WHM Video Commentaries

I'm not the best WHM around, but I've decided t do some video commentaries on YT to talk about my own thought process when I heal events, right now, iv'e mostly been healing the new battlefields and talking about my experiences:

SKCNMs:

Grimshell Shocktroopers II (Normal):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI7uMkMK008&list=UUpY7v6pCkTkByzfnboSCXqw

Kindred Spirits II (Normal):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDwbFECZ6SY


High Tier Battlefields:

Ark Angel EV (Normal):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU-p0PI98ik




I'll continue to make more, so I hope you'll enjoy, like I said I'm not amazing, but I feel like talking about my thought process in public will help me improve.

I noticed a few things throughout your videos: 1) I never saw you hasting the DDs. 2) You over-cured alot if someone is at 70% hp you can do c3 instead of c4. 3)In one of your videos you mentioned pulling hate from enfeebling, if you pull hate casting slow/para/dia etc; your DDs or tank really suck.

thats actually not overcuring, its curing with the possibility of the target being hit again before the cure lands. however, not enfeebling should be done and not keeping things silenced full time like tojil as whm inhibits the sch's ability to not use as many books while stunning thus allowing you to go 3-4 times in an hour rather than 2 times an hour because you need to reset 1h's.

Try EV(Very Difficult) than come back and let us know if you still think EV(Normal) hits. hard. =P

Various things:

1) You didn't turn off any of the combat filters. DD damage was just spamming through the chat log. It's very easy to miss stuff that way. These were pretty low-stress fights, so it didn't matter much, but there's really no need for you to be watching how much damage they're doing.

2) As mentioned, didn't see you use Haste at all (first fight). In particular, you never hasted yourself. There's no reason not to keep Haste on yourself, at least (unless a rdm is keeping a Haste II cycle), for reduced spell timers.

3) Pulling hate with enfeebles (in the Grimshell Shocktroopers fight) is most likely because he cast on a mob that the pld was supertanking. Obviously he'd pull hate since no one had touched it before then. Because of that, the DDs seemed to spread out and each tried to solo their own mob. Not a big deal in this fight, but in tougher fights you want people focused on one mob at a time. Let the pld do his job supertanking; if you're not doing that, don't bother bringing a pld, and just get another DD.

4) Prot/Shell before entering -- At the moment there's a bug(?) where most battlefields clear buffs on entry, so doing it inside is fine. That's not the case for AA fights, though, so prot/shell should be done before entry. Also, Light Arts and Afflatus Solace and Reraise. Not doing so before entering is just wasting people's time, and risking a timeout in the tougher battles. Plus, that's a lot of MP to spend that you could have rested back before entering; instead you go in with an MP deficit.

I like doing Stoneskin-ga before entry as well, since it lasts a decently long time, but is also going to wear off pretty soon into the battle, and you're not going to be re-applying it anyway. The only stuff you do after entry are the short duration buffs like Auspice and Boost, or the fast spells like Bars.

Aside: the MDB of barspells only applies to spells of the same element of the bar. Baraera isn't going to do anything against the Banishga or Holy that AA EV uses. Definitely use Barthunder vs MT, though, as that significantly helps survivability against Cloudsplitter.

5) Stop the spinning! That is sooo annoying in a video. 5 minutes of dizziness...

6) Never saw anyone use Dia II in the AA fight, though I might have missed it in the initial rush in. However, even if you can't land Para/Slow, definitely use Dia II (enhanced by the cor, if possible). I did see EV cast Dia II a couple times, as well as Diaga II, though; didn't get erased.

7) One of EV's moves absorbs a buff from the target(s), such as Haste, Protect, Shell, etc. While getting prot/shell back up on people who lost it may be a bit too demanding without a good amount of refresh, I would at least hope that the smn was subbing /sch, and dispelling the absorbed buffs (unless the cor was doing it, but if they were they'd lose shots to enhance Dia II).

8) Noticed that you -never- kept the cursor on the mob. Given that the mob behavior changes at various HP levels, you always want to be aware of what stage the mob is in.

Even thought the guys have provided constructive criticism which is always a good thing, I'll take the chase to applaud your intent though.

This.

I also Accession Aquaveil pre-entry on fights where the DD are /nin. But I also haven't watched the videos (YT is blocked at work) so ignore this if you're already doing that. XD

I have a hard time remembering to haste mid battle (I was doing so a littler better w/ hasting the MNKs in that Kindred Spirits one, but that's the one were I died because I got hit with Astral Flow like an idiot.) but yeah I need to work on that, I would've hasted on EV but SMN beat me to it w/ Hastega.

I didn't know these weren't a standard "buff wear on entry" kind of battlefield! Otherwise I totally ould've buffed first, between Skirmish and other places where buffs wear, that kind of catches me off guard.

Thanks for the constructive criticism though!

I need to learn how to set up combat log filters, too.

Against astral flow, use sacrosantity,

It is still over-curing. Dropping a cure4 and it only healing for 300 or less is a complete waste no matter how you look at it.

Eh, with nearly unlimited MP, you can afford to blow a few on a stronger cureskin and in the event the tank takes a few more hits or eats a TP move between when you select the cure and when it goes off, you're covered. Not all content requires stiff MP hoarding.

I personally hav't seen an event out yet that would identify "overcuring" to still exsist tbh. Like you said MP is damn near unlimitated now-a-days.

Yeah, I consider Cure 4 to be my "Cheap, bread and butter" heal, I'll sometimes throw out Cure 3 but I just don't have it macroed and maybe I should change that.

I'm still kicking myself over that panic cure 6 though. I hate it when I'm really inefficient, I really wish I had thrown out a 5 instead.

Maybe im just too old fashioned, but to me its a waste of mp and extra enmity gain.

In the Kindred Spirits fight, make sure you keep barblizzara up as the SMN NM approaches half-life. The Astral Flow avatar of choice is always Shiva.

C4 should actually be one of your least used cures. C3 can be cast for almost 0 mp with Orison Pants, and generates far less enmity.

The enmity is based on the amount cured, only Cure V (as far as I know) has a fixed enmity. It might have been different at one point, though. It is a waste of MP, strictly speaking, it's just not anything worth concern if you have ballads and half decent refresh gear.

You can adjust your filter to check buff state, or just re-haste before it wears...you should always reapply haste before it wears, since any second DD not getting haste = losing DPS.

I always have 3 ballads and have max refresh set, but like I said, just old fashioned, why use it if you don't have/need to?

I think you missed the point of Cureskin.

Go home your drunk.

Although I'd agree these fights are not particularly hard, a cureskinned cure 4 would allow you to toss out an erase or dia2 with a nice cushion with minimal risk of loosing a DD.

Start by hasting yourself, then cycle through the various DDs that need it. You can keep track of your own timer to see when you need to start the rotation again, or if you lose track of it, just see if your own haste is still up; if yours has dropped, the DDs are starting to lose haste as well.


Remove the Cure 6 macro entirely, and push in Cure 3. Cures 3, 4 and 5 should be all you need for direct cures; cure to wake someone up can be typed manually, if you aren't just using a normal cure or curaga.

I've only used Cure 6 once in the last year of doing D and VD fights, Delve, etc, and that's because I was on the wrong macro palette and was expecting a different spell to be in that spot (the palette with Cure 6 isn't my standard curing palette). Cure 6 is just a way to burn MP fast for almost no real value.


Actually, just put up Barblizzara on entry. Aside from helping against Shiva, it also helps the person holding the ice elemental (and anyone else who gets too close to its -ga spells). Barspells last 10 minutes, which should last the entire fight (though you might have to renew it once if you're on a VD run).

If you are relying on cureskin to be the difference between life or death, go home you suck.

The difference between life and death is pretty dramatic, what it is, is extra insurance, extra breathing room... If you do VD battlefields, you will understand what that means for a healer.

Have spammed every VD battle in the game, never losing a DD and using C3 when curagas aren't needed. If you don't suck, you don't have to worry about breathing room. Keeping DDs topped off, hasted and keeping Dia2 on is pretty easy, in any battlefield or instance.

I actually only have 4 and 5 macroed at all (because I was told those are the two most used, something about 3 doesn't cure enough to fuly top off sometimes, and 6 is just huge enminty gain and too much MP compared to 4-5), I don't macro 6 or 3, I have to command line or menucast those, and most of the time it's hard to command line stuff because I play with a controller and typing out a command line is a bit tricky with a controller in my hands.

I used to macro/use Cure 3 a lot until a friend/LSmate told me Cure 4 was on average stronger due to cureskin. This was way back before Adoulin though, when everyone was in Aby and had refresh atma though.

Shortcuts is your friend, only having to type in /c3 _name_ but you should macro it. And Cure3 ideally should be curing about 478, up to 550 on light day with Colossus's Torque.
**Edit** Including this for you to look over at some gear sets: http://pastebin.com/f2ws3bgW

Cure 6 isn't a huge enmity gain; it's a static enmity spell like Cure 5. It's just horribly MP inefficient.

Cure 3 and 4 are both about the same in terms of MP efficiency. Both of them are a fair bit more efficient than Cure 5. Here's a graph I made of it a while back (click for larger version):



You can probably expect to be somewhere in the 500-600 power range on that chart. The chart includes the effect of AF3+2 pants (Edit: possibly not Light Arts; spreadsheet looks different when I activate Light Arts, but the overall standings are still basically the same).

Cure 3 only doesn't cure enough to top people off if they're missing more HP than Cure 3 can cure. Sort of self-evident. It can cure about 480, and Cure 4 cures about 900 (give or take, depending on gear). It's up to you to decide which one is the better choice based on the rate that people are taking damage, and how far down they are at the moment.

With plds I'll usually use Cure 3, since that's adequate for the amount of damage they typically take. However for some situations I'll switch up to Cure 4 or 5 (eg: MT on VD without an Aegis pld, cureskin is essential in mitigating Cloudsplitter>Cloudsplitter>Darkness damage). For regular DDs I'm more likely to focus on curagas and Cure 4/5, since they take damage more quickly, and often in groups. However I'll still use an occasional Cure 3 for single individuals taking lighter amounts of damage.

Exactly, I wasn't trying to say ONLY use Cure3, I was trying to say its more mp efficient to use in certain situations over cure4. It really comes down to what % HP they are at and also what Job/Race they are as well as MNK would take more to top off than say a WAR or SAM.

Got a new Video, of me healing Celestial Nexus Normal!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EANrkBC1x7w

So this is me healing normal Celestial Nexus w/ a shout pt. It was a really rough one, I tried to do a better job with hastes and throwing out a few more cure 3s than usual, but I ended up getting hit by big AoE and spend most of the fight trying to heal/haste weakened. I should have made more of an effort to avoid the AoE. I kinda went into this fight blind, I wish wikis had more information on these fights so as a healer I would know what to expect more. :(

Somehow we held together and won, I was tempted to do a sacrificial benedict though when I was out of MP and everyone was low near the end of form 2, but I hesistated and didn't do it in time to save the person who died.

No really juicy drops, I'll have to try this guy again for that Vanir body I want. Hope you enjoy me failing around trying to do WHM stuff weakened!