Festering Rotslime - Healing Mage PoV - Sunken Temple - Season of Discovery WoW Classic Phase 3

Hello everyone! This video is a non-narrated vod of the Festering Rotslime Encounter in the new Sunken Temple Level Up Raid in Phase 3 of the World of Warcraft Classic Season of Discovery. This was my first time seeing the fight firsthand, and I certainly don't play perfectly here. I have a lot to improve on and plan to make some narrated healing guides for these bosses soon. Regardless, I thought that people might want to see what this fight looks like from a Healing Mage's perspective, so I figured that I would upload it. I hope that you enjoy the video and find it useful in some way!
I'll link the logs here in case you wanted to see a more detailed breakdown:
sod.warcraftlo...

[@SigsPlays]

Hello everyone! This is not the best gameplay here as it was my first time seeing this fight, but I at least wanted to give people a first-look at the encounter. I'll plan to upload a narrated healing guide for this boss when I get a chance to record a better attempt. I'll also post a link to the logs for this fight here in case anyone was curious: sod.warcraftlogs.com/reports/NGTaQZVD1yc83h9L#fight=29&playermetric=hps&type=healing

[@khmarabroona]

would recommend keeping groups together on your raid frames so you know who your mass regen is going to hit

[@SigsPlays]

Yeah, that's a great point! They actually are together, just there's just 4 frames per column instead of 5, so the groups don't quite line up per-column. *I* know who is in which group that way, but it is definitely not as clear as if I had 4 rows of 5 columns. I'd much prefer columns of 5, but the frames are already pretty tall and taking up more space than I would like as is at the smallest setting, so I'm going to have to look into getting an addon to make them a little smaller and set them up that way. =)

[@andresduenas4051]

Great video! happy to see a fellow mage healer doing such a good job! gg

[@SigsPlays]

Thanks so much! =)

[@adamsly5503]

Good stuff. What WA are you using for arcane missiles proc?

[@SigsPlays]

Thanks! You can find a link to my Missile Barrage Proc Weakaura here: wago.io/Kptm918ct =)

[@originalggx3021]

The problem I’m seeing with mage is the mana limitations, though they seem fun on paper. In this fight you received 2 innervates (one was when you were oom and the boss was at like 80%) and a full evocation, which is a ton of utility to use on one player. I get that this is an awkward fight, but I’m just hesitant to ever mage heal since we are useless if innervates or evo isn’t up.

[@SigsPlays]

Yeah, mana is definitely an issue atm. I assume that it will become better as the phase progresses with a full set of ST gear and more Int, plus more geared DPS leading to much quicker kill times. At that point it should feel quite reasonable, but our mana pool is currently a pretty strong limiting factor in how much healing we can provide. I still find Healing Mage to be a useful, albeit niche, class to have in the raid due to the extra damage that they provide on top of the healing. Horde Mages definitely have it easier as well due to Mana Stream Totem and Shamanistic Rage. I regened about 6.5k mana from Shamanistic Rage in this fight, plus another 1k from the Magic Absorption talent, and 1.4k from Mana Gems, plus I could have restored more from using Mana Pots. I'm quite lucky that our group has 2 Innervates available that literally no one was using otherwise, but you're absolutely right that it is a lot of resources to commit to one player. I'm also healing a lot more recklessly because I know that I have this extra mana available, and there are ways to heal much more efficiently, but it will also of course lead to lower overall HPS. This fight in particular is really bad for Healing Mages, like you said, due to all the movement required. It means that you have to lean on quick but costly Mass Regen casts to do direct healing more often than being able to stand still and get efficient healing from low-stack Arcane Blasts and Missile Barrages. I still think that when played well they are on par with the average healing of a dedicated healing spec, and worth it due to the extra DPS and utility that they provide, but they are definitely in a tricky spot right now due to mana limitations. I enjoy playing the spec and find it viable for this level of content where min / maxing isn't entirely necessary though.

[@originalggx3021]

@@SigsPlays Hey thanks for the thorough reply! I just mage healed for the first time last week and it went really smooth (yay pally mana buffs)! The HPS was a little lower, but I didn’t try to push my healing too much and was pretty conservative with mana and it worked out well; we didn’t wipe at all in the raid, which actually made my dmg parses pretty high for mage healer haha. I definitely think I could try for some healing parses now too since I have one run under my belt and myself and the rest of our raid group is pretty geared. Mage healing is definitely fun though. I just love the dmg and healing rotation.

[@SigsPlays]

@@originalggx3021 My pleasure! And that's awesome! I'm glad to hear that it went well. =) It sounds like you have the right idea - start off conservative and then start pushing it until you find your limit and then settle into that sweet spot - because once we run out of mana we are basically useless lol. The pally buffs definitely helps a lot with mana too. And I agree, it's a super fun spec and very rewarding if done correctly. Good luck in your next raid and beyond! =)

[@benrichards1852]

That’s awesome thanks! Good to see a Mage still pumping heals when compared to other healers in ST. I’ve been worried about how they’ll scale with a lack of new talents and runes… how’re you finding Temporal Anomaly?

[@SigsPlays]

Yeah, they are definitely still viable healers - which is great! Mana Pool is starting to feel like more of a limiting factor again, like it was in Phase 1, but I'm sure that with more ST gear it will get better. So far I've been surprisingly underwhelmed by Temporal Anomaly. On paper it sounded *amazing* to have access to a potentially raid-wide absorb, but in practice it doesn't seem to add up to as much extra healing as I was hoping. Obviously positioning it and timing it correctly is super important, but regardless the shield feels pretty weak, and on a 1 minute cooldown it doesn't seem to contribute much to overall healing. There's really no better Rune to run on the Head Slot atm anyways, so I think that's it's still worth using, and I'm personally still playing around it with it and getting used to it. I'm sure that situationally it can be quite powerful, especially because there does seem to be a lot of raid-wide AoE damage in Sunken Temple, so maybe using it to it's full potential just hasn't quite clicked for me yet - but either way I do think that it's a really cool spell!

[@s1m0bg]

@@SigsPlays the only purpose for it I can see is in normal dungeons. I was able to have up to 15% of my healing in a instance coming from Temporal Anomaly. But still very tricky and uncomfortable to use : ) With it's short range and the way it casts.. The only way to be effective is if the tank pay attention to it and stay close and you also need to cast it close.. it's really not well made. Also the fact it doesn't stack with SP sucks.. I was expecting a bit more and it seems very unpowerfull for raids

[@SigsPlays]

@@s1m0bg Yeah, it's definitely tricky to time and place correctly. The best way that I've found to use it is to try to cast it at the tank / melee, (which can be tricky because it moves so slow and it's not really worth missing casts to run into melee), or casting it on the ranged group on fights where we're stacked. If it scaled with SP I feel like it would be a lot better, because it's definitely a really cool spell that sounds great on paper, but like you said it just doesn't seem to perform well in raid currently.

[@s1m0bg]

Ye on ride it can help support the range grp(especially if it buffs from sp). Def don’t want to go cast it near the mele in a raid like i do in some normal 5 instances 😅

[@alexmawer3792]

Teach me the ways this boss was horrid

[@SigsPlays]

Oh man, you're not kidding, it is definitely not a good fight for Healing Mage since most of our healing comes from standing still and casting, which is very difficult to do on this fight. I'd recommend running the Enlightenment Rune on your Chest slot for the extra Mana Regen, and then doing most of your healing with full channels of Mass Regeneration. When the boss stops moving and / or when he is moving slowly is a good time to try to cast some Arcane Blasts / Missile Barrages to top everyone up, but when he gets moving fast don't be afraid to just run. Try to cast Mass Regen off of cooldown as much as possible to top low health targets, even if you can only get 1 or 2 ticks off before having to move away from the boss, as long as your mana pool can take it. Blink is definitely our friend here, as you can Blink far away and then maybe sneak in a cast or two of Arcane Blast / Missile Barrage to top everyone up before the boss catches back up, just be careful not to drop puddles in people's way as they are backing up too. A lot of this fight comes down to having good Dispels (Shaman Disease Cleanse Totem in particular is super helpful) to get rid of the DoT and remove the 75% slow so that people don't take any extra unnecessary damage while moving out of puddles. The fight is really about timing, and just getting comfortable with when you can stand still for a few seconds to get a few Arcane Damage Spells off to top everyone up, and when you really just have to be moving fast and trying to find little windows to get a quick Mass Regen emergency heal off. A lot of that comes down to how well your group is doing at destroying the purple items on the sides of the hallway too, if done correctly the boss stops a lot more frequently and spends less time moving super quickly, so those are great windows to get some healing in. It's also typically a pretty long fight, so be sure to make all 3 Mana Gems before the fight and use the first one early so that it comes off cooldown and you can use another sooner. It's definitely a tricky fight for Healing Mage, but if you pick your spots to plant your feet and heal well, and you / your group minimizes unnecessary damage taken from the puddles while running, you can definitely do well on it. And the good news is that it will only get easier with time as people get more gear. I hope that those tips help at least a little bit. Best of luck to you in Sunken Temple and beyond!

[@alexmawer3792]

@@SigsPlayshow many innervates do you get cause having 33 casts of mass regen is pretty nuts to me

[@SigsPlays]

@@alexmawer3792 So I got 2 Innervates on this fight, which is obviously a ton of extra mana. There's no way that I could have healed for as much as I did without them. I did also get ~6.5k Mana from Shamanistic Rage, ~1k from the Magic Absorption Talent, and I used 2 Mana Gems for a total of ~1.4k

[@alexmawer3792]

@@SigsPlays wow 6500+ rerolling to horde

[@SigsPlays]

@@alexmawer3792 Yeah it's a lot haha

[@zuganixbracht]

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