I’m late to the party but delving into the whole masks thing myself. As a Ret Paladin, just completed triple-mask without using any Orbs, but I did sacrifice the ‘extra life’ so to speak, so I believe I’m on the right track. I’ll soon be doing the same on this Resto Shaman, and once the cloak is 500, digging right into the mask-challenges.
The TLDR response:
Think less of your damage and work on getting your route 100% down-pat. As long as you have a very efficient path, you can cut various combats out of the equation to lessen the fact that your damage isn’t absolutely amazing.
As Restoration myself, the visions are downscaled to compensate, so I can very easily blast through single-targets, but AoE damage is the big kicker. Thanks to lacking AoE punch, performing massive pulls is still a slog, even if using Golem to patiently Chain Lightning stuff safely from range with no risk. The biggest help no matter what is your overall Cloak Resistance - I assume you’re trying mask-challenges with the 500item-level (and have a bunch of the talents unlocked – specifically sanity-on-elite-kill. If not, get that resistance up first.
As such, it’s usually about your route rather than damage. I can only pump out more numbers than you (as Ret) when popping wings or with wing-procs, or performing massive chain-pulls. My Ret-Alt isn’t overly optimized or properly corrupted, so the damage is decent, but nothing amazing. Still, casually been clearing triple-masks solo without even using Orbs – the main challenge are the annoying affixes those zones get.
Madness: Scorched Feet this week is extremely aggravating and toxic. It has launched me in ways that have gotten me permanently stuck, overpulled, punted me out of bounds into the mega-corrupted areas, and all kinds of drivel, even when being as careful as possible. You can’t always tell when you’ll be launched and it’ll go in a direction you press. Either way, being launched through the air (aimed or not) is toxic to deal with.
Regarding Route – how I tend to go about it (In Orgrimmar at least):
I run immediately towards Zekhan’s quest, pulling all left-side mobs on the way, pick up the voids, pick up the elite, then nuke them all. Even if you are slow (or take sanity damage), the elite will generally push you back to max-sanity on death.
Instead of doing Zekhan’s quest, I head to Geya (the first deeper-corrupted area). I go about that area in a very specific way - enter, pull the mob she’s fighting, pull the two large mobs on the path, then head left and pull the trash in front of the first elite. Kill them all, then kill the elite (sanity restore). I ignore the mobs praying at the altar and just kill my way to the second elite, which will give another sanity restore. Last boss will appear once 90% of the trash is done, so don’t waste time kill ALL of them. Once killed, another sanity restore.
If lucky/efficient, you’ll be back to 90% sanity without any use of Orb and can move over to Zekhan’s area and clear it. The only elite here is the final mob, so no restore here. If unlucky, you might need to orb, but if all is going well and you have enough sanity after, head to Garona’s area (killing Thralls 2x gate guards on the way and claiming any chests you skipped at the start).
There’s an elite right at the start and the final boss also restores sanity. Seeing as Rexxar’s area opens immediately with Misha (another Elite), you essentially start the second deeper-corrupted area with a double-sanity restore from your talent and SHOULD be able to skip a sizeable portion of the trash.
Rexxar is the one and only boss here I hate. He’s squishy, but you really should be killing the boars, especially as a caster, seeing as trying to nuke him will result in that tidal-wave of spirits making casting difficult, so if any boars are up, you risk a mega sanity dunk.
After that, totem back to the start, handle any business you like and then kill Thrall, using a pre-pull Orb if you really need it.
With the masks on, Burning Bridge isn’t much of an issue – EXCEPT when you have the toxic “Madness: Scorched Feet” affix. This nonsense has launched me into terrain in a way that has single-handedly ruined runs by getting me permanently stuck, and the frequent loss of control of your character can launch you into burning bridge puddles, cause you to accidentally pull more mobs, or all kinds of shenanigans, and that’s not good with Daredevil on if they’re capable of sanity nukes or annoying mechanics.
Anyway, that’s just the ramblings of someone who prefers trial-by-fire rather than researching guides, most of which are from people who have it on farm and may be subject to certain class/gear/biases that don’t apply to you. Knowing your limits is a good thing. If you know you can (or can’t) squeeze out that elite kill on 10% sanity, either can be an orb/life saver.
Last, but not least, don’t sit on your hands. Get in there and try it - it is the best way to figure out how you can improve your next one.
