Healer Priest vs Shaman

[Bolty]

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

[Delc]

I haven't dueled too many heal bot priests, so I will just give you all of the weaknesses of a shaman I can think of.

1) Shared cooldown. All the shocks are on the same cooldown. If they interupt your heal run away, to avoid the melee damage. If they frost shock you to stop the running away, use that to get a heal/smite off. The five to six second window between shocks is free time.
2) Mana. Shocks are about as bad as it gets for mana/dmg. Most shaman also won't have a whole lot of int or regen on their PvP gear.
3) Earth shock only interupts, doesn't silence. Earth shock the mana burn, you can now heal at will, and vice versa.
4) 5 hp totems. Wand, or staff anything will kill em, and they cost a ton of mana to replace.
5) 20 yard range on shocks. Not as big of a deal for a class with no snares, but its noteworthy.
6) Totems don't move. Shaman drops a bunch of totems in one spot, move the fight.
7) Combat style is going to be very spec dependent. If they are elemental you don't need to worry about their melee damage much. If they are enhancement you want to avoid melee at all costs, but their mana bar will be subpar even for a shaman, and their spells will be pretty weak. If they are resto, go get a fresh beer, its gonna be a while. Its usually pretty obvious looking at their gear what their spec is. Sheild + 1 hander = elemental, dual wield or 2 hander = enhancement. If they are wearing the same gear as you then they are resto.
8) Dispel buffs when they come up. Lightning sheild, natures switftness, elemental mastery. Nothing sucks like losing a 3 min cooldown to dispel. Lightning sheild is just free damage for them if you don't get rid of it.

Some other things to keep in mind. DoTs won't kill grounding totem, but they will put it on cooldown. If you can turn it into an endurance fight you will win every time, if its a burst damage fight the shaman is going to win.

The only other advice I have is, spec shadow.:whistling: I've been killed more times than I can count waiting for fear to wear off.

[Tuftears]

We don't want Bolty to spec shadow, we might never get her back out of there!

:lol:

My first and immediate thought was 'ignore the people who are trying to get you to fight one on one and go do something more constructive', but the business about being aware of a shaman's shock timer makes a lot of sense.

[Watto44]

Working the shock timer to your advantage is very important, as is playing whack-a-totem. (Caster classes: remember to level-up your melee skills.:)) I would imagine the main totem to be aware of as a priest would be tremor. Make sure you whack it right before you psychic scream. (Even if you pull the shaman out of his/her totem fort, there's the off chance that you'll fear them back into their totem.) Grounding totem can be dealt with via rank 1 spells or a beating very effectively, since it has a bit of a timer.

I definately like Delc's idea of using mana burn to draw the shock and then flash healing, I would imagine that that's pretty much key in winning these fights. (My druid always loved using healthstone to draw shocks/CS when dueling.:D)

[Treesh]

The two biggest points that Delc made and I'd like to mention again Bolty are to work the shock timer and dispell their buffs, in addition to killing the totems with a quick wand shot. Mogo, even with less than great gear in battlegrounds eats through priests, regardless of spec, if I'm one on one, even the shadow priests I've come across oddly enough. If you're facing a tauren shaman, watch for well-timed warstomps too. Frequently, if I've earthshocked to interrupt a cast and the priest switches schools and starts casting again, a warstomp will buy me that much more time for my cooldowns to run through.

The advice about how they're geared showing the spec is a decent guideline to use, but since two-handed weapons aren't very far into enhancement, you may be facing an enhancement/resto shaman. And Mogo, despite being almost all resto, definitely doesn't wear the same gear as a priest does. The loss in armor doesn't really balance out the extra healing given from nice tasty healy cloth when you know you're going to be getting wailed on in the battlegrounds. Put a nice two-hander in her hands (using herald of woe right now) and I can tear through health pretty quickly. With damage and healing now being increased by 30% of the shaman's intellect (with the full three points), even resto shaman's spells can hurt too, including the silly little fire totems.

Next time we've got a PTR up, Cleoboltra and Mogo should duel, over and over and over.;) My money's on Bolty still, but I'd definitely be willing to give it a shot.:D

[Artega]

1: Frostbrand Weapon is effective as a snare and modest burst DPS. It's not Windfury or Flametongue, but it gets the job done, especially if you don't want to worry about having to waste mana on a Frost Shock.

2: Earth Shock I works just as well as Earth Shock VI, and costs 30 MP base. Elemental and Restoration specs are likely to have solid +INT to benefit from their talents, as well as a decent amount of MP5. Enhancement specs won't have much of either, but they'll just go through you like a blender anyway.

3: Won't work on Shamans with a brain or SpellAlertSCT or a similar mod. Hell, even the Blizzard ECB works; a Shadow spell's cast animation looks much different than a Holy spell's.

4: The Shaman can drop decoy totems to make you waste precious time destroying them or considering to destroy them. Most totems are cheap to replace, especially if you pick up 5/5 Totemic Focus from Restoration.

5: Not much we can do about it, but most Shamans will be in melee range for as long as your Psychic Scream is down, anyway.

6: Won't work against an Elemental Shaman, and won't work quite as effectively against a Restoration Shaman. Elemental Shamans will just chuckle and bombard you with Lightning Bolts, and Restoration Shamans will have extended Totem ranges (and could also just bombard you.) Enhancement Shamans probably won't waste much time or MP on totems since the fight will be over rather quickly, anyway.

7: Restoration and Elemental will both bring out a two-handed weapon, either a staff or two-handed axe/mace if they've gotten some Enhancement in their build. A shield does nothing for you against a caster, unless you absolutely MUST have the extra stats at the cost of extra melee damage output. A Restoration Shaman will always be wearing mail (with perhaps a piece of leather or two) unless it's a duel, where they don't have to worry about physical classes interrupting the duel. You can switch between a staff and heater-and-beater setup in combat; you can't switch armor sets.

8: I generally don't waste mana on Lightning Shield against classes with the capability to dispel it. It's highly unlikely you'll have a chance to dispel Nature's Swiftness since it will likely be part of a macro (e.g. it will be instantly consumed.) You might have a shot at Elemental Mastery if they choose to use it for a Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning, but not if they use it for a Shock.

Additionally, you might not win an endurance fight against a Restoration Shaman. While the loss of Earth Shield will hurt them (it's dispellable and a Priest won't be meleeing anyway), they'll still have superb mana efficiency, solid damage (melee damage is MP-free, remember), and numerous ways to get rid of your longevity abilities. You may also have trouble with Elemental; they also have a large MP pool (for Shammies, anyway), the same melee damage, and only somewhat less effective heals. You'll win an endurance match against an Enhancement spec, but if they get a double WF proc on you, you're dead.

[Mavfin]

Yeah, Bolty...if you run away from my shaman, I'll laugh and fling 1500 point bolts at you. So, damned if you do, damned if you don't.

[LavCat]

Little help?
-Bolty

I suspect Baguette has always been speced much differently than Cleoboltra, but a memorable fight with a shaman led Baguette to her current spec of 17/11/23. The fight was one on one in WSG, premade vs premade. A very long fight in a very long BG.

Normally in WSG Baguette either runs the flag or assists another carrier, and thus does not dress for damage. At the time her offhand was Skull of Impending Doom, and trinkets were Carrot and Insignia of the Alliance. Due to some unwelcome horde interference, she was cut off from her flag carrier. She looked around and saw our flag in the hands (teeth?) of a wolf form shaman heading towards their tunnel. Using mind vision she tracked the shaman in their base and we fought up and down till we had used our potions and were fighting hand to hand on the path that leads up to their roof, basically with no health or mana. It would have been the perfect time for an explosive sheep, but alas, not having one, she lost. (We won the BG however.)

What Baguette did have, and forgot to use, was a healthstone! She has been kicking herself for that ever since.

Baguette has gotten HK's on that shaman, but I don't recall that we have since been one one one. With her respec Baguette went with improved mana burn. It is quite helpful against all mana users, even hunters. Just the other night a mage in FM shoulders turtled her as she ran in support of our flag carrier. The mage then started casting nasty spells. She looted his body pretty quickly (but we lost the BG).

For warlocks Baguette runs with high shadow resistance and remembers not to dispell unstable affliction.

[Artega]

Using mind vision she tracked the shaman in their base and we fought up and down till we had used our potions and were fighting hand to hand on the path that leads up to their roof, basically with no health or mana.

You used both first-person and third-person views in the same sentence. Bravo:blink:

My overall thoughts are this, Bolty:

If you want to excel at PvP, you may have to sacrifice some PvE abilities in order to get some PvP necessities:)

[LavCat]

You used both first-person and third-person views in the same sentence. Bravo :blink:

My overall thoughts are this, Bolty:

If you want to excel at PvP, you may have to sacrifice some PvE abilities in order to get some PvP necessities :)

"We" is plural. I confess I do tend to get involved with my characters. (Other people have suggested we should take our meds.)

One thing I forgot to mention: a shaman can probably purge SW:P, but not before that SW:P has had a chance to trigger Blackout. When Baguette was more into shadow we used to spam SW:P for Shadow Weaving, and also for the chance to stun. With her current build she no longer has Shadow Weaving, but she still likes the chance to stun.

In a recent WSG she grabbed the flag and a shaman tried to stop her. She left the shaman stunned and DOT'ed, with no mana and half health, as she ran off with the flag. Actually in that case Blackout had not procced, so she did it the old fashioned way with Tidal Charm.

I have some questions relating to Baguette's next ten talent points coming with the expansion:

Is Silent Resolve useful in PvP? She currently has three filler points in wands. Would Silent Resolve be a better place to put them?

Vampiric Embrace is a curse. Can shaman purge curses?

Does Darkness add to the shadow damage of Mana Burn? Mana Burn is not a shadow spell but it causes shadow damage.

[Treesh]

One thing I forgot to mention: a shaman can probably purge SW: P

No, shaman can't. They can only remove buffs from hostiles. Pallies can remove debuffs from friendlies.

[Professor Frink]

In a recent WSG she grabbed the flag and a shaman tried to stop her. She left the shaman stunned and DOT'ed, with no mana and half health, as she ran off with the flag. Actually in that case Blackout had not procced, so she did it the old fashioned way with Tidal Charm.

Cool, another tidal charm priest. It was my first trinket, I'm rather sad that it's probably nerfed to uselessness against 70s.

Vampiric Embrace is a curse. Can shaman purge curses?

Somwhere along the line vamp embrace got changed from curse to magic. I don't remember if it qualifies to be eaten by grounding totem.

-- frink

[oldmandennis]

Any hostile spell not from a boss mob usually can be grounded, so I'd be exceptionally surprised if VE didn't count.

[MongoJerry]

One thing to consider is that sometimes the best move is not to fight at all. I do this all the time with paladins. Sure, I could probably beat a paladin with my holy smite build priest, but by the time I did it, whatever important thing that was going on in the match had already happened without me. In effect the fight becomes a draw even if I "win," because both of us were taken out of the fight for the duration. What's more, it might actually be a loss. How? Because taking your example where you're on the enemy's ramp, you're probably intending to escort your flag carrier and most enemy players would be happy to know that they tied up the flag carrier's principle escort healer/dispeller.

Nope, do what I do with paladins or silly shadow priests who try to stop me in that situation: psychic scream them and keep going. You knock them out of position and get continue on escorting and/or dispelling. That's a "win" no matter what the killing blow stats say.

[Artega]

"We" is plural. I confess I do tend to get involved with my characters. (Other people have suggested we should take our meds.)

One thing I forgot to mention: a shaman can probably purge SW:P, but not before that SW:P has had a chance to trigger Blackout. When Baguette was more into shadow we used to spam SW:P for Shadow Weaving, and also for the chance to stun. With her current build she no longer has Shadow Weaving, but she still likes the chance to stun.

In a recent WSG she grabbed the flag and a shaman tried to stop her. She left the shaman stunned and DOT'ed, with no mana and half health, as she ran off with the flag. Actually in that case Blackout had not procced, so she did it the old fashioned way with Tidal Charm.

I have some questions relating to Baguette's next ten talent points coming with the expansion:

Is Silent Resolve useful in PvP? She currently has three filler points in wands. Would Silent Resolve be a better place to put them?

Vampiric Embrace is a curse. Can shaman purge curses?

Does Darkness add to the shadow damage of Mana Burn? Mana Burn is not a shadow spell but it causes shadow damage.

My brain hurts now.

Also, Purge can only be cast on hostile targets; you're probably thinking of the Paladin's Cleanse, which is the exact opposite.

[Artega]

One thing to consider is that sometimes the best move is not to fight at all. I do this all the time with paladins. Sure, I could probably beat a paladin with my holy smite build priest, but by the time I did it, whatever important thing that was going on in the match had already happened without me. In effect the fight becomes a draw even if I "win," because both of us were taken out of the fight for the duration. What's more, it might actually be a loss. How? Because taking your example where you're on the enemy's ramp, you're probably intending to escort your flag carrier and most enemy players would be happy to know that they tied up the flag carrier's principle escort healer/dispeller.

Similar philosophy behind my Warrior and why I've stayed Protection forever. People that are beating on me (and believe me, it's a lot of people, even against other premades) are not beating on my friends, and ANY spell cast at me - whether it's a damage spell or a CC spell - is a spell not cast at a teammate. While many people would think this is a rather stupid way of playing, I actually believe it makes me at least as important as my team's healers and DPS monkeys simply because I am literally tanking part of the Alliance team:)

One of my favorite things to do is take a single friend with me (of any class) and go camp out near the Alliance graveyard in Warsong or a graveyard in AB or AV and do nothing but engage people that rez. You'd be surprised how many people immediately turn and fight back instead of simply CCing or otherwise ignoring us and proceeding towards their objectives. Some consider this cheap or cheesy, but I simply consider it clever manipulation of the human mind:)

[deets]

Short answer: you're going to lose to a competent shaman. Welcome to the rock paper scissors warlock pvp minigame.

Long answer:
It's going to be hard without silence. Even with silence it will be difficult. Enhancement shaman will be very difficult because they have big mana free damage, elemental will be a bit easier. Here are some tips.

1. For melee shaman (enhance). Stay mobile and don't get in melee range. Put runspeed on your boots and keep your distance. Cast sw pain. This does two things. First, you're pulling them out of totem range as a good shaman will probably predrop tremor right as they come up on you. Get them away from that totem. If you have a lead on them, you'll force an impatient shaman to use frost shock to catch you. You now have six seconds of casting against most shaman with a two hander out and five seconds against elemental shaman. Hopefully by then you've run them out of range of their tremor totem and if you're lucky grounding totem as well.

2. Work the global cooldown. With a bit of latency on your side you can PW:S rank 1 wait half a second and then flash heal. If they have typical purge reflex a shaman is not going to be able to catch your flash heal in time.

3. Bait the earthshock, some shaman will bite on any spell you cast such as mind blast or mana burn. If they do, free heal. If not, step out of a healing spell before it completes to try to get them to waste the shock. You now have 5-6 seconds to buy time. You might be able to bait them by hitting hearthstone though this is a lot more effective with druids. You'd be surprised how many shaman will jump at any casting animation.

4. Against elemental shaman, play mana efficiently. Use rank 1 pw:s, rank 1 renew to make them purge away mana and bait their shocks. With luck you'll be able to outlast them.

If you have silence the game changes a bit. Kill the tremor and grounding totem, fear, dot, cast nuke, hit them with silence when fear breaks as they try to heal. Hopefully have enough damage to kill them before they come out of silence.

[Artega]

Short answer: you're going to lose to a competent shaman. Welcome to the rock paper scissors warlock pvp minigame.

Long answer:
It's going to be hard without silence. Even with silence it will be difficult. Enhancement shaman will be very difficult because they have big mana free damage, elemental will be a bit easier. Here are some tips.

1. For melee shaman (enhance). Stay mobile and don't get in melee range. Put runspeed on your boots and keep your distance. Cast sw pain. This does two things. First, you're pulling them out of totem range as a good shaman will probably predrop tremor right as they come up on you. Get them away from that totem. If you have a lead on them, you'll force an impatient shaman to use frost shock to catch you. You now have six seconds of casting against most shaman with a two hander out and five seconds against elemental shaman. Hopefully by then you've run them out of range of their tremor totem and if you're lucky grounding totem as well.

2. Work the global cooldown. With a bit of latency on your side you can PW:S rank 1 wait half a second and then flash heal. If they have typical purge reflex a shaman is not going to be able to catch your flash heal in time.

3. Bait the earthshock, some shaman will bite on any spell you cast such as mind blast or mana burn. If they do, free heal. If not, step out of a healing spell before it completes to try to get them to waste the shock. You now have 5-6 seconds to buy time. You might be able to bait them by hitting hearthstone though this is a lot more effective with druids. You'd be surprised how many shaman will jump at any casting animation.

4. Against elemental shaman, play mana efficiently. Use rank 1 pw:s, rank 1 renew to make them purge away mana and bait their shocks. With luck you'll be able to outlast them.

If you have silence the game changes a bit. Kill the tremor and grounding totem, fear, dot, cast nuke, hit them with silence when fear breaks as they try to heal. Hopefully have enough damage to kill them before they come out of silence.

All solid advice, but Silence has a minimum 15% chance of plain not working on Restoration Shamans, and even if it does work, chances are Nature's Guardian and NS+HW will save them.

[JJJon]

Long time lurker, first time (in a while) poster.

Is this 1v1 or PvP?

if it is a duel, one option is to SW:P and then mind control.

He will either interrupt the mind control (allowing you to heal).
Or he will get MCed and sit there doing no damage to you and allowing the dot slowly tick down his health.

This was a better tactic when MC lasted a full 60 seconds... but you'll want to re-apply pain anyway (and hopefully he will interrupt MC anyway).

I think the CD on shock is 8 seconds (?) like i said, its been a while... but that should allow you to get some healing and possibly damage in.

(and save fear to interrupt his heals).

if he is a resto shaman, you're in for a long fight.