So I have never done any mythic dungeons. Like ever. But now I am wanting to try it but I have no clue what to do. My main is a decently geared resto shaman with an ilvl in the low to mid 180’s. My question is where do I start? And how do I figure out what affixes do what, and what to do? My usual method of healing dungeons is follow the tank, but I don’t think that’s going to work for this.
I give recommendations on starting mythics in the link down below, check that out for how to start. I will write tips as if I’m gong off this post below.
First off, finish your covenant campaign for the gear and run some BGs for honor gear (its BG week too so get it in while you still can) to gear up to 197. Covenant campaign gear for most of your gear, and scrap by some PvP honor gear, but not fully. You don’t need that high of an ilvl to start mythics, but it’s a very easy source of gear that’ll make your transition into mythics painless.
The most important thing about mythics is that mechanics matter a lot more now. It is not enough to be good at heals, you need to understand mechanics at a deeper level to be able to always avoid them, and as a healer, be prepared for them. You will learn the nuances of those as you practice, and as you do, read or watch a video or two to continue learning the mechanics. Some mechanics are hidden, they aren’t deadly at first, but are in higher levels of mythic, and sometimes there are mechanics people underestimate (some at plaguefall 10 still don’t know about the ambush spiderlings mechanic, and most don’t know the puzzle in mists!!). Traversing through mythic levels is a continuous learning journey of perfecting and understanding dungeon mechanics until you are prepared for them at every step. Eventually you’ll come to a point of memorization where you put abilities ahead of time, knowing something will happen. But you have to understand, that level of play is a journey and a marathon, not a sprint. So as you go through mythics learn how you can improve each time, what you could have done differently, how you can contribute beyond your healing. Here’s a channel I found helpful that’s more indepth https://youtu.be/Ojr2-H77EGche also does resto shaman commentary, so will be helpful to you.
The good news is resto shaman is the best healer and most wanted. But you will have to stop thinking of yourself as a just a healer, but more like a swiss knife that offers a lot of tools to your group. Shamans have a very strong toolkit (a term you’ll see more often now that you’re entering mythics). They can interrupt bad stuff, they can stun multiple groups at once (avoiding damage or stunning a bad ability!), they can revive back to rez the group quicker (meaning wipes are less forgiving). You need to start thinking in those terms. Every ability has potential and use, including your damaging abilities. That’s the mentality you need to start adopting.
Affixes are additional challenges, and they change every week. Affixes are tied to a key, and the higher the key the more the challenges are added to them. You can see the week’s affixes by pressing H (default hot key) → Mythic Keystone. To get an indepth reading you can just google them. Wowhead provides good resource on it. Here’s an example of Spiteful, for this week
Down below are some tips on how you can deal with affixes given your class/spec. Scroll down to the affixes and click on spiteful
Under spiteful: Since they die naturally after a short time due to All-Consuming Spite, your main goal is to crowd control them whenever possible, so keep Capacitor Totem, Earthgrab Totem and Earthbind Totem ready.
So ontop of healing, you can use these three abilities to deal with the affix. Check out the guide for how to deal with affixes as you climb up. And this means you can be dynamic - if a talent lets you slow down better or more often it might be worth to pick it up for the week. On my druid, I usually run a talent that gives me a hard stun every minute, but because of spiteful I use a talent that gives me aoe roots, so I Just root them and we continue the dungeon. Now you might be thinking - so druid and shamans can really make them seem trivial? Yep! And that’s when you think of a group as a combination of toolkits. Some of these affixes are hard to deal with, some are easy, and some are better for certain classes than others. They can change which routes you take in dungeons (but that’s more tanks jobs perse), which spells you use, and which talents to take.
Next up, perfecting your healing. You now need to start picking the right talents, soulbinds, conduits, to stay at top of your game. Learn how your spells interact with each other, and how you can make combos for most efficient heals. You need to start thinking of healing as dealing with certain mechanics, and getting the group back up so you can go back to dealing damage and acting as a toolkit. So reading up on your class from icy veins or wowhead will be beneficial. Here are two good sources…
https://www.icy-veins.com/wow/restoration-shaman-pve-healing-guide
https://www.wowhead.com/restoration-shaman-guide
I also recommend you start looking into macros and getting a feel for them. Mouseovers are a must. There are addons like Clique that make it easier, but I prefer the old fashioned Blizz macros.
Here’s a simple mouse over macro for you to start. It will let you heal your target based on where your mouse is. You will be pressing either party frame portraits, or their characters themselves. If you have someone targeted, it will prioritize the cursor, but if cursor is on nothing, it will take the target. This way, you can have the target targetted for your stun/interrupt/damage, and you don’t have to click on your party to heal them. This will drastically improve your healing reactions.
#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover, help, nodead] [] Healing Wave
Another one is a harm/help macro.
#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover, help, nodead] Purify Spirit; [@mouseover,harm,nodead] [harm] Purge; [] Purify Spirit
This will purge the enemy’s buff when mouseover/target on them, or it will purify on your party if moused. With this one button you can purge boss when targeting, and same button will purify your party on cursor.
I recommend mouse overs on all healing abilities, and up to you how you wanna do harm/help macros (if you wanna do them). There are more macros ideas, but these two are essential for healers.
Lastly, get some mods. Deadly Boss Mod is most essential and a must. Raiderio will be needed, but not until later (need an account for that too, google it for more info). Others are secondary. There are healer specific mods, like vuhdoo that lets you do the job without macros (though I don’t prefer it). Weakauras is very good, and very flexible, but don’t need it. As you go if you think you’d like a mod to fill a gap you can ask for recommendations and see if there’s anything out there.
I understand this is a lot of information I’m throwing at you and I’m making it seem scarier than it is. It’s not, it starts off fair and easy, especially if you got your covenant gear upgrades fully. But to summarize:
- Learn dungeon mechanics
- Use guides for affix help, and for learning about your class
- Perfect using all abilities
- Use macros
- get mods
Go do a mythic dungeon. They’re not that much harder than heroic (at +0) and you most likely won’t even have to heal that much and it will be a nice spot to start learning. Treat Mythic 0 was the base difficulty for a level 60 dungeons, you will be fine! You are also extremely geared for them!