Teamwork and Healing

B.A.  is totally the Shaman, screw the Night Elf Mohawk crap.

Teamwork is a big deal when healing, I think all healers understand that to a degree. But, do we really understand just how much teamwork matters? With the changes in Cataclysm's healing model, teamwork is looking to be a bigger deal in the coming expansion than it has been before, and were all going to need to adjust our skillset. I want to discuss how teamwork is currently factoring in, where it's headed, as well as some general tips on working with your fellow healers.


Teamwork and Wrath's Healer Design

The face of raiding is largely different in Wrath than it has been in the past. Pick-up-groups are common, and 10 mans are popular. Factor in the healing design, and teamwork is hardly necessary for most normal mode content. It's very simple for a stronger player to make up for any slack. Because we aren't worried about mana, most people aren't concerned about watching their overheals, peeling from assignments is common, and most of the raid is topped off most of the time.

Now, this isn't the case all the time. Once you get into harder content, or running with a regular group, it becomes more necessary to work together. Chances are you have someone doing assignments, and communication becomes more common. But, for the bulk of content, most healers really don't pay much attention to their peers. It's just not all that necessary.

Cataclsym's Revamped Healing Design

With the expansion nearing, and the changes to it's healing design, teamwork is something we need to think about again, especially in a pug situation. Blizzard has stated that their design goal is for mana to matter again, and for it not to be such a big deal when people aren't topped off. Sniping that druid's hots to e-peen on meters won't be such a hot idea when you're ooming because of it, and spamming your bombs to get there before other healers will just make you look like a tool when we all dust off our overhealing meters.

Knowing what your other healers are supposed to be doing, knowing when they need help, and knowing what they're capable of so that you don't waste mana are going to become important skills again. This may seem familiar, these are things we all worried about in BC and Vanilla, but pugging has never been nearly as popular as it is now. My concern is that bad healers are going to be tougher to work with, because we won't have the mana to overheal like mad and cover the slack. Working as a team and understanding strengths and weaknesses quickly will become more important.

Easy Ways to Improve Teamwork

Get a Healing Lead

If your guild doesn't have a healing lead, get one. It doesn't mean they have to be better than everyone, it's just someone that has a basic grasp of each healing class. Just enough to understand how they work and assign them targets accordingly.


Use a Custom Channel

Having a healer channel is great. It's a good place to plot the deaths of melee dps coordinate assignments without cluttering raid chat. It's pretty simple to make one. Type /join nameofchannel and you're done. Have the other healers do the same, and you have a private communication channel. It's generally a good idea to invite the raid leader as well, and possibly your main tanks. It's easier to ask the raid lead a healing oriented question there than in raid chat. Even if you';re just pugging, you can make a custom channel and reuse it for your groups. Just name it something like "pugginheals". Doing this with pugs provides a sort of second perk. Anyone who doesn't leave your channel is still there, so when you're looking for another healer to fill your raid, you can ask there and it's someone you've run with before. It's a good idea to make a macro or something and let people know if they'd like to leave they can just type /leave nameofchannel though, and inform them that they're welcome to stick around.

Stick to Your Assignment

I know in current content it is really tempting to swap targets and spam the whole group, even if your assignment is just tanks. It's not going to be a good idea in Cataclysm to waste mana doing that if you don't need to, so talk to your current guild's healing team now about not peeling, and getting used to working together. This will give you a better feel for individual players too, and will allow you to adjust assignments as needed to make up for weaker players later. This is harder to do in pugs though, use your judgement and prevent wipes in those situations.

Configure Raid Frames To Show Other Healer's Heals

Most raid frames include something called LibHealComm. This shows you when other healers are casting heals on a target. Try to get used to seeing this and working around it. It will keep you from overhealing, and can save a life by preventing two healers from neglecting someone. If you have space in your raid frames hot icons area, consider showing some other healers's hots in one slot as well. In 10 mans I like to turn on Druid's rejuvs when I'm on my paladin to avoid sniping them.


Coordinate Cooldowns

Use your healer channel to coordinate who is going to use mana cooldowns first. Then, when any healer needs mana, they can just call it on vent, and you can make sure you don't have any cooldowns wasted. You can do the same thing for defensive cooldowns. For instance, when our tanks called out that they needed a cd, our disc priest was always the first responder. If his was down, then one of our holy paladins was assigned to second, and the other to third. Showing defensive cooldowns on raid frames also helps with not overlapping these. My guide on setting up Vuhdo has a portion on configuring that.

Communicate Communicate Communicate!

Really the key to good teamwork is communication. If you're raiding as a healer and do not have a microphone, do other healers a favor and get one. But, that's not enough. You have to USE IT. For some reason I run into more shy healers than any other class. Don't be! Call out when a tank is out of range or LoS, call out when you're debuffed, call out when you need mana, call out if you're cc'd, and call it when you just plain need help! Other healers aren't going to tease you. Good communication skills are incredibly important, so don't be afraid to use vent.

Another little trick I like to do is set up a special push to talk for vent that only healers and my tanks can hear. Doing this is really simple, and here's a quick video on it:



With all the changes coming in Cata, it's going to be more important than ever to be a team player, especially in a pug. Working on some skills now will really save you a headache later.

/bubblehearth