Good morning everyone, quiet down, let’s get this started. Now, I am professor Llothan, this is healadin 101. Hopefully you are all here because you want to learn how to be an awesome healer or because you have a paladin friend who needs some help but has not the resources to do the research on their own. If you’re taking this as an elective or just trying to fill credits, get out.
Well, now that the rabble have left, let’s start with some basics shall we?
Now, healing requires a certain type of person. Too many people out there have some very bad misconceptions about healers. First off, no matter which class you are healing on, none of them are “2 button rotations”. This is not “how2arcanemage” thank you very much. There a wide variety of spells available to all 4 healing classes, and it takes time and practice to get a true feeling of when and how to use each one. It also takes a totally different mentality to be a healer. As with tanking, you have a much larger role in the group. In 5mans you are the only one keping the others alive. In 10mans you are part of a 2-3 man unit who is responsible for making the green bars go up. In 25mans you have a little bit more leeway if you have some very good healers alongside you.
The first thing to remember is that the only reason you care what the bosses health is at is to key off on certain abilities that may trigger at a specific hp% such as Onyxia’s phase switches or Patchwerks 10% soft enrage. These things mean the fight will be changing somehow or there might be some incoming damage spikes you need to prepare yourself at. If you know that at 30% the boss is going to hit the tank for 20% of the tanks total HP and the boss is sitting at 31% health and the tank is at 40% hp…well you better hurry your ass up, drop what your doing and bust off some big heals on that tank.
Secondly, particularly in 5mans, you have as much control of the pace of the run as the tank does. Particularly now, when everyone is so overgeared for heroics, a beginning healer may easily be paired with a veteran tank in t9. Mr. Tank may want to pull the entire instance at once, including all 5 bosses. If he goes off and chain pulls the first three pulls and your Oom or sitting in the back going “OMG OMG OMG dont die!” well, speak up. If they are a good tank they will slow down in order to benefit you. Because, after all, they wont live if you don’t have mana to heal them. If they refuse to ease up a bit, let them die. Let it be a lesson to them.
Our third lesson for today is LoS and range. Please dear god make sure your group is in LoS/range of you. If you cant heal the tank from where you are standing, MOVE so that you can. If you cant see the dps, tell THEM to move so you can. Its that simple. The tank may be standing where he is because he has to, he may not be able to move to get in your range. The dps however should always be in range/LoS of you (or at least 1 healer in a raid). Its the dps’s job to make sure they are where you can heal them. If they are melee, they will be right near the tank anyways, if they are ranged, they can jsut stand 5-10 yards away from you so they avoid any AoE damage (ice blocks on KT anyone? v.v). I was tanking a random hero on my warrior the other day, clearing some trash in FoS and I died because I got zero heals. When I asked if the healer was ok he said “I’m fine, but you were out of LoS.” Needless to say, that group did not make it through the instance before falling apart.
Our fourth and final lesson for today: PRACTICE! If you’re an aspiring healer, theres only one way to get comfortable with your new found role/class/spec etc. And that is to get out there and heal shit. Grab a guildie for a tank, someone with patience who knows that you are just learning the ropes and may struggle at times. Go run something like UK or Nexus. THose are both very easy heroics to heal. Eventually, as you get more comfortable with whats going on, start doing some random hero’s. Practice using your OH SHIT buttons, using your utility spells (hand of sacrifice, hand of protection, divine illumination, etc.). Oh, and good luck 🙂
Next week we will be looking into the different ways to spec your healadin. Class dismissed.
Holy Bacon! 
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