healing the *downhill* part of heroic dark shamans 10man as a resto shaman

[pdpeleven]

Is it really impossible for a resto shaman to heal the *downhill* part (Kardis)? My 10man heroic raid group just got this down for the first time tonight, but replaced my resto shaman with my disc priest alt who had never previously set foot in a heroic raid this xpac and doesn't even have all the SoO bosses down on normal. Well, its better than replacing me with someone else, but I want to do this on my main. How? We tried my main for only a couple attempts at the end of raid time last week, and it seemed like she was guaranteed to die if the iron prison and falling ash happened at about the same time, since she only has one defensive cooldown afaik (I was using stone bulwark, since astral's cooldown is too long wrt iron prison). Ideas?

All the videos and writeups I can find that include a resto shaman at all have the resto shaman as one of two healers up top (Haromm). But that simply isn't going to happen in my raid group since we're doing one healer up top and two healers downstairs, and the only healer who can manage solo healing Haromm isn't me. We have a holy pally up top and me (on the disc priest alt when we got it down) and a resto druid in the down area. I want to get this on my main, the resto shammy. I'm going to need a compelling argument to even get my raid leader to let me try the resto shammy again.

Thanks very much for any suggestions.

[Kitmajere]

Try having the holy pally on the "down" part? With clemency they have two sacs and two bops to deal with iron prison if anyone is out of self-cds for it, can provide absorbs to help mitigate the prison damage, and have good self-cds+divine shield. If the raid needs minimal externals they can run unbreakable spirit to have a 30 sec cd on their personal instead (it needs to be glyphed to work on the iron prison though obviously).
It would help to know the rest of your comp too -- you could ask a spriest to shield you if your own cd was down or not enough, or get an external from a prot/ret pally or prot/dps warrior if you have any of those with your down group. We've done it with a resto shaman healing the "down" group, with the spriest giving them a shield if necessary. Don't forget the smaller personals at your disposal too -- earth ele reinforce and even SLT.

[pdpeleven]

The holy pally is NOT going to move to the "down" part. I already suggested that. I must be able to do the "down" part, somehow, on a resto shammy. Thanks anyway.

[Madisyn]

I heal the "bottom" (Kardis) every week as a resto shaman. Our group goes with 1 tank (DK) and myself (resto shaman) down with Kardis, then we have 2 healers, 2 tanks, and the rest dps up top dealing with Tombs, etc.

I use Stone Bulwark Totem. Basically, I have to make sure I time that totem perfectly. I drop it with around 9-10 seconds left on the iron prison debuff. I lost track of my iron prison debuff this week and dropped my totem @ 5 seconds left, while it still worked, it did become a bit hectic on my end because of all the movement as we got further into the fight (moving from slimes/purple crap)
I just keep riptides running on myself and my tank. He pretty much takes care of handling his iron prison debuff on his own (especially if both of our prisons are set to expire at the same time). There are times where I switch earth shield to myself when I have a couple of seconds remaining on that prison, just as an added precaution (then quickly switch it back to my tank).

I use my earth elemental (for the reinforce buff) when we get to that hectic kiting phase (if I hadn't used it already). I just make sure to cast it when I have around 10 seconds remaining on the iron prison debuff. I've died once and that was because I messed up and didn't move out of toxic storm quick enough and it was right as my iron prison was expiring. Otherwise, healing Kardis is relatively easy for me as a resto shaman.

I watch my timers like a hawk, if it even remotely looks like I'm going to get ashen with my iron prison expiring at the same time, I pop earth elemental a couple of seconds early, cast reinforce, throw earth shield on myself and make sure my stone bulwark totem is down. I've always been able to survive it. The main thing is to try to keep a riptide on yourself at all times. Using healing tide if ashen and prison hit at the same time works very well too (combined with stone bulwark totem).

Fire Elemental with the empowered buff cast on me is also used towards the end of the fight. For us, by the time the bosses are about to die, we have our entire area pretty much covered with toxic "death traps" and slimes still being kited. Which makes trying to safely navigate to safe areas a pain in the ass.

Healing Stream Totem used pretty much on CD is a HUGE help for me. If I see that things are about to get messy, I'll hold off on dropping healing stream for a couple of seconds.

Communication is really the key to healing Kardis. My tank is pretty vocal letting me know if he had to use a cd on himself and would need that extra healing for when his prison expires. He also tells me which direction he's kiting, etc. Makes that fight pretty minimal for the most part (at least for our area).

When we first start out, I stack with my tank on Kardis, this lets that toxic storm hit right where we want it, and lets us pretty much determine where those things land until the slimes start coming out. Once that part begins, I make sure to stay a few steps ahead of my tank and he just follows me around the room, while we both navigate around the purple crap. It's basically just knowing where everything is at and making sure we maintain a safe distance from anything that could potentially one shot us.

[kenn9530]

why do you need 2 healers downstairs, its easily soloable even on 25 man to heal downstairs, just send 2 healers up top and the holy pally to deal with prisons but even then the shield totem should be enough and everyone else should have some sort of cd to use everytime.

But as shammy as long as you time the totem good and don't take any damage straight after prison you should be able to survive fine, save your cds for moments where prison and falling ash are really close to each to other.

you should have plenty cds, earth elemental dmg reduction, totem, and spirit link if really needed so that should cover it.

The druid with barkskin and ironbark should also be able to handle solo healing downstairs.

The holy pally is NOT going to move to the "down" part. I already suggested that. I must be able to do the "down" part, somehow, on a resto shammy. Thanks anyway.

why can't the holy pally heal downstairs tbh since your raid is struggling with doing the boss with the setup the holy pally should be down stairs, its not as if its hard at all to heal since its easily soloable by any class to heal up or downstairs, upstairs would have a need for 2 healers more due to most of the healing requirements being there and if the holy pally can solo heal it anyway what is the problem.

[Koor]

I usually heal the top so I'm not speaking from experience, but I think if you find that stone bulwark is too weak, you can try with astral shift. It won't be up every one minute but due to RNG often you won't get iron prison back-to-back and then astral shift is enough.

If your astral shift is on cooldown, you can use earth elemental reinforce, or spirit link totem, or ask for an external cooldown. For example the druid can give you ironbark with a 60 sec cooldown, and still have barkskin for himself.

[Grameha]

Yeah I'm not sure how geared you are as we two heal this fight each week with a resto-sham(or druid) down the bottom and priest(or druid) up the hill with the 2 tanks. just need to time your personal cooldown a bit better or if its going to be a bit tight ask for a cooldown from another raid member.

If your having a really tuff time with it just swap with your other healer up-top or try a 3 heal strat .With 3 healer life just becomes very difficult as the fight last that much longer in that last 25%.

[Madisyn]

I usually heal the top so I'm not speaking from experience, but I think if you find that stone bulwark is too weak, you can try with astral shift. It won't be up every one minute but due to RNG often you won't get iron prison back-to-back and then astral shift is enough.

If your astral shift is on cooldown, you can use earth elemental reinforce, or spirit link totem, or ask for an external cooldown. For example the druid can give you ironbark with a 60 sec cooldown, and still have barkskin for himself.

I have to emphasize on this, IF you 1 tank and 1 heal Kardis, both you and the tank will get back to back iron prisons the entire duration of the fight.
Stone Bulwark is really the only way to go with this due to the lower cd, astral shift is on a 2 min cd, which is pretty much useless because you will always get a back to back iron prison if you 1 heal this with a tank, and like I said in my earlier post, time stone bulwark just right and if you see that you will be running into ashen with iron prison expiring, use one of your other healing cds along with stone bulwark.

For the most part, Stone Bulwark + riptide on yourself is plenty to keep yourself from dying to iron prison.

[Grameha]

Yup Madi is right all the work is being done up the hill( healing wise) so use what ever ya got to keep yourself alive .

[Barrun]

If you can't solo heal Haromm then you're doing something terribly wrong; drop HR on cooldown, keep Riptide on the people with Toxic Mist, Chain Heal/GHW/HW (glyphed) as needed, drop HST when Toxic Mist reaches 5 stacks, save AS for when you're targeted with Foul Stream, save PE + EE Bulwark for sub 25%, its very simple and shouldn't be a problem anywhere above ~540 item level. The paladin should be down stairs due to their mastery and Hand of Sacrifice. If the downstairs is really an issue for you guys have just the holy paladin and one tank downstairs, then put everyone else upstairs - stay stacked as a group, and move together for Iron Tombs.

[Deleted]

just like others said, timing sbt(remember that sbt shield is applied roughly .5s after dropping totem and initial biggest shield last 10s, so timing that shield with the absorb refreshing every 5 seconds, you should aim to use it around 6-8s before ash comes) and using reinforce from PE talent is more than plenty to keep yourself alive and you shouldnt die from falling ash + tomb while being down, all i could suggest is use a shield if you arent already for more dr, and precast tidal wave ghw on yourself when falling ash comes and use CoE to get double sbt if you really need it(recommended on shamans anyway). and if you are really desperate then ES 2set is your last option, but it requires you to trigger the shield which can be tricky to dr tomb but not impossible.

I personally use astral shift because i prefer higher dr and IF! i get back to back i can save myself with PE

[Rafal]

I find healing Haromm solo as a resto shaman kinda like a super power =P you should really try learning how to heal up top solo. Glyphed HST is a constant 10% damage reduction buff and ancestral vigor 10% health really cuts the burst damage down. Drop healing rain on you and the two tanks, chain heal riptide targets. Usually towards the end during BL phase I pop primal earth ele to cover up any nonsense damage that might ensue.

The only thing you really have to watch out for is foul stream, make sure to pop a defense CD if it ever targets you. If I'm not paying attention foul stream can get me killed.

If you are a low ilvl I recommend the healing wave glyph as well. Don't tell me you can't heal heroic Haromm solo! Its basically a resto shamans calling!

[Chae]

I've solo healed both top and bottom as a Resto Shaman, so it's certainly possible.

From what I've read in your first post, you're going to have a Holy Pally + 2 Tanks up top, and all the DPS + Tank + You + Resto Druid on the bottom, correct?
It seems like you're telling me your main problem is staying alive through the prisons, so here's the advice I can offer you if you're set to stay on the bottom:

1. Make sure all your DPS on the bottom know they have to be very on top of their usage of personal CDs, because the druid and yourself can't give them bubbles.
2. Use Astral Shift. It's much less scary to use than SBT, and you do have other defensives if you get 2 prisons in a row.
3. Empower your Rock Elemental for a 1 minute 20% DR if you get a prison and your AS is on CD.

If you get REALLY unlucky and end up with a 4th prison after AS -> Empower -> AS, you have 2 options. The first would be to call out for your Druid healer's Iron Bark. If he's had to use it for some other reason, remember that Spirit Link Totem has a baked in 10% DR as well. So when your prison is about to expire, drop SLT on yourself and be ready to heal yourself up quickly.

If you're really REALLY REALLY unlucky and absolutely everything is on CD, then die and ankh.

You have a lot of options. I've healed this boss in many different situations as a Resto Shaman, and in my opinion solo healing the bottom was the easiest for me personally. Good Luck getting your kill on your Shaman!

[pdpeleven]

Thanks very very much for the many suggestions! I really appreciate the ideas, and will see if I can convince my raid leader to try again with the resto shammy.

I should clarify a few things: Our composition is three tanks (druid, warrior, and the third one varied, generally someone's undergeared alt who plays dps on their main for other bosses), three healers (holy pally, resto druid, me), four dps (this varied, but when we finally got down, it was hunter, mage, warlock and elem. shaman). The guardian druid is the raid leader and the holy pally is the raid leader's wife, so some decisions about who does what when may not be made on the most rational basis (e.g., the druid MUST be healed by the holy pally, they cannot be separated). The tanks are druid and <third tank> on Haromm, warrior on Kardis. Only the two tanks and the holy pally go up to Haromm. Everyone else stays with Kardis.

We tried first two or three times with me as resto shaman up top, so a second healer up there, and the resto druid on bottom. The bottom group wiped very fast. Then we moved my resto shaman to bottom for I think two tries, and both of them I died when prison and falling ash happened at same time (prison alone was no problem) and then died again similarly after ankh or brez. I was never given another try on bottom with the resto shaman, nor any opportunity to try solo healing Haromm.

It was total five tries I think on the resto shaman before my raid leader asked me to switch to my disc priest alt - who was wearing some mix of T15, flex, celestials and ordos gear. The theory was the disc priest would do bottom alone, and the other two healers up top. But I hadn't raided on this alt in several months and various addons were broken. I was fixing as we went, but after two or three wipes, we switched to two-healing bottom with the resto druid and my disc priest. Then there were many wipes where the holy pally died up top, or one or more dps died to prison or volcanoes on bottom.

Eventually, we managed to get down, about 50 wipes total according to dbm but several of those were false pulls, like the boss aggroed when someone put up a food cart.

I am thinking that next week I might arrange for the priest to be "saved" so they might let me try again on the resto shammy. But I needed some ideas about how to survive Kardis. Or convince them to move me back to Haromm. I understand Haromm much better since I have my own holy pally on another server who has heroic Dark Shamans down many times, but she has *always* done Haromm (in heroic, that is, she used to solo heal Kardis back when we did normal).

Thanks again.

[Elapsed]

The holy pally is NOT going to move to the "down" part. I already suggested that. I must be able to do the "down" part, somehow, on a resto shammy. Thanks anyway.

That's nonsense and needs to be beaten out of that holy pally. We are easily the most equipped class to deal with the iron prisons. We not only have the abilities mentioned by Kitmajere above but just our mastery heal adds absorbs to people that save a person from it. Tell that paladin that real paladins want him/her to get their head out of their asses and get to work

[Koor]

Another option - you can be on Kardis as a dps with the druid solo healing, that would give you shamanistic rage as another cooldown, the boss would go down faster, and you can still throw some heals to help the druid when they are needed.

[Nzete]

When we were running 10s, we had prot pally + dk + resto shaman up top. It was ugly but worked.

Aside, people can be so horrible about the iron prison running through schmuck immediately prior to it trying to one shot them. (Or worse, running through schmuck with their own shields as an spriest and leaving themselves damaged with weakened soul). I have a current list of bosses that I really hate in SoO, and Shaman, Malkorak, and Thok are the top).

[Grameha]

When we were running 10s, we had prot pally + dk + resto shaman up top. It was ugly but worked.

Aside, people can be so horrible about the iron prison running through schmuck immediately prior to it trying to one shot them. (Or worse, running through schmuck with their own shields as an spriest and leaving themselves damaged with weakened soul). I have a current list of bosses that I really hate in SoO, and Shaman, Malkorak, and Thok are the top).

Funny story on this i know a guild that where doing SoO heroic progression with a monk,pally,Sham healing team stuck for ages someone suggest on the realm forum that they swap to Druid,Disc,Pally being the alts of the monk and the sham and they got 6 new kills in 2 weeks. sad but true atleast for the first 10/14 :S

[Aviators]

Why don't you guys 2 heal, and use the hut strategy. Its a lot easier as a resto shaman in there, spec into conductivity and do nothing but spam chain heal, put down HST whenever the debuff reaches around 15s. Make sure you have another dps in there, makes it a lot easier for tombstones, and the debuff.

If your dps any good, you will really need only one rotation inside the hut.

[PosPosPos]

why do you need 2 healers downstairs, its easily soloable even on 25 man to heal downstairs, just send 2 healers up top and the holy pally to deal with prisons but even then the shield totem should be enough and everyone else should have some sort of cd to use everytime.

But as shammy as long as you time the totem good and don't take any damage straight after prison you should be able to survive fine, save your cds for moments where prison and falling ash are really close to each to other.

you should have plenty cds, earth elemental dmg reduction, totem, and spirit link if really needed so that should cover it.

The druid with barkskin and ironbark should also be able to handle solo healing downstairs.



why can't the holy pally heal downstairs tbh since your raid is struggling with doing the boss with the setup the holy pally should be down stairs, its not as if its hard at all to heal since its easily soloable by any class to heal up or downstairs, upstairs would have a need for 2 healers more due to most of the healing requirements being there and if the holy pally can solo heal it anyway what is the problem.

It's really simple why: Your healers and tanks are shit if they can't solo heal top. And holy paladins are by far the best class at solo healing top, aside from disc priests and resto druids.

Bottom group shouldn't need absorb healers if there are anywhere near decent at using personals.

Absorb healers are bad crutches on specifically this fight because it promotes moving all responsibility to one person rather than upholding shared raid responsibility for staying alive.