[Kaey]

IF YOU ARE GOING TO USE MY ARTICLE ON ANY OTHER FORUM OR SITE - I REQUIRE YOU TO GIVE ME CREDIT. THIS IS ESPECIALLY FOR YOU, AIONMONSTER OF AION/SWAGVAULT WHO TOOK MY WORK.


I recently came across this article written by a Warhammer player who talks about healing, and things every healer should know. Way to often do I (and probably yourselves) come across healers that use skills foolishly - maybe spamming their HoTs and shields on people at random times because they are 'bored', possibly using their top rank heals when they're target may only need a rank 2, or focus all around on keeping players topped off. So here it is, and please post your tips and what you think new healers should know.

All credit for the article goes to Bartlebe of hammerofwaronline.com

Healing in MMO games is a deceptive practice. It is a skill that, while easy to learn, is difficult to master. The gap between a skilled healer and novice becomes clear when dealing with stressful situations, large group combat, and difficult mob encounters, all likely to appear in Warhammer Online.

The aim of this article is to provide some brief principles into the world of effective healing in MMO games and, specifically, Warhammer Online. This will not be a guide for an individual class or a detailed write-up of what skills to use when. This will be intended for people who have little experience with healing in MMOs or people who are looking for some ways to sharpen up their playing.

Personally, I have played healers across several different varieties of MMO games, and eventually you become familiar with the tricks of the trade.

When healing, the only number that matters is zero.

No matter how many health points one of your allies has, the most important health point is zero. Everything else is a buffer. Now, does that mean you should let his health run down to nothing before healing him? Of course not. As a healer, you should be focusing on the pace of the battle and how fast your allies health runs down. Depending on how fast someone is taking damage, you should begin healing when they have half of their life remaining. Your purpose is to keep someone from dying, not to keep their health maxed out all the time. Keep that in mind as you spread heals around your targets.
Be aware of your group’s priorities.

A mistake I see a lot of healers make is attempting to keep all of their allies’ health at full all the time. Doing this will overwork the healer, distract him from the flow of battle, and run his action points (or mana) dry too early. Healers, when following a group into battle, must be aware of the hierarchy of importance amongst all the classes. In a PvE engagement, the group tank is unquestionably the most important target to keep your eye on, followed secondly by the other healers and important damage dealers. Feel free to toss your Squid Herder (edit: or anyone else standing around) friend a heal if you have nothing else to do, but not at the cost of the aforementioned targets.
Remember to pace yourself.

This is an obvious thing to mention, but it is an important one so I have to talk about it. What do I mean by “pace?” I mean making good use of as many lower cost spells as you can in order to get the job done. This saves time, mana, and is the hallmark of a talented healer. One can do this by using heals-over-time spells (HoTs) and lower level healing spells in order to keep your main targets at a manageable level. Big heals should be reserved for the emergency situations when someone is in trouble. Only use the bare minimum you can to get by. If you can get by with only using your HoT spells, do so.

I know most of these things are obvious to veteran MMO players, but I think they are important to point out and to consciously realize as you make your way through Warhammer Online. In Warhammer, the potential for battles to carry on over extended periods of time is very great. With massive open RvR battles, swarms of enemies, and fire raining down from all directions, healers have their work cut out for them. It will be more important than ever for healers to keep themselves focused and aware of these tenets. When the fate of a battle objective or a fortress hangs in the balance, pacing yourself, remaining calm, and keeping a cool head will make all the difference.

Even though this article was written for Warhammer, healers in Aion will find themselves encountering the same scenarios and same situations.

Just to add a tip of my own would be setting up your UI in the way you feel the most comfortable - and bind it the way you want to bind it. And even then, if your not good at binding go ahead and click - nobody else should know and sometimes it can help you manage the situation better if you are overwhelmed. Put your most important/most used heals at the most comfortable position for you - and put buffs on a side bar if it is available where you can click away when you're not under pressure. Same goes for items. Also, take the time and read through all of your skills descriptions until you can almost say them by heart - this includes memorizing all of the ranks and their heal amounts.

Another would be, depending on your financial situation, to have multiple weapons, and healing sets. If you know what your enemy is going to be like - and will definitely hit you with everything you have - bring +stamina gear or any gear that will raise your health, along with weapons that might give +spell damage, +healing, or +spell crit chance. If you're going to be raiding on a boss, bring gear with more +intellect/+mana and weapons with +healing, +spell damage, or +spell crit. If the game your in also allow gems and such - get items that increase spell power and that increase casting time and health.

Also, stay calm while healing. If you feel like everything around you is being destroyed - don't resort to jamming random buttons or using random skills praying that in the end everything will work out. Keep your head clean - and act with intelligence. Don't start hitting buffs on accident - or hitting your flight button. You will look much more foolish compared to if your team sees you healing remaining strong the entire fight.

Establish a healing order that you will follow all of your time in-game so that you can become comfortable with it and handle it well. I usually follow - Tank, Healer, AOE DPS, DPS, Misc - occasionally removing the AOE DPS portion to replace it with another class if I find myself playing with people that need a different healing order. Example, if I'm partying with a paladin, mage, hunter, and druid (World of Warcraft) both the Paladin and Druid have some healing potential, so I will usually take care of the hunter first - seeing is he is mainly our groups DPS (assuming the druid isn't in cat form) followed by the mage if I feel they are taking one to many hits. Stick to healing priority no matter how much some players complain, explain what you are doing and why and ask them to manage their aggro better so that they will not need heals. Also however, remember that you cannot heal anyone if you are dead. Make sure to watch your own health bar as well.

To tie in with the above, learn mana management. Mana management is managing the amount you heal in a fight. Sure you could heal everyone as soon as they take damage and keep them all topped off, but why and for how long can you keep it up with your gear? If the tank is taking most of the damage and everyone else is maybe just getting hit with a little bit of aoe splash over - or a poison DoT, why heal them at all, unless they are below 50% health?If a player is deliberately acting careless gaining aggro knowing you will heal them, stop. Confront the player. And tell him hes isn't helping the groups efficiency or your own. If everyone is above 80% why cast small heals, wait a while and regenerate some mana. (This goes most appropriatley while healing in PvE situations or instances. In PvP depending on the opponent that 20% gap in health might be enough for an enemy's spike to down the target before you can react.


To touch on PvP, if your class has any type of shield to use - know how much damage it can absorb, if it prevents casting interruptions, and the delay of it being recast on you. Nothing can stick worse than using a shield and then having it destroyed in seconds because you used it at the worst moment when a strong dps-er was right behind you. AND THEN realizing you cannot recast it for whha...? 10 SECONDS!?

And finally, don't be nervous about healing, or afraid to go to a raid because you fear you're going to suck. Sure, you probably will if it is your first time - but the only way to get better is to try. You are going to have to let SOME people die - and they might give you a hard time about it. But just step back, analyze the situation, and see if you made the right choice. If its between letting your tank die, or letting a nuker die - heal the tank. Letting him die is almost a FOR SURE death for your party - as to letting a nuker die that can be rezzed after the mob is handled.

***Another important thing to remember is if there is a shielding skill available to your class - precast it on your tank BUT NEVER cast it during combat. In many games doing this creates A LOT of aggro which can be very difficult for a tank to regain.


Another Aionsource used named Artimecion recently posted a tip that when I tested was extremely efficient and an excellent way to heal. If you include down ranking amongst the pyramid you will find your mana running out much slower and your heals being much more efficient.

One tip I can give to healers out there, is what I call the "Pyramid Theory". Granted, this is usually a PvP technique. When you come across someone that is damaged, start with your long casting, big number heal, then go for your shorter and lesser heals, then go for your instant HoTs and buffs.

Fort-----------GCD
Mending-------GCD
Renew---------GCD
Binding H. ----1.5 sec
Flash H.------1.5 sec
Greater H.----2.5 sec

Sorry for the crude illustration. But the basics can be seen, start from the bottom and head up. The name and concept come from building a pyramid, start with the strong, resource heavy base, and start heading upwards with the smaller lighter load.

This technique can really help with over healing. Also, survivability of the person you are healing, the small faster heals some times cannot keep up with 1 or 2 big ones, it can save a life, and then after the immediate threat is gone from the death, top off and keep up with HoTs and fast heals.

To wrap it up - as one article writer once said:

You are a Healer, a critical member of a group. You don't need to put up with crap, if the group is bad or bossy, leave.

Just as someone posted out later in the thread, the mentality above is not one that should be practiced often. That was more to add some flavor to the ending, although, you are still important and deserve respect!


April 16, 2009: I recently finished (or more so, half finished) a compilation about Cleric's and priest in general. Click here if you are interested in viewing it.