Healing for Non-Healers

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