isfreak wrote:
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Addicted, it sounds like you're reactively healing. That's NEVER a good idea in raids. If the tank takes damage and you (or whichever one-two players who are main healing) don't already have a big heal incoming, you're doing something wrong. Start casting gheal, cancel after 1-1.5 seconds if they don't need the healing, start casting again. If you're main healer, the only reason you shouldn't be doing that is if you're refreshing PoM or renew.
Isfreak, it sounds like you spoke up without understanding what you are talking about. That's NEVER a good idea in forums. My raid knows what they are doing, and follow their instructions:
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they have me spam flash heal rank 1 to activate the +25% armor bonus on crit as much as possible. My mp5 is high enough that I pretty much cast continuously
My job is to make sure the tank has +25% armor from inspiration as much as possible and overheal. If all you do is start and stop casting greater heal all the time, your tank doesn't have the benefit of the extra armor which increases the amount of healing you do.
My top rank flash heals do almost half as much healing as top rank greater heal and take about half as long to cast. That means if the tank is in trouble, I can do just about the same healing with two flash heals as with one greater heal. If you start and stop greater heals half way through, you are getting an average of about the same time it takes to cast flash heal. But you could lose your tank if he takes a big hit just after you interrupt your heal because now you have to start all over. I just cast two flash heals and get the same effect with less risk of the tank dying. I bet that you do the same thing in that situation.
I do use the technique of starting a greater heal if I know the boss hits hard and interrupt if there is nothing to heal. Its pretty easy to figure out that you can stop casting if the tank is full health. But I prefer to keep a steady stream of healing to top off the tank so I don't get in trouble.
The cast/interrupt strategy is the far more reactive strategy you despise. You are committing to a high mana cost, long cast time heal and then deciding whether to continue it based upon the situation. That is totally reactive! If the tank doesn't need it, you waste mana. If you stop, you save mana but a fraction of a second later you may be looking at a half dead tank and the full cast time. Precasting the spell does not protect you at all from disaster. But it works if you know the tank will almost always need it--but that means you don't interrupt much.
If you find yourself interrupting most of the greater heals, it implies that the tank isn't taking much damage. That means you can rely on renew and prayer of mending and just watch and cast a flash heal every once in a while. If you find yourself letting the greater heals land, it implies that the tank needs a lot of healing so its not a mana saving strategy. And if the tank is dying fast, you need to spam flash heal anyway because the tank may die while you cast greater heal.
And like I said at the outset, the more heals you cast, the higher the chances of proccing inspiration, which will make your job easier. 25% more armor is 25% less mana, so using the less mana efficient flash heals come out ahead both in mana cost and tank survivability. Before I started raid healing, I used to think greater heal was the best use of my mana. My guild explained the flash heal/inspiration strategy, and now I rely on flash heals for healing in instance groups, too. I would rather cast twice as many flash heals, reduce the chances of the tank going down, and cut down on the mana consumption. 25% more armor makes everything easier.
I suppose healing strategy is also dependent upon the amount of health the tank has and the size of the heals. My tanks have about 10000 health and my greater heals are 4400+. I sure don't want to wait until they are below 6000 health to land a greater heal, but if I use greater heal at about 8000 health, it is a total waste of mana. I am dropping a 2000 flash heal when I see the health bar drop--which is generally lands around 8000 health. That is safe and economical. I drop the greater heals when the boss gets a crit or crushing blow and I need to get the tank to full health from half dead.
And don't discount the psychological value of keeping the tank topped up even if it costs extra mana. If the tank knows you won't be losing him, he can concentrate on doing his job and everyone will love you. Everyone in the raid gets distracted if they see the tanks health going up and down wildly and no one cares how efficient your mana use might be. And when you do wipe, the wild vacillations will be considered evidence of your incompetence. Much better to waste some mana and keep the tanks health bar as green as possible. Edited, Sep 11th 2007 6:45pm by AddictedFanatic