Healers please

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

I could heal everything but at that point I might as well get another dps instead of a healer that's not contributing what so ever. That way I know the dps is doing its role

This, over here: you hit the nail of the head. Why should they join to overheal together IF they had foreseen that you will likely top up everybody without accounting their contribution? Better throw out additional Glaroilfisis to kill the boss 1/8 GCD faster, right?

Personally if I see my co-healer's first line of defense against first raidwide is a Medica II/Succor/Asp Helios/(E)Prognosis, I will immediately hold on to my resources so I can use them elsewhere. I will not bother putting my tools on cooldown, beside probably some small regen like leaving Eos/Selene do the leftover patching up. Will that make my cohealer hate me for seemingly making them do all the legwork? Probably, but their insecurities are not my fault. They have to at least recognize their cohealers expertise and what their tools are capable of beyond the simple Medica II/Cure III/Succor/Prognosis/Helios. That's why we're referring them as a 'Co-healer', you work together to end the encounter: defeat the boss.

"But they could be playing safe!"
Could be true. But if they consistently doing this then it says alot about their 'healing plan.' I will still not jeopardize their choice of resource usage.

okay, so... how can you be so sure that your co healer has any kind of "plan" aside from spamming dps? how much time do you suggest giving until you know ifd they are a green dps or actually going to heal? members start dying? or you need to use LB3 to rez everyone? I usually leave my psychic shoes at home when I go into raids so if you have an easy way to figure out if the other healer has a plan, or even intends to heal, that would be wonderful. please educate us on this ability

I'm not the person you're quoting, but I can probably answer a bit.

I played all 4 healers (or at least read up their tooltips before actually playing them myself) so to some extent I can think of possible scenarios. I.e.:
- "If Styx is coming up next, as a SGE I will deploy Panhaima. What is WHM/SCH/AST's equivalent to this? <insert answer>"
- "This X raidwide always happens at 00:30 mark of the encounter because it lines up with my Sacred Soil/Indomitability. But nothing will damage the rest of the party until 01:00. My co-healer is a WHM, so I should take account of their possible Assize heal anytime between 00:45 to 00:59 and just deploy Whispering Dawn to heal everybody slowly."

The list goes on. But such is the way of PF, we still have to adjust. Players aren't so incompetent that they cannot recognize where the hint of problem coming from: kick them out or leave for another. Sure it sucks if we get an inexperienced healer but if people really hoping for a consistent experience, they really should consider a static. PF is such a mixed bag of bliss and purgatory.

[Xaruko_Nexume]

You have indeed been doing it incorrectly since 1999. full hp and half hp are effectively the same thing if the monster cannot kill them in a single hit.
The healer's job is to prevent death, not maximize health pools.

ahh okay. In previous games, many mechanics could result in death if not at full health. Im still carrying over old habits it seems. Thank you.

[HappyHubris]

Absolutely not. I've healed both EX's without touching any of those except for when the boss can't be targeted. Usually my co-healer is still being pushed into overheal and bored and no one is in any danger of dying. Cure III should only be used in either EX in dire emergency. I've only used it twice this expansion.

While bad healers and exceptions exist, chances are you're just panicking and feeling unsafe when health bars aren't full. Raidwides in EX are often spaced quite far apart, so if I as a healer know the next potential raid damage is 30+ seconds away, I'm not going to rush to heal it. Assize will probably come up soon, or my co-heal might have an oGCD (especially Sage who needs to use certain oGCD's for mana regen or AST who gains dps from Star), or I might place Asylum and let it do it's job, or I might wait for a Lily.
Sage, AST and even SCH likewise have a lot of oGCD HoT and regens in their toolkit, so even if it looks like they aren't casting heals, if you see HoT icons among your buffs, they've got you covered.

If you get a bad healer, it sucks, I agree. But if you get a healer with the above mindset, outside of genuine mistakes I guarantee you're safe. We're paying attention. It doesn't matter if people are at half health, we'll get them before the next damage. Sure we're spamming Glare or Broil or whatever, but if we have to GCD heal we'd do it.

If you spam Cure III or Medica II immediately after damage happens, you're actually causing your co-healer issues because you're wasting their carefully planned and mapped oGCD's and causing them to overheal. Healing in raids isn't just about filling hp bars asap, it's about working together with your co-heal so your toolkits synergize and compliment each others. Pay attention to HoT icons, check if there's a Star, Soil, Asylum down, give them a little time to see if they have an oGCD, as you learn a fight try and remember when each raidwide is and how far apart they are. You'll be a much better healer for it.

I appreciate your perspective, here. I admit to using GCD heals on WHM to top everyone off when I could probably wait for say Asylum and my co-healer's oGCDs to cover everyone by the next hit in 30 seconds or whatever. Part of this is not trusting PF folks to stay out of the fire, part of this is not trusting PF co-healers, and part of this is learning healing other MMOs where random spike damage is frequent.

[LazyMemories]

This, over here: you hit the nail of the head. Why should they join to overheal together IF they had foreseen that you will likely top up everybody without accounting their contribution? Better throw out additional Glaroilfisis to kill the boss 1/8 GCD faster, right?

If I see my coheal are that type who wants to see everybody at 90% health immediately after each raidwides, I will not bother putting my tools on cooldown, beside probably some small regen like leaving Eos/Selene do the leftover patching up. Will that make my cohealer hate me for seemingly making them do all the legwork? Probably, but their insecurities are not my fault. They have to at least recognize their cohealers expertise and what their tools are capable of beyond the simple Medica II/Cure III/Succor/Prognosis/Helios. That's why we're referring them as a 'Co-healer', you work together to end the encounter: defeat the boss.



I'm not the person you're quoting, but I can probably answer a bit.

I played all 4 healers (or at least read up their tooltips before actually playing them myself) so to some extent I can think of possible scenarios. I.e.:
- "If Styx is coming up next, as a SGE I will deploy Panhaima. What is WHM/SCH/AST's equivalent to this? <insert answer>"
- "This X raidwide always happens at 00:30 mark of the encounter because it lines up with my Sacred Soil/Indomitability. But nothing will damage the rest of the party until 01:00. My co-healer is a WHM, so I should take account of their possible Assize heal anytime between 00:45 to 00:59 and just deploy Whispering Dawn to heal everybody slowly."

The list goes on. But such is the way of PF, we still have to adjust. Players aren't so incompetent that they cannot recognize where the hint of problem coming from: kick them out or leave for another. Sure it sucks if we get an inexperienced healer but if people really hoping for a consistent experience, they really should consider a static. PF is such a mixed bag of bliss and purgatory.

If I saw them using any aoe heal not overhealing btw if we're all at 1hp. I wouldn't have to use so much mp to heal everyone. I would only use minimal amount. Not to mention I could also be dpsing during that as well if we both top up real quick. It would get the job done faster. I wouldn't have to stress using 50% of my mp within the first idk 30secs of the fight due to lack of healing from said other healer.

[Azuri]

OP is the perfect example of a panicky healer who just insists on having healthbars full "right now!" and then complains when their co-healer leaves them to it. There is no reason for me to use any HoTs if you are going to Cure III spam everyone to full. Maybe you are not familiar with other healers but WHM is an exception when it comes to GCD healing. Every other healing job has plenty of oGCD tools that allow the entire fights to be healed without using a single healing GCD.

Damage goes out at the same timepoint every single pull. If there is nothing happening in the next 30 seconds of the fight, you don't need to stress about healing everyone.

[Liam_Harper]

okay, so... how can you be so sure that your co healer has any kind of "plan" aside from spamming dps? how much time do you suggest giving until you know ifd they are a green dps or actually going to heal? members start dying? or you need to use LB3 to rez everyone? I usually leave my psychic shoes at home when I go into raids so if you have an easy way to figure out if the other healer has a plan, or even intends to heal, that would be wonderful. please educate us on this ability

When the raidwide is coming up soon and no one is healed. It's not too complicated.

-Raidwide hits, next potentially damaging mechanic is 30 sec away.
-Co heal does literally nothing for the next 25 sec. Shrug and Plenary lily or oGCD or even use a few GCDs if you have to.
-Raid is safe. Mechanic hits.

Even if you don't have the whole fight mapped perfectly, bosses so far often give an indication when it's mechanic time. If the next mechanic is 10 sec away, same applies for waiting 5 seconds. I won't let the party sit at a range that I couldn't heal within 1-2 GCD's if I was unsure if the next mech was soon, but I'm fine letting them sit at half for a while if I have resources to react to a boss castbar.

It's extremely rare I've come across a co-heal who simply doesn't heal. I could count the number of times on one hand. Some are a bit GCD heal allergic and I have to adjust, but nearly all dps focused healers will make use of oGCD's, which I can use to my advantage to lighten my own load and space out my own resources.

Also as I mentioned, there are numerous signs of whether your co-healer is pulling their weight. All HoT's have buff icons that you can look for. All ground heals are visible, Soil, Star, Asylum. Assize happens every 45 sec. It's one reason why playing multiple healers can help you improve on your main, because you gain an understanding of how they function mechanically, their strengths and weaknesses, how many oGCD's they have and how often they're available and what they're capable of.

If I saw them using any aoe heal not overhealing btw if we're all at 1hp.

I assume you're talking EX1. They're probably using HoT's for that first reduction to 1hp. You have roughly a full 30 sec to heal before the stack, which is HoT heaven.

Place Asylum in the top NW corner. Easy healing. Glare away for 25 sec. If your party is somehow still not full here, it's fine since you can assign Lilybell and your upcoming Rapture to the stack.
You now have your first lily. Temp, Plenary, Lily is more than enough for the stack and to sweeten it you get a natural Assize here.
Lilybell handles Phobos. If you used it for the stack, throw Temp/Plenary/lilies at it.

No GCD heals needed. Co healer could be asleep.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

If I saw them using any aoe heal not overhealing btw if we're all at 1hp. I wouldn't have to use so much mp to heal everyone. I would only use minimal amount. Not to mention I could also be dpsing during that as well if we both top up real quick. It would get the job done faster. I wouldn't have to stress using 50% of my mp within the first idk 30secs of the fight due to lack of healing from said other healer.

Kokytus opening from EX1 trial, isn't it?
The reduce to 1 HP occurs roughly around 15s after pulling, and you have about another 18 - 20 seconds before any next damaging raidwide happens. News flash: almost all healers heal over time abilities/spell coincidentally have this duration, so you can virtually slap any party regen, maybe 1 or 2 then go back to dpsing while the regen do their magic for you.

There is absolutely no need to top up everybody to 100% right away in that 20 seconds window, save the tank because they're taking auto attack damage. There are so many ways to do this. If you decide to spend 50% MP to top up everybody, then your healer made the CORRECT choice to not put out any additional healing because they will be wasting your 50% MP.

Take a deep breath, and heal calmly.

[LazyMemories]

Kokytus opening from EX1 trial, isn't it?
The reduce to 1 HP occurs roughly around 15s after pulling, and you have about another 18 - 20 seconds before any next damaging raidwide happens. News flash: almost all healers heal over time abilities/spell coincidentally have this duration, so you can virtually slap any party regen, maybe 1 or 2 then go back to dpsing while the regen do their magic for you.

There is absolutely no need to top up everybody to 100% right away in that 20 seconds window, save the tank because they're taking auto attack damage. There are so many ways to do this. If you decide to spend 50% MP to top up everybody, then your healer made the CORRECT choice to not put out any additional healing because they will be wasting your 50% MP.

Take a deep breath, and heal calmly.

If I don't heal said Kokytus and the other healer isn't healing should I just expect a wipe then? Since neither of us I guess want to heal? No I cure 3 immediately since I know there is a stack mech coming up and everyone should be top off for that to get ready for another aoe hit. Which at that point I expect the other healer to help out with some form of healing take turns not just leave all the healing to one person.

[Aelin_Ashryver]

I find often times my cohealer wont give me the chance to use my ogcds they just gcd AND ogcd heal before I get the chance to finish my cast and throw my ogcd's out. When that happens I stop bothering for raid wide's and just spot heal any extra damage people take.

[Saraide]

If I don't heal said Kokytus and the other healer isn't healing should I just expect a wipe then? Since neither of us I guess want to heal? No I cure 3 immediately since I know there is a stack mech coming up and everyone should be top off for that to get ready for another aoe hit. Which at that point I expect the other healer to help out with some form of healing take turns not just leave all the healing to one person.

There is a lot of time between cure 3 immediately and the stack happening. You immediately starting to hardcore gcd heal tells the other healer to dps instead. That's the message you are sending.