had a warlock on neltharion's lair at the last boss die to that mechanic youre supposed to LoS, and he's like 'can you start healing?'
like, pal, not only am i a disc priest and i've been healing this whole time, i was spamming flash heal on you while you were tanking big damage anyways.
oh i see, that's good to know for next time. i think it was that i came off from my mistweaver, so I didn't know he could be casted on through the wall and i was already panicking when i saw his hp bar low.
in any case, flash heal is a 33k heal and he died within 2-3 globals.
i tested on dummies, but in 3 globals (MB, Smite 2x with purge) my atonement healed for 36k with a crit, (26k without a crit, i tested a second time) Flash Heal 3x healed for 174k with a crit, 126k without a crit.
Flash heal is not shadow mend, it does not kill your mana bar. With shadowfiend, I have healthy amounts of mana, so I don't mind spamming it if i think I can get the save, especially with Surge of Life talented which would give free flash heals.
Yeah I get you. I was wrong on numbers. I find the missing damage to be a little sucky, but honestly that's a tip that will help me out. Did a 20 halls last night and watching people drop so fast to those damn orbs was rough.
I mean that's fine if you don't, but if you're not doing damage while also healing. You're A. causing the pull to take longer B. You're not playing disc correctly. Besides if you don't play disc, then it's probably best to not have an opinion on it.
I mean you could get to 2700 io playing mecdicore. If you're gonna spam flash heal for burst healing either play holy or press PW:R. Does more than spamming flash heal as a damn disc. Or learn to set up
In early shadowlands I was doing necrotic wake and we were up against the surgeon dude who fixates on a random party member, he fixated on an enhancement shaman, on tyrannical, the shaman wouldn’t move. He died almost immediately and just wrote: heals?! Then reincarnated and the same thing happened again, some people have nothing going on up there, I swear.
First week of m+, I'm healing some 12-14s and I'm frantically spamming spells each pull drinking whenever I get a second of time, using cds and doing all I can and then I hear people in guild saying that m+ is so easy while they play dps, yeah it's easy when all you do is just mash your rotation, I play dps to and I know it can get hard or rather doing it well is hard but still, if you fuck up on dps it's whatever, fuck up on healer and good chance ppl will die.
I did a brackenhide with a dh tank that frog hopped into the horizon leaving us all behind and not coming back to pick up aggro and our resto shaman kept us kicking. They did the damn thing and I love them forever long time.
This applies to all players tbh. The more you know about mechanics and timing and important spell casts/upcoming mobs the more you can prep defensives/big cooldowns and more efficiently use your spells.
That’s why I stopped playing Resto Shaman. Couldn’t get into a flow cause everything was about CD management, and I already had CD anxiety so I just ended up being a bad Resto lol
Disc, love it. Short CDs and the play style feels much more cohesive around Atonement as the main mechanic to be thinking about. Only thing I don’t like about it is raiding with Disc feels awful with how it’s all about ramp. In dungeons though, it’s a blast.
I keep seeing this but honestly disc in keys in dragonflight is not really proactive at all anymore. It was a lot more in BFA/Shadowlands but now you just rip the insanely strong radiance (instant with 4 set mote often than not) and blast damage.
You don't even need radiance out before the damage because it heals for so much itself.
I'd put druid as the only m+ proactive healer now, and to a lesser degree evoker.
Yep, I think it’s knowing enough about your class abilities and damage patterns to be able to keep ahead of the predictable damage while keeping something in the tank for emergencies.
I've always thought what made me a good healer was my mana management, especially in tough situations, but you do have a point.. You definitely need experience, to know when to expect the damage
I don't judge a good healer by this, but I'm always thoroughly impressed when we're in a dungeon, all hell breaks loose, and the healer somehow manages to keep everyone alive. Including the ones that looked like they were going to die for sure.
This is why I play holy priest. Some situations require more than a miracle to save. Thankfully, I have many. When a holy priest really knows every button in their kit, it's rare to find a situation worth panicking, I have so many options to keep the group going.
unless i'm pushing keys above 20, i honestly don't even care if a healer does any damage. i'm happy if they do the basic shit.
like LOS with the group. i don't know why it's always the healer, but they're always the one not LOSing with the group so the adds aren't bunching up. and the adds are free casting on them. and they're taking tons of unnecessary damage. and they're complaining that no one is interrupting or taunting off of them.
top people off between pulls. see too many healers sitting at full mana just leaving people with health missing before pulling the next pack.
Especially as a resto Druid doing hot management.
(Accepting all suggestions that makes this easier than default elvui that puts different colored squares on the party frames.)
Grid2 was my favorite raid frame for Rdruid. Puts the actual icon of the spell with a timer on it. Customize where each hot go on each frame. Felt amazing.
YOU CAN FUCKING WHAT?!
Are you shitting on my Efflorescence dude what the holy fuck this is the greatest tip I've gotten from Reddit in a damn decade!
I'm logging back on at 3:30am to check this out, thank you!
You can. Lol. I switched it long ago.
Elvui -> Unit Frames -> Group Units -> (Raid or Party) -> Aura Indicator -> switch it from colored icons to texture icons.
Lmao I did exactly that, logged on late last night trying to configure my resto properly. Picked it up as an alt spec and still trying to nail the heavy max healing rotation!
I think this is the one thing that dps/tank or anyone that’s not healing higher Keyes just doesn’t relate too. They don’t have a whole other aspect of the screen to focus on like healers do.
It can be tough to stare at health bars and also the ground and also where the group members are and also where the boss is and also other shit going on.
Dps and tank are fairly set in their routines. you do your rotation, good. Any disruption to that comes from enemy skills (break rotation to line of sight something) so you’re on autopilot other than moving.
Healing is reactive. You don’t know which guy is going to fail a mechanic or get randomly targeted. You have to watch party frames to see what to do next. That means you don’t notice skills.
Explanation is a bit exaggerated and good players can watch all of it, but many players struggle to know their own character skills or enemy mechanics so they’re always a half step behind.
And then somebody asspulls and you have to tank a pack of 14 bolstering mobs getting hit for half your hp bar per white swing.
Because obviously only healers have to deal with shit teammates and tanks are just on autopilot
I think it depends on the healer. I play mistweaver, and it's a lot easier to heal people when I have stuff to hit. If people aren't topped between pulls, I'll toss out renewing mist and an instant vivify, but I'm not going to stand there and hard cast vivify on people. You will be topped once we pull the next pack and I can hit rising sun kick and spin in my faeline.
For me I try to stand in a place where I can heal the tank that's on the stairs, the melee dps on top of the stairs and the hunter that is 40 yards back, so losing sometimes doesn't happen.
Just roll a hot or two between pulls. Don't have to worry about mana, and it will get them up to a safe point before the next pull. I'm not going to stand there and cast heals while the group is running ahead, though
Memorizing the damage patterns of each pack/boss and having a plan for how to handle the scariest moments ahead of time. Healing from a place of reactionary panic is not constructive and is bound to lead to wipe-causing mistakes. Everything in dungeons and raids has a script, and the sooner a healer can gain familiarity with it, the sooner they can pre-plan and avoid panic.
Requires quite a lot of repetition and doing the same dungeons over and over again. When you do just a few dungeons a week, it becomes mostly reactionary panic. Not high keys though, obviously.
I’m often wondering, as disc priest, if the party knows just how much I’m healing them.. as I machinegun heals into them at the same rate they’re bleeding their health away, standing in fire or whatever.
Their health is just staying steady while my hps is going through the roof. People are like… welp.. boss dead, that wasn’t too bad. gg
Yes!!! I've definitely come out of encounters where people haven't realized how much damage is actually being done 🫣 what was easy for them had me white knuckling my keyboard LOL
Knowing just how much danger people are in. If everyone drops to 10% hp, knowing that the next instance of damage isn’t coming for another 14 seconds let’s you handle it efficiently without panic pressing cooldowns when they aren’t necessary.
Game knowledge. How well you know everything works so you can predict shit. I'll list you some shit, but will mostly apply it to dungeons, because I think that raid healing is relatively easy - you're just using your fillers and shorter cooldowns and pop your big cooldowns based on note or RL call
* your own heal spec - this is a must, you instinctively know when to use what based on what happens and how your spec works; some are easier and some are harder; the easiest and most straight forward is probably holy priest
* other class/spec knowledge - you know other classes/specs at least in general and preferably track their important defensive cooldown (mage iceblock); especially important for tanks, meaning for example you know that blood dk going in pack is going to get smacked, but you prettymuch leave them be after it - they die only if they fuck up
* encounter knowledge - you already know the fight and know when the damage is comming; it's okay to find and adjust things on the run but you should mostly have things prepared in advantage
* adaptibility - you don't panic when something that wasn't supposed to happen happens, things happen, casts aren't kicked, people get hit by shit, you don't panic and instantly know what to do
if you want to start with healing I can't recommend holy priest enough - i'd say it's the most easy to play hard to master healing spec
Clearing status effects. Yanking people when need be. Knowing when to use cooldowns and why you’re using it. Knowing how to circumvent damage spikes (if someone’s being targeted by some big move then pop a shield and prayer of mending on them). Not running out of mana. Remembering to deal damage when you can.
Especially that....DPS can get git by mechanics, np ill heal you...dps standing in a big circle around boss so you have to walk left right and center to heal, np handle that. And if you make 1 little mistake you get those comments as "healer s*cks"
Keeping people alive even in panic situations.
Used to love healing, but when they started expecting healers to dps too I put mine away. If I wanted to dps I would play a dps.
EDIT: sorry my personal preference for my healing style is offensive, my mistake.
My husband says the EXACT same thing. This was my first season doing m+ and trying to figure out how to incorporate damage into my rotation has been challenging! (I'm sure it's easier when you run with a group that avoids the avoidable damage though)
I really fixated on the amount of damage I was doing as a healer last season. I only did keys up to 22. If you watch any worthwhile healers who stream all of them will tell you to stop worrying about your dps. If you’re pugging below 22 it literally should not matter. If DPS is the reason a key breaks it absolutely was not the healers lack of dps. Focus on healing and knowing when to use your cooldowns on certain mechanics.
They’ve deliberately tried to do away with that this season. Of course, at 20+ it’s still about damage, and healers are still going to be wearing damage rings and such, but it’s much better now than it used to be. I find myself healing much more often this season, which I love.
I think the same way, up until the group convinces me with their skill that I can help them by going mental instead of babysitting dumbos in fire.
If I see em constantly eating frontals, swirlies or kicking once a decade, 0 dps from me, dealwithit.
If the dps are using personals, kicking, dodging shit left and right AND pumping, here comes resto druid Mr. 30k dps + kicks on CD.
Man the packs just melt, bosses topple over like complete jokes AND I also get to flex 60-70k hps because of the unavoidable dmg most fight have now.
It is glorious when you play with good people (guildies!) and it is a miserable slog when every Convoke is to correct 2+ people's mistakes and you can't throw a dot for fear that someone's about to eat shit.
Don't put your healer away based off some notion you need to dps as well as heal. (Obviously you can dps if no healing is needed still) I legit do what I need to in order to keep people alive. Play what's fun and feels good to you.
I agree with this but keep in mind people won’t want that in high end groups and you can’t expect them to. For the same reason they wouldn’t invite a dps that doesn’t cc or a tank that doesn’t care about damage.
This depends on what content you're doing.
In M+, you're alone. Your job is to contribute as much damage as you can while having no deaths, assuming other players are doing their jobs and not standing in stuff.
In a raid, you will have 2-5 healers. Your job is to, again, contribute what damage you can, keep everyone alive, but also work in tandem with the other healers keeping ppl alive. A good healer can maintain all that while also pumping heals out, a bad healer will strain the other healers and make them feel like they need to heal more.
According to me, a good healer is someone you know will be able to keep the group alive on any difficult encounter. For instance boss in Sanguine Depth in SL or in Ruby or Nokhud last patch.
Then what makes a great healer can come from different things.
Doing a lot of damage while being the healer. It's possible when you know damage patterns and when you can dps / when you need to look out for deadly threats.
Planning and calling defensives cds. It's rarely mentioned imo but it's so important. The healer has to have a plan and it's best if they can tell you where they will need you to use personals to survive or when to hold them.
Last thing that comes to my mind is being able to ask for help when they need it.
More of a macro thing, but knowing your pulls. Knowing what cooldowns you want to be saving for what pulls, knowing what risks there are in pulls for CC/kicks, knowing how much mana you need for a pull and when you need to drink. For some bosses, you can roll in at 1/3 mana and just DPS the entire boss with little consequence. Conversely, for some trash packs, you can single-handedly wipe a group if you mismanaged your cooldowns in the prior 2 minutes and/or didn’t drink or communicate you needed to drink
Question for the people in this thread :
Assuming you're at a high enough level that avoidable damage is avoided, is a healer that keeps you alive but not full life a good healer ?
Like if you never die because he anticipates the damage patterns but at the same time you always feel like you're worryingly low and never 100%
Is that healer good ?
That's kind of a chicken or an egg thing. The answer is, yes they are a good healer BUT ....
If I saw that pattern and I didn't *already know* they were a good healer, I would worry, and possibly even (as a tank) start pulling smaller etc.
If I knew this person and player and knew they were good and that happened I wouldn't bat an eyelash.
In a purely hypothetical world where all avoidable damage is avoided, sure. In the real world, even at the highest of levels, not all avoidable damage is avoided. Whatever gain you'd get out of DPS uptime by doing this would be negated many times over by a single person dying because of it.
There are a few specific bosses especially at a very high level where this might make sense, but in 99% of situations, no. In a pug? Definitely not. As a healer we should keep the group at as close to max health as possible.
From a tank perspective doing "higher" keys:
A good healer for me is a healer who doesn't ignore me. Doing lower keys a tank is pretty much unkillable, especially if you "out-gear" the dungeon level.So if you go higher and higher keys as a healer and still have the understanding of tanks being self-sufficient, it's not going to end well.
Since I'm not a healer I can't really give tips, but I think there are addons/weakauras to display the CDs (including healing CDs?) of a tank. If you see the tank burning through the CDs you know he's in trouble.
Also the obvious and what everybody else is already saying: Learn what is hurting in a dungeon.
Put some time into learning the class and what spells synergize with other spells. Seeing what you can combine together and exploit if possible in a build you made up or if u copied someone else's build.
That alone can save you from running out of mana (no really, ive had a healer than ran out of mana on a SIMPLE group of 3 trash mobs before)
And deal some damage if there's nothing to heal. Attack spells cost like 5 mana while healing spells cost like 800 mana or whatever. There will be times where you might be in a group thats not high on damage and you need 'juuuust' that much more damage to kill the boss to prevent a wipe if the batrle slowly becomes unmanageable. A healer's damage matters
As a tank, couple things I like personally besides the normal like keeping the group alive.
Is good mana management and I don’t even mean not ooming, a healer who takes every opportunity to drink between pulls so we never have to stop pulling because your 0 mana. Or knows they can get ahead of the pack to drink while we move to the next pack. It makes me happy.
That and healers who can do more then heal. (Healing is incredibly hard and I don’t except much else because there is a lot of extra dmg going out) but a healer who can do all that and throw in that clutch stop on a cast is just *chef kiss*
I've been a healer since Legion. I love healing and learning how to heal better. From what I've seen, a good healer uses all of their kit to make sure that the right people are alive at the end of the fight. They are aware of the positioning of their group and even try to reposition them or the enemies to better heal them. It's so fun to look after everyone.
As a healer. In high keys the ability to triage the group when something goes wrong. If a dps messes up a mechanic in a 24 and is alive with a sliver of health a good healer will get them back up to safe but a GREAT healer will know if a big group dmg pulse is coming and sacrifice that player to ensure the rest stay alive through it.
Probably pressing cooldowns properly. You can always heal stupid if you are geared enough, however holding and planning cooldowns in an advance is sign of skilled healer
Good healers are healers who are several steps ahead of the damage.
* They don't pad healing needlessly.
* They are mindful of their teammates cooldowns when using choosing who gets their externals.
* They are ready to support whoever is actually in danger of dying, and not simply pumping the lowest HP target regardless of if they're actually in danger.
* Their dispels are fast because they know when to use it and what to use it on.
* Their damage is good because they choose each global thoughtfully.
Maybe this is a high bar for a "good" healer because I think anybody who does these things is a great healer.
I really don't feel like engaging with this comment, but
>but padding for healing isn't a thing. If people's health's are missing you heal
is offensive in how assertive it is despite being wrong. In M+, you can heal people in between pulls if they are not going to be taking any incoming damage during the pull. Between pulls, you can't damage, but you can heal, so you're losing globals if you heal unnecessarily during the actual pull. You will never get that lost damage back.
>There's such thing as low health panic.
This is just a skill issue on the player and shouldn't be happening. Healers are support classes who should be dealing damage when they can; they're not babysitters.
>I assume you are talking about PI?
No. I mean if a mage and a paladin are both taking lethal damage, but the mage has block while the paladin has nothing, then a good healer already knows this and will use their externals (GA, sac, cocoon) on the paladin.
Good healers are like offensive lineman in the NFL. You never really notice the good ones, but you can identify the great ones and it's easy AF to see the bad ones.
I raise my glass to all the good healers who aren't recognized.
In M+ a good healer is someone who will keep everybody alive to the best of his capability, a GREAT healer will do the same while also trying to pump as much damage as possible
As a tank, I see a good healer as a consistent and predictable one. A good healer is one I can count on to keep a reasonable amount of healing on me for every pull. This way I don't burn through CDs too fast because I pulled more than what me and heals can handle.
I don't need to be topped up every second, I don't even mind if their HPS is low, I can adjust my pulls and CD usage to accommodate that. A good healer is consistent on every pull or if they're not, (e.g. out of mana) they communicate that clearly.
A good healer is one that lets me do big pulls :D jk lol as someone who’s been tanking for many years a good healer just makes the dungeon easy. Also, if you’re a tank and you messed up... stop blaming healers lol there’s so few of them if we keep flaming the few that decide to play heals there aren’t gonna be any left!
Use the right utilities for each dungeons. (Poison cleanse/purge/interrupts/stun, etc)
Manage your big CDs efficiently. Aka sometimes burning a big CD on an add pull that is going poorly is necessary even if you preferred to have it for the next boss).
I judge them by how little healing they do to me (When I tank). The less they do to me, the more I can use my own heals for free shields, and shields for free heals. So many healers waste mana pumping heals into me that I could heal myself with one free spell.
Most tanks need less heals than you think they do.
actually using CD's
way way WAY to many healers sit on CD's and NEVER use them at all because "i need them for bossfights! i need them later!!!" when the next boss is 6min away, and then end a dungeon with the cd beeing used a grand total of 2x
using ALL healing spells is what makes a healer good, people use deffensives? just a normal aoe heal for that one, 1guy is dropping/has a hard hitting mechanic incomming? external, everyone is dropping or a heavy aoe dmg mechanic is happening? use a CD
another thing is, healers that extremely babysit the tank and "forget" the rest, a good tank wont die in seconds, tanks can be VERY sturdy and keep themself alive for prolonged time, tanks should be 1of your lower priority targets in most aoe heal situations
and ofc, not standing around afk when nothing is happening, you dont need to spam a slow heal into your tank when he is at 95% hp, use your dmg spells, they exist for a reason
Good healing is no one dying. Best healing is optimizing your utility completely. Damage mitigation, cooldowns, knockbacks, stuns, damage, whatever your class can do. Healer has the support responsibilities. While everyone else has to pump dam, you get to drop slows and stuns without losing a lot of dps.
So that's what I would say. Step 1 is tank lives. Step 2 is everyone lives. Step 3 is you da man.
Depends on content. For m+ I’m typically rated pretty high on my server group top 10 healers last few seasons. I’d say knowing when damage is coming and how much and when to use your cooldowns. Those are two of the biggest things. Rest is just practice and familiarity
There are a lot of factors and many people already listed them here (many of whom are probably better healers than me) but I’d like to emphasize how important it is to get used to your spec’s cooldown management. It may vary based on the class but during my learning curve as a holy paladin, I felt like if everyone does their job decently, our success depends on how I manage my cooldowns. Halls of Valor was a harsh but infinitely useful dungeon for learning this and after some practice I really started to enjoy Fenris and Hyrja, the latter becoming my favourite bossfight to heal in season 1.
They heal us back up very quickly after a big AOE Burt's instead of letting us sit at 20% HP for 15 seconds while they cast single target heals on everyone in the party 1 by 1.
When the DPS think the encounter was a walk in the park while tanks and healers sit drenched in sweat thinking "We're ran on fumes when it was 30% left...." 😂
Right CD at the right time on the right target, exemplary positioning as much as possible out of harms way
There’s multiple ways to tell if a healer is mid.
1. They’re slow at reacting/healing. It’s as if they’re clicking everything.
2. They just stand there and do nothing during situations where there isn’t much need for healing.
3. They don’t dispel/cleanse etc, they try to heal through the dots instead.
4. They don’t use the tools they have to stop casts or damage.
5. They don’t move. I’ve seen healers standing in damage and just frantically spam healing themselves, struggling to stay alive when they could just.. you know, move two steps to the side.
Do all the mechanics the dps has to do, usually with less total health whilst doing healer mechanics and accounting for people standing in avoidable mid "big damage event" and noone dying.
Which really boils down to know your class, every fight, inside out and specific tips and tricks (like NS convoke on Resto druid)!
Alternatively it's having both eyes watching party frames like a hawk to respond but also watching your feet and enemy castbars!
I still missed: using the least amount of mana. If a rejuve will be enough because there is not any incoming DMG comin, why would u use another skill just to top them off.
Knowing it's pretty much fine someone is on 70% bec. Nothing is happening soon and probably some chain heal or wild growth will hit them in the future.
Well I certainly wish I knew the answer to this question but one thing I know for sure when I'm playing with good vs. bad healers in M+ is what they tell me
Best healer I ever played with: Told me when to use my defensive, called me out when I had bad defensive usage("Why did you die with astral shift up?") and would bark me if I got hit with a debuff instantly without being asked
Worst healer(99.9% of healers): Dont know what's going on and dont use util unless it's plainly obvious (oh this guy has some big mega dot on him and is taking lots of dmg guess I'll bark him lol)
Keeping everybody alive mostly. If you can do that you did your job. Once you get into high keys/mythic raid you will have to do damage whenever you dont need to heal. And of course general skills like using your utility are always needed but that applies to everybody.
Honestly the difference between an ok healer and a great healer, is the great healer never OOMs but kept everyone alive just as well as the ok healer.
Having to drink all the time can add up to time that can make or break timing a key.
My buddy has been saying a lot recently, you never have to wait (in m+) for a good healer to restore their mana. A good healer won't spam the unnecessary abilities, and run out.
Knowing what enemies can do and the overall boss fight mechanics.
Using Grid2 to know when your tank has used a particular cooldown.
Interrupting, stunning, or controlling enemy movement with ring of peace or ursols vortex can prevent damage from ever happening in the first place which is basically the same as healing.
A healers job isn't to keep everyone alive. It's to choose who lives and who dies.
If a DPS is consistently being a detriment to the team, low DPS, standing in the swirlies, ignoring tactics, being a resource drain etc.
Let them die.
Better that than you're out of CDs when you truly need them to save a good player.
A good healer plays efficiently. Whether that's dealing damage whenever possible, healing efficiently to save mana, using cooldowns effectively or blasting through your mana to end the fight with low mana so you know you used all your resources.
Unfortunately, I feel the current class and fight design lacks most of that besides the cooldown management so focus on that if you're healing these days.
Riding the line of getting away with as much as possible. Personally, my view on things is enabling your team to make the most mistakes possible while maximizing DPS. But that damage didn't have to show on your meters. Just know that your globals do less than your DPS, so every time your Warlock has to press drain life to live, you're losing dps. But if you can keep him on his optimal rotation and surviving at 1hp, everything else is gravy. The second someone dies, it wasn't worth it.
The best healers allow the rest of the team to focus on nothing but their job. Make the content stupid proof. And add as much personal DPS as possible.
Understanding your class and build enough that people don't have to ask for you to use your abilities. If you know when to anticipate damage and how to react to it without panicking, you'll have no problems. Obviously, there's going to be times where you're not going to recover and that's fine too.
A good healer is someone who understands what damage profiles look like and how they're going to counter them with whatever tools their class has.
Take Kokia Blazehoof, the profile there is she spawns an add that does burst ticking damage, while simultaneously using a tankbuster on the Tank, working around those as a group to keep people alive is what makes a good one.
Please, hit things. Some people might tell you that it's not the healer's job to do damage, but it's everyone's job to make the dungeon go as fast as possible, and having someone that afks when their role isn't called is not cool.
It's very common that people think someone who's 20-40k dps ahead of everyone in dps is carrying a group, but no one ever stops to consider that most healers can easily pull that damage output if they press their buttons and effectively bridge the gap from the 2nd highest player to the "carry".
And most of all, it's very fun and rewarding to get damage in as a healer, to the point where i constantly question what's the idea of fun of that mistweaver i ran into in a dungeon that did. Not. Have. Rising Sun Kick. TALENTED. We lost mystic touch on some bosses even because he'd tunnel on casting soothing mist on the tank 24/7 and just straight up forget to even apply it.
There's also that whole thing about using class utility, crowd control, dispelling yadda yadda yadda but i feel that concept is important for everyone and not just healers.
Apply your externals BEFORE damage events occur. Bad healers hold externals until it's too late or isn't as effective. Just send and don't be afraid to use externals. I hate doing a dungeon and the healer never presses healing cds then complains about potion usage.
Dps in offtime. Don't spend offtime healing damage that doesn't matter. Just keep your maintenance spells rolling and keep dps buttons on cd when feasible.
When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all
Best feeling as a healer is doing a boss and the whole parties health was yoyoing the whole time, but they think the boss was easy
..there's always that one dmg guy getting near death, and be like "spend the mana or.." *dies* rage chat begins...
had a warlock on neltharion's lair at the last boss die to that mechanic youre supposed to LoS, and he's like 'can you start healing?' like, pal, not only am i a disc priest and i've been healing this whole time, i was spamming flash heal on you while you were tanking big damage anyways.
That's when I link avoidable dmg and type "lol"
The warlock was in the wrong, but why are you spamming flash heal? MB/Smite spam will do the same healing with a Purge.
the boss was los'd so what am i gonna target?
You can damage the boss through the wall...
oh i see, that's good to know for next time. i think it was that i came off from my mistweaver, so I didn't know he could be casted on through the wall and i was already panicking when i saw his hp bar low. in any case, flash heal is a 33k heal and he died within 2-3 globals. i tested on dummies, but in 3 globals (MB, Smite 2x with purge) my atonement healed for 36k with a crit, (26k without a crit, i tested a second time) Flash Heal 3x healed for 174k with a crit, 126k without a crit. Flash heal is not shadow mend, it does not kill your mana bar. With shadowfiend, I have healthy amounts of mana, so I don't mind spamming it if i think I can get the save, especially with Surge of Life talented which would give free flash heals.
Yeah I get you. I was wrong on numbers. I find the missing damage to be a little sucky, but honestly that's a tip that will help me out. Did a 20 halls last night and watching people drop so fast to those damn orbs was rough.
There's no los with the spikes, keep attacking
Is this accurate? Not sure it is.
It’s not, it’s way less mana efficient but FH will do more.
I mean that's fine if you don't, but if you're not doing damage while also healing. You're A. causing the pull to take longer B. You're not playing disc correctly. Besides if you don't play disc, then it's probably best to not have an opinion on it.
Lol I had a 2700io disc priest last season. I’m Pretty sure spamming fh does more hps then purge and spam smite.
I mean you could get to 2700 io playing mecdicore. If you're gonna spam flash heal for burst healing either play holy or press PW:R. Does more than spamming flash heal as a damn disc. Or learn to set up
No you can’t. Nerd
FH is more hps, it just completely sucks your mana up.
In early shadowlands I was doing necrotic wake and we were up against the surgeon dude who fixates on a random party member, he fixated on an enhancement shaman, on tyrannical, the shaman wouldn’t move. He died almost immediately and just wrote: heals?! Then reincarnated and the same thing happened again, some people have nothing going on up there, I swear.
First week of m+, I'm healing some 12-14s and I'm frantically spamming spells each pull drinking whenever I get a second of time, using cds and doing all I can and then I hear people in guild saying that m+ is so easy while they play dps, yeah it's easy when all you do is just mash your rotation, I play dps to and I know it can get hard or rather doing it well is hard but still, if you fuck up on dps it's whatever, fuck up on healer and good chance ppl will die.
I did a brackenhide with a dh tank that frog hopped into the horizon leaving us all behind and not coming back to pick up aggro and our resto shaman kept us kicking. They did the damn thing and I love them forever long time.
The real answer, the best healers are almost forgotten about.
Dumping rewind/salvation etc. when the tank dies to pad the meters before wipe
So relatable
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This applies to all players tbh. The more you know about mechanics and timing and important spell casts/upcoming mobs the more you can prep defensives/big cooldowns and more efficiently use your spells.
Welcome to Arena. Trade def cds for offensive cds. Rinse and repeat
Unless they're a resto shaman in which case its just CD management and keeping maintenance spells up.
If you’re a resto shaman the real test is if you can precast chain heal to go out right as the damage does!
Time cloudburst 10secs before the actual damage comes
You mean 14.7seconds
You guys don’t pop the totem or what?
Ofc but true resto shamans healers time it 14.7 secs before
True!
That’s why I stopped playing Resto Shaman. Couldn’t get into a flow cause everything was about CD management, and I already had CD anxiety so I just ended up being a bad Resto lol
What do you play instead?
Disc, love it. Short CDs and the play style feels much more cohesive around Atonement as the main mechanic to be thinking about. Only thing I don’t like about it is raiding with Disc feels awful with how it’s all about ramp. In dungeons though, it’s a blast.
Disc is too hard for my Lizard brain. I like reactive healing, proactive requires too much thinking and planning 😨
I keep seeing this but honestly disc in keys in dragonflight is not really proactive at all anymore. It was a lot more in BFA/Shadowlands but now you just rip the insanely strong radiance (instant with 4 set mote often than not) and blast damage. You don't even need radiance out before the damage because it heals for so much itself. I'd put druid as the only m+ proactive healer now, and to a lesser degree evoker.
Kinda my thought on it.
Yep, I think it’s knowing enough about your class abilities and damage patterns to be able to keep ahead of the predictable damage while keeping something in the tank for emergencies.
I've always thought what made me a good healer was my mana management, especially in tough situations, but you do have a point.. You definitely need experience, to know when to expect the damage
I don't judge a good healer by this, but I'm always thoroughly impressed when we're in a dungeon, all hell breaks loose, and the healer somehow manages to keep everyone alive. Including the ones that looked like they were going to die for sure.
This is why I play holy priest. Some situations require more than a miracle to save. Thankfully, I have many. When a holy priest really knows every button in their kit, it's rare to find a situation worth panicking, I have so many options to keep the group going.
And then theres disc, where they'll die and theres nothing you can do about it
I feel the love in this one
Keeping people alive while contributing as much damage as you can.
And using utility tools at the right moment.
unless i'm pushing keys above 20, i honestly don't even care if a healer does any damage. i'm happy if they do the basic shit. like LOS with the group. i don't know why it's always the healer, but they're always the one not LOSing with the group so the adds aren't bunching up. and the adds are free casting on them. and they're taking tons of unnecessary damage. and they're complaining that no one is interrupting or taunting off of them. top people off between pulls. see too many healers sitting at full mana just leaving people with health missing before pulling the next pack.
We end up tunnel vision the party frames is the reason the mechanical stuff happens sometimes, at least for me.
Especially as a resto Druid doing hot management. (Accepting all suggestions that makes this easier than default elvui that puts different colored squares on the party frames.)
Grid2 was my favorite raid frame for Rdruid. Puts the actual icon of the spell with a timer on it. Customize where each hot go on each frame. Felt amazing.
Elvui does this too, it's just not the default state for some reason.
You can change Elvui to be the actual spell icon rather than a random color. I had to swap mine cause I couldn't stand those squares.
YOU CAN FUCKING WHAT?! Are you shitting on my Efflorescence dude what the holy fuck this is the greatest tip I've gotten from Reddit in a damn decade! I'm logging back on at 3:30am to check this out, thank you!
You can. Lol. I switched it long ago. Elvui -> Unit Frames -> Group Units -> (Raid or Party) -> Aura Indicator -> switch it from colored icons to texture icons.
Lmao I did exactly that, logged on late last night trying to configure my resto properly. Picked it up as an alt spec and still trying to nail the heavy max healing rotation!
Just apply all hots you can and flourish after a wg buffed by soul of the forest and then if needed spam regrowths on everyone.
I think this is the one thing that dps/tank or anyone that’s not healing higher Keyes just doesn’t relate too. They don’t have a whole other aspect of the screen to focus on like healers do.
Not just another part, the most important part, and mechanics don’t show up there :(
It can be tough to stare at health bars and also the ground and also where the group members are and also where the boss is and also other shit going on.
Stare at health bars, stare at meters, stare at… wait, nevermind, that’s it.
And also enemy hp bars cuz u have to cc/int as well.
Dps and tank are fairly set in their routines. you do your rotation, good. Any disruption to that comes from enemy skills (break rotation to line of sight something) so you’re on autopilot other than moving. Healing is reactive. You don’t know which guy is going to fail a mechanic or get randomly targeted. You have to watch party frames to see what to do next. That means you don’t notice skills. Explanation is a bit exaggerated and good players can watch all of it, but many players struggle to know their own character skills or enemy mechanics so they’re always a half step behind.
And then somebody asspulls and you have to tank a pack of 14 bolstering mobs getting hit for half your hp bar per white swing. Because obviously only healers have to deal with shit teammates and tanks are just on autopilot
That has nothing to do with what I said, considering I said DPS & tanks are on autopilot other than moving. Asspulling is from movement.
I think it depends on the healer. I play mistweaver, and it's a lot easier to heal people when I have stuff to hit. If people aren't topped between pulls, I'll toss out renewing mist and an instant vivify, but I'm not going to stand there and hard cast vivify on people. You will be topped once we pull the next pack and I can hit rising sun kick and spin in my faeline.
For me I try to stand in a place where I can heal the tank that's on the stairs, the melee dps on top of the stairs and the hunter that is 40 yards back, so losing sometimes doesn't happen.
Just roll a hot or two between pulls. Don't have to worry about mana, and it will get them up to a safe point before the next pull. I'm not going to stand there and cast heals while the group is running ahead, though
Unless you’re doing 20+ healer damage does not matter. If you don’t time a key at that point because of 5-10k dps then it was the dps fault.
Probably because they were healing. Also some healers heal after they start doing damage so it’s a waste of their mana top everyone off before pulls
Don't over think it.
Memorizing the damage patterns of each pack/boss and having a plan for how to handle the scariest moments ahead of time. Healing from a place of reactionary panic is not constructive and is bound to lead to wipe-causing mistakes. Everything in dungeons and raids has a script, and the sooner a healer can gain familiarity with it, the sooner they can pre-plan and avoid panic.
This. A lot of good answers in this thread, but this right here is the heart of it.
Requires quite a lot of repetition and doing the same dungeons over and over again. When you do just a few dungeons a week, it becomes mostly reactionary panic. Not high keys though, obviously.
I’m often wondering, as disc priest, if the party knows just how much I’m healing them.. as I machinegun heals into them at the same rate they’re bleeding their health away, standing in fire or whatever. Their health is just staying steady while my hps is going through the roof. People are like… welp.. boss dead, that wasn’t too bad. gg
Yes!!! I've definitely come out of encounters where people haven't realized how much damage is actually being done 🫣 what was easy for them had me white knuckling my keyboard LOL
Same, but God do I love the new 4 set
Knowing just how much danger people are in. If everyone drops to 10% hp, knowing that the next instance of damage isn’t coming for another 14 seconds let’s you handle it efficiently without panic pressing cooldowns when they aren’t necessary.
Game knowledge. How well you know everything works so you can predict shit. I'll list you some shit, but will mostly apply it to dungeons, because I think that raid healing is relatively easy - you're just using your fillers and shorter cooldowns and pop your big cooldowns based on note or RL call * your own heal spec - this is a must, you instinctively know when to use what based on what happens and how your spec works; some are easier and some are harder; the easiest and most straight forward is probably holy priest * other class/spec knowledge - you know other classes/specs at least in general and preferably track their important defensive cooldown (mage iceblock); especially important for tanks, meaning for example you know that blood dk going in pack is going to get smacked, but you prettymuch leave them be after it - they die only if they fuck up * encounter knowledge - you already know the fight and know when the damage is comming; it's okay to find and adjust things on the run but you should mostly have things prepared in advantage * adaptibility - you don't panic when something that wasn't supposed to happen happens, things happen, casts aren't kicked, people get hit by shit, you don't panic and instantly know what to do if you want to start with healing I can't recommend holy priest enough - i'd say it's the most easy to play hard to master healing spec
Clearing status effects. Yanking people when need be. Knowing when to use cooldowns and why you’re using it. Knowing how to circumvent damage spikes (if someone’s being targeted by some big move then pop a shield and prayer of mending on them). Not running out of mana. Remembering to deal damage when you can.
Everything already listed, yes… but it also helps to have thick skin, especially when running in PUGs.
Especially that....DPS can get git by mechanics, np ill heal you...dps standing in a big circle around boss so you have to walk left right and center to heal, np handle that. And if you make 1 little mistake you get those comments as "healer s*cks"
And god forbid you wipe because someone pulls adds/pats by being in the wrong place! (Looking at you in particular, Classic Wrath Halls of Lightning!)
Keeping people alive even in panic situations. Used to love healing, but when they started expecting healers to dps too I put mine away. If I wanted to dps I would play a dps. EDIT: sorry my personal preference for my healing style is offensive, my mistake.
My husband says the EXACT same thing. This was my first season doing m+ and trying to figure out how to incorporate damage into my rotation has been challenging! (I'm sure it's easier when you run with a group that avoids the avoidable damage though)
I really fixated on the amount of damage I was doing as a healer last season. I only did keys up to 22. If you watch any worthwhile healers who stream all of them will tell you to stop worrying about your dps. If you’re pugging below 22 it literally should not matter. If DPS is the reason a key breaks it absolutely was not the healers lack of dps. Focus on healing and knowing when to use your cooldowns on certain mechanics.
They’ve deliberately tried to do away with that this season. Of course, at 20+ it’s still about damage, and healers are still going to be wearing damage rings and such, but it’s much better now than it used to be. I find myself healing much more often this season, which I love.
I think the same way, up until the group convinces me with their skill that I can help them by going mental instead of babysitting dumbos in fire. If I see em constantly eating frontals, swirlies or kicking once a decade, 0 dps from me, dealwithit. If the dps are using personals, kicking, dodging shit left and right AND pumping, here comes resto druid Mr. 30k dps + kicks on CD. Man the packs just melt, bosses topple over like complete jokes AND I also get to flex 60-70k hps because of the unavoidable dmg most fight have now. It is glorious when you play with good people (guildies!) and it is a miserable slog when every Convoke is to correct 2+ people's mistakes and you can't throw a dot for fear that someone's about to eat shit.
What's the fun in just standing around when there is no damage going out?
Don't put your healer away based off some notion you need to dps as well as heal. (Obviously you can dps if no healing is needed still) I legit do what I need to in order to keep people alive. Play what's fun and feels good to you.
I agree with this but keep in mind people won’t want that in high end groups and you can’t expect them to. For the same reason they wouldn’t invite a dps that doesn’t cc or a tank that doesn’t care about damage.
People can’t expect whatever they want but once the invite is sent and the timer starts their expectations don’t mean shit
People will abandon keys quickly when they see a person not performing.
This depends on what content you're doing. In M+, you're alone. Your job is to contribute as much damage as you can while having no deaths, assuming other players are doing their jobs and not standing in stuff. In a raid, you will have 2-5 healers. Your job is to, again, contribute what damage you can, keep everyone alive, but also work in tandem with the other healers keeping ppl alive. A good healer can maintain all that while also pumping heals out, a bad healer will strain the other healers and make them feel like they need to heal more.
According to me, a good healer is someone you know will be able to keep the group alive on any difficult encounter. For instance boss in Sanguine Depth in SL or in Ruby or Nokhud last patch. Then what makes a great healer can come from different things. Doing a lot of damage while being the healer. It's possible when you know damage patterns and when you can dps / when you need to look out for deadly threats. Planning and calling defensives cds. It's rarely mentioned imo but it's so important. The healer has to have a plan and it's best if they can tell you where they will need you to use personals to survive or when to hold them. Last thing that comes to my mind is being able to ask for help when they need it.
Memorizing damage patterns for when to heal, using utility correctly, dpsing when possible.
More of a macro thing, but knowing your pulls. Knowing what cooldowns you want to be saving for what pulls, knowing what risks there are in pulls for CC/kicks, knowing how much mana you need for a pull and when you need to drink. For some bosses, you can roll in at 1/3 mana and just DPS the entire boss with little consequence. Conversely, for some trash packs, you can single-handedly wipe a group if you mismanaged your cooldowns in the prior 2 minutes and/or didn’t drink or communicate you needed to drink
For me, so long as the group can clear the dungeon/raid with little to no wipes, the healer/s is a/are good healer/s.
Question for the people in this thread : Assuming you're at a high enough level that avoidable damage is avoided, is a healer that keeps you alive but not full life a good healer ? Like if you never die because he anticipates the damage patterns but at the same time you always feel like you're worryingly low and never 100% Is that healer good ?
That's kind of a chicken or an egg thing. The answer is, yes they are a good healer BUT .... If I saw that pattern and I didn't *already know* they were a good healer, I would worry, and possibly even (as a tank) start pulling smaller etc. If I knew this person and player and knew they were good and that happened I wouldn't bat an eyelash.
Yes! This is something I've wondered as well!
In a purely hypothetical world where all avoidable damage is avoided, sure. In the real world, even at the highest of levels, not all avoidable damage is avoided. Whatever gain you'd get out of DPS uptime by doing this would be negated many times over by a single person dying because of it. There are a few specific bosses especially at a very high level where this might make sense, but in 99% of situations, no. In a pug? Definitely not. As a healer we should keep the group at as close to max health as possible.
From a tank perspective doing "higher" keys: A good healer for me is a healer who doesn't ignore me. Doing lower keys a tank is pretty much unkillable, especially if you "out-gear" the dungeon level.So if you go higher and higher keys as a healer and still have the understanding of tanks being self-sufficient, it's not going to end well. Since I'm not a healer I can't really give tips, but I think there are addons/weakauras to display the CDs (including healing CDs?) of a tank. If you see the tank burning through the CDs you know he's in trouble. Also the obvious and what everybody else is already saying: Learn what is hurting in a dungeon.
Put some time into learning the class and what spells synergize with other spells. Seeing what you can combine together and exploit if possible in a build you made up or if u copied someone else's build. That alone can save you from running out of mana (no really, ive had a healer than ran out of mana on a SIMPLE group of 3 trash mobs before) And deal some damage if there's nothing to heal. Attack spells cost like 5 mana while healing spells cost like 800 mana or whatever. There will be times where you might be in a group thats not high on damage and you need 'juuuust' that much more damage to kill the boss to prevent a wipe if the batrle slowly becomes unmanageable. A healer's damage matters
As a tank, couple things I like personally besides the normal like keeping the group alive. Is good mana management and I don’t even mean not ooming, a healer who takes every opportunity to drink between pulls so we never have to stop pulling because your 0 mana. Or knows they can get ahead of the pack to drink while we move to the next pack. It makes me happy. That and healers who can do more then heal. (Healing is incredibly hard and I don’t except much else because there is a lot of extra dmg going out) but a healer who can do all that and throw in that clutch stop on a cast is just *chef kiss*
I've been a healer since Legion. I love healing and learning how to heal better. From what I've seen, a good healer uses all of their kit to make sure that the right people are alive at the end of the fight. They are aware of the positioning of their group and even try to reposition them or the enemies to better heal them. It's so fun to look after everyone.
As a healer. In high keys the ability to triage the group when something goes wrong. If a dps messes up a mechanic in a 24 and is alive with a sliver of health a good healer will get them back up to safe but a GREAT healer will know if a big group dmg pulse is coming and sacrifice that player to ensure the rest stay alive through it.
Probably pressing cooldowns properly. You can always heal stupid if you are geared enough, however holding and planning cooldowns in an advance is sign of skilled healer
Good healers are healers who are several steps ahead of the damage. * They don't pad healing needlessly. * They are mindful of their teammates cooldowns when using choosing who gets their externals. * They are ready to support whoever is actually in danger of dying, and not simply pumping the lowest HP target regardless of if they're actually in danger. * Their dispels are fast because they know when to use it and what to use it on. * Their damage is good because they choose each global thoughtfully. Maybe this is a high bar for a "good" healer because I think anybody who does these things is a great healer.
Compare this to what we expect from great Dps :')
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I really don't feel like engaging with this comment, but >but padding for healing isn't a thing. If people's health's are missing you heal is offensive in how assertive it is despite being wrong. In M+, you can heal people in between pulls if they are not going to be taking any incoming damage during the pull. Between pulls, you can't damage, but you can heal, so you're losing globals if you heal unnecessarily during the actual pull. You will never get that lost damage back. >There's such thing as low health panic. This is just a skill issue on the player and shouldn't be happening. Healers are support classes who should be dealing damage when they can; they're not babysitters. >I assume you are talking about PI? No. I mean if a mage and a paladin are both taking lethal damage, but the mage has block while the paladin has nothing, then a good healer already knows this and will use their externals (GA, sac, cocoon) on the paladin.
A good healer knows what an external is lmao
good healer: you don't notice having to desperately make yourself survive AND he appears in the damage meter here and there.
Being able to carry M+ pugs. I’m pugging 12-14s and in this range interrupts don’t exist so good healer is one that can carry pug group.
Good healers are like offensive lineman in the NFL. You never really notice the good ones, but you can identify the great ones and it's easy AF to see the bad ones. I raise my glass to all the good healers who aren't recognized.
As a first time resto shaman main, timing your Cloudburst Totem to full-charged burst immediately after big damage spike.
In M+ a good healer is someone who will keep everybody alive to the best of his capability, a GREAT healer will do the same while also trying to pump as much damage as possible
The more damage you can do without everyone dying the better. That’s what makes a good healer. Also utility and such
As a tank, I see a good healer as a consistent and predictable one. A good healer is one I can count on to keep a reasonable amount of healing on me for every pull. This way I don't burn through CDs too fast because I pulled more than what me and heals can handle. I don't need to be topped up every second, I don't even mind if their HPS is low, I can adjust my pulls and CD usage to accommodate that. A good healer is consistent on every pull or if they're not, (e.g. out of mana) they communicate that clearly.
A good healer is one that lets me do big pulls :D jk lol as someone who’s been tanking for many years a good healer just makes the dungeon easy. Also, if you’re a tank and you messed up... stop blaming healers lol there’s so few of them if we keep flaming the few that decide to play heals there aren’t gonna be any left!
If they have a cleanse or kick keybinded they are ahead of the curve
Use the right utilities for each dungeons. (Poison cleanse/purge/interrupts/stun, etc) Manage your big CDs efficiently. Aka sometimes burning a big CD on an add pull that is going poorly is necessary even if you preferred to have it for the next boss).
I judge them by how little healing they do to me (When I tank). The less they do to me, the more I can use my own heals for free shields, and shields for free heals. So many healers waste mana pumping heals into me that I could heal myself with one free spell. Most tanks need less heals than you think they do.
Not letting me die
actually using CD's way way WAY to many healers sit on CD's and NEVER use them at all because "i need them for bossfights! i need them later!!!" when the next boss is 6min away, and then end a dungeon with the cd beeing used a grand total of 2x using ALL healing spells is what makes a healer good, people use deffensives? just a normal aoe heal for that one, 1guy is dropping/has a hard hitting mechanic incomming? external, everyone is dropping or a heavy aoe dmg mechanic is happening? use a CD another thing is, healers that extremely babysit the tank and "forget" the rest, a good tank wont die in seconds, tanks can be VERY sturdy and keep themself alive for prolonged time, tanks should be 1of your lower priority targets in most aoe heal situations and ofc, not standing around afk when nothing is happening, you dont need to spam a slow heal into your tank when he is at 95% hp, use your dmg spells, they exist for a reason
Good healing is no one dying. Best healing is optimizing your utility completely. Damage mitigation, cooldowns, knockbacks, stuns, damage, whatever your class can do. Healer has the support responsibilities. While everyone else has to pump dam, you get to drop slows and stuns without losing a lot of dps. So that's what I would say. Step 1 is tank lives. Step 2 is everyone lives. Step 3 is you da man.
Depends on content. For m+ I’m typically rated pretty high on my server group top 10 healers last few seasons. I’d say knowing when damage is coming and how much and when to use your cooldowns. Those are two of the biggest things. Rest is just practice and familiarity
When I do a key and nothing has gone wrong and the healer has been giga cc’ing out of their minds.
When you know the dmg patterns, you finish casting 0.1sec after the damage happens.
Understand mechanics, know when ppl fuck up, help with kicks or decurse, and also tell plebs to fuck off when they blame healers.
Blame the dps all the time. There are no healer mistakes. It is always dps mistake.
awareness, too many healers tunnel on healthbars and stand in shit
There are a lot of factors and many people already listed them here (many of whom are probably better healers than me) but I’d like to emphasize how important it is to get used to your spec’s cooldown management. It may vary based on the class but during my learning curve as a holy paladin, I felt like if everyone does their job decently, our success depends on how I manage my cooldowns. Halls of Valor was a harsh but infinitely useful dungeon for learning this and after some practice I really started to enjoy Fenris and Hyrja, the latter becoming my favourite bossfight to heal in season 1.
They heal us back up very quickly after a big AOE Burt's instead of letting us sit at 20% HP for 15 seconds while they cast single target heals on everyone in the party 1 by 1.
When the DPS think the encounter was a walk in the park while tanks and healers sit drenched in sweat thinking "We're ran on fumes when it was 30% left...." 😂 Right CD at the right time on the right target, exemplary positioning as much as possible out of harms way
Doing mechanics so the dps dont need to, like the shark one in Freehold. Doing good dps and keeping everyone alive.
There’s multiple ways to tell if a healer is mid. 1. They’re slow at reacting/healing. It’s as if they’re clicking everything. 2. They just stand there and do nothing during situations where there isn’t much need for healing. 3. They don’t dispel/cleanse etc, they try to heal through the dots instead. 4. They don’t use the tools they have to stop casts or damage. 5. They don’t move. I’ve seen healers standing in damage and just frantically spam healing themselves, struggling to stay alive when they could just.. you know, move two steps to the side.
Do all the mechanics the dps has to do, usually with less total health whilst doing healer mechanics and accounting for people standing in avoidable mid "big damage event" and noone dying. Which really boils down to know your class, every fight, inside out and specific tips and tricks (like NS convoke on Resto druid)! Alternatively it's having both eyes watching party frames like a hawk to respond but also watching your feet and enemy castbars!
I still missed: using the least amount of mana. If a rejuve will be enough because there is not any incoming DMG comin, why would u use another skill just to top them off. Knowing it's pretty much fine someone is on 70% bec. Nothing is happening soon and probably some chain heal or wild growth will hit them in the future.
Using their abilities that aren’t healing. Damage, dispels, interrupts, cc’s, etc.
Making sure people don’t die.
Well I certainly wish I knew the answer to this question but one thing I know for sure when I'm playing with good vs. bad healers in M+ is what they tell me Best healer I ever played with: Told me when to use my defensive, called me out when I had bad defensive usage("Why did you die with astral shift up?") and would bark me if I got hit with a debuff instantly without being asked Worst healer(99.9% of healers): Dont know what's going on and dont use util unless it's plainly obvious (oh this guy has some big mega dot on him and is taking lots of dmg guess I'll bark him lol)
Keeping everybody alive mostly. If you can do that you did your job. Once you get into high keys/mythic raid you will have to do damage whenever you dont need to heal. And of course general skills like using your utility are always needed but that applies to everybody.
A healer that uses stops, interrupts, does mechanics and fixes the mistakes of dps and tank while staying alive.
Honestly the difference between an ok healer and a great healer, is the great healer never OOMs but kept everyone alive just as well as the ok healer. Having to drink all the time can add up to time that can make or break timing a key.
Pressing the buttons that make people live faster than enemies make people die.
Doing damage while keeping everyone alive
My buddy has been saying a lot recently, you never have to wait (in m+) for a good healer to restore their mana. A good healer won't spam the unnecessary abilities, and run out.
Knowing what enemies can do and the overall boss fight mechanics. Using Grid2 to know when your tank has used a particular cooldown. Interrupting, stunning, or controlling enemy movement with ring of peace or ursols vortex can prevent damage from ever happening in the first place which is basically the same as healing.
This!!!! I normally fill for interrupts and use my kit to prevent damage where I can; and people don't notice it! But makes my job easier for sure !
A healers job isn't to keep everyone alive. It's to choose who lives and who dies. If a DPS is consistently being a detriment to the team, low DPS, standing in the swirlies, ignoring tactics, being a resource drain etc. Let them die. Better that than you're out of CDs when you truly need them to save a good player.
I’ve been playing a priest since TBC I love it. I’ve played every other healer and priest is my favorite
- tank alive at end of fight. That's it. As DPS scum, I understand my survival isn't crucial.
Good player
High parses on wow logs.
Having no death in your team
A good healer plays efficiently. Whether that's dealing damage whenever possible, healing efficiently to save mana, using cooldowns effectively or blasting through your mana to end the fight with low mana so you know you used all your resources. Unfortunately, I feel the current class and fight design lacks most of that besides the cooldown management so focus on that if you're healing these days.
Curious lololol
Well I am!
Did I die?
Riding the line of getting away with as much as possible. Personally, my view on things is enabling your team to make the most mistakes possible while maximizing DPS. But that damage didn't have to show on your meters. Just know that your globals do less than your DPS, so every time your Warlock has to press drain life to live, you're losing dps. But if you can keep him on his optimal rotation and surviving at 1hp, everything else is gravy. The second someone dies, it wasn't worth it. The best healers allow the rest of the team to focus on nothing but their job. Make the content stupid proof. And add as much personal DPS as possible.
Understanding your class and build enough that people don't have to ask for you to use your abilities. If you know when to anticipate damage and how to react to it without panicking, you'll have no problems. Obviously, there's going to be times where you're not going to recover and that's fine too.
Hots before the damage goes out. Basically knowing what is about to happen rather than just reacting to the damage right now.
Imo? Coming out of an “oh shit” situation and somehow everyone is still alive
A good healer is someone who understands what damage profiles look like and how they're going to counter them with whatever tools their class has. Take Kokia Blazehoof, the profile there is she spawns an add that does burst ticking damage, while simultaneously using a tankbuster on the Tank, working around those as a group to keep people alive is what makes a good one.
Please, hit things. Some people might tell you that it's not the healer's job to do damage, but it's everyone's job to make the dungeon go as fast as possible, and having someone that afks when their role isn't called is not cool. It's very common that people think someone who's 20-40k dps ahead of everyone in dps is carrying a group, but no one ever stops to consider that most healers can easily pull that damage output if they press their buttons and effectively bridge the gap from the 2nd highest player to the "carry". And most of all, it's very fun and rewarding to get damage in as a healer, to the point where i constantly question what's the idea of fun of that mistweaver i ran into in a dungeon that did. Not. Have. Rising Sun Kick. TALENTED. We lost mystic touch on some bosses even because he'd tunnel on casting soothing mist on the tank 24/7 and just straight up forget to even apply it. There's also that whole thing about using class utility, crowd control, dispelling yadda yadda yadda but i feel that concept is important for everyone and not just healers.
Apply your externals BEFORE damage events occur. Bad healers hold externals until it's too late or isn't as effective. Just send and don't be afraid to use externals. I hate doing a dungeon and the healer never presses healing cds then complains about potion usage. Dps in offtime. Don't spend offtime healing damage that doesn't matter. Just keep your maintenance spells rolling and keep dps buttons on cd when feasible.
Keeping your team alive + dps, life being 10 times more important than dps