(holy) flash heal tips

[Felade]

Nothing personal but damn how I hate it when people say "this is a HPS gain and this is a HPS loss". Healing is so much more about adepting to a situation than toping some healing meters. Healing the right targets instead of the ones that'll give you the most HPS is everything while healing. Say for example that a warrior and a fire mage is dropping low, the mage sits on about 20% HP and the warrior on 40%. Most healers would heal the mage first and the warrior after that and that's what differs a good healer from a bad one. The good healer would heal the warrior first and the mage after that as he/she is thinking of Cauturizing that will save the mage whenever happends.

So, healing the right target > healing the ones who gives most HPS.

That said, healing 2x flash and then a PoH might be lower HPS, but there is A LOT of situations where this is the very best thing to do. (spine HC with one debuff and a turn inc without SL anyone?).

There's always a math answer to when and where to heal. Its just a matter of having the right information.

HPS/HPM isn't about topping meters. (Neither is DPS). It is about making the right choice at the right time, which is what we are talking about. HPS/HPM calculations help us make the right spell choices at the right time. The highest HPM choice is almost always the right choice to make.

Right targets - this gets to the art of healing, and that is assumed in any mathematical discussion. Whenever you are talking healer math, you are always assuming that you've already chosen the right target. Now the question is "what is the right spell for this target?" And the math can answer that.

You say the choice is between the Mage at 20%, the Warrior at 40%. You chose to heal the Warrior, but didn't notice the Mage's cauterize wasn't up yet and lost the Mage because you were being cute with mechanics (even if cauterize procs, you'll need to heal that Mage again in 6 seconds or he'll die anyways). We aren't talking math, and it doesn't invalidate any math because the math only comes into play once you've chosen a target.

The math is for evaluating spell choice - I have three targets I need to heal quickly - do I Flash Heal them three times, or do I Flash Heal twice, then cast POH, or do I simply spam POH? Notice that in order to even ask a math question, the target choice is already assumed.

Nothing personal, but I hate it when healers get on their soapbox and reject any kind of analysis out of hand because healing is supposed to be something mysterious and touchy-feely.

There's an art to healing. But that doesn't mean there's no place for math.

[eErike]

You are taking things out of its context by a level that I can't be bothered to fight it. Not trying to be rude but honestly, you can't just add situtations to an example with which I wanted to bring attention to a thinking where you take cooldowns in acount instead of just damage taken/HP left.
Going that road will end up in stuff like "Yes, the mages Caut was on CD but he still have iceblock and the warrior is standing in a lawapool that will do 60% of his max HP as damage every 0.1 seccond blablabla".

At the topic on whether letting Caut go of or not. I prefer (and I actualy belive others do to) predicted damage that you know of ahead and can plan for alot better than sudden spiky damage (DK tanks anyone?). So if I supect that two players, one of them a fire mage with caut ready, will take damage that will kill them in close up future I prefer to just let the mage sit at the HP he/she have and deal with caut later that I know how much I have to heal in order to counter.

Pros of this is:

1. I know when the mage is going to take aprox how much damage
2. I know both will have a higher chanse of surving as Caut is yet another saftynet
3. I know that the mage can Iceblock the caut damage in a worst case senario (which I know if he have on CD as very few fights are longer than the cooldown of a midfight used Iceblock
4. I might get a soak with the caut (Taking a 120k hit while you are at 20k HP healing up the caut damage > Taking a 120k hit with a full health pool healing it up again)

Cons:

1. I have to know how much damage the mage will take during the 6 secconds the caut are up or I risk getting overwelmed by the damage.
2. I have to know it's not on CD (francly I know that, not that hard to keep track on if you have less that 4 magi)

For me, the pros are pretty strong contra the cons and that's why I usualy let the mages caut go of.
This requires a pretty good knowledge about the fight in whole as letting caut go on CD might destroy other things later (eg. caut going of before a soak on ultra HC).

And yes, healing is actualy all about math and nothing else as all the desstions you make should be based on a quick math calculations but meanwhile it's way to complex to be solved from a Healing meter.

Edit: While I'm good at math and logical thinking (*brag*) I'm realy bad at english and spelling, trying to clean it up a bit alteast.

[Evolixe]

As a holy priest your primary job is to heal your party members. A tank healing holy priest is a severely gimped holy priest.

You should avoid using flash heal as much as you can. Use a greater heal even before a flash heal. It's more effecient and powerful.

Flash heal is like your emergiency button.