Raid Rx: Things that change your healing priority
by Matt Low 
Mar 26th 2010 at 2:00PM
This post is aimed for the newer healers who have just started to enter raids or already have entered raids but are still struggling in some areas. It will be relevant for the tank or the raid healer.
Okay, so here is the premise of this week's post. When we heal, we generally have our own assigned targets. Certain players and roles are generally ranked higher than others. This list is the way it is largely due to what their purpose is in the raid. This post idea came about after I finished writing the recent The Light and How to Swing It for ret paladins. When I wrote the section on abilities and rotations, it got me thinking. Healers don't exactly have a spell rotation but we do have target preferences. Now obviously tanks get immediate priority than others. I would also venture a guess and say that in most cases, healers would be right behind them followed by the rest of the DPS.
However, there are things you can influence and factors out of your control that will affect which players in the raid you should focus on. Let us make the assumption that you're working on a progression fight of some sort. You're not exactly brute force healing the raid. The emphasis is on keeping players alive as opposed to keeping them all topped off.
Isn't it the overall raid health?
This is the giant no brainer. You as the healer go after the players that have taken damage. The players who have full health don't really need you to worry about getting any sort of direct heals on them at all. It turns into overhealing and is just simply unnecessary. But things become much trickier when everyone has taken damage. I'll just throw a simple figure out there. Let us presume that Grumpy (it's one of Arthas' massive dogs you don't know about) just took a bite out of the raid and drops everyone down to 25% (instead of 10% because his teeth aren't as sharp yet).
For a new raid healer, it's going to be extremely overwhelming. There are so many questions to ask yourself and you just don't know where to start. I know my first instinct was to start panicking and just go through each player one by one and heal them individually until everyone was past the 10% line. But when you're healing, try to keep these questions in the back of your head when cycling through.
What is the immediate threat?
Most raid bosses have a tendency to change up their targets. Sometimes they peel off the tank and start beating on the off tank for whatever reason. If you're healing the main tank and your target of target shows a different player, then it's a good bet that the tank you were healing is going to be okay for a while and isn't going to need those heals anymore.
Are there any incoming heals?
There are several raid frames out there which have an ability to communicate with other raid frames. That is, if you and I were in the same raid, and I started casting a healing spell on a target, your raid frame would show the approximate incoming heal.
Have any defensive cooldowns been used?
A few weeks ago, I participated in a "routine" kill of Rotface which wasn't as routine as I thought. You see, I ended up solo healing the entire 10 man encounter from 70% to death. It was a pretty harrowing experience, especially for me. But I made a mistake. During the phase where an Ooze explodes, I made the mistake of not hitting the main tank with a Pain Suppression when I was running out. Had I done that, I would've bought myself some extra seconds of tank-free healing. In other words, with a Pain Suppression active on the tank, I know they'll have a much higher chance of survival and I don't have to heal them as intensely. This frees me up to heal the rest of the raid and bring them back up to manageable levels.
By using a defensive cooldown, it allows me to temporarily divert my attention to other players. It buys time. Don't ever skimp out on using such abilities. Don't "save" it for when you need it. The best time to use a defensive cooldown is the time you second guess yourself to see if you should use it or not. If you have to ask, then the answer is a yes.
Is there any environmental damage about to kick in?
These fall under the category of attacks by the boss but are usually aimed at the raid.
Example: You're in phase 2 of Professor Putricide. He's about to throw out a Malleable Goo. You, the healer, are standing directly on top of the Professor and he hasn't spawned any of his orange vials yet. Therefore, you are in a safe position for now. He just turned and faced the entrance and is about to throw Malleable Goo. A quick glance at the raid frames show that all ranged players (except for a hunter) and all healers are at maximum health. They can withstand a single hit of Goo and survive. But that hunter is out there with 50% health and he won't survive a single shot of it.
That is, unless that hunter was standing in the opposite direction away from the door. If that is the case, he can survive a few extra seconds without a heal since the impending Goo isn't going to land on him.
Make sense? Position of raiders and your ability to perceive roughly where players are will help give you an edge when it comes to keeping your raid alive.
Are they special players
In a few cases, you'll have some special players in your raid performing some kind of function that is necessary for a boss to go down. For example, they get targeted by the orange slime on Professor Putricide and have to go for a run. Or maybe that player has a Frost Beacon on their head during the Sindragosa encounter, right? They'll take the initial hit. You can't heal them directly after it since the Frost Tomb is in the way. But you can hit them with a HoT like a Renew to propel their health up while they're still encased in that chunk of ice. These players need special (but often temporary) attention.
What range are they at?
What's their distance? Can you hit them from where you're standing? How difficult is it to reach them? I once remember noticing a DPS death knight tanking a few mobs. It should have been no big deal. The problem was that he was simply too far away. A quick mental calculation in my head showed that by the time I even got in range, he'd be dead. If he's not within my range, then I hope some other healer will be able to heal him up. I'll simply move on to other targets that are nearby. Sometimes there is just nothing you can do. You can't save them all.
Dead or disconnected players
Dead players or offline players are completely off the priority list.
If it's dead healers, then the duty falls on you to quickly figure out who they were healing and if they're as important as the players you were healing. If a raid healer falls, and you're the tank healer, then you might be able to balance the lives of some DPS that the raid healer was looking after instead of all of them.
Exception: If a Reincarnation or a Soulstone of some kind is being used on a dead player, they'll be alive within seconds. It's up to you and the rest of your healers to follow up with heals and buffs. On my priest, I open up with a shield to instantly extend their health bubble before following up with a quick heal.
Hey, healing can be a tough role. But keep these thoughts in the back of your head when you're doing the healing thing with your raid group. It will take a bit of practice and raid healing certainly matches the philosophy of easy to play and difficult to master.
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: Druid, Paladin, Priest, Shaman, Raiding, Raid Rx (Raid Healing)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
salaam.dune Mar 26th 2010 2:14PM
I really appreciate this sort of post! The general advice on how to approach a role for those who arent on their 8th 80 is very much appreciated. Thanks a bunch, and please do more of these!
Karthos Mar 26th 2010 2:50PM
Very nice points, Matt. I'd have to add something to the "If a Reincarnation or a Soulstone of some kind is being used on a dead player, they'll be alive within seconds" idea.
If this happens to you, or are the intended target of a rebirth, please please let your healers know when you are taking the rez. That way, the healers will be prepared to heal you up, instead of freaking out when they see some guy with a tiny sliver left of life suddenly appear!
Camaris Mar 26th 2010 2:27PM
A couple of random thoughts:
- In very hectic cases, performing the WoW equivalent of triage can be very helpful: If you have to decide who to heal in a pinch, heal the person who the raid needs most. Obviously tanks are important, but so are other healers, top dps-ers, people with encounter-specific buffs/debuffs.
- Don't forget yourself. This can be tricky, since you're tyring SO HARD to heal everyone that you forgot your own healthbar. It's embarrasing, but it can happen.
- To know what person needs heals (or shields etc.), you need to have the correct information available and easy to sea. That not only means you can see who has aggro or debuffs in your unitframes, but it also means you have to know what is going on around you (and other people). Thankfully with things like Grid and Healbot it isn't that hard nowadays to have nice compact UIs.
- Remember, gnomes, mages and rogues have a tendency to spontaneously combust. No amount of healing wills save an over-aggroing gnome.
n.moore210 Mar 26th 2010 4:30PM
Now why would you waste a perfectly good heal on a Gnome?
Cyanea Mar 26th 2010 4:31PM
I used to have the problem with watching my own health. That problem solved itself when I started healing with Grid. Now I just become one of many healthbars that refuse to stay filled instead of having to look elsewhere for my own health.
Quorniya Mar 26th 2010 2:29PM
Nooooooo, you killed Grumpy!!!
cheezygonzalez11 Mar 26th 2010 3:28PM
It helps to be aware of players' particular abilities and class/spec strengths. For example, if our rogue and warlock are both going down I'm healing the rogue first because or affl lock has tons of self healing. On a recent Festergut kill, she did 43% of the healing on herself from siphon life and fel armor--and another 9% of the healing she received came "from festergut" from Haunt. Having your healing addon keep track of class helps with figuring out priority a lot!
A big part of the priority, though, is healing assignments. When the sh** is hitting the fan, i heal MY tank, and count on our druid to take care of any raid member who may be close to death. That's the main reason we have healing assignments--so that we each know "If xxxx is close to death, i ignore everyone else for them" and we can count on eachother to cover everyone when everyone is going down.
Ishammel Mar 26th 2010 4:29PM
I agree, nice post! I have to disagree on a slight technicality though, just for anecdotal purposes:
We've kept healing a disconnected person before, as a matter of priority. It was the tank on Marrowgar 10! Followed shortly by the off-tank disconnecting not long after the main tank got back!
Tricks, Misdirection and threat reducing abilities were vital during that fight, but it was fun to experience something out of the ordinary on a well-known, often-run boss.
Cyanea Mar 26th 2010 4:29PM
In those massive AoE situations (Precious, Stinky, and "Grumpy" specifically come to mind, I tend to take the alternative view. I raid with two priests, Disc and Holy, and I know that their priority is going to be getting the tanks up, so before DBM warns about Decimate, I'll Riptide one of the tanks...then just as it comes off CD, I'll Riptide myself, then when the Decimate hits, I'll hit myself with a Chain Heal, then fire one off the tanks consuming both HoTs and getting everyone back up very quickly.
Vogie Mar 26th 2010 4:42PM
Heal Priority:
Self
Tanks
Melee DPS
Ranged DPS
Pets
Minions
Tanks again
Whoever is jumping at the moment
Self Again
Survival hunters in the other room
Warlocks who don't understand Life Tap
Other DPS
Lightwells
Basic Campfire
Feast
Non combat pets
A pony
DPS that pull things
Rob Mar 26th 2010 10:10PM
Self
Target
Tank
Friends
Normal guildies
That jerk who stole your loot
The dps who always dies in the fire
Hunter pets
warlock pets
non-combat pets
stupid
Jesse Felt Mar 26th 2010 5:32PM
I always love when people say that healing isn't fun or that you don't get to do anything exciting.
On my hunter I have to pay attention to, basically, "am I hitting the right target?", "Am I pushing threat to far?" and "is there something other than the floor underneath me?" (okay, there's actually a lot of other stuff in the rotation going on, but yeah.
On my shaman, every single GCD involves examining the entire raid, every player, the tanks, the other healers, the environment, the boss, etc.... and then making a decision on whether someone needs heals, who needs heals, if more than one needs heals which is priority, how much healing do they need, which heal should I hit them with, how is my mana pool doing (typically fine, I'm a shaman with 30k/550mp5 in a 5 man, lol), etc....
All that in addition to "is there something other than the floor underneath me"
That is one of the most wonderful things about healing to me, all of the triage involved. And those moments when something goes horribly wrong, like the tank decides to grab both groups at the top of the ramp in Heroic PoS and is taking close to 40k damage every other GCD in combination with party damage everywhere, but when you pull it off you feel like a rockstar! Hitting 10k dps on koralon is nice, and it is what everyone seems to pay attention to, but dps just never has a moment when they really get to feel like a hero.
Zatosh Mar 26th 2010 7:52PM
Nice comment, I can totally relate.
I think that is why dps likes to post their logs after a fight, it's the only thing they have to score themselves by.
As raid healer, I pretty much just heal everyone.
nwoods13 Mar 26th 2010 5:34PM
at first i was amazed at the fact that you basically solo healed Rotface. Then i remembered it was Matt Low we were talking about here.
"Matt Low, The Chuck Norris of Healing"
Roland Mar 26th 2010 6:10PM
Great post. I feel that a lot of raid leaders think once they assign healers (Bob watch the main tank, George watch the off tank, Charles heal the raid), that's that. I would really hope that healers don't use that sort of tunnel vision. Healing really is about triage, factoring in impending damage, positioning, current health, target priority and everything you mentioned.
I think the main problem right now is that "brute force" approach of spamming AoE heals until everyone is topped off, mana efficiency and overhealing be damned, is the most popular, and probably the most effective strategy, especially in 25s. As a shaman, I often feel I have only one viable spell (guess which) in 25s, while in 10s I can actually single target now and then.
Hopefully the higher health : damage ratio in Cataclysm, and perhaps mana actually mattering, will make things more interesting.
Norah Mar 28th 2010 11:17AM
I think, that appart from all the things said above, a huge key to being an effective healer is knowing your raid. Im not talking about the roles, the tactics or your assignment(although all these are obviously also extremely important), im talking about knowing which mong is likely to pull what mistake.
Perhaps thats stated a bit negatively: If you know your raid, you know which tank is ready with a CD. You know which rogue will use a bandage. You know which lock wont lifetap when the AoE hits etc etc.
Being in a pug, or (even worse) your first raid as a trial, means your efficiency will drop a good 30%. This is why tanks have pet healers - those that know you the best will always be, well, best!
So keep that in mind next time you spend a night wiping - each death means you've learned yet another little thing about your raid thats going to help your "triage".
Mummrah Mar 29th 2010 5:06AM
I assume this is a good write up b/c I don't know any better.
You started the post stating,
'This post is aimed for the newer healers who have just started to enter raids or already have entered raids but are still struggling in some areas. It will be relevant for the tank or the raid healer.
And then you go into a lot of what seem like good explanations healers for ICC 10/25 healers which is not what you stated was the point of the post was in the first place.
Mixing in talk of your experience in ICC, which is what the vast majority of the post is, doesn't even come close to helping those healers out who you claim the post is for
Mummrah Mar 29th 2010 5:15AM
my first statement, doen't make sense and has no place in my concerns about this article
Joka Mar 29th 2010 7:25AM
I haven't healed much (or at all) in WotLK, but in TBC my main was a priest. Looking back on it now, I had an awesome time healing RoS, Shahraz, Illidari Counsil and ofc, all circle of healing -priests favourite - mr. Bloodboil :) Now those were some healing instence fights with a lot of moving around, noticing who _currently_ takes damage and who can survive a while longer (and who has 5 stacks of bloodboil OMG!?).
My priest has now dinged 80 and has just got some of his first lvl 80 epics (still wearing some T6 pieces :P), but I find healing todays heroics mind-numbingly boring (almost as boring as hyjal trash).
Is it worth gearing him? Is there any fun, healing-fights in end content?
miker Jun 3rd 2010 3:25PM
A well done article. However, using examples from upper spire ICC fights might confuse the entry-level healers you are targeting with this article. Folks just getting into raids aren't raiding ICC Upper. Use Jaraxxas instead, maybe? He has some things heals need to watch, like incinerate.