Totem Talk: Resto shaman healing in Throne of the Tides

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration will show you how, brought to you by Joe Perez, otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and host of the BDTU: Lore edition podcast

Well, the climb to 85 sure was a fun one, wasn't it? No matter what path you took to get there, if you're reading this, then you're ready to heal some folks and venture into the dungeons of Azeroth in pursuit of gear, fame and maybe a little rep.

Today, I'd like to start by talking about healing Throne of the Tides in Vashj'ir. This is one of the first instances you get a chance to enter in Cataclysm, and honestly, it's one you should definitely visit at max level on both regular and heroic modes. It's a wonderful instance visually, and it holds some very nice restoration shaman loot. It lets you, well, get your feet wet, so to speak, in the new world of healing. After all, Under the Sea, darling, it's better down where it's wetter, take it from me.

Lady Naz'jar

Lady Naz'jar is the first boss you face as you make your way through the underwater world.

In order to get to any of the other bosses in the zone, you will have to defeat her first. She's not a terribly difficult fight, but she is certainly an exercise in not standing in bad places. In normal mode, here is what you have to look forward to.

Geyser is an ability that will randomly choose a player in the group. It will place a blue glowing circle beneath the player before it activates. When it does, it will deal around 25,000 frost damage to anyone on it and will cause a knockback. It will knock you high enough that you will take falling damage when you land. While players have much larger health pools now, it's still quite a bit of damage. As a healer, make sure that you avoid this, as it will disrupt your healing for the entire time that you're in the air. If an unsuspecting party member falls victim to it and lives, be sure to snap a quick Healing Surge on them to bring them back from the brink ASAP.

In heroic mode, there's simply no way that you can heal through this, and it will almost result in an instant kill every time, even if the victim happens to be a tank.

Fungal Spores will place a nice little disease on a random party member, dealing damage over a short period of time. Sadly, we can no longer cleanse diseases, so instead, you'll want to snap a quick Riptide on whoever receives it. In most cases, that will be enough to take the edge off of healing long enough for you to make sure the tank is solid before devoting a full, slower heal to the target.

The boss will go into a protective shield at 60 percent health and 30 percent health, which acts like a phase 2 for the boss. While encapsulated, she will do two things. First, she will summon three adds; two of them will be casters and one will be a melee mob. Second, she will cast Waterspout. This set of small, snaking blue lines will make its way toward players slowly, and when it reaches a person, it will put them into a water funnel and run them toward the walls. Anyone caught there will be unable to cast any spells and will be unable to be affected by any spells or abilities. It will deal damage to anyone caught inside, so when you see someone get picked up, be sure to ready a quick heal for them when they become free. With the adds, make sure to ready a Hex just in case it's needed. Making sure the casters aren't just running willy-nilly can help cut your healing load down quite a bit.

Try to avoid using Healing Rain during this fight. Believe it or not, it has the potential to obscure both geyser and waterspout, as they are all the same color of glowing blue.

For your efforts, you get a change to pick up a Periwinkle Cloak (normal / heroic).


Commander Ulthok

This tentacle-faced general is a fairly straightforward fight. He will spawn as soon as you have downed the lady and triggered her pipe organ.

Curse of Fatigue will reduce movement and haste by 50 percent. The good news is that this is quite literally a curse, so you can use Cleanse Spirit to get rid of it. If you've picked up points in Cleansing Waters, you'll even get a "free" heal when you purge the curse. It is very important that you remove this as soon as you can so that players can move away from Dark Fissure. The boss will smash his hand on the ground, dealing a sizeable amount of damage to anyone it catches. It will then leave a fissure on the ground that will continue to deal damage. Making sure players can move away from it will help keep your healing low.

The good commander will also periodically grab a player and and give him a good Squeeze. In normal mode, this will cause 5,000 shadow damage every second for 6 seconds, while in heroic it will cause 12,500 shadow damage per second. Needless to say, when a player becomes gripped, he or she becomes the priority. Put riptide on him and make sure you use Unleash Elements in order to charge up your heals. Stick with Healing Wave on the target and use Healing Surge if you need a fast heal. Nature's Swiftness with a Greater Healing Wave is also useful if a player gets dangerously low on health.

Ulthok does also have an Enrage, so be sure to be ready for that with quick, efficient healing on the tank.

Once he's down, you can look forward to Chromis Chestpiece (normal / heroic).

Erunak Stonespeaker and Mindbender Ghur'shat

It would seem our poor friend Erunak Stonespeaker has been mind-controlled, and it is our job to free him from his malady. This fight has two phases, one in which he is mind-controlled and a second in which you face the mind bender alone.

Stonespeaker is a shaman of earth and fire, so you get to look forward to a few nasty surprises. Lava Bolt will target a random member of the party dealing around 20,000 damage on normal and 50,000 on heroic. Be mindful of the target, and make sure you give him some TLC when he gets blasted. Magma Splash is a high-damage, frontal cone attack that in theory should only be hitting the tank. A fast Chain Heal can go a long way to make sure any stragglers don't die right away.

Stonespeaker also casts Earth Shards, which will hurl a line of spikes towards a player. It's another ability that can be easily avoided by players, but having a healing surge primed in case someone gets caught isn't a horrible idea.

At 50 percent, phase 2 begins, and Mindbender will detach himself from Stonespeaker. The mind squid will Enslave a random member of the party for 30 seconds on normal and 60 seconds on heroic. He will take control of the random player until the spell runs its course or the player reaches 50 percent health. Since the player will be taking a large chunk of damage, be sure to have some heals ready when the squid starts to float again.

As he's swimming around and before he attaches himself, the Mindbender will occasionally drop Mind Fog. This will create a cloud around him that will stop anyone inside it from casting any spells. It is absolutely imperative that you move out of this as soon as possible. He will also cast Unrelenting Agony, which is his version of Mind Flay. Lay down a healing rain and make sure you have chain heal ready to catch everyone affected by the ability. Since there will be a lot of movement in this phase, Spiritwalker's Grace is a great tool to keep the heals going while moving into position.

Sadly, he doesn't have much healer-specific loot, but you can always reforge Anthia's Ring (normal / heroic).

Ozumat

This is an event that is triggered by talking to Neptulon. The players are tasked with helping the cleansing of the waters.

In phase 1, adds will begin to spawn. There will be murlocs, small faceless

and large faceless. This phase is very easy to heal, but you should stick to Healing Wave as much as possible in order to conserve mana for the other phases. Be mindful of the big AoE damage that the large faceless will do. A well positioned healing rain combined with a Healing Stream Totem can provide enough passive healing to bring the party up while you regen mana.

Phase 2 has pools of black evilness spawning. Make sure you do not stand in these void zones, and again, attempt to conserve mana as much as possible for the next phase.

In phase 3, things get very hectic. Once all the sappers are killed, everybody will grow to huge size, getting a massive health and DPS buff. Those pools of death from phase 2 will coat the entire floor and begin dealing damage in an escalating manner the longer the fight takes. At this point, it's a DPS race, and it is the time to blow all of your cooldowns. Keep Healing Rain down with Healing Stream totem, gather up the party and start pumping Chain Heals. Make use of Hero-Lust at this point, and keep going until the giant octopus is dead. Do as much as you can to keep the DPS up for as long as you can, and make use of every heal you can.

Once the giant octopus is dead, you can open Neptulon's Cache. Inside you can find the following items:

Pipefish Chord (normal / heroic)
Sea Star (normal / heroic)
Bioluminescent Lamp (normal / heroic)

This is a very fun instance to heal and has some very solid healing rewards. The various fights are a good warm-up for the other instances that follow, and you get a chance to explore your new spells.

Show your totemic mastery by reading Totem Talk: Restoration. We'll show you the basics of endgame resto shaman play as well as how to find the expansion's best reputation gear for resto shaman and tips for easier leveling.