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.

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.

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.

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.

I am not that infatuated with Serendipity. When it was bugged and you could throw out two quick PoH it was pretty good but now much less so. The fact that you have no real way to gain haste during aoe attacks (except by starting to spam flash heals which is clearly a subpoptimal way to deal with AoE damage and if you have time to do that you probably don't need Serendepity stacks anyway) make it much weaker than a 3 pointer should be. The first PoH can pretty much always be predicted and the haste effect is somewhat redundant. It's when we may be low on healers and I need to use a second, third and forth PoH that I could really use the haste and then I get none.

I switched to 2/3 serendipity and 3/3 test of faith (which works great in combination with the first T8 set bonus) in my holy build and don't feel I am at a disadvantage coming into an aoe situation.

I had a coupel of questions on some fights our guild has been having issues with. Mainly kolo and council.

I duel spec Holy / Disc however I prefer to remain Holy.

Healing makeup for our 25 mans: 2 Palies, 2 Druids, 2 priests

The amount of random deaths have slowed our attempts and we have killed kolo is seems more of a luck factor when I am healing holy. On council I have been raiding Disc and I am wondering if loosing the raid heals on kolo for disc would be wiser as bubbling seems to be such a lifesaver its hard to pass up.

From what people have experienced do you think its better to have 2 HPs on kolo or should I be runnign disc?

As holy I tend to run 2nd in effective on the fight behind one of our palies, mainly due to judgement of light on the boss and the amount of effective healing that ads on the fight.

Disc is indeed great for saving lives, but I would hesitate about going disc for an AoE-heavy fight when you already have 2 paladins. I am also dual spec'd disc/holy, and which spec I am on any given fight is dependent on how many holy priests and paladins we already have. If there's 1 paladin, I'll stay disc for almost every fight. If there's 2, I'll switch to holy for fights with major raid healing.

The thing about Kologarn is, the raid damage apart from Shockwave/Oblivion is all preventable, so there shouldn't really be many people sitting at lower health than the rest of the raid. I would guess that your DPSers are getting hit by eye beams, and/or the rubble AoE, in which case it's not the healers' fault.

Anyway, however awesome disc might be at saving lives, I would expect that with only 2 druids and a holy priest to heal the raid, it would take too long to top people off after the raid-wide AoEs, and you'd just be creating more problems for yourself. This is just based on my experience though, YMMV.

Kologarn is a fight (at least in 10, haven't tried it on 25 yet) where I can see interest in both specs.
Disc is king on the MT (heavy "rare" hits), stabilizing it, and for the guy crushed in the right hand (when it happens).
It's especially good at coming and helping in both case just when needed, especially if one of the MT healers is distracted (eye beam or in the hand). And it can use POH to help when needed with raid healing after big aoes. It's not as good as holy, but still useful.

Holy is king for aoes, and B&S can help with eye beam. But it's not as reactive as Disc, and if you have enough aoe healing and suffer random death, then going disc is also a valid option for me.

Lightwell is situational, but for 1 talent point I think it's worth it. It does, however, require the raid to know that they can use it (usually when they're not dps'ing - i.e. moving). The best example is really on Kologarn's eye beams - drop LW at the entrance and when people move back then across they click the LW. With a little 'learning' from the raid, it works wonders. Ignis, Hodir, etc have meant people using all the charges which alleviates some raid healing. It is a learning curve tho - and it's nice to hear the call on vent that the Lightwell is used up so that I can drop a new one when the CD is over - that's when I know it's a well spent talent point.

The Hodir kill which I posted the WWS stats for is an interesting one for the Binding Heal spam on Frozen Blows. We didn't have the groups set up properly so people were spread too far to use PoH effectively, so the Binding Heal was working well while CoH was on CD. Since then we've rolled over Hodir by using groups better and PoH, PoM and CoH are godly. When things get dire (i.e. a healer or two are frozen), popping Divine Hymn is a raid saver.

On a side note tho, i'm miffed at the "balancing" which has taken place on 3.1.1a. Ignis, XT, Kologarn, Iron Council, Auriaya....all nerfed to a level which makes them little or no challenge anymore. You're in more danger on the trash before Ignis than Ignis himself now, which is a real shame.

On 10 man I heal Kologarn as Disc - single target rocks. On 25 man Kologarn grips three members, and (pre-nerf) Disc wasn't working well enough for me to heal them through. Going Holy I will PoM, CoH, SoL Flash (usually) which keeps all three up enough for a shammy or other aoe healer to keep them topped before the shockwave.

Parse some of your fights and figure out how much renew is healing for. Think about situations where renew is your best option. Do those out way the benefit of gaining ToF and other things you pick up?

For myself, I decided that it was not worth it. I do however have one point in empowered renew for the chance to proc holy conc. when I do renew.

It is a matter of play style more than a strict go/no-go talent(s).


My question is how are people handling the frozen blows (http://www.wowhead.com/?spel=64544) on the raid for the 10 man version of Hodir?

We had a Paladin, Holy Priest & Druid doing the healing with the paladin mainly focused on the tank and the druid and I looking after everything else. It just seemed like we couldn't spread out the healing enough and we would lose a few people. We are looking at crafting a few pieces of frost resist gear to help, but this seems unneeded for most groups. Any suggestions would be welcome.

We had no troubles healing Frozen Blows with the usual PoH, CoH, PoM, FH with just Frost Protection Aura (Resto Shammy was throwing LHW and CH around, Holy Pally spamming the tank). Are you trying to stay in fires or moonbeams? Either will help hugely during Frozen Blows.

3 pieces of the epic frost resist gear for the tank was a good choice for us. A tank with enough hp could probably do without, however, then you definitely need a dedicated healer for the MT. Frost resist gear for the rest of the raid seems counterproductive to me - you gimp your DPS and healers a lot for a few short phases.

We did Hodir.10 in the fifth try, running with 3 healers in that try. Disc priest, holy priest, druid - though it turned out the druid healed in his moonkin equipment. We are a pretty casual raid with 2 evenings only, and half the raid is in 10-man only stuff. Here's our WWS: Wow Web Stats . Just look at try 5 (the kill), in the 4 tries before only the 2 priests healed.

In my (short) experience, the key to handling frozen blows is that you stay on top of your healing all of the time, so you are fully prepared when frozen blows hits.

Some hints:
- All players need to minimize damage taken during frozen blow - this is key: you cannot really handle emergencies.
- During frozen blows - if fires are active, healers take priority.
- Self-PoM on cooldown
- Priests use Divine Hymn
- Priests use PoH when standing and CoH/PoM/Renew when moving.
- Use B&S when you need to move.
- Alternate between healer and tank cooldowns during frozen blows so the MT healer can safely help out on raid healing.
- be verbal in TS/vent to coordinate - announce when you need to move during blows so the others are prepared.

Now, this worked for us, but it's perhaps not the best way. With more insight into the fight, I'm pretty sure this is doable with 2 healers - it just looks a bit overwhelming at first. Any advice on my healing there also very appreciated.

For 10 man Hodir and handling the Frozen Blows you should use either Frost Resist Gear or Cooldowns. Last week I healed the fight as Disc and I thought Disc was wonderful for it. Between my 2.6 minute PS and the Warrior Tanks OP short CDs(glyphed and talented for progression) we had a CD for every frozen blows between the two of us. This week, I went as Holy where I used my 1 minute CD Guardian Spirit in the same fashion on him, but the healing seemed to be a bit harder. I kept trying to keep an eye on the tank since I kept seeing him take dips, and the AoE healing was tough to heal through as it was. Overall lesson though, CDs for Frozen Blows on the tanks, lots of healing output, win.

Disclaimer: I've recently been promoted to healing leader for my guild and while I don't know everything about each of the healing class I'm trying to do the best that I can.

healers: 1 holy priest 1 disc priest 2 holy pally 2 resto druids
my role: disc tank healer
Problem: Healing MT and OT
Wow Web Stats).

Kologarn is causing us a lot of problems. I don't know if the issue is the number of healers or how I have them assigned. I have a dedicated healer for the Kologarn tank. I'm assisting with Kologarn and healing the OT. The other healers are healing their group right after shockwave and general raid healing the rest of the time. The randomness of the stone grip seems to be our biggest issue. If two healers get grabbed at the same time it seems to become a unrecoverable situation. On our last attempted we tried bring in another healer (another pally), but as soon as 2 healers get grabbed we would fall behind and either lose people to the stone grip or other raid members taking damage while the stone grip is being healed.

I would definitely suggest 7 healers for Kologarn: he's not that hard, but having multiple healers gripped can lead to bad situations very quickly. You should have 2 dedicated tank healers; there's almost no point in having a designated "OT Healer" -- the OT takes almost no damage while not actually tanking. We run 2 paladins on the MT(s), with a druid assisting with rolling Rejuvs and the occasional top-up Nourish. Our two resto shamans cover grip, and secondary heal on the raid, and 1 holy priest is dedicated to the raid. I mostly play Body & Soul bitch, and try to speed up people running from lasers, with secondary emphasis on healing up the raid after shouts. The druid is dedicated to healing the rubble tank, with occasional raid heals if the rubble is dead.

Total healers: 1 druids, 2 priests, 2 shamans, 2 paladins.

Occasionally we run 2 druids, 1 shaman: in that case, the shaman is dedicated grip healer, and the two priests help with CoH and PoM.

Earlier in this thread there is a post about how to add a "Stone Grip" icon to Grid a raidframe. This was extremely helpful for my guild. If you are having trouble keeping Gripped people up, try having your healers add it.

I'm normally Shadow but Holy is my dual spec and I've been asked to be Holy a few times to fill in when we're short on healing. We have been working on Mimiron and I'm finding that Phase 2 seems to be the most difficult phase for me to heal. Typically we run 7 healers for Mimiron: Holy Paladin, Resto Shaman, 2-3 Resto Druids, 1 Disc Priest and 1-2 Holy Priests. In Phase 2 I'm normally assigned to heal a ranged group that are instructed to stand fairly close to me. I've been pre-shielding people right before the phase starts, stick a PoM on myself, and then start with Flash Heal initially to get a 3-stack of Serendipity, and PoH as soon as it's needed. I then CoH the group as needed, use SoL procs to heal up anyone who needs to be topped off right away, Binding Heal or Flash Heal anyone left who needs heals, and try to build up a 3-stack of Serendipity while making sure PoM is always up on someone and then rinse/repeat. I've suggested to our healing leaders that instead of assigning druids to a group they should be using HoTs on the entire raid as a buffer. There doesn't seem to be much I can do if there are several people in the group getting really low if CoH is on cooldown except pop Divine Hymn but that's a one-time use in the entire fight. Is there something else I can be doing?

Mana can also be a problem for me during P2, unfortunately my Holy set uses a lot of pieces from my Shadow set so they're all gemmed for spellpower, though as I upgrade my Shadow set I'll probably be able to regem the old pieces for Holy. I try to mitigate this by using the Spirit World Glass and the Majestic Dragon Figurine, but I'm pretty short on options for my healing set as it's not my main spec.

Prayer of Healing early and often in phase 2. You don't need to have a serendipity stack for prayer of healing to be the best spell to cast. If you cast it often enough, your group will almost never get "really low," and when it does, your prayer of healing cast will almost be done. Refresh prayer of mending on yourself between flame jet casts. It's not enough for it just to be "up." You want it up with 5/6 stacks, because it will get used up quickly if your group is targeted with lasers or when flame jets happens.

That's not to say you should never use single target heals, but you should only use them when the people you're healing with them are the only ones in your group taking damage. It's nice to have your instant heals available for if you need to move to dodge a rocket or avoid the spinning up attack.

Don't be afraid to use shadowfiend and a potion during phase 2. Phase 3 has very little healing required, so you should be able to regenerate plenty before phase 4.

You really need to see when the Blast Wave or whatever it's called. I think DBM announces it, but you can just see it as well, flames going out from the boss in all directions. The instant you see it, fire off PoH immediately. That way it will most likely hit perfectly, and you can use another one right after. I focused too much on getting 3 stacks of serendipity, but it really isn't needed. When I switched to using PoH right when Mimiron does Blast Wave, I had zero causalities for the rest of the tries.

Try to use Binding Heal or Flash Heal to heal the regular damage, and always have a PoM out if possible.

The phase is pretty short, and usually it's a problem with healing enough, not going out of mana. Since this is by far the most intense healing phase, it's a good time to pot. Your fiend will be ready for phase 4 anyway, so you might as well use it. Also, since you have poor regen gear, ask not to be assigned for any specific healing in phase 3. That way you'll have full mana when phase 4 starts.

For mimiron phase 2, have your entire raid stand practically in melee range around the circle. There's no penalty for it provided your raid can avoid rocket fire. It makes raid healing that encounter pretty easy. I usually run that with 2 holy paladins, 1 disc priest, 1 holy priest 1 rest druid and 1 resto shaman.