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Druid Guide, Part 4: Healing
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Post by
56282
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
39561
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Post by
terrasol
It would be great to get armor suggestions for pre-Kara and heroic, similar to the suggestions for beark tanking.
Great job!
Terrasol
Post by
pelf
When I'm tanking, I just adapt my placement to the abilities of the group. I find that generally healers won't move regardless of what I'm doing (amusingly), so I get to put the mobs wherever I want.
As a healer ... I'll usually stand on top of a mage or a hunter, if they're in the group. Failing that ... I just kind of do what I do as a tank, but in reverse. Depending on the group composition and their apparent ability to multi-task and be situationally aware I'll shift where I stand and how much attention I give things that aren't health bars.
I'm not sure there are any rules for this -- more just guidelines. I think you covered the things that are worth considering. Knowing what options are available to the other members of your group is as important to planning positioning as anything is.
Post by
56282
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
HaoZi04
Hi Nabterayl, I have read your Druid Guid Part1 & 2, and they are really amazing!
I am planning to translate those posts... however I need your permission.
So would you mind if I translate ALL your Druid Guide into Chinese? Thanks.
You can contact me further by haozi04gmail.com (@ for ) :)
Post by
skarrde
Sweet read. Might want to mention the trinkets and pots that you can take to reduce aggro. Planning on farming those as soon as I hit 70 with my healer.
Post by
Celdhyrean
Positionning : depends on the group composition really IMO. If there's a mage for nova for example i'd really recommend staying with him (actually i'd recommand the mage to stay with the healer, but that's another problem).
HT ranks : i personally used to use the rank 4 as my lowest healing touch rank. It resulted in ~1k heal (which seemed a good enough minimum value) and takes .5s less to cast than the higher ranks, which made it a good spell for topping dps efficiently (if i have the time to worry about that) or healing a tank that's not taking much damage.
Nowadays I'm either balance or tree so i don't get to use it that much, though it's still in my bars.
Still, levelling druids or HT druids might want to consider using it.
Post by
hezec
Looks like a very good guide to me, thanks for taking the time to write something so in-depth. I have one small correction to make, tho: You actually need two clicks/presses to cast NS+HT no matter what kind of macro you make. That's just how Blizz limits macros but you might want to correct it anyway. Also, the /cancelform isn't really necessary as you unshift automatically nowadays (unless you for some reason have the option turned off).
Post by
Celdhyrean
You actually need two clicks/presses to cast NS+HT no matter what kind of macro you make.No, I can certify that I have a macro that gets me out of tree form and casts an instant HT on my target in just one click.
(but i don't remember how it's written :/)
Post by
56282
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Post by
jafager
Thank you for posting this. I read your other guides recently and was interested to see your thoughts on healing.
I've been through the low levels (1-30ish) at least a dozen times as a druid (both Horde and Alliance), and I have healed all the relevant instances many times.
With regard to low-level healing, I have to disagree with this statement:
The most common misconception people make about low-level druids is to think that because they have the best and most HoTs in the game, they should always use the HoT-based healing style described above. This is not true.
The core of your argument is this:
All healers are responsible for maximizing their HPM for a given amount of required HPS.
First, mana efficiency is only a problem if you run out of mana. If you put together a set of Intellect gear, this should not be a problem.
Second, Healing Touch is a difficult spell to use properly. It is a big heal, and to avoid overhealing you have to land it at the last minute. That exposes your tank to spike damage and forces you to pay attention to cancel-casting. If you downrank to reduce the risk of spike damage, not only does Healing Touch lose some of its efficiency, you spend more time casting and less time out of the five-second rule.
HoTs are user-friendly. They allow you to heal future damage now, which gives you time to think and time to deal with other events as they happen. They are also not as inefficient as they seem, because using them intelligently will give you plenty of time outside the five-second rule.
The strategy that I use is fairly simple:
1. Trivial fights, like a tank versus a single elite, Rejuvenation is usually sufficient.
2. More serious fights, like a tank versus a few elites, or a tank versus an easy boss, I use the one-two punch. Wait until the tank is down about 25% of his health, then cast Regrowth and follow it immediately with Rejuvenation. The direct heal from Regrowth should bring the tank close to 100%, which is followed by 12 seconds of double HoT ticks, then 9 more seconds of single HoT ticks. The double ticks will usually keep the tank topped off, and by the time the single ticks wear off you should be ready for another Regrowth/Rejuvenation cycle. You can also add a second Rejuvenation after the first one expires, and delay your next Regrowth until it finishes.
3. Very serious fights, like a tank versus many elites, or a hard-hitting boss, or a boss with adds, may require the use of Healing Touch. Typically, I start with Regrowth/Rejuvenation/Rejuvenation, which slows the rate at which the tank's health is dropping. When the first cycle completes, I follow it up with max-rank Healing Touch, and then another Regrowth/Rejuvenation/Rejuvenation cycle.
There is a tendency here to see that the HoTs are not keeping up the tank's health, and abandon them. Don't do this! This is a perfect example of a scenario where using HoTs will make your life easier. The faster the tank's health drops, the faster your reaction time needs to be, and the more perfect your decision-making needs to be. Keeping both HoTs up reduces your mana efficiency, but gives you more time to react and more room for error.
Post by
39561
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Post by
hezec
/cast Nature's Swiftness
/cast Healing Touch
Will go off in one click, though it does require you to be standing still when you do it.I have a macro like that and it certainly requires two clicks... Altho it could be caused by moving if that affects it, because I usually use it on the run in pvp or when the tank didn't notice I was afk for a while and pulled waaay ahead.
Post by
StephanePare
Just a little note on heal aggro mechanics, you ntoed that the only way to get less aggro is to heal less, one of these ways is sometimes to have people off-healing just for a little bit, a spell here and there, just so these 3-4k hps healed will be 1.5-2k less aggro to you.
I've met quite a few tanks who, on some ehroic fights, have to fight more than 1 un'CC'able mobs and quite simply lose hp's so fast they can't develop enough threat on the off target(s), especialy warriors without imp thunderclap. Having the shamy throw 2-3 heals during the pull solved that aggro problem.
I'm thinking especialy of the defenders pulls in heroic sp, and a few aoe pulls in botanica here.
another situation i'ver seen is healers doing quite literaly 80% of the total healing on a 3 healers gig, and thus just having too much aggro. Having healers that don't need to be carried through helps with that.
Thge only other comment i'd have to do is the whole +heal before mana regen. Once you've reached 1500 +heal, i, personaly, always liked to concentrate on mp5 first and foremost. The reasoning is simple: At that point, you can heal zulaman just fine if you're good, and any tier 4 content at all, and you only need about 300 +heal to reach t5 content, but in the end, no matter how much mp5 you have, if you're quick-minded, you can ALWAYS find ways to spend all your mana and a few pots no matter what mp5 you have, without overhealing much, which woul bring your healing efficiency down anyway. especialy on the longer boss fights such as later kara, and all above it.
Plus, if you heal more aggressively and stack the small heals (in this case regrowth) fast and furious, i've found that you can heal quite a great amount of hp in a 10+ minutes fight compared to stacking just a little bit more +heal, which is probably going to be wasted anyway because with the small heals spam on the main tanks, and their usual massive dodge/parry chances, very often your lifebloom only gets 1 or 2 ticks in per recast anyway. Under that scenario, your +heals are basicaly wasted for a few ticks, and more useful if you're alone spot healing the whole raid while the other healers focus on tanks. Add to that that most healers are meter @#$%^s and will eagerly heal a target who doesnt have aggro, and has your hoT's on them just to get the heal meters uup and make you waste mana, and mana regen begins to be even more worth it than +heal, for just about any healer, not just druid.
Anyway, that's just my own vision of healing, after healing ont takillah, which you've already known, and my druid so far. We'll see if i'm still of that opinion after raiding a bit as a druid healer.
Post by
Celdhyrean
About the "hot's ticking only once or twice per refresh" : that's true for raids, but I think the philosophy behinds them in raids is also quite different from normal healing.
The HoT's are there to provide an additionnal fast ticking health buffer for the tank, which is mainly usefull on hard hitting fights with big spike damage. Or on fights where the hots are enough to keep the tank up, but that's rarely the case againt raid bosses.
Big heals are spiky by the nature of the cast (pre-casting and all that mitigates it somewhat, but it'll still be like that), and we provide the cushion that helps mitigate that spikiness (with added instant healing through swiftmend when it gets really rough).
I'm T4 geared (regarding healing gear) at 1700 +heal, and i can provide a tank with ~1200 HPS per second (average) of which 800 do really tick each seconds. On Karathress (healing the chaman tank), all of my hots where ticking quite often.
Post by
pelf
~1200 HPS per second (average)
Is that like please PST? Sorry, sorry...
Post by
Celdhyrean
PST ? If it's anything like "hoho, i'm good, look at my gear", then I actually consider myself as an averagely geared raiding druid (regarding healing) :)
My purpose was more to show what power our hots can pack, even if they don't produce big number or even without having the gear for the level of the fight i was at.
Sorry if it came out as bragging.
Post by
pelf
Sorry, I was being an ass, before.
"1200 HPS per second" = "1200 heals per second per second"
"please PST" = "please please send tell"
Post by
56282
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
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