HELP: spine HC - holy and disc priest with shaman

[Deleted]

Hi guys, need some help please.

we are going DS HC again tonight to get down spine HC. last week we only got to the third plate and kept losing people.

Our setup is me (holy priest), Disc priest and resto shaman (on dispel duty)

our tank is a warrior kiting the bloods, and a druid on the amalgamations

Basically we were using PW:Barrier with spirit link on rolls and hymns whenever possible on the nuclear blasts. We kept losing the shaman to threat problems on the bloods towards the end. And we tended either to have not enough healing on the last roll or blast to get through to the final phases.

question is: should I be using hymn on rolls and spirit link totem on blasts? I hear the totem is great at removing the searing plasma debuffs that might be remaining.

Or should me and the shaman be on rolls, and leave the disc priest to control the blasts with barrier and hymns?

we also have a shadow priest who is able to hymn.

thanks for your advice, it's just so tough to figure out in which order we should use each cd, we have 3 hymns, spirit link totems and barrier, but we must not be doing something right.

link to my profile: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...pples/advanced

personally I think my healing wasnt right, I am used to disc but had to go holy for this fight, I wasnt keepin renews on all searing plasma targets and was swapping randomly between chakras to test which was better. Regardless, the searing plasma debuffs were managed quite well, but the explosions and rolls were the things that got us :S

[Deleted]

Spine is still a relatively difficult fight due to the healing! However, we had a similar healer setup to you (HPala, DPriest, RShaman). We had our Disc Priest on Dispel duty since you can still shield etc; generally I guess use Hymn when you're getting overrun with Plasma debuffs. For CD a rotation, we went for Barriers on the Nuclear Blasts and Spirit Links when we went to roll Deathwing.

We also used a Druid for Bloods, not sure if that makes too much of a difference, but it worked for us.

As for Chakras if you're on debuffs, I'd go for Serenity (I think it's called at least, I haven't played Holy in a LONG time) just pop that on debuffs with a renew and spam heal (Though as you're getting to the third plate I'm assuming it's not much of an issue).

Hope this helps even a little, and good luck with the fight!

[Tradu]

Spirit Link should be enough for rolls by itself. If you have a mage, you can have him Iceblock the first and third rolls, which makes Spirit Link keep everybody at whatever % health the mage was at when he Iceblocked.
Use PW:B and Hymns for 9 stacks/blast. The healers should be at 70%+ mana at the very least for the last plate, otherwise you'll most likely run into mana issues. You don't have to kite the bloods before the third plate, and even then its not absolutely necessary anymore. If your shaman is getting aggro on the bloods, have your warrior taunt them faster(he should have almost infinite taunts), have a hunter(if you have one) MD them to him or just let the druid pick up a few.
I think our specific tactic was using a Hymn or Tranq for every 9stack/Blast, SLT and a tank 4p for rolls(along with bugging it with Iceblock). Depending on your DPS, you could try blowing up the first or 2nd Tendon in 1 lift with BL and pots. That should significantly reduce the time the boss takes, which means less strain on the healers and less bloods.(the healers and tanks need to help with this, and on the 3rd plate they'll be too busy)

[Deleted]

Thanks for the tip on the mage iceblock! We have a mage and will definitely give this a go, 4pc bonus and spirit link totem being enough, that would allow us to always have a hymn for every blast with me, the disc and shadow priest, and a barrier too when needed

thanks Arjface for the tip on the chakras, i think serenity is the way to go, I'll just renew, holyword:serenity and GH them, should be enough.

Does anyone know if we should really be using the druid to kite bloods? I was thinking the same thing but am not sure what the benefits would be. Warriors are great that they can leap everywhere but druids might aoe kill faster? not sure.

thanks again

[Tradu]

The warrior has way more kiting tools, can keep them stunned way longer and you don't want to AoE the shit out of them, so that shouldn't be a factor.

[Krysann]

If your Shaman is getting blood aggro, there are a couple of things you can do. If you have a paladin, have use BoP. Have the shaman stand with the amalg tank who can pick off any bloods from your shaman. Healers should be up with the Amalg tank anyway because of this issue. Your warrior doesn't need to kite until the lift and if the healers and tanks are up at the front all the bloods should be super easy for them to pick up.

[Dracodraco]

with a resto druid-disc priest- resto shaman setup (basicly same as yours, holy priests and resto druids brings the same strengths and raid cooldown), we blow link + tranq (hymn for you) on every roll to top off all plasma's, and we blow a vampiric blood (2x dk tanks) for every nucleus, with one vamp blood in backup. You could just rotate tank 4pcs, and perhaps utilise DG on the first lift on third plate (so that your tanks can keep their CD's for when they need them rather than use them on a blast).

[Jaydenkor]

I gotta be honest with you, disc priests are terrible on this fight. The reason is debuff clearing -- has to be HEALED not absorbed.
If you insist on keeping the disc priest, THEY need to be the one dispelling so your shaman can output whats needed.
Realistically that disc priest should go holy for this fight. 3 *ground* healing rains will make your life much simpler.

CD order we use:
Every roll = Hpriest Dhymn +Spirit link totem +warrior tanks 4p 20%shield wall.
Every Pulsing = +20% healing taken (4pBlood DK Tank bonus), Aura mastery available if needed/high hp amalg.
The final amalg on 3rd plate can also be Dhymn +SLink totem from the Hpriest and shaman.

Ideally the pulses are not an issue. My setup uses a holypaladin on dispels +Auramastery for 1 of the 2 amalgs per plate... but more often then not hes not using it.
Part of the reason you ARE having an issue with the pulses, is your shaman is dispelling, and the disc priest is unable to clear debuffs as much.. so you have more debuffs up when pulses start.

---------- Post added 2012-08-12 at 05:56 PM ----------

reading more of the posts.. CHakra Serenity is definitely NOT the way to go - The ground effect heal is healing all the burst dmg, helping keep tanks topped, healing debuffs.. its amazing, also, Renew is boosted by 15% in chakra Sanctuary - usually 1 renew +Ground effect heals is all thats needed to clear a debuff... unless your pushing for faster debuff clearing.

During pulses Im also noting which is the newest debuff, flash them twice (or binding), and then PoH a group, flash twice, PoH the other group...

.. And USE the lightwell!

[Deleted]

thanks again for the tips guys, please keep them coming, im definitely going to use what i can

Jaydenkor, I had to get rid of lightwell to make way for other talents, like lowering my fade cd and taking spirit of redemption in case i die. Perhaps, could you, or somebody check my spec and let me know if my talents are wrong then? I would love to have the lightwell back because my raid uses it pretty frequently.

Ignore the gear, I went and did some pvp with what little pvp gear i had

edit: raid is postponed till monday now so even more time to prepare

[Meejum]

Have to agree with having the disc priest take care of the dispelling, just makes more sense that way.

Which tank you have for amalgs and bloods really shouldnt matter at this point, unless the warrior has far better gear than the druid. Kiting isnt really necessary anymore, and it makes it easier for the blood tank to grab stray bloods if he is stood still and the healers stack on top of him.

If you have a pally, you could hand of salv or hand of prot the sham healer after 3rd roll if he continues to grab blood aggro. Could also use an MD or tricks to help get initial blood aggro to the tanks after 3rd roll.

edit: Lightwell renew is awesome for debuff clearing. Easily worth it.

[Isotope]

At this point in the game you don't even need to kite. Before each flip you need to kill the bloods that are up and soak up with the amalgs. This will take out 20-36 bloods out of the fight.

[Deleted]

At this point in the game you don't even need to kite. Before each flip you need to kill the bloods that are up and soak up with the amalgs. This will take out 20-36 bloods out of the fight.

so the point would be instead of kiting you kill them off to prevent the melee hits? do we get our dps to help out there? or would the tank be able to do it you reckon?

[Dracodraco]

so the point would be instead of kiting you kill them off to prevent the melee hits? do we get our dps to help out there? or would the tank be able to do it you reckon?

Point would be, that everytime you kill a blood, it becomes a pool that gives the amalg 1 stack. That pool will slowly creep towards the nearest hole that they spawn from. When it reaches it, it'll regen into a new blood. Which means you never really get rid of them, they just get incapacitated for a period of time.
If you however, soak them with an amalg, they will dissappear from the fight.
The idea here is that when you're about to roll after prying off a plate, you aoe all the live bloods, your tank pulls the amalgs into them 2-3 secs before the roll happens, and the amalgs soaks every single blood and do not get a tick of AOE dmg off on you. Tadaah, fight basicly "reset" and you'll work your way up from 0 bloods, instead of going on to the third plate with maybe 20 bloods alive.
Of course, there will be more bloods on plate number 3, because they spawn roughly every 8 seconds on the first plate, every 6 on the second, and every 4 on the third plate (so they'll come in double as fast as at the start).
This means the tank won't have to kite, which means he can tank in the middle of your healers = no aggro deaths.

[Deleted]

This means the tank won't have to kite, which means he can tank in the middle of your healers = no aggro deaths.

brilliant, thanks for explaining this

[Deleted]

Disc dispels, shields plasma targets on nukes and spams attonement hf/smite with a poh here and there for the first two plates. On 3rd plate he just lays out the smack with tons of poh to cover the increased aoe dmg.
Holy priest, renew on plasma target, serenity chakra, focus on using heal/hws/gh and coh to get rid of plasma. Sanc chakra is pure snipe healing and should be ignored on 10m spine, unless you run with 2 hpalas or some shit.
Shaman uses riptide on cd and ghw/hw to clear debuffs and healing rain to cover the passive aoe, if needed can use ch aswell.
Amal tank uses his big 50% cd on 9stack nukes.
On rolls use blood tank (the warrior!) cooldowns + all healer cooldowns, on 3rd roll use external cooldowns and personal cooldowns to reduce the dmg, even further. If you can survive the 3rd roll without deaths you're very close to a kill.

Use lust on the 5th nuke to increase healing, for the 6th nuke you'll have the cooldowns you used on the 3rd roll ready again if you timed it right.

Also spec out of SoR and pick up lightwell, replace md glyph with fade glyph and you'll have a very hard time dying with proper fade usage, thus making SoR completely useless. Also replace GS glyph with lightwell glyph and use Lightwell on rolls for joke mode.

[Dracodraco]

Disc dispels, shields plasma targets on nukes and spams attonement hf/smite with a poh here and there for the first two plates. On 3rd plate he just lays out the smack with tons of poh to cover the increased aoe dmg.
Holy priest, renew on plasma target, serenity chakra, focus on using heal/hws/gh and coh to get rid of plasma. Sanc chakra is pure snipe healing and should be ignored on 10m spine, unless you run with 2 hpalas or some shit.
Shaman uses riptide on cd and ghw/hw to clear debuffs and healing rain to cover the passive aoe, if needed can use ch aswell.
Amal tank uses his big 50% cd on 9stack nukes.
On rolls use blood tank cooldowns + all healer cooldowns, on 3rd roll use external cooldowns and personal cooldowns to reduce the dmg, even further. If you can survive the 3rd roll without deaths you're very close to a kill.

Use lust on the 5th nuke to increase healing, for the 6th nuke you'll have the cooldowns you used on the 3rd roll ready again if you timed it right.

There is no blood tank. Their best bet if they keep the same setup is:

Roll 1: Whatever (start).
Amalg1: Shield Wall.
Amalg2: Frenzied Regen.
Roll 2: Spirit link, holy priest Dhymn, Barrier.
Amalg3: Shield Wall.
Amalg4: Frenzied Regen.
Roll 3: Spirit link, holy priest Dhymn, Disc priest Dhymn.
Amalg 5: Barrier.
Amalg 6: Frenzied Regen (+ anything else).
This leaves Shield Wall up for the warr tank to use, should he get too many bloods on him to handle.

[Deleted]

Nice summary to bring it all back together

I think we will try to get the Mage to ice block while we spirit link totem, see if that works, it'll save a few CDs for other periods. It feels alot like cheating tho so perhaps we might end up doing it the proper way as you have just said

[Deleted]

There is no blood tank. Their best bet if they keep the same setup is:

Roll 1: Whatever (start).
Amalg1: Shield Wall.
Amalg2: Frenzied Regen.
Roll 2: Spirit link, holy priest Dhymn, Barrier.
Amalg3: Shield Wall.
Amalg4: Frenzied Regen.
Roll 3: Spirit link, holy priest Dhymn, Disc priest Dhymn.
Amalg 5: Barrier.
Amalg 6: Frenzied Regen (+ anything else).
This leaves Shield Wall up for the warr tank to use, should he get too many bloods on him to handle.

Didn't say dk... Blood tank = The warrior tank I guess.

[Rullis]

the reason you might wipe is because your dps is killing too many bloods. we barely touch bloods at last platform, just single target 9 of them if they don't die by small aoe.

[Rhodekil]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLVAH...&feature=g-upl

This is a video of our main run's kill. Figured you can use this to see what our healers are doing

I heal this has a holy priest on our alt run.
We run with a Holy priest, Resto Druid and Resto Shaman
We use Hymn/Tranq/SL on the roll. The reason we do this is so that dps can drop as many adds as possible during the roll. If your tank is able enough you should not need to use big CD's on the Nuclear Blast, possibly just use a tank 4 piece. Ideally you should only get hit with only 1/2 explosions before the plate lifts @ which point you have plenty of time to heal people up.
Have your DISC bubbling anybody with the debuff before the explosions to mitigate the damage.


This fight has ALOT to do with the DPS being aware of their own debuff and when to kill bloods. Bloods should only be killed when the raid is @ full HP and people need to NOT pull aggro on bloods when they have the debuff. This just causes expensive healing for the healers.