Pally Healing 202 – Think It Through & Plan Ahead

Construction is a dangerous industry and there’s a lot of risk. People face dangers every day that could potentially lead to their deaths. Anyone in the United States that has followed construction news knows that this last year was an especially dangerous year to be working in Las Vegas as the fatalities added up. The pressure to make deadlines led to some serious safety issues.

I work in Purchasing for a large international construction company. One of my responsibilities in negotiating contracts is to mitigate risk. So my days are spent reviewing plans, specifications, RFIs (Request for Information – a request for an Architect or Owner to elaborate on something that is unclear), RFPs (Request for Proposal – the item that comes from the Owner requesting a product, i.e. the building, with certain requirements), and subcontractor proposals all in hopes of being able to make deals with subcontractors to provide a service to our customer the Owner.

Risk in construction involves more than just lives, although I don’t think too many would argue that it isn’t the most important. Risk also involves controlling budgets and making sure that all contracts are upheld to prevent any party involved in the construction from bringing things to litigation which is costly for all. But in order to minimize this risk I need to make sure I put a qualified, competent subcontractor on the job that will provide the correct product in a timely fashion.

In order to negotiate the “best” deal which generally means the deal with the least risk, I have to prepare. This means knowing everything I possibly can about every potential scenario the job entails to try and minimize the risk of being overbudget, scheduling overruns, and safety issues.

Guess what? You guessed it! Healing is no different.

As a healer you should know everything you possibly can about every potential scenario the raid entails to try and minimize the risk of wipes and individual deaths.

I felt that the last healing topic of Knowing When To Use What & Mana Conservation was so important that it deserves another semester’s worth of practice, or at least some further discussion. Now we need to take what we know, think it through, and plan ahead. This is where we separate the good healers from the bad. This is where ability begins to outweigh gear.

We all know and accept the fact that gear is only as good as the person wearing it. Ability is what finishes the job. Fortunately, there IS one person that can improve your ability and that is you!

How do you improve your ability? By preparing. I’ve already talked about how you need to research your class. Find out what others do and then adapt their styles to yours. Each instance, each encounter, each group is different. Think it through. Plan ahead. What do I need to do to prepare? What heals should be used at what time? On what person? If things start to go south, who in this group gets saved and in what priority?  For this fight is it better to use X buff or Y buff?  Where do I stand?  Will I have to move?  Where to?

If you already know what you’re going to do and how you’re going to react before the situation arises, you won’t find yourself scrambling to figure it out when it’s too late.

So to help you out and give you an idea of what I mean, here’s a flowchart of my normal thought process when it comes to healing. This chart is based on the items discussed in the previous Pally Healing posts. Take it.  Adapt it. Make it your own.