Oh Mah Gawd - Healer Meme

Clearly my lack of consistent content during my last semester of school is making an impression on people, as Averna over at Nerf This Druid tagged me in a "lovefest between healers." Either that or she just wubs me as much as I wub her!! /snorgle...... /end creepy...

So here it goes!

Post this questionnaire, with your answers, on your blog. Pick the healing class you know most about (or is the focus of your blog), and then send it over to another healing blogger you know and love who deals with a DIFFERENT class. Include a link to the blogger who sent you the questionnaire, as well as a link to whom you are sending it.

What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?

Fuyuko - Priest - Holy

What is your primary group healing environment? (ie, raids, pvp, 5 mans)

I've not really been able to play much recently because of school, but when I do, Fuyuko usually heals in 25 man raids.

What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?

This is actually a really hard question. I thought about it for a couple minutes, and eventually decided on Divine Hymn.

"What???" I hear the other priests say loudly. "Why not Circle of Healing, or Prayer of Healing, or Prayer of Mending for the fun ping sound, or even Guardian Spirit for the wings???"

Well, here's the thing with Divine Hymn: Heals the 3 lowest HP nearby raid or party members for 3024 to 3342 every 2 seconds for 8 seconds, and increases healing done to them by 10% for 8 seconds. Maximum 12 heals.

So why is this awesome? It can retarget every tick, hitting a different set of people with the "lowest health," and when used with Heroism or Inner Focus, it's even more amazing.

To sum it up, the following comments from WoWHead:

-"So this is an "Oh sh*t, button?"

-"No, it's a "F*CK YES BUTTON!"

What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?

Probably Greater Heal or Binding Heal. Greater Heal just takes too long and Binding Heal has never really been in my play-style's arsenal.

What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?

This is pretty obvious to me - the fact that we have two healing specs that can fulfill two very different roles extremely well. Disc is awesome for tank healing, and Holy is awesome for raid healing. We don't have one healing tree with abilities and talents for both specs. We have two separate, dedicated specs for each job.

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?

Watch me get flamed for this again.

I feel like our biggest weakness as a class is our inability to be the best at any one thing. Now, I keep hearing "Zomg, you suck if you don't top your meters, lolz" but I feel like if I am on raid healing with, say, a shaman, and I am higher on the meters (not just number-wise, but overall with efficiency, etc.), then that doesn't make me look GOOD, it makes that shaman look BAD. The same goes for Disc priests and tank healing, I suppose. Disc priests are about mitigation, and so their overall healing output is lower than most, making them great tank healers, but probably not the best. But I'm a Holy priest, so I don't know much about Disc, to be honest.

Anyhoo, it seems like both specs can do a variety of things well, but not one better than any other class every single time.

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?

I'm Holy, so raid healing - no question. I'm not made for MT healing. I'm sort of ok with OT healing. And lolz at asking me to waste the mana putting up bubbles. I'm not a disc priest. My bubbles are pretty worthless for the mana they cost me.

What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?

I'm going to go with Averna's answer and say I enjoy healing with our healing team as players, not as classes. I do not prefer healing with one class over another.

What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?

Again, going with Averna's answer here and saying shamans named Vicars (although, technically, it would be shamans named Victoree). Hehe

What is your worst habit as a healer?

Letting one bad raid make me feel like I am a bad healer and causing me to not sign up for future raids. That's kind of where I am now, to be honest. I could spare an evening every now and then in my schoolwork for raiding, but I won't, because of that one raid.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group healing environment while healing?

From tanks - LoSing your healers for no reason, especially during fights that involve a lot of obstacles.

From other healers - QQing about how people are sniping or stealing your heals and how that is why your numbers are so low. Take that up with the RL or healing leader, don't spam it in raid or healing chat.

From DPS - standing in fires, not moving out of obstacles, not CCing and letting healers take damage needlessly.

Do you feel that your class is well-balanced with other healers for PvE healing?

Yes, I love where we are at right now, at least those of us in Holy spec. Again, I don't know much about Disc.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?

Recount, WoW Meters Online, whether or not everyone died.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?

Hmm.... probably the idea that Disc and Holy are easily interchangeable and that one can easily do the job of the other. Sure, I could tank heal for a small amount of time before I ran out of mana, and a Disc priest could raid heal if absolutely needed, but really, we're two different specs to the point where we could even almost be two different classes.

What do you think is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?

Which of the 50000000000 priest healing spells to put on the toolbar.

Haste or crit and why?

Crit first, up to a certain point, then haste. Most Holy priests spec into Surge of Light, which grants us free Flash Heals when another healing spell crits. It has been calculated that crit for this purpose stops becoming useful around 30% raid-buffed, so when you've reached that threshold, haste all the way!!

What healing class do you feel you understand the least?

Probably paladins.

What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?

Recount. Otherwise I use the standard DBM/oRA/Omen raiding mods and the standard Blizzard UI. I don't use Grid or Healbot or Clique or any of that stuff. I leveled on dial-up and raided through Naxx with a horrible laptop, so I just got used to not using those mods. As for macros, I am currently working on some humorous /yells for spell casts.

Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others and why?

I did the whole balance thing for a while, but now I aim primarily for spell power and haste, as I have reached that crit threshold, and my mana regen is fine.

Alrighty, since I said I don't know much about paladins, I'm passing this one on to Pallymar over at Pallymar's Take. HA HA. Have fun!!

PTR Awesomesauce: Valithria Dreamwalker

I saw this post over at World of Raids regarding testing for the green dragon boss Valithria Dreamwalker, and I gotta say, I'm intrigued.

Most encounters that depend heavily on healers have just revolved around the whole "oh shazbot, moar fire moar heals!" mantra, with some exceptions. So when Blizz comes up with nifty little things for us healers to do besides just staying out of fires and healing, I get excited.

For example, I really liked the Vezax encounter because healers had to really watch their mana pools. Or that one encounter in Naxx where there was only a short window every so often that heals could be cast...

But this Valithria fight... this is pretty cool.

So the basic premise, according to WoR, is that the healers must heal Valithria to 100% health. (She are gud dragon, mhm) She has 30 million HP on 25-man and 10 million on 10-man, and begins the encounter at 50% of that. Seems easy, right? Spam big heals, fun fun?

Actually, waves of adds will spawn throughout the fight and must be CCed and DPSed down so that they don't damage her. These adds are also a source of damage to the players assigned to deal with them, so healers in this fight have to watch the raid AND heal the boss.

<.Might.> posted their 25-man kill video from the PTR on Youtube. It's from a healer's point of view, so check it out below!

For a full list of abilities, mob types, etc., check out the WoR post here!!!

Also, if you watch the video..... WTF is up with the gates??? @_@

Healing - Where Being Too Good Can Be Bad

Image Source

I saw a blog post on this subject on Snarkcraft a while back called "Healing Myself Out of a Job," and found it very interesting.

Let's explore this.

In progression raiding, the goal of the raid is to down bosses as quickly and painlessly as possible, moving through the instance until all encounters are down and solid.

There are 3 basic roles in a raid: tank, DPS, and heals. We don't need to get down to the specifics of what kind of DPS, or pullers/CCers, etc., here because it's irrelevant. What is interesting, however, is how the individuals in these roles are affected as the raid gets better and better.

The tanks: Encounters generally call for a set number of tanks. For example, when my guild raids 25-man Ulduar, we bring 3 tanks. Sometimes we only need 1, sometimes only 2, and each encounter is tanked by the player that the raid leader deems most suited to it. In short, the number of tanks you bring generally stays the same as the raid gets better. You always need tanks. As individual players get better, they may be subbed in for other players who are not as effective or have less than optimal gear.

The DPS: When raid assignments go out, the amount of DPS is usually set at a certain number. High DPS is important, because it is required to bring bosses down. Simple enough, right? So as the raid gets better at a certain encounter, and the DPS is higher, what usually happens? The number of DPS brought to the raid either remains the same or increases to aid in a faster kill time.

I'm sure you're wondering where I'm going with this, so bear with me for a second...

The healers: When raids first begin an instance, such as 25 Ulduar, they bring x number of healers. For our purposes, we'll say 6. Some encounters at the beginning simply require that many heals to make sure things go smoothly as the raid learns the encounters.

However, here is where healing differs from tanking and DPS. As DPS goes up, tanks get better at encounters, and the healing begins to handle the damage more smoothly, what happens?

You bring less healers.

The healing load lightens as everyone improves, and so those 5th and 6th healers become overkill that could be replaced with another DPS to speed up kill time.

So essentially, healers heal themselves or their comrades out of a job as they get better.

I feel like that might be why the healing "department," if you will, of a raid can be so competitive and meter crazy. We know that the number of healers needed for an encounter will go down as the raid as a whole improves, even if we don't actively think about it. We know that the best healers will be the ones to stay in that role, barring some kind of composition requirement (which Blizzard seems to be actively trying to remove anyway).

Sometimes Numbah 5 and Numbah 6 have DPS offspecs that they can switch to and remain in the raid. However, not all guilds work this way, and many would prefer to bring their best healers and their best DPS over their best healers, their best DPS, and the extra healers that are not needed in healing anymore as offspec DPS.

And you're kinda screwed if your offspec is PVP.

It's a very intriguing process, at least to me.

If you're a tank, you know there are set slots for encounters, and your goal is to get better to be one of those set numbers.

If you're DPS, you want high DPS and good CC. Getting better helps the raid, and as the raid improves, you're likely to add TO your DPS lineup to speed up kills.

If you're a healer, you very well may not be needed once the raid gets better. Your goal is to be an amazing and efficient healer so that you can remain in the raid once spots start disappearing.

Any thoughts?

Thanks so much to Ambient for linking me the OP! I could not, for the life of me, seem to remember where I saw it.

Birthing Pains: PUGs and Why You Should Do Them

We all know them. Heck, maybe you're one of them! The people who outright refuse to PUG. If the run isn't all or mostly in-guild, they're out. Even if it means a chance at losing badges and rep on a daily quest.

We, as healers, are lucky in this respect. Sure, there are enrage timers that DPS needs to beat and mechanics they need to master. Sure, a badly geared tank who thinks "dps run out" means him too can be painful. But a good healer can make a bad PUG possible.

Now, before you jump down my throat and say that enrage timers are impossible to heal through, I am not talking about the worst of the worst of the worst of all PUG runs. I'm talking about your every day PUG run where most of the trouble comes from some of the players being undergeared or just plain BAD. I know firsthand you can't possibly hope to keep 25 people alive when Emalon enrages, and that's not the kind of thing I am talking about here.

The reason I'm on the soapbox this week is the Heroic VoA run I was in Monday night. It was right before the server shut down for maintenance, and someone was advertising a PUG. I can't do raiding more than 2 nights a week at the moment due to family issues, so I thought "Hey, it's late. My family is asleep, and I haven't done VoA this week. Lezzgo!"


First of all, we were delayed because several of the people leading the raid were PVPing outside and wouldn't look for people. When we finally got the 25, a big chunk of the DPS was too low. We downed Archavon with no problem, but Emalon looked to be trouble.

There was a person in the raid who was not only bad, but seemed to be purposefully doing things incorrectly .... and when he was removed for some reason or another, he proceeded to pull Emalon and take out 1/3 of the raid.

Oh fun!

Now, many people would have given up and left by now, but we grabbed another DPS and shuffled around some people into different roles, and tried again.

This time, the MT on Emalon kept running out during the AoE damage and moving the boss all over the place. We were using Vent at the time, and he was not responding to any messages anyone was sending, nor talking on Vent. This sounds like a fruitless effort, right?

Well, we gave it one last shot. I (#2 on Recount, which was being shown in raid chat far more than needed) was assigned to heal the MT (uggghhh...), and the #1 priest was put on the OT. DPS was still low, and the MT continued moving the boss around. Raid damage was nuts, and the other two priests and I were trying to cover both the raid healing and the tank healing because the other healers weren't doing much of anything. (I'm used to an awesome druid topping me on meters, and these were waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay below).

Emalon is almost down.... and he enrages.

And DESTROYS the MT.....

And then dies.

And then, after the spam of achievements, we get the notice: 15 minutes until server shutdown.

And damn, if that wasn't one of the most satisfying kills I'd been present for in a while.

So why would I want anyone else to share the pain of a PUG like this?

Because you LEARN how to react to the worst possible situations. The first attempt, I was very close to going out of mana, and had to figure out a way to keep people up just as much without blowing through my mana as fast, because the MT wasn't listening and the DPS were standing in places they shouldn't be.

Sure, in a guild run the chance of your having to heal an under-geared, possibly high-on-pot tank who doesn't pay attention is slim. Sure, your Raid Leader will probably either yell at or boot DPS who consistently stand in fires and gas and rocks and on top of each other during Chain Lightning. Sure, guild runs don't have 3 out of 6 healers who know what the heck they're doing (and one of the 3 was a shadow priest who switched specs to help).

But running in a PUG teaches you the skills you need to react when things really do go wrong in guild runs. As a healer, they can teach you:

• How to manage your mana better for massive amounts of damage.
• How to predict and prevent damage from sources that should not be taking damage for whatever reason.
• How to react quickly to a bad pull or a tank dropping.
• How to appreciate your guild for how awesome they are.

On that last point, I was getting ready for an Ulduar 25 run with my guild last night, and asked a fellow healer what to expect from Auriaya, because I had read the strategy but was absent for the previous raid. She told me that the healing was intense, but it was a fun fight.

When we downed her, I said to myself: That didn't seem that intense at all.

Why?? Because a night or two before I had been in that VoA run, working together with a couple other healers to cover TONS of raid damage and a whoooooole lot of stupid. It wasn't arrogance. It was a genuine realization of how amazing my guildies are and how lucky I am to be raiding with amazing tanks, amazing healers, and amazing DPS.

But if you still think this doesn't really sound like your cup of tea, there are ways that you can PUG and make it less painful. Because badges give you shinies, and sometimes you may have to PUG for those shinies.

• Start the PUG yourself.
• Always use Vent and require raiders to use it if they want loot.
• Be an adult: Talk respectfully. Don't curse or throw accusations. A key part of a successful PUG is mutual respect and trust - and don't forget a lighthearted atmosphere.
  
• Bring some cheap food or a feast you have lying around.
• Take the time to discuss strategy and address issues. If something goes wrong and the person repeatedly refuses to stop, address it on Vent in a calm tone, and if that person still keeps it up, you can usually remove him or her with the support of your raid.

Of course, there will always be PUGs that are just impossible to do, and you'll just have to quit. You may even get locked to the instance. But you'll never know until you give it a try, and you just might learn how to be a better healer in the process.