Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Sigh... an alliance healer's plight in BGs

While we've had some guildies away on hopefully temporary breaks, I've been doing more and more battlegrounds. I figure its a good way to get some pretty good gear. Yesterday alone I got almost 3000 honor! But that was a little much.

Im currently going for an upgrade on my crappy bracers. They'll cost me 11,794 honor points and 20 marks from Warsong Gulch. I need about 3,000 more honor points to get them.

See crappy current bracers: [Goldenvine Wraps]

See improved future bracers: [Vindicator's Kodohide Bracers]

Ok, so I'm still relatively new to battlegrounds. Um, where are the other alliance healers? Often times I am seemingly the only healer! Can I also just vent that the Horde seem to be really good at figuring out I am a healer, tracking me down, and taking down my ass? I was in a BG last night when someone in the group asked why alliance healers suck in battlegrounds. And I asked why alliance sucks at protecting their healers in battlegrounds. No but seriously, is it just that alliance healers don't do BGs?

6 comments:

  1. I don't have any personal experience as a healer in the BGs, but I'd guess it's pretty tough for them... They're hard to defend because aggro rules don't apply, so you just have to burn down the attacker as fast as possible and hope they live.

    When I'm in the BG my first target is almost always the healer, gotta stop em from healing everyone else and making the fight longer, and they usually go down pretty quickly. :)

    Chorius - Cenarius

    ReplyDelete
  2. Due to time constraints (and until recently having always been on a US timezone server when I live in Australia), I've pvp'd a fair bit since last Christmas as a BG healer (Horde resto shammy and Horde resto druid).

    A few things I've learnt over the last 12 months:
    1. A healer is always the first target for any person who isn't braindead.
    2. You will die (a lot).
    3. In WSG, AB and EoTS, healing is no fun at all (you will be focus fired and be shutdown).
    4. If you want honour, do AV. You have another 10-20 people to hide in the middle of. As a druid, you can pop hots etc with no real visible "I'm a healer, please come and kill me now". Real pain is when a shammy lobs chain heal spam around and every opponent follows the beams of light back to you.
    5. Your team will ignore you and leave you to die except to spam things like "Heal me noob" or "where are the healers?" Or my favourite "HAEL MEH" while I'm both healing them and being pounded into the ground by a rogue, warrior and hunter.

    In saying that, a healer can make a huge difference in a BG and it can be fun in a warped type of way. I would suggest doing the BG daily quest, enough WSG to get 30 tokens and then AV.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I sometimes wonder if the opposing side isn't looking at the battleground leader board and seeing who has the highest healing total so they can make a /target macro. >.< This can be incredibly frustrating, especially in the battlegrounds with areas that need to be guarded. I find that more often it's DPS that will rush off, abandoning a healing-specced teammate to "guard" while they seek more glorious pursuits. It was this attitude that lead me to swear off of EotS. In AB it isn't quite as bad because there's no silly flag for Alliance to use as a means to "grind out Honor" on Hordies. /sigh

    Unfortunately, Alliance just doesn't do as well in Battlegrounds (Blue even confirmed this recently, though they didn't seem to feel that there was any reason to try to do something about it). Unless you enjoy PvP for the sake of PvP, I would shy clear of it and look for other outlets for self-improvement. That or stick to AV where healing is a role that gains more support from your allies.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I do BG with my paladin, but I hate to heal always, due to alliance seriously sucks at protecting their healers.

    If you notice how horde play, once anyone targeting their healer(s), the person will be focus fire immediately. But look at alliance, I died n number of times, none of the alliance people come and save me, while I'm wasting my efforts healing them.

    If you want to PvP as healer, go horde. :( Sad but you'll enjoy more.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I am playing a resto druid (currently^^) and I do quite a few BGs lately. I love healing in battle grounds because even when skilled feral I never managed to kill anyone. But I can keep people alive. And: players are not quite as tough as some heroic mobs ... and most do a lot less damage :)

    Warsong is the toughest BG as a healer I find because there are so few people. It also does lend itself to premade groups. Get a few guildies to got with you. The good thing is that you do not need a full group.

    Whenever I promise to just heal someone in exchange for some protection, I find willing helpers. The nice thing is when people notice: "Geez I have never stood so long against so many hordies before, I killed five of them! Who healed me?"

    I always try to either carry the flag or - preferably - accompany the flag carrier in Warsong. We did a few guild games yesterday and it worked surprisingly well. Ride down retrieve flag, heal heal heal.

    Anyway ... heal yourself ...stay alive. Buy time for your team mates.

    I stay back as far as I can, try to remain somewhere far away from the fray. It helps that my unit frames show who is in reach of my heals.

    A new favorite of mine is Barkskin. I finally survive the first onslaught of those stun-happy rogues or warriors.

    I also use instant root a lot, even though many classes can get out of them way too often it seems.

    Oh and you will survive much longer with some pvp gear on! I am hoping that today I got enough honor for the S1 shoulders, because the Mantle of Autumn I am currently wearing just screams "Healer here, kill me please!"

    With some resilience and the added stamina and armor on the pvp items you will have a much better chance (and I will too!) to survive the attacks of the horde till help arrives.

    So keep going and don't get frustrated some days the horde is stronger, but some days the alliance wins.

    ReplyDelete