Question about healing

[LiadansWhisper]

Yea sadly, CNJ is a pretty boring class in this game. Not to mention lvling pretty much consists of spamming Stone II.

 

I was disappointed by the seemingly lack of strategy put into the class. I mean... they had to throw in a class specific mount just to get more people to play WHM.

 

On the plus side, I find I can be a lot more chatty on my CNJ during dungeons runs, since I'm just there spamming one button. I almost pray for bad groups just so I get the variety/challenge of using Medica occasionally, or having to keep two ppl healed cuz a dps has pulled aggro

 

Well, I didn't really find it boring, but I think that's more because I honestly find DPSing boring as hell.

 

I get that what I find totally interesting may bore the ever-loving shit out of someone else.  

[Dravus]

It's as if people deliberately forget that WoW has been out for near enough a decade and has gradually had a lot of content and new abilities added to it over the years. I wouldn't say FFXIV is lacking in healing abilities, though. It's also very likely that we'll be seeing a lot of new abilities added to the game as time goes on, especially if they go ahead with their plan of fleshing out the cross class ability system further.

[LiadansWhisper]

It's as if people deliberately forget that WoW has been out for near enough a decade and has gradually had a lot of content and new abilities added to it over the years. I wouldn't say FFXIV is lacking in healing abilities, though. It's also very likely that we'll be seeing a lot of new abilities added to the game as time goes on, especially if they go ahead with their plan of fleshing out the cross class ability system further.

 

I actually hope that they don't, and the reason for this is that WoW is currently suffering from serious ability bloat (among other things).

[Dravus]

It's as if people deliberately forget that WoW has been out for near enough a decade and has gradually had a lot of content and new abilities added to it over the years. I wouldn't say FFXIV is lacking in healing abilities, though. It's also very likely that we'll be seeing a lot of new abilities added to the game as time goes on, especially if they go ahead with their plan of fleshing out the cross class ability system further.

 

I actually hope that they don't, and the reason for this is that WoW is currently suffering from serious ability bloat (among other things).

 

Yeah, I feel the same way. I'm still bitter that Blizzard took away a number of interesting class abilities only to replace them with stuff that could have easily have been left out of the game entirely. It's a common problem in MMO's these days - a lot of things are added as filler and aren't actually used all that often. I prefer seeing a greater focus on core game mechanics being difficult instead of there being a reliance on an overly complex rotation.

[Ildur]

You don't need a decade to come up with a mechanic paradigm more interesting than "Spamable Single Target Heal, AoE Heal, Bigger version of those, Debuff Dispel."

 

What I will say in defense of the system is that it works. It's not the most interesting system ever, but the lack of complexities have its advantages (for example, encounters are easier to balance). The problem is that healing is mindnumbing unless you are fighting a boss with interesting mechanics. But if there are no interesting mechanics during that combat encounter, like most fights against trash mobs, then spamming your class' spammable heal is sometimes the only thing you are required to do.

 

CNJ/WHM isn't a boring class. You're just not doing enough things in that case. If you're finding it easy to heal and keep your team topped up' date=' go cleric stance and DPS between heals. CC some mobs to prevent more damage being done. Don't just sit there and say it's boring when all you do is cast Cure 1 over and over. If that's how you're playing, you're playing it wrong.[/quote']

 

What you are saying here is: "If you are healing properly, you are playing your class wrong!"

 

I agree that you should CC the mobs if there is no Thaumaturge or Summoner to do that (and assuming your tank can survive the burst damage while you sleep the targets), but once you do? It's back to casting Cure 1 over and over again. DPS as a White Mage is not significant enough to be worth the trouble, not to mention they don't have a mana recovery mechanic, so every damaging spell you are casting is one less healing spell you might need.

You can take risks when you are confident in the tank or when you know you won't run out of mana mid-battle. But otherwise? Better safe than sorry: don't waste your mana for damage dealing. You can never be sure that your teammates aren't going to take big hits (because of whatever reason: maybe positional lag or their cat jumped to their face for a hug).

[KitKat]

 

What you are saying here is: "If you are healing properly, you are playing your class wrong!"

 

I agree that you should CC the mobs if there is no Thaumaturge or Summoner to do that (and assuming your tank can survive the burst damage while you sleep the targets), but once you do? It's back to casting Cure 1 over and over again. DPS as a White Mage is not significant enough to be worth the trouble, not to mention they don't have a mana recovery mechanic, so every damaging spell you are casting is one less healing spell you might need.

You can take risks when you are confident in the tank or when you know you won't run out of mana mid-battle. But otherwise? Better safe than sorry: don't waste your mana for damage dealing. You can never be sure that your teammates aren't going to take big hits (because of whatever reason: maybe positional lag or their cat jumped to their face for a hug).

 

That's just flat out wrong. I can easily heal properly and do all the other things I mentioned.

 

WHM damage may not be what a monk or bard will put out, but the damage is not insignificant. Also, I can spam Stone 2 -constantly- and never run out of mana, so the mana recovery argument is moot.

 

Point is, if you're not doing anything during a fight, you're doing it wrong.

[Magellan]

 

What you are saying here is: "If you are healing properly, you are playing your class wrong!"

 

I agree that you should CC the mobs if there is no Thaumaturge or Summoner to do that (and assuming your tank can survive the burst damage while you sleep the targets), but once you do? It's back to casting Cure 1 over and over again. DPS as a White Mage is not significant enough to be worth the trouble, not to mention they don't have a mana recovery mechanic, so every damaging spell you are casting is one less healing spell you might need.

You can take risks when you are confident in the tank or when you know you won't run out of mana mid-battle. But otherwise? Better safe than sorry: don't waste your mana for damage dealing. You can never be sure that your teammates aren't going to take big hits (because of whatever reason: maybe positional lag or their cat jumped to their face for a hug).

 

That's just flat out wrong. I can easily heal properly and do all the other things I mentioned.

 

WHM damage may not be what a monk or bard will put out, but the damage is not insignificant. Also, I can spam Stone 2 -constantly- and never run out of mana, so the mana recovery argument is moot.

 

Point is, if you're not doing anything during a fight, you're doing it wrong.

 

Actually, I think Ildur made several relevant points that were far from being 'flat out wrong'. For one, anytime I have tried to dps in dungeons on my cnj, I'm usually told to stop and just focus on healing.

 

Additionally, I don't think I've run across a CNJ/WHM yet that didn't have mana problems in long boss fights. As a Bard, I am constantly having to use Mage's Ballad to try and keep their MP bar from dwindling too fast. Whether you stock up on ethers, or whether you put points into Piety I don't know.

 

Third, cats jumping on faces is a serious epidemic in the gaming-verse. When fluffy cops a 'tude, and decides to use your face as a scratching post, it's game over man. Game over.

[Naunet]

The problem is that healing is mindnumbing unless you are fighting a boss with interesting mechanics. But if there are no interesting mechanics during that combat encounter, like most fights against trash mobs, then spamming your class' spammable heal is sometimes the only thing you are required to do.

 

This, pretty much.

 

CNJ/WHM isn't a boring class. You're just not doing enough things in that case. If you're finding it easy to heal and keep your team topped up, go cleric stance and DPS between heals. CC some mobs to prevent more damage being done. Don't just sit there and say it's boring when all you do is cast Cure 1 over and over. If that's how you're playing, you're playing it wrong.

 

I do that frequently and still think it's a fairly dull healing class. Less dull than dps though (which I've never enjoyed outside of random alting). I mean thing about it. You're trying to say WHM isn't boring as long as you spam Stone II and Aero in between heals - in other words, as long as party damage is low and you aren't healing much so that you can dps instead. That... doesn't actually say a lot of good things about the class's design.

 

Okay, I'll bite with this. I just can't resist anymore. I'm horrible at holding myself back.

 

Stoneskin needs a complete revamp. It either needs to become some form of party-wide buff to complement Protect (the less interesting option), or it needs to be made instant cast, given a CD, and transformed into a powerful defensive cooldown (the actually interesting option). 

 

Freecure should work with Medica as well as Cure II. Let's ignore for the moment that RNG-dependent mana efficiency is horrible and needs to go die in a fire. But assume that Freecure is here to stay. The least they could do is make it so proccing it introduces a decision the player has to make rather than just twiddling one's thumbs until there's enough HP off the tank to justify casting Cure II. (Another rant: You would not believe how many Freecures I have wasted because it procs at completely useless times. RNG healing is not fun, guys!) Oh look, I got a Freecure proc! Okay, is the tank taking a lot of damage or do I want to spend it on an AoE heal to buffer the whole group? No, it's not a particularly interesting decision, but it's better than thumb twiddling and mindlessly hitting Cure II.

 

And then there's Cure III. This spell would be awesome - an AoE heal that doesn't require you to cross into deadly melee territory to be useful - except its miniscule range means that for it to be effective, the people your casting it on need to be practically humping each others' butts. Someone previously in the thread mentioned they think Cure III is just a spell for a fight that hasn't come along yet, but let me stop you right there. I am not a fan at all of spells designed to work at one particular moment during one particular fight when the stars align just so and then for a few seconds out of the years you play the game, you get to cast your spell. When a fight would have to be specifically designed with the spell in mind in order for it to be useful, that is a sign of a poorly designed spell. How to fix this? Just increase the range of Cure III by a few yards. It's really that simple. Not as large as Medica, but not a piddly 4y either.

 

Aero II is useless as it is now and a complete waste of an action slot. Okay, so what if when you applied it, the spell generated splash AoE healing with each DoT tick in a radius around the mob with it on? Suddenly it's interesting and useful to a WHM's toolkit!

 

I have a similar complaint with Stone. Once you get Stone II, there's pretty much zero reason to cast Stone I ever again. Now, we could keep Stone II as a dps spell, because lord knows CNJ/WHM still deserves some soloing capacity, so what if it became an AoE centered around the target? Cast it and rubble bursts up from the ground around the monster, damaging all in range. Stone I's damage would be tuned up to adjust for the change in Stone II.

 

WHMs have two pretty straightforward ohshit cooldowns: a +healing CD (Divine Seal) and a +spell speed CD (Presence of Mind). Okay. Boring, but okay. Due to the very minimal effects of spell speed and the ability's short duration, PoM is of extremely limited use, but that could be fixed with some tuning.

 

The next thing I'm going to say is probably going to annoy people, but Holy as a spell is just flat out illogical. It has a very short duration stun, but casting it takes so long and the mana cost is so obscenely high that there's quite literally no point in using it outside of maybe spamming it in a FATE (though I have better luck just spamming Aero all around because of the mana cost) or just to look pretty. Something's gotta change with Holy. Maybe just a mana cost reduction would be fine, but as is, it's pretty ridiculously useless. And no, this is not a spell that will shine in PvP as is, as some might think. The length of time it takes to cast is its killer there. Your targets will run out or interrupt you well before anything goes off. And with the DR on stuns, a 4s stun is effectively little more than an interrupt, yet the spell takes so long to cast that it can't actually be used as such.

 

My beef with Benediction has more to do with the overall functionality of the game's spells and animations than anything, but I'll mention it anyway. Having an oshit instant heal all health button is great, but having to spam it several times before it actually goes off and then having to wait two seconds for the animation to finish before the heal actually triggers quite nearly ruins the spell. With its long CD, this is not something you want to just pop willy-nilly, so when you do use it, it's usually because you freaking need to heal that person right now ASAP no ifs, ands, or buts. *ahem*

 

So think of the problems with CNJ/WHM as this: The class's design reads off as a checklist of necessary spells. Single target, stronger single target, AoE, HoT, CD to increase healing. The only spells with any real synergy are Cure I and Cure II. The Overcure proc for Cure III is a little silly, as having a powerful single target heal proc an powerful AoE is a bit backwards (theoretically, you're casting single target heals because you only need to heal one person), but I'll give it credit anyway. So out of our entire toolkit, only three spells actually work together. The others are a hodge podge of completely independent abilities. There's no motivation to cast damage spells outside of times when you're just bored as fuck because casting damage spells does nothing except drain your mana, which means it's only something you want to do when you're confident that your mana pool is not going to be needed for other healing. (So basically, when I'm loling it up in 4 mans or Ifrit HM. Definitely not dpsing on Garuda or Titan HM, though, and Coil? Nope.) Now, if casting a particular damage spell applied some sort of buff to yourself (or the mob's target, or everyone around it, or something) that complemented your healing? That would be spell synergy and that would make damaging things something more than just "I am trying very hard not to collapse from boredom".

 

*deep breath* Okay. I'm good now!

[LiadansWhisper]

You don't need a decade to come up with a mechanic paradigm more interesting than "Spamable Single Target Heal, AoE Heal, Bigger version of those, Debuff Dispel."

 

Sure.  But not everyone thinks that the system you're describing is boring.

 

What I will say in defense of the system is that it works. It's not the most interesting system ever, but the lack of complexities have its advantages (for example, encounters are easier to balance).

 

Not just the encounters, but the classes themselves.  In particular, it's extremely difficult to balance absorbs vs. throughput healing, which I think is reflected in how tentative SE is being with SCH.

 

The problem is that healing is mindnumbing unless you are fighting a boss with interesting mechanics. But if there are no interesting mechanics during that combat encounter, like most fights against trash mobs, then spamming your class' spammable heal is sometimes the only thing you are required to do.

 

Well, I don't find healing mind-numbing.  But then, I pretty much just play healers.  It's what I enjoy.

 

I agree that you should CC the mobs if there is no Thaumaturge or Summoner to do that (and assuming your tank can survive the burst damage while you sleep the targets), but once you do? It's back to casting Cure 1 over and over again. DPS as a White Mage is not significant enough to be worth the trouble, not to mention they don't have a mana recovery mechanic, so every damaging spell you are casting is one less healing spell you might need.

You can take risks when you are confident in the tank or when you know you won't run out of mana mid-battle. But otherwise? Better safe than sorry: don't waste your mana for damage dealing. You can never be sure that your teammates aren't going to take big hits (because of whatever reason: maybe positional lag or their cat jumped to their face for a hug).

 

Well, I'll preface this by saying that I personally don't see anything wrong with a WHM not DPSing (in fact, if I'm bored I'd rather the tank just pull more so I have more healing to do), but WHM mana issues honestly aren't a reason to not DPS once you have a bit of gear.  And if there's a bard in your group, you pretty much have 0 reason not to DPS other than you don't want to.  Which, of course, is absolutely valid.

[LiadansWhisper]

Additionally, I don't think I've run across a CNJ/WHM yet that didn't have mana problems in long boss fights. As a Bard, I am constantly having to use Mage's Ballad to try and keep their MP bar from dwindling too fast. Whether you stock up on ethers, or whether you put points into Piety I don't know.

 

Did they ask for the Mana Song?

 

Please don't get me wrong - WHM regen is much, much lower than SCH.  But it's ultimately my responsibility as the player to manage my own mana.  Mana Song is a nice perk, but it isn't something I factor into my mana strategy.  If I need Mana Song, of course I'll ask for it.  But most of the time I really don't, and Bards just pop off on it because they see my mana dip.  But I'm on it!  I swear, I watch my mana bar more closely than you do! :-P

[LiadansWhisper]

I do that frequently and still think it's a fairly dull healing class. Less dull than dps though (which I've never enjoyed outside of random alting). I mean thing about it. You're trying to say WHM isn't boring as long as you spam Stone II and Aero in between heals - in other words, as long as party damage is low and you aren't healing much so that you can dps instead. That... doesn't actually say a lot of good things about the class's design.

 

Okay, I'll bite with this. I just can't resist anymore. I'm horrible at holding myself back.

 

Stoneskin needs a complete revamp. It either needs to become some form of party-wide buff to complement Protect (the less interesting option), or it needs to be made instant cast, given a CD, and transformed into a powerful defensive cooldown (the actually interesting option).

 

Vehemently disagree. Stoneskin is flat-out amazing just as it is.  It doesn't need a party-wide buff, it doesn't need to be made instant cast (because we can do that with Swiftcast if we need to), and it doesn't need a CD or to be transformed into a powerful defensive CD.  It's very powerful just as it is.  And I wish that more healers would understand what Effective Health is and why it is so ridiculously powerful.

 

Freecure should work with Medica as well as Cure II. Let's ignore for the moment that RNG-dependent mana efficiency is horrible and needs to go die in a fire. But assume that Freecure is here to stay. The least they could do is make it so proccing it introduces a decision the player has to make rather than just twiddling one's thumbs until there's enough HP off the tank to justify casting Cure II. (Another rant: You would not believe how many Freecures I have wasted because it procs at completely useless times. RNG healing is not fun, guys!) Oh look, I got a Freecure proc! Okay, is the tank taking a lot of damage or do I want to spend it on an AoE heal to buffer the whole group? No, it's not a particularly interesting decision, but it's better than thumb twiddling and mindlessly hitting Cure II.

 

Why are you doing that?  You realize that overhealing generates threat, right?  And the more overhealing you're doing, the more threat you're generating.  See, the thing is, the Devs want you to have to think about the healing you're doing.  This is why Medica pulls an enormous amount of threat, and this is why casting Cure II willy nilly is likely to get you one or more mobs as new friends, with teeth, claws, and stabby knives.

 

The reason WHM are designed with high inefficiency is because we have so much healing power potential.  It's a check on our abilities, to keep us from getting out of hand - so that when we need to be powerful, we can be, but we absolutely must think about what we are doing.

 

And then there's Cure III. This spell would be awesome - an AoE heal that doesn't require you to cross into deadly melee territory to be useful - except its miniscule range means that for it to be effective, the people your casting it on need to be practically humping each others' butts. Someone previously in the thread mentioned they think Cure III is just a spell for a fight that hasn't come along yet, but let me stop you right there. I am not a fan at all of spells designed to work at one particular moment during one particular fight when the stars align just so and then for a few seconds out of the years you play the game, you get to cast your spell. When a fight would have to be specifically designed with the spell in mind in order for it to be useful, that is a sign of a poorly designed spell. How to fix this? Just increase the range of Cure III by a few yards. It's really that simple. Not as large as Medica, but not a piddly 4y either.

 

I don't believe it's poorly designed, actually, and I already provided several instances where I do use it.  Garuda, Hydra, Titan HM.  When Crystal Tower comes out, I think we'll see what it was intended for.  Wouldn't surprise me if there were uses for it in Coils now, but I haven't seen Coils yet.

 

Aero II is useless as it is now and a complete waste of an action slot. Okay, so what if when you applied it, the spell generated splash AoE healing with each DoT tick in a radius around the mob with it on? Suddenly it's interesting and useful to a WHM's toolkit!

 

I love Aero II.  I use it all the time.  It's awesome.  Aero II and then Aero and then I go back to healing. 

 

I have a similar complaint with Stone. Once you get Stone II, there's pretty much zero reason to cast Stone I ever again. Now, we could keep Stone II as a dps spell, because lord knows CNJ/WHM still deserves some soloing capacity, so what if it became an AoE centered around the target? Cast it and rubble bursts up from the ground around the monster, damaging all in range. Stone I's damage would be tuned up to adjust for the change in Stone II.

 

While I'd love to have AoE, I think you may have noticed at this point that AoE is fairly tightly restricted in this game.  It's either extremely high level, not spammable, or both.  The reason we have Stone, btw, after we get Stone II is for Fates and synced-down dungeons.

 

WHMs have two pretty straightforward ohshit cooldowns: a +healing CD (Divine Seal) and a +spell speed CD (Presence of Mind). Okay. Boring, but okay. Due to the very minimal effects of spell speed and the ability's short duration, PoM is of extremely limited use, but that could be fixed with some tuning.

 

There's speculation that the spell speed actually isn't being calculated correctly.

 

The next thing I'm going to say is probably going to annoy people, but Holy as a spell is just flat out illogical. It has a very short duration stun, but casting it takes so long and the mana cost is so obscenely high that there's quite literally no point in using it outside of maybe spamming it in a FATE (though I have better luck just spamming Aero all around because of the mana cost) or just to look pretty. Something's gotta change with Holy. Maybe just a mana cost reduction would be fine, but as is, it's pretty ridiculously useless. And no, this is not a spell that will shine in PvP as is, as some might think. The length of time it takes to cast is its killer there. Your targets will run out or interrupt you well before anything goes off. And with the DR on stuns, a 4s stun is effectively little more than an interrupt, yet the spell takes so long to cast that it can't actually be used as such.

 

What is Swiftcast, how does it work?

 

On a more serious note, I spam Holy all the time in dungeons, and even in Primal battles.  Just because I have to plan ahead before casting it doesn't make the spell "bad."  I really don't think that you should tune a spell around Fates.  Seriously.

 

My beef with Benediction has more to do with the overall functionality of the game's spells and animations than anything, but I'll mention it anyway. Having an oshit instant heal all health button is great, but having to spam it several times before it actually goes off and then having to wait two seconds for the animation to finish before the heal actually triggers quite nearly ruins the spell. With its long CD, this is not something you want to just pop willy-nilly, so when you do use it, it's usually because you freaking need to heal that person right now ASAP no ifs, ands, or buts. *ahem*

 

I've...literally never had that happen.  I've accidentally Benedictioned myself, but that was my fault.  I wonder if you have been lagging when you tried to use the spell?  Are you using Mouseover Macros?  That's what I use, and it seems to work amazingly.

 

I do mash things several times, but I mash everything several times because I'm always like, 2 steps ahead of where my GCD will let me be.  

 

So think of the problems with CNJ/WHM as this: The class's design reads off as a checklist of necessary spells. Single target, stronger single target, AoE, HoT, CD to increase healing. The only spells with any real synergy are Cure I and Cure II. The Overcure proc for Cure III is a little silly, as having a powerful single target heal proc an powerful AoE is a bit backwards (theoretically, you're casting single target heals because you only need to heal one person), but I'll give it credit anyway. So out of our entire toolkit, only three spells actually work together. The others are a hodge podge of completely independent abilities. There's no motivation to cast damage spells outside of times when you're just bored as fuck because casting damage spells does nothing except drain your mana, which means it's only something you want to do when you're confident that your mana pool is not going to be needed for other healing.

 

Why is that bad?  No, seriously, why is that a bad thing?  Not everyone wants to cast damage spells as a healer.  If I wanted to be a DPS, I'd be a DPS class, not a healer.  If I want to DPS while healing, I use SCH and go ham with the fairy covering me.  But if I want to do straight up healing, I go with WHM, and that's okay.  It's absolutely okay for a healing class to not DPS.

 

(So basically, when I'm loling it up in 4 mans or Ifrit HM. Definitely not dpsing on Garuda or Titan HM, though, and Coil? Nope.)

 

I DPS on Garuda and Titan, at certain points, but yeah, I save my mana.  So does the SCH.  Why is this bad?

 

Now, if casting a particular damage spell applied some sort of buff to yourself (or the mob's target, or everyone around it, or something) that complemented your healing? That would be spell synergy and that would make damaging things something more than just "I am trying very hard not to collapse from boredom".

 

Then, meaning no disrespect, perhaps healing is not for you?

 

I don't want to have to damage to heal.  I want to heal.  If you're bored in a 4 man, tell the tank to pull more.  If you're bored in a primal fight, you probably outgear it.  Don't campaign to ruin the class for other people just because you're outgearing content and getting bored.

[Talathar Khalynn]

 

I have a similar complaint with Stone. Once you get Stone II, there's pretty much zero reason to cast Stone I ever again.

 

Not to nitpick, but Stone also causes Heavy, slowing the target's movement. Stone II does not.

 

My beef with Benediction has more to do with the overall functionality of the game's spells and animations than anything, but I'll mention it anyway. Having an oshit instant heal all health button is great, but having to spam it several times before it actually goes off and then having to wait two seconds for the animation to finish before the heal actually triggers quite nearly ruins the spell. With its long CD, this is not something you want to just pop willy-nilly, so when you do use it, it's usually because you freaking need to heal that person right now ASAP no ifs, ands, or buts. *ahem*

 

If you think Benediction is bad in FFXIV, ya should have seen the FFXI version. That was a real panic button, that put the WHM at the top of the aggro list, and almost always spelled certain doom, in exchange for healing everyone else. Basically my Benediction macro was this: "I'm casting Benediction, please don't let me die..."

 

I'm not the greatest healer in the world, but I try. I can't comment on end-game stuff, because I haven't even been able to finish the storyline quests yet (yes, I'm slow, no I have no regrets, although I'm lamenting the loss of my Swiftcast + Stoneskin macro for tanking, as my PLD can't use it, but that's 'nother topic...).

 

I enjoy healing, but it's isn't for everyone, AND sometimes the game mechanics don't agree with how you as a player think about healing. To each their own. I, for one, HATED trying to level a healer in WoW. Absolutely hated it, at least until Monk healing came out, which was the only reason I got back into the game at all. Friends of mine loved healing in WoW pre-Panda-land, but I never could get into it.

 

So I tanked instead. Well, actually in the beginning Pallies weren't exactly tanks, but still, that's what I played. And, as gimped out as prot Pallies were back in the early days, I still enjoyed it.

 

Fun is subjective. Do what you find fun. If the game mechanics for healing don't lead to a happy experience for you, that's okay. Maybe try something new, see if some other role is more fun for ya. Maybe SE will make changes to how healing works. Maybe they won't. But in the meantime, hopefully you'll find something in the game that lets you have fun.

 

[LiadansWhisper]

Fun is subjective. Do what you find fun. If the game mechanics for healing don't lead to a happy experience for you, that's okay. Maybe try something new, see if some other role is more fun for ya. Maybe SE will make changes to how healing works. Maybe they won't. But in the meantime, hopefully you'll find something in the game that lets you have fun.

 

 

This is pretty fantastic advice.

[AvaZope]

All I can say is: I love where this thread has gone. It's like googling all the theorycrafting about healing for a game minus the googling and searching. This has been a blast for me to read and given me a hell lot more to consider about healing later in the game while I level.

[LiadansWhisper]

All I can say is: I love where this thread has gone. It's like googling all the theorycrafting about healing for a game minus the googling and searching. This has been a blast for me to read and given me a hell lot more to consider about healing later in the game while I level.

 

I would advise you to avoid the official Healer Forums, or else take it all with a big grain of salt.  Because you will get a lot of very...definitive...answers along the lines of, "If you don't do what I do, you're terrible and bad and should delete your harddrive."

 

...the healing forums is currently lulzy as hell in this game!

[Rinh Hallani]

I've enjoyed reading this thread too. I was a resto druid and disc priest in WoW, which I loved, but finding this game a bit different. So thanks to you all for your input!

 

One question though, mouseover macros were my mainstay in WoW but the placement (which can be remedied) and size of party frames here makes me hesitant. Is there any way to spread them across like a hotbar or are you stuck with vertical party frames?

[Naunet]

Stoneskin is flat-out amazing

 

It's not. For 266 mana, you can place a shield on a target that absorbs damage equal to 18% of the target's HP. If your tank is a PLD and let's say, for the sake of discussion, that they're in full Darklight, then they probably have ~5.5k HP. That's a whopping 990 damage abosrbed. My Cure I can crit for well over 1k HP and regularly heals for 800. My Cure II heals for ~1.3k and can crit for nearly 2k. Cure II has the same cost as Stoneskin. Cure II's cast time is also significantly less than Stoneskin's. This makes Stoneskin horribly inefficient in a mana:heal ratio unless your tank happens to be a WAR (which, if the tank has 8k HP, would mean your Stoneskin is absorbing 1440 damage). Stoneskin is a spell you cast at the start of a fight or when you have nothing else to heal and feel like buffering your tank's HP a bit (and then it's only really worthwhile if your tank happens to be a WAR).

 

I'd appreciate if you didn't talk down to me as though I were dim-witted, though, and have no understanding of what effective health is. I participated in progression raiding for years as a discipline priest; I know well the value of absorbs in healing. Stoneskin is just not that awesome a spell.

 

You realize that overhealing generates threat, right?

 

Indeed. And healing threat is pretty much a non-issue as long as your tank is paying attention even the slightest bit. The only times I've ever pulled aggro as a healer have been moments where the tank ran in with Regen still ticking (which is not something they should be doing). It's simply not something to be concerned by.

 

I maintain that Cure III's range is far too short to be truly effective. 4y is nothing; it doesn't even cover melee range around the boss fully. I do like it as a spell; I just think the aoe range should be tweaked.

 

I love Aero II.  I use it all the time.  It's awesome.  Aero II and then Aero and then I go back to healing.

 

You love a single target DoT that is nothing more than a single target DoT and find that single target DoT "awesome"? Even though it's just something you toss out casually between healing? Opinions are opinions and all, but really. There's nothing awesome about Aero II. It has zero synergy with your healing, and if you didn't have Aero II, you wouldn't miss it as it adds nothing to your toolkit.

 

There's speculation that the spell speed actually isn't being calculated correctly.

 

Ah, if this turns out to be the case, it would be wonderful news. Cause right now it does barely more than diddly squat. That said, I haven't seen anything from devs regarding this, so I won't get my hopes up.

 

What is Swiftcast, how does it work?

 

Swiftcast happens to have an animation as well, which must follow through before a spell can be cast to use the buff. This means that for whatever you're using Swiftcast for, you must factor in the length of the Swiftcast animation as well as the animation for the chosen spell. Pop in-game and do it with Holy - you'll notice the exploding purply animation that initiates the damage happens about a second after you activate the Holy ability even with Swiftcast.

 

Not sure what you mean about tuning a spell around fates, as I said nothing of the sort.

 

I've...literally never had that happen.  I've accidentally Benedictioned myself, but that was my fault.  I wonder if you have been lagging when you tried to use the spell?  Are you using Mouseover Macros?  That's what I use, and it seems to work amazingly.

 

If you'd read my previous posts, you would've seen me espousing the benefits of mouseover macros to the OP. So yes. I'm very much aware of what they are and how they benefit healers. I also know that spells in ARR all have animations that must complete before the action actually goes off. This is how the game functions, not lag. You can try it for anything - Cure, Regen, Shroud of Saints, Benediction, PoM, whatever you want. All have animation times. They're usually masked by the cast time, but for instant spells, it means they are not truly instant. This is a verifiable phenomenon in how the game works.

 

 

Why is that bad?  No, seriously, why is that a bad thing?  Not everyone wants to cast damage spells as a healer.

 

 

It's not bad. You misunderstand me again, as I never said damage spells must in some way contribute to healing. However, you cannot pretend that dpsing in between heals actually lends some kind of flavor to the class when the damage spells don't synergize with your healing. They're just damage spells, nothing more. Casting them or not casting them changes nothing about how you as a WHM heal. They don't take away flavor and they don't add it. That is what I'm saying.

 

Telling a WHM to just dps in between heals to keep things interesting is as useful as telling a tank to heal between taunts and defensive CDs and generating aggro to keep things interesting.

 

[edit] Random aside: I run AK with a BRD tank for lols to try and "keep things interesting". That doesn't mean that WHM is intrinsically an interesting class design.

[AvaZope]

I would advise you to avoid the official Healer Forums, or else take it all with a big grain of salt. Because you will get a lot of very...definitive...answers along the lines of, "If you don't do what I do, you're terrible and bad and should delete your harddrive."

 

Sounds like most of the games' healing forums I've played, ha. That and the multiple "Our class is awful and the healing apocalypse is going to happen next patch" threads. All with different reasons, and opinions, of course.

[LiadansWhisper]

I've enjoyed reading this thread too. I was a resto druid and disc priest in WoW, which I loved, but finding this game a bit different. So thanks to you all for your input!

 

One question though, mouseover macros were my mainstay in WoW but the placement (which can be remedied) and size of party frames here makes me hesitant. Is there any way to spread them across like a hotbar or are you stuck with vertical party frames?

 

I'm not 100% sure what you're asking, but you can keybind your macros to your hotbars.  Just make sure to include the "/micon "spellname"" code at the top and it should show both the spell icon and CD.

[Naunet]

One question though, mouseover macros were my mainstay in WoW but the placement (which can be remedied) and size of party frames here makes me hesitant. Is there any way to spread them across like a hotbar or are you stuck with vertical party frames?

 

Unfortunately, party UI customization is extremely limited. I wish you could reorganize the layout, but alas - no can do. You'll take your single column and like it! xP

 

Though in encouragement, I haven't had issues with mouseover macros and the size of the party frames. Just wish we had more control over that part of the UI!

[LiadansWhisper]

It's not. For 266 mana, you can place a shield on a target that absorbs damage equal to 18% of the target's HP. If your tank is a PLD and let's say, for the sake of discussion, that they're in full Darklight, then they probably have ~5.5k HP. That's a whopping 990 damage abosrbed. My Cure I can crit for well over 1k HP and regularly heals for 800. My Cure II heals for ~1.3k and can crit for nearly 2k. Cure II has the same cost as Stoneskin. Cure II's cast time is also significantly less than Stoneskin's. This makes Stoneskin horribly inefficient in a mana:heal ratio unless your tank happens to be a WAR (which, if the tank has 8k HP, would mean your Stoneskin is absorbing 1440 damage). Stoneskin is a spell you cast at the start of a fight or when you have nothing else to heal and feel like buffering your tank's HP a bit (and then it's only really worthwhile if your tank happens to be a WAR).

 

But it's effective health.  :-\

 

I'd appreciate if you didn't talk down to me as though I were dim-witted, though, and have no understanding of what effective health is. I participated in progression raiding for years as a discipline priest; I know well the value of absorbs in healing. Stoneskin is just not that awesome a spell.

 

I'm not talking down to you.  I'm sorry that you feel that I am, but I'm truly not.  But you keep completely dismissing a spell that offers scaling Effective Health that will get more and more powerful as people gear up, and saying it's just not worth it because it doesn't "heal" for as much as Cure II.  Yet it's completely immune to overheal (which is it's secondary advantage) and effectively increases the health of your target over what they could otherwise reach of themselves.  That's huge.  Sure, it doesn't stand out particularly much (barring certain situations and the mana savings it provides, as well as the ability to "sit on your hands" to allow the tank to establish threat) in 4 mans.  But it's not really designed to reach its full potential in a 4 man.  And if you are as experienced as a Disc Priest as you say you are, you should know this.

 

Indeed. And healing threat is pretty much a non-issue as long as your tank is paying attention even the slightest bit. The only times I've ever pulled aggro as a healer have been moments where the tank ran in with Regen still ticking (which is not something they should be doing). It's simply not something to be concerned by.

 

Okay, well, all the other WHMs that I talk to that constantly bitch and moan about threat and pulling it must just be hallucinating.

 

I maintain that Cure III's range is far too short to be truly effective. 4y is nothing; it doesn't even cover melee range around the boss fully. I do like it as a spell; I just think the aoe range should be tweaked.

 

I'd like the aoe range to be increased, too.  I simply take issue with the spell being called useless and ineffective when it's not.

 

You love a single target DoT that is nothing more than a single target DoT and find that single target DoT "awesome"? Even though it's just something you toss out casually between healing? Opinions are opinions and all, but really. There's nothing awesome about Aero II. It has zero synergy with your healing, and if you didn't have Aero II, you wouldn't miss it as it adds nothing to your toolkit.

 

Not everything in our toolkit has to be awesome in every situation, or even in most situations.  Plus, what I consider awesome isn't necessary what you consider awesome, and that's okay.  We can disagree.

 

Ah, if this turns out to be the case, it would be wonderful news. Cause right now it does barely more than diddly squat. That said, I haven't seen anything from devs regarding this, so I won't get my hopes up.

 

Right now it's just flat doubling your Spell Speed, but the tooltip itself doesn't give an indication of how much it SHOULD be increasing.  So either it's another one of the spells intended to really only be useful after gear scales quite a bit, or there's something missing, as it doesn't make an appreciable difference for the length of the CD. A 5 minute CD for a 10 second boost to our Spell Speed that doesn't really reduce cast times (my Cure cast time goes from 1.91s to 1.56s) by an appreciable amount seems overkill.

 

Swiftcast happens to have an animation as well, which must follow through before a spell can be cast to use the buff. This means that for whatever you're using Swiftcast for, you must factor in the length of the Swiftcast animation as well as the animation for the chosen spell. Pop in-game and do it with Holy - you'll notice the exploding purply animation that initiates the damage happens about a second after you activate the Holy ability even with Swiftcast.

 

It's still way, way faster than casting Holy without it.

 

Not sure what you mean about tuning a spell around fates, as I said nothing of the sort.

 

You mentioned it was more effective for you to spam Aero in Fates.

 

If you'd read my previous posts, you would've seen me espousing the benefits of mouseover macros to the OP.

 

That doesn't mean you were using them when this occurred, which is why I asked.

 

So yes. I'm very much aware of what they are and how they benefit healers. I also know that spells in ARR all have animations that must complete before the action actually goes off. This is how the game functions, not lag. You can try it for anything - Cure, Regen, Shroud of Saints, Benediction, PoM, whatever you want. All have animation times. They're usually masked by the cast time, but for instant spells, it means they are not truly instant. This is a verifiable phenomenon in how the game works.

 

The Benediction cast goes off as the animation occurs.  The heal actually occurs midway during a very fast animation (I've tested this several times to confirm it's the case), not at the end.  I've never had it not go off at the right time when I was using it, except when it was coming up off CD and I was trying to mash it too soon.

 

It's not bad. You misunderstand me again, as I never said damage spells must in some way contribute to healing. However, you cannot pretend that dpsing in between heals actually lends some kind of flavor to the class when the damage spells don't synergize with your healing. They're just damage spells, nothing more. Casting them or not casting them changes nothing about how you as a WHM heal. They don't take away flavor and they don't add it. That is what I'm saying.

 

Do they need to add flavor?  The last thing I want is an Atonement in this game.  Like, seriously.

 

Telling a WHM to just dps in between heals to keep things interesting is as useful as telling a tank to heal between taunts and defensive CDs and generating aggro to keep things interesting.

 

Some people find DPSing interesting.  For them, it's entertaining.  Some others would instead say, "Hey tank, pull more stuff!" and they would find that absolutely interesting.  Still others would find spamming Holy mindlessly entertaining as hell.

 

[edit] Random aside: I run AK with a BRD tank for lols to try and "keep things interesting". That doesn't mean that WHM is intrinsically an interesting class design.

 

I get that you don't find it interesting.  I simply disagree with you.  I find WHM a very interesting class, and I enjoy it.

[LiadansWhisper]

One question though, mouseover macros were my mainstay in WoW but the placement (which can be remedied) and size of party frames here makes me hesitant. Is there any way to spread them across like a hotbar or are you stuck with vertical party frames?

 

Unfortunately, party UI customization is extremely limited. I wish you could reorganize the layout, but alas - no can do. You'll take your single column and like it! xP

 

Though in encouragement, I haven't had issues with mouseover macros and the size of the party frames. Just wish we had more control over that part of the UI!

 

I'm actually less irked by that aspect of the party bars as I am of the fact that the healthbar displayed in the party bar doesn't share the same ratio (I think that's the word I'm looking for) of health-to-health deficit that the bar you get when you manually select someone does.  What I mean by that is, health deficits look much smaller on the party bars, in relation to how much health the person has left, than they do if you manually select someone, and this throws me off.

 

I'm waiting for the Addon API to be done so we can get a raid frame replacement addon.  I've also noticed that debuffs aren't sorting correctly since the patch.  They frequently scroll off the 5 buff/debuff limit on the party frames, even if they're serious debuffs.

[Rinh Hallani]

I'm actually less irked by that aspect of the party bars as I am of the fact that the healthbar displayed in the party bar doesn't share the same ratio (I think that's the word I'm looking for) of health-to-health deficit that the bar you get when you manually select someone does.  What I mean by that is, health deficits look much smaller on the party bars, in relation to how much health the person has left, than they do if you manually select someone, and this throws me off.

 

I'm waiting for the Addon API to be done so we can get a raid frame replacement addon.  I've also noticed that debuffs aren't sorting correctly since the patch.  They frequently scroll off the 5 buff/debuff limit on the party frames, even if they're serious debuffs.

 

Yeah, I noticed that too, regarding the health deficit. As for the frames, well, I'll cope in the meantime then.

 

Edit: Reading back, I meant what Naunet referred to: size and direction of party frames for mouseovers. I know how to make macros and move them to my hotbar but I don't like the size and placement. Placement, ok, I can move, but size and direction, hnngghhh. As I said though, I'll wait and hope for a change.

[AvaZope]

I'm waiting for the Addon API to be done

 

 

There are addons?

[Naunet]

I've also noticed that debuffs aren't sorting correctly since the patch.  They frequently scroll off the 5 buff/debuff limit on the party frames, even if they're serious debuffs.

 

It's particular debuffs that are affected - most notably, the one that decreases healing done on the one afflicted. Dev posts have implied they're aware of the issue, so hopefully it's fixed swiftly.

 

I cannot wait for addons. The buff/debuff part of the party UI makes me cringe. That and all of the superfluous information.