Totem Talk: The enhancement shaman guide to Nefarian
by Josh Myers 
Mar 5th 2011 at 6:00PM
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the first three bosses of Blackwing Descent from an enhancement perspective. I was planning on using this post to continue that trend, detailing Chimaeron, Atramedes, and Nefarian from an enhancement viewpoint. However, things didn't work out as planned. I started writing about Nefarian first, knowing his post would be the longest. I didn't realize what a beast of a fight Nefarian was, though, and Chimaeron and Atramedes' budgeted space was quickly consumed by the Nefarian post that was growing as quickly as a Defile with a disconnected player in it.
As a result, look for Atramedes and Chimaeron in an upcoming post, possibly tagging along with Conclave of Wind. For now, sit back and focus on the undead dragon Lord Victor Nefarius.
Nefarian is my favorite fight in this expansion to be an enhancement shaman on. This is partly because it drops excellent loot for us in Spaulders of the Scarred Lady, our tier 11 helm, and Crul'korak, the Lightning's Arc. However, my real love for this fight stems from two things: first, it's a single-target boss fight with no silly adds that need to be killed with AoE. Second, it is a fight in which our utility shines.
Phase 1
The first phase of this fight starts with Onyxia being the only active dragon. You'll be DPSing her down normally until Nefarian lands 30 seconds later, at which point the tank will drag Nefarian to the opposite side of the room. You'll switch to him then. I like to use my run across the room to drop totems in the middle of the room, ensuring coverage of every raid member.
Once you're on Nefarian, the rest of this phase is straightforward for you. You DPS the boss hard until his health percentage is close to a multiple of 10 (90%, 80%, 70%). When he's approaching these percentages, you slow your DPS and wait for your healers to call for an Electrocute, and then you push hard.
Even better, Shamanistic Rage cuts damage done to you by a full 30%, and with a 1-minute cooldown you can generally mitigate every other crackle. Consider investing the time into getting a Mirror of Broken Images from Hellscream's Reach. Since it also has a 1-minute cooldown, you can use it to mitigate the crackles that your Shamanistic Rage is on cooldown for. That way, every Electrocute has you using either a 30% damage reduction or 40% magical damage reduction cooldown and a 16k shield. I rarely dip below 70,000 hit points during Electrocutes now!
Phase 2
When Onyxia dies, phase 2 starts. Nefarian will walk to the center of the room and lift off. This gives you time to get close to your assigned pillar. Lava will start to fill the room, and you'll have to swim up through the lava to get on top of the safe platforms. This lava hits like a truck and leaves a painful DoT on you, so use your Stoneclaw shield and your Shamanistic Rage during the swim to mitigate.
On the platform, you'll find a Chromatic Prototype, your DPS target. These aberration dragonkin cast a Blast Nova every 12 seconds or so that needs to be interrupted. Phase 2 sees Nefarian breathing Shadowflame Barrages on your entire raid and doing massive AoE damage. This makes the phase incredibly straining on your healers, and even a single tick of the add's Blast Nova can wipe your raid. Wind Shearing these is your priority above everything else.
Depending on the strength of your healers and their level of comfort with the fight, your ranged DPS might be encouraged to push an Electrocute while Nefarian is in the air. Provided the healers can keep your raid alive through this crackle, this is a really smart strategy. Less time spent in phase 3 is always a good thing. In the case that your group does this, save your survivability cooldowns for this crackle. You'll want to stack them all so as to make life much easier on your already stressed healers. When all three Chromatic Prototype die, phase 3 begins.
Phase 3
Phase 3 is really intense on your add tank and your healers but less intense on you. Much like phase 1, the objective of phase 3 is to DPS hard in between your electrocute marks but also to know when to stop DPS entirely. This means stopping all your damage output, including Searing Totem. My Searing Totem once pushed a crackle in phase 3 by itself when the rest of us had stopped DPS too late, killing our add tank and wiping the raid. Stop all DPS.
Show your totemic mastery by reading Totem Talk: Enhancement every week. We've got enhancement-specific advice on rep gear, heroic gear, and raiding gear, plus tips on maximizing your utility skills and tactics for raiding Blackwing Descent.
Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Sean Mar 5th 2011 6:58PM
Here's where I get confused again with the way Blizz lays out their stats.
Crul'korak, the Lightning's Arc is clearly made with Enhance Shammys in mind. But wasn't it just last week that we talked about how awful Crit/Haste was? As in, almost any combination of bonus stats would be better.
So they design a system in which we crave Mastery, Agility, and Hit/Expertise....then give us a weapon with Crit/Haste? Are they holding us back on purpose? Giving us a reason to visit the Reforger?
Josh Myers Mar 5th 2011 7:11PM
The thing you need to remember is that weapons also come with base DPS on them, which is a stat that outweighs almost everything. It's acceptable for weapons to come with mediocre secondary stats because the secondary stats aren't the focus of the item. For armor, the stats are the only thing that differentiates the pieces.
Phantom Mar 5th 2011 7:19PM
Blizz has said, repeatedly, that they don't just want to itemize weapons perfectly. They want the player to be making a choice. Sometimes that choice is stacking undesirable stats to gain a greater benefit.
rsrogers4 Mar 6th 2011 3:42PM
At the 359 item level, Claws of Agony and Maimgor's Bite sim better for me than dual-wielding than Crul'korak. Of course, heroic Crul'korak beats them. But don't be fooled by the Elitist Jerks BIS list having dual Crul'koraks because they're 372 (heroic) item level.
rsrogers4 Mar 6th 2011 8:25PM
I meant Claws of Torment of course.
synkronos Mar 7th 2011 4:14AM
Crul is also a perfectly good Combat rogue mainhand. Hunters could technically use it too, but the 1hander enchants are all terrible for hunters, so they would far rather use a 2hander.
Valdred Mar 7th 2011 4:10AM
You haven't really mentioned Wolves timing here at all. In 10man, we're pushing him over in 7 minutes, which means you could theoretically pop wolves 4 times, but with various other considerations I find myself summoning them only 3 times. The first time is best as you're switching from Ony to Nef, so you can use Spirit Walk to target switch faster (leave your wolves on Ony, no point wasting their dps time running as well). Just make sure you tell them to attack Ony, sometimes they switch to the adds. The second summon I use in p2 air phase, when we're just about to push crackle, where the Spirit Hunt healing is great. p2 can be dodgy, especially if any other platforms miss a Blast Wave. The third obviously save for p3 BL.
On a gearing side note, just remember that Crul'korak has identical stats to the Claws, and Maimgor's is a better offhand. Since both are BoE, most Enhance that reach this fight are likely to have bought or farmed up both, making Crul just another Maelstrom. The shoulders are also far weaker than our tier. The helm is great tho ^_^
zulkie Mar 7th 2011 5:35AM
I recently made my second spec a lolmental. Due to raid leader's request. I havent done nefarian yet tho im at 5/6 currently.which would u guys recomend ? Lolmental or enhancement?
ThunTal Mar 7th 2011 10:55AM
Hey Josh, what addon are you using for your maelstrom weapon meter and CD timer (i assume that's what the paw/voodoo mask icons are?) They look way nicer than my shockandawe setup
Rollo Mar 7th 2011 11:21AM
In 10-man phase 1, you might use a dps to tank or kite the adds around. I've been asked to do this (and failed horribly) using dps and rockbiter taunts for threat, and ghost wolf, earthbind and frost shock for kiting. Is this doable and do you have any tips on it? I found it very hard to keep aggro on all the adds without being killed.
Regarding stoneclaw totem. Is there anyway to see how much damage it absorbs? I can't find it in skada or on worldoflogs.
synkronos Mar 7th 2011 1:48PM
No, the absorbs from Stoneclaw Shield are currently not showing up in the Blizzard combat log, so there's no way to see. Very irritating =/
Forreststump Mar 7th 2011 12:46PM
Hai!!!!