Healing

Primer to Healing

Healing in FF14 is all about balancing between damage dealing and keeping your party alive. If tanks get to set the initial pace, you're the one who is in charge of maintaining the pace of a dungeon and keeping the momentum. All the other Jobs (save for Warrior and maybe Paladin and Gunbreaker) don't have enough mitigation and self-healing options to sustain themselves and the party. They only have enough to patch up individual damage they take.

It can be very intimidating because healers' responsibilities are tied to the entire party the entire time. Healing can provide some of the highest highs seeing raidwides and tankbusters used and either recovering it all like it never happened or having shields so fat that your party doesn't take any direct damage.

This guide won't be explaining all the ins and outs of each Job and is not a Job guide, but rather how to get the most out your healing arsenal. I will be providing links below to resources I found useful for understanding healing as a concept and Job-specific things.

General Healing

There is no "one size fits all" solution to healing. You need to be intimately aware of all parts of your toolkit so you can mix and match different healing, shielding, and buff options effectively to match your gameplan and fight.

GCD vs oGCD Healing

Most of healers' kits are oGCD heals. This means that healers are designed to heal via weaving with GCD healing as a last resort! More time spent doing GCD healing means less damage dealt on the boss after all!!

BUT if you have to rely on some GCD healing, do some GCD healing as a death is almost always a worse outcome than the time and effort spent on keeping a player alive.

Slidecasting

A common difficulty that Casters have to contend with is remaining stationary while casting GCD Spells. You often will be caught having to dodge a mechanic mid-cast. HOWEVER, there is a short grace period at the end of a cast about 0.5 seconds long where you can start moving without breaking the cast timer. This is referred to as Slidecasting and requires a lot of practice to master, but with enough practice, you can potentially move across entire arenas without ever breaking your GCD uptime. If you need some additional visual assistance, place an Emote on a Hotbar and you can start Sliding when the Emote button lights up again.

IMPORTANT HEALING BUFF DISTINCTION

There are two types of healing buffs. Ones that increase Magic Potency and ones that increase Healing Actions.

MP Management

All healers have access to Lucid Dreaming which should be used on cooldown once your MP dips below 8000. Additionally, all Jobs have additional buttons that help with MP management.

• Thin Air (WHM): Next action is executed without MP cost. There are a maximum of 2 charges.

  • Use Thin Air on your most expensive Spells like Raise, Cure II, Cure III, and Medica II.

• Assize (WHM): Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 400 to all nearby enemies. Restores own HP and the HP of nearby party members. Restores 5% of maximum MP.

• Draw (AST): Restores 5% of maximum MP.

• Astrodyne (AST): Gradually restores own MP.

• Aetherflow (SCH): Restores 20% of maximum MP.

• Druochole/Kerachole/Ixochole (SGE): Restores 7% of maximum MP.

Another way to more efficiently use your MP and single-target GCD healing is to stick to using Cure 2/Benefic 2/Adloquium as opposed to Cure/Benefic/Physick. Cure and Benefic do have incentives to cast them before their stronger counterparts, but these are small, unreliable activation chances. As for Physick vs Adloquium, while Physick is more MP efficient in terms of raw potency, in live combat with your pet or healing potency buff from Dissipation and your three Aetherflow stacks, Adloquium is still better because of the shield it provides for enemies to chip at while you restore the target's actual HP. However, if you have reached this point where you are GCD healing, you and/or your tank NEED to reevaluate your healing and mitigation gameplans.

DoT Management

Maintain your DoT spells as much as possible! They are a large source of your damage and because they have instant cast times, you can use these to keep applying damage while on the move! Except for SCH. SCH gets Ruin II and they should be casting that instead save for when Bio(lysis) is running out.

AoE Potency Gains

WHM has a damage gain when using its AoE spell when fighting 3+ enemies.

AST, SCH, and SGE all have a damage gain when fighting 2+ enemies. 

"Snapshotting" and Damage Mitigation/"Reducing Damage"

Whenever anyone/anything makes an attack, the game looks at all the active buffs and debuffs on the combatants before calculating damage. This also applies to Bleed damage and the entire duration of the Bleed. 

For example, if you have an 8 second 15% damage mitigation buff like WHM's Aquaveil and a 12 second Bleed, even if the Bleed is applied with 1-2 seconds left on Aquaveil, you will receive 15% less Bleed damage for the entire duration.

This principle applies for all damage. AoEs, Flares, stacks, puddles, tankbusters, and raidwides.

• Aquaveil (WHM): Reduces damage taken by a party member or self by 15%.

• Exaltation (AST): Reduces damage taken by a party member or self by 10%. Restores HP at the end of the effect's duration.

• Expedient (SCH): Grants Expedience and Desperate Measures to all nearby party members. Increases movement speed. Reduces damage taken by 10%.

• Holos (SGE): Restores own HP and the HP of all nearby party members. Erects a magicked barrier which nullifies damage equaling the amount of HP restored. Reduces damage taken by self and nearby party members by 10%.

Healer "Bubbles"

Every healer has a "Bubble" Ability that can affect the whole party. Each Bubble behaves differently though so be aware of the differences.

• Asylum (WHM): Envelops a designated area in a veil of succor, granting healing over time to self and any party members who enter. Increases HP recovery via healing actions on party members in the designated area by 10%.

  • Range: 10 yalms

• Collective Unconscious (AST): Creates a celestial ring around the caster. Reduces damage taken by 10% and applies Wheel of Fortune (Regen) to self and any party members who enter.

  • The damage reduction effect lasts as long as the Bubble is maintained by the caster plus 3 seconds. But if you make any sort of movement, the Bubble is taken down. However, the Wheel of Fortune effect is applied as long as they are inside the Bubble at any point.

  • Range: 8 yalms. This is the smallest Bubble so your party has to be in pretty tight and you need to be aware of your positioning.

• Sacred Soil (SCH): Creates a designated area in which party members will only suffer 90% of all damage inflicted. Additional effect: Regen. 

  • Range: 10 yalms

• Kerachole (SGE): Reduces damage taken by self and nearby party members by 10%. Additional effect: Regen.

  • This behaves similarly to Collective Unconscious except that it is only an instant cast like other oGCD Abilities. Your party must be immediately around you to receive the benefits.

  • Range: 15 yalms

The funny damage buttons that also heal

Some buttons deal damage but also have a healing effect. Some of these are better spent dealing damage because the healing they provide is not significant enough to justify holding onto them for their healing utility. 

The reason I used the phrasing "damage buttons you can save for healing" is because these are still powerful damaging spells that are essentially wasted if never used. If you are familiar with a dungeon/raid and are confident that you won't need Macrocosmos or Pneuma (until a certain stage of a fight), then feel free to use it because they provide good damage and make healing prior sections much more comfortable.

Speaking of Rescue...

Weaving Rescue is finicky. It has odd delays/startup/reactivity much like Shirk. If you are going to Rescue, try to Rescue early and do not try to double weave with other buttons.

Pure Healers (WHM/AST)

WHM and AST kits are centered around restoring HP that is already lost. Their kits are most effective directly after an attack has been used. WHM has very strong instantaneous healing options while AST is built around smaller, constant, regenerative healing with some delayed healing options and can be further augmented as needed by their corresponding healing buffs.

• WHM's strong healing options

  • Cure II, Cure III, Afflatus Solace, Benediction, Tetragrammaton, Afflatus Rapture, Liturgy of the Bell

• AST's strong healing and delayed healing options

  • Benefic II, Essential Dignity, Earthly Star, Horoscope, Exaltation, Macrocosmos

The Pure Healers also have some shielding options to add some extra cushioning for your party.

• Divine Benison (WHM): Creates a barrier around self or target party member that absorbs damage equivalent to a heal of 500 potency.

• Celestial Intersection (AST): Restores own or target party member's HP. Erects a magicked barrier which nullifies damage equaling 200% of the amount of HP restored. 

They also have options to lower your cast times to either increase your DPS during raid buffs, maintain DPS uptime while moving around the arena, or as a last resort to increase your healing output to save a run via additional GCD healing casts.

• Presence of Mind (WHM): Reduces spell cast time and recast time, and auto-attack delay by 20%.

• Lightspeed (AST): Reduces cast times for spells by 2.5 seconds.

Shield Healers (SCH/SGE)

Both SCH and SGE's kits are centered around applying shields proactively/ahead of time to give additional temporary health. Their kits block incoming damage and soften the blows. The general consensus is that SGE is easier to manage but runs out of healing and shielding options faster while SCH is more finicky but can be more flexible and stronger in the right hands.

• SCH's shields

  • GCD Shields: Adloquium, Succor

  • oGCD Shields: Seraphic Veil (Pet), Consolation (Pet)

• SGE's shields

  • GCD Shields: Eukrasian Diagnosis, Eukrasian Prognosis

  • oGCD Shields: Haima, Panhaima

Do note that Shield Healers also have some pure and Regen healing options too

• Pure Heals

  • SCH: Physick, Lustrate, Indomitability, Excogitation, Fey Blessing

  • SGE: Diagnosis, Prognosis, Druochole, Ixochole, Taurochole, Holos

• Regen Heals

  • SCH: Whispering Dawn, Aetherpact

  • SGE: Physis

Don't forget about your pet placement and Kardia assignment! You will be losing out on a LARGE portion of your healing if you don't keep track of these things. The SCH Fairy Pet buttons to have on your Hotbar/button-mapped are Place and Heel. They will let you put the pet wherever you want in the arena and call it back to follow you as needed. Reassigning Kardia will be helpful for managing tankswaps or spot-healing someone who has taken unnecessary damage.

Raiding

Communicate with your co-healer!

You are never alone in healing! Work with your co-healer to share the burden and if you have a Summoner, Red Mage, or even a Paladin (PLD is absolute last resort), you can ask them to do some healing and Resurrecting for you or in case you or your co-healer dies.

Don't hold out on using healer LB3's!

If you have a full Limit Gauge and have at least 3-4 party members down, might as well use your LB3 because otherwise, that run and prog is lost forever! Be wary that there is a lot of "animation lock" where you are unable to move so try your best to use it during downtime or let your team know to try and resurrect you after getting the rest of the party up!

Sample Power Heal/Shield Combos by Job

Don't overcap on your Lilies, Aetherflow Stacks, Addersgall, and Addersting stacks!

• Lilies: Overcapping on Lilies is at worst damage neutral, where spending enough Lilies for Afflatus Misery is equal to the four Glares you would be casting otherwise. However, it can potentially be damage positive if you spend your lilies and use Afflatus Misery for a gigantic critical hit while under raid buffs. Another way to look at it is keeping your party extra comfy by casting an extra Afflatus Solace/Rapture.

• Aetherflow Stacks: You should be using Aetherflow on cooldown for additional stacks and more importantly, the MP regeneration.You can use your extra Aetherflow Stacks on Lustrate to keep your party extra comfy or get in some extra damage with Energy Drain.

• Addersgall: Use your extra Addersgall stacks, including Rhizomata's free Addersgall, for some extra healing and your MP regeneration.

• Addersting: You will be gaining these when your Eukrasian Diagnosis/Prognosis shields are broken and Toxikon allows for free movement to dodge AoEs or cleaves and to respect mechanics without having to Slidecast. Toxikon is also damage neutral to Dosis at level 90. Do NOT fish for Addersting stacks on random attacks and boss' auto-attacks as it will generally be a DPS loss. When it comes to refilling Addersting, if you are familiar with Dark Knight and The Blackest Night, set up a shield for the tankbuster or raidwide where you will be making the most out of both the shield.

Other funny (typically unexplained) Job things

SCH: There are limitations to what you can and can't cast between your normal pet and Seraph. When Seraph is summoned, you can't use Fey Blessing or Dissipation so be sure your party is topped up enough so that you don't need Fey Blessing or the extra Aetherflow stacks.

SGE: There is enough time between casting Eukrasia and Dosis/Diagnosis/Prognosis for one weave, but it's a pretty tight window. Please test it out with your connection and ping to see if it's viable for you to do.

Below are FIVE videos that I used to pull information for this guide. (I would like a new AST video guide that goes more into the practical applications of its toolkit than Azurite's so I BEG of you to send me a link if you find one. His videos aren't bad, but they are pretty long)

Closing Thoughts

Healing is broad and diverse and can be potentially be very free form with lots of "A ha!" or "I got it!" moments. It requires quite a bit of studying and experimentation and game knowledge, but can provide some of the highest highs the game has to offer.

If you Overheal your party starting out, that's perfectly okay! Your party will be grateful you're keeping them alive at the very least. Fully spreading and optimizing your heals will take time and can even vary by the party composition and players themselves based on their playstyles and understandings of the game and its mechanics.

Hopefully this guide has gotten those gears turning for you to delve into the life of the healer!