[0:00] This video is for the new healers and
[0:02] this video is for the healers that want
[0:04] to refresh themselves on some of their
[0:05] fundamentals. My name is Bowser the
[0:07] healer and I got about eight points here
[0:09] from little things like add-ons to big
[0:12] things like how to manage cooldowns and
[0:14] how the eb and flow of healing works in
[0:16] a typical combat. Now I just want to be
[0:18] clear. I'm mostly talking mythic plus
[0:20] but a lot of this will just
[0:22] automatically apply to raids. So, if you
[0:24] are looking for more raid focused
[0:26] advice, you'll get something out of
[0:27] this, but I come from the perspective of
[0:29] somebody who pugs a lot of mythic plus.
[0:31] So, let's get right into it. The first
[0:33] major point I want to talk about with
[0:35] healing is death, which I know sounds
[0:37] really silly, and as silly as it sounds,
[0:38] I do actually mean this one quite
[0:39] seriously, but watch the clip right now.
[0:42] Could I have saved this warlock? And
[0:44] feel free to watch it again if you'd
[0:46] like, but the answer is no. They died to
[0:49] an avoidable attack, a circle that goes
[0:51] on the ground from Cinder Brew toss.
[0:52] Their objective was to just walk a few
[0:55] feet out of it and they'd be fine. Now
[0:57] look, they died instantly. Yeah, maybe I
[0:59] could have hit Guardian Spirit if I knew
[1:01] they were going to get hit hit, but
[1:02] realistically, this is the player
[1:04] responsibility. I'm not in charge of
[1:06] this person's death. That's sort of in
[1:08] their own hands. But also, it's not too
[1:10] big of a deal, right? It's the start of
[1:11] a dungeon they were clearly blasting.
[1:14] It's not really a problem. But for a new
[1:16] player, it can be really hard to tell if
[1:18] that was a problem. My recommendation is
[1:21] to use the add-on details, which is
[1:22] usually for checking how much damage
[1:24] you're doing. But you can use it to
[1:26] check your healing, damage taken, or my
[1:28] favorite, deaths. Check the death log to
[1:31] see how quickly somebody died. Was it
[1:33] something you could have prevented? Was
[1:34] it something obvious? Or did they die in
[1:36] like 2.1 seconds instantly, right? You
[1:40] can't really save someone from dying
[1:42] instantly. A lot of the times that
[1:43] probably means a mechanic was failed,
[1:45] they stood in something, you name it.
[1:48] You'll know when somebody doesn't use
[1:49] their cooldowns. And as you get really
[1:50] good at using details, you can actually
[1:52] check healing meters and damage meters
[1:54] to look at auras to see how much a tank
[1:57] had on uptime for one of their
[1:58] mitigation tools. That's more advanced
[2:01] down the line, but just learning how to
[2:03] look at the stuff and starting to
[2:04] understand the spells that are hitting
[2:05] people will help demystify some of the
[2:08] damage coming through. When some DPS
[2:09] goes, healer, where were my heals? And
[2:11] you see they took their whole life bar
[2:13] in a third of a second, well then that's
[2:15] that's a skill issue. You don't have to
[2:16] worry about that one. They're just going
[2:18] to be a little mad about it and they'll
[2:20] get over it. But now, let's talk about
[2:22] damage, specifically damage done to
[2:24] players. Let's talk about lethality. I
[2:27] like to look at health bars when they're
[2:29] on lethal. So, let's say there's a spell
[2:32] coming out and it does a third of
[2:33] someone's life bar. Okay, that's cool.
[2:35] What if there's three enemies targeting
[2:37] one player? Okay, that's a little
[2:40] dangerous. If all three of those spells
[2:41] hit, they're probably going to die. Even
[2:43] if they don't die, the next thing that
[2:45] hits them probably will. That's called
[2:47] lethal or they are on lethal. When
[2:49] they're sitting at 1/3 health and two of
[2:51] those spells are being cast on them,
[2:53] right? That is a lethal situation. I
[2:56] like to think about triage, the act of
[2:58] figuring out who you can save and who's
[3:00] got to die. I like to think about
[3:01] lethality and how close someone is to
[3:03] lethality for figuring out who needs to
[3:05] be healed or how much healing I actually
[3:07] need to use. You might have some
[3:09] coolowns you can use to save someone's
[3:10] life. But if they took 80% of their
[3:12] health bar, but they're fine and there's
[3:14] no other damage coming in, you don't got
[3:16] to panic heal them. You can just heal
[3:18] them with your more efficient spells and
[3:20] get the job done. When you get better at
[3:22] healing, and we're about to talk about
[3:23] cooldowns, but when you get better at
[3:25] this, knowing where your cooldowns go
[3:27] typically goes handinhand with
[3:29] lethality. Where are there bad lethality
[3:31] lineups where there's unavoidable damage
[3:33] or hard to stop damage while players are
[3:35] taking like consistent damage from other
[3:38] sources, right? Maybe a boss fight, like
[3:40] a major mechanic or something like that.
[3:42] That's where you're going to start
[3:43] going, "Oh, this will put players on
[3:44] lethal. Oh, maybe I should commit a cool
[3:46] down or a setup or ramp or whatever it
[3:49] is that they need to
[3:50] do." The next one is fairly simple, but
[3:53] it's crowd control is healing. So, I
[3:55] want you to think about this. Those
[3:56] three enemies are targeting one of your
[3:59] allies and you know it's going to kill
[4:00] them. Okay, you could try to save their
[4:03] life with an external defensive. You
[4:04] could use a cheat death or something
[4:06] else that your kit has to save their
[4:08] life. Or you could stop them from going
[4:11] off, hitting something like your psychic
[4:13] scream, your leg sweep, your tail swipe,
[4:15] whatever it is that you need to use to
[4:17] stop cast from going off. A lot of the
[4:19] times this will reset the cast, allowing
[4:21] those mobs to pick new targets. It's
[4:23] much easier to heal three people taking
[4:25] stagger damage than it is to heal one
[4:27] person who's about to die
[4:29] instantaneously. Which is why I want you
[4:30] to use your crowd control and your
[4:32] interrupts as a healing cooldown. Use it
[4:34] to save people's lives. Sure, you might
[4:37] have multiple tools and you can afford
[4:39] to expend one to make the DPS life a
[4:41] little bit easier. Yeah, absolutely. But
[4:44] when the going gets rough, don't ever
[4:45] forget that you have these crowd control
[4:47] moves that can stop problems. Also, for
[4:50] those of you blessed with a kick,
[4:51] there's going to be a lot of priest
[4:52] footage here. Priest doesn't have a kick
[4:54] unless you're shadow. Here's the thing.
[4:56] A kick or also known as an interrupt
[4:58] skill specifically turn off a school of
[5:00] magic when they successfully connect.
[5:02] So, when you see those colorful cast
[5:04] bars that you can actually kick, when
[5:06] you hit that, it turns off the school of
[5:08] magic. So, they can't cast for a little
[5:10] bit from that school of magic. This
[5:12] typically means that the mob will walk
[5:13] in. Using your interrupts to help
[5:15] organize mobs is, I think, a really good
[5:17] thing to do at the start of a pull, but
[5:19] then the next time your kick is up, you
[5:21] might want to consider using it just to
[5:22] save lives. Hold it to literally just
[5:25] prevent more problems from happening.
[5:27] Thank me later. For the newer player
[5:29] watching this video, before I talk about
[5:31] the flow of a healer, kind of what a
[5:33] typical pull is going to look like, I do
[5:36] want to note something. If you want to
[5:37] practice any of this, go into a delve.
[5:40] tank brand plus you is enough damage and
[5:42] healing to make it through any delve in
[5:44] not a long amount of time. I mean it
[5:46] like it won't be too incredibly long and
[5:49] if you're contributing damage you will
[5:50] also notice that the delve kind of falls
[5:52] over. You do need to do damage as a
[5:54] healer. So this is a great place to
[5:55] practice both the healing and damage
[5:57] aspects. Bran, however, doesn't heal
[5:59] very much. This means you're going to
[6:00] really feel the impact of your heal on a
[6:03] tank and your heals on yourself. It's
[6:05] going to give you an idea of like how
[6:06] much they actually do and what they feel
[6:08] like to use. If you have a combo or an
[6:11] interaction you get to use, you're going
[6:13] to see the fruits of your labor in front
[6:14] of you. Sometimes it can be a little
[6:16] hard with people having self-healing and
[6:18] automatic defensive talents. You might
[6:20] not necessarily know what you're doing
[6:22] in a dungeon at first, so I think it's
[6:24] good to get your feet wet in a delve
[6:25] just to truly feel it. But let's talk
[6:28] about that healer flow. How does a
[6:30] typical poll go? Well, the start of a
[6:33] poll is always going to be preparation
[6:34] spells. Anything you got to do. I know
[6:36] as a preservation evoker, I hit hover. I
[6:38] throw temporal anomaly. Holy priest is
[6:40] going to maybe renew some people for the
[6:42] healing boost and put their prayer of
[6:43] mending on cooldown. Maybe a discipline
[6:45] priest wants to get atonements out. You
[6:47] know the vibes. Everyone does something
[6:49] different here. Then it's time to do
[6:51] damage. Healer damage isn't crazy, but
[6:53] it's also usually typically front-loaded
[6:55] and not too hard to do. The best time to
[6:57] do it is when the tank has gathered mobs
[6:59] and everyone gets to just blast all the
[7:01] cylinders for a moment. Get whatever
[7:03] your damage is out and then it's time to
[7:05] heal when things happen. Reacting to
[7:07] healing is the first thing I want to
[7:08] talk about. As long as there's no other
[7:10] planned instance of healing coming up,
[7:13] just react. When someone gets chunked,
[7:15] go heal them. If you're expect
[7:16] anticipating people to take damage, you
[7:18] can quickly prep before they get hit and
[7:20] then you can go and heal them. But let's
[7:22] say there's a mechanic coming up or
[7:24] there's, you know, a boss fight and it's
[7:25] about to hit really hard and you got to
[7:27] get ready. That's prepared healing. This
[7:30] sort of overwrites any triage you have
[7:32] to do and that yeah, you might need to
[7:34] save someone's life, but if everyone's
[7:36] going to die, you kind of need to focus
[7:38] on everyone and not the one person,
[7:40] unless that one person's the tank, but
[7:42] then you might all still die in that
[7:43] scenario. Preparation is so important
[7:47] when the polls get harder. They're not
[7:48] going to necessarily be hard at first.
[7:50] So, when you're first going through the
[7:51] dungeons, you might need to go like,
[7:52] "Ooh, we all took a lot of damage there.
[7:54] I bet in a higher key that would hurt
[7:56] really, really bad." Cuz it probably
[7:57] does. Then afterwards, when the going
[8:00] gets kind of quiet and you're back to
[8:02] doing damage, yeah, do damage yourself,
[8:04] right? Patch anyone up you need to and
[8:06] hit any of your important spells. Some
[8:08] of your important on cooldown spells,
[8:11] you're not actually pressing when you
[8:12] need to do serious amounts of healing.
[8:14] So, you might find that your prayer of
[8:16] mending has been ready to be pressed for
[8:18] a few moments, but you were in the
[8:20] middle of saving lives. Now, it's time
[8:22] it's calm. Hit your essential spells
[8:24] again, and then get back to doing
[8:25] damage, restoring your mana, or whatever
[8:27] it is you absolutely need to do until
[8:29] there's something to react to. Every
[8:31] single poll works like this. Some are
[8:32] going to start maybe a little heavy at
[8:34] first, so maybe you don't got a lot of
[8:35] time to do damage. And then,
[8:36] furthermore, there are some polls where
[8:38] you have these extreme downtimes where
[8:40] there is nothing to do and you are just
[8:42] blasting damage. And that happens every
[8:44] once in a while. It's not a big deal,
[8:45] but you're going to see this flow happen
[8:47] all the time. So, be prepared to react.
[8:49] Figure out where you'd want to plan in a
[8:51] more difficult, more challenging
[8:52] environment, and you're good to go.
[8:54] Beginners, I mean it. This does come
[8:56] very naturally. So, just start noticing
[8:58] as you go through boss fights, where are
[9:00] those problematic points you're like,
[9:01] "Ooh, how do I deal with that later?"
[9:03] Yeah, write that stuff down, mark that
[9:05] stuff, remember it. It'll come back.
[9:06] It'll be very useful the next time you
[9:08] approach it. Now, let's talk about
[9:10] cooldowns. This is a really interesting
[9:12] section because if you've ever seen a
[9:14] damage dealer, they have cooldowns, too.
[9:16] And how they typically work is they send
[9:18] their cooldowns as often as possible.
[9:20] You see, DPS basically always have a
[9:22] target to hit. So, if they're going to
[9:24] get 80 to 90% uptime on most of their
[9:27] cooldowns, they'll just send it. They'll
[9:28] only save it for special occasions.
[9:30] Healers, on the other hand, play a very
[9:32] different video game. You don't always
[9:34] have something to heal. And if you did,
[9:36] this game would be painfully, painfully
[9:38] difficult for healers. So, it's
[9:41] important to know how much healing you
[9:42] have and how much you actually need to
[9:44] use. The problem with telling you about
[9:46] your cooldowns is that they're useful.
[9:48] They work differently for every healer,
[9:50] but where you use them is also very
[9:52] different. I'm going to talk about this
[9:53] more in one of the later segments, but
[9:55] realistically, when you pug, you use
[9:57] your cooldowns very differently than you
[9:58] do in a good coordinated group. When
[10:01] you're playing in a good group, they're
[10:02] kicking things, they're crowdontrolling
[10:04] things while they're using defensives.
[10:05] You might not have to do as much
[10:07] healing. When you're in a pug and it's a
[10:09] little more chaotic, you might have to
[10:10] do a lot more healing. So, my
[10:12] recommendation is use the cooldowns as
[10:14] you feel like they're needed until you
[10:17] find a spot where you should probably
[10:18] save it for a harder, more difficult
[10:20] encounter, like a higher level dungeon.
[10:23] Use them to know how they work and then
[10:25] start saving them as you don't need
[10:26] them. The bigger suggestion really is to
[10:28] work on your low end and high-end
[10:30] healing. Learn how to work with your
[10:32] cooldowns when you're blasting and
[10:33] getting as much healing as possible. And
[10:35] then work on your low end when you don't
[10:37] have as many tools. What can you do and
[10:39] how can you play efficiently when you're
[10:40] lacking cooldowns? And as a quick aside,
[10:43] if you have like a 30-second cooldown or
[10:45] less, there's a chance that you can send
[10:47] it off rip most of the time. When I talk
[10:50] cool downs, I'm really talking about the
[10:51] 1, 1 and 1/2, 2, and even 3 and 4 minute
[10:54] cool downs. The big ones, the smaller
[10:57] ones might be a part of your typical
[10:58] general rotation. So don't be worried
[11:00] about using those. It'll probably be a
[11:02] part of your kit and how your class
[11:04] operates. For instance, for preservation
[11:06] evoker, you have some 30 and 20 second
[11:08] cool downs that are part of your natural
[11:11] rotation. You're going to use them
[11:12] pretty often and you're going to be
[11:14] like, "Wo, that's a 30-second move. Do I
[11:16] need it?" And yeah, sometimes you do
[11:17] wonder if you need it, but you're going
[11:19] to be using it a lot. So don't like
[11:20] don't fear those lower cooldowns.
[11:23] Now, I want to talk about things like
[11:25] plater in details, but I want to talk
[11:27] details for a moment because this is one
[11:28] that's going to save your buns whenever
[11:30] you get to raiding, and it's just as
[11:31] important in dungeons. Healing per
[11:33] second isn't a very important stat. So,
[11:36] healing per second tells us a few
[11:38] things. It tells us how much healing we
[11:40] can pump out when we're blasting in all
[11:42] cylinders, and it tells us relatively
[11:44] how much healing we had to do in a
[11:45] fight. Remember, damage dealers always
[11:48] have something to hit. Healers, no, not
[11:51] really. They don't always have to heal.
[11:53] This means that HPS doesn't tell you how
[11:55] good or bad you were doing. If somebody
[11:57] came up to me and was like, "Oh my god,
[11:58] Bowser, look at my healing parse in a
[12:00] Cinder Brew metery." I would ask them if
[12:03] they need help. I'd ask them if they're
[12:04] hurt. Like, are they okay? Do they need
[12:06] like a hug? Because that means that
[12:08] there was more damage going on, more
[12:10] people taking damage, more people
[12:12] getting hurt. The healer has to work
[12:14] harder. And that's not necessarily a
[12:15] good thing because in a good world you
[12:18] only have to do essential healing and
[12:19] then you can just go and do damage.
[12:21] That's never how this goes. But I think
[12:23] it's important to remember that.
[12:24] Especially in raid. Sometimes people
[12:26] will be like, "Wow, this healer really
[12:28] isn't performing very well." But the
[12:30] answer is you're comparing them to a a
[12:32] parser, somebody who's trying to get
[12:34] good raid healing parses, which means
[12:37] sometimes it's only one or two people
[12:38] actually trying to heal in a raid, both
[12:41] trying to parse to the best of their
[12:43] abilities. And while that is fun, it's
[12:45] like high score chasing. It is cool.
[12:48] It's not necessarily saying that you're
[12:50] a bad player cuz you didn't hit those
[12:51] numbers. They hit those numbers playing
[12:53] a very dangerous game. So, just keep
[12:56] that in mind whenever you're thinking
[12:57] about it. Now, onto the other kind of
[12:59] bars, Plater. I mentioned Plater. I
[13:02] don't like talking about add-ons too
[13:03] much for healers, but details and Plater
[13:05] are the two I really recommend. And the
[13:07] reason is Blizzard still hasn't
[13:09] implemented a feature to the default
[13:11] name plates. They really want default
[13:13] name plates to tell you who is being
[13:15] cast on. With Plater, a lot of profiles
[13:18] you can import will tell you who is
[13:20] attacking who. This is how you know that
[13:22] that one person in your party is getting
[13:24] attacked by three different mobs, and
[13:27] they'll instantly explode if those casts
[13:29] get off. This information might be hard
[13:32] to parse when you're new, but as a
[13:34] veteran of the game, you're going to
[13:35] need to see that information. It will
[13:37] help you save lives. Now, technically,
[13:40] the mobs do literally look at the target
[13:42] that they're casting on, but you know
[13:44] how this game goes. Sometimes you're all
[13:46] in a nice little bubble, a sphere of
[13:48] players, and you're not going to know
[13:50] who the hell someone's targeting. So,
[13:52] it's very important to have something
[13:53] like Plater. But, I really do hope that
[13:55] Blizzard adds this feature into the
[13:56] game, as a lot of people like the base
[13:58] Blizzard name plates aesthetic, and I
[14:00] don't blame them. It'd be nice if this
[14:02] feature could be a part of the default
[14:04] UI, but that's important. If you do want
[14:06] any of my interface stuff, by the way, I
[14:08] have an interface video that I release
[14:10] like every season or two. I'm probably
[14:11] due for updating it, but all my info is
[14:13] in there if you'd like it. I always have
[14:16] to make a section about healer damage,
[14:17] and people always get frustrated with
[14:19] me. But too bad. I'm I can't be too nice
[14:22] about this one. As you get better at the
[14:24] game, you're going to need to do damage.
[14:25] Now, for a new player, don't be too
[14:27] worried about it. Learn what your damage
[14:29] buttons are. Learn how to do your
[14:30] damage, and it'll just come naturally
[14:32] over time. I mean it. Healer damage is
[14:34] very front-loaded and easy to do. You
[14:36] can just kind of press all your buttons,
[14:38] get it all out there, and then get back
[14:39] to healing pretty quickly and pretty
[14:42] often, actually. If a healer is doing 5
[14:44] to 7% of a dungeon's damage, or heck,
[14:46] even 3% of the dungeon's damage, if you
[14:49] asked any DPS player, "Hey, would you
[14:51] bring an extra 3 to 7% damage every
[14:54] single time you ran a key?" They'd tell
[14:56] you, "Yeah, every single time." You
[14:58] really do affect things. And more
[15:00] importantly, there can be calculated for
[15:02] how much time save you do. Now, this is
[15:04] a little complicated, so I might make a
[15:06] whole video on this. It might just be a
[15:07] fun little side video, but you really do
[15:10] take multiple minutes off a timer,
[15:12] somewhere in the range of two, three,
[15:14] and even four minutes sometimes just
[15:16] because you contributed damage. If you
[15:18] ask yourself or ask any like top player
[15:20] how many runs have come down to the last
[15:22] couple of seconds, right? All of those
[15:24] runs could have been in the wheelhouse
[15:26] of how much damage the healer was able
[15:28] to do. So, always keep that in mind.
[15:30] Your damage is important, but if you're
[15:32] learning, again, learn how your damage
[15:34] works. Don't overthink it. You will find
[15:36] the free time to do some damage and get
[15:38] some kind of contribution in. Anything
[15:40] helps. Anything always
[15:43] helps. And for my final point of the
[15:45] video, and arguably maybe one of the
[15:47] most important, pugging in World of
[15:49] Warcraft is an entirely different game
[15:52] than playing coordinated. In a
[15:54] coordinated group, especially in Mythic
[15:55] Plus, you're going to be able to, you
[15:57] know, get your crowd controls off in
[15:59] exactly the order you want. You can all
[16:01] interrupt things and call what you're
[16:03] going to interrupt. You can use your
[16:04] cooldowns. Well, a good coordinated
[16:06] group makes a really hard key look
[16:09] trivial to the spectator. It's an
[16:11] awesome sight to see. And if you've
[16:12] watched any top players, you've probably
[16:14] seen the kind of stuff that they can do.
[16:16] When you're pugging, you lose all of
[16:18] that. There's no coordination. There's
[16:20] minimal coordination. If anything,
[16:22] people might not use their defensive
[16:24] smart. They might not know the dungeon
[16:25] as well as you. There's so many missing
[16:27] gaps of information. I still recommend
[16:30] pugging. I do it all the time. I think
[16:32] it makes you a really, really sharp
[16:34] healer. And I think that's pretty
[16:35] important. But on the contrary, when
[16:38] you're pugging, just remember that
[16:40] players can be mean. Players can be
[16:42] exceedingly nice. You might get a really
[16:44] good group and then followed by a really
[16:46] bad group. I don't want you to just
[16:48] immediately blame yourself or
[16:49] immediately blame others. Use the tools
[16:51] we talked about today, like checking
[16:52] details and looking through your logs
[16:55] and understanding what you could have
[16:56] done better. Even when you're new, you
[16:58] might not understand everything, but if
[17:00] you notice there was a button you never
[17:01] pressed the entire dungeon or you didn't
[17:04] get any value out of something, figure
[17:06] out where it might go and re-evaluate. I
[17:08] think I can make a whole video though
[17:10] talking about just how different this
[17:11] game is pugging than playing with like
[17:14] other people and kind of what that
[17:15] experience is like. But let me know in
[17:17] the comments if you want to see that.
[17:19] That's going to do it for this one,
[17:20] though. I hope the healing video helped.
[17:22] Sorry for the slow content. I've been
[17:24] just a bit busy, but with any luck, I
[17:26] should be getting more videos out. I'm
[17:27] going to try to make a few more
[17:28] beginners guides on other healers that
[17:30] I've been really enjoying. And uh I have
[17:32] this whole tank arc that you're all
[17:34] going to have to experience. So, I hope
[17:35] you're excited about that one. Take
[17:36] care, everyone. I'll see you soon.