Benediction... when to use?

[mikol_chung]

Hey guys...
This benediction theories and such i've read is really starting to confuse me....
I'm only a lvl. 13 whm and I've used Benediction to save my pt's lives but that's it and I've always died from it.

So... i guess that benediction is used to sacrifice ur life for ur party? I mean.... it does cause so much enmity w/o pld's invincible or other job's 2 hours... :confused: I still don't understand why they made it!!! lol

Can u guys give me some advice on when to use it and why it would be a good idea and such? thanks again!

[Yuanlung]

Benidiction itself drows no hate. It's the amount that it cures that gets you the deadly aggro.


So if you were to use it when most of your party is reasonably well cured as an emergency back up cure for your tank when you are out of MP, you will probably be OK. On the other hand, if your party is deeply in trouble with most people in red, the hate you draw with a benidiction at this time will likely get you killed.


After lv 25, you really have to access the situation before using benediction. Think of it this way, if you, the WHM dies, who's gonna raise your party when the dust settles? Most often your first priority is to keep yourself alive. So your party can reover.


There are some precautions that you can take before using benediction to help your chance of survival. Blink, Stoneskin, Regen are all very helpful. It gives your tank valuable extra seconds to regain the mob's attention. Getting ready to run is another option. take a few steps back, turn the other way, let out the bene and run for your life. :sweat:


After 34, it's a good idea to keep reraise on you at all times while leveling. This way if you have to sacrifice to save the party, atleast you can get back up yourself.


Usually I would not use benediction if it was a hopeless fight. If you have no chance of winning, have a member take the mob for a run while others escape. It is only benificial to benediction if that big cure can win you the fight.

[mikol_chung]

hmm... i see... ^^ thx for the info dude. very helpful
more info would be nice! if u would like to write some more feel free to!!! thx again!

[lionx]

I would think that a good tank, if you were to use Benediction, and you had a good tank and you used it as stated above so that you can win that battle, nothing should shift. Maybe NIN and WAR tanks might, but PLDs for the most part shouldnt. I think my fear of Benediction drawing too much hate was pretty much gone around lvl 37 where Flash is there for PLDs and where most WAR and NIN tanks are skilled enough to at least draw it back soon enough.

This is ignoring adds/links.

[Stormwalker]

With a good PLD tank, Benediction shouldn't be too much of a problem.

The last time I used Benediction in a party, I took zero damage. I always run behind the PLD before I use Benediction, so he immediately hit his Cover macro, and by the time Cover wore off, he had managed to regain the hate. He also had Invincible available to him if he hadn't been able to regain the hate by conventional means, but he didn't even have to resort to that.

Of course, this was a very skilled tank who knew exactly what to do in that situation (and my Benediction macro explicitly asks for Cover). With a lesser tank, it could be a concern... fortunately, the higher level I get, the good tanks seem to make up a higher proportion of the overall...

[Eros]

I always use Benediction around zones. >_>; When something goes wrong, we'll run for the zone. The tanks/melee will throw around hate, and just as one of them is about to die, I hit it, then crash into the zone.

[Stixxx]

once you see things start to go bad.. and you realize benni is needed.. wait..

under normal circumstances you should never need benni.. in a perfect world one tank has agro the whole time and you keep him alive...

if the party is relying on th etotal hp of the group + total healing mana to kill the monster .. somthing can go wrong and usually will..

if you cant kill it with one person holding agro maybe you should look for a smaller IT

anyways you get used to how things should work.. and if somthing goes awry remember benni and run..

iv survived a few benni's.. hell i benni'd on the 25 dragon mission at lvl 23 and survived with 12 hp.. so you can live.. but just use it late in the battle.. if you have to use it early mite as well zone and rais um later

[mikol_chung]

thx for the info guys

[Ungerpurr]

Once you have Blink, and Stoneskin, Benediction should no longer be a death sentence. If it looks like the fight is going south, it's a far better idea to spend your last 60 MP to stoneskin, blink, and regen yourself than it is to drop that last cure 3 on the tank, before using benediction. Or, if you have a decent amount of MP, but know it's not going to be enough to keep the PT alive, wait as long as you can, use Benediction, and then cure-tank it yourself and hope the PT kills it in time (not really a good strategy).

[Feenicks]

As has been said, Benediction is forseeable, and only use it as a very, VERY last resort. Often I've seen Benediction used in circumstances which doesn't require its use.

So if you foresee the need for Benediction then just drop Stonskin and Blink, use Benediction and then stay close to the main tank. The second part is just as vital as the first. If you use Benediction then run off somewhere then you're almost guaranteed to die. If no one's able to hit the mob then there's no way it'll die outside of BLM or RNG activites.

[AtraposBLM]

Originally posted by Feenicks
As has been said, Benediction is forseeable, and only use it as a very, VERY last resort. Often I've seen Benediction used in circumstances which doesn't require its use.

So if you foresee the need for Benediction then just drop Stonskin and Blink, use Benediction and then stay close to the main tank. The second part is just as vital as the first. If you use Benediction then run off somewhere then you're almost guaranteed to die. If no one's able to hit the mob then there's no way it'll die outside of BLM or RNG activites.

This is the best advice you could give. Leveling whm up to 36, there were a few times where we got ourselves into situations where either something linked unexpectedly...or we got aggro...or we fought something too tough...or a goblin dropped a huge bomb and didn't suicide. Regardless, unless it's something like somebody pulled an Acrophie in Qufim when your party is level 20...when you use Benediction - STAND STILL. Moving makes it impossible for people to do their jobs. If any one else 2 hours...nothing will help because every other 2 hour in the game (save paladin) requires you to be within range to do something.

Leveling blm through Qufim, I can't count the amount of times that we'd fight a particularly tough Pugil...the whm would benedict, I would manafont...and then the whm would run. You can sit there for a bit and not die, and at least let me try to kill it. At worst case, I can send cures your way while other people 2 hour to deal with it.

The number one thing I got praised for while leveling whm was always doing what was best for the PT. Many times, I would run straight to the tank, bene, and stand stone still. Worst case scenario, I die, rest of the party kills the mob. Find me a raise and we go again. Most times though, you'd be surprised what the benediction actually let's you accomplish, particularly if other people 2 hour as well. If you bene and run (especially before lv25)...you'll only end up causing more people to die. Everyone runs after you, trying to hit the mob...then you zone, and it starts whacking people. If, on the other hand, the mob is at like 90% HP, and everyone already needs benediction...that's when you pick it up and run.

After about lv50 or so, benediction (no matter how much it cures) shouldn't ever really pull aggro anymore. Even if it does...that's what cover is for.

[Kitalrez]

In my experience, it's very difficult to teach someone when to use Benediction. It seems to be one of those skills that requires you to muddle through it a few times until you get the hang of using it. The best advice I can give you is to almost NEVER go when someone else in the party tells you: "2hr NOW!". 90% of the time I've seen that in a group it's the newbie monk, who drew aggro too early and kept it, and now figures your 2hr is the best shot he has, screw the rest of the group. In that case, he's gonna be mad whatever you do, so you may as well save the skill for when it's actually necessary. As other posters have said, sometimes it's much better to just raise people and move on.

You kind of have to make a decision based on how bad you think things are going. What happens if the tank goes down? Is everyone near death and can the monster use another AE on ya? Can the backup healer, (if you have one), handle the load if you're out of mp? I play with a bunch of soft targets in my static, (RDM, BLM, THF, RNG), so I tend to be much more trigger happy with Benediction than many of my fellow WHMs. If our tank goes down, I can almost guarantee someone's gonna follow him in short order. I have really good support, though, and normally I see "heal up, Zer, I've got it", before my fingers hit the macro.

Later on in the game, you'll notice that tanks and damage dealers are much more capable of gaining aggro back off you when you 2hr. In fact, several times in my static pt I've 2hr'd and the monster didn't seem to notice. That's rare for me, but it sure is sweet.

[achornx]

oddly enough lately (im lvl 60) ive used bene and not even drawn hate from the mob, even when curing 2000 or more total, thats cause i had a really good tank, plus the -enmity stuff from my AF probably helped...

but most of the time u use it when u are out of mana, and the pt is dying (in the red) it saves lives and they really appreciate it.. and at 60 u get reraise2, which u should always have on in a pt anyway, so it works out well most of the time, your pt will love u when u save em all

[pooq]

ive never had to benediction lately....in my time from lvl 18-31 ive only done that once.. i died then but just homepointed and ran back and got the exp (were in quifim at the time ant i set the hp there and not in jeuno like most ppl do)
regarding the bene pulling aggro.. a paly ive been with at 13 held the hate thru a bene.. party was in red(dont remember specifics on how much hp was recovered) so there is hope for you yet

[Target_Master]

I used Benediction once so far, level 14. I had JUST ran out of mp and the Tank had about 60hp left and the Snipper has probably 10 hp but the blm was on 0 mp and the melee were hitting for 0 damage.
The tank had enough health for 2 more hits or one critical so I mad my finger on bene but.... the crab died from my Dia, lol. So then I just used Benediction to reduce downtime. We had another whm so meh. I was more/less looking for an excuse to use it, lol.