ToGC Positioning and Healing

[Eklef]

Aliena recently posted a video about healing strategies (http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f207/57889-togc-25-healer-s-perspective.html) for ToGC 25, which Seth pointed out to me the other day. She has some interesting points for each fight (though most is geared towards holy priests), and I think it would be beneficial for all our healers to take a moment and watch it. :)

One thing that I noticed is that her guild tanks gormock in the doorway. They are still placing totems in that center circle, as we do, so they are still making use of a large portion of the room for their ranged people. There are a couple things I really like about this strat.

1) The coliseum room is deceptively large - I feel the way we are currently tanking Gormock has us TOO spread out. I was talking with Saffy a bit about this last week, and it seems like a lot of ranged dps are not in range of more than one or two healers constantly. This is a huge problem considering the amount of attention the tanks need for this fight. If a ranged dps gets hit with a firebomb right after a tank takes an impale and gormock does his stomp, and they happen to only be in range of tank healers - it's likely they will die if they took more than one stack of the debuff. Tanking him in the doorway still gives the ranged a large amount of the room to spread out, while at the same time putting everyone in range of more healers.

2) I think maybe we are a little too vague with the idea of "raid healing" in this fight. Ranged is in the most danger of dying on Gormock(aside from tanks, of course), even though melee will take a lot more damage overall. The stomp is a good chunk of health, but it is predictable and won't kill anyone at full health. There is plenty of time to top off the melee before the next stomp. I know range is an issue right now, but the raid healers really need to be ready to drop whatever they are doing to get a heal off on whoever is hit with a firebomb. Unfortunately, tank healers do not have the same option, and I feel this is why ranged dps dies on the fight. I have had times where someone near me is hit with a firebomb, but the tank is in sufficient danger that I feel the need to finish my current cast. I then move to rejuv + swiftmend the firebomb target (druid's best "insta" heal, for those unfamiliar) and the dps dies between the two spells. I think if we modify our set-up so that more people are in range of the raid healers, and the raid healers really focus on healing those firebomb targets ASAP, we will stop seeing people die to them altogether.

3) One last thing that's really nice about this strat, is that it makes the transition between Gormock and the Worms a lot easier. The ranged dps and healers will already be pretty much in position AND spread out enough to avoid multiple people to get hit with the debuffs. Despite our dry-runs of where people are planning to stand, the transition between the two fights is still pretty hectic - especially if we are running behind on dps and the worms come in before we have him down. Being pretty much in position already should eliminate those times where multiple ranged get hit with the debuff because they were still moving into position.

Well, those are my two cents. Take it or leave it - I just want to see us successfully down this encounter and move on to Lord Jaraxxus. :)

[Sol]

Thanks, this should really be quite helpful. I think our critical challenge in that fight is how to handle the worms -- especially once they emerge the 2nd time. we tend to get a bunch of people bunched up and biled or toxin'd and that is a huge strain on the healers. Plus with all the moving around we tend to lose DPS while trying to maintain spacing.

Does this video address phase 2 issues that are tripping us up?

[Fayadin]

this is the transcript from the Northrend Beasts encounter of Trail of the Crusader

So, let's start out with Northrend Beasts. Typically, we take a setup of 6 healers to this. If you're new to the encounter or have a weak link in your healing team, taking 7 healers may be the better option for you. This requires a good DPS setup though, since the Northrend Beasts enrage encounter timer is fairly tight.

The test for your healing team is clearly phase 1. Gormok hits hard and the debuff he stacks on your tank will require people to constantly be assigned to keeping the tanks alive, even when they're letting their stacks run out and are not Gormok's main aggro target. We use a three tank rotation and have a paladin heal the two main tanks with Beacon of Light along with typically a resto shaman and a disc priest. We also take two resto druids that roll full hots on each tank. In this particular video we're running two holy priests that take care of the melee AoE damage with Prayer of Healing as well as support raid heal Fire Bomb and Snobold targets. When no one is taking obvious splash damage, we help tank heal.

As holy priest, keep Prayer of Mending bouncing, pre-heal Spell Block with Prayer of Healing, try to keep inspiration on the tanks and make use of Circle of Healing when appropriate. As disc priest, keep all tanks shielded, shield fire bomb and snobold targets, keep Penance off cooldown and stack Grace and Inspiration on the tank taking hits.

In phase 2, again we have a holy pally with beacon on both tanks, HoTs rolling, Shaman tank healing until melee take poison damage and disc priest tank healing as well as shielding people with the debuff. As holy priest, I stack up serendipity with tank healing to be ready to use Prayer of Healing on the melee group when a poison cloud spawns or they take a debuff.

In phase 3, healing is not a huge concern. Spread out your healers so there's always someone available to heal that's not getting stunned by the ice breath,have two or so healers constantly heal your tank, and make sure any available disc priest shields targets getting hit by icy breath. Pre-hotting works wonders for the stun that pre-dates the charge - as holy priest, I keep up renew on all the melee when I know it's coming and afterward use Prayer of Healing on groups that didn't get healed by HoTs. The best time to use Divine Hymn is if either a lot of people get hit by a debuff in phase 2 or after an icy breath in phase 3.