This happened because of those High Warlord videos. People thought warriors were godly, and rolled them in high numbers, only to find its not quite so simple. Couple that with a couple of nerfs here and there.

I've seen warriors that dont carry a shield around. :unsure:

Everytime more than 10 people use EM, a baby dies of AIDS.

Fixed.

If you guys (druids and shamans, and even priests, I don't care.) can give me some info on you're raids and overhealing / healing %'s and stuff.. (Gurg, since you're the raid leader I'm sure you can help me out here..)

My first class was warlock, level to 44 didn't like it, next, hunter, leveled to 45 didn't like it, next druid, leveled to 60, absolutly love it. I heal. I love healing. I love saving peoples lives. I love watching priests spam flashheal for 5 minutes becuase of my innervate. and I also love getting screamed at when someone dies because I didn't heal them.

At least for me, healing is a thankless job, I can save a rogue who steals agro on rag, and chain heal him for 10 seconds by myself, and NS HT him also, and keep him alive, but if he steals agro again (no vanish :[) and he dies, he yells at me, because I didn't keep him up, when the first time, I blew my cooldowns on his dumbass because he doesn't understand agro control. (this is just an example.)

I don't use emergency monitor, but from what you guys have been saying, it could be a new thing for me. I just have my raid bars set up as follows: Warriors, Rogues, Mages, Hunters, Paladians, Priests, Druids.. Our guild is doing absoultly great at finishing content, but from what EJ says, it sounds like you guys don't really have any slackers who don't do there jobs. (you might, but you don't sound like it.) At then end of BWL/MC raids, I'm usually 2nd or 3rd on healing done on damage meters (our main priest is always ahead of me.) My overheal is around 30% for HT, and >15% for regrowth and rejuv. (HT is a little higher, because I spam rank 3 HT (+516 healing gear makes the spell heal for around 500-650) and it's a 2 second cast as opposed to a 3 second cast. (I don't always spam it, but on broodlord or another high-dps fight, it seems approprate. How do your druids / priests / shamans finish on the damage meters. I always seem like I'm healing so much more then everyone else, and it's frusterating, becuase the raid members know I'm a good healer, so when they die, I get the hate tells, rather then the stupid feral druid in cat-form, or the priest spamming prayer of healing or some shit. I don't understand how I can be healing so much more then everyone else. (the next druid in line of healing is at MOST #10, our paladians and priests are always above them.

The one reason I love healing is because you can always improve on what you do. You can learn to user lower rank heals, you have to learn when to NS/HT someone, and when to waste mana on regrowth just to save someone, rather then relying on a priest to flash heal, then you to get your HT off (it sucks watching someone die when I have 2.8/3 seconds on HT, makes me sick.) I actucally have a level 60 priest alt who has 4/8 proph, but honestly, I think it's much easier to heal on my druid (probably because of 1: talent spec, and 2: 4/8 stormrage, and 8/8 cenarion, and pure elementium band give me much more +healing and 30% mana while casting then my priest. I just find it frusterating that I heal so much, and no one acknowledges it. Like we did onxyia last week, and a hunter in my group died, becuase he was standing where the melee dps were. (for some ungodly reason) and I was up by where the dragon spawns come in, and he got hit with 3 fireballs in a row. Yes, this could have been my fault for not knowing exactly where he was, but then he sends me a tell with "learn2heal" or some crap.

It seems to me, Gurg, as a druid that EM would not be as beneficial to me as say a shaman or a paladin, due to my heals taking twice as long as yours (priests/pallys/shamans 1.5 secs, HT W/ talents = 3 secs) But I'll try it out and see if it helps. I do, just have 40 raid bars, and I click one, heal, and then look, click another one while I'm casting that heal, and start a heal immediatly after that. It is quite hectic, but like I said I love it.

Any more suggestions from anyone (come on droods :P) would be greatly appreciate.

Also, what's your guys opinions on feral druids in raiding? (the druid forums are all about feral, and nothing about restro anymore.) Innervate is nice yes, but we've gotten to the point now, where the only time I use innervate is if we don't have TL chromaggus, and guess what, past 5 weeks, we've had TL chrommagus.. haha.

Thanks for your time, hopefully this post wasn't too long winded and bitchy, if so, my apologies.

The biggest lesson though in this thread about EM is dont be dependant on it. It has been said many times before but I will say it again. It is a tool but it can be abused. Also if you need to anticipate healing EM will not help you. Dont make it your lifeline to healing.

Do you like your guild? Sounds like there are (at least some) total muppets in there who should grow up and start to (1) appreciate what you do and (2) look at improving their own game a bit. If that hunter wasn't kidding I'd be really pissed about getting a tell like that. What a tard.

(Sorry no healing advice, I'm one of those dumbass non-vanishing Rogues ;) )

One small piece of specific advice first: I'd use Rank4 HT as your patch/spam heal rather than Rank3. Yes, Rank4 is 0.5 second slower, but it also captures a lot more of your +heal gear than does Rank3. You've got shamans and paladins for the small, fast efficient heals; let them do their jobs.

From a broader perspective, I believe the real take home point from this thread is that you should always strive to be a proactive, rather than reactive, healer. EM is a paradoxical tool in this respect, since it can reinforce bad habits for the reactive healer but also be a very efficient source of information for the proactive healer.

The most difficult thing for me as a healer entering BWL was being forced to be more proactive to counter the increase in burst DPS potential. In MC, I could get away with just watching bars and clicking the red ones. In BWL, this just didn't cut it. I had to develop more situational awareness (i.e. watch the fight in front of me, not the bars on the side) and learn to recognize who was going to need a heal soon. As a druid, if you wait until your tank has taken that big hit to start casting your 3-second big heal, it's going to land on (a) a dead tank or (B) a tank that's been Flash Healed to full already. BWL made me improve my understanding of the various encounters' mechanics and begin to anticipate who was going to need healing and when.

I still have quite a bit to go before reaching the endgame content in WoW. However, as a career white mage from FFXI (2+ years), I think I can address some of the mentalities people have when it comes to healing in which you have brought up. From my experiences so far, besides the fine points of how threat/hate is generated and reduced, healing in of itself remained pretty much the same between the two games.

Not knowing how your parties are set up, I am going to assume that there's at least one per group that is capable of healing. Therefore, the understanding should be that person (or persons) is first and foremost (except for the MT, because every healers should be mindful of him) responsible for his/her members unless told otherwise. Why would you be healing another party if the people in your own are dead and/or dying? In that scenario, the raid members that died should only be yelling at the healer(s) in his group (whether justified or not), and you shouldn't take it because you're only one person, and isn't responsible for keeping all 39 others alive.

Being a good healer is also about knowing when to step back and let others do their job. Some people like to keep everyone at full health all the time, so they start healing as soon as damage is taken. Some are more relaxed and won't cast until the health bar is at certain percentage. However, if you are always jumping in, doing other people's job, it's no wonder you'd be topping the chart at #2 or 3. Because of that, it wouldn't surprise me if the other healers purposedly hold back knowing you'd be healing their targets, and only jump in when the battle becomes hairy.

I deal with that a lot. People that don't really cooperate with you yet expect you to heal them on their terms. I've come to the realization that 99% of the melee don't really pay attention to the health bars beside his own (some not even that), it is as if they are in this fight all on their own and everyone else just don't take damage. While us healers generally know who is and isn't doing his job, the other people don't care as long as they aren't faceplanted on the ground, so they are usually clueless when they are looking for someone to blame for their death. All I can say is don't take it personally, preventing death is as much your responsibility as the person in question.

I play a shaman, so all I have are straight up heals. However, in FFXI what I like to do is cast regen (I believe an equivalent spell in WoW is Druid's regrowth, basically auto healing over time until it runs out) on secondary melee that need healing but aren't in immediate danger, that way their health can continue to replenish while I focus my attention on the MT or elsewhere.

Also, it seems that your guild is pretty competent, but in terms of healing, maybe someone needs to step in and get some organization going.

You're right, healing is a thankless job. People congratulate themselves for doing the most damage, or whoever got the killing blow, but no one ever thank the healers for keeping them alive. To me healing is an art, everyone can do it, but only a few can perfect it.

Since 1) I'm really bored right now and 2) Can really relate to Somnambulist's point, I figured I'd make an account here!

When I created my Paladin on launch day, I had no intentions or thoughts of becoming a healing machine. I had come over from Dark Age of Camelot, and my main PvE character there was a Paladin. In DAoC, Paladins actually held aggro better than Armsmen, and so that bias stayed with me when I came over to WoW. I think my friend, who played beta, telling me that Paladins were "wicked awesome" might've contributed to my choice also. :(

Of course, I learned that my dreams of being a main-tanking aggro machine as a Paladin were farfetched at best. This learning came over time. As I leveled, I was pretty much a soloer, and though I didn't tear through mobs quickly, I didn't have any basis of comparison for my DPS or lack thereof. By the time I began the progression of blue instances, I still considered myself a meleer first, but started to fill in the gaps with healing. But I knew nothing about mana efficiency, so I'd cast 5 or 6 holy lights and be done with it.

Now that I've been through MC and a solid portion of BWL (we killed Firemaw and cleared to the other drakes last reset) I consider myself a healing powerhouse both in large-scale raiding and in 5man situations. I can't really say I love healing, since I have never played another class in a raid environment and can't compare what it's like versus playing a Paladin. But I have certainly accepted my role as a healer, and used it to the best of my ability. I have embraced my class and my abilities, and constantly push myself to become a better healer.

I know many other paladins who have adapted to the change in role as much as I have, and within my own guild I have watched that progression occur at different speeds for everyone, and seen paladins with full Lawbringer holding a Blackhand Doomsaw or even a Zin'rokh. This problem certainly isn't exclusive to Elune. Some paladins made their characters to be holy warriors, and won't change their mind for anything. I die a little inside when I see a Paladin wearing Sapphiron's Scale boots or Valor shoulders. I think much of it comes down to the player's own personality, and how adaptive they are to the role their class fits. When I realized that I couldn't do damage any more, because of then limited playtime I decided not to reroll, but to change my own role. Sure when I rolled a Paladin I wasn't expecting to rival some druids and priests on the healing meter, but hey, it's been fun. Maybe down the road I'll play another class in a raid environment and love that too, but for now I don't have any complaints with my role.

I'm sure much of what I talked about has been posted before in this thread, but I figured I'd put a Paladin's perspective on it.

Right, I see now that 4 would be better then 3...

I always pre-heal for shadow flames.. I wait untill the comabt log says "shadow flame incoming" and I immediatly start a HT, it hit about .5 seconds after the shadow flame hits.. so that's a 2k-4k crit heal on him (depending what his starting HP is, I'll cast lower ranks)

I don't really understand you're point of proactive healing.. I know what you mean when you say reactive healing, as in, I saw this guy get hit for this much, now I'll start a heal.. by proactive do you mean.. I know that this is coming, so I'll start healing now, and when this happens, I'll be able to heal him without overhealing.

From what I've read (From the post below yours) is that I try and heal more people then just my party and the MT/OT. It didn't start this way, as raiding has progressed, and the content isn't new, people have became lazy, and they slack, rather dual-boxing on another server, going afk, or doing dps (yes, we have restro druids / priest that like to dps more then heal.) The point of laying back I agree with, but everyone knows I always heal a lot, and they'll probably say something when I'm not healing like a mad-man. I think my biggest problem, is I try to main-heal when really a druid is a support class, we're support healers like paladians, and we're not supposed to be like priests. I know I'm not responsible for all 39 people in the raid, but from what I said above, a lot of our healers don't do their job well enough, and I'm not one to bring a rant in guild-chat, raid-chat or on our forums, becuase I don't want to piss people off, and take it in the way that I think I'm better then them.

If I could choose, I like to let the person get down some, and then land a big heal, because I get good regen (From spirit, m/5 and 30% while casting.) but because of the druids heal being longer then normal, if I wait for a rogue or warrior to get below 60%, I know the rest of the raid is going to heal him, and I'm just going to waste mana. (even if I start casting at 80%, like you said, their are those people who like to keep health-bars always all full.)

Thanks for the input :) Anymore help is greatly appreciate! I'd like to become the best healer I can. :)

That's essentially what I meant by being a proactive healer. Your example of firing up an HT before a Shadow Flame lands is a good one. This carries over to events that aren't broadcast by CT_Raid, too. If you're watching the fight and not the bars, you should be able to see those mobs peel off the tank and start rumbling for the mage that just did a little too much AoE. So instead of the mage being at half health when you start healing him, your heal lands just as he starts getting hit. Someone who's just staring at the bars might still be healing the tank at that point, not recognizing that the mobs' attention has shifted.

For me, a lot of the reactive/proactive difference is a function of how well I know the encounter. When my guild first tapped Nef, we didn't really know exactly what to expect. I was definitely not proactive during that first wipe because I had no idea what was going on. When lacking a good feel for strategy, I just revert to a more reactive approach: watching the tanks, EM, and the people in my group. You can't be too sophisticated when there are dozens of loose draks skipping about and swatting down anything not wearing plate.

I got guilted for not being a Feral druid at Sartura last night, true story.

Hmm, I don't know about that. I don't like EM in that if you want to be able to monitor all classes, the more essential ones will drown in the rogues and whatnot. I have my RA sorted by class and the bars positioned so that the more important classes are near MT / PT targets + my own group bars which allows me to keep an eye on all the important information at the same time while still having an overview of the whole raid. Besides, my screen is so full of information with the whole raid visible, MT targets, target frames, party frame, enemy cast bars and whatnot, that I don't know how I could fit EM anywhere near the other essential information.

Decursive is an useful tool imo, but not to be blindly relied upon. I mainly use it on encounters which we have on lockdown and where I don't need to worry so much, but I still always manually target the right people to dispel first in cases where it matters. When I'm feeling tired or lazy it comes in handy tho.

As for Manaconserve, it's very handy, but I make sure to keep a macro to switch it on / off when needed.

Oh, and as for the original topic, for a long time I haven't logged my priest outside raids, ZG and consumable farming simply because there's nothing else to do. I leveled a hunter alt for grinding, but after getting good blue gear for her I don't have anything to do with her either, since the BG queues on my realm are quite horrific for horde. So I just play something else and don't log on. I've noticed this trend is quite common among our priests, but they all still raid actively and seem to enjoy healing, so it is not a problem as such.

As for gear, well, I rolled a healer and my gear sure helps there. There just isn't any incentives for doing small group content where healing would help since there's nothing to be had in regular instances and there simply isn't anything for small groups outdoords. As for pvp, my idea of fun isn't waiting 30-60 min in a queue to see the enemies AFK at the first sight of us. So I just play something else.

I've found the best solution to be respec back and fourth weekly. Since my guild raids are all clumped up at the end of the week, I just play 19 / 0 / 33 Sunday -> Thursday, then 31 / 20 / 0 Thursday night -> Saturday night.


Only downside to this is that I've speant alot of my dkp on DPS caster gear :(

The other negetive is the massive amount of gold you are shelling out. Just reminds me of how poor I am.

That's what I do :)

play my 6/0/44 druid for raiding, and 0/17/33 SP for all kinds of other shit..

problem is out stupid server has 3 hour + que times all the time, and it's hell sitting in que for so long, only to 1 get afked out on, or two, to get in a full horde guild group, and get completly raped in 10 minutes :X

Re-rolled a warrior on a pvp server, but I like tanking alot more then PvP lol..

Guess next I'll roll a mage, only thing you can do with a mage is kill. :D

Yuckie still > the reachie though :X

lets see repair costs, respec costs, consumable costs(farming or whatever). Not to mention all the time wasted learning instances and I just dont have the time to waste farming 100g a week to respec each week. BTW not knocking you or anything just made me realize how poor I am. Mind you I am married with kids so just finding the time to raid is alot on the wife.

respeccing like that would be worth it if onyl to see other guildies moan at you in guild chat when they see you on the Sunday shadow formed "OMG wtf do we have a shadow priest in the guild for???" only for you to cast a 1.4 second greater heal on them when 1.10 comes out (2.5 second godly cast time form talents, 40% off the cast time from the ZG trinket)

Ah well, i guess whoever said you need to have rolled a healing class to understand it is right. I have a 60 rogue and a 60 priest and am now working on a 60 druid just because i love healing so much, and because druid drop rates rock :)