cloudburst totem explained

A 30 second cooldown spell which places a totem down for 15 seconds which absorbs 25% of the healing you do and upon expiring distributes that absorbed healing equally to all injured players within 40 yards of you.

FAQ
Does the totem reduce my healing done by 25% for its duration?
No, it merely keeps track of 25% of the healing you do and than says “ok I’ll do that much.” So there is no negative to your other output by using it.

What spells count toward increasing the totem’s healing done?
Any restoration shaman abilities including talents feed into the totem for its duration. Things like azerite traits and your other totems (such as Healing Tide Totem) do NOT feed into the totem.

What about overhealing?
Yes, overhealing feeds into benefiting the totem, so that is why we are able to utilize its 15second build up even if the raid isn’t taking damage at the time.

When to use cloudburst

You should be aiming to use Cloudburst Totem on cooldown in order to get as much value out of it as possible. If you take the Echo of Elements talent it will allow you to always hold onto 1 cloudburst totem for important damage patterns while your 2nd charge can just be used the moment it comes up.

As far as during an encounter, you should look to find what important ability the boss will be using that will deal the most raid wide damage to you. Current bosses I think of Grong’s tantrum / King Rastakhan’s scorching detonation / Mekkatorque’s blast off. Once you find which boss ability is best suited for a big heal like cloudburst, time it so that you drop the totem about 10-15 seconds before the ability goes off.

As shown below, with mekkatorque’s blast off you should use the totem when blast off is within 12 seconds of occuring, since there is a cast time and travel time before the damage actually happens. You use cloudburst to early and it will just overheal the whole raid before blast off hits. Use it to late, and you will have to pop cloudburst a second time early meaning you missed extra healing feeding into the totem.

The checklist

When using Cloudburst Totem, ensure that you are attempting to always check off the following…

1) Riptide charges used before putting down the totem (the heal over time feeds into the totem)
2) Healing Rain is down for the duration of the totem (this typically means needing to cast it once or twice during the totem’s duration)
3) Whether you run High Tide, Wellspring, or Ascendance in the last talent row, be sure to be utilizing them during cloudburst totem as they all feed into its healing absorb.