People talk about all the different casting styles that they use, how complicated raid healing can be, and how the learning curve is very different in PvP compared to PvE. They’re mostly self-aggrandizing, with healing being easily categorized into a few simple concepts. Executing on these concepts takes skill, knowledge, and experience – though it should be relatively simple for a healer with some experience to reach 80% output and up-times compared to one with hundreds of min/max raids in their history.
Commonalities
No matter the situation, keeping your buffs, procs and positive effects active will be consistent among all of them. While casting a burst heal may be a higher priority than refreshing your own Major Evasion (20% mitigation), that situational and rare occurrence is an exception and not a rule.
- Keep your high priority buffs up such as Major Evasion.
- Keep your medium priority buffs up such as Major and Minor weapon/spell damage, Power Surge (sorc), or Ghost (cro).
- Keep your Heal over Time spells (HoTs) up such as Radiating Regen and Echoing Vigor on as many players as possible (minimum three casts of RR per 10 seconds, and 2 casts of Vigor per 16 seconds) especially if you’re running a proc set. If you’re running a Master’s Resto, then Healing Springs should be included (at least every 10 seconds – noting that the Master’s buff is only applied to players who are hit with the first tick of the ground heal).
- Keep your low priority effects and buffs up such as Dark Conversion.
If you maintain the above with near-perfect uptime, you’re already 60% of the way towards excellence. Any spare cast cycles should be used to keep HoTs up more consistently.
Moving & Repositioning
While moving towards a fight, getting out of a fight and repositioning for a new push, or any time you’re generally waiting for the next fight, the priorities from commonalities change only to ensure that you’re paying attention to your back line or anyone who gets pulled (chains, leach, teleport circle). In this case, we’re adding burst healing right below keeping your own Major Evasion active. Being as you can easily renew Major Evasion way before it would expire, there shouldn’t be many scenarios where this is an issue.
- Keep your high priority buffs up such as Major Evasion.
- Burst heal the back line or players who are pulled (Breath of Life, Healthy Offering, or if you don’t run a single target burst on a sorc or cro, Undeath or Blessing of Restoration).
- Keep your medium priority buffs up such as Major and Minor weapon/spell damage, Power Surge (sorc), or Ghost (cro).
- Keep your Heal over Time spells (HoTs) up such as Radiating Regen and Echoing Vigor on as many players as possible (minimum three casts of RR per 10 seconds, and 2 casts of Vigor per 16 seconds) especially if you’re running a proc set. If you’re running a Master’s Resto, then Healing Springs should be included (at least every 10 seconds – noting that the Master’s buff is only applied to players who are hit with the first tick of the ground heal).
- Keep your low priority effects and buffs up such as Dark Conversion, Channeled Focus, and others.
Defending
While defending or countering big damage, healing or mitigation ultimates and large area heals become the priority.
- Keep your high priority buffs up such as Major Evasion.
- Cast an ultimate when needed and big damage is incoming (Siphon or Practiced Incantation for healing, Barrier to mitigate damage, Negate to prevent opponents from casting or to remove ground effects, or resurrection if someone dies).
- Cast large area heals (Undeath, Blessing of Restoration, Ritual of Rebirth, or Repentance with many bodies around) when two or more players in group are missing health (a reasonable guideline is 5k health missing). Note that Warden cone heals are missing from the list as of 2023/Q1 as the min/max raid composition does not include a Warden healer.
- Burst heal the back line or players who are pulled (Breath of Life, Healthy Offering, or if you don’t run a single target burst on a sorc or cro, Undeath or Blessing of Restoration).
- Keep your medium priority buffs and effects up such as Major and Minor weapon/spell damage, Power Surge (sorc), Ghost (cro), or Bone Surge so the synergy’s shield helps mitigate damage and provide increased healing.
- Keep your Heal over Time spells (HoTs) up such as Radiating Regen and Echoing Vigor on as many players as possible (minimum three casts of RR per 10 seconds, and 2 casts of Vigor per 16 seconds) especially if you’re running a proc set. If you’re running a Master’s Resto, then Healing Springs should be included (at least every 10 seconds – noting that the Master’s buff is only applied to players who are hit with the first tick of the ground heal).
- Keep your low priority effects and buffs up such as Dark Conversion, Channeled Focus, and others.
Pushing
While pushing towards opponents with the intent to kill, you will likely need to dynamically swap between “Moving & Repositioning” and “Defending” styles with some synergies thrown in at a relatively high priority. If you’re running an offensive proc set (such as SPC, Rallying Cry, Phoenix Moth, and others) then keeping those procs up for the damage dealer’s kill window (3-4 seconds) may be high priority, as will throwing damage synergies.
- Keep your high priority buffs up such as Major Evasion.
- Cast any damage-relevant buffs before pushing.
- Ensure that you’ve cast as many HoTs leading up to the push as possible to maintain proc buffs.
- Cast a damage synergy such as Graveyard, Liquid Lightning, or Mystic Orb on opponents to help the damage dealers kill.
- Cast an ultimate when needed and big damage is incoming (Siphon or Practiced Incantation for healing, Barrier to mitigate damage, Negate to prevent opponents from casting or to remove ground effects, or resurrection if someone dies).
- Cast large area heals (Undeath, Blessing of Restoration, Ritual of Rebirth, or Repentance with many bodies around) when two or more players in group are missing health (a reasonable guideline is 5k health missing). Note that Warden cone heals are missing from the list as of 2023/Q1 as the min/max raid composition does not include a Warden healer.
- Burst heal the back line or players who are pulled (Breath of Life, Healthy Offering, or if you don’t run a single target burst on a sorc or cro, Undeath or Blessing of Restoration).
- Cast another damage synergy such as Graveyard, Liquid Lightning, or Mystic Orb on opponents to help the damage dealers kill IF you didn’t have to cast anything per #3/4/5 above. This would provide two graves, two lightning, or one Mystic Orb on opponents before changing to “Moving & Repositioning” style.
- Keep your medium priority buffs and effects up such as Major and Minor weapon/spell damage, Power Surge (sorc), Ghost (cro), or Bone Surge so the synergy’s shield helps mitigate damage and provide increased healing.
- Keep your Heal over Time spells (HoTs) up such as Radiating Regen and Echoing Vigor on as many players as possible (minimum three casts of RR per 10 seconds, and 2 casts of Vigor per 16 seconds) especially if you’re running a proc set. If you’re running a Master’s Resto, then Healing Springs should be included (at least every 10 seconds – noting that the Master’s buff is only applied to players who are hit with the first tick of the ground heal).
- Keep your low priority effects and buffs up such as Dark Conversion, Channeled Focus, and others.
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