The Intermediate Sprout's guide to healing! Tips to healing and DPSing more as a new WHM / AST / SCH

It's time to cover the best job in the game: healer. Do you enjoy being god? Holding the power over who lives and who dies in the party? Out-damaging tanks with your big crits while single-handedly keeping DPS players alive? Then the healer role was made for you. As a slightly-above-average glare mage, I shall attempt to teach you the basics and intermediate concepts of how to really play as a healer.
Not sure who the artist for the meme at 9:33 is, but I love that meme. If you know them, please comment so I can give them credit =w=
---
Skip to:
00:00 Fun Intro
1:19 The Role of the Healer
1:38 Should healers DPS? Why do we need to DPS?
3:47 DPS Tips (AOE, Dots, single target)
5:39 Super Basic healing 101
6:17 Dealing with big pulls
7:04 MITIGATION
8:40 Rezzing
9:47 Weaving!
11:33 Useless Abilities
11:59 Rescue
12:57 Healer Limit Break
14:49 Summary
15:42 Outro & Shameless plugs
16:01 Begging for subs mmkay
---
Resources & Links:
My live stream: / alzahard
My (still empty) discord server: / discord
Zeke's Guide to Clipping & Weaving: • Clipping and Weaving |... -- Zeke's whole channel is an amazing resource for all healer concepts. 100% recommended.
SaltedXIV written & visual guide on weaving: saltedxiv.com/guides/whm#roll...
Lynx's guide to dungeon healing & max DPS: • FFXIV: The Optimal Gui... -- very good if you're comfortable with the role and are ready to go big.
Rinon's guide to healer openers and rotations: • FFXIV: Shadowbringers ... - super comprehensive and in-depth. Start here for learning your level 80 openers and rotations!

[@teabagjesus284]

For the love of everything that is holy, never EVER use Benefic I / Cure I / Physick once you learn your better hard cast heals (Benefic II, Cure II, Adloquin). It is a waste of mana and time. You should be burning through your instant cast heals first, and if the tank is still getting swamped, then use heavier hard cast heals. Because of recast time the fast cast bar is a lie. You get to do your next action in the same time as you would if you'd used a better spell. Should the once in a million situation arise where you only have time to drop that Cure 1 before the tank falls, you (or the tank) have already screwed up before because that little puff of healing ain't gonna stop shaite. Otherwise a solid guide and welcome to the wondrous world of FFXIV healing!

[@teabagjesus284]

That being said, there is a short while on WHM before you learn Regen that there is an incentive to use Cure I for the proc (lvl 30-35). Even then you shouldn't really need it with a smart use of Cure II.

[@AlZahard]

I used to take the rank 1 single-target GCD heal off my hotbar until my static's PLD needed me to proc divine veil on demand. I wish I had the time to discuss which heals to prioritize per job, but that'd add another 10 minutes to the video. Thanks for pointing it out!

[@kvsyr6130]

Would you recommend to remove the rank 1 heals in the bar entirely?

[@teabagjesus284]

@@kvsyr6130 if you only play higher level content, yes, especially on SCH (no idea why they keep Physick). As the other commenter pointed out, you need them in your hotbar if you run lower level content. Personally when I still ran low lvl:s I put them into the hotbar for the dungeon and then plucked em back out, I like my hotbar's clean :)

[@teabagjesus284]

@@AlZahard oh yea this is definitely the outlier situation! Love the synergies you find in statics

[@AnaRustenholtz]

Honestly I believe healing is harder than tanking. Tanking is only the less played role because it's often the role seen as the "Lead". Most people don't want the responsibility of leading, hence fewer tanks. Tanking, as long as all the enemy targets are red and targeted on you, you're doing your job. Using mitigation when needed of course. I can zone out when tanking a lot because I'm focused on one thing. Healing is harder because it's more like herding cats, instead of leading dogs (which is referencing to tanks pulling enemies to them). Players are a lot more unpredictable than enemy mobs and many a sprout has taken aoe damage or run away with a stack markers, adding more to a healers plate. My mind as a healer is trying to focus on multiple things at once and causes more mental stress than when I tank. As a tank, I rush in, get all aggro with one or two aoe's, use a mitigation or two, and zone out while enemies are burned down. Not nearly as much critical thinking as when I heal.

[@Evycakez]

I agree. I started off as gladiator and I didn't like the fact that I had to lead. it felt awkward and would rather just follow and support. I wanted to stay away from healing cuz I personally had a stigma that healers didn't do much they just stood back and cast spells every now and then. So I was summoner. Was alright, fun. I tried scholar for shits and giggles and somewhere along the line I just stuck with it and got my ass beat cuz I wasn't timing my cooldowns right. It Def is way harder. I thought dps was fun and easy, but as healer ur in charge of everyone's health, but mostly urs and tanks health. And if dps doesn't avoid aoe damage, it makes it harder to heal.

[@patrickstar2027]

I hate tanking because the party is always faster and less careful than me. I feel more in control of the situation as a healer

[@peachy7776]

yep, tanking is far easier than healing simply because attention does not need to be paid to teammates and enemies

[@goranlazarevic2613]

@@peachy7776 100%

[@Leaky_Spigot]

Purely playing devils advocate here, but if “Leading” the party is part of the tank’s role, shouldn’t that be factored into weather the job is easier? Tanks have to pay attention (albeit a bit less probably) to those same sprouts pulling aggro from avoidable trash. Additionally, I prefer healing/DPS a dungeon before I’m comfortable in it because my tactics don’t change much; heal up tank, hit enemies till dead, avoid mechanics. Tanks have that as well, but instead of following, they lead and set pace, which is its own skill. It takes knowledge of the dungeon and your healer to run it effectively. Pull too much, you wipe (or at least severely stress your healer) pull too little and the dungeon drags on longer than it needs to. Honestly, I probably agree with your initial assessment overall, but I think the roles are closer in challenge than implied.

[@DixxyV]

Thing that many people don't know: you get invulnerability buff after you get raised for 5-6 seconds. This buff stays the entire duration as long as you don't use a skill or no one uses a skill on you. So if you get raised into an AoE, don't panic, just don't do anything.

[@SubduedRadical]

The one problem with that is I always am watching the buff tick away, and it ALWAYS ticks off JUST BEFORE the AOE hits. XD One thing to note is you CAN move (and I think you can use Sprint) and not lose the debuff. So you can still run away from an AOE, even if you're crossing your fingers hoping the invuln will last through it. Just to hedge your bets.

[@Tequilaselaii]

“Healing requires about 50% less brain cells compared to tanks” *confused single brain cell tank noises*

[@V2ULTRAKill]

FELL CLEAVE?

[@Tequilaselaii]

@@V2ULTRAKill tru but I play PLD.

[@V2ULTRAKill]

@@Tequilaselaii *sad fell cleave noises*

[@Tequilaselaii]

@@V2ULTRAKill one day I’ll opt for the lobotomy

[@Kuroganemk2]

Really? I always felt that healing required more and I play both lol, tanking is somewhat easy xD

[@brandoncomer6492]

Healing is definitely harder than tanking probably 80% of the time.

[@rudycampos976]

Agreed!

[@witchdoctorteepo]

100 percent!

[@jadephillips2505]

Yep, stopped getting nervous about tanking after four dungeons, easily maxed war and pal, but still get jittery queuing for a healer. still haven't managed to hit lvl 70 on any healer. Just way more pressure. Tanks don't even seem to care if you're a sprout. Wall-to-wall pulls, runs out of range, wipe, shouts in chat. Good times.

[@witchdoctorteepo]

@@jadephillips2505 Aye try the sum/sch combo. You can lvl the sum up on open world and use the sch only for group content. You learn 2 classes and always have 2 classes lvling at the same time. I think learning ANY new class will help you learn other classes as well. Not knowing what to do is partly what causes the anxiety but once you get the basics down, healing becomes 2nd nature. I just quit healing because I like tanking better, it just vibes with my personality. Learn whatever class that looks awesome to you and you will be fine. Promise!

[@witchdoctorteepo]

Why do you people not like other people's post? Come on now, it takes 1 second to show some love.

[@AeonzAgaze]

Dealing damage is the 3rd most important thing. Staying alive is second. Cant heal or do damage if your dead, and more often than not if you die , so does your party.

[@TianarTruegard]

I would argue, keeping self alive is first priority. Can't heal your party or DPS if you're dead. 2nd priority is healing your party. 3rd priority is dps.

[@AdeptPaladin]

@@TianarTruegard I’d make a small correction. Your second priority isn’t healing your party, it’s keeping them alive. If your party is in no risk of dying, do damage. If they are, do only what is needed to mitigate that death and nothing more. A single regen, oGCD heal or whatever tool you reach for, then back to damage. Health is a resource. If your party is sitting at full health, you’re not utilizing it well. The only HP that matters is the last one!

[@SubduedRadical]

@@AdeptPaladin yes but also no. Depending on the content, there are threshholds you need people to be above so they don't die to unavoidable mechanics. And when doing things in DF/PuGs, there are often times people take avoidable damage as well. A DPS dying, having to be Raised, and suffering the res sickness debuff, is a bigger DPS loss than a healer skipping a GCD Glare/Broil/Malific to cast a heal instead. While few things will take a party member from 100% to 0%, many things will take a party member from 70% to 0%. So it's important to keep people above whatever that is, and "topped off" is always guaranteed to meet that requirement unless people are severely undergeared. Here is where whether you have a Static or are doing a PuG that you haven't run content for and are on the first pull makes a difference. Healers have to adjust to the party, not the other way around.

[@Snowy123]

The healer is the one who carries the tank therefore carries the party.

[@javaras6674]

The tank is the one who absorbs the damage thus keeping the party alive including healer therefore carries the party. Everyone carries the party including dps hitting damage thresholds.

[@emergencyroomandy9425]

@@javaras6674 no healers bis

[@jaschahebrock6159]

Its Teamwork everyone has his things to do

[@bg8006]

But they always get the commendation

[@ocoolwow]

Lol no children the healer is the backbone of the party

[@InsaneChair]

Tanking would never be harder than healing, because when party dies ppl usually think, "oh, we died because we were underhealed" and never "oh, we died because we were undertanked" and will never admit, that "I died because i am stupid and blind and decided to eat all the aoes and avoidable damage". No way tanks meet that level of problems.

[@PressXtoPlayMain]

What people think about deaths hardly matter on what's harder or not. It's unfair? Okay, but not necessarily harder.

[@tomtimko9185]

It's funny because when I tank, even if I think we under healed the pull I apologize to the healer for messing up tanking. Healers catch enough shit from dps, they dont need to hear it from tanks too

[@PMK94]

As an AST main, I want to emphasize how nice Essential Dignity (the instant-cast single-target heal) is; it's on just a 40s cooldown, base potency is 400 but scales up to 1100 as the target's HP gets lower, you get 2 charges of it at lv78 and *it's available even in the lowest-level dungeons*. If you get a dungeon like Sastasha as an AST, Essential Dignity can be the only heal you ever need to cast. Probably also confuses/scares sprout tanks and arcanists, but, worth it

[@AlZahard]

Essential Dignity is /so good/. There's something satisfying about letting your tank drop below 40% only to weave it after a damage GCD. Makes me hate Tetragrammaton all the more. Leveling AST really made WHM feel underwhelming at times.

[@Maken-X]

As a WHM who recently started leveling AST recently, I totally feel this. I'm like, 'Whaaa? AST gets a 40s CD Benediction?' Also, thanks so much for this (green) DPS guide!

[@vampbl7291]

@@Maken-X bene is way more powerful than ED, ED is cool and all but is not even close to bene.

[@julicen]

I play every class and hence every role in the game and thought I would voice my opinion. Healer's barrier to entry is much lower than that of tank but healers have the highest skill ceiling. A healer is the maker or breaker of any run a tank isnt always so. A crappy tank can be carried by his healer but a crappy healer can almost never be carried. (Except if u play paladin and hard carry your healers)

[@AlZahard]

Truuuuue (but DPS players will disagree). Pumping out 14k DPS as a AST while playing cards every 20s is insane APM while you're also keeping your party alive.

[@JetEriksen]

Correction. Warrior in SHB content can solo heal themselves, thus adding them to the list of jobs that can carry themselves.

[@V2ULTRAKill]

@@JetEriksen FELL CLEAVE??

[@JetEriksen]

@@V2ULTRAKill No, Nascent Flash.

[@V2ULTRAKill]

@@JetEriksen *sad fell cleave noises*

[@arisurec]

I tried healing yesterday and everyone died. Some died twice on the same fight. After watching this guide I'll try healing again later today and give an update.

[@AlZahard]

Don't be discouraged! Try again and spam those heals.

[@dantelundell9386]

Remember, you can't heal stupid

[@AlZahard]

@@dantelundell9386 we'll try anyway :p

[@maxspecs]

Remember, if the DPS die it's not your fault, they shouldn't be taking damage in the first place.

[@dantelundell9386]

@@maxspecs Actually, DPS should be greeding as much dps as possible as long as said greed doesn't lead to their death, that includes sometimes taking unecessary, but survivable, damage. Saying "it's never your fault" or "X should never take damage" is unhelpful at best, and downright misinformation at worst. It can, and will sometimes be your fault. Damage will be taken. If the expectation would be that noone should ever take any damage we'd have a very different game, and community.

[@zovamou4873]

"3-4 damage buttons" oh hey, someone who recognizes assyze and afflatus misery

[@AlZahard]

Those are my favorite buttons :D

[@JetEriksen]

Best buttons in the game.

[@someclevername8167]

The other healers need similar moves to these. Would make Healer dps feel a lot better imo

[@ShinkuNoKishi]

Quick correction, AST should use their AoE spells when facing 2 targets. Gravity on 2 targets is 140 x 2 = 280, Malefic is 240. SCH can Broil and then Art of War to weave, which would be using art of war most of the time anyway. Only WHM uses strictly Glare over Holy on 2 targets because Glare is 300 potency while Holy on 2 targets is 280. (You might still want to holy every now and then for the stun if applicable).

[@dubs6889]

Art of war is 160, Broil is 290 so SCH also AOE's 2 target

[@masterpepin]

This has been really helpful, thanks man! I only started playing last week, and haven't played an MMO for about 5 years so it's pretty overwhelming coming into FFXIV so late, but having resources like your videos is giving me hope I can get a little better. Just have to get over my tank anxiety a little :D I tend to have to psych myself up for 10 minutes before I actually join a queue at this point. On a side note though, big shout out to the community I've interacted with so far. Of all the dungeons I've run, and the random shouts for daft questions, everyone has been super helpful and even running dungeons for the first time I expected to get a bit of grief but, to my surprise, it's actually been a lot of fun.

[@peekjz145]

Man I wish when I started playing FF14 a while back, when I was just tiny sprout, I have these video guides to watch. These guides that you are pumping out is so good. It is clear, concise, and is very helpful. Can't wait for your other videos \o/.

[@AlZahard]

Glad I could help! More coming soon

[@oneadventurersjourney2777]

As someone who’s played every role in both dungeons and raids, healing is significantly more complicated than tanking

[@V2ULTRAKill]

Naw I just ignore your health except to feed my blood lily

[@janelantestaverde2018]

Eh, I find it much easier :D

[@belphegor_dev]

Nope.

[@aiellamori]

Duty started Rush in ahead of the tanks DoT the boss Presence of Mind Stone the boss Assize the boss Place asylum or something, idk Kill boss There's your level 60 WHM guide

[@lokifrostpaw2976]

@@aiellamoriyou forgot these in-between those: - have dps standing in shits - have a tank not popping CDs - have first-timers as party members; 3 (in dungeons)/6 or more (in trials/raids) - have 2 tanks competing for aggro so the the boss keeps turning and everyone suffers - have the tank and co-healer keep dying Healing is more fun in random groups, cause you don’t know who will mess up and 💀

[@CityColourr]

Hey dude! Just re: you not thinking you’d get this far - you deserve every success you get! Your videos are great, informative and easy to digest. Thanks for all your help!

[@leosabat4636]

i love your character face has a look like if not reely there . Like thinking in grocery list " ok i need to buy more meat for dinner?...mm"

[@AGrumpyWitch]

These guides are incredibly helpful, thank you

[@AlZahard]

Glad you like them!

[@Psoewish]

Idk why I’m watching this video considering WHM is my main already. Love me some green dps though, especially Holy is such a fun button to press :)

[@aar021]

Great video Al. Thank you for the content.

[@3l1133]

Ty so much for this video. Im a newbie its been 3 weeks since I started. Its my first MMO things come up kinda complicated but Im a healer main in all kinds of games so I thought I can figure out somehow. But Im a lvl 58 SCH now and I wasnt sure if I am doing my job right or nah. With the help of your video I can climb that healer adventure for higher levels. Again tysm, I wish your channel gets bigger cuz you deserve it.

[@AlZahard]

Thank you! Enjoy your time as a sprout :D

[@seanpaisen]

LOOOOVE YOUR VIDEOS!! Always so well made and informative ^__^

[@AlZahard]

thank you fam!

[@thepsionicist]

Please make more guides. Thank you for this one!

[@babaspector]

thanks. ill be waiting for the DPS video. also congratz on the 1k subs

[@AlZahard]

Thanks man! DPS video should be like... 10 minutes tops because all DPS have the same fundamentals. I hope.

[@johnnygraz4712]

Aaand that's a sub. Am just about to try healing for the first time and this guide is exactly what I need.

[@Kag001]

Healer LB = In Case of Emergency Break Glass (then prepare to die as the boss turns and one-shots your *ss with that tank-buster he's been saving).

[@Murasame13]

80 hours into the game as a WHM, glad to see this video. :) Edit: I'm surprised to see weaving as an intermediate concept.. I figured everyone would just naturally weave because.. why not!? That LB 3 example was such a wet dream for any healer.

[@AlZahard]

Weaving comes pretty naturally for people that actually bothered looking up their rotations and have some background playing other MMO games, but a lot of sprouts use OGCDs as if they're GCDs and suffer for it in the long run. I actually got an even better LB3 example a few days after I posted this... will use it for a future video about healing :D

[@Mejandora]

@@AlZahard I think a lot of new healer suffer because of some elitist telling them they are dps first and should only heal with oGCD and using GCD heals is bad. So they are new in healing, new in the game, maybe the first time in a specific dungeon, not knowing whats going on and they try to not be a 'bad healer' because of using GCD heals and then everything goes south and they start to blame themselfs. Its good to hear the advise from you to new healer to feel comfortable with healing first and dps comes second.

[@Tessa_Ru]

*raises hand* I was one of those a few years ago. Didn't understand that the ABC referred only to gcd spells. I felt really stupid for a long time when I finally found a guide that explained why lol.

[@Halinspark]

Party member-specific Rescue macros is genius.

[@shinywave]

Extremely helpful, thank you

[@Bluepaccao]

Great video!

[@peterphane]

Putting rescue on your hot bar by there names is a brilliant idea. 👏

[@AlZahard]

I forgot who I yoinked the idea from, but I was looking up some big DPS WHM POV videos and saw someone have it setup like that. It's been super valuable for me :D

[@kfk4441]

A quick tip for new healers, try to practice weaving as much as you can, specially double weaving. I started as main whm and improved a ton when switched on scholar at 60 content for a while , that job gives great weaving practice since you won't heal that much if you don't... And at lvl 60 content there's a lot of SCH weaving opportunities and options

[@SlayPlenty]

Love sch

[@shaydesofblue2281]

Weaving? Double weaving? As a newbie, no idea what you're talking about. Pretty much dodging right or moving a lot?

[@kfk4441]

@@shaydesofblue2281 Weaving means using skills inside the Global Cooldown. For example if you use afflatus solace or regen (whm) you can use benediction/tetragramation inmediately, even though most of your cooldown habilites have 2.5s left to be used again. That cooldown of most of your skills is called Global cooldown, there are some skills that are not part of that global cooldown so you can use them between that wait time. That's called weaving. . In theory you can use 2 not global skills between that 2.5s time frame, that's a double weave. . . . . Why is this important? It saves you time, you can cast 6 skills in 5s instead of only 2. You might have saved just "a couple of seconds" but if you consider how long our battles are the numbers add up quickly. . . Just in case, global cooldowns are usually typed as GCD and off global cooldowns oGCD

[@kfk4441]

Srry for the wall of text, I really think the game really should explain this. This is extremely important gameplay introduced at Heavensward

[@shaydesofblue2281]

@@kfk4441 ah I understood everything. Thanks for the information.

[@IamProvocateur]

I just wanna say as a sprout and brand new MMO player I thoroughly appreciate every yoink I get. I play healer too. I haven’t done it yet. I still APPRECIATE.

[@DatBoiPinky]

thnx a ton super helpful! please consider doing a video about setting up ui/hud!

[@Irimu_]

So I'm doing it right. Great to know.

[@Kuroganemk2]

For 'mitigation' on WHM I like to lag a bit behind the boss's castbar with my aoe heal so it instantly pops right after their attack goes through for an instant heal.

[@Mawww_MMD]

ok so i'm not dumb and i played well my healer exept for minor thing like weaving but know i will search for this and become a better heal =D. i really love this game, curently leveling my first character and job lvl 67 for now. The story is really good as expected =D.

[@passitoff420]

Hey dude I love your guides. Helped me a ton as a new player. I have a super important question that is killing me. What hair style does your character have??? I can't seem to use it

[@zeening]

i really wouldnt worry about the length of videos, if its got really good information about the jobs and roles like this people will watch it. also the only kind of advice i could give for presentation is maybe try to add a little more "pep" in your voice, can get veryyyyyy monotous when speaking for awhile which is a problem i have as well lol.

[@AlZahard]

100% agree - I've been working on sounding livelier haha. I think it's because when you do a couple dozen of takes for audio and are splicing in-between, the process drags out and I get tired of saying shit over and over. I think I sound much more alive on stream than I do in videos currently, but I'm working on it. Thank you for the feedback!

[@witchdoctorteepo]

Healing is ultra fun in this game but I moved to gunbreaker class and haven't went back to healing. Healing is tough!

[@KoNekoNoUta]

i remember the day we have to use skill to change MND->INT to deal damage. then change back to MND to heal. Thank god its gone...

[@callmeobsequious]

Cleric Stance momence.

[@tommyrobitaille2475]

I have so much respect for rescue user, each time it happens to me (Yeah I should'nt gloat) I'm amazed at the reflex of a healer tbh

[@lynx3418]

Solid guide in my opinion. Out of the three healers, as of Shadowbringers AST is actually pretty busted especially with their mitigation called Neutral Sect. Unlike Seraph and Temperance where you cannot stack their mitigation if they have a double WHM or SCH, AST is a lot more lenient as they get away with it with their sect. So long both healers are on different sects, then both Neutral Sect can be stacked with each other. This is because they're considered as seperate spells that can be be stack, so Diurnal Neutral Sect and Nocturnal Neutral Sect. Also to note is that when going to Diurnal Neutral Sect, it's shield which is called Aspected Nocturnal is in fact the only shield that can stack with SCH Adlo/Succor. Stack enough of this and do their proper opener rotation AST/SCH can pretty much make everyone take zero damage and heal everyone without using their GCD in the first minute of the fight.

[@KochieCha]

0:30 that t-Rex

[@daviewaviee6079]

"Green dps 💚" I'll never be able to shake WHM as my main healer. Nothing sexier than whacking a boss or a mob with a 130-140k Kamehamehafflatus 😎🌸 * *screams in Direct Hit melds* *

[@AlZahard]

On the other hand, getting 3x 70k Misery hits in a fight is depressing... RNG is truly a pain sometimes.

[@robsusername1042]

This. All of this.

[@davidsabillon5182]

Like commented and subscribed 👍

[@TrueHunter999]

Depends on the player but i find both healing and tanking fairly easy to play rather than a dps class. This is because i find it way harder keeping up and executing a dps opener + rotation cause there are plenty buttons to smash and many of them if you end up fucking it up, you basically have a wacky rotation for the entire instance. That being said i haven't tried healing on a savage/ultimate fight, but i do tank those and i have to admit that for savage at least, healing wouldn't be hard and same goes for tanking. Also once everyone knows what they're doing, you can get away by casting very few gcd heals and you can pretty much dps the entire fight which makes healer role "easy" to play. As you've said in the video, best way of mitigating is killing things fast

[@kiretan8599]

If the tank isnt gonna die, im gonna cast my malefic thank you very much

[@youuugeneh4831]

I can easily heal large groups with ast/whm and still dps, but it gets so dicey on sch. After the use of my aetherflow stacks, do I just spam aldo until its manageable to dps?

[@806BK]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/rXaUcqxuotKJeJo

[@AlZahard]

It's already been linked, but watch Momo's guide on SCH in dungeons. It's really good.

[@126644]

On sch use everything on groups the tank will be taking most damage and in situations where you need to aoe heal you got indom and fey blessing, for single super heals you recit + excog, emergency tactics + adlo, recit + emergency tactics + adlo, and aetherpact. For shields you got succor, seraph/consolation and now recently expedient.

[@126644]

I usually start by casting succor then spamming art of War and weave a lucid dreaming there for me when the tanks hp gets too low I'll use recite + excog then I'll pop sacred for extra healing and mitigation, then I'll cast Lustre here and there in between art of wars if the tank gets to about 50% by the time I've exhausted pretty all of my aether flow abilities your fairy gauge should be at full so you can use aether pact

[@laurenlunamar4729]

For SCH with slotting should we have high crit

[@806BK]

Crit > Direct hit = determination

[@laurenlunamar4729]

@@806BK ty

[@molovesmusic567]

i think healing is both fun and a pain in the butt. honestly i like using my WHM more to help out players who are losing health during fates 🤷🏻‍♀️

[@starblaiz1986]

Ah yes, my favourite healing spell: Holy. If you know, then you know ;)

[@justini3847]

good video and good info, but should we be using last evolution names of abilities on a video aimed at new healers? i play whm primarily nearly level 80 and even i get glare and dia mixed up in conversation sometimes. for new White Mages watching this Glare= Stone Dia= Areo just in their most evolved form

[@AlZahard]

That... I kinda forgot about, thanks for pointing it out! I've been so used to using the level 80 stuff that I forgot to change their names.

[@noamto]

Hi, very interesting guide, but I it really isn't reflecting what I see where I am. I am relatively new and got just got to level 50+ with a scholar, and I barely had any opportunity to actually do damage in any of the recent high level content. Especially in dungeons, for example in the level 45 and 50 MSQ dungeons if I cast Ruin then the tanks would go from full health to dead or nearly dead just during those 2.5 seconds, and then I'll have another mob hitting me to since I have to stay in place. Also most of the group just keeps running around the place and I lose line of sight or they go out of casting range. Also the constant running doesn't allow me to heal/shield properly. I can see how doing damage works against a boss where the party stays in the same place and there's not a lot of running around, and I can deal damage with my DoT which is instacast and then from time to time cast Ruin safely. When fighting mob groups, if I try to AoE I must get close and stand in the middle of them, and then I either die to AoE or need to waste time dodging AoE and not casting anything, or I get agroed and need to run around in circles to avoid dying. I know I've got the fairy that is supposed to be healing too but her normal heals barely do anything and her AoE skills barely affect anyone because the party is so spread. Maybe this is because of the level, because I'm new and don't know those dungeons while the rest of the party just want to speed run through it and I have no idea where anyone is going. Especially confusing in an 8 man when the group suddenly splits and I don't know with whom I need to go. Maybe it's because I'm only level 50 content so I don't even have most of the skills discussed here, but this used to be a full build for endgame at some point, so was it different back then when it was endgame? Or maybe just Scholar is hard, I don't know...

[@GioDudeReviews]

Healer is much harder than tanking. You have to heal tank + heal DPS mistakes + plus DPS + not die yourself. A good tank will almost always have some form of damage mitigation up at all times and it is much more forgiving for it.

[@7secondstiltheend160]

I have my GLM at level 40 still going through Realm Reborn. Tanking seems too hard.i have my CNJ at 41 seeking of change that to my main, what you think?

[@AlZahard]

Black Mage is quite fun, but I'm a White Mage main so that's always what I'd recommend. Make sure you unlock the White Mage soul stone though, don't be stuck as a level 41 Conjurer!

[@someclevername8167]

Tanking seems difficult at first, but pick it up, and you’ll find it’s actually the easiest role once you get the hang of it. All you gotta do is keep your tank stance up, and attack as you usually would. Oh and defensive cooldowns should be used periodically to reduce damage taken. If you ever wanna try it out, there are plenty of great guides out there! :D

[@miroku1258]

BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD LILY!!!

[@cainejw]

Healers have do DPS, heal, mitigate for the group/themselves, do mechanics, manage their MP, and know the fight very intimately to appropriate time things like Star, Deployment, and wings. Sometimes we're even the ones calling out the fight while managing multiple resources such as cards, aetherflow, and lilies AND being the ones screamed at for not doing enough and needing to do more. All while sometimes fighting the very mechanics of our jobs -- faeries eating GCDs/oGCDs, cards not giving seals.

[@ririsou2887]

whats that blue barrier ability used at 2:32?

[@AlZahard]

That's Asylum, a WHM ability. Heals anyone standing inside and amplifies healing magic.

[@trvp73]

I have a level 80 blm and have a level 57 ast. This video is for me right

[@AlZahard]

This video was made for ya!

[@zinogama5084]

So I am pretty New to scholar and scholar is my first healer that I leveled to 80 and I am still trying to find a Balance for myself between healing and dpsing but I use broil more than my heals most of the time so I'd say I am a Broilmage

[@AlZahard]

Hey man, if your party isn't dying you're free to broil all day. Scholar's a little tricky as your shields are your strongest parts of the kit, so anticipating damage is important.

[@becnimi]

My starting class was WHM 😭but I'm still here lmaoi

[@raymondluca7779]

even in wow if the mobs die fast the less heals you have to do

[@dangeki5902]

Whats that rescue macro

[@126644]

Honestly and I should probably max out a 2nd tank just to have that experience(currently working on drk) but with my gnb is so easy I get bored outside bosses I turn on stance, I spam aoes and just keep my mitigation up, during boss fights it's just single hit moves and mitigation, healer is more difficult.

[@bigbachi6789]

I wanna main a healer is the dps rotation as boring as people say it is? It seems like you got a good 6 abilities to switch thru

[@AlZahard]

Errr. It’s a pretty basic rotation for most of them, yeah. I think WHM has the most damage buttons but gets punished the most for using them.

[@Y3zzir]

Good ass video bruh

[@zeehart]

Where can I get that dress at the intro?

[@AlZahard]

That's the Replica Dreadwyrm Robe of Healing. It's craftable - or you can buy it on the market board. Or if you're so inclined, it also drops from one of the Bahamut raids.

[@zeehart]

@@AlZahard Thanks for the info! I've just got it from T13.

[@callmeobsequious]

I'm glad most of us are in agreement that healing is harder than tanking. The skill floor is pretty low, sure (maybe not like BLM or DNC low, but still) but the skill ceiling is honestly why I don't play healer until I know a harder dungeon well enough.

[@molagballin_]

Playing healer is made a lot more hectic in 95% of runs by everyone being intent on soaking as much avoidable damage as possible, then blaming you when they die.

[@veyora1641]

This this this ❤

[@veyora1641]

I literaly barely pulled through after letting them know this was my first run and he still ran helter skelter through it all and I had to mad cast and hoped I made it. After he said gj for keeping up with me but I was pissed. Too much pressure on someone with a sprout who already said they didn't know what they where doing.

[@AzurKutsuu]

I'm gonna guess no one has ever used Repose to interrupt an ability before? I assume most bosses are at least immune, but it's useful on some trash mobs stuff

[@NyanPoptartCat]

Repose interrupts the trash mob in Haukke Manor that opens with an AoE attack. Ask me how I know.

[@Roanoak]

I tank and heal for me I get way more stressed when I’m healing …

[@melaniemohr6311]

Love the purple outfit. What is that?

[@AlZahard]

Replica Dreadwyrm Robe of Healing... and the rest of the set!

[@KILLRAIN42]

My only experience with rescue as a tank has been impatient healers in dungeons I've never run before yanking my chain to pull me further ahead into more mobs like I'm a dog on a leash because they don't think I'm going fast enough. With no words, mind you. Instead of just saying we can pick up the pace or saying they're confident in healing me they just silently pull me out of groups right after I get aggro and make me miss abilities and get out of whack because its unexpected. I may not do wall to wall pulls all the time but it's not like I'm pulling slow as a snail. It's just rude impatience while I'm trying to learn which I always open with in a new dungeon. I always say first time here apologies in advance if it's my first time running something. I've never been saved by a rescue pull, just had my chain yanked. I would just leave those groups but I'm not about to risk getting reported for abandoning a roulette party.

[@AlZahard]

You can abandon roulette parties, but the game penalizes you if you do by not allowing you to queue for a while. No one's gonna report you, and even if they did, leaving isn't a punishable offense. Black list those players and take solace in the fact that they're the assholes, not you :)

[@someclevername8167]

If I’m healing (which is rare) I only really use rescue if I place down my heal bubble and the tank won’t stay in it

[@JS-kr7zy]

I don't understand, you're saying healer is easier than tank? I play on controller and the idea of playing anything but tank looks like a lot more work to me.

[@AlZahard]

I've never played on controller but all my friends that do play on controller hate playing healer too - so that's a factor, I guess. Apparently targeting party members is a real pain in the ass on controller?

[@ManhNguyen-vd5qj]

Yeah on controller it's totally different. You gotta ration what buttons you put in there, two sets (16 per set) for your job and one set shared throughout all your jobs for limit breaks. Any more than that and you're just cycling too much through your cross bar to get to the right ability to press. With all of that said I find it more enjoyable on the controller because of the difficulty.

[@JS-kr7zy]

@@AlZahard all targeting is done with the dpad, left-right for general/enemy targets, up-down for party, and L1+up-down for agro list. Party targeting is actually the easiest, but unless you are a literal bot you will never be close to as fast as a simple click or hotkey. Plus is you want to dps you are now juggling two different target lists, one that changes based on camera position, and trying to weave spells to both. DPS and tank are basically only concerned with targeting a single enemy, using one list, or at least spending 99% of their time on one list.

[@someclevername8167]

@@ManhNguyen-vd5qj no you don’t. Enabling WXHB’s (Double Cross Hotbars) solves that issue. I forget exactly how you do it, but I do know that it’s in Character settings, then Hotbar settings. That gives you a whole other 16 buttons to work with

[@NabsterHax]

Bit of a nitpick, but pre-casting regen on a tank doing pulls can be annoying AF, because a regen will cause any enemies the tank didn't hit yet to just bee-line to the healer. In dungeons where mobs are spread out and can't be all hit with a single AOE it makes it really obnoxious to tag all them when, without the regen, they'd normally just run towards you as the tank and naturally group up. At the VERY least if you pull aggro as healer like this, do the tank a favour and pull your aggro'ed enemies into his AOEs, and never ever just start running around like a headless chicken. Ideally, place shields BEFORE the tank starts pulling anything and regens after he's tagged all the mobs. If tank needs heals between packs during a big pull, just throw out a single heal to top them up while they're running.

[@ryno4ever433]

Eh, I disagree with your take. Tank has a ranged pull and aoe, and getting aggro takes one ability because it's been oversimplified. If precasting regen is causing problems, it's the tanks fault not the healers.

[@bophadesknutz7798]

@@ryno4ever433 Hes not wrong, no good tank pulls with their ranged in dungeons. its just easier to run up to the mobs and aoe, having a regen makes it annoying. Although its not even a big deal since you can just right click the regen off.

[@ryno4ever433]

@@bophadesknutz7798 The point of the ranged pull is that if a mob runs off toward the healer (it won't btw with the way aggro works nowadays) you can just ranged pull it back to you. Or you can just spam your aoe on everything like you'd probably do anyway to get it back. It's just a silly criticism with the current state of the game. If we were playing with ARR aggro or something, I'd get it.

[@Vazik05]

As a healer, if I have a regen on the tank before they pull, I will purposefully run to them to make sure they get aggro back immediately. Sometimes I do this just to keep the group moving but top off the tank between pulls. Not saying it's the "best" idea, but If I do it, intentionally or not, I go straight to the tank so it's a nonissue. I won't add more stress to them having to hunt down adds because I'm 8 miles away and had regen on them lol.

[@NabsterHax]

@@Vazik05 This is good practice anyway. Unfortunately many newer healers panic when they get aggro and end up running away rather than just taking them to the tank.

[@TheSometimeAfter]

isn't AST mitigation getting removed next patch?

[@Megaranator]

Yeah, it will probably be on par with WHM, possibly stronger

[@owohscorner]

One thing I'd like to add as a scholar main. Scholars, we don't really get upgrades or better versions of old abilities. We should always be using our entire kit, even lustrate at times. Remember to use Whispering Dawn and Fey Illumination. 1. It helps out your co healer and 2. They're both a good buffer between sacred soil, Deployment tactics, and fey blessing casts. But DO NOT use Whispering Dawn and Fey Illumination at the same time, rarely will you use them both at once, really only when you summon Seraph

[@solblackguy]

Healing isn't necessarily hard. Like everything else, you learn through repetition and muscle memory. All the classes/roles have a basic mantra to follow, for healer it's "Heal when your party needs it, DPS when they don't." What does make healer seem hard is that it has the least room for error and isn't the most straightforward when it comes to learning by repetition and muscle memory because you rely on learning reactively through your party vs how a tank is learning proactively by controlling the actions of NPCs. Every scenario is going to be different based on the performance of your party and the different classes you play along with. One thing to remember though is if you like being a healer, don't give up on it. One day it's just going to feel as easy as breathing.

[@passel5953]

Muscle memory is a crafter skill tho :)

[@simzocker]

i keep running out mana as a white mage even if i spam lucid dreaming wonder what im doing wrong if you say always be casting

[@carlfromaccounting1112]

Maybe you don't have enough piety. It boosts your mana regen on top of increasing your heals.

[@AlZahard]

Piety's an important stat for healers... I probably should have mentioned that. You want to be efficient with your mana usage, and AOE heals eat a lot of mana, as do big single-target heals. It's recommended you pop your non-mana using OGCD abilities first before resorting to draining your mana.

[@valkragez]

Personal experience as whm, I like to tap Lucid Dream whenever i am at around 7k mana. And if you do need a lot more mana, let's say after 2 emergency rez, Lucid Dream + Thin Air is a good mana recovery way as well (Next 12 secs all spells do not cost mana + regen mana with lucid) You can even get another rez with 0 mana cost with Thin Air activated.

[@AlZahard]

@@valkragez For sure. I'd have loved to have talked about Thin Air if it weren't a WHM-only spell. In an ideal situation, you use Thin Air before you rez - saving 2.4k mana is huge. It's also valuable when you know you're about to pump out 2-3 big heals in a row.

[@timothymarktrinidad5385]

Hmmm quite a few things will still run you out of mana even if you hit lucid, namely heals are usually more expensive than dmg spells and more so stronger and aoe heals. Spamming holy will do that too. So as a tip for low lvl whm regens are your strongest abilities they are slower but conserve more mana. So regen for single target and medica 2 for group healing. But if a tank double/triple pulls best spam your cure and cure 2 till you feel comfortable.

[@dark3rthanshadows]

Glare Mage of the bloody Lilly

[@AlZahard]

Blood for the Blood Lily!

[@jackofblades6736]

I had a healer dpsn instead of healing in the first dungeon. I was the tank and died 3 times and I just left the game. The other two dps kept telling him to heal me. I never thought people were than slow.

[@ahrims7]

part of me is a little sad, Healer can be super hard on controller at times; keeping this level of consistency up is gonna be hard to do considering you can’t seamlessly target. Often I find myself during trials fumbling a bit or with downtime due to this fact. What is 2 clicks away for Pc can be 4-6 button presses away for a controller player. Its still very surprising that there are top tier players who use controllers

[@whitenoise8619]

Rescue is so good I got pulled twice (m a dps) Save my life 🤣🤣🤣

[@godofm3tal1]

healing? less complicated than tanking? you're doing it wrong. tanks are just shitty DPS with more hp and mitigation to juggle. bout it lol

[@AlZahard]

Healing is much more forgiving than tanking lol.

[@godofm3tal1]

@@AlZahard not by a long shot. the only job you have as a tank is to hold aggro on everything (which basically just means to keep hitting them, unlike other games that require you to actively maintain taunt) and do damage while cycling through mitigation as needed to help your healer. healer has to do damage and keep up dots on everything while also keeping an eye on everyone's health, remove debuffs from the group, rez dead idiots, monitor upcoming mechs and prepare for them, manage their MP to make sure they can get off what they need to when it's needed, keep hots up on tank, yank people out of harm when needed, charge up pre heals to counter raid wide aoes at the proper time and also keep up group damage buffs. even if all you played was WHM the job is still way more involved and stressful than tanking. play a job like AST or SCH and you'll be falling asleep the next time you tank. and this is coming from someone who mains a tank... tanking in ffxiv is a joke.

[@robsusername1042]

Gonna have to agree. Healing is more complicated than tanking. The only difficult part of tanking is positioning the boss correctly for every mechanic-tanks don’t even have to maintain aggro anymore, they just have to turn on tank stance. Healers are expected to heal, DPS, buff and raise. They’re expected to manage their MP and to place their bubbles in all the right places. They’re expected to save the party with rescues, LB3s and good uses of group mitigations. And they’re expected to do all this while staying alive. Tanks and DPS who also have group mitigations aren’t even expected to use them. All of this and add in the fact that half of the tank mains say they play tank for the tank privilege of not being one shot by mechanics they fail... Yeah, saying tank role is the biggest brain was a really insulting start to this, and probably an assertion only a minority would agree with anyway.

[@godofm3tal1]

@@robsusername1042 my point exactly. healers have it rough. tanking is fun. healing is usually a nightmare unless you're in a min/maxed group of raid veterans who all know what they're doing. and in that group, the tanks job is even easier because he too knows what he's doing and doesn't have to compensate for bad healers or dps that keep doing stupid shit. and if they have 2 tanks and both tanks know what's up, they swap aggro to alleviate stress from the healer when their mits run out. i can see no conceivable situation where tanking is harder than healing unless your healer is just dogshit and you're trying to keep yourself up on your own esteem because the healer isn't doing their part. but that's not a role problem. that's a group comp problem.

[@AlZahard]

@godofm3tal1 @Rob’s Username You guys make some interesting points and I can see where some of the perspective comes from, but I still disagree - however I do acknowledge that my perspective is skewed as someone that plays healer for the majority of the time and mostly at savage+ level content, most of the time with competent players. I've definitely had pug groups where I spent most of the time out of mana as a heal/rez bot and it's times like that when the role feels stressful. It's likely that I find healer easier to play than tank because I've played so much of it. Compared to a tank, a healer's bare minimum job requirement is to keep people alive, which can be achieved with one or two buttons. A tank's bare minimum duty in any party at any level of content is more involved, just by having to maintain decent positioning of a boss while keeping a DPS rotation alive that consists of more than 3 buttons. On the point of the things that a healer is expected to do: I agree that it's stressful to play around mechanically weaker players, but for majority of the content your rez is a swiftcast+raise one-click macro - and if swiftcast isn't up, we just let people stay dead for the minute it takes for it to come back up. The amount of debuffs we have to remove are normally just the occasional paralysis. The only fight I can think of right now where we're actually paying attention to debuffs that we absolutely have to Esuna is E8S and that's a fight most players never even attempt. Monitoring upcoming boss mechanics is more important for a tank than for a healer as positioning the boss is the prerequisite for resolving a lot of mechanics. Healers just need to know whether we need to pop big mitigation or not. Tank (and DPS) mitigation is equally important at a high level, with a lot of savage fights having mitigation checks, so I'd argue that it's not something exclusively stressful to a healer. There are plenty of fights that I'd argue are 100% harder on tanks than healers - just look at the current raid tier. Thanks for the comments lads, they're appreciated and gave me something to think about. I do have more tank jobs to level so my opinion might align more with yours as I go along, but for now I'm fine with my take. If anyone got offended at my braincells joke... well nothing I can do about that.

[@gororo9380]

"After tanking Healing is the next complicated job." Nonsense. I've used all three roles in in savage and DPS is is by far the hardest.

[@AlZahard]

Gonna have to agree to disagree then.

[@GriziDaWiz]

I’m a tank but I just wanna see how my healer buddies think. Anyyywaayyyyy... Clemency, clemency, clemency, clemency.

[@AlZahard]

AST/SCH wish they had something as powerful as Clemency :p

[@GriziDaWiz]

@@AlZahard I am the party

[@neonremy815]

PLD is the Tank for the sprouts if you still need PLD in lvl60 to clear content you are not a very good Tank.

[@GriziDaWiz]

@@neonremy815 I think I can be anything I want thank you very much. I may not be the best tank, but I’m not bad. Not sure where this sudden attack came from.

[@neonremy815]

@@GriziDaWiz Your welcome Forever Sprout.

[@andrew08857]

As a new player im confused why doing half the damage of a dps healer even matters. Shouldn't your whole party be able to go the distance if your healing is good and your dps is average why does damage matter if your party isn't going to get wiped anyway? At that point isn't it your teams fault if your healing is on point and you still can't finish the fight?

[@AlZahard]

In regular content, it's absolutely possible to only heal and do no damage and still be perfectly fine. It's just that you're clearing slower than you could be. Once you play harder content (content labeled extreme, unreal, savage, ultimate), boss fights have DPS checks where everyone needs to contribute to damage output or you'll wipe.

[@andrew08857]

@@AlZahard so your saying theoretically every party at the highest leval averages around the same dps and has similar health and all that? I'm saying the top 10% of players do you think that even with different abilities there survival time would be similar to each other? And again I'm talking about the top 10% not just any party

[@AlZahard]

​@@andrew08857 Averaging the same DPS - not quite, but they're definitely meeting a minimum amount of DPS needed to clear the fight. The top 10% of players (high purple up to pink parsers) are simply exceeding the minimum DPS needed by a certain amount. The actual DPS amount spread among the top 10% can be quite wide. But assuming everyone is Best In Slot for gear, they're all going to have almost identical stats and HP values. To give you an example: E12S P2 (the last fight of the current raid tier and generally considered the hardest), has a minimum DPS requirement of roughly 126k per second. Any party who's cleared that fight has been able to generate that amount of damage. Now if we look at the FFLogs rankings for the fight in terms of speed, the #1 party in the world did 156k DPS. The #500 party in the world did 132k DPS. Now if you compare the #500 party to, say, practice groups that can't meet the DPS Check, you can see why Healer DPS output is important. In the #1 party in the world, the 4 DPS players combined to a total of 96k DPS, meaning that tanks and healers still had almost 30k worth of DPS to contribute to be able to clear the fight. Sorry for the wall of text! I hope this helps shed some light :)

[@andrew08857]

@@AlZahard no it deffinetly helps a lot I barely just made my character and its been a while since I played an mmo which was eso so I really appreciate it I didnt realize the ceiling went so high

[@vampbl7291]

tank is complicated? :o Tanking is not really hard...

[@dirtbikeryzz]

Tanking is the easiest role...

[@oneadventurersjourney2777]

I disagree, but it’s definitely easier than healing. Tanking is just melee with slightly more responsibility

[@derekbuechele]

So it’s like wow healing. Damage>healing >:)

[@AlZahard]

Yep, except that WoW healers parse for effective healing down, while FFXIV healers look at DPS :D

[@ramontavaresdacruz2256]

Best defense is a good offense

[@MoonLily91]

Tanking is harder than healing?? What's so difficult about popping your tank stance on, AoEing the mobs, using defense mitigation, and just keeping the boss faced away from the party? You're def making it way more complicated than it has to be

[@Esiaa]

Astro is not a shield healer. Yes, they have some shields, but so does the white mage. Astro is a reactive healer, like white.

[@AlZahard]

Astro used to be a shield healer - it was when this video was made.

[@Esiaa]

@@AlZahard ah, I did not know that.

[@kangthao5121]

Healers hate to hear: You have one job, one job.

[@SlayPlenty]

Why blur shit out on screen

[@AlZahard]

Cause privacy.

[@Vimdraa]

So this is a beginners guide and you just gloss over "Mitigate promethean damage spreads..." ... alright... Let me look up the book I need to learn how to understand this guide...

[@Megaranator]

there is a lot more important things glossed over, this isn't comprehensive guide so just chill

[@F3nryl]

Is there something that takes less braincells than tanking xd? What? Tanks are the most easiest job in ffxiv

[@SnowyRVulpix]

I’m starting to think this game is only for smart people and i should just quit cause i’m dumb :(

[@AlZahard]

Hey man, it's a game. You learn as you go! FFXIV is a huge game and has a massive variety of content - just play whatever you enjoy the most :)