Jessabelle posted an interesting healer questionnaire that’s been going around the web.  She’s got some pretty good questions in there so I thought I would take some time to answer them.  Per the questionnaire’s instructions, I’m going to send it on to Llyra at the Healing Way, a very nice resto shaman (and healing in general) blog I’ve enjoyed reading (plus I’d like to learn more about those shammies).  Now, on to the questions!

What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?

My main is a Paladin.  The two talent specs of my main are Holy PvE (Holy/Ret) and Holy PvP (Holy/Prot).

What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)

I make sure to do some of everything each week.  I usually run at least a few 5-mans for emblems and to help guildies.  I do both 10-man and 25-man raids.  I also make sure to get in some arena games on my 3s team and sometimes on my 2s team as well.  I usually run Wintergrasp at least a few times and maybe another BG or two depending on my mood.  So I heal pretty much everything.

What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?

Honestly, there are so many favorites.  Holy Paladins don’t have that many healing spells but each one is very powerful.  Lately I’ve been really loving Judgement of Light.  It can do a ton of healing in 25-mans, particularly on the Twin Valkyrs, but also on many other fights.  Since I’m usually only running with one or two other paladins, and Twin Valkyrs has two targets for the dps, its essential that I keep up my own Judgement of Light on one of the bosses.  It puts out a ton of healing over the duration of the fight and can really help out the raid healers and help keep people up.  Unbelievably, I’m finding my T9 2-piece bonus to be actually useful.  I’m also in love with the god of all healing spells, Beacon of Light.  I also love Holy Shock.

What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?

This probably seems obvious, but the healing spell I use the least is Lay on Hands, and not just because of the long cooldown.  I use it much less than I should (which should be almost every fight).  I just rarely find a need to use it either on myself or on someone else.  The mana return you get with it isn’t that great and I usually don’t get so close to OOM that I ever need it.  Even so, I should use it on myself more often for a little more freedom with my mana, or at least throw it on the tank sometime when I’m moving out of fire just for the large free heal.  There’s no reason not to.

What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?

The biggest strength of the paladin class is our large, direct, fast, mana-efficient heals.  We don’t have to try to guess who is going to take damage or bathe the entire raid in pre-heals.  Our heals are surgical, immediate, powerful, and efficient.  They go exactly where they are needed most and immediately raise that person’s health pool out of the danger zone without having to wait for HoT ticks and with little or no cast time.  Paladins have the ability to pump out more heals per second than any other class and they can do that right at the point of need.

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?

Holy Paladins biggest weakness is our lack of stabilizing heals, pre-heals and AoE heals.  We do have Sacred Shield and the FoL HoT for one tank.  We have Judgement of Light and Divine Sacrifice which gives some passive healing/shielding and the Holy Light AoE.  We have some other utility spells that mitigate damage as well.  But all of these are a relatively small part of our healing arsenal.  In general, we have to actively heal every single person who we want to receive our heals.  This means that healing with a Holy Paladin can be quite bursty, especially if Holy Light is used almost exclusively.  It also means that we have to be on our toes at all times.  Bursty healing in general isn’t good.  Ideally, you’d like everyone’s health to stay as stable as possible so that no one ever enters the danger range.  Shields, pre-heals, HoTs, smart heals, and even AoE heals all create more stable health pools than direct burst heals do. 

However, all of these heals have their own limitations… small ranges, high mana cost, channeled, small heals per second, etc.  The paladin’s lack of these stabilizing heals is what allows us to have the very strong, quick, and mana-efficient spells we do have.  If we had every heal the other classes have, we’d also have to have their limitations.

We can negate some of our burstiness and create more stable health pools by using smaller cast time heals like Holy Shock and Flash of Light more often, but even then, the gameplay of a Holy Paladin is always constant, constant spam healing.  Since we have a lot of instant spells we can use even while moving, a Holy Paladin should almost never stop casting.

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?

Holy Paladins are fun because, due to Beacon of Light, we get two healing assignments instead of one.  My main assignment is whoever is going to be taking the most damage (the main tank), and they’re the ones who get Sacred Shield and the Flash HoT.  They will usually also get Beacon.  The only exception are times when the main tank changes during a raid (tank swaps).  I’ll usually switch over my Sacred Shield to the new tank, but I won’t always switch over my Beacon since my Beacon target will need to swap back soon anyway and is often still taking damage.    If there is an off-tank taking damage simultaneously, that will be my 2nd healing assignment.  Even then, the off-tank is usually not taking so much damage that I can’t help out with some raid healing.  The key, like I said before, is to never stop healing, even if everyone is at full health.

In our raids, our assignments are usually not ground in stone.  It can change during a fight and we help each other out.  I’m never healing a tank alone, which leads to more stable tank health and allows me to do some raid healing as well.  I can often hit a dps standing in the fire too long with a Holy Shock (or even a FoL) faster than any of the other healers can, so I go ahead and do that to keep him alive.  Our job as a healer is to not let anyone die, and that’s what I do.

What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?

I actually enjoy healing with other Holy Paladins the most.  I love having multiple Sacred Shields and a FoL HoT from each pally up on each tank.  I love having a tank or two bombarded by multiple Beacons.  I also love the synergy I have with a conventional Holy Light spamming paladin.  My FoL casts on the tanks can keep the tanks alive and their health stable between the other paladin’s Holy Light hits.  It works really well.

What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?

I’m not really sure.  We usually have every healing class in our raids and they’re all useful.  What I dislike the most though is individual healers, not necessarily due to their class.  Some healers are just bad and others are very good, regardless of their class.  Healing with bad healers is hard.  Its frustrating when everyone is taking a lot of damage and I’ve thrown three Flash of Lights out before I see any other heals going out, especially when people start dying because of it.  Healing with good healers is really enjoyable though.

What is your worst habit as a healer?

Hmmm… My worst habit as a healer is probably healing over a druid’s HoTs when I don’t need to.  I probably show up so high on the meters so often mainly because I’m stealing other’s heals, not necessarily healing more than the other healers.  Still, I figure if I can get that person’s health up faster, they’ll be less likely to die.  Regardless, healing assignments are there for a reason (so people don’t overwrite each other’s heals), so I should follow them more closely than I do.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?

I guess my biggest pet peeve is when people take damage unnecessarily. Its sometimes possible to heal through this extra damage, but it would really be better if you just avoided it in the first place, mm-kay?

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?

Yes, I do.  To me, balanced means that the class isn’t overpowered or underpowered compared to other classes, and I think this is true.  I don’t think any of the classes are overpowered right now compared to another.  A good healer is good regardless of his class. 

However, the other definition of balanced is whether we can perform the same jobs equally as well as other healers.  Kyrilean answered this question by saying no, but I disagree with him.  I think a Holy Paladin should be able to do the same job as any other healing class, including raid or tank healing.  You may have to specialize in one role at a time, but you should be able to do any role with any class.  Blizzard has already done this with tanking and dps, there’s no reason they can’t do it with healing as well.  Just because two classes perform the same role doesn’t mean they do it the same way.  In fact, as we’ve seen with tanking and dps, they can do it in dramatically different ways.  Its the mechanics of the class that makes each class unique and fun, not the role of the class.  I think the recent Beacon change was a big step in making paladins viable raid healers.  We may not quite be there yet, but I’m excited to see what they’ll be doing with the class in Cataclysm.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?

Death logs are the best tools you can use to evaluate your performance.  When someone dies, you need to find out why.  Find out what killed the person, how many heals they received since they were last at 100%, how long ago they were last at 100%, and what you were doing between that time instead of healing that person.  Recount can give you all this info.  Also, if you’re not one of the last people to die in the raid, you’re usually doing something wrong.  Death logs can help with that as well.

Besides that, people always say how healing meters aren’t important, but if you’re always at the bottom of the healing meters, even if there is a kill, you need to do something different.  Maybe the content is too hard for you and you need to get more gear first from easier content, or maybe you need to evaluate your playstyle or your Add-ons.  While topping the healing meters every time isn’t important, you at least shouldn’t bottom it every time.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?

By far the biggest misconception is that Holy Paladins should always only stack Intellect and mostly ignore Flash of Light.  I’m not going to deny that Intellect is a powerful stat for Holy Paladins.  I’m also not going to deny that a Brilliant King’s Amber will give you over twice more raw stats than something like a Runed Cardinal Ruby.  However, sometimes raw stats isn’t what you need for a fight.  Sometimes raw Heals per second and a large mana pool isn’t going to be the most ideal setup for your raid.  Your job isn’t to top the healing meters with HpS, its to keep people alive.  Overheals are wasted heals and a half-full mana pool is wasted potential.  Sometimes, Haste, Spell Power, or even Crit will do a better job than Intellect.

The other misconception I see is that people still don’t understand how Beacon works.  A lot of times people give healing assignments like Beacon doesn’t exist.  This is especially annoying when there’s multiple Holy Paladins.  They get all caught up with who’s going to heal which tank when they don’t realize that I’m going to be healing both tanks anyway.  Even if they do understand Beacon, it really doesn’t matter which tank gets the Beacon.  Both pallies could Beacon the main tank or one on the main-tank and one on the off-tank.  Its the exact same healing either way unless one is also doing some raid healing or messes up and lets Beacon fall off.  The only thing you might need to coordinate is who Sacred Shield is used on but that can probably be figured out between the paladins themselves.  I guess it makes raid leaders feel better to know someone is assigned to a specific tank and you can make an argument that it is better that way.  But its still a little annoying to be given a single assignment when you know you’ll be healing a lot more than that, especially if assignments are taking a long time to do/discuss.

What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?

Holy Paladins are pretty straightforward.  We only have 3 heals.  The most difficult thing for new healers to learn is to remember to also use all of our extra abilities… the Hands and Auras… things like Divine Intervention and Divine Favor… keeping Beacon of Light and Sacred Shield up… even abilities like Divine Protection can be useful if Divine Shield is on cooldown.  I don’t see many Holy Paladins on my server keeping Sacred Shield up even half of the time, so I guess some people just don’t bother with it.  Putting some of these on macros can help, especially as you’re learning the class.

If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?

I’m usually at the top of the healing meters, sometimes by a fair margin.  My consistent performance on the healing meters was my main motivation for starting this blog.  My overhealing is usually between 30% - 40%.  A lot of this is from Beacon of Light and Judgement of Light.  My Holy Shock usually has very low overhealing (around 10%), and I use it almost every cooldown.  My Flash of Light can be in the 30% overheals range, but some of this is from the HoT.  My Holy Lights are usually about 30% - 40% too.  Large overheal numbers don’t matter at all if you still have large effective healing and you’re not running out of mana.  However, if its possible to convert those overheals into effective heals (for example, by healing a different target), then you’ll be a more effective healer.

Haste or Crit and why?

If you’re an Intellect-stacking Holy Light spammer, Haste is better.  In fact, you might want to go above the 676 haste rating soft cap.  Mp5 will give you more mana regeneration than Crit and you won’t need the more powerful, but unreliable crit heals, so even Mp5 can be superior to Crit in that case.  However, I go for a good balance of both.  Crit is nice because it increases the number of instant Flash of Lights while also making them and my Holy Shocks stronger.  My Flash of Lights crit quite a bit more often than they normal hit and it helps a lot, especially since they’re usually used on someone with low health.  I also have an article answering this question:  Haste or Crit?

What healing class do you feel you understand least?

Probably the shaman.  Is healing as a shaman really as simple as it seems?

What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?

You can see these on my Holy Paladin Add-ons and macros pages.

 Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?

I look for a good balance with a slight preference for Spell Power so that I have stronger Holy Shocks, Flash of Lights, and Sacred Shields.  I tend to avoid Mp5 if I can.