Welcome to Metro’s 25 man Heroic Healing guides for the Siege of Orgrimmar! It is important to understand that these guides are first aimed at helping healers understand their role, and then helping them maximize their play. Each will feature a general overview of the mechanics that matter to the healers, and conclude with a class-specific discussion. Let’s begin!
Understanding the encounter –
The heroic version of the fourth boss in Siege of Orgrimmar is where we start to see huge, game-changing mechanics being introduced, so for argument’s sake, it’s important to realize how the fight’s pattern will go, as this rhythm directly affects you as a healer.
Unfortunately, this is not a strategy guide for the raid, so I cannot speak with certainty about the plan you will employ, but I will describe ours through my eyes with an attempt of creating a linear comparison.
Fight begins, I spread out near the front right quadrant. First stack for Gift, then quickly vacate before Reflections. All adds are Gorefiend’s Grasped in, and I watch the melee closely. Run to my prison assignment in back right of the room, close a rift before. Return to front, interrupt / stun Manifestation and prepare for Swelling Pride.
This is the pattern I follow 4-5 times a fight, until the fight is complete, so now that you have seen it you can compare it to your own obligations and fill in the blanks where needed.
Understanding the Healer’s Role –
Once you have done a few attempts on this boss you will immediately realize the facts of this fight: there is little healing to be done until Unleashed, but a hundred mechanics you could make trivial with your downtime. Let’s examine each mechanic individually.
Norushen – Important Lore Character, Near Meaningless Contribution to Encounters.
Consistently throughout the fight we will see Mark of Arrogance being distributed, but unlike in normal, this is a very deadly mechanic. If you do nothing in this encounter at all, dispel this every 8 seconds, REGARDLESS OF THE GIFT. It may seem like a bad idea, but even if you dispel every single time it’s up, you will still not become Overcome unless you have already missed the enrage timer. Doing this is greater than any amount of healing you could ever do in the first phase of the fight, as the dot will plague any DPS, especially with Swelling Pride on the horizon. If you have all the healers in your raid of this mindset, you will run into even less issues with Pride. Just make sure you are aware of the Projection mechanic, as well as the Aura, as they are things you almost never see in Normal and will wipe the group if not handled.
The dispels are important, but closing the rifts is just as useful at preventing damage. The heroic-only blue gashes in the room can turn into a huge burden, so as a healer doing very little on a heroic encounter, this should be your time to shine! I personally love mechanics like this, because you realize just how much damage and uptime you can save the DPS by doing it flawlessly. Unfortunately, as the fight grows longer, if all available players aren’t making an effort, your work is wasted. Either way, closing one every minute will save a ton of movement and potential damage from the melee so consider it a primary task.
Next up are the variety of adds that spawn. Don’t belabor on this, just understand as a healer with downtime you can do a lot to facilitate them dying cleanly. The large packs of Reflections are likely the most obvious of cases, as when they all get gathered up, you’ll have a lot of players in one area, as well as a lot of things flying towards them. Its highly likely that with 5-6 melee all clustered like that, a lot of damage may be going out, so this is the perfect time for double dipping damage/healing abilities. For example, Divine Star or Light’s Hammer line up perfectly with this. The damage done will make the mechanic slightly quicker, and the healing will create a buffer for those that are taking damage they can’t see. The other adds can follow the same principle, but won’t be available for AOE so if you can fistweave or smite, consider this a good time.
Swelling Pride would be the next topic for discussion, and is easily the biggest issue the fight presents, but the easiest to deal with. Obviously, it is a massive amount of damage so if you are walking into this fight without preparation of cooldowns, just leave that guild and start your own. It only happens 4 times for us each encounter, but if I remember correctly our first kills may have included a 5th. Regardless, if you are getting a 5th, just throw everything at you have at it, as it will be within the last seconds of the fight. No matter what the situation, it’s good to line up a reductive cd with a throughput cd for every single one of these.
Our pattern looks like this:
1 – Devo Aura, Tranquility
2- Devo Aura, Spirit Link, Divine Hymn
3 – Devo Aura, PWBarrier, Healing Tide
4 – Repeat 1.
Also, we have DKs and rogues using smoke and AMZ, as well as dps shaman dropping their Tides throughout. The ability does do a massive amount of damage, but is so blatantly predictable that it should pose no real threat, UNLESS you are letting Mark of Arrogances stay on the target. I find it quite necessary to dispel anyone with a mark before the Swell, otherwise they are near death from both happening.
The most common cause of deaths here will be ranged-LOS issues, as if people aren’t making it a priority to return to the front of the room after the prisons and the Manifestations, a large portion of the room will not be covered the Devo Aura.
Past that, the prisons are the only other issue in the main phase. They don’t really need to be discussed, but just make sure whomever receives the Mark gets dispelled immediately, as if they are also imprisoned, it will be very difficult to keep them alive.
Unleashed –
The Unleashed Phase itself presents only one change, that being the barrage of damage, which can be quite substantial. At this point, it’s time to go full ham, and set in as you would to heal any other encounter. You can still seek to close rifts, especially if you have speed boosts and heals on the go, but if you aren’t conscious of your health, you will die from the damage happening plus that done from the rift’s closure.
Inscription reads: GROSH Wuz Here ROFL
By this point in the fight you’ll be running on instinct anyway, so the only thing I can offer as advice is to watch people’s range from your position.. AOE seems like the best option, but I find myself casting way more single target heals here than most other fights. You’ll need all 25 alive to beat the actual enrage as well as keep surviving the soft enrage the Unleashed mechanic presents so do whatever you can to keep an individual alive, even if it sacrifices AOE potential.
Class Specific Tips –
Holy Paladin: Devo Aura for Swelling Pride is a MUST – make sure everyone is in range. Light’s hammer times perfectly with Reflection, feel free to use Wings or Favor to increase damage and healing done, as it’s the only time you’ll be able to line up CDs outside of Swell. Tank damage is hilariously low, I beacon myself on this encounter. Speed of Light is a must for closing portals / getting to prisons!
Resto Shaman: Keep Rain on the melee / where the adds will be stacked. Good fight to make use of Spiritwalker’s Grace and ghost wolf, especially when travelling between prisons and rifts. Cap totem excellent utility to AOE stun the large packs of Reflects. Place down as they spawn so it goes off as soon as they are gripped in.
Resto Druid: EV /mushrooms can stay in one place whole encounter. Ursol’s vortex can prevent adds from scattering after the aoe-grip. Excellent fight for resto druid – able to never stop moving. Able to avoid rift blasts, close rifts, and run to Gift stack without lose throughput.
Holy / Disp Priest: Lifegrip people on to prisons! Body and Soul amazing talent when running to prisons – shield targets straggling behind, or shield targets that have debuff while cd. Smite healing good option, as dps is needed, but not much to heal reliably.
Misty Monk: (Do not currently have a monk healer in our progression.)Great dps/hps double dipping encounter. AOE the Reflections and watch the numbers soar! Mobility and Renewing mists makes monks a great option for this fight. Leg Sweep amazing utility for packs of Reflections – on Demand AOE stun is as good as healing in this case!!Upfront heal from Revival can make a huge difference during the burn phase.
TLDR Recap –
Little healing to be done, so use the down time to handle mechanics, giving your DPS more uptime and slack. Offer to 4-5 heal if DPS is an issue, as you shouldn’t need much healing until the very end. Be sure to have a very set schedule for CDs with Swelling Pride, and make sure people are close enough to benefit from them. Consider dispelling, even if you don’t have the Gift – should never run into issues with pride if your dps is on time. Make sure you understand the full list of pride mechanics associated with Swelling, as you likely have not seen them in Normal mode.
As always, this guide is from the perspective of a Holy Paladin in 25 man heroic raid leadership perspective. Experience is limited when it comes to priest and monk healers, so if you have input feel free to join the conversation! Otherwise, if you have any questions feel free to ask! Enjoy SoO!