The Healer's Skills Record

In my adolescence, I went to swimming lessons. I would learn various swimming skills and the instructor would keep track of my progress. At the end of the program, I received a certificate, overleaf a checklist of the skills being assessed. Ticked were the skills I managed to master, and unticked were the ones I still need to work on.

The listed skills were also sorted according to difficulty. In the above example, from easiest to hardest, the categories are Red, Yellow, Green and Blue. There was also a note that continual practice was needed to maintain mastery of the skills learnt.

Like swimming, the responsibility of providing healing to a group requires the mastery of several skills. Like swimming, some skills are more difficult than others. And like swimming, being a good healer requires continuous practice, not only to maintain current proficiency, but also improve on it. In the spirit of the above example, I have prepared a checklist of the many skills a healer needs in order to heal well. It assesses the following general criteria:

• Attention on players' health bars (x.01)
• Priorities for healing (x.02)
• Healing spell choice (x.03)
• Mana conservation (x.04)
• Healing-over-time (HoT) proficiency (x.05)
• Statistic (stat) allocation (x.06)
• Predicting damage (x.07)
• Handling regular damage (damage-over-time (DoT) debuffs and damaging auras) (x.08)
• Healing assignments (x.09)
• Defensive cooldown (CD) proficiency (x.10)
• Crowd control (CC) proficiency (x.11)

A Novice (1.x) healer will perform well solo. They can:

• (1.01) Observe the health bar of the self.
• (1.02) Appreciate the self as a priority to heal.
• (1.03) Use any healing spell to heal the self when damaged.
• (1.04) Conserve the mana pool of the self over 30 seconds.

A Beginner (2.x) healer will perform well in a 5-man party. They can perform Novice skills and:

• (2.01) Observe the health bars of 5 party members.
• (2.02) Appreciate Physical damage tanks as priorities to be healed.
• (2.03) Use any healing spell to heal a damaged friendly target.
• (2.04) Conserve the mana pool of the self over 1.5 minutes.
• (2.05) Apply a HoT buff (if any).
• (2.06) Appreciate stats valuable to the provision of healing.
• (2.07) Extrapolate regular damage of constant rate (e.g. from Shroud of Sorrow).

An Intermediate (3.x) healer will perform well in a 10-man raid. They can perform Beginner skills and:

• (3.01) Observe the health bars of 10 raid members.
• (3.02) Appreciate other tanks as priorities to be healed.
• (3.03) Use only:
• a single-target healing spell to heal a single damaged friendly target; and
• a multi-target healing spell to heal a group of damaged friendly targets.
• (3.04) Conserve the mana pool of the self over 6 minutes.
• (3.05) Apply a HoT buff (if any) in anticipation of future damage in its duration.
• (3.06) Use experience (of the self or from others) to allocate stats.
• (3.07) Extrapolate regular damage of variable but predictable rate (e.g. from Leeching Swarm)
• (3.08) Efficiently compensate for regular damage.
• (3.09) Follow a healing assignment (if any).
• (3.10) Apply a CD (if any) on assignment.
• (3.11) Conduct CC (if any) on assignment.

An Advanced (4.x) healer will perform well in a 25-man raid and heroic 10-man raid. They can perform Intermediate skills and:

• (4.01) Observe the health bars of 25 raid members.
• (4.03) Consider distance and target limit factors when deciding on a healing spell to use.
• (4.04) Conserve the mana pool of the self over 10 minutes.
• (4.05) Maintain a HoT buff (if any) on friendly targets taking constant damage (e.g. tanks).
• (4.06) Perform mathematical programming or use others' optimisation results (e.g. Rawr) to allocate stats.
• (4.07) Predict a ballpark damage figure of an enemy's damaging skill from its raid warning prior to its landing.
• (4.09) Heal friendly targets not assigned to without compromising a healing assignment (if any).
• (4.10) Apply a CD (if any) reactively.
• (4.11) Conduct CC (if any) reactively.