So. Healing.
Wow.
At first I was excited, you know? My pally’s had a Holy off-spec for ages and ages and ages (totally copied SaveTheFails’, right down to his glyphs…I’m cheap like that, and healing is a frightening prospect for me. I wanted the comforting security blanket of mimicking someone who knows better). I was like, hey! layteknight has a shiny new tank, I’ve got this never used “healer”. Let’s, you know, do stuff.
So I shelved the shaman for the night and pulled up my raiding tank and turned him into a heroics healer. Not bad, I told myself. 3300 gearscore, better than I expected. But I had been rolling off-spec in Naxx/ULD way back when, and the rep gear is actually decent to start from. Nothing’s really gemmed or enchanted, but whatever. Good enough for heroics.
Sign us up whenever you’re ready, says I, swaggering around Dalaran in my cute little healing set, flashing my spell power around like I understand what it means. I am ready to heal.
Can’t be that much different than tanking, right? It’s like the flip-side of the protection coin, that’s all. We’re both doing the same thing in the end – keeping everyone alive. Easy peasey, shampoo squeezy.
Boom. Loading Screen. Gundrak.
Sudden influx of fear. Wait, Gundrak? Isn’t that like…high level or something? Couldn’t we have started with UK? Wait, maybe we should have done a normal first. Wait, am I supposed to use Sacred Shield? I Beacon the Tank right? Spam Flash of Light? That’s it, right? Just click on the little green bars on Healbot?
No. I got this. I totally got this. I’m good.
I’m awesome.
I can totally do this.
Step 1 – Beacon of Light on me, because I figure – with all my healing prowess – that I’m never not going to be healing the tank, right? It’s heroics. People don’t take damage in heroics. So this way if I take damage I don’t need to worry about it.
Step 2 – There are some snakes.
Step 3 – There is a snake boss.
Step 4 – Everyone is taking damage all day all the time.
Step 5 – Waste precious time trying to heal a Phase-shfited Imp because I thought it was a person.
Step 6 – Hunter in nova, but healing him would mean letting the tank die because for some reason I thought it was a good idea to put Beacon on ME.
Step 7 – Hunter dies.
Step 8 – 60000000000 snakes on me, but I can’t remember whether I’m supposed to consecrate them or not. My brain wants to tank them. It wants to tank them so bad. They’re on the warlock! They’re on the warlock!
Step 9 – Warlock dies while I try to remember how to heal in the sudden inrush of tanking instincts and panic at being unable to find Righteous Defence which I’m totally not supposed to be touching anyway.
Step 10 – Overgeared Shaman kills the boss without anymore party member deaths.
Step 11 – Find the hunter’s body to rez just as he reenters the instance.
Step 12 – Find the warlock’s body to rez just as she reenters the instance.
Step 13 – Overgeared hunter pulls next group with misdirect before I’m anywhere nearby. Patrolling snakes join in the fun.
Step 14 – Realize that Beacon of Light apparently has a really short duration. Completely unable to locate it on Healbot. Don’t know what the icon looks like by sight (and all pally icons look the same anyway).
Step 15 – Hunter dies. Warlock dies. Overgeared shaman kills the pat.
Step 16 – Get asked, in a nice way, whether I’m new to 80. Friendly advice to put Beacon on the tank.
Step 17 – Text SaveTheFails to cry about how I suck at healing.
So…that’s what? Four pulls in, including the first boss, and I had four deaths. Now, to be clear, I have no intentions of taking full responsibility for them. The DPS were largely overgeared and not watching their threat. The hunter pulled FOR the tank (a curse upon him!) before she or I were ready. Yadda, yadda, yadda, typical bullshit.
But the fact of the matter is, I should have been able to keep them alive anyway, and I failed. Epically.
I think I sulked for a good hour afterward, even though people stopped dying and I eventually located Beacon of Light on Healbot (why the fuck did I put it there?).
Oh, did I mention I had fucking Fire Resistance Aura on and neglected to buff anyone until halfway through? That’s not even healer fail, that’s pally fail.
SaveTheFails very patiently texted me back, reminded me I’m not going to get it on the first try, let alone the first pull, told me to keep Beacon and Sacred Shield up on the tank at all times. Spam Flash of Light constantly, and throw out a Holy Shock if you’re having trouble keeping up with damage.
Part of my problem was that we were PuGging. Had it been a guild group I wouldn’t have cared so much. I’d’ve epic failed just as hard, but we could have laughed it off and moved on. I feel a strange sense of responsibility to not fail with strangers though. They didn’t sign up to have to bear with me as I try to find my spells or learn, on the spot, how to prioritize my healing targets. Which is a topic for another post, I think, because why is it okay for me to get my guildies killed over and over again, but not complete strangers who are generally behaving like idiots anyway? These people deserve whatever death my unskilled hands can give them.
Moorabi drops my Shaman’s fist weapon just to spite me.
Bitch.
So we finish Gundrak, I teleport out to Dalaran, and spend a few moments huddling in a corner of the bank coddling my wounded pride.
I let people die. I who has incorporated a short-form for Protection in my alias. I who has built a Warcraft career on not letting people die. I who judges a fight by how clean and efficient the kills, and how healthy and hale the murderers.
I let people die.
I am a bad player. I am a bad healer. I am once again Fail made manifest and given flesh to roam the world and wipe the innocent.
Healing is not like tanking. Healing is not like tanking at all. Healing isn’t the opposite side of the protection coin, it’s a different fucking coin, in a different fucking currency, from the opposite side of the world.
You want to know why most good tanks tend to be anal and uppity? Why they throw hissy fits if you pull for them and don’t follow the kill order? Because tanking is about control. In order to be a good tank, you have to control the fight. You control the timing, you control the mobs, you control positioning. You have to control the environment, and to some extent your party. You have to control what mobs they’re on, or you can’t tank. You have to control where everyone is standing or things get difficult. You have to maintain control of the situation, or it becomes incredibly hard to get things back on track.
I’m used to pulling. I’m used to charging. I’m used to setting the pace, going at my speed, and indicating what mobs are to be killed when. I’m used to enforcing the positioning rules with an iron fucking fist. People can ignore me, but they do so at their own peril. The rules are there for a reason, the kill order is established for a reason. Chaos means people die. Order means they live. It’s at least partly the tank’s job (almost entirely the tank’s job in Heroics) to impose Order on the run, otherwise it becomes impossible to do their job.
I’m used to having control.
Last night I didn’t control anything. Not a single piece of that fight was mine to affect. The tank handled most of it, the DPS took some of it away from her, and I could do nothing to affect the outcome except shriek and sob and thrash in panic as I tried my best to spam Flash of Light and keep Beacon and Shield up on the tank. I didn’t even have time to type anything in the chat. I couldn’t have yelled at them if I wanted to (and I did).
I could preempt nothing. I could change nothing. I could do nothing but react to the little squares on Healbot lighting up at inopportune times.
I spent the next instance mourning my loss of control, ability to impose order, and sanity (and fucking Lavanthor dropped my fucking Shaman’s boots just to spite me).
I was miserable. I was having fantasies about sending every healer I know a thank you card and begging them on bended knee to never, ever, ever, ever stop healing or force me to do it. I was, and remain, in awe of the required reaction times and instinct required for healing. I didn’t know, I swear to God. I knew it was harder than it looked, but I had no fucking idea. And those of you who can actually decurse, and buff, and all the rest of it between heals? What are you people, robots? Every time I tried to slap Hand of Salvation on an overgeared, undersmart rogue (oh rogues, how I love you) the warlock would dip dangerously close to dying.
It wasn’t until the last instance of the night that I actually stumbled on some kind of groove. One guy was sitting on a 5K gearscore, but everyone else was in the 3-4K range. Ironically, these “undergeared” people were a million times easier to heal – I assume because the threat of death is much more real to them. As SaveTheFails pointed out later, fear helps.
I had time on this run to engrave my keybindings into my head. Left Click Flash of Light. Shift+Right Click Beacon. Middle click Shield. Shift+Left click Holy Shock.
I had time to figure out how to cleanse between heals. I had time to find Hand of Protection on healbot (naturally, no one in THIS group needed it). It was still hard, but it wasn’t so frantic. Not so hectic. I had time to THINK, which, for me, is integral to actually LEARNING anything.
If not for that last group I would have probably been incredibly reluctant to ever heal again. Partly due to my own unrealistic expectations of myself, but partly due to the fact that it just wasn’t fun. It was worse than tanking.
But in a good group it changed, as most things usually do. Once I had time to understand what was happening and could actually think and decide how best to react to it, I started enjoying myself more. I began to understand the synergies between spells, what spells cause what buffs which means I now need to cast which spell. I had time to start building a flow chart in my head for the role.
I would be willing to heal again, I think.
As a parting note, in that last group, after we dropped Keristraza (who, in turn, dropped my fucking Shaman’s fucking trinket just to fucking spite me) one of the party members said: “thanks for the group, guys – great tanking and healing.”
You have no idea how much that one simple compliment meant to me. Maybe he was just being polite, but it made the whole escapade worth it. Up until that run I had been doing and feeling like shit, plain and simple. That little bit of positive reinforcement is one of the big reasons I have not given up on healing entirely after the stress-bath that was the first few runs.
It’s never going to replace tanking as my preferred role, but it’s something I could probably do from time to time for a bit of a change of perspective. The backline is a strange, foreign place to me. A lot more happens back there than I realized.
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).
22 comments
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February 24, 2010 at 9:51 am
crankyhealer
This just made my day. Healing is hard! And people don’t respect it.
If it makes you feel better, I find pally and shaman healing very hard. Though some people love to have a limited toolbox, it makes me cry that I have to WAIT for damage to happen before I can DO anything.
Just don’t get HTOC for a heroic. Trust me on this. The last phase on black knight is absolute HELL.
If you need help finding guides, let me know… but I gotta scoot to a meeting now. (Not that I play a pally but I find guides for my guildies.)
February 24, 2010 at 6:32 pm
protflashes
I used to THINK I respected healers, but man do I ever respect them more now.
I used to heal for a much lower-level group on a priest – about level 50ish. The group played with a lot of discipline, though, and half of it was newbie DPS who didn’t really know what they were doing, but understood what a kill order was. So it was really boring, actually. NOTHING AT ALL like healing for real, which is what I assume last night was.
I hate the BK on a tank – I can’t imagine I’d be more fond of it on a healer. And I know what you mean about Phase 3 – you can just sort of watch people die, and the healer’s practically frothing at the effort of keeping SOMEBODY up and standing ’till the end. So much damage…
Thanks for the offer! Don’t go to any extra effort on my account, but if you happen to be digging one up for a guildie, I certainly wouldnt’ complain about a link!
February 24, 2010 at 9:03 pm
crankyhealer
Well here’s what I have for my guild. If you find more useful stuff, I wants it! To link and stuff:
http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/?p=572
http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/?p=596
http://iamapaladin.blogspot.com/2010/01/healing-5-mans-as-holy-paladin.html
http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t84922-holy_paladin_compendium_3_3_a/
http://www.wowhead.com/?forums&topic=117253
As a side note, Kurn thinks that the wow.com article lacks nuance, and I agree, which is why I don’t include it here.
February 24, 2010 at 9:06 pm
crankyhealer
aaaaa the interwebs ate my links!!!
One more time with FEELING
http://iamapaladin.blogspot.com/2010/01/healing-5-mans-as-holy-paladin.html
http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/?p=572
http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/?p=596
http://www.wowhead.com/?forums&topic=117253
http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t84922-holy_paladin_compendium_3_3_a/
Dear internet. Work this time. Thanks.
February 24, 2010 at 9:09 pm
crankyhealer
Interwebs. Why do you hate me so? Eating my reply 3x now. With links.
http://iamapaladin.blogspot.com/2010/01/healing-5-mans-as-holy-paladin.html
http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/?p=572
http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/?p=596
http://www.wowhead.com/?forums&topic=117253
http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t84922-holy_paladin_compendium_3_3_a/
February 24, 2010 at 11:35 am
Charity
You know what my “friends” did to me when I hit 80 on my resto druid? They asked me if I wanted to try healing a heroic (still in quest greens and blues). I say yes, and where do they take me? Forge of Souls and Pit of Saron. I am sad to say that there were some wipes. And even after the wipes stopped, there were some deaths for me. Even when you’re used to what all your healing abilities do after having leveled with them, healing any higher level instance, and especially a heroic, is a whole different ball game.
February 24, 2010 at 6:33 pm
protflashes
Wow. I hope you let them have it! Or at least that they didn’t even try to implicate you as having any fault in that.
I kept thinking to myself – wow, and this isn’t even a raid. What the Hell? What the Hell?!
February 24, 2010 at 9:08 pm
crankyhealer
Interwebs. Why do you hate me so? Eating my reply twice now. With links.
http://iamapaladin.blogspot.com/2010/01/healing-5-mans-as-holy-paladin.html
http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/?p=572
http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/?p=596
http://www.wowhead.com/?forums&topic=117253
http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t84922-holy_paladin_compendium_3_3_a/
February 25, 2010 at 5:41 am
Ulv
There’s a reason I swapped back to Ret/Prot after trying Ret/Holy dual spec for a while!
February 25, 2010 at 9:50 am
protflashes
LoL! I was Ret originally and Prot forevermore after so I wanted to try something new. I specced Holy then sat on it for months. ^^
Was too afraid to try for a while – rightfully so apprently!
February 25, 2010 at 10:49 am
shamus
I’ve been healing on my priest since lvl 55 pre-TBC. Disc/Holy in TBC and Pure disco now. I can see what you mean about control. And I think that is why whenever I’ve tanked (on my bear or more recently on my still gearing up DK) I start stressing and sweating. The burden of control is upon me then and I start panicing about losing agro or being too slow to get all the mobs on me, or struggling to target and taunt the one that’s just made a b-line for the healer.
Healing and tanking really are different worlds.
February 26, 2010 at 7:30 am
protflashes
No, the control is good! :D You can prevent stuff (or scream yourself hoarse trying to).
I never realized just how different they were. Healer’s and tanks often have the same complaints and expectations for a group, but apparently for very different reasons. It’s two different philosophies.
February 25, 2010 at 5:34 pm
Tufva
You poor thing!
Healers being in control though, you really were misguided weren’t you? ;-)
Good work for sticking with it for more than one instance though! I couldn’t imagine what it would be like healing without access to any sort of group heal at all – not in Wrath with the love of group-wide dmg. Ugh!
If you want to keep doing healing – maybe consider a pocket tank (layte maybe?) while you are getting more used to it. It becomes much easier when you heal the same tank as you get used to how they take damage etc, then once you have a nice chunk of confidence you branch out.
February 26, 2010 at 7:39 am
protflashes
In my head, because healers and tanks want the same things, roughly, from a group and their roles are so complementary it never occured to me that there would be a wide difference in philosophy/logic.
I was very wrong.
On the upside, I have a bit of a better view now of the other side. Very different than DPS. DPS is relaxing. Just follow the tank, hit the monster, be free of anything except personal responsibility. It’s nice.
Healing though? Sheez.
Thé pocken tank idea is a good one. ^^. Don’t think I’d ever go without! LoL
February 28, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Leafie
Heh. Healing is way stressful, isn’t it? I noticed the control shift thing when I switched from mostly playing my prot paladin to mostly playing my resto druid. Tanks stage-manage the fight. Healers react to fight events. Paladins are almost purely reactive healers (way more than druids) so you’ve got the shock all the way set to 11.
I’ll tell you how I do it: mouseover macros. None of my action bars have straight spells/abilities on them. Every single one’s a mouseover macro, on both my druid and my tanky paladin. This makes slapping that Hand of Stop Grabbing Aggro onto somebody a matter of mousing over their unit frame and pressing a button. Really speeds up casting. Is that how Healbot works at all?
March 2, 2010 at 12:30 pm
protflashes
Sort of, I think. Healbot displays all the members of your party/raid as bars. The bars go up or down as they take damage, and you bind certain spells to your mouse.
So, for me my flash of light is left click. My holy shock is shift+left click.
If I notice layteknight takig damage, left clicking on her name on Healbot casts FoL. Holding shit and right-clicking on it casts holy shock. Clicking on healbot doesn’t change my target at all, ti allows me to cast spells on people without having to select them.
It can also do cool thongs like show you everyone’s treat and so on. It shows you buffs and is hoghly customizable.
I use it on all my characters. On my warrior to change Vigilance around without having to deselect and deselect the boss. On any of my decursing characters to drop instant cleanses on people (it actually makes a noise at me if someone picks up something I can dispel). On my pally to RD without having to deselect the mob. Etc. Incredibly useful mod – I highly recommend it. :D
February 28, 2010 at 11:50 pm
Giselle
I remember way back when I was raid healing in Naxx on my tree. They had decided–for reasons known only to them–to 4-heal it. This was a time when Naxx was the highest dungeon available, so nobody overgeared it.
A friend was PMing me insistently, and I didn’t answer as I was of course busy trying to keep people alive. A bit later, he asked me sulkily why I hadn’t been answering and I said I’d been healing the raid. “Pfft, healing is easy. I’ve done it on my level 50 shammy,” he scoffed.
I just sighed and rolled my eyes.
March 2, 2010 at 12:33 pm
protflashes
I can personally attest to th fact that healing at 50 isn’t the same. I healed a regular group in instances from levels 15ish to 50. No one took damage but the tank, and then not much. I used to complain about being bored.
Nothing in Dire Maul can prepare you for heroics. Nothing.
Your friend will find out soon enough. ^^. I encourage you to gloat when he does.
March 5, 2010 at 10:25 pm
tobeume
Is it wrong that this made me laugh really hard because I can totally relate? LOL I had the same terror going from a healer to a tank. But I went from a Disc Priest to a Feral Druid so I didn’t have any of the same tools between each like you still have your basic Paladin things. I remember not blinking once for the entire first instance I tanked. I think my health was around 23K with the gear I had managed to craft for myself and cast offs no one wanted from regular instances. I have never been so terrified in regular UK than I was at that moment. But we made it out in one piece. It was a long time before I would tank alone with out my pocket healer and when I did it was usually some crazy over geared healer begging me to go faster and pulling entire rooms for me. But, I love to tank now that I have it figured out and my gear is a lot better (and I’m level 80). But I do make a concerned effort to be as easy on my healer as possible. Plus side: I know my way around instances now when before I followed the tank around like a puppy dog and got lost on my own.
Tanking is like healing in that it takes practice and the support of others to get good at. It’ll come to you in time, you just need some experience. :)
March 8, 2010 at 6:00 am
protflashes
Well, on the upside I’ve got a pocket tank if I need one, and a professional pally-healer on speed-dial. ^^ It’s still terror-inducing, though. :D
Woot for you trying and liking tanking! :D Welcome to the fold!
March 6, 2010 at 6:32 am
Mysterious button number 12: Hand of [whatever] « Mysterious Buttons
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July 6, 2010 at 3:54 am
lecoquelicot
I just respecced from shadow to Disc on my priest and I was shaking in terror in instances when everybody started taking damage and the tank was flashing red. The only reason why we didn’t wipe was because my brother took over control while I cringed beside him. I thought of going into lower level instances to practise healing. Do you think that will work?