How do you heal uncoordinated groups?

[Brista]

I play a lot in pickup groups where tactics are not discussed or even considered, everyone just charges to the nearest monster and does damage.

Now I'm actually not too down on those groups, it's fast, fun and the penalty for dying in this game is trivial

I've been experimenting with different healing strategies

What I've found with other healers: shamans, paladins, even many druids very rarely will heal without being specifically asked to if someone else is main healing.

I'm coming to the following tactical approach: never heal a healer. In a party with warrior, rogue, shaman, druid and me (druid) I just healed the first two and myself and I found it much more effective in terms of aggro management than my usual Main Healer role. I almost crumbled when the shaman was down to 17% life but he jumped around a bit, shook off his aggro, healed himself

This is an experimental tactic for me, I've only done it in 3 groups so far

Interestingly no one has complained. I felt almost guilty about trying it but I'm beginning to feel that it's a much more effective role than the traditional main healer role in a group where no one wants to hold aggro

Clearly if you play with the same people a lot you can evolve a more traditional main tank - main healer partnership, but it seems quite a good technique for pickup groups from a limited survey

[Kevin]

In a pick-up group where there are no plans it means you probably have a group of 5 people who are playing solo in the same area. In that case yeah, other healers will generally just heal themselves and if you have one healer who takes care of the non healers you are cutting out down time. At least that is how I feel an uncoordinated group will look at it.

I think I would still try the route of education and see if you can get some tactics and plans giong, but I realize that can get tiring and tedious work. So yeah, I don't see your method really hurting anyone. I personally would probably let the other know what is going on and if I'm doing the majority of the healing I would have still healed that shaman but pick-up groups are just a whole different beast and you just go with what seems to be working.

[Xanthix]

I think it depends what your pickup group is trying to do. If it's not too challenging, then it's probably easier to let the hybrid classes heal themselves, and backup the melee and DPS people as you can. It will probably be more trouble than it's worth to get some strategy going and get everyone to work together.

But if you're tackling a hard instance where the stakes are higher, I would try to work out who is healing who. Maybe the Shaman heals himself, maybe he heals you, maybe he heals pets. I would also try to figure out some plan, and try to get everyone to commit: priest heals, mage poly's, shaman removes debuffs, etc. If you can't get a group to commit to the basics of teamwork, it's probably a bad idea to step through the instance portal.

[vor_lord]

This is the third thread (one of them not here) I've read today which has brought up the question of secondary healers healing in a group.

So for all you primary healers out there, I keep hearing two different conflicting things with respect to secondary healers:

1. "I hate it when just before my big heal goes off, the shaman/paladin heals him/herself, or heals my target"

2. "I laugh at stupid paladins who die with full mana bars--I'm sure not going to heal them"


With respect to number one, why is it such a huge deal? If the secondary healer hadn't healed, you'd still have the same amount of mana you do now, and more aggro. The secondary's mana pool is the worse for it, but I still don't see why it is such a huge deal to the primary healer. Just because I healed someone else, or myself, does not mean I think you aren't doing your job. I'm trying to make your job easier.

If it's a paladin who isn't main tank, he doesn't have a better use for his mana anyway (shamans do).

With respect to #2, how is this reconcilable with #1? How is a secondary healer supposed to know which healer philosophy is followed?

To get back on thread topic directly:

Brista, just let them know. I wouldn't care if primary healer wants me to heal myself (unless I'm main tank where doing so decreases my tanking effectiveness such as it is) -- but I do need to know. I don't want to risk ticking off the majority of healers that feel strongly about #1 (even though I don't fully understand why).

Splitting healing duties, ensuring a secondary never heals anyone EVER, I guess I don't care. But I do need to know what expectations are.

[Brista]

This is the third thread (one of them not here) I've read today which has brought up the question of secondary healers healing in a group.

So for all you primary healers out there, I keep hearing two different conflicting things with respect to secondary healers:

1.  "I hate it when just before my big heal goes off, the shaman/paladin heals him/herself, or heals my target"

2.  "I laugh at stupid paladins who die with full mana bars--I'm sure not going to heal them"
With respect to number one, why is it such a huge deal?  If the secondary healer hadn't healed, you'd still have the same amount of mana you do now, and more aggro.  The secondary's mana pool is the worse for it, but I still don't see why it is such a huge deal to the primary healer.  Just because I healed someone else, or myself, does not mean I think you aren't doing your job.  I'm trying to make your job easier.

If it's a paladin who isn't main tank, he doesn't have a better use for his mana anyway (shamans do).

With respect to #2, how is this reconcilable with #1?  How is a secondary healer supposed to know which healer philosophy is followed?

To get back on thread topic directly:

Brista, just let them know.  I wouldn't care if primary healer wants me to heal myself (unless I'm main tank where doing so decreases my tanking effectiveness such as it is) -- but I do need to know.  I don't want to risk ticking off the majority of healers that feel strongly about #1 (even though I don't fully understand why).

Splitting healing duties, ensuring a secondary never heals anyone EVER, I guess I don't care.  But I do need to know what expectations are.
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Apologies for any repetitiveness

I think this is sound advice. I'm a big fan of education but it's a gradual process and I don't think it's feasible in the average pickup group where you play with 4 strangers none of whom want direction, for fear that it implies they are noobs

Coming straight from EQ2 where roles are very clearly defined and where people almost always play grouped with a defined main tank and main healer WoW has been something of a change. The average pickup group is indeed very much like 5 people playing solo. with the added bonus that if anyone's going to die, it's not going to be you if you don't add threat or heal anyone.

It will be interesting to see how high level instances go. So far both in pvp and in instances if you heal people you do lots of corpse runs. Now I don't mind corpse runs all that much but it does rather grate that not only am I expected to heal everyone else but I am also expected to be the person who dies every time

Am I missing alternative solutions to this? I don't really like not healing people who may drop, I don't like always being the first to die, and I'm pessimistic about my chances to get people to hold aggro by educating them (with the exception of friends and guildies who are excellent). Maybe I could try something like "No heals until I see a sunder on the mob"

I guess part of my trouble is reacting to a society where discussion of tactics is considered threatening, like if you listen to someone's advice it means you're a noob

It's not that I'm not enjoying WoW, I love it. It's more that I'm surprised, as someone pre-disposed to playing healers, to discover that my Hunter's more fun than my Restoration Druid

[Treesh]

It's more that I'm surprised, as someone pre-disposed to playing healers, to discover that my Hunter's more fun than my Restoration Druid
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I was going to ask why are you getting so much aggro from just healing and then I read this last sentence. Druids really do need a better way of dropping aggro than bouncing into cat form and cowering at critters. I still don't get aggro very often by healing with Aleri (unless there's an add that hasn't been touched and sees me before it sees the rest of the group), but when I do get aggro fade is absolutely fantastic. Being main (or only) healer as a druid is so much different than healing as a priest.

[Brista]

Partly, Treesh, but my understanding is that you play your priest with a tank who is trying to keep aggro

It's very different when even the warriors would prefer the healer to have aggro than themselves

[Treesh]

It's very different when even the warriors would prefer the healer to have aggro than themselves
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Then quite simply, stop playing in pickup groups. Even if you are a druid, you don't have to tank all the time. Warriors still tank better than druids even in dire bear. If you have no tank but the druid and no healer but the druid, the pickup group is going to have some major issues.

How are you opening your fights as a druid in these pickup groups so you're getting so much aggro anyway? Most pickup groups seem to have a problem with not controlling the aggro so I'm a bit surprised by the comment of them trying to keep aggro on you. Are you starting with starfires before the tank has really touched the critter? GG's druid opens with starfires when we're duoing and even my crits with ambush don't usually take it away from him after that unless it's a huge crit.

[Thawwing Light]

Partly, Treesh, but my understanding is that you play your priest with a tank who is trying to keep aggro

It's very different when even the warriors would prefer the healer to have aggro than themselves
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If you're running with Warriors that are that terrible, the answer is quite simple: let them die.

If you find anyone that will consistantly pull hate off you and try to play as a team, heal them. I don't care if it's the mage, team players should be rewarded and idiots that think it's a game of 5 people solo deserve to give the ground a fresh coat of blood.

Educating them, as you said above, is slow and frustrating. I'd recommend picking a good stable of friendly, competant tanks (and anything else, but for priests, you need tanks) and duoing/trioing with them if you really, really need some group action.

[Sir_Die_alot]

Am I missing alternative solutions to this? I don't really like not healing people who may drop, I don't like always being the first to die, and I'm pessimistic about my chances to get people to hold aggro by educating them (with the exception of friends and guildies who are excellent). Maybe I could try something like "No heals until I see a sunder on the mob"
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I've actually done that, or similar statements. I've even said "Ok we will do it your way." and when the group wipes I say "Your way didn't work let's try mine." The truth is, the hardest thing to find for a group is someone to be the dedicated healer. There are plenty of tanks. If you want to be obstinant about other people's playing you have some room to be that way, and sometimes you just have to be. If you have built up a reputation as a competent healer people will know it's the tank screwing up and are likely to support you in finding another. Threaten to leave the group, see who gets kicked out. Or what I like to say "If the druid ain't happy, ain't nobody happy!" (Just make sure the tank and the party leader aren't in the same guild! :) )

Another thing you can do is type /macro. Push "new". In that box type /yell HELP! I'M BEING ATTACKED!" Put that somewhere that you can spam it when your tanks and off tanks aren't paying attention. :D

As a druid I've found that you should avoid big heals. Heal with rejuvenation well before someone needs to be healed. You have great DOT spells so try to use them to negate the damage the tank is taking. Use healing touch only when that isn't enough, and then only a rank that will put them just below or exactly full life. Even at 60 I'm healing with rank 8 healing touch more often than rank 9 and 10 put together. If you do pull the aggro and its 1 or 2 you can also shift to cat form, cower, and send that sucker back where he belongs. Often my traquility is for when I've pulled 1 mob and everyone else is busy with their own. I just hit barkskin and cast it, by the time it's done usually someone can help me out.

What I try to do in the long run is keep everyone just about full life and a rejuvenation, regrowth HoT, or both running on them. The reason for this is I can't power word shield someone with low life, so if they are regenerating 300+ a tick I have a better chance to heal them should they take a big hit.

[kandrathe]

Partly, Treesh, but my understanding is that you play your priest with a tank who is trying to keep aggro

It's very different when even the warriors would prefer the healer to have aggro than themselves
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I was venturing my lvl 21 priest into the wetlands the other day to work on her skinning/leathworking skills and I got an invite from a lvl 25 dwarf warrior who was insane, but good at aggro management. He would rush into a mass of 5-10 raptors and it was all I could do to keep him alive and being as mana conservative as I could, then I would recover mana, skin everything and we would move onto the next group. He must have had his emotes on hot keys, because after every scrim his toon would scream "Brilliant!, Fantastic!" After an hour with no deaths, and completing the raptor quests, she was level 23 and had capped skinning at 225 and with all the medium and heavy leather went up at least 25 skills. I'd say it was pure white knuckle gaming at its best. The secret of insane warriors is to let them get to 60% health before even worrying about them.

My advice is when you are "the healer", you heal the ones that are trying to keep you alive.

[Thawwing Light]

I was venturing my lvl 21 priest into the wetlands the other day to work on her skinning/leathworking skills and I got an invite from a lvl 25 dwarf warrior who was insane, but good at aggro management.  He would rush into a mass of 5-10 raptors and it was all I could do to keep him alive and being as mana conservative as I could, then I would recover mana, skin everything and we would move onto the next group.  He must have had his emotes on hot keys, because after every scrim his toon would scream "Brilliant!, Fantastic!"  After an hour with no deaths, and completing the raptor quests, she was level 23 and had capped skinning at 225 and with all the medium and heavy leather went up at least 25 skills.  I'd say it was pure white knuckle gaming at its best.  The secret of insane warriors is to let them get to 60% health before even worrying about them. 

My advice is when you are "the healer", you heal the ones that are trying to keep you alive.
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Hehehe... when I'm with my priest duo partner, this is how I play.

Why? Well, if your priest fully admits he wants to play a healbot and then mentions he hates being bored, well, I'm going to do my absolute best to make sure he isn't bored, by pulling when he's at 50% mana and occasionally fighting a crowd of 10 because the group is good enough to handle it.

I wouldn't recommend to any warriors out there to try this. I'd more recommend starting slow, testing the group's skill, and cranking up the speed from there.

Still, the fact you kept the man alive through this, and he kept hate... I hope you added him to your friends list, anyone that can keep hate on that size of a group, even when that overleveled, is a good tank.

[Bob the Beholder]

I was venturing my lvl 21 priest into the wetlands the other day to work on her skinning/leathworking skills and I got an invite from a lvl 25 dwarf warrior who was insane, but good at aggro management.  He would rush into a mass of 5-10 raptors and it was all I could do to keep him alive and being as mana conservative as I could, then I would recover mana, skin everything and we would move onto the next group.  He must have had his emotes on hot keys, because after every scrim his toon would scream "Brilliant!, Fantastic!"  After an hour with no deaths, and completing the raptor quests, she was level 23 and had capped skinning at 225 and with all the medium and heavy leather went up at least 25 skills.  I'd say it was pure white knuckle gaming at its best.  The secret of insane warriors is to let them get to 60% health before even worrying about them. 

My advice is when you are "the healer", you heal the ones that are trying to keep you alive.
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I do that with my warrior! It's awesome. Especially when the healer with you (and a warlock in the situations I've been in) are both on Teamspeak with you. You can actually hear then freaking out! But the warrior/priest/warlock trio I play my warrior in, we rock hard enough that even with my insanity, we can take pretty much anything similar level and non-elite in large numbers.

Although there was that time we managed to take out maybe nine satyrs three to four levels above us, plus a dwarf rogue. (That was with a decent mage tacked on to the three, though.)

[Brista]

I guess I'd just had a bad run when I made my original post

I do like playing healers and I do usually like healing even bad groups. Even if no one is consciously working with you it is satisfying to keep everyone alive and it's a game which is very forgiving of calamity. And it's certainly true about the adrenalin rush

I suspect sometimes it's perception, that what looks like someone trying to shake off aggro is simply their normal soloing technique or whatever

Thanks for the thoughtful and positive responses :)

[Grimjack]

I usually stand back by the priests and play my mage.
From that vantage point, I often have quite a good survey of how the battle fares.

Most groups are pickup, because I am a few levels below mains in guild. ( 54 to their 60. )

What bugs me most is when there is an add, or a breakout from the group going after the priest. I think it is inefficient that no one tries to peel off the critter from the priest. Instead,if I want the group to stay alive, I have to stop killing main target, waste precious amounts of mana to do enough damage to get the mobs attention, and then run to the tank, hoping he can peel it off me after I have splurged a third of my mana getting its attention. ( Not to mention the healers mana trying to keep my squishy behind alive without regaining aggro. )

This part simply does not work. I not being healer, nor tank do not know what gets the situation here. ( Overeager heals, or not enough sunders on the secondary targets. )

It may be that some ( or rather a lot ) of pickup tanks do not understand they need to hit all the targets before they can receive any heals, but I also think that the off-tanks ( spare paladins, hunter pets, locks pets and the like ) do not understand they need to get the mobs off of the healer who stands there being interrupted.

Tommy

[Watto44]

Tommy, I agree totally. My two favorite macros are "/p On me. HELP YOU [censored]!" when I'm healing and "Got it" in response to the first when I'm off tanking. :)

Brista, I don't know what to say really. I've found that parties like this are far less common towards the latter stages of the game - Maraudon, Zul Farrak and maybe even Uldaman and upwards. You still get bad groups, but at least people have a general idea what they have to do in an instance. If it's before that, people generally don't know how the instance game works. They've either a) ignored them completely or B) been twinked through them by a higher level guildy/friend.

My advice? Patience and a little bit of carefully worded education. Rather than try and directly educate them ("the tank needs to hold the aggro so the healer and mage can...") ask someone if they could "help me when something attacks me please." That way you can generally guide a group in the right direction without ruffling any feathers. They might think you're a complete chicken or pedantic bastard - most of my server does :D - but you end up with a decent group and more importantly, a decent friends list.