In the interests of the healin arts community and our healees,
here is mah best effort to talk a little about healin in general.
Ah tried to stick to the kind of coverage that seems hard to
find elsewhere and that ah didn't think much about before ah
chose the healin arts to fight fer mah adopted empire.
Let me know if yeh find things to change or add and ah'll get
to it.
1 Healin in keeps
Once yer in a keep fight, yer group healers now have
groupmates all over the place and some outside healing
or rez LoS (line-of-sight). Yer going to need the support
of the healers closest to yeh and give yer group's healers
a lot of slack.
This is why grouping by keep defense function is often a
great idea. If the BWs' group healers are not the ones
that need to heal mdps attacking the ram, that would be
best.
There are six healer needs that come to mind in keep
defense:
1 Heal and rez the oil operator, yer ranged dps, and other
healers on the oil-level ramparts.
2 Heal and rez the melee returning from darting out of the
keep to crush the enemy's ram and its operators and
push the enemy back for buttressing the door.
3 Heal and rez the tanks and dps outside the keep from
amongst them during battle.
4 Rez from the oil-level ramparts the gate meleers who fall
outside the keep but cannot be rezzed up close due to
enemy strength on the ground.
5 Heal and rez skirmishers who seek to divide and harass
the enemy from their flanks via posterns.
6 Rez up those who have come to defend the keep but
have not made it quite to the postern or main gate.
Sometimes finding them can be a real task.
Unless you have healers coming out of yer ears, as you
can see healers need to wear many hats!
Thus it is unlikely that yer healers can stand in one spot
and only help a few people without neglectin some
critical aspect of keep defense or greatly lessening
their value to keep defense. If yeh need a rez, be patient
while healers search for you and send a tell to a healer near
you fer help if you need to. If yer group's healers are keeping
3 folks alive at the ram you may be better off with closest
healer.
I'd send a rez request tell after as little as 15-20 seconds
and maybe only 10 secs if you are a critical class or job ...
healer, tank on the oil, those barracading or repairing the
door, those who can upgrade the keep, etc. Some rezzes
have long timers, like 6s, so waiting 10s+ makes sense.
If you are in a place no healer is starin' at you from, you
should feel free to give yer position asap with as much
detail as reasonable. Knowin you are "down right next to
inner poster at back of keep" will speed yer way back to
the fight immensely. You don't want yer healers to spend
their time scrollin over 30 green dots on the map.
2 Healing within Group vs. WB Healing vs. AOE
Most folks see the world through the view of their list of
group members. Most healers, on the other hand, see
the world through third party add-ons that show the
status of the entire warband in a succinct way. Also,
they see the world of green bars before them and
develop a sixth sense for whom among the masses
before them will need their help the most.
The most critical result of this is healers watching out
for each other across groups in the warband or even
outside the wb. You might need a heal, but if another
group has an about-to-splat rp running fer his or her life,
that rp is probably going to get the help needed first.
Ah assure you, few healers will say, hey that rp is not
in mah wb, ah got other fish to fry.
Another result of this is that healers with a lightly injured
group member are seeing others even more injured out
there and make on-the-fly decisions based on speed of
damage and class.
If sufficient injured forces combine together when a heal
AOE is ready to fire-off, that may also take precedent
over a single player's needs, especially if it looks like
the back of yer force in the field before you looks about
to break. An aggressive healer will try to include
groupmates in the AOE when possible. A common
time for this is an attack timed to make use of champion
guards, as well, causing a lot of damage widely spread
out among yer forces.
You might say, hey he's my healer, he's in my group!
However, remember, that might be your group healer
I'm rezzing, that might be you I'm healing even though
you aren't in mah group, that might be you I'm rezzin
even though you don't have a group. This is a matter
of healers working together to benefit the forces before
them to the maximum possible. Healer chain rezzin
rocks, btw.
One very group-level healing focus, however, is when you
get a wp in your group. I suggest keeping within 100ft of
a group wp whenever possible and reasonable for your
task at hand to get the maximum benefit of the group
buffs and heals.
3 Most healers rez other healers first
Often referred to as "chain rezzing", this is when healers
try desperately to keep the healing going by rezzing each
other quickly when needed, and often in advance of healing
anyone else.
So if yeh fall right next to a healer and some other healer
goes splat, that healer will usually come first. Great job
falling within easy rez range btw.
4 Healers may choose it best to NOT rez you
Especially if you are a fragile class, a healer may judge that
rezzing you will only result in your immediate death and
that you would prefer being rezzed at spawn or later when it
won't result in immediate death. In this case the healer is
doing this because he/she thinks this is what you would
prefer. When rezzing other healers, however, this is often
not an issue as the successful chain rezzin of focus fired
healers can often determine the outcome of any battle.
Healers may also feel the risk to themselves at the moment
is too great to hazard a rez. That said healers will often try
such difficult rezzes anyways cause it's a fun challenge :).
That said, a healer killed in an effort that is no more than a
silly risk with little chance of success or tactical beneficial
isn't doing anyone a favor. A wp may determine a tough
rez is less risky for the rezee if he/she is in the wp's group
as group heal can help the healee get through it.
5 Enemy tanks and some classes target
healers for staggering and silence
It is the rare skirmishers that can prevent tanks from gettin
to yer healers and stagger them now and then, much less
prevent the enemy from silencing them. This is one of the
great values to heal dot stacking, up to double stack
in general, and triple stack if you are within 100ft of some
wps on espresso.
6 The Pocket Healer Myth & Reality
A bw once told me that when he is with his homeboy
healers he never dies as they roll over the enemy. This
can be an effective strategy, although expecting to never
die is a bit silly. On Phoenix Throne I see Henaway,
Pureblade, and others utilize this pocket healer strategy
to different ends, but of course they die quite a bit still,
though the healing is impressive.
To expect someone you haven't arranged it with to be
your pocket healer is pretty rude to everyone else you
are hunting with. This person wonders why can't you
put him ahead of every need in the wb and beyond.
That said if you can arrange this with a dedicated team
designed for this purpose, see what you can do!
I've done it, too, but usually ad-hoc. I often choose to
do commando raids with small teams of 1-6 deep into
enemy territory against the enemy's support, sometimes
in an adhoc team of only 1-3, and then I am essentially
their pocket healer for the duration. If the payoff is
crushing a tough enemy support, causing their whole
offense or defense to collapse, it might be worth a stab
at it. Ah will do this sometimes with proven healer killers
like Ephoid, Grolyn, and Cooperx on Phoenix Throne.
7 Healers may sacrifice range/coverage for survivability
You see it all the time, the rp who hides behind a wall at the
far side of your armies, the wp that keeps his back to the
wall at a far corner where charging enemies may not realize
he is there for sometime, etc.
This unfortunately may cut down some coverage and the
effects of some of the more powerful heals, but yer healers
must choose for themselves how dangerous the environment
is and position accordingly. If very dangerous, this is a trade
off everyone will benefit from.
One of the screenshots, see sidebar, shows a bw using a
wall for coverage. While he can't get as deep into the enemy
with AOE, he can keep it up on their forward edge with little
fear of being wiped for his efforts until they break through.
8 Healers can use their target-worthiness to sacrifice
for the many
For example, if the enemy has a lock on a route to a BO and
they are way out-killing your forces, sometimes a healer who
can survive 8-15 secs can draw vast numbers of the enemy
force to forget about yer main force and turn their backs to it.
This can only be a good trade-off if you have otherwise plenty
of healers to pickup the difference in the interim.
9 Accept the trade-offs of yer class
If you were designed as a high dps class, you pay for it by not
having the advantages of other classes like wounds and armor.
This should go without saying, but this is not always an easy
thing to accept for some.
If 3 sorcerors and 2 squig herders want you dead, you might
be gone in a flash. If a wall of 4 choppas spots you and focus
on you, you might go pretty quick. They might crit on you to
boot and you turn into a pile of dust. If you poke yer head way
out on a keep, you will draw the focus fire of the masses of
enemy below you.
Yer healers will do everything they can fer ya because your
dps kicks the enemy's butt, but sometimes despite best
intentions, you go down like a rock and that's all there is to it.
Happens to us healers, too, we are #1 targets of focus fire.
So if yeh go down, ask fer help if yeh need it, tell us where
you are if not obvious or even if it is obvious, and continue
to enjoy likely the funnest classes to play, uber dps!
If yeh have any ideas for improvement or additions
here, let me know! Mah contact info can be found
on the sidebar link "Contact Dwooid".
Best Regahds,
Dwooid of Caledor