It is a thankless job and probably the hardest of the 3 (DPS, Tank, Heals).  I am running Fists/AR around level 3/4.  I do not have many blue items, so I'm running Polaris multiple times to get blue items and learn "how to heal".  It's rough man, especially for someone new to MMOs this year.  My group made it through both times with me as healer, but it was down to the wire with the last boss.  The whole group died twice, once each run.  But the problem is on top of learning, trying to keep the tank alive, and watching for AOEs from the boss, the DPS players complain if I don't heal them enough.  I do try to rotate through, but I thought the main job was to keep the tank alive?  I do not want to quit healing, but get better.   

I did expect some bumps in the road, but my real reason for the post is some advice.  Here is my setup currently:

Actives:

Nuture- Fist builder  **I use this most

Surgical Steel- Fist consumer  **I spam this with Nuture

Anima Shot-  When I can, the tank is usually taking too much damage to keep spamming this.  

Energize- Leech buff

Pack Leader- tank buff

Triggr Happy- Regular consumer

Fire at will-  When I do get  a chance to do some damage.

Passives:

Anticogulant-  This works awesome soloing because it applies affliction while healing myself or group.

Nuturing Gift-

Anima Boast

Leech Therapy-  I thought this would be awesome and have yet to see it help at all.

Experience

Mind of Matter- Crit to Appliction stack

Alpha Wolf- buff to pack leader

Any advice is appreciated! 

some good builds to try in here http://tswguides.blogspot.com/p/builds.html

personally I hate healing but that's just a personal preference nothing to do with the mechanics of it.

If you're able to beat the last boss with only 2 wipes, you're doing fine. Folks who die at the drop of a hat and have never played healers are the biggest entitled whiners. I consider any raid boss encounter a success if we only wipe a couple of times. I usually play a tank, btw.

Last boss has some positioning issues, since hes so big, he may turn and dps get caught in the breath attacks.

Leech therapy is good, but only if you are spamming Anima Burst or Anima Shot as your main heal, and only if the dps is kinda close to the tank.  The size of the last boss on polaris, and the fact that the tank needs to have him turned away, doesnt allow for it to be very useful. 

The vast majority, if not all the dmg from the last boss is avoidable by the dps, barring wierd positioning issues, and your first responsibility is to the tank. 

My advice would be to get Shot of Anima ASAP, its a great AR heal consumer, but not really needed for polaris.  I remember healing it with just Anima shot.

Originally posted by Coolrockski

It is a thankless job and probably the hardest of the 3 (DPS, Tank, Heals).  I am running Fists/AR around level 3/4.  I do not have many blue items, so I'm running Polaris multiple times to get blue items and learn "how to heal".  It's rough man, especially for someone new to MMOs this year.  My group made it through both times with me as healer, but it was down to the wire with the last boss.  The whole group died twice, once each run.  But the problem is on top of learning, trying to keep the tank alive, and watching for AOEs from the boss, the DPS players complain if I don't heal them enough.  I do try to rotate through, but I thought the main job was to keep the tank alive?  I do not want to quit healing, but get better.   

I did expect some bumps in the road, but my real reason for the post is some advice.  Here is my setup currently:

 

Actives:

Nuture- Fist builder  **I use this most

Surgical Steel- Fist consumer  **I spam this with Nuture

Anima Shot-  When I can, the tank is usually taking too much damage to keep spamming this.  

Energize- Leech buff

Pack Leader- tank buff

Triggr Happy- Regular consumer

Fire at will-  When I do get  a chance to do some damage.

 

Passives:

 

Anticogulant-  This works awesome soloing because it applies affliction while healing myself or group.

Nuturing Gift-

Anima Boast

Leech Therapy-  I thought this would be awesome and have yet to see it help at all.

Experience

Mind of Matter- Crit to Appliction stack

Alpha Wolf- buff to pack leader

 

 

Any advice is appreciated! 

 

 

 

Don't know about TSW as I have not played it but your main job as a primary healer in standard MMO's is to keep the tank in the fight.  If the tank loses the aggro and the dps get wasted that isn't your fault, especially if the dps have detaunts and don't use them.  In most games you will find that groups utilise the services of two healers,  Primary to keep the tank up and an off healer for filling in the gaps.

Heres my AR/Feral build for NM's, I swear by it, take a look :)

http://tswguides.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/elitenightmare-healer-build-fistar-by.html

Originally posted by Coolrockski

It is a thankless job and probably the hardest of the 3 (DPS, Tank, Heals).  I am running Fists/AR around level 3/4.  I do not have many blue items, so I'm running Polaris multiple times to get blue items and learn "how to heal".  It's rough man, especially for someone new to MMOs this year.  My group made it through both times with me as healer, but it was down to the wire with the last boss.  The whole group died twice, once each run.  But the problem is on top of learning, trying to keep the tank alive, and watching for AOEs from the boss, the DPS players complain if I don't heal them enough.  I do try to rotate through, but I thought the main job was to keep the tank alive?  I do not want to quit healing, but get better.   

I did expect some bumps in the road, but my real reason for the post is some advice.  Here is my setup currently:

 

Actives:

Nuture- Fist builder  **I use this most

Surgical Steel- Fist consumer  **I spam this with Nuture

Anima Shot-  When I can, the tank is usually taking too much damage to keep spamming this.  

Energize- Leech buff

Pack Leader- tank buff

Triggr Happy- Regular consumer

Fire at will-  When I do get  a chance to do some damage.

 

Passives:

 

Anticogulant-  This works awesome soloing because it applies affliction while healing myself or group.

Nuturing Gift-

Anima Boast

Leech Therapy-  I thought this would be awesome and have yet to see it help at all.

Experience

Mind of Matter- Crit to Appliction stack

Alpha Wolf- buff to pack leader

 

 

Any advice is appreciated! 

 

 

 

I agree with Pyuk that you aren't doing shabby at all. TSW is very unforgiving game and dying is just to be expected in some situations.

As to any deck advice I recommend getting and using healing sparks and use anima burst rather than anima shot. I know its slower but it heals more and synergizes excellently with healing sparks which is pretty much Fist healings bread and butter. You might also look at Fired Up, Platoon, and Mortar Support.

Coming from a tank, communication it the key.

It's essential if a group plans on trying the tough stuff, the tank needs to know when the healer is rescuing the DPS so he can pop mitigation abilities. Same if the healer is struggling, tanks in TSW have some great survival actives, a GOOD tank will have several ready for such eventualities, a BAD tank will either have only one or none slotted or burn them at the wrong time.

DPS need to realise when they are going to need to be self reliant and use healing pots.

The worst players i have seen in TSW have been Blood DPS....they are almost to a man completely oblivious to their own HP's and almost always test the healers patience because they die and whine at the healer.

This being said, i have seen ranged standing in AoE damage pools wondering why they die and healers who don't seem to realise they too must move a lot to stay in the game.

TSW is essentially a gear check, you need the higher QL kit to be viable as any class, it's just far more obvious if the tank or healer are under geared. This being said running with under geared DPS will also cause fights to go on too long and oftem leads to failure.

The great thing is many builds are viable for a healer, there is no one "best" spec. My advice check out the misc abilities, look for synergy between actives and passives, often you'll find great passives in other weapon trees that don't need that weapon equipped (as a tank i have Hardcase slotted which is from the shotgun line but doesn't require i have a shotgun equipped, i am dedicated to my Hammer/Chaos build).

Check out the official forums Deck area, loads fo good discussions there about healing and healer specs, best bet is to read for information and make your own decisions about the spec you want to play or test out.

This is just something that you have to get used to as a healer. DPS just want to stand there and pew pew without having to worry about mechanics and tactics. They will constantly stand in the fire and then complain when they die. This is the way the system works. If you want to heal you have to develop a thick skin and let the criticism roll off you. 

Healing is all about the concept of triage. You have to be able to quickly prioritize whom to heal and how. This requires you to have great awareness of your surroundings and a strong understanding of the fights which you likely don't since the game is brand new. 

The best solution is to find a good guild or run with friends becuase they are more likely to take their time and help you out as much as possible. They also usually won't rage if you wipe. If you can't or don't want to find a regular group then you just have to get used to taking the heat.

  yes healing is a thankless job, most other players that whine and yell they dont get healed enough, would never tolarate being whined at or yelled at (hence they dont play healers, usualy a dps) its a personal satisfaction in healing a party, and feels good at times when  you get with an apriciative group, take advice from players who have played healers, but never let them tell you HOW to play your Character, its your time, your computer, your money and your character, piss on the tank that knows how to play your character better then you, just find another tank,

   i would rather play with a group that has fun and wipes  20 times rather then play with a bunch of whiners that will quit the group on the second wipe, your playing a game, Have fun.

Thanks for the tips..strategy-wise and philosophical. It is good to get feedback here because it is not happening within the groups you form in public in-game.  I also see the tanks take a lot of abuse for not genrating aggro..and honestly, I don't care if it is a public group. It is much "cooler" to be helpful than a complainer.  

I should say this isn't all DPS..it is the minority.  Some in public are way cool..we just need more of them.

Just say this to the DPS that complains.

"You ARE able to dodge in this game."

Originally posted by Coolrockski

It is a thankless job and probably the hardest of the 3 (DPS, Tank, Heals).  I am running Fists/AR around level 3/4.  I do not have many blue items, so I'm running Polaris multiple times to get blue items and learn "how to heal".  It's rough man, especially for someone new to MMOs this year.  My group made it through both times with me as healer, but it was down to the wire with the last boss.  The whole group died twice, once each run.  But the problem is on top of learning, trying to keep the tank alive, and watching for AOEs from the boss, the DPS players complain if I don't heal them enough.  I do try to rotate through, but I thought the main job was to keep the tank alive?  I do not want to quit healing, but get better.   

I did expect some bumps in the road, but my real reason for the post is some advice.  Here is my setup currently:

 

Actives:

Nuture- Fist builder  **I use this most

Surgical Steel- Fist consumer  **I spam this with Nuture

Anima Shot-  When I can, the tank is usually taking too much damage to keep spamming this.  

Energize- Leech buff

Pack Leader- tank buff

Triggr Happy- Regular consumer

Fire at will-  When I do get  a chance to do some damage.

 

Passives:

 

Anticogulant-  This works awesome soloing because it applies affliction while healing myself or group.

Nuturing Gift-

Anima Boast

Leech Therapy-  I thought this would be awesome and have yet to see it help at all.

Experience

Mind of Matter- Crit to Appliction stack

Alpha Wolf- buff to pack leader

 

 

Any advice is appreciated! 

 

 

 

I was a top three healer in EQ2 in the Guild Darknessfalls name was Pawket incase some one knows me =-P. Heals is always the hardest job. Not so sure about thankless though. If I did not show to raid there where mobs we did not kill period. Any other class in our raid could be replaced even our main tank Pinpoint could be replaced by our offtank SK Vein. However if our Mystic or CLeric was MIA for raid and that was rare it was a no go because to pug a healer would mean Death. So yeah heals are hard but it is no thankless job.

It do get's franctic and it's thankless a job, often you can get flamed due to people dying... only to see that your tank has HP but zero mitigation (all DPS stats in gear other than HP)  and your DPS love to eat AoE's and environment damage, or steal aggro cause they are so uber.

However... TSW is the first game i've ever played a healer, cause that doesn't exclude me from playing other roles without needing to reroll.  I have 6 (done in an economic way regarding AP/SP, after all, to get the skills you want for a build you may get quite a few that work for others) builds including a full healing and 2 tanking ones.

Healing is by far the hardest, but also the most engaging and challenging, it's quite fun.  My healing build ended up better geared than my main build :P.

This also means i almost never have to wait for group spots... as i can fill the roles and even compliment different groups as DPS or tank, for different effects.

OF course, i'm just in Egypt, so let's see how it holds up for elites and NM.

Everyone needs to be responsible for their own health if possible during boss fights.  There are healing/shielding potions for a reason afterall.

But I'd say you're doing fine.  Bosses really are meant to be unforgiving if you mess up.  Dying is expected (heck it's part of the game lore) so don't feel too bad when it happens.

Most good players realize it happens a lot in TSW.  Those that complain about a few deaths are probably the reason for those deaths :)

On thougher encounters sometimes i end up losing someone near the end or dying myself, but basically by then the victory is assured and it's just a matter of seconds for our victory.

It feels bad when someone dies on your watch, but as long as you learn and things don't get screwed (nor ends up being the norm) all's cool.

Been a healer in several MMOs and this is a tough job. Especially when joing a pug because you never know who you group up with. Just one drama queen can spoil a whole run for everybody. I think that MMO players were much friendlier in the past but maybe I'm just getting old and nostalgic here :)

But tswguids.blogspot.com really has some viable builds or at least it gives some ideas how to build your favourite. Just got interested in one tank build there and thinking about making one.

I'd also advise to "inspect" your tank and other members to have an idea of what kind of a task you are gonna face, and be prepared.

One of the greatest issues I have with raid and dungeon content is that many players don't want to learn the tactics. They expect to get through the content fast and perfectly on the first try. Not everyone thinks like this but a large number of people do.

This is one of the reasons why I appreciate good groups and guilds. We can learn the best way to get the job done and improve for the future.

I also tend to lean towards solo content these days because I can run through stuff over and over and get better at doing it without exessive drama or waste time with lfg spam.

My least favorite thing in the whole MMO universe is a PUG that does not communicate at all.

If I tank and ask questions or talk and get silence, I know right away there is trouble on the horizon.

If I am DPS and again no one is talking I prepare for failure.

I don't heal. I probably could, but I can't resist killing stuff and therefore will not burden anyone with a healer without the heart to do it. That is just wrong.