On Sunday, The Oroborus returned to 25-man Naxxramas for the second night in a row. We got started a bit later than planned, and headed to the Plague Quarter. The healing corps consisted of myself, a Disc priest, our most-excellent Healadin, and our equally capable Resto Shaman.
The Good1
First up was Noth the Plaguebringer. With our tons of DPS, he was not really a problem. The resto shammy died about midway through the fight, but a battle rez brought him back into the fray. I guess I didn’t remember much about the 10-man version of this battle, but the 25-man seemed easy enough. At any rate, we one shot him, and loot was handed out, including a nice chest upgrade for the hunter…as if he needs more DPS!
The Bad
Then we moved on to the fight I was looking forward to, Heigan the Unclean. Our raid leader disconnected a couple times prior to the start of the fight, which wasn’t a promising sign. But he explained it, one of the OTs explained it, and I put in my two coppers regarding caster movement and cleansing disease.
The first attempt, which was the very first attempt at any level for many, was ugly. We wiped early. But then people had a much better grasp of the dance, of moving to and from the platform, and the MT had it drilled into him that he couldn’t go out of range of the casters (especially of the healers!).
On the second attempt, we lost a few people to the lava early on (after the first teleport). Not good, but of course not horrible. After either the second or third teleport, dance, and return to the platform, most of the casters were down: Diseases were not being cleansed quickly enough! (Damn the global cooldown!) I was a victim of this as well.2 So we had 7 people left, and Heigan was still at 66 percent. Believe it or not (and I know many of you will believe because you’ve seen it) but those seven people took Heigan down. It took 23 minutes, but they got it done. The raid leader awarded each of them an extra 75 DKP (with which decision I agreed completely).
The biggest problem we had was disease. Looking at Recount later on, I saw that our Disc Priest had four dispels all night; I had 90-something, and the resto shaman had over 110. Next time we do that fight, I’m going to make sure there’s a shammy with the melee group to toss a cleansing totem, paladins will be expected to cleanse their own diseases, and healers may NOT rely on the default raid frames. That killed us. Literally. I can only click so fast…3
More Good
Next up: Loatheb. The newcomers to Naxx were a bit concerned about the “healers can only cast 3 seconds out of 20” but really, that’s a pretty easy fight if healers are any good at all. The key is to start casting Prayer of Healing so it goes off in the first half-second of the healing window. (Be sure your priests are assigned one to a group!) I was in the group with the tanks, so they were getting PoH and at least one CoH every 20 seconds. I was also able to tag other groups with CoH about once every minute. And be alert if Surge of Light procs off the PoH, so you can zap the MT or someone else with an instant Flash Heal.
The other key for healers is to be sure you are casting offensive spells in the 17 seconds of Necrotic Aura during which you can’t heal. Every point of damage you can deliver is a point a DPS-class doesn’t have to. I was casting my DoTs and a Holy Fire or Mind Blast when I could, with a free Smite each time SoL procced.
Needless to say, Loatheb went down in one attempt, and much rejoicing was had.
The Ugly
We took a poll, and most people had time to continue on for an attempt on Patchwerk. We replaced the few who had to leave, and moved into the Construct Quarter. Almost immediately, we had the room with a few dozen small oozes. Tanks rushed in, followed by melee and healers and too many ranged. And we suddenly found what those of you who’ve been there are no doubt chuckling about: Those little suckers do an AoE explosion, which is NOT trivial. Twenty-three raiders died (the RL and a boomkin kept backing up and backing up and eventually had the good sense to take a portal).
We had a good laugh at ourselves for our foolishness, then did it a bit more intelligently. Still had a couple people die, but for the most part, we Got It.
So on we went, clearing more trash until we were ready for Patches. Let me give you a hint about what happened next: Two tanks. Four healers.
Yep: one really fast wipe. Here’s a tip: Patchwerk-25 is not the same fight as Patchwerk-10. Not by a long shot. First of all, you need three tanks: One on Patches, two to absorb his Hateful Strikes. You also need at least five healers, and I am going to insist on no less than six (more advanced guilds than ours are failing with five healers).
We fixed the tank problem, but not the healers, for the second attempt. Unfortunately, there appeared to be some confusion among the healers (I thought we were ready; I missed the “I have a question” on the healer channel just before the pull) about who was healing what. So as I was winding up my greater heal for the MT, one OT died, then the other, then the MT…yeah, it was that ugly.
Obviously, at that point the raid was called. I’m not sure whether I’m looking forward to our next attempt on Patchwerk.
With the diseases on Heigan, I yelled at my group enough to get them to do it, but if the casters, after the last lava explosion turn around and run back towards the far side *then* move into the platform, they’re unlikely to get any disease on them. The melee probably still will and need cleansing, but it cuts down on both the ridiculous healing needed, and the number of diseases that need to be removed.
Heigan loses the aura after he comes off the platform (not when the phase changes) but lag keeps it on him long enough to get to the melee usually, so your caster DPS shouldn’t just run straight through him or it stresses the healers.
Yeah, you’ll definitely need more healers for Patchwerk — he’s a major tank/healer DPS check. Holy Paladins are amazing here with Beacon of Light to crossheal the two OTs.
In general, the OTs on Patchwerk tend to take more, and more spiky, damage than the MT; on plate, his Hateful Strikes hit for around 21k or so. The targeting mechanism they seem to use is to select between the 2nd and 3rd player on the aggro list, whichever has the higher health. (In 10-man it’s always the second on the list.)
Congrats on the Plague wing; Poison Cleansing totems are quite nice for Heigan, as well as a lot of the other bosses, if you can get them.
We didn’t really research Patchwerk for 25-man Naxx; even a little bit of checking would have shown us we were way light on heals. Thanks for the suggestion re: Healadin. Ours may have been beaconing the MT and one OT, but I can see the wisdom in the two OTs.
Thanks, Perrin…that’s some VERY useful info! Appreciate the tips.
Hmmm… we always run with 7 healers for all wings. 4-5 seems dangerously low.
Karthis´s last blog post: Druid Tanking: Overview (WotLK)
Second that on patchwork. It’s an insane healing check. You have to survive 3-4 min of nothing but big heals spamming. As a resto druid, i will start off with all my HOTs, and just spam HT glyphed and talented. You only have to focus on one guy, have 2-3 healers per tank and you’ll be okay. Probably just one on the MT. Have your most geared tank be your OT, and have worst gear be MT.
On Loath, good idea bout doing something while not healing. I usually just twiddle my thumbs. The other thing is that it’s not that you can’t heal out 17 out of 20 seconds, is that no healingn occurs during those 17 seconds. You can cast stuff like wild growth a bit early, get ac ouple of LBs rolling, and do a glyphed HT or Swiftmend. I usually do WG a few second before, right at I’ll spam a bunch of HT for those who need it. There’s a bunch you can do, ie you can cast rejuv on like 10 ppl, LB so that it blooms during the 3s window, tranqulity, swiftmend, etc.
Hmm…good idea on Loatheb: I should throw out a few renews just before I start precasting my PoH. Will have to keep that in mind.
/Wave! I’m on Kul Tiras too, and I just found your blog via the Misery blog. I knew I recognized the guild name and had to check to see which server you were on to make sure it was the right one.
I’m not a healer, but I like most WoW blogs. Helps me understand my fellow raiders a little better.
And Patchwerk is a bitch for sure. Getting the coordination right probably wipes us at least twice every time we get to him.
-Adlib of The Phoenix
Heya Adlib
Wow…I was thinking no one on Kul Tiras could read! *grin*
I’m used to tanking in Naxx so I can’t offer much insight into the healing, but I can make a suggestion to help the MT and melee stay in range while doing the Heigan dance. If you’ve got an enhancement shaman in the group, have him drop a totem in each of the four zones as they do the first pass. The raid might lose some benefit from the totems due to range, but it helps keep everyone grouped up, especially for phase 2 when the whole raid has to group up in section 1.
As for Patchwerk, the comment above about swapping tank order does help. It may not seem like much, but having the normal MT eat Hateful Strikes is usually easier to heal due to better mitigation and they’ll usually have a bit more of a health buffer over the rest of the raid to keep Hatefuls focused on them. You can also tell the non-OT DPS to take a dip in the slime to drop their health low enough they should never get a Hateful (no need to heal them since it’s all MT and OT damage).
Ragar last blogged about The secrets of the Stormchop are finally mine!
Those are some excellent points, Ragar — thanks! I especially like the totem idea for Heigan. Of course, people just paying attention would help a lot, too.