Healing in Highmaul (N/H): general tips on the start

[Pandacho 286]

Ii was written as a sort of reminder doc for my healers team, but today I thought that actually other people may benefit from this too. It contains rather general information  on healing in Highmaul but on the early start of raiding every bit of info counts ^^.

 

GENERAL PREPARATION

 

For all the classes: do not hesitate to change talents and Glyphs for every encounter - we are still pretty undergeared and have to use every bit of advantage in fight.

I know that it's an obvious sentence, but last year in SoO made us lazy. 

 

Some tips for the resto shamans: better not to use Glyph of Riptide if you are healing with druids - they are faster in HoTs, while you cut at least 50% of your Riptide power with this Glyph. There are other reasons not to use Glyph of Riptide now, but I'll not discuss it here. Try to use proactively Spirit Link Totem - unlike SoO, there are enough encounters in Highmaul where only 3-4 people are dropping very low on HP, while the whole raid remains high. Much faster and mana efficiently to redistribute group HP with Spirit Link Totem and get everybody to 85% in 1-2 seconds instead of burning mana hectically trying to top 3-4 raiders from 20% of HP.

 

MANA ISSUES

 

Things have changed in WoD heavily in this regard. Most Healers are struggling with mana now. I will not talk here about your mana management and spell usage. I just want to remind everybody we must now bring mana potions in every raid, make sure we get the Spirit enchant on the weapon, even if it's still 630 blue and do our best to get ahold of the DMF trinket. Enchant and trinket procs are about 2K of spirit together - it’s much more than amount of hard Spirit we have. Try to get neck/ring/cloak with spirit if you have some to chose from. Yes, all this is obvious, but I was a bit shocked when on 3/12 raid none of our healers did not think to bring mana potions - they just forgot about it after two years of MoP.

 

HEALERS COMPOSITION

 

My raid has 2 Resto Shamans, 2 Resto Druids, Holy Priest and Holy Paladin.

I will argue that there is no advantage of any healing class now. We all do the same (more or less) numbers in logs. But (!) you have to work as a team, not trying to push the numbers while your raid is dying. You will see below that we use a lot healing raid CDs chaining and personal assignments.

 

BOSS SPECIFIC NOTES

 

KARGATH BLADEFIST

 

No specific assignments. Just watch where you’re standing - don’t be near tiger pits during a knockback, don’t stand on top of a pillar when it’s spawning or you’ll be knocked into a tiger pit.

 

THE BUTCHER

 

Add Gushing Wounds to your VuhDo debuffs in the Custom section (or to the healing frames you are using). Shield / HoT / pay more attention to the players affected by this debuff. Better to have groups only get 3 stacks as this is how it’ll be on Mythic. If anyone gets 5 stacks, they will die immediately.

We must save or plan our raid healing CDs to be up when The Butcher goes into Enrage Mode at 30% HP.

Use raid healing CDs on Bounding Cleave here right after the knock back.

Usually we’ll do it like this, chaining our CDs:

Resto druid;
Resto shaman;
Holy priest

Resto shamans use Spirit Link Totem on melee group after 30% of boss HP. If you have more than one resto shaman - decide about turns. 

 

TECTUS

 

Our tactic is to stay spread out in circle and to come a bit towards the center when Tectonic Upheaval occures, so everybody will be in range for the raid healing CDs chaining on Tectonic Upheaval.

CDs chaing assignments:

1st Tectonic Upheaval: Resto druid (Tranquility) + Resto shaman (Ascendance)
Resto shaman (HTT) + Resto shaman (Ascendance)
Holy priest (Hymn) + Holy Paladin
Resto shaman(HTT) + Resto druid (Tranquility)

 

Pay attention to Accretion stacks. Tectus will be getting this buff but it won’t be too much of an issue. However, it’ll be a big source of Tank damage  from the Shards and Motes of Tectus. Tectus and his Tecti gain this buff naturally throughout the fight and it increases the damage output by 5% per stack. So - Shield / HoT/ pay special attention to the tanks.

 

BRACKENSPORE

 

Make sure that the Tank currently tanking Brackenspore is topped before the Necrotic Breath is cast. While the Tank is being breathed upon, all healing is reduced by 99%, so you won’t be able to heal him.

We have 2 healers on duty to heal the Mushrooms full time. For now, it’s Resto shaman + Resto druid. When Infesting Spores is being cast, the raid should be stacked under a Green Mushroom. At this point, all the healers have to heal the Green Mushroom and keep it at full health. Save your raid CDs for Infesting Spores and use them if you feel that it’s needed.

You can retalent/reglyph for this fight for heavy mana using spells because you'll replenish all your mana every time when healing a Blue Mushroom.

 

TWIN OGRON

 

Nothing specific. Use your raid CDs on Quake casts if needed. Discuss with your Hunters the timing of Aspect of the Fox (casting on move).

WeakAura for detecting Aspect in the raid:

dyt9daGlvITPuzUsy2i5McIVPQANQyVKDRK9lK(PuH)QugNu1qPOQbledhKoifomLoMeDovsleeTubPfdclhYdvQ6Pu9yf65iwgs1uv0KvLPJ6Ickddkxw01LYgbvttGndvBxQOtlPVsrLpluFxQ0iPO0TPiJgugps5KQuULkvxtbNxq1ZuvEnff)gyvQP8Q8BNzyHc3yFyf323XXlSquPQC4BWAlorBwc0CKb4mSehqtoro9lyxUE5xUj5p5pnLtRdCCsY6CV8cwpwFj2qWU()b5H3boojzbpOp46)x)WW)1G)Ry9c)EqGCCakJrG26ThqbqAQtPGVd7FiiiGo2x51)(amHFFiqNpbpOh7R)76om6d07h(ge(9HaXYTJCfSiAkNWweRP8hylMc0vqiNaARN8Blor42XSW49alsH5sRzmAilPW8GUjYOHSKqYx1w4G26rkmqiq3nsxaGa7ciow(dSraT1tqkwSCgvJJtKMYBRSZCXYTngip7mxS89wclFznLen1PuUbbAoYrJaWJgHHLrJahqtS8gj3ARkliflhwwJHX6uIHjhbylNcs5ua7tt5nsUTSMsbHCeGk1uUPgfx1uSy5SLkxSMYn1O4QMIflhzhtnLBQrXvnflw(iLLq0uoPUIPs5UzncX4i3uJIRAk3nRrighbPyXYjqZrnLtQRyQuNp5MAuCvtD(eKIflwooaLXiqB9MjnUHs5o0KIIueQfA9bVIYTqBRCRKEVCugxbRz4qt5qrGyusiCsJBOu(ljwUHSCkiK)QKruY5gcWwUcw6GjNtACdLYVT4eHBhZcJ3dSifMlTMXOHSKcZd6MiJgYscjFvBHrdzjfgnK9t(iGcG0uNsDk1HUoy68j4dy97ck7dWOV7)N(UpHFF4xNaDWU8piwU99QCfSSuBmQghNiIMIL3T(yy6uIHjV(KBqGMJC0ia8OrGdOjF1mnr144er0PuSCRMYniqZroAeaE0imSmAe4aAYVDMHfkCJ9HvCBFhhVWcrLQYHVbRT4eTzjqZrgGZWsCanXY7uNYa6yILa  

 

Additionally, this fight has two moments where the raid must be proactive about movement. The first is during Quake, of course. The fire is difficult to move out of because the pattern is unpredictable. If anyone gets hit by the fire, they’ll gain a 10 second DoT - Blaze. I think we need to just suck up the fact that people will get hit by this due to the unpredictable nature of the fire.

Secondly is the Shield Charge. People must be looking at where the boss is facing and make sure to move. The Charge does a lot of damage if you get hit, it knocks you away, possibly into fire or whirlwind and it leaves a DoT: Injured. This DoT lasts almost 20 seconds and it’s really a lot of unnecessary damage that has to be healed through.

 

KO’RAGH

 

Firstly, get the Glyph that lets you Dispel twice in a row. Most of the healing classes can buy it from vendor in your new capital city.

If you have a priest in raid - awesome. All priests (shadow too) can Mass Dispel Expel Magic: Fire.

If you don't have any priest, you can use the Revival CD from monk-healer for Dispel, but it has a 3 min. cooldown and is a strong healing raid CD, so - try to utilize another capabilities, if possible.

Do not dispel immediately! The debuff explodes on Dispel - give people time to move /range 5 or you’ll kill the raid.

Our solution was, when the Expel Magic: Fire is cast, Holy Priest call in Vent: ‘Mass Dispel in 3-2-1’ and Mass Dispel the raid - so people will have 3 sec to /range 5 from each other. Hopefully after Mass Dispel you'll have to deal with only a few remaining debuffs. So with this new Glyph the damage will be rather low.

Add Caustic Energy to your VuhDo debuffs in the Custom section (or to your healing frames). Caustic Energy is a debuff on the player who’s staying in the Nullification Barrier. Better to use Hunters here. The player will receive 32k damage every second, while the debuff will cut all the incoming healing by 35%. No damage reduction abilities will work here. Therefore, try to assign one healer with strong direct healing to heal this person full time. 

WeakAura for tracking Nullification Barrier:

dq04gaGiIQljvnki1PGIvbjEfPunlO0TKq2fr5xesgMiogbldb9muunne4AsKTbc(MeQXHI05KkCpjQfcIEiHunrcXfrr0gHK8rsPmsPIQtIcReIBcjf7Ku1prrzOqs1sbHEkstfHUQeOVsiL5kbTxH)ksdw5WsAXeQEmknzICzGnlLptkgnPKtRQxlvKzlQBds7gv)grdNuz5K8COA6QCDqTDjGVdjLgpkcNxQ06juMVurz)uhcbXG(bLb)aQwLfuidwsoEHuDGCovF9GvGur7X1r1LjLabfpOeklrwhYkoOqdQuqLcIbLjywRHdUqpHbLfg)iHseWexqBWC27j5OXyeppppPV1Ew481LHiEL90g4Gy9Le5BTNfoFDzicAmgXZZZdI1xI(Ib8k7PnWPhgQ2uKW6qnaOIdu4OXyepppVmjBn7XRqbytX(SKCSPytXMInfBk2uSPytXMInfBkwE5cY)ds4wdT8RQ0ao5y9KRhoN)2ZwVNK7bzvPEGsogJ45559np0Cp3zL94FgJ3PfGBepppppppVV5Hw6BTNfoFDziIx5YEceGX70cWnINNNNNNNNNNNNcCWkUh(PEUgznsf06HwEVmHwFFFVCSECrrqcHjmTJeuqlOD0qS(s0xmqrcjyqjrMqsjmOiKKGXZZiEEEEEEEEGmo4BEOL(w7zHZxxgI4vUSNqjmENwaUr888888888888uGdwX9Wp1Z1iRrQGwp0Y7Lj06777LJ1JlQsjecbbbcrbTG2rdX6lrFXafjKGbLezcjLWGIqscgpppJ45555555bY4GV5Hw6BTNfoFDziIx5YEcfJX70cWnINNNNNNNNNNNNcCWkUh(PEUgznsf06HwEVmHwFFFVCSECrribcewIGeuqlOD0qS(s0xmqrcjyqjrMqsjmOiKKGXZZZiEEEEEEEEGmo4BEOL(w7zHZxxgI4vUSNaeW4DAb4gXZZZZZZZZZZZtboyf3d)upxJSgPcA9qlVxMqRVVVxowpUOeyoZ7GGsmTduessW455zeppppppppqghyeppppppppppppf4GvCp5fj3iEEEEEEEEaUKr8888aCjJa4sgXigXigXigXigXigXigXigXigXigXigXibTlZAnCWfOQiiqqXmVdclgcmTuPItkrqXrRickf0t9A0aubXGIRdKZmKcQqjiW0eMhuEfkapig6fcQE4C(BpB9EsUhKvL6bQ4ckVcfeu9W583E269KCpiRk1dubfhwCwsy(fqguyCqkUoqoZqkGmOSW4hj0uTEjqqVhkqkOW8)c6vvAaxqBW5moBLhqgxqBK8lOmzUafKHhQi5xqZKvPGyqHXbPCqbaQq8Gkgjhe0o)1Of0kCoOQkliiguOW57dIXfxqHXbPIrYbH4bfghKk9T2ZcNVUH4bvrMbbXGcfoFFqmU4ckmoiLLeQ41lGmOxnd4xqmOqHZ3heJlU4cAJKF0xmqOxOJGk946Y1U0RY2j8G2ZgufqZtYj2vhiOpljpO4xLTt4Ioj)QphkGFbLzfKiLHimzqRWhziEqRss)9K8Ao9uVgnafEqmUGYHHsu9A0au4HEHG(sbvpCo)TNTEpj3dYQs9avqLECD5AxgSK8GYGFavRYckKbljhVqQoqoNIQxbsrfiJQxbqTvLuqXVkBNWrDYNFbLiZq94cAnigu9W583E269KCpiRk1dubLb)aQwLfuidwsoEHuDGCovF9GvGur7X1r1LjLaXf0ce6fiGWK4Iaa 

 

On Expel Magic: Shadow we are using raid CDs to get rid of the healing debuff as fast as possible.

Raid Healing CDs chaining:

Resto druid

Resto Shaman

Holy Priest

Resto Shaman
etc.

 

IMPERATOR MAR’GOK

 

Our raid is stack most of the fight, moving together in outer circle from Arcane mines (same as on Ko'ragh) or running together to avoid Force Nova. So we were constantly standing in two Healing Rains + Mushroom healing zone + Holy Word: Sanctuary. The overall damage on raid is high enough from the boss mechanics with the nice addition of the unnecessary damage from different stuff that could and should be avoided. 

 

It is a long and mana demanding fight. Its mechanics are completely healable, but...The more people you have in raid, the more unnecessary damage you will have to heal through (Oops... I didn't see this big glowing mine on the ground and it exploded all the raid. 3 times...).

I would recommend here AoE healing and mana regaining (like Elemental Blast for resto shamans) talents because of constant raid-wide damage.

Do not hesitate to use your raid CDs a lot, even from the start of fight. The damage, especially when people all the time explode mines, is very high and affects all the raid. It's better to use one CD on the mine explosion then to come to the second phase already OoM.

Ask people to run / jump / port through the Force Nova and to use damage mitigation personals here - it is partially avoidable damage and it starts to be really nasty on the 3 phase.

On the Transition phase call in voice for Fixated people to get out of the raid - it's loads of unnecessary damage that you'll have to heal through if people will not pay attention.

Ask your RL to mark kill priority for the small adds. I know that it's much faster to AoE and Cleave them, but they explode when die, doing raid-wide damage. 3-4 adds explode together - your raid is dead.

The only time that I would recommend specifically to use Raid healing CDs is when Mar'gok casts 3 Force Novas in a row.

For the other cases - announce in voice when you are using you raid CDs (and use them ^^) so you will not blow together CDs from all the healers remaining dry for the next 3 mins.

Edited December 10, 2014 by Pandacho

[Stoove 347]

Thanks for the excellent post, Pandacho! :)

[Xszwow 1]

KO’RAGH

 

Firstly,  get the Glyph that lets you Dispel twice in a row. Most of the healing classes can buy it from vendor in your new capital city.

If you have a priest in raid - awesome. All priests can Mass Dispel Expel Magic: Fire.

Do not dispel immediately! The debuff explodes on Dispel - give people time to move /range 5 or you’ll kill the raid.

Our solution was, when the Expel Magic: Fire is cast, Holy Priest call in Vent: ‘Mass Dispel in 3-2-1’ and Mass Dispel the raid - so people will have 3 sec to /range 5 from each other. Hopefully after Mass Dispel you'll have to deal with only a few remaining debuffs. So with this new Glyph the damage will be rather low.

 

 

You should a line about revival here, It's even stronger than mass dispel.

 

 

Edited December 8, 2014 by Xszwow

[Pandacho 286]

You should a line about revival here, It's even stronger than mass dispel.

I will add this as a note, but there is a very big difference between 15 sec. Mass Dispel CD and 3 min. CD of Revival. In addition dps priest (Shadow) can mass dispel too, while for Revival you have to have a monk-healer. Revival is a strong raid healing CD, I wouldn't spend it for dispel. But thanks anyway, I will add the info :)

[Pandacho 286]

Updated with a bit of Mar'gok specifics.

[Hagen67483 0]

Hi all,

 

some friends and I have just started to raid in normal mode highmaul with some randoms to fill the raid. 

My Question now is, how many DD`s can be healed with 3 Healers and 2 Tanks and the fact that the DD`s will most likely take more dmg than the average guild raid. Thanks in advance for the answers.

[Orthios 271]

Hi all,

 

some friends and I have just started to raid in normal mode highmaul with some randoms to fill the raid. 

My Question now is, how many DD`s can be healed with 3 Healers and 2 Tanks and the fact that the DD`s will most likely take more dmg than the average guild raid. Thanks in advance for the answers.

A good rule of thumb is 1 healer for every 4 other people in the group, so with 3 healers you should be able to heal up to 12 others, and with 2 tanks this makes it 10 DPS for a total of 15 people.  However, this is a bit healing intensive and if you were to get a 16th person I would recommend a 4th healer.  To be safe, I would go with having 8 DPS for a total of 13 people, as it will put less stress on your healers, especially if the DPS is prone to taking excess damage.

[Hagen67483 0]

Thanks for the quick answer Orthios