Legendary Healer Item?

[Bolty]

Out of curiosity, how does it goes when there is suddenly a larger ammount of damage done, perhaps critical hits (what are they called?), additional mobs beating, or some other reason, that causes an increased damage equal to about 5-10% of a tank's health during the seconds it takes to cast the spell?[right][snapback]107956[/snapback][/right]

Tank dies. :) A good healer accounts for all this. The times I mention when Tal gets to 5% are the times when he's reaching the edge of my safety margin. Before 1.10, I wanted my greater heal landing on the tank at around 20% health, depending on who the tank was, because my greater heal would take a tank from 20% to 100%. Now, my greater heals hit for less than before, but I will often wait as long just because I want to avoid aggro. It depends on who else is taking damage. The more time you give your tank to build aggro, the happier they will be, since no tank (except an idiot) likes to see mobs peeling off for the healer.

You can't really write a "guide" to this, because there's too many variables. The tank's playing habits, gear, the mobs you're facing, the composition of the rest of the group - all these play a role on how you heal the tank. I've even used healing offensively at times. Tank's suddenly getting swarmed at the beginning of a fight? Give em a quick heal and start running - you'll actually kite the mobs off him, buying the tank time, and when the mobs finally get to you, you cast Fade. Then you get to watch the mobs run all the way back to the tank...and in all that time, they're not damaging anyone. Your tank has to understand you're doing this on purpose and trust you to Fade at the right moment, of course.

Remember, it's a group game. Tanks and healers form a special relationship because they're both forced to adapt to each others' style, and over time they learn how to be effective with each other. Tal and I have been doing things so long that we can each read each others' thoughts on how we're handling encounters. I've been healing in Avarice so long that I know the behaviors and damage intakes of its various raiding tanks as a matter of habit. Any raiding healer who's been doing it long enough is the same way, if only realizing it subconsciously. It grows on you.

We know Tal and I are both monkeys. :) I know when he's going to dual-wield and go berserker stance on X mob, giving me a hard time. He knows I'm going to charge in and pull if he waits even a second in between pulls and I have mana, giving him a hard time. It's all good. :) Part of my problem now is that since 99% of the time, I'm the healer, I have trouble being in a 5-man group where I'm not the healer because I can't adapt my tanking or DPS play to another healer's style.

Also, none of this stuff applies to 40-man raids. You don't screw around there with 20% hit point safety margins, not with the amount of incoming damage that hits the entire raid at times. Raid healing is vastly different than 5-man healing.

Man, I love the healing game. Writing posts like this makes me realize why.

-Bolty