09-08-2006, 05:55 PM
For me as a paladin healer the choice got very simple.
EVERYONE in a raid can, if they want to, do more DPS than me. Priests don't believe me, but even without gear and talents smite is a 157 DPS spell. OK there will be some resists and such but there will be crits too. I can't do 157 DPS on my paladin in a raid even when I'm trying right now. And when I try I do actually start to suck my mana since it requires me to judge and reseal every 8 seconds.
That means that nothing is a better use of my mana than healing (OK judging and curing too). I actually quite like it when warlocks tap in combat when I'm on FFA healing because it means I know that I just turned that much more of my mana into DPS. I feel the same way when I heal a rogue or mage, I feel I just helped the raid tank when I heal a warrior. But with a warlock it's a bit different because they tapped, becuase they did the damage to themselves it's much more of a direct translation of my mana just became your mana you can do so many good tasty frothy killy things with it that I can't. :)
On my druid I would toss a HoT at the warlocks out of combat. Between combat I will heal them and try to do it before they can bandage. Two reasons. One they may need to tap and bandage in combat and there is a possibility that with the speed of pulling and stuff that they may need that bandage timer cleared sooner (I watch the recently bandaged debuff and I watch for HoTs when healing as well) than this will allow.
I can't say a tank has died because I healed a warlock. If I'm assigned to heal an MT I don't heal other people out of combat and if I heal anyone else during combat it has to be a good reason for me to not be healing that MT. That is what the FFA healers are for, to heal everyone else using their judgement. As an FFA healer if I start at 95% mana it doesn't matter I'm not likely to be healing before I'm at 100% anyway, as FFA I'll heal locks. If it is just before a boss fight the warlock should have tapped sooner (tap right at the end of combat not just before combat....) so yeah they probably won't get healed and I'll slap them if they bandage while the pull is happening too. Hi don't do things that cause aggro at bad times, K thanks.
Now for more full disclosure.
I have a 56 warlock. In instances I tend to drink between combat if others are drinking. I tap and eat + drink if it is just me. Of course I do a lot of just 1 tap at a time. Being at full health isn't optimal for my regen. Since I don't look at my life as just life I look at it as base life + extra mana I don't mind being down 500-1000 health. If I wanted that as base health I would wear more stam or more int gear. :) But with how much better my health regen is thanks to gear and talents I OOC regen what I view as a single bar faster if I'm down on both. So I do a little tap here and a little tap there all the time. It generally keeps me under the healer radar and I'm fine. Especially if I have a pet out since I'm still demonologist I have soul link up which means I'm taking 30% less damage as is (putting my DR up there around a mail wearer with a shield). Even at L56 I can still be doing nearly 200 DPS while draining life as well. Sure drain isn't as much DPS as shadow bolts but it beats the wand. But that is just some personal notes from the odd way I play a lock (and since I took a resto druid, a protection paladin, a beastmaster hunter, and a retrib/holy paladin from 1 to 60 before the lock and then turned the druid feral, the hunter marks, and the paladin full holy I might have a different outlook). But so far the warlock has had survivability on par with the hunter. Both were behind the paladin. However the warlock survives and gets to kill the mobs that were a problem pretty quickly. The hunter survives but has to start the fight over. The paladin survives but doesn't hurt the adds at all. The warrior is the most likely to die. The druid is in between. But the warlock when you combine survivability with killing and killing speed is looking to just pwn all my other 60's.
EVERYONE in a raid can, if they want to, do more DPS than me. Priests don't believe me, but even without gear and talents smite is a 157 DPS spell. OK there will be some resists and such but there will be crits too. I can't do 157 DPS on my paladin in a raid even when I'm trying right now. And when I try I do actually start to suck my mana since it requires me to judge and reseal every 8 seconds.
That means that nothing is a better use of my mana than healing (OK judging and curing too). I actually quite like it when warlocks tap in combat when I'm on FFA healing because it means I know that I just turned that much more of my mana into DPS. I feel the same way when I heal a rogue or mage, I feel I just helped the raid tank when I heal a warrior. But with a warlock it's a bit different because they tapped, becuase they did the damage to themselves it's much more of a direct translation of my mana just became your mana you can do so many good tasty frothy killy things with it that I can't. :)
On my druid I would toss a HoT at the warlocks out of combat. Between combat I will heal them and try to do it before they can bandage. Two reasons. One they may need to tap and bandage in combat and there is a possibility that with the speed of pulling and stuff that they may need that bandage timer cleared sooner (I watch the recently bandaged debuff and I watch for HoTs when healing as well) than this will allow.
I can't say a tank has died because I healed a warlock. If I'm assigned to heal an MT I don't heal other people out of combat and if I heal anyone else during combat it has to be a good reason for me to not be healing that MT. That is what the FFA healers are for, to heal everyone else using their judgement. As an FFA healer if I start at 95% mana it doesn't matter I'm not likely to be healing before I'm at 100% anyway, as FFA I'll heal locks. If it is just before a boss fight the warlock should have tapped sooner (tap right at the end of combat not just before combat....) so yeah they probably won't get healed and I'll slap them if they bandage while the pull is happening too. Hi don't do things that cause aggro at bad times, K thanks.
Now for more full disclosure.
I have a 56 warlock. In instances I tend to drink between combat if others are drinking. I tap and eat + drink if it is just me. Of course I do a lot of just 1 tap at a time. Being at full health isn't optimal for my regen. Since I don't look at my life as just life I look at it as base life + extra mana I don't mind being down 500-1000 health. If I wanted that as base health I would wear more stam or more int gear. :) But with how much better my health regen is thanks to gear and talents I OOC regen what I view as a single bar faster if I'm down on both. So I do a little tap here and a little tap there all the time. It generally keeps me under the healer radar and I'm fine. Especially if I have a pet out since I'm still demonologist I have soul link up which means I'm taking 30% less damage as is (putting my DR up there around a mail wearer with a shield). Even at L56 I can still be doing nearly 200 DPS while draining life as well. Sure drain isn't as much DPS as shadow bolts but it beats the wand. But that is just some personal notes from the odd way I play a lock (and since I took a resto druid, a protection paladin, a beastmaster hunter, and a retrib/holy paladin from 1 to 60 before the lock and then turned the druid feral, the hunter marks, and the paladin full holy I might have a different outlook). But so far the warlock has had survivability on par with the hunter. Both were behind the paladin. However the warlock survives and gets to kill the mobs that were a problem pretty quickly. The hunter survives but has to start the fight over. The paladin survives but doesn't hurt the adds at all. The warrior is the most likely to die. The druid is in between. But the warlock when you combine survivability with killing and killing speed is looking to just pwn all my other 60's.
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It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.