Totem Talk: Healing Deeper Under the Veil
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, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and content creation at InternetDragons.TV), shows you how.
Between taking down bosses and pushing ever further into the Siege of Orgrimmar, I've been taking a tour of all the horde side places that I haven't been too in almost 10 years. This past week I went through and explored Undercity again. Man has that place changed since the first time I set foot there. That said, the familiar halls still feel almost the same, almost like a home coming. I mean, you never forget your first bat ride do you?
That feeling really does translate well in the new raid tier. After all, to me at least, it is all about saving the once and glorious horde. Once you make the puddle clean again, and you're ready to start making your way deeper into the Siege, your next stop is going to see you facing down some old friends. It's an interesting story point, to emerge from the vault beneath the well only to be greeted by what were once among your most valued allies in the war against the Mogu.
This is not a comprehensive boss guide, but is instead tips and tricks I have learned through my own personal experiences.
From Bastion to Battering Ram
As you emerge from the tunnels beneath the vale, out into the open devastation that has been wrought not only by the mining of the Horde, but also by the actions of the Warchief Garrosh and the resurrection of an Old God's power. You are greeted by some old friends, Rook Stonetoe, He Softfoot and Sun Tenderheart. They were caught in the explosion that rocked the Vale, and though they were torn apart physically, their tormented spirits remain in the place they once swore to protect. The fight is one that has the potential to be pretty chaotic fairly quickly. The good news, if you want to call it that, is for the most part this fight isn't anything special when it comes to healing. It is pretty straight forward when it comes to what you need to worry about. Garrote is a high damage DoT that you will need to keep an eye out for. This will be a somewhat familiar ability to anyone who traveled through Karazhan, but He disappears only to appear behind a random raid member. Keep your eyes peeled and give them some healing love. Sun is where you're going to get your big workout, or at least where you're going to be paying quite a bit of attention to debuffs. Shadow Word: Bane is another high damage DoT that must be dispelled. You're going to be hitting Cleanse Spirit quite a bit here to get that DoT away.
For this reason, I find that Glyph of Cleansing Waters is actually pretty useful. If you're going to be investing all that mana in removing debuffs, well, you may as well get a heal out of it. This is, at least, up until Sun is about to cast Calamity, which will strike all players for 30% of their maximum health, and clear all Shadow Word: Bane debuffs still active. Calamity is a good place for you to use your Healing Tide Totem to help stabilize the raid group while everyone's health spikes up to a safe level. The other ability that you really need to watch out for is Dark Medidation. Sun summons Sha Manifestation adds that deal massive amounts of damage to players. She also encases herself in a bubble that looks rather like an Anti Magic Zone. Anyone who stands in the zone suffers 35% less damage. This is a great opportunity for you to make use of Healing Rain, Chain Heal and especially Spirit Link Totem. It's one of the few opportunities you have in this fight that the raid will be grouped up. Other than that, there's not a whole lot to do besides not stand in bad, and keep healing. It really is an always be healing type of fight.
Nurturing by Nuroshen
The Nuroshen encounter is a bit of a weird one, well, at least to me. He is the guardian of the vault that once contained the heart of an Old God. Here, he seals the players in a quarantine zone so that they can purge themselves of corruption, by literally taking it all forming a little sha baby and then beating it up. Everyone starts the fight with 75 points in corruptions. For DPS, the more corruption you have the less damage you do to the Amalgam. When you become Purified, DPS deals more damage to the Amalgam and Healers gain bonus healing. Take note of that. Players purify themselves by triggering Look Within by clicking on the glowing yellow orbs around the room. For healers, this means that you will face the Test of Reliance.
Inside, you will face a Greater Corruption, a big add that you will need to assist three NPC's to defeat. The three NPCs in question are our friends from the encounter just previous to this one. Their redeemed spirits are there to help you take down the Corruption. There is actually some really good news here. First, they stand close enough that you can make proper use of HR and CH, and unlike the change that keeps our spells from healing guardians, it heals them just fine here. Second, Rook is a proper tank that you can Earth Shield him, and he will keep aggro. While inside and healing them, you will have to keep an eye open for Lingering Corruption, a DoT that can be cleansed but does a lot damage. There is also a void zone like effect, called Pit of Despair, that you will need to make sure to move out of. The good news here is that the NPCs are better than some raiders I know, and they move out of the bad pretty quickly. Just keep healing until the add is dead and then you pop right out.
Outside of the portal, there are a couple of things that you need to be aware of. The first is Blind Hatred, which is literally a lazer of death. When it spawns it will track around the room dealing a ton of damage to anyone caught in it. You can tell which way the beam is going to go based off of the skull that appears at the very tip of the ability, and which way it is facing. Because there is constant damage in this fight, make use of Spiritwalker's Grace to keep healing on the move. If you don't have it off of cooldown, you can also tuck in a little bit closer to the boss to reduce the amount of moving you have to do. The only other thing to really be mindful of is Icy Fear. As the fight goes on, and the health of the Amalgam goes down, the AoE damage he does increases. Keep SLT, HTT and Ascendance ready for when things get really dicey towards the end. Other than that, it's not a terrible fight. Just keep moving, and keep healing.
Totem Talk: Restoration lends you advice on healing groups, DK tanks and heroics and mana concerns in today's endgame -- or take a break and look back at the rise of the resto shaman. Happy healing, and may your mana be plentiful!
