Does overhealing matter?
by Eliah Hecht 
Feb 3rd 2009 at 6:00PM
An interesting question came up in the WoW LiveJournal community early today: what does overhealing mean? At first I was a little surprised at the question, but then I realized they meant it not as "what is overhealing?" (to which the answer is that overhealing is the portion of your heals that would push the target past max health, and thus is in a sense "wasted"), but rather as "what does overhealing say about your healers?"
As a raid healer, my perspective agrees with most of the LiveJournal commenters: if your healer isn't having mana issues, don't worry too much about overhealing. It's going to be a natural consequence of proactive healing spells (Prayer of Mending, all HoTs, Earth Shield). In addition, most classes' big heals are too big to be used to their full extent all the time - to take an example from one of the comments, if I wait until targets are 10k in the hole before hitting them with something, we'll have a lot more deaths. Finally, sometimes overhealing can be actively helpful, as in the case of talents like Serendipity. I'd rather overheal by 1k than fill the hole exactly, because then I get a chunk of mana back.
However, if a healer is massively overhealing (the precise amounts to look for depend on the class), and is having mana issues, it can be a useful indicator that something is wrong with their playstyle - or they have a lot of latency. So, in summary: don't worry about it unless they're going OOM. Healing meters still suck, even the overhealing meters.
Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Priest, Shaman, Analysis / Opinion, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Daniel Feb 3rd 2009 6:06PM
Good article. Some boss encounters have debuffs which can only be taken off players by overhealing. That said, overhealing can be just a bad a waste of mana as overkilling, and dps classes do that anyways.
As a warlock I'm not playing the game correctly if I let Corruption and COA run out and then wand the mob to death just to save mana. Caster DPS uses their mana for damage, healers use their mana for healing.
Craig Feb 3rd 2009 6:33PM
It's about using the appropriate spell though. If you were using a high mana spell to kill something that a low mana spell would one-shot then that would be more akin to overhealing. On the other hand overhealing and playing well are not always mutually exclusive, sometimes raid healing spells might overheal one target but be more efficient and faster overall. You also want to keep your tank topped up to full no matter how much health he is missing so you know he has the best chance of surviving the next hits.
As the article says, overhealing is inevitable but large amounts of overhealing can be a sign of a player lacking judgement, skill and knowlege about his/her class. Sure, if you're not running out of mana (and with regen the way it is, that is likely) then it doesn't really matter but it's also good to try and play well now instead of worrying about later when the encounters may be harder or mana consumption/regeneration might be rebalanced.
Kenty Feb 3rd 2009 6:09PM
I think the comment now a day's is, why does it matter when all ranks of a spell cost the same? Back when lower ranks offered lower heals for lower cost sometimes in less time, over healing was a huge factor and a few changes to play style could vastly improve healers mana reserves.
I don't play a healer, but with the down ranking nerfed into oblivion, why does over healing matter? Aside from the obvious I mean.
Rich Feb 3rd 2009 6:15PM
Overhealing is one of those many things in the game that can't be looked at by itself. Eliah has it right, if the healer is not having any mana issues its not a big deal. If they are constantly under 1/2 mana and struggling, then overhealing something to be looked at.
Overhealing much like damage meters is not something to look at solely by itself but as part of a much larger picture.
ver7 Feb 3rd 2009 6:22PM
Judgement of Light in 25's = my place on top of the overhealing chart is set pretty much in stone.
Beacon of Light results in a lot too at times.
Tons of overhealing is just the nature of the beast for me right now, I guess. As long as its not gimping my efficiency (have gone oom maybe twice since 3.0) there doesn't seem to be any real harm in it.
jlpknights82 Feb 3rd 2009 6:26PM
Oh man, yeah, Beacon and JoL are sooo much overhealing. I forgot about those. Last week on Patchwork my Holy Pally had 200% the overhealing that the person below me did. I think I broke 1 million after a few boss fights. It was hilarious. That was the first time I'd ever really paid attention to the meters.
jlpknights82 Feb 3rd 2009 6:25PM
Like most people have said,I think: Overhealing is generally ignored in my guild, as long as we aren't having mana or healing issues on that particular boss.
I play a Holy Paladin. We have no proactive heals like shields, no opportunist heals like HoTs. Overhealing is a way of life for a Holy Pally, and the two of us in my guild very rarely have mana issues unless something goes very wrong. I love topping the overhealing meters and still having some mana at the end of a fight. Mwahahaha
Valis Feb 3rd 2009 6:55PM
I also play a Holy Paladin. I have proactive damage mitigation in called Sacred Shield. It absorbs like 2k of damage every 6 seconds, assuming your target is taking damage, plus makes your flash of lights crit more. If your tank is at 100%, you can spare the mana (and you almost certainly can, since you have Divine Plea), you should be casting Sacred Shield on him.
That said, yeah, overheals all day. Especially since the Sacred Shield bonus Flash crit on the tank means that I can spam crit Flashes all day when he's at 100%, and catch any little scraps of damage that come along.
jlpknights82 Feb 3rd 2009 7:17PM
@Valis
Sacred Shield, of course, is fantastic. I always make sure it's up. But healing mitigation isn't going to directly effect your overhealing. It certainly does help conserve mana, tho! Haha
0bsolete Feb 3rd 2009 6:32PM
Yes, its frustrating as a healer to have people commenting on the overhealing. I try to avoid it for the sake of efficiency, but between CPU lag and a wireless network, I am frequently as much as a full second behind due to lag. As a result, my heals hit my targets occasionally after they've already been healed, etc. But generally, I get the job done. Its very rare when my healing can't keep up, and generally in those situations its a boss mechanic (void walker boss from Heroic Violet Hold comes to mind), the DPS is pulling aggro, or the tank, well, sucks. The last one is rare enough, but I've gotten a couple who aren't geared enough or don't use their cooldowns correctly, or whatever. But I figure as a healer, as long as people don't take dirt naps I'm geared enough and healing pretty well.
AyaJulia Feb 3rd 2009 6:39PM
/facepalm
It's not that hard, people. You keep taking shots at healing meters as if all they say "x paladin overheals more than y priest so y priest must be better." Stop being stupid. You really need to learn how to read them. I can't believe I have to say this again.
BAD: Back when my guild in BC started raiding Kara, we had two priests and a paladin. The paladin looked at the healing meters and gloated about how awesome he was, because he outhealed the two priests. This is dumb; he was better geared than both of them, and they had other things to do, like shackling.
GOOD: I was testing out a new macro some time ago when I got a new trinket. I noticed my heals were not as effective post-macro, then happened to glance at my overheal and noticed it was waaaaay higher than usual. A quick look through my stats made my problem blatantly obvious; I'd forgotten the [target=mouseover] in the macro. Proper use of a healing meter saved my raid a lot of trouble.
BAD: Same BC guild. The GM didn't really know how the various healing classes worked, but looked at the overhealing meters and kicked the same paladin I mentioned earlier. This was outright stupid, as he was the only one of our healers who actually brought any sort of potions, oils, or elixirs. Paladins' healing style lends to more overheal than a priest's, even more so today with abilities like JoL and Glyph of FoL.
GOOD: One H Vault run, I noticed one of our priests had obscene amounts of overheal. A glance through his stats revealed that he was using Prayer of Healing constantly, thinking it was a "smart" raid-wide heal like Circle is, when it actually just heals the priest's own group... which, in this case, was full of healers who were standing back not taking any damage. A quick /tell about this problem corrected the issue; turns out the priest in question didn't heal very often, and was used to running as Shadow.
tl;dr - Healing. Meters. Do. Not. Suck. Stop spreading this tripe.
Duniness Feb 3rd 2009 6:46PM
As a raid resto druid I have alot of overheal. I am always casting regrowths/rejuves/lb's on the raid in anticipation of splash/aoe damage even when thay are at full health. Sometimes it is used, sometimes it is not. I am not sure if the hot portion shows up on the meters or not. It really doesn't matter as I haven't run oom in weeks and never have to use innervate for myself anymore.
Bottom line is, no mana problems then who cares.
Thander Feb 3rd 2009 7:02PM
Overhealing only matters in hard content where it may take longer for the bosses to go down(low dps) or the tanks are taking more damage than they should (lack of gear for that level). Right now overhealing may not matter much but once the harder raids come it will definitely matter in the first weeks until the whole raid is mostly geared.
Anelf Feb 3rd 2009 7:24PM
There are two circumstances in which I'd make a big deal out of overhealing:
1. If the healer is going OOM too quickly (as already mentions)
2. If a healer starts bragging about his healing output compared to the others in the raid.
Other than that, if the boss dies and no-one else does then who cares.
ketsugi Feb 4th 2009 12:01AM
My understanding is that healing output (effective healing) is usually measured on meters separately from overhealing anyway. So if said healer has an impressive percentage of healing output AND an impressive percentage of overheals, and has not had mana problems during the encounter, then I'd say that healer probably has a right to brag, or at least feel pretty confident about his/her healing gear.
Dave Feb 3rd 2009 7:49PM
Is your healer running out of mana before a fight ends?
If the answer is yes, overhealing is wasting their mana and they should learn to heal more efficiently. This is of course problematic lately with the lack of downranking, making more of it a timing issue than anything...
If the answer is no, then it doesn't matter at all in any way shape or form and if anyone gives you any crap about it at all, tell them where to shove it or find a new guild because you're in one run by an idiot who just reads words on the internet and thinks they're a genius even though they don't comprehend what they just read.
Richard Feb 3rd 2009 7:53PM
I play a resto druid, and overhealing is a non-issue for us. The role of HoTs is to be cast in advance of damage, and most of us use one primary nuke that we talent and glyph for. For me that would be Regrowth, other druid would use Nourish or Healing Touch. So if I need a direct heal I have exactly one button for it. Add in that Regrowth crits at an absurd rate, but I rarely want to count on that happening, so if my target is down 4-5k health, I'll hit him with RG even if it can potentially crit for 10k.
apoxic Feb 3rd 2009 8:31PM
Personally, as an Officer and Resto Shammy, it does bug me when our paladins sit at 70-80% overhealing "just because they can". I'm not looking forward to Ulduar..
bystrick Feb 4th 2009 10:14AM
You don't want to pick on your holy pallies too much for overhealing. As stated plenty in these comments, holy pallies are one of the biggest culprits of overhealing right now. Between Bacon and JoL, I constantly overheal at an insane rate. The thing is, while I'm doing it, I'm neither wasting mana, nor am I wasting my time. My Bacon is keeping someone alive when they ARE damaged (even if it's me), and the JoL heals an entire party. So even if a paladin is overhealing severely according to meters, it doesn't cost them anything to do so. I rarely, if ever, run OOM, and I have potions as back-up in the unlikely event that it happens. If I'm keeping the raid up, and not running OOM, the overhealing ratio is completely irrelevant to me.
What may be more useful is to look at the straight output numbers of specific spells (like FoL and HL) of your paladins. Those numbers might be more telling to see if your paladins are doing anything at all, given their overhealing. That won't give you the world, but it'll tell you if they're bothering to heal consistantly and if they're geared well enough to put out decent numbers.
apoxic Feb 4th 2009 11:05AM
I wasn't merely looking at the overheal percentage. I was also taken into account that on a few occasions, 60-65% of the actual overhealing came from HL itself.
I know very well that you're not going oom and all that stuff, but current content is a joke, I'm just afraid they won't adapt a proper way of healing when times get rough. Tho, they might not have to worry about that with better gear, but that's completely against blizzards current model that they are trying to push.