Healing Deathbringer Saurfang

Now that I’ve joined Mob Mentality, they took my Shaman with them to ICC to finish by killing Deathbringer Saurfang. Scarily enough, this was the third raid I’ve ever healed. Anyways, I thought I’d share some thoughts on healing him in 10m ICC.

In terms of composition, we had 2 tanks, 6 DPS and 2 healers. We opted for 2 healers knowing the fight is a DPS race, so that we could burn him down quickly. The tanks were a Warrior and a Paladin, and we had a Hunter and Elemental Shaman assigned to kiting the adds. It was my Shaman and a Druid healing.

We wiped the first time just due to trying things like Thunderstorming the adds off the cliff or disarming the boss (neither works). The second and third time, the Druid got the mark or I got the mark and we just weren’t ready for it. We were going to let the first mark die, since we weren’t getting the mark till about 50% boss health and it would delay the second mark till near the end. Finally, we assigned healing so that I was on the boss and he was on the mark, with raid heals done by whoever got to it first.

The biggest problem I ran into was mana towards the end, though I’m pretty sure we didn’t have replenishment the final attempt. The first half of the fight—if not longer—is simple beyond belief. The tanks take manageable damage, and there’s hardly any raid damage, especially if you spread out correctly. Boiling Blood should be healed, but it’s only 5000 damage every 3 seconds. Because of this, I only used maybe 10% mana over the first 70% of his health. Once he “frenzies” though, with (in our case) one mark up and spacing getting messed up by adds, you start spamming heals like crazy. I found it was best to drop my Mana Tide Totem earlier than later, so that I might get a chance to use it again. I almost got to use it twice; the cooldown ended literally as he died. I would use it as early as you’re not going to cap your mana and waste it, though.

In terms of which spells to use, I tried to use Riptide as often as possible to get Tidal Waves to proc, then Healing Wave or Lesser Healing Wave as appropriate. I found that I was using Healing Wave about half the time on the tanks, though seldom on the raid, due to how little raid damage there is (other than the mark). Chain Heal isn’t so useful for this fight, since it jumps 10 yards and everyone should be 12 yards apart, though I wanted to use it some to proc my totem, so I found I could use it when the tanks switch and get my extra spell power (as an aside, I’d love to have the new totem for this fight).

I also tried to keep Earth Shield on whichever tank was taking the beating currently, though I’m not sure it was worth the mana that it cost. The damage to the tanks wasn’t so high that it wouldn’t have been manageable otherwise, so maybe next time I’ll throw it on the marked person and see what happens.

The DPS was pretty good, so we killed him with only one mark up, thus getting I’ve Gone and Made a Mess. 2 healing it was definitely doable (especially since I’m in gear I either bought with emblems or got in the Icecrown Citadel heroics), and having the extra DPS save us a load of healing later. I think I’d rather see the fight go quickly than have another hand to help heal.