How do YOU continue to improve as a healer? (PvE Raiding)

[Azelric]

Hey guys!

I was talking with a few of the other healers I know on my server in terms of improvement, gear, raiding, etc. One of the things that I enjoy most is trying to improve my healing. Finding new ways to push out a little more healing each week without totally destroying my mana pool... getting new gear, and playing with new stats, etc.

One of the things I've done has been to switch to and learn mouseover healing using a mouse, where as before I was mashing ze buttons and clicking each heal off with my trackpad (Yay laptop healers!) and since I've seen my numbers and efficiency go up a fair bit. Im constantly reading and trying to tweak numbers with reforging to see how far I can stretch my gearing.

I wont lie, I know I have room to improve, but I'm just not 100% sure on how, so I figured I would post here and see what other people do on their own to try to min-max their playstyles. So, tell me: What do you guys do between raids each week to improve?

[ripponesan]

in encounters where several things happen to which you have to pay attention, but have problems in doing so, i tend to build my UI especially for the encounter and have neccessary information at one point of my screen so i dont have to look from top left to bottm right the whole time.

A keylogger could help as well. Analyse what keys you press the most in a common fight. after that think again about your keybinds and if they could be improved.

As for mouse over healing, well it is a fine thing i admit but it has it´s problems as well.
Since your mose almost ever is over your grid, or raid frames. you will have a hartd time using the mouse to turn and move. Not saying that it is impossible but well, it is not easy.

So much of those mouse over healers gain enormous healing power but loose mobility since they tend to turn into keyboar turners then.

[Azelric]

in encounters where several things happen to which you have to pay attention, but have problems in doing so, i tend to build my UI especially for the encounter and have neccessary information at one point of my screen so i dont have to look from top left to bottm right the whole time.

A keylogger could help as well. Analyse what keys you press the most in a common fight. after that think again about your keybinds and if they could be improved.

This is actually one area where I have not really paid much attention to as a healer, and is probably what I need to sort out next. My combat-text and DBM notifications are still set up from when I was tanking, which was really a different sort-of ball-game. This is probably something I should clean up myself for my healing UI.

As for mouse over healing, well it is a fine thing i admit but it has it´s problems as well.
Since your mouse almost ever is over your grid, or raid frames. you will have a hartd time using the mouse to turn and move. Not saying that it is impossible but well, it is not easy.

So much of those mouse over healers gain enormous healing power but loose mobility since they tend to turn into keyboar turners then.

I can see where this would be a problem. I'll confess to being a keyboard strafer, mostly due to playing on my laptop without a mouse before, but I rarely die due to lack of mobility (it's common for me to be one of the last healers left alive if we're wiping). All the same, this is a good thing to keep in mind.

[Pepper]

As a Holy Priest and mostly a mouse clicking healer, I've seen some great improvement on my healing efficiency with a better mouse (currently a G700 from Logitech)
I now have 14 functions bound on my mouse, I almost don't use my keyboard anymore aside for moving my toon, or for some long cooldown spell like Divin Hymn or Shadowfiend etc...

And of course, I think that using add-ons such as Grid + Click contribute a lot in my global efficiency.
I also try balance Mastery and Haste on my gear and keeping a high enough level of Spirit to be comfortable with my mana.

And last but not least, a better knowledge of the encounters weeks after weeks helps too

[Fiercon]

I improved a fair bit by visualizing my long-term-cooldowns.

Pally-Power (whose name is misleading) is a potent addon to keep track of any (de)buff or ingame procc/circumstance. You can basically make everything visible the way you want it. Using 1-10 minute cooldowns regularily makes them a way more important and effective means of keeping people alive - so reminding me of them was my way of improvement.

[Theotormon]

As a holy priest, I am constantly trying to improve. I have ALWAYS played this spec, even when it was considered weak compared to other classes, and have always succeeded.
I improve by checking forums for anything that'll help.
Examples:
A - in 4.0.6, improved chakra was changed to reduce CD rather than lengthen state. where i previously used it to refresh early to have 100% uptime, I don't need the talent for that now, so I could put those two talent points elsewhere.
B - train people to use lightwell. while your regular raid may undertsand its importance, too many people don't. macro a clever explanation to its use to draw attention to our best tool
C - Only recently did I realize I get more mana back by using hymn of hope with shadowfiend, since shadowfiend returns mana based on your MAXIMUM pool. never realized that.
D - Don't always rely on others. Everyone says spend your valor points on core of ripeness. Well, I was where I wanted to be with haste, getting my extra renew tick with no raid buffs (specced into darkness, a personal choice, as some like to allocate those three talent points elsewhere), so I decided to get the cloak for its 127 mastery. Trinkets, I'm rolling regular blood of Isiset and heroic corrupted egg shell and VERY happy with my mana regen. Seriously, the corrupted egg shell is very underrated, especially if used properly (i.e. shield yourself and don't get hit for maximum regen, plus it's only a 1 min CD). Again, this is a personal choice, as I can see the value in 321 int and a spi on CD use without worrying about getting hit.
E - NEVER assume you're beyond improvement. I'm constantly searching for ways to improve throughput and regen, even if they are not a problem, through reforges and regemming and minor talent respecs.
F - UI. Work it. Everyone has an opinion of what you SHOULD do with UI. do what works for you. I was a clicker all the way up til cata and thought I didn't need to keybind or use a fancy UI, so the transition was rather difficult. My performance is about the same, but I find myself FEELING like I have a lot more time to work with since I'm spending more time concentrating on the action and less on my actionbars. I started with decursive and similar mods to help with dispels and diseases. When I was comfy with that, I binded a few of my most-used heals. I'm still no fan of healbot, but its unnecessary if you bind your spells with some thought (i.e. for me, 1 is heal, shift+1 is guardian spirit, so i rarely need to use it. 2 is renew, shift+2 is healing hymn... same scenario. In short, my keybinds only require a modifier if it's an "oh shit" situation, for the most part. For example, I don't have my prayer of mending attached with a modifier since I use it so often)

EDIT: OP asked what we do between raids to improve and I got off-topic. Between raids, I grind for my archy trinket, heal heroics for practice, play my alts (VERY important to understand other classes' strengths and weaknesses. That way you can advise when it's best for a tank to use a particular tank or DPS to use a particular CD. Example: on Magmaw, mangle was a bitch at first. Our healers now advise tanks to use CDs after half their life is already gone. Using CDs immediately left them safe for a bit, but us with nothing to do. By waiting til half their life was gone, we can now top them off while they are protected), watch vids for alternate strategies and craft strategy with guildies.

[Deleted]

Learn to heal and watch whats going on at the same time. Hardest thing in the game, once you master that you can do anything.

[Enxius]

Power Auras.

[Peppercat]

After being comfortable with an encounter I

a. Watch what my other healers are doing effectively, find the holes in the synergy of my healing core, move stuff around for more EHPS overall, make sure our spell priorities are where they should be for said encounter. I find you can push a healing core effectively if you target group issues first rather than individual issues (sans things like a healer just playing terribly.)

b. Then I look at things on an individual basis, go through logs. I was fine on mana, could I have flash healed a few more times? Did I need to PoH there, why is such and such spell low on this fight. Where can I weave in renews or precasts. Little things that over time will not only make the encounters 10x easier but push yourself in the way you think as a healer improving your performance overall.

WATCH whats going on, don't play whack-a-mole with grid or w/e you use as an equivalent. Predict damage, push yourself to know what spells you'll be using 5-6 casts ahead of time. Predicting damage instead of reacting to it can make a world of difference.

[[-Spiritus-]]

TBH, and this is coming from experience, the single greatest thing you can do Right Now(tm) to increase your healing performance is to buy a standard two button, scroll wheel mouse. It doesn't have to be fancy. It just needs to be anything other than a trackpad.

The second single greatest thing you can do Right Now(tm) to increase your healing performance is to DL VuhDo, Grid+Clique, or Healbot and learn how to heal via clickbinds. I've yet to personally witness someone switch to this method of healing from mouse-overs and see a decrease in performance.

Do these two things and I'll give you a money back guarantee your healing performance will improve in two weeks, regardless of your current reaction time, spell selection, gearing choices, and/or experience.

[Rayella]

To improve as a healer, similair to what Peppercat said, you need to watch other healers. If the resto druid start rejuving groups 1 and 2, the resto shaman is chain healing melee(typically group 1&2 in my raids), then I should begin renewing groups 3-5 for incoming damage or PoHing groups 3 to 5. Overlapping heals is only going to lead to overhealing and wasting mana, so you need to learn how to maximize your HPS. For instance, on H.Maloriak, during red phase when the whole raid stacks, all the healers drop their AoE heal (Sanctuary, Healing Rain, etc.) and then usually the druid starts at group 1, the disc priest shield from group 5, so I am left with the middle groups. Of course I heal all 5 groups, but I can focus on maximizing the HPS if I know what everyone else is doing.
Your UI is extremely important. Keep is simple and keep it useful. I know there are some very lovely, goodlooking premade UIs out there, and while tempting to use, they can be cluttered, same goes for complicated mods. You can get distracted with all the fancy bells and whistles or the features can block some of your screen. If you can't see that incoming meteor on Magmaw or where lightning conductor is on Omnitron, you're already a few steps behind. Mods are supposed to help you! Ones I find extremely useful are PowerAuras, ForteXcist, Grid, Pitbull, Bartender, Clique, and BigWigs. PowerAuras is probably the best one, I can not only track buffs on myself, but debuffs as well, which was amazing when no boss mod was updated in the beginning of Cata or for Hardmodes.
This is only what helps me, but if whatever you're doing works for you, by all means keep going! Don't fix something that isn't broken!

[Peppercat]

TBH, and this is coming from experience, the single greatest thing you can do Right Now(tm) to increase your healing performance is to buy a standard two button, scroll wheel mouse. It doesn't have to be fancy. It just needs to be anything other than a trackpad.

The second single greatest thing you can do Right Now(tm) to increase your healing performance is to DL VuhDo, Grid+Clique, or Healbot and learn how to heal via clickbinds. I've yet to personally witness someone switch to this method of healing from mouse-overs and see a decrease in performance.

Do these two things and I'll give you a money back guarantee your healing performance will improve in two weeks, regardless of your current reaction time, spell selection, gearing choices, and/or experience.

Everything here is also a HUGE difference. If you're not doing this you're really hurting your general play.

Edit- Spirit is always a fountain of useful information. <3

[ChrisKoe]

What I like to do in every new fight is FRAPS'ing it and watch it afterwards. That's probably the best way to notice one's faults and do it better the next time.

[scandalis]

As an old healer, remaining calm in all situations can help you improve. When you start to become frantic you'll start second guessing yourself and you'll start making decisions that could hinder your performance.

[Arlee]

I'd have to say (sad as this kind of is) getting vuhdo has really improved my healing abilities in raids.

[Bensbank]

A lot of good comments in this thread, but here's a couple things that helped and continue to help me improve:

- world of log parse analysis
After every raid, I spend a good 10-15 minutes analyzing each fight, looking at spell breakdown, uptime numbers
and other details. Sometimes you can spot some obvious issues, and can make adjustments for next time, or you
might catch some not so obvious issue and make a mental note of that.

- grid customization (credit karmakaze of insomnia - caught the setup in one of their heroic vids)
I added GridIndicatorCornerIcons, GridIndicatorSideIcons and GridIndicatorIconBar to my grid setup and enabled the
icon cooldown frame. Since my 10 man healer setup, I roll with a paladin, and shaman I added some corner icons
to show things like beacon, riptide, earthshield etc. From a priest standpoint I added glyph of poh, mending, renew,
shield, weakened soul, grace icons. With these additions to grid, along with cooldown text enabled on the icons it by
far is one of the things that helped me improve the most.

[BRKc50]

As a holy priest, I am constantly trying to improve. I have ALWAYS played this spec, even when it was considered weak compared to other classes, and have always succeeded.
I improve by checking forums for anything that'll help.
Examples:
A - in 4.0.6, improved chakra was changed to reduce CD rather than lengthen state. where i previously used it to refresh early to have 100% uptime, I don't need the talent for that now, so I could put those two talent points elsewhere.
B - train people to use lightwell. while your regular raid may undertsand its importance, too many people don't. macro a clever explanation to its use to draw attention to our best tool
C - Only recently did I realize I get more mana back by using hymn of hope with shadowfiend, since shadowfiend returns mana based on your MAXIMUM pool. never realized that.
D - Don't always rely on others. Everyone says spend your valor points on core of ripeness. Well, I was where I wanted to be with haste, getting my extra renew tick with no raid buffs (specced into darkness, a personal choice, as some like to allocate those three talent points elsewhere), so I decided to get the cloak for its 127 mastery. Trinkets, I'm rolling regular blood of Isiset and heroic corrupted egg shell and VERY happy with my mana regen. Seriously, the corrupted egg shell is very underrated, especially if used properly (i.e. shield yourself and don't get hit for maximum regen, plus it's only a 1 min CD). Again, this is a personal choice, as I can see the value in 321 int and a spi on CD use without worrying about getting hit.
E - NEVER assume you're beyond improvement. I'm constantly searching for ways to improve throughput and regen, even if they are not a problem, through reforges and regemming and minor talent respecs.
F - UI. Work it. Everyone has an opinion of what you SHOULD do with UI. do what works for you. I was a clicker all the way up til cata and thought I didn't need to keybind or use a fancy UI, so the transition was rather difficult. My performance is about the same, but I find myself FEELING like I have a lot more time to work with since I'm spending more time concentrating on the action and less on my actionbars. I started with decursive and similar mods to help with dispels and diseases. When I was comfy with that, I binded a few of my most-used heals. I'm still no fan of healbot, but its unnecessary if you bind your spells with some thought (i.e. for me, 1 is heal, shift+1 is guardian spirit, so i rarely need to use it. 2 is renew, shift+2 is healing hymn... same scenario. In short, my keybinds only require a modifier if it's an "oh shit" situation, for the most part. For example, I don't have my prayer of mending attached with a modifier since I use it so often)

EDIT: OP asked what we do between raids to improve and I got off-topic. Between raids, I grind for my archy trinket, heal heroics for practice, play my alts (VERY important to understand other classes' strengths and weaknesses. That way you can advise when it's best for a tank to use a particular tank or DPS to use a particular CD. Example: on Magmaw, mangle was a bitch at first. Our healers now advise tanks to use CDs after half their life is already gone. Using CDs immediately left them safe for a bit, but us with nothing to do. By waiting til half their life was gone, we can now top them off while they are protected), watch vids for alternate strategies and craft strategy with guildies.

Awesome post, thanks!

[PyroGhozt]

All I have to say is that Holy Priests have a Plethora of spells available to them. Don't get stuck in a comfort zone. Many raid wipe saving spells just sit in your book or on your bar in plain site not being used properly. Spells like Binding Heal, Holy Nova, Lightwell etc.


"You pick the one right tool. " - Anton Chigurh, No Country for old Men.

[BRKc50]

All I have to say is that Holy Priests have a Plethora of spells available to them. Don't get stuck in a comfort zone. Many raid wipe saving spells just sit in your book or on your bar in plain site not being used properly. Spells like Binding Heal, Holy Nova, Lightwell etc.


"You pick the one right tool. " - Anton Chigurh, No Country for old Men.

I never use holy nova, always use binding and well tho.

[Ynna]

I never use holy nova, always use binding and well tho.

Holy Nova is extremely situational, so nobody can actually blame you for not using it.