How to rock at healing
Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 12:10 pm
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
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
