Raid Rx: Analyzing your healers Part 2
by Marcie Knox 
Jun 20th 2008 at 1:00PM
Raid Rx is designed to encapsulate and cure the shock and horror that is 25-man raid healing. Ok, so it's mostly horror... Anyways, if you're a big fan of X-TREME Whack-A-Mole (or are being forced into it against your will) this is the column for you. Interweb friends, I am sorry I've been MIA so long. It was an accident, I swear! I have missed you. /sniff
Last time, creatively called Part 1, we went over healing analysis philosophy and all the tools you'll need to be sure you're seeing the whole picture. This time? My little whelps, we are going to start in on the big one: WWS healorz style. Grab a snack and join me after the break as I cover exactly what you should have in your grubby little hands before even pretending to know what's going on in WWS.
Many moons ago my guild had a forum spy. Joe Guildmember was sharing his account with someone in a rival guild. The spy's goal? To glean our WWS reports, analyze what we were doing, and generally stroke their epeens over it, satisfied known they were superior to us in every way. Or, as I liked to call it "One boss ahead." After the spy was busted and I brought down the ban hammer (forum admin ftw), they were even kind enough to send me a lengthy message about exactly how I sucked, including details on my poor spell selection and moronic choice of healing style. The overwhelming love in their hearts inspired them to copy all the other officers on said note.
Always the one for improving my game play, I proceeded to go over what they believed I was doing wrong. Immediately it dawned on me. Without knowing critical raid background information, they were assuming and guessing at scenarios that didn't actually exist. For one, they thought I had a libram that hadn't dropped for us yet.
Don't let yourself fall into the same trap! Before you step foot in WWS, you'll need the following information if you hope to perform a fair and unbiased analysis:
1. Healing Assignments for trash and every boss fight
2. The raid experience of every healer
3. Each healers' gear level vs content
4. Every healers' talent selection
This may seem like a ton of work to do, but resist the urge to just jump into data unawares. Healing assignments are critical when it comes to evaluating how well that person handled the assignment, from how much they cross-heal, to seeing if their task was even a good fit for their class. Your goal is to use the data to see how well they perform, not try to piece together the goal of their performance. Don't reverse engineer your healers!
Raid experience, gear level, and talent selection will all impact what each individual healer is capable of. The better a healer knows a fight, the more comfortable they'll be jumping in to cross heal in a sticky situation, for example. Gear affects the raw healing numbers, bottom line. Talent differences can be as significant as CoH vs imp spi, or as subtle as a tank loosing Devotion Aura because his paladin doesn't have Aura Mastery. Know what your healers are running with, including the benefits and limitations of each.
Join me on Monday as we look at screenies and really get into the nuts and bolts of WWS. That's right. Monday. Shorter posts moar often. That's just how my rl schedule rolls now.
Marcie Knox is a long time lover of cheese. She prefers Colby but will chomp some Cheddar if the moon is in the right phase. She also does some healing lead stuff and her guild's currently eyeing Felmyst suspiciously. You can always email her your cool healing screenies at marcie[dot]knox[at]weblogsinc[dot]com.
Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Priest, Shaman, Analysis / Opinion, Tips, How-tos, Raiding, Raid Rx (Raid Healing)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Cailly Jun 20th 2008 1:32PM
Yay! marcie's back :D
Harmun Jun 20th 2008 4:14PM
Seconded!
Chilblain Jun 20th 2008 1:57PM
Get her back on the podcast -- she has the cutest voice ever.
Kothmia Jun 20th 2008 2:11PM
But but... This is JUST what I'm looking for! want more NOW! As the heal lead for my guild, and we're struggling as a semi-casual guild in Kara, and having probably been blasted by a Raid Leader who looked at reports without knowing what he was looking at, this will be a HUGE help for me. And I gotta wait until monday? dang...
Nuok Jun 20th 2008 2:40PM
The best thing to do is bring a varity of healing classes, you should bring 3 healers if your stugling. A pala is generally best for Mt healing, then a shaman,priest or druid for raid healing. I'd recomend using recount to look at healing on the fly; you should expect to see the pala last in the healing meter because he will generally be single target healing. Shamans will normally top the healing meter because of brain heal closy followed by druids and priest's.
You should also gear check your tanks to make sure they have caped defence and enough hp to live through fights.
If your raid leader is shouting at you then maybe you should leave most of the time it simply isnt the healers fault. If your wiping on Maiden then make sure people are decursing, ect.... just make sure everyone knows the fight and sometimes the experience only comes through wiping :p
Nuok - burning blade eu
Vlatch Jun 20th 2008 2:43PM
Why is a casual guild raid leader requiring WWS reports in Kara no less. My goal as a casual guild raid leader is to look at bosses downed and keep an awareness while fights are happening who's doing what and who's not.
Also, talking to raiders and finding out what they think about their assignment and any frustrations (usually other players) they might have is a huge help.
Lastly, just use damage meters and take into account who is assigned to what. No need for WWS reports until you get to SSC or if you're having difficulty in Mag's Lair. Earlier than that, it's just not necessary and usually leads to misinformation.
Kothmia Jun 20th 2008 2:52PM
Oh, he's not requiring them. It was something that I'd found and started posting as a way for all of us to see ways that we could get better. (I'm still posting them, just not to the guild website any longer, so the MT and I can still look and see where our folks can improve.) The two places we seem to have the most problems with right now, are Oz and Shade. Tanks, over all, are OK, it's mostly stupid people not listening or paying attention and lack of DPS that end up being our problem.
We tend to run with 2 pallies and either a priest or a shammy, depending on who's around. No resto druids in the guild atm, or at least none that can make raids.
VSUReaper Jun 20th 2008 2:17PM
WTB more than the obvious information
garreth Jun 20th 2008 2:23PM
Wow, we had the same thing happen to us (forum spy, e-peen, etc).
I'm really looking forward to this article because "healing meters" don't tell the story that "damage meters" do. For damage classes, "most possible damage" = good. For healers, if you're neglecting your duties, it's a wipe. Healing is an area where #1 position on a meter can be the sign of a massive problem that needs to be fixed (well, if you're a focus heal class like a paladin or imp spirit priest).
Example healing assignments this applies to: flame tanks during Illidan, mage tank during Council, assigned tank during Kalecgos, off tank healers during Mother. Like I said, I'm really excited to see some analysis of WWS parses where we get to say "This guy is not #1 healer, but was he doing his job?".