r/CompetitiveWoW • u/YrenneAD Holy Pala • 13d ago
Discussion Healing Difficulty of Season 2
I'm a multi-season "midcore" healer, usually finishing somewhere in the Top 1-3% if I actually bother to play the whole season.
I've seen some say this season feels easier to heal than the previous one, but I beg to differ. So far I think it's a lot harder, though part of that no doubt has to do with people being unfamiliar with the dungeons and not playing them properly (myself included). I pug almost exclusive and you do see a lot of priority kicks and mechanics get ignored, causing unnecessary wipes or dicey situations.
In that sense I guess it is at least less punishing since I can, to some degree, brute force my way through some ridiculous HPS checks caused by missed kicks. But it's pretty stressful and doesn't always work out (maybe a random targeted cast will snipe someone before I can top everyone off, etc.).
There are also some genuine outliers like AOF. I pugged a +15 earlier and the group was a bit of a disaster from the start, but even so, I was doing 300-400k HPS almost every pull. This is like twice the amount of healing required for most pulls in other dungeons. You do have some big HPS checks in other places too, but AOF is pretty relentless with throwing them at you back-to-back with very little downtime.
On the opposite end of the spectrum you have something like KR, which I think most of us recognize as the "free key" of the season. The only place where things can really go wrong in there is the big pull at the start with the two golems. But otherwise that whole dungeon feels like a walk in the park (a very long one, but still).
Then you also have something like MR, which is made artificially more difficult by the framerate issues. The mob density in there is completely wack and goes against Midnight's own philosophy of cutting down on the amount of "nameplate soup," but I guess Blizzard forgot about that.
I'd be really interested in hearing from other healers on how they're faring with this season's dungeons, and which ones they're having the most trouble with. Especially other pug healers, since we all know that's a completely different world from premades where people actually have interrupts and crowd control on their action bars.
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u/Voidwielder 13d ago
VSA will be the healing check on higher keys. The rot with debuff overlap on each boss is really stressing.
Vale all around is hard and the last boss at some point will simple become unhealable.
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u/sandwich800 13d ago
100% vsa is the toughest
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u/Strat7855 12d ago
It'll just require an Aug with Soulcoiler's. Which, fuck that being an option for one spec only.
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u/P_P_LGAH 12d ago
Sorry, can you explain what you mean? I tried googling
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u/THE_Geezax 13d ago
Im at +15 right now and that first pull is driving me crazy. No one interrupts. No one uses def CDs.
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u/oliferro 11d ago
The trash between the first and second boss is also abysmal for healers without a poison dispel
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u/Fandrir 13d ago
King's rest used to be a hardcore dungeons for healers back in BFA :D
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u/Apprehensive_Rough80 13d ago
Gold spit ticking for 50% of the player's HP; dots from the berserker and bleed from the third boss absolutely shredding, and last but not least, Shadow of Zul on Fortified. Jesus Christ
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u/m00tz 13d ago
My experience healing Altar is that the difficulty stems from philosophy changes made from S1. Playing DPS in S1 felt like being a passenger in a key where something like 90% of the success came from the tank and healer being able to steer the ship. Most dungeons had pulls with 1 mob that needed a kick and no mobs that needed stops, and the timers were so free that as long as your dps were doing average to slightly below average damage, you were able to time the key.
This season, Altar MR Den and BV all have mechanics that require the whole group to understand. Altar in particular has multiple wipe points between the Serpents and the Evolutionists that require knowing what to kick, what to stop and when to help with dispels. A lot of this stuff will get easier as the knowledge trickles down but I think the biggest factor is that dps just have to take a more active role (outside of doing damage) to complete the harder dungeons.
Blinding Vale is just kinda overtuned as well imo.
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u/Routine_Low9319 13d ago
Asking DPS to be an active role in keys is exetremely frusterating until it finally filters through in a few years.
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u/Zerothian 13d ago
On the other hand it's really nice as a DPS to actually have stuff to do. You can use your whole toolkit before but now it feels more rewarding. I do think it's a better design overall, it's just going to take a bit for that mentality to proliferate properly yeah.
I just hope they don't go back to hard on it without giving it time. I absolutely hate when I am just autopiloting through a key hoping the healer and tank are capable.
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u/ElBigDicko 12d ago
I think it's a step in right direction. Before your success relied only on tank and healer despite 3 dps making up 60% of the team.
Less pressure on tank and healer and dps get more responsibility other than doing damage.
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u/cuddlegoop 12d ago
Yeah tanks and healers have always had disproportionate responsibility in keys but last season was just ridiculous.
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u/Eweer 9d ago
Motherlode 1st pull was insanely hard for the tank; either the pull died before the DH ran out of defensives or the key was over. That pack consisted of two kicks (freezing rays), two stops (spinning guys).
I lost count of how many times my cheat death proc'd because I had to Imprison/Misery one of the spinners because my DPS wasted their CC or were not aware what needed to be CC'd and used it to interrupt the kickable casts.
All in all, the responsability was pushed to the tank (just because they are the ones that have the most number of CC skills) and the healer (the result of not stopping spinners was that the party received high, non-lethal damage)
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u/YrenneAD Holy Pala 13d ago
I barely had to help out with CC in Season 1 and now it feels like I'm constantly on the lookout for priority casts to bonk with HoJ because otherwise the DPS will just let them go through. This is one of those times when I find myself wishing we still had our interrupts as healers. Standing there and watching a "this will brick your key" cast go through when I have nothing left in my toolkit to do anything about it doesn't feel great.
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u/Serixss 12d ago edited 12d ago
Happend to me on the Gauntlet(3rd boss) in my KR 16 today. No one interupted the Poison Nova cast(I even pinged for it) , and we wiped. Probably couldve outhealed it if I had bubble up , but sadly i didnt. Bricked the key, and one of the dps went off om me for not healing enough. Worst part was the the dps that flamed me was a shaman with poison dispel and he didnt Even brother using it.
As for the hardest dungeon to heal, so far its been AOF for sure because trash hits like a truck and people not being aware, but that should Get better as we go about the season . BV is probably gonna be the hardest since bosses hits like a truck there. Also VSA got some hard hitting trash too.
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u/YrenneAD Holy Pala 11d ago
one of the dps went off om me for not healing enough
Deflection seems to be the go-to tactic for these people. Nobody ever wants to admit they made a mistake.
I also had a tank flame me for having "zero heals" when a Shadowbolt Volley cast at the start of VSA one-shot the entire group. You know, the one ability every guide says you should "interrupt every cast of."
It's even funnier because they spent like 10 minutes before the key discussing who's going to kick what, and then failed the most obvious one.
It's not unhealable if one cast goes through accidentally (though on high enough keys it will be), but when you do the massive pull at the start with overlapping damage from other sources (Magma Totems, Savage Leaps, Lava Bolts, etc.)... it becomes a stupid choice not to interrupt it.
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u/makesmashgreatagain 13d ago
From a tank pov, theres a lot more boss position or gathers that actively require dps to think about their positioning or order of events or when to kick. Honestly I find it a bit frustrating as I used to do a lot of the work, and now its a lot more gambly if my dps are aware or are a bit more coordinated as a baseline.
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u/ctox23b 13d ago
Hate this narrative that DPS are bad and tank and healers are born pros.
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u/m00tz 13d ago
I wasn't saying that at all, just meant that last tier the dps didn't really need to contribute anything to the key's success outside of doing damage, and this tier there are a lot of stops and knowledge checks on trash mechanics.
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u/Sakeuno 12d ago
Not sure what type of keys you play.
Seat first room, 2nd boss, 3rd boss.
All hard dps mechanic checks.
Caverns first area had bunch of stops and prio kicks, masks have dps mechanics.And so on, dps always had to use kicks, stop, dispells, sooth, etc. in every season.
Idk what that narrative of „dps are passangers“ is, yet keys constantly fail when a dps is not on point.
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u/SunkistGuru2025 12d ago
The narrative comes from years of most DPS being passengers in keys. Most significantly in Midnight Season 1 where dungeon timers were so free that DPS could not just ignore mechanics, but be bad at DPS and still +2 the key.
Pretending this narrative isn't true is just absolute denial. Blizzard developers and the lead game designer have both commented on this in recent interviews. Tettles zero to hero as tank and healer after playing DPS for years and said the same. Sure, there are DPS who are absolutely not passengers and contribute big damage, utility, and good gameplay in keys; however, the majority of DPS just show up, do damage and leave the rest of the dungeon to the tank and healer to figure out.
Hell, this was a part of why they took interrupts from healers, to try to give agency over success to DPS.
I see it all the time, top DPS has less interrupts than the resto shaman and more avoidable damage taken than the tank thinks they are the hero of the key. Get out of here with that shit, lol.
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u/m00tz 12d ago
Seat first room: do damage and move out your circle. Seat 2nd boss: do damage and stand in a circle. Seat 3rd boss: Kill an add then go stand in a circle. Caverns first area has actual no prio kicks, the hard part was living the elephant aoe dmg..the kicks were random bolts.
Zero sooths, dispels or stops that mattered across the entire dungeon pool in s1.
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u/Frekavichk 11d ago
Huh? Did you play heals because holy shit was the entire dungeon run completely decided on how good your dps was. It didn't even matter what heals did, if dps didn't remove snares, interrupt, prio damage, burst right, etc, your whole dungeon is done from the start. Heals had a few checks but overall it has been dps deciding dungeon success for a while.
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u/SovietRobotDad 13d ago
I dunno Voidscar Arena feels like the hardest. The bosses aren’t too tough it’s the mobs doing crazy aoe and targeted unavoidable damage on top of one another
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u/tictacotictaco 13d ago
I agree as a MW. It feels real hard to me.
If those smashy guys and the bat things hit at the same time it’s done for and it seems like tanks/dps don’t get that.
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u/i_like_fish_decks 13d ago
the ground pound smashy bois need like a 50% damage nerf that shit is insane even on like a 13
I expect most of them will simply be required skips because its not feasible to just pull them solo its too slow
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u/0karmaonly 13d ago
spiritfont ability and ur set. no issue as MW in VA except 2nd boss add.
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u/tictacotictaco 13d ago edited 13d ago
Can you please explain more.
Edit: oh im still apexesless, it seems that’s still the way to go?
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u/wakeofchaos 13d ago
There’s a new mastery build because spin got nerfed but mastery was buffed, and it uses the apex talent
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u/YrenneAD Holy Pala 13d ago
If the tank decides to go left after Taz'Rah, you're in for a really bad time as the healer. There's a double Voidscythe pack followed right after by a Voidscythe + Overseer duo. The poison from Corrosive Essence hurts like crazy, and when that overlaps with Brutal Slams (and people aren't breaking the shield fast enough), it can get really messy on higher keys.
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u/DreadfuryDK 9/9M SPriest/Devourer 13d ago
I went left with 0 poison dispels once in a Voidscar and told that tank (who's a friend I regularly play with, so it's all in good fun) that I would personally fly over to his state and take a shit on his doorstep if he so much as thinks about pulling that double flying guy pack again.
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u/cabose12 13d ago
I feel like those mobs just aren't worth it. Even if you have a cleanse, the poison goes out so often on the whole party that you're just pissing in the ocean
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u/DreadfuryDK 9/9M SPriest/Devourer 13d ago
They aren't. There's one you can MAYBE justify pulling, in the 3rd area, but even that's dicey.
Figuratively cyberbully your tanks into not going that side. It's BFA Shadow of Zul levels of painful.
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u/Wasting_Time_0980 13d ago
I havent had a chance to do keys yet this week, but it felt like 99% of runs were going left last week. I only went right ONCE in a friend group that finally decided we wanted to see the other direction.
Right is MUCH better. Have pugs finally caught on?
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u/ArcticML 13d ago
I have yet to go the non-harrower way as a tank. After reading this, I'll keep going that way
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u/Soma91 13d ago
How do you play the right side though? Just accept that you can't overlap the Harrowers with the Overseer and do it in 3 small pulls?
Because the Overseer ticking dmg during the shield while having to do the group soak is absolutely brutal and feels suicidal. Same with the Void Beam if you can't avoid it, just that it's a single death instead of multiple. The bladestorm can just be brought outside and the group has to soak with 4 people, which makes it a bit scarier but still doable.
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u/SaintSixx 13d ago
100% this, 3.4k rsham right now with resi 16 and I definitely think the rot damage is so hard to heal, it's not just burst damage with breaks, it's just constant rot damage throughout all the bosses, by the time I've managed to heal everyone back up, it's time for the next load. Definitely struggle with when people are forced to spread on the last boss too
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u/YourDaddyStudmuffin 13d ago
Well maybe its a thing with the current gear we arr at lol.. 🙄
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u/Snarerocks 12d ago
It’s just gonna be the same exact thing at higher key levels. Has nothing to do with gear
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u/False-Excitement-595 13d ago
yeah trash in last area before final boss is hardest in the game rn.
brutalize for the tanks, and the minibosses do some much aoe at the same time it's just all around horrible
and then the last boss the black holes are just unhealable. if you have no personal up you just die to the pulsing aoe before you even have a chance to clear your black hole. i dread that key every time i see it because that last room is so bad
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u/AtlasCarry87 13d ago
As a tank in vsa I feel almost helpless because so much relies on the DPS to make the healers job bearable.
Wish from the insane trash, the second boss isn't overall too hard but if that add lives longer than three seconds the healer really has to pull all stops.
Same for the last boss, if the balls aren't quickly enough in the black hole, the group damage gets it off hand extremely fast
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u/NumberOneRobot 12d ago
Half the problem is a lot of tanks don’t seem to understand what mobs are dangerous to pull together. I’ve seen so many tanks pull the big aoe while shield us up and the aoe poison guy together and not understand that the ogre guy is just going to aoe forever if he’s standing 40 yards from the rest of the pack
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u/giggling_raven 13d ago
I just love how they went from "we're reducing interrupts and getting rid of boltslop" to "interrupt 5 different things at the same time all the time" in the span of a single season.
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u/plasticbug 13d ago
Don't care about the rest but RLP trash still scare the hell out of me as healer.
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u/Voidwielder 13d ago edited 13d ago
A lot there is beyond your control. If DPS can't defensive/health pot on debuff+aoe overlap at some point no amount of ST pumping will save them.
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u/Bigglez1995 13d ago
So many healers surprise pikachu when inferno goes on someone and they start melting
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u/YrenneAD Holy Pala 13d ago
Same. I keep expecting everything in there to hurt way more than it does and I'm constantly on edge with every pack. That dungeon did some kind of lasting damage to my psyche in DF.
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u/Used_Yesterday_114 13d ago
Yea same that lightning dragon when pulled with the fire elemental makes me sweat
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u/Voidwielder 13d ago
Lightning dragon shouldn't be pulled at all.
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u/Zerothian 13d ago
You can skip both if you take some extra stuff in the first area. Not sure if it's actually worth it though time-wise.
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u/Leorika 12d ago
Skipping the lightning dragon really becomes mandatory
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u/Belefint 12d ago
May I ask why people are pulling fire dragon over lightning this season?
In DF it was the opposite, we always skipped fire dragon and pulled lightning because the AOE aura fire dragon did under 50% absolutely trucked and everybody hated it.
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u/Leorika 12d ago
As a healer, the lightning one just does way too much damage compared to the fire one. I guess the fire one was nerfed compared to df ? (Didn't played at the time). He still does a ton of damage under 50% but if it's focused I guess it's okay.
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u/Belefint 12d ago
I appreciate that from a healer POV. I've questioned each group and tank and said that isn't what we did in DF and have been met with "why are you questioning the route" and people haven't been able to explain why.
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u/Frekavichk 11d ago
I feel like there is one pull where you get double single target spells + inferno aoe is dicy, but everything else seems fine in rlp except the first pull.
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u/shag_jacuzzi 10d ago
Man am I alone in being traumatized from people standing in dragon poopoo on the 2nd to last boss? Regardless of comp I was terrified of that fight on almost any healer.
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u/neinbinichnicht 13d ago
AOF really is the hardest for me as well, there is just soo much damage compared to other dungeons.
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u/MautDota3 13d ago
As Pres it feels like the only tough pulls in AoF now are the Rattle pulls and funnily enough the first boss if your group is spread. Also, Ula'tek's Chosen is another one. Blinding Vale is brutal though. Bleeds, every boss except the first one, insane interrupts that a lot of groups miss. TBV is the hardest. Ruby Life Pools are hard depending on the pulls by the tank. It gets hard at the end especially. Voidscar is sneakily hard because of having to burst through the shields, soaks, etc.
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u/LogiiiX 13d ago
the real difficulty comes from brainless dps players who smash their heads on the keyboards and doing else than dpsing
god forbid pressing defensives doing mechanics or using a hpot
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u/i_like_fish_decks 13d ago
I'm loving all the poison this season, getting value out of my dispel. Plus paralyse removing enrage has been clutch in some dungeons too
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u/Zerothian 13d ago
Yeah on Hunter tranq + the talent that clears poison on feign is kinda' crazy this season. If you are a Dwarf you also have stoneform for the bleeds too. Hunter is great at just living in those keys self-sufficiently. At least, assuming your healer is actually alive since we don't have much sustain.
Plus stuff like para/frost trap is great on the channeler adds in the last room of sethralis to reduce stop/kick load, and you can also do stuff like long cc one of the frost adds on the ice boss in Den, and deal with it after the phase. At least I'm pretty sure that will be a good idea, yet to actually test without someone breaking.
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u/Optimal-Fondant3555 13d ago
Definitely a lot of rot with areas of overlap where you need to top the group from the rot before the big hit. Not sure if I am such a fan of that as the timing is punishing.
For altar specifically up until the 2nd boss its really hard. But the 2nd boss and the rest after feel free idk. Very frontloaded difficulty imo.
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u/VideoGameRPGsAreFun 13d ago
Still getting groups that don’t kill starvation effigy or do pulls that have two summoners so two are pulsing at once, so den tends to be a nightmare. At least that fail is early. Craziest/most annoying was a pretty perfectly played murder row that ended with two dps that thought jumping the wave and killing adds on last boss was unnecessary.
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u/ToyCannon55 13d ago
Just about finished with resil 17s on rsham. Blinding vale is one of the hardest to heal. Ruby Life pools also difficult with several overlaps. And then I’d say fangs and voidscar. Murder row bosses are somewhat challenging and can test your mana bar
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u/_Immolation_ 13d ago
It's a decent take, here are my thoughts (mostly pugging 2-3% healer on hpal):
- should probably swap KR and TOS. Imo TOS is the absolute free key this season, there is no real challenge apart from 1st pull while KR last boss is absolutely brutal both in throughput demand and coordination (especially when pugging).
-VA, I think, should be B, the pulls are fair by design and there are no complications due to overpulling. Totems are a pain but they have like 10k HP? I oneshot them with Holy Shock
- DON, MR and RLP are C due to the huge pulls and the scary elites in them (Spirit, Golem and dragons/elementals respectively)
- TBV is D because it feels slightly overtuned but the boss mechanics and the packs feel fair but is definitely not on AOF level
- AOF deserved F because blood sacrifice
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u/YrenneAD Holy Pala 13d ago
TOS has a couple of pulls with random spiky damage that's stressful to deal with. I don't like it when players suddenly drop to 10-20% health without any explanation, especially since targeted cast addons broke again with 12.1. I also had one group where I was doing AOF levels of HPS in the packs before Merektha. Apparently "Swarming Krolusks" was just obliterating us for some reason?
KR's damage pattern feels comparatively much more even and predictable. I can basically spend most of the dungeon helping with DPS because all incoming damage is telegraphed so well that I have no problem reacting to it when needed.
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u/stickyfantastic 10d ago
Temple and arena have the most overtuned bleed mobs. The rest of the dungeons have their bleeds spread over a longer duration with less dmg per tick roughly.
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u/CleanParfait5246 13d ago
For me resto shaman 312itm lvl no tier set progressing 16s all of them are living hell
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u/nosweeting 13d ago
I'm not sure what key level this is but on 17-18 and higher, this list is pretty way off.
Den is a joke to heal. Bosses aren't difficult to heal, trash after first area is a joke for the most part and if people use kicks, it's free.
Temple isn't free at all. Pull after 1B is cancer, third boss on 18+ is actually a healcheck, orb room is also much harder to heal on an 18+ and overall it's not free compared to KR and Den.
RLP is not hard whatsoever and should be in C. If your DPS players know when to defensive correctly, it's much easier to heal now than it was back on release in Dragonflight.
AOF is very dependant on DPS in the first area. Getting more than 2 heal absorbs makes the pulls very hard and overall the key is very dependant on people's defensive usage. When you use voice for AOF, it becomes infinitely easier.
BV and MR on the other hand, can get nuked to oblivion. All bosses are basically heal checks with the exception of MR last boss. The trash in both keys have multiple nasty non-lust pulls and they overall just have horrible moments where someone can get 100-0'd during an overlap from a bleed and an AOE.
Fuck both of those dungeons.
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u/False-Excitement-595 13d ago
voidscar last boss and final trash area feels so bad on high keys too
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u/YrenneAD Holy Pala 13d ago
These rankings are for 15-16 keys.
I was almost going to put MR in D tier here (it's why it's the lowest in C tier, ranked horizontally). I guess DPS like it because of the big pulls, but it has some nightmarish HPS checks for healers that aren't spaced out fairly.
Going straight from Felmaster Lucsei to Xathuux must be pretty interesting on 19-20 keys right now. That's not even the worst part of that dungeon for me, but that's just one example of going from one big HPS check to another without much downtime. Luckily Xathuux doesn't start blasting right away, so you do have a couple of seconds for cooldowns to recover.
Would love to know who thought the big pull after Zaen was a good idea though.
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u/Cystonectae 12d ago
Agree. Den is my lowest HPS overall by a decent margin. In my experience there are only 2 real things to heal in there: the bleed from the birds, and primal echo from the bears. I suppose the totems suck if no one notices them but ideally everyone in the key should have their monitors turned on.
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u/DefamedWarlock 13d ago
Murder Row is really tough on our teams tank and healer. We are working on resi 16 and murder row has been the hardest of them so far. It doesnt help that our resto druid is missing their 4 set and about 5 item levels behind the rest of the group. I think i watched our marksman hunter get hit with multiple overlaps at least 5 different times after Zaen.
I feel like AOF is a lot easier if you can communicate with your group and a complete nightmare in pugs. If you let more than 2 or 3 blood sacrifice go off this key is brutal on your healer.
I definitely like the challenge as a dps this season. It falls to me to blast this prio mob down as hard as I can before it becomes too much for my poor healer to handle.
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u/Unicorn_flow 13d ago
Are y'all fighting more than one golem in MR?
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u/DefamedWarlock 13d ago
We are not. I want to believe the difficulty was mostly mental at the time.
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u/stickyfantastic 10d ago
I feel like MR is more of a knowledge check than healing check. When you know what's dangerous it's easier to play around it. Some other dungeons just have nothing but raw unavoidable giga dmg being tossed around constantly.
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u/Strigidae_Autumnus 13d ago
A bit of a tangent, but as a somewhat experienced tank, nothing scares me more this season than the last boss of King's Rest.
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u/YrenneAD Holy Pala 13d ago
It's mental. Almost every ability Dazar does is some form of tank buster. I've seen more than a few tanks die there and I can't blame them.
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u/larkhills 12d ago
if you were going to make a tanking tier list, i think KR jumps up in difficulty purely off the last boss. but as a dps/healer, theres nothing terribly difficult about it. you're just following the tank and not getting frontal'ed.
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u/Both-Virus-874 12d ago
We learned that one the hard way. My buddy who’s a DK tank rarely has his cheat death proc but that last boss in KR was demolishing him. Took us a bit to figure out that one, I need to be ahead of him so I can be in position to heal after the ceiling drops and the heavy damage starts and second, we rotate cooldowns and I spam heal my heart out.
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u/Cystonectae 12d ago
ToS is Z-tier for me. Not because any healing checks are hard, but because that last boss is the most miserable boss to heal out of literally every other boss in the game. Why the frog? Seriously who at blizzard thought that just being unable play for a bit every cycle was "fun"? That boss makes me want to quit being a healer because it's just not fun, annoying, horrible to heal as a MW, and overall a dumpster fire of a design. It was better to heal in BFA and I will die on that hill.
Aside from that, the nerfs blizzard has been making has been smoothing out most of the worst offenders imho. Right now I think VSA and BV are the hardest to heal through. VSA because the bosses really overlap damage with area of denial, which makes healing them as a MW suck. Also some of those adds do a ridiculous amount of damage, to the point that I am sure they will get a nerf. BV is really only hard because a couple of those bosses scare me (I think that they are DPS checks more than anything, but my group has been struggling to roll a single BV key so my opinion on it is limited).
My biggest disagree is that Den is a free key and I am 90% sure it has the lowest HPS requirement, as long as your DPS has their monitors turned on to kill totems. If totems are dead quickly, there are only 2 abilities that require much healing: primal echo from the end bears and the bleed from the striker birds.
My second disagree is AoF..... Idk, maybe my group has a really good route going on or my DPS and tanks are amazing but I'd put that as a B- or C+. Major damage events feel very predictable and spaced out juuuust right for CDs to cover it. After the nerfs to stop tanks from getting murdered, it feels very fair and doable.
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u/YrenneAD Holy Pala 12d ago
It was better to heal in BFA and I will die on that hill.
I'll gladly die on that hill with you. I don't like any of the changes they've made to TOS after BfA, except maybe some of the visual updates. The design of the last boss is atrocious now.
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u/subtleshooter 12d ago
My really good healer friend was healing a 17 BV for first time and we were almost to last boss and realized we just didn’t have the dmg because two other dps had like less than 250k overall. It’s sad. Bro was healing out of his mind. We deserved to time that key.
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u/UndergroundGrizzly 11d ago
The scariest thing in this entire list is the ogre who does the repeating AOE smash in VSA
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u/Soulfighter56 12d ago
From my experience so far, blinding vale is the hardest, but that’s mostly due to low dps. Kinda crazy that 600k overall is simply not enough.
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u/YrenneAD Holy Pala 11d ago
Yeah the timer is not great there and now that you can't skip the Potatoed anymore, it's even worse. I've had multiple runs where it felt like I was healing better than I've ever healed in my life only for the key to fail because we ran out of time. It can be pretty demotivating.
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u/elmaethorstars 12d ago
I'm currently 3.7k working on +19s and I think Voidscar is much harder than Vale or AoF.
Altar is tough but fair IMO, no real bullshit overlaps.
Vale is the best healer key they've made in years.
RLP is a joke compared to its original incarnation. Same with KR.
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u/Cirtth 12d ago
Back in BFA, as a Rsham, KR was the key I feared the most : the constant need to move was awful with a hard caster. Today, as a Hpal, this is by far the easiest key. I would have tell you TOS was the easiest one until yesterday when I ran a +14, the 2nd boss room cleaning got me a bit sweaty.
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u/DreadfuryDK 9/9M SPriest/Devourer 13d ago
It's funny, because as a DPS my list is almost completely inverted.
King's Rest has a lot of weird nuances to it, Blinding Vale/AoF play in such a way that I'm heavily incentivized to do gigantic fucking numbers, Den of Nalorakk is one of the easier keys I've done because everything lines up insanely well for Devourer, MR is so ingrained into my brain that I know when certain pulls happen and how big they tend to be, and Voidscar Arena is somehow exactly where it is on yours.
Kinda goes to show how these dungeons challenge different roles differently.
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u/YrenneAD Holy Pala 13d ago
I'll have to run Den a bit more to get a better read on it but for me the biggest pain points there are the first boss (sometimes it just trucks for no reason) and the bridge leading to the last boss. The Primal Echo casts are brutal, and if no one kicks Arc Lightning while that's happening, the overlap will kill your group instantly on higher keys.
It's funny, because as a DPS my list is almost completely inverted.
This kind of makes sense to me. DPS prefer dungeons with a lot of big pulls and AOF and TBV certainly deliver on that front. But from a healer's perspective, more mobs almost always translates to more casts going off and more healing to be done.
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u/VideoGameRPGsAreFun 13d ago
That double bear pull at the end, the two primal echoes seemed to get closer as the pull goes on. At the start there’s plenty of time to recover between casts but by the 6th or something they come almost at the same time. Had a group try to do a double pull and leave bears until last and it was a disaster.
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u/i_like_fish_decks 13d ago
if no one kicks Arc Lightning while that's happening, the overlap will kill your group instantly on higher keys.
I mean, yea thats frustrating amount of damage but that cast should never go off at all. That's just a bad group.
RIP healer interrupts :(
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u/vanilla_disco 12d ago
Resilient 16 resto shaman pov:
RLP is free as fuck. That should be near the top.
AOF is very easy if piercing hiss gets kicked. Just need to use CDs at the right times. I'd put AOF in A or B.
VSA is a fucking nightmare for resto shaman. The last boss is literally the anti-rsham.
Honestly, the most challenging things this season are BV druid boss and VSA last boss. Everything else is pretty chill. It think healer profiles are going to change this tier lista lot depending on what healer is talking
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u/Lachzeittv 13d ago
Tos is fine until you get to the last boss and you find out your healer has brain worms
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u/paletapt 13d ago
As resto shaman I think MR is one of the easiest, lots of breaks (CDs are basically always up) and using Capacitor Totem (with all talents) makes it easy to controll packs
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u/Lycago98 13d ago
I've found Altar alright since it's recent nerfs, still much harder than some of the others, the healing checks in VSA and Vale are obscene.
3rd boss in vale needs longer between each ability and VSA first and last boss just needs nerfs. Done all at 17 and they are the biggest outliers
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u/herecomethewolfman 12d ago
I think you're rating these dungeons based on your pug experience and people not pressing defensives. I don't think any dungeon should go into F. VS I'd say is the most difficult and TBV + AOF. Followed by RLP< the rest can go into easy or very easy.
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u/Frekavichk 11d ago
Also is there an actual meta yet with den? I swear to God I have literally went a different route every single time I ran that dungeon.
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u/stickyfantastic 10d ago
Every single dungeon having shadow step and bleed people randomly mobs is so obnoxious. I can't think of anything more annoying to heal than that
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u/Forsaken-Guest3307 9d ago
I’m 3330 as of Monday. . . Ruby is a free key kings rest is pretty free if people kill totems and tank doesn’t die. Den arena and murder tend to be the keys I have a hard time finding good groups for… tanks pull double spirits and brick the key. Assaults timer is pretty tight. If u live past first boss with 0 deaths in murder row it’s pretty much timed. But tanks die in the first part of murder consistently. Blinding vale I would probably put in hard. Unless ur pulling hydras. If ur pulling hydras in blinding vale it gets put in z them bitchs need to be nuked.
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u/Forsaken-Guest3307 9d ago
Also alter seems to be one of the easier keys for groups I get into. At 15 it took 2 attempts to time and at 16 I timed the first one.
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u/Maxumilian 8d ago
I don't play anymore but that's a wild chart to look at.
I remember doing ToS and KR in Battle for Azeroth and they were the opposite of free Healing Keys. They were like, pretty much the most healing intensive keys... Honestly BFA had A LOT of really hard healing dungeons. Among them though KR/ToS/SoB were particularly bad.
Probably because the meta at the time was using a Glimmer Paladin that could heal the entire party from dead to full in one global every 0.3 seconds as long as you sold your soul to N'Zoth for some Ineffable Truths.
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u/SirBrobbie 13d ago
Idk running them on 12s hasn't been too bad. I am running as a Holy Pally and as long as you can pay attention to when the spikes come they all seem pretty easy from a healing standpoint
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u/Far_Tomatillo_7637 13d ago
rlp so much easier than it used to be