healers and meters...

[elunesbuddy]

Hi,
First let me say that I am not a healer, but a warrior tank in an average raiding guild (working through TotGC25 at the moment). I used to be guild and raid leader of a smaller guild through BC and until the release of the Ulduar. I had to take a break because I moved to a different State, I then transferred to a Pacific server. I am now an officer in this guild.

Back to my old raiding guild, we had rules not to spam meters in raid or guild chat. But we were also really strict about the fact we didn't want to have healing meters to be posted. It was often perceived as a way to brag and I was convinced that they were not relevant because of the differences between:
- class
- assignment
- fights themselves


In my opinion, healing meters just like WWS logs give some information to figure out when something is wrong. BUT, on a regular basis, posting meters after each boss kill/attempt, is not a beneficial to anyone.

As an officer I sometimes get tells from healers (the ones at the bottom of the list) asking if they are still going get a raid spot because they total heals suck compared to others. I've also asked one of them (a holy priest) how this healing-meters-spam is affecting his job as a healer. The answer was really revealing. He said, that most of the time he no longer tries to do smart heals. Instead he makes sure to abilities to max out his "score".

I think that is messed up. Mathematically, healing meters can't be as relevant as DPS meters just because of the fact that all incoming heals toward someone topped off will be counted as overheals. This means, classes with HoTs and instant heals will necessarily be first to do net heals on the raid. People with casted heals and with possibly less haste will necessarily have more heals going toward the overheals chart ; unless they can/know when to start casting to have heals land right when damage happened - whenever that's possible.

DPS meters are not always relevant, but they are much more often. The fact all the damage is counted (there is no relevant overdamage) makes comparisons possible.


-What you healers think about it?
-Do you think there are some classes that are necessarily on the top of the charts?
-Do you allow healing charts to be posted?
-Do you give a damn about the ranking given by the meter?


It may be because of where I come from (ie smaller casual raiding guild where everyone was nice to each other - no strong competition within the guild). I don't know, but I still think healers job is to keep the raid alive, know bosses abilities, being mobile, etc - anyhow their job is not to top of a damn chart.

Thanks for any input and sorry for the wall of text...

[Matthras]

I can't really say anything new that you don't know already - obviously healing meters aren't that good for measuring a healer's capabilities. Probably the only way to actually see if a healer's doing his job is to actually watch a PoV video of it; or put on a bit of extra stress (i.e. 2-healing instead of 3 healing a 10 man raid) and see how they manage.
From that last point, another factor to consider is to see how many healers you're running with. If you're running with too many some healers will get bored and won't have much to do, and as a result be lower on the meters than others. (This may be the reason for your Holy Priest's mentality)

Some classes will obviously top the charts more than others. Resto Druids due to their HoTs mostly being fire-and-forget (although I've never played one so this may be a gross generalisation!). Disc Priests will be lower on the charts since most of their healing is through absorption (shields) unless you have the appropriate logs/recording means to calculate them in.

I don't mind healing charts being posted because my guild is fairly casual about it, and I like to joke about it with my fellow healers since I'm the only Disc Priest in my guild but can hold my own in skill. Plus I'd done all my research before I took on full-time Disc Priesting, I knew I'd be near the bottom of the meters; my heals won't heal for as much; my arsenal is more limited, etc.

[Aliena]

I think healing meters are a valuable asset to any raid leader IF you know how to read them. Healing performance is just as important as DPS performance, on meters and otherwise.

However, the person evaluating has to be aware of the different class's strengths and weaknesses for every encounter. For example, it'd be stupid to give, say, a holy priest a hard time about not performing as well as a resto druid on twin valkyrs hard mode. On the other hand, it'd be stupid NOT to give a holy pally a talking to that doesn't perform on top of the meters or damn close to on Razuvious.

The bragging isn't any different than the DPS meter bragging - you'll find AoE classes gleeing on AoE encounters, mages on Hodir, melee DPS on XT, etc... healers are much the same. I know for a fact I always want to do better, and if I didn't have meters to go by, I wouldn't have anything to try for and my concentration and hence performance would suffer. I typically run with the same excellent healing team, and most of us are usually head-on save for the encounters that favor one class over another, so it's always very fun to try and beat my guildies.

-Do you think there are some classes that are necessarily on the top of the charts?
This varies greatly by encounter. Some favor priests, LOTS favor druids, some favor shamans and a select few favor pallies even. Disc priests are in a bad spot on the meters til meters count absorbs properly and even then they'll have a harder time on most encounters. That doesn't mean they aren't an absolutely great asset to every raid.

-Do you allow healing charts to be posted?
We don't normally post them but I know they're looked at and discussed, especially if the healing part on an encounter is lacking.

-Do you give a damn about the ranking given by the meter?
The competition keeps raiding fun for me.

[Goomba]

worldoflogs.com ftw

I'm a disc priest, and it does a great job of dealing with giving me info about crits, overhealing, effective healing, shielding, etc....

here's the link to my guild's logs, where you can see some runs that go well with a variety of healers and how they read, and some really cruddy runs, too....lol....we're a casual raid guild that takes it seriously, but not every day...lol...some of the stuff on there is from pugs, too.....but their log system seems to be the most accurate when all of us healers talk about a fight....

World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

[Maèl]

Healing meters are only to be discussed within the healers and their respective officers.
If read without any clue of the classes then you'll get it completely wrong.
Also you also have to take a look at decurses and such.

I hate to bring something like this up but also overheal is important. But only if you see the respective healer is oom half way thru the fight.

In short, healing meters are only useful in conjunction with WWS and such.

One(very old school) example to illustrate the problem:
Back in Naxx40 i regularly got assigned to raid healing. Back then I ran with stuff very lopsided in the spirit end of things. Arlokks staff with spirit enchant and so on.
I got assigned to raid healing. There were phases when the adds were up there was considerable raid/ot damage to be healed. I did get that job because I was known to explode in a huge flash of light and everybody was alive. When damage on Anub'Rekhan resumed I was free to regen mana/wand/releave the MT healers, but generally slack a bit. We had healing rotations back then. Now how would that look on a healing meter? Nobody died, I had very little overheal and could've switched places with the MT healer any time. I did in fact take over a couple of times.

A negative example could be this.
If you use grid it has a nifty feature of showing woh is currently being healed by what amount while the cast is going thru. All you need to do is use an instant heal on that one and you have sniped a heal. Making you look good while the other healer just produced overheal. Neat! I'm good, you are a baddie.

Healing meters should be read with care.

[elunesbuddy]

Thanks for the input and I agree with everything that's been said.
Aliena> I am sure that playing with people that knows a lot of most classes is helping things. Because at least, you expect from them to be (as you said) "../.. aware of the different class's strengths and weaknesses for every encounter". Because I am sure that is the case for you, I am certain you never find yourself in a position where the druid is bragging his/her awesome HPS on Twins, even if you are trying to race him/her right?

And that was kinda my point. Because in my guild, not all (any?) of them knows enough about the other classes. So, they will get flamed or get flamed even on fights such as Twins. People that will get flamed, are not necessarily doing something wrong but they might think they are.

So what should the guild do in this kind of situation? Back in my old guild, the only thing we did was not to allow healing meters.
Ideally I would want to have every healer learn about all of the other classes, learn enough to make them realize there are fights where one class can really outheal another. But that's not gonna happen.

[Nicki]

im against healing meters in that....

Every class heals slightly differently just because druids HoT doesn't mean a holy priest isn't doing as effective or even more useful healing. Healing meters can't measure saved raid members or the heal contributed when the tank was low.

So meters don't apply as strictly persee to healers.

What healing meters can show?

Whom healed who if you assigned a druid to tank healing but another raid healer is doing equal ammounts of tank healing you have an issue etc.

Healing done by spell, after many many encounters you start to notice what spells get used and if you play the class you may have preferences however as an example once a guild I was in had a trial who managed to get 10 Prayer of Mending heals in a whole night of healing as a holy priest.

There is a side that healing meters aren't necessarily bad in that a healer trying to top meters needs to heal damage fast but likewise ticking hots have little to no effect on the lifespan of a raid member, not saying they aren't useful just saying that when push comes to shove meters don't tell a full story.

People forget healing is like tanking not like dps; you do a role for the benefit of your raid group not for self gratification...

[Abolita]

Just preaching what everyone already said here, especially when it comes to Disc priests. Healing meters are relevant, if the people reading them don't read them the same way as DPS meters. I normally run with Recount in the background and post the charts after a progression fight in a separate channel to see where we can improve. I used to run it in the open, but I was so stressed that, as a disc priest, I was worried that I was normally at the bottom of the meters, not knowing what I was doing wrong. This was at the start of WoTLK and relearning how to play again.

Once they, Blizzard or mod developers, find a way to track damage reduction from Disc priest spells, I know that my raid leaders know why im near the bottom, and take comfort to know that im not a baddie.

[Yilar]

Unless you know exactly how damage comes from an encounter healing meters are fairly useless. There are so many things u have to take into the equation for it to make sense.

Was 'X' person with dmg spell in range. Was someone moving to get away from fire and partly prevented from casting non-instant spells? Was PoM getting blocked by other priest PoM? How many people are taking dmg? And the list goes on.

Btw what is this "smart" healing if it decreases his overall healing? Is he nuking or what?

[elunesbuddy]

I used "smart" healing as opposed to "stupid" healing which easier to understand:
a healer not focused on the chart, with no pressure about it, will do what's best for the raid. If he was given a specific area to cover and if this area is not taking damage then, he is pretty much on stand by. Being stupid in this case, would be for him to go to a different area to be in range of people he wants to heal, but at the risk of getting too close from another member that may cause additional damage. That's just an example.
another example of stupid heals would be Mael's example about snipe heals.



Thanks for all the input. I think my main concern is pretty much validated by the fact druids are/should be topping charts on most encounters like Aliena said. I just happen to feel charts are pushing my guild other healers in the wrong direction, because this druid is just bragging numbers showing how this class is in favor in the current raid content. Some of the healers understand that, some others don't and get frustrated. And because WWS reports and meters are pretty much only analyzed by raid leaders, I still don't think those should be posted in guild or raid chat, because that's definitely not helping.

[Meeks]

Death logs are the real healing 'meter'.

[Goomba]

Death logs are the real healing 'meter'.

lol...amen....full clears are the other accurate one....

[Airowird]

How to know if healers are meter whores or actually good healers:
Go to Naxx with 4 healers and tell em you're going for Immortal.
Possible with the current gear if you know when to use what healing spells and who to heal with them.

Also, I find it more important to see what kind of healing spells someone was using rather than their total healing output. (Even for Paladins a good Bacon choice can mean a lot)

E.g. as a Resto Shaman on Twins I basicly spam Chain Heal on a tank, while keeping the occasional Riptide or Lesser Healing Wave for people getting low (usually our orb collectors). I know I can do this because the Twins hit like grannies on tanks and with enough Shamans/Paladins bouncing CH & beaconing tanks, you don't even need dedicated tank healers anymore, so our Priests & Druids can focus on AoE healing as well
On the other hand, if I did that on Faction Champions, people would most certainly die, because they need fast, focused healing, not sluggish AoE spells. On this fight Paladins, Shamans and Disc priests need to focus on people getting targetted while leaving random crap like pets to Druids & Holy Priests.
Using either strategy in the wrong fight might shift around the healing meters, but it'll also add to Death meters

[Insahnity]

I think one of the best heal meters I ever saw was in a 5 healer 25 voa where
a) nobody died
b) All the incidental heals (Seal of Light, iLotP, Deathstrikes, etc.) were tiny fractions of healer heals, and
c) Incidental heal overhealing ran about 30%, and *every* healer was at 10% or less overheals. This included a holy paladin, a druid, and a few priests (no shamans, sadly).

I thought that was a pretty good showing.

[Meeks]

That is one freakin lazy holy paladin and druid that is.

Just because voa is incredibly easy and the healers fell asleep does not make it a good meter.

All it means is that it was so easy that healers could sit there and wait for damage to happen then heal accordingly. try that is a real raid and see how that works.

Druids/paladins without a healthy dose of over healing scare me.

[sangredios]

c) Incidental heal overhealing ran about 30%, and *every* healer was at 10% or less overheals. This included a holy paladin, a druid, and a few priests (no shamans, sadly).

voa25 and no healer had more then 10% overhealing?, think it's safe to say you meter is showing wrong numbers.

[Duese]

What does it mean when the holy pally is pushing 50%+ of the healing in a 10 man hard mode encounter in ulduar with a holy priest and a shaman as the other healers pulling <25% each? On top of that the holy pally is pushing 40-50% overhealing?

What does it mean when a holy pally tops healing in Twin Valk's 25 man against a slew of resto shaman, holy priests and resto druids?

Serious question: What do you say to the healers that are underperforming in roles that they should have better results than other classes?

What does it mean when you are dealing with people that are the same class healing and one is significantly higher than another?

While gear can be one answer to many of these questions, this is also healing that we are talking about. It takes a pretty good leap to see a notable difference between healers where gear is the issue.

The answer to all of these questions can be summed up by saying that effective healing meters could quite possibly be more informative of a players skill than that of damage meters where it is significantly more gear dependent.

[sangredios]

What does it mean when a holy pally tops healing in Twin Valk's 25 man against a slew of resto shaman, holy priests and resto druids?

Twins 25 hc is one of the few encounters where i find healing meter very helpfull, when using the DS tactic. All healers should be running 7-8K hps, if some can't do this he needs to be replaced, or you will have a hard time outhealing the aoe and vortex.

If the meters show someone performing less then expected it has nothing to do with skill, the player properly just don't have the gear needed to execute the tactic.

[Duese]

If the meters show someone performing less then expected it has nothing to do with skill, the player properly just don't have the gear needed to execute the tactic.

I disagree.

If you aren't gearing properly, then it's a skill issue. For instance, if you are wearing no haste gear and you are a shaman, then you are doing it wrong and I put that under a "skill" issue, equating skill to the knowledge a player has of their class. Or if you are gearing as a holy pally and choose SP and Haste over intellect when you only have a 20k mana pool expecting to be able to spam holy light.

If you don't have the gear to even make those choices, then you shouldn't even be in the content to begin with. I know for a fact that I could heal most of ToGC 25 in my Uldaur 10 man gear without many problems. If I was wearing Naxx 10 gear, then know I wouldn't. I guess this would be where I partially agree with you.

If you have appropriate gear for your spec and class, then you should be able to perform at a sufficient enough level to produce the output desired. Gaining an extra 2k mana, 100 mp5 and 300 spell power is not going to magically take you from 3-4k hps to 6-7k hps, which is where you'll typically notice in the heal meters. The difference between 4k and 5k healing is more about spell selection and target selection than it is about gear from my experience.

[Doc309]

flip side of the problem...
i'm lvling a dual spec shadow/disc priest. and got invited to a UP run...as dps.
he may go holy/disc when i get to 80... but the rogue kept on posting the DPS meter. eventually i told him, " keep posting and i'll stop bubbling the tank" ....
run survival> any meter
it ended up being a very clean clear, but i was minimally annoyed.
bring everything you can to each run you are in.
Doc