We've all been there. You're on a raid where the tank rotation gets messed up and you've run out of plate-wearing heroes. The raid leader is frantically urging *somebody* to step up and tank the big, bad boss. So somebody does, but he fails to announce, "hey everybody, heal me!" so he gets flattened, and the mob proceeds to chew through your ranks faster than you, a lowly priest, can acquire a target to heal. I can't seem to find a function on the extended target window to automatically target "raid assist's assist target" (the unfortunate soul it happens to be beating the snot out of). So what I do is this... I have the first 8/10 extended targets assigned to primary and secondary tanks, maybe even the raid leader, enchanter, or some other individual filling a critical role. I leave the last two blank and save the window set. Then I have two socials. /xtar 9 /assist /cast 1 /cast 2 /cast 3 /xtar 10 /assist /cast 1 /cast 2 /cast 3 The boss mob and another bad guy auto-hate in slots 9 and 10. This acquires their target and casts one of 3 single-target heals; whichever is the fastest to cast will fire off. (I have Invigoration or whatever it is loaded in the top slot.) This really helped me last night on the Dead Hills 2 event with the 95k hitter. What do my fellow healers do when faced with this situation?
You mean when I'm not frantically trying to rez or reapply: Symbol + shining bastion + DI + [either divine guardian or anticipated interposition] to several tanks to get them up and available for taking over? Unfortunately I don't use xtar but my 'cheap' way of seeing who has aggro is using the aggro meter. Long as a pet isn't top on it, it will show you exactly who the mob is going after. Then I use a nuke/heal so I don't have to take time for the /assist to go through. Once you know who is more likely to stay alive a couple of seconds (non tanks I mean - like which rangers hit WS, etc.) you'll learn with your new raid force when you have an extra few precious seconds or not. Not a great answer and is more cleric-y than druid based. I wish we actually organized healers into who battle rez/buffs and who doesn't (so you don't run into the risk of everyone trying to heal and no one actually prepping the next to tank).
That's a good super fast patch (druid remote nuke). But it only works for one spell and then you're back to square one. So you see who's on the aggro meter but can you click to target from there? Or assign a hotkey to do so?
For tough progression events we often had 1 cleric just for battle rezzing and rebuffing. But I understand that's a luxury.
/assist boss_name /cast fastestHeal /cast 2ndFastest /cast 3rdFastest Spam that hotkey and heals will hit whoever the boss is beating down. While you can certainly just spam away until you get a heal to land on *someone*, I generally don't spam it mindlessly. When a boss enters buzzsaw mode, I generally put the boss on target, and watch HoTT for any plate tank to appear, and then spam away until stability returns. Not wasting my time attempting to cast heals at zerkers, rogues, or whoever else might appear on target -- they typically won't survive the cast time anyway. If a ranger appears that typically means WS on and heals aren't needed. The problem with assisting an xtar slot is ... you aren't assured to get the target you want. Assist the boss directly, and there is no doubt.
Communication is key. Ward of Certitude quick lil 3-4 clerics casting that rift after another is a mini evasive disc for any plate tank. So target A_rapingboss_ohoh1 /assist /cast ward of cert /doability (aa DI) Cleric and or raid and or say channel > %T < Ward of Cert next cleric go in 2 seconds Oh and get your lazy tanks to all discs and or WS and or any riposte / evasive disc - you know like NONE DO ANYMORE EVER! **goes back to taking a glorious break from the massive head trauma that is EQ nowadays**
If anyone knows they're about to tank and not hitting an AA or disc to temporarily prevent damage, and announcing they're about to tank, then duh, they're going to die. EVERY class has abilities to greatly reduce incoming damage for a short bit. I use /assist hotkey and my TAB key (which for me is set to toggle last target) to quickly swap. Tank dies, I hit TAB to toggle back to mob, watch HoTT for a tank to appear, hit assist key (assisting the mob, aka targeting the tank) and send heals. I personally don't save Ward. It's part of my 7 heal bind; as soon as it's able to be used, it's cast on whomever I'm healing. I generally cast it on the MT about the 10-15 second to engage countdown, then hit silent casting and start my heal rotation then, with ward being the first heal in the weave.
Ditto on TAB, that brings up the main target faster than any other method. Then you assist heal off the main mob. You're trying to stablize the fight, so whoever you heal is a help. Remember, even when you hit your assist heal the HOTT might instantly change, so keep it going. Go back to TAB after doing one heal and check if agro is bouncing, if not, TAB back and start regular healing.
I like this, I think I will make a hotkey and try it. I think I will try this too, I don't usually have Ward in my spell lineup. But I probably should. For Clerics, I really like having an audio trigger for "Your Anticipated Interposition spell has worn off of ___." It's a great warning for when someone is about to get owned (it especially helps announce surprise tank swaps, or when a tank has just lost deflection/fortitude). Unfortunately it depends on "me" being the caster of AI, which I am not super on top of doing and the other emote for an AI fire "___ is infused by a divine reformation" is the same as PR spells (and you have to be sort of close to the tank). It depends on the situation, but I tend to buff other tanks when things hit the fan, rather than heal. It is rare to see a tank handle something for very long without any buffs/discs up - not that it stops many of them from jumping right into the fray after death.
As a cleric, if you're using a weave of ward > remedy > V.I. > Fraught > E.I. > Fervent > Frenzied then you can't use the social of only casting 3 different heals, since the chances of all of them being down at any one time are quite high. As a druid I would understand it, since they only have 3 different single target heals.
That's certainly true, I didn't think of that (I've never really played a druid). An assist key with /xtar 1 and /assist would probably do well, also. My normal heal weave is Remedy > V.I. > E.I. > Fraught > Fervent > Syllable/Splash. What's the logic behind casting Fraught sooner? Just curious. I have to keep things interesting somehow
While Remote Sunfire is the most effective and largest reflect, it is not the only one. Frosthowl Breath and Lustrous Frost both proc a reflective heal, (one is actually a heal over time, HAH) as does Clutch of Ro ... I frequently reapply these debuffs (besides clutch of ro) for not only the obvious reason, but the reflective heals as well. It also helps when adds pop and you are unsure of the add tank. You might be thinking: why the hell would he have room for those spells during a raid encounter? Spell sets. If you maintain consistency in your spell slots, spells with long cooldowns will remain up when switching spell sets. If you're really focused on ONLY healing the target's target, you can spam Lustrous Frost, Frosthowl Breath, and Sunfire.
Sirene, with that weave, you would fairly frequently be casting Syllable, Remedy, Syllable at the end of a weave when both interventions are on their too long recast. With the weave I stated, you will always have a good, single target heal available. I never want to be without a good, effective heal to use to heal someone that is at a distance from me, and outside my group. Syllable is neither effective nor can heal outside your group, and the extra click for splash, plus it's low effectiveness for single target healing is annoying, IMO. As long as you have Sanctified Blessing maxed, Fraught, Fervent, etc, become more effective than their previous expansion's intervention. They are a touch longer cast time, but with the additional average 9k heal from Sanctified Blessing, that puts them over the edge from older interventions.
Yeah, I only use Syllable in a weave when I'm in the MT group, and switch to Reverent Light otherwise. I will try out switching Elysian Intervention/Fraught Renewal. The main reason I had them in that particular order is the 1.5 vs 1.8 cast time. I am trying to replace Reverent Light in my lineup permanently, as I do not use it very often but the weave I am using (as you pointed out) does result in downtime after a while.
to actually get a tank swap key to work this is what I did: /pause 2, /xtar 10 <-- raid mob (target mob and set to current target, then do 3rd step while targeting mob) /pause 5, /cast X <-- Virtuous Contravention /pause 20, /xtar 9 <-- targets the new main tank (set to targets target) /pause 20, /cast X <-- ward of certitude /pause 18, /cast X <-- remedy where X is your spell gem number
My quintessential assist heal key for whichever mob you have targeted: /assist /pause 3 <--- allows time to switch to the target's target /cast 10 <--- Vivification /cast 4 <--- Adrenaline Rush /cast 8 <--- Steravida Requires that you have a way to retarget the mob, either TAB or /assist raid works. Pauses are not needed between the casts because you want to immediately go to the next spell if the first spell is not ready to be cast.
