Tunnel Vision

Contrary to what some dpsers or tanks may think, healing is not easy. Most of the healing classes have several tools at their disposal to help them heal effectively. Syll, over at rollinghots.com recently wrote and excellent series of blog posts summarizing the healing tools and healing styles available to holy priests, discipline priests, restoration shaman and holy paladins. Those posts talk about how different we are. This post is going to touch on one of the major problems I have while healing. From my conversations with other healers, druids and otherwise, I gather that it is a more or less common issue for all of us. Tunnel vision. When you are locked into healing, you focus on a small part of your UI: the health bars of the raid, 5-man heroic group whatever. As time goes on, my field of vision grows smaller and smaller until all I can see are those little green (woe be upon us if they start turning orange or red) bars. This is all well and good in fights like patchwerk where movement is unnecessary. But there are bosses in the game that punish us for that.

For example, Sartharion with one or more drakes up harkens back to the more traditional "don't stand in stuff" raiding mentality. There is so much going on: void zones, flame waves, whelps, blazes. And each one requires a different action from the healers.

We were doing Sarth+2D a couple of weeks ago. I kept dying. Mostly it was only peripherally my fault: I had to catch up with a tank who was avoiding a falme wave so I ran through said wave or I had too many whelps on me because I didn't stand close enough to the tank's Death and Decay when they spawned; things like that. A handful of times though I died (and consequently wiped the raid - there is VERY little room for error Sarth+2D or +3D) because of stupid errors: I stood in a void zone, I was hit by a flame wave, I even wandered into Sartharion's breath weapon once. All that because of tunnel vision.

Since then, I have tweaked my UI to offer me a more focused view of the important parts of the raid area. My healing bars have moved closer to the center of the screen, my keybindings for things like barkskin and bear form have moved closer to where my left hand normally lies on the keyboard.

Last night we did Sarth+2D again. I did much better. We are still not quite there. Our healing is not quite enough to cope with an enraged Sartharion AND a drake up AND whelps AND blazes. Even with Ritavu and myself both cross-healing on both tanks, it was still not enough.

So what are the strategies some of the rest of you use to minimize the effects of tunnel vision? I can use all the help I can get...

Loken is toast!

I owed him. Last time I went to heroic Halls of Lightning the bastard made me look bad. But revenge, as they say, is a dish best savored cold.

Lets get a bit of background on this. As far as lore goes, Loken is one of the titans (i.e. creators of all the world) and leader of the Iron Dwarves in Northrend. At some point, he bacame disillusioned with the pantheon and was swayed by Yogg-Saron, one of the old gods. He is a big part of the troubles that have brewed in Storm Peaks and one of the reasons the earth giants there (Vanir, also known as Sons of Hodir) are at war with the Storm Giants (Aesir

In game terms, he is the last boss in Halls of Lightning, the higher level of the two five-man instances in Ulduar. He is also responsible for killing more players than any other boss, even those in Naxx - Patchwerk makes #6 on the list. So what does he do that makes him so lethal?

Well, a couple of things. Three actually:

1. His first ability is called Lightning Arc. It is a stacking debuff that does damage to the target and has a chance to apply the debuff to any other characters within a short range.
2. Then there is Pulsing Shockwave. This is a damage wave thatpulses every three seconds and does more and more damage the further one wanders from the boss.
3. His last ability is his most lethal one: Lightning Nova. Every thirty seconds, he will start casting this spell. Once he is finished, everything within a 15 (or maybe 20?) yard range of him is generally annihilated.

So all these abilities combined mean you shouldn't stay close to him and yet you shouldn't get too far away from him either. Of his three abilities, Lightning Nova is easily the most devastating. Anyone caught in it will be lucky if they are left with anything more than a sliver of health and will need immediate, blow-every-cooldown healing to stay alive long enough to get back to where they are supposed to be because of the Pulsing Shockwave.

The strategy I have found works the best is this: ignore the Lightning Arc. That's right. Ignore it. Stack on top of each other. The other characters are your friends. The healer is your BEST friend! Most healers will be able to use multi-target heals (chain heal, circle of healing, wild growth) to keep everyone alive through the damage done by the Lightning Arc. While he channels Lightning Nova everyone needs to move TOGETHER in the same direction to get out of it. If one person goes in a different direction, they will likely die to the Pulsing Shockwave. Staying together accomplishes a couple of things. Everyone stays in range of multi-target heals and it minimizes the time spent in range of the Pulsing Shockwave since, upon finishing his casting, the boss runs to the tank just as the tank runs to him. Rinse and repeat until Loken bites the dust.

Other than encounters where sheer damage output absolutely crushes gear level (Lady Vashj, anyone?) this is, hands down, the most difficult encounter to heal that I have encoutnered in the game. I imagine it would be even more challenging for a healer that cannot heal on the run (the way tree druids can) like a restoration shaman or a holy paladin.

Shamans

A couple of nights ago, I dusted off my shaman and started playing him again. I'm not sure I had even logged onto him since before the Burning Crusade was released. I respent his talent points heavily into enhancement and set off to do some quests in Tanaris. I was somewhat surprised to discover (or rediscover) that he was able to cut through mobs at a very rapid pace. His burst dps would have mobs two levels above him dead almost before they landed three blows. My problem was efficiency. I had to stop to drink after every other pull and in three hours of questing, I went through almost five stacks of water. Has anyone else had similar revelations with characters you haven't played in months or even years?