Dumb question about LFG from a new healer

Bloogs · March 2017

I have tried to research this on my own and have even asked some of the higher level players I’ve run across when queuing for a dungeon but haven’t found a satisfactory answer. Most resources are related to veteran dungeons, and I have questions about the normal ones.

Without boring you too much with a backstory; I am new to ESO with less than a month on my account and am a level 30 Templar healer. I have never healed before in any MMO, but have always wanted to. I’ve spent a ton of time learning my role and believe I am selecting the abilities I need to help me succeed in dungeon runs.

What I worry about is screwing up an LFG queue because I am not prepared, or don’t have the correct abilities available to slot. I’ve easily healed the beginner dungeons, Fungal Grotto I, Banished Cells I and Spindleclutch I and thought I was ready for some of the others, so I used the LFG on a random normal dungeon and got dropped into Darkshade Caverns II (this was when I was about level 19). After killing the first boss, we wiped on Grobull a couple times before I was gently told that this was probably too much for my level.

Now, I worry about doing a random again in case I get dropped into a dungeon I can’t handle (maybe all of the level II dungeons?)

So, here is my question: Do you think I can I queue for any of the level I dungeons and assume I can heal through it? When do I have to start worrying about mechanics? I certainly don’t mind learning mechanics, but a pug is probably the wrong place to start.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Jadednatas · March 2017

Wipe on grobull being healers fault? Sounds more like a dps or tank holdin stuff together issue.

My advice is that as a healer you shouldn't be too worried about any dungeon. Make sure you ask questions in mechanic heavy ones like mazzatun. But besides that as long as you have good sustain on your magic, keep healing springs or whatever the hOt is called runnin, use breath of life for 'oh crap' heals, an toss shards for others to get resources.. ya should be good. Just remember with your level an gear scaling that your armor gets less useful the more ya level past it.

Just my opinion

Magdalina · March 2017

9/10 Grobul wipes are dps' fault. Hell high level people shouldn't even need any healing there on normal. The thing about him is he can't be attacked while he's up in the air, he'll reflect any damage back to you and you need to kill ads he spawns in order to get the shield down. He ignores taunt when he's up there too, but he will follow a taunt cast when he was on the ground til it expires, so it actually goes really easy if the tank taunts boss when he's down then takes him away from everyone else - usually boss will stay with tank and not bother everyone else then. Alternatively tank just dps's. Rooting ads works wonders there too(don't ask me why flying netches can be rooted, it's magic) if you're having issues. This fight gets grossly out of control if the aoe dps of the group is low because more and more and moar ads spawn and you aren't even doing any damage to boss until you kill them all/most. There isn't much you can do there as a healer, just keep Springs going(BoL is great but expensive, and Mutagen is unreliable because they keep breaking it. Springs is #1 pug healing skill imo) and don't run away - I see a lot of healers trying to run away from ads, that's not helping; bring them to the dps for that aoe instead and spam moar Springs. Also keep in mind you can block cast Springs if damage gets too high. If your group still fails, honestly it's probably the dps that was lacking.

Hope that helps some

I'd say you can easily queue for any nonvet dungeon 'cept maybe dlc ones. I fully believe you could do dlc ones as well, WGT and ICP at least for sure, but it would be more challenging and require more from you; for example in WGT there's a boss that summons portals that spawn ads, and only one random person from the group is able to kill those portals. If it happens to be you then despite being a healer you'll have to focus on killing portals(ideally while still keeping everyone alive but generally that's when squishy dps need to slot some self heals and shields). I'd say if you want to try dlc ones perhaps join a friendly guild or make some friends for that. If you get them as a random, well...I'd say give it a try and see how it goes, and may luck be with you

Oh another thing. It's generally a good idea to let others know if it's your first time in the dungeon. "Hey guys, gotta admit it's my first time here so any tips would be welcome". Most people respond really kindly to that and would be absolutely fine explaining mechanics and whatnot. The chosen few might leave the group but you're probably better off without those anyway.

Hallda12 · March 2017

I think you just got unlucky mate. Most normal dungeons can easily be 3 manned with experienced players. Also a lot of those normal dungeons dont even need specific healers or tanks. Obviously the dungeon will go a lot smoother and faster with an organised group but it isn't essential.

Honestly the best advise i could give you is do what you want. Dont worry about what people think of your healing because thats what the normal dungeons are for, learning!

With a templar and presumably a resto staff you have more than enough good healing abilities.

Healing tips:

- Keep Heal over time abilities on the tank at all times (dps aswell if possible but not essentual). This is so you dont have to react to every bit of damage that comes to the group.
- Put Area heals on the ground in and around the boss or mobs for same reason above.

Then the only things you should have to react to us when the tank takes heavy hits from bosses and when the derpy dps stands in red circles. This is when you need to use the more heavy healing abilities.

Floki_Vilgerdarson · March 2017

Welcome! I see this is your first post. I hope someone can help you.

You asked if you can que for any level of dungeon. Yes, if it works.

You then said you would "assume you can heal through it". No, just because you get into a dungeon don't assume anything.

You asked when you should "start worrying about mechanics". Practice and learn all the mechanics BEFORE you get in a dungeon claiming to be a "healer".

You can watch You Tube and use Google to find out dungeon mechanics before you join a group expecting you know what you are doing.

Also a word of caution. Many players abuse the group finder and claim to be a tank or healer to get in dungeons much faster.

Healing is rewarding, but great healers are very rare in this game.

Floki

Dr_Rektar · March 2017

Advice. Try to lfm dds and tank in zone chat of capitals. More chance to get exp people who will explain stuff. Pugfinder i just... just.. "censored "

Bloogs · March 2017

Thank you all for the advice, I really appreciate it. I just recently have been able to get some better morphed heals like combat prayer and healing ward that I didn’t have the first time I dropped into a level 2 dungeon and I think that makes all the difference.

I ended up queuing up for the three easy level 1 dungeons last night and got thrown into a group that immediately was removed from the dungeon by the LFG tool. Instead of porting back in and starting up, we somehow re-queued as a group and this time got thrown in to Spindleclutch 2. When I let them know this was my first time here, the tank responded saying, "you'll be fine". Sweet! So we went for it and totally cleared it first time (everyone was mid-40's with me a level 30 heals). There were some interesting mechanics also, like Praxin's red ring dealie that was fun to adjust to and overall, I had a blast. I'll probably queue for all of the level 1 dungeons the next time I log in and hold off on the level 2 until I can see if they contain mechanics I need to heal around.

Nestor · March 2017

You did not mention your platform and server, but joining a guild is a great way to run Group Dungeons and learn.

Also, pretty much all normal group dungeon I's are going to be easier to do, followed by the II version (which used to be the old Vet, but with less health on the mobs, but have the more complex mechanics.

Vet Dungeons are where it gets more intense, but you can even do those yet anyway, your not Vet Rank.

Hallda12 · March 2017

Nestor wrote: »

You did not mention your platform and server, but joining a guild is a great way to run Group Dungeons and learn.

Also, pretty much all normal group dungeon I's are going to be easier to do, followed by the II version (which used to be the old Vet, but with less health on the mobs, but have the more complex mechanics.

Vet Dungeons are where it gets more intense, but you can even do those yet anyway, your not Vet Rank.

Yes Bloogs, This is probably the most important comment in the thread. You will notice a HUGE difference when you enter a Vet rated dungeon so take the most out of these normal dungeons. What i would do is Que for Random dungeons all the time. You will get massive XP from the first one, especially if you have the Double XP buff from the current event. You will get in dungeons a lot faster this way.

Asardes · March 2017

When healing Darkshade Caverns 2, Grobul is actually pretty easy. Final boss is much harder, especially in fire phase. Level may be a problem though, because you don't have all skills and passives unlocked that low. On my mature healer what I use there is a skill called Repentance, which is a morph of restoring aura, the 3rd skill in your Restoring Light skill line. Since there are plenty of dead netches to repent that's basically enough to keep everyone full on stamina and health. Stamina is important even for those who don't play a stamina based char, for rolling out of boss AoE and breaking his CC - he lifts you in the air and you need to break free from that. So once every few netches die and pulse the boss simply hit repentance. The skill is free. However, people may actually mess things up themselves. One way is they attack the boss while he is up which is bad because he reflects and they only damage themselves. Once enough adds have died the pulses they send blow his shield, he falls down and becomes vulnerable. Only then you can DPS him. Another is they fail to move from the ground AoE and get killed instantly even from full health.

akl77 · March 2017

Your can heal normal ones no problem. If they die in normal it's dps lacking. In normal all the attacks don't really hurt anyone unless they just standing in front of boss.
It's fine to drop out too, they can get another healer that might be more suitable.
Also, focus on sustain so you can keep on healing especially with pugs, they all need non stop heals..
Use spc with worm if you can, or seducer.

Jitterbug · March 2017

My experience with LFG is that luckily almost everyone is just a casual scrub just like myself hoping to have a good dungeon run. Very rarely do you run into those feared elitists because most of the the serious (lol) players have guilds and friends and solo dungeons and stuff.

So my advice is: Cut loose, footloose, kick off your Sunday shoes.

Sometimes a wipe is the healers fault, sometimes it's the tank or DPS (hint: it's always the healer's fault no matter what), but in the long run it just doesn't matter. It just some dungeon runs in a silly game, and people who choose to make a big deal about it have a whole array of personal issues that can't be fixed by Breath of Life anyway.

I'll leave you with the wise words of the Hive Leader:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DxS7eT_ky4

Kozai · March 2017

Asardes wrote: »

When healing Darkshade Caverns 2, Grobul is actually pretty easy. Final boss is much harder, especially in fire phase.

Good advice from Asardes, but I would actually say Grobul is one of the harder bosses in the group 2 dungeons. It is one of the "dps checks" that a lot of the group 2 dungeons have built in, where adds keep building up if you don't have a group that has enough AoE dps. He is right that the final boss is even harder, though, so any group that struggles on Grobul is likely to have a tough time with the final boss.

I would suggest watching some videos on the group 2 dungeons, as the original vet dungeons they have a lot more bosses with specific mechanics. Some PUG groups will have people willing to explain them, but I've also been in PUG groups where nobody talks, or some are chatting in a foreign language and may not know English. Several Group 2 dungeons have boss mechanics where someone gets taken out of the fight (sucked into a cave, chained to the floor, etc.) so it is helpful to have an idea what to do in those situations.

I would also definitely suggest working on some damage skills as well, and building up skills with destruction staff. A nice feature of being a Templar healer is that you can do a very decent job of healing WHILE contributing damage, since you aren't stuck on a Restoration staff for a weapon. I've been in more than one PUG group that stalled on a normal dungeon because of lack of damage, something I couldn't really fix with my tank but could with my Templar healer by shifting to a few more fighting skills.

As noted, the DLC dungeons are all harder and longer than the others, so be prepared for that if you get a random one. My regular group has stalled on Cradle of Shadows and two of us had to swap from our sub level 50 characters to our fully geared high level characters to be able to finish them. Same players, we just needed our better characters.

Autolycus · March 2017

There's no way I would pin that on you. If someone dies on Grobull it's almost guaranteed to be their fault, not yours.

Seriously, though, those adds and Grobull himself couldn't tickle a mouse if it were taped to a wall and high on laughing gas. People die there because they don't move out of Grobull's AoE, or because they're hitting him when they're not supposed to.

Meetre · March 2017

Jitterbug wrote: »

It just some dungeon runs in a silly game, and people who choose to make a big deal about it have a whole array of personal issues that can't be fixed by Breath of Life anyway.

Best information for anyone in this game!

Bloogs · March 2017

You all rock, thanks a lot. I'm improving my abilities and selecting the morphs that generally are agreed on as the best for 4mans. I'm using destro on the second skill bar and make sure to throw in repentance, shards and elemental drain as much as I can to help with recovery and dps. It's all a bit overwhelming though and I struggle to keep my battlefield awareness, but I assume that improves with experience.

I'm amazed at players that complain about others using light attack spam, or ambush spam instead of whatever they should be doing...meaning they are able to do their own job AND still watch and understand what other people on the team are doing (at least enough to *** about 'em). Meanwhile, I am able to keep my hots and combat prayer up while weaving in repentance and a dab of elemental drain/shards but little else. I avoid being in a bad position, but with everything going on, I can barely keep up, let alone fully understand what is happening in the fight.

Regardless, I am having a blast. I'm on PC and the friends I joined with are nowhere near as hooked on the game as I am, so I tend to solo a lot and queue by myself. I'll probably look for a good guild on PC soon to see if I can find some more players that want to dungeon run as much as I do.

Magdalina · March 2017

Bloogs wrote: »

I'm amazed at players that complain about others using light attack spam, or ambush spam instead of whatever they should be doing...meaning they are able to do their own job AND still watch and understand what other people on the team are doing (at least enough to *** about 'em). Meanwhile, I am able to keep my hots and combat prayer up while weaving in repentance and a dab of elemental drain/shards but little else. I avoid being in a bad position, but with everything going on, I can barely keep up, let alone fully understand what is happening in the fight.

Sounds like you're doing great for a new healer, these are all important skills to use and a lot of pug healers don't use them at all even at 300-600 cp unfortunately. Don't worry about keeping up too much, it does come with practice

It's also a lot easier once you do have all the fights memorized and have an idea how fast bosses should generally down/how hard they generally hit, that's when you know someone in your group is underperforming. Plus keep in mind a lot of people have multiple characters of different classes in different roles so they recognise skills used by others. Like I said though, don't worry about it too much, just keep up the heals/buffs and you'll get there

Far as general situational awareness goes, there's a great skill out there - Annulment, light armor active skill. It's a damage absorbing shield, plus one of its morphs restores magicka when hit with spells making it really cheap in most fights. It's situational and like all shields now only lasts 6 seconds, but it's a great thing to keep in mind for damage intensive fights or those OH SH** situations sometimes. My healer usually runs it on backbar just in case.

malicia · March 2017

I normally play Stamblade DD.

Bloogs wrote: »

I'm amazed at players that complain about others using light attack spam, or ambush spam instead of whatever they should be doing...meaning they are able to do their own job AND still watch and understand what other people on the team are doing (at least enough to *** about 'em).

I main a stamblade DD, and change gear to stamblade tank for PUG dungeons. So I know how a standard stamblade DD rotation looks and sounds. I know what to expect, what DoTs are normally used, what the spammable DWs are...

So when I tank I keep waiting for things like Arrow Barrage (AoE DoT) and Rearming Trap. Both makes fairly distinctive sounds, and as both are put on the boss, I normally do notice them when they happen.

Even if you haven't played a class, you get to expect certain things. Most healers create some wonderful yellow circle. As tank I'll try to take the boss there, so that we can all heal why the boss is being killed. If that circle doesn't appear, I start watching my health a bit more careful.

I'm pretty sure that if you (as healer) start running in circles with the boss on your tail, you'll be justified in wondering if the tank is actually taunting it. There are boss mechanics that ignore's the tank's taunts, but generally it wouldn't run around after the healer.

BTW - you said that you're on PC. If you're in EU I'll gladly join you for a dungeon or two.

Ozstryker · March 2017

malicia wrote: »

I normally play Stamblade DD.

Bloogs wrote: »

I'm amazed at players that complain about others using light attack spam, or ambush spam instead of whatever they should be doing...meaning they are able to do their own job AND still watch and understand what other people on the team are doing (at least enough to *** about 'em).

I main a stamblade DD, and change gear to stamblade tank for PUG dungeons. So I know how a standard stamblade DD rotation looks and sounds. I know what to expect, what DoTs are normally used, what the spammable DWs are...

So when I tank I keep waiting for things like Arrow Barrage (AoE DoT) and Rearming Trap. Both makes fairly distinctive sounds, and as both are put on the boss, I normally do notice them when they happen.

Even if you haven't played a class, you get to expect certain things. Most healers create some wonderful yellow circle. As tank I'll try to take the boss there, so that we can all heal why the boss is being killed. If that circle doesn't appear, I start watching my health a bit more careful.

I'm pretty sure that if you (as healer) start running in circles with the boss on your tail, you'll be justified in wondering if the tank is actually taunting it. There are boss mechanics that ignore's the tank's taunts, but generally it wouldn't run around after the healer.

BTW - you said that you're on PC. If you're in EU I'll gladly join you for a dungeon or two.

I believe he means cleansing ritual, this is a great hot, especially combined with restoration passives!
Also look to get orbs, great aoe dmg, and magica return, personally I believe Templar healers should be the groups battery, if u get the combination of heals, group buffs/resource management, and dmg correct pugs can be a breeze! Often it takes a cool head, but it's very rewarding seeing a group easily beat a tough dungeon

Kozai · March 2017

malicia wrote: »

I'm pretty sure that if you (as healer) start running in circles with the boss on your tail, you'll be justified in wondering if the tank is actually taunting it. There are boss mechanics that ignore's the tank's taunts, but generally it wouldn't run around after the healer.

There are a couple of bosses that pretty much ignore taunting, I'm thinking of one in particular in Vollenfell who summons a Gargoyle, so once in a while you will run into that. Another one, an end boss vampire in a group 2 dungeon, has a special teleport attack he does where he whacks each group member once before going back to beating on the tank. He is also a perfect example of how dungeon knowledge helps; he repeats the same order each time he does it, so you know when to block if you aren't first in line. If every boss in the dungeon is chasing you and the dps around, though, there is a problem. I did run into one PUG tank who was like level 30 with no taunt, because he "didn't like sword and shield" and hadn't unlocked the one other taunt in the game yet, the Undaunted one. . .

Annulment, that Magdalina mentioned, is a good skill if you need to catch your breath for a second while you figure out what is going on, it absorbs most of your hit point bar in damage for a high magicka build like a healer before you even take any. And situational awareness just comes with a lot of play time, I'm still not nearly as good at it as some people I play with who do dungeons every day versus once a week or so.

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