Healers and Debuffs. Should they be taken care of Pre- 50?

[MiaShino]

Hmm. Can press one button (Regen or Esuna) to take care of debuff or allow the deeps to experience demise.

One increases our clear speed while other is detriment. Some with certain personality types should just stay away from playing healers.

Probably also yeet boy Interject from the hotbar because "I never use this anyways!" while everyone is comboed to death by ram's voice + dragon's voice. Mmm.

[EusisLandale]

I would say more than Esuna what I see in high levels is a lack of healers shielding players when they have made a mistake and get a dot debuff. Yea I know they made a mistake but it’s your job to keep them alive.

Dots are either negligible or will kill in a couple of tics, I'm not wasting a GCD or two minute CDs on shielding either of those as the shield will be pointless. At most I'll toss them Kardia and use Soteria and they can hope for the best.

[Tlachtga]

people always forget the most important one, the nasty damage down from Titan Hard after being gaoled. its like 50% dmg down for 2mins. worst feeling in the world.

outside of that, Doom in Dun Scaith/Exdad normal get cleansed. i don't bother with DoTs really and Paralysis/Slow is a kinda maybe. mostly those come from mechanic failures though. outside of strange design choices like Shinryu Ex Judgement Bolt having a 15% chance to give Paralysis.

[Packetdancer]

Hot take(?) - I'd like debuffs to come back/actually matter. A dot in ARR hurts because our hp bars are low and they tick off for like 10% of hp or more, a dot in higher levels - which are already few and far between - ticks for a pixel of hp and isn't even worth worrying about.

There are still DoTs like that, albeit always in pretty high end content. E11S had some spicy DoTs, as did Delubrum Reginae's savage variant, and P4S phase 2's Heart Stake bleed is at least chonky enough that it should not be ignored. However, those are generally not those which you can Esuna; they're "heal through the mechanic" type DoTs.

If the dot is light, I don't think it matters to dispel it or not

I'd add another caveat as well: if the debuff will last a shorter time than it will take me to cleanse the party -- i.e., a 3 second debuff, when I'd be able to cleanse maybe one person, or a 10s debuff in 8-person content -- I'm not going to bother, or I'll cleanse just myself and the casters (and tank, potentially, if there's time).

And if there's impending damage that's a bigger threat, I will also deal with that instead of using Esuna.

Otherwise, yeah, if it's a debuff you can Esuna, I probably will.

[Striker44]

How I desperately wish this was relevant or played content, though it paints a pretty picture how far we have to reach to find status effects that are a danger.

You mentioned Doom specifically - you were given multiple examples of Doom. That doesn't make it the only "dangerous" status effect, just a response to your specific claim. And Dun Scaith at least I still find myself running regularly through Alliance roulettes. DR is now more niche-content, but anything that's in a roulette is 100% "relevant and played" content.

[Gemina]

Healers typically learn the hard way to cleanse debuffs.

[Absimiliard]

The obvious solution is Veresuna.

[Chopstix]

So I was doing a guild heist today as DPS. The one with the bombs and the red flan can put you to sleep.

Well our other DPS was put to sleep, but the healer never Esuna'd them, and alas, they died in the AoE that happened afterward (IIRC Sleep they cast lasts about 30seconds).

I had let the healer know they needed to Esuna that sleep debuff off, yet they blamed us for dying in the bombs ... ehhhh

So that got me thinking. For those who are healers, do you remove debuffs (the ones with the bar on top) with Esuna? Do you ignore them if it's in a pre-50 dungeon?

Personally, I do my best to do Esuna all I can, especially the more dangerous ones. What do you do?

honestly im not that surprised

game does a lousy job of explaining debuff cleansing (probably not even mentioned? let alone the white bar thing)

but yeah long lasting, nasty debuffs need to be cleansed ASAP, a BLM with paralise will do negative dmg

to be safe, always just cleanse if u see something, unless the duration is incredibly short (i think there r some 3 sec silences out there), and quite often it is just a lousy dmg dot, if it's on a tank using that esuna gcd is not even worth it, just give them an extra oGCD if u even need to

[Packetdancer]

game does a lousy job of explaining debuff cleansing (probably not even mentioned? let alone the white bar thing)

This is 100% accurate: there are a lot of things which are basically "institutional knowledge" for long-time players but which many folks don't know and which the game does not make easily-discoverable.

The white bar atop a debuff denoting "this can be cleansed with Esuna", for instance.

The fact that any debuffs/buffs you set on someone that have a timer, the timer will be in pale green rather than white so you know it's yours (though the color difference is so slight that many people I know -- myself included -- cannot see it without looking very closely).

The fact that "Slow" (the debuff with a stopwatch icon) is a debuff that slows a target's cast times, while "Heavy" (the debuff with the icon I describe as "the person on all fours crushed under the weight of life's cruel indifference") slows movement. (Yes, the tooltip does explain which is which, but folks playing with controllers do not have an easy way to check a debuff tooltip to see what the description is.)

Etc.

There are a lot of things this game could stand to be a little more informative to new players about.

[Rongway]

For those who are healers, do you remove debuffs (the ones with the bar on top) with Esuna? Do you ignore them if it's in a pre-50 dungeon?

Most cleansable debuffs do not need to be cleansed.

Does the debuff last longer than 8 seconds (approx. 3 GCDs)?

• No - not worth cleansing unless the dodging death question says so.
• Yes - not worth cleansing unless a yes to any of the other questions.

By the time I finish my current Dosis cast and use my next GCD to cast Esuna, the duration on the debuff would be between 0s and 3s anyway.

Is the debuff a Heavy/Bind/Sleep/OtherIncapacitation and will the debuff prevent someone from dodging an attack that will kill them?

• No - not worth cleansing unless the lost GCDs question says so.
• Yes - cast Esuna

Note the "and". I will ignore Heavy or Bind if I know getting hit won't kill them.

Will the target lose one or more GCDs if I don't cleanse the debuff?

• No - not worth cleansing unless the mechanics question says so.
• Yes - probably cast Esuna. A healer GCD is worth less damage than an equally geared and skilled tank or attacker GCD. If you've observed the other player making lots of mistakes with their basic GCD rotation, it may be more beneficial just to continue spamming Dosis.

Do mechanics require you to cleanse the debuff to prevent one or more deaths, whether by direct interaction with the debuff and mechanics or by indirect interaction such that the debuff will make handling an unrelated later mechanic more difficult?

• No - not worth cleansing.
• Yes - cast Esuna.

In the end a lot of it comes down to "will people die?"; but it depends on the fight. And once you've played through content enough times to know which debuffs are used in specific encounters you'll develop an understanding of which ones to ignore.

So I was doing a guild heisthest today as DPS. The one with the bombs and the red flan can put you to sleep.

Well our other DPS was put to sleep, but the healer never Esuna'd them, and alas, they died in the AoE that happened afterward (IIRC Sleep they cast lasts about 30seconds).

I had let the healer know they needed to Esuna that sleep debuff off, yet they blamed us for dying in the bombs ... ehhhh

Sounds like they have not run that one enough to know the flans can AoE sleep. I usually remind the party about the sleep when we load in.

I would say more than Esuna what I see in high levels is a lack of healers shielding players when they have made a mistake and get a dot debuff. Yea I know they made a mistake but it’s your job to keep them alive.

Dots are either negligible or will kill in a couple of tics, I'm not wasting a GCD or two minute CDs on shielding either of those as the shield will be pointless. At most I'll toss them Kardia and use Soteria and they can hope for the best.

Agree with Eusis here. I can handle dots with other tools that won't cost me GCDs or long cooldowns.

game does a lousy job of explaining debuff cleansing (probably not even mentioned? let alone the white bar thing)

They should add it directly to the Action Help for Esuna. "Removes a single detrimental effect from target. Cleansable effects are indicated by a white overbar."