Raid Rx: Tagging out and tagging in healers
by Matt Low 
Aug 12th 2011 at 3:00PM
Ever had to swap a healer in the middle of a raid? Maybe he requested it. Maybe he's experiencing connection-related problems. The most common reason I can think of is because he's not able to handle his position well at all. I'm also guessing you tried to switch healer assignments in case he kept striking out. Clearly that didn't work, because you're in the process of bringing in a new player to replace him.
When doing this, you need to talk to the player twice: once to signal his stepping out, and then once again after the raid for a diagnostic on what he messed up on.
As the healing lead, your guild leader gave you full discretion with your healers. But you need to move fast. Healers always face an enormous amount of pressure, and you can't always afford to take your time and wait. Once the weak player is identified (and you've figured out that it is him causing all the wipes), you have to move fast and sit him. If you want to give him an additional attempt or two at a different assignment, that's up to you. Have a plan in place if he's not able to pull it off. If he succeeds, then it's great news because you don't need to interrupt your raid. If he doesn't, then the time has come for him to tag out.
With luck, you have a healer on standby doing dailies or engaging in some PVP of some sort.
Best-case scenario You whisper the healer and say that you need him to step out right now. If he's perceptive, he'll nod and simply hearth without giving you any trouble. He'll understand that he's the weakest link in the chain and that the raid is in full progression mode. That healer is clearly not firing on all cylinders and you want to pull in someone who can, because the rest of the healers just aren't at the capacity to carry him.
Worst-case scenario You whisper the healer and tell him that you need him to step out right now. He asks why and proceeds to throw a tantrum. This is actually the easier of the two because if he blows up, you may as well have a reason to punt him out of the guild. But if a healer generally gives you some kind of resistance, you can tell him you'll explain it later after the raid.
Whatever happens, it falls to you to do your part to keep the raid moving. Sometimes this means that players need to be left in the dark for a while. Let him know that you'll explain it to him later. With luck, he'll understand. If he continues to press, you may have to take a few minutes and stop the raid temporarily to explain the problem. Depending on the guild atmosphere, you could consider rattling off the reasons verbally in public. Hopefully, it won't come to them.
When you get the substitute healer in, you have to bring him up to speed fast. If he was diligent, he'll have an understanding of what's going on in the encounter. Just explain what you need him to do (healing assignments, cooldowns, and things to watch out for). Keep an eye on what happens here. If the new healer who is brought in experiences similar difficulties as the one who was asked to step out, then the problem might not be individual performance. It could be the actual healing strategy used. You won't find out until the end of the raid or until the boss has been downed.
Following up
So now that the raid has ended, what is the next step?
Simple! Track down the healer who was sat and have a conversation with him. List exactly what their errors are, if he hasn't realized it yet. In order to fix a problem, it needs to be known first. Surprisingly, raiders just might not know what they did wrong (or to be more precise, what they didn't do right).
If he falling through spiderweb holes, tell him that he needs to cut his camera a little closer so he can see better or that he needs to work on moving more quickly.
Getting destroyed by assorted fires? Remind him of his self-heals, spells or that he needs to move more quickly.
Can't seem to keep up the designated tanks? That one requires a little closer inspection. If you managed to get that progression boss down, you'll want to do some comparisons between the healer who got sat and the healer who was able to keep the designated tanks alive to get an idea of what they were doing differently. Who knows? It could simply be an issue of gear. If it is, that's an easy fix. Granted, that might take a bit of time (or gold). At least you know what the problem is.
If the question is on player skill, you may need to tread a little delicately here. I suggest not using the word "you." Instead, approach it from the perspective of what is happening. Refer to the actual healing or the damage.
Example The healing that's being cast right now just isn't enough to offset the damage that's coming in. It either needs to hit harder or hit faster. Can we come up with something that can help, or is there something that's slowing down that healing?
Be sure to hear out your healer.
Sometimes it ends up being a simple case of raiders being too far out from where they need to be. I had a rogue who would constantly keep dying on Beth'tilac. I questioned the healers as to why that one player kept on dying repeatedly on attempts when there wasn't anything seriously fatal going on. One of my healers responded by stating that he was completely overextending and out of position since the rogue was going after spiderlings right away. I could either move a healer out closer toward the rogue, or I could ask the rogue to not overextend as far. Given the two choices, I figured the rogue was better off staying closer to the group so that he would be in range of every other healer and could assist with other spider groups in the event he blew up his early.
There's nothing wrong with sitting healers. Just be clear and direct with them on why they got sat and what they can do in the future to ensure that it doesn't happen again.
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)
Caz Aug 12th 2011 3:24PM
Alternate Scenario: It's really the rest of the raid that is incompetent, and no healer will be able to keep them alive. Egomaniacal raid leader fails to see this, and boots healer(s) anyway.
Really, it's happened.
CodeMunki Aug 12th 2011 7:46PM
^^ this is the situation more often than not. It is a rare case when the rest of the raid is performing well and a healer is holding us back.
Jem Aug 12th 2011 10:20PM
I can say in all honesty that we have had clear cases of healers not being up to it and it was the healers responsible for the wipes. Various fights through various expacs, based mostly on the competency of the players involved to deal with things like moving out of the way of key things (like the Lurker's spout).
We had a situation where we were stuck using 8 healers in early Ulduar because they couldn't do the job, including paladins that wouldn't tank heal - they didnt' want to and couldn't keep the tank alive. We replaced 3-4 of them, and were suddenly able to run Ulduar with 5-6 healers with much more success. Sometimes it really is the healers who are the weak point.
That said, I do agree healers get blamed more than they should by people who aren't paying proper attention. I'm the current heal lead and I'll be upfront and say "the tank had 17 stacks of the crap he should have no more than 4 of and that's just too much". Or point out ppl aren't moving properly, or are persistently out of range. Our RLs aren't the type to blame the healers for everything off the bat, we use mods that show cause of death etc to work out if it is healing assignments, healing failure, raid positioning etc that is the real issue. It's not about blame, it's about working out what went wrong and how to fix it next time.
jtrack3d Aug 15th 2011 10:20AM
Yes, the blog essentially assumes that it obviously impossible due specifically to a healer. Sometimes it is obvious who the problem is, and sometimes it isn't. But it's not a raid heal issue ... this is a raid issue because it might be the DPS or it might be the tanks as well...
For us, we have a DK tank that takes spikey damage. We try every combo and we just have to make sure he isn't dying. We have DK dps that no matter how hard he tries he has to back off DPS or he pulls trash and gives the healers pain.
We work together as a team to recognize weaknesses and compensate for them as best we can. This is definitely not the best advice I've read. It is better to take a raid time-out and talk issues than toss out a raider. You're guild will be considered elitist jerks if you act that way and only elitist jerks will raid with you. Friends work together.
This is one of the biggest problems in Cat that Wrath (until looking for dungeon was added). The guild worked together and you didn't have to be in Paragon to down a boss. The game is about friendships and spending time together... not about who is perfect.
I'll conceded, you do have to deal with under performers, but the boot first isn't the approach unless they are a pug.
exogenesis. Aug 12th 2011 3:24PM
This sounds exactly like me. I heal with my shaman, and no matter how hard I try, my HPS numbers are always falling quite a way behind the other two healers. Even just tonight, I looked at the other shaman, and we had the same top three heals, with similar % of HPS. Yet I was much lower. I've not been able to understand why, but my raid leader seems to have finally tired of giving me chances, as I was asked to sit out on Beth'tilac so the standby paladin healer could have a chance at gear - and haven't been asked back in again.
Not sure where or how I'm going wrong, but the situation in this article just screams out my issue.
Jabadabadana Aug 12th 2011 4:20PM
The problem is that without seeing what you're doing, it's kind of hard to diagnose.
You may be moving too much. (unless you are top of web, that shouldn't be an issue)
You may be healing late and having your heals picked up by other healers first.(haste/reac)
Your gear may be sufficiently lower that throughput is an issue.
You may be using the same spells, at different(wrong) times/targets.
You may be simply not casting as many spells.
You may be doing some combination of the above.
But those are the things I would look at first.
Erebos Aug 12th 2011 5:16PM
There's been a lot of talk of this lately (and, quite frankly, since Cata brought in the new healing model), but shaman are tending to not have the same output as other healing specs. Whether it's because of skill or because people aren't playing them as much as other classes because they believe them to be suffering, or simply a case of the class being weaker is unclear.
That said, Jaba pointed out some very good places to start looking at your healing. Not knowing what your UI/healing setup is like, it's hard to say whether that could help, but it might do to look it over for yourself and see what you can cut out/add/change to improve performance.
However, you say that the other shaman is (are? didn't mention how many other shaman) using the same heals you are but simply getting higher numbers, and to me this sounds like a gear issue where your heals aren't hitting for as much. Or it could just be that the other healers in the raid are keeping everyone mostly topped off and you just happen to be using the same spells. It's hard to say, but I encourage you to keep at it :) Practice makes perfect, and that goes for healing, too. If you like it, you'll stick to it and the rest will come. Hope I helped.
Minstrel Aug 12th 2011 6:22PM
It might be that your healing team has more healing power than necessary. While DPS can always go after bigger numbers, the healing for an encounter is necessarily capped by the amount of damage your raid takes. If your healing team's total output potential is higher, some healer(s)' output is not going to live up to potential. Sometimes, all the healers' output is lowered. Sometimes certain healers tend to get their healing in first and other healers see their healing drop disproportionately.
The first test of a healing team is whether bosses are dropping at the rate deemed reasonable for your raid team (based on time spent, dedication demanded, skill demanded, etc). If they are, the individual numbers of the healers is largely irrelevant (unless there's an extreme situation, like one healer doing 4k HPS).
If the healing doesn't seem sufficient in total, then it's time to dig a little deeper and try to really figure out where the discrepancy comes from. Obviously, it's a tough question, but the first step is to ensure you're being aggressive with your mana pool. Your mana pool plus your mana regeneration over the encounter is all "potential healing." If you wipe with mana left over, you left some potential on the table. If that's not an issue, then you need to start poring over spell choices and targets chosen to heal. That's where it becomes difficult. ;)
Sidone Aug 13th 2011 5:40AM
from my holy priest pov, problem lay most probably in your raid ....size
in 10 mans you are kinda expected to heal tanks time to time (if not as full time job) that apply for 25 of course as well but not nearly as often and lets admit it, disc/resto druid/paly are better suitable for tank healing when managing raid just fine
where resto shamans really shines is raid healing, ideal scenario when most of raid group can be found in one place begging for your rain and chains,, and thats the problem of 10 mans, you hardly find these situations, even if all melee, ranged and healers stand at one spot that just 8 ppl, not nearly enough to show your truly potential
from pure hps pov, our two shamans have no trouble toping meters in fight like beth, when especialy second phase is god blessing, lord ryo is another example, melee are usualy away but nothing chain cant handle and rain take care of poor ranged, what about angry bird, third phase oh we are all stack at one place, and dont forget Staghelm, you actually need all those ppl to stack up to force scorpion.p
if you not afraid of bit more bigger raid size, i would recomend giving 25 a go, this is place where resto shamies/holy priest are having their fun!.p
dj.clayden Aug 13th 2011 8:22AM
If you're reading replies to your post, send me a log of one of your raids if you've got one. Ideally one with a similar geared shammy also in the raid.
dj.clayden@gmail.com
I play holy pala, but maybe I can help you improve as shammy :)
goldfish_girl99 Aug 13th 2011 9:32AM
You might also want to look at the balance of your stats and think about the type of damage that you have to heal. I'm certainly no Shaman expert (my main is a Druid), but I've healed with a Shaman and done a bit of reading up on them. I know that the Shaman mastery works best when players are at low health, but if you are healing targets that remain at relatively high health for most of the fight you will probably get more healing out of crit. (I think haste is generally considered better than either mastery or crit for Shaman, but you might want to check that.)
Anyway, my point is that if you have a lot of mastery and your raiders aren't dropping very low in health before being healed then you might want to drop mastery in favor of crit. Or, if people are dropping to low health, try stacking more mastery so you can bomb bigger heals on them. Also check to see what stats the other Shaman in your guild are stacking and if you're doing something differently you might want to try their gearing strategy.
The blog Life in Group 5 had an excellent post comparing Shaman mastery and crit: http://lifeingroup5.com/?p=2258
After you've done a bit of research you might want to go back to your raid leader and let them know that you've studied your class, changed things around, and want a chance to show how you've improved. Your initiative and desire to improve your gameplay should impress them, and hopefully you'll get the chance to prove yourself again.
Lipstick Aug 12th 2011 3:35PM
Your closing, "There's nothing wrong with sitting healers. Just be clear and direct with them on why they got sat and what they can do in the future to ensure that it doesn't happen again."
Is at odds with, "You whisper the healer and tell him that you need him to step out right now. He asks why and proceeds to throw a tantrum. This is actually the easier of the two because if he blows up, you may as well have a reason to punt him out of the guild."
Simply telling someone to step out without stating why, if you are a guild without a clear policy for stepping out, is going to illicit questions. Expecting someone to simply harth with no explanation is terrible. Tell them you want to try a slightly different healer comp, or that you are asking them to step out due to performance issues that you will discuss with them following the raid. If you want them to stay around for a different fight, make sure you are communicating this as well.
Some people make the mistake of thinking a legitimate question is a tantrum. When you think you're doing fine, and someone wants to sit you and you've never been sat before it's going to put your back up, and your anxiety is going to go through the roof. Strong, clear, and non abrasive or rude communication at that point is needed from the healing lead.
Keep in mind that many smaller guilds don't have healing leads, and the ones asking a healer to sit is often going to be the raid lead. If this is an advice column, I think it should give good advice, not give people cause to kick their healers from their guild due to what amounts to a communication issue, lag, bad layout design, etc.
Also, my guild has adapted a healer channel. To make a channel in wow type /join whatevernameyouwanthere
We do not have a healing lead, but if the MT/RL joins this channel in addition to all of our healers and if there is issues for a wipe he believes is caused by the healing, he will ask questions such as -- do I need to reposition the group, why does x player keep dying. Sometimes the healers speak up with these questions themselves. I recommend every guild, even smaller guilds adapt one. It keeps their communication clutter free and out of raid chat, and allows them to function as a team, not competitors. After implementing one in my guild we've often found ways to fix the issues we're having with certain fights, and found ways to make the best of each of our strengths, as sitting healers for us isn't a possibility.
Farnoth Aug 12th 2011 4:43PM
"Keep in mind that many smaller guilds don't have healing leads..."
Smaller guilds may not have a healing lead, but they do have a raid leader and a guild leader (usually the same person), who can do the same job. This article, though, seems more directed at guilds that :
1. Have the ability to swap healers
2. Have someone directly in charge of the healers
and 3. Have mature, knowledgeable players.
The note about 'asking a legit question' and it coming across as a tantrum, more often than not, when someone is told to leave a raid for any circumstance, there's less "Excuse me, what exactly was the problem, so I can fix it?" and more "OMG U F*CKING F**GOT, Y U KICK ME?!?!?! I HOPE U FAIL!!!" and such. And, THOSE are the people that Matt aimed the kick comment to. The immature, disruptive players who also can't keep up with their position's demands.
BUT, props on the healing channel comment. I may have to use that
WeWhoEat Aug 12th 2011 5:11PM
Its "asks why _and_ proceeds to throw a tantrum" not "asks why or proceeds to throw a tantrum". I can see nothing wrong with the raider asking why, and he should be told why if he asks. I can also see the raid leader saying that we will talk about this later and the raider needs to respect that, because the raid is about the team and not about an individual and raid time is not the time to get into lengthy discussions.
A tantrum or really any bad attitude is good reason to kick someone from a guild if they show a history of that.
Lost Sul Aug 12th 2011 3:57PM
I thought the boot them from the guild comment was unnecessary and indicative of the attitude that is dragging a lot of once fun guilds down these days.
Adorno Aug 12th 2011 4:20PM
Exactly. If you're that quick to boot someone who throws a "tantrum" because you ask them to leave without prompting why, you're a pretty shady individual because it sounds like you're passively aggressively urging for that to happen.
I agree that you need to talk with a healer after the raid if you ask them to leave, but come on, at least give them some idea why in the first place. A lot of times they will correct it, and if they can't, then be okay with leaving the raid for someone else.
This article doesn't sit right with me for some reason.
Farnoth Aug 15th 2011 5:17AM
If you politely explain the situation to the healer, or at the very least tell them that you'll discuss why after the raid, and they blow up on you, they deserve to be kicked. 'Fun' does not equate in to 'allowing people to flip the fuck out'. 'Fun' does not equate to carrying someone not up to the task. If the guild member doesn't have the maturity to see "I'm the problem, let me step out until I can better my self enough to take part in this raid", and they start going all ape-shit on the person asking them to sit out, then they NEED to be kicked.
mojoegoonie Aug 12th 2011 4:13PM
Agree with lost soul about the guild comment sounds to me like your the type of person who likes a bit of drama no need to kick people you made yourself sound like a right plum.
Farnoth Aug 12th 2011 4:36PM
You're missing the point. If the player flips out and isn't mature enough to realize what's going on, even after being told it'll be explained after the raid, then they need to be kicked.
It seems people like you, Lost Sul, and Adorno are simply taking it as 'gkick the bad healer', when that's not the case. READ the ENTIRE article and don't just skim for shit to complain about.
Adorno Aug 12th 2011 5:42PM
Yeah but saying, "get out" without offering much of an explanation is pretty crappy. I'm no looking for anything to complain about, I'm all for removing people who aren't doing their job. The problem with this is that you're not doing anything at that current time to help them. Instead, you're being an asshole. Now if you say, "hey, you're doing X wrong" over a whisper, and they continue to do it wrong, then you can remove them. But coming to the conclusion to boot them, without allowing them to rectify, and doing it a jackass way is NOT a way to be a good Raid Lead.