It was a very productive weekend for me in Azeroth, thanks to a blizzard which forced my family and I to stay burrowed in the house.
Pit of Saron
On Saturday, heroic Pit of Saron was chosen as one of my random heroics. At first I considered explaining to the party that my gear isn’t sufficient for H-PoS, but then I stepped back and realized that I was being a pansy and decided to go through with it.
The party consisted of a DK tank, warrior, druid, warlock DPS. The DK was very “go, go, go”, and caused one wipe by charging into battle before I was ready, and another for charging in before I was ready AND not picking up a caster who was teeing off of me.
It was one of the most hectic and stressful runs I’ve ever healed. Forgemaster Garfrost is the first boss. When the fight begins, his frost ‘aura’ becomes active and all players begin taking a moderate amount of frost damage every few seconds. The damage stacks while players are exposed to it. Occasionally he’ll hurl boulders. Players are supposed to move out of the way, then use the boulders to line-of-sight the boss’s aura and let the stacks of frost damage fall off. My group didn’t do that. They just stood there and nuked while my hair grayed from the stress of keeping them alive. Thankfully the DPS was so high that the fight didn’t last very long and no one died.
I couldn’t have healed that same group as Discipline spec. The AoE healing + Guardian Spirit of Holy made all of the difference. Not that it’s impossible to heal for that boss as Disc, it’s just that, with Holy, there are more weapons to deal with people not following directions.
Krick and Ick were not a problem. The warrior died, but his health dropped so fast that it must have been from lounging in a pile of poison, or not moving away from a detonating mine. A gorgeous cloth belt dropped, which I ‘needed’, but the warlock won the roll.
Scourgelord Tyrannus is the final boss of Pit of Saron. He wasn’t as difficult as Garfrost for me. The key is to move away when the drake is commanded to attack you, and do your best to NOT heal when you get the ‘branded’ debuff. If everyone follows directions he shouldn’t be too difficult or stressful to take down.
Heroic Trial of the Champion
I was chosen for H-ToC as the next heroic. It’s not worth getting into the details of the run, but I did manage to pick up two major upgrades to my gear:
I replaced Heroes Robe of Faith with Embrace of Madness.
And replaced three different weapons (a different weapon for holy, disc, and PvP) with Mariel’s Sorrow.
I can’t put into words how nice it is to not have to lug three weapons around in my bags.
With badge gear, I replaced Forgotten Shadow Hood with Hood of Clouded Sight.
And replaced a blue, iLevel 200 ring with Band of the Invoker.
Needless to say, these are huge upgrades.
Halls of Reflection
After most of these upgrades (before only the ring), I was chosen to do Heroic Halls of Reflection. Once again, I almost copped out. Upon clicking “Ok”, I was teleported into the instance and it’s like the party was already fighting. I asked them to hold on so that I could switch specs and change gear but it was too late. We wiped within the first two minutes. I was discouraged, but we gave it another shot. This time I was able to buff, mana up, and change gear/spec.
There’s no denying it: the instance is arguably the most difficult 5-man in the game. The waves of trash that make up the first half of the instance are so challenging that fighting a boss is a welcomed relief. I don’t even know the details of the waves, how often they spawn, how many; I was too busy staring at health bars. I just know that waves and waves of casters and melee fighters will charge the party and, as a healer, your job is to heal like crazy and make sure to Fade or line-of-sight if you get aggro. It was extremely chaotic and my hands were moving so fast to dispel, heal, bubble, Stoneform, Fade, Shadowfiend. It was intense.
After two sets of waves and two bosses, the object is to ‘escape’ from the Lich King as he walks slowly down the path toward your party, spawning elite mobs. Barriers of ice block your path and your party must defeat the elite mobs while Jaina Proudmoore focuses on cracking the barriers. Once you’ve broken through the fourth ice barrier the instance is over and you can collect your loot from a chest. This part of the instance was cake compared to the first part.
To summarize, I’m glad to have been able to complete every heroic 5-man that the game has to offer. I don’t feel as much pressure to roll the dice and have to hope for dungeons outside of the Icecrown 5-mans. I know that I’m capable of clearing them.
To top off the weekend, I got Heroic Oculus last night. A nerfed headache is still a headache.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Hello there Zejus,
Great post. I just picked up WoW again after a hiatus. I just ran Pit of Saron last night and died when we just tried to “tank and spank” Garfrost. Needless to say that didn’t work out so well.
I’ve enjoyed reading about your trials and tribulations with these new instances and they give me hope and smiles. Keep up the great work.
-Tso
Hey Tso, welcome back to the game! You picked a heck of a place to jump back into it with Pit of Saron. Did you wind up getting through it? I think Garfrost is the most difficult part of the instance, with the trash past Krick and Ick being the next most difficult. Good luck.
Hey Zejus,
Thanks. It’s certainly nice to be back and doing instances. It’s been fun to see all the various instances I missed out on.
I do agree with you that Garfrost is a pain, especially if you don’t know the fight. Standing behind rocks for the win!
And I still get hammered by the ice boulders. I look on the ground to see where they drop, but I still get blasted every run so far. Maybe someday I’ll skate through there.
Looking forward to Halls of Reflection. Your post helped prepare what I have to look forward too.
Keep up the informative posts,
Tso
I am very glad to find your blog about Pit of Saron as a healer. Garfrost has been the first huge block I have had as a healer. I have been ridiculed and kicked out of random groups because we wipe on Garfrost once or twice. I have been told I suck.
Is it that non-healers just don’t understand? Could they really know if I suck? I am SO glad to hear you fellas talking about the Tank not waiting and rushing in.. and about people not listening or following directions. And then blame the healer.
I am Disc spec too… so Garfrost has been the worst thing that has ever happened to me… well not Garfrost, but my party members who turn into little jerks when they don’t get healed right.
Hey Uopuon,
Don’t sweat it, my fellow priest! As I said in a previous post, I don’t think I’d be able to heal for the Garfrost fight as Disc. I know that Disc priests are probably doing it all the time, but I’m not capable. The fight is easier as holy, but still an intense fight if the DPS doesn’t burn him quickly and if everyone refuses to break line-of-sight to wipe stacks.
No one wants to take responsibility for a wipe and it’s easy to blame a healer. Don’t take it personally.
If you’re considering going Holy then I can offer a few tips. If the group absolutely refuses to wipe stacks of the debuff then it means that players will be taking insane amounts of damage and it becomes a dps race. Keep Prayer of Mending dinging around, renew everyone if you have time to spare on the global cooldown, and pretty much chain-cast Prayer of Healing. When your free Flash Heal procs, use it on the player with the lowest health and continue PoH. You’ll need both Shadowfiend and a mana potion for your mana. You may want to throw Guardian Spirit on yourself if you get low on health. If your DPS doesn’t suck they’ll be able to burn him before too many of you die and before you run out of mana.
Good luck and hang in there.
The first encounter of Halls of Reflection is a great place to dust of that rarely used priest skill: crowd control. The waves of trash are all undead so Shackle Undead really shines.
There will be mage and hunter mobs in the waves and they love to stay at a distance.
Now you’ll be too busy healing in the middle of the fight to spare a 1.5 second cast time, but if you have a renew/shield on the tank then while the tank is rounding up the mobs at the start of each wave, you can pick off the mage or hunter to shackle. Don’t need to keep the mob CCed for the whole fight, just one shackle is enough to make the fight easier.
Now you’ll want to discuss this with your tank before the fight starts. Because unplanned CC seems to throw tanks off balance.