Comments on: Mailbag – Overhealing Advice

By: Arret

Arret — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:07:25 +0000

OK- I found this thread on google because I am very confused about over-healing in Wrath. I’m a druid and have the typical low over-healing numbers. What confuses me is that our Pally heals normally have between 40-60% over-heals. They are generally on the tanks, and somehow our tanks still die on occaision. This pally over-healing, and over-healing in general, seems to be pretty acceptable these days, and I was wondering what your take on this was. When I’ve brought up the topic, i was pretty much told that over-healing is good, and should not even be addressed unless someone is running out of mana. We are fairly progressed in our raiding and have all but 4 bosses down in Ulduar. Our healers are good, we all know our classes, but I’m thinking that we’ve really gotten into some bad habits or is this kind of thing normal in wrath?

By: Jorgens

Jorgens — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 21:20:25 +0000

Great thread, I wanted to put my two cents in. I have a holy priest around 2k heals unbuffed and has been raiding weekly for about 5 months now. We have recently been taking new classes/new recruits through Kara. My average overhealing in most raids sits somewhere around 10-15% (CoH spec), but when taking new individuals through who don’t know the fights and who don’t know when the spike damage occurs, my overheals also tend to spike (accounted for almost 60% of all healing…with two priests as healers with nearly 50% overhealing). We lost only two people in a full clear, and had no wipes. I ran OOM once and it was my own fault for not using my CD’s.

My point is…the overhealing/healing meter is a great tool but it changes substantially depending on the encounter, then experience of those you are running with, and your own personal build. If you have a successful encounter, your raid is happy, and you aren’t struggling for mana…then your overhealing/healing is what it should be.

Last point…priests PoM also doesn’t register on the healing/overhealing…though it is one of the best tools we have. (comparing to the lifebloom of druids)

Thanks to everyone for putting some thoughts into their responses, this thread was a great read!

By: Aspect of the Guild

Aspect of the Guild — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 07:44:53 +0000

Healing and how can I measure my performance and improve?…

OK, dps have dps meters, tanks have threat generation and staying alive, but how do we healers improve using meters?
I plan to write a few of these over time, so will start with

Overheal meter
This is a very clear meter that everyone could argue …

By: Cam

Cam — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:00:09 +0000

So I have been healing raids as a priest for a couple months now, and I was yelled at for overhealing past 5%. I was told, although its good to keep their health up, it is a waste of mana to overheal. This becomes critical in a longer battle so I am not using 50 mana pots and don’t run oom.

I was also told, that they didn’t care about the actual amount I healed, as long as a tank didn’t die and dps didn’t die (the exception is a quick death like a clothie or a retard dps which can be common).

So I started raid healing with the notion, just make sure no1 dies, who cares about the numbers as long as it was a clean run. I have even done a bit of wand dps if i can’t heal, because it would be pointless to try and overheal and waste mana.

By: Weta

Weta — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:26:36 +0000

I run my resto druid just through Kara content right now, the guild she is in is bringing on a bunch of new 70s so gear wise they just aren’t ready for much else.

I’m a firm believer in dps/healing meters, not because they are accurate but because they can be an early indication of a problem. I do my best to avoid telling someone how to run their alt but I have no problem asking them why they do something. Its how we all learn, either they don’t understand or you don’t understand or something goofy is going on.

Ultimately the needs of the raid outweigh individual needs, so I tend to grade every encounter by looking at the following.

1. How many people survived.
2. How hard did I have to work throughout the encounter?

Every encounter is different so things shift, but overall you can get the feel for how things are going. I tend to look at how much mana a healer has left after an encounter to get a feel for how hard they are working. Ive always felt that ideally everyone should be at about the same % since if not then either someone is working to hard, not hard enough or the healing duties need to be re-adjusted some.

Looking at the heals in our kara group would look odd, but in the end it’s because we have 2 resto druids that are geared with 2 different philosophies. I gear towards smaller heals but more mana regen, the other resto is geared towards bigger heals with less mana regen.

So talk with the other healers, get an idea of what they do and why. Healers after all are 1/2 of the raid triangle tank/dps/heal and the better we can do our job the better off everyone else is

By: Boudi

Boudi — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:39:08 +0000

Thanks to everyone for weighing in!

I know meters aren’t the whole world but for me, everyone surviving doesn’t tell me if I’m improving as a healer.

If I can keep everyone alive (which of course I can’t) then I want to use my mana more efficiently. For me, a look at the meters tells me what I need to improve on. I understand that there are some things that are out of my grasp to do, but for me the more information I have, the better job I can do and the more I improve.

And what improves me improves the raid.

By: Doug

Doug — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:37:16 +0000

@ Jagerbombz: You may want to be very specific on where people stand (especially ranged DPS) so that Chain Heal does its magic. Aside from that, get a well geared tank and lots of DPS (preferrably Badge/ZA/T5 equiv geared DPS), so that you dont OOM before bosses drop. It has been done successfully by Druids/Priests, but I haven’t seen anything about a Shaman doing it yet. GL!

By: Jagerbombz

Jagerbombz — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 17:16:41 +0000

Bah healing meters. I have a hatred for healing meters that cannot be put into words. We are not DPS, our role is not to know how much we heal but ratehr if everyone survives. That is the only feedback we need. As for over heal…I am a resto shaman, over heal is my middle name. Is this a problem…no. As long as you can handle your mana correctly you can over heal as much as you want.

Doug: Single healing kara…now that is something I should; try for atleast the first couple of bosses.

By: Doug

Doug — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:22:11 +0000

Overhealing at first glance is only an issue if you have mana problems.

As you find yourself in more situations where HPS rules and every point of healing is needed, you may want to begin evaluating who and when you’re healing, instead of how much you are overhealing, to maximize your efficiency and HPS. If that seem off-the-wall, challenge yourself. Solo heal Karazhan, or 2heal ZA. Challenging yourself in those ways really forces you to get the most out of your healing, and reevaluate high damage scenarios.

By: kumata

kumata — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 03:11:16 +0000

Other posters have mentioned it, but I thought I’d add my 2 cents worth as well.

Lifebloom ticks do not heal the target unless the target will benefit from them. So if the tank is at full health a 3 stack of Lifebloom that is maintained will generate 0 healing and 0 overhealing.

A Lifebloom that blooms generates healing for the target, so in this case the tank.

Being the person who runs and analyses WWS logs in my guild I will quite happily confirm that overheal below 10% is quite common for a Resto druid.