Raid Rx: 2010, a healing retrospective
by Matt Low 
Dec 31st 2010 at 9:00AM
Another year, eh guys? I imagine some of you have since drifted away from healing (or from the game entirely). At the same time, I hope I picked up a few more regular readers. Healing is one of the essential arts in the game. Although I am somewhat biased toward priests, that does not mean I do not appreciate the strengths the other healing classes bring to the table.
In any case, this year was a big year for healers. Healing received a large overhaul. There were some new (well, new-old) concepts introduced. And of course, what's another expansion without new toys and spells?
Critter killing update: Once the guild found out that the pet could only be obtained with a reputation of exalted with the guild, production just dropped. We're at about 31,000 now. So much for getting that done by 2011! I doubt I'll be able to garner enough time or players to form a quick raid group for critter slaughtering. You know who has two thumbs and is a sad panda? This guy.
Also, this screenshot is a testament to perseverance. That protection paladin up there? He's been kiting that whale shark around the zone for a good 30 minutes. Did he end up getting it?
My personal favorite posts
Several Raid Rx columns have stood out in my mind. They're largely the ones that I felt were the most beneficial or helpful to players. I'm looking forward to continuing that streak in the next year.
- Are you doing enough? I wrote this post with the intent of reintroducing the concept of actions per minute. This was inspired by a pickup raid I did in which healers were literally just standing around not doing anything. They were healing, but it didn't look to me as if they were doing it to the fullest. Players were not at full health. It appeared to me they were waiting for damage to be taken before starting their casts.
- Focused on the right things? When evaluating healers, are we looking at the right aspects of their character? Different augments complement different playstyles. There are many variables to account for, including latency and player skill. It isn't always about the numbers. In the end, can the player do the job and can he exceed what is asked of him?
- Tank and healer disagreements I love it when healers get into "discussions" with tanks about tactics. Is it possible to just set that ego aside for a moment? We do have a boss to kill!
- Things that change your healing priority Healing a raid means having to react to what encounter mechanics are thrown our way. I mean, who do you heal first? Which classes or roles take priority over the rest? Do boss abilities modify the direction raid healers need to be aiming?
- A history of organizational healing Assignments for healing have evolved over the years due to changes in healing classes, encounters, raid sizes and so forth. This post is just a collection of my experiences in leading healers. Times have changed so much. At least in this expansion, we don't have to do the whole healing in shifts thing for the purposes of mana regeneration.
- Frustrations of two-healing a 10-player raid Let it be known that I prefer the stability of having three healers instead of two. Things generally go more smoothly, at least on the progression side of things. Maybe on farm content when players are sporting that extra gear and are fluent with encounters, it isn't as bad. But man, blood pressure and stress levels go through the roof because of the craziness.
Any healing happenings right now?
I know this month the official World of Warcraft healing forums experienced a huge uproar when healers approached the level at which they could begin healing dungeons and heroics. Obviously, the level-headed healers were the ones who read this column and prepared in advance, right? Right?!
In other healing news, you know how paladins received a new resource to supplement their spell costs? Built-up charges of Holy Power are used to help players level off their health. It was quickly discovered in the opening weeks of the expansion that paladins were simply too strong, and some of their spells (Light of Dawn, I think) experienced a nerf. WoW Insider paladin columnist Chase Christian wrote about it last week in further detail. Things basically got to the point where paladins could simply power up Light of Dawn with repeated Holy Light casts. Nerf warranted? Probably.
And yes, I saw that post from Paragon's Xaar, as well. I'm still digesting it, but I don't have the hard mode experience to confirm or deny it. I can't say for sure if the case of benching druids is true for all heroic encounters, but it doesn't seem that way in normal raids at the moment. Do you feel any different?
In any case, I look forward to helping you
Oh, and that whale shark? It took us 90 minutes (on top of his 30 minutes). We managed to get that whale shark down.
Need advice on working with the healers in your guild? Raid Rx has you covered. Send your questions about raid healing to matticus@wow.com. For less healer-centric raiding advice, visit Ready Check for advanced tactics and advice for the endgame raider.Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Priest, Shaman, Analysis / Opinion, Raid Rx (Raid Healing)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
zach.l Dec 31st 2010 9:08AM
i been going from holy to shadow to holy i do find this new healing really hard and i dont think i shall end up seeing the exp with a holy priest i do like shadow tho ^^
Grumpy Wow Guy Dec 31st 2010 12:55PM
1. Healing is harder now.
2. The healing mechanics are completely different now.
3. Empty your mind and relearn how to heal.
Tip: spirit is your friend. Love it long time.
If puggers give you crap, tell them where the hell they can go. If they don't CC, then /leavegroup.
I won't be easy, but it's worth it.
obarthelemy Dec 31st 2010 1:56PM
holy 5-man healing 101: favor 3 spells
- Heal (also keeps Renew up on the tank)
- Prayer of Healing (centered on myself inbetween melee and distance)
- Lightwell
Get in your single-target Chakra (except a few rare bosses), hassle players to click on the lightwell, and spam those.
Other spells:
- Tank Emergency Combo: Holy Word, Flash, Flash, GH. Ideally, I let the tank sink slowly while spamming Heal on him/her, Then do the combo do boost him up, rince, repeat.
- Group Emergency combo: Flash lowest, Flash lowest, Prayer
- Renew: to top off a lone wounded; PoH is better on 3+ people.
- Prayer of Mending: for progressive AOEs only
- Circle of Healing: on the move only, PoH is better
- Flash: for emergencies, too expensive otherwise
- Greater Heal: only hasted, only on tank.
- Shadwfiend on CD, Divine Hymn during lulls
zach.l Jan 1st 2011 10:01AM
thanks for the pointers :) i have been healing better atm i respeced into lightwell and using ckara all the him now ^^
Viator Dec 31st 2010 9:31AM
Having spend 20 minutes kiting the whale shark on my priest and then die because of a small lagspike made me a sad panda too (furiated panda first btw)
Slim Dec 31st 2010 9:39AM
As a druid healer in i349 gear (woo Arch staff and ring) I still find it pretty difficult to heal any heroic with heavy party damage that happens more than once (ie. more often than I can use Tranquility). 5k healing every 10 seconds (with only 2.5k in the first 3 seconds) is not helpful, and Rejuv doesn't help when people are in immediate danger.
Algaloth is okay because there's plenty of time to bring everyone back up (provided the other healer is the one focusing on clearing debuffs), but stuff like Ashbury (Stay of Execution seems to be the only thing you can count on people to interrupt immediately, much to my chagrin) and Throngus can be a pain.
A lot of this is probably mitigated by not using the random dungeon tool, but it's definitely annoying.
Saeadame Dec 31st 2010 12:14PM
Not running the random dungeon finder definitely helps. If you're running with people you know, and especially if you're on vent, you can tell them not to interrupt Stay of Execution until a tick has gone off. No achievement? Yeah, but I don't have the mana for it atm so...
It's also good for yelling at people standing in shit on pretty much every fight.
xvkarbear Dec 31st 2010 9:42AM
I know that my resto druid main is having one hell of a time healing people in heroics. I've completed two out of maybe the 10 or so that I've tried. I tried to tell myself that it was my fault, my gear needed to be better.. but short of doing dailies every day (which I am), gear gathering is a slow process while my guild leaves me in the dust. I tried to tell myself if only those dps wouldn't stand in the fire, I could take my focus off trying to keep them alive and go back to the tank.
The problem is I can't let mr. DPS die, because we need his dps to down the boss. But do they kick the dps who stands in the fire? Nope, they kick the healer who's attention is divided and mana is low.
It could be that I'm simply not powerful enough, and that with time and better gear I will heal awesomely, but right now I feel very discouraged from even trying.
arrethyn Dec 31st 2010 2:29PM
speaking as a fellow druid healer, you must let the dps die. It is the responsibility of the dps to avoid avoidable damage and if they cannot do that then it is not your responsibility to heal them. Yes, if you can manage to keep them alive then you should but if you know that healing them will mean losing the tank or that the amount of healing they require will drain too much mana then oops, sorry mr dps next time don't stand in fire. As other people have previously mentioned running in guild groups helps immensely in that guildies are generally a lot more likely to listen to you when you tell them why they died. It may well be that allowing that dps to die means you wipe, but isn't it better to wipe and let the dps learn what they are doing wrong so they don't repeat it rather than wipe because you saved them and then went oom? In my experience people learn best when they're mistakes cost them more than just having been at low hp which they may not have even noticed.
weepixie Dec 31st 2010 10:12AM
Because of RL stuff and trying to coordinate questing with friends, I didn't hit 85 until Dec 18 on my resto druid main. The next day she was geared enough to queue for heroics - between one piece of crafted gear, the 4k justice points I'd saved, and all the rep gear, I just made the cutoff. That first day was rough, but the next day I healed heroic Vortex Pinnacle on her, which I continued to do for a few more days. By now, I've healed every heroic, not running more than 2 per day (usually just once a day) because they take a long time... but the healing is not hard at all. At this point, my overall iLvl is 347 and I spend a good deal of time dpsing during both trash and boss fights, and my tank uses my roots and/or hibernate often. We have to heal carefully and not waste mana. We have to pay attention to fight mechanics, because some fights do not require that we heal the party much at all (SFK comes to mind) and our job becomes cake. We have to let dps who is standing in fire or lava or ice, etc, die, so that they will learn and not do it again. Yes, we have to play *well*. But it's not impossible to heal and we have a lot of power in our hands - er, branches. The key is to use it efficiently and thoughtfully.
I was pretty stressed about all the talk of healing pre-Cata, because I love my resto druid best of all. But I'm not stressed at all anymore. I'm enjoying myself quite a lot.
Re: heroic raids - yeah, as reluctant as I am to admit that there's anything I *can't* do (because I never give up), I understand why hardcore progression guilds make these kinds of decisions.
dairie Dec 31st 2010 10:20AM
My advice..for what its worth ..is do heroics, for now, with guildies or friends. The dungeon que is useless in my opinion right now. Heroics are tuned way to high . This is my third expansion ive seen and its the worst for heroics by far, even worse than BC.Give it a few months and blizz will tune um down, they all ways do.In BC as a healer my friends list was mainly tanks i had grped with that i could keep up.Play smart ...grab a tank from ur friends list and then spam for cc/dps = win
zubbiefish Dec 31st 2010 11:41AM
I'm on the other side of the fence. I heal 'em, and they're only more frustrating than a guild/friends run because people tend toward impatience.
I don't think they're tuned to high. They're just fine as they are, and will only get easier as more people get to see them and learn what they're all about.
Also, why is it that people think the strangers from thier own server will be any better than strangers from another one?
Bebofire Dec 31st 2010 10:47AM
My armory: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/eitrigg/f%C3%A5ze/simple
With gear, healing heroics becomes faceroll. I've stopped even bothering dps for standing in fire because with lifeblooms stacked on the tank, I can just regrowth/HT the dps without much concern for mana. Some fights aren't do-able with dps that's too low (or don't interrupt), but honestly, I've found that I can usually carry even bad pugs through most encounters at this point. My heroics groups almost always complete the instance.
Not trying to brag about personal skill or w/e, but I'm just saying don't worry about healing heroics because it's completely mindless once you hit a certain point in your gear level. As for raids, I don't have the same heroic experience of some people but I can say that some fights seem to favor me differently than others. The one fight I really struggled with is Chimaeron, because I simply don't have a tool to quickly get people from 1hp to 10k. Other than that, I've found healing to be pretty enjoyable and honestly I don't feel that my class is particularly gimped, at least at the regular raid level.
Seedy Dec 31st 2010 11:00AM
Unfortunately Blizz have chosen to fill Cata with 'Abacus Heroics', requiring pixel perfect calculation.
With no need for CC in Wrath heroics and the LFD becoming a stroll in the park this makes heroics pretty much leets only.
Judging by the increasing hostility between the casuals and the leets on the forums and the increasing number of people that seem to be quitting (including all my guildies apart from three) this could be interesting.
Will Blizz nerf heroics and enrage the leets? Will they leave it as it is and lose casual players? With SWTOR expected to come out some time after March 2011 this could be amusing to watch, although the forums themselves are generally the most contemptible pile of sociopathic crap I've seen in the MMO community for ages tbh.
And why do the leets hate casuals so much? They've been foaming at the mouth ever since casuals could get epics in BGs near the end of vanilla. Are they really that sociopathic?
zubbiefish Dec 31st 2010 11:53AM
I don't think I'm leet in any way. I can do them, with strangers, successfuly. Even if I am leet, however you define that, I don't have any animosity towards casuals, whoever they are...
I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that since nobody seems to be happy with the state of heroics, and that they can't seem to agree on what, if anything, should be done, then heroic dungeons are working as intended.
Side note, the offcial forums aren't the best source to inform your opinions. Just about anything that comes out of there is worthless, mouth breathing, drivel burried in a festering pile of asshat droppings.
Seedy Dec 31st 2010 12:30PM
TBH I think the problem is the first step.
This has been noticed before, people have often commented on the 'Gear Ladder' in WoW, and how the distance between the steps is growing with each expansion.
Some players can make this first step easily and for them it's a breeze. Some just cannot make it in cata.
Further up the ladder there are people already saying heroics are too easy and need to be made harder, this shows just how far apart the rungs are on the gear ladder and how it has now grown too far.
Maybe it's now more a case of Blizz messing up the gear ladder.
It's noticable in PvP easily, always has been, but now it's so pronounced that it's creating imbalance in PvE, possibly to a degree which could damage WoW.
PvP wasn't so much a huge problem as it was little more than an 'alternative playstyle' as first, it seems, but when PvE starts wobbling and creates what amounts to an unbreakable wall for many more casual players then we have a problem as PvE is the core of the game.
Jason Ralph Dec 31st 2010 11:27AM
I'll be frank: I logged into my Holy Paladin just to kick start the resting points, and logged off. There's been a lot if chances to the class, and I just don't have the time to make a alt Holy Paladin and level it to grow comfortable with what we are today. There's no way I'm going to grind out the next 5 levels when I can't play my class with the efficientcy I once had. I would rather bench him and wait for all the changed to come out. That and I'm just having too much fun on my only other character in WoW: A Worgen Unholy Death Knight.
Noyou Dec 31st 2010 11:41AM
Just for fun you might want to log onto your pally again. Holy is a viable leveling spec right now and is actually not bad DPS wise either. At least while leveling to 85. Pretty fun too.
Zak Dec 31st 2010 11:29AM
As a holy priest I've been having fun healing heroics. Now that I've completed them all, I'm running with pugs and things usually go smoothly. There isn't much CC being used, but I find I can heal a good tank through pretty much everything. If party members get mad at going oom I just remind them that there's no CC and we're doing things the hard way.
If you're having problems I would recommend gearing to extend your mana bar by gemming/reforging/enchanting for int and spirit. Reforging is a really useful ability and I don't see many people doing it.
zubbiefish Dec 31st 2010 12:03PM
Yep, I've done a couple with almost no CC. A sheep on a pack or two, once in a while. They were tough, but we got through.
I'd still recomend CCing, it makes things faster and smoother. Much like Matt Low I'm a fan of things like 3 healing 10 mans. I'd rather have more assurance that I'll get it done than charge through on a wing and a prayer hoping to get it done fast. What's more important, getting done in one go, or going fast and finnishing, maybe, after a dozen corpse runs?
Frankly, on my mage I realy dig polymorphing things. I feel more involved in the fight, like healing or tanking. If I'm just blasting stuff down, DPS is dull.