2 or 3 heal heroic SoO?

[Notdev]

It really depends on your raid, your tank composition, and your hybrid healing CDs. You're going to have to do a lot of finding out for yourself, and taking what other people suggest with a grain of salt. Nothing is clear cut, just because some people can 2 heal it doesn't mean you should.

For example, we spent a lot of wipes 2 healing Garrosh since so many people recommended it, but when we switched to 3 healers, we made so much more progress and killed it in few more attempts. We also have zero hybrid healing CDs most of the time.

As for heroics, we've 3 healed Immerseus and Protectors so far. Plan to 2 heal Nourshen and Sha of Pride, and probably 3 heal Galakras.

[Deleted]

We use 3 on Immersus/Protectors/Juggernaut/Shamans and 2 on Norushen/Sha/Galakras/Nazgrim/Malkorok.

Personally I'd rather use 2 on Protectors and Shamans but 3 just made them too easy.

[wombats23]

It really does just come down to how well your raid handles mechanics. The better your raid responds to mechanics properly, the less healing will be required. Having 6 DPSers as opposed to 5 also just speeds fights up considerably and in plenty of cases makes some mechanics even easier.

Immerseus has so much avoidable/managable damage it is easily 2 healed. The extra DPS is so much more useful since it'll get rid of the swelling stacks quicker, reduce the number of adds that can hit the middle and help AoE the adds. The 3rd healer really doesn't do anything 2 healers wouldn't already be able to do as long as your raid does the fight properly.

Same with Fallen Protectors (that is, to 2 heal it). Sha Sear damage can be mitigated just by spreading out and moving out during Rook's phase. The healing never gets intense as long as you cycle through the phases quickly (which the extra DPS will help with). And really, the only healing intensive parts are during Rook's phase and right before you can wipe all the garrotes and enter He's phase. Really though, Rook is just popping a raid CD or two. The pre-He phase is the same, pop a CD based on how your healers feel.

Norushen is 2 healable but with the changes, you could easily 3 heal it. That said, if you can make sure the corruption orb gets picked up ASAP, a single healer can handle all the healing at any given time until you reach below the 30% mark, by which time both healers will be outside for the rest of the fight. The extra DPS just speeds up the fight and gets the adds killed quicker.

Sha of Pride has plenty of avoidable damage. The fight really is just responding to all the mechanics immediately. By this I mean: close rifts as soon as they spawn, stack up as soon as you get gift of the titans (so your healer can dispel), break the raid member out of pacman asap, kill the add in the back asap, break prisons asap. Notice all the urgency? It really is just be quick on your toes. The fight does get quite hectic towards the end since it'll be hard to find a time to stand still and cast, but definitely manageable with CDs and blood lust.

Galakras I've never even considered to be a 3 healed fight. I can see the interest in 3 healing it but your healers will have a hard time finding anything to do outside of the 15 seconds the viper boss has to die and however long it takes your 1st tower group to kill the drakes in the sky. Again, getting the tower done quicker only makes the fight easier. In addition, once Galakras is finally down, I'd argue the extra DPS to kill him would outweigh a 3rd healer. Probably a fight where you should plan raid CDs before hand so you can shoot Galakras down and know exactly what to do. If you have your CDs mapped out, healing shouldn't be an issue.

IJ is definitely a 3 healer fight. I'd imagine 2 healing it is possible, but until your entire raid is in the 570 ilvl range, I doubt you'd be able to pull it off consistently. Well chained CDs would probably make it work but not everyone has the luxury of having a comp that can chain CDs for a whole minute.

Dark Shamans is a coin flip I suppose. On one hand, you are at risk at being gibbed just because a fallen ash decides to land right as a toxic mist is at 3 seconds left so that 3rd healer can prove to be a savior with a well timed flash heal/regrowth/healing surge/etc. On the other hand, that extra DPS just ends that last 25% phase where there will "actual" damage (outside of the 25% phase, there's either plenty of time to heal people up before something else happens or someone there will be plenty of damage in a very short window). That said, I'd argue that a 3rd healer won't really save people from getting gibbed, which is really the only danger in the fight. IMHO, not getting gibbed is more on the hands of the person that is about to die since he/she should pop a personal if they notice the timers of 2 or 3 moves is going to coincide.

The rest of the fights seem to be solid 2 heal fights outside of Thok. That said, I haven't done any of the fights other than a handful of pulls on Nazgrim so I won't pretend to know much there. Also, all of these views are based on how my guild handles the fights. In some cases, 3 healing might be a better fit for others since they have a different strategy. Ultimately though, 3 healing a fight seems like a move to just make up for everyone else not doing mechanics properly (barring fights that really pump out the damage to mandate a 3rd healer). Of course, this is far easier said than done. However, playing with the mind set of always 3 healing just to make up for bad play just seems like a bad practice to encourage. Before long, you'll be at the foot steps of the "hard" bosses and finding yourself actually restricted by DPS requirements and making 3 healing impossible. In most cases, having that extra DPS to push a phase quicker and having everyone in the raid handle mechanics is just way more helpful.



tl;dr
Immerseus - 2
Protectors - 2
Norushen - 2
Sha - 2
Galakras - 2
IJ - 3
Dark Shamans - 2/3

3 healing is never out of the question but there are plenty of moments where having that extra DPS to push a phase quicker will result in an easier fight than if you had a longer phase but 3 healers. I'd say try every fight as a 2 healing fight first and then only jump up to 3 healing if you find that it is absolutely impossible 2 heal it. In most cases, handling the mechanics better or mapping out CDs ahead of time will end up letting you 2 heal.
That said, your mileage may vary. Every guild is different!

[Sonnillon]

Thanks wombats for a very decent read. Loads to take away and to think about.

I believe that having someone w/ off-healing ability like ele. shaman (w/o him we wouldn't have killed garrosh w/ 2 healers) will make us go with 2 healers, whether on first pull or later.

And I do understand that each guild is different, specially the one I am in ^^, but having various opinions always helps.

Thanks again for the ideas on how many healers.

[Fleuria]

Killed every boss on 10hc we used

Immerseus - 3/sometimes 2
Protectors - 3
Norushen - 2
Pride - 2
Galakras - 2/3 depending
Iron Jugernaut -3
Shamans - 3, dps is no issue what so ever with the 3 tank strat.
Malkorok - 2
Spoils - 2
thok - 3
blackfuse - 2
paragons - 2
garrosh - 2

[Oriana]

Our healers are discipline priest and hole pala. Elem shammy specs to resto for 4 fights only.
Immerseus - 3
Protectors - 3
Norushen - 2
Pride - 2
Galakras - 2
Iron Jugernaut -3
Shamans - 2
Malkorok - 2
Spoils - 2
thok - 3
blackfuse - 2 (we didn't kill the last 3 bosses on hc difficulty yet, but definitely will not 3 heal them).
paragons - 2
garrosh - 2

[Axelond]

This is only my opinion and we also usually go with more healers than needed if berserk is not an huge issue to be safer and go with fewer wipes.

Immerseus: 2*
Fallen Protectors: 3 (Fine I give you that, You need 3 for this boss
Norushen: 2*
Sha of Pride: 2
Galakras: 2*
Iron Juggernaut: 2* (Druid shaman np)
Dark Shamans: 2*(One with each group easy)
Nazgrim: 2
Malkorok: 2
Spoils of Pandaria: 2
Thok: 3(haven't tried him yet
Rest: Most likely with 2 but not killed those yet

All 10 man hc

[Deleted]

Why would you ever want to 2 heal immerseus? You don't really lose anything by adding one.
More dispells = more dps during burst/bloodlust. More corruption cleansed during the later phases. More raid stability.

[Orcindauh]

Immersues isn't really a big dps race so I'd recommend 3 healers, makes it much easier.

[Deleted]

What we used was

Immerseus - 2
Protectors - 3
Noru - 2
Pride - 2
Galakras - 3
Iron Jugg - 2
Shamans - 3
General - 2
Malk - 3, could have 2 healed but our dps is very strong so no need to.
Spoils - 2
Thok - 3
Siegecrafter - 2
Paragons - 3, we had 2 for 80% of progression, and could for sure have killed it with 2, but we realised the did not need the extra dps and a third healer just made it smoother and took away deaths from people being retarded standing in shit.
Garrosh - 2

[Deleted]

We are currently 11/14H. We used 2 healers for all fights (Monk + priest).
Iron Juggernaut is the only one that could be an issue. We have done Iron Juggernaut with 3 as well, but both options were fine. Either you go with 2 healers and only have 1 transition phase to go trough. Or you go with 3 healers and you have 2.

[wombats23]

Why would you ever want to 2 heal immerseus? You don't really lose anything by adding one.
More dispells = more dps during burst/bloodlust. More corruption cleansed during the later phases. More raid stability.

When do you really ever need that 3rd healer if you do the fight right? The fight literally gets easier and easier as it goes on. The hardest parts of the fight all take place in the beginning where in the very first up phase when he has his full 100% hp and max swelling corruption stacks. Then his very first down phase can also lead to a wipe if too many adds get to the middle because your DPS is not spread well enough.

Yeah, you don't really lose anything by having a 3rd healer but you don't really gain anything from it either. If anything, you risk raid stability during the first down phase since there will be a large number of DPS adds up gunning for the middle in exchange for raid stability at the end where there will be a large number of healing adds gunning for the middle. You don't really gain any extra DPS from having that extra dispel since your DPSers can just switch to the adds that spawn while they wait for their debuff to fall off. Personally, the fight feels more unforgiving if you have a sloppy start than if you have a sloppy ending, so a comp that is helps you get through the beginning is best (that is, a 2 healing comp).

Of course, every guild is different. Feel free to do what works best for your guild.

[Aerna]

We used 2 for everything except Immerseus (can be easily 2 healed but there isn't much point to do so), Juggernaut and Thok.

[Lumiair]

We run a MW Shammy for heals with a Disc on our 3 heal fights

Immerseus - 3 cause it's just easier that way but definitely 2'able if you need deeps.
Protectors - 2
Norushen - 2
Sha -2
Galakras - 2
Iron Juggernaut - 3 but I'm sure it's 2'able
Shamans - 3 with the 3 tank strat
Nazgrim - 2
Malk - 2 but 3 would be nice if the dps is there.
Spoils - 2
No exp on the other heroics yet :/

[Deleted]

When do you really ever need that 3rd healer if you do the fight right?

You won't do everything right if you're progressing on it.
Over the whole fight there are as many healing globules as dps globules. That surely means that one more healer will effect those much more than yet another dps. 5 dps and two tanks for dps globules is enough.
If you take another healer you can skip one more phase as well as having added healing on the raid for damage from adds, shit on floor and debuffs. Of course you can 2 heal it in your guild, but giving out bad advice helps nobody.

[land]

Immerseus: 2
Fallen Protectors: 3
Norushen: 2
Sha of Pride: 2
Galakras: 2
Iron Juggernaut: 4
Dark Shamans: 2
Nazgrim: 2
Rest: dunno

[Deleted]

Do you have logs of how effective the pala was spamming EF as a matter of curiosity? I do it on Thok and with high vengeance each heals for 1.3m over its duration. While 2 heals is viable for a first kill on protectors, the damage is high and spiky and our healers aren't bad. As a point of reference one of our healers was slow to get to IJ last week and we had a ninja pull and she solo healed it.

http://worldoflogs.com/reports/0phmb...?s=1584&e=2123

I didn't say I recommend 2 healing to any random guild, but I'm just saying that, even though it required a very specific team comp to pull it off, it helped us on that fight quite a bit. I was a strong proponent against it until I saw that faster phases meant less garrotes and fewer opportunities for people to screw up (fewer garrotes, more dps on mark of anguish, shorter rook desperate measure's phase etc.)

EDIT: Log is from our first kill.

[Barrun]

Two healing (resto shaman + disc priest) thus far (5/14h) has been easiest for us, that includes IJ and Protectors. Rook's desperate measures are over so much quicker with an extra dps and that's really the only challenging part of the encounter. IJ I imagine would be a lot easier with 3 but we were hitting the enrage timer (even came close 2 healing it) so we had no choice but to two heal it, it was rough for sure but we managed to keep everyone alive, and no we didn't overgear it since we were hitting the enrage which is 2 minutes shorter than DBM states; if you have a 3rd I would highly recommend 3 healing it because Borer Drill is an absolute headache for healers, but ignore the naysayers, 2 healing it is totally manageable.

[celinamuna]

Immerseus: 2
Fallen Protectors: 2
Norushen: 2
Sha of Pride: 2
Galakras: 2
Iron Juggernaut: 3 (2 healing is fine, but random sawblades are too stronk)
Dark Shamans: 2
Nazgrim: 2
Malkorok: 2
Spoils of Pandaria: 2
Thok: 2

[theburned]

Now that we are getting to HC boss's would love some opinion, which fights can be comfortable 2-healed, if one has no priest/paladin healers?

On normal we 2 heal all, but Thok. 3 healing Thok only to stay in phase 1 as long as possible.

All our healers (2x druid, mw and rshaman) are decently geared.

Immerseus, we are doing 3, but easier with 2 imo.
Fallen protectors: 3
norushen: no reason to go more than 2
sha of pride: same as norushen
galakras: 2
Iron Juggernaught: 3
Dark shamans: 2 healers and a warlock and 3 tanks
nazgrim: 2
Malkorok: 2 (will get down this week)
spoils of pandaria: 2 (not done, but if it is doable with 3 it is doable with 2.)
Thok: 2 and 3 works
Siegecrafter: probably 2 here too.
paragons: I assume 2
Garrosh: 1-2, 1 is sure as hell not comfy