I r a S.M.A.R.T. Holy Pally

I have run into a lot of new Holy Pallys as of late. They always seem to have lots of questions about who to heal, when to heal, how much and why they keep going OOM. I know what you’re thinking, “you’re a Pally you only have one spell just spam it on the tank already”

For the new Holy Pallys and in some cases other classes of healers, here is an overview on S.M.A.R.T. healing. It’s not hard, we just need to plan a little and think a little and it will become second nature in no time.

SMART Healing: What does this mean? It means find your space bar and learn to love it. It means get some situational awareness and boss knowledge stoked up. It means don’t think you can SPAM Holy Light for 8 minutes and not go OOM.

Break it down now!

   Situational awareness

   Mana managing

   Ability using
 pRoactive
   Tank Healer

Situational awareness:
Know thy enemy, when you are progressing and leaning new fights you will have a learning curve for healing. For example the first time I fought Marrowgar, I was outside his hit box dodging his ice waves stopping to heal and hanging onto my pants when bone storm hit. I was using pots and saying little prayers to the pixel gods that my heal would land before the tank got squished. Fast forward to today. I stand behind the boss and melee back my mana in-between tank heals. When bone storm hits I pop devine plea and run to the corner of the room and wait for the tanks to pick him back up. I can spam HL the entire fight and still finish with full mana.

Mana managing:
Cool Downs are your friend, you have a lot of ways to regain your mana, Judgments, Melee+Seal of Wisdom, and Devine Plea are a few, you also have ways to save your mana, Sacred Shield, Beacon of light, Devine Illumination. Use them all even if you are not in dire need yet, be proactive in managing your mana just like you are with your heals. For example, when most boss fights start off you have a chance to use your DI cool down, most raid fights equal to your skill level will last long enough for you to use DI again right at the end when you are racing to down that boss before he eats your tasty bacon (tanks). Judge often for the chance to regain your 4% mana and go in and melee when you know the boss is not AoEing or posing a threat to your health, you can get a whack or two in in-between each HL cast and regen that mana.

I REALLY love lamp!

Ability using:
Sometimes the best time to use a cool down is when you don’t NEED to use it. When that bone storm goes off I use DP (Marrowgar), even if I have 85% mana left, that way if shit hits the fan and a healer goes down, I am ready to start picking up raid members who need heals. Use your abilities, and use them often, work Judgment into your rotation, plan your SS and BoL refreshes. If you know when damage will be soft you will know when you can safely refresh these buffs. Don’t forget about your hands, they are very powerful and often overlooked; yes I am talking about hand of freedom, protection etc. And for the lights sake, cleanse already, you can remove everything except for a curse with one spell, use it and save the mana from having to heal that person back up.

pRoactive:
PreHeal, always have a heal in cast, if it is about to go off and your target (or beacon) does not need a heal, jump, /cancel, move, do whatever you like to do to cancel the cast. With HL taking so long to cast, especially when you are not geared in T10, you cannot afford to be a reactive healer. You must be a proactive healer, get that heal all warmed up, and if you don’t need it don’t cast it (Conserve Mana!). Have a heal already in cast when you see that boss casting his AoE spell. For example when you are in VoA and see a whiteout coming, get that Holy Light nuke warmed up to go off just after the AoE to take the tanks right back up to full. It will take a couple tries to get the timing down; once you do you will love laughing in the face of random boss001’s face!

Tank Healer:
Thanks to the Tanks! If you are new to a fight, stick to your assignment, if you are to keep Tank X and Y up, make sure they stay up before you venture off into healing the raid or even DPSing. Get a feeling for the damage coming in; learn when the fights change and when you can lay off the throttle a little bit. You are not always going to be a tank healer, the simple fact is that your beacon will almost always be on a tank or someone who is taking massive damage. You have the largest nuke heal in the game and have the ability to take most people from red to green in less than 1.5 seconds unfortunately you can only heal (significantly) two people at once with that big nuke.

Be SMART and you will be rewarded with boss kills and shineys (I cannot guarantee the droppage of the purples, sorry)


Vail