Who Do You Prefer As A Healer?

[Omniblast]

Re: Who Do You Prefer As A Healer?

Might be a little biased, but I want experience points too. I prefer being the main healer so others can do other stuff. I'm sure summoners would like to do Blood Pacts more and red mage would rather enfeeble & nuke. So I'll heal, you do your job, let me do mine. That's just fine with me.

[Icemage]

Re: Who Do You Prefer As A Healer?

Won't discuss healers prior to level 11, as pretty much everyone solo's or duo's up to that point anyway, and there's little or no difference between mages at that level as far as healing goes.

11-13, WHM is hands down superior due to Cure II and Protectra, as well as various -na spells.

14-24, RDM/WHM gets pretty much everything WHM main gets except Shellra and Barfira. RDM/WHM is the winner here.

25-39, WHM back in control. Raise is very useful. SMN get Auto-Refresh at this level range, though they don't have anything above Cure II, and no access to Regen yet, which makes them flaky main healers at this level. RDM have no significant advantage here other than Dispel, though Raise shows up for them at level 38.

40, RDM gets Convert, which tips the scales in favor of RDM/WHM over WHM unless Haste is needed (Ninja tank). SMN still gimpy at this level as healers.

41-47, RDM gets Refresh, making them far and away the superior healer in this range, though WHM still have the Raise and Haste advantage. At level 42, SMN get access to Regen and Cure III from their WHM subjob, giving them enough of the necessary tools to main heal.

48-55, RDM get Haste, WHM have Regen II. RDM still on top here. WHMs get some interesting subjobs abilities in /BRD and /SMN at level 50/25+, but still doesn't erase the difference.

56-75, Beyond 56, ideal healers depend on party configuration. WHM's get Raise II at 56, Cure V at 61, Regen III at 65, and Raise III at 70. SMN get offensive Blood Pacts at 65 and 70. RDMs get somewhat stronger nukes as they progress. All 3 are viable healers in this range, however.


Icemage

[Miriamel]

Re: Who Do You Prefer As A Healer?

Very good points. RDM get Raise at lvl38, though, making WHM's only advantage from 41-47 Haste.

Oh, and Reraise I find to be very handy in case of wipeouts. It's happened to me, and I doubt I'm the only one. ><

[Elesirdur]

Re: Who Do You Prefer As A Healer?

Depends on what you're fighting. If I don't need WHM spells like Stona and the like then my prefered setup for mages is Brd/Whm, Rdm/Blm, Blm,Whm. Nearly unlimited MP with Ballad + Ballad II + Refresh so I can basically take care of myself.

However, if I'm fighting something like Cockatrices then you need to have a WHM in your pt as a healer otherwise you're going to die very quickly.

I still lean towards the Brd + Rdm combo just because it makes the pt so powerful and I get a good chance to up my Healing Magic Skills :D

[Pounce]

Re: Who Do You Prefer As A Healer?

I'll always look for a WHM main healer first.

RDM is very capable of main healing, but quite frankly, I don't trust most RDM out there. There's still a lot of Red Warriors who cast very little other than Enthunder.

At least with WHM, I can be fairly certain I'm not going to get any beef from them about main healing.

[Raqua]

Re: Who Do You Prefer As A Healer?

whm, whm all the way lol, even though as blm i've had to main heal a couple times lol

[Tokitoki]

Re: Who Do You Prefer As A Healer?

WHM may not have as big an MP pool as a RDM (Convert) or a SMN, but they have higher cure spells available as well as higher raise and the status effect cure spells. Mages hit by the raptors sickness attack and no whm? well guess what? no mp for you.

[fuz]

Re: Who Do You Prefer As A Healer?

As a rdm myself, I find being healer, enfeebler, refresher, and haster in one a bit... stressful. I'm always running out of mp as refresh and haste eat up so much. I always prefer a whm around to offload half my job so I can concentrate at being much better at everything else.

I can't only concentrate at only healing since enfeebs, paralyze in particular save a lot on mp. I can't rest much since I always get up for dispel, heals, refresh and haste... I can skimp with a gimpy protectra(2), but a 3 or 4 single cast on everyone and my MP is gone. Mobs that add stus effects like exorays and toramas basically mean I can't rest. Almost never leaves room for MB (in mp and time), and dealing with an add/link/pop just throws me into convulsions.

Of course, the workload is somewhat manageable with a nin tank, but pld tanks drive me up the wall. I prefer at least a SMN or WHM for main healing, and a RDM or BRD for backup.

[Raqua]

Re: Who Do You Prefer As A Healer?

i usually back up heal when i need to as blm, since i'm a taru i have a lot of mp, and can usually spare a little

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Who Do You Prefer As A Healer?

As a rdm myself, I find being healer, enfeebler, refresher, and haster in one a bit... stressful. I'm always running out of mp as refresh and haste eat up so much.

I totally agree. Not too long ago I had a pt in which I was the only mage. While I didn't have many to worry about as far as refreshing, it was giving me grey hair! The haste's, the regen's, the curing (whew!), mb'ing (they insisted), debuffing, individual protects, etc.....man never again! LOL

Then I recently had a pt where everyone would eventually need a refresh! Pld, Drk, Smn, Whm, Blm, & Rdm (me). Pld and drk wanted haste also. Smn wouldn't cure a lick, he wanted to be a dd only. Blm didn't cure, but then again most of them don't (at least the ones I've pt'd with). So curing was a priority too as were debuffs and mb'ing. Then the whm started to slack off and made me pull the weight. She even decided to melee..../sigh. Like you said, you can run out of mp fast. I really love when you run out, convert isn't up, and they start yelling at you. I truly believe that GOOD rdms are underappreciated. LOL

I agree that for different pt's, different setups work. But if I had to average out all the different set ups, I'd have to say that I prefer a whm most of the time.

[Raqua]

Re: Who Do You Prefer As A Healer?

>< i've meleed as whm before, only when we had another whm in the party, we took turns curing/meleeing lol

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Who Do You Prefer As A Healer?

/sigh Read my post. That was not the case here. In this case the whm meleeing was a bad thing.

[Raqua]

Re: Who Do You Prefer As A Healer?

yeah i know, when would the whm meleeing be a good thing? lol

[Vinen]

Re: Who Do You Prefer As A Healer?

As a rdm myself, I find being healer, enfeebler, refresher, and haster in one a bit... stressful. I'm always running out of mp as refresh and haste eat up so much. I always prefer a whm around to offload half my job so I can concentrate at being much better at everything else.

I'm sick in the head. I don't find being a healer, enfeebling, refresher and haster that stressful... if im not doing that I start wondering what I should be doing... I get bored fast. This is partially because I leveled from 1-75 almost exclusivly as a primary healer in groups.

RDM/WHM Tarutaru

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Who Do You Prefer As A Healer?

yeah i know, when would the whm meleeing be a good thing? lol

I have no idea since I never melee'd with any of my mage jobs. In fact, you would probably know better than I since you do melee:

>< i've meleed as whm before, only when we had another whm in the party, we took turns curing/meleeing lol