Do you get Nightmares when you Tank?
…cause I don’t.
Should I though?
Is it bad that I don’t?
What the heck are you talking about Vene?
Do you use Nightmare Seeds?
I haven’t used Nightmare Seeds in probably 6 months now at least and when I did use them it was mostly to experiment with them. I definitely know what turned me off of them at that time and why I never went back to them though. I just didn’t buy them. It never seemed like Herbalists had them lying around to give to me either. Now don’t get me wrong, that’s a terrible excuse and really shouldn’t be part of the reason whether or not to use them, but that’s the reason nonetheless.
Gold vs Free?
It’s true that you’ll actually have to work to get a Nightmare Seed and merely hit a portal to get a Healthstone, but let’s put the economic argument of Gold vs Free aside and instead look at the actual trade offs here.
- 2000 Health vs 2000-2500 Health (minor)
- 30 Seconds vs Forever (the big one)
- Useful at Full Health vs Useless at Full Health (situational)
- 3 minutes vs 2 minutes (pretty big too)
Now granted 30 seconds is a very long time to gain additional health for, however unless it’s the last 30 seconds of the fight that still means you lose the health eventually. That’s a bad thing obviously. On the fights where I really find that I’m using Healthstones a lot, I’m always using them when I’ve lost health. In other words, other than Kael’thas which everyone sports as the reason Nightmare Seeds are good, (which don’t get me wrong… Nightmare Seeds are good for Kael combined with Fire Protection Pots… yada yada) I’m never using a Healthstone when I’d be better off using a Nightmare Seed.
Or am I?
I’m at 20,000 Health. I get hit for 8,000. (12k left) I get hit for 8,000 again. (4k left) I pop a…
- Healthstone (HS), I’m at 6,000 Health
- Nightmare Seed (NS), I’m at 6,000 Health
I get healed, I get hit, I get healed, I get hit, etc and eventually I get to full health which is…
- HS: 20,000 Health
- NS: 22,000 Health
I get hit for 8,000 Health…
- HS: 12,000 Health
- NS: 14,000 Health
…and Nightmare Seed’s buff ends.
- HS: 12,000 Health
- NS: 12,000 Health
I’m at the same life total. Remember this point…
Now granted 30 seconds is a very long time to gain additional health for, however unless it’s the last 30 seconds of the fight that still means you lose the health eventually. That’s a bad thing obviously.
Did you agree that it was a bad thing? I know I did. Guess what? We’ve just shown that as long as your healers can get you to full health at least 1 time during the 30 second interval of Nightmare Seed’s buff that losing the health actually doesn’t matter at all. When it all comes down to it, you are going to get healed to full health 1 time in 30 seconds making the BIG DOWNSIDE of Nightmare Seed actually completely irrelevant.
Let’s Recap
- 2000 Health vs 2000-2500 Health (minor)
- 30 Seconds vs Forever (
the big oneirrelevant) - Useful at Full Health vs Useless at Full Health (situational)
- 3 minutes vs 2 minutes (pretty big too)
So, the health difference is minor. The buff duration is irrelevant and the Nightmare Seed actually has a purpose at full health. It’s looking pretty good for the use of Nightmare Seeds… except that last one, Cooldowns. Assuming we start using our first item around the 1 minute mark, we’ll be able to use only 2 Seeds (1 minute, 4 minute) to 3 Healthstones (1 minute, 3 minute, 5 minute) in a 6 minute fight. An extra 2000+ Health usage is definitely a big bonus, however the question is, will a meaningful time present itself in each of those intervals? Are we actually going to need to use 3 Healthstones in a 6 minute fight?
You can’t know for certain, but you also can’t deny that it’s better to have the potential than to not. Potential is the key here. Potential is more important than tallying up at the end of the fight how many of each item you actually used. The shorter cooldown of Healthstones may not result in you using any more Healthstones in a fight than you would have used Nightmare Seeds in that same fight, but a shorter cooldown will always result in the greatest time frame of opportunities where you can benefit from a usage. Using a similar example to the one earlier,
- You use a Nightmare Seed 1 minute into the fight and 4.5 minutes into the fight.
- You use a Healthstone 1 minute into the fight and 3.5 minutes into the fight.
The fight ends after 5 minutes and you’ve used 2 of each, however what if at that 3.5 minute mark if you don’t have something to use, you die? The benefit being illustrated here is that while both items can be used at the 1 minute mark to save our life, the Healthstone will be able to save our life for an entire minute (3 minute to 4 minute mark) where a Nightmare Seed otherwise could not. So, while at the end of a fight you may go through the same number of consumables, you’re always going to be missing that minute when using a Nightmare Seed.
And yes, this is a lot of text basically saying a shorter cooldown is better, but what it’s reallying making a compelling argument for is that the 1 minute of Potential Usage Time of a Healthstone is going to balance out with the additional Effective Health for a short duration offered by a Nightmare Seed. It may even be better 
Also consider, the greater the length of the fight, the more opportunities to gain Potential Usage Time. In a 10 minute fight, you could easily have 2 minutes of Potential Usage Time. You may even get a chance to use 4 healthstones!
Wait… 4 Healthstones!?
You noticed that, huh. Now useless 1000ish Healthstones aside, I’m talking about Charged Crystal Focus. They share the same 2 minute cooldown as a Healthstone and at 2000 Health a use, they’re perfect for acting as Healthstone #4 or even Healthstones #2, #3 and #4 if your Warlocks just can’t get coordinated. (and who are we kidding… when can they?)
Well, I’m lost
A lot to absorb, but here’s what it comes down to… if a fight has a situation where you know you’ll need as much Effective Health as possible (such as Kael’thas or Offtanking on Supremus) then you should be using Nightmare Seeds over Healthstones, no questions asked. If you are worried about what will happened to you when the buff of Nightmare Seed ends, don’t. You never had that health anyway if you used a Healthstone instead. However on the flip side, if you swear by Nightmare Seed you should consider that 1 minute of Potential Usage Time you aren’t getting when making that decision.
In the end though regardless what you decide, you can’t avoid farming. The question is, are you farming Charged Crystal Focus or Nightmare Seeds?
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July 12th, 2008 at 1:50 am
Apexis Shards gobble up bag space and I have no other use for them, thus, I buy up Depleted Crystal Focus on AH regularly. Though that’s just my “waste nothing” attitude.
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July 12th, 2008 at 5:07 am
Interesting. I certainly have a small stash of sees from herbing, but I’ve never used one so far. The reason is I’m instinctively afraid that my healers are reactive and they’ll not handle the expiration of the seed correctly. You know the feeling from using Last Stand mid-fight sometimes: You pray that they have noticed the bright red color and massively increased health and they won’t sit idle while you drop from 5k to 1 HP.
That’s because I do 5-man and 10-man instances with PuGs or groups of friends, and I can’t assume the healers are precasting. With a proper raid group/guild run I’d take the seeds for the effective health bonus every time, and plan them into the fight like the Pocket Watch.
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Veneretio reply on July 12, 2008 11:29 am:
Yup, that not being able to react thing scared me too, but after analysis of Nightmare Seed you can see that your health levels don’t actually change at all regardless if it’s Healthstones or Nightmare Seeds.
This test can be applied to the use of Last Stand as well. Although in Last Stand’s case, your healers will have half the time to get you to full health. This has never stopped us from using Last Stand though
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July 12th, 2008 at 6:40 am
Re: Last Stand
You shouldn’t even put thought into worrying your healers - the life you are about to lose when Last Stand expires, you never had anyway. You started the fight with, let’s say 20k life. When LS ends, you will be back at 20k.
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July 12th, 2008 at 8:14 am
I’ve always used the seeds as a “poor mans version” of last stand. So when things go “a little” wrong on the way to a boss and I want extra margin for error (more max health), but don’t want to burn a longer CD (last stand), I’ll pop a seed. I’ve obviously not done as much analysis as Vene… :o)
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July 12th, 2008 at 9:08 am
If you’re concerned about your healers not noticing you’re using seeds, you could macro it to say something in raid chat.
I have an addon (admittedly i’m not sure which it is, I use a lot…) that alerts the raid of Last Stand and the rare missed taunt. There might be one that covers seeds as well, or it might be an easy LUA to write.
Also… @ Machus… if your healers are content leaving you at 5k hp… get new healers.
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July 12th, 2008 at 10:01 am
I rarely use Nightmare seeds, i pop them when the dmg income is imminent and i dont think i will survive 2 fast blows (IE: I got parried and my shield block charges just went down. Fast Reflexes FTW) But i dont pay for them, i just ask a guild herber for one, i dont think it deserves the gold when you can get a 2498 HS.
Good post, would love to hear of those podcasts soon
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July 12th, 2008 at 10:16 am
I currently use Nightmare Seeds as a finisher. On fights where the boss is capable of some form of burst and/or soft enrage I like to give the healers some more space. Mother Shahraz fits this idea very well. You can reasonably expect her to die within 30 secs after she hits her enrage. This coupled with she’s quite capable of hefty damage bursts makes the Seed a good way to finish the fight. It should also increase the window with which the Commendation will proc.
Mid-fight use rarely happens since we stopped doing Kael. I can see advantages in using it on Bloodboil though although I don’t recall ever doing so.
As for farming them? If your guild’s herbalists aren’t just giving them to you they should probably be beaten with heavy sticks. Nightmare Vine is essential for DPS consumables and they will accumulate seeds whether they like it or not. They serve a limited niche function so I can’t see the market being so great for them. I’ve never checked the AH prices though since they’ve been periodically appearing in my mailbox for over 15 months now.
PS You should change the poll. I use both.
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Veneretio reply on July 12, 2008 11:32 am:
Good points all around especially the Commendation window is an interesting additional side effect. Certainly using it as your final healthstone type ability is the correct choice.
Poll fixed.
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July 12th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
I love nightmare seeds. My guilds herbalists send em to me so I usually have enough. Funny thing though. I saw this post when I came on the site looking for the healthstone macro
So I use both situationally.
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July 12th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Nightmare Seeds are useful the same way Shadowmoon Insignia and other trinkets are useful. Let’s take Brutallus for example. You have a timer telling you when he’s going to use Stomp on you. An extra 2000 health buffer right before that stomp lands can easily be the difference between life or death. In fact, not using a cooldown on every stomp makes learning the fight incredibly hard - it’s just too much strain when your healers don’t have the fight down yet.
Nightmare Seeds can act as a third trinket when you need cooldown rotations - healthstones are not flexible in that regard. But in terms of choosing between the two… well, I can’t see why you would. Using a Seed is supposed to be (imo) a pre-planned part of how you handle the encounter, not a way to handle low health situations that happen on the fly.
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July 12th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Something quick you might slightly overlook: Healthstones can crit.
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July 12th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
I think that the one great time for a Nightmare Seed is on Brutallus. The fight is short and he hits harder than any boss previously by a lot.
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July 13th, 2008 at 3:36 am
To be honest i preffer Healthstone and Charged Crystal focus usage. Why?
As an offtank on fights like M’uru, you`ll make the switch aprox at 6minute mark. Adds hit hard as hell if you tank 3, so that means you`ll have to keep rotating disarm/stun and be ready to use something as well if you drop due to massive fight requirement and low number of healers on the encounter. Effective healts as Vene already mentioned is the SAME, but cooldown is 1 minute less which WILL eventually shine and save your butt at that “oh shit” moment. There is always Last Stand and Shield Wall for emergencies as well so if you just time your cooldowns/trinkets it should be np. Also if you preffer to use Shadowmoon insignia, that is your seed button that does not share cd with anything else.
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July 14th, 2008 at 6:28 am
For me the use of Nightmare Seed vs Health Stone is completely fight dependant.
1. HS is used as a pot / oh my god I’m low / what are the healers doing to me?!
2. Nightmare Seed is used to survive a given situation of a fight given the event and gear level of your tank and raid.
All in all I chug health-stones in most given fights except when reaching our end-game which today is Brutalus. Here however it’s better to get that extra 2K HP before a stomp rather than “potion” to recover 2K HP during a stomp. But on say Illidan I’d do the oposite - use a HS if getting to (even a HS + potion).
All in all it’s very fight dependant to what I use so I don’t think you can say “use the one or the other”
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July 14th, 2008 at 9:57 am
I use nightmare seeds like crazy since Rochelle told me about them. Prince goes into his crazy attack phase? Nightmare seed gives the healers a little breathing room to keep me healed up. Gruul hits the 15th growth? Nightmare seed. Buffed I am at about 20K health, just like your example. The nightmare seed puts me at 22K which gives the healers a little more breathing room. Often I am hitting Last Stand at the same time which gives them a lot of breathing room. Shield wall is the last “oh sheet”.
I am going through Nightmare Seeds rapidly and I am buying most of them. The cost anywhere from 5g to 10g on my server. My alt is herbing and always is looking out for nightmare vines. The drop rate is really poor for the seeds though.
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Massivebull reply on July 22, 2008 2:12 pm:
I agree with everything you just said tankette, except I try not to use the nightmare seeds, shield wall, or last stand unless the boss is at about 30% hp or less. any sooner than that and it is highly likely that the raid will wipe anyways
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July 14th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Personally, I use potions for health and nightmare seeds as a secondary “oh crap” button or as a buffer for something I know is going to hurt.
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admin reply on July 14, 2008 12:23 pm:
I’d recommend the use of Ironshield Potions over Super Healing Potions.
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Bo reply on July 15, 2008 6:40 am:
Me too but I’ve actually had a hard time convincing anyone to make them for me even providing the materials and there are NEVER any on the AH.
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ivanstone reply on July 15, 2008 7:10 am:
Veering off topic (HAH!) but try Greater Stoneshields then. A L35 alt alchemist can make it and sometimes its better to be able to handle things yourself. It helps to be a miner and be able to get the Thorium yourself.
Kavtor reply on July 15, 2008 7:43 am:
The primal earths are pretty cheap, but the ancient lichen can be expensive as all hell. Just regularily troll the AH and look for good cheap deals. Sometimes someone will throw up 4 stacks at 15G a piece.
(veering further off topic… odds of the Bulwark dropping if I’m in the raid - 0/10. odds of it dropping if I miss the raid - 2/3 QQ)
July 14th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
I get nightmare seeds in the mail pretty regularily, and the guild bank has a decent stash, but I really only use them for Brutallus. I suppose I could start using them for Kalecgos enrages, and extra corrosion’s when my pocket watch is down.
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July 14th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
For me the biggest, absolutely critical advantage of a nightmare seed which you didn’t mention is this: On fights where healing effects are reduced, Nightmare Seeds work better than healthstones, all the time. That means any mortal strike-like debuff, Reliquary of Souls, etc. The added EH for 30 seconds is just wonderful when you know you’re going to be taking heavy bursts as well.
Typically I will use Healthstones most of the time though, because they are free, but when it -really- matters, tougher bosses and new content etc, I will use nightmare seeds 100% of the time. The only downside to a nightmare seed imho is the expense, which sometimes I can justify to myself and sometimes I can’t.
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Veneretio reply on July 15, 2008 11:00 am:
Excellent point regarding MS effects and Nightmare Seeds.
The expense end I agree is tough. It’s something we shouldn’t worry about when doing content, but ultimately it’s always there, always a factor.
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July 16th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Also does anyone use the Greater Runes of Warding or Greater Wards of Shielding ? I’ve been using both and haven’t noticed any loss of rage as some people believed. I’ve found that the Greater Wards of Shielding have been very useful when opening on a fast and hard hitting boss.
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Kavtor reply on July 17, 2008 7:39 am:
I wouldn’t want to use a shield buff off the pull on most bosses, but using the shield buff and the armour buff on RoS is pretty nice. Toss in a Fel Blossom, priest shields, a ton of block value, and you can solo tank P1.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 1:12 pm
They both have their uses.
Normally I would use HS, but there are fights like brut, during burn, the seed >> HS. Or Felmyst corruption etc… seed is more situational, where HS is free, so I would recommend HS for general but keep seeds for situations.
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Aoshishin reply on July 22, 2008 1:13 pm:
I meant stomp on brut, not burn.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 2:07 pm
I use Nightmare seeds because a warlock is almost never handy. besides you can only carry one healthstone per warlock at a time. In a ten man raid you may have only one warlock and come to a boss fight that lasts a good 5 minutes or more depending on your dps. At least this way in a boss fight you can use the healthstone first and then grab the nightmare seeds when your healers are out of mana.
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July 29th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Well, not being main tank other than in 5-man I never ever use the seeds. And in big raids I’m used to having 2-3 locks that all ARE coordinated (yes we have a good lock team) so I get to use a few stones.
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August 1st, 2008 at 12:13 pm
I have found Nightmare seeds to be very situational, but ridiculously useful when they are needed.
On Hyjal our guild often sends me out in front to draw agro in pulls with lots of Necromancers. I’ll pop the seed beforehand just to make sure I have plenty of health to weather the storm until the Necros get MC’d or sheeped. By the time the bonus health goes away the incoming damage has been reduced greatly and our healers can manage.
On Naj’entus lots of guildies use them just in case of an unfortunate impaling just after he pops, myself included.
If you need to bolster your health, not heal, then the nightmare seed is really your only option. But in most cases healthstones are superior.
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December 16th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Since wrath has come out health stones are more useful for tanks. I still like to carry nightmare seeds but they are much less effective. In BC I had 15k unbuffed versus WOTLK’s 27k unbuffed. The health stones now heal for 4.5k while nightmare seeds still only increase health by 2k. In my opinion the difference in health is huge, and healthstones are the better choice for almost all situations in WOTLK. Nightmare seeds are still good to carry for long fights, but I would not pay more than 4g per seed because the 30 sec health bonus is not worth it.
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December 16th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Yes, at this time Healthstones definitely trump Nightmare Seeds since no new Nightmare Seeds have been added. Nightmare Seeds still are superior for fights like Loatheb though.
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