[Guide] Why does it always Healing Rain on me?

[Stoove 347]

The Guide to Optimizing Healing Rain in Adverse Situations

or

Why does it always Healing Rain on me?

The aim of this thread is to discuss the situations in which Healing Rain is very difficult to optimize. Here, I'm thinking specifically of 10-man raiding (because seriously 25-man is HR heaven!). We have a list of fights/phases in the Seige of Orgrimmar for which Healing Rain is difficult to use well. What we need is suggestions on how to target the Healing Rain to get the benefit out of it.

 

We also keep previous tiers' tips for posterity.

Bosses and Phases

 

Seige of Orgrimmar

 

We currently need tips for the following fights;

• Immerseus
• Fallen Protectors
• Norushen
• Sha of Pride
• Galakras
• Iron Juggernaut
• Kor'kron Dark Shaman
• General Nazgrim
• Malkorok
• Spoils of Pandaria
• Thok the Bloodthirsty
• Siegecrafter Blackfuse
• Paragons of the Klaxxi
• Garrosh Hellscream

 

Throne of Thunder

We asked for tips for the following fights;

• Horridon (all phases)
• Council of Elders (before Sul is killed)
• Tortos
• Megaera (outside of Rampage)
• Ji-Kun (on the main platform)
• Durumu the Forgotten (in the Beam Phase)
• Dark Animus
• Iron Qon (Lightning and Ice phases)
• The Twin Consorts
• Lei Shen

Requirements for Posting Tips

• If you want to submit a tip, please start your reply saying which fight and which phase you're talking about. This will make it easier to collate the responses.
• Bear in mind that the minimum expected targets is 3, and we usually like to have 4+ in Healing Rain. Please be as explicit as possible as to how many people you manage to get in using your tip.
• If you can, please note the raid composition you generally work with (X tanks, Y healers, A melee DPS and B ranged DPS will suffice) and what your attitude is like (hardcore/casual/casualcore will do). This will help us to assess whether the tip is really useful generally.

Other discussion

Please discuss and pick apart any tips you see. Discussion is really useful here so that we can judge what tips are useful!

Tips Compilation


Horridon

[Door Phases]
Dropping Healing Rain with its borders on the add tank so that the tank and DPS walk through it on the rotation around the arena. Expect the n.o. targets to vary with group, but you can get up to 6 at once.

[War God phase]
Use it near the edge of War God's hitbox. This allows everybody to stack in the shiny while War god is burned down.


Council of Elders

[before Sul is killed]
If your tanks keep Sul and Malak on top of each other, you should be able to keep Healing Rain down on them and the melee for ~4 targets most of the time. Varies with group comp and tactics, obviously best with 2+ Melee.


Megaera

[Outside of Rampage]
If your raid is particularly switched on, you can get up to 4 people comfortably spread out inside the healing rain. Aim to have the area free of fire if possible and target it on the ranged. How easy this is will highly depend upon your kill order.


Durumu the Forgotten

[shiny Colour Beams Phase]
This will vary depending on your tactics. If you keep one healer and your tanks in the Blue Beam (which should be stationary) then target it on them. Note that HR can be difficult to see over the shiny blue effect of the Beam. Expect 3-4 targets with a good uptime, dependent on composition.

[Death Beam Phase]
In the Death Beam phase, you can expect everyone will be stacked up. Cast the Healing Rain as far ahead of the group as possible - you tend to move around quite fast so maximise the time people can stay in it. You can get up to 10 targets like this.

 

Lei Shen

 

[Transition Phases]

Using Healing Rain when your platform gets an Overcharged or a Static Shock might help, but in 10-man you will only  get 2-3 people in.

 

[Phase 1]

Thunderstruck is a very predictable move, so you can cast Healing Rain on your tanks and melee before it hits. Only really worth doing when you have over 2 melee players.

 

[Phase 2]

Your raid will prefer to stack up in Phase 2, so casting Healing Rain on the boss around the time Ball Lightning lands is a good idea. It should heal everyone very efficiently and prevent you having to cast additional heals in this part of the phase.

 

[Phase 3]

The raid has to deal with spreading out and stacking up a lot. Casting Healing Rain on/near your tanks will probably be the best bet. Using it just before Thunderstruck will get the best efficiency out of it.

[Stoove 347]

Durumu [beam Phase]

It's very difficult to find a good target for HR in the Beam Phase because there is so much movement. My raid uses a tactic where a healer, two tanks, and often one other DPS, sit in the Blue beam and remain mostly stationary. If your raid uses this tactic, you can expect 3-4 people with a reasonable uptime. Our general composition means we usually have one ranged DPS in the Blue beam.

The problem with this is obviously that the blue Healing Rain effect is very difficult to see in the blue beam effect. You could put it on yourself (if you are standing in the Blue beam) or another healer who is there and ask everyone to stack up on that person.

[Kateraina 1]

Horridon

Doors - Our group slowly rotates from left to right at each active door as stuff hits the ground. Which allows me to drop Healing rains at each door right at the edge of where our adds tank is standing and get the 2 Melee and 3 ranged inside it with a pretty good uptime. Usually just as 1 ranged is moving out of the rain the tank is moving into it. 5-6 targets depending on how fast people are moving on each door.

War-god - I drop a Healing rain just at the edge of War-god's hit box. Just enough that the whole raid can stack right in the rain while we kill war-god.

Council of Elders (before Sul is killed)

Our tanks keep Frost King and Sul on top of each other until Sul is down. As well as keeping our 2 melee on Sul unless we get close to Dark power on the Empowered. During this time I can drop a rain right under them and get 3-4 targets in my rain with almost constant uptime.

Megaera (outside of Rampage)

Outside of Rampage i keep a healing rain on ranged. We can spread out just enough around the edge of the rain to get 4 targets for the first few heads then 3-4 as we get into the last 2.

Casual Core

Usual Raid comp 2 Tanks, 2-3 Heals ( Druid, Pally, Shaman), 2 Melee, 3-4 Ranged.

[Stoove 347]

Thanks for your tips Kateraina, I'll update the OP when I get home late this weekend / early next week.

[Stoove 347]

Updated with Kateraina's tips! Included some more of my own for Durumu.

[Stoove 347]

Lei Shen (P1 and P2)

We run a 2-tank, 2-melee comp for this but Lei Shen seems to move around a bit too much for Healing Rain to be very efficient most of the time. The only exception I've found is that when Thunderstruck lands, most of the raid tends to stack up on Lei Shen. This is a perfect time to precast Healing Rain on the tanks and get a good few optimised ticks at a time of large spike damage. I tend to get about 6 targets for 70% of the uptime (estimated).

This also works on P2 when Summon Ball Lightning is cast - the raid tends to bunch and precasting can do a lot of healing. I've not managed to test this very much on P2 since we're still progressing on Lei Shen at the moment.

We raid casualcore twice a week.

[CptDan 25]

I figured I would give a bit of what's worked for me in SOO. I raid in a progression oriented raid team and we are 5/14 Heroic currently. I heal with 2 monks, 2 priests, and a druid, subject to change for each fight and sometimes we have a holy paladin. For most fights we have 2 tanks, 4-6 Healers, 4-6 Melee, and the rest at range. 

 

H Immerseus 25 - I try to keep healing rain in high traffic areas, people aren't stacked for long so it's not easy to keep it on a pile. Watch the movements called for by the RL and try to set HR so that people run through it for heals. Again, not a great fight for healing rain but easy enough to get people running through it. (commonly will heal 6 targets but not full duration)

 

H Protectors - Great fight for healing rain, I try to keep it down where the ranged will be since there is usually a ground heal under the melee, then the greatest times are when everyone stacks for meteor and of course on Sun's Desperate Measures. I also will pop SWG and AG at this time to make sure no poison or rook's clash will kill us. (Almost always has max targets/duration)

 

H Norushen - Another great fight for healing rain, AG can also work on this fight, but I don't always use that talent. Keep HR on the stack points and a huge tip for HR, when the stack point shifts due to beam, set an HR at the halfway mark, so that people running around it will get healed up on the way. Movement points on this fight are what kill so use HR to offset that. I usually put an HR down at the halfway mark and a HST then ghost wolf around back to the stack point and have an HR waiting for them. (very easy to keep max targets/duration)

 

Sha - (haven't done heroic) Just keep HR on the ground, the fight is almost always stacked, conductivity can ease mana if that's a concern. This fight is just too easy on normal IMO. Make sure there is an HR on burst and rotate cool downs with the other healers when burst is going off on high pride.

 

H Galakras - HR is a decent boost on this fight, though HST usually tops it in the logs. I just use a normal healing rotation on the ground putting HR on the tanks and melee pile. When she lands, then i keep HR on my assigned stack point and rotate cool downs with the other healers in the last phase. (Hits 4+ targets probably 75% of the time, 100% on galakras phase)

 

H Jugg - At first glance this is a mediocre fight for HR, but when you really plan out your usage HR shines like diamonds on the ground. During the normal phase i just use it so that it hits as many people as It can. We are all spread so it may only hit a few people, but where HR is amazing is on the knock back, I will cast my UE on myself to top me up before the knock back, then as soon as we land i drop a HR then CDs are rotated between the healers, On the way back to the boss I will cast UE on myself again to top me up and then an instant HR to top everyone up as they reach the boss again. HR really is a great clutch heal for those moments of crazy movement in this fight. Love the fight btw. (4+ targets most of the time, shines as a clutch heal)

 

That's as far as I've gotten in Heroic 25 man, we are doing Nazgrim tonight so we'll see how that goes. The rest of the fights on normal are pretty easy to heal, and the usage of HR seems really transparent, but just to fill out the post for those just beginning normals or what not I'll keep going.

 

Dark Shaman - HR will always have a place just follow the pack as they circle the room, if you are assigned tank healing just keep it under the tanks, pretty straight forward use of it.

 

Nazgrim - I usually keep HR on the ranged but will sometimes shift it to the melee pile under boss. I do more direct healing on this fight usually though.

 

Malk - I just keep HR on the tank since we are all spread so far even in 25 man.

 

Spoils - Just set it so that HR will hit people as they run through or as a spot they can run for a quick heal.

 

Thok - Keep it on the pile as much as you can, I usually will use a bit more haste so I can still cast a HR in between screeches until I have to use an instant one as stacks get really high.

 

Siegecrafter - I typically just keep it where ranged can get to it unless there isn't a ground heal on the melee.

 

Paragons - People are usually loosely stacked so I just try to position in high traffic areas and/or under the tank(s)

 

Garrosh - I find that we stack pretty regularly even if only for a bit. I keep HR ready on these moments and HR gets to stretch its legs a little bit.

 

I will edit this post with new information on Heroic encounters as I down them, I don't see a whole lot of people doing H25's so maybe this will help the few that do.

[Stoove 347]

Thanks for the response CptDan. I'd forgotten about this thread! I'll curate the responses into the main thread when I have time. One thing to take note of: the thread is really focussed on 10man raiding, where strategies like your Paragons tip mostly don't work.

[CptDan 25]

Yes, sometimes i forget about 10 man raiding. The usage of HR on Klaxi would be totally dependent on raid comp in 10 man. In 25s you have enough of a traffic area they could run through the HR for a good bit of healing while they run through.