Try to use mass heal instead of mass cures whenever it's possible.

Keep an eye on your party, on spawning and attacking trash, on attack sequences of bosses, on good or lacking CC, and try to time your mass heals accordingly.

If you've got some squishies in your party you'll have to throw in a cure or two inbetween.
For those cures you should get one of the ToD belts with the greater ardor VIII clickies.

Other than that, don't focus on single people who can't manage to catch your mass heals.
The casting animation leaves enough time to get in range whenever you cast it, as long as people know where it's centered at.

If people can't be bothered to catch your mass heals you shouldn't bother to waste more than a heal scroll every now and then to keep them up.

If you get a tell to join an epic chrono pug that has been up for an hour better send back "no thanks".
There might be a good reason nobody wants to heal it...

A few things that have helped me (But may not apply to others).

Overhealing is better than underhealing.  Obviously, squeezing the last drop out of your mana pool to heal efficently is the end goal, but I doubt you'll be leaping into heal Elob straight way etc, so use things like shroud and ToD where you can be a bit generous with heals and tone it down with practice.

Be picky if you're prone to strokes.  Divines are always in demand.  If needy groups of zergers who rely on you being their Hirling annoy you (As opposed to being self sufficent zergers), avoid em and stick to groups who don't make you want to stab someone.

Hordo wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2012 at 9:56pm:


FAT!!!!

Hordo wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2012 at 9:56pm:


But what about my stunning bursts of conjuration?

Grace, you say that you don't want to fuck up ... much.

I disagree.  This is how you'll learn. 

Learn.  Find players much better and have them rip apart your healer.  Stay open to criticism from really good players and well ignore advice from well y'know (hordo!). 

Don't listen to Calvet.  Overhealing is not a good thing.  Focus heals on the weakest amped/highest damage magnet who has enuf of a neural net to stay in the fight.   And don't top off anyone but this low HP damage magnet who is somehow smart enough to not pull out (I know, a mythical creature, but you're looking for 2 of the 3 attributes).

Know the quest, and have an opnion on who you're going to focus  your mass heals on based on how they are playing.  Care a lot about where you're standing.  You've got DP -- don't swing something unless you've time and it's something useful to swing.  Unless you've got some Nick hipness with multiple TRs and such.  (Swinging is advanced stuff, I'm not there yet generally, still overwhelmed by all the pretty-colored spells.)

Kill to protect your mana and then if you have extra mana for fun and profit.  When playing with complete noobs (see Hordp comment above) lay out a symbol of death and then time your implision after multiple trigggers.  This will kill lots of mobs before your noobs can impale themselves on them.

Knowing the quest means: if you can see it's gonna end nicely and you have extra mana, end it sooner.  Don't be this prick that has piles of extra mana at the end: you can do damage spells too, and if someone is impressed that you conserved mana so well you had a whole bunch at the end, they're an idiot for not knowing the point of the game was to accomplish the quest objectives.  Other side of coin: always leave a margin.  Because just because stranger player hasn't done something stupid in the first 15 minutes doesn't mean he won't fuck up the last 5 minutes.  Stranger danger.  But among good players/good friends, have fun there, especially at the end and it's more certain how much you can use. 

Do the wonderful little things that people need help with and won't admit -- you're a cleric, not a FVS, you have tons of many many spells, and you can use lots of em situationally.  You're right up their with the bard on insterstial play, the little details that over the course of a quest make a big difference.  Team play.

Reflexes: be fastest.  Anticipate.  Stand back, see the whole field of play, spot the disaster in the making.  If you're in the market place on echrono, be prepared for fast burst heals if there's more than one abashi (see "know the quest" above).   Hop like a sorc to avoid damage -- it's a badge of shame to even have to heal yourself if you've got that aura going.  Move.

Don't keep your metamagics always on or always off for a given quest.  You gotta manage them (unless Hordo's in your quest, then just turn everything on and drink like a fish). 

Watch for the drama queen co-healers.  These players are semi-good and they think that the best thing they can do to show off is not use their mana, and so when you co-healer, they're just sitting their with the tank full.  There are like a fascinating number of these creatures.  You'll spot 'em: no animiation, no movement towards a mass cure mod scroll (which, btw, is your new best friend, although it won't help much for people with low healing amp, whom we healers call "hordos" btw).  So what do you do about these people?  Well, if they want to play chicken with you on the heals and get all passive-aggressive, you've got to force 'em  to move.  That may mean the party is definitely not getting topped off.  Is this a problem?  Hmmm, somettimes. But you want 'em to spend mana 'cause frankly, at level in some quests, it is much safer to have 2 healers standing with 1000 SP between them than one healer with all the 1000 SP (that could get knocked down, or one-shotted). 

Depends on the quest.  Damage is pretty steady and people won't die in some quests.  In others, y'know, you can't so much play their stupid chicken game.  Back to know the quest.  Some times you just got to suck it up and let them be the star.

I was in a guild with a cleric that would always do this.  I finally asked some senior guy what to do about it.  He laughed and said, baby, baby, that guy only plays his cleric when he's drunk.  He's not "holding back" -- he's downing scotch. 

So sometimes you can't assume why the other cleric can't even break out the scrolls.  You just never know.  But ya gotta be prepared to solo-heal.  Three times now, for various reasons (including disconnects), been required to solo heal edq2.  If you're in that situation, and you want to do it potless, ya gotta have all the mana clickies and gear - there are some times in such quests when you'll have time to click on your mana clickies.  There are lots and lots of mana clickies, and ideally you blue bar should be a fricking lie.  You should be feeding it with vile blasphemies, sleeping with every spelllsinger bard on Khyber for mana songs, etc.  There are ways, there are ways.  Don't sleep with Horodo, he can't help you here.

Finally, more about Hordo.  The thing is this.  PUGs are your training program.  They'll do wonderuflly unpredictable things that will force you to know that quest and where you put your extra mana clickies better than your social security number.  The inventiveness of a PUGger is not to be underestimated.  Anyone can heal a bunch of crimson eagles.  You'll get much better as a healer -- better anticipation, better mana converservation, better reflexes -- not sneering venumously at bad players but actually healing them. 

As appropriate, you need to talk, you need to gather the PUG kittens.  You need to say "heals on Hordo" so everyone will group around Hordo -- or at least STFU and have no excuse for their death if they didn't. 

It is not the case that mass heal ialways better than mass cure or vice versa.  It dpends on the quest and party composition which is better.  How much time you have to cast, how grouped people are, will determine spots heals v. mass too.  In all the intuition or arithmetic you use to chose what you're gonna do next, don't forget mass cure moderate scrolls are 0 mana, lovely lovely number, the number of HP Hordo will have no matter how good a healer ya wanna be.  And it can be paired with a mass cure light that you can make super cheap with the right equipment and AP expenditure.  For those times where you just dont' feel like drinking, no matter how bad the party is.  Always drink when you're expermenting or want to have fun with sometihng or try something new.  If you're just consistently drinking, you are (1) still learning [been there, done that]; (2) willingly "being used"  [hi Hordo! ::waving::] or (3) bad. 

All good clerics got somethin' special.  TwoHeals is a 28-point build.  He doesn't drink.  He is very careful about metamagics and he is very clever with the APs, so that those cure crit wands really make a difference.  Othea has the reflexes of -- I dunno -- an alligator hopped up on cocaine or something.  I like to think there's a cleric on Khyber with really good situational awareness/anticipation, that that's her "special skill."  Consistency and reliability are hallmarks of steady healers like Bez and Art.  There's some fun build twist specialists in Pilchards and ER and Prophet's Jacqueij. Different things to specialize in and be good at.

If you spend your AP right, you'll often be switching on empower healing to get your Radiant Servant cranked up, but then for many parts of the quest have it off.  Except if Hordo is in the party.  Then just keep it on and hope for the best.

OK, llsessee.  Did I mention watch out for Hordo?  I think I did.  Did I mention adopt a completely diffeent attitude toward bad players?  Yeah, that too.

Barbarians.  Psst.  They're not that bad.  If they're good, all the mana you're investing in them is actually gonna pay off becaus the fight is gonna be shorter.  That wonderfully healable Paladin?  Not looking so good 20 iminutes later when the red name's still at 50 percent health. 

A pretty good healer, and my first teacher, once said, I thought rather shockingly, that he views, when he's on his cleric, the other 5 members of his parties as obstructionists who think they are in charge but who actually need to be micromanaged by a distance by him.  He took me into the vale with 4 PUGs and showed me how -- by destructing at a distance this or that -- he could lliterally channel/usher the 4 PUGers in what direction he wanted and guide them to better destinations in slayers.  It was kinda funny.  And, in team speak, he spoke aloud about them as "investments' -- that this one required more attention but was actually productive, that that one was forgieable beacuse he at least stayed in some kinda heal range with teh party, but that lost sorc was on his own 'cause ....    I remember thinking: wow, this guy is *really* judgmental.  But it's the way a mother cat is lovely judgmental with her kittens, I suppose.  You still want 'em to live.  I don't think of PUGs like that always.  But some times, if they misbehave, I see if I can channel them back from their frolic and detour toward the quest objectives with just my actions.  It's a fun thing to try to do.

Greater command with heighten.  It's not just for breakfast anymore.

Of course, it's a service profession.  As I suppose even Gawna would say, you have to be in the right mood to do it.  In the right mood, there is nothing more fnan healing a reallly bad PUG that is, at least, really trying hard to learn.  When you're using lots of bars, and lots of spells, and fun combinations (did I mention symbol  of death and implosion constnatly if Hordo is in your group?), there's a certain freedom in the form.  That you just don't get with a FVS, which, let's face it, you can play pretty well, but-for clickies, on 10-20 keys.

Your mana  is the party's mana.  They wont' always know what is best for them, so you have to.  Stand in the right place, see who does too, acquire opihions, make judgments, be fast, don't keep empower healing on for a whole quest and otherwise manage metamagics well, and for goodness sakes, if you see Hordo join your party, find some inventive reason to drop group unless you're really in the mood for THAT. 

Oh, and Petey told me something important.  I was doing one of my first VODs on my cleric on elite.  So I started to tell the whole party that this would be my second VOD ever.  And Petey sent me a STFU tell.  I sent him a tell back (hey, it's what I do!) saying: what?  They have a right to know, don't they?  Petey explained: they don't want to know that you're new.  You're their clleric.  It is like being a surgeon.  A patient does nOT want to know that their surgeon is new.  So STFU in a PUG about what you don't know, an exception to the general rule.  People don't want to hear that there cleric is clueless, and since you generally lead, not follow, it'll work out.

If you have quicken, it shouldn't always be on.  That's just technically true.  I know some healers say set the actual heal and mass heal spells so they are always quickened.  That's arguable if you get quicken.  There are really good clerics who rarely use quicken.  It took me a long time to figure this out.

Oh, and about not leading.   Hmm, there are definitely times you are doing to need to pull aggro from someone else in your party and straight things out.  Like 5 other people fighting 5 separate little battles throughout the ice room in SOS. You're gonna want maximize and good blade barriers for that.  Your blade barriers are actually really useful for a lot of things.  Pulling aggro, killing, and also -- for very bewildered PUGs -- a lifeline, a shiney and loud declaration of whetere their healr is so they'll know where to show up for the mass heals.  Like moths to a flame, PUGs will come to your BB for a heal.  Next time the PUGs go wayward, try it.  It totally works, and saves manage comared to spot heals.

When your party wipes, it will usually not be your fault and depending on their level of stupidity, they may not be able to figure that out.  In this game, failures are usually the lack of DPS or some stupid noob move. So of course, have a thick sin with the idiots.

Finally,  if you run 5 quests in a row with hordo and he does not die, you are permitted to scratch a does not die, you are permitted, in Khyber tradition, to take a jackknife and carve a notch on the Founder's Fountain. 

You are the bank robber of toons.  You know what you want, you know where it is, but you know it's a dynamic situation and anything could happen on the way to the money.  So you've got eyes in the back of your head, you are literally fleet-footed (ALWAYS be hasted), and you are always looking for targets of opportunities that would hasten your path to the loot and probably twists/obstacles that will block you (those would, again, certainly include Hordo).  So you gotta think like a bank robber: no long term-plans, always resorting what's up next, going with the flow when it suits your goal and managing-from-the-ranks via your play when your goofish criminal associates do soemthing weird.  Focus on the quest objective, even if it means having to pry that voice of the master from Hordo's cold dead hands, and you'll be fine and the richer for it all. 

Love ya Hordo.

MOST IMPORTANT:
Open social panel.  Go to last page.  Select "Anonymous".

2ND MOST IMPORTANT:
When not healing an MT with rock-solid agro, target yourself for heals.

In places like Epic DA or Epic OOB, you don't want to be spot healing and you can't depend on anyone else, especially a stupid melee, to have a "party-sense" of where everyone else is.

Target yourself for heals, bursts, mass cures.  Wounded warriors should come back to you, or you should jump into the thick of them if they are packed up, and keep everyone alive.

ALSO IMPORTANT
Don't worry about keeping everyone alive.  "Tanks" should have nearly 200% healing amp.  Rule of thumb is that a non-crit Heal or Mass Heal should restore at least HALF a solid melees health bar, whether they have 600 or 1,000hp.

If they die.  It's their fault, not yours.

(Unless it is your fault.  Then you are just a shitty healer.  In which case, you should swing a melee weapon and claim to be a "battle-cleric".)

1. Anon is your friend.

2. Be selective about the raids you will heal - what are you getting out of it? I went drinky drinky on the only ELOB I've done (despite kvetching about it here) because it was the first PUG I'd seen in months in my timezone and I wanted the Cannith favour badly. I was right to do that because I saw the second one months later. But chug pots for Shroud because some idiots go in above their heads? Meh, not so much. Weigh up the opportunity cost for you.

3. Be clear in your own mind about the resources you will use, and don't drink pots for idiots just because they expect you to.  I only drink if it really benefits me or I like the party, since it's rare to be reimbursed.

4. Quickened mass heal copes with most stuff, just be prepared to throw something extra into the mix if the burst damage is high.

5. Always have Word of Recall scrolls with you, just don't have them on a primary hotbar.

WTF was that shit Nancy.

TWDiggs wrote on Jun 3^rd, 2012 at 6:12am:

And Cru always does it right.

Cale wrote on Jun 3^rd, 2012 at 7:33am:

This part confuses me.

Quote:


I didn't read most of Nancy's post but this is very important and make sure the whole damned party knows who you're centering on.

I'm pretty sure you already have a good handle on the other piece of advice I would offer which is to learn how to say "Bite me!"

Calvet wrote on Jun 3^rd, 2012 at 9:55am:

Whatever you're told, it must be true. Saying that is what I do doesn't make it so.  It makes you a guy who thinks he'll feel better about his own level of play if there are fewer women with pretensions to endgame play.   I agree that is a bad idea to scream on the mike when things are going south, although you will notice that once it was established who did what when in that dragon raid, suddenly we were reading defensive statements from the miscreants that "not everyone needs library silence," lol.

If you were really team-oriented, you wouldn't have such a need to troll.  You're no Epoch.  He trolls for fun.  You troll for validation.

I help out on Khyber all the time.  I go and create some trail magic.  It is not all about the loot.  It is about the journey, and Vault efforts by the likes of you aside, I am content in my ability to advise in particular to approach healing with a patient and non-sneering frame of mine.  Especially on Khyber.  My cleric proudly goes to low places.  I have a guildie who just shows up on Korthos now and then to give stuff back.  Khyber's pug tradition lives or dies on such acts of kindness bing made routine, such as leyes' reminder if his orchard help with my rogue's pathetic ungeared first life.

I know you have no idea what I am talking about, but, more than any other class, the idea that the kind of sneering you do here is hip -- such junior high stuff must be put aside.  If you heal to find or be drama, you'll burn out fast.  So, lol, fuck you, it's all about the love.