Afraid of playing a healer in a dungeon? Maybe it is about Healer Anxiety… Healanxiety… Healxiety… Regardless of what you call it, I hope to suggest some ways to overcome this problem that just might help you!
Video suggestions for further learning:
Healer Tips: https://youtu.be/qU6TvijHMMU
White Mage Starter Guide: https://youtu.be/NG92-sk3ATA
Scholar Starter Guide: https://youtu.be/rV4DOZdT63Y
Astrologian Starter Guide: https://youtu.be/Rqc7Dt7yHIo
Sage Starter Guide: https://youtu.be/eIIxZU_x2sU
Discord Community Server, come hang out:
https://discord.gg/FDNFgEYyaT
You can also support me on Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/caetsuchaiji
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CaetsuChaijiCh
Music Used:
FFXIV Endwalker – Cradle of Hope
#ffxiv #endwalker
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
01:59 (1) Read/Watch a Guide on the Role and Job you chose
03:42 (2) Practice with Duty Support
04:56 (3) Practice with Lower Level Dungeons
06:27 (4) Learn how impactful your heals actually are
09:07 (5) The worst that can happen is that you Wipe
12:25 The most important Tip to remember
13:20 Fun Fact
source
A big tip too is utilizing the vote kick function for people who get too pissy and toxic in dungeons.
i used to be really anxious when playing healer, i first started out as scholar and i never knew what were barrier healers and pure healers, and i remember getting wiped in a trial multiple times and i blamed myself. we eventually finished it but i felt so ridiculous how we managed to defeat it with only 2 people barely scraping it by, and thought i wasn’t doing enough pure healing. there was also another time where my friend mocked me for healing less than them (me as a lvl 90 scholar using emergency tactics+adlo and them a lvl 80 astrologian using a benefic 2) and then also telling me my healing will never match up to their warrior healing. i almost quit playing the game then and there. overtime i learned to realize that everything has their limits, it would make sense that their astrologian would do more PURE heal than a scholar trying to use a pure heal, even when there’s a level difference. and warrior will always heal more than scholar or practically any other healer in the matter, but that’s not my job as the healer to care about, because in the end, whether they mock me for not being able to heal as much as them self healing, my role as a healer is to help the PARTY and not only 1 person. the lessons and advice i’ve learned was knowing limits. each healer was designed different and unique, it’s not an issue if a scholar or sage can’t pump mega heals, it’s just by job design that they can do other things besides mega heals better and vice versa for white mage and astrologian. also for any new healers that worry and get stressed whenever someone dies, we have a resurrection spell for a reason 🤪 damage comes and goes, if someone makes a mistake and you can’t heal them in time, slap a quick ressurect spell on them and then continue blanking out 👍
The best way to deal with healer anxiety is to ask a good tank (either in your FC or even try the PF, or even use Trusts) and choose a low-level dungeon, get practice that way. Then move up in the dungeon level. Aurum Vale is pretty much that one dungeon where many healers (and tanks) stumble. I overcame my own healer anxiety by using Trusts. Then I just went on Roulettes to see how I would fare in a "real" situation. I got a lot of praise for being an excellent healer. Sadly I have since stopped healing because of some bad experiences recently.
To be fair, the game's MSQ literally has that part of the quest chain in Gridania where a group are berating their healer, Edda, for letting the tank die. Not very encouraging to new healers.
Been healing for so long i have the opposite problem: I want things to go wrong, I want people to make mistakes, I want to FEEL something!
But my biggest tip is that it is not your SOLE responsibility to heal and mitigate, you are the biggest contributor but tanks and dps have tools at their disposal to brush off most small mistakes and to reduce potential dmg. True that those are things you cant control and cant anticipate people to use in a random party but knowing that other roles have tools to both keep themselves and the party alive can help with the pressure of healing.
We 2 manned level sync Sastasha to get my friend some practice.
Confidence was a major key is overcoming my healer anxiety. I love having the power to deny failure (i.e. boss hits a group hard, and I cast a heal, say “no” undoing the damage completely). But the fear of failure is too real.
I practiced with duty support, figured out my priorities and habits, and feel very comfortable now. The worst I face is my anxiety in general and large groups like raids, which I face the best I can in whatever job I am playing.
Castrum Abania is where I had a run in which everyone nearly got destroyed from messing up boss mechanics, but because I stayed calm and kept them alive through it all, the tank stopped after and said “hold up, we agree healer gets comms right? That was incredible.” The dps agreed and I was stunned by the kindness of it. That was months ago and I still think about it. I barely remember times I messed anything up, because it barely mattered. Nobody was a tryhard or being mean, we could have wiped and be right there again in a minute. But I stepped up to try my best, it did something, and from then on only mechanics worried me. I am the healer. I heal you. I heal the party. Tanks love me, bosses fear me.
Humor and anecdotes aside, FFxiv players are some of the best humanity has. Sometimes people are a headache, but most are cool. When I’m a dps (dragoon main) I will cheer you on. When I am a tank, I will cheer you on. Sometimes seeing in the chat that people are happy to see you doing your best disarms that anxiety because they’re chill “nothing” makes you think they’re judging you, when they’re usually thinking “no big deal, keep trying buddy. I’ve been there.”
Anytime I see someone new to something, struggling with mechanics, dying a lot, I’m always ready to step up for you and help. I’m not unique in that regard, people are way more kind than you may be prepared to handle.
Healer is a great role to play and if I see you in my roulettes, you got a friend cheering you on and knows what you’re feeling. You can only do your best, and the party can always help. It’s in their best interest to help, and is rewarding to do, so people will help.
I honestly just dont play with people that make me feel like shit for learning
The best way to beat healing anxiety is to just heal, rofl. Sounds easy right ? Because it is. There is no "Tank anxiety" or "Healer anxiety", there is the anxiety of getting out of your comfort zone, and only by getting out of your comfort zone can you beat that. I was anxious to play DPS for the longest time, because I always play heals or tanks in mmo's, and I was afraid I didn't have the focus to maintain a rotation and maximize my dps, which would pull my party back. I have all dps jobs at 90 except 2 now. I was afraid of raiding for the longest time, but I finally did do ultimates (as a dps too rofl) and it went fine. This isn't about healing or tanking, this is just a normal human reaction to stepping out of your comfort zone, but doing that will almost always reward you.
Go pick up sage or scholar now, they're both really fun to play. ♥
For me I think if you can wall to wall heal in lower level dungeons you are doing really well. for me lower level dungeons as a healer are harder than endgame dungeons. And if you have friend who is playing as paladin go run couple of wall to wall pulls in under lvl40 dungeons that will teach you a lot.
(No hate to paladins xD its just that low level paladins dont have that much self healing compare to other tanks. So as a healer when you are running low level dungeons with palading you really need to do your job. ALSO if fail to keep party alive its NOT just your fault maybe the tank is also new to the job and dont really know how to rotate mitigation and if the dps in your party is new he/she might not really know his/her job that well so the pulls take longer and you might have to heal way longer in one pull than you expected EVERYONE has a role in FFXIV remember that and practice makes wonders for the anxiety the more you know about your job the less anxiety you will have SO GOOD LUCK AND REMEMBER TO HAVE GOOD TIME!)
This is PROBABLY obvious advice but I need to stress that new healers should start from white mage since it begins at level 1. Don't do what I did and play summoner all the way up to 80 and then try scholar for the first time ever at level 80.
The thing that gave me the most anxiety for healing was that I started with AST. And having the most to do in between heals with the card system was scary, but also that AST's AOE requires a target while the rest of the healers do not. As every other healer, you can target the tank and cast AOE's, but AST requires you to untarget the tank to deal damage, which was scary to me when I was a new player.
Any mistake you make can be traced to you, and guess what, every one of your teammates mistakes affects you, so you can hate them and they can hate you, it’s perfect
Way i deal with my healer anxiety is play warrior, dont have any anxiety about having a crap healer then 😂
As someone who started on BLM, picked up PLD, and now plays every role, it is wild to me how healing went from panicking about when to heal to wondering "Do I really need to heal that, or will natural regen and an oGCD do the job?" I've never seen such extreme disparity in how I play between when I started playing a role and when I got comfortable with it.
One of the hardest skills for me to master has been learning when (not) to resurrect DPS. Often as a healer there's an impulse to rez somebody as soon as they fall. After all, getting/keeping people on their feet is the whole purpose of healing. However, if you've got a spicy pull and it's not going well for some reason then spending the resources (time, MP, Swiftcast) on a dead DPS rather than the tank can cause that tank to hit the floor themselves and now you're out those resources AND don't have a tank. Remember that as a healer your priorities are yourself, your co-healer, tanks, and then DPS.
And DPS, if you die during a dungeon pull it's often more helpful to just respawn and try to catch up than it is to wait for revival. You won't suffer the weakness penalty and you save your healer 2400 MP.
From what? Healers have been more pampered than any other role pretty much since stormblood. Last time they had to pay any attention to a health bar, was abyssos and after they bitched in forums, the tank buster dot is no more, so, like Kenneth Titus used to say "STOP BEING A WUSSY, WUSSY, HAHAHAHAHA"
You got the priority wrong. 1st Priority is keeping yourself alive because if you're dead Youre Party has in the worst case no one who can pick up
I am starting to have dps Anxiety due to having entire guilds collapse whenever I am not healing…
I was one of those healers who had dps anxiety like that little disclaimer in the beginning. I started ffxiv as an arcanist, and when I unlocked sastasha, I went and power-leveled conjurer up to 15 so that I could be a healer instead, because I thought it would be fewer buttons to keep track of and therefore easier for me. I was right, it was.
What i did was that i just forced myself through the anxiety and i was mostly fine lol 😂
How do you deal with healer anxiety?
Just don't give a shit, lmao.
– A healer main.
The biggest thing that's helped me over the years in various MMOs I've healed in is simply, you can only correct your own mistakes. There's tons of ways your party members can die, good observation can tell you whether you were to blame or them. People are always getting hit by attacks that are easily avoidable and while a good healer can usually compensate, if they end up tanking the floor, it's not your fault. Making mistakes has always been the fastest way to learn so fearing them will only drag the process on long than it needs to.
It’s easy just blame the dps for not killing fast enough
Honestly just by healing. More you do it the less anxiety you'll feel. It works with almost every form of general anxiety
To anyone who wants to try healer there is very little to stress about until you start doing high level end game stuff because your DPS is a benefit but it's wholly not needed prior to the harder content so if you just error on the side of caution on when to heal vs DPS you will be completely fine. Mechanically healer is pretty simple to play and the role is more about being aware of the situation so you can decide how much you can DPS than any kind of difficult rotation or anything. Don't stress about it healer is one of the most chill roles you can play especially once you get used to the heal vs DPS balancing act.
Do raids, trials, alliance raids. Anything that involves a second healer. A lot of the anxiety goes away when you know you have someone there to help.
I surprisingly also found learning Savages and Extremes from my FC to help teach me the intricacies of when to use certain abilities. Really nice having a more experienced healer to tell you about what you could use during this raid wide or that tank buster.
I started as a whm. I had healer anxiety until the arr patch quests, lol
I didn't switch jobs or roles, but I would only do the bare minimum of duties to progress the msq
I think I finally got over it when I started spamming all the level 50 dungeons to clear the quests off my list. Just forcing myself to do it more really helped me to finally get comfortable with the role
Idc if we wipe cuz someone made a mistake or healer panicked, or used wrong ability. Stuff happens, what are you going to do.
I only get angry when I die as a tank cuz the healer was to busy dps’ing to do his effing job. Naturally I don’t make any comments I simply decline the raise and respawn. Then go back to the mobs and wait for everyone before pulling.
This is how you teach healers to do their job. They were DPSing and not healing to make things go faster. Now everything takes longer because they couldn’t pause their damage for a second to do their job.
I love that as time goes by tanks get more party mits and heals. They can pick up the spot-heals of other players' mistakes and relieve some of that pressure on new healers. Hope we get more in DT.
My way to get a good idea how a job worka is to run 24 man raids, specifically, crystal tower. 😂
When I played my first healer, I went into a grand company party, so that I could take my time to figure out everything I needed to learn controls and timing. After that it was just learning each healer. Sage was the hardest for me to start, but now it's my main and preferred healer.
One time, queued into leveling roulette, and got Stone Vigil. When we got in the tank told us that it was the Scholar's first time being a healer, so we were a bit slower and gave your two cents to help them improve. Dont be afraid to just tell your party. Most people are understanding and can adjust, and if they give you grief, thats on them.
I dont have healer anxiety i have LB3 anxiety
I play WAR to get over my healing anxiety . WAR are healer aren’t they?
Joking aside once I had to heal the healer as a WAR in a dungeon boss. The DPS were dead and I don’t know what healer was doing. I had to use Nascent flash a few times on them before we could fully recover