Loading ...Super Healing Potions… not worth it.
In my travels across hundreds of guild sites, I’ve always found one common requirement for raiding…
Super Healing Potions.
(Use: Restores 1500 to 2500 health. (2 Min Cooldown))
I have an unfortunate newsflash for all of these guilds. Super Healing Potions are not worth it for a tank. Raiding is not a 5 man. If we need to get health back in a pinch, we have Healthstones and Last Stand.
So, what should I use?
Ironshield Potions.
(Use: Increases armor by 2500 for 2 min.)
On any fight worth chugging potions defensively the pro-active path is the stronger path. If you are struggling to tank Prince, High King, Gruul, Magtheridon, or any number of other hard hitting bosses sucking back an Ironshield Potion every 2 minutes may be expensive, but it pays off big time. Phase 2 of Prince in particular becomes significantly easier for a new guild by chugging one of these as soon as the phase begins.
Try them, then update your guild website when you see the results. 
November 28th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Agreed! I do get the new healing pots from the Ogri’la vendor and the bg ones (I have tons of extra AV tokens) for general use though, because they are pretty much free. Other things I use (I am a miner so these aren’t that expensive for me): greater rune of warding, greater ward of shielding, weight stone/sharpening stone (if no shammies near), and the usual crawdad food and a flask of some sort. I also keep some elixirs handly, so I can use them instead if my flask runs out and we are doing just one more attempt or something.
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November 28th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
Just got the pattern last week, so I don’t have to bother people for 4-5 stacks of ironshields a week anymore! Now If only I could find something to do with all the health pots people keep sending me…
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November 28th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
I have 120 of these in my bags right now.
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November 28th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
exactly wat u told me on email last time XD, still waiting to try those to see the full effectivness on it
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November 29th, 2007 at 9:33 am
I agree with this… if it is farmed content, I use the cheaper stonesheild potions. The mats on my server are dirt cheap.
I think one giant thing thank many people around me seem to forget are the scrolls. Depending on the fortitude buff from priests, you can normally get 3-4 scrolls on top of any potions and foods that you are already buffed up with. I believe a ironshield stacks on top of a scroll of protection, giving you further mitigation. Hard to confirm this, since I down the pots in pretty stressful times and can’t seem to add it all up at once.
Lastly, I ask for the blessing of kings right before the pull. It seemed as if the math worked in favor of taking all your attribute buffs first, then the kings buffed the higher base rate.
little off topic, sorry…but fun to play with.
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December 1st, 2007 at 12:34 pm
If you want to carry around a healing potion for soloing and/or trash when your not using ironsheilds, grab one of the Engineer Healing Potion Injectors. Its 20 healing pot charges in 1 slot and its not engineer only anymore.
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December 2nd, 2007 at 8:05 pm
I understand that when you have 11 or 12K or more hp that 2500 healing may seem insignificant. But, its enough to keep you alive in a pinch, and perhaps long enough to let your healer regroup and get that heal off to take you up higher. Last Stand, though nice (and I use it a lot), has an 8 minute cooldown so if your group is struggling or moving fast the pots will help when its on CD. If you’re an alchemist, by all means, get revered with the Sha’atar and get the Alchemist’s Stone recipe - that gives you some nice stat buffs plus an extra 40% out of your healing pots.
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December 4th, 2007 at 4:43 am
As skullbasher said, last stand is on and 8 min cool-down unfortunately but there is also a fantastic item called the Nightmare Seed. I try to carry 10 of these items around. They use the same cool-down as health-stones and instead of giving you health they increase your total hit-points by 2000 for 20 sec.
It certainly does help in conjunction with ironshield pots. And you can combine it with last stand too for the last ditch.
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December 7th, 2007 at 11:20 am
To be honest, I found the crystals that drop in ogri’la (the ones you combine with the apexis crystal shards) do a decent job as well. Guaranteed 2K health is better than wondering if you will be getting 1.7k or 2.5k. I drink the health pots if somebody tries to gank me in ogri’la.
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August 19th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
I think this needs another look. A super healing potion is usually consumed when you see yourself hit ~1/3 of your max health, out of concern that the healers are slow for some reason. At that moment you are trying to gain the most effective health you can instantly.
Compare what happens to a tank with 15K armor and 15K health that quaffs a potion when they hit 5000 health.
Ironshield
Health: 5000
Armor: 17500
Effective Health: 12316
Greater Stoneshield
Health: 5000
Armor: 17000
Effective Health: 12107
Super Healing (minimum 1500)
Health: 6500
Armor 15000
Effective Health: 14652
It is true that the Super Healing does nothing for you when the healer(s) catches up. There’s probably a strategy that’s worth looking at in more detail. It’s also possible that I don’t understand the true meaning of Effective Health
Perhaps start a boss fight with Greater Rune of Shielding (4000 damage absorbed) Greater Rune of Warding (temporary chest buff) and the shield potion. Then if low on health use healthstones and Last Stand. Once the cooldown on the potion is up keep super healing potion ready.
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August 19th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Starting with a shield buff is going to screw with your rage generation to start.
The idea is, a health pot saves you from about 2k health.
Tanking say, Magtheridon, an ironshield will probably save you 2k health in about 5 seconds. and it lasts for 2 minutes.
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August 20th, 2008 at 4:11 am
At the early levels of progression, healing pots are still quite powerful, people have mentioned values of 12k or 15k health, at these levels the 2k from the pot is still quite a chunk. Also the healing done is something like 50% or more of what the bosses usually hit you for, so it can still help you survive an extra hit when you’re low.
Now fastforward to BT, I got about 22k health fully buffed in a raid, the healing pot is 10% of that and I hardly notice my bar going up when I drink one. Bosses hit 8-10k easily in 1 swing, so if I’m low already an extra 2k isn’t necessarily gonna save me.
However as has been stated time and again, the increase in “time to live” granted by armor is pretty much linear with armor value. So whether I’m a kara tank with 14k armor or a BT tank with 20k, if the ironshield potion gives me 2 seconds increased time to live (just as an example), then it’s still effective even at the top end, my healers can get an extra heal in and that can be 6k 10k or probably more (with several healers spamming), that’s so much more powerful than a 2k pot.
Now I just wish there was ironshield potion Injectors… my bags are full enough with gear already, carrying a ton of potions to progression raids gets annoying
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Sumendis reply on August 20, 2008 4:16 am:
PS That being said, there’s no reason not to use armor potions at the lower lvls of progression as well. Like the oft-quoted Prince phase2, it made such a huge difference back in the day when kara was still “hard”. Try it and you’ll get to love armor pots
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August 20th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Do people drink Ironshields as a reactionary measure? On progression fights I just chug them from start to finish, I have never really considered using them at other times just because my health dipped low or something.
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Veneretio reply on August 20, 2008 9:10 am:
Ya definitely the purpose of using Ironshield Potions is to chug them constantly for fights where the more survivability you can have the better.
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Sumendis reply on August 20, 2008 10:01 am:
The benefit of ironshield pots is really only noticeable as an average over time imo, so using them in reaction to a damage spike is of little value.
I can imagine some situations where you start the fight without ironshields and then start drinking them later on in a fight, if it’s something where the damage gets ramped up in some way, or for example if lots of healers have died prematurely or something.
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Kavtor reply on August 20, 2008 10:18 am:
I certainly have used them reactionary, but only on farm content that I usually wouldn’t bother using ironshields on, and then something bad happens.
Or something like Vashj or Illidan, where you start off the fight with a bunch of bored healers and only you to heal, and the damage & difficulty ramps up at the end.
But on anything with a vague chance to kill me it’s chain potting all the way.
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Rochelle reply on August 20, 2008 11:26 am:
Thats what I figured, so you really can’t compare Ironshields with Super Healing Pots if the circumstances for use are totally different.
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Veneretio reply on August 20, 2008 12:42 pm:
You can’t make a direct comparison, but it is still clear that Ironshield potions have a far, far greater impact than Super Healing Potions in every situation where Armor matters. (and Resistance pots beat out Super Healing in every situation where Armor doesn’t matter)
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August 20th, 2008 at 9:53 am
Thanks for the clarification on this. I went into Kara with a 5 stack of Greater Stonesheild Potions and used them all. I wasn’t sure of the effect but I did notice that we didn’t wipe until an accidental early pull on Curator. Can’t say that the potions were the reason, but you’ve made such a good case I spent an hour fishing for Stonescale Eels and mining Thorium
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