Shaman Healing Guide: Heroic UK

Introduction

Heroic Utgarde Keep is arguably one of the easiest of the heroics.  With a team of experienced party members to surround yourself with the instance should go by pretty easily.  Just get yourself a defense capped tank and a decent set of DPS who preferably know the boss fights and your on your way to a pretty carefree heroic run.  Like with my Nexus suggestion I feel that 1600 is a solid number for starting most heroics but you can probably make due with 1-150 less than that.

Trash Mobs

Most of the trash in this instance consists of Vyrkul and undead with a few dragons and wolves along the way.  Luckily these Vyrkul don’t hit as hard as their angrier brethren in Utgarde Pinnacle.  There isn’t much special you really need to do here.  Watch for picking up more than one group on a couple tight knit fights and you should be fine just running with a riptide+2LHW combination on most encounters. 

The first section of the instance will consist of groups of Vyrkul, pull them carefully as to not aggro the entire first hall and you should be fine.  The next room is the same deal, a couple groups of Vyrkul in close proximity – this will lead you to your first boss (Scroll down for boss strategy).

 Next is the “dragon room”.  Make sure when you encounter the dragons, that the tank faces them away from the rest of your party as to not get them caught in the cone of their fire breath.  Taking down the dragons first then the Vyrkul generally works best.  Clearing left half of the room and leaving the right is an easy way to cut some time off of the run.  Next there are halls filled with undead, most of them are non-elite mobs huddled around a single elite.  These halls are a breeze, but you might need to use your cleanse – the totem is a waste, just use the spell on the diseases.  Then some more Vyrkul.  Next will be the boss duo (Scroll down for boss strategy).

After this boss there are more Vyrkul and undead rooms and halls.  Watch for patrols in the rooms with stairs as they usually have a Vyrkul with a pet dog moving up and down them and at one point there will be a roving group of Geists in a room with a set of stairs and some Vyrkul gatherings, Vyrkul stand in your way for the rest of the way to the final boss of the instance (Scroll down for boss strategy).

Additional:  For the most the instance is groups of Vyrkul in between bosses.  So long as you take the CASTERS down first, you won’t have a problem, but they can really hurt your party especially if it’s melee heavy as they do a sort of corpse explosion type spell.

Prince Keleseth

This is the first and easiest boss of the instance.  The strategy is pretty simple.  Have everyone stack up on the tank, the only exception would be a hunter as they need a minimum distance to do adaquate damage, but even they should be standing as close as possible.  If you have a paladin tank this fight is a breeze, all they have to do is keep concencration down, but other tanks can do just as well.  The reason you stack is that there are going to be waves of trash skeletons coming at you in groups.  They are more annoying than dangerous, but if they get onto a soft class you can lose them pretty quick.  The best bet is that you draw them all into one area so the tank can just swipe them up as they keep attacking the boss.  The other reason is that since there are in fact waves of mobs coming at you while you combat this boss you will have adds getting pieces of DPS as well as yourself from time to time and spamming chain heal makes easy work of it when everyone is standing right on top of each other.  The only other quirk of the boss is that he will ice block random party members and the ice needs to be broken for them to be able to do anything again, this is very key if they ice block you – the healer, or rarely the tank.

Dalronn the Controller and Skavard the Constructor

This is probably the most interesting fight but can also be the most painful if your group isn’t up for the coordination challenge it can present.  The basic idea behind the fight is that you are fighting two bosses at once.  One is a caster who fires shadowbolts and the other is a melee who hits pretty hard.  When you kill one, they come back as a ghost version of themselves, the difference between the ghost and the actual version is that the ghost has random aggro tables, so ocne you kill it they will essentially attack whoever they want.  Which is why you want to take one boss to 10 percent health, then switch to the other boss and kill him, then go back to the first and finish him off.  It’s a DPS heavy fight because of this.  An additional note that your group should know is that the melee (Skavard) will do a charge move hitting people who are farther away and this resets his aggro table, meaning the tank will have to retaunt and gain more aggro after he does this.  However, there is an easy way to get around this and that is to have your group in tight around the fight so he doesn’t have the space to initiate his charge.  The second strategy is to kill one or the other and hope they don’t wipe you while they’re running around in ghost form.  This is easy in normal UK, but in heroic it will rarely work unless you have over-geared DPS in the group.

Ingvar the Plunderer

The final and arguably the most difficult boss of the instance is Ingvar the Plunderer.  You will exit the keep into an outside area of the instance which you will clear of Vyrkul on your way to him.  Feel free to show off your Ghost Wolf form in the mean time.  The battle area you will fight Ingvar on is a circular area with  pillars around the inside of it.  These can be used as key strategic advantages during the fight.  You will want your casters at max range and near the first set of pillars you will see as you enter the area.  These will help in case your tank doesn’t know what he’s doing.  If you have shadow resistence buffs available, go ahead and take them.  There are two phases to this fight.  You kill Ingvar once and he will respawn and come back for a second round as a Scourge version of himself – meaning this is the hard phase.  The first phase is pretty simple, he will do an AOE that does less damage the further you are away from it, which is why your casters are at range.  It is a weak AOE so this isn’t a big deal just yet.  Once you down him he will lay there for a while and will be rez’d by a Valkyree, when he coems back to life he unleashes a big AOE so don’t stand near him.  When the tank picks him back up he’ll pull him to the furthest side of the circle away from the ranged.  Now when he does his AOE (Dark Smash) it will be legitimate so your melee will take cover behind the nearest pillar.  The key is that the tank tanks him facing the wall, not the group.  The smash is mostly a cone so there shouldn’t be much damage being caused if they do this right as he stops in place once he starts casting.  If your melee get behind a pillar they will usually take no damage at all.  The main threat as far as damage goes however is his floating axe he will summon, it whirlwinds for a ton of damage and your tank should be tanking him away from it once it spawns.  If it catches a soft melee they will basically die right off the bat.  The save bet to heal this fight is to keep your tidal waves buff up from Riptide so you can keep everyone topped off with quick LHW’s.  Keep earth shield on the tank and everything else should be fine.  It’s not a healing intense fight unless the rest of your party members are failures.  There is also a shout debuff he casts that will cause havoc if you are casting when it hits, so keep an eye on Ingvars timers.  Deadly Boss Mod add-on really helps with this timing.

(WORK IN PROGRESS)

Shaman Healing Guide: Heroic Nexus

I figured I would start off with the easiest heroics considering this is what most will start with and what most people will end up having the most experience in.

As with all heroics, your tank is going to play a big part in how easy or hard it’s going to be to heal.  You may as well sign the “Wipe Warrant” if he isn’t defense capped (540 at 80) or close to it.  Nexus is doable however, with a new tank.  There are only a few notable difficulties that you should probably look out for.

Introduction:

Let’s start this off with a basic idea of when you should feel comfortable starting heroics.  1600 bonus heals are ideal for starting your endeavors into healing heroic instances.  However, I believe you can make due with around the high 1400 to 1500 range on the easier instances.  Easier meaning this one (Nexus), Utgarde Keep and DTK.  This is a general rule of healing heroics – at least as a resto-shaman, have to know your limits.  Just keep the water shields up, the riptide ticking and the crunk juice flowing.

General Trash:

Trash is pretty easy in this one, though there are several different types as you move through the varied branches of The Nexus.  Your first enounters will be casters and mage hunter hounds – which will silence their targets.  Keep your casters back.  Considering a lot of the damage being done in these encounters are spell-based, your tank is going to take a pretty decent amount of damage, so keep your Riptide up for HOTs and quick Lesser Healing Waves.  There are other groups of 4 casters.  Generally you want to keep the AOE’ers silenced, you can generally help out by interupting them with Earth Shock as you see them casting, but otherwise you should be able to heal through them.  Keep melee up with chain heal if this becomes an issue.

Once you reach the “ice-block hall” this is one of the easier segments.  You’re able to pull 2-4 mobs at a time.  Kill the healers first, the only worry for the most part are the archers, try getting a party member to silence and if that fails have your tank LOS pull around the doorway you enter from.  That is until you get to the Commander (Scroll down for boss strategy).

After this segment it’s mostly mages so keep your interupts on stand by and your chain heal at the ready if your group is melee heavy.  If you have a DK who has spec’d into Anti-Magic Zone, these are helpful but I would save it for the boss fight to come, just focus fire and your group will be fine.  Chain heal is a good idea for spam, to make these encounters easier (Scroll down for boss strategy).

Once you get past the Magus and her mages you will enter an area with Dragonkin mobs and Rifts on platforms.  If you see a Rift with Dragonkin around it you can have your ranged DPS (and yourself) DPS the rift down before you pull to save yourself some trouble, this won’t pull the Dragonkin as they don’t like the Rifts either.  Your tank will likely take some grouped damage dipping into his HP pretty hard when he pulls the 4-dragonkin’s at a time whcih there are several on your way to Anomalus.  So keep your heals running, you shouldn’t need more than a constant flow of LHW’s to keep him that way b ut if you don’t feel comfortable pop your Riptide, do the two quick LHW’s then follow them with a regular HW, then go back to LHW’s (Scroll down for boss strategy).

After you beat Anomalus up you will have 1-2 more pulls before you enter the “glowy-plant” hallway that leads you to Ormorok the Tree-Shaper.  This hallway is filled with what you might expect.  Glowy-tree stuff.  You will mainly be facing small plants that die fast and are meant to just be annoying and make this hallway as slow as possible without making it difficult.  Pull through them to your real targets (treeants and patrols).  Patrols will be seen a few times on your way, they will be made up of Treeants and a Healer centaur type (dryad) creature.  Kill the dryad first as she is a healer, then take the treants down.  keeping yoru AOE’s up in your group is a good idea to make this hallway easier/faster.  Just make sure you aren’t pulling adds because things are tight and can get hectic quick if you pull one too many giants in with your regular pull.  Giants are the other worry, they can hit hard but for the most part will be straight forward and easy, nothing a LHW regiment can’t fix.  They will do an AOE on heroic mode, so long as you keep your group topped off it won’t be a huge threat (Scroll down for boss strategy).

I recommend saving yourself the hassel of more clearing and taking the shortcut after you take down Ormorok (there’s a ramp off to the right of where you enter his pad that lets you skip a whole branch of the hallway) you should only have to kill one more patrol and possibly a giant on your way back to the center area.  There is only one more Dragonkin patrol you will need to slay (you can avoid a couple roving guards on your way in if you wait them out) who is inside of the room with Keristraza.  Take him down and you’re ready to kill the beast (Scroll down for boss strategy).

The Commander (Kolrug/Stonebeard)

Once you reach the half-way point of the “ice-block hall” you will encounter your first boss.  He is actually pretty easy to heal through.  Make your range stand with you in the arch of the doorway you enter the hall from and have the tank pull him back to the corner ACROSS from you in the ice hall (there is a indention where the tank can stand and you will be looking right across at one another).  Drop your tremor totem out in the hallway so when the Commander fears it will cut them off as they run.  Be sure your DPS is killing the two healer adds that come with him first.  The biggest issue with this is if you have a melee DPS or two along with your tank.  The AOE whirlwind attack the boss does is probably the only threat he has and it can tear soft targets up.  Being able to time your chain heals to cover this is makes this encounter extremely easy so just keep Earth Shield and Riptide up on your tank, keep them topped off with LHW and then be at ready with your chain heal once you you see him start to spin.  You shouldn’t need to queue up more than two of them.  If you have DBM this makes timing your chain heals easy, or simply having experience you should know approximately when the AOE WW happens.

Grand Magus Telestra

This can be the easiest or hardest fight in the instance depending on whether or not your group is on the same page.  You will probably end up using your Natures Swiftness cool-down so try to save it up until this point.  Tell your tank to make sure he picks up all three of the copies when she splits into three.  Your best bet is to either kill them Blue-Purple-Red or Purple-Blue-Red.  I prefer to burn down the Blue to keep the AOE damage down, it can tear up people on heroic mode.  Chain heal is your friend when she splits.  Most people will converge to kill them.  Get the ranged DPS to do the same so they can get caught in your CH bombs.  If you want to be a hero, Earth Shock the blue every time you see Blizzard running down your group’s HP.  You should huddle in the center of the three as well so y ou can self-heal as well.  Use Riptide when she flings you into the air to keep your HP so you don’t have to waste time healing yourself back up when she lets you down, so you can immediately pop heals on others.  LHW to get everyone back up.  As long as you have a competent group this fight shouldn’t be too hard.

Anomalus

This is actually one of the easiest fights unless you are going for the Achievement – I don’t recommend that unless you have a great group.  Get your ranged to gather around you at the ramp where you enter and stay there. Tank and melee will fight int he center of the platform.  They will kill the rifts accordingly and when the rift lands near your little group of ranged members you can cast the CH bomb so it will just heal the small amount of damage they do over time.  The boss itself doesn’t’ do much damage to keeping the tank up should not consist of too much more than keeping Earth Shield refreshed and casting Riptide and the quickened LHW’s afterward.  Remember to utilize your chain heal when the rifts spawn away from you and the melee’s are taking damage.  Like I said, the rifts don’t do that much damage to keeping your guys up through it shouldn’t be hard at all.

Ormorok the Tree-Shaper

This boss is another very easy boss.  The only tedious part is getting to him through the not hard, but annoying, adds in the hallway leading to him.  Be sure your group doesn’t pull tree’s accidentally.  Once you get to him make sure everyone is on his platform to avoid pulling extra plants.  Unlike in normal mode his ice-explosions don’t go out in an X pattern every time, so you will have to be on your toes to dodge it and to watch for your DPS getting launched.  Try to Riptide them before they hit the ground again.  The damage can get a little hectic near the end when he enrages so keeping away to his health and readying your LHW should be sufficient to keep your tank up.  He will do slight AOE damage to other melee so keep them up with a Chain Heal thrown into your rotation here and there.  Little plant adds will become a problem so keep a clear route to the tank and be sure he knows what’s up.  Run them to him if you get too many on you and assign a DPS to plant-duty to keep them dead/off of you.

Keristraza

Your final encounter is a little more technical than the others, but another easy one all the same.  The key idea behind the fight is that everyone has to move.  This isn’t a problem for melee button smashers but for those of us with caster times, management is key.  You will want to stick to Lesser Healing Waves if at all possible.  Make sure you know which direction the tank is going to have her facing, that way you can drop your totems accordingly.  Keep your DPS on the same side so you don’t have to heal across the way.  She casts a DOT on you that gains damage the more you let it stack, it will stack when you aren;t moving and dispell itself when you move again.  So jumping/shimmying is what your entire party should be doing.  I found that if you keep Earth Shield up and Riptide going it shouldn’t be hard, just jump once, cast a LHW, jump again, cast a LHW, jump – and so on.  This should keep the tank up and if you see the tank getting low pop Natures Swiftness and a regular Healing Wave, followed by a Riptide+Jump combo and then another LHW.  It isn’t a hard fight unless you have a hard headed member who refuses to move and wants to take a full on DOT from her.

Base Rotation for The Nexus (Heroic):

You really shouldn’t need to do much of anything other than: Riptide, LHW, LHW, Riptide, LHW, LHW – with a Chain Heal here and there to keep grouped targets taking AOE damage up.  Your backup plan as always is to pop Natures Swiftness and a Healing Wave on your tank if things get a little messy (or a Chain Heal if your entire group is getting pretty low).  I recommend making a macro for that.

/cast Nature’s Swiftness

/cast Healing Wave (Rank 13)

Update: Gear Guide

Just thought I’d let everyone coming in or who are following the blog that the first installment of my Gear Guide for Resto Shaman’s has been extensively updated.  I finished the “Heroic Instance” section, added a section for regular level 80 instances and the final piece will be done in the next few days in the form of a master list that will allow you to see what I think the best pieces are for each equipment slot pre-raid.

Hope this series of guides will be helpful to a lot of people out there looking for a little help getting into the end-game as a Shaman healer.

In other news, stay tuned for my last segment of “Ding”.