(WoW) Healing Help?
Help me ajeya, you're my only hope!
So with "enough" level 80's and people wanting to do something last night, we went into Trial of the Champion... with my priest on healing duty. I did, at least, have the sense to insist on doing it on normal before trying heroic. Reyalyn is not my main, and isn't as well geared as Sashayla, nor do I have as much practice. We also had other characters I might consider "second tier" in the guild - which is not to say they're bad, just not quite as experienced/equipped as certain others.
Normal difficulty? Easy. Very easy. Renew kept anyone topped off for the most part. We ended up doing this twice, getting both Eadric and Paletress and putting them down without any real issue. Paletress took longer, but we weren't dying. The only part that really made me step things up was the last phase of the Black Knight, which required some group healing, and I wouldn't say I was hard pressed there.
Heroic difficulty? Frickin' 'ey! We wiped two or three times on the champions and didn't get further. We drew the mage, hunter, and rogue - which may or may not have been a factor. The fight would start off fine - heal a little here and there, move out of the poison clouds - and then... *bam* suddenly the tank was losing large amounts of life rapidly. Does a full stack of poison make that much difference? Did he get turned around and start taking more hits from behind? I don't know, but all of a sudden his health was plummeting faster than anything I could toss out to stave it off. In retrospect, I should have reached for Guardian Spirit when that happened to buy a little time, but I'm not convinced that would have done anything but delay death by a few seconds.
Has anything like this happened in our previous runs? I'm confused as to what caused it and what to do about it. I know a priest's arsenal is different from a druid's, but I'd like any perspective you have on this, AJ, since you've definitely done it more and better than I.
So with "enough" level 80's and people wanting to do something last night, we went into Trial of the Champion... with my priest on healing duty. I did, at least, have the sense to insist on doing it on normal before trying heroic. Reyalyn is not my main, and isn't as well geared as Sashayla, nor do I have as much practice. We also had other characters I might consider "second tier" in the guild - which is not to say they're bad, just not quite as experienced/equipped as certain others.
Normal difficulty? Easy. Very easy. Renew kept anyone topped off for the most part. We ended up doing this twice, getting both Eadric and Paletress and putting them down without any real issue. Paletress took longer, but we weren't dying. The only part that really made me step things up was the last phase of the Black Knight, which required some group healing, and I wouldn't say I was hard pressed there.
Heroic difficulty? Frickin' 'ey! We wiped two or three times on the champions and didn't get further. We drew the mage, hunter, and rogue - which may or may not have been a factor. The fight would start off fine - heal a little here and there, move out of the poison clouds - and then... *bam* suddenly the tank was losing large amounts of life rapidly. Does a full stack of poison make that much difference? Did he get turned around and start taking more hits from behind? I don't know, but all of a sudden his health was plummeting faster than anything I could toss out to stave it off. In retrospect, I should have reached for Guardian Spirit when that happened to buy a little time, but I'm not convinced that would have done anything but delay death by a few seconds.
Has anything like this happened in our previous runs? I'm confused as to what caused it and what to do about it. I know a priest's arsenal is different from a druid's, but I'd like any perspective you have on this, AJ, since you've definitely done it more and better than I.
Mm... Dem actually kept running around during the fight when there weren't poison clouds and such down, so he MIGHT have been getting hit from behind. Not terribly sure as he moved around enough that I had a hard time staying in range to attack whomever he was attacking. /Assist is very helpful for getting the right target, but it doesn't automatically put you in range of it if it's moving around. =P
ReplyDeleteI do, typically, try to put the boss' rear towards the party. The problem with such manuvering is sometimes it seems to trigger the enemy AI to think you're out of melee range and they scoot past you. I also have a very limited view, the screen full of me, the boss(es) and whatever AoE is going on around me. I do try to stay away from poison puddles and if the melee DPS is standing in them, pull the boss further so they can get out of the yuck. Deathspeaker Ventari doesn't seem to have a backstab or ambush on his moves list, just a hard hitting Eviscerate, the Fan of Knives, the poison puddle making move and the stacking Deadly Poison debuff. (Took me going to four different WoW information web sites to even find the poison and even then it doesn't link to say how much it deals per tick) Most people in comments on the forums say the poison damage is neglible, just hard if there's a priest doing the healing. If there's a paladin, shaman or druid in the group, they need to remove the poison off the tank ASAP.
ReplyDeleteI popped up out of kitty form regularly to get poison off of you and everyone else. o.o;;
ReplyDeleteYeaaah... just a problem if there's a priest healing. >.> I hear what you're saying about tank-vision, and I frequently find trying to turn a boss ends up more trouble that its worth as they edge out of melee range from some people. The effort is worthwhile when engaging, but after that, I think the tank needs to settle in and only move from "ick" rather than worry about facing. The DPS are capable of getting behind the target. When I do need to move the boss, as a shield-based class, I always try to back up. Turning your back hurts as you suddenly lose block, parry (and possibly dodge) values. That particular fight in Trial is trickier in that way that usual because the mage is a ranged attacker (thus won't necessarily follow and, if you're not careful, may end up out of your aoes and turn on the healer - not that this happened), the hunter does ranged part of the time, and both the mage and the warrior have moves that will toss you. Heh. Talking with Grimner today, he commented on Dem aoe-ing poly'd repented targets (but that's probably the second-fight trash, and I don't see CC necessary) and he remarked on uncertainty whether he should be blowing cooldowns trying to cleanse or focusing on damage. He also didn't realize priests don't have poison removal. So maybe coordination would help there. But this comes back to me wondering: was the problem the poison? This indicates 1,250 every 3 seconds, up to 5 stack. Eviscerate hits harder.. maybe the problem is him building up to that? But it should be one-shot, right?
ReplyDeleteWell, let's see.. 1,250 per stack, every 3 seconds for 12 seconds. At one stack that's 4,900 health. Not bad to heal through, barely 1/6th Dem's health. Now multiply that 4.9 by 5 (a full application) 24.5k health over those 12 seconds? Combine that with his FoK, Evis (15 ~ 18k) and the other bosses -also- pounding on the tank? Yowwtch! I think if you get the rogue boss in Heroic, someone has to drop into the role of poison cleansing until the rogue is defeated, even if it means dropping out of the DPs role and no longer topping charts.
ReplyDeleteAs an addition about tank positioning. I actually strafe left/right or even circle strafe to move the boss around.
ReplyDeleteWell... alright. I worked on a reply to this earlier today but I was just so busy during the day it was impossible to finish. Here are my thoughts. In this fight, I heal generally like every other. I put on the tank: 3x lifebloom (1.1k/sec) 1x rejuv (1.8k/3sec) (I think 3 secs is the period) 1x regrowth (1k/3sec after 7-8k initial) I try to keep this up at all times. 1x wild growth if dps takes damage, and I position it so it hits everyone, whether they need it or not. This starts at about 700/sec at first and dwindles to 400/sec at the end. Nourish as needed, which is I guess around 7-8k. If my lifeblooms go off, that's fine. It's probably overhealed, but I have enough time to get them restarted. Anyway, I figured I would throw all these numbers out there so you can see how much (general) HPS I am putting down. When the poison cloud hits, it's usually more of a danger to the dps than the tank. If the warrior spins, likewise, because I just don't have that much in the way of quick, large, reactive healing. I use Wild Growth whenever I can to stave off that AoE. When the rogue does Fan of Knives, he puts the stackable poison on. I know it's been stated by some analysis sites it's 'not important', but in my experience no curable poison in heroics is chump poison. I cleanse it, off of everyone, every time. Sash does usually end up suffering fairly significant damage spikes in that fight, which I counter with my full hots and 2-3 quick Nourishes, and letting my Lifebloom go off. In my opinion with a priest healing, one of the dps or the tank himself has to be on poison cleansing duty. In light of the links above, and Kyn's extrapolation, I feel that's the right strategy.
ReplyDeleteOh... I think it should be stated that Recount will summarize what's going on. Switch to damage taken and I believe you can get a detail, by character, of what kind of damage was done in a fight.
ReplyDeleteRecount... Blast! I should have thought of that. Looking at last night's run on normal, the stacking poison definitely seemed to do the most damage overall. Priests have a lot of healing spells, but really only the one direct HoT, Renew. In Reya's gear, that was healing about 1800-1900/3sec. Prayer of Mending takes the edge off of one hit. Maybe I should make use of Power Word: Shield a bit more liberally. Beyond that, I'm basically into 1.5sec+ casting times. Hmm. Maybe I just need more practice.
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