Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsForum 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 5 of 5)
Molagmal May 20th 2009 7:04AM
I'm a disc priest and I feel the pain of "Mellere of Wildhammer" like no other, I know how frustrating it can be to be tolt that your healing is to low by a hunter or a warrior (or what ever class) raidleader that has no idea what he is talking about.
I personally had this in the guild I was in and its just not fun to play if you always have people whatching you on the healing meters, ready to shoot you down as soon as your drop low on HPS. for me I stood my ground, I stayed disc, eventually I was moved to the alt raiding group this was when I decided to leave the guild and join an other, the guild I'm in now has a huge ammount of understanding about disc priests so I'm very happy in my new guild now.
I guess what i'm saying is, try to educate them in your guild, I wrote a huge article about Disc priests, "the how and what of Discipline Priests for Raid leaders and Wannebees" and I always linked to WoW insider on the forums if there was an article trying to explain disc priests again (thanks for that btw Insider, we need to make people aware of disc priests and what they can do).
though sometimes, like in my case, noting seems to help, people are just to rusted stuck in the old way of thinking, if that is the case you will either have to give in and go holy or look for a guild that is more open to disc priests. I chose the second option and I'v not been this happy while playing wow for a long time
Grimortam