🚀 go-pugleaf

On Tue, 22 Apr 2014 08:44:50 -0400, Fvert <fvert@nospam.invalid>
wrote:

>I've got a lvl 90 Holy priest that I will list as healer and dps for a  
>celestial and Ordos weekly in the raid tab of the social window. [As 
>background I haven't done any heroics or instance raids on him but did 
>some instances while leveling. I say that to say I have a decent concept 
>of group healing but not a lot of practice.] Usually these groups are 
>pretty much form-get-everyone-there-buff-kill and move on. Still I would 
>like to do proper healing. I have and use Healbot but it is probably not 
>optimized.

On worldboss fights there's no organisation or tactics whatsoever,
just spam your aoe heals seems the main route people take lol.
Personally I use my Disc spec and just dps the boss; Atonement does
plenty healing and doesn't get me pvp flagged, unlike direct heals
(there's always one flagged idiot that gets half the healers flagged
too), and it's fun seeing how my dps compares with other people, while
still doing a decent amount of healing. I don't do that in LFR (except
some bosses where there's little healing needed and it seems more
effective to dps!), as I prefer to heal properly there, but
worldbosses are just free for all really. Only "hard" one there's been
is Oondasta, and healing was utterly useless on him because he
oneshots everyone!

>Here are some issues/questions:
>
>AOE healing: I try to have 1 available when the burst damage comes from 
>a boss but if I have more is there a rule of thumb for putting it down 
>for the melee at the boss or further out for the ranged?

For Ordos, put it on melee, not sure what he does that hits like a
truck, but my alliance rogue can't melee him, as I can't survive with
no heals (Horde = 95% pop on my server, I can get credit for kills on
Alliance since they made it tap to all, but there's never a friendly
healer!). Ranged is fine, only minimal damage coming in aside from the
occasional blowups, and smart heals will hit those enough anyway.

Celestials, varies with each one, all have different abilities,
generally just put it on wherever there's most players, so probably
melee anyway. On Chi-ji it's handy to drop it on the safe area when he
powers up that big aoe; you still take a far bit of dmg in there even
with the reduction and anyone outside it will die regardless.

>Tank Healing: I try to keep the heals up on a tank that bounce between 
>players and prioritize healing a tank that takes damage but as far as I 
>can tell there are not healers dedicated to the tanks so I never know if 
>we have too many healers focused on that or not enough. Am I missing 
>something?

It's a worldboss, there's no organisation :-) For these types of
raids, just do your best and don't worry too much,  generally tanks
will outgear it enough to survive if people are a bit sloppy anyway;
check their healthpool before starting, if it's in the range of 1
million, you'll have reaction time if they start taking dmg. If it's
about 500k, then keep a closer eye on them, maybe spam efficient heals
on them just in case.

>DPS Healing: I prioritize the tanks and throw out AOE heals when burst 
>damage comes. If individual dpsers need heals past that I throw out what 
>I can. The heals I use have a cast time though and it seems like by the 
>time my heal is actually cast another healers has taken care of them and 
>they are full or they are dead. I could use my heals that bounce among 
>players but then they might not be available for the tanks. Tips and 
>ideas would be appreciated.

Cascade is your best friend as a holy priest in a large raid, whenever
more than a few have taken a little dmg, I set it off and that tops
everyone off. Don't even bother with single target heals on anyone
other than the tank, you will be sniped by other healers (you *might*
manage to get a Flash Heal off, but beware of using that unless you
have good regen, it's a bit of a mana hog). No, it's not the "right"
way to heal, but it's how it works in these groups ;-) 

Hit Circle on cd, PoM the tank on cd, Cascade whenever a fair number
have taken dmg, maybe a Renew on the tank/anyone else taking dmg,
Prayer of Healing if a whole group has taken a bigger chunk of dmg,
Divine Hymn if everyone's taking BIG dmg. May as well forget Heal and
Greater Heal even exist lol, cast times are too slow to beat other
healers to it, unless the tank is taking sustained dmg at the time.

I'm not so keen on this healing style, having healed since Burning
Crusade when it was a lot more about thinking and controlling
overheal, rather than just spamming smart aoes, but maybe this will
improve in WoD - today's healing* requires no thinking, really, other
than not burning the big cds till they're needed. It's the only way to
do it without looking really bad though, as you never get to do any
healing when everyone else's spamming beats your carefully cast heals!

*My experience of today's healing is limited to worldbosses and LFR;
perhaps it's better in organised groups at higher difficulty levels!