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Last week I wrote a post looking at the lower spire of Ice Crown Citadel from the perspective of a holy priest who occasionally likes to be discipline. Now, because I promised, here are some tricks and tidbits I’ve picked up while healing on Sairyn and Fluffikins. Again, if there are any other tricks you can think of (and I’m sure you can!), please post something in the comments! I’m still learning the in’s and out’s of healing with leaves, so any other suggestions are highly welcomed! For organization’s sake, each fight follows the format of what both shamans and druids can do, then druid specific tips, then shaman specific tips. Oy vey.
The Trash to Lord Marrowgar
Like I’ve mentioned before, the trash to Marrowgar is pretty simplistic, but there’s always something you can do to make these fifteen minutes of rep go smoothly
Hotting up the melee. It’s kind of like being a priest spreading out the renew love. Only it’s better on a druid because you can toss around hots faster than those shiny necklaces at Mardi Gras. I swear, the first few times I did the trash in ICC I didn’t even realize the packs of skeletons exploded because the druid had the melee so hotted up. Usually I go with a rejuv and 1 to 2 stacks of lifebloom, depending on how many melee dps I have in the group.
Or, you can just chain heal. No matter how hot your healers may be (oh oh, I went there!), normally your group will want to make sure each of the exploders die individually. I have my chain heal set up as a mouse over macro so that I can keep an eye on the current target’s health, with my trigger finger ready to go as soon as the skelly’s health gets to about 10%.
Interrupts! Sure, you can chain spam shackle undead to interrupt the Nerubian’s from casting their dark binding spell. But what if you have no priests?! The heals shouldn’t be so demanding that you can’t take your eyes away from grid/vuhdoo/x-perl for a moment to catch a interrupt or two. I feel a lot of the time we forget moves that don’t come into play in our day-to-day instancing/grinding. Now’s the time to work on your Wind Shear muscle memories.
Instant casts are teh best! By this point, we know the big guys will try to interrupt our spells. To those big guys I say, eat my instant casts! The only sure fire way to not be locked out if you can’t be bothered to pay attention to your boss timer warnings is to cast spells that can’t be interrupted.
Lord Marrowgar
Keep a rejuv/riptide on yourself. It’s common knowledge that Marrowgar has a crush on my druid. So, every time I see that his bone spike is coming off cool down, I plan ahead to have a rejuv on myself. Worst case scenario is that I did a bit of over healing. Best case is that the other healers don’t need to worry so much about their limp tree impaled next to Marrowgar’s butt. I’ve started to do the same with Sairyn’s riptide just in case Marrowgar decides that draenei are just as cute.
Stick to single target healing. It gets a little messier here. I admit freely that maybe my raid teams are just not as coordinated as others’. If you all manage to stay pretty close together during the whirlwind phase, please feel free to skip this and move on. If your team also runs around like litter of kittens during bath time, this might bear mentioning. On fights where everyone is taking damage, it’s instinctual to cast one spell to heal them all. Your intention is admirable, but the reality is that even if you have 5 people within your heal radius, it is unlikely they are going to be close enough to one another to bounce a chain heal all 4 times or to receive the splash of a wild growth. Generally is just simpler and more effective to hit each individual player with a quick heal and be done with it.
Guess what has the same length cool down as BOOONEEEE STORMMMMM? BARRKKK SKINNN! Not quite as epic as I had hoped. Oh well. You can still pop your skin at the beginning of his whirlwind phase in order to get safely away from his twirling axe. And it’ll be back up and ready to use the next time Marrowgar decides to bring out his inner ballerina.
Tanks aren’t the only ones who can use Earth Shield. Yes, you’ll want to keep it on one (generally the squishier tank) while Marrowgar is standing in place and saberlashing, but think of where it could be most effective during his whirlwind phase. Is there a certain dps who seems to lag a bit getting out of the way of the cold flames? Or a clothie who always gets caught behind one of the candelabras? Maybe they would be better candidates for a little earthy loving than the tanks with stacked armor and quick cold flame reflexes.
Totems are tasty. Choosing the right totem is a topic for an entire post, but I’ll share 2 I love for this fight as a resto shaman: Frost Resistance and Stoneskin. Now, the way I see it is this: you can either use both totems throughout the fight, or you can plan ahead a little bit and set up 2 of your totem calls – one for the stationary phase and one for the whirlwind phase. Since no one’s really doing much damage during the whirlwind phase, there’s no reason to keep Flame Tongue and Strength of Earth down. Use your second call to give your raid a little extra frost resistance and armor until Marrowgar settles down again!
Lady Deathwhisper
Curses are the most important thing ever! Both shamans and druids can remove curses. And the curse of torpor is no exception. Essentially, it will increase the cool down of spells cast by the inflicted player. Imagine my surprise when my regrowth had a cool down associated with it. If you are cursed at the same time as another player, be sure to remove your own first. If there are multiple players cursed, follow a hierarchy: healers then tanks then dps.
Hex and Entangling Roots can be used in the 25 man version of the fight. If you see a mind control running towards you, a hex can be a great way of preventing your team mate from smiting you into oblivion. Entangling roots are also a useful tool, but try to root your rather large friend somewhere away from other players so she doesn’t start slapping people around.
Purge, baby, purge! Kind of like how I mentioned priests could dispel the buffs from the purple short wearing monstrosities, only with purge! I think it might be a little harder for restos, though, because purge isn’t generally a spell I expect to be using (then again, I rarely pvp). Just a friendly reminder though: if you have a mage, give him a little time to steal the buff before you purge it. If he still hasn’t and it’s been a good 5 seconds, it’s probably a good idea to remove it before you tank ends up sprawled out on the floor.
Use heroism/blood lust when you’re on the verge of breaking her mana shield. You have 24 seconds until the next set of adds, and Lady’s mana shield is sitting around 16%. Now is the time to heroism and pop cooldowns to help you easily transition into her second phase. Don’t worry about wasting it on the shield and not on the Lady herself; if you’ve made it to phase two, you’re likely to succeed.
Frost resistance is great for phase two. If you have a paladin, an aura is wonderful to help mitigate the damage her aoe frost bolt does to your group. Luckily, you don’t need a pally to provide the resistance if you don’t happen to have one kicking around. Drop a totem, forgo the flame tongue buff, and be happy when you’re chain healing through the frost damage that people aren’t getting hurt more.
All hands on the poop deck! (hehe I wrote poop in my blog. I have the mentality of a 4 year old. /shame)
If you’re on the main boat, stand near the edge so you can heal the jumping tank as he careens towards your ship. If you’re set to be standing on one boat anyways, it pays to be somewhere you can reach both tanks. You’ll be able to spam heals on the tank who’s getting axes chucked at him as he tries to safely land back on your ship.
Trees should probably stay on the main boat. Ok, maybe I always turn into a bear so I can have the rocket butt bear. But generally speaking, I don’t bother flying over from one boat to the next. I stay on the edge of our boat to help heal the tank handling Saurfang, but unless it’s dire, I refuse to jump from one boat to the next because the jumps always switch me out of tree form. It gets expensive after awhile, and for whatever reason it lags me to hell when I’m on the way down. It’s just easier, and a bit safer, if I bounce (rocket-free) around the deck of one ship.
Honestly, shamans, I don’t have much else for you here. Sorry. *averts gaze bashfully*
DBS (Does Bake Snickerdoodles? Hrm not quite right. I need to work on effeminizing Saurfang’s abbreviation).
Healing through Marks. Typically, I assign one healer per mark. There’s not too much you can do to get through the damage except to time your cool downs to the duration of the fight, and focus on your assigned target. Marked players will require heavy healing, and even the slightest distraction could mean death. On my druid, I normally roll all of my hots, followed by nourish spam and swift mend on cool down. On my shaman, marked characters get my earthshield and lesser healing wave spam. Sometimes, if the mark happens to be near another player, I will bounce a chain heal off of him to help keep the raid topped off. On both characters, I save nature’s swiftness for that oh-dear-lord moment that usually occurs near the end of the fight.
Helping your ranged dps, one root at a time. I found that healing really wasn’t intense the first half of this fight, no matter which character I was on. So, I took to keeping my druid in her caster form to help root the blood beasts, buying the ranged dps a little more time for kiting the adds. You’ll just need to be careful to make sure no one is in melee range while the add is rooted, or the beastie will turn to nomnom on your friend.
Rawr! I’mma big scary bear! If you’re confident, you can shift into bear form and taunt a blood beast to you to get it away from the tanks and melee. Because you’re not normally a bear, it’ll be easy for the ranged dps to pull the beast off of you. You can also use this in an emergency if you see a beast ready to chow down on someone in range. If you do taunt the blood beast though, remember to start running away. It’s not doing your team much good if you’re allowing yourself to become a snack to an overgrown blood worm. This can also be a useful strategy if you’re running with a very low amount of ranged dps.
Let’s talk about rebirth: don’t use it if you don’t know how they died. If a person died because of a Mark of the Fallen Champion, it’s pointless to battle rez them. They’ll only come back to life with the debuff again, and likely die to the amount of damage done in the seconds it would normally take to fill their life bar. This means Saurfang gains an additional 5% of his health back, and it’s a risk that’s usually not reasonable to take. There is an alternate strategy using a paladin that I’ve heard rumor of, but as I have not tried this myself, I’d rather not recommend it to any of you. If you’ve heard anything about the divine intervention strategy, I’d love to know if it was actually a plausible strategy or not.
More totem talk? Right, this probably seems like a no-brainer. But I want to remind you that you can use Earthbind totem to control the blood beasts, much like a druid’s entangling roots. I recommend placing the totem between the stairs and your kiting dps so that it likely will not be trapped anywhere near something it can gnaw on (i.e. your teammates).
So, I believe I’ve covered everything I’ve thought of in the last few weeks. Clearly, I don’t have as many tips for my shaman friends as I do for my trees, but I’m hoping to see more Sairyn action in the upcoming weeks, and if I find any new tricks, I’ll be sure to update. Also, apologies for the wall-o-text. I tried to cut it up a bit for the sake of space, and that plan backfired on me.
Guardian Spirit Gives You Wings!
Posted on: January 27, 2010
- In: healing | priest | spells
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Fried brain is fried. I had my weekly meeting boss encounter this week, and let’s just say we barely escaped the enrage timer. I wanted to pick my brain (and maybe yours) about whether or not socket bonuses are worth gemming for (mostly in regards to my pally). But, that kind of thing requires supreme linkage and remembering where I got all my original information in the first place. Needless to say, my brain is still reeling from this morning, and that will be another post for another day. Likely tomorrow.
Right, where was my rambling going? Ah yes, something near and dear to my heart. My absolute favoritest spell in the game! Something I can confidently educate young priesties about without having to go to a bazillion different websites!
Guardian Spirit!
The Basics
For those unfamiliar, guardian spirit is the 51 point talent tree for holy priests. When cast on a targeted player, it will increase healing done to said target by 40% for 10 seconds. If, during that period of time, the player receives a hit that would kill them, the spirit sacrifices itself, saving the player and restoring 50% of the player’s maximum health. FIFTY PERCENT. There is a relatively short cool down on this spell (Up to 3 minutes, depending whether or not you glyph it, but we’ll get to that later!). Essentially you can use it to increase healing on a certain player OR to save someone from certain doom.
The Glyph of Awesomeness
The Glyph of Guardian Spirit is, I believe, part of the reason I love my 51 point talent so much. The glyph makes it so that if the guardian spirit does not sacrifice itself (i.e. the player doesn’t take a hit that would reduce him to a puddle of goo on the ground), the cool down on the spell is reduced to 1 minute. Which means, in another 60 seconds you can use it to save someone else!!
Times to Bust out the Wings
There is not really any “wrong” time to bust out your wings. But, there are some really crucial moments when wings can push your healing over the top (or seriously help out your fellow healers), enough to get you through the rough patches during an enounter.
1. On Cool Down on Tanks – If you’ve glyphed guardian spirit, you’ll be able to increase the healing done to your tank of choice by 10% every minute. Go ahead. Try to convince me your other healers won’t adore you for it? I’ll be over there receiving hugs from my holy paladin team mates…Even if you’re not glyphed, the healing increase will still be much appreciated.
2. On Tanks during Specific Phases of Fights – When you know a tank is going to take extra damage, it’s always helpful to squeeze a little extra healing where you can. Communicate with your other healers so you’re not all blowing your CD’s to save the tank during Festergut’s first inhalation and leaving the poor bloke on his own during the second.
3. On DPS who Pull – Did your favorite gnome blink ahead and accidentally pull the shade lurking in the hallway? Did the kitteh with the crazy swipes aggro a mob that the tank didn’t quite have? Never fear! Guardian Spirit will save your over-anxious friend from certain doom. Even if you want to let them die to teach them a lesson, it’s more time efficient (and friendly) to save your whoopsie-daisy compatriot.
4. On DPS You Expect Might Take a Swing or Two – Some trash you can’t help but have nearly everyone get hurt on. Like the packs of geists running amok in the upper spire. We almost always accidentally pull them. Accidentally pulling usually means the tree and the priests in the back will garner their attention first. And our little arms warrior or our kitty druid will usually swipe/bladestorm them down before they resort to killing the healers. Since they’re protecting the squishies, I protect them with a preemptive guardian spirit, nearly guaranteeing their survival until the tanks get full aggro. Same is true with the zombie mini-Frankenpuppy spawns. The tanks will not likely pick them all up (there can be upwards of 40!).
5. OH SHNIKES moments – The tank has just ran out of range. All of the faction champions in ToC have decided to smother the poor defenseless lock. A ghostly hunter has iceblocked someone on top of a flamestrike who has already been gouged by a mercenary. No heal you have will be fast enough to save this person from their impending doom. But if you’re seriously quick enough (which, to be honest, 75% of the time or so you probably won’t be), you can still save their life with a quick application of wings.
*BONUS! STORY TIME!*
Last Sunday, my friendly 10 man group went back to ICC to pound our head against Professor Putricide some more. We got him down to about 4% when suddenly we realized the only un-slimified place was a tiny patch on the opposite side of the room. DPS was dying left and right. I had already been turned into a fail angel. Only a tank and 2 dps survived, one hovering near death. In my last second, I threw a guardian spirit on our kitty….
He and my engineering death knight boyfriend rez’d the other 8 of us. It. was. epic.
But I iz raid healz! I dun need no stinkin’ wing glyph!
There are plenty of awesome glyphs for the raiding priest, especially those that can increase your party healing abilities. But, for me, glyph of guardian spirit is too awesome not to have. Most of the time, you’ll find your cool down will be reset t0 1 minute (the extra healing usually goes far enough to save your friend without having to rely on the sacrifice). Having the incredibly short cool down makes it even easier to use, and everyone will be grateful for the extra support. The glyph makes it go from an “Oh shit” button to fairly consistent buff that’s too powerful to be ignored.
One more thing about guardian spirit…
IT’S PRETTY!!!!!!!
So you want to play a healer
Posted on: November 7, 2009
Last night, while doing my Argent Tournement dailies (I want a unicorn, dammit!), a friend whispered me. Originally, I excitedly thought he was going to invite me to Vault on my resto shaman when he wanted to make sure I had one, but that was quickly put to rest with his next queston: “how do you play a resto shaman?” Because I knew he had a discipline spec on his priest, I went directly to specifics (keeping up earthshield, chain healing, etc.). But then it struck me that he might not have been asking for himself. His girlfriend had recently gotten her shaman up to level 80 and decided she wanted to try healing. I started to consider what would be good suggestions for anyone playing a healer for the first time….
Know your healing priorities
Getting used to being a healer can take some time. You’re not always going to have a lot to do, and you’re always playing to suit the needs of the group. Unlike dps, you can’t always focus on one target and then move to the next. I find it helpful to keep in mind a heirarchy of heals, especially during times when the pull may not have gone as smoothly as you would have wished.
1. Tanks – If the tank dies, it’s not a done deal that everyone around you will die. But, it will make healing a LOT harder on you, and everyone may in fact die, especially if the tank is dead soon after the pull. In a raid situation, you may not be assigned to be a tank healer, but even so it’s a good habit to keep track of their health bars and help out if you notice them hovering close to death or if their healers have died.
2. You! Yep, you’re the second highest priority when it comes to healing. A lot of healers, old hats included, often forget to heal themselves. Maybe their player bar isn’t in a place they normally look, or they’re so focused on their target that they neglect themselve. No matter how you look at it though, if you die, no one is getting your heals. And that can lead to a lot of wiping, especially in 5 mans.
3. DPS. You DO want them alive. They sure do make killing things easier. But if you heal them at the expense of killing yourself or the tank, you may want to reassess your priorities.
Mana Regeneration Tools!
Every healer has them. And most are really good about making the most out of using them. But in the heat of battle, it can be really easy to forget to use them. I like having Scrolling Combat Text’s sound turned on to give me audio warnings, but you can also pay attention to your mana bars just as much as you pay attention to health bars. The cooldowns, no matter which healer you play, are in the 3 minute – 5 minute range, so there’s really no excuse for saving them for any particular fight. I’m not advocating wasting them every time they’re off cooldown, but if you’re sitting at a quarter of your maximum mana at the beginning of a pull, it probably behooves you to get some of the pretty blue stuff back quickly. And don’t be shy to ask for mana regeneration tools from the druids and priests in your party; even if they’re dpsing, they can still innervate you and cast hymn of hope.
Using HoT’s/Shields
Using your heal over time and shielding spells can be one of the more difficult skills to learn as a new healer. Even though I had been playing my priest for over 2 years, when I started healing on my druid I found that I was constantly renewing my HoT’s much sooner than I needed to and was wasting a ton of mana in the process. On my shaman, I started having the same problem with my earthshield, but when I tried to stop the unnecessary overwriting I started to have periods where the tank didn’t have it at all. What this boils down to is creating a way to track your set-it-and-forget-it heals. I found setting up Power Auras and Grid for those specific spells made it move visible to me to keep track my heal-over-times , but just keeping a sharp eye on the buffs in your regular party frames also can do the trick. Patience, above everything else, is key to using spells that do not instantly heal your targets. I know it can be nerve-wracking to see people slowly regenerating health, but if you’re tossing the HoT’s around and then using larger single heals immediately after the fact, you’re probably overhealing a lot and not being very efficient with your mana consumption.
Dispel!!!!
Healers come with dispels. Depending on the class you play, you can only dispel certain types of the four dispellable debuffs (poison, magic, disease, and curses). Druids can dispell poison and curses, priests get magic and disease, shamans get poisons diseases and curses, and pallies have poison, disease and magic effecs. A lot of healers I know don’t usually think about dispelling diseases; they just heal through the damage. That’s not necesarrily a bad thing I take that back. It is a bad thing. These debuffs aren’t always just things you can gloss over by healing people through. Sometimes they’ll leech mana or explode doing damage to everyone nearby. Knowing what you can dispel and dispelling it quickly can keep you from having to heal so hard and it can get rid of nasty debuffs that can mess with other people’s playing (slowing their attack/movement speed, interrupting them, draining their power source, etc.). Granted, there are a few things you DON’T want to remove (Grobbulus’ poison injection, a warlock’s unstable affliction), but those are exceptions to the general rule of dispelling everything to make your job and the jobs of your teammates, easier.
Yay for spell books!
If you have your spell descriptions turned on, you might find that reading them through will give you a better understanding of what you have in your arsenal of heals. Take some time to really look at all the spells you can use and think a little bit about how each might be valuable in a combat situation. When would you use rejuvination over regrowth? If only the tank needs a heal, is chain heal really the best spell to use? If the entire party is taking damage, when’s a good time to use circle of healing and when’s a good time to use prayer of healing? Getting to know your tools is kind of like getting to know friends; it might take some time, but when you really need them, you can count on them.
Cooldowns are important!
A lot of the really powerful, save your patootie spells have cooldowns. You probably won’t use them frequently, but they do exsist and you should be mindful of them. It might be worthwhile for some of them to see what glyphs and talents are out there to reduce the cooldowns and get you to use them more. Even if you were to keep them at their standard cool downs, it’s still pivotal to learn what each of your “special” moves can do and make sure you have them easily accessible in case you do need to use them.
Start small and move up!
Chances are if your a new healer, the first instance you go into should not be something like Trial of the Champion. The level 78-80 dungeons do have a bit of a ramp for players to practice in. Utgarde Pinnacle and Gundrak are a bit easier, while Culling of Stratholme, Halls of Ligthning and Trial of the Champion are a bit more difficult. Starting in a place with a lot of trash can also help you warm up before you start healing through boss encounters. Once you’re comfortable with these, moving onto heroics shouldn’t be a problem. It’s easy to get into heroics now that you don’t have to be keyed, but learning to walk before you run has its benefits. The same thing can be applied to raid healing. You may be a pro at healing 5-man dungeons, but sometimes it takes a lot of getitng used to when you start healing in raids. Even if you’ve geared yourself up nicely from an assortment of badges, you might want to step into a Naxx10 or Naxx25 before you go into Onyxia or Trail of the Crusader just to get the feeling of what its like relying on other healers as your teammates, rather than being the single person responsible for the lives ove everyone around you.
Take some time to gear up!
When you first hit 80, it may be a good idea to try to find a group you can dps in to get your gear a little more situated before you start healing yourself. Another way to optimize this “gear” time would be to try to run with a healer of the same class and watch them as they heal. They may provide you with insight before you start throwing around heals yourself. =)
Like with any kind of new role, you’ll get better at healing the more you practice it. Playing with friends and guildies can help you overcome some of the anxiety it can bring (it is a pretty big responsbility) and can provide you a safe place to practice without others having high expectations of how the instance should run. Recognize that sometimes others will die, no matter how hard you try to save them, and don’t be too hard on yourself while you’re still learning. Every other healer had to start at square one as well, and with time and practice became the talented players they are now.
- In: druid | paladin | priest | raid healing | shaman | spells
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Ever find yourself wondering what it would be like playing all of the 5 healing specs? (I say five because Discipline and Holy Priests are two different creatures). Of course you do! Some of us don’t always have the time to be reading countless wiki-guides or perusing talent point calculators. Never fear! Now your (incomplete) guide to classes is here!
1. Healing Priests
Let’s just start with the basics. We’ll separate the two trees later with their specialties but here are some spells every priest will have:
A. Greater Heal – A large single target heal with a 2.5 cast time(talented, though both discipline and holy priests will usually take this talent to move to the second tier in holy). Great for using on those with low hp.
B. Flash Heal – A smaller single target heal with a 1.5 second cast time. A quick fix for people who are loosing smaller amounts of health, or are being healed constantly by many people.
C. Renew – Instant cast spell that heals the target every 3 seconds for 15 seconds. Nice as a buffer for constant damage or as a heal for a player who is not expected to take more damage.
D. Prayer of Mending – An instant cast heal that will heal the target upon being hit. It then jumps to another target in range, until that target is also hit. Can heal up to 5 players/player’s pets. 10 second cool down. Good for buffering tank damage and on fights were there is constant raid damage.
E. Prayer of Healing – A 3 second cast that heals all members of a target’s party. An expensive multi-person heal.
F. Divine Hymn – A 6 second channeled cast that heals the 5 players in a raid with the lowest amount of effective health. 10 minute cool down. Good for raid healing during intense fights.
G. Power Word: Shield – Technically not a heal. A bubble of protection surrounds the target, absorbing damage. Target cannot be shielded again for 15 seconds (when the Weakened Soul debuff has worn off). The shield will absorb more damage based on the priest’s spellpower.
In addition, Priests can dispel magic effects and diseases.
Discipline Priests
Discipline Priests can function wonderfully as single target healers, keeping up shields and using the powerful Penance spell to keep damage mitigation buffs on tanks. A discipline priest who enjoys party healing can also be useful, keeping raid damage to a minimum by using well timed Renews, Shields, and Flash Heals
A. Penance – A channeled spell that heals every second for 3 seconds. 8 second cool down. Great single target heal. Can also be used as a damaging spell against enemy targets.
B. Improved Power Word: Shield – Increases the amount absorbed by the Shield. Every shield cast will also grant the entire raid with a buff called Renewed Hope, reducing all incoming damage by 3%.
C. Divine Aeigis – Critical heals create a protective bubble around the target, absorbing damage equal to 30% of the amount healed. Lasts 12 seconds.
D. Pain Suppression – Reduces the target’s threat by 40% and also decreases all damage to the target by %. 2 minute base cool down.
Discipline priests also can cast Power Infusion which increases spell haste by 20% and reduces mana cost by 20% for 15 seconds. 2 minute cool down.
Holy Priests
With multiple party healing techniques, Holy Priests can be easily used as raid healers. They can also make excellent tank healers in a pinch because of talents that increase the healing done by their larger heals.
A. Guardian Spirit – The priest casts a guardian spirit on the target, increasing healing done to the target by 40% for 10 seconds. In addition, any blow to the target that would otherwise kill them will sacrifice the spirit, saving the target from death and restoring 50% of their effective health. 3 minute cool down. Costs %mana.
B. Circle of Healing – An instant cast spell that hits 5 raid members within 10 yards of the target.
C. Spirit of Redemption – Upon death, the priest turns into a Spirit of Redemption for 8 seconds, allow the priest to continue healing all allies in range of their corpse. No mana cost or cool down.
D. Lightwell – A well is placed for allies to click on to restore health. Last 3 minutes or until 10 charges of the well are used. 3 minute cool down (from when the well was created).
Holy priests can also spec into the talent Empowered Renew, which adds an instant burst heal to the beginning of their heal-over-time spell.
2. Holy Paladins
Holy Paladins were long looked upon as the strongest single target healers in the game with their large single target heals. While this still can be true, their quick Flashes of Light can easily allow them to heal multiple raid members quickly and efficiently.
A. Holy Light – A large single target heal with a 2.5 second cast time.
B. Flash of Light – A smaller single target heal with a 1.5 second cast time.
C. Illumination – A critical heal will refund 60% of the spell’s base mana cost.
D. Beacon of Light – A target becomes the Beacon of Light. When the paladin heals any other player within a 40 yrd radius of “The Bacon(as we call it),” the beacon of light will also be healed for the same amount. Lasts one minute.
E. Holy Shock – An instant cast single target heal that is slightly larger than Flash of Light. 6 second cool down.
Paladins also can cleanse Disease, Poisons and Magic Effects. Blessing of Protection will remove their target from immediate danger, and Divine Intervention will save a player from dying (and also remove them from combat) while sacrificing the paladin.
3.Restoration Druid
Known for their heals over times, Resto druids can easily “HoT” up entire raids or keep tanks fairly stable while other healers handle the larger hits. In a pinch however, druids can toss around large heals if the demand is there.
A. Rejuvination – An instant cast heal over time that lasts 15 seconds.
B. Regrowth – A 2 second cast burst heal that also adds a heal over time to the target which lasts for 21 seconds.
C. Life Bloom – An instant cast heal that can be stacked up to 3 times, each stack increasing the amount of healing received. Last 10 seconds. At the end of 10 seconds, if not reapplied, the spell will bloom, healing for a large amount (based on the number of stacks) and refunding the druid 50% of the mana cost.
D. Swiftmend – Consumes a Rejuvination or Regrowth spell, instantly healing the target for the equivilent of 12s. of a Rejuvination or 18s. of a Regrowth.
E. Wild Growth – Instantly heals 5 party members every second for 7 seconds. The healing is applied quickly at first and slows down as the spell reaches its full duration.
F. Healing Touch – Large single target heal with a 3 second cast.
G. Nourish – A smaller burst heal with a 1.5 second cast. Will heal for an additional 20% more if the target has Rejuvination, Regrowth, Lifebloom or Wildgrowth active.
H. Living Seed – When a target is critically healed with Healing Touch, Swiftmend, Regrowth or Nourish, they will receive a living seed equal to 30% of the amount healed. The next time they are attacked, the seed will bloom, healing the target.
Druids can also dispel curses and poisons, as well as Innervate fellow players who have ran out of mana. Tree of Life Aura also increases healing done to all raid members by 5%. Nature’s Swiftness also allows the druid to make any of their spells an instant cast (3 minute cooldown.).
4. Restoration Shamans
Shamans would typically get the message “chain healz ftw. spam plox” in B.C. Raids. While Chain Heal is undeniably powerful, they also are adept single target healers and their purge (dispelling a favorable effect on an enemy target) can be highly useful in new content.
A. Healing Wave – A large single target heal with a 2.5 second cast.
B. Lesser Healing Wave – A smaller single target heal with a 1.5 second cast
C. Chain Heal – 2.5 second cast. Heals the targeted friendly character, then jumps to another nearby party member. Heals up to three targets, with the amount healed decreased by 50% on each jump.
D. Earth Shield – A protective shield enclosing the target. When the target is attacked, a charge of the shield will be used to heal the target; this will only proc once every few seconds. Lasts 10 minutes, or until 6 charges are used.
E. Rip Tide – Instantly heals the target, and also adds a heal over time that lasts 15 seconds. The next chain heal cast on the target will consume the heal over time, but will increase the amount healed by the chain heal by 25%.
Shamans can dispel poisons, diseases and, when talented, curses. Heroism is always a welcomed raid buff, and their Mana Tide Totem can give an advantage to particularly draining encounters.
Please note this quick overview does not cover any of these spells under the effect of glyphs.
While this overview is nowhere near a complete list of all the beautiful things healers can bring to the table, it can be used as a springboard for discussion. Everyone has different and exciting spells, making them all welcomed additions to a balanced raid.
If nothing else, it gave me an excuse to do a quick refresher about what all the healers I work with have in their arsenal. b(^^b) Kirby gives it 2 thumbs up!
Also, thanks to Anday (holy pally), Kalya (resto druid), Blackthumb (resto shaman) and Dyrum (discipline priest) for letting me use their specs to write this article (and to help me spec my all my healers but my priest’s holy spec =D) .
In Defense of Lightwell: Or Why Silly DPS Should Learn to Click on the Glowy Thing
Posted on: May 29, 2009
Let me state from the beginning, I never raided (or even stepped foot) in Vanilla WoW. My lightwells were never the joke at the bottom of the holy tier that nobody bothered taking.
Now, in Wrath of the Lich King, I see very few priests who actually spend the talent point on something I consider an essential in my priestly arsenal. I can understand the reasoning:
1. Lightwell used to be ineffective.
2. Party members focus so much on their own skillsets, they don’t waste a second clicking on the glowing tureen of light.
3. Talent points can be better spent elsewhere.
All of these are valid arguments, and I’m not one to chide people for not taking it (I took Circle of Healing before it was popular, and wouldntcha know it became a staple for holy priests everywhere come tier 5?). But, there is something to be said about proper placement and use.
Lightwell ineffective? Pshhhhh
I’ve stated up top, I didn’t even have a character in original WoW. I’ve heard some miserable stories about lightwells though: how little it healed for, how often it would disappear without being used. “Lolwell” was the popular term that comes to mind when anyone would talk about it. In B.C., it wasn’t much better. I talented for it for the first time when we were having a bit of a problem on Magtheridon trying to get past his ceiling shatter. What I didn’t realize (because I hadn’t read the tooltip properly) was that the heal over time (HoT) would break upon receiving damage. Well, that’s sucks. Especially in that phase, if you were coaching people to preemptively use the lightwell to ease the healers’ jobs. So, lolwell’s rightly earned bad reputation persists. Even last week in Ulduar, I saw someone cheerfully dismiss it; that is, until I told him about how it now functions.
Lightwell, in its current incarnation, costs 17% of the priest’s base mana and contains 10 charges. Each charge can heal a player for a base of 4620 health over 6 seconds (or about 770/tick, since it ticks every 2 seconds) and is canceled only when a target receives damage equal to 30% of their TOTAL (not base) health. The lightwell will disappear after 3 minutes or after all charges have been used, whichever comes first. Players within the raid group right click on the lightwell to restore their own health (it will change their current target to the lightwell).
At level 80, a priest’s base mana is 3863, so it would cost 656 mana to cast 1 lightwell.
Now, let’s talk about spellpower coefficients, or rather what percentage of your spellpower actually increases your specific spells. I won’t get into the nitty-gritty of that, since WoWWiki explains it quite well, but suffice to say that lightwell recieves 275% of your bonus spellpower effects. You read that correctly. So how much will your lightwell heal for on ONE PERSON? Look at the following example, where x = spellpower.
4620 + 2.75x = total healing done by lightwell (this number divided by 3 will give you the amount healed per tick)
At 2000 spell power, the lightwell will heal a person for 10120, or 3373/tick. If raid members used all the ticks a lightwell provided, you would heal in total for about 101,200 health for less than 3/5th the cost of a single greater heal (which at most crits for about 14k at the same spellpower). That’s a mana efficiency of 154 health per 1 mana point spent!
With my current gear and inner fire up, I have 2516 bonus spellpower. My Lightwell heals for 3838 per tick, for a total of 11,514. Costing 656 mana, if I heal 10 targets with it, the mana efficiency is 175 health/mana point spent.
At this, I stick out my tongue to those who call lightwell “lolwell.”
Party members don’t use lightwell.
Well, this one is easy to fix; you have to train them. Like puppies. I’ve found that with a little gentle prodding (and maybe going to a less stressful heroic dungeon or two) people are completely happy to use lightwell. I’ve done everything from refusing to heal people who won’t use it to creating macros with fun catchphrases announcing to my raid mates that a lightwell is down and available for use. Some people don’t know what one looks like or how it’s used; a simple explanation is all it takes sometimes. It’s fairly hard to miss, seeing as its a bastion of light. It also makes for great placement markers that last for long periods of time (think about it as a more helpful smokeflare). My way of thinking is, if people can spare a global cooldown to use their health stone, they can also use it to click on a beacon.
My talent points can be used elsewhere.
This is one I can’t create a valid argument for; there are myriad ways to create a spec. Some are better suited to actual game play than others, but really you do have a wide array of choices when it comes to spending your talent points. But, I also can urge you to think about where you’re putting that one talent point. Is it somewhere that makes a ton of difference to your playstyle, or is it somewhere extraneous just because you had a dangling point you needed to use? If the latter, what’s holding you back from trying to use lightwell?
Places I’ve Found Lightwell Especially Effective:
- Naxxramas
– Anub’rakan — Placed by main tank so (s)he can heal himself/herself
– Gluth — Decimate? What decimate?
– Heigan — 1 second too late doing the dance? Not a problem!
– Sapphiron — Everyone’s taking damage all the time……who couldn’t use an extra HoT?
- Ulduar
– Ignis the Furnace Master — Flamejets hurt. A lot. Help your healers help you.
– XT Deconstructor — Not only does it mark where dps/healers should stand, it makes Tympanic Tantrum easier to bear!
– Hodir — Frozen blows no longer deplete everyone’s mana!
– Freya — Snap lashers are a “snap” to heal through. Bad pun….my apologies
- Vault of Archavon
– Emalon the Stormwatcher — Ligthning Nova can have a surprising range. It makes it easier to heal myself and others while keeping a steady eye on the tanks.
Please note the above listing is far from complete; it’s really just a highlight. I concede that Lightwell has it’s disadvantages; Satorri wishes it didn’t force you to change targets when you click on it. It also can be a trial to teach people how to use it, and to make sure it’s used effectively. But for 1 talent point, at least you know that you can keep yourself healed up easily with little mana spent =)
P.S. It’s highly entertaining to do lightwell research in the middle of Dalaran; everyone and their mother clicks on the glowy thingy.
Light & Leafy 