How to rock at healing

[jgi47ak]

How to R0X0R at healing. I have been told that I'm a fairly good healer so I thought I should share my view on healing. Anyone else can make suggestions or whatever.

First, why you want to be a good healer.
People will love you. A good healer is a geometric force multiplier. This means that a good healer will have an exponential effect on team combat effectiveness. Combat effectiveness being (FX*NY)^(HN) for F= number of fighters, N= number of nukers, H= number of healers, and X, Y, N being force constants based on the skill and level of the associated characters. (It is important to note that N<<X or Y.) In general, fighters form the base core of your combat effectiveness with every additional fighter increasing combat effectiveness linearly and nukers acting as linear force multipliers. This could also work the other way if your team tactics are based on nukers as your core force. For all future examples I will assume team tactics depend on fighters for core power. Not only are healers very important but getting high level heal skills means that as a tank, you have the flexibility to adapt your tactics to help your team survive. Power and flexibility are vital to superiority on the tactical level.

How to be a good healer.
I want to start off with some things that are not level dependent. First, regardless of if you're a healer or not, you should use a title that reflects what role you are playing in a group. Next, good healing amps will improve your performance considerably. Healing speed should be prioritized over heal power. Good nuker amps need high elemental power because elemental spells don't always stick so when they do, they need to count. Heal spells will pretty much always stick. My q100 amps are 99% heal speed and 60% heal power. Heal speed is important for flexibility and I will explain how best use this flexibility later on when I get to heal spell stanzas. Just trust me for now.

Tactical movement. It's best to maneuver while you are not being attacked to prevent the mob from targeting you. If you are aggroed, you should move a minimum amount to get behind fighters. Otherwise it's best not to move if a mob targets you so that the fighters have an easier time taunting it off you. Once the fighters engage the mob and it's not targeting you, maneuver so that you are not within 5 or 10 meters of the mob and then start healing. (Think of fire and maneuver tactics with fighters being your base of fire and suppression fire.) Anyway, usually it's better to stand still and die then run around like an idiot. There are exceptions of course for people who know what they're doing. When a mob that you're fighting or an aggro mob targets you, you should use a macro to shout and say in team chat AGGRO. Good fighters will help you.

Situational awareness. This is especially important if you are the primary healer. KNOW who your primary and auxiliary tanks are, who your auxiliary healer is, and who is nuking or using affliction magic. OBSERVE what proportion of hp you can heal on each person to use your hp heals most effectively. PRIORITIZE a general heal order. T1 hp, T2hp, H1 hp, H1 sap, N1 hp, H2 hp, N1 sap, H2 sap, T1 stam, T2 stam. For T=tank, H=healer, N=nuker. Part of situational awareness is deciding which general heal strategy to use. Should you be healing to resist attrition so you can heal longer before you need to be healed or do you go all out so your team doesn't get wiped? This is also where flexibility is important.

Finally, to healing stanzas and their applied flexibility.
Here are my 7 healing spells. (I can use power 140 heal spells but I don't have good heal speed amps q140 yet.)
A heal hp +100, sap -50, range -20, hp -30
2.8 sec, 55 sap, 35 hp, 40m

B double heal hp +100 +100, sap -100, range -20, hp -80
3.0 sec, 131 sap, 100 hp, 45m

C heal hp +100, sap -15, range -20, hp -15, time -50
6.4 sec, 20 sap, 20 hp, 40m

D heal hp +100, range -20, hp -30, time -50
6.4 sec, 35 hp, 40m

E heal hp +100 bomb(3) +85, sap -80, range -30, hp -80
4.0 sec, 100 sap, 100 hp, 42m

F double heal stam +100 +100, sap 65, range 30, hp 40, time 65
5.3 sec, 78 sap, 45 hp, 42m

My double heal sap is the same as double heal stam. Some of these cast times look insane but that's where the heal speed bonus on amps come in. All of these cast times are actually half of what's stated. This gives me the flexibility to keep healing hp even when I have no sap or hp left. This gives me the flexibility to resist attrition when healing stam and sap. Healing twice with my "A" hp heal spell is much better than healing with my "B" heal spell unless I don't have the time. This choice gives me flexibility as well. I'm not a fan of combining hp heal and sap or stam heal in a double heal spell. Not that it doesn't work, but I like my way better.

Ivarion
Gladius Jenae

[oetken]

Its usefull sometimes to stick to lower level healing spells and chain them. The point is that you can pay the cost easily and ensure the tank is save and tidy. I use it when subject to lag-spikes or having just one tank or having trouble to react fast enough to damage spikes.

Vivy - Arispotle

[aelvana]

I have a main tank heal that I edit, using time in it to get the exact delay I want it to have while chain casting. If I'm the only healer, or the tank is the only one to be healed, I'll double-stanza a heal and a small stam heal to keep their HP and stam maxed. Also makes it as cheap as possible to use on whatever tank for that team. If you need to heal anyone else during a fight, to keep from missing a beat, fast heal person B, fast heal main tank, start slower chain casts on main tank.

At least that's the way to spam and be lazy about it 8)

Aside from the custom tank heal, I favor keeping up a big fast/ranged heal, a free heal, a big sap heal, a big stam heal, a medium heal + big stam spell, medium heal + big sap spell (when topping people off, if they don't need a full heal to hit max life, use one of these last two to top off both meters).

Bombs are terrible now ... maybe only if you're a very high level healer, and there's at least 1 other healer in group, you can throw huge hp/stam bombs up at the melees.

[andisty2]

Aother thing to add for a good healer is macros. Healing marcos are great. No more click on a team meambers name and then hitting the key for which ever healing spell. I have 3 macros set up for each of the team postions Heal, sap and stam. This can change once you get the double spell.

I have all the macros set up for the number pad.

1 = heal first team postion
right Shift 1 = Sap first team postion
right Ctrl 1 = Stam first team postion

2 = heal second team postion
right shift 2 = sap second team postion
right ctr 2 = sap second team postion

and so on all through all 8 postions.

It take a while to set up but makes it so much easier to heal in combat.I can just watch the team menu and hit which number needs the healing. Also makes it easier to switch between nuker and healer. No need to target team mate just hit the correct key and it does it all.

[jgi47ak]

Heal bombs usually aren't useful but I use them mostly during trips where people who may not be in your team need to be healed. It's sort of a lazy heal people who are over there spell.

[lazarus]

Aother thing to add for a good healer is macros.

I like that idea. Have to set up some macros when I'm on next... Good tip

[bobturke]

Yeah macros sound worth a try.

One more thing is that healers often have a better vantage point for keeping aware of the battle situation. So keep your eyes peeled as you spin around healing people and get ready to yell warnings if either agros are dangerously near or have joined the fray unexpectantly. This can apply to mages generally as they can often Stun, Fear or even Root these agros before things get crazy.

[kratos84]

Umm, how to rock at healing? Here is how:

1. Always neglect the person who is least likely to hit the mob. Healing him probably doesn't give you xp.

2. If such person does not exist in the group, the first thing you want to do is to throw some lame bomb heal at everyone to make sure you get xp no matter who misses.

3. Occasionally, let someone drop 'by accident,' so you get more xp.

Know such rules and you will ding a hundred levels without peril. Hehehe.

Chronosfera

[dakhound]

Umm, how to rock at healing? Here is how:

1. Always neglect the person who is least likely to hit the mob. Healing him probably doesn't give you xp.

2. If such person does not exist in the group, the first thing you want to do is to throw some lame bomb heal at everyone to make sure you get xp no matter who misses.

3. Occasionally, let someone drop 'by accident,' so you get more xp.

Know such rules and you will ding a hundred levels without peril. Hehehe.

Chronosfera

LOL I actually know healers who do this, thanks god I aint a tank

can I add to it tho

be a reluctant healer - even though your only skill that is useful to the group is your heal try to stun mobs 200 levels higher than your affliction skill because you think healing is boring. hence mob kills your tank then kills you.

run away is your team get adds shouting "I will be back for you guys later" only to realize in te middle of the flaming forest surrounded by cuttler and zerx and running through the middle of them is less wise than hanging around.

make sure you pay attention to your chat windows - you must answer every call for res with "cant make it mate am in a team" which by the time you have typed your also calling for res along with the rest of your team

always think you know better than your tank because you got a better view of the battlefield - your tank is taking too long to pull the mobs because they are far away so you cast acid 1 on the nearest mob because that boss ocyx will give far more xp than them stupid timis he's running miles away to pull.

[borg9]

LOL I actually know healers who do this, thanks god I aint a tank

can I add to it tho

be a reluctant healer - even though your only skill that is useful to the group is your heal try to stun mobs 200 levels higher than your affliction skill because you think healing is boring. hence mob kills your tank then kills you.

run away is your team get adds shouting "I will be back for you guys later" only to realize in te middle of the flaming forest surrounded by cuttler and zerx and running through the middle of them is less wise than hanging around.

make sure you pay attention to your chat windows - you must answer every call for res with "cant make it mate am in a team" which by the time you have typed your also calling for res along with the rest of your team

always think you know better than your tank because you got a better view of the battlefield - your tank is taking too long to pull the mobs because they are far away so you cast acid 1 on the nearest mob because that boss ocyx will give far more xp than them stupid timis he's running miles away to pull.

If I haven't witness all of the above with my own eyes, I would think you were kidding

Golden rule, if the healer has chance to chat/think your team isn't working hard enough

A good healer is one that doesn't get chance to talk