Here are some tips for healing the third section of Throne of Thunder as a Resto Druid, including the best time to use cooldowns and which talents and symbiosis targets are optimal for each fight.
First, a few general tips:
- Feline Swiftness is the level 15 talent that I recommend on most fights.
- Nature’s Swiftness is the level 30 talent I recommend for any fight. Remember the cooldown is only 1 minute. It makes your next heal instant, 50% bigger and mana-free, so use it often.
- The major glyphs I usually recommend are: Glyph of Wild Growth, Glyph of Lifebloom and Glyph of Regrowth.
- For the good of the raid, using Symb on a tank is a good bet in most cases (a Paladin or Warrior would be my last choice since, really, who wants Cleanse or Intimidating Roar on a boss fight?) If you use this on a DK or a Monk, be sure to use IBF or Fortifying Brew during the encounter.
- Carry lots of Tome of the Clear Mind. Which talents are strongest can change from fight to fight. It you want to maximize your healing potential, you will be changing talents often.
Durumu
Durumu tests everyone’s ability to stay out of the bad. The first phase is fairly simple to execute with minimal raid damage and only a few bad things to avoid. The second phase is tougher as the raid needs to learn how to handle 3 different coloured beams that split damage between anyone standing in them. The raid needs to be split between the three different beams while looking for Crimson Fogs to uncover and kill and avoiding uncovering Azure Fogs. The fights also features a somewhat evil maze running phase.
Here are the major damaging abilities to be aware of:
Durumu
- The tank will be taking damage from Hard Stare, which applies two debuffs. Serious Wounds reduces healing taken by 10% per stack, requiring tank swaps (or a Pally tank who can clear all these stacks often). Arterial Cut is a DoT that will stay on the tank until they are healed to full.
- Lingering Gaze will launch a shadowbolt at random players which will leave a small void zone on the ground. Damage from this is minimal as long as people don’t stand in the void zones.
- Life drain will target a random player and channel a damaging spell on them for 15 seconds. The damage increases over time and the player is stunned during the channel. This needs to be intercepted by other players before the damage gets too high. The target will need some heavy healing.
- Durumu also casts Force of Will, but people just need to get out of it (or die) you can’t heal them through it.
Light Spectrum
- Three beams will spawn on random players. Each beam will do significant damage, split among the players inside it. In addition each beam applies a stacking debuff, increasing damage taken by that beam so damage will increase as the phase goes on.
- The tanks will continue to be hit by Hard Stare through this phase.
Maze
- During the maze, there are three sources of damage to worry about. Eye Sores are the dark purple patterns on the floor, which do very heavy damage per second to anyone standing in them. Mind Daggers do moderate, constant damage to random players. Lingering Gaze needs to be avoided as much as possible, though the void zones will likely be in the maze path at least some of the time.
- If you get hit by the Disintegration Beam, you die.
The damage in this fight comes in waves. Light Spectrum and the Maze can be quite healing intensive, while the phases in between give you a bit of a break.
As always, keep up full HoTs on the active tank. During the first phase, the only other thing to heal really is the minor damage people take when targeted by Lingering Gaze. During Light Spectrum, the damage gets more intense. Use WG on cooldown, use Mushrooms when you can, and try to keep Efflorescence down. in spots where people will stay for more than a few seconds (like on people in the blue beam who will not be moving, or under people in the red beam when it is stopped on a Crimson Fog).
The maze has a lot of damage going out. I try to keep Efflorescence down in melee as they will stay in it for longer. Use WG on cooldown, don’t be stingy with Rejuvs.
Talents
Level 60 - Incarnation for sure. It’s amazing for the maze.
Level 90 - I like Heart of the Wild for this fight. There is almost no damage going out at the start, so you can take time to do some damage.
Symbiosis
I use Symbiosis on a Shaman so I can use Spiritwalker’s Grace before I cast Tranq.
Cooldowns
Wild Mushroom – I set up Mushrooms where the Blue beam will be positioned (my raid has set spots for each beam to go and the Blue one doesn’t move). They can be bloomed during each Light Spectrum phase.
Tranquility - Use during Light Spectrum (closer to the end of the phase). If you can, use Spiritwalker’s Grace first so you can move while casting.
Incarnation - Use during the maze. Take full advantage of being able to have multiple LBs up and cast Regrowth while running.
Ironbark - Use on the active tank when their Serious Wounds debuff is getting high (4-5 stacks). You could also use this on Life Drain targets.
HotW - Use at the start of the fight when there is very little damage going out.
Stampeding Roar – Use during the maze to help people get away from the beam faster and negate the slowing effect from running though Lingering Gaze.
Primordius
I don’t have a lot of interesting tips for this fight. My raid has been doing it the easy (read: mega boring) way for a long time. This method involves not killing any oozes and turning the fight into a tank & spank. The boss stays in the middle of the room and the raid spreads out around him.
Here are the major damaging abilities to be aware of:
As oozes reach Primordius, he will evolve and gain new abilities. He will have up to two of these at a time.
- Ventral sacs does constant, low levels of damage to the whole raid for as long as it is active.
- Gas Bladder splits a large amount of damage between anyone within 25 yards of Primordius.
- Acidic Spines do heavy damage to random players which spalshes to anyone within 5 yards.
- Pathogen Glands puts a DoT on a random player which deals heavy damage over 10 seconds. They will need focused healing.
- Erupting Pustules does very heavy damage to people every 10 seconds. This damage splashes to anyone within 2.5 yards. This is the worst ability of the bunch and can easily wipe out people if they are too close together.
Keep up full HoTs on the active tank. Erupting Pustules are the only really damaging ability during the fight. Otherwise the fight is very dull.
Talents
Level 60 - Incarnation or SotF are both fine.
Level 90 - Heart of the Wild.
Symbiosis
I use Symbiosis on a tank, usually a Monk or DK so I have an extra cooldown to use.
Cooldowns
Wild Mushroom – Mushrooms are really buggy on this fight. When I place them in the circle in the middle of the room they have a tendency to disappear. Because of this, I set them up outside that circle and try to get them in range of a few ranged/healers.
Tranquility - Erupting Pustules and Acidic Spines are the most damaging abilities, so use Tranq while one of those mutations is active.
Ironbark - Use on the active tank when their Malformed Blood debuff is getting high (8-9 stacks). You could also use this on Pathogen Glands targets.
HotW - Use at the start of the fight when there is very little damage going out.
Dark Animus
This fight features a ton of adds that need to be controlled and killed in the correct way and it can be quite chaotic.
Here are the major damaging abilities to be aware of:
Golems
- During the first part of the fight, everyone will be tanking an Anima Golem. They do hit fairly hard, but have a very slow swing timer, so keeping everyone healed up is not difficult. The danger comes from Acceleration Link – if 2 Golems get too close together their damage goes up an incredible amount and they’ll make short work of any non-tank. So don’t let them get close together.
- Your tanks will soon have Massive Anima Golems to contend with. These do more melee damage plus cast Explosive Slam in front of them.
- Matter Swap is the biggest nuisance in this fight. This is a dispellable debuff that lasts 12 seconds. When the debuff wears off or is dispelled, the affected player has their position swapped with that of the raid member who is farthest away from them at the time. Damage equal to the affected player’s maximum health is split between the two players, with the portion of damage that the other player takes increasing the longer the debuff remains on the affected player. To deal with this, people with the debuff should be topped off then dispelled when there is 6-8 seconds left on the debuff.
Dark Animus
When the Dark Animus activates, he starts syphoning off energy from any golems still active in the room. He also gains new abilities based on how much anima he has.
- Touch of the Animus is a debuff on a random raid member, which deals a moderate amount of Fire damage every 5 seconds for the rest of the fight.
- Anima Ring creates a ring of spheres around his current target (the tank), which closes in on the target. Coming in contact with a sphere consumes it, applying a stack of a debuff that increases damage taken from melee attacks by 50% for 15 seconds. My raid has melee step in and soak a sphere so the tank can get out unharmed.
- Anima Font causes one of the players debuffed by Touch of the Animus to also deal damage to allies in a small area around them.
- Interrupting Jolt deals a large amount of raid-wide Nature damage, and it interrupts the spellcasting of any players (also silencing them for 8.5 seconds) who are in the middle of a cast at the time. In my raid, he’s always dead before he gains this ability.
- If he reaches 100 Energy he casts Full Power, which will quickly wipe the raid.
In phase 1 raid damage is low. WG and a few Rejuvs is more than enough to keep up anyone in range. As the Massive Golems activate, keep HoTs on whichever tank is in range. Your focus should be on topping up those with the Matter Swap debuff and dispelling at the correct time (6-8 stacks).
Once Dark Animus is active you will have both him (it?) to worry about, plus one of your tanks will still be tanking a Massive Anima Golem. The Golem tank will be taking more damage due to the debuff from Explosive Slam, so swaps (or clever kiting) may be required. I keep LB up on the Golem tank and focus raid healing on those with Matter Swap or Touch of the Animus. If people are doing their jobs right (not standing in Anima Font or in front of Massive Golems) there’s not actually that much to heal aside from tank damage and Matter Swap.
Talents
Level 60 - Incarnation or SotF are both fine. I lean towards Incarnation so I can keep LBs on both tanks for some of the fight.
Level 90 - Heart of the Wild so you can do some damage to your Anima Golem.
Symbiosis
I use Symbiosis on a tank, usually a Monk or DK so I have an extra cooldown to use.
Cooldowns
Wild Mushroom – Mushrooms aren’t great on this fight. I set them up around myself and others close to me before the pull in case I need a quick heal while tanking the golem.
Tranquility - I use this as an emergency heal while Dark Animus is active. There’s no specific time when many people in the raid are taking heavy damage, so I use it reactively after people take unnecessary damage or a particularly nasty set of Matter Swaps.
Incarnation – Use at some point during phase 2.
Ironbark - Use on the Massive Golem tank. Alternatively you can use it on someone with Matter Swap who doesn’t have many of their own cooldowns.
HotW - Use at the start of the fight to put out some decent damage on your Golem.
Happy healing!
