Healing Tips---Every Healer plz read Heal, Tank

pigface

Healing Protips:

1. Learn to EXPECT damage spikes. You shouldn't mindlessly chain heals on a tank to keep them alive. You want to have your heals timed to be landing when the tank actually NEEDS it (IE directly after the mob swings/AEs). MOST of the time, you aren't healing your target at the HP you see when you cast your spell, you're healing your target's HP 1-2 rounds from then. - This is referring tank healing, (read #3 to see what I mean)

2. Learn to utilize your group heals. Just because they are group heals does not mean they cannot be used on just 1 or 2 players. If you have a group full of 5 players at max health and 1 player at 20% health, Survival IS the BEST course of action you can take to save them. Even if the rest of your group doesn't benefit. If you have two players at 50% and the rest at full health, Lunameloriation is an excellent option to fix both of their health issues and get back to what you were doing.

3. Understand the types of healing. There is tank healing, and non-tank healing. Tank healing, meaning, the player you are healing is constantly getting melee rounds and environmental effects that will continually lower their HP. Non-tank healing means they will largely be taking damage in packets far more spread out than those that a tank would take.

Tank healing = every 1-2 seconds they are taking a melee round and every XX seconds they take a hit from an AE DD/DoT

Tank healing you need to be PROACTIVE. Healing what they will need in the future, not what they need in the present.

Non-Tank healing = every XX seconds they are taking a hit from an AE DD/DoT, on occasion taking a spike from over aggro / adds that are uncontrolled etc.

Non-Tank Healing you need to be REACTIVE. Healing the AoE damage they take, saving them from overaggroing stupidness / adds that are loose etc. (You can be proactive here if you are watching the landscape. IE if an add is charging the wizard in your group, start that heal on him before it gets their or casting a group heal before a timed AE goes off etc.)

4. Understand the main uses of the heals at your disposal:(Though just for druid,but wutever u can learn from it...)

Benevida - This is our bread and butter heal. The spell feels slow compared to all our fast heals but it gets the most done out of them all. This is the spell you need to learn to understand its timing the most. It's timing usually is such that a mob has completed about 1-1.5 attack rounds from the start of your casting to the end of your casting. This is a spell that when cast you shouldn't try to be healing the players current health, you should be anticipating their health in the future, and covering that.

Adrenaline Blast - This spell is in a weird place currently. It was previously our reaction heal, which was replaced by the spell below this. It also has a buff confliction from the proc if your tanks are using Shining Rampart -- Given they don't buff block the proc --. As is it is falling out of favor *slightly* but it is still a very solid tool in our healing repertoire. This spell casts fast enough that you are only healing a tank about 1 round in the future, making it a solid mix into a general heal twist. Where I find myself using this spell the most is as a repositioning of my timing:

For example if I notice my Benevida's are landing at a time where they are doing nothing I have two options. I can either pause, wait half a second inbetween casts and then cast my Benevida such that it is landing at a more favorable time (IE when the tank needs the health).... OR I can cast Adrenaline instead of a Benevida, readjusting my timing as I do it due to the 1.8 second cast time on Adrenaline vs. the 2.2 second cast time on Benevida.

It can also be used as a more slow reactive heal, but with a bigger kick to it. If a group member who isn't in immediate danger is at low health, not low enough to warrant a Survival but low enough that Benevida won't top them off, Adrenaline is useful for that.


Rejuvilation - ALWAYS ON SPELL BAR NO EXCEPTIONS - This is our single target emergency heal. If a tank gets a large damage spike, this is your primary heal to use. It is fast enough to catch many damage spikes you will see in the raid or group game that are catchable. This and the spell bellow are the only spells we have that you are aiming to heal the player's current health, and generally will want to be used as such.

Bind your Rejuvilation spell gem to a hotkey that is easily accessible, personally mine is '1'. If you notice a tank goes from 100-20% in a single round, you want this to be a very very fast reaction that you take to try and save that tanks life.

Survival of the Propitious - ALWAYS ON SPELL BAR NO EXCEPTIONS - This spell has several uses. Personally I try to reserve this for personal healing, heavy AoE damage cover and non tank spike damage. Meaning, if I get a mob or a spell that hits me down to low health, I don't want to be fumbling with my mouse or tapping F1 then tapping another key to hit a heal, time wasted = dead druid.

Bind your Survival line spell gem to a hotkey that is easily accessible, personally mine is '8'. Much faster than hitting F1 + Alt 8 or whatever for a self Rejuvilation or self Adrenaline Blast etc.

Events/mobs that are extremely heavy in AoE damage is another area where this spell gets utilized quite often. Princess Klaknak in Al'Kabor with its large PBAE DD + DoT for example. Miragul when poorly positioned or any other raid where your group comes under extreme AE DD + DoT fire, Survival is able to cap off your group in nearly an instant, such that you can time to Radiant Cure off a DoT or toss a Lunameloriation to cover the next DD wave, etc.

When I said 'non tank spike damage' above this is another example of trying to save time when time is of the essence. If a player in your group grabs aggro on a mob or gets heavily damage by DDs + DoTs, the last thing you want to do is waste time hitting F# to target that group member and then casting a single heal on them. Many times by the time you get to that they are dead. Group heals are a GREAT way of making sure you are fufilling your healing role without having to change targets from the main tank who you are also trying to keep alive or the boss who you are trying to debuff whatever.

Lunamelioration - This is our main group heal line. It has a 12 second recast so it cannot be chain casted, however it is fast enough such that it is usually up to cover most all group healing situations well. One strength of this spell is that its heal amount is roughly equivalent to a Benevida. Due to our excellent mana preservation abilities between Wolf Forms / Shawl / Specilization Alt (and the Spec Alt Aug), mana isn't really an issue... so this spell can be used for counter intuitive purposes. For example it can be used to not draw your focus away from your target (whether it be a mob or a tank), but still healing your group.... just think of it as a Benevida that doesn't require you to target your group member AND a group heal, rather than just a group heal. And you will get many more uses out of it than you need --- This is largely for non tank groups, if you are in a tank group you probably won't want to be using it like this.

Promised Replenishment - This spell I use very rarely, about only on fights where I cannot DPS or where getting Line of Sight / keeping it is a pain (Cazic Thule can be like this, Al'Kabor can be depending on group also and SS5 definitely since he cannot be cast on with any reliability). The strength of the spell... is it isn't a merc spell. Many tanks seems to block Promised line because mercs use it too much and don't use direct heals enough (from my observations), they don't really block the druid line. The drawback is, it takes up a precious buff slot. To each their own, I know many druids are very proficient with the use of the spell line, I prefer to use is very rarely however.


Support Protip:

Assign every Warrior a Druid/Shaman to look after (given they aren't in a tank group already). Maintain Untamed Growth on said Warrior the entire time. You want to be refreshing it every ~2-3minutes so it doesn't dip bellow its maximum HP increase too much (every tic bellow 2.5minutes the HP increase starts to diminish. You want to stop this from happening). Knights have their own line they should maintain that.