The Innervate Wait

Hi. My name is Aoifen, and I have mana problems.

But that's a long story. First, let me give you a small update.

A new team

Remember a few weeks ago I said that I was looking to start raiding casually after patch 5.2? Well, after that post, I was contacted by a reader (Squee! You have no idea how happy that made me, Aceral!) and invited to go along to a farm raid with <Nessa and Friends> on Barthilas. 

I had been looking around at a few other options, but this invitation was welcome in several ways. Firstly, Aoifen is on Barthilas already, so no realm or faction transfers would be necessary. Secondly, Aoifen is my raid-ready toon - Leesah is waaay behind and would require some hard work to gear up. Lastly, Nessa and Friends are at a comfortable level of progression for me - they are working through Heart of Fear normal and only raid two nights a week, one of which is a farm night in Mogu'shan Vaults at the moment - perfect for my gear levels and current aspirations.

So, off I went! After a couple of raids with them I was convinced and bid a sad farewell to <Vitare> (who are kicking it in ToT heroics, by the way - go Vitare!) and joined <Nessa and Friends>. 

Big ugly bug

The mana problem

Raiding is everything I love about the game, and at the moment, even farm raids are progression to me so I'm loving it! There's just one problem - I have been constantly struggling for mana.

I use a Flask of Falling Leaves and reforge anything that doesn't have Spirit on it, but I still find myself, halfway through certain boss fights, with potions on cooldown and waiting desperately for the next Innervate to be available.

Why was I struggling so much? My gear level wasn't great, in the high 460s. I managed to replace a couple of items through LFR, but because I don't get a lot of time to play, the Valor Points come slowly so I haven't replaced as many items with VP gear as I'd like. 

I was fairly sure that gear wasn't the whole of the problem - there was something in my play style that was using up all my mana.

So, I did some digging. Here's some advice I collected that might help a newbie Tree with mana conservation:

Calm down. 

At first, I was having a bit of a panic in boss fights and healing anything that moved. My overhealing was probably massive! Don't forget that there is another healer or two there in a 10-man raid, so you can afford to consider who actually needs to be healed.

Know the fights, 

specifically when the high-damage phases are coming, so that you can conserve mana to spend then. If you are running low, at least try to keep enough mana for a Tranquility for when the raid leader screams it at you! I find using Tree of Life form a great way to regain a bit of mana while healing more, as you can sprinkle around Lifeblooms and make use of the Clearcasting procs for some instant Regrowths.

Innervate early.

Innervate gives back 20% of your own mana, so use it as soon as you get below 80%. The sooner it comes off cooldown, the sooner you can use it again. If you find yourself in the enviable position of being close to the end of the fight with lots of mana, see if any of your fellow healers would benefit from it!

Use Rejuvenation and Swiftmend.

Hots are still a Druid's best friend. I hadn't been using Rejuvenation all that much, preferring to use Regrowth as a flash heal. This is most likely where all my mana was going! Rejuvenation has just had its mana cost reduced, and Swiftmend is a relatively cheap heal with a built-in AOE component. Training myself to not use Regrowth so much has helped a lot.

Make use of Clearcasting.

Clearcasting procs come from Lifebloom ticks, so make sure you keep it rolling on the tank. You might like to take advantage of a Clearcasting to get a free Regrowth or Healing Touch.

Don't forget to macro your trinkets,

especially if you have a spirit one such as [Heartwarmer Medallion]. There's a guide as to how to make macros in Clique on my Macros page.

Make use of Ironbark and Barkskin.

The less damage you take, the less healing you have to do. Don't forget that you can cast Ironbark on other people. I'm still trying to remember to cast it on the tank in high-damage phases.

There's a lot to remember, but all it takes is practice to get a hang of it all. My thanks to Icy-veins.com and Restokin's guide for teaching me what my spells do these days!

I'm still setting up Weak Auras to help me with this stuff, so I'll try to post up some codes soon.

Please, if any other raiding Resto Druids read this and can offer advice on any of the information in this post, let me know!

Happy healing!

Restoration Gear List Updated for 4.3

The R&R Restoration Pre-Raid Gear List has been updated!

*Edit* The Balance Pre-Raid Gear List has also now been updated!

It now includes items that will be added to the game in patch 4.3 from Valor Points, Leatherworking and the three new 5-man Heroic dungeons.

The new raid, Dragon Soul, will have three difficulty levels - Heroic, Normal and Looking For Raid (LFR). The LFR items will have item levels 384 - 390 and will include Tier 13 gear. This post at MMO-Champion has a full list of Dragon Soul gear of all difficulties.

I decided to include the drops from Looking For Raid difficulty Dragon Soul in the gear list, as the LFR tool should make these items accessible to alts or non-regular raiders if you're willing to use it.

WTS Heals has a great post discussing many of the new items including trinkets.

Wowhead has an extensive list of all the gear from the new 5-man dungeons - End Time, Well of Eternity and Hour of Twilight.

Please remember that these items are still on the PTR and stats may change before the patch is released. I'll try to make sure they are up to date once the patch is live. I'm still working on the Balance version but it will be updated soon.

The items added to the gear list include:

Valor Points items (Horde/Alliance)

• Helmet of Perpetual Rebirth - 2200 VP 
• Threadlinked Chain - 1250 VP 
• Amulet of Burning Brilliance - 1250 VP 
• Woundlicker Cover - 1250 VP 
• Decaying Herbalist's Robes - 2200 VP 
• Luminescent Bracers - BoE , 1250 VP 
• Fungus-Born Gloves - 1250 VP 
• Belt of Universal Curing - 1650 VP 
• Boots of Fungoid Growth - BoE, 1650 VP 
• Band of Reconstruction - 1250 VP 
• Seal of the Grand Architect - 1250 VP 
• Lightning Spirit in a Bottle - 700 VP 
• Mindbender Lens - 700 VP 
• Bottled Wishes - 1650 VP 
• Reflection of the Light - 1650 VP 

Crafted

• Bracers of Flowing Serenity - Leatherworking BoE
• Leggings of Nature's Champion - Leatherworking BoE

New 5-man Dungeons

End Time:

• Timeway Headgear - End Time-H, Murozond
• Cord of Lost Hope - End Time-H, Echo of Jaina/Tyrande
• Boots of the Forked Road - Quest [Murozond], End Time
• Jaina's Staff - End Time-H, Echo of Jaina
• Chronicler's Chestguard - Quest [Documenting the Timeways], End Time

Well of Eternity:

• Spaulders of Eternity - Well of Eternity-H, Mannoroth
• Horned Band - Well of Eternity-H, Peroth'arn
• Orb of the First Satyrs - Well of Eternity-H, Peroth'arn
• Scepter of Azshara - Well of Eternity-H, Queen Azshara
• Foul Gift of the Demon Lord - Well of Eternity-H, Mannoroth (Int/mastery + proc)

Hour of Twilight:

• Cloak of Subtle Light - Hour of Twilight-H, Asira Dawnslayer
• Evergreen Wristbands - Hour of Twilight-H, Arcurion
• Leggings of Blinding Speed - Hour of Twilight-H, Asira Dawnslayer
• Signet of the Twilight Prophet - Quest [The Twilight Prophet] (Alliance only?), Hour of Twilight
• Ring of the Loyal Companion - Quest [To Wyrmrest!], Hour of Twilight
• Demonic Skull - Quest [The Path to the Dragon Soul] - quest chain begins with [The End Time](Alliance) or [The End Time] (Horde)
• Stalk of Corruption - Hour of Twilight-H, Archbishop Benedictus
• Fanged Tentacle - Hour of Twilight-H, Archbishop Benedictus

Looking For Raid Dragon Soul

Tier 13 tokens (LFR):

• Deep Earth Helm - Warmaster Blackhorn
• Deep Earth Mantle - Hagara
• Deep Earth Robes - Ultraxion
• Deep Earth Handwraps - Warlord Zon'ozz
• Deep Earth Legwraps - Yor'sahj the Unsleeping

Other drops:

• Petrified Fungal Heart - Morchok
• Mycosynth Wristguards - Morchok
• Girdle of Fungal Dreams - BoE, trash drop (?)
• Girdle of the Grotesque - Hagara
• Treads of Sordid Screams - Ultraxion
• Signet of Suturing - all bosses except Deathwing
• Ring of the Riven - Hagara
• Infinite Loop - all bosses except Deathwing
• Dragonfire Orb - trash drop?
• Ledger of Revolting Rituals - Ultraxion
• Ti'tahk, the Steps of Time - Madness of Deathwing
• Visage of the Destroyer - Warmaster Blackhorn
• Vagaries of Time - Morchok
• Scalpel of Unrelenting Agony - Yor'sahj the Unsleeping
• Maw of the Dragonlord - Madness of Deathwing
• Lightning Rod - Hagara
• Windward Heart - all bosses except Deathwing
• Seal of the Seven Signs - Warlord Zon'ozz
• Heart of Unliving - Spine of Deathwing 

Healing Power Auras Update

My Power Auras for Healing post is one of my most visited and it's been long overdue for an update.

I've added a couple, including my version of Beruthiel's Harmony aura. Enjoy!

Healing at High Latency

Last night, upon pronouncing myself to be bored with farming heroics on my lil Shaman, I decided I missed my Alliance characters and my old guildies.  So I reactivated my EU account.

I haven't played these characters since just before last Christmas. My two 80s have never seen the inside of ICC, and although my priest has gear from the ICC 5-man heroics, her gearscore is at that awkward 4700 phase - the one where no-one will take you to an ICC pug, but you really need Frost Emblems to upgrade your gear.

I probably won't actually play these chars much - it was more to drop in to say hi to my old guildies, but I thought while I was there I might as well do a random. So after I'd pummelled my UI back into shape, I queued up for a heroic.  It was Halls of Stone (twitch).

My Nelf Druid (who used to be my "main" alt) doesn't even have Tier 9 pieces yet, so I thought I might chuck her in a heroic too. I didn't really do any healing with her from here before since I was terrified of the latency, but since last night it was only about 550ms I thought I'd give it a go.

Even though 550ms does mean a bit more red on the cast bar than I'm used to, I forgot that the server I'm dealing with is in Paris, which (sadly) is pretty much on the exact other side of the Earth. The average latency may be 550ms, but the actual data is subject to all sorts of laggy problems anywhere along the wires in between.  As you can well imagine, that makes for some pretty hairy healing moments at times. Add to that low levels of haste and a tank who likes to pull all the mobs before Eadric in one go, and you have a stressed tree!  Thankfully we got through it with only the loss of a Rogue.

So... healing with high latency.  The main thing I can recommend is - be prepared. Most people have done all the content many times over by now - you may already have a fair idea of which bosses hit hard, or deal party-wide damage. If not, it will take practice.

For Druids, if mana is not a problem, keep the party hot-ed up. If you can, preempt party damage with a Wild Growth, but not too early because the first tick is the strongest. Keep a Regrowth ticking on the tank, and spam Nourish if you need to - hopefully that will cover lag spikes.

Other classes can follow the same sorts of guidelines - if you can cast HoTs, keep one on the tank. The rest is about predicting where the damage goes, and a whole lot of luck.

The hardest part about the whole thing is at lower levels of gear when mana is scarce. Then it becomes a balancing act between keeping everyone alive and trying not to run out of mana. Come Cataclysm, it's sounding like mana management is going to be much more important. Healing at high latency may just not be possible for much longer.

Shaman Healing - an Update

My Shaman healing apprenticeship has been progressing slowly as I heal a few dungeons when I can.

I had a bit of a break from healing for a few days after a particularly nasty Nexus run where I failed several times on Keristrasza and ended up dropping group with my tail between my legs. I just kept running out of mana, the dps wouldn't move to drop the debuff, and it was generally not much fun.

I decided to wait until I picked up a few more quest pieces with either mp5 or an upgrade in Intellect for the juicy manas. Once I did that, I got through a couple of Old Kingdom and Azjol Nerub runs without too much trouble, so I've got my confidence back again.

At the moment my healing seems to go like this:

• Keep Poo Shield Earth Shield on the tank at all times.  I have Grid set up to show me how many charges remain with a dot that changes colour.  
• Chuck a bucket of water Riptide on anyone who takes moderate amounts of damage.
• Try not to spam heal with Lesser Healing Wave - I think this is what was running me out of mana before. Wait a bit longer until Healing Wave is worth it, if there's enough time to cast it.
• Use Jesus Beams Chain Heal sparingly - and not at all if less than three people are going to be healed by it. 

I'm still trying to work out the sequencing a bit - spells that are improved by others. This list is partly for my own reference!

• A Chain Heal cast on a target with Riptide on them will be increased in effectiveness by 25%.
• I have Tidal Force macro'd to Lesser Healing Wave along with my trinkets. Tidal Force increases the crit chance of Healing Wave, Lesser Healing Wave and Chain Heal.
• Tidal Waves procs from Riptide or Chain Heal. It lowers the cast time of Healing Wave by 30% and increases the crit chance of Lesser Healing Wave, for the next two casts of either of those spells. It also increases the amount of healing done for both.

It's all still a bit of a juggling act, but I'm getting it under control gradually. I'm sure learning to Druid heal wasn't this complex!

As before, please feel free to comment with any advice you have, or let me know if I got something wrong or left anything out.

I healed on my Shaman... and I liked it

After a couple of days of nice relaxing holiday, yesterday it was time to make up for some Wow time. My Shaman, Balindah, is now level 72 and the queue times as dps seem to have skyrocketed, so I decided to buy her a second spec and try out healing.

I had been picking up a few bits and pieces of off-spec spellpower gear through the early Northrend quests and it turned out I almost have a complete set of spellpower kit, even if some of it is leather or cloth.  As you can see in the picture, she looks like a bit of a clown in it, but there's time.

I had a quick crash course in Shaman healing from my husband, who played a Resto Shaman in a previous incarnation, and dived into Utgarde Keep. No-one died which was nice, but my goodness, isn't mana a problem! I remember having mana problems early on with my druid, but I don't think it was this bad.  Thankfully the tank noticed when I needed mana so I was able to stop and drink, but the next dungeon I tried healing was Azjol Nerub and I ended up using Mana Tide totem every time it was available.

Perhaps I've become used to the one-second GCD and Nourish casts on my Druid but the Shaman just seemed a lot... slower. Chain Heal, which is the only AOE heal Shamans have, takes forever to cast at 2.5 seconds, especially when there's party damage.

I am enjoying trying out healing on a different class, but are there any Resto Shaman out there who might offer some advice on how to be more mana efficient?

The rest of the day was made less stressful by playing with some baby murlocs. Squee!

Setting up a Healing UI

There was a bit of talk around a few weeks back about using addons for healing, and whether they are necesary. I believe Codi began, then Tam and Chas were involved, and also Miss Medicina (I'm sure there were more as well).

Now, I don't really want to join the debate as to whether using addons makes you a bad or lazy healer. I use addons to make the stressful job of healing, easier. Would I still heal if all the addons were broken tomorrow?  Probably - I enjoy healing, and people learn fast, we adapt to new situations. Until that day though, I remain an addon fan.

When I healed on my first Druid, far away and long ago before dual specs were invented, I used Healbot.  It suited my purposes, but I never really got on with it - it was too big, in the wrong place, and there were things I wanted it to do that I couldn't work out how to.

When I started playing Leesah, I decided to try Grid + Clique. I had already used Clique before and knew how versatile it was, and armed with a couple of good guides (there are plenty out there now!) setting Grid up wasn't too much of a hassle and I found it suited my purposes almost out of the box anyway!

Setting Up
The picture at the top of the post is my current healing UI. Yes, it's in Halls of Stone, because I get that place Every. Single. Day.  Random my foot.

The main thing I was aiming for when setting up this UI was to have the most important information visible and as close to the centre of the screen as possible.

The important information includes:

• Unit frames (Grid + Pitbull for self and target)
• Cooldown information (power auras)
• Decursive
• Cast bar (Quartz)

Any other information was moved to the edges of the screen where it wouldn't get in the way.

The Addons

The main healing-related addons visible in the image include the following:

• Grid - In 25 mans this does expand down over the map, but I mostly raid 10-man so it works fine for me.
• GridSideIndicators
• GridStatusHots
• GridStatusRaidIcons
  


• Clique - Sets click-bindings to spells that will cast when you mouse-over a unit frame.


• Pitbull4 - Self, Target and ToT always visible. Party frames are only visible in 5-mans, not in a raid. I should really turn them off in 5-mans, I don't really have any good reason why they're there!


• Quartz cast bar


• Power Auras Classic - You can read all about my power aura settings on my page about Power Auras for Healing.


• GCD - the green circle appears when I cast and helps me to see when the Global CoolDown is up. This can also be used in place of a cast bar.


• Decursive - The little squares to the left of the screen light up when a party member has a removable debuff. I could set the Abolish Poison and Remove Curse up in Grid/Clique, but I prefer them separate.


• Mik's Scrolling Combat Text is only really on because I use it for Balance spec. I should turn the heals off to be honest, I never look at the numbers... /makes note to self.


• Bartender4 for buttons.

If you have any questions about setup or any of these addons, please either comment or email me! You are most welcome to leave feedback as well.

Resources

• Setting up Grid - Murloc Parliament has many posts about the subject!
• Setting up Grid - Keeva shows us how to track HoTs in Grid.
• Power Auras for Healing
• Clique - Spell Ranks in Clique and Using Macros in Clique.

Guest Post: Healing with Vudho

Today's post is a special guest post from Qieth from Qieth's Quips. I've written a guest post for his blog too, so go check it out!

Out of all the druid specs, restoration is probably my least favorite. It is not something that I would willingly spec into. Some people like healing, some people like tanking, some like to DPS. And it is very clear that I don't really like healing.

But alas, there came a time when my guild master causiously approached me. He knew about my reservations towards restoration, of course, for I had made sure everyone did. We had a talk regarding "if I could find a suitable offspec, because we didn't really need any feral offspecs" and I had to agree with the fact that, "Yes, once in a while another resto druid would be useful". So after making him swear on his son, signed on a contract with his own blood, that I would only have to do occasional healing, I took it upon me to learn how to heal.

And here's the thing. DPS'ing can be difficult, my any means. You need to know what to do. Being a moonkin is not the hardest spec to play, but it is certainly not the easiest. It does not compare - at all - to the difficulty of playing any healer class. And I am never one to do something half. I cannot accept being "alright". Good enough is not good enough.

After reading up on restoration, and gathering gear more fitting for the spec, I still felt that there was something missing. My grid, despite its ability to show little marks if my target had a HOT on it, didn't quite seem to cut it. It certainly didn't give me the control and overview that I needed to do my job. So I set out to find an addon that did. That addon is called Vuhdo.

Vuhdo is a raid frame made specifically for healers. Sure, DPS classes can use it as well, and I have grown quite fond of it, but it really shines in the hands of a healer. Vuhdo looks and works like many other raid frames. You have your 10-25 members. You see their health, mana and who has aggro. You can see incoming heals - I guess this is all pretty much standard.

But it is the amount of control that you get with Vuhdo that I really enjoy. Vuhdo lets you easely bind your spells to your mouse buttons, and have them act like a mouseover macro. You could have rejuvination on left click, wild growth on right click, and regrowth, nourish, life bloom, swiftmend and healing touch, as well as any other ability for that matter, on whatever mouse button or keyboard button you want. Now, you could probably get much of the same functionality if you combine Grid with Clique, and there are probably many other addons that can do this as well, but this is a build in functionality of Vuhdo.

I can target someone and heal them normally, or I can use my mouse buttons to throw any sort of spell without ever touching my keyboard, and without ever losing my real target. That is always nice. This is very easy to set up, and it offers a lot of customization. Heck, I can even set it to only do this when I am in my restoration spec, and give a different functionality when I am specced for balance. Maybe - when I am balance - I would rather have that my right clicks on the raid frame threw out an innervate, and left click was for combat resses. All of this can be customized depending on spec, button and your personal preferences.

For restoration druids, it is important that we know the status of our HOTs. Vuhdo is an expert in showing this, as it will give us little indicators for each of our HOTs. A red mark at the side shows my regrowth. A blue mark tells me that the target has a rejuvination on it. A yellow mark at the top shows the status of lifeblooms, and even how many of them that are on the target - it turns green when I have stacked lifebloom to three. And when these HOTs are about to run out, I will get a little timer inside of them, telling me excactly when this HOT will fall off.

Vuhdo has a lot of options, but it generally works "out of the box" with little need to change and correct. But it is when you get down and dirty that you can really have a lot of fun. One of the most awesome features I have found - especially when playing a healer - is the indication of raid buffs and debuff. Any raid buff or debuff. I could, for example, set it to show any PW:Shields on any target in the raid, with the actual buff icon, and also with a little timer. Or I could have it show stacks of Unstable Magic during Sindragosa, or Vile Gas from Rotface. I can see other peoples heals, my innervates, other peoples innervates or maybe use it to coordinate my wild growth with that of other restoration druids.

It is truly an amazingly fun addon to use. It gives me a lot of control, it gives me a great overview, and it does what it has to do - and so much more. Grid might work for you. Or maybe you're using nUI. Pitbull? The standard interface? Whatever your current favorite is, I urge you to try out Vuhdo, give it a spin for a few raids, try out the many functionalities. It is truly the epiphany of raid frames for healing.

Download Vuhdo here!  http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/vuhdo.aspx

Resto in the Seventies

No, this post isn't about bad hair and bell-bottoms (although Druids are pretty good at flower-power).

The new Cataclysm Beta build today brought with it the new 31-point talent trees, and they've already been posted up on MMO-Champion *Caution - Spoilers*. Since I'm not involved in Beta testing, I'm going to leave it to the experts like Lissanna at Restokin - check out her comprehensive coverage of the Beta changes, if you like spoilers.

But back to the live game.  There are likely to be at least two months before Cataclysm is released - probably more. In that time, there will be new or long-neglected alts being played, including Druids.

I know this because I recently received an email from a Druid called Avawynn:

I am now a level 71 Night Elf Druid with duel spec, Feral/Restro. I haven't played in a few months and now that I am back I feel lost?? I want to get back into the mode of healer, but I can't remember what is efficient and how I should go about healing again in dungeons. I have my tree of life form and I have my restoration spec filled out with all the necessary talents. Please help me :) I need my confidence restored. 

I have already replied to Avawynn (I love getting emails!) but I figure that during this lull before Cataclysm, there are some new Druid healers coming up through the seventies who might find a primer useful. So here we go.

Talents
Let's start with the basics. I'll assume that you either have Restoration as your main spec, or you have dual specs of which one is Resto, like Avawynn.

Your talent tree at level 70 might look something like this: 10/0/51 or it might look slightly different - either way I'll assume you have enough points in Restoration to take Tree of Life and Wild Growth or are very close to it.

Another option is if you are using the Glyph of Healing Touch to give yourself a fast heal before you learn Nourish at level 80. You could re-distribute the points to boost Healing Touch like this: 10/0/51.

Glyphs
At level 70 we have two major glyph slots available. The most useful glyphs for Resto at this stage are most likely [Glyph of Swiftmend] and [Glyph of Regrowth], unless you are boosting Healing Touch as mentioned above - then the Regrowth glyph can be replaced with [Glyph of Healing Touch].

Spells
In the early 70s healing can be difficult. You may get tanks who don't have all their tanking abilities yet, and who are possibly new to tanking. This means you are more likely to get damage all around the party as dps pull aggro or extra mobs that the tank isn't ready for.

Generally speaking:

• Keep Rejuvenation on the tank at all times. Don't clip the last tick.
• Top up with Regrowth when required
• Swiftmend if you need a big boost on a HoT-ed target
• Wild Growth if the whole party is taking damage. Wild Growth can be tricky if your party is spread out a lot - see if you can work out who to cast it on so that it hits as many people as it can in its radius of 15 yards. 
• Remember to heal yourself too!

At level 80, you will learn Nourish, which is our "flash-heal" spell. As I mentioned already, before level 80 you could try using Healing Touch with the Glyph of Healing Touch, which drops the cast speed and mana cost. This makes it a faster heal than Regrowth, but you don't get the HoT component. At level 80 the Glyph would be replaced by something else and you would start using Nourish as your "flash heal" type spell instead.

I personally don't use Lifebloom at all these days, except in very situational encounters - I think Rejuvenation is a more mana-efficient HoT to be using, even with the mana return.  Other druids may disagree, so make sure you experiment with different things to see what works best for you.

I think the best advice I could give is: Don't Panic!  Tranquility makes a great panic button, but it will eat your mana so use it sparingly.

Don't forget to Innervate yourself before you actually run out of mana if you can.

Gear
As you quest and dungeon your way to level 80, try to pick up Spellpower/Haste gear rather than Spellpower/Crit gear if you can. Generally the more haste you have, the more heals you can get out there. There's nothing to stop you wearing cloth gear in your healing set :)

I'm planning another post containing a guide to some of the dungeon and quest gear that's available along the way.

Addons
Healing in stressful situations is so much easier if you have raidframes + clickbind addons. Some suggestions are:

• Healbot Continued
• VuhDo
• Injector + Clique
• Grid + Clique (not recommended for addon beginners)

In Conclusion
If you're reading blogs then there's a good chance you're most of the way towards being a great healer :) Just relax, keep the tank and yourself alive and you've done your job. Practice makes perfect so keep healing! You can give yourself a branchy pat on the back of your trunk now :)

Further Reading

• My Resto Cheat Sheet is a quick reference to the information you need at level 80
• Resto Guide at Tree Bark Jacket
• Healing Guide Levels 40 - 80 at Restokin
• Injector - An Overview on Jaded Alt
• Setting up Grid on Tree Bark Jacket
• Setting up Grid for numerous purposes - Murloc Parliament - search for grid!

Shared Topic: Heal priorities

This week's Blog Azeroth shared topic was suggested by Ecclesiastical Discipline:

Where do you draw the line on shifting the priority of someone's heals down (or refusing to heal them all together)? Is it if they upset you personally? If they are consistently standing in the fire? If they have lame dps? If they aren't managing their aggro? If they go afk for fifteen minutes in the middle of a boss fight? Is it only when it's jeopardizing the entire group's success? I believe there is a point for every healer, but where does the gray area fall? Does anyone really heal the jerk who is offensive and stands in fire when there is anyone else who needs healing?

In general, I'm a calm and reasonable player. I wasn't always like that - when I first started raiding I was one of those people who would get extremely frustrated every wipe, although I never told anyone off for being crap (out loud, anyway). Nowadays, people who rage in raids make me giggle.

When healing, I do always try to keep everyone alive, even if they are being a complete idiot. I think it's just an automatic reaction to the health bars dropping.

There are a few situations, however, where I feel it's alright to let someone die.

1. Everyone is taking damage.
In this situation, keeping the tank (or my heal assignment) and myself alive is the priority.  I will throw Wild Growth out when it's available, but my casts are going into the tank if heavy damage is going on.

2. If a dps and I are taking damage.
I often forget this until it's too late, but as a healer taking damage, your priority should be yourself. If you're not alive, no-one gets any healing! Unless of course you have one of those very situationally-aware hybrids in your group who can pop a few off-heals to get you through.

3. If dps pulls aggro.
This really depends on whether they are melee or ranged. Melee - not much you can do, they are often dead before you can get a heal off, especially in a raid situation. With ranged dps you can sometimes heal them through it until they can use Iceblock/Fade/Feign Death, or until the tank can taunt. Sometimes, not.  I never feel too bad about letting them die, just as if I pull when I'm dps, I don't blame the healers for my death.

4. If the damage is coming in so fast, there's no time to get a heal in.
Sometimes you can tell that someone is taking damage so fast, there's no time to get a cast in to save them. This may actually come at the same time as point number 3. For this situation, I have a "holy shit" macro that combines Nature's Swiftness with Healing Touch. I usually save this for tanks who are getting low on health, but it is great for saving dps if you can get in quick enough. (I really should macro in the "/y oh shit oh shit!" part a la Gnomeaggedon)

There is one situation when I will purposely not heal to prove a point.

5. When someone else other than the tank purposely pulls.
This really annoys me. I will usually warn whoever it is, usually a hunter misdirecting or a DK yoinking mobs in - the next time you pull before the tank, I'm not healing you.  They generally get the picture.  A few accuse me of being grumpy or whatever. Pulling and generally setting the pace is the tank's job in my opinion, since they're the ones getting hit (usually). Stfu, and let them do their job.

The nice thing about Druids, of course, is that we have our combat resurrection - Rebirth. With a macro for Nature's Swiftness, it's instant cast.  If you do lose someone and if it's safe to do so, it doesn't take much to get them back up again while the fight's still on.  Just make sure you heal them like crazy once they accept the res, or you might lose them again.

#showtooltip Rebirth
/cast Nature's Swiftness
/stopmacro [nohelp,nodead]
/run c="Resurrecting %t"if UnitInRaid("player")then SendChatMessage(c, "RAID")elseif GetNumPartyMembers()>0 then SendChatMessage(c, "PARTY")end
/cast Rebirth

Find more macro info on my new shiny Macro page!

A Good Night's Work

My guild went to ICC-10 tonight and they had a spare spot for me!  I was so excited! In the end we only ended up wiping on Festergut and Rotface a few times but it was really nice to see a new place with my new guildies and also get started on that Ashen rep.

After the raid was called the group decided to go and do Sarth 3D, so Leesah became of the Nightfall.  How's this for achievement spam?

I then discovered I only needed Heroic Halls of Lightning for the Champion of the Frozen Wastes title, so off we went to get two titles in one night.

And to finish off, I now have the four-piece Tier 9 set, so all in all, a satisfying night's work.

Tree Gets Mad: A Pug's Tale

This is a story about a pug of randoms.  Yes, it's one of those stories. 

I'm not normally one to get mad at people - I'm usually pretty forgiving. But last night, my patience was tested to the limit.

Scene: Heroic Forge of Souls. In the corridor leading to the final boss, there are a number of ghosty mobs that hit the whole party like a truck. We went in, attacking one. There's another one outside the door behind us - it gets pulled by accident. We wipe - no biggie, we just need to take the mob outside first.

When we get back in there and get going again, the tank just runs into the tunnel again, leaving the mob outside.  The DPS warrior gets all funny about it and says something like "wtf are you stupid?".  The rest of us just run well inside the tunnel and keep attacking the mob in front of us.  

Then, the DPS warrior runs back out of the tunnel and picks up the mob outside.  Meanwhile, the rest of the group are attacking the next mob towards the boss - all I knew was that the warrior was taking damage somewhere outside my range.  I didn't realise what the idiot had done until he says in party chat, "HEAL!".

Now I consider myself a reasonable person, but people telling me to do my job when I am clearly already doing it really makes my blood boil.  It's probably a good thing that this guy couldn't hear the names I was calling him.  This time I just managed to heal through the two mobs and we didn't wipe (adrenaline?), but I was so pissed off afterwards that I told him exactly where to go.  A vote to kick was initiated, but since we were right near the final boss anyway, it wasn't worth it so I just said no, and we just killed the boss and left. I didn't record anyone's names, because I was so mad I logged over to my mage to throw spells at stuff for a while.

I vented my spleen on gchat and on Twitter about it, and most people's reactions to it were along the lines of, "Should have just stopped healing him then - let him die." At the time it had occurred to me that I could have just let him die, but I didn't. I thought about why I had kept healing - I guess it must be that as a healer, I'd feel like I hadn't done my job properly if I let someone die, even if that person was a total asshat.  I honestly didn't really think about it at the time, only later once I read everyone else's reactions.

Why are healers so vindictive?  Is it because we have the power to keep someone alive, so if they make us mad we use that to our advantage? Did I, by choosing to keep the asshat alive, decide to use that power for good rather than evil? Do we feel like we need to teach the idiot dps a lesson?

Would YOU have let the asshat die?

Power Auras for Healing

Updated 1/9/2011

Do you have an addon that you would feel lost without?  That you would feel like one of your senses was missing, like you had the sound effects turned off or something?

Power Auras Classic is such an addon for me.  I use it on all my toons.  It feeds me essential information about all sorts of stuff.

A little while ago I posted about my power auras for Moonkin. I thought I'd go through the process I used to create auras for healing.  These auras are for my Resto Druid, but they could be tweaked for any class's spells.

My first post about Power Auras shows some of the basic settings if you would like to make your own rather than importing mine.

At the end of the post I've listed a few links to how other healers are using Power Auras, to share a few more ideas, and make sure you check out the Power Auras Wiki for loads of information and ideas for every class.

Planning your Auras
Think about all the spells you use and which of them you'd like to keep track of. 

• Are there buffs are that you need to keep track of while out of combat?  Eg. Mark of the Wild, Paladin auras, food, flasks...
• Buffs while in combat? Eg. Nature's Grace, Clearcasting
• Debuffs in combat for specific fights?
• Cooldowns to keep track of?  Eg. Swiftmend, Nature's Swiftness, Wild Growth
• Is there a proc that could happen that means you need to fire off another spell to take advantage?
• Do you have a macro that is only available under certain conditions?  
• Notification for when you're low on health and/or mana?

Display
How would you like the aura displayed? 

• When the spell is available or unavailable (for the duration of the cooldown)? 
• A circular aura around your toon, or an icon that shows in an easily-visible location?
• Would you like the aura to have a timer?  Or to be a timer? (there doesn't have to be an icon at all!)

Location
The location of the auras is very important because you need to be able to see them easily in a combat situation, but not have them get in your way.  Make sure once you have made a few that you turn them all on to make sure none are covering others up.

My Healing Auras
Everyone likes their notifications in different ways, but I like to show auras around my toon for when my major spells are on cooldown, so that I can tell at a glace what is available for casting.

I've found colours are very important to me. I will easily forget what an indicator is for, unless it is coloured the same as the spell.  For example, I made my Swiftmend aura blue like the spell icon, to help me recognise that Swiftmend is on cooldown, even though I don't even have Swiftmend on my bars anywhere.  Don't ask me why that works, but it does.

So, here are the auras that I am currently using.  You can import them directly into PowA by opening the menu with /powa, then clicking "Import" and copying and pasting the import string.



Mark of the Wild / Blessing of Kings
The icon shows when I do not have Mark of the Wild or Blessing of Kings on me.

Version:4.22; b:0.8667; g:0.5137; icon:Spell_Nature_Regeneration; buffname:Mark of the Wild/blessing of kings; x:1; texture:29; alpha:0.8; PowerType:0; size:0.32; y:107; texmode:1; inverse:true

Wild Growth
Shows after I cast Wild Growth, and disappears when the 6 sec cooldown finishes.

Version:4.22; b:0.3804; icon:Ability_Druid_Flourish; buffname:Wild Growth; r:0.1608; bufftype:15; texture:17; size:1.51; y:-1; texmode:1; inverse:true

Swiftmend
Shows while Swiftmend is on cooldown.

Version:4.22; g:0.6078; icon:INV_Relics_IdolofRejuvenation; buffname:Swiftmend; r:0.0627; bufftype:15; texture:23; size:0.88; texmode:1; inverse:true

Nature's Swiftness
Shows while Nature's Swiftness is on cooldown.  I use Nature's Swiftness as part of a couple of macros. You can read about them in my Macros page.

Version:4.22; b:0.1725; icon:Spell_Nature_RavenForm; buffname:Nature's Swiftness; r:0.0824; bufftype:15; texture:28; alpha:0.45; inParty:true; size:1.19; texmode:1; inverse:true

Nature's Grace
This aura is shared with Balance spec, and shows when Nature's Grace procs.  It helps me catch up with the rhythm of faster cast times.

Version:4.22; b:0.1412; icon:Spell_Nature_NaturesBlessing; buffname:Nature's Grace; r:0.2431; texture:16; PowerType:0; texmode:1

Clearcasting
Also shared with Balance spec, this aura shows Clearcasting procs so that I can decide to cast Regrowth or a mana-expensive heal.

Version:4.22; icon:Spell_Shadow_ManaBurn; buffname:Clearcasting; texture:4; size:1.09; texmode:1

* New* - Low Mana Indicator
Shows when mana is below 50%.

Version:4.22; g:0.8078; icon:inv_elemental_primal_mana; r:0.0863; bufftype:10; texture:70; PowerType:0; combat:true; size:0.45; y:-111; texmode:1

* New* - Harmony
The Restoration Mastery, Harmony, requires a direct healing spell to be cast every ten seconds. This combination of two auras shows a rotating circle if the buff is not present, then a countdown while the buff is present. The circle will only show while in combat.  I totally stole these two auras from Beruthiel, and made them bigger. Thanks Beru!

No Harmony (circle spins)
Version:4.22; b:0.1686; anim1:11; icon:Spell_Nature_HealingWay; buffname:Harmony; r:0.0667; x:-160; texture:142; alpha:1; mine:true; combat:true; size:0.44; y:-13; texmode:1; inverse:true

Harmony countdown
Version:4.22; b:0.1686; icon:Spell_Nature_HealingWay; buffname:Harmony; r:0.0667; x:-160; texture:142; alpha:1; mine:true; size:0.44; y:-13; texmode:1; timer.h:1.73; timer.enabled:true; timer.cents:false; timer.y:-14; timer.x:-160






More Ideas for Powa

• Jasyla at Cannot be Tamed
• Garnaph at Restokin (all Druid specs)
• Keeva at Tree Bark Jacket
• Kae at Dreambound Druid
• Restodude's Auras
• Beruthiel at Falling Leaves and Wings
• Leveling Holy (paladin + some raid auras)
• Kahiaau at Green Bar Spec (all healing classes)
• Life in Group 5 (shaman)
• Planet of the Hats (shaman)
• Holy Nova Now (disc priest)
• Spot Heal (disc priest)