Was I wrong?

[SilkforCalde]

Last night on my resto druid I got into a group that claimed they were going 10 / 12+ in 25 man ICC, a semi-guild run with a lot of pugs. On hard mode Marrowgar we almost wiped so I knew we weren't going to do many hard modes, but the guild leading the pug wanted to do heroic Saurfang. They have a mage that is not the raid leader explain the strategy and all my alarm bells started going off due to his explanation. We had 6 healers for the fight. Two priests (not sure on spec), one shaman, two druids, and one paladin. They said that the marks would be healed following a specific order. One priest would take the first mark, then a resto druid would take the second, the other druid take the third, the shaman take the fourth, and the paladin would take the fifth.

As I expected, we had 5 marks by 30% and immediately one of the marks died. The fourth, which they made a big deal about, but I felt that was irrelevant and was bound to happen.

For the second attempt, the exact same thing happened, so they felt like it was appropriate to blame the resto shaman for not healing his mark enough. At this point I began questioning their strategy. They didn't like this. I asked them why the paladin wasn't taking the first mark. I don't play a holy paladin, but I know how the spec works. They have an ability called beacon of light that heals another target besides the one they are currently healing. To me, it makes sense to have the beacon on someone taking damage.

My basic argument was that the holy paladin should beacon the first mark and spam heals on the tank. They argued that the holy paladin should beacon one tank and spam heal the others and that the other healers could keep up the marks. I shut up because we were going for another attempt. This one ended much more badly as by about the time the fourth mark appeared, the first mark died. They started to blame the shaman again until I pointed out that his mark wasn't the one that died. That his mark hadn't even had time to appear.

Again, I started arguing my point. They claimed that it was irrelevant for the paladin to heal the first mark because the other healers could keep up the marks. I explained that it was monumentally stupid and ass backwards to have a paladin waste mana for absolutely zero gain. At this point they started trying to shout me down and started making up the most inane explanations I've ever heard. For instance, they said that the paladin was glyphed for holy light and that the group needed is holy light splash healing on the melee. At this point, I realized that whoever was explaining the fights had absolutely no idea how the game worked so I left the group. I mean, why wouldn't holy light splash healing land on the melee if the paladin beaconed the first mark and healed the tank?

Furthermore, what's the point in beaconing a target that isn't taking damage?

Was I wrong?

[Asotcha]

well i dont play a holy paladin either but on raid vents im always hearing 'beacon this, beacon that' so i know its a powerful tool in tehir arsenal, your strategy of beaconing the mark sounds reasonable to me

i dont think you were wrong because that group was clearly full of idiots--even a raid leader without too much idea of how the fight works is willing to learn especially after the fail-way has failed so often, and the idea that they were bitching out the resto shammy when his mark hadnt even come out yet turns my stomach. what a bunch of fools, you were right to leave the group.

[Frozendekay]

Our strat is our 1st H pally takes tanks + mark 1, the next pally takes mark 2 +3. and the other healers take the rest of the marks/raid heal.

Holy pally on the first mark is the general strategy. But the resto shaman letting a mark die doesnt really have anything to do with which order the healers take the marks. Seems like the shaman just failed.

[SilkforCalde]

Yes, I felt the shaman could have picked up his healing but I also felt the general strategy could have been altered significantly with absolutely zero loss and major gain with a completely minor switch.

I didn't feel like embroiling an alt into a shouting match, however, and the group I was running with had no idea what they were talking about. For instance, when a mage that was marked died (the only mage in the 25 man raid), I remarked how that was poor RNG and a mage getting the mark is a worst case scenario. They argued with me endlessly that it doesn't make the slightest difference if, say, a DPS DK were to get a mark compared to a mage, despite the fact that a DPS DK has a substantially larger health pool as well as more armor to mitigate the physical damage that a mark does. I was just baffled. How do you not realize that a debuff that is affected by armor would be easier to handle on a high armor / high hp unit compared to a low armor / low hp unit?

[shocktopuslol]

the way my guild does it (2 holy pallie, 2 resto shaman, 1 disc priest, 1-2 resto druid)
we have 1 paladin heal the first mark, when the second mark comes that paladin beacons the 2nd mark and heals the first 2
3rd mark the other paladin heals it and beacons the 4th mark and heals the 3rd and 4th
i heal the 5th mark
the druid heals the 6th mark (ussually get the 6th when hes almost dead)
the disc priest and the other shaman heal the tanks and the raid.
i would say you are right and that the person explaining the fights was a massive retard

[patrins]

there is no reason for the paladin to be wasting free heals on the OT that isnt taking damage.

when we do heroic saurfang both our holy pallies take the marks alone and everyone else heals the tanks.

like the tanks are getting zero heals from the holy paladins once 4 marks are out

[Litoru]

I agree that the paladin should've taken the first mark, and as a resto shaman myself I know it isn't the easiest thing to keep a mark up on heroic. When our guild didn't have any holy paladins, but instead 3-4 resto shamans (T_T), the marked ones just ran in to melee range, so that shamans could spam chain heal on them (hitting the tanks at the same time).

[TruffleMuffin]

When we do this as a guild the Holy paladin takes the first 3 marks or the last 3 marks, and the Disc priest takes the rest. I hate bragging, but they are both really awesome healers. I can't comment on other setups, but those two seem ideal for marks due to their healing abilities (class wise not skill wise).

[evan_s]

Add another one to the I don't play a pally but that's how we always do it. Haven't done heroic yet, but for normal it's always pallys beaconing the first X marks depending on how many Holy Pallys we have.

Ultimately, I don't think it matters because if you had 5 marks by 30% and only had 5 healers then your dps wasn't high enough to get the kill. You'd have gotten at least a 6th mark before you were able to kill him and probably more. Since you didn't have more healers or plans for the additional marks, you'd loose someone and Saurfang would heal.

[Tharkkun]

When we're blessed with both our holy paladins showing up they each take 2 marks like most have stated. 1 normal, 1 beaconed. Our shaman takes 1 and our druid takes the 6th if needed. That leaves our Disc priest and druid hots healing the tanks. Tanks should be blowing a cooldown every swap anyways after 30% so the healing doesn't become that outrageous. The fail always comes in when someone decides to ninja heal something other
than their "mark" target.

One thing I'm sure most pugs don't do is bop spellcasters when they get boiling blood to reduce his blood power gain. Only casters though, not the frigging tanks, hunters or melee.