Righteous Orbs

Hopefully the title says it all. If you’re not the slighest bit interestet in healing, I suggest you look away now. In fact, go look at Snottydin because she’s a girl irl and her words of wisdom in the trials and tribulations of being such in WoW have been transcribed today by the DDK.

Anyway, Miss Medicina recently started a healing questionnaire which is definitely not a meme. You can find the collected responses to it here. And I have to say there’s nothing that makes you feel more like you’re a confirmed sissy-robe sporting healer than reading a bunch of responses to a non-meme about healing and finding them genuinely fascinating.. Yep. I’m a healing nerd.

Anyway, if you do fancy filling this out, I heartily encourage it, as it definitely inspires thought and though usually inspires discussion. If you don’t have a blog, quite a few people have answered on Miss Medicina’s original post, and, of course, you’re very welcome indeed to do so here. I don’t want pressure anyone by demanding they fill out questionnaires at my whim but … here are non-pressure nudges in the direction of Beru, Sylly and Lath from Team Resto Druid (the only reason Taz is escaping is because she’s on holiday); Saunder (this’ll stop your navel gazing) for Team Holydin and … hmmm … I’m pretty sure I’m not allowed to demand blog content from a non blogger but, if you’re reading this and you’re interested … Nich, I’d appreciate your insights.

Okay, so here’s my response. And it’s incredibly rambly… so, yes, definitely not for the faint of heart.

What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?
Tamarind, holy priest extraordinaire (okay I made up that last bit, but averagaire sounds lame).

What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)
It used to be primarily 5-mans, but now I’m getting into raiding. Woot, or rather wooteth as we say on RP servers. I’m still pretty much a raiding noob but I’ve done a couple of 25-mans, and a handful of 10-mans. And one 8-man Naxx takedown, which remains my proudest moment. Although, actually, since every TotC-10 man I’ve run since has had 3 healers, maybe I should feel prouder of 2-man healing TotC-10. But I was, at the time, too clueless to realise what I was doing and 8-man Naxx was just inherently much more FUN anyway. Genuinely demanding at my current gear level, as well – since with less DPS the fights take longer and there’s just more pressure on the healers. But it’s the good kind of pressure, like a slightly over-weight cat purring on your chest.

What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?
I heart my Frisbee (Prayer of Mending). It’s a bit less predicable, and therefore less reliable, than good old CoH and I often grit my teeth at a wasted, ill-timed or ill-judged Frisbee disappearing down a black hole. But there’s nothing in the world more pleasing than the DING-DING-DING-DING of a perfect Frisbee ricocheting around a raid group, doing your job for you. I try to keep a Frisbee flying pretty much permanently and it’s a wonderful feeling you see someone take a chunk of damage, twitch in the direction of casting a heal and the beautiful golden Frisbee of love does it for you. Weeeee!

What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?
I’m another divine hymn reprobate. I’ve literally never ever used it. It’s embarrassing but there never seems to be a situation in which some other healing spell wouldn’t do the job better. Also it’s just got a rubbish name. This is a fucking battle, no time for singing!
What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?

As Miss Medicina says, the flexibility of the holy priest is probably our biggest strength and, also, our biggest weakness. There’s always somebody who can fill a set role better, which means the ignorant will often overlook us – I have been told “priests can’t tank heal” before, much to my irritation (also proved such nay-sayers wrong). But I like the fact that I can just contribute effectively (well … hopefully effectively) to anything that needs doing, and if another healer bites it or goes oom, or disconnects, that I can step into the breach.

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?
As I intimated above, the “jack of all trades” aspect to holy priest healing does have the anticipated “master of none” fallout in that basically any healing assignment can be “better” filled by someone of a different class. So very often your role in raids (or maybe this is just because I am inexperienced) is float around in the middle in the off-chance something goes wrong with the other healing.

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?
I probably don’t have enough experience to answer this with any other than the most general observation but, like Miss Medicina, I think like raid healing. Of course, I’ll always keep a general eye on what’s going on, ready to leap into action, and there’ll be a perma-renew from me on the MT and the OT if I can do it without detracting from anything else I’m meant to be doing.

I don’t understand why there is more kudos in MT healing, over raid healing (kind of like why I don’t understand there’s more kudos in MTing rather than OTing) – maybe there isn’t, and I’ve mis-perceived, but from what I’ve seen and heard this does seem to be the case. Obviously MT healing has more responsibility attached to it – I mean if the MT keels over, chances are you’ve just wiped the raid. But it’s a pretty dull role, if you ask me. It’s not even proper whack-a-mole, it’s simply a direct transfer of the contents of your blue bar into their diminishing green bar, like you’re some kind of perpetual human health funnel. Again, it’s possible I’m looking at this too simplistically, there’s no strategy required for it. It’s not like you can juggle the merits of flash heal against … oh … flash heal. Hum.

The first time the guild took us to Ulduar, M’Pocket Tank MTed XT-002 Deconstructor and I was allowed to dip my toe in the waters of MT healing. The thing is, I’ve stood behind M’Pocket in a sissy robe for 80 levels plus now. I know the minute fluctuations in her health bar as intimately as a lover’s body. If M’Pocket Tank dies on my watch, I’m probably dead my keyboard. So it was … completely fine. And afterwards, they asked me how I found it. And I’d have felt a bit of a tosser admitting I found it kind of dull, like I thought I some kind of Uber Healer of Uberness, so I mumbled on about the scary responsibility instead. But then I guess it is the responsibility that makes MT healing the deal it is.

The point is, raid healing floats my boat. And I’ve still got a lot to learn about it, which also floats my boat since new = shiny and challenging = shiny. With raid healing there are split second calls to make, there is resource allocation. How to take that blue bar and distribute it most efficiently and most effectively among a group of people with differing needs, in changing circumstances. Oh yeah baby. Now that makes me hot. Well. Maybe not hot. Mildly warm. Ahem.

And as much as there are short cuts to it (spam CoH/PoH, noob) the way to do it best seems to be know the individuals in your raid, who needs extra attention when, the silly warlock you can just write off, when, and upon whom, to blow your wings … and that’s kind of cool too.

What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?
As yet I’m still getting used to working as part of a healing team so I don’t really have enough knowledge and experience to judge the merits of other types of healers. The TotC-10 man, 2-healing triumph was with a holy pally (not Snottydin, don’t worry) and we had fucking awesome synergy. The pally in question had an incredibly sexy voice on vent which didn’t hurt either… actually I’m not sure it helped, since I was quite distracted. But the combination of my flexi-heals and big nuking pally heals seemed to work like a charm.

What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?
Again, I’m echoing Miss Medicina – but I’m bad with druids. I tend to (accidentally!) heal over HoTs and I’m just generally inept when it comes to balancing my healing with their healing. Usually I’ve had about 2 seconds left on a PoH cast and the druid behind me will have hit tranquility. Doh.

What is your worst habit as a healer?
Sometimes when I panic, I obsessively refresh renew when it doesn’t need refreshing. I have no idea why I do it – and even as I’m clicking I’m thinking to myself “Tam, what the fuck are you doing” – but, yeah, I’m some kind of obsessive-compulsive renew caster. Also if I’m panicking enough to go OCD over renew, there’s definitely something much MUCH more important I should be doing.

Also I’m getting much better at this but I still have a tendency to forget to heal myself. I’ll see my health going down and I’ll be thinking “I’ll just quickly cast this and then I’ll make the next one a binding heal” and I’ll think that about three times in a row … and then I’ll go splat.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?
I could solo heal this, lol. Seriously, though, I hate arrogant healers. Well arrogance in general is supremely unattractive but when you’re actually trying to work WITH someone who makes you feel you have nothing to contribute, grrr. It’s a depressing and impossible situation – and it makes you a bad healer because you’ll look over at the tank, who’s in the red, and you’ll remember being told that you were essentially worthless, and instead of just jumping in with a heal, you’ll expect to be chastised for having the temerity to contribute, so you’ll assume the arrogant fuckwit has it in hand – and, of course, being human, they don’t. And welcome to wipesville, population 10. Also, even if you’re not as experienced, or as geared, occasionally a spare set of a wings, an extra renew, a well-placed Frisbee or a well-timed CoH can make a the difference.

Also because I’m new to raid healing, I get stressed out if nobody tells me what to do. Pathetic isn’t it. Obviously this only applies to srs raids, not a single, or bunch of, bosses in a room style raids. I know assignments are flexible and you need to be keeping an eye on everything, but I don’t have enough of an overview of the process yet to be able to judge if I’m making an appropriate contribution, or where my priorities should lie. Also, as arbitrary as it seems, I do need an imposed metric by which I can judge my success or failure, and, for that matter, measure improvement – while at the same time maintaining awareness of the arbitrary nature of the metric, of course. Like if I’m told to heal the raid, and the raid are all at full health, and the tank keels over – I know I’ve fucked up. But if my healing assignment is “Tam, you do whatever” even though I know that’s probably meant to let me take full advantage of flexi-priest powers, I’m occasionally left at a bit of a loss by it. Should I be whatevering in the raid, or whatevering by the tank, and or should I maybe add some extra whatever to the OT? Should I spread my whatever liberally or focus my whatever over here. Eeek. And I know I should be fitting my whatever to need but often there are multiple competing needs to balance.

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?
Again, lack of inexperience is coming through but … uh … I think so?

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?
Well, lack of death is a good one. But I usually check the meters after each fight to make sure I’m just not standing at the back in my sissy robe. My over-healing, which is usually acceptable to me, has actually slipped a bit of late – I think due to excessive whatever is unnecessary places. Healing meters can be a bit depressing though since I’m not likely to come anywhere near the top of them any time soon, and coming last always makes you feel a bit like a lame duck, even though you know you did your bit. I had a moment of hope the other day but then it turned out I was measuring my performance against … a disc priest. Yeah, go me. I had a higher healing output that a class that relies on preventing damage. Wooteth.
But like anything else in life, measuring performance against the performance of others is a recipe for unhappiness and angst, so I usually go by a terribly unscientific gut feeling. I tend to know if I’ve performed well, and equally I know when I’m not quite on form.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?
I think I mentioned earlier that “holy priests can’t do x, lol” tends to make me roll my eyes and grit my teeth, but I suspect most healers with more than passing familiarity with their class can adapt themselves to any sort of healing. Yes, it might be non-optimal but never say can’t to a healer!

In a more general sense, I think there are quite a few misconceptions floating about regarding healing itself. I called my first blog ‘standing at the back in my sissy robe’ for a reason – I’m astonished at how easily people seem forget the contribution healers make. The amount of times a random person has begged me to heal him through something and I’ll later see him boasting on trade about having solo-ed it. I think the problem is, unless you’re a healer, healing isn’t readily quantifiable. I mean, the raid being alive and functional is the default state. So essentially, healing has a very recognisable criteria for failure, the tank or the raid being dead, but nothing by which you can really track success. Although big numbers aren’t everything, most DPS still take, and expect, affirmation from producing them. Big numbers on healing charts are barely indicative at best and, ultimately, the best way to rack them up is to be a bad healer (don’t ever dispel or cleanse, for example). ‘Winning’ at healing is basically measured by how effectively and how efficiently you apportioned your resources… and that’s not exactly something that you an expect accolades for. “Wow, Tam, the way you cast binding heal on yourself and the life-tapping warlock in group 3 at just the right moment was totally awesome!” Of course, I don’t heal for the kudos, the girls and the sex, but there’s something slightly, nigglingly sad about the fact that the few times anybody has ever given me a “great healing mate,” it’s when I’ve been so horribly over-geared that I’ve been standing at the back in my sissy robe, polishing my nails and completing a Rubik’s cube.

What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?
Eeek, I have no idea. I’m still learning myself. The things I have still have trouble balancing:

1) Timing the perfect Frisbee – in raids, it doesn’t matter, you can toss it out there and chances are somebody will take enough damage to get it dinging, but when I was first got it, it seemed to work so differently from my other healing spells, that it took me a while to get the hang on it, and get it singing happily through 5-mans.
2) Power Word: Shield – obviously, as a holy priest, this isn’t your go-to spell or anything but it’s still useful, and it is instant cast so, unless there’s a disc priest around, I usually find myself throwing it towards fragile classes, as a kind of aperitif to some healing, when they start taking damage. And when we did 8-man Naxx, I had a pretty good relationship with the other healer, who was a druid, so we fell quite naturally into a pattern of I’d PW:S and he’d HoT and that would usually save anyone but the most suicidal rogue – and it meant I didn’t over-write his HoTs, so points for me. The problem with PW:S I can never tell if I over-use it, or under-use it as a general rule – and, of course, it’s all context dependent so I’m not sure if I’m going to solve that problem any time soon.
3) Learning to love PoH. This used to feel like such an unwieldy spell to me because of the fucking interminable cast time. 3 stacks of serendity help, of course. Usually in 5-mans, by the time I’d cast it, everybody was dead anyway, so I got into the habit of just not casting it. Thankfully raid healing, where you become pretty dependent on it pretty quickly, broke me of this. And sometime it really is the perfect spell for a quick 5-man rescue. It’s just knowing when to cast the thing, something I think I’m getting better at judging.

If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?
I used to come in quite low on the over-healing but nowadays I’m somewhere in the middle – I think because my mana regen is okay, I’m not crying for every piece of ill-used mana. And ultimately I’d rather go up on the overhealing meters, and the raid as a whole to suffer a little less death. In terms of healing output, that varies a lot depending on who I’m healing with. I guess it’s where you’d expect for my gear and class… at least I hope it is.

Haste or Crit and why?
Wah! Technical questions. A balance of both, for preference, but I think I currently need more haste. I’m not quite at the stage when I can pick and choose my gear, I just take whatever I can get.

What healing class do you feel you understand least?
I’m pretty clueless about most healing classes other than my own, truthfully.

What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?
I’m all about the Vuhdo, mon. I used to use Grid and Clique but the problem I found with Grid was that it was just a bit too customizable. In being able to make it look like absolutely anything, I tended to end up with something that looked like nothing. At least nothing I wanted. Vuhdo cuts out the middle man by looking vaguely like I want it to look already, and then I tweak it perfection. With Grid I just endlessly pursue some impossible dream. Grid is marginally better at tracking stuff, I’ve found but Vuhdo is better for me overall. Also it meant I could shed clique, and less is more when it comes to add-ons, right?

I have a stop cast macro, and I used to have a macro for Guardian spirit, that whispered the target to say “Guardian spirit cast. Do not fear death. Or, rather, fear it less.” But I keep forgetting to update it to work with Vuhdo.

Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
WTB tame jewelcrafter. Seriously, love, money, whatever you want for the shinnies. I’m really badly gemmed, as usual, because I end up with whatever I can pick up off the AH house floor in there. I think I’m unfortunately tilted towards spirit because there was some kind of intellect purge on the AH when I was trying to buy. Truthfully, I haven’t put as much thought into my numbers as I could because … well … I’m kind of lazy and wishlisting just makes me frustrated. I guess I’m still very much in the stage of trying to work out what works best for me, so hopefully one day I will have insight.