Completed my first instance and I have some questions... [Archive]

View Full Version : Completed my first instance and I have some questions...

ExtremeFaji

01-10-2009, 04:36 PM

Last night some guildmates and I went through the Scion of Ice instance. There were five of us levels 70-80 (I'm 73) and three were rookies so it took several tries to get our timing down, but we did manage to complete the entire instance and had lots of fun doing it. As we were going through, several questions were running through my head and there were no Templar vets there so I filed them away for you all:1.) The hardest thing for me to figure out was what buffs I could get away with pre-pull without drawing immediate aggro. There were several times one single-target reactive drew it, so I started putting on the group reactive and it didn't happen as much. The moment the tank pulled I would throw on Reverence>Group Reactive> and that seemed to go ok. I'm sure this varies with the situation and mobs, but are there tried and true Do's/Don'ts in regards to buffing pre-pull?2.) How the heck do you prevent wipes from AoE damage? When we wiped, it was always from a nasty AoE where I would have to heal so much I drew aggro and died. I was at max heal range but even out of l-o-s of the MoBs I took some nasty hits. Is Holy Shield a must in some situations?3). I have read that many Templars have a Group Reactive early in their spell progression. I did this last night, but it has the longest casting time except for a rez and it made me nervous that I would not be able to react in time to someone's immediate needs. I'm assuming many of you have macros to cancel a spell and throw a fast heal on someone?4.) How do you time Steadfast and what are the more common situations when you use it? It's only 2 seconds and the time I wanted to prevent an interrupt the most was for a group rez which took way too long to cast.Lots of stuff to throw out in one post, I know. I had a blast running the instance though and I want to get better at it as other groups won't be as patient as my guildmates. Thanks for your comments!!!

PRALL

01-10-2009, 11:38 PM

#1) One of the first things I notice is that you had a full tier spread of levels there. These are scalable zones, so the level of mobs are going to be determined by average level of the group. In this case, you would be below that average level and makes you more prone to healer aggro situations. My suggestion is that you should have everyone mentor to a lower level group member before entering the zone. Once everyone zones in, the zone will be more level appropriate for the group, and people can un-mentor if they wish so long as everyone stays logged in and in the zone. Once the mobs are more level appropriate, you should be able to pre-heal with your either of your reactives. I sometimes use Reverence as a pre-heal, depending on how much power I see the tank using to get aggro. Finally, have your Complacency ready if you get aggro, and spend AA's to get Divine Aura.#2) Again, this can be level dependant, so see the answer above for this as well. Yes, Holy Shield can help at times on certain mobs. On some mobs, I have to stay out of range and joust in and out to cast heals. Also, make sure you are landing your Involuntary Restoration spell on the mob. Your primary concern is the tank, but the reactive on the mob procs a group heal that can help the others. Another biggie is have Glory on more than one group mate.#3) I cast the group reactive once I know that I have enough reactives on the tank to keep him alive during a long cast like the group reactive. I have the advantage at 80 of also having Repent. For me, once Repent and the single-target reactive are on the tank, I have plenty of time to cast longer spells.#4) I won't comment on that because I did not go down that AA line. While it's a nice ability, I had other priorities for my play style. I have not needed it for the most part, and Sanctuary tends to do fine for me.So overall the group level is a biggie for you in those zones. A lot of your issues will iron out if you scale the zone to a lower level.

Filroden

01-11-2009, 06:52 AM

<cite>ExtremeFajita wrote:</cite><blockquote>4.) How do you time Steadfast and what are the more common situations when you use it? It's only 2 seconds and the time I wanted to prevent an interrupt the most was for a group rez which took way too long to cast.</blockquote>That's not how steadfast works. It is on you permantantly UNLESS you move. It then takes 2 seconds from when you stop moving to be reapplied.

SpineDoc

01-11-2009, 08:59 PM

What a lot of players don't seem to get is the entire groups equipment makes a huge difference on your healing. I know many of you guys have been stuck with the tank in MC stuff who always seems in the yellow, and then the next day with the raid tank who allows you to clean out your fridge while you heal with one hand. Most groups of course will fall somewhere in between those extremes making you work harder, or work less.Of course at 80 the world turns again when you get repent, but you're not there yet. In relation to precasting it will aggro the mob every time, and this is where the factor of how fast the tank can taunt them comes in, additionally in some dungeons there are fairly long body pulls and you are going to get hit no matter what. So you can play a couple of different ways. You can not precast, and when you see the tank running back time your first reactive to land just when he taunts, it takes practice but works ver well but the downfall is there is no group protection. Option 2 is to reactive the tank and group reactive before the pull and to expect to get beat on often. But this is the reason we have plate armor and have the group reactive up, so you take the 2 or 3 hits, tank gets them and life goes on. I play a combination of these depending on the tanks skill, the makeup of the dungeon and the risk of roamers and adds, and the makeup of the pulled mobs, ie: encounter or single target. Always be flexible to the tank and the dungeon and you won't lose.AOE damage is just a fact of life. You have to always have a group heal in the back of your mind. Also IMO one of your most powerful heals is your lotto heal that heals when the mob dies. If there is one absolute must debuff it is this one, it has saved the day so much more than I can describe. There are, as you have deduced, many times when you will have to cancel a long casting spell to save someones bacon. Personally I just walk for a split second and that breaks the spell, it's faster than hitting the escape button. I just go forward and back like a step and cast the new spell. Literally thinking on your feet. As for casting times you will notice an improvement as you put points into facile grace and begin to get casting reducing armor.As for steadfast I never saw a need for it, never specced into it so I can't answer your question. But the way its not a duration, it's just that you need to sit still for 2 seconds for it to be on.

Tash 1

01-12-2009, 04:49 AM

With the risk of sounding like a xxx. Aggro isn’t really your problem. It’s the tanks problem. Your job is to heal and keep the tank alive first and last.I always have both my reactives up and running, both the group and the single. And I rarely cancel casting them for a “fast heal” if you need to cast fast heals to save the tank. It is most probably since your reactives isn’t up and running. And to try and keep the tank up with direct heals will only get you in to a bad circle.Steadfast is probably nice but I never have used it and I feel its better for solo or rare raid situations than for normal groups. (And how it works, has been explained)Normal cast order for me is.- (Reverence) you get it at 80- Group reactive- Single reactive- ** Tank pulls **- Stun- Debuff- Debuff- Debuff- (Direct heal if needed)- Renew single reactive (even if it not expired yet)- Renew group reactives (even if not expired yet)For your equipment.- Get heal crit items (more important than + healing)- Get good mitigation so you can take a hit or twoAnd again.Tanks job is aggro managementHealers job is keeping tank alive.DPS job is to kill mobs.And for cancel a spell …. Jump. /Hugs Tash

PRALL

01-12-2009, 06:51 PM

/agree Tash.I have MAYBE 3 items that don't have a plus to heal crit. Those items have plus to heal or alacrity or power regen (usually a combo of these.) If I can find a plus to heal crit for those items, I would probably equip that instead. As a result, I'm at 52% heal crit and with the shard armor, I get a 10% boost to that 2 times per minute while in battle.I didn't go there in my previous post, but I agree that I shouldn't have to take more than one hit (if any) because the tank should be taunting it like mad on the pull.Repent > allReactives = bread & butter.Word.

SpineDoc

01-12-2009, 10:02 PM

The heal crits help a huge amount. I'm finally up to 52% and I still have a couple of pieces of jewelry to go, and only have the T2 BP, everything else is T1.I have to clarify that I do precast 99% of the time, but even with the best tank there are just groups (like yellow frogs in Guk) that will one shot you on the body pull. I've grouped with some of the best tanks on my server and there are still many hits I end up taking on the pull. Plus there is the occasional aggro on pull from Stoneshield. That's just why they gave us plate armor though.

Perrigrin

01-15-2009, 02:16 AM

1) What I've noticed the most lately, is I can precast as much as I want, but if there's still a reactive on the tank when he goes to pull the NEXT mob, that's when I tend to get smacked at first. (weird I know, but I've seen it several times lately). One thing you need to remember is that precasting is different than casting during a pull. If you want to precast, cast your reactives on the tank before he starts pulling. Especially in these instances there's social aggro, so if you're waiting until mid-pull, it will pull extra mobs to the group. Like others have already said, once you hit 80 and get Repent it will be exponentially easier.2) If your entire group is getting wiped out by big AoE's, my first question would be why the tank wasn't turning the mob to face away from the rest of the party. Not all AoEs, but many are only frontal, so anyone standing behind the mob will not be getting hit with it.3) I generally only cast my group reactive if I've already got enough reactives on the tank that I know he's not going to get creamed while the group one is casting. With the mob reactives we get (i.e. Involuntary Heal, mark spells) it makes it much easier to only cast the reactives on the tank and just throw a quick heal to a party member if they need it. If I need to cancel a long casting spell I just jump <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />4) Steadfast will protect you from stuns/stifles as long as you're not moving (it's a buff that always stays on you). The 2 seconds happens when you do move, it takes 2 seconds of standing still to reactivate. Honestly, the only time I've ever used steadfast was to fight Pawbuster in KC, and Pirate Jones for Swashy epic updates. I've never seen a need to use it for regular instant-run type groups.I hope some of this helps you out some!

Filroden

01-16-2009, 01:19 PM

<cite>Zemi@Butcherblock wrote:</cite><blockquote>4) Steadfast will protect you from stuns/stifles as long as you're not moving (it's a buff that always stays on you). The 2 seconds happens when you do move, it takes 2 seconds of standing still to reactivate. Honestly, the only time I've ever used steadfast was to fight Pawbuster in KC, and Pirate Jones for Swashy epic updates. I've never seen a need to use it for regular instant-run type groups.</blockquote>Steadfast does nothing to prevent stuns. It does prevent interrupts though - very useful in some situations. It is situational but you usually give up the STA line to get the STR in healing builds as you can still get goot heal crits without the STA line but you will find few ways to achieve what steadfast can do (plus the added bonus of a very nice debuff and more health from the rest of the line).

Dolgan

01-21-2009, 02:27 PM

<cite>ExtremeFajita wrote:</cite><blockquote>2.) How the heck do you prevent wipes from AoE damage? When we wiped, it was always from a nasty AoE where I would have to heal so much I drew aggro and died. I was at max heal range but even out of l-o-s of the MoBs I took some nasty hits. Is Holy Shield a must in some situations?</blockquote>If you cast the AOE protect make sure you have it targeted to you. create a macro that targets you and casts at the same time. This prevents you from taking the damage and allows you to heal.

Hopefulne

01-21-2009, 11:13 PM

1)Not a big fan of reverence on the tank esp prepull. The duration is too short and the return is small unless the tank is burning silly amounts of power. I tend to save it for small patch healing on dpsers.Repent (lvl 80 reactive/ward) is great but for most heroic content it serves me better as an emergency heal.3)The grp reactive does have a long cast time but so long as the single target is on the tank there shouldn't be any problems with reaction time. If someone grabs aggro then the time it takes to interrupt the cast and then cast something which would save them is usually enough to let the grp reactive finish casting.If you're going to interrupt a spell i believe escape is more useful than jump (i think you can rebind the interrupt key?) Jump leaves you with a short time to get back to the ground and stops me casting for a couple of moments (esp with all the slow fall buffs people forget)Normal casting order for me is:single reactivegrp reactive<tank pulls>switch on autoattackdebuff/smite/grp smite depending on mobdebuff/smite/grp smite depending on mobHeroic Oppsmitesmiterefresh reactives/heal as necessary.smitesmiterince/repeatIt's more dps than most healers but IMO everyone's job in a grp/raid is dps. It might not be their primary role and it shouldn't stop you doing your job but everyone should dps. Pretty soon it looks like dps will have to actually manage their aggro as well.

Tash 1

01-22-2009, 04:53 AM

If your healing is needed I personally would not recommend this casting order maybe for trash. Tbh no one thanks a dpsing healer. When they dead on the floor.If we for some reason are 2 healers in a easy zone I can go dps. But if I don’t have my AA dps setup Its fairly puny dps hardly worth the effort. With the DPS setup I can do a bit dps but it to hardly worth the effort tbh.About handling AOEs. this is mostly about placing. Frontal tailsweeps etc. Only mob I recall doing any AOE in Scion is the end boss if I recall correct.He is a pain I hate him esp since he cheats with his emotes lately. But The last bos is a interrupt or pure DPS fight. Some encounters in TSO is script so that you just can’t heal your way through if you don’t handle them the right way.But standard handling for aoe. Keep your group reactive up always and be prepared with the AOE heal. Overloaded heal, hateshield etc is a great bonus. But your reactives is the bread and butter.To be honest. I see no excuse what so ever to not always have the grp reactives going./Hugs Tash

Hopefulne

01-22-2009, 03:46 PM

''If your healing is needed I personally would not recommend this casting order maybe for trash. Tbh no one thanks a dpsing healer. When they dead on the floor.''what do you do when not casting heals/debuffs then? (which happens a lot more when you gear/group/casting speed quality goes up)And on t'lon the powermonger or ravenscale protectorate? dps moments when the healing isn't difficult is a biggie

Tash 1

01-23-2009, 04:34 AM

The OP asked about how to solve problems with keeping his group alive. And as I see it your casting order doesn’t give any what so ever help to keep a group alive.As I said ''If your healing is needed I personally would not recommend this casting order maybe for trash. Tbh no one thanks a dpsing healer. When they dead on the floor.''If you go and dps on easy encounters .. who cares. I to can go dps when bored. But again. NO group will Thank! you for trying to DPS if they wipe. If you really really need to dps . get a DPS class. They way better at it./Tash

Hopefulne

01-23-2009, 06:40 PM

more dps-->mob dies quicker-->mob deals less damage-->group takes less damage-->less damage to heal-->easier to keep group alive I never suggested you should dps over healing and never will. Only that i think you should when you have the time. I did intend to point out that you should always be casting something - even a nuke.As I said: ''what do you do when not casting heals/debuffs then?''To the OP: 1)For buffing prepull try to learn how your tank is going to pull in a situation and your group dynamic. If the tank is body-pulling then understand that any reactive/heal thrown is possibly going to get you aggro. Having someting ready to put on yourself so you can stay alive long enough to lose aggro is a good idea.Use a similar idea when you have a groupie who also pulls aggro early on in a pull. Repent is useful here.I would reccomend the complacency line occassionally - the hate reduction part is ok but the important part is the 6 second daze. When your heal load is heavy it can 'hiccup' the incoming damage. It is a blue back though.

SpineDoc

01-24-2009, 01:57 AM

This is why I love the melee spec. It takes nothing away from my healing, nothing at all. It doesn't cost power so doesn't affect my healing in that way. It doesn't matter if a heal spell reduces my spell damage. So I can feel free to DPS away for virtually free and still heal just as effectively. IMO the more I play melee spec the more I feel as if you don't you are taking away from the group in terms of adding valuable DPS. When the DPS specifically does not take away anything from your healing as oppossed to burning a bunch of damage spells. Honestly I'm never not casting a debuff or a heal, of course with melee in between timed with the cast timers and weapon delay. By the time I have all my debuffs on the mob is almost dead, that's just the way grouping is these days. The only time I have free time is with the more powerful named mobs and then it could be a battle against running out of power.You have a great point in regards to precasting and body pulling, there is certainly some consideration depending on the situation and the tanks ability. I group cast 99% of the time and allow that and my plate armor to take the common hit or 2 on the pull. Just as the tank has to be aware, so the healer also has to be aware of when to cast what, and when not to cast it.And I'm a huge believer in daze and stun to reduce the damage taken, which means less heals for us.<cite>Rickenbacker@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote>more dps-->mob dies quicker-->mob deals less damage-->group takes less damage-->less damage to heal-->easier to keep group alive I never suggested you should dps over healing and never will. Only that i think you should when you have the time. I did intend to point out that you should always be casting something - even a nuke.As I said: ''what do you do when not casting heals/debuffs then?''To the OP: 1)For buffing prepull try to learn how your tank is going to pull in a situation and your group dynamic. If the tank is body-pulling then understand that any reactive/heal thrown is possibly going to get you aggro. Having someting ready to put on yourself so you can stay alive long enough to lose aggro is a good idea.Use a similar idea when you have a groupie who also pulls aggro early on in a pull. Repent is useful here.I would reccomend the complacency line occassionally - the hate reduction part is ok but the important part is the 6 second daze. When your heal load is heavy it can 'hiccup' the incoming damage. It is a blue back though.</blockquote>