Freya + 3 Or How I Finally Learned How To Heal

Every level of content has those decisive fights that really force you to L2P. Pre-BC Patchwerk taught me how to heal dance and really make the most out of my Holy Paladin. During BC Teron Gorefiend sent me scurrying to Elitist Jerks trying to find a way to maximize my sloppy threat rotation.

This time around the honor is going to Freya + 3.

For those unfamiliar with the fight, it's the usual Freya, which isn't especially hard on healers, but with a few twists. Similar to OS3D, there are three random minibosses in the room that each have a certain twist they add to the fight. Unlike OS3D the adds do not need to be offtanked during Freya + 3.

One add brings a heavy damage AOE that silences if you're caught casting during it.
Another add brings a root that does significant damage to those that it hits.
And yet ANOTHER adds a minor nuke in the form of a pillar of light that hits people who are bunched up.

All of these adds also increase the physical and magical damage of her and her adds by 50-75%.

Needless to say, the healing output required spikes significantly and is complicated by the fact that you can't pre-cast to heal the AOE for fear of getting locked out.

For the first time ever I really felt like I was healing. I felt like every single tool on my bar was getting used. The difference between using LHW and HW was an active choice based on the situation at hand. If I didn't monitor my riptides and keep all 3 HoTs rolling at once at all times, people died. My HPS went from a paltry 2.5k to 4k not out of simple optimization, but out of necessity.

Now that I've seen what the LHW / HW + RT build can really do in the right situation, I don't think I'll ever be able to look back.

Now onto Firefighter.