How to handle healing assignments

[Uthedicia 3]

Hello, Icy Veins and if you guys decide to read this and help a guy out, thanks in advance. I have a question about a raid leader's decision on healing assignments. Our ten man raid group has three healers... myself (holy paladin), her (restoration shaman), and a mistweaver monk. Normally, I would and continue to just heal tanks and a few select people (self included) and it works out okay... but after reading on IV where holy paladins and their strengths lie in terms of raid healing, I suddenly feel confused. Am I being put in the right place or would it be better to try and convince her that I should probably be raid healing or back off of tank healing?

Not trying to sound like I don't have a clue, I'm just looking for a direction to go.

PS: If I'm not in the right thread, please tell me.

[Krazyito 521]

Paladins are very versatile. they can accomplish a variety of roles when needed. I have made one post a long time ago (that has been buried in IV) that might help awnser this questions.

Post about the 2 ways paladins can heal: (sorry logs are expired now!) https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/1335-holy-pve-opinions/#entry14534

If you read the first 4 posts you can get a good idea about it as well, but the specific post i mentioned in the link (number 2) should suffice.

post about my thoughts on healing assignments: http://www.icy-veins...eals/#entry4633

In short: Paladins can do either extremely well, though they can single target heal better than others.

[Tarazet 144]

Our 10 man group has no set healing assignments, and it threw me off at first, but it's clear that in this tier, it's the right way to go. Our Blood DK provides almost 50% of the healing he takes in. If we had our Paladin doing nothing but single-target chain casting on him, he would just be overhealing his ass off and wasting his mana. Instead, he adapts to the situation and uses the right ability at the right time to heal the correct number of targets. That's not to say he never overheals - our Druid overheals a lot less - but he never runs out of mana and we can always depend on his healing when it counts.

[Peelyon 416]

Not that my experience has ever got past social raising and progression but it's rare we make full on set assignments for healing. The majority of fights we have specific groups or targets we are mainly responsible for, but like Krazy said most heals are so versatile now that you should just react to the situation not anything pre designed. Ofc you can still have it that you are responsible for the MT in terms of healing prio and CD usage, but more loose healing assignments have worked for me in the past.

Plus I find it a bit more enjoyable just react to the situation rather than solo target all the time etc

[Stoove 347]

I think that a lot of people misinterpret healing assignments. To me "assignment" means "who you need to heal as a priority". This means that if your assignment is fine, you can do whatever you like / heal whoever needs it. Once your assignments dip, get them first and then everything else. This can have distinct advantages in some situations and I think that it's a tool that all healers have to be comfortable with for when the need arises.

However, in ToT I've seen few fights that really need it. It might have worked on Council if that fight was a bit harder on the healing.

[Krazyito 521]

the only problem I've been having is with our Paper Warrior Tank T_T

[Stoove 347]

My old guild actually did have healing assigns for the tank on Council because they insisted on not swapping Frost King. Nothing like a tank that can't mitigate...

[Tarazet 144]

My old guild actually did have healing assigns for the tank on Council because they insisted on not swapping Frost King. Nothing like a tank that can't mitigate...

We don't swap Frost King either, but I'm a Druid. At worst I get stunned twice an encounter, and I've gone entire pulls without getting stunned at all.

[Rhyannon 3]

In the beginning Pallies were always tank healers, so it's kinda stuck in people's mind, especially those that have been playing since vanilla. Certain classes are just more commonly used for specific healing assignments, for example, druids and shamans are better at raid healing than tank healing, that's not to say that they can't do it, but their spells and cooldowns are geared more towards AoE healing. So sometimes it's not about whether or not you can raid heal, but more about the fact that you're the best qualified for tank healing with the better CDs in case of an "oh shit" moment.