Help a Healer out (Titan - Storyline)

[Aegis]

Long post follows, tl;dr after.

After queuing with my wife as 2 (lvl 36) Summoners for over half an hour for Titan storyline fight, I decided to switch to Scholar. I had only main healed one instance before, Blayfox Longstop, with no issues, though HPs ran a little low on last boss. Sure enough, after I switched and reloaded DF we were instantly grouped up and in.

Straight away, I fast-cast healing Fairy, activated aetherflow for the two charges, cast protect and targetted the tank.

I knew it was a primal and was prepared for the tank (who did his job admirably, never lost hate) to take a lot of damage, particularly as he was a Warrior. I was not prepared for the amount of damage I had to heal on everyone else. I often found myself scrabbling to get everyone healed while keeping the tank out of red hp. MP wasn't much of an issue, aetherflow and energy drain kept me topped up. Time was the issue.

I felt like whenever I had to cast Physick (and whatever the SCH-specific heal is called) on more than one other party member, I would flick back to the tank as his HP dipped under half andd by the time my next heal hit him, he would have taken at least another hit.

This created problems when someone was entombed in stone or when Titan's heart popped. The only nukes I felt I could cast safely were Energy Drains for their instant cast and the very occasional Bio II when everyone was ok. I feel I should have been contributing more to DPS as we wiped to Earthen Fury more than once, but I felt constrained by needing to constantly concentrate on the tank's HP.

Healing Fairy's AOE regen was a godsend, allowing me more time to nuke occasionally, but not something I could rely on. I never switched to buff fairy, was that a mistake?

I also had not done the SCH 35 Quest which I see gives an AOE regen and minor stoneskin, would this have solved all my problems and made the runs a lot smoother?

tl;dr - What hints and tips have you discovered for either SCH healing in general or the Titan fight specifically that would help a reluctant main healer?

[KairiSgheart]

I did Titan as a scholar n had no issue. Unlocked the 35 skill too though. Might help. N if have stone skin can always cast it when not healing.

[Krylancelo]

You're a healer. Any damage you do in a boss fight means nothing. If you can't heal someone don't do anything. It's better to wait for your allies to get hurt and be ready than to lose focus by doing minimal dps.

[Alemana]

You're a healer. Any damage you do in a boss fight means nothing. If you can't heal someone don't do anything. It's better to wait for your allies to get hurt and be ready than to lose focus by doing minimal dps.

Incorrect on so many levels, please pay no attention. All CNJ and WHM spells scale from MND (meaning your stones and aeros are actually potent dps). Considering Aero is an instant cast there's no reason not to add whatever little dps you can to the mix.

Regarding your Titan fight, I found that after doing this about 5+ times you get a good feel for when to anticipate his move set. The only huge threat is that punch skill, which as I said you learn to anticipate. Pay attention to where Titan turns as this indicates the direction of the punch before he charges. Limit Break his heart after you break whoever he puts the stone prison on. Popping sprint periodically helps massively to move around and dodge, so get into the habit of hitting it once in a while.

[Aegis]

This may be a given (as in something you already know) but people need to run to the edge of the red marker when he goes up in the air, right before the big AoE hits. The closer they are to that red line (without standing on it, since that will get them punted over the edge) the less damage they take when the AoE hits so the less you will need to worry about them at that point.

Yeah, first time I saw it I ran right to the edge of the AOE line. Straight off the edge, then again, so did two others (it was everyone's first time). We noticed damage was higher the closer you were to the middle. No-one ran right to the red line for fear of being knocked off, but we all ran a few yalms from it. Probably could have gotten closer to it, then and saved more MP/HP.

You're a healer. Any damage you do in a boss fight means nothing. If you can't heal someone don't do anything. It's better to wait for your allies to get hurt and be ready than to lose focus by doing minimal dps.

Apart from being knocked out of the ring, the only deaths were from Earthen Fury. I was able to keep everyone healed, that wasn't a problem, but I didn't feel able to really contribute beyond that, which I feel I probably should have been able to.

Limit Break his heart after you break whoever he puts the stone prison on. Popping sprint periodically helps massively to move around and dodge, so get into the habit of hitting it once in a while.

Yeah, this is something we picked up on that we should do. The first two runs, the PGL wanted to save it for LB2 after Earthen Fury.

Popping sprint periodically helps massively to move around and dodge, so get into the habit of hitting it once in a while.

Now that I would never have thought of. Thanks a lot.

I suggest putting your fairies heal on a hot key

Yeah, I just left her on auto-pilot mostly. I didn't know her AI triggers. Good advice.

I can't speak directly as SCH, but from a whm perspective, I've done Titan both sides of 35 and I can't stress it strongly enough, Regen practically trivialises the healing aspect of the fight, it makes keeping everyone else topped up between AEs a near non event leaving you to focus on keeping the tank up and getting out of the way of those punches. If the SCH equivalent is as good, you want it.

After I completed the quest and returned to Limsa, I figured I would flag the SCH quest (I hadn't been back in a city since level 32 or so). And I looked at the ability and thought "Yeah, I probably shoulda had that..."

[Sebazy]

Incorrect on so many levels, please pay no attention. All CNJ and WHM spells scale from MND (meaning your stones and aeros are actually potent dps). Considering Aero is an instant cast there's no reason not to add whatever little dps you can to the mix.

Unless I'm missing a trick here, you need cleric stance active to get any DPS benefit from MND? I'll be the first to admit that I'm addicted to repose (FFXI Bard) and I'll always be throwing DPS around, but I've dabbled with mixing in cleric stance for dots in instances and for the much part it's akin to playing with fire. Dropping it with the GCD ticking can be iffy leading to the next heal being near half effectiveness. Risky! The only time I've found the risk properly worthwhile is on Miser's Mistress.

[Krylancelo]

Incorrect on so many levels, please pay no attention. All CNJ and WHM spells scale from MND (meaning your stones and aeros are actually potent dps). Considering Aero is an instant cast there's no reason not to add whatever little dps you can to the mix.

Stone and Aero scale from INT dude. Also, he is saying that he found it very difficult to contribute anything but heals, so why even attempt DPS if you are already being pressured so hard. He is a healer, he should heal, unless the fight is super easy mode. No healer should ever DPS for any reason in a difficult fight. Groups wipe because of that kind of thing.

Plus, how can i be wrong on so many levels? There was only one level to my previous comment. I'm not wrong you just disagree with me.

[Aegis]

Stone and Aero scale from INT dude. Also, he is saying that he found it very difficult to contribute anything but heals, so why even attempt DPS if you are already being pressured so hard. He is a healer, he should heal, unless the fight is super easy mode. No healer should ever DPS for any reason in a difficult fight. Groups wipe because of that kind of thing.

Plus, how can i be wrong on so many levels? There was only one level to my previous comment. I'm not wrong you just disagree with me.

I agree that healing is priority #1. The only exception to this is on things like primals where Nails/Hearts etc MUST be killed in a short time frame otherwise it's an auto-wipe. If one of the DPS is entombed, the priority is to get them out to DPS the heart (while keeping the other three alive ofc). If the DPS is not entombed, then the priority is to DPS the heart.

[Dreamer]

Incorrect on so many levels, please pay no attention. All CNJ and WHM spells scale from MND (meaning your stones and aeros are actually potent dps). Considering Aero is an instant cast there's no reason not to add whatever little dps you can to the mix.

Healing spells scale from MND, our damage spells scale from INT. That's why we have Cleric Stance. But I'm in agreement with your quoted post; if you're in a hard battle, you should not be worrying about DPS at all. You want to be be pre-casting heals and anticipating spikes, which you can't do if you're trying to shuffle in damage. Without popping into Cleric Stance, your damage, from aero especially, is so low that it's nothing but a waste of MP.

This is only for hard battles, however. For trash and times when only minimal healing is needed? Sure, pop into cleric stance and go nuts. But just remember that as a healer, your priories are healing first, support second, and dps a distant third.

[Dire]

This may be a given (as in something you already know) but people need to run to the edge of the red marker when he goes up in the air, right before the big AoE hits. The closer they are to that red line (without standing on it, since that will get them punted over the edge) the less damage they take when the AoE hits so the less you will need to worry about them at that point.