Needing some help with positioning & awareness

[EaMett]

Hey everyone. I just got to level 50 on my WHM and this is my first time healing in this game. There are a couple of things I find myself always having questions about and can't seem to find a good answer on youtube guides. These are mostly related to UI and positional awareness.

What is the best way for me to remain aware of who needs heals? I tend to find myself staring at the party list a lot and healing from there which takes away attention from the actual fight on screen. I do try to heal from the actual battle by clicking on player avatars when they need heals, but with big pulls it can be difficult to see everyone's health bar and I also miss dots that I should remove with esuna unless I'm looking at the party list. So how do you guys tend to keep track of everyone? Should I be trying harder to keep an eye on where everyone is or is it more efficient to focus on everyone's status via the party list? Also is there an optimal positioning for the camera? I tend to zoom all the way out, I have seen some videos where the healer is zoomed all the way out and positions the camera to an aerial view of the right. Any opinions?

Also as far as the skill bar goes, does anyone have any tips on how to organize it? I've currently got it broken up into single target heals/group heals/attacks.

Thanks from a new healer

It might not be all that obvious at lvl 50 but generally speaking it's better to heal through rather than Esuna dots. Keep Esuna for the debuffs you need to dispel like doom, or in some cases heavy.

When it comes to awareness, practice will make a huge difference. If you develop a good amount of muscle memory with your heals and become more familiar with the content, you'll have more time to look around and be more aware.
Generally speaking, putting your party list towards the center of your screen (near your character) is the way to go. The party list is where you live as a healer so you want all the important info around it. Placing and using the focus target info bar near your party list will also allow you to keep an eye on the enemy cast bars. That way you have your party list, your enemy info and your character all in one spot.

On top of that, turning off other party member's effects down one notch helps a lot. And of course zooming out as much as possible. Don't worry too much about what your party members are doing, that will come with time. Just keep an eye on the party list and yourself.

[AduroT]

Since we’re discussing everyone's UIs... Do you use the Enemy List at all? I’ve never turned it off, but I’ve also kind of got it shoved out of the way and seldom pay attention to it.

[Sebazy]

I'd suggest turning off other players effects and turning on hp bars so they show when any player has less then 100% hp.. that was you can pay attention to the combat going on and still see who needs topped off during encounters

Emphasising this incase it was missed.

I'm not a fan of staring at health bars instead of the field in any non trivial content. Setting the health bars to only show when party members are less than 100% hp gives you a much more obvious cue that they've taken damage, and watching players themselves rather than some bars makes it easier to preempt incoming damage and/or mistakes.

Since we’re discussing everyone's UIs... Do you use the Enemy List at all? I’ve never turned it off, but I’ve also kind of got it shoved out of the way and seldom pay attention to it.

It's actually really useful in quite a few higher end raids, allowing you to keep tabs of more casts than you might be able to do easily with just Focus targeting. Shinryu EX's wings are a great example of that.

[Veer]

Thanks for all the help guys. Been adjusting my UI to your suggestions and I've gotten a bit better, especially after making changes to my skill bar and party list positions. still have a long way to go. I'm gonna take the advice and turn down other player effects as well since that seems to be a common theme.

[Mhaeric]

Since we’re discussing everyone's UIs... Do you use the Enemy List at all? I’ve never turned it off, but I’ve also kind of got it shoved out of the way and seldom pay attention to it.

I use it quite often, particularly when doing AoE dps to make sure any of my single target abilities are hitting the target with the most HP. It's usually easier to target a specific mob by clicking on the enemy list than it is to tab target through a pack of 8 mobs.

[Arnyekok]

This is how I have mine set, tried to keep it clean, with areas for oGCDs, GCDs and "boosts"

https://imgshare.io/image/1DiPw