I was having a conversation with Baby the other day about healing, and the term he offered up was determining the "Kill List." Since his new blog is about all things mage, I don't think he'll mind if I steal this topic from him.
I don't care if you're a priest, shaman, druid or paladin. If you're healing, you've got to have a pretty good idea of the kill list. "But Bremm," I hear you cry, "the DPS kills. I just heal."
Well, sunshine, we're not talking about that kind of kill list. I'm talking about you setting the order that your own team will (be allowed to) die in.
As a healer, you're a subset of the group or raid. In five-mans, you may be the only healer around. As such, you'll need to make some instantaneous decisions about who gets the heal when too many people need it. Under the best circumstances, you'll never use this list. But in the event that some bad stuff starts going down and someone is going to die, you can often let the "right" person die and save a wipe.
If someone on the kill list must be expended, they'll quite often say "You forgot to heal me." I never forget to heal you; sometimes I decide that you must die for the greater good.
My kill list goes something like this (From Most Likely to Least Likely to be allowed to die):
- Pets (except in the rare circumstances where they are tanking). Sorry hunters, you're beloved animal buddy is going to bite it first. It costs nothing but a rez and a piece of food to get them back in the game. Pets never have to repair, thus they can die.
- Damage classes who have a means to dump threat (feign death, feint, soul shatter, etc.) and are not performing repeatable crowd control for this pull.
- Damage classes who do not have a means to dump threat and are not performing repeatable crowd control for this pull.
- Damage classes who have a means to dump threat and are performing repeatable crowd control for this pull
- Damage classes who do not have a means to dump threat and are performing repeatable crowd control for this pull.
- Other healers
- Me
- Tanks
Category 2 - classes who have a means to dump threat (feign death, feint, soul shatter, etc.) and are not performing repeatable crowd control for this pull.
Hunters, (shadow) priests, rogues and locks have some means to dump threat. Of these, only hunters (freezing trap) and priests (mind control, shackle) have repeatable control. If you're not doing this things, kill em in this category.
Category 3 - classes who do not have a means to dump threat and are not performing repeatable crowd control for this pull.
Druids (apart from cowering), mages (invisibility takes too long to cast), paladins, shamans and warriors have no threat dump. Only mages and druids (hibernate, cyclone, eventually entangling roots) have repeatable crowd control. If you're not doing these things, kill 'em.
Category 4 - classes who have a means to dump threat and are performing repeatable crowd control for this pull
See Category 2. Kill the crowd controlling hunters and (shadow) priests here.
Category 5 - classes who do not have a means to dump threat and are performing repeatable crowd control for this pull.
See Category 3. Kill the crowd controlling mages and druids here.
And that's the whole kill list. And having this available, makes explaining your choices that much easier.
5 comments:
Great idéas for a healer to think about, but you missed one thing:
Category 2 - warlocks DO have banish, that i use a lot in both Kara and other raids.
But you are right, my Blixten (wind Serpent) is often left out in the cold when healers have to prioritize.
Every healer will have their own kill list, and it will depend on the group makeup and what exactly they are fighting.
Warlocks do have a repeatable (albeit frail) crowd control for humanoids. And while the succubus should never be saved over someone else, sometimes she needs healer love, too.
Likewise, again circumstance depending, warlocks can save the day with a fear, deathcoil, or just lots and lots of DoTs.
Sometimes, the kill list mirrors the DPS list ... if you're 6th on DPS... you're going to die before the other 5 DPSers unless you really do play a vital role in the fight. :)
I don't consciously make a kill list... but I have one. But.. if I don't actally SAY it... it's called "plausable deniability". :)
I dont think most healers knowingly creates this list. But I do think that they SHOULD. That way, if things get buggy, you dont have to hesitate in who to save first.
No Bremm, this is all wrong. The first person on the kill list is Tiandrah followed closely by Selmatrixie. Or have you not been to the same raids I have??
Yup. I have. And it fits. Tiandrah and you both die (you're both non-CC classes) right after Joanna (my pet). So, it's TOTALLY in line :-)
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