which heroics aoe-able, which not? a healer's question

[mangos]

Hi folks,

I'm a holy pal and I've run a lot of heroics and normal instances with all 3 tank classes in game. Somehow I feel healing a tankadin is the most difficult one due to the fact that almost all pally tanks prefer to aoe through it. But it's also faster in general to finish a run.

I've read a lot from this forum because it helps me understand how pally tanks so I can heal properly, and I myself am collecting tanking gear to try out later. But after some of my latest experience with pally tank I feel probably not all instances are meant for aoe tanking, or are they?

Here is what made me think of this:
I ran heroic mech yesterday with a tankadin (full epics, half kara half 2.3 badge gear, about 14.7k hp, a pretty decent one for pugs nowadays). We were doing very smoothly after the 3rd boss. Then during the passage to the last boss where 3 waves of mobs come one after another, because there is no time to cc(and we didn't use cc in the early part either), I feel very difficult to keep the tankadin up with those 4 mobs on him. I have +1600 healing, 19% normal spell crit. The tankadin's hp is always around 10%-50%, and I have to drink a pot because top level holy light drains mana too fast and I need to preserve for the follow-up waves.

I mean I ran this place quite a few times with druid tank and prot war of similar gear (bear with 15k hp, prot war with 16k hp, gear wise similar level), and though they are not design to aoe tanking they managed to keep all mobs on them and I feel much easier to heal them up.

So I'd like to hear from you guys that based on your experience, which are the heroics that are tougher to aoe all the way, or some of the pulls, that better use some cc? I know for decent tank and healer and dps, all heroics can be aoe through, but for mediacro geared groups, advices on those need some carefulness is much appreciated.

[NarfJones]

A:) The heroic Mechanar gauntlet is no fun, no matter who you are.

The rest: The thing to contemplate is the type of damage being taken. When it's all melee(see: Shattered Halls), the paladin tank is king. In that particular section of that particular dungeon, a lot of the damage is magic. This kind of damage cannot be mitigated by normal tanking stats. The similarly geared warrior will be taking a little bit less damage due to defensive stance, and the druid tank can absorb a decent amount of damage but also have some spell interrupts to cut down on the incoming damage slightly.

[MAD]

As NarfJones said, the tankadin is the hero when it comes to meleegroups. I am a holy pala doing some tanking moments in spare time

My hint is: let the tank try out how many mobs he can survive when you are healing. Dont let him run into 20 mobs and see that you cant keep him alive. Start with 2-3 and move up. Tankadins dont need to aoe tank but they can

I dont think that in hero instances (except few Bosses) a tankadin is more difficult to heal than the other classes.

Healing a tankadin ist different to warriors and druids as they all have different way of building up aggro and they are differently migitating the damage.

[Pizbit]

Gear in sig, heroics I feel comfortable without any CC:

SP, UB, SV if I have a shaman for tremor totam *and* fearward
Ramps, Shattered Halls, Blood Furnace
Botanica, Mechanar - for gauntlet I mark a skull, netherbinder in the final pull is ALWAYS firstAnd I let people know that they can fear if they want.

The pally may have had the HP, but low on avoidance and, well skill probably, fairly golden rule if you're hitting low HP a lot you HoJ a mob when ever possible.

If the pulls consists of mostly casters that will still mostly cast once brought in to melee range, or of a mob that fears(with no fearward), CC should be used until everyone truely outgears the instance.

[2ndNin]

The reason we AoE is mainly for 2 reasons:

1) Lets dps focus / aoe as well, less distraction to sheep / control = more damage = shorter encounters.

2) If we don't we go oom, and then we can't pick up.

2) is the main reason here tbh, at the end of most fights warriors tend to have lots of rage, as do druids, they can go pull another group (provided the healer is good) and start well. We start full, and unless that group does a lot of damage we will end the fight with little mana. The more you aoe, the more damage, the more mana, the more threat. Throwing cc into the mix means less damage (less mana regen) meaning that when we need to break that cc we have very little aggro on the mob, and until it starts beating us little option to generate any, and if you can aoe the instance, then a single mob is unlikely to be able to hurt you enough to generate serious mana (even in 25mans I prefer to not single target tank unless forced to, because by the end of the fight, unless its something big and nasty I will be sitting there auto attacking any other mob that breaks cc).

SSC on sunday, we chain pulled packs of murlocs (6ish murlocs per pack, 2 packs at once all on me) because the damage intake gave me enough mana to be able to do so, and the healing load was all focused through me so the healers basically can all spam small heals on me and it works nicely. However on the guys before it (shatterers etc) the only time I was taking enough damage to even consider a chain pull was when I had to pick up a spare mob or two as the other tanks got mc'd.

CC is basically a nightmare as it reduces our damage in, if you want a cc fight warriors and druids work better as each mob can be done individually and moving to the next is a good experience (high rage), for a paladin you start big, and pray the damage intake is high (healer loses a lot of mana, my normal plan is if the healer finishes a fight with more than 1 heal in their mana pool then I didn't pull enough ). So our damage intake is a lot higher, because generally the dumb pally tank is trying to ensure they can build threat throughout the fight. Another example would be normal ramparts, did it in 4 pulls last night, because if I didn't I went oom so fast it wasn't funny, yet pulling 1/4th the instance at a time worked for me because I had the incoming damage to to actually have the mana to tank 1/4th instance

[Cearn]

If you are referring to the last pack of four mobs (2nd pull, 3rd wave) its natural that the tank eats a lot of damage. Healer and Netherguy got nasty instants for 2k+ each. Astromage and Ingi got nasty casts with even more. Hammer/Stunlock/Fear is the way to go for that last group if you don't like sheeping - it is about double the damage the first group of four (1st pull, 1st wave) does. I use poultrizer, hammer and grenades.

If you're oom when the last group spawns, you need to bring a better interrupt/kiter for charged fist.

The fact that you experienced warriors and bears to be easier healable might come down to better damage dealers in those groups. Fast focus helps on the last wave.

[Gimorth]

aye- this is proably less a problem with the Pally himself than with the DPS. I find that most DPS-ers over-react to the idea of "AoE" tanking and turn into unfocused retards. Make sure that everyone knows the order of kills (as there is not enough time to mark) and make sure that that target is dead before moving on to the next.

Nothing makes a pally look worse than DPS that doesn't know their actual job in a pull.

[Aloette]

aye- this is proably less a problem with the Pally himself than with the DPS. I find that most DPS-ers over-react to the idea of "AoE" tanking and turn into unfocused retards. Make sure that everyone knows the order of kills (as there is not enough time to mark) and make sure that that target is dead before moving on to the next.

Nothing makes a pally look worse than DPS that doesn't know their actual job in a pull.

This is what I have found in my experience. People do not know the mechanics of paladin tanking, or how paladins generate aggro on multiple targets -- so when they see consecrate they just AoE or attack whatever target they feel like, despite me marking targets and going over a kill order.

Half the time, soon as I drop consecrate hunters begin to volley, warlocks rain of fire, mages blizzard, and I start pulling out my hair.

[Sarutankah]

From a lock point of view - I dot and fear one of the casters saving my fg for intercept if it breaks mid shadowbolt on marked kill then dot and fear again.

if it looks bad - howl of terror and deathcoil usually buy enough time for healer to top tank off and then just fear some more.

and then priest got fear as well if required/pally heals got hoj/trees just look stupid.


Gauntlet is trivialized when you take a couple and cc em with fear/stunlock/trap - just requires dps that aint retarded.

But yeah - I was in LBRS and brd the other day and casters absolutely own pally tanks - it usually freaks healers cos all of a sudden we take damage where before we can go a long way with renew or the odd flash.

[solina]

Bot was SO easy for me last night.. tankadin + retadin + moonkin + spriest + hpriest... 90 minute run, probably could have been faster but I'm not yet comfortable double/triple-pulling at my gear level.

Anyway, I'm almost ready to macro the following.. it's worked very well so far:

/p I don't expect to use crowd control, but if you see a caster avoiding me, please do something about it.
/p {skull} is first target; FFA afterwards
/p Consecrate down = start DPS, not before

With those 3 simple rules, I'm getting very smooth runs.

[Cosmoz]

I love AOE tanking SH and Botanica Heroic. a lot of the ppulls are 5-7 mobs (usualy 1-2 none-elites) and my gear isent even all epic.

tbh, I have had some problems with holy paladins...they just dont keep up...maybe i played with bad ones (only played with pug holypalas)
I mostly play with guild healers (mostly druids) and they can even keep me alive pulling 2 groups of mobs, both in botanica and SH. (8++elites)

soo, some pointers to the tank to keep alive is:
ofc, use holy shield, pull with AS (slows 3 mobs down so all wont hit at you at the same time) use any trinket you got (like the colossus that heals when blocking) HoJ the hardest hitting mobs, or spellcaster. if you have other people that can stun etc, tell them to do so. (but dont cyclone or crap like that...you may lose agro)
and last, something I find very usefull, either, if you have a mage, tell them to frostnova like 10 sec into fight, or something like that, so you can back awaw a feew sec for healer to keep up (use cons while frostnova ofc)
or if you dont have a mage, you can just back away from the mobs if you take to much damage. mobs will follow you ofc but their attacks will be slightly delayed = buying time.

most important --> good healer.

one problem I often have is, I forget I dont always have good healers... I almost always pull 2 groups in botanica, and sometimes...well....we die... and I have to slap myself and tell myself I have to remember not all healers are good geared or/and skilled.

[Aloette]

To go along with my earlier post, having a good healer for AoE tanking is important, but I find that this is the one case where having good DPS is almost required. Gear certainly helps, but more importantly they need to be co-ordinated on their targets. If they can burn a single target in 5-8 seconds, and all switch to the same target, it makes things much, much easier.

[Nemuria]

about heroic mechanars, from the run I have done as DPS/Tank, we did it easily only when healers had about 10K mana, regardless of the Tank level (usually someone with this kind of gear as descent cit spell and bonus also). It is like healing for a long fight rather a burst one.

For the gauntlet wave the DPS have to solo one of the clothies, so the tank only handle 3 guys. When the last mob is going to die, spare heal effort for the incoming destroyer (tankadin can judge light or wisdow, kitting the mob,...). If the fight was long enough but not too short, he can use Avenger Shield to gain aggro on the destroyer, making him run a long way. It spares some second of regen while destroyer is slowed.

On the way to Panthaleon if you feel short just try to reset or simply wipe by killing most of the pack (if you are both paladin DI someone as this thing is likely never used elsewhere)

From my pov this gauntlet was designed for AOE. I don't trust "in fight" CC and letting one mob wandering is just as bad as taking too much damage.

[Cearn]

From my pov this gauntlet was designed for AOE. [...]

From my point of view, your point of view fails.
the gauntlet is designed for proper focus.

[Jtree]

In my experience, focused fire in the gauntlet seems the be the better idea. I'll mark the healer mob as fast as I can and drop consecration to get the initial aggro on the pack. For the four pulls, I often have a hunter pluck one mob out and trap it, just to make the healer's day a little easier.

The destroyers are the harder part, IMO. Having someone good on interrupts is immensely helpful.