There are numerous places for people to find mountains of semi-useful and useless information with regards to class mechanics, how-to guides on end-game playing, quick ways to level, and breakdowns of talents and spells. While the end-game is certainly an important aspect of play, especially given how quickly a determined player can reach the level cap, acquiring the skills to be effective at the end-game level is not always as simple a concept as reading the aforementioned material. I’m going to focus on developing a healer for this particular post, primarily because of the numerous times I’ve encountered people with questions or misunderstandings about the role as of late.

Step One: Deciding to Heal.

It sounds simple enough. The thought process may even be along the lines of “well, I’ve gathered this gear set and have this other spec I never use, I’m going to give it a whirl and see what happens” to the far more determined who research everything before they even create the character. The primary point is, quite simply, that you have to want to heal in order to be a good healer. Certainly being effective is important, but the mindset of a good healer will translate into the development of the skills to become a good healer.

Step Two: Heal an Encounter.

Whether successful or not, the man thing to remember is that nothing can prepare you for actually healing in-game. Stress will manifest itself in numerous ways, sometimes even on the part of other group members hurling insults toward you (or even potentially being replaced). This is where many people give up or develop a fear of healing again (it is worthwhile to note that new tanks are often subjected to the same experience).

While certainly it does not feel good to be ridiculed or replaced, everyone had to start somewhere. Some people show a natural propensity for certain roles (or bring comfort with similar roles in other games) to the table and seem to have no issue adapting. Others need assistance or guidance in figuring out the best way to progress. Regardless of where you fall, if you want to heal don’t stop at this step because of the idiotic tendencies of the general player (and if you’re that concerned feel free to look me up in-game).

Step Three: Objectively View Your Performance and Learn.

This is a never-ending process. You have to be able to step back and look at a situation that went wrong and know whether it truly was something that could have been avoided with some changes on your part or not, and yet at the same time you have to be able to assess a successful encounter and know whether you contributed to the success or just tagged along. There is a fine line within the scope of this debate that I want to address as an entirely different subject all-together (next post), so I won’t elaborate much on it here. Suffice to say, it is possible to be a healer in a 25-man raid with significant healing numbers without actually being anything other than a heal “spammer.”

Step Four: Understand Exterior Sources of Information and How to Use Them.

This one gets a lot of people in trouble. Certainly the WoW Community is very good at providing places to go for very detailed levels of understanding all things in the game. However, just because something is mathematically more efficient or effective does not mean it is the superior way to do things. The same concept applies to everything you read: authors of any type of material provide guidelines and thoughts that are applicable to their experiences in the game and/or are rooted in scientific/mathematic theory. Use them as places to get ideas and experiment with new processes, but never think of them as the only way to achieve something in-game.