04-04-2007, 07:03 AM
A number of comments:
Firstly, the quotes from Gurgthock are referencing the old, un-nerfed Nightbane, where Smoking Blast hit for 4000 physical damage every second and Nightbane landed crushings on the tank for between 11,000 and 13,000 points of damage. If you didn't get Smoking Blast on to a paladin, you died, and Nightbane's hits were so massive you basically had to chain max-rank heals on the tank to keep him up. In that context, 23% overhealing is fantastic.
The current Nightbane is another thing entirely. But taking the subject back to the old one for just a second: healing was different. Damage incoming is part of it, but I see the difference as being also partly in the way tank hit points have scaled up dramatically, as well as there just being fewer healers all around.
In the AQ40 and Naxx cancel-heal days, on emps and Patchwerk, yeah, bosses could two-shot tanks. In the AQ40 days, 7.5k HP on a tank was great, and if you got Unbalancing Strike for 4k followed up by a 4k crit, yeah, your tank was toast. You still cancel-healed to save mana, though, because there were four more healers lined up behind you that would land heals fractions of a second after you cancelled your heal, any two of which were sufficient to max out the tank's hit points and allow him to take another huge hit. The boss simply wasn't going to hit your tank again before at least two heals landed and pushed the tank to 100%. So long as your tank didn't get one-shot from 100%, you were good to go. For a lot of situations, especially in BC 25-man content, this method of healing still applies. For that matter, it's still valid in a lot of Karazhan, because most bosses just don't spike tanks that heavily (although you have fewer healers).
The old Nightbane, however, was a nightmare scenario for cancel-healing. He hit so hard, and you needed so much healing to top the tank off again, that cancelling could mean death.
On Emps, for example, let's say you cancel your heal 0.5s from the end, and 0.2s after that he Unbalances the tank for 4k damage. Your heal could have been useful - but it's OK, because a fraction of a second after your heal would have hit, the tank takes 8k healing and is back to max to take the incoming crushing. That you cancelled your heal was less than optimal, but far from a disaster.
Now let's take the old Nightbane. Your tank has 15,000 HP, and you're cancel-healing. At 0.5s from the end of the spell, the tank is at 100%, and you cancel. 0.2s after you cancel, Nightbane crushes the tank for 13,000 points of damage. In the referenced Gurgthock post, he has only three healers in the raid, so assuming that, only two healers are in the queue after you. Let's say their timing is impeccable, so they both land 4,000 point heals immediately after the crushing blow, bringing your tank up to 10,000 HP. Nightbane then crushes the tank for 11,000 points, your tank dies, you wipe.
The point of the numbers and examples is this: in two situations where, functionally, the exact same things happened, in one of them, the tank lives, and in the other, the tank dies. With up to 13k on a crushing, you chain max ranks on the tank and you let them go off, you don't cancel, because if you do cancel, the other two healers may not be enough to get the tank's HP up high enough before your next heal can land. As I said, however, Nightbane has been nerfed since.
That said, the basic design of the fight is relatively unchanged, and Bolty's right - it's basically a huge mana drain from start to finish, and having efficient healers helps a lot. This group composition is definitely trying to do it the hard way.
I actually just got my first experience healing on Nightbane tonight, on my questionably geared alt paladin (the raid was nine alts and one main). We lost our rogue on the first flight and our shadow priest at 68%, but wound up with a kill anyway. We had only three players healing; two holy paladins and a resto shaman, and the resto shaman wasn't even in the same group as the other healers because we needed alternating tremor totems to compensate for lack of Fear Ward. By the time he touched down for the third time, our mage and warlock had joined the other two players in death, but we were able to hang on for the last 25%.
There's something to trying to reduce overheal on the current incarnation of this fight. Nightbane doesn't hit extraordinarily hard, nothing that will require heavy spam-healing, and Titans + Ironshields should reduce that even more. Light consumable use (Fel Mana Potions) might be something to look into as well (flasking Mighty Resto is an option but a distasteful one). Also, your comment about any of the three healers taking a break to regen or all getting feared resulting in tank death doesn't fit with my experience at all; frequently, all of our healers would wind up feared and we'd just throw big heals on the tank the moment fear broke. Nature's Swiftness helped us on a couple of them, but it wasn't up for all of them. During the last 25%, I had to stop and regen for about 15 seconds to let my potion cooldown come back up, and the tank wasn't in danger of dying.
Grouping up during the Rain of Bones also sounds strange to me. It does light physical AE damage, so grouping is just making sure you all get hit. Fireball Volley requires you to be absurdly distant; it's not something you should be worrying too much about. Basically, if you're in range of Nightbane or in range to heal his tank during the ground phase, you won't be hit by Fireball Volley during the flight phase.
Ultimately the solution may be finding a paladin or getting a druid to respec. Group composition truly plays a bigger role in TBC raid content than in anything that was in 1.0, mostly because raid sizes are smaller. I think it's doable, though difficult, with the current composition, but from here on out it really does start to get significantly more difficult without a well-composed raid.
Firstly, the quotes from Gurgthock are referencing the old, un-nerfed Nightbane, where Smoking Blast hit for 4000 physical damage every second and Nightbane landed crushings on the tank for between 11,000 and 13,000 points of damage. If you didn't get Smoking Blast on to a paladin, you died, and Nightbane's hits were so massive you basically had to chain max-rank heals on the tank to keep him up. In that context, 23% overhealing is fantastic.
The current Nightbane is another thing entirely. But taking the subject back to the old one for just a second: healing was different. Damage incoming is part of it, but I see the difference as being also partly in the way tank hit points have scaled up dramatically, as well as there just being fewer healers all around.
In the AQ40 and Naxx cancel-heal days, on emps and Patchwerk, yeah, bosses could two-shot tanks. In the AQ40 days, 7.5k HP on a tank was great, and if you got Unbalancing Strike for 4k followed up by a 4k crit, yeah, your tank was toast. You still cancel-healed to save mana, though, because there were four more healers lined up behind you that would land heals fractions of a second after you cancelled your heal, any two of which were sufficient to max out the tank's hit points and allow him to take another huge hit. The boss simply wasn't going to hit your tank again before at least two heals landed and pushed the tank to 100%. So long as your tank didn't get one-shot from 100%, you were good to go. For a lot of situations, especially in BC 25-man content, this method of healing still applies. For that matter, it's still valid in a lot of Karazhan, because most bosses just don't spike tanks that heavily (although you have fewer healers).
The old Nightbane, however, was a nightmare scenario for cancel-healing. He hit so hard, and you needed so much healing to top the tank off again, that cancelling could mean death.
On Emps, for example, let's say you cancel your heal 0.5s from the end, and 0.2s after that he Unbalances the tank for 4k damage. Your heal could have been useful - but it's OK, because a fraction of a second after your heal would have hit, the tank takes 8k healing and is back to max to take the incoming crushing. That you cancelled your heal was less than optimal, but far from a disaster.
Now let's take the old Nightbane. Your tank has 15,000 HP, and you're cancel-healing. At 0.5s from the end of the spell, the tank is at 100%, and you cancel. 0.2s after you cancel, Nightbane crushes the tank for 13,000 points of damage. In the referenced Gurgthock post, he has only three healers in the raid, so assuming that, only two healers are in the queue after you. Let's say their timing is impeccable, so they both land 4,000 point heals immediately after the crushing blow, bringing your tank up to 10,000 HP. Nightbane then crushes the tank for 11,000 points, your tank dies, you wipe.
The point of the numbers and examples is this: in two situations where, functionally, the exact same things happened, in one of them, the tank lives, and in the other, the tank dies. With up to 13k on a crushing, you chain max ranks on the tank and you let them go off, you don't cancel, because if you do cancel, the other two healers may not be enough to get the tank's HP up high enough before your next heal can land. As I said, however, Nightbane has been nerfed since.
That said, the basic design of the fight is relatively unchanged, and Bolty's right - it's basically a huge mana drain from start to finish, and having efficient healers helps a lot. This group composition is definitely trying to do it the hard way.
I actually just got my first experience healing on Nightbane tonight, on my questionably geared alt paladin (the raid was nine alts and one main). We lost our rogue on the first flight and our shadow priest at 68%, but wound up with a kill anyway. We had only three players healing; two holy paladins and a resto shaman, and the resto shaman wasn't even in the same group as the other healers because we needed alternating tremor totems to compensate for lack of Fear Ward. By the time he touched down for the third time, our mage and warlock had joined the other two players in death, but we were able to hang on for the last 25%.
There's something to trying to reduce overheal on the current incarnation of this fight. Nightbane doesn't hit extraordinarily hard, nothing that will require heavy spam-healing, and Titans + Ironshields should reduce that even more. Light consumable use (Fel Mana Potions) might be something to look into as well (flasking Mighty Resto is an option but a distasteful one). Also, your comment about any of the three healers taking a break to regen or all getting feared resulting in tank death doesn't fit with my experience at all; frequently, all of our healers would wind up feared and we'd just throw big heals on the tank the moment fear broke. Nature's Swiftness helped us on a couple of them, but it wasn't up for all of them. During the last 25%, I had to stop and regen for about 15 seconds to let my potion cooldown come back up, and the tank wasn't in danger of dying.
Grouping up during the Rain of Bones also sounds strange to me. It does light physical AE damage, so grouping is just making sure you all get hit. Fireball Volley requires you to be absurdly distant; it's not something you should be worrying too much about. Basically, if you're in range of Nightbane or in range to heal his tank during the ground phase, you won't be hit by Fireball Volley during the flight phase.
Ultimately the solution may be finding a paladin or getting a druid to respec. Group composition truly plays a bigger role in TBC raid content than in anything that was in 1.0, mostly because raid sizes are smaller. I think it's doable, though difficult, with the current composition, but from here on out it really does start to get significantly more difficult without a well-composed raid.