Priest Healing Discussion: Cataclysm - Page 2

• Snowy · 12/28/10, 5:30 PM

Right now we're veering a bit off topic -- this thread really should be more orientated toward talking about specific encounters. For example, if you're talking about Archangel and Atonement, point out reasons and situations where this is useful, instead of just saying that it is.

Lets say I'm talking about Nefarian-10 and the virtue of being Disc vs Holy, and more specifically how do you manage the transition from phase 1 to phase 2 when the damage flies around. That's a discussion that's worth having in this thread. Theorycrafting should largely belong in either the Holy or Disc threads.

Carnathagia · 12/28/10, 5:38 PM

Halfus Wyrmbreaker
10 man kill log (I believe this was with both tank damage drakes)
Healing this encounter varies greatly depending on which Drakes are up. The Behemoth will always put out fairly significant raid-wide AoE, so unless the two tank damage drakes are active that week and the tanks are dying, Holy is probably the way to go, utilizing Prayer of Healing spam and Prayer of Mending to keep the raid out of the danger zone. The majority of the damage seems to come at the beginning of the fight, so blowing your mana up-front with heavy handed PoH and CoH, coupled with an early Divine Hymn if a Shadow Nova gets off means the raid stays alive until the drakes are subdued and damage tapers off substantially. Make sure you save some mana to quickly recover the raid near the end of the fight between stuns.

Valiona and Theralion
10 man kill log

Again, Holy is great for this fight. The tank damage is very light, but the raid is constantly pelted with damage; Blackout, Meteors, Pink void zones, etc. The downside is that we can be pretty destructive if selected for Engulfing Magic with all of the Mastery ticks on the raid going off instantly, so Discipline has an advantage there if you choose to utilize Aegis PoH instead. Also, Circle of Healing and Holy Nova are very useful during the stacking meteor / void zone / Engulfing Magic portion of the fight, since the raid is in the most danger when you have to move.

Twilight Ascendant Council
First 10 man kill log
2nd 10 man kill log

I choose Holy for this fight as well if you have competent tank healers in the raid. Look for good PoH opportunities such as Rising Flames. Body and Soul is incredible for helping spread the Heart of Ice or Burning Blood buffs (Also, the Lightwell makes a great rally point for sharing the buff and healing up!), and for helping with sticky situations where people need to get Grounded or levitated with the Lightning rod debuff. Be sure to save plenty of mana for some HEAVY PoH spam for the last phase. The longer you can keep putting out healing, the better you chances of a kill. Also, has anyone successfully levitated a player after Gravity Crush? I tried several times and couldn't seem to pull it off.

Cho'Gall

Disc is probably the better choice for this fight, but I've only attempted it with a 2nd healing Priest that is Disc only, so I've done it as Holy. The damage switches from heavy tank damage (Fire buff) to heavy raid damage (Shadow buff) faster than you can switch Chakra stances. Psychic Scream is one of the best tools for breaking Worship casts on MC'd players, and the glyph is recommended so you don't throw people too far out of position before you can dispel. Make sure you save mana for phase 3, so you can carry your raid to a kill with Prayer of Healing.

Hopefully this is a good start, let's get the discussion in this thread going in the right direction.

Lahiri · 12/29/10, 1:28 AM

With all the damage buffs flying around in the Halfus encounter atonement is likely the strongest healing spec available for that fight. I am of the opinion that Atonement in general isn't all that great, just this one exception.

TrlstanC · 12/30/10, 12:49 PM

If anyone that's made it through the first two bosses of BWD could weigh in with any tips, I'd expect this is where a lot of priests will be seeing their first Cataclysm raid encounters.

I've tried Magmaw as Disc, doing raid heals and found that I didn't have the throughput to deal with the consistent, heavy damage. I'm going to try it as Holy, but in my testing so far it seems that while my HPM while in Sanctuary should be fine, I'm running out of mana noticably faster. My "rotation" is pretty much PoM, CoH, PoH, a renew or two, yelling at people to use lightwell, and ignoring most of the other spells that have lower HPM. Will Shadowfiend, HoH and a pot be enough to keep this up through the fight, or do I need to look for more efficiency somewhere?

Shych · 12/30/10, 1:53 PM

Originally Posted by TrlstanC

If anyone that's made it through the first two bosses of BWD could weigh in with any tips, I'd expect this is where a lot of priests will be seeing their first Cataclysm raid encounters.

I've tried Magmaw as Disc, doing raid heals and found that I didn't have the throughput to deal with the consistent, heavy damage. I'm going to try it as Holy, but in my testing so far it seems that while my HPM while in Sanctuary should be fine, I'm running out of mana noticably faster. My "rotation" is pretty much PoM, CoH, PoH, a renew or two, yelling at people to use lightwell, and ignoring most of the other spells that have lower HPM. Will Shadowfiend, HoH and a pot be enough to keep this up through the fight, or do I need to look for more efficiency somewhere?

Just downed the first two bosses in BWD yesterday as holy priest. I did was out of mana on both bosses at the end though for Omnitron one healer died at 30-40% or so. I've stacked spirit(2739unbuffed) as much as I can since the buff to holy concentration and it seems to be working so far.

I was assigned to raid healing so I only used GH, BH and POH/COH with POM being used when I rememberd and ocassionaly threw renew/GH on tanks. Very important to stand in the manapool from Arcanotron to get the 250/sec mana tics.

Well, i've uploaded the fights to worldoflogs.com hope they can help.

Magmaw:
World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

Omnitron:
World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

*Edit*
If someone can show something I do wrong on the logs i'd appreciate some pointers, Thanks!

Judithe · 12/30/10, 1:57 PM

If anyone that's made it through the first two bosses of BWD could weigh in with any tips, I'd expect this is where a lot of priests will be seeing their first Cataclysm raid encounters.

I've tried Magmaw as Disc, doing raid heals and found that I didn't have the throughput to deal with the consistent, heavy damage. I'm going to try it as Holy, but in my testing so far it seems that while my HPM while in Sanctuary should be fine, I'm running out of mana noticably faster. My "rotation" is pretty much PoM, CoH, PoH, a renew or two, yelling at people to use lightwell, and ignoring most of the other spells that have lower HPM. Will Shadowfiend, HoH and a pot be enough to keep this up through the fight, or do I need to look for more efficiency somewhere?

If throughput is your concern on Magmaw, holy is probably the way to go and having people in your raid that are 'trained' to use lightwell will certainly ease your mana consumption. The chained phases are great opportunities for regen if your group is executing them smoothly and your personal CDs + pot should be enough to last you through the fight if that's the case. I typically run with a resto shaman and have the benefit of mana tide, so my experience may be different than yours, though. I think the fight is long enough (this will vary, of course) to benefit from veiled shadows if you find yourself running low often.

Sokaris84 · 12/31/10, 12:58 AM

For Magmaw I renew anyone hit by the 3 target fireball, and PoH/CoH to deal with the raid-wide AOE. Start your PoMs on yourself, since the tank (in our strategy at least) is too far away from everyone else for it to bounce to them. Don't be afraid to dump some mana (ie. Flash Heals), since you have good regen time while Magmaw is spiked. Drop your lightwell in the kite path for the parasites and encourage people to use it.

When Magmaw is spiked, this is your chance to regen mana. It's the perfect time for a Potion of Concentration, or a Shadowfiend+HoH combo since no one is in any immediate danger. If people need healing while he is spiked, don't be ashamed to bust out some bandages on your raid!

Elerion · 12/31/10, 6:14 AM

For Magmaw, note also that the first "Parasite phase" seems to be much longer than the subsequent parasite phases. If you can last it until the end of the first phase and drop SF+HoH during the spiked phase, you're usually good until the end of the fight, since from that point you're spending a much larger percentage of the time spiked. It's one of those fights where you wonder how the hell you're going to have enough mana to finish the encounter, but once you get over the hump, it's not really an issue.

Foith · 01/01/11, 7:42 PM

Ye, i spend like 50-60% of my mana before the first spike phase and the regen everything with one SF+Mana Tide. From there on the mana is a non-issue for me atleast, basically spam PoH and keep PoM/CoH on cd. I might get a little low on mana around 10% but thats usually when my SF is ready again.
Heres a log from our kill this week: World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

TrlstanC · 01/03/11, 11:59 AM

Does anyone know how Magmaw's Magma Spit targeting works? Comparing our logs to some other guild's it looks like we're taking relatively more damage from the Spits. I think it will only hit players out of melee range (or at least only rarely hit a melee) and we ended up with 3 of our ranged DPSers who were killing the parasites getting hammered by this ability. Is there a mechanic we're missing to minimize the damage? Or should we just try to keep more people out of melee range to spread the damage around more?

rooj · 01/03/11, 12:37 PM

We are currently on 25 man Chimaeron.

I have healed our other encounters as AA-Atonement spec and while the throughput is a bit disappointing, I don't *yet* feel completely useless.

On Chimaeron, I actually find that I have plenty of time to get my Evangelism stacks and penance is a nice way to get someone up from Caustic Slime. Yes, I know, this means the tank doesn't have grace, but quite frankly, I have yet to find a better spell to get someone over the necessary 10k health line quickly. Shields are very bad on this fight and only great for making sure I get rapture procs with the tank. PoH is an obvious bread and butter spell after massacre, but I am finding that my throughput is still a smidge low. My PoH hits for about 7k which obviously means I am scrambling a bit after a massacre to make sure everyone gets over the hump of 10k.

If any other disc priest has any tips on this fight i would appreciate it. Otherwise, I may decide to switch to holy.

gia · 01/03/11, 1:34 PM

I haven't tried Atonement on Chimaeron due to the random heal nature, you want to have very specific assignments on that fight and it goes against that, although starting the feud phase with an archangel would certainly be nice.

Make sure you are assigned to heal yourself as binding heal is perfect for the fight and handle the other assignments with binding/flash heal, always have one lined up to land right after massacre (unless you are assigned to a full group and have all in range to PoH x2). Use (glyphed) PW:B a few seconds after feud starts and make sure your other healers save some of their cooldowns for the feuds when PW:B is not up.

Also, in case you haven't done that yet, set up an indicator in your raid frames to highlight people with the Low Health - Spell - World of Warcraft debuff.

Elerion · 01/04/11, 7:08 PM

For Chimaeron, the most mana efficient way a priest can handle Phase 1 is to be assigned to a single group of which he himself is a member, and then spending excess casting time on healing tanks.

Casting pattern:

On Massacre:
- One PoH brings entire group above 10k.

On poison bolt:
- If only you are hit by bolt: Binding Heal on a tank.
- If you and one more person in the group is hit by bolt: Binding Heal on that person.
- If one person in the group (not you) is hit by bolt: Heal on that person (Alternatively Flash Heal if tank is in peril)
- If two or more people in the group besides you are hit by bolt: Prayer of Healing.

This ensures a minimum of casting time and mana is spent on patching up the damage. The priest in this case can keep up one group nearly indefinitely and still spend the majority of his time on tanks.

This is tested as an entry geared holy priest. Entry geared disc priests may experience issues with this method, as their Heal and PoH spells may not consistently heal 10khp in a single cast.

Starfire · 01/04/11, 9:34 PM

I personally swapped to Holy for Chimaeron fight because Divine Aegis is effectively useless for most of the fight. A person at 7k health with a 20k shield wouldn't allow said person to survive Caustic Slime.

More or less did exactly as Elerion suggested above, except we assigned 1 Holy Priest per 2 groups. A Holy Paladin more or less solo healed both tanks (with Lifebloom support). Guardian Spirit rotation on Double Attack coming out of Feud.

Carnathagia · 01/04/11, 11:24 PM

We did 10 man Chimaeron the same way we did Penetrating Cold; have the healers sort the raid the same way, and 1 healer gets the first debuffed player, and the 2nd healer gets the 2nd debuffed player. As Holy, you'll get Test of Faith for each heal, so I found that with good reflexes for this (which Penetrating Cold definitely honed) Heal was enough to get someone above 10k HP. I used Flash Heal on the last slime before Massacre since there would not be time for mastery ticks or Healing Stream Totem ticks, and it hasted my first Prayer of Healing for Massacre. Otherwise, I would make sure the Double Attack tank was topped off and save my mana for Fued.

How many Caustic Slimes go out at once on 25 man? This strategy might be more difficult to adapt to that raid size depending on that.