Over at Bremm’s Musings, Bremm wrote about secondary skills. You know, the ones you took on one or two characters, but never really leveled up? Fishing, cooking, first aid…remember those? It’s a good article, and he gives a couple really insightful tips about my least favorite thing in the whole game, fishing.
But I’m here today to talk about the one that should be everyone’s primary secondary skill: First Aid.
Of the three, it is by far the easiest to learn and to skill up, even for tailors (since it requires cloth, just as tailoring does). I’m not going to discuss how, when, where to acquire the cloth and skill up. Instead, I’m going to convince you why you should.
It boggles my mind to learn how many people don’t have First Aid, especially at Level 70. Tanks, especially…what, they think every healer in the game is their personal physician? And in general, pallies, druids and (groan) priests. I may not use my bandages often when playing Osprey, but I damn sure have a stack of Heavy Netherweave Bandages on Osprey at all times.
No, I don’t bandage myself much in a 5-man. But I’ve been known to bandage other party members when I was low on mana, after a pull. They’re like, "WTF? Why don’t you Flash Heal me??" My reply is, "Why don’t you learn First Aid?"
But what really ticks me off is when I see someone suck back a pot in a boss fight, and later, when their health is down and I holler at ‘em to "Hunter, bandage now!" and nothing happens (you know, stop shooting and BANDAGE, dammit!) until the next AOE and the Hunter is dead…and that lack of DPS wipes us at 1 or 2 percent.
Now I try to watch the entire group in a fight, but trust me, my first priority is my tank (Rule #1: Keep the Tank alive); my second priority is me (if I’m dead, Rule #1 is well on its way to being shattered). You, Mr or Ms DPS, are at best, #3. Yes, I’ll throw Prayer of Healing out there as I can. (I hate PoH–it generally means there is major suckage in progress.) Yes, I’ll Flash Heal or Renew you (or your pet, in case you still don’t have a Heal Pet macro!), if I can.
And that’s all well and good for trash: If everyone’s doing their job correctly, Renew, Prayer of Mending, and the occasional Flash or GH will keep the Tank in good shape, and I overheal the rest of the group just for grins.
But when we’re in a boss fight, you better figure you’re on your own, and that means if the fight goes over 2 minutes and 30 seconds, chances are pretty good you’re going to need to heal twice. So at 45 sec or so you finally realize I’m NOT going to get that 4K heal on you (because I’m having a time keeping the tank near 50 percent), so you suck a pot and get 2-3K back…and your 2 minute cooldown starts.
Whoops…the mage just got MC’d and you just got fried by a Fireball crit. Boss is at 50 percent so you know that is going to happen at least once more. Will it be after your potion cooldown is up? Are you feeling lucky, punk? How nice it would be to take a few seconds and bandage to near-full health!
If you’re really lucky, the Boomkin needs to back off on the threat a bit, and bandages you (because she’s sure not going to waste her very valuable mana to toss a heal, believe me!).
I’ve seen all these things happen. Maybe not in the same fight, but think about the last pug you were in (or the next one you’ll be in). How likely is it something like this COULD happen?
So I have a BUNCH of linen cloth I’ll sell you, nice’n'cheap. Hell, if I’m going to be your group’s healer, I’ll give it to you…because that’s a lot cheaper than my repair bill (or yours) if we wipe.
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OK..I a gonna confess here…My lvl 70 pally and my lvl 62 hunter DO NOT have First Aid. I was a noob when I started Bunnyfer, and figured as a healer, I didnt need it. As my hunter, well I always had my heal bitch priest with me…
But I admit…ALL toons since those 2 have had first aid. Maybe I should take the time to get Bunny the skill..HMMM
yes yes YES!! I actually moved that FA be required for raiding in our guild and guess what? it passed! And I will announce before every boss fight, get your bandages ready cuz its all about the tank!
@Sherri: Okay…maybe a pally…since when’s the last time any pally was ever OOM? :p But get your hunter some bandaging, girl!! Hunters, especially…I could do another whole article on why FA is so great for hunters. But for starters…heal pet, disengage or feign death (if necessary), and bandage! (After all, farming Netherwing faction involves a lot of soloing.)
@Jess: Yay!! You know, I think this is my first really Egotistical post on how I roll…I really felt like I was venturing into new territory, and it’s nice to see the validation from you!
I LOVE First Aid so much. It’s always the first thing I train on any character and it always ends up being developed way ahead of my other skills. I think I hit 375/375 First Aid not too long after I entered Outlands. It made me so happy to be able to make the Big-Girl Band-Aids.
I just wishes there was super-heavy-duty netherweave bandages. I’s at 9k in me “health be danged, I just wanna kill fast” gear, and over 13k in full tank kit. 3400 just don’ go as far as it used to…
But yeah. Learn first aid! Use it! Max it out! It could save yer life!
Ratty, that’s a good point: First aid doesn’t scale worth a damn. I mean, for a warrior or pally, what’re you supposed to do? Use a bandage every time you get a nosebleed or stub your toe?
Of course, when you’re in Full Tank Kit, you probably have a dedicate healer tied ’round your finger anyway.
Maybe (hah!) we’ll see better scaling with WotLK. We can only hope.
When I’m actually tanking I’ve got a healer, but on battlegrounds it can be hit-or-miss. Nowadays when I’m farming, I’ll keep a stack of bandages handy, but I usually just keep going ’til I’s pretty low, then chow down on some shortribs or roasted clefthoof.
I love me my first aid. Example for why everyone and their mother needs First Aid:
Void Reaver. You get hit with a doomball because you’re too slow or you lagged or you weren’t paying attention? You’re silenced, so you can’t heal yourself. Good thing you can bandage while silenced!
First Aid? What is this first aid you speak of? Oh, is that the one where you have that quest to run around and bandage fifty thousand soldiers so they don’t die? Oh right! The one I had to get my friend to do for me because I’m terribad!
There have been more than a few times when I’ve been asked to heal or backup heal and whipped out a few bandages to save on mana. Love me some FA. Now fishing, not particularly fun, but oh some of those cooking recipes! Juicy sweet! (Gonna admit I want one of those fishing chairs.)
@Matticus: I do believe that’s been simplified now. Check it out with an alt.
Hi, I’m Doofy the Paladin. And First Aid is a waste of good cloth.
Kidding! I kid. Such a kidder.
It’s nice as an Oh Crap button. My mage appreciates it too, especially when he was leveling. Frost Nova something, bandage up, continue with the pewpew.
You would think they’d come out with something that heals more than 3,400, though. Our main tank complains about it constantly when he’s out farming stuff. We like to joke that he should get a stack of those Heavy Primal Mooncloth Bandages.
@Matt: It’s easier than the 60 priest epic quest. Did you ever get Bene?
First Aid is a REQUIREMENT for Paladins. I will often give my excess cloth to low-level pallies so they can get their Bandaging skills up ASAP.
“But Eresia, I’m a Pally, I’ve got Mad healz!”
Paladins live and die by their Mana, and while I have less experience with other classes, I am sure the same is true for Shamans and most other Mana-based classes. Whether you can heal or not is irrelevant; a Paladin with no Mana is a dead paladin.
And for the love of the Light, if I see one more silly Pally Bubble and CAST HOLY LIGHT, I’m just gonna snap. Bubble and bandage, save the mana for the fight.
I agree with Doofy though, we need some new bandages fast; my Prot Pally barely gets 25% of her max health back. Here’s to bigger bandages in Wrath of the Lich King.
W00t! Grats on the WoW Insider link! Go you!
Jumped over from WoW Insider and thought that I’d read the post that prompted the article. I’m a priestaphiliac (three priests – one of each spec – on a single server) and I condone the use of bandages. And, to be honest, I think it’s asinine that anyone say that they don’t need to learn First Aid. It’s another one of those skills that you should learn because, face it, there might be a time when you need that extra healing edge and – whoops! – you were too cheap and too lazy to learn it!
Kudos for spreading the word, Kestrel, and congratulations on the link!
Eresia & Csilla, thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts.
Always nice to have new readers give their perspective…hope you stick around!
I got redirected here from … oh, seems like it was your comment on Tree of Life.
Resto Druid here. I absolutely love First Aid, and I’m quite thankful I trained it. It’s not like it’s difficult – there’s that one bandaging quest which has apparently been toned down. Aside from that … even if it’s not maxxed at 70 it’s not like it takes much gold to get it up there. I think I was at 375 at level 61 or 62 – when I first bought the book – from cloth the mobs in Hellfire dropped.
I’ve heard people tell me it’s useless while raiding. Makes me wonder if they’ve raided before – there are plenty of times when you’re just waiting around for something to happen. Nightbane flies up. Lurker dives down. Leotheras just went Demon Form and the warlock is trying to get aggro. I tend to use bandages during Netherspite whenever he’s in banish phase, as we have most of the raid run to the back of the room. And then a hunter feign deaths in the middle of my bandaging D:
Regardless, just wanted to say how much I agree with you here
Thanks for stopping by, Niilani, and I hope you stick around.
Just don’t forget to go back and visit K!
Yet, you didn’t mention the usefulness of it when you’re a mana-based char soloing (like me, a Druid). I mean, you fight a mob, your health drops a bitch and then in-between mobs… do you heal myself? I, for one, bandage. And I’m good to go. More mana, more DPS, less down-time, bigger XP.
Ziul, that’s an excellent point! When I’m soloing my priest, I make sure I’m not in a position where a quick Flash Heal or Renew (or occasionally a GH) won’t do the trick. But on a rogue or even my hunter, I use bandages a lot more than food. For one thing, bandages are a more easily renewable resource. Cheaper too!