Chimaeron is All. About. Healing. I know I'm capable (if a little undergeared) and I know our other healers (resto druid and holy paladin) are very capable healers. Tankspot made this look easier than it is. I had been practicing my disc spec for a couple of days but found that it wasn't, in fact, Power Word: Shield that was the invaluable asset that I thought it would be, but rather Power Word: Barrier.
During Feud, there was a marked difference in getting everyone topped up if I had PW:B up or not (I was able to use it every other Feud with the 2 min cooldown). Chim casts Caustic Slime during this phase, and although the barrier didn't last long, people were almost topped up by the time it broke. Aside from a couple of raid members confusing my barrier breaking with the end of the Feud phase, and running off once it broke (LOL), it was an easy phase to get everyone healthy and restore mana.
It took a fair few wipes for the me just to find the best ability to use for keeping the raid above 10k health, requiring a departure from conventional thinking on economic healing and triage and I found the fibers making up my right hand reluctant to spam Flash Heal. In the end a combination of Renew, Prayer of mending and liberal Flash Heals when necessary did the job with Prayer of Healing used during Feud.
It's worth noting that Grid apparently marks players who dip below 10k health at a time when they shouldn't be, I use Healbot which does not have this functionality and just displays hp in numbers. Perfectly usable but marks would aid priority healing.
As the first phase of the encounter requires such concentrated and precise healing, the final phase involving Chim's Mortality ability was a welcome break. Having an empowered Smite as disc was great, but I missed the utility of Body & Soul for people to last a few seconds longer. We lost all but three by the end (myself being one of the survivors, which was not ideal as the more DPS that survive the better).
Good news in the end then, apart from Fraps did not save my screenshots so very pissed off about that.
~Reala
PS. Chimaeron had two heads. Does he only have three on Heroic or something?
