Resto Shaman vs. Karazhan - a Healing Guide Part 1
Posted on May 31, 2008 - Filed Under Healing, Raiding, Shaman
This is one in a series of posts covering resto-shaman-specific information for tier4 and tier5 boss fights. It will NOT be a boss kill strategy, rather a list of tips and tricks for your friendly neighborhood shaman to make these fights run a little more smoothly.
You can see other Guides (including Gruul’s Lair and all of Serpentshrine Cavern) here.
Welcome to raiding! You’re on your way to Karazhan, likely the first step into a raiding group of more than 5 people you’ve made since level 60… or at all, depending on when you started playing Warcraft! Karazhan is a large castle full of cool lore and cooler music… and about ten thousand bloodthirsty undead. This will cover the first four bosses of Karazhan - that is, everything up to (and including) The Opera Event. You can find parts two and three here.
Before we get started - Make sure you have your Consumables, and that you know enough about Totem Synergy to buff your group appropriately. Also - remember Earthshield and Heroism/Bloodlust!
Attumen and Midnight (his Horsie)
- Fight begins with just Midnight, until 95%, then Attumen spawns.
- You will have two tanks that will keep Attumen and Midnight separated (though not crucial, a warrior is nice to tank Attumen since they can disarm)
- DPS Midnight down to 25% - at which point Attumen will RESET HIS AGGRO, mount up, and the two will return to 100% health.
- When Attumen is mounted he will randomly charge people that are not in melee range. Be in melee range!
- Attumen debuffs his tank (and other raid members) with a curse that reduces hit chance by 50%. A dispeller needs to get this.
What you need to keep your eyes on: Both tanks will take a fair amount of damage on this fight, but the Attumen tank will also catch spikes from his cleave if not disarmed. Otherwise, standard tank and spank. Make sure you’re in melee range after he mounts up. Save heroism/bloodlust for after Attumen mounts up, and keep earthshield on the Attumen tank.
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Moroes
- Moroes has four friends on every fight (chosen at random from a possible six). These four friends will have to be trapped, shackled, or killed in order to keep them out of the way of killing Moroes. Most people kill one or two, and leave one or two crowd controlled.
- You can read all about the friends here - that’s more information than I have room to go into! What I can say is this. If you have Baroness Dorothea Milstipe - SHE MUST DIE FIRST. She’s got a nasty mana burn that will take out a healer’s mana pool in one go.
- Every 30 seconds Moroes will vanish, Garrotte someone, and then head back to the tank. This Garotte does 1,000 damage every 3 seconds for FIVE MINUTES. It can be removed with: Stoneform, Divine Shield, Blessing of Protection, and Ice Block. Otherwise, you must heal through it. When Moroes dies, all Garrottes will be removed.
- As he is a rogue, Moroes will also Gouge and/or Blind the tank - therefore, you will have two tanks fighting for aggro to keep him from charging the healers.
- At 30% he enrages, doing more damage.
What you need to keep your eyes on: Your mana. This is an attrition fight - it’s a measure of how well you can DPS adds, keep various tanks alive, and outlast Garrottes. Remember to use Mana Tide totem, keep water shield up, and drink potions early. Be aware that for the first few minutes a non-tank may be offtanking an add or two - Earthshield can help with this. Just switch it back to the main tank once you’re actually fighting Moroes. Use Heroism/Bloodlust when Moroes enrages, and *always* right after he emerges from a vanish, to maximize DPS uptime.
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Maiden of Virtue
- Maiden does an AOE consecrate called Holy Ground that has a ticking silence. It’s just about the same size as her platform.
- She also has a nasty *nasty* Holy Fire that MUST be cleansed off its target by priests or paladins. Therefore, positioning on this fight is crucial - *everyone* in the raid must be in range of a cleanse. Grounding Totem is also crucial - she will hit the totem instead of you!
- All ranged DPS and Healers will be standing in a circle - notice her platform is circular. Everyone should stand with their toes nudging RIGHT UP AGAINST the bottom step of her platform, without stepping up. The tanks will keep her centered, and you should have no consecrate or range issues.
- Every 30+ seconds she will stun the entire raid for 12 seconds, dealing around 2K damage - Repentance. This stun is broken by any other incoming damage (like her consecration)
- A paladin can cast blessing of sacrifice on any melee character to break repentance, or the tank can move The Maiden towards a healer to break them out. OR a healer can step into her Consecration for a bit once the Repentance cooldown is up - but she doesn’t always use it right away, so the healer will be unable to heal for that time.
What you need to keep your eyes on: Grounding Totem is a *must* on this fight - it will keep you from getting Holy Fired. Also, for spacing, standing in front of the pillars is a good way to keep appropriately spread out from your group. Heroism/Bloodlust right after a Repentance, so you don’t stand around wasting it.
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The Opera Event
This is not your normal boss fight. When you enter The Opera, Barnes will announce which of the three possible fights that you will have. It’s random (even if you get the same one for weeks on end), so be prepared for any of them! These fights all take a boss strategy of their own - so here! There’s one already written out!
Romulo and Julienne:
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Phase 1: Julienne: Most importantly - Julienne heals. Her spell “Eternal Affection” MUST BE INTERRUPTED. That might mean you have to Earth Shock her (use rank1) if a rogue isn’t paying attention. Her spell “Devotion” is purge-able, and it increases her damage, so you should purge it. (a mage can also spell-steal it to gain the damage buff)
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Phase 2: Romulo: Romulo has a poisoned dagger - keep your poison cleansing totem down for Phase 2 and 3 (this means the Romulo tank needs to be in your group). Earthshield the Romulo tank - Julienne uses only spells. Romulo’s spell “Daring” is purge-able, and should be purged whenever it is up.
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If possible, Tank/Kill R and J in separate corners during phase 1 and 2, to make picking them back up easier in phase 3.
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Phase 3: BOTH! Lather, rinse repeat on phase 1 and 2, but at the same time - you’ll need to be interrupting Julienne’s heals as well as keeping poison cleansing totem down for Romulo’s tank. R&J must die at the same time (like core hound packs) or they will resurrect each other.
The Big Bad Wolf:
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Has an AOE fear. Tremor Totems R Good.
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Run away if you get turned into Little Red Riding Hood, or you will get eated. Heal the person who gets Little Red Riding Hood, so *they* don’t get eated. Generally your best bet is to kite him around the edge of the room, and make sure you don’t cut the corners. The Wolf tracks 20 feet ahead of him, so if you cut corners, he’ll likely catch you.
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This is a “kill it before it kills us” fight. Kill it first.
Wizard of Oz
There are 5 (and a half) mobs that will be loose during this fight.
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Dorothee: untankable, casts frostbolts at random targets. Spawns immediately - generally killed first.
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Tito: Interrupts and silences casters. Spawns when Dorothee is at 50%. If you kill Tito before Dorothee is dead, Dorothee enrages. Kill Tito as soon as Dorothee is dead.
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Roar: Melee for around 3K on cloth, has an AOE fear. Spawns 10 seconds into the fight. Generally someone will fear roar until the above two are dead, then tank him down
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Strawman: Melee for around 4K on cloth, *very* susceptible to fire. Spawns 20 seconds into the fight. Fire damage effects will cause Strawman to be disoriented. A mage, warlock, or even a shaman’s fire elemental in a pinch, can keep him out of the way until after Roar is dead. A mage or warlock will be able to take off a significant portion of his health.
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Tinhead: Melee 1-2K on plate, frontal arc cleave, spawns 30 seconds into the fight, gradually rusts. Tinhead’s “rust” debuff is NOT caused by ice spells, but by time, and so he must be kited by the main tank (usually back and forth across the back of the stage) until the rest of the adds are dead, by which time he will be moving *very* slowly.
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After all the above mobs are dead, The Crone spawns. She has cyclones that move around the stage and throw players into the air, as well as doing chain lightning damage
What you need to keep your eyes on: your mana, and keep a wary eye on Strawman for a flame shock if he starts to get loose. If Roar or Tito gets loose, both have a tendency to go after healers, so keep an eye on them and be prepared to call out if you get aggro. This is one of the fights in early Karazhan where chain heal really shines!
It’s hard to believe that as I’m writing this, it’s exactly a year ago this weekend that I set foot into Karazhan for the very first time! So to all of you who are just getting started with raiding - keep at it, if you like it, and work hard, who knows where you’ll end up!
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5 Responses to “Resto Shaman vs. Karazhan - a Healing Guide Part 1”
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[...] level my to 70 while we’re still doing Kara and for some reason I decide to go resto, Resto Shaman vs. Karazhan - a Healing Guide Part 1 : Too Many Annas looks like it would be very [...]
This is very useful. As a long time DPer, first time healer, I’ve seen a lot of Karazhan from the DPS role but don’t really have a good idea of what to do when healing. So this will be invaluable when I finally get to healing in there.
Any advice for minimum stats to aim for, such as +healing, mp5, mana pool size? Or indeed any 5 man healing experiences you think may particularly prepare someone for Kara raid healing!
I’d say try to shoot for around 1250+heal, and 120 mp/5 (with water shield, but not with mana spring). As for mana pool, the bigger the better. You can heal successfully in there with about 1000+ heal if you have a good 2nd healer, but 1250 will take a lot of the pressure off as you’re learning.
Consumable wise, you’re going to want mana oil, probably blackened sporefish, and the elixir of healing power/elixir of major mageblood combo (unless you’re wiping a lot, or have a friendly neighborhood alchemist that can get you Flasks of Mighty Restoration). For me, the biggest problem was running through my mana “too fast”.
I was very frustrated healing as a shaman until that level, and didn’t really start to feel comfortable until around 1400, but those numbers will come as you get the Karazhan gear. (Also - I have higher expectations than most, having learned healing as a holy priest!).
As for 5 man experiences - just try to get as varied an experience with healing as you possibly can - Shattered Halls, Steamvaults, any of the TK instances, and Shadow Labyrinth all have good testing grounds for skills you’ll need.
Ditto here one the long time dps’er (Fury warrior) and first time healer. I’ve had Chulainn in Kara once as a third healer but it looks like this week will be my first as a main or second healer and I’m a bit nervous. Your guide is really helpful though and based on your suggested stats I think I should be fine; I have +1496 healing (got extremely lucky one my first kara run with 3 pieces and just added the Merciless Gladiator’s healing mace) and almost 9600 mana unbuffed. Now, on to parts two and three
[...] I was woefully unprepared, but with the way they’ve nerfed Kara it really didn’t matter. I grabbed a spec off of WoWWikki and pulled my gear with the highest spellpower out of the bank. Any spells that looked like they’d help out with healing were dropped onto my action bar and I spent the evening trying to figure out what to use when. Hopefully next time I remember to consult resources such as Resto Shaman vs. Karazhan - a Healing Guide. [...]