Looking for a Healer's Perspective on PUGs

[Bitur]

My alt just dinged 80 a couple of days ago. A Death Knight tank, my main being a warrior tank.

Now I find myself having to PUG ICC.

That's all fine and dandy, but I don't like joining PUGs, too many crappy raid leaders out there. I prefer to run them.

For the last couple of months I've been running VoA10/25 and the weekly raid quest PUGs almost weekly on my warrior. Those are usually pretty easy raids so I just grab 2 or 5 healers and go without giving the healing aspect of the raid any more thought.

Now that I want to start running ICC PUGs I'm thinking I need to be a little more aware of the healing.

So I have a couple of questions to you healers, assuming an ICC10:

1) What should I look for and what should I avoid as far as recruiting healers into my PUGs goes?

2) Do I need to assign raid healers and tank healers and how would I go about that? Which classes/specs are more suited toward which?

3) How many tank/raid healers do I need for each ICC10 encounter assuming mediocre gear/experience? (I'm assuming 2 healers for the first wing, 2 healers for Festergut and Rotface and 3 healers for the rest of the encounters - am I on the right track?)

4) As a healer, when joining PUGs, is there anything you wish your raid leaders knew or where more aware of?

I appreciate all your input, I'm just trying to widen my understanding of these things.

[Sebadoh]

1) There's not much to look for, if you don't know healing. I would just aim for a nice variety of classes.

2) Paladins are tank healers - technically they can raid heal, but not very well.

All the other four healing specs are better suited to raid healing, however all of them except Holy Priests can make very competent tank healers if there are no Paladins available. Holy Priests, I would never stick on a tank unless it's the weekly or something silly.

I would aim for a variety of different healing specs if possible, as each one has strengths and weaknesses.

Assigning healers isn't a bad idea, however only do this if you are comfortable and knowledgeable about the classes. If not (and I assume you're not, no offense intended), then just say "Hey healers, can you guys work out your roles?" or something, and let them sort it out. They know their class better than you do, or so I would hope.

3) I haven't raided much since the 25% was implemented, so it may be plenty possible for mediocre geared/experienced healers to 2 heal the whole thing with the lol30% buff. But I would grab a third one with DPS offspec just in case - we are talking PuGs after all.

I've always two healed the first wing + plague wing (including Putricide), three healed the rest. But that's just my experience, I'm sure you can do it with less depending on raid competency.

4) I wish raid leaders would stop yelling "BIG HEALS ON THE TANK" in vent. I know when the tank is taking damage, I'm healing him, hush!

I also wish they would stop saying "lol ur disc u cant raid heal" but that's another rant for another thread.

edit: Oh one more thing... healing meters are a rough guide, that is all! And use an addon like Recount Guessed Absorbs or Skada (I think Skada has it built in, right?) to help evaluate a Disc Priest. It's not uncommon for a Discie to be below the Shadow Priest or even Prot Pally on the healing meters, then you click over to absorbs and they're doing 9-10k.

[Airowird]

1) Preferably 3 different classes to cover all the bases. A triple Paladin team is going to have a tough time doing raid healing.
The good healers are good because of the players knowing to triage and lose nearly 0 time switching targets between heals. Unfortunately that is something you can only see when you're actually raiding with them.

2) If you have a Paladin, put him on tanks. Resto Druids are preferably raid healers, while decent Shamans and Priests can do both without struggling. When in doubt, ask a healer you trust the most to sort out the healing targets.

3) Nearly every fight requires 2 tanks and going with 2 healers requires competence and trust, something you will most likely lack in a PuG. 3 healers might be a bit slower, but wiping eats even more time.

4) I expect you know tactics (thus know what amount of tanking/healing is required) and a general idea of how healers work. It also helps knowing that while we can heal much, we can't heal stupid. Meaning; if DPS is standing in a colorful thingy on the floor, they're gonna die and it WON'T be our fault, blame us and we'll let YOU die (or leave and hate you for being a crap leader). Especially in the current WotLK environment, healers are being blamed too often for not being able to clean up other people's mistakes and you should nourish your PuG healers or you'll only end up with PvP scrubs :P

Note on general healer strategies:
Paladins have extremely strong singe-target healing, which they can do on two targets at once through Beacon of Light (usually cast on a tank).
Disc Priests have absorbing shields, so if they're low on healing it generally means little, but the shields can't overheal or be delayed, so are more efficient.
Holy Priests have a lot of tools, but none extremely noticable, making them versatile healers without any specific niche.
Resto Druids have a lot of HoTs, which they can use to 'blanket' raids with. They can tank heal if really needed, but it generally requires a change in talent spec to take more burst healing talents over powerful hots.
Resto Shamans have a powerful single-target heal as well as the iconic Chain Heal. Remember that CH often doesn't jump as far as other raid heals and does not do equal healing to all targets. This spell is ideal for healing melee + tanks if you need a healer doing both at once.

Personally, I used to do 10mans with a Paladin (or Disc Priest) tank healing and a Holy Priest or Resto Druid raid healing and me (Shamling) healing whatever was needed. When we were getting better gear and going 2-healer tactic, I was generally picking up the role of the healer that dropped out. (Usually because we got a Druid along and they don't have the 10% damage reduction buff for your tanks like Shams & Priests)

[Bitur]

Thanks! I got some great insight and good info from both of you.

Another quick question RE: ICC25:

For the first two wings, should I go for 6 healers? 3 raid healers and 3 tank healers or is having 3 tank healers just a waste of a raid spot and 3/2 would be just as good?

[Airowird]

We always used 2 tank healers, 3 raid healers and one "swinger" filling in the blanks. He's that one guy healing tanks when it's needed but throws out raid heals whenever someone goes low or it's a big AoE incoming. Ofcourse you do need a healer that can actually do that, which isn't the easiest of jobs.

[Mattison]

For ICC 10 - have three healers depending on class.
For ICC 25 - have five to six healers.

BTW, Shammies and Pallies are your best tank heals with a good disc priest making it much much easier for everyone.

[Theotherone]

1) A triple Paladin team is going to have a tough time doing raid healing.

Actually, maybe not, this interests me; I may have to try it. Three Beacons means that 6 raid members are topped off at all time, that leaves the Pallies Holy shocking themselves (assuming they don't Beacon themselves) to top off and one raid member to look after. Seems very doable.

[Airowird]

Actually, maybe not, this interests me; I may have to try it. Three Beacons means that 6 raid members are topped off at all time, that leaves the Pallies Holy shocking themselves (assuming they don't Beacon themselves) to top off and one raid member to look after. Seems very doable.

Well assume that they Beacon themselves and heal the other 7, which would indeed be doable, but it's gonna have to be coordinated way more because Bacon is not a smart heal unlike the other classes' group heals.

[Ridan]

1) What should I look for and what should I avoid as far as recruiting healers into my PUGs goes?
As a holy priest in 10 man i pref to work with a holydin dont know why but feels kinda good not having to worry bout tanks :P.

2) Do I need to assign raid healers and tank healers and how would I go about that? Which classes/specs are more suited toward which?
Imo no you shouldnt have to rather ask the healers to do it themselfs. Healers usualy have better check on what they pref. Many say disc is for tanks etc for example. This is very true if you have been practicing for something like that in my case I hate beeing on tanks as disc :P.

3) How many tank/raid healers do I need for each ICC10 encounter assuming mediocre gear/experience? (I'm assuming 2 healers for the first wing, 2 healers for Festergut and Rotface and 3 healers for the rest of the encounters - am I on the right track?)
2 on everyting besides maybe LK should be ok assuming your raid is aware of the fights. Many ICC fights is DPS healing themself by not standing in the wrong spot .

4) As a healer, when joining PUGs, is there anything you wish your raid leaders knew or where more aware of?
Open mind, Good boss knowledge and a willingnes to listen to suggestions

[gd_void]

I PuG every week on at least two of my Alts(generaly dk tank/holy pally)

1) What should I look for and what should I avoid as far as recruiting healers into my PUGs goes?
-Experience, All the gear in the word means nothing if you dont know what your doing

2) Do I need to assign raid healers and tank healers and how would I go about that? Which classes/specs are more suited toward which?
-No, If you need to do healing assignments then your healers aren't aware of their class and are generally not prepared for the raid.

3) How many tank/raid healers do I need for each ICC10 encounter assuming mediocre gear/experience? (I'm assuming 2 healers for the first wing, 2 healers for Festergut and Rotface and 3 healers for the rest of the encounters - am I on the right track?)
-a good Holy Pally/Resto Drood Combo can general duo most of the bosses, and in my experience both those classes are the most plentiful healers to be found in pugs. You'll probably want a dps w/ a healing os for fights like dreamwalker/lk.

4) As a healer, when joining PUGs, is there anything you wish your raid leaders knew or where more aware of?
-I like a Vocal Raid leader, One who announces everything. yes it's annoying to hear 'big heals on %t' but Hearing '%t taunting in five' is valuable information. added to this I enjoy the 'cant fix stupid' Raid leader, who Ask why someone felt the need to stand in fire, Slime, Etc. that makes my job easier

5)For the first two wings, should I go for 6 healers? 3 raid healers and 3 tank healers or is having 3 tank healers just a waste of a raid spot and 3/2 would be just as good?
-3 Raid healers, 2 tank healer, 30% buff makes the odd shadow priest a 6th healer if you need one
-

[Theotherone]

Well assume that they Beacon themselves and heal the other 7, which would indeed be doable, but it's gonna have to be coordinated way more because Bacon is not a smart heal unlike the other classes' group heals.

Yeah, but that's 1/2 the fun; in these pre-expansion doldrums, I'm looking for anything that would make ICC interesting.

[Quinafoi]

Bare in mind this advice is towards preparing a successful raid more than a PuG that is only going for like 4 to 7 bosses.

1) What should I look for and what should I avoid as far as recruiting healers into my PUGs goes?

In a 10 man you want to have three people capable of healing even if one is primarily a DPS. Having flexibility is important. As for types of healers you would typically want to avoid having more than one Discipline priest as a sort of golden rule to avoid conflicts with shielding. Other than that almost any combination of healers will work provided one is comfortable tank healing and the other is comfortable raid healing.
In 25 man, the golden rule still applies. Try to avoid having more than one Discipline Priest. Ideally you want to have a diverse group, with at least one of each type (Holy Paladin, Discipline Priest, Holy Priest, Restoration Shaman, and Restoration Druid). That covers 5 core healers with a diverse set of skills. After that depending on your preference you can pick up 1 or even 2 additional healers avoiding any additional Discipline Priests. More healers will make the later encounters easier to cope with if you want to push further into the instance, however if you want to make things easier on healers, make sure you are more rigid on your requirements in other departments such as DPS (the DPS quota on Festergut 25 normal for example is around 7K minimum, DPS doing 5k or less on a fight like that is simply unacceptable and those doing 10k should not have to carry them).

2) Do I need to assign raid healers and tank healers and how would I go about that? Which classes/specs are more suited toward which?

Holy Paladin has the highest double target throughput with their direct heal and Beacon of Light. They do the most in direct heals of any of the healing classes and are typically assigned to tank healing because of this though in some cases this may change. Heroic Deathbringer Saurfang for example because of the Beacon of Light, Paladin's are ideal for healing targets of Mark of the Fallen Champion, and tank healing is less of a concern in that particular case.
Discipline Priests dominate the area of preventing damage. The Lich King's Infest is the proverbial example of why shields are so powerful. A Discipline Priests may tank heal primarily because tanks take predictable damage. Targets you know will take damage are good targets to shield naturally. Though in encounters with heavy raid damage, switching them to a bubble entire raid mode is quite effective at countering a great deal of damage.
Restoration Druids live in the world of damage that hasn't happened yet. They dominate the heal over time department. When there is predictable damage they excel, especially in raid healing situations. Raid wide aura damage like on Blood Queen Lana'thel and Sindragosa bring out the benefit of healing over time abilities. Because damage is gradual in nature, a heal over time keeps the target alive or tops them off before more damage is dealt. On targets taking steady damage the healing may only serve the purpose of keeping the target alive until another healer, often a Holy Priest or Restoration Shaman, lands a direct heal on the target. Restoration Druids if speced correctly can also manage significant direct healing throughput and are capable of tank healing in a pinch, however their efficiency is in their healing over time abilities and they lose a great deal of efficiency when direct healing (though not a concern on a fight like Dreamwalker where efficiency isn't a concern if you need to send a Druid through the portals).
Holy Priests are a cross between a Holy Paladin and Restoration Druid in their strength. They largely excel in the area of burst AoE healing through Circle of Healing. Typically Holy Priests are assigned to raid healing duty though they can also do decent tank healing as well. While a Restoration Druid blankets the raid with healing over time, the Holy Priest generally tops the raid off.
Restoration Shaman are generally the healing class which floats around the most. If you need more tank healing you have them help on tanks, if you need more raid healing you have them help on raid healing. Fights where a Restoration Shaman will excel is when there is melee damage either in bursts or continual and they are healing the tank and chaining their heals too the melee.

3) How many tank/raid healers do I need for each ICC10 encounter assuming mediocre gear/experience? (I'm assuming 2 healers for the first wing, 2 healers for Festergut and Rotface and 3 healers for the rest of the encounters - am I on the right track?)

Earlier encounters you can get by easily enough with fewer healers because people are more experienced in dealing with them. As experience, skill, and gear improve you can accomplish the same task with fewer people. It is important when you are forming your raid whether you recruit three healers and have one of them go DPS early on, or recruit two healers and have one of your DPS go healing when needed. In many cases it is easier to have a healer go DPS than it is to have a DPS go healing, though it largely depends on the individual player. If you plan on running with more healers to make later encounters easier, you must keep that in mind though when recruiting other roles that they have to be better. Naturally if you run with three healers, the five DPS you have must be able to perform at the level of six DPS. People underperforming will greatly hinder your progress and DPS is the first to underperform because their meters look that much prettier with a 30% buff than they are really capable of.

4) As a healer, when joining PUGs, is there anything you wish your raid leaders knew or where more aware of?

I'm not a healer, I'm a raid leader. So I've got nothing to add there.

[Quinafoi]

edit: Oh one more thing... healing meters are a rough guide, that is all! And use an addon like Recount Guessed Absorbs or Skada (I think Skada has it built in, right?) to help evaluate a Disc Priest. It's not uncommon for a Discie to be below the Shadow Priest or even Prot Pally on the healing meters, then you click over to absorbs and they're doing 9-10k.

Meters are a very bad way to measure healing. You have to go a lot more in depth than that to troubleshoot.

The better your group is, the worse the healing meters will look. That's simply because you take less damage. Healers can't heal damage that never happened.

DPS doesn't have the same excuses however. Since they have a boss with significantly more health than they can deal in damage in a few seconds, overkill is something that only applies to the last attack of the fight. Overhealing is something that applies all the time.

[Skaterjoec55]

Hmm this can go either way because a lot of healing roles are very diverse...you deffinetly want diversity when running a raid. E.G. You don't want to have all shammy heals or all priest heals, you want a mix. But specific bosses call for specific heals, well not really "call" for them but make the boss encounter a lot easier to handle. Fore xample with Dreamwalker it is good to have a pally healer since they have heals that heal a high amount of health. Of course you always want to aim for a Restoration druid in your raid for Rebirth (Battle Rez) but don't think raid healers can't be tank healers either. Most of the time in ICC 10 I am Tank Heals with rais support but while I am in ICC 25 I am raid heals, and one thing that will cause healers to leave the raid is if you blame a wipe on the heals. Please don't forget that our heal spells have cast timers and cool downs as well. We also like to be praised on our healing as well because a lot of people think that healing is a walk in the park, but a lot of tiems healing is hard. Hope this helps you out!

[Chamenas]

How many healers you need for each depends heavily on the competency of your raid group. If people do things like "stand in shit you're not supposed to stand in" then you'll need more healers than you would actually require.

With the 30% buff and a well-geared group you should only need 2 healers for most ICC 10 fights, excepting a couple like Sindragosa, and only 5 healers for ICC 25, excepting a couple (once again like Sindragosa, maybe BQL).

Since PUGs are often iffy, here's what I suggest:
ICC 10 - Grab 3 healers, but try and get one with a decent or good DPS off spec. If your 2 healers can handle it, make the third healer go DPS and only make them heal on fights which might require a third healer.
ICC 25 - Grab 6 healers, but try and get at least one with a decent or good DPS off spec for the reasons mentioned above. Generally speaking, the extra "DPS potential" healer should be drawn from the raid healing group as opposed to the tank one.

[Razilius]

"lol ur disc u cant raid heal"

[Bung]

Excellent questions btw. I read most of the above posts so I will try and avoid repeating stuff.

1) What should I look for and what should I avoid as far as recruiting healers into my PUGs goes?

The one thing I didn't read above was to look at all your pugs to make sure they are geared/enchanted correctly. If you see a holy pally with no gems, or anyone like that, don't pug them. I can speak for holy pally's when I say that if you see all Int gems and a level 200 Libram that you are in good shape, along with a fair health pool (35k+). Most druids will gem for SP, shamans for haste etc...

2) Do I need to assign raid healers and tank healers and how would I go about that? Which classes/specs are more suited toward which?

In most raids as a healer I chat with the other healers If I'm not assigned. Since I play a Holy pally I'm always assigned to the tanks. If there is another holy pally which is common in 25 mans I coordinate the beacons. I can't say communicating the assignments is a bad thing...it can only help.

3) How many tank/raid healers do I need for each ICC10 encounter assuming mediocre gear/experience? (I'm assuming 2 healers for the first wing, 2 healers for Festergut and Rotface and 3 healers for the rest of the encounters - am I on the right track?)

If you have one holy pally and one raid healer it is usually more than enough for any Icc10 encounter. It's very handy to have a tank who can switch to heals for Dreamwalker because you only need 1 tank anyway and a 3rd healer is great. If not a tank, some other class that can go heals while a tank goes dps works just the same.

4) As a healer, when joining PUGs, is there anything you wish your raid leaders knew or where more aware of?

That I'm pro. LOL. I'm not sure what you mean by this question. If only GS addons linked my mains raid accomplishments. I almost always let a pug leader know that my main (warrior) is a 25 man KS. My holy pally isn't overgeared (5600GS) like my warrior. At least it lets them know that I know the fights. I also convey that I will stay until the pug ends naturally. I don't quit because of wipes. The funny thing is that pally healers are tank healers. I don't really have to say "hey I can heal the tanks". It's kind of a given. I would guess that priests probably have to specify that sort of thing, shamans too probably. Druids are raid healers. They go to heal raids and they are my favorite to work with as a pally.

I read some things about not reading the meters above. I'm not sure that is entirely true for all classes. The easiest way to tell if you have 2 competent healers once you gear check them is to just notice if anyone dies on trash. If you are a pug leader and a tank, watch your health a bit. I've often had tanks tell me that they barely noticed their health drop at all, which I take as a major compliment. When I have 2 healed ICC10 with a druid 10/12 I've seen that both of us are around 4k HPS on the meters and nobody died during anything. 2 healing it allows for a 6th dps which takes bosses/trash down faster. Shorter fights tend to go better. If you have 2 tanks that in ICC are 70k fully buffed, 2 kick ass healers, and 6 7k+ DPS you are frigging loaded. If any one of the 3 groups (tank, healer, dps) sucks the pug will suck, plain and simple.

[Quinafoi]

I wonder how much of the advice given is based off of "this is what we do now"... after farming ICC for nine months. Versus "this is what we did when we first started"... back in December of 2009. Some general things to think about.

First of all, forget you have a 30% buff. When you are forming a PuG raid, you are effectively forming a "new raid". You shouldn't be looking at what people do now so much as you should be looking at what people did when they first started in ICC.

Naturally raids that have been doing it for a very long time have the experience that they probably don't need as many healers. However in a PuG, experience only goes so far because you have little to no experience with the other people in your group. While you may understand the encounters, you have to learn your role in the raid. Healers which is a team effort largely requires them to understand and anticipate their teammates. Those that have raided together for years don't have to panic everytime they see someone's health drop a little because they have a better understanding of who will react to it and how.

Also, top end progression raids are definately not a gauging point for a PuG to based off of either. Top end raids may have done it with 2 healers the first time through on 10 man, but those are extraordinary people. Meanwhile the casually progressing raids likely took a more conservative approach and progressed through content with 3 healers and only droped down to 2 healers later when they were significantly experienced.

When forming a PuG raid, I would approach it the same way as if I were starting a brand new raid, in a brand new tier for the first time. Because that's largely what it is. The first time that group has been together for that content.

In my regular 25 man ICC raid, when Halion was released the first week when we killed him I actually had 8 healers. Because I knew Halion wasn't a DPS test really, far from it. So while we were first learning it I lightened the load on the healers (particularly in the Twilight realm) to make learning the encounter significantly easier. We've since reduced the number of healers as the raid is quite compitent at it now, but while learning we used more.

Don't approach a pick up group like it's a group that has been clearing content together for months and don't approach it like it's a top end world first raid either. And don't consider a 30% buff either in your recruitment. 30% more healing doesn't mean run with less healers and kill the boss faster cause you have extra DPS (the 30% extra DPS should already do that).

[Chamenas]

I disagree heavily, Quinafoi. I have to run a lot of random pugs, and while I agree that they can be complete failures, the 30% buff is not negligible. Nor should you short-change yourself on the potential to do the instance faster if it turns out you don't need the upper-end of heals. My suggestion is by far the safest since it allows you to retain the upper-end of heals while still flirting with a more middle-route for heals if you find your pug group is competent enough to go with less than the upper-end of the amount of heals needed.

There's no reason you can't plan safely and still plan with a better (and faster) potential just in case.

[Quinafoi]

A 30% buff to an unknown player is still an unknown level of skill.