Comments on: Rolling Ragnar-O’s, Robin!

By: Jason

Jason — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 23:51:04 +0000

Man, that was a blast, pun intended. I’ll be around and ready as ever.

By: Goose Igaly

Goose Igaly — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 19:46:49 +0000

Sadly, LFR is a terrible place to learn to heal; low damage, people standing in stuff, and the afore mentioned rudeness.

That said, the answer to your question is yes and no. When I raided in ICC, we had a tank heal and I was raid heals. My job was simple: keep the raid alive. If the tank died, not my fault. Simple and harsh, but I had to rely on my other healer to do their job.

Today’s raids are different. I’m not sure what caused the change, other than all healing classes being “equalized” with their healing spells. In my 10-man raid we 3-heal most fights, and we are all “floaters,” so to say. Most weeks our makeup is me on my druid, a shaman, and either a priest or monk. The Shaman and I have been healing together for over a year and work well together. I take one tank that I am wholely responsible for and the shaman takes the other. We assist each other if required, but our tanks are our own. From their, we all three cover the raid.

Some fights only require two healers, so we both have our tank heals on the tank (Lifebloom for me), and we focus heavily on the raid. Between our combined heals on the tank, we mostly don’t have to worry about him. In fact, on Spirit Kings, We solo heal the first 1-minute as I use Heart of the Wild to contribute to raid DPS.

Long answer short, the old roles that we were accustomed to have mostly faded. You may still be assigned to cover the tank, but you will be fully expected to assist with raid heals. From a healer standpoint today, if it has a health bar, you heal it (I’m speaking 10 mans, here).

I do want to cover your discussion of the healing meters. I’m as bad as the next guy when it comes to loving my name being on top of Recount. However, there are a lot of things that go into be an excellent healer. Yes, sheer throughput has a lot to do with it, but just how much mana is one wasting trying to get that throughput? I’m not fussing at you here, just giving you some tools to analyze yourself; these are the tools I use to understand my own healing.

Take overhealing: druids tend to have a lot of overhealing due to our HoTs and other healers sniping heals out from under us. That said, if you are running out of mana a lot during fights (especially in lower gear levels), look at the amount of overhealing done. Overheals are essentially wasted mana. Rejuv, lifebloom, and Wildgrowth will always show here, but what about Regrowth and Healing Touch? Those two spells should have very little over heal.

Utilizing World of Logs to analyze spell uptimes will help you to understand areas to improve upon. Are you keeping your Lifebloom uptime high enough? Are you using your Clearclasting procs efficiently? Nature’s Swiftness if you have it?

Cannot Be Tamed made an excellent guide to evaluating Restoration Druid healing with World of Logs. http://www.cannotbetamed.com/2013/01/02/evaluating-resto-druids-with-world-of-logs-2/

Enjoy, good luck, and for BBB’s sake, don’t pay attention to people in LFR.

By: erroll

erroll — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 00:42:19 +0000

ty all. i assumed they were shooting the meters i cracked top 3 in a bad set. just spaming heals nobody needed.
I also occasionly healed icc. when needed.
i was always assigned the off tank and raid were my mana could take it.
that was in real raids before lfr. . when it was easier to pug if you knew your toon.
were they still assigned heals. and dps jobs too
Now i know it just Lfr and im not the idiot. i was accused of.
Im now convinced. lfr would go so much smother. if people just comunicated. and asigned. jobs. isntead of just belittling the noob :(
iv played since vanilla. and im still frequently the noob.
i wonder how many potintial good players these ass holes have driven from.
NOOB should never be an insult. They should be comunicated with. So they can enjoy a great game.
hope too see you all on sunday. The fun runs highlite of my game atm :)

By: Ngita

Ngita — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 22:36:34 +0000

Real raids have dedicated heals to a degree, in our 10 man on heavy tank damage we will assign a tank. In LFR just look for where looks weak, hint 90% of lfr healers will raid heal because it looks better on the meters,
Knowing where the damage is likely to happen helps as well.

By: Theodoxus

Theodoxus — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 15:05:13 +0000

I’ve fallen in love with Disc healing (yeah, I know, nerf inc!) – but being able to full on DPS while keeping both tanks and raid healed with smart heals… awesome! I also heal with my druid and pretty much exactly as Rauxis says.

LFR healing is pretty much a joke. Given the number of times I’ve been in raids where only 3 people are actually healing (offline, dead, queued as healer for speed, but dps’d for fun, etc) and we still manage to win with no problems? Yeah, LFR damage is WAY undertuned currently. Kinda nice, kinda boring… if you’re into that kind of thing.

By: Jake

Jake — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:05:06 +0000

I’d be interested in coming. What do I have to do to be able to come?

By: Beshara

Beshara — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 10:18:00 +0000

Last time I healed in a raid it was more of a priority system. In 10 man, One healer focuses on this tank, one healer focuses on off tank, one healer focuses on the raid. But those roles weren’t set in stone. If the off tank wasn’t taking much damage, that healer would switch and help heal whoever was taking more damage. If the raid was doing fine but the main tank was taking a large amount of damage, the raid healer would help heal the main tank. It really depended on the fight and the healers you are playing with. In LFR, there is no system. I focus on tanks, but if I switch to the raid and the tanks don’t dip too low, I’ll stay on raid until the tanks need me again. I don’t expect any communication when I go into LFR like I expect from a planned 10 or 25 man group.

By: Minos

Minos — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 05:32:46 +0000

Ragnar-Os: By Fiber Be Purged!

By: Rauxis

Rauxis — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 04:52:38 +0000

LFR in my experience has no dedicated heals. I usually try to keep the tanks up, and only if I notice they stay alive without problems I switch to raid heals. Still my LB will always tick on a tank.

Beyond this observation, my main impression is – there is almost always someone who wants to derail other people, more often than not for no real reason. As a healer – or also as a tank – grow a thick skin.

sorry for bad news :(

As for Sunday – I hope we can get the branch as well, I have now the “Delegation” quest

Rauxis, chosen of CAT

By: Matty

Matty — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 02:27:02 +0000

I am so glad you got that shot of the microwave oven. AWESOME! Dang, I’m still on my self-appointed break. I know I’m going to be leaning up against the glass 4PM Pacific Time whimpering!