Game Sound And Healing

The argument of whether or not game sound is helpful crops up from time to time in raids, and so I wanted to take some time to point out why you, as a healer, are gimping yourself without it. However, I enjoy listening to music while I raid as much as the next guy, so I want to share some tips about how to make game sound, vent, and your music all live together in harmony. It seems like something small, but by not using game sound, you're taking out an entire sense. That can seriously gimp you, even if you don't think it is.

Even the default sound options are fairly flexible

Now, before you grab the torches and pitchforks, let me be clear about what I'm talking about. I'm only talking about sound effects. Not music, not error speech. Those don't affect your gameplay in nearly the way that sound effects can. Actually, I'd recommend keeping game music OFF when raiding, or at least at a low volume.

Why is game sound so important?

I can answer this very, very simply. Healers tunnel vision. Don't deny it, we all do it. Heavy damage comes in, and your eyes go straight to those little whack-a-mole bars and don't come back. It's an easy thing to do, even among the best. . As a tank or a dps, I'm not half as concerned with game sound as I am when I'm healing. Healers simply have more to monitor. Imagine watching the boss, your raid warnings, and 6 ability cooldowns. Factor in monitoring your resources, and making sure you're not standing in the fire, and you have alot of things to look at. Now add in 25 health bars that you're not only watching for drops, but agro, debuffs, range, etc. That's a ton of information for your eyes to process.

Blizzard designed the encounters with sound in mind. When Lord Marrowgar yells "BOOOOOOONNNNNEEESTOOOOORRRRRM!" he's not doing that to be funny. He's doing that to let you know that that safe spot you're standing in where there's no fire has just moved, and your raid is going to be taking heavier damage. When Sindragosa yells "Your pathetic magic betrays you!" she isn't doing that just to be annoying. (Although sometimes I wonder) She's telling you that unchained magic has gone out again and you need to be aware of who it changed to, so you can adapt heal targets accordingly. Watching chat for these cues really just doesn't work. Even if you have some sort of superhuman brain and can process all that visual information, there might just be a lot going on in chat and you can easily miss it. The audio cues are there for a reason, why gimp yourself by not listening to them? By not having these on, you might be performing well as an individual, but you can always do better, and your performance as a member of an adapting team is gimped.

On top of the warnings Blizzard gives us, if you're raiding, you're using an addon such as DBM, DXE, or Bigwigs. All of these have audio warnings built in. If you get a big nasty debuff on you and need to move, it plays a noise. By not having to count on yourself seeing the warning, and just being able to hear it, you can react faster. This also gives you the flexibility to make those warnings smaller on your screen, freeing up valuable real estate, because you don't have to make sure you see them.

Sound can also be a tool in more ways than most people use it now. Did you know you can set Vuhdo to play a noise when a certain debuff goes out? I have it set to play a bell sound when Saurfang puts out a mark, to make sure I don't miss it. Power Auras also has sound options. I actually recorded my own voice and I use that in conjunction with power auras in pvp. When I get silenced, I hear me yelling "BAM!", and when an enemy pops a defensive cooldown like bubble, I hear me yelling "CD'd!". In a hectic pvp environment, warnings like these help monitor your environment on a much higher level than you can with only visual cues. And sometimes showing it both ways just helps your brain process it better.

But I can't hear vent with game sound on!

So turn it down! I'm not saying it has to be at bleeding ear levels, it just needs to be on. I actually play with my game sound turned down very quiet. I put my master volume at about 10%, then crank my sound effects down that low too for an even quieter effect. This leaves it just loud enough that important things, like boss cues and mods, are loud enough to hear, but less important things, like casting noise, is quiet. There are a few mods that add on to the default sound mixer, and the simplest one I use is built right into Titan Panel:

Extra volume controls through mods can really help.

Things like this really simplify the process of getting those volume levels just right. Finding the balance between usable game sound and quiet game sound takes awhile. If there's just too much noise for you in general, it's also really simple to replace game sound files with something else, like nothing. You can record silence and replace it. It can be a long and complicated process to do that, but it can be done. I got rid of the gun noise on my hunter because it was loud and annoying.

It should also be noted that VENT LAGS. Don't count on your raid leader to call it out. Even with 1 ping to your vent server, because of the way vent works, you are hearing it 500ms after they said it. Game sound is more reliable.

I like to listen to music while I raid, so I leave sound off

Why not do both? I do. There's several ways to make this happen, and what works for you will vary based on your hardware. I am fortunate enough to have a good sound driver with a built in mixer, which allows me more customization of individual programs, so I can crank wow down further, and vent up louder. The same types of things can be done for music.

My realtek sound driver that came with my comp. It lets me change each program individually, and I can change my speakers and headphones independently.

If you're lucky enough to have something like the above image, doing both game sound and music is simple, and even if you aren't you can go about it much the same way. I run my vent, and my game sound (turned down) through my headphones. I then run my music through my speakers, but keep it quiet enough as to not bother my guildies when I am trying to talk, be considerate. If you're using Winamp, all you have to do is go into preferences and change your output to your speakers, and you're done. If you're using Windows Media Player or iTunes, It's a little rougher, unless you have a USB mic. Just close everything, unplug your USB headset, and fire up your Media Player/iTunes, then plug in your USB headset and open vent and wow. Your music should go through your speakers and everything else through your headset. A USB headset really does simplify things a ton when trying to configure audio outputs, but it can be done with standard mic jacks too, which are what I have at the moment.

The other option, if you can't get any of it working, is to use a different device for your music. Burn a cd, or put your iPod through speakers. For awhile I was streaming Pandora on my phone, and had my phone plugged into my computer speakers. Point is, there's a way to make it work, so this really isn't a valid excuse.

The trouble is worth it

As a healer, these extra warnings by way of game sound are invaluable. They allow us to focus our eyes on healing, and our ears on the encounter. Healing tunnel vision is a serious problem, especially amongst newer healers, and something as simple as low volume game sound can make a world of difference. Try it. With the right volume levels, you might like it.

/bubblehearth