Tips on being a good healer

[Lettis]

Hey guys, I bought FF14 3 days ago and decided to make my first character a healer. On every MMO that I play I always go with DPS and wanted to change that up this time around. I don't want to be one of those annoying healers that pull the aggro away from the tank. Is there anything I should keep in mind while healing? Any advice would be highly appreciated.

[Aloreal]

There are a number of comments here, I just want to fix a misconception and add some of my own.
Healers dont attack anything, unless they are scholars.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, scholars are expected to attack as well, in easy parts of the dungeon at least. healing is a priority but dots can add up alot of nice damage.

Know your mana drain, its limited, and will hurt when you need it most. if you have time to attack in between healings you have time to rest and regen mana. cure 2 is better than cure 3 most of the times. cure 3 is only best when its either free cast, or you got alot of people packed in a tight group cause of the small aoe ring. thats its purpose. otherwise stick to cure 2. Medica I sucks, drains alot of mp, short aoe. better without it, unless a big aoe comes over then you will need it for a fast safety option. Medica II has its uses mostly cause of regen, but aggro problems are to be expected if your tank cant handle it, use caution. (thats for conj/WHM)

Succor sucks, adds a small shield that is good in a beggining of a fight if you want but other than that, use sparringly. better to use Rouse>Fey Illumination>Whispering Dawn For an amazing, non agroable small aoe regen. (SCH)

rearrange your HUD. Party list right on your side. almost in the middle of your screen, where your focus sight is.

its a good idea to click your tank > Shift+f. it focuses it and always shows its health, and status effects.

find a confort zone, learn your range, stick to it. you dont want to be in the thick of things, you dont want to be far away. stay close, but not too close.

multitask. your role is pivotal. you are moving around, dodging hits and healing people. if you are attacked by something and your tank 'didnt' see it, or was preoccupied with something, try to run to him as close as you can without endadgering yourself. i find that having a macro with just /say 'crap help me' or something similar can help.

[Felicity]

As a WHM, you're actually a DPS, so spam holy.

[Asphe]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Ace♡:

As a WHM, you're actually a DPS, so spam holy.

Yep, can't speed-run without this. Or anywhere really, I've even done so in Coil (rarely).

Thing is, everything is situational. If there is a 'book' written for 'healer', it'll be full of stuff that worked for people... in the past.

[Ren]

Początkowo opublikowane przez aloreal1:

There are a number of comments here, I just want to fix a misconception and add some of my own.
Healers dont attack anything, unless they are scholars.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, scholars are expected to attack as well, in easy parts of the dungeon at least. healing is a priority but dots can add up alot of nice damage.

I assume you're talking about me.

Do you even remember pre-bray? You're sitting there twiddling your thumbs for more than 50% of the fights assuming your tank isn't naked. Why would you not DPS at all?

And why can't you DOT as a WHM? If the tank isn't taking any damage I like to throw Aero onto a few enemies as long as my hate is low. I don't see the issue as long as you aren't pulling enemies or letting party members die.

[Nekomancer]

Yeah, but that deviats from the role of healer as essentially youre doubling over as a DPS. Healers should be focusing soley on Healing because their role in the party is way too essential to do other things. It may sound closed minded as to how party tactics and strategys work but thats just me. I couldnt care what you did during fights, as long as the tank kep the heat off everyone and the healer is effectively patching wounds then ive got nothing to worry about aside from avoiding AOE's and targeting the right mob to avoid pulling agro.

In essence, it depends on what you're role in the party is, not your class. Some healers can support DPS if they are needed to and if the tank is doing fine, other times not so much, but youre attention should soley be about healing (and reviving if people start dying) 90% of the time.

[Aloreal]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Damuel:

Początkowo opublikowane przez aloreal1:

There are a number of comments here, I just want to fix a misconception and add some of my own.
Healers dont attack anything, unless they are scholars.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, scholars are expected to attack as well, in easy parts of the dungeon at least. healing is a priority but dots can add up alot of nice damage.

I assume you're talking about me.

Do you even remember pre-bray? You're sitting there twiddling your thumbs for more than 50% of the fights assuming your tank isn't naked. Why would you not DPS at all?

And why can't you DOT as a WHM? If the tank isn't taking any damage I like to throw Aero onto a few enemies as long as my hate is low. I don't see the issue as long as you aren't pulling enemies or letting party members die.

The only reason i wouldnt suggest for conj/WHM to attack is cause they need the time in between to regen the mana. and thats assuming you are leveled in a dungeon. if not, dot away.

And i wasnt specifically refering to anything. If i was to refer to anything; is that tanks, mostly, expect you to deal damage when you are a sch more so than a conj/whm. and that usually depends on the expectations and competence of the party as a whole

adding to the fact that sch have pet and half emnity goes to her, rather than totally only to healer, it 'splits' thus making emnity on scholar harder to pull aggro. which is a plus.

of course on the down side is how to correctly use the pet spells, macro them, manual positioning and blah blah and all that rap ^^

[lesican]

A bad WHM DPS's and lets the party die
A good WHM Heals and saves mana for heals later
An amazing WHM is in and out of cleric stance, healing and dps'ng as required

If the WHM can DPS and still heal then its better for the party, mobs die faster so less healing is required
For 80% of the content its irrelevant which one you have in your party

[Ryk_Feral]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Damuel:

Początkowo opublikowane przez voltcheck:

Arent those just a boosted heal spell though? Were talking about stat boosting potions that enhance intelligence, magic power and stuff like that in general.

Well yeah?

A potion by its self won't do anything. You need to actually use an ability. The point of the potion is the make your ability more powerful. If you want a more powerful ability you can already use cure 2/3.

Just seems like you'd need to be in the uber ♥♥♥♥♥ for a potion to be that important in a situation.

Not really. But using those stat boosting potions, increases strength of ALL skills that use it. Using too many higher level skills will run through your MP fast.....and they tend to draw more aggro. Healing the tank while pulling aggro towards yourself just makes the tanks job harder. Best idea is to boost your stats early on then get as much out of each healing skill you can.

[OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO]

If you're playing as a white mage, be wary when using regen. It's easy to overheal with it if it ticks past a team mates max health. It's only good to use it when you know you're fine enmity wise, and don't want to waste time focus healing a dps you know won't take any more damage for the next 10-20 seconds.

And ignore the people telling you to never attack as a healer. White mage has pretty close to the best AoE dps in the game, and solid single target dps. If you balance your healing/regens and insta-casts, you can pull good dps while keeping the whole party topped off. To do this you need to level a black mage up to 26 so you get Swiftcast as a cross ability. You should also get Scholar up to 34 for Eye for an Eye (chance to reduce damage every time the party member is hit for 30 seconds, very useful on large # mob pulls.)

Get used to switching between Cleric / Non-Cleric stances as a white mage. This will greatly boost your dps/healing effecitiveness, and will allow you to contribute a lot more to your group (or pick up the slack for newer group members.)

[Nekomancer]

Here is another idea, though its not exactly healer related. Some classes can cross class healing skills and spells. For example, Pugilist can cross class the heal spells from conjurer and arcanist. Make it a point towards the DPS'es that are in you're party to equip cross class healing skills so they can heal themselves when in a pinch. If possible, try to get the cross class healing spells from Conjurer and Arcanist as they use MP instead of TP which is great for the Melee and Ranged DPS.

[Nekomancer]

It doesnt really matter for the tanks though. Just the DPS. Since you're going to be focusing on the tanks and healing them most of the time, its a good idea to encourage indipendence from the healers amoungst the DPS'es of the group so that way you dont have to completely worry about them and it may give you the chance to DPS if possible.

[Vixen]

Początkowo opublikowane przez voltcheck:

Hell no. As for as I can tell through most of my MMO expiriences, healer NEVER EVER attacks anything. They are there to look good and heal. (lol) Healers ability to heal is essential to the role of the party and having them do other things will distract them from doing what they are there for. In general, magic attacking as a healer is all well and good when youre doing solo stuff such as storyline quests and whatnot but healer is strictly heal only, which is why I often find that playing through with someone who roles as melee or tank at the start of the game does help and would be the recomended idea when playing as a healer, though that is merely a sugestion as to what I would do. You dont have to start with another person.

wrong. although it is only end game and not something that always happens, a good white mage can rely on the second healer in an 8 man dungeon and use cleric stance to switch to being dps. using holy and stone 2, a well equipped whm can easily out dps a true dps, although more so in bursts as it is very mp heavy.
also if anyone thinks it is impossible for 1 healer to keep 7 others alive, i had an amusing titan hard mode just last night where the first healer died and a single scholar kept the entire group alive for the entire fight.
for anything but end game with 2 healers though, stick to healing, end game can be more flexible depending on group quality but early game you will be stuck hammering a single button.

[Nekomancer]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Cruickshank:

Początkowo opublikowane przez voltcheck:

Hell no. As for as I can tell through most of my MMO expiriences, healer NEVER EVER attacks anything. They are there to look good and heal. (lol) Healers ability to heal is essential to the role of the party and having them do other things will distract them from doing what they are there for. In general, magic attacking as a healer is all well and good when youre doing solo stuff such as storyline quests and whatnot but healer is strictly heal only, which is why I often find that playing through with someone who roles as melee or tank at the start of the game does help and would be the recomended idea when playing as a healer, though that is merely a sugestion as to what I would do. You dont have to start with another person.

wrong. although it is only end game and not something that always happens, a good white mage can rely on the second healer in an 8 man dungeon and use cleric stance to switch to being dps. using holy and stone 2, a well equipped whm can easily out dps a true dps, although more so in bursts as it is very mp heavy.
also if anyone thinks it is impossible for 1 healer to keep 7 others alive, i had an amusing titan hard mode just last night where the first healer died and a single scholar kept the entire group alive for the entire fight.
for anything but end game with 2 healers though, stick to healing, end game can be more flexible depending on group quality but early game you will be stuck hammering a single button.

That comment is old friend. We are just discussing ways to help improve the capabilities of the healer and ways to help not only the healer of the group but the group in general. By decreasing the workload on the healer, the overall performance improves and they will have more of a chance to DPS like we have already mentioned.

Also, one bit I think everyone forgot about is the future class expansions for the game that will be coming out in later updates. I was recently viewing the lodestone forums recently and there is big talk of future updates releasing new classes and jobs for players to play. One such class was the death knight, which many speculated would cause self-inflicted dammage to oneself for increased bonuses to the characters attacking power.

In general, the point is to keep an eye out on the future updates as its the healers job to know how to go about their job around partys and the increasing number of classes will demand that they know their skillsets as what as their abilities will be and if they will be essential enough to throw heals at or not. Im probably overthinking this aspect though.

[Freyar]

Stoneskin is a great buffer when you need to buy some time.

Try to build the Cure 1 combo for a free Cure 2 if you can help it. Don't be afraid to use Cure 2 even if it's not free when you need it.

Use the Shroud of Saints earlier rather than later if you expect a fight to go on for some time. It's better to have it used more often if you're healing/DPSing enough to always be using MP.

Use CURE III over Medica 2 if you can convince people to group up when appropriate. MP efficiency is better on CURE III for quick heals over everyone. Medica II is okay for "mantainence" but usually doesn't have enough kick to really push people over a danger threshold.

The "Overcure" buff from using Cure II is often wasted due to the need for people to be close together for CURE III. If you've got Overcure, use it if you have at least one person within range of your primary heal target.

Don't be afraid to take a hit or two. Combined with Stoneskin on yourself, you can usually tank a little bit yourself if it means keeping your tanks up.

Talk with other healers in the party, establish who you're prioritizing for your healing so that others can focus on another person.

Benediction can be used as an "oh crap", but remember that while it is an instant, the heal still takes about .5 seconds to cast through it's animation.

Remember that changing Cleric Stance takes about two offensive casts to be ready again. Make sure your heal targets are good fo rthose two casts PLUS a cast time for the next heal.

[The Squig]

practice, run lots of dungeons and youll start getting it, the game does a pretty good job at teaching you by gradually increasing the difficulty and introducing new mechanics as you go along. As for potions, ive never really used them except for the odd ether.

A few things which might help you is:

1 reorganizing your hud to bring the party list closeer to you. Ive also moved the enemy list so i can see if im starting to generate to much threat (you dont really have to worry about threat control in the beginning, just avoid overhealing).

2. If you need to look out for certain casts or abilites during boss battles you can focus the boss to let you view his castbar without targeting him.

3. If youre not feeling to confident about a new dungeon you might want to read up on it or watch a guide on youtube before going to boost your morale.

4. avoid overhealing, for example if your last cure healed the tank to lets say 90 percent, resist the urge to top him off, it will waste your mana and generate unnecessary healing threat.

5. its ok to make mistakes, thats how we learn. Try to identify what went wrong, what you could have done differently and that mistake will have been well worth it.

6. and perhaps my most important advice. dont let toxic players discourage you. While it hasnt happened to me very often sooner or later you wiill run into the odd ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Its unavoidable, When things goes wrong its usually not one persons fault but if it was - remember advice nr 5- otherwise, ignore and move on.

Ive been playing my whitemage since launch and healing is a blast, i love it. I had a little experiance from wow before i started but most i learned by just playing the game. - glhf :)