1. #1

    Which chakra at what time?

    So, I'm pretty new to healing 10 mans for my guild, because I used to run my hunter in raid until we became shorthanded on healers. Luckily I've got a pretty pro team of carry healers, and I serve as the dps switch - Holy MS, shadow on offspec.

    Now, I'm pretty familiar with spell priority, how to maximize my efficiency, etc. I've worked out all the spell synergies: how to best conserve mana while spiking single target heals, how to raise my aoe throughput without being wasteful, etc. I think I have the basics down.

    My healing team consists of a resto druid (on tanks) a resto shaman (on raid, buffed significantly now - but he was good even before the buff!) and myself on raid as well.

    I know that it's better to be in chakra: sanctuary, if the situation is appropriate. By this: if my PoH's will overheal less than 20% in the immediate future, chakra:sanctuary gives me my best HPS and HPM. That is, if I know lots of aoe damage is incoming I switch to Sanctuary. Maintain an active mending, PoH spam with Circle on CD, sparing renews for raid evening, bind to trigger serendipity when I need to spike. PoH and CoH though lose their edge on Heal when Prayer will only land on 3 targets (sans overhealing).

    So this is when I want to be in Chakra: Serenity. OFC Serenity chakra has abysmal throughput, and the more you wish to ramp it up the worse mana efficiency becomes. HW:S on cooldown, Renews only on tanks or kiters (8 ticks or more/refreshing once makes it worth it) as each one you can maintain is a free 1+k hps. But other than this efficiency is horrible for any kind of sustained throughput: the only moment when it becomes ALMOST acceptable to use Serendipity for healing spikes is under the HW:S crit buff.

    Please tell me if my reasoning is solid here.

    Anyway, my real struggle is to anticipate when it's appropriate for which chakra, and arrive there in advance. I often find myself in wrong chakra right as cho'gall begins his furious roar, and mending has only 2 charges left (oops ). In this situation I have to switch chakra quickly and spike to keep up. Wasted mana is bad

    I'm hoping we can develop a list of triggers (hints) for when heavy AoE is inbound.

    Things I know:

    Magmaw: Mostly single target damage to raid, not enough AoE for Sanc to be effective until Lava Spew. Is there a hint as to when this is coming?
    Omni: If magmatron is up, C:Sanc for sure. If electron is up without magma, and my group has good mechanics there isn't enough AoE for C:Sanc
    Malo: Pretty easy. C:Serenity for blue/green phase, and enrage phase. C:Sanc for red. This one I think I have down.
    Chimaeron: Feud should be PRECEDED by a HW:Sanc, so I need to be in chakra early. But how can I tell whether an inbound massacre is about to trigger feud? Or do the rest of you just wait until the bot goes offline? I need to be in C:Serenity until the feud.
    Atrem: Since this is mostly a mechanics fight with mostly avoidable single target damage, I stay in Serenity. We're solid on atrem.


    Bot: ermmmm, I'll edit these in soon but please feel free to enlighten me ><

    So now, I'm ready to be told how wrong I am on all of these counts. My hps is unreliable, sometimes at the top of the list and sometimes way below par. So obviously i'm doing something wrong.

    Armory:
    us.battle.net/wow/en/character/blackrock/zakaluka/simple

    Right now I feel mana limited too often, so Spirit is my secondary stat focus. Probably at this ilvl as I get better at using my mana I should start re-emphasizing haste. But until I feel comfortable with my manapool, Spirit will be my top priority.
    Last edited by zakaluka; 2011-05-07 at 06:39 PM.

  2. #2
    Herald of the Titans Ynna's Avatar
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    In general you'll want to be in Chakra: Sanctuary all the time in raids. One some occasions where you're forced to heal the tank for a longer duration (shouldn't happen too often) you can switch to Chakra: Serenity, but it isn't really used in raids often. (with the exception of Chimaeron). You shouldn't really anticipate changes in Chakra, since you shouldn't change Chakra, most of the time.
    Now, that all I can say on the usage of Chakra.
    Gear
    Your gear looks quite alright, but could use some finetuning. First of all your head isn't enchanted. You gem for Haste, but you gem Haste into Mastery on your gear, which is a bit weird. Your Spirit seems a bit low, so you might want to look into that.
    Spec
    You should drop the points in Veiled Shadows (it doesn't do what you want it to do, unless you want to increase your damage output) and the point in State of Mind. With these point I would max out Darkness and put the rest in Divine Touch, Blessed Resilience or Desperate Prayer.
    Resurrected Holy Priest

  3. #3
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Ynna View Post
    You should drop the points in Veiled Shadows (it doesn't do what you want it to do, unless you want to increase your damage output)...
    Say what? Veiled shadows decreases your shadowfiend cooldown which is a mana regen buff, not a damage buff. I'm not sure it's really that worthwhile though if you're popping shadowfiend early.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Ferin View Post
    Say what? Veiled shadows decreases your shadowfiend cooldown which is a mana regen buff, not a damage buff. I'm not sure it's really that worthwhile though if you're popping shadowfiend early.
    Well, it doesn't do quite what people think it does, in that a lot of the time it's really not giving them any more regen than actually not taking the talents:

    Quote Originally Posted by harky View Post
    The likelihood of Veiled Shadows helping is actually very low and completely dependent on fight length and when your first Fiend is used. It's actually very situational and rarely helpful. Basically you get windows of usefulness. If you use it let's say 20 seconds in there is a window from 275 seconds to 335 seconds where Veiled Shadows helps. The next window is at 515 seconds to 635 seconds. If the fight ends at any other point Veiled Shadows literally did nothing.
    ~Former Priest/Guild Wars 2 Moderator~
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  5. #5
    I suppose here is my main misunderstanding with this concept. Most people say 'be in sanctuary all the time'.

    Doesn't PoM's HPM / HPCT become utter garbage if it will only land on 3 targets (read: efficient up to 20% overhealing, bad at 40%)?

    If I'm not going to have those 4 targets to aim a PoM at, isn't it more beneficial to be in Serenity?

    I know for a fact that Renew in Sanctuary gives significantly better HPM than Heal in Serenity (if talented and glyphed properly, that is). If I'm in Sanctuary and single target healing with Heal, those heals may be free but I'm losing throughput AND efficiency. But if I'm using Renew a lot, i'm almost guaranteed to parse a really high overheal ratio. So from my perspective this seems a bit wrong as well.

    If I find myself single target healing, and I know that's going to be my job for the next ~20 seconds, aren't I better off dodging back into Serenity? 'always be in sanctuary' seems like more of a 25-man perspective than a 10 man perspective.


    thanks for the clarification on veiled shadows. I understand completely.
    Last edited by zakaluka; 2011-05-07 at 09:21 PM.

  6. #6
    Mending most of the time Mending isn't cast on cooldown, because you want to take advantage of the charges if it's out (if possible, some fights you just can't). Having it out there is better than wasting a GCD recasting it before you'd need to. But those numbers were based on the original iteration of the spell, not the Glyphed version, which tilts it to be a decent spell as low as three targets, or a pretty awesome heal when you're moving (go go instant cast).

    Renew is also better than Heal in output, more efficient, and takes up less time. The "always be in Sanctuary" is usually a mantra where tank healing has enough support that you don't actually need to ever switch over (i.e. 25s) simply because Serenity doesn't increase your efficiency.

    You use Mending when single target healing, you use Renew when single target healing. Both of these are amplified. If you cast a single Prayer of Healing, or a single Circle, you've already pushed the balance further and further in favor of being in Sanctuary. The 10% crit is pretty meaningless when doing Triage, because you can't plan around it (maybe I didn't need that Greater, if Heal would have crit I could've saved some mana). The only reason to be in Serenity is the Renew refresh, which helps when you're repeatedly casting single target heals on the same target. But if you're not "the tank healer", on say a fight like Atramedes, or Magmaw, or (list goes on), then there's not much reason to be in Serenity because the people you want to heal will have Renew falling off anyways. Your single target heals aren't weaker in Sanctuary, but everything else is when you're in Serenity.

    As far as worrying about overheal, don't. It only is a factor when you either a) Have too many healers, and could afford to drop one, or b) you're running out of mana. Overheal isn't the concern we thought it was going to be, in beta. They just didn't want us spamming heals on people already at full health, just to say that "lol doesn't matter!"
    Last edited by Kelesti; 2011-05-07 at 10:46 PM.
    ~Former Priest/Guild Wars 2 Moderator~
    Now TESTING: ArcheAge (Alpha)
    Now PLAYING: MonoRed Burn (MtG Standard)
    Twitter: @KelestiMMO come say hi!
    ~When you speak, I hear silence. Every word a defiance~

  7. #7
    There are barely any situations in raids where being in Chakra: Serenity is more beneficial to you than being in Sanctuary.

    Magmaw - Basically only Sanctuary. Use PoM and Renew (both being 15% stronger) on tank and use CoH& Renew for raidheal, Lavaspew --> CoH/PoH, PoM should bounce around while he spews. Toss in Heals outside of Lavaspew.
    Omnomnomtron - Sanctuary always.
    Maloriak - I started out using Serenity for Blue phase, but in general Sanctuary > Serenity.
    Atramedes - Rather Sanctuary.
    Chimaeron - Serenity (HW: Serenity heals for >10k on a single target and costs the least mana of all your spells) during offline phases -> Sanctuary. At 20% --> Chastise
    Nefarian - P2 is when you can use Serenity, although I'm not sure whether the +15% heal on PoM outweighs the benefit of Serenity, but since my rule of thumb says that 1xPoH on 3 targets is as efficient as casting 3 heals I'd say Sanctuary. And for the other two phases --> Sanctuary, because you have the easiest time healing up the raid, and that should be your main focus.

    Halfus - Since I generally prefer being the Raidhealer, and let my other two healers (usually paladin&shaman) focus on the two tanks --> Sanctuary
    Valiona - Sanctuary (use HW:S in Theralion Phase)
    Ascendant Council - Start out in Serenity, swap to Sanctuary on the first Aegis of Flame, and keep it that way.
    Cho'Gall - Start out in Serenity, swap to Sanctuary on the first AoE shadow damage thingy - no real point in going back to Serenity afterwards, because the cooldown won't allow you to swap too freely to react in time for the Shadow AoE.

    Conclave - Depending on your platform, you'll want to get Sanctuary for Anshall and Nezir or Serenity for Rohash. Although it doesn't really matter which state you have for Rohash, since the damage he does is minimal.

    Al'Akir - Sadly, I've only been shadow so far on Al'Akir (which is weird, considering I'm actually a Holy Priest), but I'd say you could actually make rather good use of Serenity in 10 man, but Sanctuary for 25 man in Phase 1, afterwards it's Sanctuary for P2 and P3.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by zakaluka View Post
    I suppose here is my main misunderstanding with this concept. Most people say 'be in sanctuary all the time'.

    Doesn't PoM's HPM / HPCT become utter garbage if it will only land on 3 targets (read: efficient up to 20% overhealing, bad at 40%)?
    Mis spoke here I meant to say PoH.

    I guess I'm holding onto a pretty unorthodox idea, as I've looked pretty hard at how to utilize Chakra:Serenity even in a 10 man raid healing setting. I just believe pretty strongly that overheal is wasted mana. And although crit is no good for Triage (as stated above by friendly mods ) it does have a predictable effect on overall throughput/efficiency.

    But being caught out of chakra:sanc during heavy AoE kills my throughput/effic, and can be confusing/cause me to make bad decisions, so either it's a bad idea overall or I just have to get better at it.

    Didn't come here to argue semantics, so I guess my original question is answered. This forum advocates being in Santuary unless boss mechanics strongly dictate use of Serenity (chim here) and chakra dancing is considered bad. Thanks for all your inputs

  9. #9
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Kelesti View Post
    Well, it doesn't do quite what people think it does, in that a lot of the time it's really not giving them any more regen than actually not taking the talents:
    Yeah I understand that... but it's not really a damage buff either for the same reasons. If you're wiping because you missed 30k of shadowfiend damage you have bigger concerns anyway.

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