Northrend Beasts

Northrend Beasts is a very similar fight normal mode to hard mode; the only real distinctions being the an increase in the effects that occur periodically during the fight (which you may or may not notice) and the fact that the Beasts hit significantly harder (which, if you areas a healer, you will definitely notice.) There are a few additional nuances to the respective fights, which I’ll address on a sub-boss basis.

Gormok

Assuming that this is not your first time on this encounter, you should already know that it involves tank-swapping because of the bleed effect that Gormok places on tanks. On a well-geared tank, Impale starts out with a max tick of around 6.5k and can get upwards of 12k every 2 seconds, with the additional effect of increasing the damage tanks take from his melee attacks. Gormok’s damage is also increased by a buff called Rising Anger, which is applied by snoboldSnobolds through the course of a fight. This means that as a healer, you should be prepared for tank damage steadily increasingto steadily increase as the fight progresses. In addition, the number of snoboldSnobolds that go out during the encounter is increased from normal mode, making the number of fire bombs greater as well.

• Healing setup: 2+ tank healers (a shaman CH-ing thru the tank does not count), all others on raid. (We typically run with 3 tanks). 34-45 other healers should be sufficient to look after the raid.
• Raid Positioning: A semi-circle around the western doors into the arena. To ensure that snoboldSnobolds die as quickly as possible, anyone who is attacked by a snoboldSnobold moves directly into melee range so that all dps can switch to the Snobold while maintaining splash damage on Gormok himself.
• The Resto Sham: CH through tanks, tossing in a quick LHW and/or RT on targets who get hit by the snoboldSnobold’s fire bombs. ES on the starting tank, since he will likely have the most tanking rotations. Also, make sure you pay attention to your Stomp timer—queue up a CH at the 1sec remaining mark so that it will hit right after the damage is applied.
• The Bonus: Add Fire Bomb to grid to see targets with the fire debuff on them. RT is a perfect solution to the slow tick. A priest’s levitate will also negate the fire bomb area effect (although the target will take the initial damage). So, having ranged levitated at all times will ensure that you don’t have fires to move around during this and the subsequent phase.

Acidmaw & Dreadscale

This is otherwise known as the “watch-melee-kill-themselves-with-the-bile-debuff” fight. Although simple in concept—one stationary worm, one mobile worm—it often proves to be the biggest killer for most raids. Tanks can generally stick to one type of worm (either mobile or stationary), but at some point it’s likely that your Bile tank will have to navigate to a Toxined player to remove the buff. (This is the reason that we run with 3 tanks. At the point where a tank is the only person who can free a Toxined player, the 3rd tank will taunt and free up the second tank to head to the middle where the Toxin player(s) is/are waiting.)

• Healing Setup: 1 dedicated healer + 1 backup for each tank (Dedicated and backup healer should be spread out). (spread out from eachother of course, it wouldn’t do to have two healers with the debuff who also happen to have the same assignment.) Other healers need to position themselves throughout the raid (away from each other) so that the chances of multiple healers getting either the Burning Bile or Acid debuff are minimized.
• Raid Positioning: Spread out between the two worms. We designate the middle of the Arena as the meeting place for Acid and Bile people, so it’s a no-stand zone for everyone else.
• The Resto Sham: LHW/RT are your friends. I generally stick with the mobile tank and have my NS+CH macro at the ready for when the melee gets the inevitable Bile debuff. Keep ES on the tank that you’re healing. CH will only be useful if multiple people are splashed with a debuff; CH through the tanks is a no-go given that they’ll generally be too separated from any melee taking damage.
• The Bonus: Absolutely, definitely make sure that Burning Bile and Paralytic Toxin show on Grid. Use CH on bile targets (chances are they’re damaging people around them), and LHW/RT on toxin targets. You can also avoid getting whacked by a worm re-emerging by watching the burrow effect a worm does while underground and moving away from its path.

Icehowl

The last of the beasts, Icehowl is the same fight on heroic as it is in normal. If your raid managed not to kill themselves on the Jormungers (and they know how to avoid Icehowl’s charge), then you should meet the dps requirement easily.

• Healing Setup: 2+ tank healers, everyone else on raid. And, like always, spread out. No matter how geared, your tanks will get hit hard and will get knocked around the map, so make sure you’re not sitting at max range (which quickly becomes out-of-range after Icehowl’s whirlwind.)
• Raid Positioning: We set up 360 degrees around Icehowl so that we minimize the number of players and healers affected by Arctic Breath. Alternately, you can choose to use half of the Arena, so that dps have to travel a much shorter distance to his position during the stun. The tradeoff of the 180 strat is that, with more player density near a charge target, there is an increased probability that Icehowl will hit someone with his chargesomeone.
• The Resto Sham: ES on the Icehowl tank (obviously); follow up with RT/LHW. Be ready to hit frozen targets with CH to keep them alive during the breath. Similar to the frost tombs on KT, players will need heals to survive. Have NS+CH ready if you need to quickly top off targets after a breath—sometimes there is only a 5sec window before he crashes.
• The Bonus: Icehowl is skinnable! (Briefly consider dropping a viable raiding profession for a nominal amount of crit; then realize that your raid leader would probably hack your account and delete your toon.)

Next Fight: Lord Jaraxxus >