1. Trading Cooldowns
1.1. Let's begin looking at once of the most important concepts for you to understand, trading cooldowns. Your two major cooldowns for damage reduction are astral shift and earthen shield totem. Whenever a team is using their offensive cooldowns on you, you must always be prepared to trade your own defensive cooldowns in order to survive. However, this doesn't mean that you should be using them the moment you see the enemy team use their offensive cds. You should be waiting to see how much damage you're taking, and then react accordingly. You need to consider who's dealing damage to you and how much damage they're going to be able to do. For example, if you're only taking damage from one player with their cooldowns up, there's a good chance you could just save your cooldowns.
1.1.1. ARg
1.1.1.1. Let's first take a look at when you might want to use astral shift to counter offensive cooldowns. Here, you can see that our rank 1 resto shaman, xonika, has a warrior connecting onto him with his offensive cooldowns up. Because only the warrior is dealing damage to xonika, he doesn't use his astral shift. However, as soon as the fire mage pushes in and uses his combustion to deal damage to xonika, xonika instantly replies with his astral shift. This was a perfect example because xonika made sure to get as much value out of his astral shift as possible. He knows that he can survive just the warrior alone, however with both of them connecting with their offensive cds, he will take too much damage and so he has to trade his astral shift in order to survive. It's also worth noting that the reason why Xonika used astral shift here and not earthen ring totem is because the warrior and mage won't be able to do more damage then this at any other point in the game and so xonika needs to counter this with his strongest defensive cooldown.
1.1.1.1.1. Editing
1.2. Now, astral shift only lasts a few seconds, whereas most offensive cooldowns last around 20 seconds. This means that there will be times where you're going to have to chain your earthen ring totem out of your astral shift if you're low on health when your astral shift ends and you're at risk of being interrupted.
1.2.1. ARi
1.2.1.1. Contining on from that previous example, Xonikas astral shift ends while he's at 50% health The problem here is that Xonika can still be interrupted and the enemy dps still have offensive cds up and are both still connecting onto xonika. So, in order to ensure his survival through their cooldowns, xonika uses his earthen ring totem once his astral shift fades, and as a result, is able to easily survive long enough to be interrupted and then free cast heals to ensure his survival.
1.2.1.1.1. Editing
2. Standard Cooldown Usage
2.1. So, now that you understand when you should be trading your defensive cooldowns for enemy offensiev cooldowns, the next step towards being able to always keep yourself alive, is knowing when you should be using your defensive cooldowns to survive, regardless of whether or not the enemy team has used any offensive cds. If you're ever in a situation where you've already dropped low and both of the enemy teams DPS are going to be able to maintain high up time while having ways to stop you from freecasting, you should consider using either your earthen shield totem or astral shift depending on how low you are. Keep in mind that earthen ring totem is only a 60 seecond cooldown, which means you shouldn't worry too much about holding onto that cooldown and can instead just use it whenever you're in trouble.
2.1.1. ARt
2.1.1.1. Here, Xonika's health has dropped to 70%. It's no longer safe for him to be interrupted and stunnned before being able to begin freecasting heals and so, in order to deal with this, he uses his earthen shield totem.
2.1.1.1.1. Editing
2.2. Now, sometimes earthen shield totem won't be enough to keep you alive through an onslaught of pressure, especially if the enemy team has ways to stop you from casting. Because of earthen shield totems' low cooldown, it's a lot more disposable, so you almost always want to use it first whenever you're in trouble if the enemy team doesn't have an offensive cooldowns up. However, if you do ever find yourself in a situation where you want to use your earthen shield totem to survive but it's on cooldown, don't be afraid to just use your astral shift.
2.2.1. ARv
2.2.1.1. Here, Xonika has dropped to 60%. Both the warrior and mage are connecting onto xonika and his team is unable to help him. On top of this, Xonika still has to deal with the warriors interrupt and stun. Because earthen shield totem is on cooldown, xonika uses his astral shift to help keep himself alive. Thanks to this, Xonika is then able to live through both an interrupt and a stun
2.2.1.1.1. Editing
3. Healing Totems
3.1. Seperate from your damage reduction cooldowns, are your healing cooldowns. In this section, we're going to look at how you should be using your healing totems to survive. When you're being trained and you're expected to be stunned or interrupted, you can use your healing stream or healing tide totem to heal you while you're unable to cast heals. In our video on freecasting, we talked about how you should allow yourself to be interrupted once you drop below 80%. Putting down a healing totem and then starting to go through the process of being interrupted and stunned is an extremely effective method of survival.
3.1.1. ARf
3.1.1.1. In this example, Xonika has dropped below 80% and is no longer in a position to fake cast. This means that he's going to free casting and allowing himself to be interrupted. On top of this, their warrior also has his interrupt and stun ready. Before attempting to start casting heals, Xonika uses his healing tide totem which is going to allow him to heal himself while sitting in the warriors stun
3.1.1.1.1. Editing
4. Spirit Link Totem
4.1. The final section of this video will look at what's probably your most important defensive cooldown, and that's spirit link. Your usage of spirit link is rather straight forward. Whenever you drop extremely low and you're most likely going to die on your next global if you use anything else, you should use spirit link. Now, spirit link does require you to be near your teammates, so you have to make sure that your team moves together whenever you need to use your spirit link. Also, a quick tip to remember is that whenever you use your spirit link, you should make sure to stay inside of it until it's killed.
4.1.1. ARz
4.1.1.1. Here, Xonika is sitting in a stun and is dropping really low. Because he's playing with a warlock, he decides to use his healthstone when he comes out of the stun to try and hold his spirit link. Because of this, he knows that he won't die on his next global. He uses that global to reapply earth shield, and then drops to 11%. If his next global is not spirit link totem, he will die, and with that in mind, he drops his spirit link totem and ensures his survival. Notice how he ensured to move towards his warlock so that his spirit link totem would work, and that he also stayed inside of it and allowed it to continue ticking until it was gone.
4.1.1.1.1. Editing