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Raid Rx: Shaking the bad healer label
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. Not getting the respect you feel you deserve? Pickup raids passing on your skills and services? You ever wonder why that is? Even though healers are typically one of the most sought-after classes, it is incredibly easy to completely shoot yourself in the foot and get looked over. How exactly does a healer get labeled as a "bad" healer? A better question would be, how would a healer get un-labeled as one?
15 tips for brand new healers
This article has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. So you're ready to venture into the thankless realm of healing? It's not for the faint of heart. You will be begged to heal an instance you hate and blamed for deaths that aren't your fault, only to lose gear upgrades to DPS -- all in the same run! On the other hand, healing can be a nice diversion from faceroll macro-mashing, and it's definitely nice to have instant dungeon queues. Whether you're changing specs at level 80 to help your guild progression, stepping into The Deadmines as a level 18 healer or twinking out a battleground medic -- here are some helpful hints as you prepare to make those health bars greener.
Raid Rx: Healing indecision
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. Heal the raid. How many times have you been instructed to do that by your raid leaders? What does that even entail doing? It seems like such a monstrous task to keep everyone alive. Especially for first time healers, it certainly is an overwhelming responsibility. I did write a similar piece several weeks ago that detailed what things to consider when healing. That was more of a micro-level analysis of my own personal decision-making when I was healing. One of the complaints was that it was still a little too advanced even for the entry level healer. I'll try to simplify it further by tackling a slightly related topic, which I call "healing paralysis."
Raid Rx: The healing lead's check list
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poohbah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. There have been moments in the past when I forgot to hand out crucial instructions. Several of these moments could easily have been the difference between a 2% wipe and a kill on a progression boss. Personally, I feel that I'm under extra pressure compared to other healers because not only do I need to look after my targets, I need to make sure the other healers have the right ones. Not only that, I have to come up with a variety of solutions against different boss attacks or phase changes to ensure things go as smoothly as possible. Too bad it doesn't always happen. Farm bosses that are taken down routinely can sometimes be challenging, especially when I forget to tell someone what to do. Granted, I normally expect healers to already know what their tasks are. What happens if I have new healers or someone in a different role? I need to make sure all the bases are covered.
Raid Rx: Are we focused on the right things?
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. The other evening, I had a conversation with a healing priest. She expressed some slight concern over the gems she was using. Turns out she wasn't happy with the current setup and wanted to tinker with it a bit more until she hit the right balance of stats. She ended up asking me how I gemmed my priest. I have to confess that I predominantly stick to intellect. Right when I said that, I immediately warned her that it may not be the best thing for her to do. Different healers are wired separately. There are advantages and disadvantages for leaning towards different stats. Last thing I mentioned was that stats wasn't the only aspect of a healer that needed to be focused upon. For whatever reason though, I kept replaying that conversation in my mind. When conversing with other healers in game or around the community, I notice that things like augments (gems and enchants) as well as glyphs are the most important things that healers are evaluated on. Applicants to a guild are scrutinized based on their choice of gear, gems and so forth. I can't seem to help feeling that something isn't right here. What is it that really matters?
Raid Rx: Fun Cataclysm healing talents added
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. Some interesting information has come to light over the past few hours. The one that caught my eye? Some new talents have been added and others have been removed. Chakra, one of the new talents that was mentioned during the priest preview has been included. I did manage to figure out what the talent was designed to do. When I read the talent, I began to really understand the ramifications of the talent. There are going to be some upcoming Cataclysm spoilers in the post. If you do not wish to be spoiled, then you'll want to stop reading.
Raid Rx: Bored of healing
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. Don't get freaked out just yet! I'm not actually bored of healing on my priest. But in the last week, I've tried to do a little bit of healing on my shaman and my paladin. The last time I tried to do it, I felt drowsy and nearly fell asleep during a raid. Unfortunately, these recent attempts proved no different. The Cataclysm changes can't come soon enough. While we're on the topic of healer boredom, Ghostcrawler (lead system designer or otherwise known as the guy who has the power to nerf and buff classes at will) happened to shed a bit of light on healing philosophy. It was about cooldowns and finding ways to make healing just a little more interesting. At first glance, how would you feel if Circle of Healing or Wild Growth had the internal cooldown extended to 8 seconds?
Raid Rx: Tank and healer disagreements
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. One way I like to destress from raiding is by doing more raiding. Am I crazy? Yeah, probably. The only difference is that I like to raid on my alt as a DPS class of some sort. If I'm not busy Divine Storming, I'm taking a page from Shatner and unloading bolts of lightning in Icecrown. The funny thing about joining pickup groups is that everyone seems to know more about everyone else's class than the players themselves do. For one thing, the tanks appear to know more than the healers and the healers know more than the tanks. What gives? Let me outline what happened.
Raid Rx: Striving for healing parity
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. Okay, so I completely blew the call last week on druids getting some extra healing spells. Whoops! Now that the paladin changes have been released this week, the healing community has had a chance to digest the new direction we're going in. Actually, come to think of it, it appears that all healing classes are approaching the same direction. A few players quipped if the four healing classes would eventually become clones of each other in the sixth expansion of WoW. The parity is there, no doubt about it. At the same time, I still think that there are enough differences to render each healing style unique. Obviously there is going to be some overlap, but that's mainly to help make life easy for players. Wait until you listen to this story I have ...
Raid Rx: Cataclysm raid healing thoughts
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. There are some Dispel changes, shaman additions and priest additions coming. Have you read Joe's shaman thoughts and Dawn's priest thoughts yet? Be sure to check them out! I think the spell that will have the biggest impact for all healers is the addition of the Heal-type spell. It is designed to be the most efficient, single target healing spell in our arsenals. With Healing Rain and Power Word: Barrier, we're going to see a new element in healing assignments: Player locations. Lastly, we have the new dispel changes. Are you excited about being a healer for Cataclysm?
Raid Rx: It's all about trust and confidence
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. I am going to let you all in on a secret. It's something I'm a little ashamed and sad to admit. You readers of all players would probably hold me to a higher standard than that and I wouldn't be surprised if you immediately unsubscribe from me. You see, I have trust issues. I'm not kidding. Tonight after I ran Icecrown-25 with my guild, I decided to join a pickup group for Trial of the Crusader-25. It was 10 p.m. and I was bored, okay?! I managed to sucker a few guildies to join me in the killing of an hour. Out of the various characters I had, I opted to heal on my priest. Look, I won't lie -- I do get a slight kick jumping into a random pickup group dropping Val'anyr bubbles everywhere while I do my job. I always get an interesting reaction out of someone in the raid. Anyway, I want to get to the main point. Some of you veteran healers might feel the same way as I do about this, but I feel more calm and less anxious in a raid when I'm one of the healers as opposed to being a DPS player. It takes me an extremely long time before I get over my healing paranoia with new players.
Raid Rx: Things that change your healing priority
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related. This post is aimed for the newer healers who have just started to enter raids or already have entered raids but are still struggling in some areas. It will be relevant for the tank or the raid healer. Okay, so here is the premise of this week's post. When we heal, we generally have our own assigned targets. Certain players and roles are generally ranked higher than others. This list is the way it is largely due to what their purpose is in the raid. This post idea came about after I finished writing the recent The Light and How to Swing It for ret paladins. When I wrote the section on abilities and rotations, it got me thinking. Healers don't exactly have a spell rotation but we do have target preferences. Now obviously tanks get immediate priority than others. I would also venture a guess and say that in most cases, healers would be right behind them followed by the rest of the DPS. However, there are things you can influence and factors out of your control that will affect which players in the raid you should focus on. Let us make the assumption that you're working on a progression fight of some sort. You're not exactly brute force healing the raid. The emphasis is on keeping players alive as opposed to keeping them all topped off.
Raid Rx: Healing Sindragosa
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related. Sindragosa is easily the most agonizing boss in the entire instance. I personally thought Professor Putricide was bad but once I got to her chamber and started several attempts, my faith in myself was shattered. One of the big frustrations is that a player who is lagging or disconnecting can easily be the cause of a wipe. Sindragosa is not forgiving at all. You'll find her after you clear out the Nerubian trash room that's protecting her. Why she needs a bunch of undead spiders to act as her guardians, I will never know. Don't forget to activate the teleporter when you run into the area (It's on the left side when you enter). Once you've cleared out the whelps and the two mini-dragons in front, Sindragosa will come charging in. However, you can immediately run back through to the Nerubian trash room to get properly set up since she'll despawn. She'll reset allowing everyone to drink up and rebuff if necessary.
Raid Rx: Healing Blood Queen Lana'thel
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related. You'll find the Blood Queen at the top floor above the chamber that has the Blood Princes. She is the head boss in the wing and is one of the few encounters in the instance that drops tier 10 tokens. This will be a high stress encounter for healers as there is so much going on at once. Piece of cake? Oh you bet. The strain will be on your DPS players to take her down before the enrage. For us healers, we just have to stand on our head and balance raid health for about 5 minutes.
Raid Rx: A history of organizational healing
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related. Organizing healing continues to be one of the many intriguing challenges that raiding groups face today. In some cases, there are pre-set players assigned to do specific things. Sometimes they are even worked out in advance on a forum or a white board. In looser groups or pickup groups, there isn't the luxury of planning healing in advance and the organizers have to go with their gut feeling and "stereotype" classes in order to figure out assignments. Examples, any holy paladins are told to heal a tank. Restoration shamans are told to heal a specific group and holy priests are told to heal another group. It wasn't always entirely like that. This week, I want to take you back in time to the era of vanilla raid healing, through the Burning Crusade and to now. I'm also going to include my thoughts as to what Cataclysm might be like.
Raid Rx: Frustrations of 2-healing a 10-player raid
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related. This week, I'll be addressing the whole 2 healer thing in 10 mans. There are many things that just happen to annoy the living heck out of me and I wanted to get it out here to see if anyone else shared those frustrations with me. Who knows? Maybe I'm the only one. Maybe as a non-healer, you'll key in on several bad habits to make life easier for your healers. But two healing raids isn't quite the easiest thing to do in the world. Have to give a hat tip to Domni on Plus Heal since I know I'm not the only one who just wants to randomly rage out from time to time. So what greatly annoys me here?
Raid Rx: Healing through Professor Putricide
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related. The professor has a masters degree in potions and a Ph.D in raid wiping. Even the most stalwart of healers will have face a barrage of obstacles that will affect healing ability. This guy is my personal Achilles heel in Icecrown so far. Not more than a few days ago, I went an embarrassing 8 for 8 on Malleable Goo deaths. Talk about my pride being wounded. I'm supposed to be good at dodging stuff that comes flying toward me not running into them or getting drilled in the face by this green exploding goo. Anyway, keep reading for my awesome mistakes and what I learned from them.
Raid Rx: Healing Valithria Dreamwalker
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related. Arguably one of the most unique encounters in the entire game, Valithria Dreamwalker is one where the success of the raid rests entirely on the shoulders of healers. After some more practice and attempts, I can pass on several aspects of the fight that I learned onto you.
Raid Rx: 10 ways to support your healing lead
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related. A great team of healers need a leader who can help them stay focused and give them the right assignments. Without their direction (or at least, someone to coordinate healing actions), it can get pretty messy fast. Being the boss of healers and acting as an intermediary between them and the raid leader or officers can often times be stressing. They're often the first person people go to after a wipe wondering what happened or who failed and so forth. As a healer though, you can help ease the stress that they experience.
Raid Rx: Don't be a hero
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related. Ah, the hero healer. It reminds me of me. Have you been in a situation where it always seems to be that one same healer which steals the spotlight raid after raid? Its as if raiding groups can't take down bosses without that one specific healer there. It gets progressively worse when that healer starts rubbing it in the faces of other healers whether directly or indirectly. Now don't get me wrong. A healer should be proud of what they are capable of doing. But there are a few problems when it comes to being a hero.
