Struggling as Healer on Wall-to-Walls

[MikuMitsuko]

(Sorry if there's a better place to put this)

I'm having a hard time with wall-to-walls on all 3 healers in ShB dungeons. Everyone says it's easy, they can do it undergeared and still dps etc etc but even with okay-ish gear I end up blowing my oGCDs and having to resort to GCD spamming 85% of the time. Especially SCH, I have to GCD spam almost every single time on it because I'm so bad at managing Aetherflow.

I even looked up the Balance guide for wall pull healing (for SCH) but I still struggle. And it's not the tanks' fault, either - they have good gear and use their cooldowns correctly most of the time.
Is there a guide on healing wall pulls? Or a video of someone doing it the right way?

And my gear is ilvl 437-ish on my SCH and WHM. I can't find a gear guide for anything that doesn't involve savage/EX gear (which I don't have because I'm bad) so I'm not very optimized, either.

Apologies if this is really noob-ish, I've only been playing for a few months and the community in-game is honestly not very helpful.

[AphraelAmarantha]

M

(Sorry if there's a better place to put this)

I'm having a hard time with wall-to-walls on all 3 healers in ShB dungeons. Everyone says it's easy, they can do it undergeared and still dps etc etc but even with okay-ish gear I end up blowing my oGCDs and having to resort to GCD spamming 85% of the time. Especially SCH, I have to GCD spam almost every single time on it because I'm so bad at managing Aetherflow.

I even looked up the Balance guide for wall pull healing (for SCH) but I still struggle. And it's not the tanks' fault, either - they have good gear and use their cooldowns correctly most of the time.
Is there a guide on healing wall pulls? Or a video of someone doing it the right way?

And my gear is ilvl 437-ish on my SCH and WHM. I can't find a gear guide for anything that doesn't involve savage/EX gear (which I don't have because I'm bad) so I'm not very optimized, either.

Apologies if this is really noob-ish, I've only been playing for a few months and the community in-game is honestly not very helpful.

It’s not just you, I have the same issue with whm. A lot of people here are very very very skilled and so they look at things from a kind of looking down from their high place, thus warping their perspective, forgetting that not everyone has their skill level.

Personally, I wouldn’t worry about it. I just ask the tank to do smaller pulls. If they want to be a jerk, I just leave the instance, healer queues are short enough to make the penalty moot.

[Numenor1379]

Here are some tips to help as a WHM:

Regen + Benison is an excellent combo for covering general damage the tank takes, so make sure to keep these up during a pull.

Holy is a GREAT mitigation tool. The stun you get will give 4-7sec of zero damage when used back to back.

Afflatus skills should be your Go-To first use abilities when you have them. Combo them both with Plenary Indulgence to get an added 200 potency. Also note that PI is a buff and doesn't dissapear after it's first activation.

Assylum, Assize and Temperance all mesh extremely well together. I tend to alternate pulls when using Assylum and Temperance given their C/Ds.

Tetragrammaton is excellent to use when you do not have an Afflatus skill available.

Benediction should not be kept as a panic button. It is the most potent, single target heal in the game. Plan your use of it. Doing so lets you save other resources for future pulls.

[Mhaeric]

You can get ilevel 450 gear without doing any savage with tomestones and eden normal gear, so I'd work on that. Don't worry about the base secondary stats on your gear too much, just wear the highest ilevel you can since you'll get the most bang for your buck from the primary stat which is always better on a higher ilevel piece.

Also, make sure you're melding your gear in the 100% success slots at the very least. The additional output you get from melds is significant. On a DPS class it results in about a 40% increase in your dps output, and while I haven't tested with a healer I assume it would be a roughly similar increase for your healing output. As a healer, and Scholar especially, I'd recommend a meld priority of Crit > Det > Pie > SpS. Materia can be bought in Eulmore using the bonus in need items you get from roulettes which tend to be plentiful when you're a healer.

[Jaelommiss]

It's hard to give a helpful answer without seeing how you heal. If I had to guess, your difficulty is a combination of low party dps, being undergeared, and inefficient healing tool use. You mentioned that tanks have been using CDs appropriately, so I'll ignore that as a possibility.

Low party dps makes fights drag on longer. After the tank's defensive CDs wear off and you burn through your healing CDs there is going to be a significant amount of incoming damage if the pack hasn't been whittled down. If you are finding that healing is fine for the first 30 secs of a pull but then gets very difficult towards the end, this is likely the cause. You might have simply been paired with bad players, or maybe you could be doing more to help bring down the enemies. Healers can output competitive amounts of damage during trash pulls, so if you're not spamming Art of War, Holy, or Gravity at the start of the fight, then you're increasing your overall healing load. SCH in particular has a very easy time with this. Art of War allows you to continue using healing oGCDs effortlessly.

Being undergeared isn't helping. If your abilities are only restoring 80% of what an average healer's abilities do, then you will need to use 25% more healing abilities. With how potent oGCD healing can be this could be the difference between no GCD heals and 5+ GCD heals in a single trash pull. Only fix for this is getting better gear. You can earn i450 gear in Eden normal, i460 from tomestones, or you can buy HQ i450 crafted gear off the MB. Don't bother with NQ crafted gear. Your weapon makes a bigger impact on your power than any other gear. If you have a weaker weapon then you will underperform for your ilvl.

The only way to improve your healing efficiency is to keep practicing. If you can, examine your previous fights on xivanalysis and scroll down to the bottom. There is a timeline you can use to see how much you're leaving your CDs unused after they are available again. If you understand your toolkit entirely it's hard to give anything constructive for this. A couple things I see a lot is holding big CDs for emergencies and not using aoe healing CDs in situations where only the tank is taking damage. Simply put, it's not worth holding onto Benediction and the like for panic moments, and Asylum, Whispering Dawn, Celestial Opposition, etc. are all great tools even if only the tank is taking damage. You might also have efficiency losses to overhealing. If you're constantly topping off the tank to 100% then you're losing a portion of your heals.

The last possible cause I can think of is people standing in avoidable aoes. This increases the healing burden (assuming you deign to heal them...) and there's not a whole lot you can do about it.

If you have other questions or want more detailed help about specific aspects of healing, feel free to contact me on Discord at Qina#4625.

[xxvaynxx]

I only heal on astro as it's my fav healer but what I do is use my star, collective, aspect ben for HoT and that uhh whatchamacallit horoscope or w/e it's called skill and Aspected Helios.
After that I just DPS and heal when tank drops low and throw in some other ogcd stuff if I need too like Celestial Intersection.

[HyoMinPark]

(Sorry if there's a better place to put this)

I'm having a hard time with wall-to-walls on all 3 healers in ShB dungeons. Everyone says it's easy, they can do it undergeared and still dps etc etc but even with okay-ish gear I end up blowing my oGCDs and having to resort to GCD spamming 85% of the time. Especially SCH, I have to GCD spam almost every single time on it because I'm so bad at managing Aetherflow.

I even looked up the Balance guide for wall pull healing (for SCH) but I still struggle. And it's not the tanks' fault, either - they have good gear and use their cooldowns correctly most of the time.
Is there a guide on healing wall pulls? Or a video of someone doing it the right way?

And my gear is ilvl 437-ish on my SCH and WHM. I can't find a gear guide for anything that doesn't involve savage/EX gear (which I don't have because I'm bad) so I'm not very optimized, either.

Apologies if this is really noob-ish, I've only been playing for a few months and the community in-game is honestly not very helpful.

I’m not a pro-SCH, but generally what I do for pulls is this:

1. Make sure Excog is on the tank before they pull—I’ll use an Aetherflow or Recitation>Excog just to get it on them.
2. Make sure they have an Adlo before they pull—it doesn’t necessarily have to crit, but if it does, that’s a plus. It’s just a buffer on them during their pulling, especially if they’re pulling more than one pack.
3. I keep the tank targeted while I Art of War spam the mobs, using Lustrate as needed. At 68+, I try to keep Sacred Soil down as much as possible because its regen + damage mitigation effect is busted. If need be, I Adlo or ET+Adlo depending on the tank’s health threshold and my Aetherflow stacks.
4. For meaty pulls, I make use of Fey Union so that Eos has her regen tether on them. That can help mitigate some of the damage between more Lustrates/Adlos. I also use it when it reaches 100 just so it doesn’t go to waste, even if we’re on a boss. Depending on how much HP the boss has and what kind of pulls follow them, I may cut it short so I have some tether for the pull.
5. I use Dissipation as much as I can when I need more stacks. It’s 180s, so I try to time it for pulls that I know are typically “problematic” in DF.

I haven’t done much with level 80 SCH, so I can’t speak on the best way to use Seraph, but I would assume Summoning her on CD should be okay. Other SCHs are free to elaborate more on that, as well as supply better techniques if these are insufficient. This is just what has worked for me in all the leveling dungeons; SCH is the weakest of the three healers for me.


For WHM:

1. Divine Benison on the tank pre-pull as a small buffer. I also immediately enter combat so that my lilies can start generating, just by DoTing mobs with Dia.
2. I use Holy as my primary source of initial mitigation. Its stun can net you up to 7 seconds of mitigation, so it’s an essential part of your toolkit. Like on SCH, you can keep the tank targeted during Holy spam.
3. Use your oGCDs like Tetra first before your lilies to keep them on cooldown. Like Sacred Soil, Asylum is excellent for its regen on the tank.
4. Don’t be afraid to use Benediction if you have to—just make sure to allot enough time for it to register, because it has a horrible animation delay that can cost your tank (it’s incredibly annoying, but its “the intended design” per the developers). It’s not an emergency heal—it’s a tool for you to use. With an 180s CD, you should be able to use it every other other pull.
5. On large pulls in Mt. Gulg and the level 80 dungeons, I pop Temperance strictly for the damage mitigation aspect. It can go a long way when the tank is having the crap beat out of them by mob autos.
6. Keep Divine Benison on cooldown. It’s a free baby shield every 30s.
7. Assize is perfect for damage and a bit a heal on the tank.

Afflatus skills should be your Go-To first use abilities when you have them. Combo them both with Plenary Indulgence to get an added 200 potency. Also note that PI is a buff and doesn't dissapear after it's first activation.

A quick note on PI and Afflatus spells: PI only works with Afflatus Rapture, which is the AOE instant heal. It will not combo with single target heals (i.e., it does not boost Afflatus Solace, which will be your most used Afflatus spell in dungeons). As Afflatus Rapture is only 300 potency (500 with the extra potency from PI tacked on), I do not recommend using it over Solace; Solace is the same cure potency as Tetra (700). It’s great if you need it for AOE heals on the party, but that will typically only be in boss fights and very few pulls, since most mobs just pummel the tank.


For AST:

BIGGEST THING: Be in Diurnal for dungeons. It is far more efficient compared to Nocturnal in terms of healing and MP conservation.

1. Diurnal Celestial Intersection pre-pull—for the baby shield. Advanced play can involve Sect dancing between pulls to apply a Noctural Aspected Benefic on a tank before the pull, but you have to be careful that they don’t pull too fast and lock you into the sect. If you aren’t comfortable with this, try to practice it with tanks you trust until you feel more comfy. It’s amazing when you can master Sect dancing.
2. When the tank stops, place Earthly Star. Hopefully, they stay in it. (If they don’t, Rescue them back into it. ;3) Try to let it cook to Giant Dominance and go off on its own, but don’t be afraid to manually pop it either if needed.
3. Try to keep your Diurnal Aspected Benefic on them as much as possible. AST doesn’t have as good of an oGCD healing kit as WHM and SCH do, so you will have to use a lot of GCD healing on tanks by comparison. The loss of the old Lady of Crowns and the ability to Enhance/Extend Boles doesn’t help AST any. Use your Essential Dignity stacks first before you start with Benefic spam. Don’t be afraid to use Lightspeed to speed up GCD healing.
4. Stacking Di A.Benefic and CU/COpp can help with the incoming damage. COpp’s CD being 60 seconds now should allow for it in just about every pull; CU should be up every other pull. I wouldn’t recommend channeling CU—simply because the tank may need healing and you can’t do that while channeling it (you also cannot provide damage to kill mobs faster, which would be far more effective). Even a flash of the mitigation can be helpful.
5. If you feel like you can’t fiddle with your cards during a pull, don’t stress too much about it. Focus on keeping the tank alive first, then worry about the cards. They are weaker than they used to be, and they can’t offer mitigation a la OG Bole, so not having them for trash pulls isn’t the end of the world.
6. At level 80, don’t forget about using Neutral Sect to apply regen + shields.
7. You can use Horoscope + a Helios charge for an additional heal. Just don’t forget that it doesn’t work like PI, and that you have to manually detonate the Horoscope Helios. Even if you’re overhealing the rest of the party, it’s decent enough to warrant use on a tank during mass pulls.

Unlike WHM and SCH, Gravity requires you to target the mobs, so you will want to keep a watchful eye on the tank. I try to have them focus targeted so I can monitor their %HP, and swap back to them when they dip too low. Try to DPS when you can, as mobs dying faster is mitigation in and of itself as well: the faster they die, the less pummeling the tank takes.



I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of your stumbling has to do with mobs just not dying fast enough. Despite most DPS AOE being completely free in terms of cost, a lot of players are still allergic to using them; and the lack of AOE damage from them can make pulls brutal once you and the tank start running out of resources.

Without knowing specifically how you play and where you’re struggling, I cannot offer more than just general advice. However, if you have specific questions, I can do my best to answer and provide specific healing regimens that have worked for me.

[AphraelAmarantha]

Here are some tips to help as a WHM:

Regen + Benison is an excellent combo for covering general damage the tank takes, so make sure to keep these up during a pull.

Holy is a GREAT mitigation tool. The stun you get will give 4-7sec of zero damage when used back to back.

Afflatus skills should be your Go-To first use abilities when you have them. Combo them both with Plenary Indulgence to get an added 200 potency. Also note that PI is a buff and doesn't dissapear after it's first activation.

Assylum, Assize and Temperance all mesh extremely well together. I tend to alternate pulls when using Assylum and Temperance given their C/Ds.

Tetragrammaton is excellent to use when you do not have an Afflatus skill available.

Benediction should not be kept as a panic button. It is the most potent, single target heal in the game. Plan your use of it. Doing so lets you save other resources for future pulls.

lol, you act as if I don't use those abilities. I will have to record a video one day and show you all.

[HyoMinPark]

lol, you act as if I don't use those abilities. I will have to record a video one day and show you all.

The guy could have been giving advice to the OP... they mentioned that they’re struggling on all three healers...

Either way, no need to be rude to the guy. He’s just trying to help—either you or the OP. Or someone randomly reading the thread who may also have a similar issue.

[MaraD_]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE1Ay8mmVB8
this is for SCH, which should be the easiest for ya.
WHM requires more GCD usage, but thats ok, because it helps build up towards its dps spells. (but yes, proper holy usage matters)