Raid Rx: How to heal Yor'sahj and Hagara

Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poohbah of World of Matticus and a founder of Plus Heal, a discussion community for healers of all experience levels and interests. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading, the Matticast.

Ready for a trip back into the Eye of Eternity? Oh, don't worry, you'll get your chance to reminisce. This week, we're going to look at the next two bosses within the Dragon Soul raid instance. Some movement will be required -- hope you have your running shoes equipped. Last thing you want happen is to complain to your raid leader that your feet are in pain.

Yor'sahj is one of the bosses that some raid groups may have some difficulty with. I know that green and red slimes up can be the hardest combination to deal with. We'll go over how to handle those. ... Could always ask Greatfather Winter for a hand! I'm sure he'd be happy to help with some brand new raid loot.

Yor'sahj the Unsleeping

We like to call Yor'sahj the ooze boss. In a way, he (or it?) reminds me of Professor Putricide. Yor'sahj will summon help from Shu'ma (otherwise known as the creature you're fighting within). Three different colored globules will appear and make a run for Yor'sahj, who will then temporarily gain abilities and powers based on the globule colors. All of the globules will affect healing in some manner.

If a Glowing Globule (yellow) hits Yor'sahj, Yor'sahj starts doing things way more quickly. He'll start hitting 50% more quickly. Watch the tank very closely during this, especially with a yellow up.

I actually save mana cooldowns if I know a Cobalt Globule's going to hit the boss. I'll use a potion or a mana Hymn. It's not that I don't trust the DPS to burst it down fast enough, but sometimes they might cut it a little close. I'd rather have the mana reserves there to use during that phase, anyway. Stay within 30 yards of the Mana Void when it explodes so you can benefit from Mana Diffusion.

Crimson Globule (or red) isn't so bad if everyone knows what to do. Those beams do more damage when players aren't as close to the boss as they should be. Easily healable.

However, if Crimson is paired with Acidic Globule (green), that's when we'll have a problem. Ideally, you should never get both Crimson and Acidic Globule at the same time. That ability means that Digestive Acid will come flying out and inflict some damage to a random player.

Any Dark Globules that spawn shouldn't be taken too lightly. If you happen to pull any healing aggro from stacking, burn a cooldown! If you're getting beaten down, run to a tank (and pray that it gets peeled off).

The last type of globule is called Shadowed Globule, which keeps you busy every fifth beneficial heal. To be more specific, it will trigger some kind of violent explosion whenever a fifth spell lands.

Luckily, you only need to deal with three of them (one of which should be destroyed before the other two get to the boss). Stack up quickly after the remaining two oozes have hit the boss, and prepare to deal with those abilities.

If for some reason you get the Christmas combination of red and green, try to spread out a little bit if you can to minimize the splash. Don't stray too far or else the abilities of the red globule will slice through the raid. Use your raid cooldowns to survive them if you can.

Hagara

Right off the bat, Hagara will start applying Focused Assault on the tank. It's potentially lethal and can catch even experienced players off-guard. If your tank isn't fast enough, burn a quick cooldown on him.

Dealing with Ice Lances are trivial. These crystals will launch missiles toward a player standing near Hagara. Damage is pretty easy to heal through. I've experimented with intercepting missiles so that they wouldn't affect our overall DPS. Unfortunately, that stuff does kind of get annoying and builds up after a while.

During the Frozen Tempest, the platform will become filled with all sorts of nasty frost attacks. After several seconds, Ice Waves will spawn and divide the platform into four sections. The catch is that the Ice Waves will sweep clockwise around her, so you need to keep moving while the rest of your DPS team takes down the binding crystal. Doing so means that phase is over.

By the way, be careful if you have any sprint effects or abilities. The last thing you want to do is get yourself killed by running into the Ice Wave. You might be laughing, but I've seen this happen firsthand. Players were so eager to get moving and running that they ran into them. While it may not be lethal in the Raid Finder, you can bet it'll cut you down in any normal-mode difficulty setting.

After that, it's back to normal until you get to the Lightning Storm phase. You'll need to stay within close proximity with the rest of your group to chain the lightning charge to the other players near you. Be careful, as there is random lightning that occurs, and you're there to help support the rest of the raid as you're running around. In other words, while you are trying to chain that lightning from one area to the next, remember to actually heal while doing that and don't focus so much on your position.

In between the two storm phases, you'll need to remain diligent when it comes to Ice Tombs. Five players will be trapped in 25-man raid groups, while 10-man will involve two players being trapped in random tombs. My raid groups sets up a central point for players to run to when they are affected by debuff. Having a central location means maximum DPS on both the tanks and the sheriff. I recommend dropping HoTs on those players right away. There's always a chance that tombed players will die. Be sure to hit them before just before the tomb lands with HoTs so they can remain safe during the explosion.

Good luck!

Need advice on working with the healers in your guild? Raid Rx has you covered. Send your questions about raid healing to mattl@wowinsider.com. For less healer-centric raiding advice, visit Ready Check for advanced tactics and advice for the endgame raider.