How can I help the healers

[Aberen]

This is asked enough I think. When a tank needs help with threat the dps helps, if I need wings the healers help. What can I do to help the healers?

I am MT and sometime raid leader. I have never played a healing class. Is there anything I need to know to make the lives of my healers better? Raid spacing, healer assigns, etc.

Finally, any good ways to judge the performance of a healer? I know, I know if the raid survives they did good, but how do I know if a particular healer is pulling their weight? I check the healing meters, but sometimes a healer has 900 HPS because the people they heal die or, they aren't taking as much damage. What makes a good healer?

Thanks

[Martie]

It's hard for me to say what makes a good healer, but here's what I know about what healers like.
(Ask the person that assigns healer tasks to tell you what healer is good - he should know.)

Healers like it if you stay in range - it's very frustrating to have to run after someone if they ran farther then they had to or in the wrong direction.
Healers like it if you know their strong and weak sides - some are better at some aspects then others, or just more comfortable with them.
Healers like it if you respect that there are a lot of fights where they have the hardest task in the fight and they get the least respect for it.
Healers like it if people don't take damage they don't have to take.

[holyjebus]

Ok ill try to do my best to inform you.

What we don’t like (its part of the job we get over it) :

LoS - line of sight, a MT healer has to keep the tank alive nothing worse than the tank going out of LoS or out of range (you will never go out of range of a good healer he is always watching what you do)

Coping the blame - healers very rarely get realized for their efforts, there is allot of things a healer has to maintain and failing to do so will most likely be fatal to the raid / tank. Most of the time a healer will only get recognized for messing up.

really me personally that's what I don't like a tank can nearly do anything and a good healer will keep him up I mean we all make a mistake once and a while, he / she won’t go off about it.

What we do like:

Recognition for what we have achieved, dps get praise when they down a boss faster, tanks get praise tanking positioning method of tanking and tanks are usually the one's coordinating the whole fight. Healers like I said most times won’t even get a pat on the back lol maybe a "can I get a resurrection"

I’m not saying it all the time but when the raid has accomplished a progression step for eg a lil praise never hurt.

What we are good at:
most healers are good or know how to keep up 4 players and a tank heroics are there to teach us all something and they do. when it comes down to assigning a healer you look at class and spec most healers play what they enjoy, are good at and comfortable with (not all the time but in most cases) different classes and specs are better at certain things. We have preferences and what we like to do but I guess I’m trying to say we can interchange when needed. So we are usually good at tank and raid healing and we have to be flexible. How to tell a good healer do they go OOM. If the healer can keep up with the damage in some cases. The best thing to do is ask them and test them spend 1 raid switching raid responsibilities find out what they are good at

What makes a good healer: ability to learn, take advice and instinct


all in all me as a healer loves it when something goes wrong I love stressful situations because it’s a challenge that’s why I play my class. Nothing makes me angry and I don’t sook about anything. I personally don’t need praise I’m there to raid with my E friends and have a laugh or to: D that’s just me.

Everything I wrote is opinion not fact. And if what I wrote does not help you at all I’m sorry in my head it probly came out better then that haha

[sud]

I ran some Pugs recently (doesn't everyone) and I am amazed at the effort some healers make to keep everyone, tank first alive. So I've come into the habit of telling some of my heroic-pug healers "great healing, honestly".
It's nice to imagine the smiles on their faces when I hear their delighted response

My point is, if you see that your (perhaps not so well geared as you) healer is doing a good job, thank them after the run.

[holyjebus]

we love it, then we go tell all our mates FIGJAM :P

[Amallthia]

What we do like:

Recognition for what we have achieved, dps get praise when they down a boss faster, tanks get praise tanking positioning method of tanking and tanks are usually the one's coordinating the whole fight. Healers like I said most times won’t even get a pat on the back lol maybe a "can I get a resurrection"

I’m not saying it all the time but when the raid has accomplished a progression step for eg a lil praise never hurt.

Sad but true...
Our guild just got a bunch of new recruits, most of which have only pugged Naxx25 but never finished it. We have been gearing some up through Ulduar10 runs and forcing their under geared toons through ulduar25 runs. Needless to say it is hard on the healing crew, if we don't wipe to too many dps dying to stupid avoidable dmg, the fights will usually go right up to the enrage timer.

When we downed Hodir and Mim last night the common saying was "great job dps! I didn't think we'd make that enrage timer!"
Then we hear "okay! get the dead up before looting!"
We congratulate ourselves quietly in the healer channel while casting our rez's.

Kinda disheartening to heal your ass off a whole fight with people taking dmg they could avoid or prevent and then have all the glory/recognition go to those people... Not to say the under geared newbies didn't have their work cut out for them, but all the same it is a team effort... And healing a raid learning fights like those can be painful...

[Therelin]

Ok ill try to do my best to inform you.

What we don’t like (its part of the job we get over it) :

LoS - line of sight, a MT healer has to keep the tank alive nothing worse than the tank going out of LoS or out of range (you will never go out of range of a good healer he is always watching what you do)

Coping the blame - healers very rarely get realized for their efforts, there is allot of things a healer has to maintain and failing to do so will most likely be fatal to the raid / tank. Most of the time a healer will only get recognized for messing up.

really me personally that's what I don't like a tank can nearly do anything and a good healer will keep him up I mean we all make a mistake once and a while, he / she won’t go off about it.

What we do like:

Recognition for what we have achieved, dps get praise when they down a boss faster, tanks get praise tanking positioning method of tanking and tanks are usually the one's coordinating the whole fight. Healers like I said most times won’t even get a pat on the back lol maybe a "can I get a resurrection"

I’m not saying it all the time but when the raid has accomplished a progression step for eg a lil praise never hurt.

What we are good at:
most healers are good or know how to keep up 4 players and a tank heroics are there to teach us all something and they do. when it comes down to assigning a healer you look at class and spec most healers play what they enjoy, are good at and comfortable with (not all the time but in most cases) different classes and specs are better at certain things. We have preferences and what we like to do but I guess I’m trying to say we can interchange when needed. So we are usually good at tank and raid healing and we have to be flexible. How to tell a good healer do they go OOM. If the healer can keep up with the damage in some cases. The best thing to do is ask them and test them spend 1 raid switching raid responsibilities find out what they are good at

What makes a good healer: ability to learn, take advice and instinct


all in all me as a healer loves it when something goes wrong I love stressful situations because it’s a challenge that’s why I play my class. Nothing makes me angry and I don’t sook about anything. I personally don’t need praise I’m there to raid with my E friends and have a laugh or to: D that’s just me.

Everything I wrote is opinion not fact. And if what I wrote does not help you at all I’m sorry in my head it probly came out better then that haha

i completely agree with all of that As a resto druid it can a PITA to keep everyone alive and sometimes i am doin double duty hoting the tanks AND healing the raid depending on how mnay healers we have for the night and my hubby who happens to be the tank always says we healers do an awesome job esp when the fight is long and hard and i love that feeling

[Insahnity]

Speaking as a healer and a tank of all persuasions, here are some tips I'd like to add:

Learn the roles of healers and their strengths. There are single target healers and raid healers. Holydins and Disc priests are single target (tank) healers. Holy priests and druids are raid healeres. Resto shamans are MELEE raid healers, their targets need to be close for their chain heal to bounce around.

-Asking a priest to tank heal when holy or raid heal as disc is a great way to piss them off.
-Inadvertantly assigning a holydin to raid healing is an uh-oh, if they don't outright object.
-Assigning a resto shaman to raid heal casters spread everywhere is a no-no.
-Calling out a disc priest for low HPS is bad as most of their value is in absorbance which is not counted through recount (yet). May change in 3.2
-Praising a Holydin or holy priest for high HPS is bad. Most times, it's all overhealing. It irritates other healers.
-Druids have low overheals (and therefore low HPS) because their HoT's stop healing at full health, wasting a lot of real healing effort.
-If a tank dies, really examine if it is the healers fault or a top notch healer compensating for a poorly geared tank (and ultimately failing, because there is no substitute for good gear, most especially for tanks).
-For Raz in Nax, assuming priests can MC in the absence of hit gear is not good. No hit gear means they have never done this before. If they have taken the time to gather hit gear, then they may have done it before and have some clue (unless they enthusiastically volunteer to do it, then they are veterans). Go easy on them, unless they are tanks themselves on alts, their tanking skills will suck.

HPS is a MEANINGLESS stat. Assuming you understand this, please reinforce this as a raid leader if you hear people grumbling about somebody's HPS. The true measure of a healer is how many people they keep alive, especially in the face of stupidity such as high friendly fire or failed standing in fire/poison/void zone/etc. What HPS may indicate is:
-Too may healers on one tank (2 healers, one has high HPS, other has low HPS/high overheals)
-Insufficiently geared/unskilled (high HPS and tank still dies)
-Ninja AFK (low HPS spamming one heal and tank dies; CoH and Wild Growth are guilty parties)
-and so on.

For new healers, especially in heroics, nothing irritates healers more than chain pulling when they are OOM. Warriors, Bears and DKs are especially guilty, as they wish to retain rage/RP between pulls. Take the rage hit and wait for them to drink up, they probably need more gear to keep up your pace. Learn what their "acceptable mana" level is (half, 3/4, etc.). Efficient healers like Paladins and disc priests can go with less but will eventually need a healthy drinking period, while high regen classes like holy priests and druids may just need a quick second to get back up to a respectable range.

In raids, arrange healers with a resto shaman for mana tide. Make sure feral cats take the time to innervate healers, and aren't self absorbed in shining their DPS epeen (bears are excluded, an innervate or brez from a bear is a rare gift indeed). Insist that all non healing classes pitch in to debuff curing, including mages/druids decurse, shamans/priests purge/mass dispel, shamans drop cleansing totems, druids cure poison, priests cure diseases, priests/paladins dispel magic. Even if you clear an area, pay attention to the recount dispels count and encourage people to improve. Yes a healer can cure it, but it detracts from their ability to keep people alive, just as much as it detracts from your ability to keep threat or your top DPS. To say DPS or tanking is more important than healing is pigheaded. Share the load equally. If the healer cannot deal with it (priests with poison, druids with diseases, etc.) they will be forced to brute force heal it, and that is just not good for the raid if its not necessary.

And for the love of shiny epic loot, if you are a paladin, cleanse yourself. If you fall to a rune punch as a tankadin, I have no sympathy for you.

A bear who pre-HoT's himself before a pull is to be commended.

Some tanks (myself included) do forget they have cookies and pots. Train tanks to use them if they dont. A tank that frequently asks for cookies on normal pulls with no deaths is a healthy sign, unless their health bar spent most of its time below 35% on a non-gimmick fight.

A raid leader who doesn't have enough replenishment in the raid hurts the healers the most. Yet they silently suffer through this. Keep track of replenshment up time, and have providers increase the frequency of their relavent abilities, even if it lowers their personal DPS. Post 3.0 healer mana was talked about alot, and then forgotten, but it's still an issue for some.

As a tank, you DO have the right to the following:
-Request not to be pre-shielded or pre-hotted before pull. Shielding hurts paladins the most, as spiritual attunement requires damage. Supposedly bears and warriors still get rage for hits while shielded, but I haven't personally investigated this. Pre-hotting makes aoe pulls very difficult, as that ONE stray mob that didnt get hit will most assuredly head for the healer, irritating the tank.
-Request more frequent usage of Hand of Salvation from holydins. Only really good holydins bother to watch threat meter beyond their own personal threat, and HoS/HoP accordingly. I personally am very bad at this.

As a raid leader, you need to stomp on healers who stand in fire/poison/void zones quickly. While sometimes its plain lag or inattentation, most times its a sign that they are healbot/grid users and are too focused playing "whack-a-mole" healing. Unless you roll a healer and paly with grid/healbot, that last sentence may not make sense, but feel free to yell out to an offending healer who is know to use those addons to "Stop playing whack-a-mole and pay attention to the enviroment"

As a raid leader, consider downloading GrimReaper add on, and support your healers if they are not at fault.

[holyjebus]

Speaking as a healer and a tank of all persuasions, here are some tips I'd like to add:

Learn the roles of healers and their strengths. There are single target healers and raid healers. Holydins and Disc priests are single target (tank) healers. Holy priests and druids are raid healeres. Resto shamans are MELEE raid healers, their targets need to be close for their chain heal to bounce around.

-Asking a priest to tank heal when holy or raid heal as disc is a great way to piss them off.
-Inadvertantly assigning a holydin to raid healing is an uh-oh, if they don't outright object.
-Assigning a resto shaman to raid heal casters spread everywhere is a no-no.
-Calling out a disc priest for low HPS is bad as most of their value is in absorbance which is not counted through recount (yet). May change in 3.2
-Praising a Holydin or holy priest for high HPS is bad. Most times, it's all overhealing. It irritates other healers.
-Druids have low overheals (and therefore low HPS) because their HoT's stop healing at full health, wasting a lot of real healing effort.
-If a tank dies, really examine if it is the healers fault or a top notch healer compensating for a poorly geared tank (and ultimately failing, because there is no substitute for good gear, most especially for tanks).
-For Raz in Nax, assuming priests can MC in the absence of hit gear is not good. No hit gear means they have never done this before. If they have taken the time to gather hit gear, then they may have done it before and have some clue (unless they enthusiastically volunteer to do it, then they are veterans). Go easy on them, unless they are tanks themselves on alts, their tanking skills will suck.

HPS is a MEANINGLESS stat. Assuming you understand this, please reinforce this as a raid leader if you hear people grumbling about somebody's HPS. The true measure of a healer is how many people they keep alive, especially in the face of stupidity such as high friendly fire or failed standing in fire/poison/void zone/etc. What HPS may indicate is:
-Too may healers on one tank (2 healers, one has high HPS, other has low HPS/high overheals)
-Insufficiently geared/unskilled (high HPS and tank still dies)
-Ninja AFK (low HPS spamming one heal and tank dies; CoH and Wild Growth are guilty parties)
-and so on.

For new healers, especially in heroics, nothing irritates healers more than chain pulling when they are OOM. Warriors, Bears and DKs are especially guilty, as they wish to retain rage/RP between pulls. Take the rage hit and wait for them to drink up, they probably need more gear to keep up your pace. Learn what their "acceptable mana" level is (half, 3/4, etc.). Efficient healers like Paladins and disc priests can go with less but will eventually need a healthy drinking period, while high regen classes like holy priests and druids may just need a quick second to get back up to a respectable range.

In raids, arrange healers with a resto shaman for mana tide. Make sure feral cats take the time to innervate healers, and aren't self absorbed in shining their DPS epeen (bears are excluded, an innervate or brez from a bear is a rare gift indeed). Insist that all non healing classes pitch in to debuff curing, including mages/druids decurse, shamans/priests purge/mass dispel, shamans drop cleansing totems, druids cure poison, priests cure diseases, priests/paladins dispel magic. Even if you clear an area, pay attention to the recount dispels count and encourage people to improve. Yes a healer can cure it, but it detracts from their ability to keep people alive, just as much as it detracts from your ability to keep threat or your top DPS. To say DPS or tanking is more important than healing is pigheaded. Share the load equally. If the healer cannot deal with it (priests with poison, druids with diseases, etc.) they will be forced to brute force heal it, and that is just not good for the raid if its not necessary.

And for the love of shiny epic loot, if you are a paladin, cleanse yourself. If you fall to a rune punch as a tankadin, I have no sympathy for you.

A bear who pre-HoT's himself before a pull is to be commended.

Some tanks (myself included) do forget they have cookies and pots. Train tanks to use them if they dont. A tank that frequently asks for cookies on normal pulls with no deaths is a healthy sign, unless their health bar spent most of its time below 35% on a non-gimmick fight.

A raid leader who doesn't have enough replenishment in the raid hurts the healers the most. Yet they silently suffer through this. Keep track of replenshment up time, and have providers increase the frequency of their relavent abilities, even if it lowers their personal DPS. Post 3.0 healer mana was talked about alot, and then forgotten, but it's still an issue for some.

As a tank, you DO have the right to the following:
-Request not to be pre-shielded or pre-hotted before pull. Shielding hurts paladins the most, as spiritual attunement requires damage. Supposedly bears and warriors still get rage for hits while shielded, but I haven't personally investigated this. Pre-hotting makes aoe pulls very difficult, as that ONE stray mob that didnt get hit will most assuredly head for the healer, irritating the tank.
-Request more frequent usage of Hand of Salvation from holydins. Only really good holydins bother to watch threat meter beyond their own personal threat, and HoS/HoP accordingly. I personally am very bad at this.

As a raid leader, you need to stomp on healers who stand in fire/poison/void zones quickly. While sometimes its plain lag or inattentation, most times its a sign that they are healbot/grid users and are too focused playing "whack-a-mole" healing. Unless you roll a healer and paly with grid/healbot, that last sentence may not make sense, but feel free to yell out to an offending healer who is know to use those addons to "Stop playing whack-a-mole and pay attention to the enviroment"

As a raid leader, consider downloading GrimReaper add on, and support your healers if they are not at fault.

you covered a few things i missed out on and i agree totally.

[qygibo]

Looking at someone's HPS isn't totally useless if you're able to review all the data properly. It can help you see if you're bringing too many healers, not enough healers, if people aren't sticking to their assignments, if someone needs to be on a different assignment, etc.

An example of where looking at HPS is a good thing is one I can personally relate. I was in 25 man VoA one time on Emalon, and we were running with 5 healers.. 1 druid, 1 shaman, 1 holy priest, and 2 paladins (myself as holy pally #1). I had the highest HPS out of everyone, and this was with me dying and being at less than 25% mana the majority of the time. Part of this wasn't because of good things, though... the two tanks were taking major damage, and I was spamming Holy Light on both tanks while the other holy pally was spamming piddling Flash of Lights on occasion (this was before the latest patch). Seeing my HPS and what I was doing, compared to what pally #2's HPS was and what they were doing allowed me to sit down with this other pally healer and explain that sometimes, certain types of heals were needed, as well as to help them with gearing, gemming, enchanting, and with setting up Grid/Clique, and they improved immensely.

[Gretchin]

Many good advices here, but adding one I feel is missing. Try to never yell out for heals. It doesn't help. The healers are aware of your health. Quite possibly they are more aware of it than you yourself.

Also, if you really really would like to learn start a alt that you can heal with and heal some instances. The first time you heal a instance you will see all the tank's mistakes and be irritated on that. The second time it's pretty much the same. But maybe the third time you will learn what you could have done to cover for others mistakes. And that's the first step on learning what healers can do and can't do - experience it.

[holyjebus]

well said Gretchin, Great point

everything we say here doesn't count for what you can get from experienc.

[Therelin]

Many good advices here, but adding one I feel is missing. Try to never yell out for heals. It doesn't help. The healers are aware of your health. Quite possibly they are more aware of it than you yourself.

Also, if you really really would like to learn start a alt that you can heal with and heal some instances. The first time you heal a instance you will see all the tank's mistakes and be irritated on that. The second time it's pretty much the same. But maybe the third time you will learn what you could have done to cover for others mistakes. And that's the first step on learning what healers can do and can't do - experience it.

yep.....my hubby had to play my toon cause i couldnt get on and his first time healing ever was during KT on 10 man and he is usually a MT and oh boy did he appreciate me a lot more after that but he hasnt healed on my toon since then lol

[Namataya]

For those that recognize good heals, I want to be on your server!

It drives me nuts when I'm reminded to drink. I keep track of my own mana, but thank you :-) They're right, heals have what they accept as a reasonable amount of mana.

Blaming a wipe on heals, especially in Emelon or KT. I've seen people stand in the other people's range boxes and enable the chain damage to kill off healers. Healers can't always heal through those so learn how to stop it.

Same goes for poorly geared tanks. I've had tanks with low health and poor gear pull mobs of 5-6 and die in 3 seconds or less. Then they blame the healer. I need a minimum of 1.2 seconds to get a heal off which, if you're already at 1/3 life isn't enough in those situations. My point is, learn your limits and work with it, don't try to be a hero type.

Don't tell me someone's got a curse to dispel. My mod tells me.

Same for low health. I know the tank or dps needs heals, I see it and I'm on it.

Keeping a poor healer in the group. I know, everyone has to learn, but if they're doing half what I am or not covering their assignment, please get rid of them. They can learn in heroics. If they aren't covering their assignment, the other heals are doing it and it's hard.

It's great to see a tank/raid lead who actually cares :-) Thank you!

[Mala]

I pretty much agree with everything said in here, there is one detail that's a massive pet peeve of mine and other healers.

If the raid wipes and all of your healers are making the run back, then EVERYBODY runs back. There is almost at last one person who decides to lie there dead and wait for a healer to come rez them. In my guild they have all learned (only exception is loot master and that's just in case something did drop), but I will "politely" remind PuGs if I have to run, they have to run.

[Miriai]

Help your healers by avoiding damage. What do I mean? In recent content, in particular Ulduar and Coliseum, blizzard has been designing many encounters that include both avoidable and unavoidable sources of damage.

Example: the fire dot in P2 of Mimiron is unavoidable. The proximity mines are avoidable.

Another good example is the Hodir encounter in Ulduar: the frost aura and falling icicles are both avoidable sources of damage.

For non-tanks in particular, it is important to know the sources of avoidable damage and then AVOID them. When learning encounters, this can be a critical success factor. Later, in the hard mode versions of those same encounters, it can be absolutely critical.

Last but not least: it is a game, remember to keep it fun, both for yourself and your healers.

edited: to cleanup my atrocious grammer

[Reev]

Most of this thread is how to treat healers, and I agree, but it doesn't discuss what to do to HELP healers.

I think that as a tank, there are the obvious things, like positioning mobs and groups correctly and holding aggro, but you really need to know when and how damage is coming, and prepare to help out the healers. This means not only knowing when to use cooldowns, but also to make sure you are communicating their use to the healers. Don't be silent, let them know you've got shield wall up for the next 15 seconds. That lets the healers know they're safe to peel off and heal the rest of the raid for a few seconds. Let them know when Shield Wall is over.

Use your cooldowns often. Even if it's trash. Shield Wall is a 2 minute cooldown. It will be back up in time for the boss fight. If you're in a boss fight without predictable damage spikes, like Ignis, use it whenever it's up. If you're in a fight with lots of raid damage, that maybe isn't a huge tank threat, like XT, use it during the raid damage to let the tank healers help with raid healing. Know about how the damage is coming, not only for you, but for the whole raid.

Make sure you're using your damage reduction abilities correctly, such as thunderclap or demoralizing shout. The amount of damage to take is immensely reduced by these. Don't ever let those debuffs fall off the mobs.

If you're raid leader, try to take into account the healers. It's easy to get into tunnel vision of tanking and dpsing, since those are the things that progress the fight, but healing enables the fight. An example is on the Twin Valks, make sure you're calling if everyone needs to switch the debuffs, or just the dps.

Learn what your healers like. My healers like fast fast more pulls MORE!! Some healers prefer a chance to stop every couple pulls and regen mana. Figure out what they like. Ask them what things you do make you easier to heal. Ask them about positioning.

Use stoneblood potions on harder fights. DPS is expected to use haste potions, so you should use your equivalent. A stoneblood potion is a huge amount of mitigation for 2 minutes, which you can use before and during a fight. With fights averaging 6 minutes, that's ~3-4% more mitigation for 2/3 of the fight.

If you need an external healer cooldown, don't just call for a "Pain Suppression!" Call for a specific healer to do it. If possible, give them some notice that you will be calling for it so they aren't caught off guard struggling to get it to you.

[Silverhoof]

And for the love of shiny epic loot, if you are a paladin, cleanse yourself. If you fall to a rune punch as a tankadin, I have no sympathy for you.

I love you....

[Maèl]

As a tank helping a healer is easy.

Don't surprise us. Be consistent.
Don't zig where you used to zag. Don't change the plan without prior notice(for instance some subtle strat change you agreed on with your OT). Don't make us move when you don't have to.

Many of us know the fights only by the change of the life bars. Back in vanilla I jokingly said that I'd recognize any boss just by watching how the lifebars moved. Change that even subtly an you can throw the healers completely off balance.
Why is that? There are a couple of healers responsible for different tasks. But we always also watch each others turf. If something unexpected happens then you will find that EVERYBODY scrambles to save the situation. Healers(at least those that don't give their efficiency in HPS) never go "this isn't my job, let the other dude sort it out". Healing in a group is a bit like a dance. Change the rhythm, expect chaos.

[Bashal]

As a tank helping a healer is easy.
But we always also watch each others turf. If something unexpected happens then you will find that EVERYBODY scrambles to save the situation.

This is true; I usually joke in raids that the healing assignments are just so I know who to blame if someone dies, not a strict assignment. (I am joking though, and as a healer myself, I know how rough it is, especially when trying to cope with the unexpected.)

Really the best a tank can do to help healers is what was already mentioned: pop cooldowns at moments you'll be taking higher damage (or just rotate through them if the fight has no high-damage phases), don't LoS, if you have to kite very far announce it beforehand, etc.

Actually, one other thing comes to mind: if you know you are about to get pummeled and have no cooldown, a heads up helps a lot. I was on a tank alt, I ran out of CDs, and when the next high damage cycle started I said "I got nothin'!". The healers laughed, but they knew I'd need bigger heals, and they provided.