Healing help (ZA/ZG 5-mans)

[Mercadi]

Hello, fellow druids.
I have leveled up and geared a resto/feral druid recently.
As resto, I focused primarily on:
Spirit leather with haste, trinkets with base int, got all the rep rewards and most stuff enchanted.
So now I'm at 109k mana and about 6.7-ish k SP.

Last night in ZA (is that where the armored bear trash mobs are)? the tank DK was doing good (he was geared and Defender of the Shattered World, so I know he is not retarded), until the said bear group before the second boss. At some point his health rapidly went down from 190k to 30-50k (after 10-15 seconds of tanking them at 80-100% of tank HP), and all my HoTs, swiftmend and Healing Touch spam only delayed his death by about 10 sec. This happened several times in a row. I used tranquility on one of the pulls, and think it might have been a mistake (can use of Tranquility be justified by low tank HP?).

What would you do if your tank suddenly goes down to 15% HP and looks like he's out of CDs? What would be your spell priority?

Thanks in advance.

[fruitytooty]

I would rejuv, swiftmend, and spam healing touch until his hp is back up. But then again, I've never had a tank who dropped that fast on the bear group. The only suggestion I can think of is try and spam nourish on your tank and don't let him drop past 90% just to be safe and get ready to spam healing touches if you need to.

[Myrrar]

That pull is always 'hard' with pugs just because you can't really CC easily. The adds also axe throw the group.

In that situation there isn't much you can do. Tranq is there to use no matter what the situation is, so don't be afraid to use it if your tank is going to die. In the end, I just spam RG until I get him to a safe point and nourish or HT(whichever is needed).

RG isn't going to be as mana efficient, but since it has a faster cast time it gives you healing faster and time between to refresh any hots that are needed. If you have NB it pretty much always crits throwing LSs and RG is the only heal that procs Nat Grace. That 15% haste will help no matter what direct heal you need to spam next.

[Stargasm]

Those bear pulls can be very difficult. They stun the tank and with no avoidance they get hit extremely hard. Make sure you have 3 stacks of lifebloom and a rejuv on your tank. i would probably go with a regrowth, then swiftmend then healing touch. Also you could consider using natures swiftness healing touch macro or going into tree form. dont worry so much about having to spam heal on trash. you can always pause and drink. In regards to your other question using tranquility just for low tank hp is a bad idea. It is never justified, use tranquility when there is too much raid damage that you cannot handle with wild growth and rejuvs on everyone. One of the main things to help you heal is to anticipate damage. If you know its coming you can react faster and make your job much easier.

[Albi1515]

The bears also put a "Crunch" debuff on the tank that reduces their armor by something crazy (I wanna guess 10k but that is just a stab in the dark). So if two of them throw it on the tank at the same time it can be a very fast drop. You should watch his debuffs if you can too and if you notice that he has that debuff get ready to start spaming RG or Healing Touch. CC the other mobs if possible on that pull, and make sure they kill one bear at a time so you have the least amount of "Crunch" uptime.

[quietstrm07]

Part of also what is happening is when the bear mounts spawn, they apply cast an attack at the tank that's call "crunch armor." I've noticed on my DK tank, that it has dropped my armor to basically 30% of normal value so damage ramps up majorly. This in addition to the stuns from the axe thrower can really hurt. The best strategy (if possible) is to cc the axe thrower and medicine man, but if this is not possible, downing those two first can really help.

As far as healing it goes, I have a tendency to throw whatever HoTs I can on the tank, including using Wild Growth just as a bit extra. Nature's Swiftness and Healing Touch macro'd is a huge help when their health dips to low levels. Otherwise, Regrowth to proc Nature's Grace and spamming Healing Touch has seemed to get me by

EDIT: Also, the bear mounts have an enrage effect that speeds up their attacks greatly. This can be tranq shotted or soothed to help reduce damage

[ruggleee]

tank should have popped cooldown for this trash(even the trash is harder that the boss if healer and tank are bad, dps too) i have like 4s 85 and i never got any prob with this trash, you just need to heal lot, spam your heal if necessary and just drink before the boss, pve is really easy, dont worry

[palthis]

Crunch I believe reduces armor by 20K. Ensure the tank knows this pull and is cycling his cooldowns as much possible. The boss doesn't hit that hard and hence its fine to use long cooldowns on this trash.

As a healer, plan to go into treeform and just keep healing all the while praying your DPS nukes the bear fast. This trash is all about cycling cooldowns, ccing the medicine man (to ensure he doesn't put any protective wards) and nuking the bears before the tank dies. This trash is *NOT* about your throughput and nothing you can do if DPS is low. You have proved your ability to keep everyone alive during the Eagle boss anyways :P

[Ladern]

Agree, either u are uber equiped as healer or the tank has to know how to manage his cooldowns. As Shamman healer, have do this without sweet with a bear tank barely geared that blew his cooldowns at the right momento and wiped 6 times in a row with a T11 (regular) DK tank that didnt wanted to use his own cooldowns.

Must have good comunication with the tank or else is not going to happen until u overgear this pull

[Andaja]

If i remember correctly on the video, that was posted somewhere here, about ZA speed run: it is adviced to actually stun the bear at 30% (or was that 35% when he dismounts, dont remmeber it now). The point was that the bear doesnt dismount, so there isnt any debuff, and there isnt extra mob you have to kill.
I know this isn't advice about healing strategies, but if you can, ask the tank or whatever class that can stun, to stun the bear.
Imho thats the best way to "heal". I mean, just by asking for something like that and if the tank/dps actually do that, you save yourself a terrible headache those can make.
If there are no stuns available, ask the tank to start marking. Kill medicin man or/an axe thrower (if you dont have ccs), then kill the bear, and do it one by one. I imagine alot of classes will use lceave like attacks, but ask them to actually monitor the health. I know its too much to ask from random pugs, but i still have faith in humanity so that should work, right?

[Terashi]

It's really the tank's fault that he's dropping so low on those pulls. The difference in damage taken between a good tank and a bad one (even in equivalent gear) is staggering.

Edit: The bear riders "split" at 30%, so as long as they're stunned through that you won't get the extra mob. 35%-40% is a good place to hit it, depending on your dps.

[Mercadi]

Thank you guys, it's been very helpful!

[Ivirus]

I've not reached ZA/ZG on my tree alt but I seem to have no big issues with tank healing in regular heroics so far. Re: what everyone already posted, lol

Also remember Death Knights are on the squishy side for tanks, which is why they self-heal and bubble alot. Main problems when learning to heal DK tanks is to not freak out when they get to half health.

[Sysunia]

That is the hardest trash pack in the entire instance, if you wipe on it you have to do some cc any thing even you rooting the axe thrower will help if you dont have any other cc. Tranq is an awesome spell but not realy on single target healing in one full tranq channel you should be able to cast 4 healing touches wich will heal for much more on a single target than tranq. Remeber to pop tree of life keep all posible hots on him and spam healing touch.

[Deleted]

I second what Sysunia said. Hardest trash pack in instance.
I usually mix all my hots and Regrowth for haste buff with HT spam+swiftmend jumping to tree form shortly in beginnging of fight.
Usually chaining HTs helps, but that in turn generates insane aggro so tank must be good.
I believe it is possible to interrupt some of the trash attacks also.
DK and all other tanks should save their survival CDs un pop them when they do below 50%.
That helps a lot. Being 190k tank should be able to survive this.
But as i said - CC, interrupts and heavy single target healing.
You did nothing wrong, i would say, tank raiding with heavyweight T11HC geared healers just expected to be healed through and did not paid attention to his survival CDs.
If trash hits hard on one target Traquility won't do the job.
It can only be saved via mixing chained HT and HoT spam.
But if you know in advance you can pre-HoT tank just 5 secs after he begins and start chaining HTs.
If you are hearbalist - don't forget you have Haste buff you can use once every 2 mins, it will help you chain heals faster.
Also if you have some trinket with haste or something like Corrupted Egg shell - use it.
Once you've been there you will know what to do next time, don't worry, you'll be fine

[Primernova]

On hard pulls that stabilize after a while, always open with cooldowns as a healer of any spec/class. Just open with ToL and spam until it settles down to a normal rotation.

[Deleted]

Also - remind DK tank that he can call for his ghouls, after all they can take few hits for him.

[Gronlaender]

That pulls hurts alot without CC, and rapes the mana for most healers

[Deleted]

Just did this pull on my druid with 346/353/359 gear, and the CC got screwed up so the tank had all 4 mobs on him.
But pretty much go in tree form early for the extra +healing, then make sure the tank has all four hots running on him with swiftmend under him alot as well, then roll Healing Touch on him when needed.

Just spam without paying attention to Clearcasting and drink afterwards :P

[Romulan1993]

Is it just me who doesn't have trouble with the bear pulls whatsoever? :s