I am not a healer. However, I have healed on a few characters at various levels – including all of the fights listed below. This list was compiled with the help of some healers that I know personally and spoke to.
I proudly present to you,
…the top Healing Fights of Wrath of the Lich King
10) Northrend Beasts:
Making their only appearance on these lists, the first boss of Trial of the Crusader provides an interesting and varied set of healing challenges. It features Tank healing against interrupts in the first battle, which switches to an AoE-fest in the second fight before transforming into a relaxing awareness check in the final stage of the encounter. While it is not, perhaps, the most satisfying, or challenging encounter, it is nevertheless a good showcase, earning it the bottom spot on the list.
9) Hodir (Heroic)
With DPS at such a premium on this fight, Hodir compelled many guilds to cut healers to make the timer. Nevertheless, the frost giant hits like a truck and has a fairly substantial damage output during his frozen blows attack. Combine that with periodic dispels to avoid massive damage spikes, as well as the mechanics of the fight itself that necessitated constant movement, and you’ll have a hell of a fight from the health-bar side of things.
8) Blood Queen Lanathel:
While some fights bring the healers to the forefront, others push them to the back. Nevertheless, Blood Queen Lanathel is notable for the massive pulsing aura of damage that she puts out, requiring a healthy stream of healing and even faster reactions to keep the Pact of the Darkfallen targets alive until they sort themselves out. For a fight in which two healers can potentially be moving at the same time, there is a nearly absurd level of outgoing damage, earning her spot on the list for sheer throughput.
7) XT-002 Deconstructor (Heroic)
Fresh out of Naxxramas, XT challenged raids with its powerful AoE and high tank damage, however, heroic took that challenge to an entire new level. With AoEs that could cripple an entire raid at once, XT cannot be underestimated even today with its percentage based attacks. For not letting over geared healers forget what plummeting raid health feels like, XT makes the list.
6) Kel’Thuzad:
While it was in Naxx, that easiest of instances, Kel’Thuzad provided a unique challenge for healers. In this one fight, we had nearly every type of incoming damage possible, and you needed to be able to deal with it all. There were frost bolt volleys, interruptible frost bolts, increasing off-tank damage, and even a critical-healing attack (potentially on multiple targets). Early in the expansion, this was the fight that healers looked to as a test of their skills above any other, making him the only boss from Naxxramas to make this list.
5) Marrowgar (Heroic)
Personally, this seemed like an odd choice to me, and wasn’t originally on the list, but after talking to a couple different healers and hearing positive reviews from them, I decided to include it. Marrowgar Hard features high tank damage, occasional predictable spikes, and nearly absurd levels of AoE during bonestorm. All of them are individually healable, but when combined, only a great healer will be able to throw a cooldown quick enough to save them. For this emphasis on high-level reactions and skill under stressful situations, Marrowgar Hard makes the list in spades.
4) Festergut:
While many fights test multiple methods of healing, none have such a pronounced variance as Festergut. Beginning as a raid healing fight, and then slowly transitioning into a spike-fest on the tanks has thrown many healing teams. Combined with pungent blight providing a near Decimate level AoE, this fight is no joke from the healer end of things. For being a well-tuned test of healing and organic transitions between two styles, Festergut earns his place.
3) The Lich King:
The Lich King has been one of those fights that doesn’t seem to be about healing on the outside, but once you peel it open and realize that all the healing in this fight is done in addition to every other mechanic in the fight – defile, valks, frostmourne, spirits, transitions, defile, soul reaper, infest, frost orbs, defile – then the true magnitude of the task starts to become evident. In addition, the sheer length of the fight will put a stress on any healer – knowing that on progression, even one lost DPS will cripple the raid’s ability to function for the rest of the fifteen minute fight. For being an extremely satisfying boss to get through, requiring some of the best play of the whole expansion, the Lich King earns his spot in the top 3.
2) Deathbringer Saurfang (Heroic):
A very wise healer in my guild once likened this fight to juggling grenades. It starts off simple enough, with tank damage and periodic spikes on random people. However, by the last 10%, you’re dealing with nearly doubled tank damage, applied through a frenzy, as well as three people taking nearly unhealable amounts of constant damage. Those small spikes no longer seem small, and as the fight goes longer and longer, the chances of dropping one or more of your precious dps (all of which are needed to bring the Death Knight down) increase with every passing second. This fight will tell you who your best healers are, and for that, earns the number two spot.
1) Valithera Dreamwalker (Heroic):
If Deathbringer lets you know who your two best healers were, Dreamwalker will teach you which of your healers is the best damage dealer. Pure throughput seems the order of the day, combined with a massive healing buff for the healers who are going to heal the dragon. The real healing test, however, isn’t the dragon healers, but the severely reduced healing team that needs to handle the streaming mess of adds outside. On ten-man, there is a single healer who is responsible for the health of the rest of the raid. One of the most challenging healing tasks in the game at the moment.
For having the healers in the spotlight, Dreamwalker receives high marks all around, and the honor of being the Best Healing Fight in Wrath.
Coming up tomorrow is this week’s picks listing, and then on Friday, the final installment of the Wrath Retrospective – containing the top 10 fights overall, as well as a Blooper List of the 5 worst fights for the expansion. What do you think of these picks? Anything you’d have included? Removed? Why?
Leave em down in the comments.
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