Aura Watch

Months ago I posted about how to configure Grid to watch for the Kel’Thuzad’s Frost Blast attack. When I discovered that functionality, I felt like I had solved the riddle of the Sphinx. A flower of information had unfolded before me, and I had an urgent need to share it with everyone. I have since learned that many, better healers before me had long known how to configure their unit frames of choice to scan for specific debuffs.

My approach to new content has changed with capability. It is not enough to know what a boss can do to wreck our lives. I have to know exactly who in the raid he is doing it to. When a supercharged Steelbreaker applies Static Disruption to a raider, increasing lightning damage taken by 75%, that’s something I need to know. And when Ignis hugs your body in his marsupial’s pouch, you don’t need to tell me on Ventrillo. I know.

Over time my aura watch list has grown woolly. Some of these I’ve even forgotten where they came from. Mistess’ Kiss? Who’s been making out with my raiders, and why do I need to know? Here they are, in cheatsheet form.

Naxxramas auras:

• Frost Blast

Ulduar auras:

• Flash Freeze (Hodir)
• Freeze (Hodir)
• Napalm Shell (Mimiron)
• Slag Pot (Ignis)
• Static Disruption (Iron Council)
• Stone Grip (Kologarn)

Trials of the Crusader auras:

• Impale (Gormok)
• Snobolled!
• Burning Bile (Acid/Dreadmaw)
• Paralytic Toxin
• Mistress’ Kiss (Jaraxxus)
• Incinerate Flesh
• Penetrating Cold (Anub’arak)

What Do You Do When Your Raid Instance is Broken?

Tuesday, as usual, began a new raid week. We dutifully rolled into the Trial of the Crusader to take a look at the new boss. After 3 attempts we ran out of time and called it a night.

What did we find tonight? The broken floor that reveals the boss’ chambers had knitted itself closed, with no way to bust through. One guy suggested we all group up in the center and jump up and down as hard as we could.

Rather than waste the raid night, we flew to Ulduar to try our hand at Orbit-uary. We had that one in 10-man mode, but this was our first attempt since going to 25. Apparently my gear’s item level has improved enough that I got promoted from Siege Engine gunner to Demolisher Driver, a much more intense job. Juggling stacks of pyrite, flinging your passengers and kiting the boss is a handful, that’s for sure.

I got discouraged in the first few attempts when I let my stacks drop. Usually that would coincide with not noticing a passenger had jumped into the catapult and my machine was no longer firing. Each attempt I got a little better. 160k DPS, then 170k. 180k. 200k.

Then on the final attempt, an interesting thing happened. 1 of my 2 passengers died immediately, so I stopped throwing and could focus on managing the pyrite. I managed 250k damage, while the other demolisher drivers were similarly finding their muses.

It was a skin of the teeth kill. Fustigator was the last man standing. But it was a kill. Go team!

Shamans and Healing Assignments

There are two related and contradictory legends about Shamans. One is that you cannot give a Shaman a group healing assignment. The second is that a Chain Heal cast on yourself never bounces. Both of these statements are wrong, and for the same reason.

Chain Heal Rank 7 19% of base mana 40 yd range 2.5 sec cast Heals the friendly target for 1055 to 1205, then jumps to heal additional nearby targets.  If cast on a party member, the heal will only jump to other party members.  Each jump reduces the effectiveness of the heal by 40%.  Heals 3 total targets.

The reason is contained in the second sentence of the spell description. “If cast on a party member, the heal will only jump to other party members.” That’s a curious looking statement to have in a spell description. What does it mean?

It means that Chain Heal has an alternate mode of function. Everyone knows the raid smart heal, for which Shamans are rightly famous. Less well known is that if the first target of your Chain Heal is in your party, subsequent targets can only be selected from your party. Just like the old, Priest-centered Prayer of Healing, except with a 12.5 yard range per bounce, instead of PoH’s 30 yard radial effect.

A diagram will show this most clearly.

For illustration purposes, this raid has only 4 members, split into two groups. The group membership is shown in the bottom right. Assume that every raid member is down 1000 health, and that I am standing within 12.5 yards of the tank, but further than that from the melee.

As you can see, a Chain Heal targeting the Fury Warrior is not able to bounce because we are in the same group. However, if I target the Rogue from group 2, the heal can bounce to any target within 12.5 yards of him. Ultimately that includes me, because I am in range of the Paladin when it bounces to him.

There are two important implications from this. First, a Shaman can be given a specific party healing assignment, just as you would a priest. However, the Shaman must be in the group they are assigned to heal. And as with PoH assignments, the group members should be standing near each other to take advantage of the proximity-based bounces.

The second piece of advice goes to the Shaman selecting raid targets for healing. If you do not have a specific group healing assignment, you will get the best results from picking targets outside your group. In a fight where you might want to heal yourself (Hodir, for example), stay near your group. Their nametags are a different color for a reason.

Update on Wednesday, September 2, 2009 at 11:15PM by Llyra

Important! Field testing suggests this may all be wrong. That the party-specific behavior in the tooltip is meaningless. I’m looking for corroborating evidence right now. Testers — get out there and chain heal some raids!

Train wreck

Before the loading screen had closed I heard the raid invite drum riff. Troops were being marshalled for a 25-man attempt on Ulduar, presuming the new content would be flat busted. So there I am with a big “This addon is outdated” notice from Deadly Boss Mods, no action bars, Swatter capturing Lua stack traces left and right, Grid smeared over the lower quarter but lacking all text, and my new spells untrained while a raid is trying to get rolling. Totem Timers doesn’t support the new totem dropping spells! Sigh.

It’s been a couple months since I was last in Ulduar 25. This was more like 21 when you subtract out the perpetual disconnects. It was a mess. Helicopters spawned on us at the tail end of the Flame Leviathan fight, and wiped us as soon as the boss was dead. Razorscale had a bizarre love of fireballing the harpoon designate (“7 in a row!”). And the trick of tanking XT by junk piles to keep adds from spawning by them no longer works. Nerf scrapbots.

On the plus side, the Shaman buffs appear to be effective. A singularly aggressive Druid healer I run with, who ordinarily posts a 5% edge over me on the meters, came in second behind me. The game isn’t changed, but you’ll spend less time refreshing Water Shield and Chain Heal takes on greater value.

Flame Leviathan +4

We’ve got a concentrated effort on hard modes going right now. First up on the block: Flame Leviathan with 4 towers standing. Our chopper man captured the whole bloody thing. I’ll warn you, the language is salty. Use your judgement before playing it at work.

I was in one of the siege engines, gunning down adds and pyrite. I think I did a better job on the pyrite than the adds, based on the number of times you can hear “Adds on Rizen” in the fight.

The thing I noticed early on is that there is a forerunner when the adds are about to spawn. A sphere floats down through each green beam; when it lands the adds spawn. It’s just like the ice sphere in the blue beams.