Raid Rx: Are you doing enough?
by Matt Low 
Jan 21st 2010 at 4:00PM
I hope you're not falling asleep on the job. Is healing getting a bit boring for you? Are you not happy with the way you're playing? Quite simply, the speed at which healers do stuff can lead to raid success or raid failure. Its no secret right? The more things you can do in a minute, the better. For DPS players, this is a fairly accepted fact. The more spells or abilities they can squeeze out, the higher their DPS goes. But what about healers? It all boils down to making the right decisions. Some healers are excellent at healing. Some are excellent at running. There are many that have a problem doing both at the same time.
So this week I wanted to introduce a term called actions per minute and what it means for healers. In the end, its all about being efficient. Are you a healer who waits around for stuff to happen or do you make stuff happen?
The origin of actions per minute started with real time strategy games like Warcraft 3. At the time, players used it as a way to measure their skills. One's ability to do as many things as possible garnered respect from their peers (while players like myself would right click spam the map in an effort to artificially inflate actions per minute because I was naturally bad at it). Having a high APM count usually means that the player knows what to do and how to react in a given situation. It also means that they have the dexterity to pull it off.
So when I'm talking about actions per minute, I'm not necessarily referring to healing per second (HPS). HPS is your ability to jam as much healing per second. For example, a discipline priest would be able to score a high HPS by dropping shields all over the place on a fight with high AoE damage (Val'kyr Twins from Trial of the Crusader comes to mind). Now I don't play a holy paladin very often, but I imagine all they would do to score as high as possible is to beacon a player and smash Holy Light as much as possible.
Keep in mind that the amount of spells and abilities you can do is internally limited by something called the global cooldown.
Why is this important for healers?
In any given fight, the raid has a time window to get the boss down before they wipe due to some enrage mechanic or timer.In an encounter like Rotface, where I need to avoid Slime Spray, I need to focus on moving to avoid that threat. At the same time, I know some of the players around me may get hit or I may get hit once or twice when avoiding it. I could simply run through and then heal. Or I can Renew myself or cast Holy Nova until I don't have to move anymore ensuring everyone in my group gets some heals. By covering my group and myself on the fly, I don't have to worry about healing us when I get to a safe spot. I can then look for new players to heal.
Get it?
Instead of moving then healing the group, I moved while healing the group.
That's a really simple example though.
Once you get to a fight like Professor Putricide you'll recognize that there are all sorts of things going on at once. Some of the actions taken can't exactly be measured. For example, once we get to phase 2, I'm still firing out shields as a discipline priest. I'm mostly targeting the players that are in melee range just in case they get blasted by those nasty orange vials. At the same time, one eye is intently focused on any oozes that spawn and I'm ready to run away or start chasing after targeted players. Just because your character is limited by global cooldowns doesn't mean that you cannot think ahead to your next actions. Try
What if there isn't anything to do?
I'm sure you can find something to do. Pre-cast some spells or pre-heal. You're telling me that you're in an encounter where no one is taking damage right then and there? In most cases, you'll see a timer or an emote that indicates when some attack is going to occur. If you know when a particularly hard hitting ability is about to strike, you can start taking steps. Don't react to the damage that's about to come in. Take steps and face it head on. Let's use the Stinky or Precious example this time. They're the guard dogs in the Plagueworks with a Decimate ability which cuts into raid health by 95% or so. Anyway, your raid has engaged them and its been a while since his last Decimate.At this point, a cautious holy priest would start casting Renew on the healers and other soft targets (cloth wearing casters or players with low health pools) in your group. Even though the first few ticks of the HoT might go to waste due to overhealing, when the Decimate does go off, all of the Renews you have cast will start becoming active and healing players up. So as your group starts getting gradually healed up, you know that in a few seconds they will not be on the brink of dying. Since you won't have to worry about them, this allows you to cast Prayer of Healing on a different group that hasn't been affected by your Renews.
Never stop trying to get better as a raid healer. A lot of the improvements that can be made on an individual level are often intangible qualities. I know that its hard since healers are ultimately focused on keeping players alive. This leads to tunnel vision and it affects me too. Rotface gives me some serious tunnel vision at times. I've been nailed by 13 Slime Sprays the first time but I'm gradually cutting that number lower and lower as we work on him.
If you really want to stress yourself out, try eating dinner and healing on a progression fight. Here's a tip: Don't eat rice. Getting rice grains out of the keyboard is not fun.
Want some more advice for working with the healers in your guild? Raid Rx has you covered with all there is to know! Need raid or guild healing advice? E-mail me at matticus@wow.com and you could see a future post addressing your question. Looking for less healer-centric raiding advice? Take a look at our raiding column Ready Check. Filed under: Raiding, Raid Rx (Raid Healing)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
jfofla Jan 21st 2010 4:05PM
If healing is boring to you..
Stop Doing It.
Read a book, take a walk, experience life.
This game is supposed to be fun, if you are bored, stop playing.
Styvorama Jan 21st 2010 5:28PM
Your type come to every comment section and make moronic statements, based on misinterpreting words. If you need it to be spelled out for you I will. In this case the word bored was obviously used to mean that you are not super busy healing, aka just healing when needed, not proactively.
I heard there is a nice bridge at digg.com that needs a Troll, go check it out.
Alexa Jan 21st 2010 4:18PM
As a resto shaman, one thing I always do in pertinent fights, is target mobs that need interrupting, purging, etc. There's a DPS assigned these tasks 99% of the time, but if they miss or are otherwise incapacitated, having a backup has saved our raid multiple times. This obviously doesn't work for all classes. :)
alex keeny Jan 21st 2010 6:41PM
With limited instant heals (Riptide on a 6 second CD and Natures Swiftness on a 2 minute CD), Shamans certainly aren't designed for healing on the run.
That said, we can be great at anticipating healing. I watch for the Plagueworks guard dogs to start casting Decimate and know when to start casting Chain Heal and who will need it the most in order to make it that much easier to deal with.
And certainly don't forget that you can interupt, purge and cleanse on the run.
Spacehyena Jan 21st 2010 4:18PM
I cannot condone your closing statement. Our holy pally admitted to eating fried chicken for our first few Lana'thel 25 attempts, and it did not seem to help the situation.
Omner Jan 21st 2010 5:16PM
I think the infamous Leeroy Jenkins wipe was caused by a paladin eating fried chicken.
widowmakrtwo Jan 21st 2010 4:23PM
It makes me sad if you think that's all there is to paladin healing. A good healing paladin is swapping auras depending on the damage coming in, bubbling/Hand of Sac'ing the tank to mitigate tank damage, shielding/DivSac'ing to reduce raid healers stress, hand of Salvationing those leet dps'ers to keep aggro where it's supposed to be, holy wrathing the adds to keep clothies from going splat until they can be picked up by the tank.
Jeez, you really make us sound dumb.
SpikePoint Jan 21st 2010 4:30PM
That's not what he said. =/ He was talking about spaming a fast heal for the sake of straight up actions per minute, not the strategy of actual good pally healing.
spikepoint Jan 21st 2010 4:33PM
Or more specifically for getting a high healing per second count as springing from that first concept.
Styvorama Jan 21st 2010 5:33PM
troll/
You don't need help sounding dumb widowmakrtwo. You have apparently mastered that through reading things out of context and then QQing about it.
/troll
widowmakrtwo Jan 21st 2010 5:41PM
You guys are right...i read that in the wrong context. My apologies Matticus.
Aedilhild Jan 21st 2010 7:16PM
The confusion may lie in the fact that near-exclusive use of Holy Light is an ugly point of contention among some players; especially given that Holy Light's casting time is longer than Flash of Light's. I see the innocuousness of the comment now, but when I first read the article I wasn't sure myself.
oricus12843 Jan 21st 2010 4:26PM
I've gotten so used to eating dinner while raiding on my rogue that I frequently go to do ti while healing and either end up with cold food or a repair bill :-/.
Wild Colors Jan 21st 2010 4:32PM
Druids have been doing this for a while. With the exception of the occasional nourish, we respect no speed limit but the GCD and cast on the run at will. In fact, we like to jump up and down and strafe back and forth while healing, just to rub it in...
Sorry, couldn't resist.
The idea of thinking ahead and prehealing is really critical though, especially where HoTs are concerned. The two biggest things I keep track of (or try to) as a druid healer are (1) fight mechanics, because with HoTs you really need to be a few seconds ahead of the boss, and (2) where people are. The latter point is just as important for all healers, but something I find really tricky to do. With my normal 10 man group, I'm used to people's names and roles, so I have some idea of who is likely to take damage when. But with PUGs, I find that my efficiency goes down and my stress goes up.
2cents Jan 25th 2010 5:28PM
I am offended by your bias against rice! Rice is nice!
Roland Jan 21st 2010 4:39PM
Well said. I think there are a number of other lessons that can be learned from games like Warcraft III, especially keybinding (in this case, your heals and other abilities). Although for once, just clicking might be more optimal - I use Grid without Clique, since I like firing off heals with keys instead of mouse buttons, but it must be a millisecond slower to click someone who's taking damage and then pressing the right button.
Anyhow, healing meters aren't the be-all, end-all, but there's something to be said about throughput. Shaman, for example, gear very much for haste if they're looking to maximize healing - because if you have any mana left at the end of a fight, it's pretty much wasted. As long as you're not oom (which is usually only a problem if I have to Ankh mid-fight), I think it pays to gear aggressively, and heal aggressively (as in proactive, not reactive), especially on progression content.
And OP, healing can be pretty boring when you're geared, your tank has 45k hp and you're doing like, Utgarde Keep for Frosts. Blizzard rewards repetition of obsolete content, unfortunately.
Alexa Jan 21st 2010 4:43PM
RE: Utgarde Keep
That's when you pop into your elemental or enhancement offspec and just DPS... tossing the occasional CH when needed :)
bloodfyr Jan 21st 2010 6:17PM
Clique doesn't require you to pre-target the person you want to heal. It just requires you to click them.
For example, I usually target the boss most fights so I can watch his cast bar or keep an eye on his health or buffs/debuffs I need to watch out for. If I want to drop a LHW on the tank, I can click them with a Clique keybinding, and my target doesn't change.
I personally find mouseover macros to be more harmful due to my playstyle. If my hands are hovering over the number keys or whatever I have my abilities set to, they're not on the movement keys. Shamans already have enough problems in fights that require constant movement. I can't afford to add to that with the millisecond delay it takes to move my fingers back to WSAD.
Sorcefire Jan 21st 2010 9:52PM
I second the importance of a combination like Grid + Clique! I know of healers who prefer to target then button-click to heals or (groan) use HealBot, but personally I respect a healer more if I know they have worked at understanding the tools they can use to make the job easier and efficient.
Grid can be a pain to configure, but you only need to go through that once and there are a number of helpful resources on the internet on how to do it. Clique is almost simple stupid and works with the default UI as well as most common unit frame addons (pitbull, x-perl, and grid).
At the end of the day if the healer did their job and the group/raid was successful then it shouldn't matter how they operate, but a lot of healer fails are the result of time-consuming target/click or using addons that make the player lazy.
Addons are great because they extend the functionality of the game as well as highlight mechanics that are in dire need of some improvements, but using one without understanding what it's capable if is a crime.
razedruid Jan 22nd 2010 4:05AM
@sorcefire
while i understand how targeting and using keyboard keybinds can be detrimental to the healing output of a healer, i dont understand how healbot users are lazy (i'm one of them and i do fine with it even in ICC), and how addons (VuhDo?? dont really know of any others) other than grid+clique are a NO..
Healbot is extremly easy to setup without the hassle of Grid and the latest versions may even give grid a run for its money.. Ofcourse im speaking as a healer.. grid can possibly be used by any class to keep a watch on the raid, while healbot is specifically tailored for heals..
If you do have any convincing arguments against the use/or in what way grid excels over healbot, i'd be interested in hearing about it and even switching if i find the disparity high enough..