WotLK Healing Discussion v3.2: Ulduar and Coliseum - Page 12

Sebalot · 04/28/09, 8:17 AM

Yogg-Saron feels much better suited for Holy than Disc. I was Disc for our kill and Phase 1-2 I feel I lose healing, utility and dps being disc. Sure I put shields on people all the time to help survivability but generally the utility of Holy is very big on this fight. Phase 3 I ended up tank healing and the auto-turn function of penance was so annoying, even if it wasn't hard to avoid the gaze. I guess I was worried about being one-shotted by spawning adds but in the future I think if I have to tank heal in phase three I'll just stand on the boss and be fast with fading on bad add spawns.

It is the only fight in Ulduar where I wished I went holy though. Other than that I have a man crush on the spec. It is very potent and the reactive/stabilizing playstyle is very rewarding.

Mezmeryze · 04/28/09, 9:03 AM

Originally Posted by Shylena

As another already said, it seems you get the best value out of using your entire inventory of spells in Ulduar. For me before Ulduar it was something of a rotation of PoM, FH and CoH, with more FHs than anything. In Ulduar the use of PoH has gone up greatly. Divine Hymn has been nothing short of awesome. Using inner focus to cast it, as in setting up a macro for that use is helpful.

I think Ulduar and the change to PoH makes haste and intelligent use of Serendipity more valuable. On a couple fights I swap in some haste gear to add more haste and change my food buff to add an additional 40 haste. These fights are XT-002 and Ignis.

Build up Serendipity in anticipation of casting PoH for your best results

The more liberal use of GS that others spoke to also seems beneficial.

As Priests it seems we can do well in Ulduar, especially once we have seen the encounters a few times and can know what to expect and prepare for.

Don't you find yourself running out of mana by swapping to haste gear/food if you're PoHing more now than before? Mind you, I only use PoH after landing from the Flame Jets but I still find myself needing to suck up two Innervates, a Shadowfiend and a mana potion.

I still find Renew to be pretty valuable, at least on Ignis. The changes to Renew (to include using the Glyph, as well, to get more bang for your mana buck) make it a pretty big asset to use on MDPS behind Ignis and on ranged/healers who aren't being slammed with Scorch. PoMing the Slag Pot sacrifice and using FH + Renew seems to be pretty good, allowing you to CoH your tank/MDPS.

I find that a lot of people are stressing that Discipline seems to be the bread and butter build in Ulduar, while others are discrediting it because it's not beneficial for anything but tank healing. With a restoration Shaman and a restoration Druid in the raid, don't you find that Discipline allows for better functionality since you're able to focus more on the tank for bosses like Ignis and Razorscale?

Norie · 04/28/09, 9:42 AM

Thanks for all the advice on Thorim. Hopefully tonight we can put some of it into practice!

Hiyono · 04/28/09, 10:05 AM

My guild typically runs with 5 healers no matter what the encounter is. Sometimes, depending on what we really need or why we wipe, we may or may not get another or have one of our hybrids heal. For Razorscale and Kologarn, we used 5 healers (2 Holy priests, 1 Druid, 1 Paladin, 1 Shaman)

Here is our latest WWS for our Kologarn and Razorscale kill.
Both fights I(Yuizaki) was Holy.
Clearly outhealed everyone in Kologarn, with not really as much overhealing as I would honestly expect.

Kologarn: Wow Web Stats
Razorscale: Wow Web Stats

Not that Disc is a bad spec or anything, I just feel more more effective as Holy.

Has anyone looked into a hybrid spec? Maybe getting up to Serendipity and CoH in Holy and the rest in disc?

Edit: My armory is really messed it shows my holy gear and holy spec, but my stats are what they would be if I was discipline. SP is about 500 lower then normal self buffed ><

Mezmeryze · 04/28/09, 10:10 AM

So what's the expected amount of overhealing per boss now, and average throughout the instance, that we should look at? I figured that there might not be an accepted amount of overheal per boss as of now, since the instance is still fresh to those of us whom didn't PTR it.

Carneus · 04/28/09, 10:37 AM

Originally Posted by Mezmeryze

Don't you find yourself running out of mana by swapping to haste gear/food if you're PoHing more now than before? Mind you, I only use PoH after landing from the Flame Jets but I still find myself needing to suck up two Innervates, a Shadowfiend and a mana potion.

I still find Renew to be pretty valuable, at least on Ignis. The changes to Renew (to include using the Glyph, as well, to get more bang for your mana buck) make it a pretty big asset to use on MDPS behind Ignis and on ranged/healers who aren't being slammed with Scorch. PoMing the Slag Pot sacrifice and using FH + Renew seems to be pretty good, allowing you to CoH your tank/MDPS.

I find that a lot of people are stressing that Discipline seems to be the bread and butter build in Ulduar, while others are discrediting it because it's not beneficial for anything but tank healing. With a restoration Shaman and a restoration Druid in the raid, don't you find that Discipline allows for better functionality since you're able to focus more on the tank for bosses like Ignis and Razorscale?

We run 2 Pally's, 2 Shammy's, 1 Druid, 1 Holy and 1 Disc (me). Shylena is one of our main raid healers. I don't see a need for 2 Disc priests in a raid because the combo of a Disc + Holy in a raid is very strong.

I disagree that Disc is only good for MT/OT healing. I find Disc to be very good healing the MT/OT and helping to raid heal when possible with shielding before raid DMG. With the change to PoH Disc can raid heal but not as effectively as Holy for obvious reasons.

Disc is great for the Ignis and Razorscale fights. I can shield people that get hit by a fireball to prevent them from getting two shot by fireballs. On Ignis I keep shields on all three tanks and who ever gets put into the slag pot and throw out PoM every cooldown.

constantius · 04/28/09, 10:59 AM

Originally Posted by Hiyono

My guild typically runs with 5 healers no matter what the encounter is. Sometimes, depending on what we really need or why we wipe, we may or may not get another or have one of our hybrids heal. For Razorscale and Kologarn, we used 5 healers (2 Holy priests, 1 Druid, 1 Paladin, 1 Shaman)

Running only 5 healers is going to dramatically limit your ability to progress when you start engaging hard-mode bosses. Some of them are flat-out not approachable without more healers than that. For example, Iron Council; no matter how perfectly you play, there's just a ton of damage. Mimiron for sure. Most likely XT and Freya. Etc..

Ivette · 04/28/09, 1:04 PM

Hello everyone:

My guild started working on General Vezax 25 last night, and I'm looking for some help on the best ways to deal with this fight as a healer. Our biggest issue in the 4-5 attempts we got in on the boss was our tank dying. He kept ranging the healers during Surge of Darkness, especially when we had too many healers in the Saronite vapors. And of course, I went OOM in no time when not chasing down the vapors.

How do you all deal with positioning the boss? Do you kite him in a circle? Back and forth across the long part of the room? Or back and forth in the short part?

Where do you pop your vapors?

How are you speced?

What spells do you use most, and what spells do you avoid in order to conserve mana?

I went in deep holy, with Body and Soul to help during the Surge of Darkness. I primarily used flash heal + renew on the tank, and renew and sometimes flash heal on raid members. I tried different strats during each fight.... sometimes I stayed right on the tank, which meant I went OOM in no time... sometimes I chased vapors which tended to mean the tank ranged me.

Any help you could offer would be greatly appreciated.

Kindest regards,

Ivette

Falim · 04/28/09, 2:45 PM

Disc is great for Vezax. PWS is great for the tank. Plus it isn't effected by the -healing debuff in shadow crash but does gain the mana reduction. Also, rapture mana regen works on this fight (bug?). This basically makes PWS a free spell (cast every 15s).

Healers need to be in range of the tank at all times. They need to be aware of when surge of darkness is being cast and move with him. PS/GS cooldowns are best used right after a surge ends since healers may still be moving. Pop saronite vapors after a surge so he isn't being kited when healers are regening. Also, if you use aspect of the pack to kite, saronite vapors will daze you. If you are holy, you can use GS to live through the 8th tick of saronite vapor and get 12k extra mana. Only do this when needed as the CD won't be reset to 1min and GS is very useful on the tank. You get 8 vapors and there's a 10 min enrage so space the timing up appropriately. Killing vapors after a mark of the faceless is also great when possible.

We generally kite him lengthwise along the room back and forth but may move him closer to a vapor so healers can be in range of MT while regening.

DPS needs to avoid damage and bandage as needed as healing them is fairly low priority and raid damage is entirely avoidable. Make sure they are spread out so as to spread out shadow crashes and limit healing the boss. When someone does get mark of the faceless, we have them run away from the boss and everyone near them run to the boss. You can ice block/bubble it off btw.

oolon · 04/28/09, 4:19 PM

Originally Posted by Sebalot

Yogg-Saron feels much better suited for Holy than Disc. I was Disc for our kill and Phase 1-2 I feel I lose healing, utility and dps being disc. Sure I put shields on people all the time to help survivability but generally the utility of Holy is very big on this fight. Phase 3 I ended up tank healing and the auto-turn function of penance was so annoying, even if it wasn't hard to avoid the gaze. I guess I was worried about being one-shotted by spawning adds but in the future I think if I have to tank heal in phase three I'll just stand on the boss and be fast with fading on bad add spawns.

It is the only fight in Ulduar where I wished I went holy though. Other than that I have a man crush on the spec. It is very potent and the reactive/stabilizing playstyle is very rewarding.

We did Yogg-25 with five healers, I went disc, absorbed almost 1,000,000 according to RecountGuessedAbsorbs. Felt really good, actually, because Yogg-Saron +4 is not much of a healing intensive fight. Hard modes will obviously be a lot different, but disc was great for Yogg-25.

I really enjoyed Disc in 10-man last week, even though I'm holy at heart. It's impossible to deny its usefulness, preempting damage everywhere. Did a few of the hard modes and it's great. Might do holy for Freya +3, but disc is really great for everything else in 10-man.

My Holy spec is still great for 25-man (see armory), and I'll likely continue to stay Holy on Ignis, Mimiron, Deconstructor, and Kologarn for sure. Fights where disc is more appealing are Thorim, Vezax, and Yogg. As for Holy, I really like having both Body and Soul and all of the Renew talents. Gheal is still 1.7 seconds with full serendipity... the points I took from Divine Fury are mostly irrelevant. I highly recommend this spec to everyone.

Troubleduck · 04/28/09, 4:35 PM

In my guild we usually run like 6 healers. 2pals, 3 priest(1 disc), and sometimes a shm and 1 or 2 druids. We used to have 3 holy priests prior to 3.1 so im kinda happy one of the other priests took up the disc roll. With always having 2pals and him always being disc i havent seen a time where i thought to myself 'hmm disc might be better here'. Holy is a much better playstyle for me. But the disc priest who changed from holy loves disc.

When we were learning Vezax i was killing the meters as holy. I respecced out of meditation and got body and soul(which i normally dont have) to help with the kiting(even tho half the time i couldnt PWS the tank cause the disc priest had a shield on him alrdy). Basically all I would do is PoM the tank nearly every CD, renew tank sometimes, PWS tank when able during surge, and help with the initial heals after surge while other healers got in range. If mana got to 40%igh I would take 6stacks of the vapors(or 7 if desperate prayer was up). I really didnt find mana to be much of an issue and I regularly would CoH people if they got hit by shadow crash or if his lifedrain thing got put on a group standing in puddles. The biggest prob we had with vezax was interupts getting fucked up and him eventually getting an AE or 2 off nearly every attempt.

Yogg was a pretty easy fight healing wise. Got some logs of this(no wws sry) World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis .

For me so far the hardest fighting healing wise has been Mimiron prob. Getting the reduced knockback talents helped a lot.

Sanctum · 04/29/09, 5:00 AM

Vezax was very easy when we approached it using a strict healing rotation and kite path. We used eight healers (probably too many) and had half on/half off. We found out that basicially any healer can survive two kite phases, so we would switch then and let the four healers stop and only worry about getting their mana back.

Another thing I found for vezax is that Pain Suppression is godly for vapors. Go in with a shield and a PoM, Pain Suppression yourself when your stack gets to 5, then jump out at 8. I had full mana and just over half health. I then went and wanded the boss for Blessing of Light heals.

Juli · 04/29/09, 6:23 AM

Originally Posted by Sanctum

Another thing I found for vezax is that Pain Suppression is godly for vapors. Go in with a shield and a PoM, Pain Suppression yourself when your stack gets to 5, then jump out at 8. I had full mana and just over half health. I then went and wanded the boss for Blessing of Light heals.

I always wanted to do that, but I've also saved quite a few wipes with pain suppression on the tank when interrupters decide to fail and the tank loses 75% armor. Having it on cooldown and wiping at 30% would make me really sad, so I generally just pw:s (and complete a flash heal cast just before the shield if I want to be extra safe) between 6 and 7 stacks and leave on 7, then self-penance afterward.

stassart · 04/29/09, 8:30 AM

Our raid runs a bit heavy on healing priests, the last two raid nights we ran with:
2 holy paladins, 1 resto druid, 1 resto shaman, 2 disc/holy, 2 holy priests
2 holy paladins, 1 resto shaman, 2 disc/holy, 3 holy

Day 1: Wow Web Stats
Day 2: Wow Web Stats

Both these raids were done with 8 healers, which seems a bit heavy to me, but we did better than when we ran with 7 the week before. It seems like most of our healers are not quite adjusted yet to the heavy amount of raid damage in Ulduar compared to in Naxx.

I read through this thread and did not really find very many WWS reports. I am very interested in what ratio of healing spells were used in Ulduar and what the current best method for holy priests to AoE raid heal is.

Our priests seem to be all over the map:

Flash Heal 20-30%
Circle of Healing 20-30%
Prayer of Mending 10-30%
Prayer of Healing 0-10%
Renew 0-20%
Greater Heal 10%

On WWS the highest priests on healing meters in Ulduar seem to have:

Circle of Healing 30%
Prayer of Healing 30%
Prayer of Mending 20%
Flash Heal 9%
Renew 8%
Other 3%

I realize that it really depends on the fight. Phase 1 Razorscale and Phase 1 Mirmiron seem to favor flash heal even when raid healing. However there are many situations that seem to favor AoE healing: Ignis flame jets, XT-002 light bomb/tantrum, Kologarn shockwave (Oblivion), Auriaya Sonic Screech as examples.

During these AoE healing situations, most of our holy priests seem to be going with a 3x Flash Heal, PoH with CoH used occasionally. The healing output of this rotation seems low to me, just browsing through WWS reports priests that use a CoH every cooldown, PoM every cooldown, and PoH as filler in between seem to have much higher hps. Even just using CoH every cooldown and throwing empowered renews around in between seems to have higher healing output than the 3x Flash PoH rotation on AoE heavy fights. Is one of these methods what the holy priests should be doing, or is there another method? Or is the 3x Flash Heal, PoH rotation the best option?

Basically I am looking for ways to improve the healing output of the holy priests so that 6-7 healers can put out the amount of healing that currently is requiring 8.

Kagemane · 04/29/09, 8:53 AM

Originally Posted by stassart

Our raid runs a bit heavy on healing priests, the last two raid nights we ran with:
2 holy paladins, 1 resto druid, 1 resto shaman, 2 disc/holy, 2 holy priests
2 holy paladins, 1 resto shaman, 2 disc/holy, 3 holy

Day 1: Wow Web Stats
Day 2: Wow Web Stats

Both these raids were done with 8 healers, which seems a bit heavy to me, but we did better than when we ran with 7 the week before. It seems like most of our healers are not quite adjusted yet to the heavy amount of raid damage in Ulduar compared to in Naxx.

I read through this thread and did not really find very many WWS reports. I am very interested in what ratio of healing spells were used in Ulduar and what the current best method for holy priests to AoE raid heal is.

Our priests seem to be all over the map:

Flash Heal 20-30%
Circle of Healing 20-30%
Prayer of Mending 10-30%
Prayer of Healing 0-10%
Renew 0-20%
Greater Heal 10%

On WWS the highest priests on healing meters in Ulduar seem to have:

Circle of Healing 30%
Prayer of Healing 30%
Prayer of Mending 20%
Flash Heal 9%
Renew 8%
Other 3%

I realize that it really depends on the fight. Phase 1 Razorscale and Phase 1 Mirmiron seem to favor flash heal even when raid healing. However there are many situations that seem to favor AoE healing: Ignis flame jets, XT-002 light bomb/tantrum, Kologarn shockwave (Oblivion), Auriaya Sonic Screech as examples.

During these AoE healing situations, most of our holy priests seem to be going with a 3x Flash Heal, PoH with CoH used occasionally. The healing output of this rotation seems low to me, just browsing through WWS reports priests that use a CoH every cooldown, PoM every cooldown, and PoH as filler in between seem to have much higher hps. Even just using CoH every cooldown and throwing empowered renews around in between seems to have higher healing output than the 3x Flash PoH rotation on AoE heavy fights. Is one of these methods what the holy priests should be doing, or is there another method? Or is the 3x Flash Heal, PoH rotation the best option?

Basically I am looking for ways to improve the healing output of the holy priests so that 6-7 healers can put out the amount of healing that currently is requiring 8.

Dont understimate Flash Heal. Remember that Surge of Light bring a 0 cost Flash Heal very often.
In a heavy AoE situation, it is better to have 3 stacks of Serendipity. Then when the AoE happens, you start with a Prayer of Healing, then use the free Flash Heal (unless you are unlucky), then use Circle of Healing, then use again a free Flash Heal, and suddenly you have already 2/3 stacks of Serendipity just in case you need more AoE heal.

While I agree that there is better HPS without using Flash Heal at all, you sacrifice a lot of mana by not using it. And in those fights there is no such hurry to heal the raid usually, and IMHO it is more important to save mana for a latter AoE phase.