Healing Pro Tips (How to Heal 201)

[vulturevirtue]

I have a rank 28 shaman that I play with a regular group, I'm a (from what my guildies tell me) one of the best healers that they've played with. I wish I could fraps some of the stuff I'm going to mention, but my computer's performance won't allow it. When I get an opportunity later, I will post some screen shots.

Most of the tips I have are for scenario pvp healing, but many of them apply to healing in keep sieges or even in PvE.

Healing 201
I'm going to assume that those reading these tips have installed squared, understand about how to build their character, and how to utilize their mastery points and tactics.

Hots, health, and which heal to use:
Generally speaking, there are two relationships which determine what heal you need to use, mitigation capability of the target and the amount of health they have (current/max health). For example, non tanks and those wearing light armor and lower have less mitigation available. This means that if they are under focus fire of at least 1 target, you only have time to put GFI and maybe the shield before you need to wind up the big heal. Tanks (and those wearing medium armor if health > 50%) on the other hand can wait that extra global cooldown (GCD) so that you can have the most healing available on the single target.

On squishy targets, once their health drops below 50%, hots will NOT save them, only landing a big heal/shield combo will get that back into the comfort zone.

If you are not winding up your big heal already by the time your heal target drops below 50%, they will likely die. Do not be stingy with BBG or the shield.

Multi target healing:
For all intents and purposes, understand that Gather Round, our aoe group heal is extremely powerful. There are 3 fantastic times to use this heal. If anytime you pop your head out in LOS of the enemies RDPS and you get hit, get back out of LOS and start spamming GR. If you know that someone in your group is going to need a decent amount of healing, but you don't know specifically who, start casting gather round and if you time it right, the moment that someone takes damage, they will be topped off and you can then start to focus heal. Lastly, if someone is in need of a heal, but after clicking on them you realize you're not sure where they are, you can try to get 1 GR off before moving to properly focus heal them. If they're not within range of that heal, you're not likely to be able to save them anyways.

I would say that GR is also that spell that benefits the most from the Rank 2 Focused Mind morale. With a full action bar, you can nearly run the duration of focused mind and spam GR. This can heal an enormous amount of damage, and is nearly as good as spamming BBG on a single target without hots for your entire group. One of my favorite moves on Tor Anroc is to sit only halfway up the hill at where the bauble spawns on Destruction side, and use this combo to keep up my group heavy AOE or even some focus fire. Once this runs out of course, be ready to steal some action points (should be easy with 5 gork built up) and focus anyone that needs attention.

>>>There is one other clutch move I like to use GR for, which is healing people who you've ressed. It takes about as long for someone to click the res button and be ressed after you've cast your res to cast GR. This means once you've ressed someone, immediately casting this (barring that someone else doesn't need the healing that second) 80-90% will allow GR to land immediately after they come back to life and give you more of an opportunity to keep them alive.

Use Gather Round anytime you can't see your target immediately and to generally help keep group members > 75%, once they drop below that, they will need more focus healing.

Healing under duress:
Perhaps one of the most difficult situations to be in is when you are the one taking damage but you still need to keep your group/wb up. In general here is the order you want to follow to keep up with the damage: GFI>DETAUNT>SHIELD>EQB>DSU. You need to get some healing going immediately, so using GFI will help with that perhaps the best. You could switch around with using the shield, but using the shield after the detaunt will make it more effective. Detaunt is immensely powerful, so you must remember to use it. After that, get your other hots rolling on yourself, since you won't be able to keep yourself up while getting hit with anything else. If you are able to, get 3 gork (without hitting your detaunted target) and enjoy the extra toughness from DSU. Mitigation with shield and detaunt will give you the most positive outcome.

The other tough situation to deal with is running low/out of AP. Best place to be here is to be proactive and try not to get there. Remeber anytime you have 5 gork to use it on instant cast AP steal. If you have a moment to regen AP or there's a zealot AP ritual down or you have the black orc ap regen buff, make the most out of it.

The best advice I can give to keeping damage on yourself low is to not get focused in the first place. Anyone migrating from wow that's ever played against a druid healer in 2v2, just remember to channel your inner druid, abuse LOS mechanics to get hit as little as possible. I like to call this method "Hiding behind a rock." Oddly enough, if someone is having a hard time killing you and you're making it difficult enough to even be hit, they'll probably go after someone else.

Mitigation is key to keep yourself alive while be attacked, run for your life (literally) out of LOS, out of range, etc. after using detaunt/shield/instant casts.

Healping the team get kills:
I personally don't do much damage in scenarios (less than 5K damage on 90% of scenarios). However, there are some key moves you can make to help turn those "Dammit almost got him" to "Smoked that ." Adding your two dots on a focus target is a big help, using your channeled nuke or the regular nuke can help as well, if there is literally 0 more healing to be done. I am a big fan of using the Nuthin' But Da WAAAGH! tactic when I'm coordinating with a dps player over vent. People have said this tactic is currently broken, but testing it with my own guildies, they have said it works and they love the buff. Your mileage may vary. Giving this to a witch elf or other high dps player at a crucial moment can easily give your teammates significantly more kills.

Shaman knockback currently is mostly an exercise in laughing and hoping that your crazy knockback does something useful, it's best to leave the knockbacks to other players rather than gamble throwing yourself in the lava. However, if there's more than you healing, don't be shy to use it to keep Order from getting the objective, it can help decide the direction of the game. Your knock back is also extremely useful in negating fall damage. You take 0 fall damage if you are knocked back and would other wise take damage. This includes the self knockback component of EEEK! You can also use it while already falling, just hit your knockback and you won't die.

Getting the most out of your healing:
Putting hots on people before they take damage can signifcantly help your healing. These type of people include MDPS, tanks, sorceresses, and objective carriers. If you are able to put a hot on someone before they take any damage, they receive nearly instant healing when they actually do take damage and give you more reaction time to give them focus healing. For example, I will typically get DSU and EQB running on the first person to get on the Tor Anroc hill. Another example is giving healing to a WE right as they manuver around the side to kill a healer or pre hotting and shielding a SH about to run up for create some AOE havoc.

Another great move is to start casting a BBG on someone you know will likely take a lot of damage before they even do (precasting for the pros). And since at that stage you'll likely have full action, you can let that heal land without reservation. Healing with a few other healers will allow you to get further buffs/debuffs up. Notice there's hots from other healers running on the target? Get a couple gork and get the DSU toughness buff on them. Debuff those hurting your target, steal their action points, knock them back.

Be extremly smart and try to predict where damage will occur, pre hots and precasting can go an extremely long way to keeping someone alive under massive focus fire.

Parting Thoughts
I know that's a lot of text to read through, but I hope that anyone reading it can glean some information about healing they didn't know before. Please please please, if you have your own tips to add, please post them and if I really like them, I'll add them in and credit you.

Lastly, I know I am posting this on the advent of the 1.05 patch, but many of these tips will still apply. I will also hopefully be able to expand on this guide with tips for when you're running 2 healers. Anyways, enjoy it and now for me to go back to WAAAGH!!

[Covfam]

Just curious if your a pro why are you lvl 28?

I mean wouldnt a pro be someone who is rank 80 lv 40 with all the gear and a few years under his belt? not a player who is lvl 28 7nd has been playing the game live for 2 months max?

Just curious is all

[vulturevirtue]

Never said I was pro, just that I'm a fairly good healer.

[VoodooVillage]

I agree the beginning sounded quite pretentious. . Actually very.......... It almost sounded like he would charge for the information

Anyway, by no means do I think his level determines a players skill. I have seen to many bad high lvl. players and many very good low lvl ones. Having played other mmos in the past, makes understanding a good healer a lot easier.

After that bad intro I was quite surprised to read a pretty good post. I think this will be of good help for players who are not that experienced in the healing careers.
I like the hands on approach, and the detailed description on how to handle different situations.
Nothing greatly new, but a good guide for new players. I think its at least a different, easy to understand way to help players understand how to heal in this game.

back to oblivion

[Leez]

Originally Posted by Covfam

Just curious if your a pro why are you lvl 28?

I mean wouldnt a pro be someone who is rank 80 lv 40 with all the gear and a few years under his belt? not a player who is lvl 28 7nd has been playing the game live for 2 months max?

Just curious is all

Well, everthing thing here should have been learned by level 10, except the use of specific abilities which you should have learn the use of pretty much with the first button press. This is another one of the "common sense" threads created from tooltips. The real amazing part is people getting to R40 and not knowing these things.

[Rakaija]

Originally Posted by VoodooVillage

I agree the beginning sounded quite pretentious. . Actually very.......... It almost sounded like he would charge for the information

Anyway, by no means do I think his level determines a players skill. I have seen to many bad high lvl. players and many very good low lvl ones. Having played other mmos in the past, makes understanding a good healer a lot easier.

After that bad intro I was quite surprised to read a pretty good post. I think this will be of good help for players who are not that experienced in the healing careers.
I like the hands on approach, and the detailed description on how to handle different situations.
Nothing greatly new, but a good guide for new players. I think its at least a different, easy to understand way to help players understand how to heal in this game.

back to oblivion

Well, being a fantastic healer tends to give you quite the ego. I know by experience. :P

But all of these tips, I was surprised to find, was on my common mindset every time I'm on my 29 Shaman. Looks like im doing something right! :P

Good guide. But hide the ego! P:

[vulturevirtue]

Nerfed the intro.

[DivineRight]

Funny how everyone who has posted has made comments about how this is just common sense or taken pot shots at how they percieve the OP as rather cocky yet in most of the scenarios that I play in, people really suck at healing in general.

If like what one poster said "everything here should be learned by lvl 10" then please explain why there are so many crappy healers out there? I mean, it is possible that all the best Shaman healers have posted responses here but I doubt it.

I agree though, that this is probably more healing tips 101 because it lacks strategies and tactics for T4 or keep assaults or defense or even how to synergize healing with other healer classes.

[Rakaija]

Originally Posted by DivineRight

Funny how everyone who has posted has made comments about how this is just common sense or taken pot shots at how they percieve the OP as rather cocky yet in most of the scenarios that I play in, people really suck at healing in general.

If like what one poster said "everything here should be learned by lvl 10" then please explain why there are so many crappy healers out there? I mean, it is possible that all the best Shaman healers have posted responses here but I doubt it.

I agree though, that this is probably more healing tips 101 because it lacks strategies and tactics for T4 or keep assaults or defense or even how to synergize healing with other healer classes.

Those are more complex than just basic healing. I remember back in WoW, when I didn't play a healing class, how complex the healing strategies were to keep people from dying. And now I kinda understand it.

Wasted healing, overhealing, people that are necessary dying; these are all things basic healing doesnt begin to cover. But those are the kind of things that must be taught from experience and through experience, rather than in paragraphs on a forum, in my opinion.

[Siske]

It is a good guide, many new players to MMOs or healing in general should read it. Yes many things are well known amongst healers, that doesn't make what he sayd wrong tho. I stoped using any addons at all currently, because I like to stare at battelfield instead of looking at 12 squares. It gives me a better view of battle flow, who is about to get attacked, who is focus fired etc. Also increases my survability a lot since I am more aware of what's going on, when to pull back, when to advance, and personally, am loving the new feeling, is more immersive in the game universe :>

-Muppets Show

[batedbreath]

Originally Posted by DivineRight

Funny how everyone who has posted has made comments about how this is just common sense or taken pot shots at how they percieve the OP as rather cocky yet in most of the scenarios that I play in, people really suck at healing in general.

If like what one poster said "everything here should be learned by lvl 10" then please explain why there are so many crappy healers out there? I mean, it is possible that all the best Shaman healers have posted responses here but I doubt it.

I agree though, that this is probably more healing tips 101 because it lacks strategies and tactics for T4 or keep assaults or defense or even how to synergize healing with other healer classes.

I think it's because in general, when somebody starts a conversation or discussion with "I'm one of the best xyz, so you should listen to me", people are a bit put off by that sort of attitude, especially coming from somebody who, based on their level of experience, might not be in a position to make such statements.

To the OP, nice summary. In your paragraph on multi-target healing though, the phrase is "for all intents and purposes" not "for all intensive purposes". Sorry, pet peeve of mine.

[Leez]

Originally Posted by batedbreath

I think it's because in general, when somebody starts a conversation or discussion with "I'm one of the best xyz, so you should listen to me", people are a bit put off by that sort of attitude, especially coming from somebody who, based on their level of experience, might not be in a position to make such statements.

Not quite what I meant by "learned by level 10", what the OP describes is the basics, hence the "tooltip" comment I made. These are fundamentals that all healers worth the description "okay" learn very early as a healer, you can find the same thread in every RPGMMO in every class forum evenutally, soon enough we'll have ones fro PvE and others for PvP for WAR. It's no different then the basics of gearing and spec'ng properly.

As to people that suck beyond all suck despite the contents being common sense, well, common sense isn't common, some people just phone it in, some never care enough about being better and just play without thinking about improving their preformance.

[batedbreath]

Originally Posted by Leez

Not quite what I meant by "learned by level 10", what the OP describes is the basics, hence the "tooltip" comment I made. These are fundamentals that all healers worth the description "okay" learn very early as a healer, you can find the same thread in every RPGMMO in every class forum evenutally, soon enough we'll have ones fro PvE and others for PvP for WAR. It's no different then the basics of gearing and spec'ng properly.

As to people that suck beyond all suck despite the contents being common sense, well, common sense isn't common, some people just phone it in, some never care enough about being better and just play without thinking about improving their preformance.

Fair enough. I wasn't referring to your comment with my statement. But I do agree that the guide is pretty basic, but I try to be nice on the forums as much as I can.

I think a lot of people don't really know where to begin when thinking about improving their performance in the game. Therefore, I think any information, regardless of how seemingly basic it may appear to seasoned professionals like yourself, is a good thing.

That said, I'm of the opinion that people can play how they like. I don't presume to know what other people are hoping to get out of their game experience. I'm not really happy when I'm stuck in a scenario with people that don't seem to be playing on the level that I'd like my team to be playing, but it's their money.

Anyway, my comment was just directed at the person who seemed surprised by the comments directed at the OP and I was simply saying that I think it's because of his attitude, not the content of his post.

[Caeli]

Healing Pro Tips (How to Heal 201)
I have a rank 28 shaman

No offence intended but these "pro tips" might work in T3 but are worthless in T4.

Example; "Adding your two dots on a focus target is a big help"

Sorry but just no, life leaka crits for around 70 for me at vs a lvl 40 (im full healspec and healgear), and my critrate is nonexistant. The other dot is even more useless on someone being focused, lasting 24 seconds. If someone is being focused they should be dropping in max 5-8 seconds or there is no focus going on.
Bunch of waagh is the only burst dps a shaman has, and it's junk dps.

[loupgaroo]

An overall good HowTo heal post. It's fun to heal innit?