WoW: The Healers Guide to Instances and Raiding

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Welcome to our Ultimate Healing guide for World of Warcraft. Playing a healer is (in my opinion) probably the toughest job you can do in a raid. Not only are the lives of your fellow party or raid members in your hands, but if you mess up, everyone is going to know it. This guide will hopefully help you prevent those flubs, by going over the basic (and often ignored) information that you will need to mold yourself into an exceptional healer. Be you Shaman, Druid, Priest, or Paladin this guide is for you!

This may seem like silly and unneeded advice, but this basic rule is often ignored or forgotten. In a 5 man party you are obviously expected to heal everyone including yourself, however once you enter a 10 or 25 man raiding situation things become slightly more complicated. Not knowing who you are healing in these larger raid situations can lead to many preventable deaths and/or your entire raid wiping.

For example if you are assigned to heal the main tank and you choose to ignore, or miss your assignment and decide to take it upon yourself to heal the raid instead, there is a very good chance that the tank you were supposed to be healing is going to die. The mob the tank was tanking will go on a rampage and own the faces of at least a few raid members before another tank can pick it up, or if it does not get picked up it will, in the end, wipe your entire raid. Even if the tank manages to stay alive, you are putting extra strain on your other healers who are taking time out of doing their jobs to do yours, which can also lead to deaths amongst the raid.

To make your life (and the lives of your fellow raiders) easier be sure to know exactly who you are expected to heal, even on trash mobs, and then do it. Usually there will be one person giving out healing assignments. If you are confused as to who you are supposed to be healing, don’t be afraid to ask. Pleading ignorance in these situations is not  an excuse. This will allow the raid to move along smoothly, and hopefully with as few deaths, as possible. Knowing your job and doing it will make everyone happy.

This section goes hand in hand with Section I as it relates to sticking to your healing assignment. While once again not an issue while running a 5 man instance where you will be the sole healer, this is nevertheless an important rule to remember. Trusting your other healers, even if you have never healed with them before will ensure that you are not stretching yourself too thin, and will also allow any weak links to be weeded out.

This is a difficult concept for some, as they have a hard time relinquishing control and allowing other healers to do their job. It’s also difficult to stick solely to your job when you can obviously see another healer struggling or simply not doing their job. While it is tempting to throw out those extra heals to pad the healing meters, or “save” the raid it is really helping no one in the long run.

Simply put, do your job and allow the other healers (as long as they are alive) to do theirs. Taking other healers assignments as your own, not only is annoying because it shows a lack of faith in their skills, but also stretches you rather thin, leaving an opportunity for your assignment to be ignored. If your assignment dies while you were healing something else, there is no one to blame but you.

Healing anything other than your assignment could also lead to weaker healers, or those not doing their job going unnoticed. While it may be hard to watch someone die, stick to your assignment unless instructed to do otherwise. This will allow the weaker links, and those who are not performing their assigned job to be weeded out. Your healers should work like a well oiled machine, each piece doing their part.

Don’t die. A dead healer is a healer who is doing absolutely no healing and as such is basically just an empty raid spot. You might be able to snag a battle rez, or maybe a nice Warlock gave you a Soul Stone, but your goal should be not to die in the first place. This leads us to the “don’t suck” part of the equation.

This means being constantly aware of your surroundings (or in the words of Mad Eye Moody “CONSTANT VIGILANCE!”). This simply means being aware of where the boss is located, where your healing target(s) are located, and also paying attention to any other environmental effects that may be thrown your way such as void zones, fires, cleaves, or even falling rocks.

This can be extra difficult for a healer. It’s easy to forget to look up from the health bars on your screen, and the impulse to cast that one last heal before moving is tough to ignore. But it is something that must be done, because a dead healer is helping no one.

To make it easier to watch the health bars and move at the same time, be sure your screen is clear of clutter, and also move your party or raid frames someplace where you can also take note of any hazards that may befall you.

Preemptive healing, or healing in accordance with anticipated damage is something that all healers should strive to do in every party and raid when possible. This way your cast is winding up and finishes as the damage lands on your heal target, or shortly after, greatly reducing the chances of death.

For example Hodir (a boss located in Ulduar) will cast Frozen Blows throughout the fight. Frozen Blows increases his Physical damage making the tank take extra damage, and at the same time does massive raid damage. This damage can easily be mitigated and deaths can be avoided by some preemptive healing. Those healing the tank can wind up some larger heals to take care of the large damage he/she is about to take, while raid healers can cast HoTs or have instant heals ready to be cast when the damage hits.

Healers with heal over time spells of course have an advantage here, but those who do not can still manage this by timing their cast time in accordance with the upcoming damage. Boss mods and a general knowledge of the boss fights you are facing will greatly improve your effectiveness at preemptive healing.

Healers with heal over time spells can also precast their HoTs on the tank, or raid members before a pull. The HoTs will then tick, taking care of any initial damage and will not give any threat to the healer. This will give the tank time to gain aggro before any other healers have to begin casting. 

Mana is the thing that makes a healer’s world go around. Without mana a healer cannot cast their life saving heals, and as such are rendered fairly useless, unless of course they dash about bandaging their party members. As such managing your mana should be one of your main focuses while healing.

With Blizzard designing encounters that last longer periods of time, managing your mana becomes ever more important. A healer can easily blow their entire mana bar in a matter of seconds, leaving their healing assignment high and dry. This can result in the death of a single person or even lead to a chain of events that may wipe your entire party or raid. There are several things you can do to help manage your mana:

• Keep one eye on your mana. Keeping a constant watch over your mana during the fight will help you manage it better. By having it continuously in the back of your mind you will tend to be more conservative and smarter in your casting.

• Don’t be afraid to jump out of casts. If you find that your target has been healed to full as you are casting a heal, jump out of it instead of allowing the cast to finish. This will save you valuable mana, and lower your overhealing.

• Heal smart. Have a general idea of the spells in your arsenal, how much mana they cost, and how much healing they do. Also having some knowledge of the fights you will be encountering will allow you to better understand the kind of damage you will be facing. Knowing all of this will allow you to pick out the appropriate heals for each situation instead of just wildly casting your biggest (and probably most mana consuming) heal.
   

Use your mana pots and mana regeneration abilities wisely. Using a mana pot when you are at 95 percent mana makes no sense. Save it until you’re down by at least enough mana to make the mana pot fill you back up again. Use the same logic for any other mana regenerating abilities your class may have such as Innervate or Shadowfiend. Use abilities as early in the fight as possible (mana depending) so that they can be used again later on.

While I do encourage some healthy competition between healers, if taken too far it can really hinder rather than help the raid. In general ignore the healing meters, while they may be a useful tool to check when something is obviously wrong in the healing department, they really should be the  furthest thing from your mind while healing in a raid or party.

I once knew a Priest who topped the healing meters every single raid. While this may seem great, the Priest neglected to do his duty of healing the tank, and instead cast his heals towards the melee and warlocks in the raid, in order to boost his healing so he could be the “best’. Because of this the tank died repeatedly, and our raid found itself at a standstill all because this healer wanted to top the meters.

As a healer, as long as your assigned healing targets are staying alive, then who cares about the meters? You are doing your job, and the raid will defeat it’s foes, and that is what matters in the end, not whose name was at the top of a list.

Understanding the class you are playing is very important. Each class has it’s strengths and weaknesses, and also offers up different healing styles. Becoming intimate with your class, knowing which spec is best, what enhancements to put on your gear, what spells are available to you, and even spell rotation is a major factor in how well you will do playing that class.

Source:tentonhammer.com

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