As a healer in the World of Warcraft you are very likely to get many invitations to instance and raid groups. This is due to the low number of players that play healing classes as actual healers and the even fewer that do it well. Being a healer responsible for the lives of a group is a daunting task to many players. As a result many players do not feel comfortable healing for a group.

Many players collect the required healing gear as they are leveling up, and put their talent points into their classes healing tree, but then are at a loss. What is the difference between someone that can heal, and someone that heals well. Really, once you have the gear and spec, all it takes to be a good healer, is a little knowledge.

The knowledge that helps the most is understanding healing priority, mana management, and proper spell use. This guide focuses on healing priority as it is the most important of the three. Afterall, without healing the correct player the other two don't factor in. Healing priority is something that all healers regardless of class need to learn and when managed correctly is what truly separates the good healers from the bad. So that everyone starts with the same understanding here is a basic definition:

Basic Priority List

What you need to understand next is what your priority list is and how it changes depending on the situation. Many players get stuck with one list in their head: Tank, Healer, Resurrector (if different than the healer), CC, then DPS.

This basic list is a good place to start and provides a chance to explain why things are ranked in that order by most players. Keep in mind though that while using this priority list all the time would make it easy to remember it would not make you a very effective healer. For instance, sometimes CC is not as important than DPS, other times AOE DPS is more important, yet other times the DPS may be more important than the tank. More on this all of this later though. First lets look at the basic roles and why they rank where they do.

1. Tank - Usually your tank is the most important person to keep up as they are holding aggro. If they die, then the MOBs attacking them switch to everyone else, which generally die much faster than the tank.
2. Healer - This is you! If you die, no one can be healed, and will eventually die. Therefore you are a very close second. The reason you are not first is that in many situations the group can survive long enough to live through a fight even if you go down at some point in the fight, whereas is the tank dies it generally ends up as a wipe.
3. Resurrector - If you are a healer, but not able to resurrect everyone (Druid), then keeping the player that can alive is a high priority so that they can resurrect anyone that dies in the fight. This could be any class with resurrections that are filling some other role in the party, such as a Paladin, Shaman, or Priest.
4. Crowd Controller (CC) - This is the player providing repeatable crowd control for the group. Normally this would be a mage or hunter, but could be other classes. This player helps reduce the number of MOBs that you are currently fighting so takes a priority over DPS until there is only one MOB remaining.
5. DPS - DPS players are the ones that kill everything, however if everyone above them on the priority list dies, so do they. Therefore, they get relegated to last spot on the list in most cases.

Adjust as Required

To be the best possible healer you need to understand how and why the list changes and how to adapt quickly. While impossible to list every possible situation, there are a few simple lists to use as a base depending on the basic situation.

5 Player Instance Adjustments

In 5 man instances you usually start with the basic priority list as a base and then adjust it based on the instance, group and the situation. Some of the many adjustments needed are:

• Having a Paladin tank, greatly reduces the need for CC, therefore your highest DPS take priority over the CC player.
• Instances with many large pulls make CC players more valuable so up their priority
• Instances with very large pulls (6+) of non-elite or low level MOBs make AOE DPS players bump up the priority list.
• Fights where the tank can not hold aggro due to MOB mechanics, the highest DPS becomes the highest priority.
• Fights with specific mechanics change the priority, for example a fight that requires a hunters slow trap, moves the hunter to the top of the list.

Raid Instance Adjustments

Most of the 5 player instance adjustments still factor in when you go to a raid, however there are some additional ones. The biggest adjustment required for raids is the fact that there will be multiple healers in the raid. This means that in all likely hood you will have healing assignments, which will override your basic priority. Some of the basic assignments are:

• MT / OT healer - If you are assigned as the main tank healer or an off tank healer, then this is your main (and probably only) task. If this tank or off tank dies you are responsible. No matter who else could use healing, if your tank needs healing, he gets it first.
• Group healer - Some raids assign a healer to either specific groups (example: healer 1 on raid group 1 / 2 and healer 2 on group 3/4). This means that you follow normal priority lists for those players in your group, just as if it was a smaller instance.
• Raid healer - As a raid healer you float between anyone that needs healing that does not have an assigned healer. Your job is to look at whoever is lowest at the time and put a heal on them. Since the tanks have assigned healers though, they are a much lower priority on your list. Their healers are on top of your priority list though so that they can keep their tanks up.
• FFA healer - This is a free for all healer. FFA healing is similar to a raid healer, however you float between anyone and everyone that needs healing. Start with the basic priority list and then adjust as needed based on everything else going on.

Situational Adjustments

No matter where you are, 5 mans or raids, there are many things that effect the healing priority that are situational. Here are just a few:

• Late in a fight when saving the tank means letting the DPS required to kill the MOBs die, sometimes means that it is best to instead let the tank die and keep the DPS alive.
• Where there is a large AOE pull, sometimes you must redirect all healing to the AOE player and ignore the tank, if the AOE player dies the group will wipe.
• If a wipe is inevitable, it may be necessary to heal the player that can self rez (either shaman, or the one with a soulstone) so that they can get to a safe place to resurrect once the rest of the group dies.
• A player may have a key ability on cooldown that could save a group, and needs to stay alive a few seconds more before they can use it, for example an AOE fear. This player becomes a situational priority.