WoW Magazine Healing Article

[vine]

Roana and Amamaeth make some very good points, this thread actually became interesting

For me the author has made three things obvious:
1) He is a mediocre writer, and the magazine apparently does no proofing.
2) He is a single-minded healer with little/no ability to multi-task.
3) He has no idea just how powerful Grid is if you spend the time to customise it.

Amamaeth summed it up "This article is just an example of how NOT to write an article."

[Unluckky]

sorry i just want to lol at this back and forth stuff. stop nitpicking...everyone. don't try to take someones post and prove EVERY two sentences wrong you end up making silly general statements and making yourself look bad. healing is so fun because there are more paths and playstyles to get the job done. I have done endgame healing on a few classes and some classes have it much different than others. MY POINT is that you all make some good points and then you make some silly ones trying to prove someone else wrong or using big words nobody cares about lol at that one post by ms. tank wtf was that. I have been reading amameaths posts on here for about 2 months and sometimes roll my eyes there too. I haven't read this article but it sounds like he took a severly outdated fight, didn't list what his healing assignment was, and tried to write a generalizing article while citing one odd fight. I think we all know what a tough job it is to even try to summarize healing into one fight. (which is why i have quit my dps mains and so enjoy healing) Stop being so jumpy to flame other people. like i said you both made some decent points but lost your credibility when you took so much time to nitpick each other and in the process said some dumb stuff.

[Nicki]

but it sounds like he took a severly outdated fight, didn't list what his healing assignment was, and tried to write a generalizing article while citing one odd fight. I think we all know what a tough job it is to even try to summarize healing into one fight.

Not to be so obvious but what you wrote suggests that even you would have realised publishing that article is a bad idea...

Though there are enough boss encounters to cover all aspects of healing. The problem was he made a bad point and some how no one fine tooth combed this, I just about jumped out my chair when he made up this example of being 'distracted' by icons. It's almost as funny as this: "HOW CAN I FEIGN DEATH WHILE YOU'RE TALKING ON VENT!?"

So really you are just nitpicking at the nitpickers for nitpicking and yes some posts do end up being rather irrellavent including my own but atleast most of the people in this thread are using their Enter keys.

To me I got the following out of his article:

1. Healing is like driving with a sat nav (Please turn around when possible)
2. Icons are distracting (and I can't concentrate so im going to tell you to do something silly which would cause you to always wipe on anub'arak hardmode)
3. Heal the guy running out of the group on a specific encounter rather than the grid box that has an icon over it.
4. Diminish your UI of information.
the next logical step in his article is this:
5. Get rid of grid and heal with shift+v

What the article should have mentioned because it actually would make you a better healer:

1. Get the most out of grid (e.g. centre icons, corner icons, changing box sizes etc.) To suite YOU.
2. Don't have addons and or debuffs etc. that YOU don't specifically need.
3. Make sure you can see the fight through YOUR UI.
4. Get extra benefit out of sound alerts or text alerts from boss mods
5. YES healing isn't the same as DPS and tanking YOU need to look at some raid frames AND the encounter.

Now lets clarify my points before people go hating...

1. YOU can choose what works for you grid isn't the devil it is customiseable and can be great if you take the time to fiddle with it.

2. You don't need every encounter debuff enabled but it doesn't hurt likewise grid has PRIORITY SETTINGS meaning you can make a magical dispell more important than a curse and vice versa but still YOU are in control and can display what YOU need.

3. YOU still want to be able to enjoy the fight and that's the biggest reason most healers are using grid, back in 40 man raids almost 1/4 of your screen was raid frames. Grid significantly reduced this AND allowed for more information to be showed concisely (A square is alot smaller than a dot timer).

4. Again you can choose whether or not to use sounds, they can be a great way of increasing your awareness e.g. standing in the fire but you may find them annoying.

5. You can't change the game design unless you are the game's design team and lead designer. The healing game isn't going to magically become something it's not and yes im sure designers have pondered over making healing less raid frames dependant but it simply doesn't work and would make healing the single easiest task in WoW if you didn't have to split attention between enviroment and interface as much as we do. (in contrast we don't even have to face the right direction usually)

[Jansyu]

I was really disappointed with this article. I don't know what I was expecting, no wait, I do know. I was expecting some "insights on healing". But there was only some drivel about "enjoying the fight, don't watch the health bars" ... yeah ... right !

Don't watch the health bars and you will certainly be able to enjoy watching the fight, providing of course you don't release to go to the graveyard because you've just died.

The author showed a total lack of empathy for any healer class. He seems to have no idea. Eventually, you do get to watch some more bits of it when you've done the fight a zillion times, but you never see the whole thing completely because the game we "as healers" play is called ... watch their health bars, stand out of the fire, so that you can continue to monitor their health.

To that end I use GRID (totally customisable to the way I play), and CLIQUE (again totally customisable). I have various buff bars, but they are designed to suit me. My UI is totally designed for me and no-one else. I can remember life before grid/clique [shudder]