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Healing via Focus Target
Published on September 5, 2007 by Phaelia 
Lunar Guidance, Macros 
10 Comments
While Terestian Illhoof is considered an “optional” boss within Karazhan (tucked away behind a “Suspicious Bookcase” on the way to Aran), tell that to any Feral in your guild and you’re likely to get your butt Shredded. You see, Illhoof drops Terestian’s Stranglestaff, the best meow-meow staff available until … well … for a long time. I won’t go into the details of the entire encounter here, as there are several superior guides available (Karthis from Teeth and Claws recently released one from the standpoint of a Feral Druid), but he presents the perfect opportunity for adding a new skill to your retinue: preemptive healing via Focus Target.
One of Illhoof’s key abilities — especially from the viewpoint of a Healer — is Sacrifice. Every so often, he will wrap a random target (other than the main tank) in “Demon Chains,” an effect which causes 1,500 damage per second until the chains are “broken” by enough damage (they have around 13,000 health). 1,500 damage/sec can be a lot to keep up with, even for multiple healers, especially if people are slow to react and switch their heal target. Which is where the Focus and Focus Target frames come in.
You may be familiar with the concept of “Focus” but, just in case, a Focus is a “stored” target that you can easily return to at any time and — with the right unitframes addon — can monitor the status of despite otherwise switching targets. Although there are several addons that will allow you to display Focus and Focus’s Target windows, I use and recommend Pitbull. (For information on setting up Pitbull, visit this thread over at WoWAce.com.)
Once you have a unitframes addon set up to display Focus and Focus’s Target windows, you should set Illhoof as your Focus using the command /focus (you can also bind a command to set focus through the Keybindings options).
Throughout the fight, keep your eye on the Focus’s Target window. When you see it change to someone other than your tank, the person targetted is likely about to become the victim of Sacrifice. Noticing this as soon as it happens can generally buy you 1-1.5 seconds to begin casting a fast casting Heal (I recommend either Regrowth or Rejuvenation in anticipation of Swiftmend). And if you happen to be the only healer in your raid using this technique, you can call out the Sacrifice target over voice chat sooner — and more audibly — than any Boss Mod addon can announce (just make sure your raid knows you’ll be doing so beforehand).
While I’ve used the Terestian Illhoof fight to demonstrate this technique, it can be helpful for several encounters where the boss changes targets frequently. Most immediately, it can be applied to the Shade of Aran fight, where he randomly switches targets to cast Arcane Missiles, Frostbolt, and Fireball. Combining Focus Target with mouseover healing can give his selected victim precious seconds while other, less observant healers catch up.
Note: Should you ever become the victim of Sacrifice yourself, you can Barkskin to reduce the damage taken by 300 every second, buying healers a little extra time. But you already knew that from my earlier post, right?
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Pallys are great trash tankers but might face problems with spellers due to OOM or just a lack of spell defend abilities. If your group is about to kill raid boss with some spell abilities, high constant melee damage and bleed/spell resistances better get decent warrior.
Karthis, not Kelis.
When we were spanking Illhoof a few nights ago I was using exactly that trick - focus & watch - to give the raid advance warning of the impending sacrifice.
I can see how it would be even more powerful with an add-on like Clique from a healing standpoint.
I can’t wait to face Illhoof down… great post Phae.
In the meantime, I hate to say it, but the picture you posted at the end, for some reason, isn’t displaying on my comp.
I hope it’s just on my end…
Have fun!
That’s GENIUS.
I am so stealing that.
My raiding team has a habit of saying “I’m chained” — which is nice, but I have to connect voice to player and player to location in the raid setup.
This way I can just click the focus target window!
You’re a GENIUS!
*scampers off*
A variation. I have all my heals set with target selection macros. One of them is good old [harm, targettarget]. During any of the fast-switcher bosses, I just target the boss. Since I have the UI set to show target’s target anyway, I just start my heal when the target changes.
I try to do things very simply, which isn’t always the most elegant way of doing things: For my setfocus command, I simply bind a key to a macro: /setfocus %t
It’s a lot easier than typing out the target’s name before each fight (and misspelling it, about the time the group leader calls for the pull…).
Osprey - 70Priest - Kul Tiras (A)
@Karthis: Sorry about that. I think I must have combined Delos + Karthis. =) Fixed.
@B3: I removed the picture since I don’t have a copy of it here at work. Doh.
@Ego: If someone were to say “I’m chained!” over voice chad, I’d have to resist the strong urge to reply, “‘/target ‘I’ isn’t working!” People really ought to have learned better than to not give names by now, especially if they’re new to the guild. =)
@Kirk: Interesting idea. I’ve considered doing something like that with my Nostromo and a shift key. My only worry would be if I had to cancel one type of heal in favor of another and the boss have changed targets in the meantime. But I can see how having both options could be useful depending upon the situation, especially once you got accustomed to it.
@Osprey: “/setfocus” should work without the “%t”, I believe. I’ve seen some pretty complicated macros dealing with setting and clearing focus based on how the button is activated. It’s really amazing what you can do with it. Things like designating an Arena opponent as your “lockdown” target for Cyclone and Root. I don’t imagine I’ll ever have the spare slots on my Nostromo for this sort of thing, though. =)
Phaelia, the reason I am comfortable with it is if I’m casting with a fast-changing boss, I’m kicking a Big Heal on the target. If I have to change because something smaller is needed but the boss switches target, then I want to start a Big Heal anyway. If the Big GH isn’t needed there either and he’s not jumping around, I can pop some smaller heals as needed, and then come back to target the Boss.
And if he changes target while my GH isn’t done yet, no big deal. Let it finish (on first target) and start again (on new target).
@Kestrel: There’s an option in the keybinding section of the basic WoW interface to set your target as focus, and another to clear it. I’m fond of Alt+F being my focus target (as I’m a tank and have to change targets a lot, having the focus’s target is nice when the raid is dpsing it), though I’m sure other combinations work. There’s no need for a macro =)
Kailora - Doomhammer(US)
The same technique can be used when fighting Rage Winterchill, first boss in Mount Hyjal, He switches target right before hitting someone with a frostbolt (4k~5k), which also applies a debuff dealing more damage. Quick healing is the key for this fight in MH, and watching the boss’ target makes it really easy.
@Marrecão: Good to know! I will try to remember to use that technique when (if) we ever try him.