Pickup raid healing on world bosses

[Fvert]

I've got a lvl 90 Holy priest that I will list as healer and dps for a
celestial and Ordos weekly in the raid tab of the social window. [As
background I haven't done any heroics or instance raids on him but did
some instances while leveling. I say that to say I have a decent concept
of group healing but not a lot of practice.] Usually these groups are
pretty much form-get-everyone-there-buff-kill and move on. Still I would
like to do proper healing. I have and use Healbot but it is probably not
optimized.


Here are some issues/questions:

AOE healing: I try to have 1 available when the burst damage comes from
a boss but if I have more is there a rule of thumb for putting it down
for the melee at the boss or further out for the ranged?

Tank Healing: I try to keep the heals up on a tank that bounce between
players and prioritize healing a tank that takes damage but as far as I
can tell there are not healers dedicated to the tanks so I never know if
we have too many healers focused on that or not enough. Am I missing
something?

DPS Healing: I prioritize the tanks and throw out AOE heals when burst
damage comes. If individual dpsers need heals past that I throw out what
I can. The heals I use have a cast time though and it seems like by the
time my heal is actually cast another healers has taken care of them and
they are full or they are dead. I could use my heals that bounce among
players but then they might not be available for the tanks. Tips and
ideas would be appreciated.




Brian

[Lewis]

Post by Fvert
I've got a lvl 90 Holy priest that I will list as healer and dps for a
celestial and Ordos weekly in the raid tab of the social window. [As
background I haven't done any heroics or instance raids on him but did
some instances while leveling. I say that to say I have a decent concept
of group healing but not a lot of practice.] Usually these groups are
pretty much form-get-everyone-there-buff-kill and move on. Still I would
like to do proper healing. I have and use Healbot but it is probably not
optimized.

I'm trying to figure out the Monk healing. It is my first healer in 9
years, so there's a bit of a curve.

Post by Fvert
AOE healing: I try to have 1 available when the burst damage comes from
a boss but if I have more is there a rule of thumb for putting it down
for the melee at the boss or further out for the ranged?

And for monks, I haven't figured out AOE/group healing at all.

Post by Fvert
Tank Healing: I try to keep the heals up on a tank that bounce between
players and prioritize healing a tank that takes damage but as far as I
can tell there are not healers dedicated to the tanks so I never know if
we have too many healers focused on that or not enough. Am I missing
something?

In LFR? Not really, it's a clusterfuck.

Post by Fvert
DPS Healing: I prioritize the tanks and throw out AOE heals when burst
damage comes. If individual dpsers need heals past that I throw out what
I can. The heals I use have a cast time though and it seems like by the
time my heal is actually cast another healers has taken care of them and
they are full or they are dead. I could use my heals that bounce among
players but then they might not be available for the tanks. Tips and
ideas would be appreciated.

One thing that helps me with healbot is to disable the party frame for
raid groups and just rely on healbot's own little green rectangles.

I assume it's default choices for left/right/middle are the best ones,
and I throw in a ctrl-click or shift click on occasions (to get to
cocoon, for example, or detox).

Just popped the Monk from 60 to 90, so I *really* have no clue what to
do.

[Catriona R]

Post by Fvert
I've got a lvl 90 Holy priest that I will list as healer and dps for a
celestial and Ordos weekly in the raid tab of the social window. [As
background I haven't done any heroics or instance raids on him but did
some instances while leveling. I say that to say I have a decent concept
of group healing but not a lot of practice.] Usually these groups are
pretty much form-get-everyone-there-buff-kill and move on. Still I would
like to do proper healing. I have and use Healbot but it is probably not
optimized.

On worldboss fights there's no organisation or tactics whatsoever,
just spam your aoe heals seems the main route people take lol.
Personally I use my Disc spec and just dps the boss; Atonement does
plenty healing and doesn't get me pvp flagged, unlike direct heals
(there's always one flagged idiot that gets half the healers flagged
too), and it's fun seeing how my dps compares with other people, while
still doing a decent amount of healing. I don't do that in LFR (except
some bosses where there's little healing needed and it seems more
effective to dps!), as I prefer to heal properly there, but
worldbosses are just free for all really. Only "hard" one there's been
is Oondasta, and healing was utterly useless on him because he
oneshots everyone!

Post by Fvert
AOE healing: I try to have 1 available when the burst damage comes from
a boss but if I have more is there a rule of thumb for putting it down
for the melee at the boss or further out for the ranged?

For Ordos, put it on melee, not sure what he does that hits like a
truck, but my alliance rogue can't melee him, as I can't survive with
no heals (Horde = 95% pop on my server, I can get credit for kills on
Alliance since they made it tap to all, but there's never a friendly
healer!). Ranged is fine, only minimal damage coming in aside from the
occasional blowups, and smart heals will hit those enough anyway.

Celestials, varies with each one, all have different abilities,
generally just put it on wherever there's most players, so probably
melee anyway. On Chi-ji it's handy to drop it on the safe area when he
powers up that big aoe; you still take a far bit of dmg in there even
with the reduction and anyone outside it will die regardless.

Post by Fvert
Tank Healing: I try to keep the heals up on a tank that bounce between
players and prioritize healing a tank that takes damage but as far as I
can tell there are not healers dedicated to the tanks so I never know if
we have too many healers focused on that or not enough. Am I missing
something?

It's a worldboss, there's no organisation :-) For these types of
raids, just do your best and don't worry too much, generally tanks
will outgear it enough to survive if people are a bit sloppy anyway;
check their healthpool before starting, if it's in the range of 1
million, you'll have reaction time if they start taking dmg. If it's
about 500k, then keep a closer eye on them, maybe spam efficient heals
on them just in case.

Post by Fvert
DPS Healing: I prioritize the tanks and throw out AOE heals when burst
damage comes. If individual dpsers need heals past that I throw out what
I can. The heals I use have a cast time though and it seems like by the
time my heal is actually cast another healers has taken care of them and
they are full or they are dead. I could use my heals that bounce among
players but then they might not be available for the tanks. Tips and
ideas would be appreciated.

Cascade is your best friend as a holy priest in a large raid, whenever
more than a few have taken a little dmg, I set it off and that tops
everyone off. Don't even bother with single target heals on anyone
other than the tank, you will be sniped by other healers (you *might*
manage to get a Flash Heal off, but beware of using that unless you
have good regen, it's a bit of a mana hog). No, it's not the "right"
way to heal, but it's how it works in these groups ;-)

Hit Circle on cd, PoM the tank on cd, Cascade whenever a fair number
have taken dmg, maybe a Renew on the tank/anyone else taking dmg,
Prayer of Healing if a whole group has taken a bigger chunk of dmg,
Divine Hymn if everyone's taking BIG dmg. May as well forget Heal and
Greater Heal even exist lol, cast times are too slow to beat other
healers to it, unless the tank is taking sustained dmg at the time.

I'm not so keen on this healing style, having healed since Burning
Crusade when it was a lot more about thinking and controlling
overheal, rather than just spamming smart aoes, but maybe this will
improve in WoD - today's healing* requires no thinking, really, other
than not burning the big cds till they're needed. It's the only way to
do it without looking really bad though, as you never get to do any
healing when everyone else's spamming beats your carefully cast heals!

*My experience of today's healing is limited to worldbosses and LFR;
perhaps it's better in organised groups at higher difficulty levels!

[Peter T.]

Post by Catriona R
today's healing* requires no thinking,

Thats why even *I* can heal in flex. ;)

When I started feeling safe with my healing I realized I had too much
spirit (17.8k unbuffed). I started reforging it down to crit and haste
on my shammy. I still dont oom (atm 11.9k spirit unbuffed) and my hps
has gone straight upwards with something like 20-30%. Healing with a
shammy is braindead *and* fun as there is almost no aspect of any kind
of micro management at flex level which I heal at now. I'm looking for
my first normal raid healing which I guess is just around the corner. :)

[Peter T.]

Post by Fvert
Tank Healing: I try to keep the heals up on a tank that bounce between
players and prioritize healing a tank that takes damage but as far as I
can tell there are not healers dedicated to the tanks so I never know if
we have too many healers focused on that or not enough. Am I missing
something?

I recently started my first real healer (shammy). When I do LFR or flex
with another shammy healer I whisper him/her to keep up Earth Shield and
Riptide on the other tank. So I have almost always have one tank
targeted and I just spam aoe chain heals which jumps from the tank to
four other players. LFRs are so easy to heal so I also dps now and
then. I really dont care about overhealing in LFRs. :)
World bosses is the same. Just be sure to keep the tanks alive, throw
some aoe heals on tanks or melees now and then, heal up a dps if low on
hp and everything should be fine. 5-8 other healers in that raid
usually follows the same healing strategy.
Save your big badaboom healing spells for special circumstances like
Swelling Pride on Sha of Pride, last phase on Galakras etc..

Post by Fvert
DPS Healing: I prioritize the tanks and throw out AOE heals when burst
damage comes. If individual dpsers need heals past that I throw out what
I can. The heals I use have a cast time though and it seems like by the
time my heal is actually cast another healers has taken care of them and
they are full or they are dead.

Dont worry about casting useless heals. Sometimes your heals hits the
target first too. If you see your target gets healed up while youre
casting a heal be sure to cancel your heal so you dont waste mana. The
cast bar doesnt ruin the 5 sec rule if you stop it before you actually
throw your heal == a little extra mana regen (if you feel youre running
low).

My advice. Do loads of LFRs so you get the feeling of your priest
healing. There are usually at least 2 experienced healers in a LFR raid
that just farms runes/titans/whatever for the legendary cloak so the
overall healing wont fail anyway. So dont worry about your eventually
low healing. You just need to get the grip on your char's abilities. :)