Forum post of the day: Be disciplined about healing meters
by Amanda Dean 
May 17th 2009 at 2:00PM
Mellere of Wildhammer posted a brief lament about her guild leaders treatment of a Discipline Priest. The discipline priest was below a Retadin on HPS. Without understanding the role of mitigation as a healer, the Raid Leader told him to go holy to bring up his HPS. The OP expressed disappointment in the RL at this action.Several responders posted that this is partly the fault of Blizzard as they don't take into account shielding and mitigation to healing scores in the combat log. Daerilla of Spirestone intimated that she did not want to see mitigation included in healing figures, because then people would take notice of how overpowered Disc Priests are in raids. There were some less-than-kind comments about the Raid Leader's competence.
Raid leaders, be sure to give credit where credit is due. Trust that your healing leader and raiders know what they're doing. The raid leader should have a decent understanding of class/spec roles, and adjust their expectations respectively. If the GM is in charge of making healing assignments, be sure to give healers appropriate assignments. Not based on HPS, but based on healing abilities. It some cases it might be best to give a healer the opportunity to dole out orders to the healers.
As Mike Schramm pointed out, basing "performance" off healing meters can lead to doom for a raid. This practice supports over-healing and potential mana issues. When healing becomes a competition healers can lose sight of their assignments and slow down or even wipe the raid. As always remember to keep meters in perspective. It's not about being a star, or a prima dona, raiding is about working together as a team to accomplish a common goal.
Filed under: Priest, Analysis / Opinion, Guilds, Raiding, Talents, Forum Post of the Day
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Cthulu May 17th 2009 2:06PM
Any person that cares about their performance should use a meter to compare or analyze their spell/ability usage. First and foremost ppl who don't watch the meters are just afraid of them.
Nadril May 17th 2009 2:10PM
----> Point of article
------> You
Mauld May 17th 2009 2:18PM
I really dont think that applies to healers like it does dps, as tanks gear improves you heal less, certain healing assignments cause you to heal less, and certain specs like disc make it appear that you healing less.
Heavy AoE fights AoE healers will rock single target healers socks off, same goes for fights with little raid damage paladins really shine here and leave everyone else behind.
In short healing meters are nothing like a dps meter.
Allison May 17th 2009 2:18PM
While it is good to analyze your performance through a meter sometimes, that was not what the article was about. Reading comprehension is ftw, they should come up with a meter for that.
CM May 17th 2009 2:22PM
Sorry dude but you're just wrong when it comes to healing meters. Unlike dps players healers are doing other things than just hurting the boss--we're cleansing poison, removing disease, decursing, removing harmful magic, battle rezzing, etc. None of which show up on HPS meters.
This ridiculous reliance on healing meters as the sole test of a healer's performance is causing massive problems in ulduar where people are hitting difficult content for the first time in a long time and looking for somebody to blame and stupid people like you look at some meaningless numbers on a healing meter and blame the wrong people.
Sarnath May 18th 2009 11:22AM
You've all mised the point of the reply. It's part of the irritating "first" game.
Elwoods May 17th 2009 4:43PM
If the tank doesnt die and the boss does then the healing meter should read "WIN"!!!
Rollo May 17th 2009 7:26PM
Funny you should ask, I have just completed a relevancy test for threaded discussions. Allow me to demonstrate:
CM ================================================85%
Allison ========================================81%
Mauld ========================================78%
Elwoods ================================67%
Nadril ===============32%
Cthulu 0%
Dusky May 17th 2009 10:20PM
No. Healing meters can be useful but one's hps should not be the end all and be all when it comes to judging how well a healer is doing in your raid. I'm the healing raid leader for my guild and I'm aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the healers under my wing.
Any of them can heal effectively, I can tell you that. But the ones who truly shine are not always at the top of the healing meters. Our disc priest is usually at the bottom, but has done a hell of a lot of mitigation during the fight. Paladins may not top the raid healing Shamans, but the tanks they're assigned to aren't dying, either. All of them also knowing when to move, when not to, are raid aware and aren't gluing their eyes solely to the green bars. That's what makes them effective healers, regardless of where they place on the healing meters.
M S May 18th 2009 1:26AM
Arguments like that show your own lack of understanding of the game mechanics and can end up with some DPS shouting how they topped the dps meters, ignoring the fact the pulled off the tank, healers had to scramble to keep them up (causing potential tank heal or mana issues), or stayed dead for half the fight. I can pull 16k dps on an aoe pull with my lock, that said, few tanks can hold against that kind of aggro. When they break loose, kill me, then run through the raid, the wipe it would cause is my fault. Looking only at the meters, I am a stellar performer. Looking at the results, I would be just another failed dps.
Meters are one tool and those that bases decisions off of only one tool does not understand the game.
The same is true of my healer. I have resto druid that is specced for raid heals. His numbers look great, but other classes/specs do better at MT healing. Basing it off just the numbers and I would be the obvious candidate for MT heals on a tough boss fight.
Lyraat May 18th 2009 9:15AM
Fail.
Healing meters can provide some data on how a healer is doing, but not the whole picture. As others have said, healers do a lot more than just heal: cleansing, dispell, mitigation, etc. Just looking at the healing done chart on Recount pushes people towards AoE heals and massive overhealing. In short, they become dps healers.
Let's do a quick case study. Two priests in our guild. One is disc, one is holy. The disc priest never tops the meters (even when holy), the holy priest makes sure he tops the meters. The disc priest's assignments never die, the holy priest's assignments often find themselves face down at the end of fights. Who would you take, the responsible person who forsakes their place on the meters to ensure their target's survival or the irresponsible dps-wannabe who forsakes their targets in favor of topping the meters?
Healing meters should have a FAIL switch, something like:
IF (player_assignment=dead), THEN Healing_Done=0
tess May 18th 2009 10:30AM
As a Healing Leader in 25 mans I look at the meters only to see if the Healers are mainly healing WHO i assigned them to and to look at the activity meter. I never use this information against them I just think it shows their ability to listen/follow instructions and shows if they keep themselves busy (within the context of a given fight). That is what meters are for imo.
Ginncrotz May 18th 2009 1:56PM
Yeah, but...
If a holy pally heals the MT for 14000 that shows on the meter. If a disc priest shields the MT for 14000 that does NOT show up on the meter. However they did the same work (in fact the shield might have saved a life if the MT had less then 14000 health left...and it did more work if the MT had less then 14000 damage when the pally's heal landed)
So the meter is flawed when looking at a class that hands out a lot of shields.
If you look at total heals and don't look at over heal then you have another chance to point at a "good healer" and say "bad! no biscuit!". (that is not to say just look at over heals and say "bad!", subtract OH amount from amount healed to see "real heals").
That still doesn't really tell you what is going on either. If I'm assigned to raid heal, and I let 3 people die, but on the next try at the boss the next healer lets 2 folks die who did a better job? Well, if there was similar damage going out, Mr "2 deaths" worked better then "mr 3 deaths" right? Well, maybe. But what if "Mr 2 deaths" lost the 2 highest DPSers in the group, while "Mr 3 deaths" lost the lowest 3?
Who did the most healing, the pally that throws out 1M healing, or the one that does half that AND cleans off 200 poisons?
Evaluating healing is HARD.
If you are wiping, you do need to evaluate healing, but it isn't as easy as "this number is too low, shape up or get out!". The numbers don't tell the whole story for DPS, and they tell even less for healing.
Milkingit - Uldaman May 17th 2009 2:09PM
Meters are an amazing tool.
Unfortunately like a tool, if you don't know how to use it properly you are just gonna stab yourself in the foot.
Disc Priests use mitigation to soften the blows, so others can heal in a raid. Holy priest, throw heal bombs.
Recount, zomg hps low, go Holy.
Properly read WowWebStates. Why he did 47 shields, so that accounts for blah we didnt have to heal + healing, zomg he wins!
Etc.
Jace May 17th 2009 2:14PM
I couldn't agree less when it comes to healing, Cthulu. As a four year holy paladin I can assure you if I have mana left over, no party members to res and a dead boss, It doesn't matter what recount shows on my 'HPS' - which is a complete waste of a meter as Mike has pointed out.
Also you'll find that as the article clearly points out, that counting meters do not keep track of damage prevented by abilities such as sacred shield or to a greater extend power word shield and pain suppression. Attempting to track those stats against a static target like a target dummy would be equally useless.
Its easy for a dpser to say that some people are "afraid" of meters, but in many cases a meter isnt the only thing to gauge a class or player by. In that same vein make sure your dpsers aren't topping out fail bot as well. Also keep an eye on who is at the top of the 'interrupts' tab on recount.
Eisengel May 18th 2009 7:06AM
I entirely agree. My measure is first, how many people died? Now if they were standing in the fire... well, there are limits to healing, but if 0 characters died for reasons you couldn't prevent (bad LoS slam, fire), not bad. Next part is to ask the tank how many defensive CDs they felt they had to use. If the tank used CDs for certain portions of the fight, but never had to pop one for an emergency, then it was a good run.
The takeaway is to figure out how to fit in some extra HoTs or position yourself so people don't die for odd reasons, and ask the tank and look through your log to see what parts of the fight hurt a lot and which abilities to watch out for. Decent healers heal after damage is done, good healers often cast stop-heals to heal when it is needed, ~#@#%$ great healers can anticipate the fight and have a the right heal drop on you just as you need it.
Allison May 17th 2009 2:16PM
It amazes me how people are incapable of taking a tool and applying common sense to it's analysis. Of course a disc priest won't be as high on the meters, and anyone that knows how a _shield_ works would realize that.
Manatank May 17th 2009 2:44PM
qq more. Why don't you try healing instead of shielding? Still can't top the meter? Then you suck!
Allison May 17th 2009 4:19PM
/facepalm
Healers aren't meant to compete to top meters. They're meant to keep people from dying. Meters are just a helpful tool to help them analyze how they can do better. Learn how the game works.
Btw, I'm holy, not disc - I just realize how the other aspects of the game work. Also, I wasn't QQing really, just making an observation about stupidity.
Manatank May 17th 2009 4:47PM
You'll never win the meters with that kind of attitude.