So Why Do I Suck At Healing?

I've been playing DCUO more aggressively than I have in the past, got through most of the episodes and find myself near current endgame. So I've also been running Alerts, Operations, Raids etc because some of the episode content is there, among other things. And sometimes things go fine, but more and more I'm getting the sense that I'm failing as a Healer; be it simply people dying more than they should around me, or being unable to clear a boss and then someone else swaps into healer role instead of me and all of a sudden it's winnable. Most often, it's me dying. I've played plenty of Healers in plenty of other MMOs over the years, and I've never had this much trouble. So I must be doing it wrong.

I've read guides on Healing as my power set (water), and my loadout seems correct, as does the theory of how I use it. My points are all in Healer spec stuff, and at first I thought that maybe I was just having a tough time of it because I hadn't replaced all of my DPS levelling-up gear with Healer gear yet, but now that I have...it doesn't feel like things have improved.

I think my biggest hurdle seems to be that many of the 4- and 8- player boss fights have mechanics that require you to block at certain times, but it seems to be telegraphed by the boss's animations, which...if I'm trying to watch everyone's health and my ability cooldowns, the last place I'm looking is at what the boss is physically doing. Does anyone else have this problem, or is the answer just "get good"?

Or is there something else I could be missing? How did you "get good" as a Healer?

are you in event when things go alright and the raid/alert is run optimally? if you answered no and some runs just go better sometimes, then it's possible you're just running into bad DPS/other support. as people who actually knew how to do their roles (whether it be DPS, healer, tank, troller, etc) leave, few if any players with a decent knowledge-base replace them, usually at a deficient rate. however it seems your issue isn't just bad raid runs or useless group makeup, but also partially a problem of boss one shot choreography. i suggest either hand blasters or more preferably dual pistols, if you like them or can make them work regardless of preference, dual pistols'll take about 50% of the guess work out as far as boss survivability goes if you can time the slipshot combo right.

Things needed:
1. What's your server and faction
2. What's your loadout
3. Explanation of how you use it ^

Makes sense.

Server is US-PC and faction is Heroes.

Loadout is:
1: Bubble/Tempest Guard (depending on group size)
2: Solace of the Sea
3: Blessing of the Depths
4: Mending Wave
5: Soothing Mist
6: Tranquil Pool

1 and 2 are up as often as possible/at all times to mitigate and control regular damage to the party.

Once those are up, I pick a target and start hurling range to keep my power up (I have shield, the hold-hold-hold ranged combo is my go to here), and keep an eye on the group and my 1 and 2 cooldowns.

5 is used if one person starts taking more damage than 1 and 2 can keep up with.

3 and 4 are used similarly if multiple group members are taking damage.

6 is for emergencies, if everything is in cooldown or I am out of power for some reason.

seems legitimate. i suggest adding high-tide somehow to your loadout though, many of the water powerset abilities rely on it for bonuses in healing and or shielding/reset https://dcuniverseonline.fandom.com/wiki/High_Tide. several abilities in your current loadout would benefit exponentially.

Take out Blessing of the Depth and replace it with Riptide. Use Solace of the Sea Riptide Solace of the Sea for a strong HoT every 12s. Replace Tranquil Pool with either Bubble/Tempest Guard (the other that you don't have) or Flood of Power. Flood of power resets your cooldowns which allows you to recast your shields or put out a quadra solace of the sea (solace rip solace flood solace rip solace), and it gives you basically infinite power for 12 or 15s to spam your healing powers.

Solace of the Sea
Riptide
Soothing Mist
Bubble

Those are your 4 mainstays. As previously stated, Solace-Riptide-Solace will be your primary healing source. Use Soothing Mist as needed. Bubble if you see health spikes or if you know a big attack is coming.

The other 2 spots are determined by you and your comfort level. If you're worried about health spikes, Mending Wave can help with those. Tempest Guard is great as it shields everyone and can also help before or during health spikes. If you want to use a supercharge, Flood of Power is your best choice. It works especially well if you have the Eye of Gemini artifact as you will be able to use it a lot. Being able to reset all your cooldowns and have infinite power is very helpful.

1. Can't heal stupid. The stupid don't understand certain things can not be healed through very well. Also some adds are programmed to attack healers.
2. It's helpful to know if you are investing in your origin augments and selecting generator mods wisely.
3. It's an artifact game these days. Some choices are OK, but there might be better choices depending.

Not criticizing but just a lot of variables to consider. The current DLC has lots of attacks that disregard shields (starting to get ridiculous) so you have to rely on spamming heals to get your teammates health up. Backup heals have been needed in the raids for this reason.

if u die to often u may want to use health generator mods instead of power, the 10% defence tactical mod while moving for neck and also u may consider to run the menacle artifact.

Also you will need to learn to time your cooldowns without looking at your tray, and keep track of your team's health by using the green bars over their heads instead of keeping your attention fixed in the left side of your screen, so you can watch bosses tells for blocking. Which also makes you preempt when your heals/shields are needed.

As Black Jaq kinda said, "yes". Everyone has this problem unless you run only with league mates that you know and communicate with.

For water, I find Flood of Power to be a really good supercharge.

As far as "get good" advice, then only thing I can add to what others have said is pay attention to the tank-- both their health and their play style. Obviously you want to pay attention to their health bar (because most groups don't last long if the tank falls in combat) and you'll want to have a strategy for keeping the tank topped off. If you don't use the orb artifact, your priority heal works well for that. If you do use the orb, you probably want to help out the tank with either tsunami strikes or by moving in close and including the tank in your solace of the sea AOE heal.

But attention to what the tank is or is not doing is also important. If the tank is running around kiting adds and bosses, your stationary AOE heal may not be that helpful. Is the tank quickly taunting or pulling all the adds that spawn? If not, you may need to save your 8-player shield for when the adds appear rather than keeping it on cool down. There's also mechanics that pop up from time to time where if your team ignores the mechanic you get swamped with adds. For pinches like those it pays to communicate with the troll and be ready to rotate shields.

The issue with DCUO, they like their one shots, nothing you can do about it. One minute someone could be full health, the next on the ground knocked out. Also have to rely on others to learn the boss fights, when to block, or keep their distance. I'll be honest, I'm guilty of blocking with my face quite a bit, but I don't blame the healer. Another thing DCUO likes is invisible hits, I've been knockout at times and I'm like what hit me? Even if you look at the combat log, it doesn't tell you. The new thing DCUO seems to do now, in alerts, adds now attacking the healer in certain boss fights. Example the Bane fight in Batman Breach, even with a tank, there are still adds go straight for the healer and ignores tank taunt.

your HOTS seem mostly in order, however i suggest this loadout (especially given the time sensitivity and management issues you seem to be facing); 1. bubble/tempest guard 2. solace of the sea 3. blessing of the depths 4. mending wave 5. soothing mist 6. high tide. this will enable you to do more with the abilities already in your loading tray and will give at least one of them a priority heal and the rest some decent HOTS between bursts. it will also reduce your use of super charges down to zero, allowing you to use most powers reasonably quickly outside of the timers themselves.

50% you, 50% your team - the best thing I've ever heard regarding healers is this : "You Can't Heal Stupid."

Consider these factors - did everyone stand two inches apart and get wiped because the Tank lost aggro and no one blocked a scripted attack?

Are you dealing with an experienced, cohesive League team, or are you in a PUG with a handful of puppy DPS and The Guy Who Tanks In DPS Gear?

Are people standing still inside of AOE damage fields and dying because they're (literally) standing in lava?

Because if the answer to those questions is "yes", it's not you, it's them.

My league leader actually asked me to come comment on this thread.

So! Do not use high tide in a healer loadout, it's a waste. Do not use Blessing, it's not a big enough heal. Do not use Riptide to refresh Solace of the Sea, you will just use waaaaaay too much power.

Also there's no water healing supercharge that's worth the slot.

Use Riptide to refresh Bubble and thereby keep four members of your group shielded at all times. You might think it's not worth it in a raid, but that's going to be at least four people who always survive to pick up other people. Use Tempest Guard for skull attacks or when you see people start to go down. Tempest Guard stacks with Bubble and therefore there's no advantage to just running one or the other.

Solace of the Sea gets cast every time it's on cool down.

Then you have Soothing Mist leveled up by Orb of Arion, and Mending Wave. Mending Wave gives a nice size heal to four players and refreshed quickly, so you can re-cast it twice in a row easily.

I recommend Orb and Manacles of Force as artifacts. Orb is obvious; Manacles are amazing for water because it drastically improves your Shields.

For Water, I personally use:

Solace
Riptide
Bubble/Tempest
Blessing of the Depths
Soothing Mist
Mending Wave

I run with my league as the main healer in the group, with a back up heal. I solo reg content and even with only one shield, I know my rotation, I know which buttons to press when a certain damage spike occurs (muscle memory) and this loadout works in Elite as well. If a damage spike occurs, I use Soothing Mist, Mending Wave, and Blessing all at the same time and everything is back up. I personally never have a problem with power, but again, I run with my league alot.

As a healer, you could be the GOAT or pretty *** tbh. If you’re healing a tank who has no idea wtf they’re doing or are bad, your heals are gonna suck. If the tank is good and competent, you are the goat. This is how it generally plays out, trust me. Also, imo to be a good healer you need to know what tanks you are healing and what kind of heals they need. A lot if yor heals are going to be dependent on your tank/tanks and group in general. It’s not necessary the loadouts sometimes it’s about getting to know the instances you are healing as well as your tanks. Tanks would be op healers imho especially those who have completed elites with different powersets could just pick up a healing power and will be better than 90% of the healers in the game.

Water healing is sort of not really based on healing but shielding.
When you play in raids you have to spawn the shields, after the shield, after the shields. (At least this is how I've experienced this power.)

The heals that you can do is when the shields falter.
What I would do is learn to set up a rotation of spawning shields for your group members. (Preserve your power by only using heals when the shields are down.) Once you've mastered how to do this, you'll become a star at what you do as a healer.

To address this specific concern that you mentioned, rather than discuss merits of rotations, I will give a few helpful bits of advice.

First would be, if you are not using voice chat, that is the easiest way to address your concern. I know in my static League groups, our tank would watch for those tells and then call them out in voice chat with an almost bored sounding "Block." Everybody hears him. Everybody blocks. Nobody dies. If you have an even semi-steady group, that is probably the easiest way to address it.

If you primarily run PUGs or you cannot use voicechat, there are other options still.

One strategy is what I call "Back the Truck Up". Basically you are going to move as far back physically from the boss as you can while still being in range to heal. As a mechanic, most bosses seem to be made quite a bit taller than the players, so they are sticking out above the crowd and still visible. Turn your camera then so that the boss is located standing basically right beside the part of the screen where the group's life bars are. For any fight where the boss isn't constantly moving, this is a viable option to keep the bosses animation within the area where you are watching health bars anyways. Not so hot for fights like Murk where there is just constant movement and multiple bosses, but even something like Shattered Gotham Spagetti Monster with his charging, it's not too rough to back up again after each charge and realign your screen.

Another strategy, the one we used to use when we were first pioneering FoS2&3, was the "always blocking" attitude. I find these days, power is rarely a concern for me as a healer. So if there is a fight with a massive one-shot that needs to be blocked, and if you can't see that one shot, then basically any time that you are not casting your heals/shields, you can just hold block. Blocking becomes your default state of being. This can be a little rough in fights with a lot of adds, because some stupid demon or whatnot could blockbreak you for a punishment, but in most cases, you could just block about ten times more than you regularly do and play it extra safe, and then drink your soda for power rather than relying on weapon combos.

Over time, you eventually start to develop a "feel" for fights as you get more experienced with them. You learn the general pacing. The fights are scripted computer code in the end, so they follow a certain basic pattern. Often those big whompum attacks are queued by having the boss hit certain health thresholds, or are part of a phase transition, happen at a steady interval (every X seconds), or are caused by certain conditions (every time you complete an interact with an essential object, every time you kill a wave of adds, etc.) You probably won't even notice it and be able to pin down exactly why it happens, but over time you just start to know when you're supposed to block stuff. So if you muscle through and keep running it, it will gradually become more natural.

A final note that might help you, I notice that a lot of healers socket Power into their Blue Mainframe slots. Don't get me wrong; Power is great. More Power = More Healing in theory. But I find if I can already heal content without having any significant Power issues, I gradually start to trade Power out in favor of Health mods. Same with Skill Points. After maxing Restoration, I default to Might/Power. But if I'm mowing through my healing without ever running out of Power, I shift a little more of that away from Power and into Health, to try and give myself a bigger buffer when I have a couple stray adds beating on me or when I miss blocking that skull attack.

Just my personal experience, one healer to another.

Alert loadout:
Soothing Mist
Tempest Guard
Solace of the Sea
Flood of Power
Bubble
Riptide

Start with bubble then riptide for initial shielding. Bubble is not free to be used again if needed. Next Use Solace of the Sea for HoT. Tempest is not as strong as bubble but it is still a shield....use it. Any damage that you may be get between shielding use soothing mist. Use weapon attacks (dual pistols) between shielding. If you are low on power use your supercharge flood of power to refresh all your powers off of cooldown. It also refills your power bar. I personally do not use the artifact orb of orion due to the power cost amount and the unnecessary healing it does. You can achieve the same results by spamming soothing mist yourself for less. EOG and Scrap are my mainstay artifacts. Being able to supercharge the group and regenerate supercharge are key for this loadout.

Raid loadout:
Same thing just switch the position of Bubble and Solace.

Solace riptide Solace. Double HoTs then clip Bubble into Tempest. Use weapon attacks and soothing mist according. Because Flood resets all of your powers try to make sure all powers are on cool down first. If you have any questions just hit me up in game.

Black Flesh
USPS
Hero