FFXIV New Healer Tips - 5 Tips for New Healers
Healing in MMORPGs can be pretty scary and in final fantasy, so here are some FFXIV new healer tips for anyone looking to pick up healing in final fantasy 14.
After playing a couple of the healers in savage raids, I wanted to make a guide to help new healers get started and start their journey as a healer in FFXIV. So here are the top 5 things I wish I’d have known as a new healer in FFXIV and want to share with any new healers.
We do have a full healing guide if you want more information after this also do have these tips in a video if you’d rather watch and see these explained:
FFXIV Healing Tip 1 :Don't Over heal
Tip one of the FFXIV New healer tips is, stop over healing. This doesn’t necessarily mean don’t heal, but stop over healing. Every bit healing over maximum health is classed as over healing. So its more beneficial to heal someone when they are at 50% health rather than 90%.
Coming from WoW, I’m used to spamming some sort of heal all the way through. Whereas in FFXIV, that’s really not required. Even in the hardest content like savage raiding, you don’t spend the whole time healing. Believe it or not, us healers actually put out some good damage. And if everyone is at full health, that’s all you really need to do as a new healer.
A good strategy is put a regen on the tank, or if you’re playing a class with good shields like Scholar, or Sage. Throw out some shields and then deal damage. If you see damage coming in, or people start dropping get those heals in, then you back to dealing damage.
Definitely one of the biggest mindset changes I needed to make and one that felt the most un natural so wanted to cover that first in these FFXIV new healer tips.
Tip 2: Always Be Casting
As a healer its really easy to find yourself not casting.
maybe you’re running out of mechanics, moving out of an AoE, repositioning to heal or resurrect, or just freezing in panic.
But you can use these 2 things to really help always be casting; slide cast and weaving.
Slide casting is specific to FFXIV, but really useful to utilise as a healer. Every spell has a point at which the spell will be cast even if you move. Lets say you’re casting glare on white mage, at a certain percent through the cast, it will cast even if you move. Some people also add an emote to their hotbar to see when they can slidecast. it will light up once the cast is complete, which is always before the cast bar fills.
The other tip is weaving, because the global cooldown is 2.5 seconds of pure pain as a healer. But luckily not all spells are on the GCD. Lets say a heal takes 1.5 seconds to cast, rather than sit waiting for the 2.5 seconds to cast your next spell. You can use an Off Global Cooldown spell (OGCD) in-between. This is called weaving spells and will increase your healing output massively
Tip 3: Understand Your Class
Understand your class, and their strengths and weaknesses:
If you play a scholar super reactive and you just wait for peoples health to drop before healing them. You’re going to have a rough time and you’ll feal super weak. As their strength comes from shielding their party and managing their fairy effectively.
On the flip side if you play a white mage trying to shield and protect people. You’re missing their key strength and that’s huge heals brining people from low health to max in seconds.
Keeping it super simple here are each healers strengths:
- White mages have amazing burst healing for both single target and group healing. Their wings and lilies also buff and enhance those bursts further.
- Astrologian is all about timing and managing resourcing. Spells like macrocosmos, horoscope and early star must be timed and used before damage comes in, but then can restore insane amounts of health.
- Scholar is a master of shields and pet healing. So knowing when big damage is coming and having shields makes your job so easy.
- Sage is a king of mitigation and healing with damage. Multiple defensives and the abilities to passively heal the tank by doing damage through Kardia.
There is a lot more to each class its worth reading up on them, because they honestly all play differently.
Check out our specific healing guides below:
Tip 4: Use Your Cooldowns
Don’t hold back all your big healing spells. Its very easy as a new healer, to see a spell like macrocosmos on astro, or temperance wings on white mage. or even the big healing bubbles and want to save it for an emergency. But one of the biggest FFXIV new healer tips would be to use your cooldowns.
But the cooldowns on a lot of the big spells are surprisingly fast. As a new healer, I would go a whole dungeon, and just pop my wings on the final boss. But not using your big cool downs cos you’re saving them for an emergency makes the healing so much harder.
and you’ll run into those panic moments faster. So spread out your big heals throughout the dungeon or raid. As you cycle through them the others will start to come off cooldown.
Get used to cycling through your big cooldowns and you’ll start to not even have panic moments. Its a hard thing to do as new healer because you really don’t want to get caught out. but its definitely something that will help you in the long run.
Tip 5: Read Your Tooltips
This is a super super simple one, but one thats easy to fall victim too. Read your tool tips. These are available in game with the key “p” or you can check on the official FFXIV spell lists.
I savage raided for weeks on white mage, before I realised the big healing circle I put down also increased the healing people receive. Or that the wings you pop, also reduce damage people around you take.
you’ll also be able to make better combos if you know what spells do. Like casting swiftcast before resurrect to make it instant resurection. Or buffing your shields before using them on Scholar to crit huge shields.
Classes like Astrologion and sage are already fairly complex, so take a good look at their tool tips.
But thats it. 5 tips for new healers in FFXIV, or healers that are still learning. I really hope these help at least one new healer.
Check out our specific healer guides below for each class: