want to do a dungeon with some non-random people sometime, you're on our data center. I've got a tank, a DPS friend, and Moro has a DPS. We could form a full party and let you heal in that for a couple runs. Moro and I are on Discord, mine is Tridus #2642

[Tridus]

I feel some shade being thrown my way here :sideeye:

I can neither confirm nor deny that Moro never has Esuna and is entirely reliant on me to deal with Doom.

[Ametrine]

Conjurer/WHM is the first healer the game initially expected us to play before sub-classes were dropped. The WHM moveset is thus more straightforward and streamlined, you heal hard and you hit hard. While WHM absolutely has mechanics to it with the Secret if the Lily buffs, it's not as deeply entrenched into it on the level the cards are to AST or Faerie management is to SCH.

CNJ eases you into the key mechanics of the role and how it's built in FFXIV. You will be expected to pepper in damage dealing spells between heals, but you'll also land in situations often where you just can't take a second to cast a Stone spell over a Cure. Sometimes it's during massive dungeon pulls, others it's just a tank-bustering moment in a boss fight.

Healing requires you to be adaptable, and that comes from practice. Go forth and PUG, young one.

[Anienai]

In most mmos that i've played I've tanked and dps, but never healed. And I want to give healing a try. What would be a good healer class for a beginner? A few more things I'd like to know from experienced healers out there:

1. What's my main stat?

2.What are the do's and don'ts of my role?

3.besides healing what other things will the group expect from me? That's all I could think of at the moment. Any other advice would be appreciated.

1. Mind and glance over your character's attribute screen (crit, det, etc).
2. Keep people alive and throw out some magic dps when you can. If you pick SCH then your pet can keep a group up while you dps in low lvl runs.
3. Know the fights, keep swiftcast + raise ready, and make sure Lalafells are the first to die if the fight gets tough. (jk..kinda)

Give sch or ast a shot.

[Jxnibbles]

White Mage is by far the easiest, I would suggest you go Astro its much more engaging and about the same difficulty as Whm.

1. *Mind is your main stat.* The other stats you want to look for is Vit, piety, crit, Det, Sps, and Dh.

2. Your main priority is to keep your party alive while also helping out in other ways like throwing out Dps. Basically follow "ABC" always be casting abilities.

3. Be proactive when playing a Healer if you know the fight.