Raid Rx: When is a wipe a wipe?
by Matt Low 
Apr 1st 2011 at 4:00PM
Seen the new Holy Word: Sanctuary spell graphic yet? That's what it'll look like, in the screenshot above, after patch 4.1.
We're going to talk about panicking today. It is a common occurrence among healers, especially during raids. I have been known to lose my cool. But there are different types of panicking, and it helps to recognize them so that you are both aware of it and how you can best react to it.
First, some additional healing changes and additions have been announced.
Upcoming healing changes in patch 4.1
Druid
Nature's Swiftness now also increases the healing done by the affected nature spell by 50%.
Priest
Holy Word: Sanctuary healing done has been increased by 35%.
Shaman
Cleansing Waters now has a 6-second internal cooldown.
Nature's Swiftness now also increases the healing done by the affected nature spell by 50%.
Priest
Holy Word: Sanctuary healing done has been increased by 35%.
Shaman
Cleansing Waters now has a 6-second internal cooldown.
My thoughts after the jump.
It is nice to see both Nature's Swiftness and Holy Word: Sanctuary get a little love. I know a number of druids and priests opt not to use those spells for a variety of reasons, but both spells are becoming increasingly attractive. Nature's Swiftness not only makes the next spell instant but way stronger -- it makes me wonder if the shaman version of Nature's Swiftness is going to need it (but my gut feeling says no).
Holy Word: Sanctuary was another spell that needed some improvements. Pound for pound, it didn't quite match up to Healing Rain. One of the arguments against it was that the AoE healing of priests would become much more powerful, as well. Either way, it wasn't being used much simply because it wasn't cost-effective. I'm not sure if the change will stick; we'll have to wait and see.
The change to Cleansing Waters actually surprised me. An internal cooldown on the talent? Was the healing component of it too overpowered relative to the other healing buffs that are slated to arrive in the next patch?
The art of calling wipes
Chaotic situations are one of those times when the players around you can see who can clutch out the heals and who can't. Players are dying. Healers are doing what they can, jumping from one player to the next. I know my mind shifts into overdrive when a tank dies.
As one of the raid leaders, though, it's a little different for me. The call to immediately wipe the raid depend on my immediate assessment of what healers we have still alive, what the incoming damage is like and whether or not we can salvage the situation. First, I analyze which tanks are still alive and measure their incoming rate of damage. It's purely a graphical check (how much their health bars are dropping from boss hits versus increasing from healing).
The next check is DBM spell timers on the side of my screen telling me what cooldowns players have available. If I see that Tranquility, Divine Hymn, Pain Suppression or other such spells are free, I can either decide to save the cooldowns for the next attempt or use them now to stabilize the raid.
Lastly, I look at where we are on boss health. Calling a wipe at 2% is just silly. Calling a wipe at 98% and just restarting it is a no-brainer. The hard calls to make come at the 30% - 70% range. On the one hand, you can make the call to keep going and get additional practice time in on phases or abilities. On the other hand, you can stop it now and not waste any further time. It's all about probability. The higher the casualties, the higher the failure rate.
Now, try doing all of that in the space of 1 second.
The worst thing you can do is freeze up and not give a command. You've got 24 (or 9) other players looking to you and wondering if they should keep going or ease off the gas pedal and turn it into a wipe. You can rest assured that whoever makes the call on what to do is going to get second-guessed.
"We could have had that!"
"Just a few more seconds longer!"
"Urgh, why was that call made?!"
The death of indecision about death
Deal with it. You can't predict what's going to happen. As the raid leader or healing leader, you can only make an educated guess. Just make a call. Being indecisive is the worst thing you can do. You're either going to make the right call or a bad one; either way, you'll learn from it. Speed is of the essence here because you can't tell Deathwing to pause his attacks for the moment while you measure everything that's going on to determine whether your raid should wipe it.
I'm going to reiterate one more time: Indecision is the worst thing for a raid healer in this situation. If you're not sure whether to keep going or wipe, just keep going, because you'll wipe eventually if your raid can't pull it off.
Healers are going to panic. Give them some direction. Ultimately, continued practice will help cut down on panic as they settle in on their groove.
If your raid leader tells the raid to keep going, that's the cue to the rest of the healers to keep healing. Start blasting those cooldowns one after the other. Your healers are waiting for the green light to use their cooldowns. On spells that require targeting like Power Word: Barrier, let the healers determine where to best use it. Spend less time micromanaging.
The priority is to stabilize the raid. Use the Tranquility you have available -- heck, use two if you need to. As a priest, I'll snap off a Pain Suppression on the tank if I have it free and peel off to help with the raid healing for a few seconds. Have your DPS druids exercise their Rebirths (or get your death knights to do it, after the next patch).
We'll come back next week and take a closer look from a micro perspective on who to heal and how to best make that determination on the fly.
Need advice on working with the healers in your guild? Raid Rx has you covered. Send your questions about raid healing to mattl@wowinsider.com. For less healer-centric raiding advice, visit Ready Check for advanced tactics and advice for the endgame raider.
Filed under: Raid Rx (Raid Healing)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
razion Apr 1st 2011 4:09PM
"Never give up, never surrender!"
Rubitard Apr 1st 2011 7:15PM
By Grabthar's Hammer... what a savings.
Sky Apr 1st 2011 9:14PM
Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no.
Dainslef Apr 2nd 2011 1:43AM
You meant when the Japs bombed pearl harbor?
zweitblom Apr 2nd 2011 2:07AM
Dainslef, you just failed the nerd test. Watch this to get the reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8lT1o0sDwI
Sky Apr 2nd 2011 10:32AM
@Dainslef
thatsthejoke.gif
Sleutel Apr 2nd 2011 10:38AM
Dainslef also fails the "not a racist" test with their delightful use of "Japs." Or, benefit of the doubt, maybe s/he's just a tween who shortens everything they type and doesn't realize that "Jap" was a common slur during WWII.
Necromann Apr 1st 2011 4:10PM
I remember killing that dragon before KT in naxx 25 with just 1 healer and 1 dps up. That was intense.
RonstaMonsta Apr 1st 2011 5:20PM
On Putricide, my guild's first kill came with only the MT left standing (thanks to guardian spirit), and a single holy priest (me) sitting in my improved death form healing as hard as I could.
We actually didn't realize we'd killed him for a few seconds, before vent exploded. To this day it remains one of my favorite WoW moments.
Ominous Apr 1st 2011 4:26PM
"When is a wipe a wipe?"
When you wipe. I don't know how it could be more clear, other than to define a wipe - which is to say that it's when everyone has died, as the result of hostile action(s), bad luck and / or stupidity.
Janaan Apr 1st 2011 5:22PM
Technically, yes. A wipe is a wipe when everyone's dead. In the most literal sense of the word, you are correct. But what Matt is talking about here is at what point should the raid leader call the attempt a wipe, have everyone still alive purposefully die, and get back in to start the fight again. It's not always an easy call, and as a raider, there are times when I really wish that my RL would just call a wipe when he doesn't. Am I right? Is he right? There isn't a definitive answer.
My personal thoughts on the matter: Since I am just a raider, I heal until either the boss is dead or a wipe is called. Obviously, if both tanks are dead or something obvious like that, I may not try so hard, but I have no problems with using CDs to try to keep the fight going as long as possible as long as there hasn't been a wipe called. If all other healers are dead, then I have no choice but go balls to the walls, OOM in less than a minute style healing, and if that's what it takes, so be it. If somehow that's enough to beat the boss, awesome. If not, well, if I didn't do that we would've died anyway. No harm, no foul.
zweitblom Apr 2nd 2011 2:09AM
Ominous - have you ever raided? I mean, apart from your fridge at nights?
Razorlution Apr 1st 2011 4:30PM
This could even be mentioned for hunters, in regards to when it's ok to FD...if a boss has roughly 7% left, it's a hard decision...
Ata Apr 1st 2011 4:43PM
As a hunter, you shouldn't be deciding to use your FD on your own, it should be 'when the raid leader tells to wipe'. You should be giving it your all until that point, there's been times when if I did that, we'd have not made a boss kill as my being one of the top two dps (and the two left alive with a healer) have killed off something. One of our Sinestra kills was this way, priest, UH DK and me SV.
Most of the time I suck it up and die with everyone else too.
Stilhelm Apr 1st 2011 7:47PM
On most Cata raid bosses, you'll die anyway even if you feign, so don't bother saving it to avoid having to run back. Unless you've been feigning pretty often throughout the fight, you'll be pretty high on threat. So, if the tank dies, you'll be one of the first the boss is coming after. When you feign, by the time the boss kills the rest of the dps and heals, chances are there will be some fire dropped right where you are, some big AoE, etc. Here and there you can get away with it, but in general it's more honorable to die with your team and run back with them anyway. You get restarted faster that way too, because your Aspect of the Pack helps the rest of them run back faster.
Girls Apr 1st 2011 4:43PM
The cleansing waters change is for pvp. Aff locks and spriests could do nothing against resto shamans.
Jeff (Not that one ^ ) Apr 1st 2011 4:54PM
Wonderful. Another case of nerfing PVE for the sake of PVP.
Aku Apr 1st 2011 5:42PM
@ Jeff. Which pve encounter has you dispelling non-stop. 6 secs is not that long.
Matrillik Apr 1st 2011 6:04PM
@jeff
oh noes! I won't be throwing weak heals at people while i am dispel spamming every fight!
Hih Apr 1st 2011 10:47PM
@Jeff: The only two fights I can think of that could possibly be affected by this are Argaloth (lolTB boss) and Cho'gall. In both cases, Mass Dispel will almost certainly be better. If people aren't hitting 25 corruption at the same time on Cho'gall, it's because they did something wrong and took avoidable damage.