Still StrugglingFollow

Hi,

I just don't understand what I may be doing wrong...maybe I'm just not a good healer. Sometimes I'll flawlessly heal a group through PoS or Forge, and other times can't get past wave 6 in CoS. I chose Holy because I mainly run Heroics, so I am expected to be a party healer rather than concentrate on the tank. I won't even try HoR...I know that will be a fail. Here is my link:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Bronzebeard&cn=Alleurcdvill&gn=Moon+Walkers

I really, really, really struggle when I end up with a DK Tank. My tactics are PoM whenever on CD, Renew on the Tank, Shield the tank first, roll shield to others as I can, renew melee dps, flash heal when I can. A lot of times when I do CoH there will often be a party member that doesn't seem to heal...and I even have the glyph. My gear is OK, and I'm still working on it. My priority is a Moonshroud Robe, new gloves, waist, and rings. I just don't know if I'm not tactically doing something right, or if I've made an obvious *****-up in my spec/equip/glyph. I never have mana issues...so maybe I'm not spamming something enough? I have everything bound to hotkeys, so the only clicking I need to do is on the character and fire the spell. I tried Healbot and just hated it. I'd prefer to manually heal....unless that's just plain out of the question. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Your gear is so past heroic level that when following your earlier mentioned 'rotation' you should be able to heal every heroic without problems. If you have problems keeping the tank up, it's more likely that the tank is undergeared for the instance. As for what you can improve, Teacakes post is completely spot on, though I'd worry more about my tank being undergeared or DPS failing at not standing in the fire if I'd be in your situation.

Just remember to actually learn the highest possible rank of Circle of Healing. While Ulduar hardmodes and TotGC with a downranked CoH might make you seem to be a goddamn awesome healer, holy is suddenly that much cooler if you max the spell out.




... What? >.>

You might want to consider changes some of your spells to include mouseover options. This way you can heal someone by hovering over them (or their unitframe) and pressing the button, rather than having to click to target them first. If you do go for this you need to keep an eye on where your mouse is, trying to cast PoM on a totem will put the spell on cooldown, but unfortunately not actually do anything useful...

Most of my macros look like this:

/cast [mod:alt,@player][@mouseover,help][help][] Flash Heal

If I hold alt down it will cast the spell on me, if I'm moused over a friendly target or unitframe it will heal them, if it doesn't have either of those options it will cast on my target (if it is friendly) and failing that it will give me the blue glowy hand to select a target (or self-cast if you have that option enabled in your interface menu).

You might also want to pick up an addon like decursive (if you don't already have one), this provides a simple grid for monitoring and curing debuffs on party members.

But also bear in mind that if things go wrong between one group and the next it's not necessarily because you are doing something wrong, if the tank isn't as well geared then they may be taking more damage, leaving you less time to focus on dps, dps might be standing in aoe effects or slacking so the fight drags on longer, they might be attacking the wrong target or the tank isn't putting out enough tps to keep agro, etc.

Things I love which you haven't mentioned: Binding heal to heal yourself and someone else and guardian spirit for when you slack around at the back looting, talking to the holiday elder and the tank runs off into the next mob pack (I think he was around 1000hp when I popped that and he popped last stand, would only do it to a guildie though, pug tanks I try and take more care over :P), you've got that glyphed though, so I'm assuming you already use it in sticky situations.

For CoH, could it be that the person it misses is out of range? It will also heal pets, so possibly it has healed one of them over a group member.

I'm going to take a contrarian approach here since everyone else has given good advice on improving your setup and strategy and your gear is strong enough as it is; I'm going to assume that it is your tactics that are at fault. Since you seem unsure about it, I'm going to point my finger at you, the healer. (I'm sure it's been done before in groups, I think there is a screen loading tooltip for non-healers that says, "Be polite in groups to everyone but the healer, they are there for your blaming enjoyment.")

First off, you say that the spells are keybound, that is good. Now, where are they bound? Are they in an easily accessible spot so you don't have to search for them? If Flash Heal is bound to "8", you are losing precious seconds getting your finger there. Not only should your major abilities be mapped, but you must develop muscle memory to use them without thinking. Go sit in the middle of the street in Dalaran and practice healing until you cast the desired spells without thinking. Heal yourself, npcs and even other toons who will look at you funny. (Dalaran is a good place to simulate lag that may be experienced in instances.)

The way you describe your healing is a 3-stage process each heal. You must pick your target by clicking on their frame, confirm that they are selected by noting your target frame and then pressing the proper key. Failure at any stage will result in no heal. Any time that you lose while performing these 3 tasks is time that you will not get back. If you are in a high damage portion of a fight, no level of gear will make up for lost time.

It should be your goal to cast spells on multiple targets without any time between. When one cast is finishing, you should already have a new target selected and know which spell you are going to cast. I suggest getting Quartz or a similar cast-bar addon that will account for latency. This allows you to queue up spells for efficient spamming when needed, instead of stepping off your casts. You also need to develop situational awareness in your groups, casting CoH on a lone ranged dps is wasteful, not only of mana, but time as well.

In a typical group, the tank takes the majority of the damage and it is up to you to replace that health in a timely manner. That is your first and foremost goal. However, DPS are going to take damage as well. Even if they don't deserve it, you are going to keep them alive despite their best efforts to die. You must be ready for them to do the stupidest thing that that they can think of, because sooner or later- they will. If you can successfully protect them from their own silliness, you get to graduate to the next level... Good Healer.