So, if you use the talent Primal Elementalist you get some abilities on your earth & fire elemental totems, one of which is called Reinforce - Spell - World of Warcraft that gives you 20% less damage taken and 10% more healing done for as long as the earth elemental is channeling the spell. However, if you use the earth elemental when there's <10 seconds left of the preparation room and switch talents quickly the elemental will still be there when the gates open.
This will give you a neat little way of getting a little bit more survivability in the opener on some teams you might have trouble with.