Perhaps more than any other healing class, Wrath of the Lich King has revolutionized the way druids heal. I’m going to take a bit of a look back to where we came from as a way to help understand any troubles druid healers might face at present when we try to figure out what our role in raids should be.
Back in the “Good” Old Days
I came of age as a healer during the BC raid content, and I think part of me will always missing rolling Lifebloom stacks on four different tanks during the Hyjal trash waves. Lifebloom spam may have been widely criticized, but at the time it was effective and felt very dynamic for the player. The timing was tight enough to require tank-specific macros, which I miss, because I could always change their icons to a pig whenever I got mad at them (sorry, Brio). However, when healers argue now that they don’t want to be locked into a rotation, they’re probably thinking of something like old-school LB rolling with horror. That was a rotation, all right–but it left me dizzy. I had to keybind Lifebloom twice–both to my mouse clickwheel and to F. The “F” was for when I needed to refresh while turning with the mouse. At the time, there was no way to increase the 7 sec Lifebloom rotation, and the penalty for letting the stack fall off was fairly severe. I never ran into mana problems, but sometimes the tank would take more damage than I liked if their stack slipped off, and I had few ways to play catch-up. If one tank’s stack went, then most likely all four would.
Even some boss fights made Lifebloom spam worthwhile. On Illidari Council, I used to assign Bonkers to roll LB on three tanks, giving him 1 GCD per cycle free to do “whatever he wanted.” Let me add that the healing buffer Bonkers provided to three of the tanks won the fight for us on more than one occasion. Why did I give the assignment to Bonkers and not myself? Because Bonkers is quicker than me. My assignment, keeping up the group on Malande, was a lot easier. The odd thing is, these kinds of assignments seemed great to Resto Druids at the time–1 GCD free? That’s amazing.
First off, I don’t pretend to know a lot about the intricacies of healing, but I found a rant that was an interesting read (at least for entertainment value), courtesy of Enoc on the WoW role forums. After reading it, what are your thoughts? I’d especially love to hear from our fellow healers.
“Hi,
I’m common sense. There is more to healing than meters (just ask paladins). There is also worth in not being the best at something (just ask druids). You can also find things that unexpectedly make you desired (just ask shamans). There are problems that are real and there are problems that are perceived. A real problem is that penance has some weird facing issue that is a major nuisance. A perceived problem is that priests no longer have a purpose.
You will be fine. I don’t care if you think GC doesn’t care. GC probably does care or at least has to pretend. I don’t though. I don’t care if you think you will be replaced. I am replaced. I play a tree–its one and you’re done. no more in a raid if you’re maxing the guild. Better not join a guild with many druids. I also play a shaman–its frustrating watching myself replaced at the top of meters. Its frustrating watching myself being out done in every situation. I am fine though—I still do my job and do it well. I play a healadin–no matter what i do I will never, ever, top a meter and will never, ever, be good outside of a tank healing situation. At times, I hate this and want to rail against Blizzard for not improving my ability to aoe heal. At other times, I never go oom, I save the day solo-healing bosses, and i feel good. You will be fine. I don’t care if you think priests will be replaced–take it to the priest forum.
On this forum, we have a special and unique chance to interact with the developers. We have direct contact with those who create this game. Our messages feed into their considerations and might influence the game. You are wasting their time to the detriment of us all.”
Well now that Rayoflight has joined us and I have a Disc friend, I figured I’d share a few things I found that helped me with some of the LK mechanics. I found that my mana pool was getting drained much quicker than I anticipated. I ran through my combat logs and realized that my PW: S had outpaced the damage from Infest (meaning that my PW: S is absorbing the complete amount of dmg and not being consumed) and I was therefore not receiving mana back from Rapture.
This is actually a fairly common issue. I found a great blog that analyzed this issue. http://talesofapriest.com/?p=807#more-807
The steps I took to counter this…
- Calculate your effective PW: S amount with the calculator provided from Penance Priest blog (http://penancepriest.blogspot.com/2010/03/power-word-shield-calculator.html) .
- As my PW: S varies between approximately 13k and 16k absorbs (depending on procs and raid buffs) I had to down-grade the spell level. Ideally I want PW:S to absorb approximately 95% of Infest dmg.
- I downloaded this addon Shieldmonitor, as it displays a graphical bar that displays the amount that can be absorbed by your PW: S. After finding the appropriate rank for the spell, don’t forget to disable the addon, b/c seeing 25 bubble bars in raid could be a nightmare.
- To track Rapture, I set up Power Aura’s to let me know when it would be available so that I can cast to maximize my returns. Additionally, tanks should only receive PW: S with less than 2 seconds to go on the GCD of Infest. I try to get one shield on the OT as the GCD expires and one while the spell is being cast. This ensures that PW: S is able to absorb part of if not all of Infest as it hits the player.
This will be extremely helpful when confronting mana issues.
