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Circle of Healing: Lodur version 4.2

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Matt beat me too it, but I too felt it was about time to do one of these again.  A while ago, the circle of healing was started as a way of members of the community to share information about themselves will everyone else in the blog-o-sphere. It has been so long, in fact, that many updates and an expansion have come along since I last filled this out! So, I guess it’s time for an update, as many things have in fact changed for me. For example, I’m no longer on Zul’jin, instead now I’m on Ner’Zhul.

Name, class and spec: [A] Lodur, Restoration Shaman (Ner’zhul)

What is your primary group healing environment? 25 man progression raiding

What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?

If I had to pick one it would have to be Spirit Link Totem. If you’ve been reading me for any length of time, you’ll know that I’ve had a love affair with this spell since it was first conceptualized in the beta for Wrath of the Lich King. I’ve fawned over it, lamented it’s removal from the game, and celebrated (actually through a party IRL) the re-integration of this amazing spell back into our arsenal in Cataclsym. I’ve been finding new ways to use it and ways to combine it with other spells like Rallying Cry and Power Word: Barrier in various encounters for new and awesome results. I think though, that it really is my favorite not because of it’s versatility, but because I have been crusading for the spell to be brought back since it was removed. Funnily enough, putting it from a spell we cast into a totem to add a limitation to it was one of the very first things I ever fired off towards Blizzard years ago. I love me some totems.

What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?

If you asked me in the last tier of content I would have said Greater Healing Wave. Now though, I honestly don’t know. Every spell we have has a place in each encounter. It’s not like we have a huge toolkit (though it has been expanded over the years). If I had to just pick a spell that is classified under healing but I never use, it would probably be Totem of Tranquil Mind. It’s a water totem, water is the shaman element of healing, therefore I classify it as a healing spell. I just never use the damn thing. Compared to Mana Spring Totem or Healing Stream Totem, it’s just always outclassed. Honestly, give me back my damn Sentry Totem! At least I used that.

What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?

Versatility. Shaman are capable of going from single target healing to group healing without really having to worry about switching gear or stats. While some stats are preferable for each role, we are capable of swapping on the fly and that lends us a certain strength. Combine that with a new defensive cooldown that cuts through healing reducing effects and well, we’re just one awesome healing class.

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?

Unlike other classes our mastery is good/bad in a cycle. Beginning of a tier, or at the start of hardmodes, shaman mastery is a champ. After that however, it sort of becomes the redheaded stepchild in lieu of throughput stats like haste and crit. Other classes benefit from their masteries pretty much all the time, where ours only really gets the lime light if someone messes up and takes a ton of damage, or the raid as a whole is failing. It actually gets worse as players skill and gear improve. What’s up with that?

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?

Raid healing. I’m a roll healer by desire, I love placing Healing Rains, rolling Riptide and Chain Heal and keeping up as many people as I can through some ridiculous damage. I do well at it and I enjoy it. I also think I excel at special assignment healing, such as healing the kiting team for heroic Magmaw, that was just a blast.

Which healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?

Toss up between Druid and Priest. There’s a lot of synergy there between the way druids and shaman heal together, as well as both flavors of priest. Hymns, barrier, Tranquility and crazy HoTs, they all seem to compliment shaman healing quite well.

What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?

Paladins, for the pure petty reason that they stole my Healing Stream mechanic! no honestly its just because of the difference in healing styles. I have a hard time working around paladins most of the time because they just feel like a brute force healing class where as the others feel more delicate or graceful.  No offense to any paladins out there, I know they are exciting to play, I just can’t get the image of a paladin busting his holy book over someone’s head while screaming “BE HEALED BY THE LIGHT” out of my mind.

What is your worst habit as a healer?

My worst habit? That’s a tough one. If I had to pick one it would be stopping healing on a wipe. I just can’t do it. I reflexively continue to heal until it finally clicks in my brain “oh, wait, wipe. Stop healing now!”. Partially this stems from a raid I was in years ago where the Raid Leader called a wipe and I told healers to keep going. We healed through a metric ton of damage and actually beat the boss. It was something that kind of defines me. Till the very last, I’m on the front lines healing your dudes. Whether it’s called for or not >.>

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?

Matt said it, and I’m going to echo it. Getting blamed for healing problems when it’s not a healing problem. There seems to be this mindset, recently even more so than before, that any problem can be solved by obtaining better healers. Sure, sometimes the healers are messing up or need to tighten up, but rarely is it actually a bad healer.  Too often are healers judged purely on meters and raw numbers. Sure World of Logs analysis plays a part in evaluating a healers performance, but unlike DPS being the top of the charts in healing isn’t always a good thing. There are always different factors to consider such as the fight, healing assignment , class of the healer as well as the healing team in the raid. Everyone is quick to blame healers, when DPS standing in the wrong spot can cause a wipe just as much as low healing.

I’ve been healing a long time. I’ve been writing here, my own blog and at WoW Insider now for quite sometime. I got to these places as a healer trying to explain healing to other healers. That’s tough enough some days, but try explaining it to non healers sometime. That’s a brick wall that’s hard to crack most of the time.

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?

Yes. Shaman were used as the “model for healing” this expansion, so we’ve always been a viable class / spec. Even when our numbers weren’t perfect we were still doing well. Now with recent adjustments we’re right about where we need to be and I think we are pretty well balanced.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer

To evaluate my own performance I’ll go through World of Logs and check to make sure my spell usage is consistent with the encounter and my assignment in the encounter. If it is not, then that’s usually my cue to change what I’m doing.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?

Honestly, I’m kind of tired of hearing the phrase “shaman can’t heal this”. I have yet to fail in any healing assignment. Just because I don’t top the meter doesn’t mean I can’t heal something. All the classes are capable of all the healing roles. True some may be better than others, but nothing quite gets under my skin like the statement that I CAN’T heal something because I’m a shaman.

What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?

Getting rid of healer tunnel vision. New healers are rarely aware of their own health totals, and you can usually tell how long a healer has been healing by how quickly they react to incoming damage. Whether it’s healing themselves or blowing a cooldown to survive it tends to be a tell-tale sign. That habit is hard to kick, and it’s because of that I love any addon that lets you put your own health in an easily visible place, or ones like GTFO which audibly alerts you to incoming damage or spell effects.

If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see?

That I tend to pace my healing for long fights. I’m a long sight healer. I try to make sure I’m using the most cost effective heal for the job. So my throughput might not be as high as some of the other healers in the group, but I make sure I have mana to continuously heal through a fight, unlike a certain dwarf priest. Also that I cast Lightning Bolt quite a bit!

Haste or Crit and why?

The new 4.2 crit giving 200% healing is nice, but I’ll still pick haste first every time. Haste is just so good when it comes to pumping out the healing, and getting to each haste plateau does nothing but improve my healing and help increase the effectiveness I bring to a raid. That’s right folks, I’m a haste junkie!

What addons or macros do you use to aid you in healing?

Aside from a focus macro for Earth Shield and ones to keep me from casting Heroism or Mana Tide when not in combat, the only really healer centric thing I use for myself is Grid. I have it completely configured to show me exactly what I need to know for every member of the raid.

Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats or do you stack some much higher than others and why?

I try to hit the haste caps (916 and now 2005) and then after that I maintain balance between my primary healing stats. Haste just gives me so much more throughput on pretty much everything that I can’t ignore it.  I then adjust the rest of my stats according to the tier of content or fight, but generally try to maintain a balance.

That’s it for me on this circle of healing patch 4.2 edition. Normally I would tag individuals, but instead I’m going to tag the entire restoration shaman community as well as anyone who follows me on twitter, or on google +. This also goes for any of the readers out there with blogs of their own! Consider yourselves tapped for this Circle of healing, and I completely expect posts from you guys!

Revisiting the Healing Circle

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Ever gone skydiving as a group before? That’s probably a no. I know I haven’t. Would crap my pants if I did.

There’s a whole element of trust that’s going on up there especially when pulling off different formations. People need to know what to do, when to do it and where they need to be. Healing in raids has that similar mindset.

Thanks to Rooster for asking me to fill out one of these for 4.2. It’s certainly been a while!

Name, class and spec: [A] Matticus, Holy Priest (Ner’zhul)

What is your primary group healing environment? 25 man progression raiding

What is your favourite healing spell for your class and why?

Guardian Spirit. Such an elegant spell. A snap of a wrist and what could be dead is instead alive. Under the right circumstances, it separates a mediocre Holy Priest from a truly exceptional Holy Priest. Use it for extra power and brute force healing or use it as a form of finesse. Only the ballsiest of healers would even consider using Guardian Spirit and intentionally stop healing to trigger the proc and resume healing again.

What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?

 Heal. I’ve started phasing it out of my spell usages. It just doesn’t do enough anymore. It’s level of efficiency is amazing but in this environment, that efficiency goes out the window when you’re relying on bomb heals or fast heals.

What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?

Our flexibility allows us to remain competitive and diverse. We can respond to any number of situations with different spells. We can squeeze into multiple demanding roles. If you’re out there recruiting a healer and you’re not sure which class to go for, you can almost never go wrong with recruiting a priest.

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?

The fact that we don’t have as much fashion selection as the other classes. The spirit cloth is lacking in drops. I know the rest of it comes from valor, vendors and crafting. On a more serious note, I can’t think of any significant weaknesses right now that I can’t play around.

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?

I thrive under high pressure situations. I love having the hard assignments. Anything that involves moving, dispelling, dodging  or other complicated mechanics are the ones I volunteer for first.

Which healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?

No preference! If I had to pick a class, probably Shaman. Can’t go wrong with Shaman. Actually, I’d rather just have their Mana Tide totem. Don’t need the Shaman!

What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?

Druids. They make me look bad. Other than that, from a leads perspective, they don’t offer much raid utility other than Tranquility and Rebirth. Other healing classes have great mitigation or resistance cooldowns that I can use on a larger scale. I can use them pre-emptively and not be wrong. With Tranquility, if I use it too early I end up having wasted healing. If I call for it too late, I’ll have deaths. It’s not that I don’t like pairing with them in raids. It just feels like there is an extremely fine line in maximizing the spell.

What is your worst habit as a healer?

I tend to frontload my spells a lot. By the time we get to the last part of an encounter, I’m usually scraping the bottom of the mana pool barrel. I try to compensate for this by getting a better read of how long the fight is expected to take and coordinating my trinkets and consumables accordingly.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?

Getting blamed for healing problems when it’s not a healing problem. Apparently every problem can be solved with getting better healers. Sometimes it is a healing problem. But usually, the root cause can be traced to movement, coordination or assignments. I’ve written a healing blog for years. I’ve been hired specifically to contribute my expertise to WoW Insider as a healing columnist. Lack of healers has never been a problem because we have so much depth in place. I will never rest until I have a slam dunk healing corps. It’s difficult for non-healers to understand and read how healing meters operate. Because of this, we’re placed under a microscope and compared numerically across World of Logs.

Generally, it’s not a healing throughput problem. It’s a healing smarts problem except it gets magnified when it’s a tank or a healer who makes the mistake.

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing? Y

Yes. Considering Priests didn’t get any significant buffs or nerfs, it appears we’re right where we’re supposed to be overall.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?

  • World of Logs: The logs don’t lie and I can see a list of details of what happened and what didn’t.
  • Fraps: In addition to making kill videos, I use the footage just to watch myself play and see if there’s anything that can be improved on. In between attempts, I’ll watch the videos to see what events led up to a wipe. Sometimes it’s something as simple as using the wrong spell or being in the wrong place.
  • Phoenix Style: It’s a type of fail addon that lists significant debuffs that players get

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?

That Holy Priests are unable to tank healing and Disc Priests are unable to raid heal. We can do them. We may not be the best selection for it, but it doesn’t mean we’re completely crippled. Ask a healer to do the job and let them handle the method.

What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?

Decision making. Some healing spells are more “righter” than others to use. In other cases it doesn’t matter. For example, when it comes to single target healing you can use several combinations:

Pick one and run with it. If your spell usage is incorrect, at least you’ll know next time. A pattern I notice in new Priests (and new healers) is that there tends to be some cases where they just sit there and nothing is being done. It’s as if they’re overthinking it too much and trying to decide between the next move to use. Unlike DPS classes, healing has many right answers.

Remember that indecision is a decision and is rarely correct.

If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see?

I need someone to audit me. I tend to be all over the place. Perhaps the most common theme is lack of efficiency. I’m so paranoid of letting players die that I’ll use a bomb heal when a smaller one would’ve done the job. I end up paying the price for it late in the encounter anyway.

Haste or Crit and why?

Haste, no contest. Although Crit isn’t as bad as it used to be.

What healing class do you feel you understand least? They’re all overwhelming in their own ways. Even Priests.

What addons or macros do you use to aid you in healing?

Grid and Vuhdo are the two big ones I’ve traditionally used. For the time being, it’s just Grid. Look into the Grid_QuickHealth.

Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats or do you stack some much higher than others and why?

This really depends on the spec I’m playing. If I’m raid healing as Holy, I’ll dump everything into Haste. If I’m tank healing and Discipline, I’ll invest points into Mastery and Crit.

I’m directing the questionnaire to Lodur and the rest of the Matticast crew. If I have to do it, it’s only fair for the minions rest of the team to do it as well!

Healing Lord Rhyolith

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Can’t drive in real life? Maybe you’ll do a better job against Lord Rhyolith.

Imagine if you were driving a bumper car. The catch is that there is no steering wheel. Instead, you have to lean in a certain direction in order to get the car turning. Not only that, the accelerator is locked in place. You can’t stop, you can’t slow down and every few seconds it randomly decides to just give out before restarting again.

Oh, and if you make it to the side of a room, you explode.

That’s essentially Rhyolith. I haven’t even mentioned the numerous fire effects yet.

Your job as healers is to buy your raid group enough time for them to steer him into volcanoes and get rid of debuffs.

Dividing the raid

Drivers: About 7-9 total DPS (As much melee as possible)
Ad control: Everyone else that’s not driving
Healers: 6-8 (Recommend 7 to start)
Main tank: Pick a tank to exclusively pick up Fragments of Rhyolith. Their job is to stay near the center of the room and snap all of them the moment they spawn. If they’re not dead within 30 seconds, their explode and deal half their remaining health to a random player in 25 man (they deal their current health to a random player in 10 man)
Off tank: Infernal Rage are giant fire elementals that need to be snapped and dragged away from the group to the edge as fast as possible. They AoE any players within 12 yards. Their damage gradually increases every 5 seconds but the good news is that the amount of damage they take also increases every 5 seconds. Don’t let that fool you. Kill them fast.

Pick 1 player to call out the foot that needs to be DPS’d. Our caller experienced success when he was positioned to the side of Rhyolith instead of behind him. Rhyolith’s body has a habit of obstructing the view. Going from the side should at least give you a rough 270° degree field of vision which includes the direction Rhyolith is facing.

Dividing the healers

Main tank: 1 healer
Off tank: 1 healer + 1 raid healer who can float HoTs or shields
Raid: 4-6 healers

Phase 1

With his 80 stacks of Obsidian Armor, the firepower in your raid group is going to get blunted until they whittle that armor down by steering the rock dude over exploding volcanoes. The only way to steer it is for your players to DPS the foot that you want him to turn.

For positions, instruct the the raid to stay near the middle of the island (and your drivers are exempt).

Tip: Enable name plates as it clearly labels the legs.

For starters, pick a leg to get started with. We like to open up on his right leg first just to get him gradually spinning around.

Concussive stomp: He lifts his foot up and then stomps the ground. Contrary to popular belief, it appears that jumping at the precise time of the stomp does not negate the damage. There is a slight chance you may resist it.

Volcano: When Rhyolith ignites a volcano, every player is going to 36000 damage or so over 6 seconds to 6 players on 25 (3 players on 10). When a player is hit, they gain a debuff (Eruption) causing them to take an additional 10% Fire damage every 14 seconds. If your own stack goes above 8, use a self cooldown.

Heck, use a raid cooldown until they wear off.

Crater: This is the most dangerous ability. It will catch players unaware. There is a chance that a crater will cause a stream of lava to stream outward. Any player caught in the path takes 70000+ damage. One or two players eating that is no problem. Raid healers can take care of that easily. When you have a dozen players getting ripped by that with the fire debuff, it becomes a problem.

Tip: Designate a specific player or 3 to specifically call out streams when the ability kicks in. With the amount of stuff on the ground, it’s easy to miss.

Once Lord Rhyoliths’ stacks drop to 10 or less, your group doesn’t need to worry about steering as much. Enough armor has been shaved off to the point where you can bring him down to 25%. That triggers the second part of the encounter.

Phase 2

The last phase is extremely straightforward. Once you get to that point, you essentially have the encounter in the bag. He can now be tanked. Regroup your tank healers on your main tank.

All healers

Pay attention to your individual stacks of Eruption. I found that if exceeded 8 stacks, the damage would be almost unbearable and a wipe would be imminent. Raid cooldowns are needed until the stacks drop off.

The biggest threat are the fire veins that seem to sprout from volcanos. Between that and the decreased fire resist, players will die if they’re not watching where they’re standing. You might be able to eat the initial burst. I’ve had to do it once or twice to close the distance to a tank. I certainly don’t recommend doing it unless you know what you’re doing, have little to no stacks and have a self heal (or a healthstone) to negate the damage.

Priests

Desperate Prayer really helps here. Watch the ground for any fire veins before using your hymns.

Shamans

Lay down Healing Rain somewhere around the middle of the map. Your players can spot the blue circles and stand on top of them easily.

Druids

Not uncommon to see Rebirths being used on the encounter. Get away from any craters or volcanos before using them. Watch the ground for any fire veins before using Tranquility. 

Paladins

With so much rampant fire damage going around, there is no wrong time to use Aura Mastery throughout the first phase.

Lord Rhyolith Resources

Discuss

Plus Heal thread

Getting Rid of the Ready Check

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The ready check is an easily understood command which has one question for players to answer.

Are you ready?

Traditionally, raid leaders use ready checks to ensure everyone has their buffs, cauldrons and consumables. It’s a last minute reminder for everyone to see if anyone has any questions before going into the pull. Anyone steal a ninja AFK to wash their hands or sneak a drink? The alarm would sound informing players to rush back to their desks or switch programs back into the game.

What if your guild stopped using it? What would change? How would the players and the atmosphere change?

In an upcoming interview with Mel, one of the powers behind the guild of <Edge> and a blogger at Sacred Duty, does not utilize ready checks at all. Here’s a brief excerpt where he explains his reasoning.

Rumor has it that your raid group does not utilize ready checks. If it’s true, how come?
Ready checks are an opt-in system, and opt-in systems deflect responsibility.  Instead, we make the choice to assume that everyone is at keyboard and ready to play when we’re raiding – when they’re expected to be.  We’ll often be discussing strategy during runbacks, so it’s a bad time to just take off the headset and run AFK anyway.  If someone has to take an emergency break, the onus is on them to inform the raid, and then we wait.  But I don’t see a reason to waste 20 seconds on every pull just to ask if everyone is actually at their keyboard, when I could just be informed that someone isn’t there for the one pull that it’s an issue.

This isn’t a completely foreign concept to me since my guild utilizes a sign out system for attendance. We’re not the only ones as other progression oriented guilds do the same thing. Making the assumption that you are ready instead of asking if you’re ready is presents an interesting shift in dynamics. It places a bigger emphasis on players to really speak up if they’re not sure about something or if they need to step out momentarily. In the long run, if you multiply the time spent on ready checks before every pull on a per week and per month basis, the time really does add up. It’s definitely one way of shaving off precious seconds on a raid night.

I’m considering implementing this in Conquest. I might just try it out for a week and see how we respond collectively as a group. It might end up being a positive change for us.

On a side note, a warm welcome to Morynne who has joined the guild!

Beth’tilac and Lord Rhyolith down [VIDEO]

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After being shut out on day 1, the crew managed to storm back and take down both Beth’tilac and Lord Rhyolith. Adding a 7th healer helped and so did reinforcing the discipline of avoiding all the nasty stuff going on. Volcanoes and lava streams hurt. Don’t be on the business end of them. The Beth’tilac kill was from my perspective. I’ll do an annotated version later on with a voiceover narration by me just explaining what was going on through my head at the time. Our strategy was modified and involved a straight 100 to 0% burn on the final phase.

Lord Rhyolith kill is from the perspective of a Mage.