08-11-2005, 03:19 PM
Yeap, using Greater heal is dangerous because of the reasons you listed, but it can be quite useful in two situations:
1) The mob does relatively weak and constant DPS, without significant bursts.
Example: Golemagg's dogs, Domo's Elites, Sulfuron's range attack, early stages of Garr.
2) The tank has very high life, due to gear or buffs (probably 8k+). Easier achieved by alliance rather then Horde, thanks to the Blessing of Kings. Then the buffer is much bigger and you can afford to use slower heals.
Point of note here is that Greater heals do have another weakness. Certain bosses like to do either interrupts or high damage attacks, so that one will interrupt their heal. If this happens often, lesser heal is more reliable, since interrupting a greater heal stops 2.5-3k of healing, while interrupting a flash heal only stops 1-1.5k.
So with high enough buffer you can use GH, albeit you still probably need to use FH on bosses that like to cast certain spells randomly (Geddon comes to mind).
What we do if we try to take advantage of Greater Heal efficiency is we mix it. Some healers use Flash Heal, others use Greater Heal. At some point the healers can switch, or usually we just get the priests that are flash healing Innervated, and keep going. Between Innervate and CT_Raid, the healers won't run out (unless something is killing them, but that is a different story and problem!)
1) The mob does relatively weak and constant DPS, without significant bursts.
Example: Golemagg's dogs, Domo's Elites, Sulfuron's range attack, early stages of Garr.
2) The tank has very high life, due to gear or buffs (probably 8k+). Easier achieved by alliance rather then Horde, thanks to the Blessing of Kings. Then the buffer is much bigger and you can afford to use slower heals.
Point of note here is that Greater heals do have another weakness. Certain bosses like to do either interrupts or high damage attacks, so that one will interrupt their heal. If this happens often, lesser heal is more reliable, since interrupting a greater heal stops 2.5-3k of healing, while interrupting a flash heal only stops 1-1.5k.
So with high enough buffer you can use GH, albeit you still probably need to use FH on bosses that like to cast certain spells randomly (Geddon comes to mind).
What we do if we try to take advantage of Greater Heal efficiency is we mix it. Some healers use Flash Heal, others use Greater Heal. At some point the healers can switch, or usually we just get the priests that are flash healing Innervated, and keep going. Between Innervate and CT_Raid, the healers won't run out (unless something is killing them, but that is a different story and problem!)