Coliseum crash course
A friend of mine has been away from the game for a while, and asked me what had changed about druid healing, what he needed to know.
Northrend Beasts
- Keep full HoTs on the current tank and pre-hot the second tank before they switch
- Keep Rejuvs on the melee group
- When your boss mod announces the spell interrupt in 5 seconds, get ready to WG melee. Announce – wait – stomp – WG. Along with the Rejuvs you have on them, this will top them up nice and quickly.
- If someone is hit by fire, Rejuv and be ready to Swiftmend them. They will take more damage the longer they stand in the fire; so if you see them move out immediately, they should be ok without follow-up healing. If they stand in it for a few seconds, you may need to toss them extra healing.
- Toss a Rejuv on a Snobold victim; they shouldn’t take too much damage
- Occasionally you might need to WG people near the Snobold victim since they do some AoE fire damage sometimes.
- Keep full HoTs on the tanks as they go into this fight as they may still have debuffs on them
- Keep tank HoTs up, free-heal as people take damage
- Keep an eye on the melee group who may take slime pool damage if they’re not paying attention
- First and foremost, never stand between Icehowl and the big double gates at the back of the room; if he blasts you into them, you may not be able to run away fast enough when he targets you (speaking from experience).
- Keep full HoTs on the current tank and be ready to pre-HoT the other.
- You’ll get to know his timing. As he runs out to stomp and blast everyone to the walls, I run a few steps to make sure I’m definitely not going to the gates, then I toss a WG just before we get stunned. It will help top up the damage while everyone can’t move.
- As you get better at timing this, you can pepper the raid with Rejuvs before he stuns everyone. Anyone at low health just before the stun is going to die – prioritise picking them up before he does that move.
- WG the people who get frozen, since they are likely to be close enough to all be hit by WG.
Lord Jaraxxus
- Pre-hot the tank during the boss chatty time. Keep HoTs up.
- Note: In heroic you may be locked out of healing when the Mistresses are up due to an ability called Mistress’ Kiss. If you get this debuff try not to cast Regrowth or Nourish; but if you do get interrupted, make sure you call this out so your other healers know.
- Toss a Rejuv on anyone who gets Legion Flame – it will cover them for any incidental damage they take while running it out.
- Keep an eye on melee; I sometimes keep Rejuvs on them because they are prone to taking damage if someone with Legion Flame doesn’t run out fast enough.
- For Incinerate Flesh, I Rejuv, Swiftmend, and then Nourish until the debuff drops off (this is the ability that you have to blast-heal the person for a certain amount to kill the debuff, or the raid will take AoE damage).
- When Mistresses are up, watch your frames for a purple squiggle icon. Throw a Rejuv to that person; they are about to be thrown in the air and dumped for fall damage. Wait for the damage, then Swiftmend.
- Spot-heal anyone who takes damage from volcanoes, lightning and whatnot.
Twin Val’kyr
- Cycle Rejuvs on everyone in the raid
- Extra HoTs to the tanks when you can
- Be ready to Swiftmend anyone who bumps into the wrong coloured orbs.
- If you see a bunch of the wrong coloured orbs heading your way, and you can’t dodge them, Rejuv, Barkskin, and get ready to Swiftmend yourself. (I usually wince as well, I’m not sure if this helps..)
Anub
- Pre-HoT the tank on the pull; keep full HoTs up.
- When the Nerubians pop up, HoT up that tank. If you get aggro, run them over to the tank.
- Toss a Rejuv to anyone who gets the Penetrating Cold Debuff.
- In P2, keep HoTs on the Nerubian tank until they’re dead.
- Be ready to cat+dash if Anub targets you; run to the most distant ice patch (on Heroic, don’t run through it; run around it)
- Spot-heal as necessary, don’t get hit by the little bugs
- In P3, keep HoTs on the tank, and HoT up the add tank when they emerge
- Toss a Rejuv on Penetrating Cold as usual
This is where your mileage will vary greatly. Our usual setup is Disc priest/Resto druid; the priest handles the raid while I keep full HoTs on both tanks, and toss Rejuvs to the Penetrating Cold victims. Many guilds do it the opposite way, with Resto druids looking after the raid. You’ll need to find what works best for you. The way I do it:
- Keep full HoTs on both tanks, but make sure you keep an eye on the adds; when they’re dead, stop healing the add tank!
- NEVER USE TRANQUILITY.
- Rejuv any Penetrating Cold victims
- Make sure you use your Barkskin if you get Penetrating Cold
- If I (and a few others) get very low, I will usually WG myself, because it will heal us a little, but not a whole lot. The aim is to keep your head above water, but stay as low as you can. I find WG is just enough to act as a stabilising buffer when I get really low, but not so much healing that I interfere with the boss kill.
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One stupid question – what do you mean by Full-hotted – rej + reg, rej + reg + rolling blooms, rej + reg + stacking blooms or anything else.
This is a great post. Thanks for your hard work.
Verile´s last blog ..Favorite Wrath Raid Encounters
Very nice info. May have to refer to this if I am called up to heal (Mainspec is Boomy.. on Caelstrasz! heya Realmie :P).
Question that popped in to my head while reading that, tho… In what raid situations do trees actually use Tranquility? I cn think I have seen it used for a long long time now. I expect it would be difficult to maintain healing in one spot, due to all the movement these days…
Your thoughts?
@ Phillipp: Fully hotted has reference to our flash heal, Nourish, as the amount healed by Nourish increases with HoTs. So, if a Nourish on a traget with no HoT’s heals for say, 4k, you will probably find a Nourish cast on a target with Rejuve, WG, Regrowth and Lifebloom to heal for 7k. (Actually… does that only apply to an oldish set bonus?)
Also, obviously, just like a Warlock’s DoTs, the more HoT’s there are on a target, the faster the target is gonna be healed
Philipp – Rejuv and Regrowth as standard; slow-stacking Lifebloom when I am able. Occasionally I will roll Lifeblooms if mana allows (or if old habits kick in…). Or I may roll on one tank, slow stack on the other. I usually play Lifebloom by ear.
Karthos – /wave
Tranquility’s usefulness decreases as the size of the group increases; it’s great in 5s, okay in 10s, pretty poor in 25s. The chances that everyone in your target will be in range of you means it’s not very good on 25s, except for the odd gimmicky fight like, say.. Gluth.
I use it occasionally in 10s; probably more when I’m undergeared and want to pick 5 people up fast; once you get to the stage where you start to outgear instances, it’s easier to just keep HoTs on those 5 people. Again, this is easier in 10s than in 25s.
I don’t use Tranquility much at the moment. I still have it bound, and use it occasionally.. but it’s quite rare.
I do use Tranquility on heroic 10s, on many bosses, but especially Anub at the end. That is a solution for a high dps group. It can be used to definitely keep some people from dying–you have to weigh risk/reward.