----> Point of article













------> You

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.

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.

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.

You've all mised the point of the reply. It's part of the irritating "first" game.

If the tank doesnt die and the boss does then the healing meter should read "WIN"!!!

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%

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.

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.

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

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.

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.