Most classes find themselves healing differently if they are assigned to tank healing than if they were put on raid healing duty. There are several reasons for this, one is obviously mana management while another is healing output and efficiency. Once again this post will focus mostly on a 10 man scenario where it’s beneficial to know how to heal both the tanks and the raid, however, each section will touch upon the healing rotations you might favour in 25 man where the healing assignments are stricter.
This is meant to help understand how your co-healer works, as well as help those new to healing to get a basic understanding how their class works in regards to tank and raid healing. The abilities most commonly used by each classes have been explained in the introduction to each class, so you can use those as a reference point should you need it: discipline priest, holy priest, restoration druid, restoration shaman and holy paladin.
Tank healing
Discipline priest
The tank should have Power Word: Shield on them whenever they are not suffering from the Weakened Soul debuff, the 4 piece tier 10 is ok here. It is also good for keeping on yourself and your co-healer to prevent push back suffered from AoE damage. The tank should also be the target of your Prayer of Mending. Keep an eye on who has PoM on them and as long as it is bouncing between people taking damage, it serves its purpose. However, if it’s sat on a DPS for example who isn’t taking any damage, you want to recast it on the tank as soon as the cooldown is up.
Penance should be used at nearly every cooldown and is particularly useful when the tank is taking a fair bit of damage. Keeping Renew up on the tank(s) whenever you are able is also a good idea. Flash Heal is a great heal for topping the tank back up, especially with the 2 piece tier 10 bonus. Greater Heal is an option, but only when you know you will have time to cast it because the tank is dead, which can be tricky at times. Pre-casting as a damage spike is imminent is generally a good idea. Pain Suppression is great for those awful damage spikes and its damage reduction on its target can be a life safer.
Holy priest
Flash Heal, Flash Heal and more Flash Heal spam is the general way of keeping a single target alive and the HoT added by the 2 piece tier 10 helps a bit too. Having Renew ticking away on the target (generally you should aim for the talented Empowered Renew), while using Prayer of Mending on every cooldown is often recommended. The odd Greater Heal could be thrown in, but generally you will find that you have more time to cast two Flash Heals rather than one Greater Heal because the tank could get hit in the mean time and die.
Guardian Spirit is a good ability to use when the tank is about to take massive amounts of damage as it will increase the healing the target is taking, thus making it easier to keep said target alive. It will also prevent the target from dying should it have happened during the 10 seconds this is active for.
Restoration druid
Stacking three Lifebloom on the tank as well as keeping Rejuvenation ticking away at all times is a good start. If there are two tanks that need healing then you should keep that up on the both while they are taking damage. Watch the tank’s health closely and if they are getting low as your Lifebloom is close to falling off you should let it do just that and bloom as a big heal. If you know when massive damage is about to happen you should try to carefully time that Lifebloom to fall off just at the right time. Regrowth is also a good heal to keep on the tanks. Remember that Regrowth is a mix of a HoT and a direct heal so having it land as the tank is tanking damage is beneficial. However, if the tank is taking a lot of damage frequently you want this HoT already ticking on the tank.
HoTs alone are not likely to keep your tank(s) alive. Topping up with Nourish is important. The Glyph of Nourish is particularly handy for a tank healing druid. The HoTs you keep on the tank would then make your Nourish heal for even more and the combination of HoTs and Nourish is essential. Keep Swiftmend and Nature’s Swiftness at hand for when an instant heal is required. If you use Glyph of Swiftmend it won’t consume a HoT off your target when it’s used.
Restoration shaman
Keeping your Earth Shield on the tank taking damage is a good start, and having it glyphed helps too. Riptide is also something you would benefit from having on the tank, especially if you have chosen Glyph of Riptide for tank healing. Lesser Healing Wave is generally the preferred heal and you should use Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave when you are tanking healing. However, sometimes Healing Wave is a good substitute. Don’t forget the benefits you gain with the Tidal Waves talent. Which heal you choose is often fight dependent. You want to ensure you have the time to cast Healing Wave, so pre-casting as damage is imminent is generally a good idea (as opposed to waiting for the damage to hit only to not have time to top the tank back up before he gets pounded face first into the floor). However, the 2 piece bonus for the tier 10 makes Healing Wave a lot more viable if it follows a Riptide.
If both tanks are taking significant amounts of damage simultaneously, Chain Heal is your best ability to heal them both at the same time. The key here is to heal the target with Riptide on them to increase the Chain Heal’s value. Nature’s Swiftness is best kept at hand and used in conjunction with Healing Weave for a fast instant heal.
Holy paladin
The first thing you want to do is place Beacon of Light on the tank who is going to be taking the most damage. Whichever other target you then heal will also heal the tank. If both tanks are taking damage you want to beacon one and heal the other, that way you will keep them both up simultaneously without a lot of effort. Although slightly depending on your chosen build and gear, Holy Shock is a good heal to use at any cooldown. Holy Light is the heal favoured by many paladins as their main (and sometimes seemingly only) heal. Using that as your main heal and only using Flash of Light to top off is probably what you will find easiest, unless you suffer from mana issues then a more Flash of Light oriented way of healing could be the way to go. The 2 piece tier 10 bonus is good for when there are suddenly a lot of damage (just remember to use Divine Illumination) such as a frenzy tends to cause and the 4 piece of the same set isn’t bad either.
If you do choose to use Flash of Light a fair bit, you should ensure you always keep Sacred Shield up on the tank as it will increase the critical effect by 5%. However, generally the tank will take so much damage that you have to use a fair bit of Holy Light to keep him alive. Divine Favor and Lay on Hands should also be kept at hand those those ohshi- moments.
Raid healing
Discipline priest
Bubbles, bubbles and more bubbles. Mitigating the damage works just as well as healing people back up, and when it’s glyphed it will heal for a small amount too. The 4 piece tier 10 is quite useful for this. Having everybody bubbled prior to known AoE damage is generally your best bet. Having Prayer of Mending jumping between raid members in more of a constant AoE situation is also a good idea. In constant AoE situations you will often find that the Weakened Soul debuff is still active when the first one wears off so you have to heal the player back up as well. Topping up people with Penance and Flash is what you are likely to find yourself doing. Renew is also a good option if the player is not likely to take a large amount of damage imminently, especially if you have specced to get Empowered Renew. Binding Heal is a good one to heal yourself up while healing a raid member.
Prayer of Healing is generally quite the mana drain, so you want to try to avoid it, but it’s good to have when you need to heal up a specific party quickly and you have no real help with raid healing. Holy Nova, if glyphed, could also work in some situations. Lastly Divine Hymn is useful for ohshi- moments, but with a 8 minute cooldown you cannot use it very often. As it is a channelled spell it’s not great for constant AoE situations unless you shield yourself right beforehand.
Holy priest
Circle of Healing is your strongest AoE heal and as it is generally used when off cooldown in situations where groups of people take damage. The 4 piece tier 10 increases the effect of Circle of Healing and is great for holy priests with a raid healing assignment. Prayer of Mending is also fantastic where it can jump between players and get them healed as damage strikes the person. Another good ability is Prayer of Healing. When specced correctly this both uses less mana, and heals for more than it would for a discipline priest. If you are Lightwell specced, you should place it among those who are likely to take most damage (for example the ranged DPS on normal Festergut). Divine Hymn can also be used where for quick massive healing of a few targets, but with a 8 minute cooldown you cannot use it very often. As it is a channelled spell it’s not great for constant AoE situations unless you shield yourself right beforehand.
While raid healing where players take damage one by one, Flash Heal and Renew are you best abilities depending on whether a player needs to be healed back up rather quickly, or a HoT suffices. Don’t forget that shielding yourself will prevent push back on your casts such as Prayer of Healing in fights with constant AoE damage.
Restoration druid
Rolling Rejuvenation on every single player in a 10 man raid is quite efficient (particularly on fights like normal Blood Queen and Sindragosa), and using Wild Growth whenever it is off cooldown. The 2 piece tier 10 for trees lowers the amount Wild Growth is reduced by over time and is great for raid healing, while the 4 piece can cause rejuvenation to jump to another target thus giving you time to throw in an additional heal in your rejuvenation rotation. Do try to avoid using Wild Growth on someone stood all alone, though, as it has a small range and heals 4 other players (5 if glyphed) near the person you target with this spell. This is the easy and most commonly used raid healing tactic for a restoration druid. (In a 25 man you may want to focus on say either ranged or melee and if there are two druids you could benefit from healing half the raid each.) In specifically horrible AoE situations you could pop Tranquility if your party is taking massive damage, however beware of the cooldown, its restricted usage area and that it has to be channelled.
Nourish is a good and quick heal to top up someone fast. This is more common in raid healing situations where the damage is more sporadic and harder to predict. For example, a person could be hit bit the same random damage twice in a row before a HoT would have time to do its job properly.
Restoration shaman
Chain Heal is great for healing through AoE damage. It is a smart heal which jumps to targets nearby in most need of healing. It will heal your target and 2 other people by default, if that many players nearby are in need of heals, or 3 if you use Glyph of Chain Heal. Therefore you would generally benefit from having an idea of who are stood where. The range of Chain Heal is pretty good so hugging isn’t necessary to get the most out of this heal. Again the 2 piece bonus for the tier 10 (possibly the strongest of all the tier 10 healing bonuses) is fantastic as it makes Chain Heal spam faster as long as you remember to use Riptide whenever it’s off cooldown. The 4 piece also adds favour to the Chain Heal spam.
To top somebody up who are stood alone, or not many people are taking damage at once, you could consider Riptide and Lesser Healing Wave. However, the common shaman these days seem to prefer a Chain Heal spam regardless, just in case someone else takes damage while it’s being cast. Healing Stream Totem is generally a good idea when raid healing, especially if you choose to use the glyph.
Holy Paladin
Raid healing you say? Are you sure?
The best way to tackle this is using Judgement of Light for all it’s worth and use Glyph of Holy Light so that those stood nearby are healed for a small amount each time Holy Light hits. The general lack of AoE healing abilities means that players in need of healing has to be healed back up one by one. Letting melee heal themselves up by hitting on the boss which is affected by Judgement of Light while healing up the ranged dps is often the most efficient way. Holy Shock should generally be used whenever possible as its instant heal speeds up your raid healing slightly.
Having a tank beaconed while raid healing is generally preferred because the massive amounts of heals you would be throwing out would generally only be beneficial to a tank. There are a few cases where this choice should be reconsidered: it is for example a good idea to beacon the first player to get the Mark of the Fallen Champion on the Saurfang fight rather than a tank. Whether you use Flash of Light or Holy Light depends as much on how big a heal the beaconed target would need as well as the target for your heal. Additionally, if there are several people nearby taking near constant damage, glyphed Holy Light is your strongest ability to keep them all alive. Flash of Light, however, is great for quickly topping up a raid member while Holy Shock is on cooldown. Both of the tier 10 bonuses are viable here as well.
A bit of both
In 10 man raids it is often important to be able to deal with both tank and raid damage either because your co-healer fell over and you’re stood there alone trying to keep people alive, or because it simply is easier to help each other out. In some fights it will be important to have a strict focus on one of the two, but often you will find that you benefit from coping with either situation regardless of what you are healing as. If you heal in a PuG in particular it’s important that you can deal with both types of situations simply because you don’t know how geared or skilled your co-healer is and you may need to push yourself to the best of your ability.
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Next up we will look closer at mana management.
Tags: disc, druid, healing, holy, opinion, paladin, priest, raid, shaman, spells
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