Healing...101

So here we go!

So where's the best place to start except at the beginning right?  The basics.  Basics are the curry of life, without basics we cannot even begin to accomplish the really complicated things in life.  So let's talk about the basics of healing.

What is healing?

Healing is one thing.  Survival.  Without a healer a tank and dps would not be able to live through a fight.  There is no at level instance or raid that does not require a healer.  So healing is replenishing the life that other player's characters have lost.  That is an easy question.

So what are my tools?

The average healer needs to know a few things about his tools.  One of those tools are the spells they use to heal and what they do.  This could be a wordy answer if I went through every class so I'll just give you a run down of the basic different types of healing spells.  First off, are the fast, low mana cost spells.  These spells usually do not heal as much as some, but they are fast and don't cost much.  These spells are good for normal casting, when small amounts of heals are necessary.  Second, are the long, high mana cost spells.  While they cost more and heal more, the cast times are so long that they actually are less viable than the fast ones.  They are "OH NO" moment spells.  Then there are what are called HoTs or Heal over Time Spells.  These give the target, or targets, a buff that heals them for an amount over time.  These are usually cheap but do not heal for much.  Druids have a lot of them.  The last kind are new to cataclysm.  These are AoE heals or Area of Effect heals.  These put an area where anything within that area receives heals.  These are good for when a lot of players standing near each other are taking damage.

So those are the healing spells.  There are some other tools though.  These tools are spells that modify something about the healer or his spells.  For example, druids and shamans have a spell called Nature's Swiftness that they receive in their Restoration trees.  This spell makes anything with a cast time less than 10 seconds instant cast.  This is good to use on the big, expensive "OH NO" heals, because minus the global cooldown, they become instant.  All healers have some form of this kind of spell.

The priest and paladin classes have a type of spell called a damage mitigation spell.  For priests this is Power Word: Shield and Paladin's have lots of them.  This spell absorbs damage or reduces damage.  I even like to extend this kind of spell to changes the player's state or keeps that state from changing (keep from getting feared or reducing threat).  But these spells can be game changers.

Why is healing so special?

Every role is important and crucial to group success.  Healing is no exception.  Knowing which spell to use at what time is an art and something that is difficult to explain.  Each class can be played differently and so the one thing I will not tell you what to do in this blog is how to play your character.  Run some randoms, heal a friend while leveling or questing, or ask a guild member of the same class about it.  I can help if you need it, but your personal play style is all your own.

Is that it?

Almost.  The next blog will include the top 5 things that healers do wrong.  This is the last thing that new healers need to know.  So next week will also be a blog for healers in general.

Intro!

Hello one and all!  So I have been wanting to write a blog for a long time and ever since I started raiding again I have decided to try out a WoW blog.  So I'll start with a little bit about my WoW experiences and then about what my goals for this blog are.

I started playing at the very end of the Burning Crusade expansion.  I started a Tauren shaman and quickly began to become addicted (really enjoy) WoW.  I hit 70 one week before WoLK came out and so I didn't get to do much raiding.  I was mostly enhancement back then since I had been leveling.

I joined a guild with my real life friends and was eventually coerced to becoming a healer.  After trolling the web for restoration specs, I found one that looked good and started healing.  I really enjoyed it and loved raiding.  After a small fallout by some members of the guild, I ended up becoming the raid heal leader.  I did this for a few months as progressed through Naxx and Ulduar.

Unfortunately, our guild started to die off in the summer and I healed in PUGs for a while.  I found another guild but by this time my main had become a mage.  I missed healing and in my endless obsessions with alts, I recently have created a druid, who is my new main, and a priest.  I have enjoyed healing on both classes and although my priest and my pally (another alt) are only in the high 60s/ low 70s; I have loved playing them both.

So that brings me to now.  I recently started healing the new content on my druid but am always interested in all the other classes.  I try to keep up with how to play on them and what all the mechanics do.  So my goal for this blog is to discuss issues and ideas for mechanics, future mechanics, and play styles for all of the different healers out there.  So I'll try to cover as many of them as I can.  Hopefully, a different one every week or a blog that discusses something that covers them all.  I also want to discuss ideas with other people and explore different ways to use the different mechanics of each class.  So feel free to comment or contact me if you have an ideas or topics to discuss.

So I'll start with today.  I'm going to start with a blog intended for all healers (more specifically new healers).

Enjoy!  And I hope to help you all out somehow!