ok just thought i'd pick the brains of you raiding bloodmages out there.... what's the trick with healing when your group is taking heavy aoe damage. I'm pretty much sorted switching targets quickly for entwining vein (thank you droxUI), and topping up group members with direct heals and direct heal over time... but that's supposing only one or 2 people are getting hit at a time. In heavy aoe everyone is getting damaged at the same time, and i usually find that recovering burst is a little too slow/little to make much of a difference. Is it just a case of popping away with entwining vein and relying on blood tribute to pop (assuming it's not one of those darn mobs where you kill the party with arcane heals) I'd be interested in your thoughts.
it is all about managing blood tribute. when i've played my bloodmage on fights like nimaa or other massive aoe fests the best way to hit all my group with a fast casting big heal is blood tribute. sometimes this means saving the tribute for a minute until it is needed, other times it involves using lower level instacast spells to trigger the crit and cut down on mana usage so i don't have to use a global on transmute (which has also killed me once or twice when i timed it wrong in a nimaa fight). having a good bard around who can speed up your global cool down and to give you a forced crit every 30 or 45 seconds helps also.
As stated blood tribute is the key for group healing. Sometimes it may even be your best bet for large instant heals to the main tank as it can easily heal for 15+k per person (depends on the fight). In order to have blood tribute readily available you need to crit and you need to crit often. So in essence really scoring critical hits is the key to group healing. There are certain instances where you'll have to rely on your vit heals but they are all slow and are mana hogs. In those instances you really must know the damage capacity of what you are fighting and cast in anticipation of those spikes/aoes. I can't think of any mobs off the top of my head but if there are any that are resistant to arcane and have large/rapid aoe damage and you as the bloodmage are the only healer in the group, well then I would more or less expect some people to die.
i got a sperate macro i hit when aoe healing is needed. it contains the /reactionchain 1 (or whichever number, can replace with /cast "blood tribute number") to cast blood tribute. in same macro i got ritual of gelenia, which needs recast each 5 mins. at the same time, its key that has /assist nametank (adapt as needed) to regain the target of tank when i lost it somehow. but in dungeons its not a good idea to use that line, since tank switches target a lot. anyways, blood tribute is key. and also: never EVER use up your blood points, only maybe for the HoT and for the instant heal that costs blood points. max blood poibts means a big bonus for tap healing from vein and all. in DPS situations or situations where you aren't only healer in group, you can spend points on scarlet ritual. but take in mind severing ritual is more dps and more crit chance.. but it hits in area of effect. so watch you don't break any CC spells casting severing ritual.
Thanks for the feedback on that it's really helpful. I guess level and gear has alot of sway over how often blood tribute will hit and how effective your tap heals are.
Silver-Crow wrote: stack spell crit chance, arcane and phys spell focus(until max for your lvl) INT, WIS. bloodmage thrives on critical hits. you are right.. if a bloodmage tries lifetapping a mob thats "red" to him (three levels above him) his damage will be less, so life tap healing will be less too. and don't forget you can "miss" on mobs too then. so take care if you are only healer in a group that fights mobs 3 levels above you. you might hae to rely on direct heals too.
