I healed regular forge of souls with a warrior tank who had 27k health buffed. That was pretty challenging. Really, though, tank healing isn't very hard. It's trying to be a good healer and keeping up dps (and myself) when they take splash damage (or worse, when they draw aggro and tank doesn't get it right back). I try not to take my eye off of the tank for too long so that they get creamed, but there have been some trying moments hehe.
I think my discomfort with healing heroics is based on my lack of knowledge of the fights as well as on my guild's failed attempts at some of the early ones. I'd like to get more comfortable with the fights in a capacity that doesn't endanger the whole run. Know what I mean?
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Healing heroicsFollow
Last night we mistakenly wound up in heroic halls of lightning (group leader signed us up for random heroic dungeon instead of random regular dungeon) and we said what the heck let's try it. We had all done regular HoL once before, and I've done regular HoL several times with pugs. How hard can it be?
First wipe was when hunter left their kitty fighting a mob on a platform that the first boss pathed to. He and his friends aggroed at the wrong time (is there ever a good time?) and we wiped. We regrouped and wound up taking him down while he had his lightning charge up so we got the extra achievement which was nice.
We move on to the elemental room and I explain we need to have tank run through first and we all follow behind. Folks are really slow to follow, everyone gathers in tight cluster and we die to aoes. Wipe #2 (actually not everybody died but it was more than half the group). Second time across we make it across only to have somebody go too far up the stairs and aggro fire guys from the top of the stairs. Wipe #3. Third time across the room we have this down and take them out. Then somebody gets aggro from the guys atop the stairs when we're not ready for them and we have wipe #4.
Finally we get our act together and it goes flawlessly and we get our way over to Vulcan (not his real name but close enough). We begin taking him down and his minions are stacking up all around us. It didn't occur to me until it was too late that he blows them up and that on heroic that could be big trouble (especially considering how many we had). I had just mentioned that to the group when they blew up and we had wipe #5.
At that point two guildies had to log off and we called it a night. The tank and I talked it through afterwards and worked out a plan for the next time we give it a go. It was a tough run, but at least we learned and improved. That's something!
First wipe was when hunter left their kitty fighting a mob on a platform that the first boss pathed to. He and his friends aggroed at the wrong time (is there ever a good time?) and we wiped. We regrouped and wound up taking him down while he had his lightning charge up so we got the extra achievement which was nice.
We move on to the elemental room and I explain we need to have tank run through first and we all follow behind. Folks are really slow to follow, everyone gathers in tight cluster and we die to aoes. Wipe #2 (actually not everybody died but it was more than half the group). Second time across we make it across only to have somebody go too far up the stairs and aggro fire guys from the top of the stairs. Wipe #3. Third time across the room we have this down and take them out. Then somebody gets aggro from the guys atop the stairs when we're not ready for them and we have wipe #4.
Finally we get our act together and it goes flawlessly and we get our way over to Vulcan (not his real name but close enough). We begin taking him down and his minions are stacking up all around us. It didn't occur to me until it was too late that he blows them up and that on heroic that could be big trouble (especially considering how many we had). I had just mentioned that to the group when they blew up and we had wipe #5.
At that point two guildies had to log off and we called it a night. The tank and I talked it through afterwards and worked out a plan for the next time we give it a go. It was a tough run, but at least we learned and improved. That's something!
Dosgamer wrote:
We move on to the elemental room
I still dislike that room, and still end up popping tranquility there. That AoE sucks, and we're often melee heavy. :S
Grats on the lightning achievement though! :D
That monster in the mirror, he just might be you. -Grover
If I may ask, why tranquility and not wild growth? Just curious. Thanks!
Dosgamer wrote:
If I may ask, why tranquility and not wild growth? Just curious. Thanks!
Nothing wrong with WG, it's good to have that ticking too. But once you have that going, Tranquility does insane amounts of healing. Tranquility is like spamming an un-HoTed Nourish on everyone in the group at the same time. If just the tank is taking damage (like if all the dps is ranged), best just to direct-heal him with your other spells; but with the massive AoE there Tranquility can be a life saver.
Just watch the aggro if you don't have it talented. ;-)
That monster in the mirror, he just might be you. -Grover
You mentioned that on Vulcan(sp?) you had several of his minions stacking up on you. How many exactly? I'm asking because it might indicate low overall DPS. I've done heroic Halls of Lightning a bunch of times and I have never seen more than four. Best method is to just let them roam free and heal the damage they do (not much, by the way). If they "die" and Vulcan does his shatter stuff, they hit like trucks.
I kind of envy your situation, though. Especially since everyone in your groups seem dedicated to complete the job. Had it been a random PUG, the first wipe probably would have had the tank and/or healer leaving the group.
I kind of envy your situation, though. Especially since everyone in your groups seem dedicated to complete the job. Had it been a random PUG, the first wipe probably would have had the tank and/or healer leaving the group.
Please "talk up" if your comprehension white-shifts. I will use simple-happy language-words to help you understand.
The adds on the Volkhan fight only explode if you dps them down first. They become brittle at that point and then will explode when he emotes "Volkhan shatters his brittle golems". But if you don't actively dps them, they shouldn't explode.
It's good that you have a group of people who are willing to keep trying at dungeons, but it does sound like people need to pay a bit more attention to what's around them. In HoL you mention a few occasions where you wiped because people ran ahead or because the hunter wasn't watching their pet. Tell people to stay behind the tank (if the tank pulls early and you're not too far away you should be able to recover the situation) and if needed stick a raid mark on the tank and tell people to stay behind that (I'm sure we used to have to do that with my guild in BC). The elemental room is pretty much death for melee, if I'm dpsing (always ranged) I like to see if I can blow the melee up, if I'm healing I generally resign myself to scraping them off the floor after the pack. If the melee are smart they can run out before too many mobs explode.
Not sure what your gear is like, but it might be worth trying the ICC instances on normal mode or ToC on normal. They are a bit harder than the other normal mode instances (PoS and HoR particularly I found), but they do drop some very nice loot, which might help you progress further in heroics.
It sounds a bit like you might have low dps (getting lots of adds on the second HoL boss), so it might be worth pointing them towards guides for their class (I'd imagine the class forums here have a guide for each one, or they can try elitist jerks if they're feeling brave). If they are willing to put time into repeated wiping and retrying to clear an instance then hopefully they will be willing to spend some time reading up about better spec, gearing or cast sequence in order to up their damage.
Not sure what your gear is like, but it might be worth trying the ICC instances on normal mode or ToC on normal. They are a bit harder than the other normal mode instances (PoS and HoR particularly I found), but they do drop some very nice loot, which might help you progress further in heroics.
It sounds a bit like you might have low dps (getting lots of adds on the second HoL boss), so it might be worth pointing them towards guides for their class (I'd imagine the class forums here have a guide for each one, or they can try elitist jerks if they're feeling brave). If they are willing to put time into repeated wiping and retrying to clear an instance then hopefully they will be willing to spend some time reading up about better spec, gearing or cast sequence in order to up their damage.
Dosgamer wrote:
We move on to the elemental room and I explain we need to have tank run through first and we all follow behind. Folks are really slow to follow, everyone gathers in tight cluster and we die to aoes.
Tanking, I actually tend to pop a CD on these guys. They do a LOT of damage when they blow up all at once and everyone LOVES to AoE them down. :)
As far as your group goes, the only melee you've mentioned is Rogue. A Rogue should be able to Cloak of Shadows / Feint his way through the explosion, as long as they time it right. Same thing with Loken's Nova (Cloak/Feint the first one, Feint the second one if he gets it off).
The elemental room with the explosive death always gets me, I hate that room. But using one rule we usually come out OK. NEVER AOE THEM DOWN, since they explode when you kill them and due massive damage when they die it would make sense to take them out one at a time.
Alternatively, have the tank keep aggro on all of them, stay at the bottom of stairs, have everyone else AoE them down, except melee and healer and let the tank be the only person that dies when they all go boom, rez and move on.
Worked both ways for me, but the never AoE thing is much more reliable as people not used to tanking tend to freak and move close to everyone else and then wipe the group when everything blows up....
Alternatively, have the tank keep aggro on all of them, stay at the bottom of stairs, have everyone else AoE them down, except melee and healer and let the tank be the only person that dies when they all go boom, rez and move on.
Worked both ways for me, but the never AoE thing is much more reliable as people not used to tanking tend to freak and move close to everyone else and then wipe the group when everything blows up....
When we wiped to Volkhan, I think we had at least 6 golems up. The caster with us (boomkin) loves to aoe stuff. Next time through we will focus fire on Volkhan for sure.
I keep meaning to get a damage meter and check out what dps folks are doing. Not to rank anyone or chastise folks for doing poor dps, but just for knowledge purposes. If folks were then interested in improving their performance I could direct them here to the appropriate forums for them to educate themselves.
I've done Forge of Souls multiple times. Tried with a pug this past weekend and the tank only had 27k health buffed. Two of the group (including tank) had never been in there before. We made it to the final boss but wiped first try. Second try we were doing better until the tank went linkdead and aggro jumped all over. We still managed to get the boss down to 100k before we wiped. At that point people bailed and the group was done.
Third pug group was in Trial of the Champions(5-man) normal mode. The fight with the middle boss (the woman, forget her name) saw damage flying all over the place and I couldn't keep up (I should have used tranquility I guess) and two dps died (but were able to run back in). The tank told me I sucked. =( We finished the run with nobody else dying, and I didn't say anything about his comment. That's the first time someone has told me that, though. /sigh
I keep meaning to get a damage meter and check out what dps folks are doing. Not to rank anyone or chastise folks for doing poor dps, but just for knowledge purposes. If folks were then interested in improving their performance I could direct them here to the appropriate forums for them to educate themselves.
I've done Forge of Souls multiple times. Tried with a pug this past weekend and the tank only had 27k health buffed. Two of the group (including tank) had never been in there before. We made it to the final boss but wiped first try. Second try we were doing better until the tank went linkdead and aggro jumped all over. We still managed to get the boss down to 100k before we wiped. At that point people bailed and the group was done.
Third pug group was in Trial of the Champions(5-man) normal mode. The fight with the middle boss (the woman, forget her name) saw damage flying all over the place and I couldn't keep up (I should have used tranquility I guess) and two dps died (but were able to run back in). The tank told me I sucked. =( We finished the run with nobody else dying, and I didn't say anything about his comment. That's the first time someone has told me that, though. /sigh
The middle boss on ToC is a pain in the neck if you get the Confessor. If the tank doesn't have a healer alt, he doesn't know the joy of trying to heal that thing while feared. I try and keep HOTs up on everyone and hit a wild growth just before the fear, if I can time it right. It's tricky.
The last boss is really a better test of how you're doing in general. If you got through the final phase of the Black Knight fine, you were doing your job.
I would echo what Tynuv said about your group. You need people to stay behind the tank. When in a group, especially on harder content, you have a role, and need to stick to that for things to work. You let the tank lead. You don't AOE when you're supposed to be doing single target damage. Vulkhan (or whatever), and that elemental room are great examples of that. If everyone does their jobs, it's ok. If someone tries to be a hero, they can ***** it up for everyone.
The last boss is really a better test of how you're doing in general. If you got through the final phase of the Black Knight fine, you were doing your job.
I would echo what Tynuv said about your group. You need people to stay behind the tank. When in a group, especially on harder content, you have a role, and need to stick to that for things to work. You let the tank lead. You don't AOE when you're supposed to be doing single target damage. Vulkhan (or whatever), and that elemental room are great examples of that. If everyone does their jobs, it's ok. If someone tries to be a hero, they can ***** it up for everyone.
Sorry for posting this in an old thread, but it's related to the topic, and I figured it would be better to continue here rather than make a new post. I warn you, it's a long story, so read at your own risk!
I'm in a similar situation as the OP, in that I leveled Longtail as a Boomkin since level 40, and have played her as such ever since. I have dual-specced and I can pinch-heal if the healer goes down, but I can literally count on one hand the number of times I went into tree form and actually healed a group. The first was regular Forge of souls, which was surprisingly smooth. I've helped friends do a couple of regular instances where both I and the tank were overgeared for the instance, making healing a minor issue.
However, the night before last I decided to get some practice in. My local friend recently specced his paladin to tank, so I figured we could group and both get a little practice while we got badges. The first dungeon that came up was heroic Forge of Souls. I was a little apprehensive but thought, "Hey, I've already healed regular". That was my first mistake. We hit the first wave of trash, and the warrior basically started doing a whirlwind as soon as we engaged. Suddenly he was the focus of every mob in the group, and I could not keep him up. He dropped as soon as I got off the first HoT. We took the group out sans warrior, who had some snide remark about 'no healz'. I apologised, explaining I was new to healing- and nothing more was said.
We went through the rest of the trash leading up to Bronjahm without too much incident. We ran in, started attacking the Godfather of Souls, and I was healing like a champion- until I suddenly faceplanted unexpectedly. The mage followed suit quickly thereafter. Oops- I forgot to check my own health (something I rarely need to do as Boomkin), and was watching everyone else's. The mage started going on about "WTF, you weren't even under 70% mana, how could you let yourself die". I felt like a heel- I knew it was entirely my fault for not checking my health as well as everyone else's. Of course- in heroic, he does damage to anyone with casters. Stupid of me for forgetting that. I apologised again, and we returned, ran back in and rebuffed.
We finished him off the second time, and I felt okay. Not great- I'd already caused a wipe. However, the second time we cleared him. The mage, for reasons of his own, was whispering me with lots of advice- not something I could read and follow while we were running from trash mob to trash mob. "Always use your global cooldowns, you should never have one free", "keep your rejuvs up on everyone", "you should be using wild growth every time it's on cooldown", etc., etc. I figured perhaps he had a druid healer, so I glanced at his comments and thanked him while trying to keep focused on the fights. We didn't have another incident until we got to one of the ghosts, where I suddenly took a few seconds to cast my insta-cast spells. I warned the group I was getting lag spikes.
We got to the Devourer of Souls, and everything was going smoothly. Then I saw my health go from ~75% to under 25% in a split second. I tried to move and cast a Rejuv at the same time, but before the rejuv even cast, *bam*- dead. The mage started going ballistic, saying I needed to learn my effing class, WTF was my problem, why didn't I Barkskin, etc., etc. If I'd had one iota of warning, I would have. I already felt bad about getting into a heroic I obviously should not have been healing in- not to mention that I'd already caused one wipe. The mage popped some invisible bubble. The rogue said we should try again, but that lovely mage, who obviously knew what I was doing wrong and how "terribad" I was, just wouldn't let up.
I ended up apologising once more for the wipe, and said "I don't think that I can continue given the learning curve, good luck and take care" - or something to that effect. I left group, and my friend basically whispered me with a "WTF are you bailing for", and, given my oversensitive nature, decided that rather than argue with him about going back into instances that night, logged off for the night. Now, I saw it as a double-edged sword. I'd grouped for random heroics but never suspected that the dungeon finder would throw me into heroic FOS. I should have bowed out at the beginning. I also didn't want to bail and leave four people (three, if my friend also left) looking for a healer and possibly a tank. I also wish like hell I wasn't so damned sensitive. It's not something you'd expect out of a 300-lb ex-cop, but I take things very personally. I saw it as a personal failure. I didn't want to play healer again. I play to unwind and relax, and that one incident left me feeling upset and frustrated.
However, after a good sleep and a couple of days to think it over, I realise I can't stop healing just because of one incident. I need practice, and need to study what to do. In the studying aspect, this thread (and the other one linked about rotations) are immensely useful- thanks from another healing newb! However, I also was wondering if anyone has tips or suggestions for a new healer- ideas for where I can safely practice without having it so easy that I don't actually learn how to heal. After all, if I learn when it's sleep-mode easy, then when I hit FoS again, I can see another sad repeat of the story I just shared. So if anyone can give suggestions for how to learn healing after 80 levels of lazerchicken, I'd love you forever or at least I'd be happy that you shared your knowledge.
I'm in a similar situation as the OP, in that I leveled Longtail as a Boomkin since level 40, and have played her as such ever since. I have dual-specced and I can pinch-heal if the healer goes down, but I can literally count on one hand the number of times I went into tree form and actually healed a group. The first was regular Forge of souls, which was surprisingly smooth. I've helped friends do a couple of regular instances where both I and the tank were overgeared for the instance, making healing a minor issue.
However, the night before last I decided to get some practice in. My local friend recently specced his paladin to tank, so I figured we could group and both get a little practice while we got badges. The first dungeon that came up was heroic Forge of Souls. I was a little apprehensive but thought, "Hey, I've already healed regular". That was my first mistake. We hit the first wave of trash, and the warrior basically started doing a whirlwind as soon as we engaged. Suddenly he was the focus of every mob in the group, and I could not keep him up. He dropped as soon as I got off the first HoT. We took the group out sans warrior, who had some snide remark about 'no healz'. I apologised, explaining I was new to healing- and nothing more was said.
We went through the rest of the trash leading up to Bronjahm without too much incident. We ran in, started attacking the Godfather of Souls, and I was healing like a champion- until I suddenly faceplanted unexpectedly. The mage followed suit quickly thereafter. Oops- I forgot to check my own health (something I rarely need to do as Boomkin), and was watching everyone else's. The mage started going on about "WTF, you weren't even under 70% mana, how could you let yourself die". I felt like a heel- I knew it was entirely my fault for not checking my health as well as everyone else's. Of course- in heroic, he does damage to anyone with casters. Stupid of me for forgetting that. I apologised again, and we returned, ran back in and rebuffed.
We finished him off the second time, and I felt okay. Not great- I'd already caused a wipe. However, the second time we cleared him. The mage, for reasons of his own, was whispering me with lots of advice- not something I could read and follow while we were running from trash mob to trash mob. "Always use your global cooldowns, you should never have one free", "keep your rejuvs up on everyone", "you should be using wild growth every time it's on cooldown", etc., etc. I figured perhaps he had a druid healer, so I glanced at his comments and thanked him while trying to keep focused on the fights. We didn't have another incident until we got to one of the ghosts, where I suddenly took a few seconds to cast my insta-cast spells. I warned the group I was getting lag spikes.
We got to the Devourer of Souls, and everything was going smoothly. Then I saw my health go from ~75% to under 25% in a split second. I tried to move and cast a Rejuv at the same time, but before the rejuv even cast, *bam*- dead. The mage started going ballistic, saying I needed to learn my effing class, WTF was my problem, why didn't I Barkskin, etc., etc. If I'd had one iota of warning, I would have. I already felt bad about getting into a heroic I obviously should not have been healing in- not to mention that I'd already caused one wipe. The mage popped some invisible bubble. The rogue said we should try again, but that lovely mage, who obviously knew what I was doing wrong and how "terribad" I was, just wouldn't let up.
I ended up apologising once more for the wipe, and said "I don't think that I can continue given the learning curve, good luck and take care" - or something to that effect. I left group, and my friend basically whispered me with a "WTF are you bailing for", and, given my oversensitive nature, decided that rather than argue with him about going back into instances that night, logged off for the night. Now, I saw it as a double-edged sword. I'd grouped for random heroics but never suspected that the dungeon finder would throw me into heroic FOS. I should have bowed out at the beginning. I also didn't want to bail and leave four people (three, if my friend also left) looking for a healer and possibly a tank. I also wish like hell I wasn't so damned sensitive. It's not something you'd expect out of a 300-lb ex-cop, but I take things very personally. I saw it as a personal failure. I didn't want to play healer again. I play to unwind and relax, and that one incident left me feeling upset and frustrated.
However, after a good sleep and a couple of days to think it over, I realise I can't stop healing just because of one incident. I need practice, and need to study what to do. In the studying aspect, this thread (and the other one linked about rotations) are immensely useful- thanks from another healing newb! However, I also was wondering if anyone has tips or suggestions for a new healer- ideas for where I can safely practice without having it so easy that I don't actually learn how to heal. After all, if I learn when it's sleep-mode easy, then when I hit FoS again, I can see another sad repeat of the story I just shared. So if anyone can give suggestions for how to learn healing after 80 levels of lazerchicken, I'd love you forever or at least I'd be happy that you shared your knowledge.
Seems like your experience came from 2 things really.
1) Lack of experience healing and 2) Lack of experience in FoS.
So I would suggest going through and LFD NORMAL dungeons to get experience healing dungeons (and this migth sound strange, but if experience is what you want then downgrade your gear to make it more challenging in normal dungeons).
Simply being the healer in dungeons will help you out down the road as it gets you attuned to how player the healer feels, gets you used to what spells do what, how much healing they do, how long they take to cast, makes you start thinking like a healer and therefore gets your brain to react accordingly to damage spikes, boss fights, trash pulls and other stuff. For example, if you aren't thinking like a healer, but like your boomkin you might forget about Nature's swiftness + healing touch being a godsend for "OH ****" moments, or Swiftmend for a quick top off from some unexpected spike damage.
One thing I would suggest doing is getting a healing add-on such as Healbot, I use it and love it. It puts a window up of everyone and their pets (if applicable) with their health bar and allows you to assign spells to mouse clicks and lets you cast the spell by clicking the corresponding button while hovering over the name in the window, and also has alt and ctrl modifiers for a total of 15 options (5 options for each modifier). I have it set like this right now: Left-Regrowth, Center-Rejuv, Right-Healing Touch, Button 4- Swiftmend, Button 5- Lifebloom, alt + left- Abolish Poison, alt + right - Remove Curse, alt + center - Rebirth.
Some tips:
Omen of Clarity + Lifebloom = free mana and healing, never pass up on this...even if everyone is full...which might happen but the tank will get hit again eventually so casting it on them is usually a safe bet.
You can target an enemy and cast Wild Growth to get the melee surrounding it, VERY handy on boss fights, also, when casting Wild Growth, if you need some healing, run up close if AoE will allow and get yourself in on the healing, no point wasting mana on a rejuv or Lifebloom and mana.
Rejuv + Swiftmend = awesome, its essentialy a quick cast Healing Touch with an added HoT, great for topping off the tank after you get stunned, silenced or the tank takes a hard hit you couldn't heal through for some other reason.
Lifebloom is your most mana efficient heal besides Wild Growth, it costs more to cast than Rejuv but you get half back when it blooms which makes the net mana spent in the end, less than Rejuv.
Don't forget about Tranquility and Innervate, and always save Innervate for yourself, Healers in a party are always the most important caster (some situations will dictate otherwise, but you will learn those from more experience) everyone takes a hard AoE hit, cast Tranquility, fight you know will last a while and you get a low mana warning, pop Innervate. Neither of them are on THAT long of a cooldown, use them when you need them otherwise you may not live long enough to regret it.
When in doubt about who should get heals, the more experience you have the easier it will make your decision, and knowing your group helps immensely; but in general it goes like this- YOU, Tank, alternate healer (another class that CAN cast heals), Top/ most survivable DPS, everyone else. Reasons being 1) everyone else will die shortly after you if you die usually, and if tank dies you might be able to keep DPS up long enough to finish the fight, but if you die that's impossible. 2) You have rebirth so even IF the tank goes down you can get him back up and top him off to get back in the fight. 3) You have rez, if you die and no one else can rez and IF someone survived the fight, it's a LONG wait to get things back up and running, if everyone else is dead, it takes less time to rez them all then to wait for them all to run back.
I have lots of others but that's the gist of it, the most important point being LEARN HOW TO THINK LIKE A HEALER, and you won't get that without doing it more often, second one being KNOW YOUR SPELLS, and you won't get that without more experience either.
Good Luck!
1) Lack of experience healing and 2) Lack of experience in FoS.
So I would suggest going through and LFD NORMAL dungeons to get experience healing dungeons (and this migth sound strange, but if experience is what you want then downgrade your gear to make it more challenging in normal dungeons).
Simply being the healer in dungeons will help you out down the road as it gets you attuned to how player the healer feels, gets you used to what spells do what, how much healing they do, how long they take to cast, makes you start thinking like a healer and therefore gets your brain to react accordingly to damage spikes, boss fights, trash pulls and other stuff. For example, if you aren't thinking like a healer, but like your boomkin you might forget about Nature's swiftness + healing touch being a godsend for "OH ****" moments, or Swiftmend for a quick top off from some unexpected spike damage.
One thing I would suggest doing is getting a healing add-on such as Healbot, I use it and love it. It puts a window up of everyone and their pets (if applicable) with their health bar and allows you to assign spells to mouse clicks and lets you cast the spell by clicking the corresponding button while hovering over the name in the window, and also has alt and ctrl modifiers for a total of 15 options (5 options for each modifier). I have it set like this right now: Left-Regrowth, Center-Rejuv, Right-Healing Touch, Button 4- Swiftmend, Button 5- Lifebloom, alt + left- Abolish Poison, alt + right - Remove Curse, alt + center - Rebirth.
Some tips:
Omen of Clarity + Lifebloom = free mana and healing, never pass up on this...even if everyone is full...which might happen but the tank will get hit again eventually so casting it on them is usually a safe bet.
You can target an enemy and cast Wild Growth to get the melee surrounding it, VERY handy on boss fights, also, when casting Wild Growth, if you need some healing, run up close if AoE will allow and get yourself in on the healing, no point wasting mana on a rejuv or Lifebloom and mana.
Rejuv + Swiftmend = awesome, its essentialy a quick cast Healing Touch with an added HoT, great for topping off the tank after you get stunned, silenced or the tank takes a hard hit you couldn't heal through for some other reason.
Lifebloom is your most mana efficient heal besides Wild Growth, it costs more to cast than Rejuv but you get half back when it blooms which makes the net mana spent in the end, less than Rejuv.
Don't forget about Tranquility and Innervate, and always save Innervate for yourself, Healers in a party are always the most important caster (some situations will dictate otherwise, but you will learn those from more experience) everyone takes a hard AoE hit, cast Tranquility, fight you know will last a while and you get a low mana warning, pop Innervate. Neither of them are on THAT long of a cooldown, use them when you need them otherwise you may not live long enough to regret it.
When in doubt about who should get heals, the more experience you have the easier it will make your decision, and knowing your group helps immensely; but in general it goes like this- YOU, Tank, alternate healer (another class that CAN cast heals), Top/ most survivable DPS, everyone else. Reasons being 1) everyone else will die shortly after you if you die usually, and if tank dies you might be able to keep DPS up long enough to finish the fight, but if you die that's impossible. 2) You have rebirth so even IF the tank goes down you can get him back up and top him off to get back in the fight. 3) You have rez, if you die and no one else can rez and IF someone survived the fight, it's a LONG wait to get things back up and running, if everyone else is dead, it takes less time to rez them all then to wait for them all to run back.
I have lots of others but that's the gist of it, the most important point being LEARN HOW TO THINK LIKE A HEALER, and you won't get that without doing it more often, second one being KNOW YOUR SPELLS, and you won't get that without more experience either.
Good Luck!
Wondroustremor wrote:
where I can safely practice without having it so easy that I don't actually learn how to heal.
I've become a fan of teacake's suggestion: practice healing in battlegrounds. It has the same kinds of spike damage that give druids trouble, and people there are usually grateful for any healing, regardless of how awesome it is or isn't.
Keeping RJ on everyone isn't a bad idea, though I hate to validate anything that jerk of a mage said... It keeps people swiftmendable (is that a word? :p) for those damage spikes, and powers up you Nourish for when SM is on cooldown. It's usually my goal to blanket everyone else in the party/raid anytime I'm not having to directly heal a target.
Also, you'll want 5/5 points in Nature's Bounty. It will help keep your Nature's Grace buff up as well. ;-)
Other than that, just the normal "keep you chin up" kind of thing. Spike damage like you faced is probably the hardest part of druid healing. It'll get easier once you learn the fights. There's nothing more satisfying then watching someone take a damage spike, only to have a 3-stack of your LB bloom on them a half second later cause you saw it coming. :-D
That monster in the mirror, he just might be you. -Grover
Katchii wrote:
You can target an enemy and cast Wild Growth to get the melee surrounding it, VERY handy on boss fights, also, when casting Wild Growth, if you need some healing, run up close if AoE will allow and get yourself in on the healing, no point wasting mana on a rejuv or Lifebloom and mana.
O M G.
I had no idea. That's the best thing I've heard since sliced bread.
That's why I read these forums, for the LSD (that's Learn Something Daily!)
Trylofer wrote:
That's the best thing I've heard since sliced bread.
I loves it too. :D Well most of the time, sometimes it's a pain.
Lets say you want to pre-HoT the melee stack with WG just before a ghoul explodes (think ICC entry room trash). You throw it up there and it doesn't stick on the person you cast it on. Instead gets sucked up by the pets from the hunters not using mend pet. All of a sudden the "intelligent heal" leaves you cursing and swearing at all the little misplaced dots on grid as a poor rogue bites the dust.
But ya, it also makes it easy to dps while healing heriocs. No target swapping. ;-)
That monster in the mirror, he just might be you. -Grover
I have been using Wild Growth on the tank so as to help melee out near the tank, but I may try this method (of casting it on the main target) on some runs as well.
The truly most difficult thing about running 5-man instances (for me) is the disparity between tanks. When I first got thrown into Forge of Souls by the random dungeon finder, I got tanks that way overgeared the instance and the runs went very smoothly. My last few runs through have been with newly minted 80s who are lucky to have 25k+ health unbuffed. It makes a difference (and not just in health, but in armor and avoidance and everything else a tank needs).
Healing a normal Utgarde Pinnacle group where the tank is level 78 and has 18k health buffed and I (the only 80) have the highest health at 18.5k in tree is tough. A mage in that group had 12k health buffed. Poor guy was a trooper, though.
For the record, I still haven't healed heroics outside of the few all-guild runs we have done. I have started running heroics as feral and it's worked out well so far. I am slowly replacing gear and keeping an eye out for gear to spend emblems on. Plus, it helps me learn the heroic fights, which is good.
BTW, after the one episode a few weeks back where I was told I suck, I got in another ToC (normal) group and we rocked it even with getting the Confessor. The tank said I was awesome. *grin* So keep practicing, and good luck!
The truly most difficult thing about running 5-man instances (for me) is the disparity between tanks. When I first got thrown into Forge of Souls by the random dungeon finder, I got tanks that way overgeared the instance and the runs went very smoothly. My last few runs through have been with newly minted 80s who are lucky to have 25k+ health unbuffed. It makes a difference (and not just in health, but in armor and avoidance and everything else a tank needs).
Healing a normal Utgarde Pinnacle group where the tank is level 78 and has 18k health buffed and I (the only 80) have the highest health at 18.5k in tree is tough. A mage in that group had 12k health buffed. Poor guy was a trooper, though.
For the record, I still haven't healed heroics outside of the few all-guild runs we have done. I have started running heroics as feral and it's worked out well so far. I am slowly replacing gear and keeping an eye out for gear to spend emblems on. Plus, it helps me learn the heroic fights, which is good.
BTW, after the one episode a few weeks back where I was told I suck, I got in another ToC (normal) group and we rocked it even with getting the Confessor. The tank said I was awesome. *grin* So keep practicing, and good luck!
I don't raid and my Druid is only 71 so I don't have experience healing for anything more than 5 man stuff...working on getting him to 80 and just plowing through Heroics for emblems and possibly pugging Raids since my main, 80 DK Blood DPS GS 4823, are like a dime a dozen. But I like healing a lot, rewarding and satisfying and easy to get lots of groups, DPS is fun but doesn't give the same satisfaction as healing well does.
Another point I forgot and people do forget sometimes, Regrowth lasts a long time and is Swiftmend-able, so it's a handy spell to cast first when your tank starts taking damage just for the fact that it keeps a HoT up for a while, usually the duration of a trash fight and if any spike comes just swiftmend and your done.
I forget about Wild Growth being a smart heal since I never see it doing that really, although having 2 hunters an Unholy DK tank (specced with a Ghoul)and a Warlock with a Succubus did prove interesting for my Healbot mod....no problems, just not used to having 9 things to look out for when healing.
Another point I forgot and people do forget sometimes, Regrowth lasts a long time and is Swiftmend-able, so it's a handy spell to cast first when your tank starts taking damage just for the fact that it keeps a HoT up for a while, usually the duration of a trash fight and if any spike comes just swiftmend and your done.
I forget about Wild Growth being a smart heal since I never see it doing that really, although having 2 hunters an Unholy DK tank (specced with a Ghoul)and a Warlock with a Succubus did prove interesting for my Healbot mod....no problems, just not used to having 9 things to look out for when healing.
I used to have problems with watching my health while healing, but now I just use Grid & Clique. My health square is right there along with everyone elses so it's hard to miss anyone (including me).
You don't mention which mods you use to heal - having all the necessary info available to you while healing is very important. I've posted these links before, but they are worth posting again ;-
Setting up HoT timers in Grid
A nice clean Grid layout
Most of it comes down to practice and the other peoples gear (and skill level or lack thereof). Just keep persevering :)
You don't mention which mods you use to heal - having all the necessary info available to you while healing is very important. I've posted these links before, but they are worth posting again ;-
Setting up HoT timers in Grid
A nice clean Grid layout
Most of it comes down to practice and the other peoples gear (and skill level or lack thereof). Just keep persevering :)
Thanks for the tips, all! I've downloaded Grid- now to figure out how to set it up so I can understand it at a glance. Also, I was thinking of downloading Healbot rather than Clique - but I like the idea of being able to bind the mouse buttons to heals when I'm hovering over the unit frames. And thanks for the suggestions about Wild Growth and Swiftmend- I was holding back on Wild growth because I was worried that it would be an aggro-builder.
I was a little worried that I was going to get flamed- I came across as rather sensitive and did do a tl;dr post. You guys rock.
I was a little worried that I was going to get flamed- I came across as rather sensitive and did do a tl;dr post. You guys rock.
Better to be alive and ticking (HoT's, that is) with aggro than dead without. Word's to live by, you can't help anyone if you're dead, and the tank can't help you if he's dead.
Keeping everyone else alive is your job, so you should be the last to die, if you do, it's not your fault (unless you didn't keep yourself healed from AoE or other such stuff that the tank can't control). Mob aggro is not something you should worry about, if you pull aggro it's really only for a few reasons.
1) The tank doesn't know how to tank and keep aggro....not your fault.
2) The tank/ group is undergeared and you're having to heal too much....not your fault
3) You get a few lucky crit heals off on numerous group members, necessary to keep them alive, you don't do it they die...not your fault
4) You put a HoT up on the tank before he got initial aggro so when they aggro'd by vicinty, your HoT ticked and then went for you because you/ your heal did something before the tank did....not REALLY your fault, but it happens, and if the tank can't get aggro back from that, your tanks retarded.
So, don't worry about your threat level, heal away, it's your tanks job to worry about threat levels, and DPS as well so they don't pull aggro for doing too much DPS, you can technically heal too much, but you get no threat for healing a topped off target for zero, or if you do it's tiny. Simply casting spells causes threat, so throwing up a buff or shield or whatever will cause threat, but the threat you should worry about, meaning that it's more than what the tank can generate for simply standing in front of the enemy and swinging away with white hits, only comes from numbers, and healing for zero doesn't do that.
I prefer X-Perl for my UI, tidy bar for my Action Bars and Healbot, best looking and most functional IMO and I don't like spending HOURS configuring my UI, functionality > aesthetics, but you normally don't have to make that distinction since the best looking UI to you is also usually the most functional. One more tip before I stop rambling, put your healbot or healing mod of your choice close to your character on the screen, it helps you see whats going on, so you can move from void/fire/ OUCH THAT EFFING HURTS zones, watch for patrols, or anything else that you could do better in the fight just by simply SEEING the fight and not just green bars.
Have fun, good luck.
Keeping everyone else alive is your job, so you should be the last to die, if you do, it's not your fault (unless you didn't keep yourself healed from AoE or other such stuff that the tank can't control). Mob aggro is not something you should worry about, if you pull aggro it's really only for a few reasons.
1) The tank doesn't know how to tank and keep aggro....not your fault.
2) The tank/ group is undergeared and you're having to heal too much....not your fault
3) You get a few lucky crit heals off on numerous group members, necessary to keep them alive, you don't do it they die...not your fault
4) You put a HoT up on the tank before he got initial aggro so when they aggro'd by vicinty, your HoT ticked and then went for you because you/ your heal did something before the tank did....not REALLY your fault, but it happens, and if the tank can't get aggro back from that, your tanks retarded.
So, don't worry about your threat level, heal away, it's your tanks job to worry about threat levels, and DPS as well so they don't pull aggro for doing too much DPS, you can technically heal too much, but you get no threat for healing a topped off target for zero, or if you do it's tiny. Simply casting spells causes threat, so throwing up a buff or shield or whatever will cause threat, but the threat you should worry about, meaning that it's more than what the tank can generate for simply standing in front of the enemy and swinging away with white hits, only comes from numbers, and healing for zero doesn't do that.
I prefer X-Perl for my UI, tidy bar for my Action Bars and Healbot, best looking and most functional IMO and I don't like spending HOURS configuring my UI, functionality > aesthetics, but you normally don't have to make that distinction since the best looking UI to you is also usually the most functional. One more tip before I stop rambling, put your healbot or healing mod of your choice close to your character on the screen, it helps you see whats going on, so you can move from void/fire/ OUCH THAT EFFING HURTS zones, watch for patrols, or anything else that you could do better in the fight just by simply SEEING the fight and not just green bars.
Have fun, good luck.
Katchii wrote:
Mob aggro is not something you should worry about
Well, I wouldn't go that far. To a certain extent yes it's the tanks job to retain aggro; but taking it to the other extreme, i.e. making his/her life harder then it needs to be and then calling them bad, doesn't help you any.
The unfortunate part of being a tree is you are a magnet for any spawning adds, so a certain amount of trouble is unavoidable. For example we were doing Ignis for the weekly last night. I hear him do his speech when the adds spawn, and the first thing I do is try and locate the OT. Omen shouts at me, I see the add appear in my screen, I hit barkskin and finish kiting the add over to him so he can grab it. It just happens that way if you are rolling HoTs on half the raid; you are going to grab aggro regardless of what you do. Just hope they aren't standing there waiting for you when you drop out of the pot... ;-)
On the other hand pre-Hotting prior to a pull can either be useful or spell disaster; especially if the boss/adds need to be positioned properly. Tanks attacks can miss, and I'd imagine the tank is having a hard enough time holding off the over-eager DPS without having to worry about his healer Hotting the group without a care in the world.
A couple of things I've done in the situations listed:
Quote:
4) You put a HoT up on the tank before he got initial aggro so when they aggro'd by vicinty, your HoT ticked and then went for you because you/ your heal did something before the tank did....not REALLY your fault, but it happens, and if the tank can't get aggro back from that, your tanks retarded.
Healing Touch has a long cast time, and more HPS then an un-Hotted Nourish. If you lead with this heal the tank has an extra second or two to get in position before the heal hits and you generate threat. Usually the tank only needs a couple of seconds to get firm aggro, and this will keep you off the agg charts till he/she can get an attack or two off. You'll often top off the tank with the heal, then can go into your normal rotation. If the tank is hitting a minor cooldown on the pull (like barkskin) you won't even notice the HPS difference.
Quote:
3) You get a few lucky crit heals off on numerous group members, necessary to keep them alive, you don't do it they die...not your fault
Talented Tranquility: generates no threat and heals everyone in your group. It is nice for when the tank is madly trying trying to re-grab aggro or there's a lot of AoE damage going on. Kind of a 5-man thing though...
Worst case scenario you tree-tank stuff, that's fun right? X-D
Wondroustremor wrote:
I was a little worried that I was going to get flamed
Meh, flaming doesn't usually happen in this forum. It's not nearly as much fun as long rambling pointless posts. ;-)
Edited, Feb 24th 2010 11:07am by someproteinguy
That monster in the mirror, he just might be you. -Grover
By no having to worry about enemy aggro, I didn't mean that you shouldn't worry at all about it, but you're going to generate threat doing your job and if you don't do your job you end up with a dead group so: Aggro > Dead group. Part of being the healer is knowing how to deal with the stuff that comes along with it and knowing your class well enough to know how to survive when the crap hits the fan, which it will.
Worrying about aggro isn't going to help you do your job, you'll know how best to avoid bad aggro situations with time and knowing the encounters. What protein says is true, but healing 5 mans you won't really have to worry about it and by the time you're raid ready you should be comfortable enough in your healing to know how to deal with the encounters and situations raiding throws at you.
Worrying about aggro isn't going to help you do your job, you'll know how best to avoid bad aggro situations with time and knowing the encounters. What protein says is true, but healing 5 mans you won't really have to worry about it and by the time you're raid ready you should be comfortable enough in your healing to know how to deal with the encounters and situations raiding throws at you.
Welcome to the board, W. We're a drunken friendly bunch, so don't worry about being flamed. 
I sort of wish you guys would follow me to the Shaman board so I can get some advice on healing there.
I sort of wish you guys would follow me to the Shaman board so I can get some advice on healing there.
Please "talk up" if your comprehension white-shifts. I will use simple-happy language-words to help you understand.
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