What should I expect from my co-healer? (And vice versa)

[Guimu]

Hello there.

This tier I decided to go healer, focusing on Scholar although I switch to Sage in M6S because I find the mobility more comfy.

So far I thought that my main job was, as the role says, to mitigate damage. Sure, in prog I screw up some big cds because I didn't know a big one was coming but I fix that for the next pulls and come up with a plan on how to use my abilities in a way nobody dies to "calculated" damage.

That said, I expect the other healer to top everybody's hp (or throw some regens to do that) after I do my job. Of course, I also use Indomabilty and other healing sources I got that are not pure mitigation. So far, I had no problems.

However, earlier today I was going for a M8S Phase 1 kill and we died to... the first multi hit stack, and I was doing the same I've been doing the past weekend. The other healer said the same. Welp, we go again and I adjust Seraphism (is the one I use there, along with sacred soil and Fey Illumination so it mitigates the full stack. Move forward in time and then we die to the big aoe that comes after adds.

So that made me think maybe my "plan" was not the best, even if I was doing the same as the previous pulls where I had no problems. However, the damage was done and the mood in the party was already a bit meh from dying to damage (understandable).

Now, since healing in savage is new for me and after writing all that nobody probably cares about lol, I'd like to hear what more experienced healers can tell me about this. Should I stick to my plan? Should I adjust so the healer (in this case WHM) can just use bell and a single healing spell?

tl;dr We wiped in a p1 kill party after 2 days of m8s prog to the multihit aoe and the one after adds and I'd like to know if I should expect more healing from my cohealer or if they expect me to mitigate that better

Cheers

[Raraka]

In PF flexibility is one of the best skills to develop, I will give you some of my toughts from my experience as a Tank during the Abyssos tier

First of all, I think you have the correct mentality, the Shield/Mit healer should be doing mostly mitigations and not as much healing (outside of oGCD heals). With that being said, there will be scenarios where you will be forced to adjust and heal more, such as, tanks forgetting a reprisal or personal mit, tanks forgetting to use a raidwide mit, dps not using feint, addle or Pranged mits, your co-healer forgetting to use a mit or heal and more

Usually the approach in PF is to overheal slightly and as the group gets more comfortable, start stripping back your skills untill you are doing just enough healing

Finally but most importantly, talk with your co-healer. When I was tanking in Abyssos I made sure to pick who was doing first reprisal and raidwide mits just so we wouldn't override eachothers, and it went a long way in the mitigation plan!

You can apply the same to your co-healer, ask where your Ast is using Macrocosmos, where the Whm wants to use bell, and so on. If they have no idea, you can prepare yourself for the worst and overheal, if they do have a plan, great!, use that to plan where do you think they will need more or less help

[Qyoon]

If you do shield, mitigate and let the other healer do the refill.
If you are are pure healer, let him mitigate and fill up.
During prog, don't hesistate to overheal and communication cna help to manage the usage og cooldowns.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

[...]However, earlier today I was going for a M8S Phase 1 kill and we died to... the first multi hit stack, and I was doing the same I've been doing the past weekend. The other healer said the same. Welp, we go again and I adjust Seraphism (is the one I use there, along with sacred soil and Fey Illumination so it mitigates the full stack. Move forward in time and then we die to the big aoe that comes after adds.

So that made me think maybe my "plan" was not the best, even if I was doing the same as the previous pulls where I had no problems. However, the damage was done and the mood in the party was already a bit meh from dying to damage (understandable)[...]

I personally haven't done any savages this expac, but this case over here is an example of lack of communication. Don't get me wrong though; having a plan is always a good start. Willing to adjust is another good quality to develop. But at some point, you (and the rest of the party) need to acknowledge that the other 7 players aren't trust NPCs. Share them the crucial parts of your plans i.e. "I'm going to mit X with Y, but that means I will have nothing for mech Z etc." Those crucial parts usually being (not an exhaustive list):

• WHM: knows where they put down their Lilybell, Temperance, and Divine Grace.
• AST: knows where they uses Macrocosmos, Neutral Sect, Sun Sign, and Collective.
• SCH: knows where they deploy Spreadlo, Soil, Seraph, Expedient, and Seraphism.
• SGE: knows where they blast their Pneuma, Panhaima, Holos, & Philosophia.

By knowing those abilities, it should give you a general idea of what your cohealer have and don't have at the time of XYZ mechanic happening. Don't shy away from necessary basic GCD heals to patch up some unexpected turn of events, too (i.e. you notice some mits missing from XYZ mech? No AF because of your plan? Use that Concitation if opportunity allows). People nowadays deconditioned to develop bad habit of avoiding GCD heals entirely when it could've easily save some pulls.

Oh yeah, hopefully your dps and tanks aren't sitting on their Feint/Addle/Reprisals too lol. But otherwise, I think you have a solid foundation to work around with.

[Aravell]

I've been healing savage in PF on a shield healer since Deltascape and I can tell you that the greatest asset you can have is adaptability. Adapt to your cohealer and the rest of the party, if you're taking more damage than normal, re-order your stronger CDs, if you absolutely cannot adjust for it, ask the tanks/DPS to move their mitigation.

Taking M8S P1 as an example, there are times where I have to toss in a Concitation on the first Stone/Windfang, sometimes we take barely any damage with just Sacred Soil and Fey Illumination. Sometimes Deploy, Soil and Seraphism's regen is enough for Tracking Tremors, sometimes Accession spam is required.

PF is by nature random, communication will ease your issues better, but sometimes your cohealer will have no plan and you're just going to have to change your mitigation order.

[Guimu]

Thanks for the answers, I got an idea on how to procceed. I took a look to the timeline of the fight and I definitely could use spreadlo for stronger hits, so I'll go with that.

People nowadays deconditioned to develop bad habit of avoiding GCD heals entirely when it could've easily save some pulls.

Thats something I have to work on. Don't worry, I won't Concitation every aoe, but it definitely helps when the dps/tank jobs can't use their mits.

edit: sorry I don't know how to properly quote xD

[HsinVega]

Depends on what healer you're playing, but also i may be biased cos i mostly play in a static, but even when PFing i have certain expectations of my healer. With the expectation that i will avoid ALL AND ANY GCD healing, with the exception of sch cos well you do need to use adlo lol and a couple of sge shields. DISCLAIMER: avoiding GCD works when you're almost clearing, when you know where mechanics are happening and how much dmg people are taking, if you're progging, GCD healing should be more prevalent since you're still figuring out how much is going out and where mits are being used.

What i see healers lacking a lot is that they don't use their full kits, esp on the more "obscure" skills like macrocosms, seraphism, pneuma, lily bell. It seems that pf healers don't know what these abilities are so... Anyway let's get to what i expect from healers while doing endgame content.

As SCH your job is yes to mitigate dmg, but also do regens and "top up people". Sacred soil + expedient to mitigate, crit spread adlo + seraph for some heavy hitting raidwides (+seraphism for multi hits and regen its pretty nice), but also remember to use indom + whispering dawn + fey blessing to top up. Excog and faery tether are also really good in m6 and m8 to keep up tanks.

As SGE it's kinda the same but you don't have the big crit adlo shield so you mostly do dmg reduction with like kerachole or holos + regen since all of your addersgall abilities give regen and you can basically manage tanks alone. SGE has such low cds it's just so broken you can almost solo heal lmao

WHM you're in charge fully healing people after hard hitting raidwides, when people get low hp Shealers can't do much about it unless they gcd spam, that's where the lilies come in play. Not much else to do since the only reduction is wings... tank management feels ok w double benison + double tetra. "Regen" and topping people up should be decently easy between asylum, assize every 40s and lily every 20s, that said you don't need to FULL heal people, the other healer should help you top up people so that you can just use 1 ability each and everyone should be full hp.

I haven't played AST much but from my experience it's all about topping people up and regens, it's hard to adjust to others since people would have to plan mits and healing around your earthly star, from what i've seen either you play with a god astro and healing is a breeze or the astro doesn't know how to play and it's gonna be a painful night of trying to guess how much people they will heal and when to not over mit/overheal or die.