How to not get caught out as a healer?

PVP Battlegrounds
1

Bored, I decided to queue up for a BG on my Holy Paladin. Bear in mind, I don’t do a lot of BG’s. I do quite a bit of wPvP, but most of the time the objective is just to kill the enemy.

I ended up getting WSG. Okay okay, this should be easy. The tank is 720k demonhunter. I view myself a decent healer. This shouldn’t be too terrible. It should be hard to kill us. What innocence.

Right as we are about to enter the horde tunnel I get sapped. Oh explicit I think. The rest of my team continues up the tunnel leaving me behind. I finally leave sap only to have a rogue and a warlock on me. Here I am constantly being slowed, and stunned, constantly having to stop to heal myself as I waddle my way up.

Only half way through I realize the tank picked up the flag, but rather than coming back down the tunnel where I could heal him and the rest of the team could save me, they decided to take the other exit, out the front door and down the ramp to the left. So I turn around, and start heading back down, while still being stunned, and slowed, while having to heal myself through a rogue and a warlock attacking me.

By the time I reach the bottom of the tunnel the enemy must have caught up without FC as he died. A few seconds later more horde come and finish me off.

“GG. No heals!” comes the Demon Hunter tank.

I rez up, rejoin the tank as he is entering the horde tunnel again. We get to the flag room only for there to be some pretty heavy resistance. I instantly start getting focused. Demon hunter picks up flag and starts heading down tunnel. I am having to focus heal myself, stopping to flash heal myself, while he gets further and further ahead. I end up dying. Followed later by him as he met with enemy forces at the bottom of the tunnel.

“You are telling me I out ranged the holy paladin? How is that possible? They have how many movement abilities? Divine steed?”

After this the horde were two flags up and the entire thing basically devolved into the DH tank arguing with another over whose PvP rating was bigger.

I can’t help but feel I screwed up. Granted I feel as though my team wasn’t doing a good job peeling for me, so I could do my job and heal the tank. As well I feel the tank wasn’t doing a good job making sure I was with him to begin with.

When I got sapped initially there, should I have blown my medallion rather than let my team get further away? I feel this would have opened me up even further for more CC later when it might have been more needed.

It was just not a very good BG for me. I spent most of it just being singled out and focus targetted while the FC blamed me for not staying with them. Is that normal?

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Yup.

10char

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If you run across good teams who decide to focus you and your team won’t peel, you will have the experience you just had . It’s not on you.

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It’s a team game. It takes a team.

Having said that, there are (always) things you could do better.

In your first tunnel story, if I got sapped at the bottom the tunnel I’d probably sit it and then see how my FC went. If he picked up the flag and made some distance, meet him outside and bop/freedom/HoJ your way out. Paladins are slippery as hell. If he met resistance in the flag room you could meet him using similar means. Be offensive with your CDs. You’re not ‘a healer’ you’re a class that can heal, as well as other things.

DH are notorious for ranging healers and everyone else due to their insane mobility and leap and glide and all that crap so it’s a bit on him to have some awareness of the rest of the game too.

In closing, always blame yourself. You’ll get better that way. Think a few steps ahead.

1 Like
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I had a rogue who went out of his way to punish people who sat on me and it made a huge difference… but it’s rare to get people like that.

Sadly it’s easier to join with a friend and healbot them.

Also the person above has a point, always best to be ahead of your tank so if you eat a cc you aren’t chasing them. (Don’t put ur self in a bad position if the other team is ahead though, use los to help).

1 Like
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Sounds like you were trying to follow the FC around like it was a dungeon or something. You need to be more proactive with your positioning.

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Sounds like just general inexperience and poor situational awareness on the part of your team and in particular your FC. Also, like me, you’re Alliance, so there’s that…, :confounded: :sob:

1st situation - Your teammates should have noticed the sap esp. the ones running right by you and if they were really wanted to be helpful at least 1 stayed behind to try and flush the rogue out. It doesn’t take the full 10 man team to grab the flag at the start esp when it’s usually zerg v zerg in typical pug WSG.

Knowing where your healer is is critical to running flags. VDH should have realized where you were and come to meet you or called out his route running in chat so you could meet him.

In some cases when I’m running the flag on this toon I sometimes knowingly outrange my healer too but only when I think the risk is worth it or I have no other choice, (ie., I see my healer is dead so I make a beeline for our GY; or enemy team returns their flag and we return ours and I make a quick pickup, I know the enemy team is either all in our base or all in their base so the midfield should be open). In that situation though that you just described with 1) you guys are super close to the Horde base and 2) right at the start of the game meaning it’s likely the initial enemy zergy death bio-ball is still grouped up, it is very dangerous to try and chance it.

As for whether or not to trinket the opening sap in that case I think it was fine to save it. Rogue could have just re-sapped or blind/sap and you’re back to square one. Some games it just be like that sometimes … =\

I haven’t done resto on this toon really in awhile but one tactic you can try esp if you know a mobile tank is FC’ing for you is waiting in midfield (near the tunnel entrance, ironically , :sweat_smile:) rather than going in the flag room at the start. In the vast majority of pug WSG (or even TP) there is no defense at the start with both teams zerging across mid. Stay at mid; heal your team and help them win the first teamfight. When the FC comes out you’ll be right there to meet them and even if there is defense in the flag room a mobile tank should be able to get it out and survive well enough to meet you at mid.

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Even when they’re the most healed player in the instance they still say it :roll_eyes:

And they assume your abilities dont have CDs. Ignore them :slight_smile:

Save your trinket if Sapped unless you know their Blind is on CD and the situation is critical.

From experience there are more bad FC runners than every other role combined, not just Tanks, but anyone who gets a flag. They seem to have no situational awareness and panic when they get trained.

Announce in chat before the gates open that if anyone has a the Flag, to keep an eye out on you and any other healer… and hope they’ll remember when the time comes :slight_smile:

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Your peoples should be peeling for you, if someone is on my healer I am on their buns because even tickling the person attacking the healer helps the healer a crapton.

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Since players aren’t saying it, that tank was bad. It’s 100% his fault you got picked off.

If they were a good player they would of protected you, even if it cost a chance at the flag. Don’t take it personally when it happens.

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11

For me, its more fun to play Ret than Holy in BG’s. Rogues love nothing more than ruining your day. Better to play DPS so you can shove that big sword up their butt.

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You need experience. And that’s about the bottomline. If you think you’re going to run a BG or two and suddenly be good, you have another thing coming.

Get the addon “Saysapped”. As soon as you get sapped it will say /s Sapped. At least you won’t have to type it and oblivious teammates around you might suddenly help you.

Honestly, this is why I like to team fight mid now. Everyone should just fight it out. And if the FC needs help, then you peel out of mid to help. I’ve gotten so I at least try to get everyone to fight mid in the beginning.

With experience, you’ll know what to do during what circumstance and it will become second nature. Also, put instance chat in another window so you don’t see it. Sometimes I have to do that for my sanity because anyone that has seen me in a random knows that I have quite a toxic mouth on me and if you say anything to me I will chew you out.

But anyway, do more and you’ll get better. Also watch videos. And read tutorials on your class in pvp. Your talents might be wrong. I don’t know, I’ve never played Holypal in pvp.

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Well you are Alliance. That is one thing. Another is a lot of people who queue into random bgs are there to: pad meters, not follow the objectives, just kill other players

So unless you’re joining as a group in a party of 5. Expect it to be very disorganized with a lot of players you can’t depend on

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On 10 man CTF maps you are more valueable healing your team fighting in mid so they can kill everyone and put them back in the graveyard/return the flag. Bad players have this obsession with crying about ‘fighting on roads’ even though there’s no road.

You can’t keep up with a VDH even if you weren’t attacked, especially not dismounted in the base like you were.

Hang around mid with your team, wait for the VDH to leap down into mid, keep him healed as he gets most of the way across, and then let him sprint up the tunnel.

If he can’t do that as VDH he is bad and it’s not your fault he dies.

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So the general consensus I seem to be getting is, don’t even try to follow the FC into the Horde base. Especially a Demon hunter. Instead I should stay mid and meet him outside the horde base base after he has completed his mission of picking up the flag.

I guess I fell into the noob thinking of “Don’t fight mid”, but in a CTA map, fighting and controlling the middle so your flag carrier can be safely escorted and the enemy flag carrier can be easily stop does have some value.

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In Random BG’s healers need a macro “Help I’m getting beat up and can’t heal.” Focus your team on why they’re not getting healed and they need to help you.

Especially in a BG where a Rogue has made you his mission.

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Yeah, pretty much. It’s rare for teams to defend flag right off the bat so helping with the team fight in mid at the start is a lot more important.

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Yes, it’s normal. All I play are healers and doesn’t matter which class I am on, the story is the same. Most players just have poor situational awareness and tunnel vision. You basically learn to fend for yourself and not expect help. Sad but true. Healers are always the scapegoat if they die/lose. >.<

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Short version:

I met a demon hunter and he was an idiot.

Us too bud, us too.

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TBF, it sounds like I was also an idiot by trying to treat it like a Dungeon and stay within 40 yds of him rather than staying mid and helping us win any fight there so we can safely escort him to the base.