Guide to Healing, Leading, and Progressing in WoW Raids
A few days ago, I had the opportunity to run Utgarde Keep with my WoW Insider colleagues. I said would do a writeup of my experience and how it handled. One instance run is hardly enough time to accurately get a feel for the spec but the initial outlook is promising. You can find the whole post over on WoW Insider.
Normally I’d advocate fighting to the last man, but have you ever considered just throwing in the towel? Today’s post is inspired by Kregath’s topic on the Plusheal forums asking a tell-all of a question:
Have you ever been a bad Priest on purpose?
This got me thinking. What is the worse thing that a Priest can do?
The answer: they can not heal the raid and a wipe will happen as a result.
When working on a difficult boss that requires everyone alive, there may be attempts where you lose one or even two key players. Let’s assume for the moment that these key players are healers. They are the only ones tasked with the job of maintaining the raid. The other healers are too busy watching specific players.
As such, it would be difficult for your tank healers to transition over to raid healing because you’ve gone from 7 healers to 5. This increases the strain to the point where it becomes possible to lose a tank or lose the rest of the raid 1 by 1. With key players dead, the odds of a wipe continue to increase.
If you have an indecisive raid leader, why not force the wipe? You know in your hearts it can’t be done.
“But Matt”, I hear you say, “This goes against everything you have ever taught us!”
Rules are made only to be broken, young Padawan. If your leaders aren’t willing to accept defeat and try it again with a raid that’s all alive, then sometime a quiet nudge in the form of a wipe might be all that’s needed.
After all, wouldn’t you rather wipe at 95% then at 25% especially on a 10+ minute encounter?
Have I ever intentionally wiped a raid before? Nope. I’ve never had to, thankfully. I would definitely consider doing it if the circumstances were extremely dire enough. Although I wouldn’t wholeheartedly recommend doing this at all, your Guild may not be willing or perceptive enough to call a wipe even though it may be in their best interests.
On that note, what would Brian Boitano do?
Welcome to the third in a 5 part series here on World of Matticus. For the next several weeks, I’ll be covering the rare topic of assigning raid heals. No one really wants to do it but it’s the most important job in the raid and I’ll provide a basic overview of the process and some advanced tips!
In case you missed it:
Last week, I discussed the concept of double shifting your healers. I instructed that it is possible to assign one person to look after more than 2 people simultaneously. This week, I’m going to discuss the pivot healer.
Simply put, pivot healers are single target healers that switch between two or more assignments. It’s a technique to make life a little easier for your healing lead. It’s a way to minimize idle healers and recycle them.
Still unsure of what I’m referring to? Let me give you an example.
The first dual phase fight that comes to my mind is that of Leotheras. There are two main tanks required for the encounter and they alternate themselves depending on what phase Leo is. If Leo is a demon, the Warlock tanks him. If Leo is in his Elf form, he get’s controlled by a standard tank.
In true Matticus-like fashion, I’ll park 2 Paladins and a Priest on the main tank during Elf mode. Once phase 2 hits and Leo turns super saiyan, the same 2 Paladins and Priest immediately pivot over to the Warlock tank. At this point in time, the main tank is no longer taking the brunt of the damage so the healers that were on them can be rotated off of them.
And that’s today’s lecture! Hopefully the really cheesy graphic above can help illustrate what I’m trying to say. Remember they switch targets after a phase is over and look after whoever is holding the attention of the boss!
I opted to write about Holy Priest Glyphs on WoW Insider this morning. Feel free to head over there and take a look and tell me what you think!
You asked about it, Jess. This is what Starfall looks like. This must be the only time I’ve ever felt envious about Druids.