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Monday, June 20, 2011

New Location

Welcome to Cleansing Waters' New Home on Blogger!  I have decided to move here after some troubles with the former host and after suggestions from a few fellow bloggers, (Fannon, Gneisha).  So please enjoy the new location and if you have any questions that you want discussed or even just answered, let me know.

Cheers!

Light of Dawn VS. Word of Glory

Lately I have been getting asked by my guildies and some other pallys out there when they should use Light of Dawn over Word of Glory.  The problem with this is there is no set answer.  So, I shall go over some considerations that I take into account when healing on my Holy Pally.
First thing, are you in a 10 or 25 man raid.  The problem with Light of Dawn in a 10 man setting is that you don’t really have to many melee or stacking moments where you need to cast it alot.  The most melee you should have in a 10 man raid is 2.  That plus 2 possible tanks in range, usually only 1 tank, makes it not as valuable as Word of Glory when healing your beacon target (which should be the tank).  However, if you are in the 25 man setting and have the Glyph of Light of Dawn (which you should) then you should most definately use Light of Dawn to heal your beacon target.  This is due to the fact that half of each heal goes to heal your beacon target.  Now, my LoD hits individuals for about 9-10k with my sp while my WoG only does about 16-17k no crits.  Now, if we take these numbers and add the half heals going to the beacon target, your WoG only does around 24-26k each heal, where your LoD will heal for 36-40k.  Now, with out crits, that is a huge upgrade.  Essentially, use WoG for this purpose in 10 man, but 25, stick with LoD.
Now, for all other cases, pretty self explanintory.  LoD on AoE healing phases and WoG for single target heals accross the board.
I will be adding Holy Paladin info more often to this website and throwing up a guide by the end of the week.  As always, feel free to contact me through email at mylindara88@gmail.com or twitter at twitter.com/mylindara.  Thanks guys.

Building a Solid Healing Core

Most guilds are trying to build a healer core based around the current healing situation.  We know that Paladins and Holy Priest are pulling the top numbers on most fights, but is it really best to fill your entire healing core with these classes?  The biggest problem with doing this is you lose some of your key abilities that make a healer core so flexible.  Today, we I will discuss how I build my healer core and what 3 big things I think about before making these decisions.

Capabilities

The Capabilities of certain classes varies depending on the fight and situation.  If you are fortunate enough to have multiple healers over the required minimum for your raid group and pushing game ending content, you can flexibly switch healers in and out of raids.  But if you are like the majority of us out there, you find it hard to build a solid group of healers that will be able to go through all the content.
Shaman
Shamans are some of your most flexible healers in a raid group.  But, they have limitations based on the current situation at hand.  For example, when groups have to spread out, it is very hard for Shaman to heal a group back up where as in the Chimaeron stack phase, Shaman excel at this role with Chain Heal and Healing Rain.  For this very reason, you need to make sure, depending on the fight at hand, what you assign a Shaman to heal.  Shaman also are pretty solid at being capable tank healers, not the best, but completely able of focus healing a single tank.
Druid
Druids are very good at keeping a single tank alive.  They also bring some decent AoE hots and if it is needed, spamming rejuvenation a little bit.  The biggest thing about having a druid as your tank healer at this point is that keeping your tank from taking constant dips.  But, they really don’t have a lot of burst healing in dire situations.  After these recent changes, Druids are becoming closer to their former Wrath selves with their great raid healing.
Disc Priest
Currently Discs are no longer bubble machines. The new mechanic of healing by smiting is quite different from any other class.  This can heal melee, not fantastically, but to an extent.  Also, PoH putting small bubbles with Divine Aegis on a group is quite nice and can save a couple of players from death.  Penance is still a fantastic ability to save a raid member.  And even though PW: S is not spamable, it is still an amazing ability with the recent changes.
Holy Priest
Currently Holy Priests excels at one thing, AoE.  With all of their new abilities within the 2 Chakra states, allows them to save people quickly or to keep up their massive AoE healing.  With PoH, PoM, CoH, and Renew still at their side, they are able to keep the majority of players healed when massive AoE is going off.
Holy Paladin
Pallys have received a major overhaul since the end of Wrath.  Their new Holy Power heals basically allow them to never go OOM.  That combined with the new Divine Plea, they will be ready to heal the duration of a fight.  Even though Beacon is not its awesome self anymore, it is still an amazing ability that a pally should utilize to its fullest.  Also, in stacking situations, the use of LoD and HR are very clutch.  They are the same power as maybe some of the other AoE heals out there, but it does allow for a pally to have some AoE healing capabilities.

Cool Downs

Now Cool Downs are clutch for most fights.  You don’t want to rely on CDs to the point where if a certain person goes down, then your raid falls apart, but they can really be life savers.
Shaman
Mana Tide – Even after the patch, still the single best mana restorer for a raid.  Since it is now raid wide, allows boomkins to possibly send their innervates other healers way.
Druid
Tranquility – This is absolutely amazing in dire situations.  The massive amount of healing that it does is incredible.  A well timed one of these can save a raid.  Fortunately all druids have this.
Tree of Life – Even though Tree can’t be sustained any longer, the amounts of heals that are able to be done with it is outstanding.  Throwing Lifebloom on multiple targets, Wild Growth hits 2 additional targets, and instant Regrowths makes this an awesome 3 min CD.
Priest
Divine Hymn – Not as good as Tranquility as a raid saver, but none the less a very good Raid Heal.
Hymn of Hope – Not quite as good as Mana Tide, but still a good mana restore.
Leap of Faith – A pretty good ability if used correctly.  Can save a raid members life if used in the right place.
Disc
Pain Suppression – A very good CD that can keep your tank alive when he takes big hits (Magmaw’s nomnom)
Power Word: Barrier – Another very good preventative damage spell.  Make sure to use when you stack up.
Power Infusion – Can be use in a couple of clutch situations.  Help your top caster dps throw extra dps out, throw it on a healer to keep the raid up.  Either way, a very nice CD.
Holy
Guardian Spirit – An absolutely amazing CD.  Increasing the healing on a target and preventing them from dying?!?!?  AMAZING!!!
Spirit of Redemption – Allows you to continue healing for 15 sec after you die.  Not a bad CD but don’t die.
Holy Paladin
Lay on Hands – Basically a heal that will take the player to full health.  Use only if necessary.  Has a long CD.
Hand of Protection – Protects the target for 10 sec but they can’t use physical abilities.
Hand of Salvation – Use this on your threat whores who aren’t tanks.

Skill

This is absolutely the biggest consideration that any healing lead should look at.  Make sure that the player knows their class.  For example, if I had the choice between a Holy Paladin who had the gear but just started playing it or a Resto Shaman who had been playing the class for years and didn’t have quite the gear, I would be more inclined to pick the Shaman.  9 times out of 10 a player’s skill will outweigh the capabilities of a class. Not to mention you really want people you can trust to do their job and not have to watch over their shoulder.
Thanks guys for checking this out.  If you have any questions, shoot them my way at mylindara88@gmail.com or follow me on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/mylindara.

Chimaeron

So, Chimaeron is rather a tricky fight bringing back some old love from TotC but in a new way.  As this is basically a very healer intensive fight, many healers are having a hard time figuring out how to do this fight easily.  So, for a Shaman, what do we do?  How do I keep from going oom?  Here are a few easy steps that I used in ensuring that my guild was successful in this fight
Positioning
So, this is an ideal set up for the Chimaeron fight. (stolen from Matticus. Couldn’t get the sizing right)

So if you look at this map, all the healers are within the green circle and spread out so that they can reach their corresponding group (the blue circles).  The healer in the middle should only heal the healers in their group (for my guild, its group 2).

Phase 1
First, a list of Phase 1 abilities:
  • Finkle’s Mixture – basically guys this will not allow you from any single attack to die as long as you have over 10k health.  That being said, the only players in your raid in Phase 1 that should ever be over far exceeding that of 10k are your 2 tanks.
  • Caustic Slime – this attack is sent out to random raid members, basically dropping them to 1 health. The impact will affect all players in 6 yards.  After this, you will have 5 seconds after this to get the person back above 10k health. 
  • Massacre – this raid wide ability will drop all members in your raid to 1 health.  After, you will have 5 seconds to get your group back to at least 10k unless you’re on tanks.
  • Break – this ability will put a debuff on a target for 1 min increasing Physical damage by 25% for 1 min.  This ability stacks and is used roughly every 30 sec.
  • Double Attack – Chimaeron will attack twice and do massive damage.  Needs to be timed right so you can get your tank back above 10k before second attack happens.
So, the trick to this phase is that you want your group to be roughly 6 yards apart.  This allows for you to pop a CH or 2 on your group right after the Massacre goes off, get them above 10 k, and move on.  For the most part, you are only going to want to cast fast heals in this phase: Riptide, Healing Surge, and Unleash Life.  Another little trick is to constantly be spamming Healing Wave on a party member because you have a 20% chance (50% chance in 10man) that someone in your group will get hit.
SECRET TIME!!!!  Phase 2 is going to take a ton of your mana to keep your group up.  So, instead of doing your Healing Wave spam on your party members, make sure you have picked up Telluric Currents and do some dps.  While your group is above the required 10k, get some mana back.  This plus combining Mana Tide with Core of Ripeness will make it where you should have no mana issues the entire fight.

Phase 2
This is your,”OMG, AOE HEAL LIKE CRAZY PHASE!”  Your group should save some CDs for each of these phases.  But while they are doing that, you should be using Healing Rain and Chain Heal like crazy to keep the raid up.  In this phase, Finkle’s Mixture disappears.  This phase last roughly 30 seconds.  After 15 seconds, the Chimaeron starts dropping your raid down between 25%-50% health every 5 seconds for 15 seconds.  This is the time to tell your raiders to use their raid CDs.

Phase 3
This is a burn phase.  Everyone in the raid has had their incoming heals reduced by 99%.  In this case, just help dps.  Pop Heroism, your Fire Elemental Totem, and Lightning Bolt spam like crazy.  Remember to run away from him when he targets you by using Ghost Wolf and if you have kept the majority of your dps alive, the fight should be yours.
I hope you enjoyed this.  If you have any questions or comments, please leave a comment or contact me through the Contact page.

Welcome to Cleansing Waters

Welcome to Cleansing Waters, the site thats all about healing.  Here I will discuss the ends and outs of all the new content from a Healers perspective.  As of right now, I have only been able to really dig deep into the new content on my Shaman, so this site will serve as a site for Resto Shamans.  Eventually we will push forward into Druid, Paladin, and Priest, but in the words of my former GM, “Do what you know first.”  So, I really hope you all enjoy the site.  Any feedback to enhance this site or any articles that you would like to see posted here, please feel free to contact me throught the Contact page.  Thanks for coming, and I hope to have more info out there for you guys shortly.