Nessaj's healing tips

By Nessaj, 7 Oct 2007
http://nihilum.mousesports.com/en/article/9,nessajs_healing_tips/


This article is more like a bunch of 'personal ramblings' towards healers in general, it won't focus on talent specialization, deep analysis of skills and abilities, but more present a way to step out of the common healers shadow.

I've seen a lot of healers, and most of the time, I don't understand what they're doing. It's like they haven't learned anything at all - they wait for people to take damage before they act. Instead, I'll present a few tips on how to turn that around, and anticipate NPC behavior, all you need is...

Knowledge, defined as "facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education". A great 'trick' to being good at essentially everything, but for now, we'll settle for just being good at World of Warcraft.

First, take that definition, and apply it to the game.

You're a healer, your job is to keep people alive, and the best way to do that is using the knowledge you have. First time you encounter a trash mob or boss, you won't know its abilities - but pay attention, because in the future, the information gathered in every encounter will essentially make you the best healer you can be.

If you know what a NPC does, when it does it, and how hard it hits when that happens, you'll be able to anticipate damage on your healing target. We don't want any surprises as healers!

Here's three easy steps...


Step 1


Down ranking:
The first thing you need to do is, find out which down ranked spells are most beneficial for you. For example, I play a Paladin, and Holy Light rank 4 heals for just as much as a Flash of Light. It's a little slower, but since I have Tier 6 armor, I get a lot of bonuses to Holy Light, not to mention Holy Light draws more benefits from the Holy Tree talents than Flash of Light does. Therefore, HL4 is a great tool to use in some situations. There's even a great libram from Serpentshine Cavern, which cuts some of the mana needed to cast HL, making it more mana efficient than FoL!

I recommend that you read our FAQ's, made by Nihilum raiding members, to fully utilize the potential of your healing talents and alike, there's loads of help to get. Like I wrote above, the point here is not to just learn your class skills and abilities, but to learn how to be a better healer, in terms of knowing the game, which is a much bigger help than being the best number cruncher about your class abilities.

Switching back on topic to down ranking, you need to find out what items you can apply, such as the libram I mentioned above for Paladins, to make down ranking more beneficial. That is one of the first steps to being a efficient healer.


Mana potions:
With the nerf to Mana Potion costs, there's really not any excuse not to bring a bag full of these to a raid. At average, in the beginning of TBC, I used about 30 of the best mana potions available for an evening of raiding. Now, with better gear, and with great help from the +300 mana metagem, I don't use that many, but the worse gear you have, the more mana pots you should be using. Mana pots is really your helping hand in reaching your potential, regardless of gear.

When using Mana Potions, there's a few pointers you should be following. First of all, if it's a very mana heavy fight, you need to chug down one at every cooldown. As a healer, chugging a mana potion will almost always be priority over, for example, a protection potion, since you can always heal your self up. However 'almost always' means that sometimes it can be better to use a protection potion on some encounters, it mostly depends on the damage you take versus your total healthpoints. Do you have time to heal your self, for example, also how much mana you have. It's better to chug a mana potion and heal yourself once, then having lots of mana left over to heal others, than using a protection potion that's gone in 1 hit.

If you're free to decide, then wait until you're down to where a mana potion would fill you up, then chug it.


Canceling heals:
You should always try to cancel your heals, if the situation is safe enough for it, and your target has full healthpoints, PLUS you see others closing in on a heal on the same exact time - then step out, cancel it. Don't use scripts for that, they're not dependable, some things are better to do manually.

There's more to canceling heals than just stepping out though, and it really depends on who you're healing, and what NPC he's taking damage from. Don't cancel heals on a NPC that has a extremely high and random damage output, play it safe.

It's a much more tricky thing than it sounds, and canceling a heal at the wrong time could mean wipe mania, so be sure you're 100% confident that canceling it is the right thing. Usually, when healing warriors, canceling heals isn't a problem, given that you're not solo.

Canceling heals is a great way to conserve mana, because thats really what it's all about - the better you conserve it, while obviously doing you job to a A+, is and will always be a major factor. If you run out at a crucial time, odds are you'll be to blame for wiping the raid. This is the first thing you need to learn on your path to fully utilize your healer potential.

If you're wondering what add-on thats used with the healing bar picture above, it's Quartz, a add-on you definitely should use.


Step 2


Who are you healing:
Who are you healing? A warrior, is he the main tank, or are you healing a offtank, DPS, or just randomly people that take damage throughout the raid.
You need to know your healing target, there's no point in throwing small heals at a cloth wearer, taking heavy physical damage.

Plus, if you know what type of situation you'll be in for, you will feel more comfortable, and thus play better.

It's always best if people have designated jobs, meaning "Healer A" always heals "Target A". That way people get more comfortable with what they're doing, learning how to deal with the situation at hand, to perfection. Practice makes perfect.

You can of course tell, that if you're healing the main tank, he'd 99% of the time be the one taking most of the damage: Usually, there's more than 1 healer on the main tank, making life a little easier, but if everyone heals at the same second, most of it would just be overhealing;
Here's one of the situations where I personally like using add-ons, I put up a bunch of focus targets to check when the other healers are healing, so that I don't throw my heal on top of theirs. Keep in mind, just as I mentioned with down ranking, don't EVER take a chance, do it safe, rather overheal than not heal and wipe the raid. But there's a difference in spamming heals and healing smart. Spamming is playing the lottery, sure you might be able to keep it up, but your heals will most of the time be useless, and way less efficient than if you healed smart. If you can see when your co-healers are healing, then make sure you're not healing synchronized, if you're in a loop, then pause for 1 second, and fire it up again, depending on the situation, and what rank heal your co-healers are using.


Knowing the gear:
Step 1 was knowing who you were healing, if it's the main tank, that means plate, which, as everyone knows, takes less physical damage, but don't have any protection from magical damage, except spell reflect.

Healing DPS means the rest - mail, leather, and the most puny of all, cloth, which take a crap load of damage from physical attacks. But most bosses only do Area of Effect damage on bystanders, and often time it's enough to focus on the main tanks for a few seconds, instead of healing the DPS instantly, so they won't need that much attention depending on your class; if you're a shaman, you should always be healing the DPS, since Chain Heal is the best tool for that.

Knowing the gear will give you a sense of feeling for the damage your target will take.


Communication is the key:
You should talk to whoever you're healing to, setup some rules, such as when should he pot if needed, if it's a NPC that needs to be kited around or just moved a little, then remember to talk about it so you know where to stand in line of sight, it is just as much your responsibility to keep in LOS, than your healing target - in fact, it's more your job than his, by far.

If you're using Ventrilo, or some other form of online voice communication, then never be afraid to speak up. Talk!
Being quiet is just as much as issue as talking too much.

You're playing a Massive Multiplayer Online game, not a single player game. Talking and socializing, at least just a little, should be a part of that.


Step 3


You need to know your enemy, it being a boss, or simply a trash mob.


Abilities:
First thing you need to remember is what skills the NPC has. There's always the melee damage, which you need to be on top off, but this will happen 24/7, and thus "just be" - something that needs to be taken care of, it should be the least of your problems.

The problem is random skills and abilities, for example such as Gruul's hateful strike (yes, it's on the OT, just giving a example of a ability that hurts), it's the same with basically every boss NPC, they all have some form of random ability that they'll use. Some can be timed, so it's good to have a clock running somewhere on your interface. If you know that precisely 1 minute after initial aggro, your tank will get hit by a 9000 damage magical ability, then start firing up your biggest heal at 00:59 - who knows, it might crit, together with a melee crit, or one of the random abilities being applied a second after.

Most abilities come with animations, so even though you're supposed to be closely watching those healthpoints, throwing a glance or two on the NPC once in a while is a good thing. For example if a NPC is doing some form of spin, you would know exactly whats it's going to do, and then how to act accordingly, sometimes Skill A means Skill B from a NPC, meaning you're totally on top of the situation.


Damage:
Learn the normal attack, usually just a regular physical attack, find out how much it hurts for, so you know how much healing to apply. It all varies depending on NPC, but also the gear your target is wearing - remember to inspect him!

Keep checks on all the special abilities, learn how much damage they do, and if they're linked to other skills, sometimes you would be able to ease through a encounter, using a down ranked healing spell, only to use your big heals at a special ability, while in other encounters you'd need to do the big heals all the time. Most of the time, these would be linked to the special abilities.

Debuffs, a major issue, you need to know what they do, and how they effect the damage taken on your target.


Memorize:
It might feel a little overwhelming to learn it all, but either way, you will be going through it once - the first time you go through a heroic instance, the first time you do Karazhan, then don't just do it while slacking - memorize the events, pay attention. If you pay attention a couple of times, then it'll all get much easier, and you would be able to go through it with ease, even slacking and surfing a little on the side maybe. Why? Because you know what will happen, and when it will happen, that way you don't need to be glued to the screen all the time, you know what's going on, and when it's going to happen.

Memorize my friend, memorize.


Conclusion


The whole thing is about CONFIDENCE.

If you can anticipate the damage your healing target will be taking, you'll be able to act accordingly, and with greater success comes confidence. The better you get, the more you learn, the easier it all will be. In the end, you'll be able to heal efficiently with ease.

You can argue that everyone should know these 3 steps, except for the down ranking part, which depending on your healing class, can be discussed, but the point is, that no matter what, if you're doing some instance, and you're healing, then just remember what is going on, and keep it in mind for the next time.

I see loads of people just healing, without thinking about it, and people die all over. You should NEVER wait for what will happen, you should KNOW what will happen, anticipate the situation at hand, and act accordingly. You might do a couple of mistakes the first few times, but eventually you should master it. Just pay attention, and in the end it'll all be hard printed on your spine.

Good luck.