SCH Checkup

[Maeka]

Okay so it's been awhile since I posted one of these threads...

Last night, I had a "tank" in Castrum Abania who was severely under-geared. The dude was wearing almost full Lv60 Poetics in Castrum Abania (the 260s... not the upgraded 270s) along with a couple Shisui pieces IIRC.

I managed to get through the whole thing with only 1 death that I remember (the tank at the end of the 2nd boss when he ate a tankbuster right after another hit, not much I coulda done there).

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/495880737

At some point in the video, I think right after the 2nd boss, I pull up his equipment sheet and discovered all the poetics gear and I was like "OOOH, no wonder this guy is made out of cardboard..."

I don't claim to be a master SCH or anything, but I sure as heck felt like one when we defeated the last boss with nobody getting killed (well he did cheat with Superbolide at the end, but still). I was sure that Inferno was going to rip him to pieces. Having to dump all of those extra heals on the tank made it difficult to keep everybody else up, but I did it... somehow.

I know I keep forgetting about my fairy cooldowns (really wish SE would go back to making those automatic), but anything else I am doing wrong/not doing?

[Marc-Vigar]

This is just my opinion, no harm intended:

You are right, the tank was getting destroyed in every pull and dealing with people like that is a nightmare. The real problem wasn't tank's gear though, the problem was he didn't know how to use cooldowns properly (off timed CD, no stuns, etc). Honestly that dungeon doesn't help either, the damage taken there is the highest from all dungeons below lvl 70.

That said, you still have a lot to learn about being a healer. You are too slow healing, you don't anticipate tank busters, you don't apply shields between pulls, you don't DPS properly and so on.

It's an accumulation of small things what makes content stressing, not just a undergeared tank. (IMO he's not really undergeared, but it's improvable for sure).

[Maeka]

Well, to be fair, I was rather distracted by the tank taking so much damage. I did notice that I wasn't watching the bosses' casting bars and such as much, and I was indeed not DPSing as much because of the tank taking too much damage.

I was more just concerned with doing my job and keeping the tank alive than I was doing extra stuff like DPSing, as I didn't feel like I had much of any time to DPS, the tank would drop to below half in the time it would take me to cast one Broil so I decided to.... not cast Broil. Too risky. The few times I did throw in some DPS, I wound up having to fight a harsh catchup battle and I didn't really want to have to rely on praying for Critlos or anything like that.

I did another run right after that one, with a level sync tank and that one went much smoother (I recorded that run too; it's in the latest stream VODs, same channel that video is on).

I suppose I just don't do well when there's too much pressure, like a tank taking too much damage. I'm rather prone to falling apart when crap starts going wrong, forgetting to do things, etc. I know on AST, if people start standing in stupid and I'm scrambling to throw heals I will forget to draw cards, etc.

[Marc-Vigar]

I think you have a wrong idea there, DPSing isn't "extra stuff", the faster the enemies die, the less you have to heal. For example if you apply shields on the tank between pulls, you can apply DoTs on enemies while running and cast some AoE before actually needing to heal.

You must work on preventing damage rather than reacting to it, specially as SCH. Tanks and DPS not dodging AoEs and not using defensive CD is part of healer's life (unfortunately), the only way to overcome this stressful situations is becoming a better player.

[Deathgiver]

A few things I noticed, not meant to discourage you but to help you improve as you've asked. This is on top of what Marc-Vigar already mentioned.
1) Stop broiling during trash pulls, use art of war instead and weave your fairy and aetherflow heals in between the instant casts. You never in the 10 minutes i watched came close to running out of mp. This also allows you to stay hard targeted on the tank allowing for quicker response time to emergencies.

2) Actually use your aetherflow, skills, I didn't see a single excog, and you rarely used lustrate. Applying dots during the run puts you into combat and lets you weave your excog before the tank stops.

3) Don't waste resources at the end of pulls. if you're down to one mob you shouldn't be healing at all unless the tank is like 25%. You'll have more for the next pull when there's lot of mobs up if you save that 1 lustrate.

4) Until you get the regen on your sacred soil at level 78, sacred soil is almost worthless for single target damage. A tank would have to take 10x the amount of damage that lustrate restores before it's on par with lustrate (roughly 100k damage over 15 seconds, which you wouldn't be able to heal through anyways without lustrates).

edit for length

more minor things that you should work on

5) You're not a ranged character you're a healer. a good chunk of your skills are point-blank aoe so you should be right in the thick of things all the time. Pretty much every time you had to heal aoe damage you had to move in first.

6) You should be learning skills on first cast. Both healers and tanks live and die on their knowledge of what any particular cast bar does. It's more important to focus on this than on the player hp bars. If you know a tank buster is going out you shouldn't be healing the previous aoe damage, you should be prepping for the tank buster instead.

7) Don't be scared to let your dps or yourself sit below 100%. Only top up the non-tanks if they are in danger of being 1 shot by the next mechanic or mistake.

[Osmond]

Yeah, it blows your mind cause you at first you think, "it is just me or is this tank HP just melting?". Then your realized that the tank's gear is undergeared. Experienced that on occasion.

[Neela]

I noticed the „undergeared“ issue is getting trendy... I see more and more player with 260/390 gear approximately who just lvl their cls with dailys -> getting thrown in 75+ dngs by low-roulett with their SB-Endgear... what makes dailys either super long or/and kinda stressful... : /

[LariaKirin]

What kind of feedback do you want?

If it's how you could've handled this instance better - simply votekick the tank. He's blatantly disrespecting everyone by staying in a lvl 69 dungeon with lvl 60 gear.
If it's how you could've played better - an abnormal instance such as this one is not a good representation of how you play normally.

That said, the most important thing you have to fix is Aetherflow usage.

I believe you view them as "emergency" skills - whereas they are the strongest abilities in your kit and should be preferred over your basic heals.
This causes many issues that are not really worth mentioning because they'll likely fix themselves after a change of mentality.

I'd recommend doing this exercise in your next dungeon:
- Glance at your Aetherflow regularly. (find your own trigger - e.g. whenever you feel that the party is not in danger, take a look at Aetherflow)
- Use Aetherflow as soon as it comes off cooldown, no exceptions.
- If you find yourself with excess stacks when it comes off cooldown, then get rid of them in any way you can (Energy Drain, wasted heals, doesn't matter).
- Use Aetherflow asap.

Disregard any pretense of efficiency at this point - one thing at a time. Just get used to refreshing your aetherflow stacks on cooldown.
Once that becomes automatic, you'll be used to the constant stream of aetherflow stacks and will naturally find efficient uses on your own.

[Maeka]

@LariaKirin:

This was more the type of feedback I was looking for, yes. I do admit to treating Aetherflow as more of an emergency type thing, especially in that dungeon, but even somewhat other runs I've done too. I always tried to keep one up for throwing the bubble, and the other 2 were for Lustrates when people stand in stupid but I suppose I shouldn't be so paranoid perhaps.

That dungeon in the recording, though? Yeah I was like "this guy could drop dead at any second, I better keep both Lustrates ready to use at a moment's notice or we're all going down" was kinda the thought process behind that.

But I will try and tie an aetherflow glance trigger in somewhere... perhaps... I dunno maybe anytime I'm casting Adlo or something I'll glance at it and when I see it <20 sec, the next two heals are gonna be Lustrates or something.

That is a rather good idea, and I thank you for that. I'll try and do that next time!

[Deceptus]

Okay so it's been awhile since I posted one of these threads...

Last night, I had a "tank" in Castrum Abania who was severely under-geared. The dude was wearing almost full Lv60 Poetics in Castrum Abania (the 260s... not the upgraded 270s) along with a couple Shisui pieces IIRC.

I managed to get through the whole thing with only 1 death that I remember (the tank at the end of the 2nd boss when he ate a tankbuster right after another hit, not much I coulda done there).

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/495880737

At some point in the video, I think right after the 2nd boss, I pull up his equipment sheet and discovered all the poetics gear and I was like "OOOH, no wonder this guy is made out of cardboard..."

I don't claim to be a master SCH or anything, but I sure as heck felt like one when we defeated the last boss with nobody getting killed (well he did cheat with Superbolide at the end, but still). I was sure that Inferno was going to rip him to pieces. Having to dump all of those extra heals on the tank made it difficult to keep everybody else up, but I did it... somehow.

I know I keep forgetting about my fairy cooldowns (really wish SE would go back to making those automatic), but anything else I am doing wrong/not doing?

The're getting slaughtered because they're literally less than half of the defense value they should at that level.

Your job is to fix mistakes, you can't fix stupid.

Personally I'd have told them to go to a vendor and buy a set of white gear and subsequently kicked them.