01-09-2007, 08:44 PM
Little help?
For those of you who know me, you know my main is a hardcore healing Priest. I enjoy the healing game and have always used PvE-oriented healing specs. As more dedicated PvP'ers know, the best time for such Priests was early on before itemization started favoring offense more over defense; for example, the damage absorption of Power Word: Shield at 942 damage was godly in March 2005. Now, that can easily be knocked out by one shot from any DPS class.
What pleasantly surprised me over time though was how good a PvE-oriented healing spec can be in PvP. With only one talent point really spent in any kind of "PvP talent," Martyrdom, Cleoboltra does quite well in PvP and duels. The key is always to play to your character's strengths, something that many healers will abandon when PvP'ing and then get frustrated.
Not having spent the incredible hours in the old PvP system to get above Knight-Captain despite over 20,000 HKs, I never accumulated any epic PvP gear. Cleoboltra PvPs in 7/8 Transcendence gear, along with Faith boots, Lok'Amir, Master Dragonslayer's Orb, Essence Gatherer, Nozdormu exalted ring, Amulet of the Shifting Sands (AQ20 reward), and a DPS ring from BWL (can't recall at the moment).
Throughout my dueling/PvP career I've faced off against every class/build out there and done remarkably well, except Warlocks (who most people struggle with), and one other class. A well-played Warlock, with time to prepare for their opponent, is just brutal.
As I mentioned before, it's all about playing to the strengths of your class and spec. I'm a pure healer. It sounds ironic, but I literally heal my enemies to death. Instead of uselessly trying to blow huge chunks of my mana pool with wimpy mind blasts, smites, and lolholyfire I will typically protect my mana pool, play defensively, use Shadow Word: Pain extensively, and whittle my enemy down to death as they become increasingly frustrated that they can't take me down. To kill me, you either must do over 5,000 damage in 3-4 seconds (which sadly, some characters can actually do), or a grand total of 40,000-50,000 damage to get me to run out of mana.
Either that, or you roll a Shaman.
And that's the purpose of this post. How does a healing/PvE spec'ed Priest beat a Shaman? I've been PvP'ing for years now and I've never been able to grasp it. I've beaten a few Shamans, yes, but that's because they, well, sucked. If they're at all competent, I don't have a chance.
Probably my lowest point came in a WSG a few months ago where, in a 1 on 1 situation against a Shaman on the Alliance ramp, he actually did a /sleep midway through, let me get in a few casts of Mind Blast/Smite for free, and then got up and blew me away, /laughing. He had good gear, but so did I. I literally couldn't do anything against him and he *knew* it.
Much like how a good Warlock with a Felhound turns me into a mess of gibbering goo because I:
1) Can't use PW:S (Felhound eats it)
2) Can't use Renew (Felhound eats it)
3) Can't use SW:P (Felhound eats it)
4) Can rarely fear both the Felhound and the Warlock (due to high Shadow Resistance)
5) Can't get off many long-casting spells (due to Spell Lock)
6) Am thus basically reduced to two spells, Flash Heal and Smite, and there's too many hit points to take down before I'm reamed...
The Shaman treats me equally nastily:
1) Can't use PW:S (Shaman purges it)
2) Can't use Renew (Shaman purges it)
3) All my buffs get purged.
4) His DPS far outweighs mine.
5) If he has any brains whatsoever, he shocks me when I go to heal.
6) If I have any brains whatsoever, I fear him when he goes to heal - but I can only do that once every 30 seconds.
7) He then heals himself, me being powerless to stop him. I don't have the burst DPS to kill him while feared, or else my measly damage breaks the fear early anyway.
8) I finally get to go to heal myself again, and I get shocked again.
9) Spells like Mana burn take too long - and can either get shocked off or Grounding Totem'ed.
It basically comes down to the fact that he can nullify my strongest asset - the ability to heal myself via Renew and Flash Heal - while I can't do a thing to stop him from doing the same. Mana Burn seems to be the way to go, but it takes too damn long to cast, and a really good Shaman can lay down a Grounding Totem or shock me to stop it from getting off. And of course since Mana Burn doesn't scale at all, its effect on the massively improved mana pools from raiding gear gets smaller and smaller as time goes on.
There's only two classes where I know that if I play against a decent player of that class, I have no chance, and that's Warlock and Shaman. Warlocks I just accept, I've dueled so many of them and realize there just isn't a way to beat a class that can nullify every one of my best dueling spells while often being highly resistant to fear. As for Shamans, being Alliance, I don't get to practice against them as much outside of Ironforge and get steamrolled by them quite a bit in Battlegrounds.
So, I'm looking for advice. Let's say you were a Shaman. How could I beat you? Remember, no Blackout, no Mind Flay, no Silence - my only way to stop you from casting is a fear that can be cast every 30 seconds. My advantages over you include massive healing power and mana regen which typically allows me to just outlast the hell out of *every* other class/spec (yeah, even Mortal Strike warriors).
-Bolty
For those of you who know me, you know my main is a hardcore healing Priest. I enjoy the healing game and have always used PvE-oriented healing specs. As more dedicated PvP'ers know, the best time for such Priests was early on before itemization started favoring offense more over defense; for example, the damage absorption of Power Word: Shield at 942 damage was godly in March 2005. Now, that can easily be knocked out by one shot from any DPS class.
What pleasantly surprised me over time though was how good a PvE-oriented healing spec can be in PvP. With only one talent point really spent in any kind of "PvP talent," Martyrdom, Cleoboltra does quite well in PvP and duels. The key is always to play to your character's strengths, something that many healers will abandon when PvP'ing and then get frustrated.
Not having spent the incredible hours in the old PvP system to get above Knight-Captain despite over 20,000 HKs, I never accumulated any epic PvP gear. Cleoboltra PvPs in 7/8 Transcendence gear, along with Faith boots, Lok'Amir, Master Dragonslayer's Orb, Essence Gatherer, Nozdormu exalted ring, Amulet of the Shifting Sands (AQ20 reward), and a DPS ring from BWL (can't recall at the moment).
Throughout my dueling/PvP career I've faced off against every class/build out there and done remarkably well, except Warlocks (who most people struggle with), and one other class. A well-played Warlock, with time to prepare for their opponent, is just brutal.
As I mentioned before, it's all about playing to the strengths of your class and spec. I'm a pure healer. It sounds ironic, but I literally heal my enemies to death. Instead of uselessly trying to blow huge chunks of my mana pool with wimpy mind blasts, smites, and lolholyfire I will typically protect my mana pool, play defensively, use Shadow Word: Pain extensively, and whittle my enemy down to death as they become increasingly frustrated that they can't take me down. To kill me, you either must do over 5,000 damage in 3-4 seconds (which sadly, some characters can actually do), or a grand total of 40,000-50,000 damage to get me to run out of mana.
Either that, or you roll a Shaman.
And that's the purpose of this post. How does a healing/PvE spec'ed Priest beat a Shaman? I've been PvP'ing for years now and I've never been able to grasp it. I've beaten a few Shamans, yes, but that's because they, well, sucked. If they're at all competent, I don't have a chance.
Probably my lowest point came in a WSG a few months ago where, in a 1 on 1 situation against a Shaman on the Alliance ramp, he actually did a /sleep midway through, let me get in a few casts of Mind Blast/Smite for free, and then got up and blew me away, /laughing. He had good gear, but so did I. I literally couldn't do anything against him and he *knew* it.
Much like how a good Warlock with a Felhound turns me into a mess of gibbering goo because I:
1) Can't use PW:S (Felhound eats it)
2) Can't use Renew (Felhound eats it)
3) Can't use SW:P (Felhound eats it)
4) Can rarely fear both the Felhound and the Warlock (due to high Shadow Resistance)
5) Can't get off many long-casting spells (due to Spell Lock)
6) Am thus basically reduced to two spells, Flash Heal and Smite, and there's too many hit points to take down before I'm reamed...
The Shaman treats me equally nastily:
1) Can't use PW:S (Shaman purges it)
2) Can't use Renew (Shaman purges it)
3) All my buffs get purged.
4) His DPS far outweighs mine.
5) If he has any brains whatsoever, he shocks me when I go to heal.
6) If I have any brains whatsoever, I fear him when he goes to heal - but I can only do that once every 30 seconds.
7) He then heals himself, me being powerless to stop him. I don't have the burst DPS to kill him while feared, or else my measly damage breaks the fear early anyway.
8) I finally get to go to heal myself again, and I get shocked again.
9) Spells like Mana burn take too long - and can either get shocked off or Grounding Totem'ed.
It basically comes down to the fact that he can nullify my strongest asset - the ability to heal myself via Renew and Flash Heal - while I can't do a thing to stop him from doing the same. Mana Burn seems to be the way to go, but it takes too damn long to cast, and a really good Shaman can lay down a Grounding Totem or shock me to stop it from getting off. And of course since Mana Burn doesn't scale at all, its effect on the massively improved mana pools from raiding gear gets smaller and smaller as time goes on.
There's only two classes where I know that if I play against a decent player of that class, I have no chance, and that's Warlock and Shaman. Warlocks I just accept, I've dueled so many of them and realize there just isn't a way to beat a class that can nullify every one of my best dueling spells while often being highly resistant to fear. As for Shamans, being Alliance, I don't get to practice against them as much outside of Ironforge and get steamrolled by them quite a bit in Battlegrounds.
So, I'm looking for advice. Let's say you were a Shaman. How could I beat you? Remember, no Blackout, no Mind Flay, no Silence - my only way to stop you from casting is a fear that can be cast every 30 seconds. My advantages over you include massive healing power and mana regen which typically allows me to just outlast the hell out of *every* other class/spec (yeah, even Mortal Strike warriors).
-Bolty
Quote:Considering the mods here are generally liberals who seem to have a soft spot for fascism and white supremacy (despite them saying otherwise), me being perma-banned at some point is probably not out of the question.