Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Tales from Heroics: Botanica

Heroics are fun and can be fun with the right people or group. I've being hitting up the Heroic circuit for Badges of Justice and running with the new guildmates through the instances. Yesterday I did Heroic SP, UB, SV. Today we had Heroic Botanica and hadn't been to Botanica in a while either let alone on Heroic mode. So was me (Tank), 2 Warlocks, Hunter, Holy Paladin from the guild. Run went well other than once we wiped on Trash adds but I was Soul Stoned and another time we had one or two in party died. We one shot all 4 bosses no problem so picked up a few more Badges of Justice so now up to 28 Badges.

Most the bosses are all the same just hit much harder. First boss Sarannis just hits you with lots of Arcane damage and debuff. Rest just seem to hit much harder that's about it. Boss Laj on normal usually just fight him up on the platform he's at. On Heroics I just kited him back to the hallway and room before the room he's in and works well in controlling the adds and barely having adds at all, but seem a much slower fight as he TP back to his platform and then back again to group in the other room, but barely had adds. Warp Splinter just does more damage. So we had a good fast run with a few minor hiccups.

Taking a while getting used to working with my guildies on runs. For the run I just changed into my max block gear set which has 330 Blocking a little different to my regular tanking set which has around 290 or so blocking. Makes a lot of difference wearing a higher block set for taking all the hits. Once time I died was due to none the mobs marked for CC not getting any CC or CC in time just before Boss Laj room. I did notice one thing though being that the Holy Paladin didn't cast a single Greater Blessing the whole time. I had to ask for rebuffs many times of 10 min blessings. At one point the Holy Paladin completely ran OOM on the first boss I think it was and I had to blow LoH to save my hide and from a wipe. What was not funny was watching him go completely out of mana and wondering why he not use a mana pot. Otherwise he did ok. The other time a few people died due to adds going to second boss the Botonist. Was a good run for the most part. But in the end I'll be honest to say in 5 man and Heroics of all the runs I've done and all the healers I've had, though I've had various some being excellent and some being ok healers my favorite healers are the more versatile healers in a 5 man Instance in my experience for versatility especially in Heroics and they doesn't wear plate.

As for gear picked up Gauntlets of Dissension for alternative gear set.

3 comments:

Eerc said...

I have this problem too. When a plate healer is healing me, on boss fights I am seeing them just drain their mana healing me. I have been reading around and trying to figure it out. I would say I am decently geared. I got 12k hps, 490+ on def, only 93% on uncrushable (though not relivent in heroics), and about 53% damage mitigation from armor. Dunno a healing pally healing a tank pally just doesn't work do well.

Anonymous said...

I allways seem to have problem healing as a holy pally with pally tanks, A bit more fragile/unpredictable to heal. Mind you going oom on 1st boss seems a bit odd. Most pugs can normally kill before any adds spawn.

But priests are designed for 5 man healing where as Paladin just have efficient heals and raid buffs.

The best thing a paladin healer brings to a 5 man is salv and you can allready provide that.

Had heroic bot come up as daily 4 times in last 3 weeks. Healed it twice and tanked it twice (feral druid alt) and it is a very nice badge farm.

MarcusMaximi said...

You guys have had some pretty bad pally healers then.

Pally healers are better for pally tanks, imho, because you are getting constant heals and therefore keeping your mana up.

I once had a druid healer who, whatever I said, would wait till I was getting low on HP and then spam a big heal on me. Not good for my mana regen.

Pallies should be less unpredicatable to heal really as Holy Shield provides more charges for you money (8 in 10 seconds as oppose to warriors 2 in 5 is it?) So on fast hitting bosses warrior tanks can take spike damage whilst pallies will remain safe. Anyway, my tanking days are looking more and more numbered, so tanking strats are getting more and more blurry to me :(

And going OOM, wth? I can sit on any 25 man raid boss and heal constantly, switching in HL every 14secs and big heals where necessary, and watch priests and droods go OOM whilst I am Duracell Healer :)