Help with raid healing?

[Jleefett]

I really want to try doing some raid healing. I've done 5 man/5man heroic, but I'm not quite comfortable with the mechanics of raids.

can someone explain it? (resto druid).

Is one healer set to each tank, and then the others split the dps, or is it just heal whoever you see, etc? Should I be focusing on multi person heals more, or single person? HOT over burst heal?

[Haywire5714]

Unless your strategy for a particular boss involves healer assignments then you just heal whoever really.
The heals you use depend on what kind of damage is going out, single target or aoe; you don't focus on one or the other unless you know what kind of damage will be going out ahead of time.
HoT's for low and consistant damage, burst heals and raid cooldowns (Tranquility) for large damage spikes.

[espoire]

Different groups do it differently. In 10man raids, you almost never have 1 healer per tank. Actually, in 10man, Flex and LFR, it's usually "heal whoever you see." In 25s, or highly-organized 10mans, either a leader will tell you who to focus on, or you'll negotiate who to focus on with the other healers.

If you're given free reign, or if you have some say in what you heal: play to your strengths and play to the encounter. I don't play a Resto Druid, so you probably know what those are better than I do. If you're good at rolling HoTs on the entire raid, do that. If you're good at keeping a tank topped up, do that. Always be prepared to heal differently if the encounter demands it though, because some fights will demand unusual healing styles.

[Jleefett]

Different groups do it differently. In 10man raids, you almost never have 1 healer per tank. Actually, in 10man, Flex and LFR, it's usually "heal whoever you see." In 25s, or highly-organized 10mans, either a leader will tell you who to focus on, or you'll negotiate who to focus on with the other healers.

If you're given free reign, or if you have some say in what you heal: play to your strengths and play to the encounter. I don't play a Resto Druid, so you probably know what those are better than I do. If you're good at rolling HoTs on the entire raid, do that. If you're good at keeping a tank topped up, do that. Always be prepared to heal differently if the encounter demands it though, because some fights will demand unusual healing styles.

if it's free for all, i could just imagine certain players (tanks) getting over healed, and dps groups getting underhealed. but that's part of it i guess?

[espoire]

if it's free for all, i could just imagine certain players (tanks) getting over healed, and dps groups getting underhealed. but that's part of it i guess?

Overheal on tanks is very common. Not sure what you mean by "underheal" though.

If you mean what I think you might, then yes. You'll be reacting both to incoming damage from the fight as much as the other healers' heals. Both will make you need to adjust what you cast and on whom.

[Deleted]

Run a couple of ToT LFR's, it'll give you a good idea about the multi-healer environment.
The difficulty also ensures that other healers can pick up the slack while you practise.

Fights are longer than dungeons though, so practise conserving your mana.

[Jleefett]

Run a couple of ToT LFR's, it'll give you a good idea about the multi-healer environment.
The difficulty also ensures that other healers can pick up the slack while you practise.

Fights are longer than dungeons though, so practise conserving your mana.

I was thinking I might just queue for MV to get the hang of it.

[Squidwerd]

I was thinking I might just queue for MV to get the hang of it.

This is a good idea. What class and spec (if priest) are you?