Last night I got my very first Emblem of Heroism in Heroic Drak'Tharon Keep. Yay! Now where I'm having trouble is...We wiped probably 5 times on King Dred. I blamed myself. I just couldn't for the life of me keep the druid tank up towards the end of the fight, the last 35% or so. Now I never really had a problem with going OOM(except during our last attempt where I literally spammed chain heal until I went oom trying to keep the tank up), the problem was in my heals. You can check out my armory here. The World of Warcraft Armory I'm about 1600 bonus healing. Maybe that isn't enough? Also I'm thinking I might need more mp5, cuz fights any longer than those heroic fights and I'd of started having mana issues.
I was really disheartened when I just could not for the life of me keep up the tank, I'd have popped Bloodlust, Tidal Force and used my Natures+Healing Wave Macro and STILL the tank would die(btw the tank was geared for tanking heroics, so it wasn't his lack of gear making him hard to heal).(also my boomking boyfriend was in the heroic with us and at the end i asked him to help me heal just so we could finally finish...I had to ask for help healing!)
My guild was very excited to help me reach 80 so that I could start healing for Naxx(thus giving our usual healers a break and letting them bring their dps through Naxx), but after that first heroic attempt, I'm scared to death to walk into Naxx. I really don't want to let them down. Is that King Dred fight just really hard? Or do I need to get more geared up before I step into Naxx? I'm bummed
Any advice/words of wisdom from shammies would be very nice to hear.
Last edited by Lore; 02-24-2009 at 07:48 AM. Reason: Removed formatting
The more people I meet, the more I like my ferrets.
As a tank, I remember King Dred really putting a pounding into me when I first started heroics. As a gearing healer, the difficulty in healing heroics and Naxx has me a little nervous. Keep in mind that inside Naxx you will have a lot more buffs than just your 5 man group, including replenishment.
Against King Dred its especially important to realize how the bleed mechanic functions, was this the first time you've healed it?
It was my first time healing it heroic. I'm pretty sure I ran through it regular before. I'm very used to running things as a mage. DPSing and Healing a heroic are at the opposite ends of the spectrum so I guess it is kind of like going to every instance fresh.
Good point about the buffs...that will surely help. I hadn't really thought about that.
The more people I meet, the more I like my ferrets.
King Dred hits like a speeding juggernaut. So not your fault at all.
Did your group clear the raptors before pulling? I make sure I always do, since they can cause issues when he summons them. Thus really you shouldn't be having to use Chain Heal at all, since only the tank should be getting hit. And remember to drop a Tremor Totem. Dear god, remember the totem.
And whenever the warning 'King Dred Raises His Claws Menacing' (or something similar), overheal spam like crazy with Lesser Healing Wave. It'll drain your mana quite quickly, but it'll keep the tank alive long enough to bring him back up to 100% with a couple of Healing Waves.
Also to help with the bleed debuff, make sure your earth shield and the other hot, name escapes me, is running at this time. The little boost they give will help get you above his health. Druid needs to help by NOT using his last stand macro, but using barkskin as well.
As a priest, I roll my renew continously on this fight, shield when he emotes and wind up a GH to blast the tank over the top.
Oh yeah, I definatley remembered the totem. The reason I was spamming chain heal was because the rogue ended up kinda tanking the single raptor we had left. >_>
But thank you for the input on the claw thing! I didn't quite realize that's the part where I needed to spam the tank. I did always have earth shield up, and I have the LHW glyph so at least my LHW will do a bit more healing. Thank you!
The more people I meet, the more I like my ferrets.
King Dred is essentially a fight that favors avoidance, because of the debuffs he stacks. He has a bleed effect that doesn't go away until the tank is healed to full, a mangle effect that increases the damage from bleeds by 75%, and a -75% armor debuff. If you've got multiple of those stacked on top of each other, you've got a dead tank pretty easily.
Unfortunately, a lot tanks these days gear exclusively for raw effective health rather than allowing for a more balanced composition of stats, so things can get dicey in fights that actually benefit from avoidance.
You're welcome. I'm a fairly new Resto Shaman as well, and I found King Dred to be the hardest boss out of the 'easy' heroics to heal, simply because of his massive burst damage when he raises his claws.
But you seem to have the idea with Earth Shield, Riptide and totem usage. Just spam LHW a bit more, and everything should be okay.
And make sure you get someone to pull out that last raptor next time. I get annoyed when dps say 'lol, you don't need to clear them', and then expect me to keep them alive.
Amen!Originally Posted by Durandro
Um kinda side note. I've been reading Elitist Jerks, but sometimes the math makes my brain hurt and I just want some honest to the point answers from people...
Haste over Crit for raid healing? Unbuffed I'm at about 18% Crit. But I feel like my haste needs to be higher than it is to help spam heals(why on earth do shamans have the longest cast time on heals? I swear....)is this accurate?
The more people I meet, the more I like my ferrets.
I prefer haste over crit. Much more reliable, and helps combat lag spikes.
But crit is nice as well. But only really useful in huge amounts.
Efficient healers tend to overheal with crit, haste not so much. Side benefits from talents coupled with crit rating are very frequent.
Good point about crit overhealing. I'd be all the times I don't really need a crit heal that'd I'd get oneThanks a bunch for all the replies. *trolls for more resto info*
The more people I meet, the more I like my ferrets.
Syberia -
I am also a resto shaman.
Some quick tips for healing Heroics.
1: Earth Shield (never ever let it come off)
2: Rip Tide (make sure to use it a lot (it makes for quicker heals)).
3: Lesser Healing wave (make friends with it, also have the glyph its very nice).
4: pre heal damage (dont wait for the damage to start, keep healing all the time).
5: Chain Heal (only us it if you have a heavy melee group, or if your ranged are standing near each other).
Gearing:
Since you're starting I personally value Int and SP above the haste and crit when I started Heroics a long time ago (haste and crit will come with gear). If you stack SP and Int you'll never run out of mana and you will be landing heals for a lot more.
Hopefully that helps a bit.
why where you spamming chain heal?
king dred does hit really, really hard. I would think either healing wave is better than CH if the tank is collecting the adds like hes supposed to.
honestly though, id keep to the easier heroics untill your around 1800 sp and good mp5. Nexus, VH, AN(as a shaman, poison totem ftw), ect
I remember The Beets - Killer Tofu Tour
Like I mentioned before, the rogue was taking the adds...I wasn't spamming chain heal unless both of them up there were getting hit. The other 2 dps were standing by me. My mistake was just not knowing enough about the encounter before I got in there, I didn't realize the stuff about the debuff that the earlier poster mentioned. So now I know to do my homework
Nyrox, thank you for those tips. I realize now I've almost never pre-healed anything and I need to get in the habit of that. Maybe make a stopcast macro or something to that effect. I'll work on it
Thanks!
The more people I meet, the more I like my ferrets.
Yeah, next time make sure that all the Raptors are pulled first. Insist on it. Without a plate wearer to offtank them, it'll likely result in messy wipes.
Chain Heal should only be used as a pre-heal on melee heavy fights with lots of AoE damage, I think. Works for me, at least.
Well, for 5 mans.
Last edited by Durandro; 02-24-2009 at 07:09 PM.
Generally, on my resto shaman, if the tank is taking big hits I riptide for the haste and then fire off two Healing Waves...and if I need to keep healing I LHW to fill the time between riptide cooldowns and the repeat the scenario: RT -> HW -> HW -> LHW until RT cd is up. It's the fastest you can bomb out heals. If you need to be POSITIVE you're bombing as much as possible, pop tidal force (and any trinket you may have) early.
Obviously, that's single target...multi-target is pretty much RT your main target (tank) and chain heal as necessary.
I'm finding I'm often having to LHW party members, because they think it's a good idea to stand apart. Which, as you can imagine, is a bit of a strain on the mana.
And what makes things worse is tanks that don't even let you drink between pulls. It's almost as annoying as being told to 'gogo' while I'm tanking because I'm allowing the casters to drink...
Just as a reply to haste vs crit: Haste is a very good stat for raidhealing as it allows you to heal more people in the same timeframe, for single target you might as well stack SP. I prefer crit over haste for 5men and 10men because it's such a huge source of mana with all the single target healing and I don't always have replenisment. I don't really overheal much as my LHW crits for 8k and the tank more often than not are below that.
If you're having problem with healing the tank enough you should try to maximize your HPS (healing per second) with the following rotation RT HW HW CH HW HW, it's 9.5-10sec with some haste and it doesn't take a genious to figure out it's a huge burst of heal. It will however drain your mana quickly.
75% armor debuff and Windfury-like burst damage. its a mini-Sartharion =( King Dred hits like a tank and i'm glad we got that damn achievement already...now i don't have to put another group/pug through 8 wipes and finally just skipping him. haha
/readycheck
/cast Charge
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