Topic
Am I a bad healer?
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Hello all!
I am very new to WoW (less than a week old) and my background is from City of Heroes/Villains MMORPG where I was a guild leader and lead heals for my group. COH/V never seemed to fixate on the issue of over-healing because endurance (mana) was a VERY renewable resource with no cool down or ooc requirements. A good healer; in COH/V, was defined by the absence of deaths when all members were following tactics and minimal losses if someone went rogue. If too many people die or you have to reset; then the healer failed. Lately, almost every dungeon group I join whines about over healing; as I tend to spam perma renew and shield on the tanking character and PoH when the health of more than one team member gets low. I pop a drink with LoS on the group the moment before the tank aggros and drink till shield/renew drops. So far, the only instances of team wipes have been from adds pulled my other members OR when the tank has total HP under 3k versus a boss at my level. Incidental deaths only occur when party members do not follow the tank. Question: Since the team only has to wait for my mana to refill in very RARE instances; like after multiple mob waves, am I doing things alright? Or am I setting myself up for failure later on by having too quick of a reaction time partnered with a perma buff chain? |
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Overhealing isn't a problem unless mana is a problem. Unless you have to drink more than 1-2 times per instance (not counting after wipes or massive multi-pulls), don't worry about it. That habit of keeping things up on the tank will come in handy later when tanks take more damage, and reaction times will be handy when people start to take more damage. Just make sure you watch your mana, as running out of mana mid-fight is less-than-awesome.
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welcome to wow
Things to check for: - Talents which provide you mana (3/3 Rapture would be cool) - Talents which reduce mana cost for healing (evangelism - Attributes which regen mana, Spirit does that - Talents which reduce damage taken by tank (Shield / Inspiration) - Efficiency (Slow heals / greater heals vs flash heal) - Game Mechanics (Stay ooc a tiny bit longer for a tad more mana regen before your first heal) - Spells (which you'll get later on: shadow fiend etc) When you got it all right, learning Efficient healing will be a major headache, though blizzard only intends that for hardcore players, those that are at the front of new dungeons etc. Late comers have a bit easier time, and in your case, new comers at the right time. Keep at it, healers who know how to keep everyone alive and make others think every dungeon is easy because no one died or was scared of dying isn't something you see all the time. |
Thanks, Sanzul. When should I expect things to become more challenging? More than 75% of the time I am on auto-pilot. It is rude to ask the tank to pull faster; like "I think I could handle a bit more, can we ramp up the pace by 25% and see how we fare?"? I get nervous about going from heals to DPS in crowded mob spawns as they can go bottoms up quite quick... Is this something I can ask to do? Like, "Hey, I'm going to do a little DPS, let me know if you think things are getting hairy?" Just general protocol questions there. Things to check for: Dvon, thanks for the advice. I am Discipline spec'd w/ Holy secondary atm. I don't know if I have Rapture, but I do have Evangelism which I use when I get bored and do some DPS on trash mobs. How is my Spirit total so far? I don't know what a good target number per level its... I do have shield...don't know about Inspiration... I don't think I bought it yet so I'll look out for it. Which is a better efficiency habit...individual healing or AOE heals with spot heals? For OOC, is there an addon that shows a range to combat distance? Like an aura or something? |
75 Goblin Priest
8420
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(alt from DvonDruid)
items: You could do with some more spirit items .... but should be fine as it is. if you don't mind a bit of pvp, you can easily pick up some items with spirit (would take about 6-10 battlegrounds of fun) The WSG vendor in Ashenvale, close to entrance into the Barrens has a couple of things for healers (from astranaar, follow road south/east till you cross a bridge, go south on grassy path) - Epic wrists - Healing Staff - Rings (multi levels, so you could buy lvl 48 and lvl 38 rings) - couple of other items Talents: You can copy those from this alt of mine. I've skipped some talents in favor of others, but that's personal. Example, i'm okay with mana so I only have 2/3 in mental agility. I don't need to spam shields yet, so didn't bother in reducing cast time nor get speed bonus. Playstyle: Overall, I just dps keeping Evangelism up, with the ocassinal renew/penance and shield for a bit of mana refund. The healing I get from just Holy Fire + Smite is enough healing already thanks to 2/2 Atonement. Glyphs: No need to buy expansive glyphs yet, but any ocassional cheap buy, add it to your collection of usable glyphs. I know i feel the pain seeing prices of 150g for the ones I like. Goal: In higher instances you'll learn to use 2/2 Atonement with Penance healing and the use of Archangel when needed (if you keep the Evangelism up, its always there to use when needed) Later on, shields, divine aegis and grace become more important for your healing spells with the Power Word barrier as bonus, for when things get to hot for the tank. So its dps at low level slowly turning to more healing dedication at higher levels. No pain switching as it comes as it comes. |
The WSG vendor in Ashenvale, close to entrance into the Barrens has a couple of things for healers (from astranaar, follow road south/east till you cross a bridge, go south on grassy path) Ugh, now the servers need to come back up so I can buy some shineys!! I'll compare your spec and see how far I'm off, thanks!! |
Honestly? 85. The leveling instances are ridiculously easy these days. They weren't always, but characters have become much stronger (compared to their level) over the years and instances haven't been buffed to keep up. Around level 60 things will start to fight back a bit, and around 70 you'll have to pay some kind of attention to mechanics, and at 80 it starts being possible to wipe for reasons other than "group is retarded".
Ask away. Inexperienced tanks may be reluctant, but I think many would appreciate the added challenge. It depends a bit on the skills of your DPS, though, as they may have to deal with mobs that are hard to move, like casters that will stay behind when the tank tries to move on.
Just smite when you feel that you have the mana to spare. You can even spec Atonement (it's a lovely talent at 85) to provide some healing while you deal damage.
It's in the holy tree, so you can't get it until you're much higher level. Nothing to worry about now, but it's a great talent for later. Absolutely brilliant in raids, though it doesn't stack with a resto shaman's Ancestral Fortitude (which does exactly the same thing). |
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1st of all for disc your stat prio at lvl 85 should be.
int/spirit/haste if you want to reach the renew extra tick/ mastery-crit around equal values. Now reflective shield is useless talent for pve. You have smite but you dont have attonement one does not go without the other it is just pointless. Borrowed time is must have talent for disc. |
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Edited by Nuvielle on 02/02/12 03:41 (GMT)
Around level 60 things will start to fight back a bit, and around 70 you'll have to pay some kind of attention to mechanics, and at 80 it starts being possible to wipe for reasons other than "group is retarded". This. You can make many many many mistakes and still get through them on your way to 85 :) If you're confident in your abilities and have some friends, I would reccommend you to try the tbc heroics on your way up. They are easier than before, but oh, those Felguard Annihilators in Blood Furnace still hit like trucks and can confront people who thinks all dungeons in the same level range are the same regardless if it has a skull beside or not. ;) Oh and get thick skinned when levelling via dungeons. You can get lucky or unlucky. Unlucky means the party fails and you get the blame ^^ One of the lead designers just mentioned low overheal as one of the signs of healers skill. It might be players who's heard of this and forwards the message. Meters...is the pain of this game in hands of those who can't use them properly ^^ |
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on my first priest things got a lot easier when i started to use addons like healbot/decursive and dbm. healing is learning every instance, about positioning, which spells to use in various situations and most of all, dealing with badly geared tanks and triggerhappy dps.
yester i healed end time (85 instance) with my holy pal and a prot warrior was tanking in mostly dps gear. He said: whoa, they hit hard! |
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Personally, I tried to level a disc priest, but once I got Atonement I could pretty much go all-out DPS in every dungeon and still keep the group alive. After a dozen dungeons of topping damage done I got far too bored and deleted the character.
I know it's less OP at 85, but leveling a healer right now is just too mind-numbingly easy... |
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You shouldn't be afraid to overheal. Overhealing is only a problem when you waste so much mana that you get trouble healing later on because of it. Some spells also causes a lot of overhealing, without costing extra mana, like healing rain or holy word: sanctuary.
A common mistake among very new healers is to wait to for the tank (or other targets) to be low on health, then begin casting a big heal, while in theory this might be the most mana efficient way it is simply also what makes your group have sudden deaths which can only be blamed on you. Don't be afraid to throw small heals and keep HoTs on the tank while he is at almost full health or so. Rather overheal some, than letting you group die because you waited too long to heal. So try to keep everyone around 100% all the time, even if it means overhealing a bit. You can also precast some of your heals, and simply take a step if no1 was taking damage as the cast was about to finish in order to interrupt the heal. You should definetly take some time trying to learn to precast efficiently. |
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Edited by Morgando on 08/02/12 05:55 (GMT)
As a druid hots tend to overheal a lot, and well not worth it trying to find the exact moment to cast it to not have any tick overheal, a hotted target is "safe" for a bit while i might have to focus on another player.
And of course if you wait for to long you might loose people since you can't heal all of them fast enough, i rather overheal some then trying to catch up. |
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So basically you keep your group alive and never go oom... and what was the problem again? You wan't to know if casting alot of spells will make you go oom later?? Ok here's a pro tip for you! If you find your self going oom from spamming spells... stop spamming spells! whoa problem solved, you are welcome :D
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Edited by Nuvielle on 08/02/12 17:54 (GMT)
So basically you keep your group alive and never go oom... and what was the problem again? You wan't to know if casting alot of spells will make you go oom later?? Ok here's a pro tip for you! If you find your self going oom from spamming spells... stop spamming spells! whoa problem solved, you are welcome :D Two words for you Seekz :) very new new I see a gamer who wants to be good in something and wants to find out if s/he's doing the right thing. That is a GOOD thing. Chuff your double exclamations and questionmarks elsewhere :) |
Lately, almost every dungeon group I join whines about over healing; as I tend to spam perma renew and shield on the tanking character and PoH when the health of more than one team member gets low. I pop a drink with LoS on the group the moment before the tank aggros and drink till shield/renew drops. So far, the only instances of team wipes have been from adds pulled my other members OR when the tank has total HP under 3k versus a boss at my level. Incidental deaths only occur when party members do not follow the tank. Here's my answer: Casting Renew to everyone in the group is a good thing because you want to keep everyone's HP healthy. In every instance , 1~2 drinks are enough... if drink more than that, then it's either your gear is not good or tank can't maintain aggro very well..(in this case it's probably tank) When the tank's HP is less than 25%, spam flash heal twice, then renew, shield, and penance :) if all party member's hp is below 50%, cast PoH up to between 50~75% and cast the tank Binding Heal because you heal the tank and yourself at the same time :) Question: Since the team only has to wait for my mana to refill in very RARE instances; like after multiple mob waves, am I doing things alright? Or am I setting myself up for failure later on by having too quick of a reaction time partnered with a perma buff chain? In this case, yeah you're doing it alright, but if you keep refillin mana after multiple mob waves, then you spam too much... try to get party member's hp to between 50% ~ 75% as I have mentioned above. You have to keep on spamming Heal to the tank and if you see one dps hp is dropping, spam heal at him and so on. if you keep on refilling mana, it is either you spam too much or tank barely updates his tank gear or in dps gear for tanking... You will do fine if you keep on practising :D OVERHEALING is not a problem |
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Try to wean yourself off Renew, it's not that powerful for Disc Priests and is (relatively) expensive in terms of Heals Per Mana (HPM), even with Inner Will up. It's still useful, usually when you're on the move, but is very situational. In Holy; however, it is one of your most powerful tools for dealing with heavy raid/party damage.
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Update:
All the feedback I got from this thread has really helped me these last few months. I'm pleased to say I am now a fully-fledged raid healer; rocking holy spec and working my way through DS HC as a core team member of my guild. Please keep helping new players like me that post on the forums in the future as I would never have made it to 38k HPS on Ultraxion if it weren't for the helpful tips I got here. :) |
