Tip 1: JUST DO IT!
Definitely do it if you are still on the leveling grind, you will be picking up enough XP to make it a worthwhile diversion to your questing and grinding and you get access to epics. Epics which apart from being purple will be guaranteed upgrades more often than not.
The boys at ForTheHorde! reminded me that I needed to get back into Pee Vee Pee and not worry about the Transient Twinks, so I have been getting in and getting dirty.
More Tips.
Tip 2: Go Resto, Go!
I mentioned how much I was enjoying Elemental in BGs, but that doesn’t stop me shopping around. I even asked the question over at Addicted to Heals shaman blog.
Last night the decision was made for me due to Alzheimer’s.
I forgot…
- I just turned 50
- Battleground brackets are x0-x9
So I joined WSG only to realize that I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. What’s worse, those dreaded DKs were experienced for the 1st time… And they don’t come in x0-x5 models.
I respec’d after that battle and went on to give more in BGs than I ever did as Elemental, or even as a Mage.
Tip 3: Rarer than hen’s teeth
You think finding a healer for a PuG ToC is hard… Try finding one for a PuG BG!
Generally the only other classes on the healing scoreboard were Locks and Hunters. It was an amazing BG if there were 2 healers.
You see, Instances and raids need the holy trinity of Tanks, DPS and Heals.
BGs require the Dynamic Duo of DPS and Heals.
No tanks required and every healer and their dog goes DPS.
Resto really is the fast track to making friends!
Tip 4: Earth Shield
Once you get it, Earth Shield(ES) is your friend.
ES will turn your squishy DPS only teammate into a self healing dynamo!
It will also give you a second or two to get off the next heal.
Tip 5: Mage buddy
I know, I know, I might be a little prejudiced, but Mages are great BG buddies.
Mages have little armor and small health pools, but HUGE DPS.
Thing is, as Resto we can change all this about.
- They gain an infinite health pool, self healing (ES) and a few more of your tricks.
- You gain an insane DPS protector with a whole lot of utility tricks up his sleeve.
Let me tell you, Gnomeaggedon always notices when he gets a heal… They are so few and far between. When I get one, I get all overprotective of my den mother and will wipe out anyone who even looks sideways at my health supply… They also get water and Arcane Intellect on tap!
I hooked up with a Mage last night (like I say, I am a little biased), in part because he was one of the few that remembered the objectives of the BG and didn’t get sidetracked. But also because he wasn’t afraid to run the flag, protect the flag and, most importantly, protect the hand that healed him (Others would cry for heals then leave me to die mid cast).
We slaughtered the flags, we slaughtered the Horde. The flag rooms were ours. In the end the Hordes only resort was to Zerg us… The 2 of us!
Tip 6: <– Resto
Make sure tour team mates know you are Resto right from the word go. Draenei are big and Shamans all look the same, so make sure you tell them you are their lifeline. Just type this when you zone in:
/bg <— Resto
Tip 7: Mark me up please
To be sure tour message gets through, go a couple of steps further, ask to be marked up so that your team mates can see you clearly and come to your aid.
Use any (or all) of the following lines:
/bg <— Resto
/bg Please mark me with a [square] and protect my arse so I can heal yours.
/bg Healing priority: 1. Flag carriers. 2. Flag defenders. 3. Me. 4. Mid-field playing Honor Farmers
Hopefully that will get the message across.
Tip 8: More than just heals
Yes you are a healer #1, but there is more to your Resto Shaman toolkit than healing damage.
Tip 9: The Purginagor
Make the opposition go down faster, be The Purginator!
Purge the enemies buffs…
They go down faster, your mates go down slower, less heals required!
Tip 10: Arcane Buster
- Mage shoving Arcane Missiles up your butt?
- Fear bombs going off left right and centre?
Remember that you have a few tools on your Bat Belt to sort this out!
Interrupt the Mage (or other caster…)!
Ohh poor Arcane Mage locked out of their Arcane tree? That will screw them, they probably only have arcane missiles and arcane explosion on their toolbar… Make them look through their spell book!
Fear Bombs… Mmm seems to me you have a totem design to bring fear bombers to tears, their knees and ultimately their graveyard… Tremor Totem… Use it!
Grounding totem is a great early warning system and wastes that Pyroblast the Mage has been winding up for the last 3 minutes.
Drop it and Laugh!
Tip 11: Last Healer Casting
What the opposition has healers?
Now we have a worthy opponent for your Resto Shaman.
Your DPS probably hasn’t noticed them, or can’t get to them. Meanwhile their targets have a never ending health pool. You will go OOM and probably trip up and miss a heal and this battle will be lost.
Take action!
Windshear their heals… No heals for the enemy.
Flame Shock and Fire totem them. Now they have more to worry about than their DPS’s health.
Tip 12: Share the heals around
Not getting the protective love you expect, nay demand, from your DPS. A few well targeted chain heals will make sure they notice and appreciate you en-mass.
Just remember if you chain heal a party member (vs. Raid member) the chain heal will only go to your nearby party mates. Chain heal someone outside your party and the chain will just in and out of your party as required.
Tip 13: Totems of choice
Grounding. Don’t let them get the 1st magical hit.
Stoneclaw. Useless I hear you say, there is no aggro I’m a BG, there aren’t any NPCs.
Ha! I retort, what about pets!
Yep pets will get distracted. If you can LoS their owner, they won’t realise that Fido is gnawing on a stick rather than a shaman!
Earthbind. Unfortunately this is the same element as Tremor, so you will need to drop it as required.
Enemy FC stealing your flag, your FC getting chased down… Earthbind FTW!
Tremor. Alternatively, if you want to stay in control of the battlefield, don’t get scared, resist the fear!
Sure it pulses, so it might take a second, but it’s a beautiful thing when the gloating fear merchant realizes 1 or 2 seconds later that everyone has turned back to pummel their broken corpse!
Tip 14: Flag runners
Apart from Natures Swiftness and Earth Shield your mobile heals are limited.
So what’s a Resto shaman to do?
Earthbind the enemy to keep them off your FC’s heels and when your FC stops for the inevitable piece of honor farming mid-field, keep them green!
Tip 15: Flag defenders
Ohh the pain, Oh the shame of the poor enemy strike force that encounters a flag defender with healing support. Especially when that healer is also earth binding them, frost shocking them and chain lightning them to toast.
Last night our Mage FC had 2 heals for support, but a bucket load of horde gnawing on his Gnome behind. Enter Resto Chain Healing, Chain Lightning, all singing, all dancing Squidly.
Tip 16: Mid-Fielders
I’m in two minds about healing mid-fielders:
- If they are supporting the cause by preventing Flag Room intrusion or shepherding our FC, heal them.
- If they are honor farming idiots that think that since we are one flag up with only one minute to go… Let them Rez!
Seriously I have now lost 2 WSG (that I remember) because everyone thought it was now safe to honor farm.
Folks it’s only safe to honor farm if our flag is secure… and I mean in our Flag room, not in theirs
Tip 17: Win friends and influence people
- People like you when you keep them alive.
- People like you when you give them the chance to mana up without visiting the spirit healer.
- People will look after you once they know you have their back.
They will even salute you and grats you when you level up or get an achievement.
No one remembers the other 8 DPS, but they will remember the healer!
Tip 18: A tip for battleground survival
Well
Gnomer wants a pocket healer
I was so envious of Evinflo Last night. Imagine being a Mage in a BG with not just the odd heal, but a constant flow, and Earth Shield to boot!
How I envied his need to drink to regain Mana.
How I envied his healer supported flag captures.
So a note to all you healers out there, when you see a Mage in the BG, especially if he is a Gnome by the name of Gnomeaggedon, befriend him, love him, HEAL him!
Gnomer and Out, Squidly and Stout!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/09/18/squidlys-shaman-pvp-tips-1-resto-ftw /
I cannot heal a gnome mage, because they are dirty alliance.
Unless I am on my alliance toons…then I can’t because he’s dirty Oceanic.
/cackle madly
We are talking about running 2 warriors and a druid healer for bgs. That might just be nasty.
Face it… we are just dirty… some would suggest all Gnomes are leper Gnomes… afterall, how many friends do we really have?
I was in a WSG yesterday with me (Resto) and 5 Tree Druids… I ended up DPSing, luckily it’s the same gear and basically the same spellpower… plus I could give myself OP heals.
Wow, I just got my shaman in WSG a few days ago as well… (For gaining honor for the cheap water, and it’s her last chance on the 60-69 BG)
And guess what, she’s a restro as well!
(She is dual spec on restro and elemental)
But being healer in Bg is much more fun, since everyone else is going for the pew pew.
Our FC never die, at least not on my watch…
the earthshield bounds off most of the damage.
A earthbind totem in the tunnel to the room is perfect,
interestingly they don’t look back and remove what’s dragging them…
And the most aggro drawing act – Chain Heal,
on Mid field fighting, (When the flag stealing team is at work). Our little DPSers increased 50% surviviity, a 50-50 duel around two of them, once I came by, all our dpsers had a infinite hp..
I lured some aggro some point by healing too much, and get 4-5 hordie trace me down. since they’ll never kill their counter-part dpser… by then I found ESing myself, and survived quite sometime. And when they’re focusing fire on me, our FC score another hit..
Great tips and a very nice reminder for restro in BG, I am loving it
Ohh Chain Heal…
“Squidly’s Name goes up in lights mid field”
Yer, I am toning that down a little now… LHW may not have the punch, but I attract less punches.
What i found funny this weekend, because I was chain running AB & WSG was I was known.
I was getting greeted on arrival by the rest of me team, and…
Yep, sure enough, greeted by 3-4 Horde as soon as I was in sight… hell, they were chasing me around the mid field.
I mentioned this at one point to the DPS crew… that the Horde just charged right past them, straight to me, before I had dropped a heal…
Gave us plenty of laughs…
I have since traded in my big purple “the healer is here” elephant for something slightly more subtle.. tho I might random mount macro it so they think there are 2 Resto shamans on the field.
I guess the totems are another targeting mechanism…
Lok’tar friend. The only tip I would add is that if you pick up imp ghost wolf, a shaman makes an excellent flag runner themselves. ES on yourself, ghost wolf and earth bind or frost shock as required. It gets harder after 39 once people can use epic mounts, but still an option.
Fikkle
Yeah.. I have been ruing that I spec’d instance/raid resto.
I have tried to run the flag a few times, and managed to get out of the flag room… then I stop to change…. then I get pounced.
But as you say, I am already past the epic mount stage now, tho +40% instant movement speed would give me a reasonable lead.
I have found myself having to be a “battle healer” a lot… soloing inc’s. So I am getting lots of practice with earthbind/frost shock kiting…
I have done more kiting on my shaman than I have ever done on Gnomeaggedon
My significant other likes to run the flag on his shammy.
I should go holy and get into this with my pally, you’re right. It would get me out of the levely-bind I’ve been in with her. Maybe go holy only for the few more levels I need before Outland, then back to ret until I can afford to dual spec. Mmm. Ret/Holy? Ohhh, I’ll miss replenishment though!
7 levels this weekend Rhii…. 7 LEVELS… Battlegrounds!
I got 3 levels on Friday night in the time I would have gotten 1 questing & instancing…
It’s just insane…
I have already set my hearthstone in Outland… madness I tell you… madness
If I’m stepping into a BG, it has to be on my resto shammy. It’s really gratifying when you come up on a DPS who is ready to fall over dead and bring them back while demoralizing an enemy who thought they had won. Most people get really grateful too. It is occasionally frustrating when nobody seems to get that they need to protect their pocket healer, but as you say, when you find a BG buddy or two to get some symbiosis going, it’s a beautiful thing.
Another totem to keep ready is your cleansing totem. It immediately pulses when you put it down, so it’s as good as casting a cure disease/poison. But (unless something has changed) your totems are on a faster GCD than your spells, so if a pesky rogue is simply stacking up the poisons on you, or a DK is racking up diseases, you can spam drop the totem and get yourself clean faster.
Ha!
I was in AV when I saw your comment pop up.. was a little busy at the time… but what did I get whispered to me…
“nice Heals”
Definitely appreciated!
I had a pocket DK… he wanted to farm honor in WSG, I didn’t, but went for the fun… until I saw our FC running off alone. I deserted the DK, helped cap the flag.
The DK was a little hurt, but I told him where he could get honor kills I would help with… EFC!
Seeing this late, but I have always had excellent luck with mage, or warlock battle-buddies. With hex, purge, earthbind and grounding totems on my end, and either massive crowd control and DPS for mages, or chain fears and MOAR DOTS from warlocks, if you are both on the ball, you can do some pretty cool stuff in the battlegrounds.
And Purge is one of the most magnificent spells in the game, imo.
I’m glad you decided to give it a shot and are enjoying the resto PVP!
Hey KC, never too late!
Ohh too true… if you combined the 3 classes it would be an opponents nightmare come true!
Purge… I have been slack with my purges.
I am reasonably on the ball with cleansing, but I must admit I have been focusing too much on my team and not the opponents…
I will amend my focus in future, to help shed some of the weight of buffs of my opponents shoulders
Loving Resto PvP… I’m having so much fun I keep thinking about bringing Gnomeaggedon back to the BGS… but then realise it’s a different ball game when you are squishy dps.
Tbh when it’s just me doing bg pugs, I am not as heavy on the purge/hex/etc. unless I get lucky and there are a bunch of healers, or it’s just some lone resto druid attacking the blacksmith or something.
If I’m running premades with my guild, though, there are usually at least two healers running with me, sometimes more, so I (or the disc priest, or both of us) generally end up as the swing, with focus on spot healing and CC/some damage. It’s situational at best, and really just depends on what the bg demographics look like.
I always wanted to try a mage in PVP. I know they die fast and all, but I thought it would be fun to just hang out until the opposing team had pulled Drek in AV, then run in spamming Arcane Blast and stuff for 1.3 seconds until I died. … I kind of enjoy PVP suicide sometimes, as long as I can do a ton of damage in the process.
Mages are insane fun I PvP. It helps you you are frost so you can tie them up before they hunt you down…
Although with living bomb on multiple targets these days… you could light AV up!
Being on an RP server and mostly leveling alone, I got to 80 as an elemental shammy. Once I got to 80, I dual specced to add resto to heal for our guild in instances. My first foray into PvP was in Wintergrasp as resto. I have definitely been bitten by the PvP bug.
WG and BGs daily, along with joining a 2v2 team. I want to be more efficient tho, my talents are optimized for raids/instances where I am consistently a top healer.
I am looking to trash my elemental spec and replace it with a resto spec optimized for PvP.
Any suggestions?
Hey Lytha,
Funny you should suggest going dual Resto.. I have been thinking the same thing myself.
I don’t have an answer for you straight up, but I have composed a post for Friday arvo, which will be both an answer and a question on this topic.
So if any of you readers have spec suggests, feel free to post them here, or wait till Friday and share your wisdom!
[...] } I got asked a doozy of a question by Lytha about Resto Shaman PvP [...]
sure thing … what you wanna ask?
[...] Squidly’s Shaman PvP Tips #1: Resto FTW! [...]
BTW in the BG stats you listed no one else is straight healing so GREAT JOB UOU KILLED IT MAN
In BGs last night I was heal guarding nodes, distracting until dps could arrive. As soon as I stopped to dps I got in trouble.
Better to heal those spec’d for damage generally and do what I am spec’d for