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)
Posted by ribeirotheshaman 
A Resto Shaman's Blog 