Another stolen post from World of Matticus

Matticus brought up an issue he encountered in a Naxx pug the other night regarding healing add-ons. (This ones a bit more of a wall of text than normal, I hope your resistances are high...)

I have experienced this myself, back when the big ol 3.0 patch hit before WOTLK released, our old guild was in Zul’aman, and the guilds main priest healer came in to help on the tiger boss. We spent half an hour on our asses because he had never healed without Healbot. I’m sure many more out in the big wide world of War craft have experienced this, or even encountered the problem themselves.

My wife and I have discussed this many times before, as we both have healers in our arsenal of characters.

In our old raiding guild it was pretty much insisted she had healing add-ons. She has never healed with an add-on in her life (and has been a resto spec druid since… ooh… Level 10 – where that first talent point went into the resto tree and we had a leveling duo with me on my rogue, and her healing.) and only occasionally used them when she eventually DID get them to try them out. Her preferred method of healing has always been to use the in game raid grid or party frame and select those that need the heals, and do the healing.

She is one of the best healers I have ever worked with, and certainly the most experienced restoration druid I know.

Her point of view has always been that good healers don’t need add-ons. I can’t argue this fact, but I have always believed that it is good to have add-ons that at least help you monitor, and that you can use, but that you should NEVER rely on.

I’m sure a lot of people hated that patch for the complications it encountered, but every healer should at least know how to click on a person, and press the desired healing spell from their action bar.

Myself? I have always had healbot there when on my priest – in small groups I try to stick to party-frame healing although when the shiz hits the fan, I always revert to spamming via healbot because it’s more natural to me, and this is a bad thing.

I recently respecced full discipline – this requires me to dish out Penance and Pain Suppression – both of which I cannot get to work via healbot. The result? I am not a sad mixed up hybrid healer. I use healbot for flash/greater/binding heals, Prayer of Mending, shielding and use it for TARGETING party members when they need Penance/PS to cast it from my action bar.

I am trying my best to get out of this habit – Healbot for me is there to act as a good health monitor and let me know when heals are incoming from other healbot users – but the style of discipline, as mentioned in previous World Of Matticus posts is a pro-active style, not reactive. I need to be watching the battle, see who is about to take damage and react accordingly. I don’t have any problem keeping people alive, but a habit I need to get out of is this hybrid style of healing, and playing whack a mole, instead of putting a noose over the buggers hole so it gets throttled when it pokes its head up.

Conclusion? I am a good healer, but will likely not be a great healer without a LOT of practice. I really wish I adapted to not using Healbot sooner, but I am still a capable healer. I do know what spells to cast, where they are on my cast bar, and regularly play just using them – but when things get tough? I naturally revert to what I had “grown up with”. My mission is to become adept for at least 5 and 10 mans without a mod. I recommend everyone else out there does as well!

For additional information relating to healing, I thoroughly recommend paying a visit to the Plus-Heal forums. It is a veritable minefield of information, regardless of your class when it comes to healing.

-V

Mutilate spec - additional,

After creating the last post, I went ahead with the poison tests - and found that with Instant Poison on my offhand instead of Deadly, that the recount presented a consistent 1300+ DPS.

Another optimisation session with another guild rogue, we managed to push them from 1600 to 2100 DPS simply by enforcing 2 rules:

1) Dual instant poisons (they are combat spec and were using dual deadly poisons.)
2) 5 point eviscerates (there is no reason to + energy efficient.)

-V

Rogue Mutilate spec

After conversing with another rogue in the guild about my rogues mutilate spec, he has decided to give it an experiment.

Out of curiosity, I took to a target dummy to double check I was using the best combination and abilities, and test the sustained DPS for boss fights.

In combat spec i could take a couple of mobs at a time and I could do a good 650 DPS whilst fighting them both.

Enter the Target dummy with this spec (bear in mind I am level 76)

Almost a sustained 1200 DPS over a test that done almost 320k of damage - so you can see its not a few seconds of burst damage.

Sure Ive seen rogues in Kara pulling 1400 DPS - but Ive also seen rogues in Naxx pulling 900... I am convinced this points out that it is a decent spec - probably not the best DPS I could squeeze out, but with with my level and talent build I am proud of the increase from combat.

I am wielding two crafted Saronite Daggers. - the Saronite Ambusher and the Saronite Shiv. (I have a note on this at end of post)

Shot rotation:

Hunger for Blood to 3-stack just before the attack

Ambush (Didnt make a difference in the long run but its a nice opener :p)

Slice n Dice (2 or 3 combo points usually)

If a combo point didnt proc from this:

Sinister Strike then Eviscerate (This refreshes the SnD to max duration, which will be sustained for the duration of the fight.)

If a combo point did proc, eviscerate.

Afterwards simply Mutilate to 5 combo points (even if it seems a waste not doing it at 4 and wasting bonus combo points from the next mutilate, it proves more DPS in the long run anyway) then eviscerate.

Repeat the mutilate mutilate eviscarate combo (3rd mutilate if needed for 5 combo points) and refresh hunger for blood every time it drops to about 5 seconds.

Key points to note:

Mutilate is your core damage here, dont waste energy Sinister Striking as for 15 more energy, a mutilate hits for an extra 90 damage (at my level) in addition to hitting with your offhand with the same bonus AND giving a 50% damage bonus if you have deadly poison on the target.

Never Evenom. I tested it, and it is a waste of a finishing move. Eviscerate does significantly more damage, and doesnt drop the stack of Deadly Poison (Which will be doing a nice consistant 10-20% of your DPS, aswell as boosting your mutilate damage by 50%) from the target.

ALWAYS keep the hunger for blood buff up. 9% bonus is a LOT of damage - especially on an opener/finisher or when a trinket is running.

Cold Blood can be used for an Eviscerate or an Ambush to guarantee a crit, I recommend for the Eviscerate - at least for me, it usually crits for a bit more.

In this test, my Offhand is the Saronite Shiv which is a fast offhand weapon which is not ideal. I dont really need to worry about poison stacking as it quickly procs 5 times and stays refreshed anyway... Im going to experiment with 1 deadly and 1 instant poison, might miss the 50% damage bonus to the first mutilate, but I can hold off the first mutilate as long as I dont let my energy regenerate too far and be wasted. The Instant Poison should give a nice boost. hopefully offset the damage boost of having a fast offhand on my Mutilates.

I will be putting talents into Turn the Tables. This will pretty much maintain a constant +6% crit on you in raids due to the tanks dodge/block/parrys which is going to be about 30-50% of the time the boss swings.

I really am scratching my head as to why there are still combat specced raiders beyond looking good on the damage meters from the trash fights.

Sapphiron, Frostwyrm guardian of Naxxramas.

We took down Thaddius last night, and moved on to Sapphirons lair. We heard this fight was going to be tough, so we done our studying before hand. Everyone watched videos and got familiarized with the traditional tactics, which are:

• Group 1 on left side of body, group 2 on the right.

• SRD positions (Standard raid dragon positions) – Don’t go near the head or the tail.

• Watch out for the blizzard.

• Gather around the green ring when he enters the flight phase, stay spaced out and wait for the frost bolts to freeze two players.

• Break LOS with the ice block and wait for him to land.

• Repeat until either the dragon, or the raid is dead.

This boss looked like one of the simpler encounters, we planned for a quick few wipes to refine the groups coordination then the big buff up and takedown, then move on to try to take Kel down to finish off the weeks raiding schedule.

It was not so easy though…

For 3 hours we battered our head off of his bony backside. The tactics changed a few times until we got a strategy down that worked, but the DOT that ticks throughout the fight resulted in everyone eventually dying, and it being the first boss to best us on a raid night. (Every other one has gone down before ending the raid, or we had a quick shot or two at to see the tactics then came back and quickly killed it next night.)

So what must we do now?

Frost Resistance.

After analyzing causes of player death, it was almost exlclusively down to the Dot. We had 3 healers, all doing free-for all healing, but every time we had to reposition for a blizzard or the Deep Breath, people were not getting healed and the result? People start to drop.

After speaking with a more experienced raider that has this boss on farm – it is highly recommended that each player gets themselves the 3-item crafted frost resistance set, and it makes the fight a joke.

So, our mission?

Get gear! The only person who shouldn’t have to worry about this is the tank (who will need to be def capped, and will have a dedicated healer anyway once the raid is taking reduced damage) – although anything they can get would be useful.

The tactics evolved into staying in one group (I think two is possibly more orientated to heroic tactics.), and sticking close together, except when the blizzard starts chasing someone – and when Sapphiron goes into the flight phase, where we need to be spaced out. After the first try the pull is tricky as the boss aggroes upon entering the room, and cannot be positioned correctly until after the air phase due to the tail swipe. Here the tank just turned the boss 90 degrees, and we pounded his side. This had several benefits:

1. The group was all within range of healers.

2. The Ice-Blocks were always fairly close (on the first attempt group 1 got both ice-blocks and we ended up wiping trying to cross through the dragon – which cant be done.)

3. DPS could be started early on, and people could get into the flow of things.

Our best attempt was 76% - 3 or 4 flight phases. This proves we have the tactics down to survive the phases and abilities, As mentioned before the problem was the frost dot taking people out after being hit by blizzard, or when healers had to move, and were unable to cope with the raid wide health drops.

For anyone reading this you probably got here by googling, so heres some basic tips to take away:

• Pack in the frost resistance gear. (117? on me from mage armour and frost resistance totem was not enough by a long shot.) (After officer meet last night i think 287 was the min level, this will allow 40% without a shammy totem or pally aura, and with them on you get 60% resistance, and dont have to sacrifice your chest piece.
  

• Do not pass through the dragon unless it is an emergency, and even then, go by the back legs – you are still likely to get tail swiped, but it should still leave you standing. A cleave is a good 150k damage OVERKILL – and is generally not a smart idea…

• Stand as far back as possible if melee DPS. The angles the abilities work at fan out from the centre of the dragons base, so the closer you are, the smaller the area you have to work in before either a small movement by you or the dragon puts you into a bad position and you get cleaved or swiped.

• Don’t worry about positioning for the pull. Just don’t get hit by his abilities

• DECURSE! The curse dished out is a hard hitting DOT that the dragon applies that also heals him by draining the life from afflicted players.

• Stay as a group. As mentioned, I suspect the split group tactics are more applicable for heroics when there are going to be more people running about with more blizzards on tow. (they track a player it seems.)

• Remember the distance rule. The diagram below shows the very basic fanning out of attack zones. Unless you manage to get through the crossover point, when passing through, you will get hit. (It does appear to be a timed attack rather than instantly hitting, so the quicker you cross the danger zones the less chance of a smacking.) but more importantly, when meleeing or casting be aware of the safe zone from the sides. Cross into the danger zones and you may cause a wipe by dying. This is especially true of the cleave which has a huge attack range and hits everyone except for the main tank in this section when it triggers, guaranteeing an insta-gib. Point to note though- I’m sure the cleave radius is higher. I’ve been in a position I thought was safe and gotten squished.

-V

Raid Difficulties

Matticus put up a post today regarding normal and heroic raids, and the difficulties between them.

He claims that the 25 man raids are actually easier than the 10 man. I have seen this mentioned many times before, and it makes sense. Other than many encounters becoming more complicated with the addition of an extra ability, or something like that – the hardest part is organization and communication.

In the 25 mans, you have a lot more “sacrificial” raiders. If someone dies from the DPS ranks, you lose 10% of your DPS (assuming 10 DPSers) instead of 20% (assuming 5)

This intrgues me, and tempts me to experiment.

In the guild we have enough members that actively raid to put together a 25 man, the only problem is that we have a high bias of tanking classes, and are a bit lacking in DPS. Hopefully having some tanks fill in as DPS (bonus: backup tanks) should suffice since some pull the same as some of the DPS anyway!)

There is an officer meeting tonight, that I believe I shall bring this up in. Make Sunday a heroic raid night. Let the members know that we will only go ahead if at least 23 memebers draught. Tanks will fill in DPS slots if necessary, to make the numbers. Most people available have had some experience with the 10-man runs, so it should not be a significant stretch of the imagination to make it work.

If the numbers are not signed – it will revert to either a 10 man finishing run – or – if we cleared the 10 man, try to get a second group down.

Bonus: We can also try to go for Obsidian Sanctum if there is not too many locked. At least, we can get him with 0 adds.

-V