Overheal

[tgrosh]

Hey all. Was wondering. In your raids, amongst your healers (or you raid leaders) is overheal being used as a valid measurement of healer effectiveness. If so, what's the general consensus on what is an acceptable range?

Also, have you heard anyone saying your overheal is TOO low? I heard someone suggest that despite the healer having good hps and no deaths.

[Nørf]

It depends so much on the situation.
I only use it for personal preference, if I know I screwed up somewhere in a fight, if I were oom too early, then I go back to check healing, overhealing, what spells that overhealed most and what I could do better.
But every healer has their own playstyle so you can't just hold overhealing (minor/major) against anyone, it depends on the situation just as well.

[Eldoncloud]

Depends on the class me being a holy paladin i heal someone i get healed myself and if I am at full HP it'll show as overhealing. Only overhealing i have seen is from AoE heals from other classes. No such thing as overhealing to low just means your using your mana effectively.

[lkonig]

If your healers are not running out of mana and players are not dieing who cares about over healing?

[Wafflemuffin]

Depends on the class me being a holy paladin i heal someone i get healed myself and if I am at full HP it'll show as overhealing. Only overhealing i have seen is from AoE heals from other classes. No such thing as overhealing to low just means your using your mana effectively.

Essentially this. I also play a holy paladin. With beacon going on a MT or OT, Protector of the Innocent and using Holy Radiance situationally, I tend to have high overheal when 2 other healers are present (topping off the tanks or also using AoE heals). The thing is I don't run out of mana. When using recount though, it shows me at either #1 or #2 in overheal but when you check the spells used, my fourth overhealed spell is Holy Light 90% of the time at a whopping 4% overheal.

In summary, it is all situational and it is more important that no one died and you didn't oom than it is to watch the numbers because the numbers can lie without knowledge of each classes healing mechanics.

[Aknot]

If your healers are not running out of mana and players are not dieing who cares about over healing?

Not that I am an expert or anything but if there is overhealing then it appears you have people working inefficiently. Most of your bigger guilds and sometimes even smaller ones want to run at optimal efficiency.

So maybe for certain fights/scenarios a healer could swap over to do something else more beneficial for the group as a whole.

Again just my thoughts.

[Syrrah]

Not that I am an expert or anything but if there is overhealing then it appears you have people working inefficiently. Most of your bigger guilds and sometimes even smaller ones want to run at optimal efficiency.

So maybe for certain fights/scenarios a healer could swap over to do something else more beneficial for the group as a whole.

Again just my thoughts.

I don't think I have ever heard of overhealing meters being used a tool to judge whether or not a healer should go DPS or whatever

[Aknot]

I don't think I have ever heard of overhealing meters being used a tool to judge whether or not a healer should go DPS or whatever

Then what would an overheal meter be good for? I dont use them see no sense in them myself but as a tool to tweak a raid composition sounds better then something to have to see if you are overhealing... I mean Im with if no one dies/wipes and you dont run out of mana..... Alls good?

[Mourning]

If your healers are running out of mana due to overhealing, or you're losing people to unpreventable damage due to overhealing another raid member, then it's worth checking out.

If neither of these things is happening, then let them keep doing what they're doing. Overhealing helps you detect where problems are, but it's not a problem by itself.

[Asrialol]

Overhealing's importance died when TBC came. It was really something to look at in Vanilla. If you were overhealing a lot back then, then perhaps you should consider downranking spells. Which people did back then, to save mana and to not overheal. I.e be efficient.

Overhealing wasn't much to look at in TBC, it was absolutely pointless to look at in Wrath, and it's a bit more relevant now, but since there are so many class mechanics that comes into play these days, you have to look at them with happy face.

[tgrosh]

so if a healer runs out of mana there could be many reasons for sure. No doubt. But if he wanted to go back and check his overheal, what's the consensus on whether or not he was overhealing too much? 5%? 10%? 20%?

[Nørf]

Then what would an overheal meter be good for?

The overheal meter is good in the sense that you can tell the healer who overheals alot, that he/she does it, and should consider looking into their spell use, if they throw an aoe heal when the group is topped off rather than cancelling the cast, for example.

[Aknot]

The overheal meter is good in the sense that you can tell the healer who overheals alot, that he/she does it, and should consider looking into their spell use, if they throw an aoe heal when the group is topped off rather than cancelling the cast, for example.

Well if they can overheal without adversely affecting the group what is the concern? The concern should be people are dying, why are people dying, Healers out of mana, see if they are not doing it right.

However if they overhealing a lot and there is no issue I would again ask what is the use for it besides finding out why something (OOM or deaths) are happening?

[Deleted]

I play a Holy Paladin.

I do not use the Overheal meter to compare my Overheals agaisnt other classes. Due to certain abilities we have (PotI, BoL etc) we would always be at the top of the Overheal.

What i do use it for is comparing Overheals done on each spell however. The best thing about recount isn't the screen that allows to compare your overhealing with other people in the raid. The best thing about the overhealing meter is....


I can then use that to compare how well i have actually done.
For example all my direct heals is on less than 5% overheal which is good. But could be alot better. I can compare how many heals i did, and find out how many did overhealing, and how much overheals they did. For example in the overheal recount i just linked. I did 20 DLs, however 1 of those did Overheal, and that overheal was quite high.

This gives me something to work on. The next attempt i do, i make sure that the overhealing is lower etc. Its a great tool.

Tdlr: You should never use it to see your overall overheal. You should use it to compare how much Overhealing you are doing with directly targetted spells and then use it as something to work on to improve you play.

[kaloryth]

Overheal meters are extremely stupid on druids. 50% lifebloom. Big whoop. :/