I recently started reading the Aggro Management blog, and I’m enjoying it immensely. Conceptually it’s a really good idea: one tank, one dps, one healer, who play together and blog together.
When you think about it, there’s so much potential: complaints about stupid dps and arrogant tanks should be tempered by a genuine understanding of what it’s like to play the other roles, how they’re played, how they *should* be played. It doesn’t hurt that protflashes, currently the most frequent poster, writes fluidly and well either.
Aaaanyway, this post on healing caught my eye in particular. Protflashes (from the about page: “More than 60% of the 2.5-servers-worth of characters played by Protflashes are specced for tanking.”) has been trying out her paladin healing offspec, and finding it tricky for a number of reasons. I read this, and spent a fair amount of time nodding.
I’ve not actually been brave enough to try healing a heroic yet — I’ve healed three or four regular dungeons through the dungeon finder, and that was plenty scary enough for me, for now. Healing is *very* different from my usual ret paladin zero responsibility faceroll. I think I like it, a bit, but I need some more practice before I’ll know for sure.
The biggest problem I’m having is the gap between knowing what to do, and actually doing it. I know, or at least think I know, the general healing paladin mechanics for 5 man content. Beacon and Sacred Shield the tank, bounce heals off anyone else. Use Holy Light when there’s lots of damage incoming, use Flash of Light for lightweight trash and low damage situations. Divine plea in the gaps, possibly in combination with Avenging Wrath to recover some of the throughput loss.
Where I’m struggling is with my cooldown abilities — the various hands and the like. In particular, when they’d be most useful (i.e. when everything’s going a bit sideways) I’m generally to busy frantically whacking the Holy Light button and hoping the beacon is still active to use the abilities that would probably be a big help.
This is, I suspect, the gap between “having a healing spec” and “being a healer”, and thus far I’m most definitely the former. Perhaps once I’ve configured healbot I can move a few abilities around on my bars to give me shortcut access to the various — that might help — but where I’m going to get the brainpower to use them at the right time I’m not sure. Watch this space, I suppose.
I’ll close with a quote from Protflashes:
And to every fucker who ever told me healing was easy and healing heroics a cake walk – die in a fucking fire (couldn’t save you if I wanted to).
Indeed.
THanks so much for the links and for saying such lovely things! /blush
I am obviously not an expert in pally healing, having done it that once so far and spent most of the time watching people die, but I know what SaveTheFails was trying to drill into my head the whole night! You say you use Holy Light for big-damage, which is correct, but you don’t mention Holy Shock. What I found started working for me by the end of the night (and I do believe there was a decrease in the dying, which means either it was working, or people realized I sucked and dusted off their potion buttons) was to spam Flash of Light constantly, whether boss fight or not. If someone took too much damage and I couldn’t keep up, Holy Shock them (the fact that it’s instant and huge makes it my favourite healing spell, I think). If Holy Shocks’ on CD and you’ve got the time for Holy Light, go to town.
Now, I say all of that, but I recognize it’s very easy to quote someone who knows what they’re doing (SaveTheFails) but much harder to put it into practice. 😀
The CD abilities, though, I DO know something about. What might be helpful for you healing spec, is to start to use them in your Ret spec as well. My two specs used to be prot/ret and in either of them I was throwing around Hands like yesterday’s news. You’ll have more time in ret or prot to consider what’s a good time to use them and get your fingers used to hitting the right keys. Plus, speaking as a casual raid lead, your leader would probably love you for it. ^^
The only Hand I’m really good with is Salvation. It’s the easiest one – you just watch Omen and if someone’s getting way too close to the tank, you hit them with it. The others…I’m less good. I don’t think I”ve ever cast Hand of Freedom, or Hand of Sacrifice. And I’m typically just a second too slow on Hand of Protection for it to be useful. ^^ HoP can also be used with Omen – best target to pop it on in an emergency (i.e., the tank dies) is whoever’s at the top of Omen (generally ignore rogues, mages, or hunters, as they all have aggro-dropping mechanics and shouldn’t need HoP).
You can also use HoP (I THINK) to clear undesirable buffs from a person (e.g., Burning Bile in TotC).
Also, if you’re not using a click and cast mod like Healbot or Grid, you may want to consider one. I know I wouldnt’ be able to heal anything without it. ^^ It also makes casting the instant-cast spells a breeze, without having to deselect your current target.
Off topic from healing, I’ve read all your posts and they’re quite enjoyable. 😀 Your not too shabby yourself. Looking forward to reading more!
Fantastic. Thanks for this, hugely helpful.
re: Holy Shock — I do have it handily bound and tend to use it in the “omg death imminent” moments but I should probably use it more. I’ve also seen a suggestion of macroing it with Divine Favour to make it a guaranteed instant big hit, which seems like it might be a plan.
Good suggestion re: Hands. I do use HoS when playing as ret from time to time, although mostly on myself if I get overexcited and omen starts shouting at me.
More to follow once I’ve configured healbot and girded my loins sufficiently to try HCs.