Hey guys, Little Miss Squish here. This week my internet has been sucky so I haven’t been able to play any MMOs long enough to review them. Instead, I’m going to tell you how to basically heal parties or raids, how I heal, and different methods/playing styles for healing. So, grab your bandages and your mana potions, we'll start with the basics and work our way up!
In any party, there are three positions: Tank, DPS, and Heal. Tank is there to take damage and hold aggro on whatever monster you’re fighting. If your fight requires multiple tanks or you have a second one, there will be a Main Tank and Off-Tank. Off tank does basically what a Main Tank does but usually allows the Main Tank to draw more aggro. DPS (Damage Per Second) is, well, just as it sounds, people who deal damage to the boss and try not to draw aggro themselves. Healers, of course, heal the group and should try ESPECIALLY hard not to draw aggro. Why “especially” hard? Because healing spells draw a LOT of aggro very easily and it’s not unusual for healers to pull enough aggro away from the tank to cause the boss to attack them every now and then. So, as a healer, it’s particularly important that you pay attention to your threat level because if you get hit, odds are, you’re going down fast, which will more than likely cause a wipe for your party. However, if you have to choose between you and your tank, choose yourself, ‘cause you’re a healer and it’s important that YOU stay alive to potentially resurrect people if you have an in-combat resurrection spell and you’re more likely to die sooner than the tank, which can potentially give you time to heal both of you. Some games give you a spell that can heal you and one target party member—use that if you have a situation when you need to heal both yourself and your tank.
So, when keeping your party alive, you have a few options:
1) Single-target skills, usually focusing on the Main Tank or someone who’s been hit particularly hard.
2) Group or Area of Effect skills, which can be particularly effective if the boss pulls out an AoE attack
3) Heal over Time skills, which are good for minor amounts of damage
4) Damage Mitigation, which can be useful or detrimental and I’ll explain why when we get to it.
So, let’s look at them, case-by-case, and the pros and cons for each.
1. Single-target skills
These are, of course, any healer’s basic skills and can range from tiny heals to large heals that can fill your entire team member’s health. There will always be a “quick” heal, which heals a small-to-decent amount of health REALLY quickly at the cost of a LOT of mana if used repetitively. The best time to use this are for emergencies and to stabilize someone’s health. Most of the larger heals have a bit of a casting time, but to make up for that, they tend to cost less mana. If there are any abilities that give a shortened cast time, such as spell haste or talents/passives/etc, grab them ‘cause odds are, you’ll be using these types of heals a LOT. I find it’s best to use large heals specifically for the tank or any party member who’s been hit hard but isn’t in danger of immediately dying. The only downside to using the cast-time spells is that while you’re healing the tank and keeping your meat shield strong, one of your DPSers might get pummeled, but, if you see the tank is not in danger of dying, break your cast and use a quick heal on your poor sap of a DPSer. Notice how I said “if you’re tank’s not in danger of dying”. If you have to choose between the tank or the DPSer, choose the tank to heal. ‘Cause if they die, you might as well go cut off your balls and sell them for money ‘cause you’ll be dead in a few seconds anyway.
2. Group or AoE Skills
All healers have access to at least ONE AoE healing skill and if you’re lucky, you’ll be able to have at least two or three in your repertoire. I, personally, only started getting into group healing skills recently and, to be honest, learning how and when to use them was tricky. For me, I had to learn which group heal spells were instant-cast, which had channel times or casting times, and learn to use them when. It’s mostly a judgment call, to be honest. Some group heals have a better range or affect more people and it’ll depend on the situation as to which you’ll use when as they all have their pros and cons. The one MAJOR con to group healing spells is that they guzzle more mana than you do cum. If you don’t have a good mana pool and regen stat or ability, try to keep them to a minimum or for drastic situations only because you can piss your mana away EASILY with group heals, as I have done before. I like to use this general rule of thumb when it comes to group heals:
If your group is below roughly a third of their health, use an insta-cast heal.
If you’ve used the insta-cast and they’re still getting hammered, pull out a channeled healing skill.
If they’re mostly at roughly 50% and you can afford the cast time, pull out a cast-time heal skill.
Since most of your party members will have varying amounts of health, one or two of these group heals may be sufficient for, say, your cloth wearers. If you have a small party and one or two group healing spells have covered most of the health of most of your party, I say it’s alright to slap some HoT’s on your smaller-health-based party members (usually cloth) and do any single-target heals you might need for the rest of the party. Getting used to these will take some practice and expect occasional deaths when learning how to use them effectively. Just don’t be discouraged!
3. Heal over Time (HoTs) Skills
I, personally, LOVE to use HoTs. I use them if my party members have received tiny amounts of damage that don’t warrant a full-blown single-target heal. Plus they help to effectively keep damage from occurring by continually healing your party member for a few more seconds after they’re fully healed. I also use them on the tank to keep them from being too heavily damaged if someone else is dying because HoTs are generally insta-cast and cost little mana, making it a very efficient heal. The only downside is that they don’t usually heal much, often substantially little. They’re more like Band-Aids than stitches and medical wraps; they’re great for boo-boos but don’t expect them to repair serious damage. I usually put them in combination with damage mitigation skills, which I’ll discuss next, because they tend to be a make-or-break skill for healers.
4. Damage Mitigation
These are generally your damage-absorbing skills, like shields. I used to be the type of healer to put on a shield on everything and everyone at any time because I thought it took a lot of the work out for me. I also liked getting shields in WoW particularly because one of the Discipline Priest’s talents reflected 45% of the damage back at the attacker, when the talent was maxed out. To be honest, some situations call for it, but generally, it’s unnecessary.
Here are times when shields are great to use:
1) When someone’s being attacked and near-dying. It lets them and other healers know that you’re going to be healing them right away so that other healers can heal someone else and that the person you’ve shielded doesn’t take additional damage. If they’re REALLY close to dying, put up a shield and IMMEDIATELY follow with a quick heal to stabilize them, then throw large heals until they’re healthy again.
2) If a DPS or healer has pulled aggro away from the tank. Absorbing damage lowers a person’s threat and the shields will prevent a certain portion of damage from being taken so that they don’t insta-die if the monster hits them. It might not work COMPLETELY for cloth wearers since they’re squishier than average, but it can help.
3) If shielding someone provides benefits either to them or to you, which usually occur through passives or talents. For Discipline Priests in WoW, for example, the Borrowed Time talent (50 points) gives you 25% spell haste for your next spell for roughly 10 seconds, which drastically reduces a large heal’s cast time, making it an effective combo for low-health healing.
Here’s when NOT to use shields:
1) If your target uses rage/melee attack threat/etc as its energy source. Shielding interferes with that so you’re basically blocking them from using skills, which is, of course, stupid.
2) For “no reason at all”. (And yes, I’ve heard from some healers who pop shields for the sake of popping shields.) It wastes your precious mana so cut that shit out immediately if you do this. ‘Nough said.
3) RIGHT at the beginning of a fight, before your tank has drawn enough aggro. Shields cause a HUGE amount of threat. I can’t tell you how often I’ve popped a shield after the tank charged at something and the monster went to attack me right after I did so. If you’re going to shield the tank, do so BEFORE they charge at the monster and only if it doesn’t cause issue with their energy source (see rule two). If you need to shield someone, make sure it’s AFTER the tank has drawn sufficient aggro.
So, now that I’ve covered skills and such, I’ll let you know how I heal for a group.
My primary target will be the tank, because if a DPS is drawing aggro, then they should be able to handle a monster when they draw it to them and it’s their fault if they die. (I know it sounds harsh, but it’s true. I can give a long list of examples of times when a DPS has out-aggro’d the tank because they don’t pay attention to/care about their threat and expects ME to heal them ‘cause I’m a healer. I’ve had times where I’ve healed ONE DPS more than the ENTIRE party during a fight, on almost a near-constant basis.) I will cast a HoT spell first before the tank goes into the fight and/or a shield if the boss hits hard right out of the gate. I try to keep an HoT on the tank at ALL times so that if I need to heal others, the tank is covered for some small damage. I don’t try to keep them at full 100% health all the time, ‘cause I’ll just drain my mana doing so. If the HoT doesn’t keep them at near-full health, I’ll wait until roughly ¾ of their health is full and then I’ll cast a large heal skill and then rinse and repeat.
If DPSers are getting aggro or damage, I’ll do a shield/HoT combo and any single-target heals if they’ve taken sufficient damage, usually the large heal. I’ll use a quick heal first if they’re in danger of dying but I tend to stick to the shield/HoT combo for DPSers (and healers, if they incur damage).
If my group has been damaged across the board, I’ll follow the rule of thumb for group healing that I posted above.
“But LMS!” You might be saying. “How do I keep my mana going for long fights like that? Surely I’ll be drained within the first few minutes and will have to cry out “Out Of Mana (OOM)!” Well, there are four methods that I use to keep my mana regen strong and thriving.
1) Grab any talents/skills/passives/etc that reduce mana costs of healing spells and/or increase efficiency. While most of the time the reduction/increase in cost or efficiency respectively is in the single-digit percentile, it adds up. You don’t have to grab ALL of these talents/passives/what-have-you’s, but at least the ones you know you’ll be using a LOT. You’ll have to experiment with your skills and possibly redo your talents accordingly after you figure out what you use most.
2) Stack up on whatever stat gives you mana regen (Spirit in WoW, I know some games use Wisdom, etc.). This should be an obvious thing to point out, but you’d be surprised just how MUCH stacking you’d need. You might need to look up game-specifics to see how much of this stat you’ll need (I know I’ve read that on WoW, after X number of points of Spirit, it’s better to stack Intellect for mana regen) but in a lot of cases, the more the better!
3) Sit down in between healing. Almost all the time sitting down restores your mana and health faster. If you’re starting to get low in mana, sit down in between each skill you cast, and your mana will be back faster than if you just waited around.
4) Use any mana-regenerating skills you have. I know in WoW there are abilities such as the Shadowfiend (Priest) and Innervate (Druid) that allow for mana restoration and usually have a serious cooldown. Use them if you’re getting low on mana but never when you’re above, say, 50% of your mana.
Well, I hope this helps some of you guys with healing in your parties. Most of this information can be applied to raids or larger parties but definitely get your practice on smaller parties and work your way up to more serious healing situations. And if you’re new to an instance or healing, don’t be afraid to ask questions or ask for another healer to go with your party. It’s better for there to be a more experienced healer and you as an off-healer than for your party to expect you know what you’re doing and potentially cause a wipe. It’s also good to let your party know you’re new to healing or this particular instance because they can provide you with tips and guidance! :D I have a page called "WoW Healer Guides" up at the top, for those looking for more information and guides. The first section is on general healing and a lot of people can benefit from it, WoW players and non-players alike. The Priest-specific guides are very WoW-specific, but they are still good to read if you're not sure. (I'll add Druid, Shaman, and Paladin ones when I can!)
As always, this is LMS, here for all your healing needs. Have a question, comment, or suggestion? Want to suggest a game for me to review or a topic to discuss? Drop a comment here or post on the wall on Facebook! Next week, I’ll be reviewing Tales of Pirates, one of the first MMOs I played! :D
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