Raid Rx: The healing lead's check list
by Matt Low 
May 20th 2010 at 4:00PM
There have been moments in the past when I forgot to hand out crucial instructions. Several of these moments could easily have been the difference between a 2% wipe and a kill on a progression boss. Personally, I feel that I'm under extra pressure compared to other healers because not only do I need to look after my targets, I need to make sure the other healers have the right ones. Not only that, I have to come up with a variety of solutions against different boss attacks or phase changes to ensure things go as smoothly as possible.
Too bad it doesn't always happen. Farm bosses that are taken down routinely can sometimes be challenging, especially when I forget to tell someone what to do. Granted, I normally expect healers to already know what their tasks are. What happens if I have new healers or someone in a different role? I need to make sure all the bases are covered.
Step 1: Make sure you actually have enough healers for the raid boss.
I had a holy paladin who had to step out once during a raid. A quick scan of available guildies showed no other healers online, but I did have assorted DPSers. There was a shadow priest in the raid who could switch specs and heal, since he had the gear and the skills to do it. The holy paladin took off as we were running back into the raid instance, while I pulled in another player to replace him. The next Sindragosa attempt started well enough. We managed to hit the third phase with a few minor bumps and bruises, but nothing we couldn't handle. Sadly, the raid started dropping all over the place after that. One of my officers asked me if there had been changes to healing. I said yes, we took out a holy paladin but replaced that position with a discipline priest. My officer told me to look at the DPS meters to find out the problem.
It turns out I had forgotten to tell the shadow priest to actually switch specs and play discipline healing for us. When making any substitutions, don't forget to alert the affected players to make the required change, or else you might find your raid group a little short on healing.
Step 2: Does everyone have something to do?
If there are any key roles in an encounter, those need to be taken care of first. If an encounter is heavy on dispels, you can usually get away with one person. Things like Infest on Lich King could use one or two dedicated players to counteract those effects. On Dreamwalker, portal healers need to be decided on ahead of time. These are all special jobs that are integral to the success of your raid.
Next priority after that is to make sure you have tanks covered. The general rule I like to use is to have one healer per tank. A paladin is usually the first pick, but it isn't unheard of to stick a druid, shaman or priest on a tank, either. It all depends on the player behind the character. The tank healer has to keep his tank alive at all costs. If he happens to fall or get rendered useless by an ability (like Backlash), he needs to alert the rest of the healers so someone can cover for him until he can take over again.
Lastly, it is up to the raid healers to see to it that the rest of the raid can still move and heal. In most cases, just telling them to raid heal is enough. When I do this, I revert to whack-a-mole mode. If a player falls below a certain threshold, I target them and use whatever spells to get them back up to a safe zone. Sometimes more finesse is required, and you have to assign individual healers to heal specific groups to minimize healing overlap even further (especially when it's a raid destroyer like Precious).
Step 3: Location, location, location!
Are healers standing in the right spots? Is there anywhere they specifically have to be or any player they need to be within range of? On the Blood Queen encounter, I like to place all healers directly in the middle of the room so that every player in that chamber can be reached. They're not supposed to stray from it (unless they get blasted by a Fear).
Step 4: Set cooldowns
Another thing I take for granted is cooldowns. I immediately assume that players already know when or under what conditions to use survival cooldowns. In most cases, this is good. This auto-pilot usage of defensive cooldowns is usually enough, as it trains healers to use their own discretion. But there are encounters where we need to lay out the order of cooldowns and micromanage them with further detail.
In a two-hour wipe-fest on the heroic Lord Marrowgar encounter in 10s, we were getting destroyed left and right. After a few attempts, I noticed that we were especially unstable during the initial Bone Storm phases. I had a feral druid, resto druid, discipline priest (me), shadow priest, holy paladin, elemental shaman and a protection paladin. We each had our own methods in healing through or mitigating damage. I reasoned that we had to survive through five Bone Storms in order to take him down.
This is how we laid out the cooldowns:
- Bone Storm 1: I would use my Divine Hymn.
- Bone Storm 2: Shadow priest uses his Divine Hymn.
- Bone Storm 3: Divine Guardian and Aura Mastery by our holy paladin.
- Bone Storm 4: Tranquility from the druids (they were separated into different groups).
- Bone Storm 5: Heroism and another Divine Guardian from our protection paladin.
Anyway, if you notice yourself forgetting to do a few key things, write them down and tape it to the side of your monitor or on your desk. If your healers are used to you and aren't shy, they will (hopefully) remind you in the event you forget. In my experience, though, if the same healers are doing the same roles throughout your raids, they'll generally be OK and won't require any extra management on your part.
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? Email me at matticus@wow.com or follow me on Twitter 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 2)
Ricos May 21st 2010 5:01AM
What are the shoulder pads in this image?
thpthpthp May 21st 2010 5:46AM
It looks to be either Priest tier 6 Mantle of Absolution ( http://www.wowhead.com/item=31069 ), or Amice of Brilliant Light ( http://www.wowhead.com/item=32273 ) from Shade of Akama in Black Temple.
threesixteen May 20th 2010 4:28PM
great post. i'm a holy/disc dual spec heals (my 2nd alt) and mostly i just pug raids/heroics with him. recently, i was yelled at and booted from 10 ICCs at Saurfang and called a 'sh--ty healer' after our second wipe on DBS... the trouble is, no one in this pug raids (it was 6 guild members, plus 3 pug heals and a dps) took ownership of healing assignments so i tried to do everything: shield everyone all the time, heal tanks, and then heal the person that got the Mark. it was a nightmare. we'd all triple heal the same target and then weren't able to recover to spread the heals out etc. a classic example of three healers all performing the same triage at the same time. nightmare.
so, i got booted and called names which bothers me primarily because instead of the intelligently identifying the problem (lack of communication) the guild/raid folks just leapt into the fight and then cast blame. the raid broke up of course after they insulted the healers (we left or were booted before we could leave) and i just dont get what they were thinking...
anyway, just a story about being a pug raid healer. same as it ever was. if you are a raid leader and you pug your heals, i beg you, please assign us. you know your tanks. you know your strats. we don't. we can more or less figure this out on the fly for most bosses but some (like DBS or Val) really do require the group to take a few moments to clarify the approach in play.
:)
uncaringbear May 20th 2010 7:10PM
I do a fair amount of PuG healing, including VoA, ICC, etc. You could probably devote an article or two on PuG healing. In these situations, it's not at all unusual to receive no instructions at all for healing. When this happens, take the time to be proactive and talk to the other healers before the boss encounter starts. If I'm on my pally, I'll confirm with the rest of the healers that I'll be focusing on the tanks. I'll also sort out who is beaconing whom if there is more than one pally. On my druid, I'll make sure we're all on the same page as far as basic healing assignment goes. Of course, more pre-coordination is required for the more complex boss fights.
But what you don't want to do is not communicate with your other PuG healers. Never assume that everyone knows what they should be doing. If the raid lead hasn't said anything about healing, take the initiative and speak up. Even discussing the most basic healing assignments before a fight can make a huge difference. This is why they usually stick us all in Group 5, after all.
Sick Freak May 20th 2010 5:10PM
Good article. I am a disc/shadow priest. I barely go shadow because I am trained and geared for healing. I recently was chewed out for one particular person dying in a pug. The tank was way undergeared and the person that kept dying was pulling all the aggro. Of course I was to blame and I should have done everything in my power to keep everyone alive. People need to learn to speak up and tell you as a healer what they want from you instead of complaining about you to other people or telling you you suck because they died several times. I've always heard that as long as the tank lives the DPS can die. :P I stick to that motto. If you aren't pulling aggro from the tank, you wont die. It's simple. This article helped me realize there does need to be more communication even in pugs.
slartibart May 20th 2010 6:16PM
Honestly, not to argue for the sake of arguing. The communication doesn't need to be there in heroics. You are totally correct, the dps'er and whomever chewed you it is just plain wrong.
My main's a ret, and while I occasionally make the mistake of pulling aggro in lfg groups, it's my own fault, and being icc geared, granted I have the survivability/dps to survive a stray mob for a bit w/o heals.
On my other alts, resto shammy, disc priest, the dps dies, big deal; boss will still drop.
Tank dies, you better have some sick kiters/ dps'ers to have a chance.
tl;dr : you were right, communication doesn't matter in 5 mans, just drop group, and take a quick random, you're heals :)
Snuzzle May 20th 2010 6:57PM
There does need to be some communication in heroics. If you're an undergeared healer, and the tank is just plowing along, pulling ten groups at a time and you're OOM... you need to speak up and say "I am drinking, I am OOM." Because only good tanks pay attention to their healer's mana bar or location, if the tank keeps running ahead and pulls anyway, people will back you up and say "dude, he said he was drinking" instead of "healz!?!?"
Marita May 20th 2010 8:04PM
Once I got into a random CoS where the tank was a warrior with 25k HP
I thought "NOooooooo, new tank" and resigned
After some pulls, the DPSs started complaining about the tank and aggro, but we did continue
We let Arthas die by mistake (no one payed attention) so the DPS dropped the group, but with the tank we got new DPSs and finished the dungeon with no problems.
After they left the party, I talked with the tank, and congratulated him for his good performance.
He said the first dps weren't controling their aggro, but he felt unsure because of him been new.
But he did very well overall.
It wasn't he's fault the mage was 6k gs and made proportional raid aggro.
jayson May 20th 2010 5:18PM
A healer never targets, just using the word target screams bad. You should be able to be an effective healer without ever taking your target off the boss. I really find it strange when everyone nowadays are targeting, not only that but popular blog writers are actually reporting this to be the way things should be done.
Dont use healbot, don't change targets, don't do mouse over keybindings, how it should be done is one hand is on WASD and the other hand should be on your mouse and you should grab clique and then wak-a-mole. Healers don't even contemplate the 250ms delay for every target change. I have raided with you matt and this tendency to promote targeting just screams bad.
Look at it this way on press to target another press to heal. With the clique method its one click.. boom.. heal.. with my hands still on my movement keys. I suppose you could argue this is something more for druids but just the delay to execute one heal your way is noticeable.
slartibart May 20th 2010 6:18PM
I think you're misunderstanding his use of the term 'target'.
While you seem to be talking about, changing your characters 'target', I believe the author (correctly) is using it as in; cast spells at.
Granted, you can cast a spell without targeting as you're saying, the spells themselves do need A target, so you seem to be missing the point.
Snuzzle May 20th 2010 7:00PM
I target my main target, but mostly because it's just easier for me to react more quickly to a large target bar than a tiny Grid box. That way it's all up in my face and whatnot.
uncaringbear May 20th 2010 7:13PM
WTF does Healbot have anything to do with targeting?
alastairduffield May 20th 2010 7:44PM
I couldn't disagree with you more I'm afraid. healing on my holy paladin requires that i keep a friendly target targeted so i can renew my judgements without needing to look for an appropriate enemy.
Secondly while responsible for healing 2 tanks I'll often target the second one allowing me to cast at them or the focussed tank without using my mouse at all, freeing up my right hand to look around and increase my raid awareness.
In addition i use mouseover macros which are no quicker or slower than clique casting from my experience.
In short there are a significant number of ways to use your interface tools, and as long as it works for the individual using them i don't think you or I am in a position to judje them as correct or incorrect.
GoLeafs May 21st 2010 11:24AM
What works for you might not work for another healer.
I use VuhDo, since FOR ME, it works better than Grid + Clique, or Healbot, or any other raid frame or healing add-on out there, but there are very good healers in the guild I belong to that use Healbot, Grid, and other add-ons effectively. Some use clique. Some use mouseover macros. Some use the built-in click functionality in Healbot or VuhDo.
Personally, since I'm a holy paladin and I have to judge once every minute for JotP, I always target the boss (or a trash mob on trash) and judge them to keep up JotP. Then I use VuhDo to click-cast. I have all my various heals bound to mouse keys, my utility spells bound to shift+ mouse key and my hand spells bound to alt + mouse key.
TL;DR: There is no one right way to heal. Effective healers can use a variety of methods - what's best is that the healer finds out what works best FOR THEM.
Milhojas Jun 2nd 2010 11:57AM
That may work for druids or priests. Shamans are turrets and, since you can't move while casting (except with riptide), you can take the time to select your next target while you are casting a heal. I like it that way. I have the weird idea that you can cast the spell on the wrong person if you just "mouseover".
urkuid May 20th 2010 6:00PM
Sick Freak, if a dps is pulling aggro & dying as a result it is not the healers fault. They should not be pullign aggro. Once is forgivable, any more is just plain stupid.
Harrumph May 20th 2010 6:09PM
Not useful.
Your post is targeted at a small sub-sect of the healing population, those specific leads within guilds that are actively raiding with a decent structure in place. The players in those positions are normally well aware of their responsibilities, and/or are unqualified for such a role if they are already serving in that capacity without knowing this information.
This leaves the remainder of people who can directly benefit from this post as "aspiring healing leads." - Presumably not a large portion of the population.
Just sayin'
Styvorama May 20th 2010 6:32PM
I for one think that it is good to educate all raiders about the challenges/tasks the healing team faces(in a pug or a hardcore raiding guild). Considering most people have alts, and many of them having a healer somewhere among the pack, it is good knowledge for anyone.
If all you know is what Harrumph needs to do, then you are going to die fast when there is a small hiccup in the battle. Understanding the fight through the healers eyes will lead to you living longer and avoiding more fire .
But I suppose y'all dps will just continue standing around saying "cmon gogogo!"
uncaringbear May 20th 2010 7:22PM
I was going to shoot down your comment as 'not useful', but at least you provided some flawed arguments for your point.
Any healer who heals post-80 in raids should at least have a basic understanding of the thought processes that healing and raid leads go through. Doing so does not make you a wannabe heal lead, but ensures that you are a better healer, period. Good healers don't ever make assumptions about their healing team members nor do they work alone oblivious to others.
Chirri May 21st 2010 8:54AM
I'm not Heal Lead in my guild, I'm just another font of healing within our stable of healers.
But you know, once in a while our Heal Lead can't attend. And when that happens the raid leader often turns their eyes upon me and makes little whimpering sounds of dismay.
Thus, non Heal Leads are asked to assign their fellow Healer's to tasks.
This IS useful for people who aren't Heal Leads. It's good information to keep in mind. The only people it has no use for are people who strictly solo or 5 man; to ALL raiders (even raiders who aren't healing classes themselves) this is useful information. Raiding healers in general ought to keep in mind what their Heal Lead has to keep in mind, and if the Heal Lead forgets something then clearly they need a hand remembering. Raid Leaders with all pugged-healers need to keep these sorts of things in mind to lend a hand to their healers.
Simply because you have absolutely no interest in assisting your fellow gamers in the second most stressful AND exciting roles within the game doesn't mean everyone else is quite so brain dead. There are only so many topics that matter to EVERYONE who reads this article - I don't whine when the topic has to do with tanking or DPS because I can find a use for ALL of the information provided here. Understanding what my fellow raiders are dealing with makes me a better player. Give it a shot some time.