Blood-Queen Lana'thel

One of my favorite fights in ICC is actually the Blood-Queen. There isn't so much happening and stuff to think about, so instead for me as a healer this is a great opportunity to get to flex the entire healing repertoire. On this fight you "just" have to do some really intense healing. Which spell you choose at each moment, and who you choose to throw it on might make all the difference. Afterwards you feel like you've just had a gym pass (for your fingers). An analogy to dps would be those fights where they get to nuke the boss and just have to think about executing their rotations as good as possible. We all know dps'ers love those fights the most ;) You take a deep breath of joy (if you succeeded) and long for the next try. At least that is how I feel for this event.

Blood-Queen is fairly straightforward. What I particularly like about this fight is that you can focus on your healing without having to run around like crazy. Sorta like Festergut only more! The biggest difference, healing wise, is that there is way more raid healing, and less intense tank healing to be done. On heroic there is only even more healing needed, since her raid wide aoe damage, that constantly ticks, does 5% more damage for each vampire in the raid (so in the end it does 40% more damage). Also her bloodbolt whirl will probably one shot you if you're standing within 10 yards of anyone else. For a detailed tactic on her look her up on youtube, or check out wowhead.com. Here are some general things to think about when healing her, but many of these tips go for any fight really.
- Spread out. Like on any fight you'd want to distribute your healers so that you always have at least one healer on each raid member. Since Blood-Queen resides in a rather small room, there should be no trouble for all healers to reach the entire raid.
- Huddle, might sound contradictive, but remember that the best thing is to stand just outside of the necessary range (read tactics on why you need to keep a range on this fight). This is so that you can catch as many as possible with that chain-heal, circle of healing, prayer of mending or wild growth. This is yet again especially true for Blood-Queen because most of you will stand still most of the fight.
- As a priest (and if you've specced for it) you can choose between disc and holy. Make sure whatever you choose is well suited to complete whatever other healers you have. But think about that this fight is mostly about awesome amounts of raid healing. On normal this matters less, but on heroic the raid healing will really turn intense toward the end. I preferred holy for this.
- Throw Fear Ward on yourself (or another healer if you happen to be undead/human). Do this even if you have a shaman who uses tremor totem. Fear Ward is instant, but tremor totem pulses. If you're disc (and you don't have a shaman), you might also throw out a quick mass dispel to get most of your raid out of fear as soon as possible.
- Keep your shields/renews up on everyone at all times. They will be used.
- Because of the "cuddly" situation of the room (i.e alot of people standing close to eachother and standing still) this is one of the fights where Circle of Healing works magic. Don't be afraid to use it, especially on the melee group!
- Hps wise you probably need around 4k per healer on normal, and 7k per healer on heroic. Just a rough estimation though.

I've actually healed this fight as shaman too. And I really prefer priest (which may have something to do with the fact that my priest greatly outgears my shaman of course). Although the shamans chain heal could go haywire if people stand at proper distances, both shamans and paladins lack (for now, that will change in cataclysm) a decent aoe healing spell. And this fight is all about aoe healing. Priest must probably be the best suited class for this fight (although it is of course doable with any kind of healer, at least on normal), because of the intense raid healing and richly occurring high point damage that people take (Pact of the Darkfallen, Swarming Shadows, Blood Bolts). A druid would cushion the raid perfectly of course, but have more trouble with the bigger heals needed. A holy priest with Surge of Light could heal both these situations very well. When fighting Blood-Queen earlier today (actually by now it would be yesterday) I had four free. instant Flash Heal procs after another on so many gcds, thanks to PoM and Circle of Healing. That kind of thing is just what you need on this fight. I would cry if I had to heal this fight as a paladin...