Outline · [ Standard ] · Linear+ The Art of Healing

[Daemeus]

Gimerse and myself have done a fair amount of discussion about the lack of readily available information for healers that is out there on the net. I'm not claiming its not present, but it is spread across the a wide variety of locations and I have been hard pressed to find a central location that provides a quick, easily accessibly How To for raid healing. So Gimerse and I are starting this thread as a quick synopsis of what we do and why we do it. I'm here to talk about Druid healing, Gimerse will be adding a Shaman post before too long, and hopefully we'll have some willing candidates step up to discuss Priests and Paladins (cough cough Lavye, Giggs, and/or Macon cough cough).

I won't guarantee any of the information we provide is the best or only way to do things as there are a lot of different healing styles. But these are the tactics we have employed to what I would say is a fair amount of success. So without further ado...

Druid Healing for Dummies: or How I Learned to Love the Tree

I'm going to begin this discussion with a basic overview of the druid healing style. I plan on reviewing the list of druid healing spells, their primary uses, and in what situations they are best employed. I'll then talk about my spec, druid healing stats, gems, and glyphs.

Basic Overview

As everyone knows, druid healing spells focus on HOTs. We have a couple of direct heals, but that's certainly not the primary focus of our talent trees, or our strengths. As such, we can unleash the big heal when we need to save a life immediately, but we're never going to be dropping the massive chain heal or holy light crits that our counterparts are capable of on a regular basis. However, we are incredibly capable raid healers. Whenever a raid member takes a burst of damage somewhere in the 10K or less range, a resto druid should be able to handle it with a single global cool down. A resto druid's primarily responsibilities therefore fall into two basic categories, the importance of which is in the following order:

1) React to every single instance of raid damage that occurs. If raid damage is present, a resto druid should be casting every global cooldown until the damage is gone. A resto druid that is not focused on keeping the raid topped off at all times is not doing his primary job.

2) Keep HOTs rolling on the tanks. It is worth noting that this will most certainly not keep a tank topped off with the amounts of damage that tanks are taking these days. And with most of our HOTs ticking somewhere in the 2-3k range and well geared tanks topping 40k health, it can feel like a drop in the bucket. However, these HOTs serve to level off some of the frightening jumps in tank health that can occur with bursts of massive damage being offset by bursts of massive healing from your tank healers every few seconds. It serves as a buffer and a safety net to keep the healing better under control for your primary tank healers. Unless the tank has dropped below around 30-40%, I still keep my primary duty on healing the raid, even if it means some hots dropping off the tanks.

What these two duties mean is that druid healers should be casting nearly every global cooldown the entire boss fight. Start a fight by HOTing up the tanks, refresh as necessary until raid damage starts, then heal raid damage like a madman until its under control, bouncing back to the tanks to refresh your HOTs whenever possible. The key to doing this all well lies in choosing the proper spell for the situation, which leads to our next section, and the most important skill for a Tree to master:

Druid Spell Selection

I’m going to go through this list in order of importance for my style of healing.

Rejuvenation – In simple terms, this is the most basic HOT a druid has. You cast it, and every three seconds thereafter, it ticks for some healing. In Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard has strongly pushed this spell to the forefront of the druid’s healing arsenal. The 4 piece T8 bonus gives an initial healing burst upon initial cast (although its not very big, around 800 to 1000), and the 4 piece T9 allows the periodic healing to crit. Additionally, the first thing a resto druid should buy with their triumph badges is the Idol of Flaring Growth, which gives +234 spell power for nine seconds, procced off of rejuv ticks. The amazing thing about this idol is that it seems to have no internal cooldown and procs off 25% or so of rejuv ticks. This essentially means, you always have +234 spell power.

I use rejuv as my go to heal for small, single target raid damage. Its mana cost is dirt cheap and it usually ticks somewhere in the 2-3k range for me. If a raid member takes around 5k or less damage, they can expect an incoming rejuv from me. It gets a lot of use on casters who like to wander far away from one another and are not good candidates for the next spell on my list. This is also one of the spells you want to keep rolling on tanks whenever possible.

Wild Growth – This is the druid AOE heal. It hits 5 (6 if glyphed) targets within 15 yards of each other. It ticks every second for seven seconds. The first tick is the strongest, and it slowly decreases with every other tick. My first one usually hits for somewhere around 800 and the last one wraps up somewhere in the 500 range. It’s on a 6 second cooldown.

Because of the range limitation, this spell gets most of its use for me in healing the melee, or casters that were bunched up and all the sudden are standing in the fire. If all the sudden I see 3 or more people take a similar amount of damage, it’s a solid bet that they were in close proximity and hit by the same effect, and I toss a wild growth their way. I don’t feel its worth the mana cost for less than 3 people. A tip to keep in mind when casting this spell on the melee: many bosses are huge and melee are usually on the opposite side of the boss from the tank. If you cast this spell on the tank, there are decent odds the melee are out of 15 yard range and you’ve spent an expensive heal to do minimal help to only the tank. Try instead to cast it on a melee who you can count on to be in the correct position with the rest of the melee, but is noob enough to take damage (I usually pick Jammin or Jargenn).

Regrowth - This is my third most utilized heal. It consists of a large burst of initial healing (Mine crit somewhere in the 7-8k range pretty frequently), followed by an incredibly long HOT (nearly 30 seconds) that ticks every three seconds for a similar amount to a Rejuv. Its on the pricier mana side, and has a 2.0 second cast time, but it definitely has uses.

If someone takes over around 5K damage, I generally choose Regrowth over Rejuvenation. The initial burst gets them out of the danger zone, then the HOT tops them off while I go save other lives. Additionally, because this HOT lasts so long, it can start providing immediate healing to new raid damage that the person may take later, possibly meaning I don’t have to apply another heal if the damage was small enough. I find myself using Regrowth a lot more in 25 man content where the burst raid damage hits harder, and I have more people to tend to (that long HOT can help buy me some time if they end up needing more healing later but I still have 10 people that need it more badly). This is another HOT to keep rolling on the tanks as often as possible. And since the HOT lasts so long, it’s the easiest one to keep up.

Lifebloom – I have a troubled relationship with Lifebloom. It’s a short duration HOT (7 seconds) with a high mana cost that ticks once every second and blooms for a burst of healing at the end. It can stack up to three times on a single target and each stack increases the power of the ticks and the bloom. A three stack Lifebloom bloom can crit for ridiculous amounts (I’ve seen the 15k range), but its incredibly difficult to time this bloom to go off exactly when you need it. You have to cast it three times (3 seconds for two global cooldowns in between), then wait 7 seconds for the bloom. Predicting the need for 15k healing 10 seconds in the future is nearly impossible. So it’s generally a matter of luck if these go off when they are really needed. However, whenever a lifebloom blooms, it refunds half the mana cost of the spell.

I know some healers that used to use a single stack lifebloom for the small raid damage that I handle with Rejuv. Since the incredible itemization for rejuv, I don’t know if anyone still actually does this. Pretty much all I do with lifebloom these days is keep a three stack rolling on the tanks as much as I can. I try not to let it bloom because as I previously stated, its generally not blooming when you actually need the big burst healing. Its more mana efficient to cast lifebloom once to refresh the timer than to let it bloom and recast it three times, plus you never lose the constant stream of healing every second which other healers could be relying on to steady out the tanks health (My three stack lifeblooms heal for 1-1.5K every second). However, keeping the three stack rolling on tanks is very low on the list of priorities, so only micromanage this if raid damage is well under control.

Swiftmend – This spell is awesome, hands down, and it’s the only glyph that I feel is mandatory for all resto druids. Unglyphed, it removes either a Rejuvenation or a Regrowth effect from the target and instantly heals the target for the amount that Rejuv or Regrowth normally heals over the duration of the spell. Essentially, it trades the HOT for one big burst of the full healing effect. The glyphed version of this spell does the same thing, except it DOES NOT CONSUME the Rejuv or Regrowth. This means your HOTs keep ticking, and you just did a big heal (My non crits are around 6-7K and my crits are around 12k). The spell is on a 10 second cooldown.

This is my go to spell for any raid member that already has a HOT on them and takes sudden massive damage. Since I almost always have at least a Regrowth on the tanks, this spell is used whenever a tank drops dangerously low. For raid members that don’t have a HOT on them and suddenly take a bunch of damage, I sometimes throw a quick Rejuv on them followed by an immediate Swiftmend (when I don’t choose Nourish, as discussed next). This is also a great tactic if you don’t expect the swiftmend to completely heal the target, or if you expect them to continue taking damage after that initial burst (the rejuv will keep ticking and the swiftmend got them out of the immediate danger).

Nourish – This is a bit of a quirky little spell that I initially disliked because it didn’t feel “Druidy” enough. It’s a quick and dirty direct heal with no HOT element. It has a 1.5 second cast, and is not terribly mana efficient. Mine usually hit somewhere in the 4k range and crit somewhere around 7-8k.

This spell has come to be my “damage control”. If the healers have lost control of the situation and raid damage is spiraling out of hand, I start spamming this spell like there’s no tomorrow. Sometimes, you don’t have time to wait for HOTs to tick, so if over half the raid is below 50% health and falling, cast wildgrowth every time its cooldown is up and fill in the gaps with as many nourishes as you can cast. Be warned, this will drain mana faster than Aludra downed booze in Drunken Naxx, but it will save lives (unlike Aludra’s debauchery).

Healing Touch – This is the druid BIG HEAL. Mine crit in the 15k range. It has a three second cast time, making it all but useless. It has one purpose and one purpose only. Every druid should have a macro that casts Nature’s Swiftness, followed by Healing Touch. This makes it an immediate very large heal with a three minute cooldown. This is what you pull out when you realize Tool just pulled agro and is about to be two shot. The resto druid’s job is to pop a Nature’s Swiftness Healing Touch before the second hit lands until the tank remembers how to taunt. Usually, I just let Tool die.

Tranquility – This is a big channeled AOE heal that ticks every 2 seconds for 8 seconds. Only problem is, it only effects group members, not raid members, making it nearly useless. I say nearly because it still gets some play making sparkly lights for screen shots after downing bosses.

Special Druid Healing – I want to make one note hear of a particularly useful healing tactic I have picked up for a very specific circumstance. In some bosses like Twin Valkyrs, Mimiron Phase 2, and Hodir during Frozen Blows, the entire raid takes steady damage at a rate of 2-3k every second or so. This can be incredibly hard to manage without people falling through the cracks. A druid can make this MUCH easier to manage: Cast wild growth on the melee every time its done with its cooldown, and in the in between time, apply rejuv to every member of the raid, regardless of their current health status. The other healers in the group can take care of any dangerous healing problems, but the rejuvs and wild growths will slow the steady raid health decline to an easily manageable crawl. This is the kind of damage that druid HOTs are PERFECT for dealing with, and the rest of the healers in the group will thank you for making their lives so much easier.

Itemization, Stats, Gems, Glyphs, and All That Other Stuff
I’ve gone on long enough, so this part I’m making quick. The most important part of learning to Tree Heal is mastering spell selection, so if you can get all that previous stuff down, you will be an excellent healer even if your gear is a little lacking.

Most important things to keep in mind, the most important stats for druid Healers are Spell Power and Spirit. We don’t gain much from crit, and haste is nice, but both of these are on all the gear anyway so you don’t really need to worry about it. But spirit fuels our mana regen and 15% of it gets turned into +healing through talents.

As can be imagined, the near constant casting makes mana regen a very important consideration for druids. Seek out spirit heavy gear (over MP5) whenever possible. I’ve even gemmed for it before when I was having particular trouble keeping mana in long fights. If regen is a problem, try the Innervate glyph, and make sure you’re popping it around 50% mana. Use it early so you can try to use it multiple times in the same fight (3 minute cooldown). Additionally, there are a couple of trinkets that really help druids with Mana. Spark of Hope is quite excellent since we’re casting nearly every global cooldown, and I still pull out Majestic Dragon Figurine (from Sartharian) if I know a fight is going to be particularly long/healing intensive.

Most of the time you want to gem for straight spell power, ignoring socket bonuses entirely. The benefit is usually not as good as just going for more spellpower.

As for glyphs, I use Glyph of Swiftmend (Mandatory!), Glyph of Innervate, and Glyph of Wild Growth. Glyph of Regrowth is pretty good too. I’ve never had much luck with Glyph of Rejuvenation (You see how often people stay below half health with Gimerse and Lavye healing), and I just don’t use Lifebloom enough to convince me Glyph of Lifebloom would be worth it. I’ve never tried Glyph of Healing Touch. Its always looked to me like it turns your healing touch into Nourish… but I thought that’s why Blizzard gave me Nourish. Seems quirky to me, although if anyone has some positive results, I’d be intrigued to hear about it.

The resto druid talent spec hasn’t changed significantly in a while. Look me up on the armory if you’re curious.

And I think that wraps it up. If anyone actually made it to the end of this treatise, I’ll be surprised Hope somebody is able to get some use out of this.

[lavye]

ok... i'll be posting a thing or 2 in a couple of hours....lol

[lavye]

PVE GUIDELINES ON HEALING PRIESTS: wotlk 3.2.x

First of all, i'd like to say, again, that blizz is turning this game into a CS kinda of game so any similarities in strategies or mechanisms of spells is not a coincidence. I'll try not to mention other classes particularities here but sometimes it is inevitable.
Priests are in the midway between sheer raw heal(pallies) and hot (druids) which make them the most versatile healing class (therefore sometimes the best) but at the same time hard to master cuz you will always be able to take any roles in the raid and your healing strategies will vary..but you can still excel on any role you've been assigned to.
(man i could write a book on this..i'll try to make this short, if you know ZERO about priests you may have troubles in understanding a few things here..sry)

Some Legend:
pws:power word shield
da:Divine aegis (proc shield)
ps:pain supression
pi:power infusion
pnc:penance
pom: prayer of mending
poh: prayer of healing
rw: renew
erw: empowered renew+renew
gh: greater heal
fh: flash heal
bh: binding heal
coh: circle of healing
hn: holy nova
sh: spirit healer
dh: divine hymn
hoh: hymn of hope
gr:grace
inp:inspiration

for detailed info on skills : http://thottbot.com/?c=Priest

note: when you are a disc priest you do more damage control than healing but i'll be referring to this dmg control as "healing" and the reader should realize that from the content.

First question: Holy or Discipline

Ok, if you have ever played a lv80 priest you definitely wanna heal as DISC cuz it's a lot more fun. Bad news for you big boy!
You should only have a disc priest in a 10man group if you dont have a pally or a holy priest in the group. Why? As deamus said you can't expect a druid to save a tank's ass with hots nor a shammy cuz he will be healing raid most of the times, although they can heal a tank pretty good..but they weren't meant for it i guess..a holy priest can heal a tank pretty good but a disc priest has too much to make it better cuz it has many instant cast skills to save a target (combo:pws>pom>rw>pnc and if needed you can use a PS and hopefully if you have stacked critc a da will be up too). Bottom line is.. for general healing purposes holy priests>disc priest in 10man raid. AS for 25man raids a disc priests should be mandatory cuz besides being an awesome Mt healer it has a buff that reduces dmg on raid by 3%. "Only 3%?? screw it! " well...just tell me how many times you survived a dmg and had no more than 200hps.... anyway 25 man should be about harmony and a disc priest surely contributes as an excellent dmg manager and life saver (pws+ps+pnc).

So.. not accouting for any kind of raid's setups you should go holy, or if you want to have more fun and be more of an assistant(10man) you can go disc. Again i'm not saying a disc priest cannot do raid healing.. he can use pom,rw,fh use pi on cds and cast a swift poh and many more things..i'm just saying it is a tougher task that becomes unreasonable when you have a holy priest or a shammy in group... making that extra healer, most of the times, useless.

OBS: ok i'm not gonna say what which skills does cuz you can see the description here ( http://thottbot.com/?c=Priest ). but mainly cuz if you' re healing as a disc or a holy strategies are different and so is the frequency that you use certain skills/talents. so i'll split this into "healing as disc" and "healing as holy" and eventually i'll give short descriptions on skills/talents and stuffs that are common on both spec i'll talk about separately.

Having fun: Healing as a discipline priest:

ok boys and girls here we go...considering you have the right job for you the guidelines are:

1-keep pws+pom+rw on tanks then toss a pnc on the tanks so you have gr2/2 up and your healing is increased and if your penance have critic'd spam fh untill it cricts so that tanks have inspiration make sure all tanks have these sht on them on cd!!

2- toss a pws on every1 that should be taking dmg every so often..why? cuz while dmg is absorbed you get mana back! rly? rly!! -dmg control

3- you have a larger mana pool and you can, thou rly not needed, spec to be a good dispeller.. a disc priest is a great person to dispell/abolish diseases cuz:
a)dispell: dispell 2 harmful spells on friendly target and 2 beneficial spel on enemies
b)abolish disease: buff on friendly target that last 15sec and atempts to remove a disease every 3 sec.
c) mass dispell(MD) cast reduced to .5sec down from 1.5sec. MD DO NOT DISPELL ANYTHING BUT MAGIC SHIT, PALLADIN BUBBLES AND ICE BLOCKS ARE POWERFULL MAGIC SPELLS THAT'S WHY MD WORKS ON THEM. it dispells 10 magic debuf on friendly target and 10 buf on enemy targets (20 dispell? yes!) but it has a 15ya area effect and cost a lot of mana, which is no issue for a disc priest: PLEASE DO NOT ASK A HOLY PRIEST TO USE MASS DISPELL THAT OFTEN


and that's it! other then that when the boat is sinking..you can cast a pi on yourself and spam poh, rw, pom on tanks or on some1 that is dieing etc..

hints on disc priests:

1- use ps on melee that pull aggro and on tanks only when you have nothing else to use cuz it reduces the target's threat by 3% and if your tank sux that means you have been an agent of apocalypse! gratz! But if your tank is good his aggro should be above 10% of the second person in omen in most of encounters
2- try to use pi on cd. remember that it not only increases cast speed for 20% but it also reduces the mana cost on all spells for 20% as well ..so using pi with instant cast spell is a good choice too. If your encounter isnt gonna take that much spike dmg you should use pi on cd.
3-make a macro to cast pi on you and target the last target..saves a LOT of time and prevent you from using that on casters that can pull aggro or on useless class like hunters and ret pallies
4-gyphs..no discussion: glyphs of : fh, pnc, pws, fade,shadowfiend and levitate


more bad news: You should NEVER be nearly close to the top of meters for healing done..if you are..just leave group cuz you're about to fail if you haven't already....


Serious shit: Healing as a holy priest:


here we go again....

one can either be a tank's healer or a raid healer and one can come up with some good different builds focused on either task. Not talking about specific builds and talents yet..
guidelines are:

1-keep rw+pom on tanks and keep spaming fh on them, preferably timed with certain boss' skills... so that you have inp on them all times
2- when raid takes massive dmg(kologarn sht .etc..) you make sure tanks have erw and choose a group and cast poh and get rdy to cast a pom(if you can) followed by a coh on tanks cuz it will heal other 4 targets (5 glyphed) once you done that..about 7.5sec.. raid should be about to full health and you can go back to tanks...else things are looking bad and just pick another group with low health and cast a poh on it..thing is..if you have a shammy you'll hardly be able to use your poh full efficiency so..you rather spam flash heals and erw that besides the 5 tics you have an instant one(empowerd rw) that heals about 2k..so it's not totally a waste to spam a erw
3-coh is now (wotlk) a 6sec cd instant cast spell that is worth using on ppl that are somewhat clustered. This is works like Wild Growth(see druids above), blizz gave a coh to druids lol...here you can also do what deamus said, position your toon in midway of ranged and melee and you should use its full potential..

and that's all folks!


again if the boat is sinking you just NOW using pws on tanks and some players, spam coh,pom,poh, rw and fh...lol...then fh here are the one that proc from talent(hopefully the priest doesnt suck and has it) so it's just another instant cast skill.

hints on holy priests:
1- sometimes you wanna use a bh instead of a fh to heal a tank cuz although is has another half sec cost, that extra heal it does compared to a fh can save the day..i know you would be wasting mana if you're full health cuz you're healing yourself too, but in the end your task is NOT TO LET YOUR TARGET DIE so no1 cares if you're overhealing a bit if your tank is surviving...
2- spirit healer,sh, is rly good when glyphed cuz if your target doesnt die it's cd comes down to 1min from 3min.. by "die" i mean getting a hit that would kill the person that has it cuz when it happens the spirit sacrifices itself and heal the target for half its HPs....
3-you can "dispell" like a disc priest not for the MD thing that should be used only in specific ocasions by a holy priest
4-gyphs..no discussion: glyphs of : fh, coh, sh, fade,shadowfiend and levitate


OBS: you noticed that healing a holy priest LOOKS easier in fact it is not...it is harder!! assuming people are doing what they are suppose to.....you'll find out why in the following...



commom "healing" skills:

divine hymn:10min cd/8sec cast

description:aoe heal that kinda casts a greater heal on about 12 targets or so during its 8sec durations..the spell picks the ppl with lowest hps plus it increased the healing on them by 10%
when to cast: when the boat is sinking
issues:make sure you have 8sec to cast it

hymn of hope:6min cd/8sec cast

description:increasing mana pool of the people with the lowest mana amounts during 8 to 16sec and regenerates about 3% their total mana
when to cast: sometime between the first quarter and the half time duration of the fight cuz by doing so you can most of the times get a chance to cast it again
issues:make sure you have 8sec to cast it

shadowfiend:5min cd/lasts 15sec

description: a fiend pet that does melee dmg to a target and based on some math you get some mana back from its atacks
when to cast: hard to say these days but assuming optimal raid conditions where all healing counts..you should use it when you have around 30-40% mana anything higher than that you have the risk to waste some mana gained from your pet.
issues: IT'S A FREAKING PET. we had more issues in the past cuz the pet had to WALK ALL THE WAY TO THE TARGET TO HIT IT AND GIVE YOU MANA...sometimes your target used to go back to you so it was basically strolling around the entire 15 sec...¬¬ ..now they teleport and kinda do their job ..thank god..but you should make a macro to put it in aggressive once you cast it so that he won't eventually sit and clap hands....


talents/builds

choose wtv you want but ill say some mandatory talents it doesnt matter what skill you like to use to heal...these choices should cover the roles you should be doing...and won't explain why....STOP SUCKING

discipline (all available points)
silent resolve -d YOU'RE A CLOTH USER
renewed hope-d
aspiration-d
divine aegis-d
grace-d
inspiration-h

holy (all available points)
silent resolve--d YOU'RE A CLOTH USER
mental agility-d
holy specialization -h
inspiration-h
surge of light-h
test of faith -h
spirit healer-h



oh! but this talents increases xxxxx.....this other one does yyyyy... well...again suit your self....if you dont wanna worry about getting killed focus on healing and have the best mana regen with your spec you should have these talents...there are other talents that you must take..but they are so damn obvious that i refuse to mention them....not going into more details,


bad skills/ talents and some comments

i'll make this short, so the listed skills, talents shouldnt be chosen to pve

talents

holy:improved healing,desperate prayer,light well, body and soul,blessed recovery
discipline:unbreakable will,martyrdom,imp mana burn, reflective shield,focused will,

skills.

greater heal: this is where all priest start crying...why...a priest spec to heal with greater heals improve the mana regeneration and the efficiency of a priest so badly that make us cry... but... all we have these days are bots and aoe sht so if you're using that that you're sucking right now dude i'm sorry... IF AND ONLY IF one has a hardcore healing setup you should spec to greater heals..other than that dont do it....


gems, gear and mp5

i'm not discussing mp5 here but if you are a priest and wanna go crazy visit: http://bobturkey.wordpress.com/2009/04/22/...duction-part-1/

bottom line..stack critc, mana pool and spirit with gears and get mp5 from 2 color gems cuz you get more benefits from getting 2 12sp/5mp5 than 1 23sp and 1 10mp5...for instance...not to mention you can cover some flaws when changing gears with 2 color gems....meh..
enchant spirit on boots and that's it.


you should ONLY stack spirit if you're stacking critc as well..cuz stacking spirit is only worthy in fights where holy concentration(hc) is up for more than 50% of the fight but in order to achieve that you should be spaming fh,erw and bh to get that proc but remember that all instant cast spells also put you in the FSR and not all the ones you use have the chance to proc hc like coh....and if you dont have the talent up you're wasting mana... and to make things worse items with lots of spirit usually give you haste so yes....you're going on the wrong way...

spell power no longer helps in your mana regen cuz you cannot downrank so you should prior mp5.. and on average 20spirit gives you around ~5-8mp5 against raw 10mp5..remember your target is MP5 not Mana regen..considering you're not inactive most of the raid...

..i'm not considering the fact that we cannot choose items whenever you want you gotta work with the loots and drops you get...


general healing issues

now you should find out why healing as a holy is harder than a disc priest when they are doing what there are suppose to...answer: a holy priest are in casting period more often than disc priests, and he's more likely to lose a cast cuz the target has either died or got healed... plus, you may have issues with:

Unit interface:

"i'm old school and i dont use addons" ..ok dont ask for invites then..even blizz realized they are needed and they are slowly introducing them in the game if you havent noticed... if you can heal w/o them good..better for you..i'm just saying that you should have at least a couple.....they are..

1-raid bar manager: this baby should allow you to put the raid hps bars where you think it's better and as big as you judge necessary to quickly click a target, click a spell , click another target..click... and so on...
2-aggro indicator: your bars should have something that tells you when some1 has pulled aggro..with this you should be able to counter measure that inc dmg..pretty basics..
3-casting bar manager: an addon that allows you to put a GIANT bar of your current focus target..usually the boss.. so that you can cast spells or stop casting whenever is the best time...
4-'dispelling' addon: this is kinda optional..if your raid bar manager already indicated when some1 has sth to be dispelled another addon isnt rly necessary..but if you can have an addon like "decurse" it makes your life easier cuz you can click a target and automatically dispell either disease or magic..

these 4 addons should allow you not to suck and call yourself 'pro' (so ghey...)..anyway..there are other addons..but they are not essential to the healer and might increase the UI lag or even the game....you dont want that cuz you are switching targets all the time


Changing targets:

1-STOP sucking and start to pick the next target you're healing and the spell your gonna use within the time you're casting sth......again..basics
2-lag.....lag sucks regardless of anything..but make sure you have targeted whoever you wanted b4 casting your spell sometimes you misclick sht and you heal some1 else
3-mouse/pad...have no mercy on your mouse and hit it like you mean it..cuz sometimes they dont work and you miss healing..believe it happens..and have a CS kinda od mouse pad pls...not saying why..
4-keyboard...remember F1 is YOUR FRIEND!!!!!... start using it more often..or every time like i do and..you'll be surprise that you kinda won't die that often anymore..rly?? rly!!


mana potions:

should be used when all your class regenerating skills have been used. At the tbc you should use them on Cd cuz you could drink how many potions you wanted per fight...now it's one per combat....so yes gotta drop the old habit....


downranking:

WTB!!!mana regeneration skills have become too damn OP... but the main reason is that..again..blizz is giving all healers the same kinda of spells..turnig this sht into a counter strike kinda of game.. it sux....so it's too much Aoe healing going on so there's rly no time to play smart...blizz wants players that can heal w/o thinking...so that they are on top of meters..they are happy and therefore will keep their wow account...$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ rly? unfortunately....


ok this was Lavye bringing you some of the priests's healing world... there are tons of combinations of skills, talents and strategies to do...way too much theorycrafting and stuff... again a priest is too versatile and tricky..remember...these days mana regen is way better but you can run out of mana easily cuz you have lots if instant cast spells but this topic should put your priest in the right direction

signing out

[Daemeus]

Awesome job Lavye! This is exactly what I was hoping for. Now we just need Gimerse to get off his lazy butt, and someone to step up for the Pallies.

[Wardrick]

This will help but it still takes practice... Thx guys for all the info. I hope all the healers put this info to good use.

[lavye]

damn...i found lots of spelling errors and corrected a few but you guys should be able to understand what i meant..


and yes wardrick most of the times... what defines your success or failure is how much info and how familiar you are with the encounter.. = practice.. i just posted these basic guidelines that should help some1 who is learning how to "use" a priest...

but sth i haven't written above is that once you know how and what you're doing, and it goes for all encounters, the last thing to be said is:
It's all about making the right decisions and choices at particular times (the so-called "human judgment")
that's why when you're not in the mood or tired your performance decreases

and it goes for all classes as you know..

[Vectus]

This is a very educational thread for both healers and non-healers alike, although of the non-healers I assume it applies more to tanks than DPS. Anyhow, I look forward to reading Gimerse's post about shaman healing, and since I haven't been around for a while I don't know who the main paladin healers are these days, but I'd like to read any details regarding paladin healing as well.

Forgive the offtopic-ness of the following, but I'm trying to determine which healer I would enjoy most so I can level one once I have some heirloom items. From my current perspective of interest in the healing classes, priest = paladin > shaman > druid, so any further input would be appreciated.

[Gots]

Lavye , Your the BEST !



Kity

[Gimerse]

Legend:
ES: Earth Shield
WS: Water Shield
LHW: Lesser Healing Wave:
HW: Healing Wave
RT: Riptide
TW: Tidal Waves(Read Talent for info)


Well form the posts that Daemeus and Lavye have already posted I most Definitely Have my Work cut out for me.

First I want to reiterate something that has been said by both Lavye and Daemeus is the thing that makes a good healer into a great one is being comfortable with the class. You can know everything there is about a class, have run every simulator out there and still not be about to outheal lavye's left pinky if you haven't gotten used to healing with that particular class(I've had nightmares about this). It is when you gain the ability to adjust to the current healers to know where healing is going to be needed, and then being able to subconsciously pick up on the small decisions is when you should realize you have been doing this way too long.

The most important factors in my mind to healing are being properly specced/geared, Being comfortable with your Healing UI, knowing how to adjust to your current situation and heal accordingly. One of the most common mistakes I see in good healers is that they have amazing gear, but all they do is spam the classes most widely known key trademark heal(Chain Heal/CoH-POM/FoL/WTF_Druids?). Granted this will typically keep your party alive, but Layve's left Pinky is still barely trying and keeping up with you, not to mention the other 36 fingers he apparently has.

First Lets start with Properly Gearing/Speccing a Resto Shaman.

Important Stats:
+Healing
Intellect
mp5
Haste & Crit

Crit comes on mail gear nowa days you dont really need to worry about this. Try to keep your haste above 300 this will keep your HW cast time when TW is up to about 1.6 seconds, which makes it viable for tank healing. See minimum raid requirements post for specific stats.

Gems:
Red slot: + Sp Gem
Yellow Slot: +Sp & int
Blue Slot: +Sp & mp5

Glyphs:
-Glyph of CH
-Glyph of Earth Shield
-Glyph of Water Mastery
-Glyph of Water Shield
-Glyph of Renewed Life

The Healing Spec:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?shaman#f9w...52,-RFROH,10676

The talents I didn't take:

Totemic Focus: reduced mana cost of totems by 25%
At 80, your totems should cost around 1500 mana for 4, assuming you aren't putting down searing Totem, Fira Nova Totem/ Magma Totem. This equates to saving 375 Mana, not worth 5 point.

Healing Grace: Reduced threat.... Threat used to be an issue in BC every once in a while for healers, but now if you are pulling aggro off a tank, its the tanks fault. Plus if you do get attacked you are in mail with a shield, and it will typically be just an add, which you can take a few hits from if you react quick enough.

Healing Focus: Reduced Knockback: Yes this could be a useful talent but was much more useful when it reduced the chance by 100%. with 70% you will still be interrupted anyways, just stand reasonably close to the boss so that if you do get hit by one of his knock back abilities you will still be in range; then move up the next time you renew shields/riptide. Useless Talent.

Those are the only ones that should be of interest so lets move on to what to the healing style I choose to play.

If this is your first time Shaman Healing at 80 then skip down to The Correct way to Shammy Heal:... The following disproves the viability of the commonly accepted ways of shammy healing

The Macro View:

1. Trademark Spam Chain Heal:
There are two common trademark ways for shaman healing currently. One has been around since BC, which is chain heal spamming, which is once again viable since WS can now proc 30% with chain heal crits. Obviously this spec is only going to work when the raid is taking damage. Something important needs to be pointed out here so PAY ATTENTION and give into to it. Priests and druids are better raid healers. Period, no argument. Druids have the ability to keep hots up like not tomorrow which tick damn near every second or two, and can WG when necessary. Priests can POM, Renew, shield, CoH. There is one common element to all of this, these heals are instant. So by the time your 2.2 second chain heal has casted, Layve's renews/CoH/PoM have atleast taken care of a single group & healed some other back for a single renew tick which is about 1.2k a tick. Daemeus's WG has ticked twice, and his HoT's have tick at least once, which again heals another group and a few others. In total between lavye and daemeus they have healed back to full 3 entire groups. So assuming that all 5 groups are taking damage, which they probably aren't, and there aren't any other druids/holy priests are in the group doing the same thing that leaves 2 groups which surely you can get atleast one chain heal in on! Yea!, layve and dameus just blew you shit out of the water and the tanks just took 30,000 damage you could have healed while they weren't.

In summary, Priests/Druids are better and quicker by default in raid healing, if you can predict raid damage like the stomps in Northrend beasts then you can get two chain heals in, other wise you might get one. There is no reason to spam it(Unless its Twin Valk's, Then you spam like no tomorrow and put on your regen gear). There is one more common facade that using chain heal instead of a direct healing spell on the tank will increase you healing at neglible cost becuase it might chain to the melee. This is FALSE! and will be discussed in the second trademark tactic for Shaman Healing.


2. Trademark: ES & LHW spam
First off this spec was created in 3.0, when LHW was affected by the decreased cast time form the tidal waves talent. since 3.2, LHW is no longer affected by the decreased cast time, instead it has increased crit chance. With this decreased cast time and enough haste you could essentially obtain 0.9 second cast LHW, which when Glyphed on an ES tank could crit for upwards of 10-11k. Over the period of 3 seconds this could amount to ideally 30k healing if all your LHW spells crit. This was a very viable option in 3.2 and previous and it even proc'd WS like no tomorrow so you could do it forever.

Now in 3.2 a few key things have changed:
1. LHW is no longer hasted by Tidal waves
2. Healing Way is now just a base +25% healing to Healing Wave.

Thus you can cast 3 LHW's now in roughly 1.3 seconds x 3 = 4 seconds which if they all crit will land around 30k on a tank with ES. OR
You can cast 2 HW which with Tidal waves procced is a 1.6 seconds x 2 =3.2 seconds, and if the both crit for around 24k x 2 = 48k healing.

LHW x 3 = 1800 mana = 4 seconds = 30k healing OR
HW x 2 = 2000 mana = 3.2 seconds = 48k Healing

Also keep in mind that your healing waves have a 13% better chance of proccing a WS, so the mana cost is neglibly different between these two styles when HW is shorter to cast, and provides more healing.

I.E.: ES & LHW is not longer superior to HW.
Also to debunk the previous facade of shammy healing that HW should just be replaced by CH because it might chain to other people a Chain heal crit on the tank with riptide can hit for around 10-12k. So you better chain to atleast 3 people and your tank better not be going down cause you just caused a wipe. But there are uses for this tactic. however, it CH should never completely replace HW.

Now that I have Debunked the previous trademark healing styles here is the way you should heal:

The Correct way to Shammy Heal:


The Spells:
The following is in reference to a well balanced group, and defines healing in such a scenario:

Riptide: When damage is not expected to be taken in mass on the tank, just keep this up on the tank. If the tank does take massive damage while riptide is on cd, then chain heal the tank and proc TW again and continue HW -> HW. If you do expect the tank to take massive damage then save this for that moment so you can lay a gew 1.6 second HW's on them.

ES: 1st Prioirity keep this up on a tank at all times. Common sense, its free healing.

HW: To be used on the tank, but only when tidal waves is procc'd.
Tidal waves can be procced in one of two ways: Casting Riptide or Casting CH. They noth have a 100% chance of proccing it. So if you know the tank is going to be taking a shit ton of damage make sure you have Riptide on cd for : Riptide -> HW ->HW. Congrats if they all crit and healed for everything you just did 55k healing. This is how you should be tank healing.

LHW: Should only be used when trying to piss off the druids in the group because you are probably just doing upkeep and stealing heals from their hots. When I'm bored this is a fun tactic to watch daemeus get annoyed with. This can also be used in OH SHIT moments on the tank, but should only be used when the tank really needs heals and you don't have time to think about whether or not rip/tidal waves is on cd. This should also only be used to stabalize and then return to normal tank healing. NEVER use this to raid heal, its a damn good way to run out of mana and just steal heals from other class that can do it more mana efficiently.

CH: In order to be used right You need to either be able to predict damage, and start casting before it hits. In which case you can get 2 CH's usually before the raid is stabilized. Also if you can predict this, if you are fast enough precast CH in time for the initial damage, Natures swiftness the second, and then cast a third. The third I typically use on the tank, which hopefully has riptide on him. If the damage is random the you should really only be casting this once, by this time you raid has stabilized because druids/priests are ridiculous.

Cleanse Spirit: Cleanse 1 Curse, 1 Disease, and 1 poison effect. This is easily tracked by decursive or Healbot. I will post a folow up post to this one regarding UI. Cleansing should be a priority in some cases.

Totems: This depends on your group, Always have Flamtongue down, its the only useful fire totem there is, If you have a pally buffing wisdom then drop healing stream totem/cleansing totem as necessary. The other vary on group composition. Remember to use mana tide totem. Typically if you use this when the fight is about 80%, then you can cast another one by the time the fight is over. Aim for this area, and feel free to blow your mana before this point. With the new totem system, 4 totems can be dropped at once so just make sure to set up one for melee groups/one for casters/ and one for utility that changes with the fight.(FloTotem Bar is a great add on for managing these)



Tactics:

Now assuming you are not in a well balanced group and have only one other druid/holy priest, then yes CH is your best friend, but don't for get to keep ES/Riptide up on the tanks, and CH them first. Then makes sure to distribute your heals out to caster groups. Save your natures swiftness for when the ship is sinking on your ranged, cause it will happen to them first. IN order to be able to reliably keep a raid up with CH you need to either predict when damage is coming, or just spam it, so make sure you have the regen to support this, and ALWAYS keep up WS, if your ship isn't sinking and WS isn't up you damn near better be brain dead.

Assuming you are in an AOE Healer heavy group, or in a group with just daemeus and Lavye, then you main priority should be to keep up the tanks. Typically if there is more than one, keep ES on one and riptide on the other. Keep Riptide on the tank which will have the most melee on it for the moment that there happens to be raid damage. and HW is your best friend when tidal waves is up. IN the case that both tanks are taking damage and your ship is sinking too fast to thinking spam LHW, this is the only case in which to do this. Do not think it is ok to cast LHW on a tank just because he is only taking 4k hits. This is a waste of mana, and if it is an AOE heavy group with druids than HOT's/ES/Riptide are sufficient enough to keep him up through this damage, only use HW when the tank is taking the damage to support it. If you are in a aoe heavy group, trust me it will come, and you;'ll find yourself forgetting to cast riptide, because you are cast HW so much.



Shammies have the ability to tank heal damn near as good as a pally healer, and when played right can certainly hold their own for raid healing. The important thing to recognize is when each is appropriate and to adjust accordingly. Typically in our raids you need to have a combination of both and be able to react to the situation. I will post a recount here of my typical distribution which is about 35-40% CH, 20-25% HW, 15% RT, 15-20% ES, and 5-10% LHW/Ancestral Awakening/Earthliving Weapon.

Its getting late but i think I discussed just about everything. WTF long post indeed.

[lavye]

very good gimerse.. thou i've understood very little cuz i'm not familiar with procs, talents etc... you...on the other hand...have a priest so..


WTB: giggs where's the paladin's guide??.. i guess he's gonna post a 5 pages strategy with pics, giffs and videos!!!!i

[Chriaria]

I think you guys all did a wonderful job, now just have to wait on giggs to see what he says.
Lavye, u did a great job explaining the priest healing specs, I know there is proabbly more info you could have put but it would have maybe confused them, I think u did a great job explain the basics of the class.
I unfortunatly wont be on this week to raid, I know dair has told u all that I have been sick (nasty flu bug) and now the kids have it and since Dair is on vacation this week, Im wanting him to get to play as much as possible. So GL in TotC and Ony this week, hope everyone gets some awesome drops! Hopefully I will be back this week end, Im actually hoping the kids will be well enough to go trick or treating (which is sat) =(((( They r going to be so sad if they can't.

(I know went off topic but still on cold meds lol) Again great job on the healing breakdowns for the classes guys, u did a great job!

[Ceasarsolo]

Good show guys good refrence material for all those new to healing or are looking for what they can do to up their healing.

[Cenedra]

Very nice job fellas. Daemeus, reading your post made me want to go back to healing. I agree on Lifebloom, never know if that burst is going to matter or not so I just kept it refreshed and use swiftmend since I can plan that one better and of course am glyphed for it. I'm offspec'd for healing but don't use it much since I can always count on krrystal.....

[Beeft]

I'll throw in a couple things just for funsies.

Figured i'd preface this with this warning....I heal really weird.

With 5/5 gift of the earth mother 395 haste is the haste cap (you want to be at this) You want to be at the haste cap so you have 1 second Global Cooldowns.

I Pretty much never use nourish, i always use regrowth in its place, i prefer to have the extra hot rolling.

I highly recommend having raid frames that show who your hots are on/durations left. I've grown to like http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/vuhdo.aspx . It's got tons of customization. Including built in click casting (if you prefer to click cast, i don't). Its kind of intense when you first start with it, but it grew onto me. And don't be scared to decurse...decursing is awesome.

Lifebloom is still very usable on fights where there isn't continuous raidwide damage, it lets you continue rolling rejuvs on whoever you are, throwing 1 lifebloom on somebody and goin back to rolling (getting 50% of the mana back from this is why it's useful). The reason its not really used though, is theres tons of continuous raidwide damage in all the TOC fights.

Fight mechanics do have an affect on how you heal a certain fight, remember to adapt to whatever situation you're in. Avoid damage, keep people alive, and watch your mana. With 3 minute innervates, mana shouldn't ever be an issue for a druid.

[lavye]

 

I highly recommend having raid frames that show who your hots are on/durations left.  I've grown to like http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/vuhdo.aspx .  It's got tons of customization. Including built in click casting (if you prefer to click cast, i don't). Its kind of intense when you first start with it, but it grew onto me.   And don't be scared to decurse...decursing is awesome.

i vote NO for click-heal addon..never tried..never will
it has its uses i assume, but i just dislike them..period

btw: capping haste for gCD is good for a druid who basically uses instant cast spells... for any other classes it might not be that worthy

[Daemeus]

I personally use Healbot, which allows for click heal functionality, but I don't use it. But it does a pretty good job of tracking my hots, allowing easy decursing, etc.

[gigglefoxes]

These guys (which from this point on will be known as the ‘Trinity of
healing’) did such a great job putting this together. Kudos to you guys
for compiling this info for everyone. You guys are definitely setting a
trend for posting very helpful and informative topics on the forums.

I hope to see many more topics like this in terms of quality and clarity.

I wrote up a quick guide for a holy paladin that is looking to get into
raid healing. It is a lot of fun and personally my favourite of the three
pally trees. As with any guide take it with a copious measure of
skepticism as everyone plays differently.

A Guide for Holy Paladins

A paladin is considered the ideal MT (Main tank) healer as they excel at
single-target healing not to say we cannot raid heal just fine but due to
our lack of AoE (Area of Effect) healing our main utility should always be
to heal the tank.

Holy Paladin Spells and Abilities:

Holy Light – This is basically your main healing spell. You can spam this
spell to your heart’s content with the insane amount our mana pools are
these days plus with Divine Plea you should never run out of mana.

Flash of Light – Used when you are low on mana or when no one is
taking much damage. This spell is mainly used for when you get
Infusion of Light procs and FoL goes instant. Great for combo
IoL/FoL+Holy Shock combos for moving fights like Heigan or Iron
Council.

Holy Shock – They have actually made this spell good for healing. It
has a 40-yd range and can instant heal a player for almost as much a
your Holy Light. Not to mention it is critical as part of IoL/FoL combo
when you pop Divine Favor for the 100% guaranteed crit.

Beacon of Light – This spell is essentially our answer for multiple target
healing. They recently buffed it so that it will heal your intended target
regardless of whether the spell overheals or not which makes it
amazing! You can spam HL on your MT and OT will get it or vice versa.

Sacred Shield – They recently made it so multiple paladins can cast this
on a tank. It is basically a bubble that absorbs 500 + 75% of the
paladin’s Spell Power so if you have 2000 SP it would absorb 500 +
1500 damage. It also procs a second buff when the tank takes damage
that increases your FoL critical chance by 50%

Itemization Stats and Gear:

The next most important topic to playing your paladin properly is
itemization. It varies from player to player but ultimately what is
outlined here should be pretty universal. Understanding how each stat
affects you is crucial to your performance during raids.

The following priority should be taken when deciding what gear to equip:

Int > Crit > Spell Power > MP5

Intellect is currently the most important stats for us even after the nerf
to Divine Intellect. It essentially provides us with everything by just
stacking the one stat (Spell Power, crit and mana). We also have
talents that benefit from it like Holy Guidance (increases spellpower by
20% of our intellect).

Crit is important to a holy paladin because of our regen via the
Illumination talent that returns 60% of the base mana cost whenever a
spell crits.

Spell Power is self explanatory. The more you have the more your
spells will heal. You should have a healthy balance of SP and Int. The
way I play I make sure that I have a healthy mana pool to spam HL
and as long as I do not run out of mana I can convert any Int gems I
have socketed to SP for pure throughput.

MP5 has been rather lackluster lately. It is not worth stacking insane
amounts of MP5 when you have Divine Plea and Illumination at your
disposal. Until Blizzard decides to fix this there really is no point going
for more MP5 than whatever it already on your gear.

We have so many talents and abilities that rely so heavily on Int so I
would not gimp yourself by gemming straight SP until AFTER you have
the gear and mana to support the big bomb heals you plan to deliver.

Enchants:
Head – Arcanum of Burning Mysteries (Kirin Tor)
Shoulder – Greater Inscription of Storms (Sons of Hodir)
Back – Enchant Cloak – Greater Speed (23 haste)
Chest – Enchant Chest – Powerful Stats (10 to all stats)
Bracers – Enchant Bracers – Exceptional Intellect (16 Intellect)
Gloves – Enchant Gloves – Exceptional Spellpower (28 spell power)
Leggings – Sapphire Spellthread
Boots – Enchant Boots – Icewalker (12 Crit rating / 12 hit )
Weapon – Enchant Weapon – Mighty Spellpower (63 spell power)
Shield – Enchant Shield – Greater Intellect (25 Int)

Meta Gem – Insightful Earthsiege Diamond
Libram – Libram of Renewal

Major Glyphs
Glyph of Holy Light
Glyph of Beacon of Light
Glyph of Seal of Wisdom

Minor Glyphs
Glyph of the Wise
Glyph of Blessing of Kings
Glyph of Lay on Hands

Default spec:


Addons:
I’m not really going to go over any healing mods as I personally do not
like to use them. However you are free to experiment with Healbot or
Grid. They are both decent mods that can help you do your job better. I
suggest that if you are going to use one of them couple it with some
mouse-over macros as they work wonders for paladins.

[lavye]

nice giggs ! it is now complete and you can lock the topic! hehe

[Daemeus]

I just read through all these posts again and I honestly don't think I've seen such a comprehensive healing guide that spans all classes. I think posts like these will be a great resource for the guild. Well done everyone, and thank you for all your contributions!

Giggs, I think Lavye has a good point. Why don't we lock this thread and sticky it to the top as good, easy to find reference material. Then whenever a big patch comes through that changes something substantial, we can unlock and update to keep it current.

[gigglefoxes]

Thread stickied.