Heroic Garaj’al the Spiritbinder 25man Resto Shaman PoV

Welcome to Mogushan Vaults Heroic mode for Garaj’al the Spiritbinder in Mists of Pandaria. In this guide, I will run you through everything you need to know about how to best utilize your Resto Shaman spells and abilities for a healing showdown.

You can bring 4 or 5 healers in a 25man raid the choice is yours depending on how high or low your dps is. However using 5 healers will mean that you are generally cutting it short  on tight enrage timer.

TIP : Enrage will hit much like Ultraxion’s enrage which will wipe all of your party instead of targeting solo players. There is simply no workaround of that mechanic.

Garaj’al’s most prominent ability is his Spirit totems which he will summon every 20 seconds. As a healer what you need to know is when is your turn to launch yourself in that circle of 6 yards along with 4 more players and be ready to cross to the spirit world for 30 seconds. While within the Spirit realm you will need to deal with Spiritual Innervation which stacks on healers and DPS. This will be analysed further below.

TIP : Remember that once you have left Spirit Realm, you cannot enter it again for the next 30 seconds or you will die instantly.

Another one of Garaj’al’s abilities healers need to be aware of is Voodoo Dolls. Voodoo Dolls effect will last for 60 sec and will be applied to 3 party members one of which will be the tank. (As soon as the Voodoo Dolls debuff expires from the tank, Garaj’al will cast the Bunisment spell on him, which will send him to the spirit world).   70%  of the damage taken by each Voodoo Doll is also dealt to the other Voodoo Dolls so tank cooldowns are advised as they are the only way of dealing with that damage. Voodoo Dolls cannot enter the Spirit World (such as through the use of Spirit Totems).

TIP : Personal cooldowns such as Astral Shift will not mitigate any damage. Such cooldowns should be saved for when you are entering the spirit world or after Garaj’al reaches 20% of his health. Also remember you cannot enter the Spirit Realm if Voodoo Dolls debuff is applied to you.

The last 2 noteworthy abilities are the Shadowy Attack that Garaj’al will unleash every 8 sec to the tank that has aggro and Frenzy. Upon reaching 20% of his health Garaj’al’s attack speed will increase by 50% and his damage will be buffed by 25% .This will last until the end of the fight.

Preparation

1.For a more in depth analysis of exactly all Garaj’al’s old abilities I suggest reading the following guides.

Garaj’al the Spiritbinder Normal And Heroic by IcyVeins

TIP : Always watch some videos beforehand to be in the know.

2.Videos for Garaj’al the Spiritbinder

Gara’Jal the Spiritbinder 25 Man Heroic  Guide – FATBOSS

Gara’Jal the Spiritbinder 25 Man Heroic  Kill video – by Pure  

Vuhdo Configuation for Voodoo Dolls 

Depending on when you decide to tackle this fight Voodoo Dolls debuff might not show on your Vuhdo. It is imperative that you know which targets are affected as you will need to heal them intensively for 60 seconds. By default Vuhdo will presume that you don’t need extra icons so first thing you need to do is open Vuhdo  ->Debuffs  -> Standard. Click on the Icon and save as demonstrated below. If you want only raid icons to show go ahead and click on the Boss icon also. I prefer it but it might not be for everyone.

The way to add any custom debuff on Vudho is by opening the interface and navigating to  Vuhdo  ->Debuffs  -> Custom, adding the exact name of the debuff you want to track under Enter new Buff or Debuff Name and saving it as shown below.

…

How to deal with Spiritual Innervation in the Spirit Realm

One of the most discussed matters between healers for this fight due to its ambiguous ingame tooltip. Vixsin from Life in Group 5, was kind enough to shed some light early on to what further testings proved to be the way to handle this buff.  Spiritual Innervation will grand a healer with stacks of spirit which will increase their mana regeneration for as long as the buff lasts which is set on 30 seconds. Mechanics around how we gain stacks are not clear ingame. However testings show that any HoT applied to the target that will add stacks will also refresh the buffs timer and any direct cast heavy hitting spell will apply at least one stack. (If you want to know more about stacks and for all classes? Dedralie over at Heliocentric wrote an excellent very detailed post about this. Trust me, you want to read it). It is important that while in the spirit realm you buff yourself and the DPS that accompany you as they are gaining Spiritual Innervation for DPS, and they are buffed depending of their class dealing increased damage for the duration of the buff. The best way to deal with this is pre HoT everyone ( Rolling Riptides to the team that is to enter the realm and yourself ) and as soon as you are in, start casting Healing Surges to top everyone up. Since mana is not an issue feel free to use as many Healing surges as needed in order to top your team because you only have 30 seconds before you escape Spirit Realm before you instantly die. As soon as any member is on full health a new action button will appear on their interface called Return Soul which will allow them to return to the normal realm. It is advised that you don’t overstay your welcome in the spirit realm and leave as soon as you have enough stacks on you and your DPS.

TIP : Healing Tide Totem and AG do not add or refresh stacks of Spiritual Innervation so if you are opting for this talent use it when your raid calls for it in the normal realm.

TIP : Use Ascendance in coordination with Healing surge  the first time you enter the Spirit realm.

TIP: Dedralie over at  Heliocentric has an excellent guide of how to track your Spiritual Innervation buff by using weak auras. You can find my own Power Auras equivalent  at Resto Power Auras for MoP

Suggested Raid Composition

2 Tanks – 4 Healers – 19 DPS or 2 Tanks – 5 Healers – 18 DPS

TIP : Run with 4 Healers if you are just hitting enrage.

Gear and Reforging Check

For this fight it is suggested that you try and rotate in the spirit realm all your healers at least once. This way you can forgo large chunk of your spirit for secondary stats without feeling the pressure of an empty mana bar.

Talents in MoP and glyphs can be rearranged before every fight so don’t hesitate to play around. For this fight there are 2 different options for sets of talents and it really depends on how comfortable you feel with either of them in correlation with  your gear.

The first set of talents utilizes Elemental Mastery and Ancestral Guidance. By forgoing your additional 5% haste rating you make yourself essentially unstoppable in the spirit realm. By combining the 30% haste of Elemental Mastery with Ancestral Guidance the first or second time you enter the spirit realm and Ascendance the second, you are guaranteed to provide the most stacks for yourself and your party with seconds to spare for when you exit spirit realm. Both of them can be used when Garaj’al is below 20% health and the fight becomes very intense healing wise.Remember for this build you will need to reforge to 3039 haste rating.

The second set utilizes Ancestral Swiftness in conjunction with Healing Tide Totem. The benefits of this set rest to the fact that it’s easier for you to reach your second haste cap at 3764 haste rating empowering this way your HTT and HST with one more tick.

TIP : Best choose Healing Tide Totem talent when you know you can reach enough haste that you will get that extra tick.

TIP : Remember that the first combination requires enough mana in order to be effective, if you are running oom you will find no use for it. The second set requires no mana in order to work.

Below is an example of how your character should look like. Gear, reforging, talent tree and glyphs included.

1. CharDev Example with 477 gear and reforge details for the first set of talents.

Haste in this example is as close to 3039 as it gets. Since you didn’t choose AS you are missing 5% haste , 3039 is the equivalent of 871 with AS. For more detailed info on Haste breakpoints refer to the Haste section of my guide on Elitist Jerks.

Mastery should be above 50% or as close to it as possible for the extra healing it will provide you and whatever is left we can safely allocate to crit.

Spirit is little below 7000 ( 6791) since the fight mechanics are such that unless you are unlucky with your rotation you will have enough mana to heal through.

2. CharDev Example with 477 gear and reforge details for the second set of talents.

Haste in this example is as close to 3764 as it gets.You need this much for the extra tick it will provide for HTT and HST. For more detailed info on Haste breakpoints refer to the Haste section of my guide on Elitist Jerks.

Mastery should be above 50% or as close to it as possible for the extra healing it will provide you and whatever is left we can safely allocate to crit.

Spirit is little below 7000 ( 6791) since the fight mechanics are such that unless you are unlucky with your rotation you will have enough mana to heal through.

3.Glyphs

You will need Glyph of Riptide for this fight as it is important that you pre HoT every member of the team that will go in the spirit realm before hand. Other than that the choice is yours.

TIP : Glyph of Water shield should not be used for this fight as there is almost no damage to proc it. 

Fight starting in 5..4..3..2..1

As always before tank pulls, make sure you have applied Earth Shield on the tank that will start the encounter and you have prehealed him enough (along with the other tank ) so their health is buffed by 10%. Drop Earth Elemental Totem and have it Empower you followed by Healing Stream Totem. Fill in these 15seconds with Healing surges and riptides to the party members that have been affected with the Voodoo Dolls debuff. As soon as HST vanishes drop Mana Tide Totem for yourself and the rest of the healers. Use the rest of the Elementals as soon as they are available and off CD but remember to keep the last Earth Elemental for the last minute of the fight for the extra 20% damage reduction it will offer you and the extra damage reduction cooldown. Drop MTT on cooldown as well but also remember to keep one for the last 40seconds of the fight when all the healers will need that extra mana. After this the rest of the fight becomes borderline rotational depending on what phase you are.

Spirit Realm. Before you enter the spirit realm make sure you roll riptides to all of the party members that will enter with you. If it’s the first time you enter , depending on what talents you chose either cast Ascendance and start casting Healing Surges to everyone (make sure you start with yourself) until everyone is topped off  so they can leave the realm whenever they want, or push for Elemental Mastery+Ancestral Guidance, thus saving Ascendance for the second time you go in. If you chose the second set of talents start with Ascendance and for the second time you get teleported if you find yourself unable of topping people off drop HTT. Its highly advisable that you don’t however since it neither adds stacks nor refreshes the Spiritual Innervation timer. Try to drop HST instead for the extra help.

Normal Realm. While you are outside there are 2 phases. First the phase that follows as soon as you have exited Spirit Realm. After that for 30seconds you will have infinite mana so cast as many Healing surges with Riptides as you can. Once your buff fades you enter a semi conservation phase, where you will heal Voodoo Dolls with Greater Healing Waves, cast Unleash Life before casting any Healing Rains, and using any cooldowns you might still have to help out with tough healing patches. Remember the more adds are still alive in the Spirit realm, the more damage they deal to random members out in the normal realm aside from the damage Voodoo Dolls will apply to specific targets.

Frenzy. When Garaj’al enters Frenzy phase, nobody will enter the spirit realm again and he will stop spawning totems. This part of the fight is very healing intensive since Garaj’al’s damage is buffed by 25% and his attack speed by 50%. Note that you will need to have all your cooldowns ready for this final part of the fight in order to keep the raid alive. Supplement with Chain Healing the tank that has aggro ( earth shield and riptide will buff your chain heal by 20% on the tank and 25% overall ), and cast buffed Healing rains on cooldown.

This concudes this guide for Garaj’al the Spiritbinder HC .Enjoy the fight and happy looting!

Heroic Spine of Deathwing 10man Resto Shaman Pov

Welcome to Dragon Soul Heroic mode for the Spine of Deathwing. In this guide, I will run you through everything you need to know about how to best utilize your Resto Shaman spells and abilities for a healing showdown.

A lot of new goodies for the heroic version of this fight. You can bring 2 or 3 healers in a 10man raid the choice is yours depending on how high or low your dps is. The reason behind that is that in the heroic version of the fight the Burning Tendons, have so much life that you will need to dps them down twice before the plate explodes. This has a lot of ruminations for your raid.

Aside from all the additional damage that you will have to deal with AKA (as taken from Icy Veins )

• Grasping Tendrils (10-man/25-man)  now deal 12,000 damage per second in 10-man difficulty and 13,000 damage per second in 25-man difficulty, up from 6,000 and 6,500 respectively. Additionally, Grasping Tendrils now slow movement speed by 50%, up from 35%.
• Searing Plasma (10-man/25-man) now deals 12,000 damage every 10 seconds, up from 10,000. Additionally, it now absorbs 280,000 healing in 10-man difficulty and 420,000 healing in 25-man difficulty, up from 200,000 and 300,000 healing respectively.
•  Fiery Grip  now deals 90,000 damage every 3 seconds, up from 60,000.
• Superheated Nucleus (10-man/25-man) now deals 30,000 damage every 3 seconds in 10-man difficulty and 35,000 damage every 3 seconds in 25-man difficulty,, up from 15,000 and 17,500 respectively.
• Burst (10-man/25-man) now deals 14,000 damage in 10-man difficulty and 28,000 damage in 25-man difficulty, up from 10,000 and 20,000 damage respectively.

you will also be confronted with the following new mechanics :

• Degradation  is a stacking debuff that is applied to all raid members each time a Hideous Amalgamation is killed. The debuff reduces the target’s maximum health by 5% per stack. It has an unlimited duration and it cannot be dispelled. Note that the debuff is only applied when a Hideous Amalgamation is actually killed, and not when they are disposed of through a Barrel Roll.
• Blood Corruption: Death is a dispellable debuff that will regularly be placed on random raid members. It has a 15 second duration, at the end of which it will wipe the raid. When the debuff is dispelled, it jumps to another nearby target, retaining its remaining duration. After a varying number of dispels, it will mutate into a different debuff ( Blood Corruption: Earth) when jumping to the next target.
• Blood Corruption: Earth is almost identical to Blood Corruption: Death. The only difference is that when this debuff runs out, the target receives one or two stacks of Blood of Neltharion. The amount of stacks depends on how many seconds were left on the Blood Corruption: Death debuff at the moment when it became Blood Corruption: Earth. Blood of Neltharion.  is a beneficial stacking debuff that reduces all damage taken by 20% per stack. It can stack up to a maximum of 2 times per player. This debuff’s purpose is to counter the negative effects from Degradation.

Everything that applies for the first plate applies for the rest of the plates only things are getting harder and harder mostly because for every Hideous Amalgamation that you kill, you get a stack of Degradation which effectively lowers all your raids health pool by 5%. Killing 2 Amalgamations every plate landing on the second plate will find you with 10% less health and landing on the third one will find you with 20% less health. By the time you blow up the last Amalgamation your raid will be at 30% less health making it harder and harder to keep your raiders alive.

Preparation

For a more in depth analysis of exactly all Spine’s of Deathwings old abilities I suggest reading the following guides.

1. Guides for Normal Spine of Deathwing

Spine of Deathwing Normal by Type H for Heals 
Spine of Deathwing Normal And Heroic by IcyVeins

TIP : Always watch some videos beforehand to be in the know.

2.Videos for Heroic Spine of Deathwing

Spine of Deathwing 10Man Dragon Soul Heroic FatBoss 
Spine of Deathwing 10Man Dragon Soul Heroic LearnToRaid

How to deal with dispelling

As a Resto Shaman you might be called to the task of dispelling. Generally its better if one healer is responsible for dispelling the new Blood debuffs. Resto Shamans have amazing tools to deal with dispelling while generating enough mana back to last them through the fight as will be explained later in this guide.

The way to handle with the new debuffs is to immediately dispel Blood Death until it has mutated to Blood Earth. Given the fact that once Blood Earth expires it leaves back the Blood of Neltharion buff, its imperative that you try and get both of your tanks 2 stacks of Neltharion buff as soon as possible. Again the way to do that is to keep dispelling Blood Earth until it lands on one of your tanks. After you have secured 2 stacks of the buff to each of them you can move on and let it naturally expire to the rest of your raid. I try to apply at least one stack after that to each of my raiders choosing the weakest one to start with. If you find you simply don’t have time or mana, you can opt out but when a member has 2 stacks you should dispel it in favor of someone with zero.

TIP : Blood Corruption: Earth used to mutate back to Blood Corruption: Death if it was dispelled enough times. This was hotfixed or hushed away at some point so you don’t need to worry about wiping your raid. Once Blood Death has mutated to Earth it will never mutate back again.

TIP : For this fight specifically it’s very important to be able to properly handle Blood Corruption: Death, Blood Corruption: Earth  AND navigate yourselves successfully in a way that you will land Blood of Neltharion  buff to the appropriate targets as soon as you possibly can. Blood Death and Blood Earth both will show on top of your Vuhdo depending your configuration but Blood of Neltharion and especially its stacks will not. The way to easily deal with dispels is the following :

Add a distinct color on your raid frames to help you identify and separate Blood Death that will wipe your raid with Blood Earth. Vuhdo will recognize them both as debuffs and assign then with the same color, making it harder for you to identify them in the heat of the moment. I chose to color Blood Death black and left Blood Earth as it was. Below is a screenshot of how my Vuhdo looks like :

Notice that both of my tanks have 2 stacks each of Blood of Neltharion ( stacks are showing in the middle of each players frame ) and how there is one Blood Death already applied on one of my fellow healers. This way its easy for me to know immediately what kind of debuff is applied to which raider , who to dispel and in which priority. Below is my Vuhdo configuration needed to achieve these 2 effects.

Blood of Neltharion is not currently included in the default Vuhdo buffs. You can easily bypass this by adding it yourself. On the panel below simply click on the Enter new Buff os Debuff Name field and type Blood of Neltharion. Make sure the rest of the properties match the screenshot below and click on Save followed by Okey.

Suggested Raid Composition

2 Tanks – 2 Healers – 6 Dps  or  2 Tanks – 3 Healers – 5 Dps. This depends on how strong your healers are or how strong your dps is.

Gear and Reforging Check

For this fight any mastery oriented gear will do again. Personally though I retained my 2005 haste rating since my gear allows me to sustain that haste while stacking enough mastery.

Equip your talent tree with Telluric currents to get mana back as well as do damage and Focused Insight to be able to amplify your healing throughput. Remove all points from Enhancement tree to facilitate more mana gain adding the rest of the points to the Elemental tree as seen below.

Instant ghost is not needed for this fight and if you are in charge of dispelling you will need to amplify your mana back from Telluric currents as much as possible. Be sure to add maximum points to Improved Cleanse Spirit and Cleansing Waters. Don’t be afraid to drop points from Ancestral Awakening , since you will be mostly running with Healing rains on CD you will barely get an procs of that. On my kill AA only contributed 1.6% of my total healing. Also the difference between adding 2 points to Cleansing Waters is about half of your mana pool. While I was specced out of it after I was finished with my dispelling I was left with barely 30% of my mana, whereas spending 2 points on that talent left me with 60 to 70% of my mana.

 Below is an example of how your talent tree should look like.

Below is an example of how your character should look like. Gear, reforging, talent tree and glyphs included.

CharDev Example with 404 gear and reforge details

Haste in this example is as close to 2005 as it gets.

Mastery should be above 19 or as close to it as possible for the extra healing it will provide you.

Spirit is little below 3300 (counting the proc from  Heart of Unliving) in order to have plenty to meet your needs.

All items used are from Normal and Heroic Dragon Soul.This is how my character looked like when I got into the fight, you might go into it with more of less gear. As always, if your gear is different just apply the rules above for potential reforges.

Fight starting in 5..4..3..2..1. Pull.’

First Plate. Before you start the fight make sure to earthshield the tank. As soon as you cut off the cinematic drop your totems and use any shock spell of your choice to any  Corruption . Drop a healing rain in between the stacking side where your raid will perform a roll and riptide any member affected by Searing Plasma .(More and more will be affected always start by casting a riptide on them if its of cooldown.) After casting healing rain start relocating to the stacking point and make sure you are gripped. Cast another shock spell to any corruption and depending on your timing either cast another healing rain at your location and drop spirit link totem or vice versa. At that point the rest of the healers will be probably be using their raid cooldowns too. If you are responsible for dispelling get ready to dispel from 1 up to 4 Blood Corruption Death from your team.

TIP: Before starting dispelling, make sure you have 10 stacks of spirit procs from your Heart of Unliving trinket if you have it, and drop your mana tide totem. It will help you as well as the rest of your healing team regenerate as much mana as possible while save you a lot of mana too. Using this method I am left with more than 70% mana after I am done with dispelling if not even more.

The Blood Death debuffs, will all start at 15sec and every time you dispel them that time will decrease. The debuffs will not all start at the same time but very close together so make sure to always dispel the one that has the least time left. At this point you need to concentrate at first getting rid of any Blood Deaths as they will cause an instant wipe if their timer runs out. As soon as they start mutating to Blood Earth you will need to try and dispel them from every member they might jump to until they land to any of your tanks and let them safely expire there. When they expire they will leave each one stack of Blood of Neltharion buff.Once you have 2 stacks on each of your tanks you can let Blood Earth expire in any member of your choice.

TIP: Its very hard to get both of your tanks to have 2 stacks each at the first plate but doable. However if you are straggling for mana make sure the tank that is responsible for tanking the bloods has priority and also make sure that you wont get to the third plate without having 2 stacks in each tank since they will require more and more healing.

Use your Spiritwalker’s Grace to take advantage of the 4pc bonus that will give you extra haste and begin a rotation of

1. Casting lightning bolts to the Amalgamation your tank is tanking while,

2. Making sure you keep up with his earth shield

3. Your own water shield

4. Recasting any missing or destroyed totems

5. Casting riptide on cooldown if possible on any members that just got the Searing Plasma debuff or the tanks if everyone is off the loop

6. Throw any shock spell of your choice at the Amalgamation and cast either healing rain or greater healing wave to whichever member has the highest stacks of Searing Plasma. You will be able to rotate through those 2 if you keep your cool. Note that of course you can break this theoretical rotation at any given point that a) any member is gripped for more than they should since you will need  to shock heal them to keep them alive, b) if for some reason the tank needs extra healing.

Keep following all of the above up until the first Amalgamation explodes. As soon as it does your dps will kill the last Corruption thus landing you with a Blood Death debuff to dispel. Be ready for it but at that point you don’t need to panic like before , if you handled 4 earlier this one will seem like a walk in the park. If you used your Spiritwalker’s Grace when I suggested earlier then you will have it again shortly after the first round of handling one of the Burning Tendons. Continue as above until the second Amalgation exlodes and deal with one more Blood Death dispel.

TIP: Try and dispel as much as possible and experiment at the first plate where healing is not as intense. You will notice the difference as soon as you step on the second and third plate when you will need to heal more and you wont have to deal with as many dispels.

Second Plate. Same exact logic as with the first plate with 2 differences.

1. You will notice that its much harder to keep your raid alive while rolling. Make sure your timing at dropping spirit link totem is on the spot.

2. There will be one less Blood Death to deal with since now there are only 3 Corruptions to kill.

3. You might get a delayed Blood Death debuff applied so I suggest waiting a few seconds before popping your Spiritwalker’s Grace. You want to take advantage of that haste in order to get as much mana back as possible and wasting it while you are dispelling will reflect on your regeneration.

4. Overall dealing with Blood Deaths will be easier because a.) They are less and b.) You will most likely have already dealt with applying stacks to the tanks so as soon as they mutate to Blood Earth you will not have to worry about them anymore.

Third Plate. The hardest plate to handle since you will have 20% reduced health pool and an immense amount of bloods that are threatening to either kill your tank or get out of aggro control. Be ready to heal fast whomever needs it and try to always be in control of the Searing plasma debuffs. It’s very easy to lose a member that is gripped at this point due to the fact that he wasn’t knocked out fast enough while having a high amount of time still remaining on his Searing plasma debuff along with his 20% or 25% reduced health pool. Be on the lookout for any bloods running towards you and if this happens run towards the tank that is supposed to tank them in order for him to take aggro of you. As always remember you need to dispel an additional Blood Death when the Amalgamation dies.

This concudes this guide for the Spine of Deathwing HC .Enjoy the fight and happy looting!

I will leave you with a screenshot of my UI while in fight for a better understanding of how important it is to configure your Vuhdo before hand. Numbers are flying and generally its chaotic so the easier you make it for yourself to successfully dispel without errors the better it will be for you and your raid.

Heroic Yor’sahj The Unsleeping 10man Resto Shaman Pov

Welcome to Dragon Soul Heroic mode for Yor’sahj The Unsleeping. In this guide, I will run you through everything you need to know about how to best utilize your Resto Shaman spells and abilities for a healing showdown.

Yor’sahj The Unsleeping has, much like Morchok The Douchekeeper , one main distinction from normal mode. It appears that he’s inspired by Alien so he spawns 4 oozes at a time instead of 3 hence leaving you with the option of having him absorb 3 at the end of their trail rather than 2. I remember when I first saw the normal version in PTR and in various early videos I was left thinking that blizzard has a sick sense of humor. Much like real life. Where you THINK  you have a choice when in reality you have almost none. There are 6 combinations that you will encounter randomly in no specific order in this heroic mode fight and in each you have mainly only one choice of what to kill. It sounds scarier than it actually is however.In order to help you with that I suggest installing the addon called Yor’sahj Automatic RaidWarnings  that calls out which ooze to kill and lets you know which ones are left.

The Contenders

 Purple – Gives everyone (except pets) Deep Corruption. Every time someone is healed, they get a stack. If they reach 5 stacks they explode, doing massive damage to the raid.

Red – Yor’sahj will cast Searing Blood on 8 random raid members, doing more damage the further away they are.

Green – Yor’sahj will cast Digestive Acid, which does moderate damage to random targets which will splash to everyone within 4 yards of them.

Yellow – Gives Yor’sahj Glowing Blood of Shu’ma which makes him attack 50% faster and use his abilities twice as often.

Blue – Creates a mana void. This will drain everyone’s entire mana pool. When it is killed it will explode and return the mana to everyone within 30 yards.

Black – Spawns small adds which will focus on random targets and use Psychic Slice.

Preparation

By this point you should have run at least once the normal mode of this fight. If you were thrown in the heroic version and you need a catch up below are some guides to help you better understand all the in and outs of this boss and for a more in depth analysis of what each ooze will do.

1. Guides for Normal Yor’sahj

Yor’sahj The Unsleeping Normal Mode from Icy-veins

Yor’sahj The Unsleeping Normal Mode from Type H For Heals

TIP : Always watch some videos beforehand to be in the know.

2.Videos for Heroic Yor’sahj

Yor’sahj The Unsleeping 10Man Heroic Dragon Soul FATBOSS

Yor’sahj The Unsleeping 25Man Heroic Dragon Soul LearnToRaid

Yor’sahj The Unsleeping 25Man Heroic Dragon Soul TankSpot

TIP : For this fight specifically it’s very important to be able to properly handle Deep Corruption so you will need to have it showing on your healing addon raid frames. The spell ID is 105171 and it’s name is Deep Corruption. If you have VuhDo  just go to your configuration screen on the Debuffs tab and then click on Custom. Make sure you have Stacks clicked on both columns then go and find the spell from the dropdown list.

Suggested Raid Composition

1 Tank – 2 Healers – 7 Dps

Gear and Reforging Check

For this fight, you will need to be able to dump your mana fast enough in very little time in order to heal your raid. This boss is characterized of the huge amounts of dead time that provides to the healers, making this fight especially easy for Resto Shamans. Equip your talent tree with Telluric currents to get mana back when no healing is needed and Focused Insightto be able to amplify your healing throughput.You will mostly be stationary for the whole fight so feel free to sacrifice your ghost wolf and since no dispelling is necessary remove a point from that too. Below is an example of how your character should look like. Gear, reforging, talent tree and glyphs included.

CharDev Example with 397 gear and reforge details

Haste in this example is around 2005 in order to help you cast faster and give your riptide one more tick.

Mastery should above 18 or as close to it as possible for the extra healing it will provide you for when your raid hits all time lows.

Spirit is little above 3200 (counting the proc from Heart of Unliving ) in order to have enough to dump with your fast spells.

All items used are from Normal Dragon Soul as this is an entry level Heroic boss.

Preparation Tips and Tricks

Make sure your weapon is imbued with Earthliving Weapon enchant and your Water Shield is up .  Put Earth Shield on your tank and keep it up at all times .Start the tank so that your well spent Ancestral Healing talent points will proc that wonderful 10% damage reduction and 10% maximum health pool increase. After you see you can’t climb more on his health cast riptide on him.As long as riptide is ticking the stacks will never drop thus securing the tank an extra 10% damage reduction and health pool increase throughout all the fight.

Fight starting in 5..4..3..2..1. Pull.

Run with the tank and stand behind the boss. Drop your totems at your location.

Before the Oozes. Since nobody is getting any damage besides the tank focus on him. Renew his riptide if needed and heal him with greater healing waves or sustain him with healing waves if he doesn’t drop too low.

Casting of the Oozes. After a few seconds he will start casting for the first set of oozes. This is your major downtime where no healing whatsoever is required so as soon as the tanks health is full start casting lightning bolts to fill your mana pool back up.

Merging of the Oozes. Healing on this phase is very dependant of the combination of the oozes. There is a total of 6 possible combinations as following. Unless there is a green ooze up ALWAYS stack under the bosses bottom. No excuses if you don’t.

 —> Purple – Red – Yellow– Black

Kill Yellow to control some of the damage. With Red up you’ll need to stack and with purple up you will need to handle Deep Corruption . Below is a list of how all shaman spells and how they react to the debuff.

 —> Chain Heal – 1 stack for each person it bounces to. (Not recommended )

 —> Earthliving Procs – NO STACKS

 —> Earth Shield – NO STACKS

 —> Healing Rain – 1 stack upon entering.  If you leave and re-enter, you gain another stack.

 —> Healing Stream Totem – NO STACKS

 —> Riptide – 1 stack on initial application

 —> Spirit Link – NO STACKS

 —> Unleash Elements (Earthliving) – 1 stack

Tip. Divide your raid into 2 groups of 5 before you start the fight.This way every healer will be left with a group of 5 to heal through.

Tank assignment. Refresh Earth shield if it drops and cast riptide just a sec before the oozes merge. Unleash your weapon at a hunters or warlocks pet if you can’t afford another stack on another member. This will boost your next direct heal for 20%. Remember your mastery will boost your heals the lower the targets health is, so feel free to allow the tank to drop a little below 50% before you heal him with a greater healing wave. You only have up until 4 heals before you blow him up and the raid so it’s crucial to maximize your heals as much as possible before you heal anyone. So while keeping an eye of the tanks health Unleash life and spam the boss with any shock spell to take advantage of your Focus Insight talent that will give you an additional boost. Always heal the tank with amplified greater healing waves.Keep your tidal waves up by casting riptide on cooldown which will gradually heal members up while only giving one stack and make your next casts much faster. If anyone is in danger heal them with greater healing wave.

Raid assignment with no tank. While you don’t have the tank to heal don’t forget to refresh his earth shield if its lost. Heal the raid members as stated above and have in mind to heal the tank in case of an emergency with an instant amplified greater healing wave. You may place a healing rain down, in a 10man it will not wipe the raid but have a discussion with the other healer first.

—> Purple– Green – Black – Blue

Spread for more than 4 yards since Green is up. Handle Purple as above. With a twist. Depending if this is the first time you encounter Blue. If it’s the first time it will of course drain you of your mana.Drop mana tide totem to gain as much back as possible and if you can afford it cast lightning bolts at the boss. (If your raid uses the tact where you don’t kill the first mana void. At the second mana void your raid will kill the first so you’ll never run out of mana but in any case keep your mana tide totem for the possibility of running into a bad case of mana void. Otherwise always replenish your mana by casting lightning bolts during downtime. )

—> Green – Red – Blue – Black

Stack since Red is up. Handle Blue as above. Drop healing rain on cooldown, refresh riptides on cooldown, chain heal from the lowest and cast greater healing waves at people that are fixated from the Black adds. If someone is in big trouble spam 2 healing surges on them followed by greater healing wave.

—> Green – Yellow – Black – Red

This is the hardest combination.You should keep all your healing cooldowns for this.Start the phase by casting heroism (or anyone in the raid that can afford wasting mana on Heroism or Time warp.) Pop your Spiritwalkers Grace in you have a 4pc set bonus for the extra haste but save it for at least 10 sec into the phase. Converse with the other healer about when to drop your spirit link totem.Either start with it or drop is AS SOON as the other healers cooldown fades. Spam the boss with any shock spell on cooldown to amplify your next healing rain and keep casting chain heals in between.If anyone is low or even worse the tank use greater healing waves to patch them up.

—> Blue – Black – Purple – Yellow

Handle Blue as above. Handle Purple as above.

 —> Blue – Purple – Green – Yellow

Spead 4 yeards and handle Blue and Purple as above.

This concudes this guide for the Heroic Yor’sahj  healing showdown.  Always cast lightning bolt while Yor’sahj is casting forth the oozes. Unless there is a Green Ooze up ALWAYS stack under the boss. And in case there is purple ooze up please DO NOT use chain heal. Enjoy the fight and happy looting!

UI Adventures

I was supposed to start this blog with simple posts about my add-ons/macros/UI configuration. I thought to myself “This is a nice plan”. If you want to laugh you might as well start cracking. If there is anything you shouldn’t do in life is plan in an obvious way because more often than not Murphy’s Law will occur and come and bite you in the ass the harder you tried to ignore its existence in the first place. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong and this applied to me also down to the last word. From almost the minute I made my statement things started to crumble. Long story short, ever since then I ve changed 3 computers and now I m writing this post on my most recent one while NOT making plans of it not breaking down as well. I’m NOT making any plans. Also I don’t have any English proof so excuse my grammar mistakes.

Ever since I embarked on my journey between various pcs, venturing from one to another like a nomad, readjusting my UI again and again, trying to get rid of add-ons to minimize my lag, I came to realize what I ve long known to be true. If Murphy’s Law is described to be the 4rth Law of Thermodynamics, this should be described as the 5th. Less IS More. Take my word for it. Coming to my new pc I took out a lot of the junk that used to litter my screen. I might take out more or replace them with whatever fits my fancy better. I love to think of my UI as a living organism rather than a postcard. If I have one advice for you this would be it. Purge all unnecessary add-ons, that either duplicate one another or don’t offer you a significant aid. Keep a clean UI base and have a clear POV and have fun experimenting with your add-ons one by one.

My Resto Shaman Addons List

1.   Raiding Tools

(Maybe not normally what you would see under such category but for me it would be impossible to raid without.Even when my pc was lagging these where the only addons I left on my UI.)

Deadly Boss Mods

VuhDo

Power Auras Classic

Skada Damage Meter

2.  UI  Enhancement

(Lets just say I like things looking pretty and effective.This is one way to go.The other is probably training out in the cold.While snowing.Huh?No no.Just train.It’s good for your body and your mind.)

KGpanels

Sexy Map

Dominos

Masque

Chatter

3.  Utility

(Things I can live without.But for now I don’t feel like it.)

Atlas Loot

ForteXorcist

OmniCC

Satrina Buff Frames

PlayerScore/GearScore

Quartz

Rating Buster

Bagnon

Gatherer

Tulla Range

Postal

Heroic Morchok 10man Resto Shaman POV

Welcome to Dragon Soul Heroic mode for Morchok. In this guide I’ll run you through everything you need to know about how to best utilize your Resto Shaman spells and abilities for a healing showdown.

Morchok has only one main difference from his normal version. When he reaches 90% of his health he’ll go into an early life crisis and develop a multiple personality disorder. It’s not treatable by medication and as you’ll probably have read in many guides like  Type H for Heals or Icy Veins your best option will be to divide and conquer. This will leave you with 2 teams of 5 ( or another set up for 25man ) and probably your team will include 1 tank, 2 healers and 2 dps.

Gear Check

Equip your shield if you haven’t already since Stomp is doing physical damage and your shield , for example Ward of the Red Widow will give you an extra 12201 armor which is equal to about 13.66% increase of damage mitigation bringing you to approximately 53% damage reduction depending on your gear. Your best bet as restoration shaman is to soak the damage with the tank while the other healer and the rest of dps run around soaking the damage from the Resonating Crystals. Fun times. The reason for this is that although as healers we bring a lot to our raid, the one thing we don’t bring is mobility. The less the restoration shaman has to move the more healing throughput he will have. Staying with the tank and having a good communication with him secures you with at least half as running around as you would have to run otherwise. (If your raid leader decides you won’t soak , then buckle up for some tough love )

Preparation Tips and Tricks

Make sure your weapon is imbued with Earthliving Weapon enchant and your Water Shield is up .Know your team and your tank. I suggest running with a good healing addon like Grid or Vuhdo that will keep your groups together. Put Earth Shield on your tank and keep it up at all times ( stating the obvious but ok ).Start overhealing yourself and the tank so that your well spent Ancestral Healing talent points will proc that wonderful 10% damage reduction and 10% maximum health pool increase. After you see you can’t climb more on your health riptide yourself and the tank. As long as riptide is ticking your stacks will never drop thus securing you and the tank an extra 10% damage reduction and health pool increase which will be life altering for this fight. Always refresh both riptides as they are about to expire and a small tip. Refresh the tanks right before you start running out for the black blood phase. This will secure him with the debuff even if he runs the opposite way of you so you don’t have to build it up as soon as you reach him again.

Fight starting in 5..4..3..2..1. Pull.

Run with the tank and drop your totems in between the location where Morchok is now and to where the tank will start tanking his split version. This way you get to benefit from your totems as much as possible without having to recast them and lose mana in the process. Have DBM ( or any other raid warning addon ) let you know when the stomp is coming. Depends on your healing assignment but probably you won’t have to heal your tank just yet. Be sure to keep him and yourself riptided and feel free to spend your third riptide at the raid member of your choice.

Tip. Remember you can only have 3 ppl riptided maximum in your raid if its glyphed so if you are unsure of your uptime keep it down to yourself and the tank. Best however to learn to always cast it on cooldown this will give you the most throughput.Fill your time before the first stomp with lightning bolts to keep your mana up ( provided you’ve spent points in Telluric Currents ).

Before the Stomp.Make sure you and the tank are as close to 100% health as you can get.When DBM tells you the stomp is being cast and has between 4 to 2 seconds left on the counter start casting healing rain ( If you have spend talent points in Focused Insight squeeze that in before the healing rain). This will ensure your rain coincides with the stomp timer perfectly thus minimizing your overhealing and saving you some precious mana.

After the stomp.Spam heal the tank who by that time will be gasping for air.There are many ways to do that, an effective one is either use an instant heavy heals macro (check my Resto Shaman Macros post for reference) or cast a riptide to keep your tidal waves up and consume both with Healing surge.Chain heal your group of 5 to as close to full health as possible and proceed to follow the tank and set camp at his location.The trick here is to put your healing rain in such a strategic location that it will include all 5 members of your party everytime you put it down. To that end ask your party to stay close enough and IN healing rain outskirts up until they need to run to take the damage of the crystal. (Now it depends if you are at the Morchok side or the Kohcrom side you will have different set of stomps and crystals. Healing wise the Morchok side is harder due to the fact it has one more additional stomp and one more crystal to deal with ). Be sure to keep your riptides on cooldown and as priority have yourself and the tank at full health before each stomp.Also don’t forget to spam riptide while running and unleash your weapon.I suggest you use unleash at the end of your run and cast a greater healing wave on the tank  if he needs it by that time.

Resonating crystal time.Once the resonating crystal spawns it takes 12 seconds to detonate.Within this time a stomp will occur, all 5 members need to soak that stomp before running to the crystal if this happened to spawn that far. Otherwise the tank is responsible to bring Morchok closer to the Chrystal to make it easier for the party. While Morchok is pounding on the tank try not to panic. Be on the lookout for every stomp and every crystal. Before the stomp make sure you and the tank are as close to 100% health as you can get. Achieve this by casting greater healing waves or chain healing the tank if you can afford to lose his riptide.

Before and after the next Stomp.3 seconds before the stomp cast healing rain and 1 second before the stomp cast greater healing wave on yourself.  Precasting that will land you with an immediate much needed heal as soon as your health drops. While healing rain, riptide and probably other hot procs are ticking on you and the tank chain heal the other 3 members that will already be running for the crystal. Drop healing rain at their location and by then the tank will have dragged Morchok close enough on them for him to be in that healing rain also.Run to his location as soon as you are done casting the rain, chain heal the 3 players that will soak the crystal damage and prepare yourself for the next stomp.If everything looks ok by this time squeeze in one or two lightning bolts and drop your mana tide totem.After it expires replace it with healing stream totem again and keep dropping it on cooldown preferably right before a black phase and right before a stomp.

Black Blood Phase.Repeat as above till the black blood phase. As soon as your feet hit the ground riptide the tank and leg it till you find a secure spot behind pillars. While on the run riptide yourself also and if someone needs little health unleash your weapon on him and start casting lighting bolts at the boss till the black blood phase ends from behind a pillar. Run towards the tank and pop spiritwalkers grace so you can heal on the run. Go through your healing rotation as above but before that make sure you re benefiting from your totems.Check your buffs and recast if needed. When your spiritwalkers grace is on CD heal with riptides and Unleash life. For the people with 4 pc set bonus.Make sure you keep one spiritwalkers grace for when the boss is below 20%.You will need it as soon as Heroism buff is over ( assuming you cast it at 20% of the bosses health ). If everything worked out the boss will be dead and you ll get hopefully a nice new bis neck piece to show off for your efforts.

Tip.For shamans with the 4 pc set bonus. Save your spiritwalkers grace for just before heavy stomps.

This concudes this guide for Heroic Morchok healing showdown.

Tips and quick summary

1. Have your weapon enchanted, keep water shield on you and earth shield on the tank at all times.

2. Preheal yourself and the tank for the extra  Ancestral Healing buff and keep riptides rolling on him and yourself to keep the buff going 100% of the fight.

3. Precast Healing rain 3 seconds before each stomp ( provided you and the tank are as close to 100% health as possible ) and precast greater healing wave on yourself the last second.

4. Cast Chain heal on the other 3 members while they are running for the crystal and drop a healing rain at their location. Run to the tank and heal him and yourself while preparing for the next stomp.Use a heavy instant heavy healing macro if you can’t afford the casting time or take advantage of your tidal waves that proced from either your previous chain heal or riptide and consume both with healing surge.Throw some extra heals on the rest of the party. Fill your downtime if any with lightning bolts.

5. Before the first Black blood phase drop mana tide totem and keep dropping it on cooldown after that. Remember to recast healing stream totem after mana tide is exhausted.

6. As soon as Black Blood phase is active riptide the tank on the run and yourself , unleash weapon to a member than needs it and as soon as you are safe start casting lightning bolts behind a pillar.

7. Pop spiritwalkers grace on your way back to the tank and prepare for the next black blood phase as above after step 3. Recast your totems if you feel they are too far away from your location.

8. Pop Heroism on 20% of the bosses health and if you have 4pc set bonus remember to cast it as soon as hero fades.

Note to the wise. Healing is an art, its not about rotation. Also its about collaboration with your fellow healers and your tanks. Be intuitive and expect damage spikes. Make macros for instant heals when in need ( Check my post on Resto Shaman Macros if you need a heads up ) and don’t be afraid to dump your mana but with consideration to what is coming.In between the steps I mentioned of course you need to use your spells to fill in healing wherever needed.Also do I really need to say that you need to be able to know when to keep your tidal waves up so your spells are the most quicker and most efficient? If your instincts are right on spot then you should be able to heal even with low gear. One of my most memorable times on this boss is when I dropped dead like a noob right after the first split. I used my anhk to rez myself which left me with almost 10% of my mana. I still hit almost the same numbers of healing albeit I was sweating the whole fight.And we downed him. It was then that I started to wonder that maybe we re mana spoiled and that we can make due with less if we re smart about our downtimes. I don’t suggest you start a fight with 10% mana though. You don’t want your fellow healers to pop beta blockers just for your fun of it.

Me, Myself and Power Auras

Sort of an exaggerated suggestion. I  make it seem like I take power auras to my bed. That I d bumb uglies with them. Screw it, yes I would. I love powerauras. I adore powerauras. My heart has always beaten faster for all things functional minimal and pretty. Power auras are the Bauhaus of addons. They are everything you need to have on your UI to guide you through the perils of the worst raiding environment. Warningwise. I m this close to making a how to guide for power auras buuuut…I wont. There are so many out there. Google is your friend. And if you have half a mind you don’t even need that. Just spend few min with the interface and you ll be laughing. I don’t even remember how I was introduced to powerauras. It just feels that we ve always been together, we click naturally. It’s a testament of how much I m attached to them that I cant dps my ele os without them. I ll make a separate post for this reason just for the curious minds out there. So , what can power auras do for the resto shaman? For me they provide with enough visual warnings that I barely need to think of anything else but my healing assignment. You remember that nasty drood friend of mine? He s always insisting that “It’s a man thing. Not to rely on crutches when you re not injured otherwise your legs will atrophy.” Yeah. Ask him who has more powerauras than me now. Yes he s converted. But he s keeping it minimal and good for him or I d have to decapitate those legs of his. But generally ppl please keep it clean. There is nothing worse than a messy UI where you cant even concentrate on the fight.

When strolling around in stormwind or anywhere in the world I have all my auras in the hiding. Or when I m on my mount even in a dungeon or raid again I have them in hiding. Other than that I keep it simple. On my resto spec I roll with 4 auras but make no mistake if I feel I need another I ll put it in my rotation respectively. I don’t use any earth shield auras and such since my VuhDo keeps tracks of those kind of stacks.

In a raid the following image bellow is how my power auras in Restoration spec look like. Left dressed in yellow is my Unleash elements. On the right dressed in green is my Riptide. And the shield indicates when my Water Shield is missing.

When Water Shield is back on but I havent used any CD ‘s

Essential for my peace of mind the necessary cooldown timers. The vibrating circle is our Tidal Waves proc . As soon as they are consumed or expired the aura vanishes.

Lastly as mentioned when mounted or chilling out all the auras go to sleep.

New Addition to the gallery is my power torrent proc (The little flowery on top of me.It also swirls.Yes I’m a girl in case you haven’t figured it out so far). More important for ele though but once I added it there I had to give it to my resto too.Useful and it doesn’t really take up so much space. 

Another new addition to the gallery is a power Aura for my Spiritwalker’s Grace proc. Now with the tier 13 bonus I found it really valuable to keep a more careful eye on that.It’s indicated by the little waves inside the Tidal waves Power Aura.

Configuration ScreenShots

Resto Shaman Power Auras  Export 

Unleash Elements  :

Aura[1]=Version:4.23; b:0.2; g:0.9608; Instance25ManHeroic:true; icon:Spell_Shaman_ImprovedStormstrike; buffname:Unleash Elements; begin:3; x:-114; bufftype:15; Instance10ManHeroic:true; texture:163; alpha:0.54; Instance5Man:true; Instance25Man:true; Instance10Man:true; Instance5ManHeroic:true; size:0.77; y:-6; texmode:1; timer.b:0; timer.g:0.851; timer.h:1.72; timer.UpdatePing:true; timer.enabled:true; timer.cents:false; timer.Relative:LEFT; timer.y:-3; timer.x:107; timer.UseOwnColor:true@

Riptide :

Aura[2]=Version:4.23; b:0.2196; Instance25ManHeroic:true; icon:spell_nature_riptide; buffname:Riptide; r:0.349; begin:3; x:105; bufftype:15; Instance10ManHeroic:true; texture:163; alpha:0.54; symetrie:1; Instance5Man:true; Instance25Man:true; Instance10Man:true; Instance5ManHeroic:true; size:0.76; torsion:0.96; y:-6; texmode:1; timer.a:0.79; timer.b:0.2; timer.h:1.72; timer.UpdatePing:true; timer.enabled:true; timer.r:0.3725; timer.cents:false; timer.y:-9; timer.x:117; timer.UseOwnColor:true@

Water Shield :

Aura[3]=Version:4.23; g:0.7569; Instance25ManHeroic:true; icon:Ability_Shaman_WaterShield; buffname:Water Shield; r:0.3255; begin:2; Instance10ManHeroic:true; texture:21; alpha:0.42; Instance5Man:true; Instance25Man:true; Instance10Man:true; Instance5ManHeroic:true; size:1.2; y:-11; texmode:1; inverse:true@

Tidal Waves :

Aura[4]=Version:4.23; b:0.8941; anim1:4; icon:Spell_Shaman_TidalWaves; buffname:Tidal Waves; r:0.698; begin:1; texture:28; alpha:0.49; speed:0.54; size:0.81; y:-10; texmode:1@

Power Torrent :

Version:4.23; b:0.5137; anim1:11; g:0.9216; Instance25ManHeroic:true; icon:Ability_Paladin_SacredCleansing; buffname:Power Torrent; begin:1; x:2; Instance10ManHeroic:true; texture:112; alpha:0.11; speed:0.12; Instance5Man:true; Instance25Man:true; Instance10Man:true; Instance5ManHeroic:true; size:0.25; y:74; texmode:1; finish:3; timer.h:1.44; timer.enabled:true; timer.cents:false; timer.Relative:CENTER

Spiritwalker’s Grace

Version:4.23; b:0.8941; icon:spell_shaman_spiritwalkersgrace; buffname:Spiritwalker’s Grace; r:0.698; begin:1; texture:33; alpha:0.49; speed:0.54; size:0.66; y:-10; texmode:1; timer.h:1.4; timer.Texture:Original; timer.enabled:true; timer.cents:false; timer.Relative:CENTER; timer.y:49

_