See new thread for 2.0 Changes - Sorcerer / Sage Healing Compendium Updated for 1.2!)

[Petrus]

(04-16-2012 12:18 PM)Kalyndria Wrote:  Petrus just wondering with the new patch, We got almost the same stats, just wondering how are u managing your force? I seem to be hitting a wall with keeping everyone up and running out of force and low HP. Not sure what im doing wrong now. Never had a force problem.

Kalyndria - this is taken from a post I made in the old archived heal thread. I'd highly recommend everyone go and read the last 3 - 4 pages as they all pertain to 1.2, consumption, and force regen. (you can find it in the "inquisitor" forum under "Archived - healing guide")

Anyways, I was trying to make a case for not putting any points into the reduced health from consumption (which I still don't do - I think it's the best choice to go 0/2) but this particular section might shed a little light on why I generally have no issues with force (although that isn't to say I can't run out of force - I just manage it so that I don't.)

Quote:Thurs: 2.8hours of raiding. 217 Consumption procs, 214 Consumptions used.
Friday: 3.1 hours of raiding. 203 Consumption Procs, 199 used.
Monday: 2.5 hours of raiding. 187 Consumption Procs, 187 used.

As you can see, almost every time force surge procs (consumption without the regen debuff) I use a consumption. This shows two things - 1. there's no issue HP wise doing this, and 2. - I still have about as much force/regen as in the last patch. Our force regen wasn't nerfed, we just can hurt ourselves with consumption.


On top of using consumption every time it's up, healing now is all about using the right spell. I cast my AoE every time it's off CD, and I always try to have a force bending up for it - that's a lot of force saved. Same for when I cast DI, but that's not always possible. I'll pop cooldowns to help me heal when otherwise I would have to start spamming DI. These situations aren't emergencies, but rather it allows me to have a larger force pool by using my force-positive spells now for when I do run into a situation when I need DIs later.

Really, it's all about playing smart - you've got to figure out what works for you, your raid, and your other healer. You also need to KNOW the mechanics. Not just be aware of, but *know*. I'll relink my vids - go check them out. You can probably learn more from them than anything I can ever type. I of course mess up in several of them - there's a lot of things I didn't do right - but you should be able to get an example of what I'm talking about. I allow myself to drop down very low sometimes, but it's because I know what's coming next, and I know that I can wait 2 seconds for my innervate to be back up, rather than using my DI before I heal myself. It makes a big difference.

Firebrand/Stormcaller & Toth/Zorn
Firebrand/Stormcaller - I position myself to be the only one on the ground, so that I take all the yellow circles and all the lightning spires. It's a lot of responsibility but it works smoother this way. All the lighting spires are predictable though, and I did a pretty bad job of moving out of them. But you can see MANY times where I drop to 5 - 10% hp. You can see how generally I prioritize other people first. You can see, many, many, many times how I use consumption when I'm already down around 25% HP, or currently taking damage. You can see many of the same things on Toth/Zorn.

I suppose you could call the way I use consumption risky or reckless - but the ONLY time I've died before the tanks in 3+ weeks of doing hard modes, is when I get 1 shot by some mechanic. It's really all about making sure you use all your consumptions, and that you know where to stand/when to heal so that you can do so.

(And again - I don't want to hijack the healing thread with my raid videos - I do truly believe you can learn more from watching them than you can ever learn from reading what I type though - so just keep any replies centered around my healing, rather than the raids/strats - though I'm happy to talk about those elsewhere.)