Friend says healing meter doesnt matter for disc priest

[Erakk]

Aside from meters, if You are healing the tanks who constantly take damage, and he is healing the raid witch avoided most of the avoidable damage, the fact that the raid
itself didn't took much damage made his "healing meters" look worse, so the raid being good may make your friend look bad...

And shields last for 15 seconds. unless it's an emergency shield, if he miscast on someone who doesn't needs how does the meters react? unused 20k shield equals to
overheal?

[foxHeart]

Then thats like saying dps meters dont matter.

Really, people. This truth is so lost on the flocks of morons who run around parroting what they hear on forums, thinking they're somehow clever or intelligent by repeating the mindless garbage they read. "Heal meters don't mattur hur dur"

HPS does matter because it's an indicator of who is doing their job and who is alt-tabbed out fapping on redtube. Yes, there are obviously mechanics to note because of different healer specs, but just because disc works differently and won't have a high hps depending on your meter/healing assignment/whathaveyou does not mean that meters themselves are innately worthless.

And btw, just because you downed a boss doesn't mean everything's fine and dandy and that the performance of your raid is absolutely excusable. Let's imagine the following situation: you have a boss down to 3% when one of your healers freaks out and chokes, leaving the other healer overwhelmed which in turn wipes everyone in the raid save your ret paladin who preemptively bubbled, saving himself and allowing him to continue dpsing. As the paladin's bubble fades, he crits with a hammer of wrath and it finishes off the boss just as he gets meleed and killed. Everyone in vent is excited and flipping out, obviously, because this was a progression boss and you've been working on it for quite some time. However, that doesn't absolve the fact that one of your healers locked up and let his nerves get to him, greatly reducing his hps and awareness. That's still an issue that needs to be fixed because 1% wipes and miraculous successes aren't something you should ever shoot for.

[Siri]

They don't matter less for disc priest than they do for any other healer. You make it sound as if your friend is singling out disc priest, which is wrong. Anyone who says otherwise is misinformed, really. Meters have included absorbs for a very long time.

[Splatter]

People used to say it didnt matter for disc because most meters didnt count absorbs as healing, now days they do. Healing meters do have their uses. People say if the boss died and no one else did then the healers did their job but healing meters can give you a better indication as to whether one healer is carrying the rest or one healer is slacking and doing sweet stuff all. You have to take each fight and healing assignments into consideration when you look at meters but chances are if one healer is way higher than another there is something wrong with either assignments or the healers in question. Meters will generally not indicate who is a "better" healer.

[Uncle Julian]

That is the old behavior, I know that both Recount and Skada now can show if you want, absorbed damage as heals.

My apologies then, I haven't played WoW in a few months and maybe out of the loop a little too far :P

[Christan]

Healing meters mean nothing, All healers have different roles and will out-put different amount of healing, I mean just because a raid healer is top on healing done does not make him/her any better at healing than the guy who's job is to keep the MT up.

healing meters are used when people die to things that are supposed to be healed (non-avoidable aoe)

for fights that succeed, healing doesnt matter because they did their job.

[Siri]

My apologies then, I haven't played WoW in a few months and maybe out of the loop a little too far :P

It has been included a lot longer than a few months. Combat log entries for absorbs have been in-game since the launch of cata afaik.
Probably even the pre-cata patch at the end of wrath.
Even longer for WoL, which even had it in wrath. (but was based on approximation at the time)

[darkwarrior42]

I agree with most of what has already been said... the only other thing to keep in mind regarding dps meters vs. healing meters is that dps aren't generally limited by what other dps in the raid are doing. There are specific situations where they are, but in general my performance isn't hindered by what the guy next to me is doing (unless he doesn't apply a raid buff he should be applying, or gets me killed, or some such). If my performance is low, that's generally on me. With healing, what I do can very well be limited by what those around me are doing, both in terms of other healers (sniping my heals) and in terms of the raid (not standing in crap).

And I'll reiterate what others have said: Healing meters don't really matter for any healer in an absolute sense, so singling discipline out is incorrect. They matter as much (or as little) for disc as they do for any other healer.

[sinisterwyvern]

It really depends if you're using it right. As pointed out Recount and also Skada (skada has an addition module i believe) record absorbs as healing.

For the point on using it right:

Is there more tank damage than raid damage and you don't need help so he doesn't have as much of the healing to do?
And vice versa of course, is there more raid damage than tank damage
Who it is in what role

Anyway the point is, it can matter. As long as you're taking in all of the necessary information to make a knowledgeable analysis.

[Mousiest]

If people are avoiding everything they can avoid, and they are dieing, healer is not healing enough.
If people are living, healer is doing their job correctly.

Especially in a raid setting, Healing Meters are pretty useless in my opinion except for joking around with your fellow healers. Just because Healer 1 has a higher HPS than Healer 2, it doesn't mean someone isn't doing their job/their best (unless people are dieing).

[Nox165]

Im going to say healing meters are important but only in context to what your looking for. For example i once raided with a disc priest that would cast renew and flash heal only. Being able to look at the logs of her performance i was able to see where she was making mistakes. making it possible for me to give her tips to improve her over all performance. But judging healers by raw numbers is not always as clear and easy to do.

[Apostolic]

There is only so many ways you can slice a pie. In a perfect game, all healers should be equal in HPS. But that is just not the case when you can heal for more the the total pie. The numbers become skewed due to snipping, latency, and many other factors.

If no one died to your lack of healing (their stupidity not included), then healing is perfectly fine.

As a note though, Absorbs are monitored by the combat logs now, so they are recorded precisely. And as such, anyone that has absorbs should be at the top of the list in healing because, you get for dibs on the heal.

[Darnassian]

who cares about hps if people are dying, dispels aren't happening, and overhealing is going through the roof it doesn't matter how "good" the meters are looking.

[Irisel]

Healing, without absorbs, for Disc doesn't matter. But, healing+absorbs do. It's hard to compare HPS like you can DPS, but you can see a lot of what's happening from the HPS meters. They matter, just not in the way DPS matters.

[Anakso]

I think on a fight where there is tank heal doing X and a raid heals doing Y and no one dies then metres don't matter, most of judging a healing can be done by other healers (i.e as tank healer do you have to heal the raid a lot because the other healer can't cope)

On a fight like alys it depends on the tank they're healing, for us healers get sides to heal. example druid healer is on me (pally tank) and left side, so our hunter and DK, our sham is on right side, so Druid tank and then warrior and Lock, they both have the same job BUT if no one dies when who tops really depends on whos side took more damage, for some reason I always take a fair bit more damage than the druid tank,so the druid healer always tops, but then our Druid tank actually dies more (and by more I mean he dies where as so far a wipe hasn't been caused by me dying from lack of heals. so from that we can pretty easily tell which healer is better, we don't need recount for it.

TL;DR Healers should be judged by how often someone dies, check who is it assigned to healing that person or area and you'll know who the weak link is, the only time you can really use recount to judge is on fights like back in ICC on festergut you could compare raid heals to raid heals but then it also come down to class a lot, like Druids and shaman ALWAYS topped, so saying a priest sucks because he's under them really wasn't right.

[Holyshnikies]

I just see it as a way to monitor yourself. To make yourself better. Using math, timing, skill and mechanics to become a better healer.

Example. Lets say we have 2 disc priests and lets choose 1st boss in ZG. Lets say everyone took the exact same damage at all right times for both groups. Now, lets say the 1st priest did 4.3% overhealing and kept everyone alive. Now, the 2nd healer did 7.8% overhealing and kept everyone alive. While both only used 50% mana.

That is my point im trying to make. Is that healing meters are a good way to practice to make you better in different situations.

Im not saying that just because you healed for the most makes you the best. But overhealing to a point of wasting your mana and skills is more wasteful than anything efficient.

[Purpleisbetter]

Pushing your meters is a challange. Pushing your meters to compare with a Hpally in 10m or Rdruid in 25m is a huge challange that gives you the chance to dramatically improve.
Important no, but if you don't want to be "last of the pack" go all out and try to top.

Playing this game raidin' and not even tryin' to top off meters is like loosing 45% the fun this game provides and PRETEND it doesn't matter, missiion is accomplished anyway.

Wrong, very wrong.


p.s.: this DOES NOT include the failing to stupid mechancis. Too obvious i shoudln't even have to point out.

[Arlee]

For me... I find meters useful in comparing same class/spec... when you start comparing across class/spec though you have to really understand how the different classes/specs heal to actually understand what you are seeing.

Just imo though

[Gurbz]

Pushing your meters is a challange. Pushing your meters to compare with a Hpally in 10m or Rdruid in 25m is a huge challange that gives you the chance to dramatically improve.
Important no, but if you don't want to be "last of the pack" go all out and try to top.

Playing this game raidin' and not even tryin' to top off meters is like loosing 45% the fun this game provides and PRETEND it doesn't matter, missiion is accomplished anyway.

Wrong, very wrong.


p.s.: this DOES NOT include the failing to stupid mechancis. Too obvious i shoudln't even have to point out.

I am not sure if it is possible to be more wrong than this when it comes to healing. DPS trying as hard as they can to top meters is generally bad, as they will probably be more focused on how much DPS they are doing than the mechanics of the fight. A healer focusing on topping meters will very likely cause a wipe. Any healer can top healing meters whenever they want to. The drawback is that they will probably be OOM for most of the fight. Healing smart and doing your assigned job is always 100% more important than the actual HPS you are putting out.

[Cute Chen]

I think the point you're friend is trying to make, is that disc "heals" with shields which doesn't show up on meters.

Which is false. They USED to not show up on meters, they do now.