Healing + Aggro = dead shaman.

Flubber · 07/31/06, 10:33 AM

Hey everyone, I have a predicament. It may just be my healing strategy, or lack of other people using a similar strategy, but it is really becoming a problem in quite a few raids.

My issue is healing aggro. Unfortunately, when I heal, I seem to pull a large amount of aggro. Not enough to scrape a mob off a tank, but the second a tank goes down, or an add is untanked, it seems to head straight for me. We use KTM, and in a fight like Broodlord, I am often stopping at 10-12% as I am usually above 2-3 of our tanks (even with TA down). Its actually so bad that I purposely take wing buffets and blastwaves to try and shed some aggro. I use invulnerability pots on quite a few fights as well, just to function as a sort of "feint/fade".

Its an issue, I'm no good to the raid dead. (I use totem of reincarnation, with the imp reinc talents, if that tells you anything). I have 3/3 decreased threat talents, -2% threat to cloak, and use only rank 2 HW, rank 5 HW, rank 4 LHW (rarely), and rank 1 Chain Heal. I never NS-HWX 2 seconds into the fight. I rarely even use NS, unless its for an offtank that takes a big spike, or if I take aggro.

I've spoken to a few people in my guild about it, and realized a common trend. I am one of 2 (another shaman aggro magnet) people that start my cast, and interupt if the tank DOESNT take damage. Every priest or druid and most of our shamans start healing as soon as the tank takes damage. Consequently, my heals almost always land first on the target. I am often the top healer on the meters, and am lower than all but one priest in overhealing, so I think the issue is that my heals are hitting faster, and therefore I have no threat reduction that normally goes with a high overheal.

Now speaking to a few other priests gave me another insight. If I am in there group, they stop healing the tank (as I can keep it up fine and anything they do is overheal), and instead start spot healing raid-wide. This causes a massive amount of aggro for me on my tanks target. Its not an issue on bosses, but for example, in BWL, the wyrmgaurd pulls are killer on my repair bills. If they are green or bronze, my tanks target goes to me the second he gets slept or spun. If they are red, I cant keep the tank up solo, and if the rest of my healers arent on the ball, we have a dead tank and summarily a dead shaman.

So here is my question: What do I need to do? I use low rank spells, maxed enchants and talents to nerf my threat. I've done everything material I can do. Should I just start healing later, instead of having the heal queued and cancelling it when the tank dodges/blocks/parries/miss? Should I beg the group leaders to give me a TA group? (I rarely have an issue with TA down unless we have new tanks or its a fight with an aggro reducing mechanic). Or should the priests just learn to queue heals earlier so my early heals land the same time as everyone else?

I'm assuming once we start work on Patchwerk/Gluth, or any other high potential dps boss, our healers will need to adopt a strategy similar to mine, (oddly this is the strategy I've used since level 40 instances, I didnt know different strats existed till trying to solve this problem).

I'm just tired of being the skeram add target, tanking broodlord the last 5%, taking aggro over an offtank if my tremor totem breaks my fear, or pulling onyxia into stage 3 position every single kill. And I'm sure that my tanks are tired of standing near me to pull it off when I do pull aggro.

Help me. Tell me how to nerf my threat output. The only thing that we came up with, was having me rank down to HW3 exclusively, but I dont think I can cut it with 422hp, 2.5 second heals.

Malan · 07/31/06, 10:43 AM

I've got no clue how this is happening to you. If you as a healer are surpassing your tanks in threat, your warriors need to get a clue and start tanking better. Healing, as best as we undstand it, is 1/2 point of Threat per 1 point of *actual* healing (over healing does NOT create threat nor does a "crit heal" produce more threat). The fact that you are actually higher in threat than the DPS *and* warriors at the same time is frankly amazing to me.

I don't see this as a problem with you at all. This to me screams inexeperienced people from the rest of your raid - you seem to be doing your job perfectly.

hamlet_the_lesser · 07/31/06, 10:46 AM

Originally Posted by Malan

I've got no clue how this is happening to you. If you as a healer are surpassing your tanks in threat, your warriors need to get a clue and start tanking better. Healing, as best as we undstand it, is 1/2 point of Threat per 1 point of *actual* healing (over healing does NOT create threat nor does a "crit heal" produce more threat). The fact that you are actually higher in threat than the DPS *and* warriors at the same time is frankly amazing to me.

I don't see this as a problem with you at all. This to me screams inexeperienced people from the rest of your raid - you seem to be doing your job perfectly.

He said it was after the tanks go down. I have the same problem. I figure it is better than going to a priest but I would rather it go to a druid if possible.

Flubber · 07/31/06, 10:48 AM

Im seriously shocked to be honest, KTM really opened my eyes.

I guess maybe I'm just being to "fast"? and that the tank can handle being at 30% for awhile before the other healers step up?

I'm just worried though, because it seems like when we dont have our "well geared" warriors tanking, the tanks fall over left and right because the heals didnt land "fast" enough.

Malan · 07/31/06, 10:51 AM

Obviously if the tank you're healing dies the mob is going to go after the healers pretty quick, but thats really only if there was no DPS on it such as a trash mob that was later in the queue for the DPS. On a boss there is NO fricking reason for a healer to *pull* aggro off a tank. The only way I could see that happening is if every warrior in their raid was taking an aggro reducing ability and doing nothing but white dmg with no sunders/revenge/HS and just standing there eating damage.

I stand by my assessment that his raid needs to evaluate how they are doing business - especially the warriors.

red · 07/31/06, 10:55 AM

Although there is probably a little bit of exaggeration going on, it sounds to me as if your problem is that you're doing the majority of the healing. Healing threat needs to be spread among a number of healers, or what happens is what you have described. It's hard to tell if this is a loaded question and you just want some justification, or if you're really at a loss as to why this is happening.

Healing the tank does not cause any extra threat against the mob he is tanking, when compared to healing other members of the raid for just as much health (assuming all of the mobs are aware of the whole raid, which is the case 99% of the time). You don't need to use a lower rank, and you don't need to heal different targets. You need to heal less.

A mob/encounter/pull will be doing X net damage to your raid force. The first step is mitigating that damage as much as possible, which is likely already being done (warriors tanking, etc). Healing that damage will cause X threat, mitigated by talents and whatnot. If one person does all of the healing and accumulates all of that threat, they will be way over the tanks. If every healer gets an equal amount of that threat, they will be WAY down low on the threat list.

Help me. Tell me how to nerf my threat output. The only thing that we came up with, was having me rank down to HW3 exclusively, but I dont think I can cut it with 422hp, 2.5 second heals.

Lower rank heals do not produce less threat inherently. Healing threat is directly related to the amount of damage you heal. You are healing too much. Other healers need to heal too. It is just that simple.

♦ Praetorian · 07/31/06, 10:56 AM

Yes, if your Broodlord tanks die and he goes after you before he goes after a warlock, I don't know what to say. Someone needs to L2P, and it's either your DPS classes or your tanks (or your other healers who are overhealing -- if they're seriously saying "well I won't even bother healing since he'll just beat me to it" instead of changing their healing strategies that's ridiculous).

Beyond that, I greatly enjoy being an aggro magnet. It's why I specced Toughness and avoided the Subtlety talents -- if a mob is going to go after a healer I would prefer that that healer be me. I have just as much mitigation as a druid in bearform who is wearing healing gear, with the major added benefit that I can output 1000 HPS on myself while taking damage. Until I get stunned, I can usually handle a Wyrmguard on me for a decent bit of time, or a Qiraji Champion, or whatnot. I've had Noth on me for up to 10 seconds at least once (though that was after an Earth Shock :( ) and I "tank" Razorgore after controlling him in the first phase. Obviously the latter two examples are more thanks to our great healers than to my amazing prowess, but the point remains.

Flubber · 07/31/06, 11:06 AM

I completely forgot to mention razor stage 2. Im the guy that brings him to the gate once it our controlling priest fades. Glad to see I'm not alone at least on that one.

By the way Red, thanks for explaining the raid wide threat mechanics, that was something I was actually NOT aware of. For some reason I had always believed my aggro from a heal was based on my heals on the mobs target's in a multi mob encounter.

"well I won't even bother healing since he'll just beat me to it" instead of changing their healing strategies that's ridiculous).

That is actually a 100% true statement that was told to me by 3 different people at different times. I'm just trying to get a few ideas to smooth everything out.
I know its a combination of things, including myself being a bit too trigger happy, so Im not putting blame on anyone. Just frustrated.

Dozer · 07/31/06, 11:10 AM

Start sitting out on some raids. The other healers need to learn to pick it up, the hard way.

Keldor · 07/31/06, 11:28 AM

Threat is not generated by over healing. Since you start your spells early, your spells are the ones that are healing the tank the most. The healers that wait till they see damage are having much of their healing go to over healing which does not generate them aggro. The rest of your healers need to adopt your healing strategy so you can more evenly distribute the aggro.

Malan · 07/31/06, 11:33 AM

Originally Posted by Flubber

I completely forgot to mention razor stage 2. Im the guy that brings him to the gate once it our controlling priest fades.

Why not just have a warrior pick up the Orb on the last 2 eggs? Last guy on the Orb gains all the Razorgore aggro - have your main tank run over and control Razorgor for the final burn on the eggs (or just have him do it the whole time, thats what we do) and then nobody has to "bring" Razor anywhere - he'll run right to your tank.

Honestly no shaman should have to put points into the 3% threat reduction on the Resto tree, its silly. There's a lot better stuff now in that tree and some of the others that you could spend those points on.

Until your guild gets its healing sorted out there is no way in hell you guys will survive much of AQ40 and Naxx. I'm amazed that with that sort of attitude and skill level from the rest of your healers that you've actually made it past MC. A warrior should be horribly embarrassed and publicly ridiculed over Vent if a healer pulls a boss off of him in a non-aggro reducing fight. Thats grounds for booting a warrior from the raid - it means he's fucking worthless. Same thing for a healer that says "well I'll just stop healing since you're doing it anyways" - that guy should lose a raid spot immediately.

Fellwraith · 07/31/06, 11:33 AM

I'm amazed that your dps isn't pulling aggro first. I don't think there's a single fight where I don't end up evasion tanking and/or having to vanish after the tanks die, except maybe Broodlord.

Originally Posted by Flubber

I've spoken to a few people in my guild about it, and realized a common trend. I am one of 2 (another shaman aggro magnet) people that start my cast, and interupt if the tank DOESNT take damage. Every priest or druid and most of our shamans start healing as soon as the tank takes damage. Consequently, my heals almost always land first on the target. I am often the top healer on the meters, and am lower than all but one priest in overhealing, so I think the issue is that my heals are hitting faster, and therefore I have no threat reduction that normally goes with a high overheal.

I think your healers need to re-evaluate their healing strategies. If you're ahead of the DPS for total threat, that's an issue. Either your dps is incredibly weak or your healers need to look at doing a hr2 strategy or something else to distribute the threat load a bit. If they're waiting until *after* a tank takes damage, you're doing most of the "real" healing and that's why you're generating so much more threat than them. If all your heals land for 100% you're getting 100% of the threat while they get the overheals that generate 0 threat. As Gurg already said, that is not necessarily a bad thing since you wear mail and most of them wear leather/cloth (I assume you're wearing a shield?)

How many of your tanks are spec'd into defiance? That's an extra 15% threat for them and will help for climbing up the threat ladder for broodlord and getting aggro back during draconid groups. One other thing that helps our healers on the draconids is having a warrior run taunt interference if a green gets close to the healers.

How close are you standing to the mob? Range gives you a bigger buffer before you pull aggro. Try to stand further back, you'll generate the same amount of threat, but you won't get aggro as easily until you get close.

Kerruul · 07/31/06, 11:35 AM

I think Flubber, the problem is something you nailed. It's funny because when I saw this message I immediately thought of you on Broodlord. (He's exaggerating a touch, I haven't seen him rip aggro off of Broodlord in months, but he's often way up there.) The story is that basically the aggro list on Broodlord looks like this quite often:

Tank1
Tank2
Tank3
Tank4
Warlock
Flubber
Mage (No threat reduction talents)
Warlock
Warlock
Mage
Mage
Mage
Priest
Priest
Shaman
...

He'll be the only healer anywhere near the top of the threat list on most fights. (We have one priest who can get up there on Vael from PoH spam, but that's usually only an issue at about 2%.)

I think you nailed the issue without realizing it though, Flubber: The other healers in your group aren't healing the tank. The whole point of having multiple healers is to spread the threat. Just because you've got that crazy healing power doesn't mean you should be carrying the full threat load. Make the other healers do more work. Tell them to stop slacking. Tell them if they don't they get to heal me & Tybzu in the suppression rooms.

Kerruul · 07/31/06, 11:37 AM

Originally Posted by Fellwraith

(I assume you're wearing a shield?)

Actually he's not. He got our first Blessed Qiraji Augur Staff. He's probably one of the best equipped healers in the Scourge.

Malan · 07/31/06, 11:44 AM

Originally Posted by Fellwraith

How close are you standing to the mob? Range gives you a bigger buffer before you pull aggro. Try to stand further back, you'll generate the same amount of threat, but you won't get aggro as easily until you get close.

This right here is something that just amazes me all the time. I love watching a mage or warlock stand INSIDE melee range of a boss spamming shadow/frost bolts. Ranged DPS (and add healers into this concept) are RANGED for a reason - it allows them to stand outisde the mobs "threat radius". Standing within melee range and using ANY ability generates nearly 20% more threat than normal. ie, a rogue needs to exceed 110% of a warrior's threat to pull aggro. A healer/mage/hunter at max range, outside the mob's melee threat radius has to exceed 130% of the warrior's threat to pull aggro.