Know your Role - Beasts of Northrend

Know your Role will be a new series of post breaking down an Elemental Shamans role in raid boss encounters. We will explore the encounter and what you should be doing to help your raid group succeed. This is not written as a raiding guide but written in respect to what an elemental shaman's role is. As an elemental shaman one of the most important roles you fulfill is DPS. Now any shaman can DPS but it takes knowing your role to really shine. Since you are a pew pew stationary caster the most important thing you must learn is where to stand on each fight so you can maximize your dps potential. Every boss encounter is different, some with multiple phases and there are many adjustments you will have to make during the fights. Blizzard has stated they prefer to keep boss encounters to approximately 5 or 6 minutes. The second role you provide is utility through use of your totems. This is very important to understand as your raid group will need this utility to be more successful. Remember you have 22 different totems at your disposal some more useful than others. The third role you can fulfill is a back up healer in case your healers decide to stand in fire.

The first boss encounter will will discuss is 25 Man Heroic Northrend Beast. This encounter is a 3 phase fight with 3 different sets of bosses you will have to take down. The 3 bosses are Gormok the Impaler, Acidmaw and Dreadscale and finally Icehowl. For this segment of Know your Roll I will break down the fight into 3 phases. For phase 1 Gormok the Impaler it is very important to start the fight standing near the middle of the room since your raids tanks should be tanking him near the coliseum door that he came through. There are two reasons you should stand there. One it gives you the ability to move left or right when the snobolds start fire bombing your raid group. Don't Stand in the Fire. The second reason you will be in the best position to start burning down the snobolds that jump on any of your ranged dps or healers as they work their way to the melee dps to clear the snobold off of them so they can rejoin the fight. Don't Stand in the Fire. As an elemental shaman your role will be to sustain dps on Gormok until a snobold jumps a ranged or healer, then immediately focus on that snobold. For this phase you should use a combination of Totem of Wrath, Wrath of Air, Healing Stream, and Stoneskin Totem. ToW and Wrath of Air are staples but use healing stream as you should have wisdom from a paladin and even tho the ticks are very weak any extra healing you can provide will help your tanks and the people that still don't understand that standing in fire is bad. Stoneskin Totem will provide your tanks with an additional 1150 armor to help with the impales Gromok hits them with. This phase is timed and your raid will want to make quick work of Gormok before Acidmaw and Dreadscale enter the arena. Remember Don't Stand in the Fire.

Phase 2 begins when the next boss timer expires whether Gormok is dead or not. In phase 2 you will face two giant jormungars Acidmaw and Dreadscale. Again positioning will depend upon where your tanks decide to set up but they should be facing them away from the raid. Try to position yourself within 25 yards from the tank on Dreadscale in case you get the toxin debuff from Acidmaw. Dreadscale's tank should have a debuff called Bile and you will be able to cleanse Acidmaw's toxin. Your raid should be focused on Acidmaw to start the fight. The same totems you used in Phase 1 apply here, try to lay them in between the bosses some where near the center of the arena. This phase the the real dps check of the encounter. If your raid does not have enough dps you will not be able to defeat the jormungars before Icehowl enters the arena. This phase will require the use of Bloodlust/Heroism to finish the dps burn. One tip you can apply to your raid is using BL/Heroism after they have burrowed one time. If you pop the spell then your raid should be able to burn down Acidmaw right before they burrow again. If successful when Dreadscale comes back up he will not enrage making this phase much easier on your healers and tanks. Continue the dps race on Dreadscale and you should have him down before phase 3 starts and Icehowl enters the arena.

Hopefully things have gone smoothly and your raid is ready to take on Icehowl. In phase 3 your role is pure dps as you and the raid will be up against the enrage timer. The most important thing you should be paying attention to is positioning as clumping together with other ranged will ruin you dps when Icehowl does his Artic Breath spell that will freeze you and you will not be able to dps during the effect. During phase 3 Icehowl will perform a move called Massive Crash blowing you backwards into the wall at the edge of the arena stunning you for a few seconds while you take massive damage. Hopefully you are topped off as it normally hits my shaman for 18,000 damage. If I am still feeling the effect of Artic Breath a well timed healthstone before Massive Crash my be the only thing that saves me. Once he has knocked the hell out of you he will pick a target to charge. If his target does not move out of the way before he gets to them he will enrage and probably wipe your raid. If he misses Icehowl will become dazed and take an additional 100% damage for 15 seconds. Remember that enrage timer this is what phase 3 is all about, burn him with every cooldown you have. It is also important to drop your totems in range of your fellow raiders so they can take advantage of your utility and increase their dps. After a couple of charges Icehowl should be down and your raid can enjoy their new shinny epics.