25-man Healing Musings

Fear teh Bunneh!
(EDIT: This was a post I was originally gonna write over at PP, but since I’ve moved here, gonna put it here instead XD)

Something I’ve noticed: I did my Karazhan healing posts as a fresh blogger and with a thought that, “Hey, this is new to me, it’ll be new to someone else, lemme give that poor priesty a heads up…” and in general I’ve gotten some awesome feedback over them. Lots of people enjoyed them and I thank you all for you’re good critique and advice/feedback.

I’ve been finding myself stuck at trying to give the now battle hardened Kara priesty their first look into the much anticipated 25 mans, like Gruul’s Lair, Magtheridon’s, Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep: The Eye. Why? Because the groove is very, very different from Karazhan.

For one thing, it’s no longer you and another healer taking care of 8 other people (or 7 other if you happen to roll Kara with 3 healers instead of 2.) It’s all about your healing team and the fights, whether they be trash or bosses, to come. And yes, you heard right: Healing Team. As a casual raider, we’ve had to get used to different healing make ups and depending on the fights, an off balanced or greenie team can make or break things at time.

So, a few things to keep you sane: know your limits. As a priest we’re really versatile healers. We have a Heal over Time (HoT) in Renew, the Frisbee, an AoE heal (Prayer of Healing), and AoE Instant cast (LoLcircle) and one mother of a heal (Greater Heal.) Learn to use these to your advantage. Even if you’re not running the Healing Team, at least know what your other fellows will be doing: Paladins excel at single target healing and usually get MT/OT heals, Druids are also awesome tank healers, helping to keep the spikes down because their HoT’s are always ticking and they can maintain HoTs on multiple targets and not break a sweat. Shamans have slower heals, but they will keep a group of people alive forever with that Chain Heal of theirs.

So, that all being said, here’s at least a few tips from a healing priest’s perspective on some of those 25 mans in your future, starting with Gruul’s Lair.

There are a total of 7 trash pulls in the entirety of Gruul’s Lair (2 before Maulgar and 5 before Gruul) and in each one, it’s the only time I find myself using my GHeal sparingly: Otherwise it’s Frisbee and Renew, since there’s one to two tanks, and as long as everyone groups up on the Lair Brutes, no one else should be taking damage.

During HKM, priests can pretty much heal any tank in there easily, though there’s a strat for everyone that can fit everyone. There’s five tanks (sometimes six) that AC has healed in the HKM fight. The MT tanks Maulgar, we have a druid tanking Kiggler, a mage tanking Krosh, a rogue/furry warrior/spare tank tanking Blind Eye and one to two tanks for Olm. We usually have about 6 to 7 healers for this dungeon, though I’ve done it successfully with five before, since we had two pally tanks that weren’t tanking on Gruul, they tossed on healing gear, but that’s besides the point.

Usually, a pally healer gets assigned the Mage tank, for those fast heals. I’ve tried healing the mage tank before, and it’s very hard. When they take damage, that Frisbee is a good buffer and the Renew helps, but most of the time, my tank would get two shot because my GHeal just wasn’t fast enough. So, pally for the mage. Kiggler has this nasty tendency to polymorph anyone near him, so if you have a resto druid, kiss their leaves and send them over with the druid tank to Kiggler. Their HoTs will be more than enough to keep them up, and this way you don’t need to bring a PvP trinket to pop out of sheep.

Olm is just a gigantic PITFA. One tank can try to tank him, but make sure they’re prepared to run around a lot. He Skillcoils a lot. If he gets away from the tank, he usually will Skillcoil healers (usually ones on the other tanks) and then things can get bad. We used to have just one “tank” on him, but since then have adopted a two tank strat. The healer on these tanks can be any type really. Olm hurts, but he’s not the ZOMG SPIKE type. He’s just annoying.

Maulgar’s tank, usually your best geared one, needs two healers on him. Two priests, a pally/priest is our usual assignment for the Maulgar tank, because the High King has two whammy attacks. Your MT can easily be two shotted if you don’t heal through the Arcing Strikes Maulgar inflicts.

Oh, you thought I forgot Blindeye? Please. He’s a push over. The rogue/furry warrior/whoever who’s tanking him is going to feel like they’re bathing in Blind eye’s massaging “wrath”. Blindeye dies first because he’s the priest (/sniffle) of the gang, and he’s got so many people interupting his spells, he hardly gets a chance to do anything before he dies. If you’re just starting in Gruuls, you can put a healer on the Blindeye tank, but as soon as Blindeye kisses dirt, move them to one of the other tanks. It will be needed.

Now that that’s done, you have five more trash pulls before Gruul. Ah, Gruul. Once you can get a rhythm going for this place, Gruul’s is easily done in about 35 to 45 mins. The Gruul fight is a gear check for most guilds starting their 25 man raiding days. His “soft” enrage timer is that every 45 seconds or so, he grows bigger, which causes him to hit harder. There’s only three tanks needed, and make sure melee knows those three tanks need to stay at the top of the aggro list, or else you’re gonna start having dead melee. See, Gruul’s normal hits aren’t so bad, but every once in a while he does a Hurtful Strike to the second person on his aggro list. This strike HURTS. Tanks can take it, rogues usually get one shotted by it.

If you thought melee was the only ones who had it hard, guess again. Ranged has to watch out for Cave Ins, which also hurt more the bigger Gruul gets. They’re annoying but livable through, since you’ll see the CAVE IN happen and have about two seconds to just RUN out of the area it’s affecting (which is small).

He also has an AoE silence, which stinks when it hits at the wrong time, so make sure you have a Tree keeping HoTs up on those three tanks. It may save your raid in case of a unlucky silence. Then there’s the fun part: Grasp of the Gronn Lord and Shatter!

Basically every 45 seconds or so, Gruul pounds the ground (Ground Slam) and everyone in the raid goes FLYING (no joke, watch the vid.) You and your raid buddies have about 5 seconds to get the F away from each other or else when you freeze and Gruul Shatter’s you, you’re going to kill anyone who’s either on top of you or the five buddies who happen to be within 15(?) yards of you. Deadly Boss Mods has a nice little screen that tells me who’s close to me so that I can try and minimize this damage, and a Power Word Shield and a Frisbee on yourself also can help in case you’re a tad to close to someone.

Now, as for who’s healing who… depends on your healing make up. The pallies and the druids can usually take good care of the tanks, though I know I toss my Frisbee to help the melee out in case they get caught in a Cave In. Three to four healers on the tanks is good, any one left over, just have them heal the raid. Keeping the tanks up is important, but keeping DPS alive is VERY important. Dead DPS means your tank gets one shotted because Gruul’s reached Growth 13. Since 2.3, I’ve been LoLSmiting on Gruul in the first few mins because well, healing the raid doesn’t get really intense until later. The longer the fight though, the more likely people will die too fast for you to save. Cave ins will tick for too hard or you’ll run out of tanks.

Wow, ok, so that was a bit long winded, but it’s been stewing for a while. Like I said earlier though, once you make the move from Karazhan to 25 mans, healing changes. You’re not one of two anymore, you’re 1 of a team, and honestly, don’t worry about cross healing on tanks. Unless you’re seeing major mana regen issues (which since 2.4, my mana regen has been GODLY) overhealed tanks are much preferable to the alternative.

(Dead tanks, in case yer wondering Dead tank = dead priest. Baaaaaaaaaad.)

EDIT: I messed up Kiggler (Shaman) and Olm(Warlock) in my description. Thank you hunny! FIXT!