We are now in our eighth month in being saddled with Dragon Soul. The 30% buff has been presented to us, allowing some of us to burn even faster through this long-lived raid, and giving others a chance to finally take down what is undoubtedly the two most painful and unsatisfactory end game boss encounters.
Let me be incredibly blunt: the heroic modes of Spine of Deathwing and Madness of Deathwing are NOT the most friendly boss encounters for an enhancement shaman. With the nerfs Spine has become a little more forgiving for us, but the fast paced theme (for a DPSer anyways) of Madness leaves our numbers...well, it's been leaving me rather disappointed personally.
Heroic Spine of Deathwing
As I've said, Spine is not really a fight for enhancement. Our ability to pump out high burst damage on command is dismal. The DPS trinket recommended to use for this fight, the Kiroptyric Sigil, has a base stat of haste (which is complete and utter garbage until MoP). Oh, and good ol' Derpy McDerp Searing Totem would much rather wail away at anything BUT the exposed tendons. His preference target seems to almost always be the Corruptions.
Yeah, not an ideal fight for us.
Now the video above is from a restoration shaman's point of view in the fight. Why? Because of one major thing: the group that I run with has a less than ideal raid composition. There are essentially two basic builds you can go with this fight: A) 1 tank, 2 heal or B) 2 tank, 3 heal. To run set up A your group's tendon burst damage needs to be deliciously high. This means that you have yourself at least one, if not two, sub rogues (in a 10 man), and an arcane mage. Other classes such as warriors and feral kitties are also capable of some pretty fantastic burst tendon damage. We don't have this with my group. Adding myself and an offspec dps warrior unfortunately does not burn the extra 30-40% of the health left on the tendon of our usual burn phases, thus we are stuck with the harried B strategy.
Yeah, Spine is still the one fight that I'm stuck swing healing on. Healing with an agility flask and food buff ftw.
There's not a lot we can do to up our performance with our spec's current dismal performance on a burst fight like this, but there are a few things that can help maximize our potential - not to mention survivability - on this incredibly frustrating encounter.
Spec Changes:
None necessary
Glyph Changes:
Keep your standard Prime Glyphs. (Lava Lash, Stormstrike, Windfury)
Keep your semi-standard Major Glyphs (Lightning Shield, Ghost Wolf, Stoneclaw) If no one is putting out a fire resist aura of sorts, swap out Ghost Wolf for the Healing Stream glyph.
Totem Changes:
None, but you'll definitely want to be twisting in Stoneclaw totem throughout this fight.
Damage
1) Get yourself a Kiroptyric Sigil if you haven't already. Reforge the haste into mastery. You shouldn't be needing to reforge that haste into anything else if you're using the other, much more beneficial trinkets.
2) Macro the Sigil in with your puppies. I'm no macro queen, but the following is incredibly simple and works just fine.
/use Kiroptyric Sigil
/cast Feral Spirit
To get really fancy, you can also add in a target + pet attack command in there:
/tar Burning Tendon
/use Kiroptyric Sigil
/cast Feral Spirit
/petattack [target=playertarget]
Again, I'm no macro queen, so if you have suggestions on how to clean up a macro such as this, I'm all ears.
3) If you're an engineer like I am, and have a tenancy to macro your gloves to your wolves, be sure to not use that macro for the tendons. Why? The Sigil trinket and your gloves will set each other on a short cooldown. The Sigil's agility bonus is much greater than the one our gloves give us. For this fight, tie the trinket to your wolves and use your gloves as soon as they're off cd, assuming the tendon is still up. Otherwise you can save your gloves for doing a bit of damage on the amalgamation or while you're taking care of bloods.
4) Get yourself some decent weapons. This is the one fight where a pair of heroic Morningstar of Heroic Wills would possibly be better than regular version of a pair of No'Kaleds. Why would they be better? Well, you have a gem socket for more agility, plus the heroic Morningstars have more raw weapon damage than the regular NKs, plus you can also pick one of the rather crappy secondary stats on the Morningstar (probably the extra expertise) and reforge it into more mastery. The proc rates on the NKs, while delicious for any other encounter, become an unreliable factor for this fight; better to go with consistent raw damage than to rely on a proc.
Heroic Morningstar *might* also be a touch better than heroic No'Kaleds for this fight just because, again, you can net yourself a little more agility through the gem sockets plus you can still reforge into a bit more mastery. However, you do lose out on some raw weapon damage. It's kind of a tight call and I unfortunately do not have raw SIM data in front of me to confirm which would be better for this fight. Personally I'd just stick with my heroic NKs simply because I don't want to gem/enchant my heroic Morningstars. Yes, I'm that lazy/cheap. No I don't think I'll get any legitimate use out of the Morningstars anytime soon. /hangs head
5) As with the choice of going with the consistent damage of a pair of Morningstars as weapons, you want to try and avoid proc-based trinkets for this fight. If you have, say, either a combination of Wrath of Unchaining and either Vial of Shadows (if you're so lucky!) or a Matrix Restabilizer, you'll want to trade out either the Vial or Matrix for your Sigil trinket. Stacking trinkets such as WoU have an incredibly fast ramp up time, so you shouldn't need to worry about anything there. Take out the RNG trinkets, give yourself a little more control over your damage.
Survivability
There are a few difficult moments that your healers must deal with on this encounter.
1) Super Heated Nucleus; happens just before Nuclear Blast
2) Rolls
3) Searing Plasma + any damage you may be taking
My suggestion is to use a glyphed Stoneclaw totem for the amalgamation pulses that happen just before the Nuclear Blast. Use Shamanistic Rage during the rolls. Use any racial survivability/healing cooldowns you may have if your health is getting sketchy while you have the Searing Plasma debuff. If you feel the need to use your survival cooldowns elsewhere, go for it. Use them liberally. If you're dpsing in a 2 tank, 3 heal composition, your healers will thank you for whatever little help you can give them in the damage reduction department. Even with gear and with this being incredibly nerfed, Spine can be a healing intensive fight towards the end of the third plate, especially if you're having to do double lifts (aka exposing the tendon twice) on each plate.
Loot
Wrath of Unchaining - One of our two best in slot trinkets. Get this asap! (May your roll hacks be with you, if you run with a crapton of agility users like I do.)
Overall, this is an incredibly repetitive and boring fight. There is a ton of waiting around, then a mad rush to maximize dps the exposed tendon in a short span of time, then a ton of more waiting. Bring your sharpest weapons, a load of patience, and for the love of all things cuddly, teach your dogs not to randomly dive after a corruption. If you can do those things, you'll be well on your way to experiencing Deathwing's Madness.
Heroic Madness of Deathwing
Ahhhh madness, how frustrating you are. Once you manage to sweat and swear your way through his spine, you now get to deal with what is one of the most anticlimactic encounters you will ever face. Much like Spine, Madness is one of those fights that takes you 10 minutes of waiting around before the real hard parts of the encounter begins. Seriously, this fight is a cake walk until you hit the fourth platform. The forth platform and the head phase are the only really difficult parts of this fight, so you must do what you can to survive until those parts.
Kiss your sanity goodbye, my shaman friends.
Alright, this fight isn't all doom and gloom. Madness is by and large easier on us than Spine is, but it's still a fight that can leave you wanting to pull your hair out at the end of the day. Let's go through a few things that can help to ease yourself away from premature balding from scalpel abuse, shall we?
Spec Changes:
None necessary
Glyph Changes:
Keep your standard Prime Glyphs. (Lava Lash, Stormstrike, Windfury)
Keep your semi-standard Major Glyphs (Lightning Shield, Ghost Wolf, Stoneclaw) If no one is putting out a fire resist aura of sorts, swap out Ghost Wolf for the Healing Stream glyph.
Totem Changes:
Swapping to Magma totem on this fight may be beneficial if you can get it down just before the bloods spawn. If they've already spawned, don't bother wasting the extra GCD. If you see the ground doing it's bubbly thing and you can get over to it before the bloods become target-able, drop a Magma totem on their heads!
Twisting in Stoneclaw totem during heavy moments of damage is definitely recommended.
If your group's composition is a bit light on slows (hunter's ice patch traps, boomkin's mushrooms, DK's chilblains, etc) you'll want to be twisting in Earthbind totem to slow the bloods during the head phase of this encounter.
The Encounter
The differences between normal and heroic mode are few, but the few differences that are there can be rather deadly. Most groups now 1 tank, 2 heal this fight, which means that a dps must soak impales so that the tank may have his or her cooldowns up at key points, and that healing during certain situations can get rather tight.
If you watch the video closely, I'm often running away from the big bad floppy tentacly thing that spawns soon after the raid engages each new claw/wing tentacle. Why am I running? Because as an enhancement shaman I cannot eat an impale and survive, even with Shamanistic Rage and Stoneclaw totem up. No way, no how, I'm gonna die if I eat that impale. With my raid, we have a hunter soak the first impale of platforms 1-3, and then we have other dps help soak both impales of platform 3. During this time all melee must vacate the melee range of the Mutated Corruption; this tentacle will focus the impale on the person in melee range with the highest threat. Guess what, because of Misdirect a hunter will probably have much less threat than any melee. The same theory applies if you're using a shadow priest to soak. Having a rogue soak an impale is kind of a toss up, but because of Tricks of the Trade, chances are again that they will have less threat than you do as an enhancement shaman.
General rule of thumb: if a dps is soaking the impale, GTFO.
Another difference on heroic is that a random player will be chosen to get a Corrupting Parasite, which will explode when it drops off of the person (it doesn't hurt the person it's on when it drops off). The general rule with this little ball of squiggly death is to drop it in the Time Zone (while you still have it), near the arm/wing tentacle, but not in the tentacle. On the green platform, you can just leave it be and Dream through the damage. If you drop one off of yourself on any other platform though, it is imperative that it gets damaged to at least 30% health. The rule we run with is that if you drop it and you're not a healer, you help damage it (I kind of forgot to on one of my parasites in the video...whoops), otherwise ranged should be able to simply take care of it.
Bolt is another thing that the melee in our group rarely take care of, but I find often that I must run out of melee range of the Mutated Corruption anyways, since the second impale of any platform and the bolt are often timed pretty close together. More often than not I hang around and take out the bolt, unless we're able to quickly kill off the MC so we can completely negate the second impale from going off all together.
Regenerative Bloods and Spellweave procs = the money dps increasers of this fight. Funny enough, not only do the bloods bloat the dps meters, but the Spellweave procs are a vital component to this fight. Ideally the bloods should be brought over to the wing/claw and/or the parasite so that the spell cleaves can do their work. With Spellweave, all of the things should die incredibly quickly. Unfortunately for us enhancers, quickly is not our thing. Our window of time to get out our AoE is incredibly slim, especially with the 30% nerfs in place. Your best bet is to watch your timers, run over to the spawn point of the bloods, drop Magma Totem, Flame Shock the first blood that shows its ugly bubbly head, then Lava Lash + Fire Nova as soon as there's more than four of them out. Unless your raid's AoE is really slow, chances are you probably won't have time to get an Unleash Elements off before a Fire Nova (aka creating a 'Super Nova' for yourself), but if you can manage to squeeze in another GCD before everything dies, go for it.
Head phase: if you've gotten this far and the raid hasn't had to use any battle rezzes yet, you're doing great! Or even if you have, and you've made it this far, you're still doing pretty damn well. /highfive!
This final "phase" is yet another hurry up and wait type deal. You will go from waiting around for certain adds to spawn, to dpsing a bunch of bloods down as quickly as you can mash your buttons, to quite possibly waiting around again to push Deathwing down another 5% health.
Alright, so here's the deal with Deathwing's noggin.
Elementium Fragments will pop out of the ground, just like on LFR/reg mode. If you can Flame Shock cleave them + Fire Nova them, go for it! So long as you won't end up spell cleaving DW too much that is. You don't want to accidentally push him down past 15%/10%/5% before your group is ready to handle the bloods. These fragments will occasionally cast Shrapnel on a random person. If that person is you, simply hit the big green Dream button that pops up. Have another Shrapnel cast on you, but your Dream button is on cooldown? Shamanistic Rage + Stoneclaw totem, plus give your healers a heads up so they can top you off before you get smashed in the face. If you don't do these things, chances are pretty good that you'll end up being dragon soup.
Shortly after the Fragments spawn, two big dudes called Elementium Terrors will pop up, just like they do in LFR and regular modes. Like everything else, these guys can be spellweaved. However, ideally your raid will want to keep one of these guys up, despite their stacking debuff on the tank. Why? Because when the bloods DO spawn, the tank can move the Terror from the Time Zone (where they should be tanked) over to the bloods. You cleave off of the Terror into the bloods, which is much more ideal than getting a Flame Shock on a blood, only to die stupidly quickly from the AoE, and you missing out on hitting a Lava Lash, thus missing out on Nova AoE. Chances are pretty good though that your Terrors will just die very quickly, like they do in my run, and you'll have to suck it up and somehow deal with less than ideal AoE situations.
/grumbles about enhancement AoE on nerfed content
This is what I generally do when bloods spawn. See the bubbling on the ground, Ghost Wolf on over as quickly as possible, drop a Magma totem. You'd also drop an Earthbind totem here, or on another designated spot if your group is short on traps/slows. I *try* to Stormstrike the first one out, just to get some damage rolling, but most often I find myself scrambling to get a Flame Shock on a middle blood (these suckers go down FAST if your group is on the ball with AoE, as they should be) and spreading as soon as that global cooldown swings around. Nova, Chain Lightning, and Stormstrike as they come up.
My raid tends to do a bit push between 10% and 5%, with spawning the blood packs back to back. This is when I use my wolves and Heroism (Bloodlust for you Horde folk) gets popped. The extra Chain Lightnings from our tier 13 four piece bonus is kinda handy here. Our wolves with hero rolling pop Maelstrom procs like it's their job. Utilize that as much as possible when you're unable to Nova.
This fight is all about rinsing, repeating, and being aware of health percentages on Deathwing's various extremities. It's all about control and being on the ball with your AoE. If you and your raid team can master that, this fight is an easy-ish win in the bag.
Loot
No'Kaled - Hands down, our best in slot weapons for the expansion. Combat rogues will want one of these bad boys for their main hand for some fights, but these are pretty much custom tailored to suit an enhancement shaman. If a rogue tries to take one of these over you, BITE THEM. Same goes for DKs. Tell them to bugger off, because these things are not only super sexy base stat and raw weapon damage wise, but two of their three procs scale off our mastery, and these buggers proc often. So very, very sexy for us.
So there you have it ladies and gents. Apologies about not getting all of the segments of this guide out in a timely fashion, but I certainly hope that it helps at least a few of you out. As always, if you feel that I need to make a correction, or you have a question/comment/concern, please do not hesitate to leave a message as a response to this post, or to contact me directly through either my email address listed on this site or Twitter.
Good luck guys and may the RNG gods be with you!
Showing posts with label Dragon Soul. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dragon Soul. Show all posts
Friday, July 27, 2012
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
How To Enhance: Heroic Ultraxion & Heroic Warmaster Blackhorn
You've done it! You and your raid team have hacked and slashed your way through the first four bosses in Dragon Soul on heroic. Well, chances are pretty good you've also been knocking out Ultraxion on heroic long before you all managed to down heroic Zon'ozz and perhaps even heroic Yor'sahj, but there's still a nifty trick or two you can learn as an enhancement shaman for that rather dull fight.
The video above was one of the first I took in Dragon Soul. I can't recall if it was taken when the instance was still at full strength, or if the 5% nerf had already taken hold. Regardless, one thing was very clear: it was incredibly difficult for an enhancement shaman to soak an Hour of Twilight. By that I mean it was damn near impossible unless you were 100% topped off, had Shamanistic Rage up, Stoneclaw Totem up, had an external healing cooldown rolling on you, possibly a warrior's Rallying Cry out, and if the stars aligned just so, you might have lived. It was just easier to be a sacrificial lamb and to ankh back up if your 10 man raid team was really that hard pressed for soakers.
These days Ultraxion is much easier to deal with on heroic mode. Guess what? Having an enhancement shaman soaking an Hour of Twilight is no longer such a song and dance, and is very easy to deal with. As of right now, I have about 150k health unbuffed as enhance. Shamanistic Rage + glyphed Stoneclaw totem + a warrior's Rallying Cry = a successful soak. It's not often that I have to soak an Hour of Twilight, but if I must I generally take the third Hour of Twilight (these days I believe we only get about four Hour of Twilights total, maaaybe five tops if we lose someone to a button failure). It can still be a bit dicey, especially since my team single heals the encounter with a druid, but it is rather doable.
Spec Changes:
None necessary
Glyph Changes:
Keep your standard Prime Glyphs. (Lava Lash, Stormstrike, Windfury)
Keep your semi-standard Major Glyphs (Lightning Shield, Ghost Wolf, Stoneclaw)
Totem Changes:
Run your usual set up, just twist in a Stoneclaw if you need to soak an Hour of Twilight or if damage gets a bit heavy at the end (this should only happen if dps is low for some reason).
The Encounter:
Perform your optimal rotation. Know your latency/reaction times when dealing with Hour of Twilight. For me, I have a latency of 22ms. This allows me to exit the Twilight Realm at about .9 seconds left on the castbar (careful, that bugger is quick on heroic!) and still be able to comfortably get into the safe realm, which will allow me to either get a few more white swings in, or even possibly an extra special ability. However if your latency is higher, you'll obviously not want to cut it nearly as close as I do. This fight is all about maximizing your dps; misjudging your game's reaction time can turn you into a dead dps. A dead dps does no dps, so know when you can safely click that button!
Loot:
Bracers of Looming Darkness - Our BiS bracers. The drop rate on these buggers is pretty low, so snatch them up when you can!
Chest of the Corrupted Protector - Turn this token in for our BiS chest piece, Spiritwalker's Cuirass.
Morningstar of Heroic Will - There has been a ton of theory crafting debate over this mace vs No'Kaled. Is a heroic MoHW better than a heroic N'K? Which weapons should I use in which hand? Personally, I preferred my normal No'Kaleds and their procs (which are boosted by our mastery bonuses) over trying to reforge and balance out the craptastic secondary stats of the Morningstars. However, this mace does have it's place: heroic Spine of Deathwing. During this encounter you want to maximize your burst potential, which means to minimize the RNG of procs. A pair of these maces could potentially help you out with that. Otherwise, this mace is complete garbage for us. Potentially better than the LFR No'Kaleds due to pure weapon damage and agility increases, but ultimately you'll want to run a sim to see which weapon(s) is better for your personal set up.
Seal of Primordial Shadow - A ring that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, Ultraxion, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item.
Vial of Shadows - A trinket that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, Ultraxion, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item, though heroic Matrix Restabilizer is a contender for this trinket slot. Better for your feral dps/rogues/hunters, but still a sexy trinket for us. If you have a Matrix, consider passing the Vial off to those other classes until they all have it.
Taking on Warmaster Blackhorn as a DPS is...special. As a ranged you DoT all the things, as a melee you spend more time chasing mobs than you do damaging them it seems. Hang on to your breeches kids, it's gonna be a bumpy air ride.
Spec Changes:
None necessary
Glyph Changes:
Keep your standard Prime Glyphs. (Lava Lash, Stormstrike, Windfury)
Keep your semi-standard Major Glyphs (Lightning Shield, Ghost Wolf, Stoneclaw)
Totem Changes:
Run your usual set up. Pop a Stoneclaw when soaking Twilight Onslaught to help your healers out a little, and also when damage gets heavy towards the end of Blackhorn's life.
The Encounter:
Dealing with the melee adds - Ideally, you want to be on the melee adds. Dancing out of the way of their charges can be an absolute pain, but if your tanks keep them together, you can "cleave" them. Flame Shock, Lava Lash, Nova, and Chain Lightning these two buggers down asap. Be mindful that these guys do have a cleave, and that their cleave at the end of their charge is particularly brutal. Never be anywhere near their red charge line if you can help it, because it hurts pretty damn bad on heroic, and will most likely kill you.
Drakes - If you have to be on drake duty, you can get behind them and be able to hit them with specials without hopping around like an idiot. However, this sweet spot is right on the edge of the ship, right behind their tails. Be careful when positioning yourself! I may or may not have accidentally fallen off of the side of the ship with my feral druid while trying to pull off this maneuver. This isn't ICC's ship folks. If you fall, you be dead.
Sappers - I tend to pop my wolves on the first set of melee adds so that they're up when we need a sapper stun during the third Onslaught (often the damn thing is running through a crapload of fire, and depending on the raid composition for the evening we might not have our priest soaking that Onslaught...pop wolves, target the active sapper after he's done vanishing, hit Bash on your pet bar and let your puppies stun/chew on him while you and your raid soak Onslaught or dance through fire). Sappers will go down fast, provided your DPS are switching to these buggers fast enough. Generally I Unleash Elements on them until they get in range, then choose my shock accordingly: if there's no slow on him, Frost Shock; if he's slowed and no where near the door and dying kinda slow, Flame Shock; if he's close to the door, Earth Shock. *Generally* by the time I've UE'd, Stormstriked, and Shocked them, they're dead. Throw instant Lightning Bolts into a sapper's face if you've got them, naturally. If a sapper gets into the door of the ship and doesn't die nearly instantly as he reaches that point, he will detonate. If you've chased after him and he detonates in your face, you will die. At least you would have died trying to do your job.
Dealing with Twilight Barrages - On heroic your team wants to be soaking as many Twilight Barrages as possible. Yes, even with the nerf it is extremely helpful to soak as many of these things as possible. Ideally you always want to soak these with one other person, especially if you already have a stack of the Twilight Barrage debuff. You can however soak ONE of these barrages solo - use Shamanistic Rage to live through it though. No rage, pretty good chances of no living. Keep your SR ready for that oshi...moment when you realize that your soaking partner or other melee buddies won't reach you in time.
Deck Fire - This mechanic is kind of a pain in the butt to deal with on heroic. More often than not Deck Fire will bug out, both taking its dear old time being extinguished by our flying gnome friends, or it will continue to spread during phase two, making the encounter nearly impossible to deal with. During phase one, avoid it to the best of your abilities. If you must run after a sapper, or run to an Onslaught, Ghost Wolf your way through it as quickly as possible. Don't do this of course if your health is low, watch out for any possible charge lines (which is difficult, as the fire and the charge lines are nearly the same color), and be wary of any Twilight Barrage marks down. A combination of any of these things and the fire will more than likely kill you, even with the nerf, if you are not careful. If the fire bugs out and lasts through phase two, just do your best to dodge around under Goriona's tail and make sure not to get hit by Blackhorn's shockwave somehow. It gets tricky, but can be done.
Warmaster Blackhorn - When he first becomes active, feel free to whack away on him for a little while. Do not however get his health to drop too low before killing Goriona. If you do, he'll start sucking the health from her. If this happens, "the health drain inflicts damage equal to 20% of Goriona's remaining health, and heals Blackhorn accordingly" according to Wowhead. Translation: damage Blackhorn too much, and bad bad things will happen.
Goriona - As soon as she comes down, give the tanks a moment to pick her up and position her next to Blackhorn. Once this is done, take down that dragon! She doesn't have a tail swipe, but I do believe she has a typical dragon melee cleave. It's her breath however that you absolutely want to avoid. If she casts Consuming Shroud on someone near you, Shamanistic Rage to help lower the damage to yourself. If your team is AoE healing the group and everyone's receiving heals through this mechanic, it shouldn't hurt all that much, it's just merely annoying.
Blackhorn - Once Goriona lifts off (and hopefully she does this properly and doesn't stay hovering on the ships deck, aka bugged out) Blackhorn is exactly the same for us as on normal mode. He has more health, his roars hit harder, and his shockwaves hurt a hell of a lot more. Actually, pre-nerfs the shockwaves would one shot you. This isn't so much the case anymore if you're topped off, though you should be avoiding shockwaves at all costs regardless. This shouldn't be all that difficult to achieve as a melee, as the coned area of which we need to step out of is rather small. Shamanistic Rage, healing/damage reduction racials, and Stoneclaw Totem before a roar is very helpful here for your healers, especially as the boss's health dwindles.
TL;DR
1) Cleave the things
2) Soak the things
3) Stop the things from going into the ship and going boom
4) Don't eat a charge
5) Stay out of fire; beware of bugs
6) Stay out of purple
7) DPS Blackhorn down, but not too much or you will die
8) Nuke Goriona; beware of bugs
9) Nuke Blackhorn
10) Collect purples
Loot
Crown of the Corrupted Protector - The token for our BiS helm item. Turn this in for the Spiritwalker's Helmet.
Belt of the Beloved Companion - Despite its crappy secondary stats, this is our BiS belt.
Starcatcher Compass - This is NOT an item for enhancement shaman. You are a bad, bad shaman if you use this item, especially if you're pairing it with Matrix Restabilizer (if this trinket procs, and Matrix decides to proc while the buff from SC is on, guess what? You get a haste proc instead of your beloved mastery proc.). Unless your trinkets are for some reason absolute garbage, don't bother with this trinket. Yes, the agility on this is nice, but the proc is useless. LFR/regular Vial of Shadows, regular Matrix, and any of the versions of Wrath of Unchaining are all vastly superior to this trinket. Leave this one to the ferals, rogues, and/or hunters if they want this trinket for some reason.
Seal of Primordial Shadow - A ring that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, Ultraxion, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item.
Vial of Shadows - A trinket that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, Ultraxion, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item, though heroic Matrix Restabilizer is a contender for this trinket slot. Better for your feral dps/rogues/hunters, but still a sexy trinket for us. If you have a Matrix, consider passing the Vial off to those other classes until they all have it.
There you have it folks. As always, if you feel that a correction must be made or if you have a question about any of these encounters, please feel free to comment! Good luck, have fun, and may you loot rolls be strong.
The video above was one of the first I took in Dragon Soul. I can't recall if it was taken when the instance was still at full strength, or if the 5% nerf had already taken hold. Regardless, one thing was very clear: it was incredibly difficult for an enhancement shaman to soak an Hour of Twilight. By that I mean it was damn near impossible unless you were 100% topped off, had Shamanistic Rage up, Stoneclaw Totem up, had an external healing cooldown rolling on you, possibly a warrior's Rallying Cry out, and if the stars aligned just so, you might have lived. It was just easier to be a sacrificial lamb and to ankh back up if your 10 man raid team was really that hard pressed for soakers.
These days Ultraxion is much easier to deal with on heroic mode. Guess what? Having an enhancement shaman soaking an Hour of Twilight is no longer such a song and dance, and is very easy to deal with. As of right now, I have about 150k health unbuffed as enhance. Shamanistic Rage + glyphed Stoneclaw totem + a warrior's Rallying Cry = a successful soak. It's not often that I have to soak an Hour of Twilight, but if I must I generally take the third Hour of Twilight (these days I believe we only get about four Hour of Twilights total, maaaybe five tops if we lose someone to a button failure). It can still be a bit dicey, especially since my team single heals the encounter with a druid, but it is rather doable.
Spec Changes:
None necessary
Glyph Changes:
Keep your standard Prime Glyphs. (Lava Lash, Stormstrike, Windfury)
Keep your semi-standard Major Glyphs (Lightning Shield, Ghost Wolf, Stoneclaw)
Totem Changes:
Run your usual set up, just twist in a Stoneclaw if you need to soak an Hour of Twilight or if damage gets a bit heavy at the end (this should only happen if dps is low for some reason).
The Encounter:
Perform your optimal rotation. Know your latency/reaction times when dealing with Hour of Twilight. For me, I have a latency of 22ms. This allows me to exit the Twilight Realm at about .9 seconds left on the castbar (careful, that bugger is quick on heroic!) and still be able to comfortably get into the safe realm, which will allow me to either get a few more white swings in, or even possibly an extra special ability. However if your latency is higher, you'll obviously not want to cut it nearly as close as I do. This fight is all about maximizing your dps; misjudging your game's reaction time can turn you into a dead dps. A dead dps does no dps, so know when you can safely click that button!
Loot:
Bracers of Looming Darkness - Our BiS bracers. The drop rate on these buggers is pretty low, so snatch them up when you can!
Chest of the Corrupted Protector - Turn this token in for our BiS chest piece, Spiritwalker's Cuirass.
Morningstar of Heroic Will - There has been a ton of theory crafting debate over this mace vs No'Kaled. Is a heroic MoHW better than a heroic N'K? Which weapons should I use in which hand? Personally, I preferred my normal No'Kaleds and their procs (which are boosted by our mastery bonuses) over trying to reforge and balance out the craptastic secondary stats of the Morningstars. However, this mace does have it's place: heroic Spine of Deathwing. During this encounter you want to maximize your burst potential, which means to minimize the RNG of procs. A pair of these maces could potentially help you out with that. Otherwise, this mace is complete garbage for us. Potentially better than the LFR No'Kaleds due to pure weapon damage and agility increases, but ultimately you'll want to run a sim to see which weapon(s) is better for your personal set up.
Seal of Primordial Shadow - A ring that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, Ultraxion, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item.
Vial of Shadows - A trinket that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, Ultraxion, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item, though heroic Matrix Restabilizer is a contender for this trinket slot. Better for your feral dps/rogues/hunters, but still a sexy trinket for us. If you have a Matrix, consider passing the Vial off to those other classes until they all have it.
Taking on Warmaster Blackhorn as a DPS is...special. As a ranged you DoT all the things, as a melee you spend more time chasing mobs than you do damaging them it seems. Hang on to your breeches kids, it's gonna be a bumpy air ride.
Spec Changes:
None necessary
Glyph Changes:
Keep your standard Prime Glyphs. (Lava Lash, Stormstrike, Windfury)
Keep your semi-standard Major Glyphs (Lightning Shield, Ghost Wolf, Stoneclaw)
Totem Changes:
Run your usual set up. Pop a Stoneclaw when soaking Twilight Onslaught to help your healers out a little, and also when damage gets heavy towards the end of Blackhorn's life.
The Encounter:
Dealing with the melee adds - Ideally, you want to be on the melee adds. Dancing out of the way of their charges can be an absolute pain, but if your tanks keep them together, you can "cleave" them. Flame Shock, Lava Lash, Nova, and Chain Lightning these two buggers down asap. Be mindful that these guys do have a cleave, and that their cleave at the end of their charge is particularly brutal. Never be anywhere near their red charge line if you can help it, because it hurts pretty damn bad on heroic, and will most likely kill you.
Drakes - If you have to be on drake duty, you can get behind them and be able to hit them with specials without hopping around like an idiot. However, this sweet spot is right on the edge of the ship, right behind their tails. Be careful when positioning yourself! I may or may not have accidentally fallen off of the side of the ship with my feral druid while trying to pull off this maneuver. This isn't ICC's ship folks. If you fall, you be dead.
Sappers - I tend to pop my wolves on the first set of melee adds so that they're up when we need a sapper stun during the third Onslaught (often the damn thing is running through a crapload of fire, and depending on the raid composition for the evening we might not have our priest soaking that Onslaught...pop wolves, target the active sapper after he's done vanishing, hit Bash on your pet bar and let your puppies stun/chew on him while you and your raid soak Onslaught or dance through fire). Sappers will go down fast, provided your DPS are switching to these buggers fast enough. Generally I Unleash Elements on them until they get in range, then choose my shock accordingly: if there's no slow on him, Frost Shock; if he's slowed and no where near the door and dying kinda slow, Flame Shock; if he's close to the door, Earth Shock. *Generally* by the time I've UE'd, Stormstriked, and Shocked them, they're dead. Throw instant Lightning Bolts into a sapper's face if you've got them, naturally. If a sapper gets into the door of the ship and doesn't die nearly instantly as he reaches that point, he will detonate. If you've chased after him and he detonates in your face, you will die. At least you would have died trying to do your job.
Dealing with Twilight Barrages - On heroic your team wants to be soaking as many Twilight Barrages as possible. Yes, even with the nerf it is extremely helpful to soak as many of these things as possible. Ideally you always want to soak these with one other person, especially if you already have a stack of the Twilight Barrage debuff. You can however soak ONE of these barrages solo - use Shamanistic Rage to live through it though. No rage, pretty good chances of no living. Keep your SR ready for that oshi...moment when you realize that your soaking partner or other melee buddies won't reach you in time.
Deck Fire - This mechanic is kind of a pain in the butt to deal with on heroic. More often than not Deck Fire will bug out, both taking its dear old time being extinguished by our flying gnome friends, or it will continue to spread during phase two, making the encounter nearly impossible to deal with. During phase one, avoid it to the best of your abilities. If you must run after a sapper, or run to an Onslaught, Ghost Wolf your way through it as quickly as possible. Don't do this of course if your health is low, watch out for any possible charge lines (which is difficult, as the fire and the charge lines are nearly the same color), and be wary of any Twilight Barrage marks down. A combination of any of these things and the fire will more than likely kill you, even with the nerf, if you are not careful. If the fire bugs out and lasts through phase two, just do your best to dodge around under Goriona's tail and make sure not to get hit by Blackhorn's shockwave somehow. It gets tricky, but can be done.
Warmaster Blackhorn - When he first becomes active, feel free to whack away on him for a little while. Do not however get his health to drop too low before killing Goriona. If you do, he'll start sucking the health from her. If this happens, "the health drain inflicts damage equal to 20% of Goriona's remaining health, and heals Blackhorn accordingly" according to Wowhead. Translation: damage Blackhorn too much, and bad bad things will happen.
Goriona - As soon as she comes down, give the tanks a moment to pick her up and position her next to Blackhorn. Once this is done, take down that dragon! She doesn't have a tail swipe, but I do believe she has a typical dragon melee cleave. It's her breath however that you absolutely want to avoid. If she casts Consuming Shroud on someone near you, Shamanistic Rage to help lower the damage to yourself. If your team is AoE healing the group and everyone's receiving heals through this mechanic, it shouldn't hurt all that much, it's just merely annoying.
Blackhorn - Once Goriona lifts off (and hopefully she does this properly and doesn't stay hovering on the ships deck, aka bugged out) Blackhorn is exactly the same for us as on normal mode. He has more health, his roars hit harder, and his shockwaves hurt a hell of a lot more. Actually, pre-nerfs the shockwaves would one shot you. This isn't so much the case anymore if you're topped off, though you should be avoiding shockwaves at all costs regardless. This shouldn't be all that difficult to achieve as a melee, as the coned area of which we need to step out of is rather small. Shamanistic Rage, healing/damage reduction racials, and Stoneclaw Totem before a roar is very helpful here for your healers, especially as the boss's health dwindles.
TL;DR
1) Cleave the things
2) Soak the things
3) Stop the things from going into the ship and going boom
4) Don't eat a charge
5) Stay out of fire; beware of bugs
6) Stay out of purple
7) DPS Blackhorn down, but not too much or you will die
8) Nuke Goriona; beware of bugs
9) Nuke Blackhorn
10) Collect purples
Loot
Crown of the Corrupted Protector - The token for our BiS helm item. Turn this in for the Spiritwalker's Helmet.
Belt of the Beloved Companion - Despite its crappy secondary stats, this is our BiS belt.
Starcatcher Compass - This is NOT an item for enhancement shaman. You are a bad, bad shaman if you use this item, especially if you're pairing it with Matrix Restabilizer (if this trinket procs, and Matrix decides to proc while the buff from SC is on, guess what? You get a haste proc instead of your beloved mastery proc.). Unless your trinkets are for some reason absolute garbage, don't bother with this trinket. Yes, the agility on this is nice, but the proc is useless. LFR/regular Vial of Shadows, regular Matrix, and any of the versions of Wrath of Unchaining are all vastly superior to this trinket. Leave this one to the ferals, rogues, and/or hunters if they want this trinket for some reason.
Seal of Primordial Shadow - A ring that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, Ultraxion, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item.
Vial of Shadows - A trinket that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, Ultraxion, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item, though heroic Matrix Restabilizer is a contender for this trinket slot. Better for your feral dps/rogues/hunters, but still a sexy trinket for us. If you have a Matrix, consider passing the Vial off to those other classes until they all have it.
There you have it folks. As always, if you feel that a correction must be made or if you have a question about any of these encounters, please feel free to comment! Good luck, have fun, and may you loot rolls be strong.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
How To Enhance: Heroic Morchok & Heroic Yor'sahj
Did your guild just down Madness of Deathwing on normal? Are you finding yourself looking at the Morchok/Kohcrom twins in the face on heroic and scratching your head a bit? Have you been working on heroic modes for a while, but are new to the ways of the enhancement shaman and are looking for a few tips? Murgleglrgl and baby murlocs on top? Well, I have just the post for you!
At the time of writing this guide, it is the first week in which the 20% Dragon Soul nerf has been active. Provided your group has decent gear and at least an inkling of coordination, everything up until heroic Warmaster Blackhorn is (or should be) an absolute cakewalk. If you are the raid's swing healer, like myself, everything should be more or less two-healable now (provided your main spec healers are semi geared and on their A-game), which means you get to rock the sexy numbers on the DPS charts instead of the HPS charts. Yay!
Here are a few tips and tricks for the first two fights to do just that: rock the charts. By rock the charts I mean live and put out a few shiny numbers along the way.
This video above is from when Dragon Soul received its first nerf (I believe anyways), which was a whopping 5%. As you can see I'm on the Morchok side, which out of the two twins is definitely the more active side. You can also see that I'm crystal soaking, which means a TON of movement for me. Not a big deal, really.
Morchok's side is thus for crystal soaking: stomp, crystal, stomp, crystal, etc until the Black Blood phase, then stomp, crystal, stomp, crystal etc until either another Black Blood phase happens or the boss dies, whichever happens first.
Kohcrom's side is more of a stomp, stomp, crystal, stomp, stomp rotation, if memory serves. Much less movement, much more of a snoozefest!
Can an enhancement shaman soak stomps? My answer to this question is: probably. I believe that soaking is still better left up to shadow priests and rogues, or even a boomkin/plate dps if your (10 man) composition is missing one or both of those classes/specs, but now with the nerfs you should be able to safely soak stomps as enhancement. This is provided that you and your healers are semi geared though, and your healers are on the ball with topping you off prior to a stomp. I'd highly recommend trying to soak on Kohcrom's side first, as that is the easier side to heal. I'd also definitely recommend utilizing a rotation of Shamanistic Rage and Stoneclaw Totem (glyphed Stoneclaw, that is) to help out on reducing your damage taken. Bottom line: test it out and see if you and your healers can handle it. Upside to soaking stomps though? You don't need to run around like a loony toon to soak crystals. Soak one or the other, as trying to swing both could potentially have some not so desired consequences (see: death).
If you'd like a more in depth help guide to this encounter, please take a look at my original heroic Morchok guide. The information found there is still valid, but don't bother swapping out the Windfury glyph for the Feral Spirit glyph unless your healers tend to fall reeeeally behind, and only if you're saving them as a healing cooldown for some odd reason. The standard Prime glyphing of Lava Lash, Windfury Weapon, and Stormstrike should be more than sufficient for this encounter.
Loots:
Seal of Primordial Shadow - A ring that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item.
Vial of Shadows - A trinket that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item, though heroic Matrix Restabilizer is a contender for this trinket slot. Better for your feral dps/rogues/hunters, but still a sexy trinket for us. If you have a Matrix, consider passing the Vial off to those other classes until they all have it.
Sporebeard Gauntlets - If for some reason you can't get your mits on the heroic tier gloves, these are your next best bet. They're better than the normal mode tier gloves, but not quite as good as the heroic tier gloves. BiS for hunters, second BiS for us.
Heroic Yor'sahj ain't no big thang if your group knows what's up. If you need an overall strategy how-to guide, head on over to this Icy-Veins over view. I am going to assume though that you are already at least semi-familiar with the encounter.
Spec Changes: None (Standard 10/31/0 spec)
Glyph Changes:
If you're sitting on the boss - Prime: Remove Windfury and use Flame Shock (25 man only)
If you're moving to oozes - Prime: Remove Windfury and use Flame Shock (25 man only)
If you're sitting on the boss - Major: Remove Ghost Wolf and use Chain Lightning
If you're moving to oozes - Major: Remove Stoneclaw and use Chain Lightning (assuming your healers are good and you're not getting pounded on too hard by the adds).
Some of these glyph changes are highly dependent on your group composition, the raid's general dps output (if there's a lot of high AoE dps output in your raid, Flame Shock and Chain Lightning may not be worth the swap; I know it really isn't for my 10 man group because everything dies so quickly), and the capability of your healers (for the last suggestion).
Totem Changes: None, kind of.
If you're in a 25 man, swapping out Searing Totem for Magma Totem during a double black phase (yellow ooze + black ooze = nom AoE damage potential for you!) could very well yield a dps increase. This again is dependent on how high your raid AoE is though. If the adds die quickly and there's no overlap between the first set of adds and the second, you may be better off with sticking with good ol' derpy Searing Totem.
Totem twisting between your usual earth totem (Strength of Earth or Stoneskin, whichever your raid needs, if any) and the glyphed Stoneclaw totem can be handy for those moment when it's a purple + black phase and the adds are beating the crap out of you.
Should I stay or should I swap? No one likes to have to switch between adds. However, unless your group is somehow lacking a rogue or a kitty druid, chances are pretty good that you'll have to switch over to the oozes. Personally, I'm almost always having to swap to the oozes (though with the recent nerfs I may no longer need to do this), while someone else (generally a hunter, the rogue, or when we were two tanking it, the tank who currently did not have the boss) works on the mana void, if it's up.
AoE, how do I do it? During black phases, you should never physically swap to the little crazy elephant-looking dude adds. Keep your focus on the boss and use your AoE rotation from there. What's the optimal way to AoE as enhance? Well, let me tell you.
Flame Shock (keep FS as high on the duration as possible, for the FSs that are spread will take on the duration of the parent FS; the FS glyph makes this a bit easier to deal with, but was only really necessary for me to glyph back when I was running 25s. Never spread a FS with less than 10 seconds on it, if possible. The standard FS/ES/FS/ES rotation *should* in theory be sufficient, but watch it just in case.)
Lava Lash when there are four or more adds within a 12 yard radius
Unleash Elements
Fire Nova
Chain Lightning as soon and as often as possible
Stormstrike and Earth Shock as fillers
Unleash Elements will not be up for every Nova that you do, but it will "super power" your Nova when you are able to use it. Also, I tend to hold my Maelstrom stacks as we're going into the black phase, likewise with Lava Lash, unless I'm sure that it will be up in time for when the adds finally arrive to the boss. Timing is everything when it comes to properly AoEing, and that timing is all the more crucial when you're running with a well geared and capable group that can AoE the crap out of crap reeeeally quickly.
Loots:
Leggings of the Corrupted Protector - Our tier pants. BiS, super sexy. You may raid pantless out of game, but don't pass these bad boys up in game! Turn this token in to purchase your Spiritwalker's Legguards.
Seal of Primordial Shadow - A ring that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item.
Vial of Shadows - A trinket that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item, though heroic Matrix Restabilizer is a contender for this trinket slot. Better for your feral dps/rogues/hunters, but still a sexy trinket for us. If you have a Matrix, consider passing the Vial off to those other classes until they all have it.
Moving forward: Besides Morchok, at this point every encounter up until Ship should be one tank, two healable for a team of 10. The only encounter that *might* still require three healers would be Zon'ozz, but with the newly instated 20% nerf our team was able to two heal that encounter with few mishaps (mmm, gotta love ball bugs). After healing some of those heroic fights for so long, the transition back into dps is a bit of a disorienting one. If you're dpsing as enhancement for the first time, don't lose heart! It will take a few pulls to really get into the groove of a some of those fights, as it does with any role.
While I've written a giant wall of text already, the best advice I can ever give is this: Know your rotation, know your tool kit, know the encounter. The rest just takes practice in order to put the pieces together properly.
Never let your axes go dull or your wolves go hungry.
At the time of writing this guide, it is the first week in which the 20% Dragon Soul nerf has been active. Provided your group has decent gear and at least an inkling of coordination, everything up until heroic Warmaster Blackhorn is (or should be) an absolute cakewalk. If you are the raid's swing healer, like myself, everything should be more or less two-healable now (provided your main spec healers are semi geared and on their A-game), which means you get to rock the sexy numbers on the DPS charts instead of the HPS charts. Yay!
Here are a few tips and tricks for the first two fights to do just that: rock the charts. By rock the charts I mean live and put out a few shiny numbers along the way.
This video above is from when Dragon Soul received its first nerf (I believe anyways), which was a whopping 5%. As you can see I'm on the Morchok side, which out of the two twins is definitely the more active side. You can also see that I'm crystal soaking, which means a TON of movement for me. Not a big deal, really.
Morchok's side is thus for crystal soaking: stomp, crystal, stomp, crystal, etc until the Black Blood phase, then stomp, crystal, stomp, crystal etc until either another Black Blood phase happens or the boss dies, whichever happens first.
Kohcrom's side is more of a stomp, stomp, crystal, stomp, stomp rotation, if memory serves. Much less movement, much more of a snoozefest!
Can an enhancement shaman soak stomps? My answer to this question is: probably. I believe that soaking is still better left up to shadow priests and rogues, or even a boomkin/plate dps if your (10 man) composition is missing one or both of those classes/specs, but now with the nerfs you should be able to safely soak stomps as enhancement. This is provided that you and your healers are semi geared though, and your healers are on the ball with topping you off prior to a stomp. I'd highly recommend trying to soak on Kohcrom's side first, as that is the easier side to heal. I'd also definitely recommend utilizing a rotation of Shamanistic Rage and Stoneclaw Totem (glyphed Stoneclaw, that is) to help out on reducing your damage taken. Bottom line: test it out and see if you and your healers can handle it. Upside to soaking stomps though? You don't need to run around like a loony toon to soak crystals. Soak one or the other, as trying to swing both could potentially have some not so desired consequences (see: death).
If you'd like a more in depth help guide to this encounter, please take a look at my original heroic Morchok guide. The information found there is still valid, but don't bother swapping out the Windfury glyph for the Feral Spirit glyph unless your healers tend to fall reeeeally behind, and only if you're saving them as a healing cooldown for some odd reason. The standard Prime glyphing of Lava Lash, Windfury Weapon, and Stormstrike should be more than sufficient for this encounter.
Loots:
Seal of Primordial Shadow - A ring that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item.
Vial of Shadows - A trinket that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item, though heroic Matrix Restabilizer is a contender for this trinket slot. Better for your feral dps/rogues/hunters, but still a sexy trinket for us. If you have a Matrix, consider passing the Vial off to those other classes until they all have it.
Sporebeard Gauntlets - If for some reason you can't get your mits on the heroic tier gloves, these are your next best bet. They're better than the normal mode tier gloves, but not quite as good as the heroic tier gloves. BiS for hunters, second BiS for us.
Heroic Yor'sahj ain't no big thang if your group knows what's up. If you need an overall strategy how-to guide, head on over to this Icy-Veins over view. I am going to assume though that you are already at least semi-familiar with the encounter.
Spec Changes: None (Standard 10/31/0 spec)
Glyph Changes:
If you're sitting on the boss - Prime: Remove Windfury and use Flame Shock (25 man only)
If you're moving to oozes - Prime: Remove Windfury and use Flame Shock (25 man only)
If you're sitting on the boss - Major: Remove Ghost Wolf and use Chain Lightning
If you're moving to oozes - Major: Remove Stoneclaw and use Chain Lightning (assuming your healers are good and you're not getting pounded on too hard by the adds).
Some of these glyph changes are highly dependent on your group composition, the raid's general dps output (if there's a lot of high AoE dps output in your raid, Flame Shock and Chain Lightning may not be worth the swap; I know it really isn't for my 10 man group because everything dies so quickly), and the capability of your healers (for the last suggestion).
Totem Changes: None, kind of.
If you're in a 25 man, swapping out Searing Totem for Magma Totem during a double black phase (yellow ooze + black ooze = nom AoE damage potential for you!) could very well yield a dps increase. This again is dependent on how high your raid AoE is though. If the adds die quickly and there's no overlap between the first set of adds and the second, you may be better off with sticking with good ol' derpy Searing Totem.
Totem twisting between your usual earth totem (Strength of Earth or Stoneskin, whichever your raid needs, if any) and the glyphed Stoneclaw totem can be handy for those moment when it's a purple + black phase and the adds are beating the crap out of you.
Should I stay or should I swap? No one likes to have to switch between adds. However, unless your group is somehow lacking a rogue or a kitty druid, chances are pretty good that you'll have to switch over to the oozes. Personally, I'm almost always having to swap to the oozes (though with the recent nerfs I may no longer need to do this), while someone else (generally a hunter, the rogue, or when we were two tanking it, the tank who currently did not have the boss) works on the mana void, if it's up.
AoE, how do I do it? During black phases, you should never physically swap to the little crazy elephant-looking dude adds. Keep your focus on the boss and use your AoE rotation from there. What's the optimal way to AoE as enhance? Well, let me tell you.
Flame Shock (keep FS as high on the duration as possible, for the FSs that are spread will take on the duration of the parent FS; the FS glyph makes this a bit easier to deal with, but was only really necessary for me to glyph back when I was running 25s. Never spread a FS with less than 10 seconds on it, if possible. The standard FS/ES/FS/ES rotation *should* in theory be sufficient, but watch it just in case.)
Lava Lash when there are four or more adds within a 12 yard radius
Unleash Elements
Fire Nova
Chain Lightning as soon and as often as possible
Stormstrike and Earth Shock as fillers
Unleash Elements will not be up for every Nova that you do, but it will "super power" your Nova when you are able to use it. Also, I tend to hold my Maelstrom stacks as we're going into the black phase, likewise with Lava Lash, unless I'm sure that it will be up in time for when the adds finally arrive to the boss. Timing is everything when it comes to properly AoEing, and that timing is all the more crucial when you're running with a well geared and capable group that can AoE the crap out of crap reeeeally quickly.
Loots:
Leggings of the Corrupted Protector - Our tier pants. BiS, super sexy. You may raid pantless out of game, but don't pass these bad boys up in game! Turn this token in to purchase your Spiritwalker's Legguards.
Seal of Primordial Shadow - A ring that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item.
Vial of Shadows - A trinket that has a chance to drop off of Morchok, Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara, and Warmaster Blackhorn. Best in slot item, though heroic Matrix Restabilizer is a contender for this trinket slot. Better for your feral dps/rogues/hunters, but still a sexy trinket for us. If you have a Matrix, consider passing the Vial off to those other classes until they all have it.
Moving forward: Besides Morchok, at this point every encounter up until Ship should be one tank, two healable for a team of 10. The only encounter that *might* still require three healers would be Zon'ozz, but with the newly instated 20% nerf our team was able to two heal that encounter with few mishaps (mmm, gotta love ball bugs). After healing some of those heroic fights for so long, the transition back into dps is a bit of a disorienting one. If you're dpsing as enhancement for the first time, don't lose heart! It will take a few pulls to really get into the groove of a some of those fights, as it does with any role.
While I've written a giant wall of text already, the best advice I can ever give is this: Know your rotation, know your tool kit, know the encounter. The rest just takes practice in order to put the pieces together properly.
Never let your axes go dull or your wolves go hungry.
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