Healers in Blizzard's World of Warcraft have it rough - after all, the lives of their teammates hinge on the right macros and spell combinations. In turn, Healers who make a missclick can easily lead the raid team into a TPK. Essentially, pressure on Healers motivate players to ensure they not only have the right builds but also the right combos for their healing. However, these caveats can also demotivate players into trying out healing-oriented playstyles.
Thankfully, Healers beginner and old can follow a few basic principles to ensure the party's survival, especially in high-level raids. Moreover, it seems all kinds of healing builds hinge upon certain tactics to allow flexibility in a Healer's playstyle. However, just how should Healers approach healing intelligently?
10 Mana Is Everything
Health is wealth, but Mana is everything when it comes to Healers. After all, having less Mana for a crucial heal can spell the difference between life and death for an ally. Essentially, Healers need to maximize their Mana regeneration, courtesy of special abilities and class talents. Moreover, Healers need to understand which heals work the best balance with Mana Cost, casting time, and cooldown (CD).
For instance, a Mistweaver Monk's Renewing Mist provides a decent heals-over-time (HOT) with low mana cost, perfect for most of the instance. However, Discipline Priest's Atonement can become a good damage buffer as it converts half of any fast incoming damage to heals. Lastly, the Holy Paladin has last-ditch power buffs such as Lay on Hands and Divine Shield that give guaranteed protection, albeit for a steep cooldown timer.
9 Healing For Everyone
Healers should never have all their spells on cooldown at any given time. As much as possible, Healers should have three kinds of spells. First, they need to have HOTs for low mana cost and low CD. Secondly, they need emergency heals that heal low HP for low CD. Lastly, they need high-healing spells with high mana cost and high CD. That way, Healers always have easy access to heals in their rotation.
For instance, the Restoration Shaman's Healing Rain offers decent HOT with a 10-second CD. This offers enough room for Chain Heal, an expensive heal that can target up to three allies.
8 Remember The Math
Aside from Mana cost, players should take note of how much healing their spells do in order to avoid unnecessary Mana wastage. Healers master their craft when they know exactly when to use particular spells. However, they get to know these spells better if they have the "right spell" to heal an ally as soon as they need a particular amount of HP healed.
As much as possible, Healers should use spells that they know could heal a particular amount of damage they want. The fewer guesswork Healers do, the better they can conserve their Mana and cast better spells.
7 Know Enemy Timing
Aside from understanding one's own rotation, Healers should have intimate knowledge of key enemy movements throughout instances. This advice works especially well with elite mobs and bosses who usually have high-damage abilities on cooldown. Essentially, Healers should take special attention to learning key damage abilities across encounters so they know exactly when to prepare heals and which heals to prioritize.
For instance, say a boss has a spell that chips around 90-percent of the health of most team members. These abilities usually have a long cooldown, and bosses who do these might not move for quite a while after. Healers should know to cast their HOT as soon as the boss shows signs of casting this ability. More importantly, Healers should know which MP-efficient heals to cast to bring allies up to speed without jeopardizing their rotations.
6 Keep The Threshold At 60
Expert Healers would advise newcomers to the role to pay attention to resource management. After all, most Healers aren't solely built for healing alone. Most of the time, these healers come with utility or light damage options to diversify their builds. In turn, one unnecessary heal can offset a Healer's healing rotation. However, it seems Healers should keep their healing threshold at 60-percent HP for decent healing versatility.
Essentially, Healers might find better synergy with their heals and buffs if they start dishing out heals whenever allies hit 60-percent HP. This HP threshold should theoretically heal enough HP to avoid deaths while still prompt allies to proc their self-heals to action.
5 Stay Within Assignments
When playing with multiple Healers, chances are some Healers will heal the same person with different spells. The receiver will get a ton of heals, that's for sure - but the Healers just wasted MP they could've used elsewhere. To avoid these situations, parties with multiple Healers should stick to specific assignments. For instance, larger parties could have Healers assigned to heal a particular set of players. Likewise, Healers can stay within a particular position and heal damaged players following a particular direction.
Interestingly, other more focused groups might have their Healers on the lookout for specific enemy abilities. These Healers specialize in using certain heals to assure party survival, especially when facing tough bosses with crazy-powerful attacks.
4 Needs Of One Outweight The Many
Unfortunately, Healers can't just keep everyone alive. It's this logic that makes some parties rely on multiple Healers, and it's exactly why all party members should keep a few first-aid spells on hand. Likewise, for the Healer, they need to keep a list of priorities to keep alive should they need to choose who to heal. Remember, try to avoid healing or reviving another Healer as the boss can just as easily wipe them out again.
Instead, try to choose to heal a Tank to mitigate incoming damage as the Healer tries to heal everyone else. Likewise, it might help to heal DPS that deals high base damage immediately, so the DPS may be able to finish the job before the enemy kills everyone first.
3 Mind The Aggro
Interestingly, even the most powerful of Healers get enemy attention if they become reckless with their heals. As with other MMOs, Healers can actually pull aggro from mobs if they use their more powerful spells. If the party's Tank isn't careful, a Healer can earn the ire of a boss and become dead meat in a few hits. In turn, Healers are advised to use HOTs or lower-level spells that give less heals that stack at the cost of less Mana.
Moreover, Healers should take note that over-healing doesn't exactly pull aggro. Instead, Healers generate threat when they heal for massive HP nearby free opponents. In this regard, Healers should have a Tank prepare a taunt to cast after they do a large heal.
2 Balance Heals, Self-Heals
Just because Healers have the best healing spells doesn't mean they need to heal everyone all the time. Ironically, Healers maximize their roles whenever they have to heal less. Essentially, Healers get more room to maximize their buffs and other support abilities when their allies maximize their sustains and self-heals. In turn, Healers should take into account their allies' special abilities - especially those that bolster their defense and damage resistances, not just weapon attacks.
If possible, Healers should time their heals by the time their allies have their self-heals ready to boost healing they get. That way, Healers can find better ways of saving MP by using as many low-cost MP abilities as possible.
1 Need For Speed
At the end of the day, Healers should pick the route that eliminates the boss the fastest. Aside from healing abilities, Healers should take into account useful buffs and debuffs they could use to bolster their allies and weaken their enemies. In the case of the latter, Healers should find room within their rotations to cast the occasional debuff so allies can hit their enemies harder, even for a few seconds.
For instance, Holy Paladin's Shock Barrier can provide great damage mitigation to allies. Meanwhile, Holy Shock can give straight buffs to allies or damage enemies - crucial to helping eliminate mobs. Likewise, Restoration Druid's Heart of the Wild lets them deal decent DPS in short bursts, albeit behind their Holy Paladin and Disciple Priest counterparts.