One of the most constant complaints I’ve heard from World of Warcraft players regarding Battlegrounds is that they can never get healers to heal them. My main happens to be a 60 priest, holy-specced with primarily healing/int/spell crit gear, so on those occasions when I go into BG, my aim is to heal, shield the flag-carrier, and so on.
However, I’ve found it nearly impossible to do so. Why? Because in BG, unless you go in with a regular group, most people play with an every-man-for-himself attitude. When I heal and shield people, my opponents immediately recognize me as a threat and try to kill me. If I’m healing others then I’m not killing the folks attacking me. So if no one else stops to protect me (which, believe me–they don’t), I’m left with one simple choice: concentrate on killing my opponents and have a chance to live, OR try to heal my allies and end up dying–which means I can’t heal them anyway. Put into those terms, perhaps you can see why so many priests end up focusing on killing rather than healing–they simply have no choice.
How can you get a priest or other healer to protect you and/or others? Simple, really. Talk to a priest that joins your battleground and make sure to get into a party with them if they’re amenable. Make a deal with them–you’ll do your best to protect them from attack if they’ll concentrate on healing and protecting you and your allies. Sure, some priests specced shadow who just don’t care about healing or playing well with others won’t want to go along with this, but you’ll make some good friends by trying this, and this kind of teamwork will definitely help your game. Just make sure that there really is one player dedicated to protecting the healer at all costs–otherwise that healer won’t be able to do much to help the rest of you!
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Yeah, this is prevalent.
However, it works both ways. A lot of healers complain that they *ARE* in fact healing, just look at their mana!
This makes me want to write a post about healing in organized raid groups. It’s not so much better then, either. Particularly with a group relatively new to pvp.
The biggest impairment to efficient healing is lack of healers. The second biggest is dual-role healers.
Example: I’ll be pounding on an enemy healer, trying to keep the opponent away from our flag in AB. I have half a dozen opponents pounding on me at the same time. Finally, a druid shows up, dismounts. My health is in the red. I have perhaps three seconds to live.
What happens next? In 90% of the scenarios I’ve experienced with pugs, newer players, inexperienced players, and just mindless drones, what I will see is the druid casting something, and BAM — Moonfire on some previously untouched warrior.
WHA!???!?!?
Please!!!! Oy. I mean, sometimes, they actually hit my target and do a modicum of damage. However do they fail to realize that if I die, every opponent there will turn and kill the druid??? That’s what happens. Every time.
I think what’s lacking in these pvp games is a sense of party balance, and proper role playing. I don’t mean yarring like a pirate role playing. I mean understanding your class and how it works in a party, and with specific other classes.
I know I can’t jump to the healer’s rescue every time (quite often, I’m too busy keeping the roaches off the flag, itself), but with even a minimal amount of coordination and *paying attention*, two dead allies and no dead enemies could turn into two dead allies and three or four dead enemies. That’s a bargain I’d die for.
-Psy
I totally agree about the teamwork. That’s part of why I think you need to find someone of a complementary class and set up a “deal” right from the start (obviously it’s best if you have someone you pvp with regularly and can develop good teamwork skills with, but you can’t guarantee that). If you establish your roles straight off, maybe people will be more likely to do what they need to do. Not always… there’ll always be chuds who do foolish things (ALWAYS… sigh). But it might help.
What happens next? In 90% of the scenarios I’ve experienced with pugs, newer players, inexperienced players, and just mindless drones, what I will see is the druid casting something…
As a resto druid, I was expecting you to say “Nature’s Swiftness then Healing Touch”. Ah, well. 🙂
It all comes down to good raid organisation. I was in a winning AB raid last night that put myself (resto druid) on Blacksmith defence with a Warrior and a Pally, all in the same party. I could concentrate on healing them, and still get CPs, they could fight and get healed, and they protected me.
Every single time the Horde assaulted the BS, we were able to hold them off until the mobile party arrived.
Every single time the Horde assaulted the BS, we were able to hold them off until the mobile party arrived.
And that’s what happens when you get a team of healers/non-healers that all understand the concept of mutually protecting each other. Now if we could just get more folks to “get it”. 😉