[Restoration] T17 Tips & Tricks

[Stoove 347]

This thread is for Restoration Shaman tips, tricks, and discussions in how to best handle the various boss fights throughout Tier 17 including Highmaul and Blackrock Foundry. Feel free to contribute or discuss encounter-specific anything you find from exceptional talent choices to ways to take advantage of class mechanics.

 

You can find some general tips and tricks for healing Highmaul in this thread.

Highmaul
-->Kargath Bladefist
-->The Butcher
-->Tectus
-->Brackenspore
-->Ko'ragh
-->Twin Ogron
-->Imperator Mar'gok

Blackrock Foundry
-->Gruul the Subjugated
-->Oregorger
-->Blast Furnace
-->Hans'gar and Franzok
-->Flamebender Ka'graz
-->Kromog
-->Beastlord Darmac
-->Operator Thogar
-->Iron Maidens
-->Blackhand



Highmaul

Kargath Bladefist

• Cloudburst Totem is recommended for this fight.

The Butcher

• Either Cloudburst Totem or High Tide are viable for this fight, depending on your healing style and raid.
• When The Butcher knocks you back, using Unleash Life will get you both a speed boost and your next Chain Heal will help top the ranged more quickly.

Tectus

• If your raid has trouble with the Tectonic Upheaval phases, speccing for High Tide will help you deal with these much more easily at the expense of spread-out AoE healing during the main phase.
• Don't forget to use Ghost Wolf and Unleash Life's speed buff to escape the Red Mist. You can cast Unleash Life in Ghost Wolf form, and the speed buffs stack.

Brackenspore


Ko'ragh


Twin Ogron


Imperator Mar'gok


Blackrock Foundry

Gruul the Subjugated


Oregorger


Blast Furnace


Hans'gar and Franzok


Flamebender Ka'graz


Kromog


Beastlord Darmac


Operator Thogar


Iron Maidens


Blackhand

[Xszwow 1]

Last night my guild finished our first 7/7hc run, and here is some basic impressions so far (after the bosses you've written about):

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/frostmane/Xtotemic/advanced - Character

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/tool/talent-calculator#Wba!2211000!UjgLDP - Preffered talents

 

Talent mentions:

T1: Most of the times i switch between SBT/Astral shift, SBT can be better on fights with more sustained damage taken.

T2: Windwalk totem is beast, and should be default unless you actually need to root stuff (I'm looking at you siegecrafter blackfuse)

 

T3: I love cloudburst so i will run Totemic persistance atleast for the entirety of this tier. I pop HST+Cloudburst at the same time. Sometimes you may  even SLT+cap totem at the same time, or even Cloudburst + healingtide (i love this one) .The reason I don't like Call of the element is because of the wierdness it presents when running Cloudburst. Because hst + cloudburst already aligns perfectly you don't need any extra totemcasts since that would overwrite the other totem anyways. If you run hightides most of the timies you may run with CotE, otherwise hell no.

 

T4: Echo is cool, but at the start of the expansion i feel like a flat 5% haste wins every time. So i go with AS.

 

T5: I dislike conductivity, Rushingstreams helps throughput and also helps building your cloudburst since you pop HST with cloudburst. AG is probably to nerfed to consider using it.

 

T6: I ran with primal elementalist on Brackenspore because you don't have any mana issues there, Otherwise i am really enjoying Unleashed fury, it's great mana value and it increases your throughput by alot i would dare say. I have not used elemental blast alot but it's probably great if you're struggling with mana.

 

T7: Storm elemental is basically useless, most of my Cloudbursts hit for more healing than a single storm ele. I have not used high tides alot, You're probably forced to play either echo of the elements or riptide glyph for it to be really good.

 

 

 

Brackenspore: One of the few bosses i feel like hightides is an option, it's hard to oom between blue shrooms and you get alot more haste when you stand in the blue shroom. I also ran with primal elementalist.

 

Twin Ogron: Cloudburst is very useful here, alot of movement during the 100 energy boss phases. Echo of the elements are probably decent but the instant cast from AS + the haste passive feels stronger in most situations (Even without the riptide glyphs i never starve for Tidal Waves)

 

Ko'ragh: I used my default talentset here, it's a long and manaexpensive fight and i would advise against using hightides or primal elementalist. Even with the candle trinket this fight was tough on mana. Unleashed Fury felt strong overall but EB is probably very viable here. Windwalking totem does not work on the ice orb from what i saw.

 

Imperator Mar'gok: Man this fight was fun. This is probably more mana intense than Ko'ragh and you have to play cheap or you're mana will not be able to recover. I ran my default talent choices here but EB is probably good aswell. Run with Windwalk totem for cheaper dispells on the slows debuff during transitions. Stone bulwark is probably king on this fight due to the lack of high damage spikes (If your guild fails alot with the branded debuff Astral shift might prove to be better).

 

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/VjHYP2yWzBhq69XM#type=healing - Mar'gok Log

Edited December 8, 2014 by Xszwow

[Pandaids 2]

XS,

 

I might be wrong, but some theorycrafters already have confirmed that CBT did not absorb other TOTEMS healing...only your healing like Chain Heal, Healing Wave and others

[Xszwow 1]

XS,

 

I might be wrong, but some theorycrafters already have confirmed that CBT did not absorb other TOTEMS healing...only your healing like Chain Heal, Healing Wave and others

 

Okay, i was not aware. But even if that is the case i still think Cloudburst is a very good talent.

[Pandacho 286]

The reason I don't like Call of the element is because of the wierdness it presents when running Cloudburst. Because hst + cloudburst already aligns perfectly you don't need any extra totemcasts since that would overwrite the other totem anyways. If you run hightides most of the timies you may run with CotE, otherwise hell no.

 

Call of the Elements is an utility talent. The reason to take it is more to provide double usage of specific utility totems like Windwalk, Tremor, Capacitor, etc. Resto shamans can and should use all these totems too, not only Water. The possibility to use HST twice in row is a nice addition. 

 

 

Xszwow, on 08 Dec 2014 - 5:55 PM, said:

T4: Echo is cool, but at the start of the expansion i feel like a flat 5% haste wins every time. So i go with AS.

Echo of Elements stacks very nice with the Unleashed Fury talent making UL and unglyphed Riptide usage much more frequent. 

I personally use Ancestral Swiftness with High Tide, not with UF and SBT.

 

 

Xszwow, on 08 Dec 2014 - 5:55 PM, said:

T5: I dislike conductivity, Rushingstreams helps throughput and also helps building your cloudburst since you pop HST with cloudburst. AG is probably to nerfed to consider using it.

Rushing Streams do nothing for CBT totem because it does not gather healing from totems.

Conductivity worth a shot for example on Butcher on melee soaking group or on Brackenspore Mushrooms. I don't say that it will shine, but it worth a try if it suites your play style.

 

 

Xszwow, on 08 Dec 2014 - 5:55 PM, said:

T6: I ran with primal elementalist on Brackenspore because you don't have any mana issues there, Otherwise i am really enjoying Unleashed fury, it's great mana value and it increases your throughput by alot i would dare say. I have not used elemental blast alot but it's probably great if you're struggling with mana.

Elemental Blast is a very good talent if you have time and possibility to cast it on CD. It increases one of your secondary stats for 500 every 8 sec from 15 (12 sec CD+cast time), and Spirit for 1000 - it's a big buff.

Unleashed Fury is very nice if you are going to use a lot UL for single-target healing. If you don't use UL or don't do much single-target heal, better to use something else.

 

 

Xszwow, on 08 Dec 2014 - 5:55 PM, said:

T7: Storm elemental is basically useless, most of my Cloudbursts hit for more healing than a single storm ele. I have not used high tides alot, You're probably forced to play either echo of the elements or riptide glyph for it to be really good.

Both CBT and HT are very good talents and both of them are situational. There is no reason to stack with one of them for all the encounters.

You definitely are not forced to use EotE or Glyph of Riptide with HT. I played with and w/o EotE and/or Glyph + HT - to use them or not depends on the fight. 

 

Anyways, what I would like to say to everybody - chose the talents that you feel comfortable with, chose them according to specifics of the fight, your healers setup and your preferred play style.

There are talents that stack better with each other but there are no completely useless talents :)

[Xszwow 1]

Call of the Elements is an utility talent. The reason to take it is more to provide double usage of specific utility totems like Windwalk, Tremor, Capacitor, etc. Resto shamans can and should use all these totems too, not only Water. The possibility to use HST twice in row is a nice addition. 

 

Even so, It's rare to have fights where you actually need say 2x tremor / 2x capacitor etc etc.

 

My talent choice may not be the best, i run with the talents that i perform best with. And because of that Call of the elements will be rarely chosen, because it feels like it IS lackluster.

Edited December 8, 2014 by Xszwow

[Garmak 0]

Gonna drop my 2 cents so far after 2/7 mythic.

 

Kargath(Myth): i believe is a joke on whatsoever difficulty , although it requires high mobility in mythic thus i would recommend 

using Glyph of the spiritwalker's focus (reduced cd for reduced duration).

 

Butcher(HC) : (so far until hc in my progress) since there are many ppl in the melee of the boss to share stacks i recommend Conductivity (u ll do insane amount of healing) , also totemic persistence will give you the HST and HTT combo which is very good hps wise especially at >30%

 

Brackenspore(HC): our current focus on mythic requires healing cd rotation , small windows of high mobility , again Glyph of spiritwalker's focus and/or Aspect of the fox gonna help you alot.

 

Tectus(HC) : i ll only add keep mind of ur surroundings , ancestral swiftness can be a oh sh** button when u need to move again the spiritwalker glyph can help u alot, if ur melee take too much damage when the splits are 4+ from red sand/dot debuff consider totemic projection and spirit link. Use ur HTT in a raid healing rotation.

 

Twin Ogron(Myth) : I hate this fight too much movement and we cant stop and heal , rely on totems and unleash life(maybe talent , i prefer to use elemental blast to get the spirit buff) , healing rush and again spiritwalker glyph ur best friends.

 

Ko'ragh (HC) : windwalk totem is the king for ur raid at expel magic:frost , raid healing cds on shadow , consider unleash talent and solo the absorption shield person.

 

 

Tbf i think what can make us abit better atm is Spiritwalker's focus Glyph that i think its huge.Secondly totemic persistence wins me over for the totem combo in tight situations such as the most frequent hst+cbt and the "oh we gonna die" - HTT+HST

As for our lvl 100 talent both CBT and HT are "easy" to say use but difficult to master.

CBT i feel like u need to plan very ahead and think the damage ur raid gonna take and the lack of another healer's big CD or u gonna overheal.
On the other hand the planning for 2+ riptide target and CH with HT might be difficult but u can always welcome the 100% bounce even with 1 riptide in 4-5 targets(consider the glyph too) might be noobish to say its easier controllable for the average shaman.

Alas i believe when the tier is gonna be avalaible HT will be more favoured for the throughput it ll give us.

 

Update: Brackenspore(mythic) finally down.

I advice elemental mastery for the infesting spore periods (if u have the haste trinket it helps a ton during that phase of the fight) - avoid wave and shrooms , again Glyph of Spiritwalker's Focus huge plus while you move.
Healing cds as instructed by the raid leader.

Edited December 21, 2014 by Garmak

[Asator 0]

I'll only talk about one particular Boss now (may add more the other day)

 

Butcher (HC):  I've tried several different talents and glyphs, and the best option for me (mastery>>haste>>crit) is working with High Tide, Conductivity, Elemental Blast, Glyph of Chaining and Glyph of Watershield.

As Garmak said, Conductivity provides an insane amount of healing, and you'll always have it ready after the knockback to heal the ranged camp while topping the boss camps and tanks.

Also combining High Tide with Chaining proves extremely viable, as your chainheal may jump from the ranged camp through boss camps all the way to the tanks.

I highly recommend using Glyph of Watershield 'cause you'll constantly get the reactive manareg when ready, due to the constant and massive raidwide damage. If you still feel a lack of Manareg, combine it with EB and you're good to go. Otherwise use Whatever T6 Talent you like, I played with both, feeling no real overall difference whether using Unleashed Fury or Primal Elementalist. But I personally like Primal better, because you may time it really, using Elementals at the start of the fight and have at least one off CD when enterring the 30 % phase, but that's just my humble opinion.

 

In the 30 % phase, don't use HR on ranged camp, the boss camps'll need the healing more, just throw in a chainheal (maybe even on yourself) so it can heal some ppl in the camp and then hightide jump to the front

Also Ancestral Swiftness proves to be better than EotE if your tank drops moderately (I combine it in a macro, on focus riptide, AS, on focus chainheal, while having the active tank on focus, or use it with unleash life and healing surge as single target)

[Pandacho 286]

I'll only talk about one particular Boss now (may add more the other day)

 

Butcher (HC):  I've tried several different talents and glyphs, and the best option for me (mastery>>haste>>crit) is working with High Tide, Conductivity, Elemental Blast, Glyph of Chaining and Glyph of Watershield.

As Garmak said, Conductivity provides an insane amount of healing, and you'll always have it ready after the knockback to heal the ranged camp while topping the boss camps and tanks.

Also combining High Tide with Chaining proves extremely viable, as your chainheal may jump from the ranged camp through boss camps all the way to the tanks.

I highly recommend using Glyph of Watershield 'cause you'll constantly get the reactive manareg when ready, due to the constant and massive raidwide damage. If you still feel a lack of Manareg, combine it with EB and you're good to go. Otherwise use Whatever T6 Talent you like, I played with both, feeling no real overall difference whether using Unleashed Fury or Primal Elementalist. But I personally like Primal better, because you may time it really, using Elementals at the start of the fight and have at least one off CD when enterring the 30 % phase, but that's just my humble opinion.

 

In the 30 % phase, don't use HR on ranged camp, the boss camps'll need the healing more, just throw in a chainheal (maybe even on yourself) so it can heal some ppl in the camp and then hightide jump to the front

Also Ancestral Swiftness proves to be better than EotE if your tank drops moderately (I combine it in a macro, on focus riptide, AS, on focus chainheal, while having the active tank on focus, or use it with unleash life and healing surge as single target)

 

I have a bit of concerns regarding some talents / glyph choices here.

First: Conductivity as a talent does not provide healing - it increases the duration of Healing Rain by 4 seconds when you cast Healing Wave, Healing Surge and Chain Heal, up to a maximum of 30 seconds. I'm not saying that the talent is bad, just be aware that it does not provide or modify the healing in any way. While Rushing Streams (same tier talent), for example, adds additional person to its healing. I wouldn't say that one of these two talents is definitely better, especially insane better.

Second: there is no constant raid-wide heavy damage on this fight if you are not raiding in 10-man. There is constant heavy damage on one of the two soaking groups, let's say 8-10 people (including tanks) near the boss, so I don't really fond of choosing Glyph of Chaining here when 80% of injured people are stacked in close range. You receive 60 yd range and 3 sec CD on CH - what for?

You are writing "your chainheal may jump from the ranged camp through boss camps all the way to the tanks". Ain't tanks near the boss and soaking groups? 10-15 yards between all of them?

I'm really not sure that Glyph of Chaining benefits somehow on the Butcher fight.

Third: Why to take PE here? This is the fight with heavy damage, so why not to chose UF for 50% buff on single target heal (tanks or members of soaking groups) or EB for mana gain? Taking UF for single target heals + HT for CH boost will pretty much covers and boosts all your healing spells.

[Karanir 15]

Conductivity provides healing in the sense that it extends the duration,and hence the total amount healed by a single cast of healing rain. It also frees up your time from having to recast healing rain repeatedly, and this lets you get a few more other healing spells off. 

 

It is a good choice for butcher, since you always have people stacked, and healing rain has a high mana efficiency if it hits 6 injured players. 

[Garmak 0]

@Pandacho:

Regarding your concern about conductivity including what Karanir said a well placed healing rain can be healing both melee grps (at least how we do it)(and in the essence of healing the "injured" grp) while u can be more mana conservative with using healing wave than spam chain heals and healing rush at least until the bleed start stack again.

Tbf as far i did heroic butcher so i d say with a raid cooldown between 2nd and 3rd bleed stack and it goes smoothly for you to not panic and waste ur mana before 30%

 

About Glyph of chaining i wouldn t recommend either due to stacked grps maybe on mythic for mechanic purposes but yeah until i reach there don t quote me on that.

 

And third i ll defend (xD) the PE and our Earth elemental's damage reduction(have to try on mythic to see if we gain more than EB). 

Seriously if u are comfortable with ur mana go for it ,but i wouldn t go for UF in this fight.Tbh i rate it 3rd as an option due to the healing wasted u can get, as a standalone talent it seems well worth it but with 3-4 more healers in raid it feels you get more overhealing from it than actual help.I primary use UL more for the speed boost nowdays than the healing buff #shrugs x/

[Pandacho 286]

I checked Conductivity talent in the previous raid on the Butcher HC and healed today's Butcher w/o it.

While it's right that I have to cast less HR to get to roughly same healing done number for it, dropping Healing Streams talent is just a disaster. I lost more then 1M of healing from HST.

 

                 W/o Conductivity         With Conductivity

HR            12 casts / 1.98M              9 casts / 1.85M

HST           9 casts / 1.80M               9 casts / 750K

 

Logs:

With Conductivity (63% healing rankings)

W/o Conductivity (96% healing rankings)

 

I would say that the difference is so significant for me that I'd prefer to stick to Healing Streams talent.

But still, maybe I don't know to use it right. So, if you have logs to compare, please share

Edited January 8, 2015 by Pandacho

[Karanir 15]

Hello Pandacho, 

 

With regards to use of conductivity, I should have elaborated more on its benefits to make it clearer. I'll try to be clearer in this post. Ultimately, when we choose a talent for a fight, it is because the benefits of the talent help us overcome a particular limitation (maybe, running out of mana, positional issues) or because it's extremely well suited to the fight (dps are all stacked up, for example). 

 

Firstly, lets take a look at the logs. 

 

The difference between crit rate of the healing stream totems on both fights is almost 10%. This could have skewed the results in favour of rushing streams. Also, for healing rain, I noticed that there was a period of 1 min where healing rain wasn't used. Furthermore, there is a time gap between healing rains in the Conductivity case. How are you tracking the increased duration of healing rain? From the logs, it seems that the uptime of healing rain could have been greatly improved for the Conductivity case. It seems to me that the difference in healing throughput probably isn't as high as 1 million. 

 

Secondly, healing rain isn't a pure healing throughput talent like rushing streams. This makes it a bit more difficult for us to compare them directly. Conductivity increases the throughput of healing rain by about 20% because you can now have 100% uptime healing rain instead of wasting two seconds to cast it between healing rains. At the same time, conductivity saves you mana because your healing rain now lasts longer and you recast it less. It also gives you additional casts of healing spells because you reduce the time spent on refreshing healing rain. 

 

Thirdly, I would like to ask some guiding questions to help decide whether Conductivity is a suitable choice. The most obvious thing is that the players must, of course,  be stacked for the whole raid. The more subtle things to consider are:

 

a.) Does your healing rain hit 6 players consistently? If you can’t hit 6 players, then the effectiveness of this talent is greatly reduced.

b.) Do you need additional mana?

c.) Because you refresh healing rain less often, you now have more time to cast other spells. Are you consistently casting heals throughout the fight or is there a lot of free time? If there is a lot of downtime, then this benefit won’t be fully realised. Just off the top of my head, I think the freed up cast time and mana from conductivity should be enough for you to cast an extra chain heal + flash heal combo every 30seconds.

d.) Is the extra healing from these spells every 30s outweigh the loss in healing from Rushing Streams? 

 

In summary, I think that the difference in healing throughput between conductivity and healing stream isn't as large as claimed (1 million). Also, conductivity provides additional benefits in terms of more mana and also more casts of other spells. 

 

Edit: for clarity

Edited January 9, 2015 by Karanir

[Pandacho 286]

Hi, Karanir.

I want to point once more: I do not say that Conductivity is not a good talent for the Butcher fight. What I'm saying is that Rushing Streams is good enough choice too.

Like I linked here my logs with and without Conductivity talent for the same raid and same fight, I would like to see somebody's else logs - a person who prefer Conductivity - for the Butcher fight (with and without Conductivity). But not the logs from the Rankings please.

Maybe you'll be able share your logs, Karanir?

 

Regarding your questions:

a) my HR hits more than 6 players all the time

b ) I do not need additional mana

c) I do not have even a free second on HC fight - have to cast all the time

d) don't think so, but would like to see somebody's logs (who is good with Conductivity talent) in 19-20-man raid (not in 25-30-man)

 

 

I think that the difference in healing throughput between conductivity and healing stream isn't as large as claimed (1 million).

It doesn't have to be 1M difference, what I'm trying to show, that even if there is no difference at all, it makes both talents worth using on the encounter. There are people who are not good with Conductivity, just like there are enough people who are not good with CBT. So it would be nice to give them a choice

Edited January 10, 2015 by Pandacho

[Karanir 15]

We are kinda making the same point. I am not promoting conductivity as the go to talent for butcher. I am just trying to explain the thinking process and the benefits of the talent so that people can make informed choices. The main issue that I felt needed addressing was that conductivity cannot be compared directly to rushing streams cos it has other benefits beyond 'more healing' such as more mana and more casts. Ultimately, I was trying to provoke people into thinking more deeply about their talent choices instead of just taking recommendations blindly.

I wrote a long post for conductivity cos it's a frequently ignored talent and offering more choices for a fight is always good. At the very least, conductivity offers a playstyle change where you get to spend more time doing interesting things like healing surge and chain heal instead of refreshing healing rain

The guiding questions isn't targeted at you. It's a form of Scaffolding to aid the decision making for someone who might be considering the talent.

I'll admit it. I actually use rushing streams on butcher cos I think it's viable (i agree with you) and i am lazy.

Edited January 11, 2015 by Karanir