Naxxramas Guide – Part Three: The Abomination Wing

This is part three of my Resto-Shaman guides to Naxxramas. These guides are designed with the Resto-Shaman in mind, but may be beneficial for any healer. These guides are a condensed overview of each Naxxramas encounter allowing the Resto Shaman to understand their roll in the raid and are not a full instance guide.

You have conquered your fear of spiders, you have defeated the plague and now it is time to for you to step into a big pile of flesh and goo known as the Plague Wing so trap on your boots and prepare to get messy.

Naxxramas: Abomination Wing

Trash: The first part of the Abomination wing’s trash is made up of, well, Abominations and slimes and some weird scientist. They tend to disease their targets so make sure to be quick with the cleansing. The hardest part about healing through the trash is the effect from the slime rivers that reduce health and mana by 50%. If you or your tank is not paying attention you may go out of mana when pretty quickly and that may lead to a wipe. Just make sure to mana up once you get past the rivers to be safe.

Patchwerk: Patch is the first Abomination wing boss and the test to prove if you are ready to continue into Naxxramas. He has a 6 minute enrage timer so he needs to be killed as quickly as possible. Healing this encounter can be very strenuous for a new healer.

Only the main and off tank will be taking damage, but they will be taking a ton of damage. The off tank will be taking the most damage from deadly strikes while the main tank takes the normal hits. Your goal will be to keep up with the damage to keep the tank topped off as much as possible. This can be done with either big bang HW heals, or quick LHW heals with earth shield on your target. You CAN chain heal this, but normally it is not needed. I will only use chain heal if my other healer needs help on the other tank.

While the DPS is racing to kill Patch, you are in the middle of a mana marathon. Unless you have a ton of MP5 and a big mana pool, mana will be an issue. I found that it is best drop mana tide at 65% and then a mana pot when you are back down to 50%. Try as much as possible to not spam heals allowing you to regen a little more mana, you will need every bit of mana you can get.

Grobulus: Not only is Grobulus a pain in the butt, he is also the lamest looking boss in all of Naxrammas. During this fight the tank will kite Grob around the room. During this time there are two things to watch for. The first is the Injections that Grob puts on a random raid member. DO NOT CLEANSE THIS! If you do there will be an AoE poop cloud that will cause damage to anyone near it. When someone gets the injection they will run to an area behind where Grob was and the wait for the effect to drop the cloud out of the way of the raid. Your job will be to heal that person as they come back since the injection will have taken a nice big chunk of their health away.

Grob will also spawn an add for everyone that is hit with his slime spray…which should only be one since the spray should only be aimed at the tank. Make sure to keep an eye out for the slime and avoid it and heal the off tank assigned to pick up the slimes.

As for totems I tend to drop them in the middle of the room. This allows for the best chance for the raid to get their benefit as they move around the room.

Gluth: The sweet little puppy of the abomination wing. During this fight you will be asked to do more than just heal, you will have to help on puppy chow duty.

During the fight zombies will spawn in the back and if they make it to Gluth he will eat them and regen health, so two or three people will be in the back of the room gathering up the adds and slowing them down. Your job will be to keep these people healed as well as aiding in the zombie round up. Make sure to have earth bind totem up to slow the movement speed of the zombies and nuke the random runner with frost shock to get them back to the kite group.

During the fight, Gluth will cast decimate, reducing the raids health to 10%. Make sure to get everyone up as fast as possible (Chain heal and LHW for the win). At this point the raid will be AoE the zombies that are now on a bee line for Gluth. Make sure to have earth bind down and drop your fire elemental for added damage. After decimate and all the zombies have been killed or eaten, the cycle starts over and you will head to the back of the room and start the process of gathering zombies again. Normally there will be two decimate cycles during the encounter.

Thaddius: The final boss of the Abomination Wing and the idiot check for Naxx. The first part will require the raid to split into two groups to kill Stalagg and Feugen at the same time. The make up of the raid will dictate which mini boss you heal. If you are the only raid healer, you will heal Feugen and his AoE damage, if there is a druid or a priest they are better to heal that fight and you can heal the single target damage on Stalagg. Either way, you will end up healing both tanks since they are tossed back and forth platform to platform.

Once the wonder twins have been killed, it is time to make the jump to Thaddius’s platform. Fail point number one is missing the platform and having to swim back. During the Taddius will cast a static charge on the raid (Positive or Negative) your job is to move to the side designated for your particular charge and keep moving each time your charge changes.

Depending in your raid, you will either just be healing the tank in really good raids, or spamming chain heal due to Fail point number two, people with two different charges damaging each other. Either way, healing will be a challenge but will be doable.

Resto Shaman Raid Build – 3.0.8

There are a couple of changes coming up for the resto-shamans in patch 3.0.8 that may end up how I am spec’ed for raiding and heroic 5-mans.

First off, the spec that I am currently running is not exactly the same build that I had posted last week.  While I was doing some research I found that Matticus had done a post on the shaman at 80 and his build intriqued me so I gave it a shot with a small tweak.  I took a full three points into Ancestral Healing and only 1 point in Nature’s Guaridan.

Jager’s Current Build 

The build has been holding up well, but I am starting to notice something that I have heard about, but really wanted to see for myself…the weakness of Ancestral Awakening.  Currently it only accounts for 2-4% of my healing and like most that have found this, I will be looking for another place for these three talent points.  This is where the new patch comes into play for the raiding shaman.

Healing Way doesn’t stack up to 3 times anymore and now increases the effect of subsequent Healing Wave spells on the target by 18%. (Up from 6%)

I will be taking the points out of Ancestral Awakening and putting them into Healing Way.  Currently I am a tank healer in a 10 man raid group and I need all the help I can get and the 18% increase in healing on the tank will be a big help.  Plus on a side note, I know that I will be able to have this 18% increase all the time and not the % of healing from Ancestral Awakening on a crit.

Improved Water Shield has been changed to – You have a 33/66/100% chance to instantly consume a Water Shield Orb when you gain a critical effect from your Healing Wave or Riptide spells, and a 19.8/39.6/60% chance when you gain a critical effect from your Lesser Healing Wave spell.

As I have gotten some raids and heroic experience under my belt, the watershield global cool down thing has started to wear me down.  It was getting to the point where I was getting a blister on my watershield finger.  Because of this, I was getting ready to take 1 or 2 points out of this talent but now I think I can let it be.  I still might take a point out of it if the global cool down still is an issue but I will need to run with it for a bit to know this for sure.

So there we have it.  I guess we will have to wait until this goes live or I get super prepared and roll onto the PTR but I doubt that will happen.  Once this goes live I will follow up with how this works and how viable it actually has been.

Shaman Tips for 10-Man Naxxramas: Spider Wing

Since it will take me awhile to compile information for a full resto shaman Naxxramas raid guide, I thought it might be beneficial to post tips for each encounter while the raid guides are under construction.

Naxxramas: Spider Wing

Anub’Rekhan: This is the first boss you will encounter in the Spider wing. He is alone in a large round room. The basic fight is a tank and spank with a spawned add until phase two. This is where AR cast locust swarm and the raid group collapses into the center of the room while the tank kites AR around the perimeter of the room (12 to 6 then 6 to 12). During the locust swarm the tank is usually out of range for heals without the healer getting locust swarm. To help get the tank through this phase cast a fresh earth shield on the tank and well as a riptide. Between the shield and the HoT from riptide it should be enough to get the tank to his next tanking position. Another thing is have two healers in the middle handling off tank and raid heals and another healer at the end of the kite path. This will allow a healer to pick the tank up ASAP during the last couple of pounding hits from AR without getting hit with locust swarm.

Another thing to try is not as much related to healing, but more about damage output. When you are just starting to run Naxx, the gear of your DPS might not be up to snuff and you may end up hitting AR’s enrage timer. To handle this, after the tank gets agro, use bloodlust for an initial boost of DPS when everyone is able to focus on QR before the adds and scarabs. If you are running with multiple shamans, you will be able to get a second bloodlust to burn down AR towards the end of the fight.

Grand Widow Faerlina: GWF is Boss number two in a room for of spiders and acolytes. Have the tank clear the room group by group by line of sight pulling them. The fight requires some coordination. The main tank will engage GWF on the platform and the off tank will grab the adds and move them to one side of the stairs. Each time she goes into frenzy, the main tank will pull her to adds where the DPS will burn one down quick to remove the effect. Once the effect is removed the tank will move her away until the next frenzy. I haven’t seen any special tips on healing this, other than as a shaman, you will have your hands full with AoE damage. Make sure to let the raid know to move out of the AoE right away if they are not already doing so.

Maexxna: Ok, now we have yet to down Maexxna but the few times we ran it there are some things you want to do during this encounter. During the fight there is some nasty poison, especially Necrotic Poison that reduces heals on the tank that needs to be cleansed right away. Also every 40 seconds web spray is cast that is a 4 sec incapacitate. During this time you can’t heal or cleanse. Before web spray make sure to cast a fresh earth shield and a riptide and drop your poison cleansing totem to help the tank survive during the 4 seconds.

Maexxna’s other fun ability is web wrap. This will launch someone to the webbed wall behind you. The wrap is similar to Illhoof’s chains and needs to be destroyed quickly before the target is dead. If your DPS is lacking, you will have to position a healer close to the wall to heal the affected target until the DPS can get them freed.

WotLK Level 80 Resto Shaman Raid Build

Edit: Please check out Shaman Raid build 2.0 for updates.

I have gone over the shaman trees over and over again.  I have looked for synergies between each skill and tried to maximize the Resto build to be both viable for the normal raid healing chain heal casting Resto shaman and the crit happy proc shaman.  All that work has now resulted in the following build.

Resto Shaman Raid Build – 0/13/58

The main concepts behind this build was maximize spell crit potential to increase the proc percentage of ancestral healing, improved water shield (augmented by improved shields in the enhancement tree) and ancestral awakening while still giving the shaman the standard healing talents for healing efficiency with mana and threat reduction.

One obvious omission from this build was the improved earth shield.  The extra 2 charges stacked with the 10% healing on each charge would be nice, but I did not want to sacrifice any crit or threat reduction talents.  I did think about dropping Tidal Force and Cleanse Spirit to give me the two points for improved earth shield, but I have found Cleanse Spirit too convenient to drop and Tidal Force would give me a much better chance to proc during tank healing.

Glyphs for this build should be as follows:

• Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave (Major) – Your Lesser Healing Wave heals for 20% more if the target is also affected by your Earth Shield.
• Glyph of Healing Wave (Major) – Your Healing Wave also heals you for 20% of the healing effect when you heal someone else.
• OR
• Glyph of Earthliving Weapon (Major) – Increases the chance for your Earthliving weapon to trigger by 5%.
• Glyph of Water Mastery (Major) - Increases the passive mana regeneration of your Water Shield spell by 30%.
• Glyph of Water Shield (Minor) – Increases the number of charges on your Water Shield spell by 1
• Glyph of Water Breathing (Minor) – Your Water Breathing spell no longer requires a reagent
• Glyph of Renewed Life (Minor) – All stats increased by 5% for 1 min when you reincarnate.

To round out the proc shaman, the lesser healing wave glyph is a must for LHW spam for tank healing.  As for the Healing Wave vs. Earthlinving it is a toss up based on your play style.  If you find that you don’t cast HW that much then you might want to take the increases HoT proc, but having an ability that heals myself without having to think about it is a win in my book.

As for the minor glyphs it is always a toss up.  I find the underwater breathing glyph to be very convenient and the extra 5% after a reincarnation could help fix a bad pull or boss fight.  As for the water shield, it is probably negligible, but the less I have to cast it and waste a global cool down the better.

Keep in mind the build/glyph combo is not perfect and I am sure there are others viable versions out there.  All my work on this build so far has been done in pieces while healing 5 mans and I won’t have the full workings of the build completely hammered out until raiding starts, but till then I will be confident that my experience and research have lead to a viable raid build.

Resto Shaman 5 Man Dungeon Guides – Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom

Overview:

Ahn’khat is a huge underground city that is home to the remnants of the Nerubian Empire.  This city is located far below the surface of Northrend and is the original location of Azjol-Nerub.  AN can be found in west Dragon Blight and is in the same location as the Azjol-Nerub instance.

Trash:

There is a lot of differing types of trash to be had in this place. Between spiders, undead Nerubians, Humanoid casters and Elementals your group will have there hands full.  You need to be on your toes or things can get out of hand in a hurry.  Heal as needed, but here are some tips that will help out your group.

• Cast Earth or Wind shock on the casters for interrupts.
• Be ready to quickly cure poisons and diseases.
• Purge shaman casters to remove lighting shields.
• Fire and Frost totems can help during caster and elemental fights.

Elder Nadox:

Like Krik’thir the Gate watcher, Nadox is a Nerubian vizier and servant of the Lich King.  Nadox has the following abilities to be aware of:

• Brood Plague – Disease target causing 12,750 damage over 30 sec.
• Brood Rage – Increase damage done by 200% and increases maximum health by 10k.

The Nadox fight is mostly a tank and spank, but during the fight he will summon adds, including a guardian.  During this point Nadox is immune to all damage until the guardian has been taken down.

Make sure to keep the Disease cleansed and the tank topped off so they can handle the damage during Brood Rage.

Prince Taldaram:

Prince Taldaram is a Darkfallen and the second boss you will encounter in Ahn’khat.  In order to get to him, you group must first take down the protective shield around him.  This can be done by going to the two surrounding platforms, killing the trash and clicking the orbs.

When fighting the Prince, you will need to be aware of the following:

• Flame Sphere – Conjures a sphere of pure fire that floats towards the target while firignt searing beams at enemies within 18 yards.
• Embrace of the Vampyr – Consumes like force of the target, stunning it and inflicting 1.5k shadow damage every 2 for 20 seconds or until the Prince sustains 20K damage.
• Blood Thirst – Instantly attack the target causing 120% of normal damage, in addition, the next 3 successful attacks will restore 1% of health.
• Vanish – Puts caster into stealth for 2.5 seconds.

For the encounter earth shield the tank and have him engage the Prince, healing as needed.  Once a sphere has been summoned, make sure to top the raid off while the tank tries to maneuver the Prince and the party away from the sphere.  Before the Embrace of the Vampyr, the Prince will vanish.  At this point it is recommended that the group falls in onto the tank as to be in the same location when he appears, allowing for the target to engage the Prince as quickly as possible.  When the Prince appears he will randomly select a group member and pin them to the ground.  At this point you will need to heal the target as well as inflicting 20k of damage on the Prince to get him to end his embrace.

Jedoga Shadowseeker:

Jedoga is a member of the Twilight Hammer and servant of the the Old God Yogg-Saron

You will find Jedoga floating in the air with minions below her.  Once you have defeated the trash via AoE Jedoga will descend and the encounter will begin.  She has the following abilities:

• Cyclone Strike – Performs a spinning attack that will hit all near by enemies dealing weapon damage plus 150% with a knock back affect.
• Lighting Bolt – Blast an enemy with lightning for nature damage.
• Thundershock – Creates a cloud of lightning lasting for 10 seconds, blasting all enemies in the area for 1.5-2k damage every two seconds.

When Jedoga descends, she will summon a whole bunch of followers.  These adds are surrounded in a protective aura and will not engage.  During the fight, Jedoga will rise and summon and add to sacrifice themselves to her.  At this time your group needs to kill this add as quickly as possible.  If the add is allowed to sacrifice themselves Jedoga will gain their health and have a buff increasing her damage by 200%.  The adds cannot be CC, stunned, or earth bound by totem.  Even though you are healing you will need to help DPS the add down as well.

Make sure the tank is moving Jedoga around to avoid the Thudershock, which will appear on the floor as a pool of white lighting.

If you can avoid the lighting and down the servants, this is a simple tank and spank that can be handled with earth shield and LHW, but if there servant is sacrificed, queue up a HW to land just as she re-engages the tank.  Keep chain heal at the ready also in case the group gets hit with one or two pulses of Thundershock.

Herold Volazj:

Volazj is a faceless one who is not only the last boss of the instance but also my favorite boss encounter so far in WotLK.  Volazj can do the following during the fight:

• Mind Flay – Shadow Damage inflicted over 3 sec reducing movement speed.
• Shadow Bolt Volley – Hurls missiles of dark magic, inflicting shadow damage to near by enemies.
• Shiver – Deals 1.5K shadow damage that jumps to near by group members.
• Insanity – Hmmm…lets wait on this one.

The start of the fight is a standard tank and spank with earth shielding and healing as needed.  Around 60% and 30% things get to be fun.  Volazj will cast insanity and become immune to damage.  During this time, the group will turn on you and attack you, or so you think.  As a healer it is just best to spam heal yourself and let the situation resolve itself.  That is all I will have to say about that.

Resto Shaman 5 Man Dungeon Guides – Azjol-Nerub

Overview:

Azjol-Nerub, otherwise known as the spider kingdom can be found in western Dragon Blight.  What was once a beautiful, yet creppy underground city now lays in ruins, home to not only the remaining Nerubians, but also servants of the Lich King.

Azjol-Nerub is what can be considered a scripted instance.  There is little to no trash in the zone and what trash there is, engaging it will start a scripted boss encounter.  Because of this, if the group ends up wiping on a boss, that encounter and its trash will reset requiring you to start all over again.

Krik’thir the Gate Watcher:

Krik’thir is a Nerubian under the command of Anub’arak and servant to the Lich King.  His main task is to guard the gate that leads to the lower ancient city.

There are two small trash groups that leads to the chamber where Krik’thir resides.  Within this chamber there are three groups of three Nerubian mobs.  Once one group has been pulled, the “event” will be started.  If you pull the far left group it may aggro the middle group so it is best to start with the far right group.  Once the group has been dispatched, the next group will aggro and so on.  When healing, make sure to earth shield the tank and keep the group topped off.  I find chain heal to be best here.  Make sure to keep the poison cleansing totem down to reduce the amount of DoT damage that you would need to heal.

Once the three groups have been dispatched, drop down for a quick drink to regain some mana while he does his script lines.  Once he is done, the tank will engage him and the fight begins.  During the fight, Krik’thir can do four things:

• Mind Flay – Shadow damage over 3 seconds and reduced movement speed.
• Curse of Fatigue – Movement, attack speed and casting time slowed by 30%.
• Summon Bugs (or something of that sort) – summons bugs, lots of em.
• Enrage – Damage inflicted increased by 100% (at 10% health)

During the fight, chain heal off of the tank, this will easily cover the damage he is getting as well as the group damage from the summoned bugs.  Once Krit’thir is around 40% blood lust to burn him down quickly and make sure to spam HW on the tank during the enrage at 10%.

During the fight keep your totem set up as normal for your group, but make sure to drop either your fire totems or fire elemental to make quick work of all those little bugs that get summoned.

Hadronox:

Ok, the mechanics of this fight are very cool and it nicely done, but it is personally very difficult to do this fight since I am afraid of spiders, and seeing this mob did nothing to remedy that problem.

Hadronox is basically a big spider that has taken residence in Azjol-Nerub, but the Nerubians are clearly not happy about this.

From Krik’thir’s room you will go straight over a bridge to what appears to be a dead end.  You will find though that the webs to your left and your right will easily hold your wait and allow you to walk on them.  From the bridge go right and stay up close to the wall.  Looking down you will see an Anub’ar Crusher and two adds.  Have the tank pull the crusher up to your group by the wall.  After this group is dead, two similar groups will have appeared where the first group was.  Pull the closest group and then the next.  During this time, Hadronox has been making her way from her chamber to the main room you are in.  You will see her surrounded by a bunch of Nerubians trying to kill her.  There are a number of ways to take her down, but the safest is to sit back and watch as she dispatched all the mobs attacking her.  Once she has finished her work on the Nerubians, your group is next.  She has the following abilities in her arsenal:

• Pierce Armor – Reduces armor by 50% for 8 sec
• Acid Spray – Sprays acid at the location of the target, creating a cloud that deals 700 nature damage per second, last 1.5 minutes.
• Leech Poison – Drains 1000 health from the surrounding enemies per sec, transferring it to the caster.  If any target dies while affected, the caster will be healed for 10%, last 10 sec.   
• Web Grab – Shoots out sticky webs dealing 4.5 – 5.5k damage and grabbing enemies and pulling them toward the caster.

I won’t lie, healing this fight is a challenge, but if you remember the following you should be ok.

• Make sure to have everyone avoid the Acid Spray, if people are not payingattention, half the group could be taking a bunch of damage that you might not be able to keep up with.
• Spam Chain Heal.  I hate giving this out as advice since some see it as a shaman healing crutch, but the chain heal will be your best bet to keep everyone up for most of the fight.
• Keep Poison Cleansing Totem down at ALL TIMES!  If someone is poisoned, not only will the group member be taking damage, but Hadronox will be getting healed not only for the 1K taken from the part member but each time they are healed, Hadronox will also be healed.
• Blood lust freely, there is no phases of this fight so it doesn’t matter when you blood lust so pop it and burn her down as fast as possible.

Anub’arak:

Once you have finished Hadronox, you will drop down to her chamber and kill all her little off spring.  From there you will drop down another hole to a pool outside of Anub’arak’s chamber.  You will need to take down two Anub’ar Crushers before engaging Anub’arak.  You can engage these two crushers without aggro’ing the boss.  Before the tank starts on Anub’arak, make sure that everyone is within Anub’ar’s ring or they will be locked out of the fight.  During the battle Anub’arak has the follow effects:

• Locust Swarm – Slows movement by 40% and deals 330 to 370 damage per seconds within 60 yards of the caster, last 15 sec.
• Carrion Beetle – Summons 2 carrion beetles every second for 4 seconds.
• Impale – Fires spikes through the floor impaling all targets with in 4 yards dealing 7.5 to 8.5 k damage.

During the fight (75%, 50%, 25%) Anub’arak will burrow underground becoming invulnerable.  During this phase adds will spawn and Impale will be cast.  During this you can earth shield and LHW the main tank and riptide the rest of the raid as needed.  Make sure to avoid the spikes and move when needed.  If more than one party member ends up getting impaled, cast nature’s swiftness and chain heal off the most damaged part member.  This will help out to quickly get their HP back up to a manageable level.  As long as you can avoid the spikes, this is mostly a tank and spank fight.

Overall I enjoyed this instance, even though the whole spider thing does freak me out.  I enjoyed the scripted nature of the instance and it flows very well and very quickly.  It will take a normal group about 30 to 45 minutes to finish but I have heard of runs going as quickly as 15 minutes. 

Resto Shaman 5 Man Dungeon Guides – Nexus

Overview:

The Nexus is an instance that can be found in far west Borean Tundra.  At one point, the Nexus was exclusively the lair of the Blue Aspect leader, Malygos, but now houses many of the Aspect’s followers.  As for the 5-man instance, it contains many of the Blue Aspects lesser minions as well as many ethereal beings.

Trash Mobs:

There is a good collection of trash mobs in the instance ranging from humanoid casters, elementals and ethereals.  The humanoids/elementals are usually found in groups of no more than 5 and the ethereals can be found in groups of anywhere for 3 to 8.  Healing during the trash mobs is still not very difficult, but is a step up from the trash found in UK.  Keep earth shield on the tank and allow the tank to gain a good amount of agro.  I found that Riptide is good to top off the other group members, but the tank does take enough damage to warrant a full chain heal or a full healing wave.  During the trash, drop totems for your group make up but make sure to drop your AoE fire totems to help down the trash.

Grand Magus Telestra:

Telestra is a High Elf, probably a former member of the Kirin Tor who sided with Malygos to retain her arcane powers.  This encounter is made up of three phases.

Phase 1: During this phase Telestra will cast a number of AoE spells:

• Firebomb (800 damage to target and surrounding targets)
• Ice Nova (roughly 2.5 k damage to all targets within 60 yards with a 3 sec stun)
• Gravity well (continuous pull of target to the caster causing 75 shadow damage for 6 seconds).

This phase is honestly…very annoying. Healing all the AoE while having to move around and getting hit with gravity well makes it difficult to heal as a shaman. I found that while you are bouncing around in gravity well Riptide is a savior and when nature’s swiftness is tied to a chain heal can get you through phase with a decent chance for success.

Phase 2: During this phase, Telestra will disappear and be replaced with three copies, each one representing one of the mage trees (Frost, Fire and Arcane).  The copies can be polymorphed, but if your group lacks CC, it is best to take down the Ice copy first to reduce the AoE damage or the Arcane copy since she will polymorph a group member. 

During this phase chain heal off the tank to counter act the Ice AoE then riptide/LHW the direct damage from the fire and arcane copy. Once the copies are dead, Telestra will reappear with 50% health starting phase three.

Phase 3: The last phase is similar to the first phase, but at 25% she will freeze everyone and fireball volley that hits everyone in a 30 yard radius.  Again, cast chain heal to handle all the AoE damage will be your best chance at group survival.  If you find that your group is out of range for chain heal, riptide the least damaged member and LHW the two lowest and repeat.  The fast heals should be able to get you through this part. 

Totems of note are the frost resist totem and possibly grounding totem to suck up one or two of the spells.

Ormorok the Tree-Shaper:

Ormorok is a big elemental who is responsible for all the crap flower trash in his area.  For some of the most annoying trash mobs in an instance, go thank Ormorok with a dagger between the eyes.

This fight has a single phase and is pretty much a tank and spank, assuming your group can avoid the Crystal Spikes.  If you find the ground beneath you trembling, move.  Other than that, at 25% he will enrage increasing his damage by 100% which can easily be healed with a healing wave or two.

Anomalus:

Anomalus is an energy based being surrounded by many of his kind.  There is a lot of trash that will get you ready for the main fight.  Once you have found him in the maze of platforms drop your totems and get ready to fight.  There are two phases to this fight, which happens to be similar to Curator in Karazhan.  Every 25% you take from him, he will become immune to damage and will summon a temporal rift.  The rift needs to be taken out as soon as possible or it will begin to summon adds.  Once the rift has been closed, the fight with Anomuls continues.  This will repeat three times and then you’re done. I find that blood lusting after the first rift phase makes the rest of the fight quick.

Keristrasza:

Poor Keristrasza.  Formally a servant of the Red Aspect, Alexstrasza’s flight, she now has become a prisoner of Malygos and we are charged to kill her to preserve her freedom.

The fight with Keristrasza is like any other dragon fight that you may find in WoW.  Tank upfront, and everyone else at the sides to avoid the tail sweep and the frontal AoE spells.  Here are the main things to watch for:

• Tail Sweep: Roughly 1k damage with knock back.
• Crystal Chains: Frost damage with a 10 second immobilization.
• Enrage: Increase in attack speed and damage for 2 minutes.
• Intense Cold: Periodic damage that slows attack and casting speeds with a debuff causing 100 frsot damage every 1 second that stack up to 9 times.  Movement will break the effect.

This fight required near constant movement.  Make sure to have earth shield on the tank at all times since the adding healing will be needed as you have to dance around the dragon.  Pretty much I have found that fight is pretty much a riptide/LHW/Water Shield spam fest.  Cast and move, cast and move.  You might have time to cast a chain heal here and there, but with all the movement needed, spamming chain heal will not cut it.

Upon the death of Keristrasza, the instance is done.  Like Utgarde Keep, the Nexus is a very well paced instance that should take roughly an hour to complete.  The fights are a little more difficult than those found in UK, it still is manageable by a group of Kara geared 70s. 

Resto Shaman 5 Man Dungeon Guides – Utgarde Keep

Overview:

Utgarde Keep is located in the middle of the starting zone, Howling Fjord . The Keep is the stronghold of the Vrykul who intend to prove themselves worthy of the Lich King in life so that they may server him in death. The Vrykiul are lead by Ingvar the Plunderer who also happens to be the final boss of Utgarde Keep

Trash Mobs:

The trash mobs of this zone are very manageable and not overly difficult. They are usually in only groups of no more than four and can be handled easily by a moderately equipped/skilled tank.

Healing during the trash mobs is rather elementrary. Just keep earth shield on the tank and chain heal off the main tank to keep the melee toped off.

As for totems make sure to drop totems to enhance the make up of your group (melee vs. caster dps) but make sure to keep mana stream down for yourself. Some of the trash mobs are fire casters so it might be beneficial to drop a fire resist totem, but not absolutely nessecary.  

Prince Keleseth:

Prince Keleseth is the scourge warlock ambassador to the Vrykul. He is found in a large room with his four Vrykul bodyguards.

The pull is very simple. Have the tank range pull the neartest bodygaurd. The four bodyguards will agro but the prince will not. Once the bodyguards are dead the Prince will agro, have the tank interecept him as soon as the last bodyguard is dead.

The Prince’s damage output is nothing to be readily concerned about. He does cast shadow bolts for 2-4k that can be interupted via earth shcok or wind shock, but he does two things that should be noted.

Skeleton Summon: After a minute from getting agro, the Prince will summon four skeletons to aide him. These skeletons usually make a bee line for the healer. Have the tank pick them up and build some agro before you start the AoE. Once all the skeletons are dead, the Prince will summon another batch of skeletons and will do so until he is defeated. If you are having trouble dealing with the adds you can keep one skeleton alive. As long as that one skeleton lives the Pricne will not summon any more.

Ice Tomb: Ice Tomb is an ability that is very similar to ilhoof’s Demonic Chains. During the fight, the Prince will randomly cast Ice Tomb on a group member. During this time, the affected target is entombed in ice and will be incapasitated for 20 seconds and will take roughly 400 damage a tick. Like the demon chains, the tomb can be targeted and destroyed quickly (2000hp).

During this fight it is best to keep the earth shield up on the main tank and chain heal off of them. When someone has been placed in the Ice Tomb you can easy dispatch the tomb yourself with a lighting bolt and an earth shock. Once they are free cast riptide on them and continue your focus on the tank.

There are no specific totems that are required for this fight, but the AoE fire totems are helpful for AoE’ing the skeletons. You could drop grounding totem down to suck up a shadow bollt, but shadow bolt really doesn’t cause enough damage to warrant its use. (note: One thing I need to test is to keep grounding totem down to see if that could suck up the Ice Tomb.)  

Skarvald the Constructor:

When you come upon Skarvald he is in deep conversation with his friend, Dalronn the Controller. You will find that Skarvald is melee ot Dalroon casterness. To make this encounter easier it is best to defeat both of the bosses at the same time, making it similar to the Opera Event: Romulo and Julianne in Karazhan. If one is defeated before the other, the defeated will return in his ghost form and continue on fighting till the other is dead. If you happen to kill one before the other, it isn’t the end of the world, just continue to focus on the one who is still alive and heal through the damage.

Healing this encounter can be handled two ways. Earth shield the tank and chain heal off of him. You could also go with earth shielding the tank and casting riptide on the group while LHW the tank when needed.  Both works just as well as the other.

Ingvar the Plunderer:

Finally, the reason we showed up, the leader of the Vrykrul. The Ingvar encounter has two phases. In his first phase, you will face the mortal Ingvar. During this phase Ingvar has two abilities.

First he has an AoE roar that damages everyone for 2k and interrupts casting (Roar increases his power by 5%). During this point it is best to use Riptide on the tank and then cast two LHW on the lowest health group members and then repeat the riptide/LHW to get everyone back to health ASAP before his next ability.

His other ability is a smashing attack that will damage anyone in his frontal arc. Make sure that the tank is the only person in that arc or things could get messy. Riptide and LHW can be good to keep up the tank’s HP while hopefully using up water shield orbs for more mana regen.

Once you have defeated Ingvar, he is resurrected to Lich King servititude by Annhylde the Caller. You now must defeat Ingvar’s shadow form. During this phase he acts as he did before but his attacks are shadow based and he attacks hit much harder. Make sure to keep earth shield on the tank and either spam chain heal or HW on the tank to help cover the added damage. Make sure to direct your other melee’s to stay out of his frontal arc or his smashing attack will easily kill anyone in it’s way.

Make sure to save bloodlust for the second phase where the added DPS and spell haste will be needed the most.

This fight ends up being a DPS race to down him quickly enough that the roars do not stack to the point of him being unbeatable.

So that’s it, the first 5-man on WotLK. Is it overly difficult? No. Is it fun? Yes. Is it fast? Yes. A normal run will take anywhere from 30 min to an hour depending on gear and wipes, but any extra time in the zone can be filled by taking in the esthetics of this place.