SP Management - what am I doing wrong?

[Rienne]

I capped my first toon - pure lvl 20 cleric - a few months ago. Love the class, love the mix of heals and offensive casting, classic first time build with all the meta feats. With standard gear (no GS, but with Amrath clickies, potency weapons, Amrath belts and necklaces) I normally have 1850-2010 sp.

I have been pretty successful, not great, as a healer - raids, all levels of non-raid quests (N/H/E) and some successful epic work as well.

Now the question: I see plenty of forum posts saying they get through most quests and raids without using mana pots or using only 1 or 2 pots. I find that very hard to do - Shroud Part 4 and 5 I'm drinking 3-5 pots each time, VON, TOD and HOX the same thing. I know I keep all the meta feats on and that can be a drain, but is that the problem? People tell me to spam Heal/Mass Heal, so I do, even with other healers in the group/raid. Same with the mass cures, although they are not as SP efficient

Yes I will through in offensive spells as needed (usually limited) and try to use RS aura and burst as much as possible instead of

What to do, what to do? Any advice is welcome, as I am most confused on this point.

[FuzzyDuck81]

spamming them is most likely the problem - it takes a little practice, but try to gauge how fast your group will be taking damage & cast your heals etc accordingly to avoid overhealing, also with a 2nd healer it takes a little practice but you can coordinate your casting to alternate with theirs

[Dros_the_Juggernaut]

This is pretty true as well IMO...You can get a long way on raids with just Mass Heal spell also.

spamming them is most likely the problem - it takes a little practice, but try to gauge how fast your group will be taking damage & cast your heals etc accordingly to avoid overhealing, also with a 2nd healer it takes a little practice but you can coordinate your casting to alternate with theirs

[Asketes]

1) mass heal is your friend

2) stand somewhere close (not too close so you both get whacked) but close enough to the other healer(s) so you can synchronize your heals. if you both are using un-quickened mass heal. wait 3-4 seconds after he starts casting to cast yours. (something like that, it's a little different every raid/party,but you get the idea)

[Cam_Neely]

Take this from someone that has not played a healer past lv 4. But I want to, and have put some thought in into it.

I think the goal of a healer in shroud 4 should to have one melee die. I see that as a perfect run. Give them a little nudge to get HP up a touch, and it lets the healer know where the edge is. Once you can try to do that and succeed, then shoot for the no death runs.

Sounds like the OP is over healing, mass cures are great, but with your healing ability on a pure cleric +50% from a potencty item, it seems that mass cure mod, with well timed mass heals will get the job done for less sp.

[Original]

1) mass heal is your friend

2) stand somewhere close (not too close so you both get whacked) but close enough to the other healer(s) so you can synchronize your heals. if you both are using un-quickened mass heal. wait 3-4 seconds after he starts casting to cast yours. (something like that, it's a little different every raid/party,but you get the idea)

I stand as close as possible, but with torc, concord opp and all my guards :P

[Kriogen]

It's not just you.

For Shroud part 4 and 5, the best mana saver is melee DPS. One round pt 4 is 'cheap', multiple rounds is expensive.

For VOD, TOD type raids high quality intimitank makes a huge difference.

Who's buffing, you or arcanes? You have Bard in the group?

It has a lot to do with how good group is.

[grodon9999]

My clonk has about 1850 SP, only time I have to drink a pot is Evon6 if I have a bunch of retards on my base who can't uses a safe-spot.

The only meta-magic I leave on is Empowered Healing. I use that and the Amrath Clickies. Mass-heal does most of my heavy-lifting as I typically don't run with people who don't have enough HP to survive the cooldown (if they don't, and die, I'm not that concerned).

The aura does a LOT of top-off healing. I also use a lot of scrolls to stretch out my SP.

Best advice I can give is stop running with gimps.

[Soleran]

I was worried about SP on my lvl 20 clonk and healing shroud but I found out something very quickly, I dont spam anything.

I cycle mass heal and clwm with empower heal , empower and quicken running. Never drank a pot in shroud, only had one death since I started healing, woops learning curve.

I have 1690 sp, I have not solo healed shroud yet but I have been 20 for about 2 weeks but as far as spell points are concerned watch the lives of your teamates and get a feel for how much your heals fill bars, go from there.

Hope you have fun, it's a good time in there.

[Dros_the_Juggernaut]

Consider dialing back on the Metas if possible. If you have and are using the Amarath clickies you should have Sup Pot 8 available. Combine this with the correct enhancements and you should be ok healing most raids without any metas except perhaps Quicken. That one is really dependant on the party memebers HP and gear they have to mitigate the damage)

So in a nutshell...Potency + Healing/Arcane Lore + Correct Healing enhancements + reasonable party makeup = WIN without Metas and tons of mana pots.

Your mileage may vary but this startegy works for me most of the time. Good Luck

[ArkoHighStar]

Lets look at each individually

Part 4 of the shroud. Yes you can do part 4 without pots, that is to say a cleric should be able to do one round of part 4 without pots. your average lvl 20 cleric with decent gear should be hitting around 1800-2100 sp ( plus any clickies). Mass heal is your friend here and quicken is a must. Mass heal with empower healing on cost about as much as a single heal so spamming this alone should keep your party alive. Now this is predicated on a standard of all melees without evasion having at least 400hp(evasion types can sit in the high 300's without too much worries in most cases).
Generally I will focus on a high dps char like a barb, and make sure everyone including that person knows(this is too avoid having your person being focused on back out). If you have a low hp group you need to make them back out when the blades come in (better to go 2 rounds then have everyone die in the blades). Mass cures can be cast if you have no choice but make them count as they are more expensive than a mass heal when metaed. Have your aura going to heal any ranged or other casters who are in your area.
Also when you first pop in and fight the scouting parties have your aura going as main healing measure to avoid wasting mana.

VOD
VOD can be tough on healers if you are not careful, especially if your main tank is not WF. Healing aura is of great help here as there are plenty of slow periods in this raid and generally only one char is tanking boss damage.

Hound
You have 2 phases keep the aggro tank alive and then keep the dogs alive. Scrolls can help here, also if you have 2 cleric(fvs), this should be really easy on normal. Make sure the dogs get all the buffs they can to help them survive longer. Also generally only dog is taking damage at a time so healing on scrolls is more viable.

TOD
This one takes a good group, part 1-2 your aura can help out a lot and part 3 hopefully only 1 person has boss aggro and thus heals should be enough

[PNellesen]

Lets look at each individually

Part 4 of the shroud. Yes you can do part 4 without pots, that is to say a cleric should be able to do one round of part 4 without pots. your average lvl 20 cleric with decent gear should be hitting around 1800-2100 sp ( plus any clickies). Mass heal is your friend here and quicken is a must. Mass heal with empower healing on cost about as much as a single heal so spamming this alone should keep your party alive. Now this is predicated on a standard of all melees without evasion having at least 400hp(evasion types can sit in the high 300's without too much worries in most cases).
Generally I will focus on a high dps char like a barb, and make sure everyone including that person knows(this is too avoid having your person being focused on back out). If you have a low hp group you need to make them back out when the blades come in (better to go 2 rounds then have everyone die in the blades). Mass cures can be cast if you have no choice but make them count as they are more expensive than a mass heal when metaed. Have your aura going to heal any ranged or other casters who are in your area.
Also when you first pop in and fight the scouting parties have your aura going as main healing measure to avoid wasting mana.

This has been my experience as well, and is how I've learned to heal Part 4. Pretty much quickened, timed Mass Heal is all I use, unless the lag is really bad, then I'll throw a MCMW (w/ Empower Heal and Superior Ardor VI clickie going) in between cool-downs just in case. I can't remember the last time I used a pot in Part 4, and with a good group finishing in 1 round, I usually end up with around 1/2 my SP left (this is NOT solo-healing, though - haven't quite worked up the confidence to try that yet)

VOD
VOD can be tough on healers if you are not careful, especially if your main tank is not WF. Healing aura is of great help here as there are plenty of slow periods in this raid and generally only one char is tanking boss damage.

Haven't done this on my Cleric yet, but have run it a number of times on my Level 20 Ranger, and that seems to be how most Clerics do it, with a burst tossed in now and then as well as the aura.

[DelverRootnose]

...healing lore gloves from reavers fate raid. Get the power drain gloves from abbot. If you have bard or somone with UMD ask them to res anyone who dies if possible.

[DToNE]

Well, I'm not the best healer in the game, but I'm one of the best SP conserving Clerics in my guild. I can give you some advice based on experience.

Timing and Anticipation is a very important factor in conserving SP. The right heal at the right time will produce the most optimal result with the least amount of effort used. There are many times you don't even have to heal at all, such as knowing that there's a long wait between battles; this is when your Healing Aura alone should suffice even for extremely large heals. If many are wounded lightly-moderately and they're near you, throw out a Heal Burst even if it's mid-battle. Heal Bursts are limited in their range, so you should use it every opportunity that comes up because you never know when it is no longer possible to use it in a given situation. Mass Heal should come as a second to last resort, as it is slow but the results are stable. Cure Wound Mass should be an absolute last resort if people are dying way too fast and there isn't time to throw out a Mass Heal before someone dies.

Buffs and Saves plays a very important factor in high level content. Against spells, saves is play a very important factor, even against harmful ones. Even a slight boost in saves, such as Recitation and Holy Aura, reduces the damage the party takes as a whole as it allows evasion types to avoid damage and non-evasion types only take half damage; taking half damage from a spell reduces the amount of damage needed to be recovered in a certain time frame. Against physical attacks, anything you can do to reduce physical damage is a great asset. Spells such as Displacement or blinding enemies with Holy Aura reduces the damage taken by the party, thus making heals with only your Healing Aura or Burst possible.

Participation leads to lowering SP costs. Anything you can add without exhausting yourself helps. Even if it's a 1d3-1 fist you're throwing out, it's still an extra 1d3-1 bonus to the overall numbers. The faster something dies the faster it can no longer do damage. If you can vorpal, vorpal; if you can paralyze, paralyze; if you can hamstring, hamstring. Participation has risks, but if you can overcome those risks then this will become one of the biggest benefactors to your healing career.

Communication will save the world and it will save you. If you do not speak up, then you will not be heard. If you don't ask, you shall not receive. Basically, if you want or need anything, speak up as you are a member of a team. If you want a monk SP discount for buffing, ask for it. If you want the Rogue to stay back for a little while, say so. If you want someone to have Heavy Fortification, tell them. If you think someone does not have sufficient HP, tell them (in private if required). If you think the group should gather around you for a heal, say so. The less you say, the harder it will be for you. It makes no sense to be anti-social in a team environment.

Versatility helps in reducing the amount of SP required in many things. If you can disarm traps, it reduces buffs and healing required. If you can stun, it reduces damage the party is taking and increase the damage you're giving. If you can crowd control, you can turn things in your favor and reduce the damage the party takes. If you can hamstring, do so and you will conserve SP. Anything you can add to the party is always a welcome addition, even if it's not the best, even if it is just Divine Intervention.

Levelheadedness is something that should be cherished. A person only has so much energy and endurance both physically and mentally. The less levelheaded you are, the more mental energy you will consume and the more rash decisions or inattentiveness you will produce. Try not to excite yourself and think things through, this way it allows you to calculate and time things more accurately. The more mentally exhausted you are, the more mistakes you will make and mistakes cost either your SP or the party members so keep that in mind.

Party Morale is very important. The more you joke around and create a light/relaxing atmosphere for those around you, the easier it is to both communicate and remain levelheaded. Throw jokes if you can, talk about things you're interested in, talk about subjects outside the game, anything you can do to take people's minds off potential troubling matters will only help you in the long run. If you can crack a joke while giving important instructions, people will appreciate it more and not take it extremely heavily at heart. Remember that well done tasks are usually done when people are happiest; a world class masterpiece is not something made with anger and frustration. So, if you can keep the mood up, do it; even if it makes you a weird person (better to be remembered a weird person than a frustrating person).

Well, these things won't make you the best healer, but it'll definitely make you better known, respected, and appreciated healer.

[voodoogroves]

As a cleric, if you're not casting BB / Cometfall you should turn off Maximize and Empower. A Radiant Servant gets such a boost out of Empowered Healing and you probably have reduced costs to it as well - that should be plenty.

I leave on Extend, Quicken, Empowered Healing. Maximize if I need to do spell DPS. This is rare though at cap, to the point where on characters that heal and beat-face more than offensive cast I'm considering dropping it.




Your bigger problem will be the two ends of the spectrum ... and that's something you can't manage well in any pick up gruop. First is the low HP dude who goes down quickly. Mass healing on them way overheals everyone else. The second is the low-amp, possibly high-HP aggro magnet who's bar doens't fill like everyone elses. Pushing your heals to top him off is also going to drain your SP. In a group with both - something is going to give - either the low end, the high end or you and a stack of pots.


The only time I spam heals really is epic DQ. My first time in some content I'm not familiar with may have spammy moments as I'm trying to prevent a wipe due to my own inexperience (I've not "healed" many epic quests yet - raids yes, quests no - so the boss fights often have a wrench in them for me). I'll drink pots if I'm still learning the pacing of a quest or I really really want to compete. I will try to instead focus on the problem areas and cycle in scrolls or single-target spells if I can to try to keep the balance right.

[The_Great_Samulas]

It sounds like your two major problems are the overuse of metas and your ability to time your healing to coincide with actual damage levels. I know most people are overly infatuated with the mass heal spell, but it has been my experience that mass cure critical wounds is more mana efficient in the end. Analysis is here. For instance, you say you throw mass heal when the group is at 75%, this is too high. They should be at 50%, if you are using mass cures they can be lower.

The core problem in healing groups is being able to anticipate damage levels for the group and timing your healing appropriately. Most healers are fairly poor at this skill, and instead rely upon just "spamming" a mass. Before mass heal, they would cycle through their masses regardless of the actual damage the group was taking. Now, these same healers are overjoyed at the efficiency of Mass heal but don't actually realize that the reason it is more efficient for them is because of a defect in their playstyle. The core problem remains, the long timer on mass heal and long casting time just prevents the level of spamming they would normally do. They STILL haven't learned how to throw masses appropriately. I can last at least 3 rounds in the shroud without a pot.

Here is an excerpt from my Path to Enlightenment thread that may be of help:

One major hurtle in advancing as a cleric is the rationing of mana such that you feel more free to use it offensively. I believe that one thing that can cause a revelation in play that can strike this change is having unused mana. I put together this post to assist cleric advancement because of this. Mana efficiency is also important for doing more advanced raiding on a regular basis, such as elite Shrouds, VoDs, and ToDs. This post is written mainly from an endgame perspective, but the rules are largely appliable to leveling (except the first major factor). The major healing at endgame is mass healing, so this post will concentrate on that. On page seven there is some material on efficiencies of mass healing spells, and a comparison of mass healing to spot healing.

The basics of healing efficiency are your enhancements. Most will know this, but you may be unaware of some of the nuances, so I list them for completeness. You should have all four tiers of life magic amplification, either tier 3 or 4 in wand/scroll amplification, and possibly the first or second tier of critical chance amplification for healing. I listed them in order of importance. Using your highest action point enhancements to base healing is important, with critical healing enhancements to efficiency somewhat useful but largely not (you can get criticals on hard to heal targets such as poorly built WF, which can save you a spot heal), and the enhancements to reduce empower healing are good. Getting wand and scroll mastery to 3 or 4 will conserve mana by making mana free healing more effective and thus require less healing through mana. The radiant servant package is also very important to efficiency. The turning related abilities are very nice, but the +25% to empowered healing is extremely potent.

After the basics, there are four major things that affect efficiency of healing:

The first is the mana efficiency of spell you are using. The higher the level of the spell the more efficient it is when dealing with mass healing (with the important caveat below). Metas all increase the base efficiency of spells (overhealing, being problematic with thier use). The Radiant servant package with just empower healing enabled is usually the best choice for metas.

The second is the amount of over-healing inherent in the spell you are using. Once a target is at 100% health, all mana put into them is wasted. Thus, it is optimal to target 95% health levels. This is the main reason mass heal is not as efficient as mass cure critical wounds in most situations. The hp of your targets is a factor here. In general, shooting for 150-250 hp of healing is the optimal range to keep targets alive, at a decent level of hp to avoid deaths, and to prevent wasted healing by overhealing. The level you target is dependent upon the overall hp of the targets, healing amplification/penalties, and the third factor below.

The third is your ability to anticipate healing need based upon both your experience at the given quest/raid and your ability to gauge the resistance to the damage your targets have. This is greatly enhanced in groups that are used to working together such as guild groups and is very problematic in PUGs. One thing that can greatly enhance your efficiency here is letting a weak link die or spot healing them with mana free healing.

The fourth is gear. You should use the Amarath belt clickies from the two belts available there (superior ardor VIII) on your mass cures (it won't help with mass heals). There are several peices of gear from the abbot that also help (Staff of the Petitioner and Noxious Embers). You can get improved empower healing to lower your mana useage with empower healing on several pieces of gear (hound necklace, DT armor, epic bejewelled letter opener).

Well, hope I remembered everything. Good luck.

[Jaysensen]

I know I keep all the meta feats on and that can be a drain, but is that the problem?

Quicken, Max, Empower, Empower Healing all on at the same time?

I rarely leave all on - rather toggle Max and Empower off depending on the quest. Everyone hit the important points IMO. It kinda all depends on the group and quest.

[Rienne]

I appreciate the quick response for this question. Advice makes sense, now I need to try it out. I think one of my challenges is overhealing, so I will turn off some of the metas and rely more on the clickies and gear combos and see what happens.

Raid heal timing and coordination is still my puzzle - putting aside the inevitable 1-shot deaths (which I still hate even if the melee is too squishy) - I still aim to land the mass heal or mclw/mcmw/etc at 75% of the primary target's bar, but often "double heal" as the other cleric/FVS/bard is doing the same. As I read on the forums, melees get twitchy at 50% or lower on most raids. Am I too generous or should I watch the animation of the other healer to time it?

Just aiming for perfection, that's all (not really, but my pride pushes me to go for the no-death runs).

Thanks again for the comments.

[Lost_Leader]

Quickest and easiest tip I can think of for spell point conservation in end boss situations is to turn off maximize and empower and run with only empower healing for boosting metas.

A few other tips I would give:

Take advantage of your aura and burst curing. If you're quick with your metas you can toggle them on to burst then back off for mass healing.

Use your Amrath clickies. Especially the Ardor, though the efficacy can be nice, too, for the higher level cure masses. There is a description error in single effect spell boosting clickies, they should actually read 75% amplification, not 50%. So your Ardor clickies crank up your healing more than just using a potency/efficacy item.

Sometimes it is better to let a mana sink squishy die than it is to try to keep them alive. The 285 hp rogue may deal great damage, but if trying to keep just one extra person alive is causing you to use too much extra power, then just let them to their fate. People who can survive between mass heals with a couple of spot cure/heal/auras are much more power efficient, even if it takes a bit longer to kill.

Try to gauge the capabilities of your allies and adjust accordingly. The variance here is too long to detail, but a couple of examples: Light Monk - ask for aligning the heavens - they tend to forget they can do that for you. Is bard a spell singer or healing specced? Can the casters help repair any WF? How much healing amp and max HPs does your MT have - adjust when you heal. Are there other healers in your party, and how often/well do they heal?

Also remember, sometimes the party sucks. I have solo healed many a shroud/Hound/VoD/ToD and even a few EV6. Many times they take minimal or no resources, but sometimes they take quite a bit more. Even with the exact same classes in say, a shroud group, one group will take no resources and the blades wont reach the middle and the other will be a 3 rounder part 4. It isn't all about you, though as the healer you may very well have the power to make any suck group win... if you are willing to pay the piper in resources.

[biggin]

Heal on a timed basis, not based on HP. If some die, let them go. Why spend more on pots than you would on just buying the ingredients from the AH? I regularly solo heal this on my clonk, some pure PuGs, and I just cycle mass heals with mass lights, empower, emp heal, and quicken going. The only people who can't live with that are seriously low HP or low healing amp gimpos. And if you are in there with another divine, have them spam cometfalls instead of updating their Facebook status.