Raid Rx: On the fly healing
by Matt Low 
Mar 7th 2009 at 4:00PM
Raid Rx has returned from retirement! Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of PlusHeal, a new healing community for all restorative classes. This week we're going to cover assignment-less healing: When to get away with it and when you can't!
Assignment-less healing. It often has unpredictable results. Sometimes your raid group will be lucky and emerge unscathed. I'm a control freak. I like to have a plan A, a plan B and even a plan for when things go wrong.
I've joined my share of pickup groups in the past few months. I usually play on my alt Shaman. I'm more of the Shatner type that hurls bolts of lightning. I've experienced mixed success. On bosses like Archavon, Anub'Rekhan and Sartharion with no drakes active, I notice not a whole lot of organized healing is done. Either that or it was organized behind the scenes via whispers.
To be fair, those types encounters can be done with little organization before hand. I know the first time I went into Naxx and Obsidian Sanctum wearing half blues, a smattering of crafted epics and the odd green or two. Having the healing set up in advance helped out a lot and reassured people. Sometimes it helps the raid morale some when they know the confidence emanating from healers who know who they're healing is there.
So today's topic: What do you do if the other raiders are scoffing at your suggestion to assign healing?
This is going to be one of those damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't-situations. If you want to take the 25 seconds to assign healing, you'll be laughed at because "this fight" is so ridiculously easy it doesn't need coordination, right?
On the other hand, what if the tanks aren't up to par? What if the DPS is sucking? What if you hit the enrage timer? Obviously it isn't entirely the healers fault if the enraged timer is hit (unless the reason for that is because half the DPS is dead).
In which case, the last thing you might see is this:
"You have joined Looking For Group"
"You have been removed from the party"
In other words, you're damned if you want to set up healing and you're damned if you don't (especially if a wipe takes place).
The best thing you can do in this situation (or the least you can do) is announce to the raid who you are healing. That's it! If you're healing Joe Tankenstein, let the raid know. If you're going to heal the this groups 4 and 5 on Loatheb, let the raid know. This cues the rest of the healers on what isn't being taken care of and they can handle that accordingly.
At the very least, you have nothing to lose. If your target dies, the raid can isolate the problem. If someone else's healing target dies, your butt's covered because you were focusing on your job (I hope).
Is there a specific way for each class to heal on the fly? Yeah, each class has their own tools and mindset. For me as a Priest, I focus on one tank or two tanks and try to keep them both alive at the same time. I'll let the rest of the healers worry about the rest of the raid.
On the fly healing isn't something that can be taught. It's more of a discretionary thing where healers have to exercise their judgment. Being able to predict damage is a big plus. A clairvoyant healer is one that will get far in this game.
With that in mind, here's a list of current bosses in the game that you should set up healing for:
- Patchwerk: This a pure healing and DPS fight. If the healers stick to who they're supposed to be on, this will be cake.
- Four Horsemen: Since the raid is going to be split up, it makes sense to split up your healers accordingly as well.
- Kel'Thuzad: Healers on the main tank, and healers for OTs 2 and 3 (if you have 3). Dedicated healers for the melee players if they get cubed wouldn't be a bad idea.
- Malygos: Phases 1 and 2 aren't so bad. But if you can get away with dropping healing drakes down to around 3 or 4, it'll noticeable boost your DPS at this time. That's assuming your healers want to DPS.
- Sartharion with any Drakes up: Sartharion is an encounter that requires an exceptional level of healing coordination especially when you're working on tank saves. 1 on the MT, 1 on each OT, and possibly 1 on your frenzy dispelling Rogue.
Want some more advice for working with the healers in your guild? Raid Rx has you covered with all there is to know! Looking for less healer-centric raiding advice? Take a look at our raiding column Ready Check.Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Priest, Shaman, Raid Rx (Raid Healing)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
009 Mar 7th 2009 4:10PM
Interesting read. Though i hate assigning healing cause generally our healers know their strong points, but when things start hitting the fan, i start to assign healing.
Kerrek Mar 7th 2009 4:14PM
their
epsilon343 Mar 7th 2009 4:24PM
I'm main heals for my raid and there's rarely been a time where I've needed to explicitly assign heals outside of Patchwerk. I suppose it just depends on the healing corps. and the way the raid works.
/shrug
Salculd Mar 7th 2009 4:51PM
Current content just flat-out doesn't need healing assignments, for the most part. The only bosses I do do it for are the ones you mentioned and, in a way, Thaddius and Gothik, although they're really both just a matter of splitting ourselves into two groups logically.
Stone Mar 7th 2009 4:54PM
I am Main heals for my guild as well and i toss out quick healing assignments for every boss. Just because I like to let all my healrs try a different roll each week to keep things interesting.
miyazana Mar 7th 2009 5:32PM
most of the time when i raid healers DO indeed communicate seperately from the raid chat, either in whispers or in their own heal channel. most of the time theres the main tank and thats who you heal. Most healing plans are set up before a raid begins anyway.
Anelf Mar 8th 2009 12:42PM
Reminds me of my first VoA 25-man PuG. I had to beg them to tell me who the main tank was. Then I started asking who the off-tank was and the raid leader eventually replied in raid chat "Do we have a second tank?" That was my cue to politely leave - anyone that disorganized is best left to die alone.
In general though, healing assignments in organized groups aren't that important when things are going well, but it really helps when something goes wrong. (I can feel confident focusing all my heals on keeping my tank alive because I know our shammie has the raid healing under control). For this reason I always hand out assignments - even on farmed content.
(And the nice thing about assignments on easy content is you can have a bit of fun playing DPS in between throwing the occasional heal on your tank :-) ).
Schadow Mar 7th 2009 6:34PM
As the raid leader of my guild, I always like to know that healers have been assigned tasks. Nobody will get kicked from my raid for taking 25 seconds to avoid a wipe that costs minutes.
Once you get loot distribution sorted, incidental deaths (on trash and such) are the biggest cause of slow raiding. Having healers assigned and accountable means fewer deaths, which means faster runs.
Anjelle Mar 7th 2009 7:52PM
I think it is always a good thing to assign healing. Trust me, I don't want to be on the healing team that lets the tank die because well... we all thought someone else was gonna toss that heal his way. As you have a solid core of raiders that work together a lot... this need will lessen... only because we do the same thing each week with the same people.
Better to take those few extra seconds than to have the rest of the raid looking at the Heals Team like we are a group of idiots.
Wulfkin Mar 7th 2009 7:30PM
Think I can sum it up with our vent conversation during a Patchwerk fight he other night:
Me: "Oh ****, i've disconnected!"
Raid Leader: "Who was your healing assignment? Oh wait never mind... he died. Wipe!"
Mukter Mar 7th 2009 10:44PM
We never seem to specifically assign heals. We have a diverse cast of healers with very different styles who all know their strong points. However, we've been raiding for a while now and the healing team never changes, so we pretty much can read each other on who's going to do what without even communicating. So far so good, seeing as how we have cleared all current raid content. Recent conversation on the difficulty level of Ulduar has gotten some of us questioning this as to how we should probably start thinking strategy in the near future.
Marveen Mar 8th 2009 6:26AM
We run Naxx10 with two healers, a Holy priest and me the Tree (plus a couple of the dps who help when needed, like at the Four Horsemen). We've been doing it long enough that we barely need assignments anymore - the only time I call them out now is saying which healer is with the OT on the gargoyle pairs in the Plague quarter. As a rule, the priest does MT healing and watches the raid, and I HoT up everyone especially us two in case we get blocked or something. On heavy raid damage/Loatheb we each heal our group first. It works quite nicely because we're used to working together.
On new content (still working on Sarth10+2D) we use assignments to remind ourselves where extra healing is needed, and tweak accordingly.
What I did do recently was ask the priest if she wanted to run healing assignments for a full Naxx clear. She normally doesn't mind being told who to heal etc and is normally quite passive and doesn't say much. But this time she prepared really well, a week in advance, and although she was quite nervous on the night she did an ace job of it. She's gained a lot of healing confidence from it - has suddenly started doing a lot of new creative stuff, suggesting new things to do at old bosses, asks to be moved to a better group where her Prayer can be used better, etc. She's not shy to mention if we're bringing new dps to a raid (and is often first to notice) - and makes sure they understand the fight and don't just faceroll on the first wipe. She's even been throwing smites around and (omg!) rolling on offspec loot! :D She was very happy with the experience, though she says she's happy to let me handle assignments normally, as her rl job involves telling people what to do and she gets enough of that.
So I strongly suggest rotating the task of assigning heals - it's not just tanks who need to rotate to get experience leading a raid.
Quark1020 Mar 8th 2009 6:44AM
If everyone knew the strength and weaknesses of each healing class, then healing assignments realy arent nessesary. However, you cant expect that from anyone, and even then, people will make bad calls on healing assignments. It bothers me when we fight a boss that does aoe damage and the raid leader assigns a palladin (me) on raid heals while the shaman or priest is assigned to the tank.
All the healing classes have strengths and weaknesses. Paladins have high mana efficiency but limited to single healing and double healing (light bless beacon of light!). Shaman have stronger multi targeted healing but slighty higher mana cost on spells. Druids obviously have their HoTs and good mp5 at the cost of speed reduction (tree form) and, well, the oT part in HoT scares me. As for priests, well, they're the jack of all trades in the categories.
In short, if your gonna assign healers, at least set it right.
Nyneave Mar 8th 2009 8:47AM
Just want to point something out, trees don't move slower anymore. Disc priests are viable alternatives to paladins for tank healing, and paladins do a great job healing the melee while bombing holy lights b/c of the glyph.
Shamans had highest mana efficiency while tank healing until the LHW spam spec got nerfed b/c of improved water shield. Druids aren't all about HoTs anymore, their direct heals are pretty decent.
In fact, the only healer I wouldn't neccesarily want to be a MT healer is a holy priest b/c their mana efficiency suffers while chaincasting gheals.
Just saying, maybe you need to update your knowledge on strengths and weaknesses of each healing class :]
P.S I play a priest.
jrizutko Mar 9th 2009 10:01AM
Its been my experience that the people who are resistant to healing assignments are the people that care way too much about healing meters and never decurse.
Jennifer Mar 9th 2009 4:51PM
Assigning healing is fine if...
1) The assign-er knows the strengths of the various healer specs (how many times have I been asked to raid heal as disc while the CoH priest is asked to tank heal astounds me)
2) The healers haven't already set up a working system. Just because it's not visible doesn't mean they haven't consciously or subconsciously done so. By the time trash is cleared I usually know what the other healer prefers to do just by watching whom they top off first.
The only time I don't like assignments is when people take them TOO rigidly (i.e. they don't help out the other healer if shit hits the fan because "they're supposed to be healing x instead") or when the assigner puts healers in roles that just don't make sense (pally on the raid, CoH priest on the tank). If you want to ask "Hey, whom are you healing CoH priest?" that's cool -- just don't pretend like you know what you're doing if you don't. Just make sure you know your limitations and don't be afraid to ask a question before you make a decision.