PvP Healing For The PvE Healer

My heart goes out to combat medics.

 The end of the expansion is the best time to capitalize on aspects of the game you don't play often. It could be leveling alts, working on achievements, farming gold, etc. What I want to focus on right now though is PvP. And this isn't going to be a "this is how you do it" article. I just want to point you in the right direction to have a little fun healing in a PvP environment.



Why Should I PvP?

Some people flat out don't like PvP. I can understand that, I wasn't a huge fan either. However, it can be a ton of fun once you get going, and can provide some other benefits:

• Cover gem costs - You can get solid color gems (red/blue/yellow) for only 10k honor each. This is just a couple games, and can save/make you gold while just blowing off some steam.
• Learn your class better - There's a ton of spells that have PvE application, but a large amount of people don't use them. In order to do well in PvP, you need to use everything in your arsenal. Learning to use those utility spells in a bind can have a huge benefit in PvE.
• Learn to handle tough raid damage - There's no threat in PvP. So in a large scale PvP environment, you will find yourself dealing with a large amount of damage on several people. It's great practice for tough raid damage.
• Up your awareness - In PvE, you can memorize boss mechanics and you're done. PvP, you need to constantly be aware of what's going on, and adjust. This can have a huge payoff when you're working on progression content.
• Epeen - There's not a large amount of PvP healers, and often times one good healer can turn the tide of a match or a battle, especially in smaller bgs like Warsong and Arathi.

Ok, So Where Should I Start?

The first thing you are going to want to do is gear up. This is the most frustrating part. If you try to bg or arena without PvP gear, you'll probably end up quite bitter about it. However, it's easier than ever to get quality PvP gear without feeling like you're powerless. The biggest thing to remember here is that stats aren't really important, so your 277 helm is NOT better than the 232 PvP one. People like to beat up healers, and a little resilience goes a long way.

Badges - The Furious gear you can buy with Triumph Emblems from heroics is 2 seasons old. This does NOT make it useless. It's actually still great for bgs. You can get 5 pieces of PvP gear without ever stepping foot into a battleground or arena. Alternatively, if you have spare frost emblems, you can spring for Relentless gear. This is last season's and is well worth not buying primordial saronite for awhile. It's high quality gear, and easy to get.

Honor - While you can buy the Furious chest/helm/shoulders/pants/gloves with honor, I don't recommend it. The first thing you want to spend honor on is the off set pieces, such as the trinkets, belt, boots, rings, neck, etc. They cost quite a bit of honor, so don't use honor on something you can get with badges from heroics. Farming badges without PvP gear is much less frustrating than farming honor in PvE gear.

Arena Points - Even if you hate arena, I really recommend buying a 5v5 team charter. You get the same amount of arena points at 1 rating as you do at 1500, and that's 344 arena points per week. It's fairly simple to just go in and lose 10 games per week for the extra points. Just spam trade chat with "LFM 10 5's for points" and you should find a few people fairly quickly. While you won't have the rating requirements to buy current season gear doing this, last season (Relentless, same you buy with frost emblems) can be bought with a mix of arena points and a small amount of honor. This is a very simple way to get good gear.

Vault of Archavon - It should go without saying that this is a simple way to get PvP gear. Just make sure you run both 10 and 25 each week, and try to find a class run of 10 instead of a random mix. It will decrease the chance of you losing the gear to someone else.

Wintergrasp - There is a cape, and shoulders that are purchasable with Wintergrasp Marks of Honor. You get these from doing WG. If you lose, you get one. If you win, it depends on your rank, and you can get up to 3 if you're a First Lieutenant. I wouldn't waste these marks on anything but the cape and shoulders though. It's also worth noting that the weekly Wintergrasp quests have an honor payout close to 25k. An easy 25k honor every week is pretty nice. If your faction is the minority on your server, this will be a lot harder.

Talent And Glyph For PvP

Just gear won't usually cut it. Talents and glyphs matter. Especially with dual specs out, it's pretty easy to build yourself a PvP spec. There are a large amount of survival talents that can really ease the frustration of constant deaths. As far as what spec to choose...there's quite a bit of flexibility here. Play with it, and see what fits your playstyle. On my Paladin, I use a different spec for every bracket of arena, and any of those specs, plus a couple others, work great for bgs. If you're just looking for a spec to copy, Google is your friend. Arena Junkies is also a good resource site for talents and some tips and tricks.

Don't forgo glyphs either. They are immensely helpful. A couple examples of glyphs that can keep you alive are Glyph of Salvation for Paladins, and Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem for Shaman. The Stoneclaw Totem glyph is an especially good example, as it's a large amount of a Shaman's PvP survivability. It doesn't need to be down for the shield to be up. You drop the totem, the shield goes up, and you can drop another.

Battleground Specific Tips

•  Keep your cool - Try not to get mad if you lose. Yes, you're there to win, but more importantly you're there to have fun and heal. Just do your best, keep your team alive, and try to keep light spirits about it. You'll be a lot happier when you stop paining every loss. If you're losing a lot of randoms, try queuing for a specific bg that your faction tends to win for a game or two, or take a 5 minute break between games to try to make sure you don't have any of the same people in your group.
• Queue with friends - As a healer, it's nice to have someone to pocket heal. Queuing up with a few friends or guildies makes things a lot more fun.
• Be vocal in BG chat - Especially in Arathi, people are going to like to leave you alone to defend a base. This sucks. If you're the only one defending a base, call out that you need help. Also, calling out incoming attackers helps a lot too.
• Stand back - Don't stand right in the middle of the action. Try to stand back, or even hide a little.

Arena Specific Tips

• 90% of Arena is experience - REMEMBER THIS. Don't be discouraged if you aren't doing very well. Just try to learn from every game, and apply what you learn. Learning how to beat different comps takes some time, so be patient. You will lose a lot. That's ok, everyone does when they start out.
• Find good teammates - This can be taken a few ways. You can find teammates who are patient, but experience arena veterans and can help you learn, or you can find teammates that have no experience either but you have good synergy with. Don't try to jump right into a high rated team with seasoned PvPers if they don't know you're a little wet behind the ears still. You can find patient, skilled PvPers, but it can be difficult. So take your time in your search.
• Synergy is key - Working well with your teammates, and using a good composition are both important. Research what comps are doing well, and try to run that. Spend some time doing things with your teammates, whether it be arena or bgs, and try to get used to eachothers playstyles.
• Keybind, macro, mod - While some people prefer the vanilla ui in PvP, for most of us it won't cut it. I'll have more on mods below, and there's plenty of resources for macros out there.
• Learn other classes - Knowing who has what is invaluable. Do a little research on other classes. Learn their abilities, so you can counter them. It's especially important to know the classes of your teammates. If you don't know what they can do, you won't have good synergy.
• Be vocal - Call every little thing that happens on vent. Target swaps, when you pop cds, when a big heal is coming so they don't move out of LoS, etc. Your team should react accordingly. Vent is there, use it.

There's a lot more that can be said, as arena is a cruel mistress. Just remember that it's mostly experience, try not to get discouraged, and do some homework on it and you'll be fine.

PvP Addons

As for raid frames, I still use Vuhdo in PvP, but I keep a second bar of mouseovers for things like Wintergrasp, where not everyone is in my group. I don't know if it's necessarily the best PvP raid frames, but I've enjoyed it, and it allows me to customize debuffs well so it's worked for me. Whatever works best for you here is probably the better option.


Power Auras - Get it. Learn it. Love it. It's endless what you can do with this. I have it set to play a noise and put a big icon on my screen when I get interrupted or silenced, as well as about 20 other notifications. The possibilities here are endless.

Gladius - This is the standard arena enemy raid frame. It allows click bindings and is pretty customizable.

Arena Historian - Keeps track of your matches. What comps and teams you beat often/lose to is all recorded, so you can analyze it and adjust.


Interrupt Bar - While this mod isn't perfect, it works alright. It basically lets you know when enemy interrupts are on cd so it's safe to cast.

Tidy Plates - These nameplates are great. They show your debuffs above the enemy's nameplate so you can track it, as well as a plethora of other options. Nameplates are awesome in PvP, and this little tool adds quite a bit to the table.


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PvP is a great way to blow off some steam and kill some time. Now that the end of the expansion is here, it really is the best time to give it a try. Who knows? You might like it.

/bubblehearth