How to survive in arena as Resto Shaman?

[Vakna]

Me and my friend are currently doing 2's to cap every week, we manage it okay and even got our 1550 achievement this week (i know, we aren't pro!). But I'm starting to feel like I'm just becoming a liability to the team. I can't seem to survive any major burst no matter what I do - for example a decent rogue is able to solo me without concern for his partner, trinket one of his stuns and he just piles on another then dishes out 180k crits one after the other like it's nothing. Or boomkins with the vortex and solar beam combo. Combine all that with boomkin healing nearly as much as a resto along with other hybrids healing insane amounts. Is there any place for healers in 2v2 anymore?

I'm using every utility I have to try and counter these things, but atm it seems like resilience is useless as is pvp trinket in a lot of situations. I know I've seen resto shamans in high rated teams, how do they survive things like this? Anyone got some tips?

[Chestbrah]

You need to use your OP abilities, positioning, pillars, and a teammate.

[Vakna]

You need to use your OP abilities, positioning, pillars, and a teammate.

I was looking for something a little more specific, I've had rogues kill me np through SL, Tide and a 40% dmg reduction. And I do pillar hump and LoS, but the classes I most have problems with don't care about that.

[deathlich]

sounds like you're using trinket and CD's at the wrong times. I can sit through a rogue all day with my 4/5 Tyr Set and Weapons...

[Deleted]

What class is your friend? In all honesty, if the enemy DPS are going for you he should peel. If he lets a rogue dance on you and doesn't try to get him off you it's his fault. Right now the class to deliver the utility you yourself lack is a shadow priest, coming 5.3 not so much.

You need to use your OP abilities, positioning, pillars, and a teammate.

Pretty obvious that you have no idea what you're talking about, pillars and positioning only allows a rogue to wreck you outside of los of your teammate. But I'm curious what "op" abilities it is you're refering too?

sounds like you're using trinket and CD's at the wrong times. I can sit through a rogue all day with my 4/5 Tyr Set and Weapons...

He might be, but you sure do know some horrible rogues who have no idea how to put out some dmg by stacking cd's.

[Deleted]

It would help if you link your armory.
Do you fakecast? Do you have your hp buff and hot on you? Do you switch your earth shield on yourself if a melee is switching on you? Are you kiting? Just tanking dmg is mostly the wrong approach as a shaman. Describe what you are doing if a melee switches onto you

[Kals]

-Use your totems. Earthbind talented for roots is amazing vs rogues in 2's; as if they're not dispelled if they want to stay on you it will force a vanish or a cloak. If they cloak that means your capacitor can full stun them later. If they trinket it's even better since you can NS hex them if you REALLY need breathing room. Freedom totem is also a decent choice in order to give yourself some breathing room via ghost wolf kiting.

-Learn to fake cast. Get an addon like InterruptBar and do some random BGs. Find some melee and try to fake cast them; your InterruptBar will let you know whether they used their interrupt or not. Your goal is to get melee to waste their interrupt when you or your partner are at higher HP (~75%+) so you can free cast to top off the damage. It's also obviously almost mandatory when you're getting low and need to get a cast off but can't afford to get interrupted (especially counterspelled).

I actually can't help with the insane rogue crits, those are likely from the still-not-nerfed-enough PvE trinkets plaguing 2s (and to some extent 3s) and being used by mostly humans allowing for some insane damage buff stacking. My best advice is if it is the PvE trinket rogues that are causing these hits make a mental note of what the buff looks like (yellow with some lines, you can look it up on WoWHead) and get your partner to peel that. Most rogues will dance/blades when it procs and use their on-use so just watch out for it; sometimes it's simply extremely hard to survive, especially with Cloak and Dagger.

[Vakna]

Thanks for the tips Kalysun, I'm actually talented for the frost shock root atm instead, but I will try the earthbind roots. I fake cast a LOT, I mean it's the first thing I learned to do when starting pvp as a healer, I usually have no problem with being switched to midfight, it's the insane openers that destroy me, and most of the time rogues or random melee+boomkin combos that are 100% loss match for me.

Like for example, rogue opens, gets me to 60% hp before I can physically react, I trinket his stun and pop my Tide, Astral Shift and if possible SLT as well, then he simply gets me locked in a full stun again and kills me through all cooldowns in ~2gcd. Absolutely nothing I can do to react to that in time. I think the quickest ever one was rogue + resto druid, his healer just stayed behind a pillar other side of the room, rogue opened on me and I died halfway through his first Kidney Shot.

I play with Frost DK partner.

[Ettan]

What race/resi%/meta are you using?
You might want to give the stun redu meta a try if you are really struggling with rogues.

Also keep in mind that 2s is abit messy, out-gearing issues occurs frequently as most people simply use it to get capped.

[Vakna]

What race/resi%/meta are you using?
You might want to give the stun redu meta a try if you are really struggling with rogues.

Also keep in mind that 2s is abit messy, out-gearing issues occurs frequently as most people simply use it to get capped.

I'm Draenei, 67% resi and using the spirit/crit% meta.

[Deleted]

I think the quickest ever one was rogue + resto druid, his healer just stayed behind a pillar other side of the room, rogue opened on me and I died halfway through his first Kidney Shot.

I play with Frost DK partner.

This is all you and your mate. This shouldnt even happen if you were 1v1ing the rogue in worse gear than him.

Resto Shamans are literally godmode right now. My friend rerolled shaman and got 1750 first time he ever played resto shaman.

Make your DK spec Unholy to make the comp even more faceroll.

[Vakna]

This is all you and your mate. This shouldnt even happen if you were 1v1ing the rogue in worse gear than him.

Resto Shamans are literally godmode right now. My friend rerolled shaman and got 1750 first time he ever played resto shaman.

Make your DK spec Unholy to make the comp even more faceroll.

How can it be me when I am getting nuked down in literally 2 seconds through every cd I have? There is absolutely nothing more I can do except become psychic and know exactly where the opposition is and when he will strike and with what.

I honestly don't think it's my DK friends problem either since sometimes I am dying to opener burst before he can click Deathgrip to get the melee off me.

Please ask your Resto Shaman friend how he is surviving 180k evis spam through multiple stuns and what exact abilities he uses to get out of it, I would dearly like to know.

---------- Post added 2013-05-07 at 02:48 AM ----------

And just as an added point, me and my frost dk partner got matched to a team with resto shaman and UH dk earlier, literally mirror team but with different spec dk's. The enemy UH went for my partner (worst mistake ever since we win 99% of the time when they dont open on me). And my frost DK friend opened on the enemy RSham. Pretty much same situation, though it took a few secs longer because of the DK's having less control than Rogue, but the enemy Rsham just melted under melee opener burst.

Facing casts is nothing, warlocks, spriests don't even do enough damage to tickle. But when facing a melee, their opening burst usually is the win/lose moment. If it's a rogue, basically a loss 90% of the time.

[Redversion]

This post from AJ is relevant to your post:
http://www.arenajunkies.com/topic/23.../#entry3880746
by Volute

Getting trained has always been an issue with restoration shamans. Even in their peak of overpowered popularity (S11), 3DPS teams were notorious for climbing the ladders simply by opening and tunneling the resto shaman and hardcountering RLS comps because they couldn't actually peel or land a cross kill fast enough (usually) before their shaman died.

In reality, it's going to mostly be about your partners peeling for you. Either through literal peels, with crowd controls and the like, or through making the other team go defensive somehow (blowing up their healer or dps etc).

You need to remember that cleave teams usually blow everything at the start, so don't be afraid to use all your cooldowns. Your DPS also really need to pick a stance: either they need to peel and try to find a chain that they can kill someone in, or they need to also go balls to the wall and attempt to get a kill and peel by forcing the other team defensive.

Resto shamans have the tools to live for a long time with SLT, Aura Mastery, Healing Tide, and NS rotations. You just need your teammates to end the game before you run out of them. Monk teams are especially good versus this, because Ring can by itself ruin a thug cleave opener or a feral popping beserk if they successfully get it off and adds another cooldown so your NS comes back up again.

In short, just pop everything and race them, especially as DK/WW/Rsham. You have the tools to outcleave their cleave as DK/WW can do insane amount of healer pressure in a short amount of time. Have them toss a casual Ring of Peace on you and hope that your two melee can kill their healer before their melee kill you.

As sad as that sounds, that's cleave vs cleave in a nutshell. Sorry I can't really go into any specifics, because it doesn't really sound like you're doing anything wrong, and this problem isn't exclusive to lower rated healers; players like Cdew get cleaved down without much they can do as well.

[Arcsecant]

-Astral Shift is tempting but I really like Nature's Guardian instead. AS is a better cooldown if you only need it once but if the rogue vanishes and opens on you later you are likely dead. NG will save you more often.

-I really like Windwalk Totem against melee teams, I think a frost shock slow and you running full speed in ghost wolf will get you further away then both of you slowed 50% and him rooted for a little bit with frost shock root. Not sure how good it will be in 2's but its amazing in 3's.

-I hope you're running with the battlemaster's trinket. Pop it when NG procs and you will have like 600k health or something stupid, and you can use it while garrote silenced.

-Don't trinket the blind. Some rogues will blind you at 30% if they don't get a kill after the kidney shot ends hoping you trinket. Don't.

[Deleted]

Facing casts is nothing, warlocks, spriests don't even do enough damage to tickle. But when facing a melee, their opening burst usually is the win/lose moment. If it's a rogue, basically a loss 90% of the time.

The dots tickle, that you're right. Just wanted to point out that i've solo dropped a resto druid 100%-0 within a full silence as priest in 2s. Sure, stars alligned and you're not able to consistently do this like a rogue but you'd be surprised. Roughly all classes are able to pull off what rogues are doing right now, just that rogues have it somewhat easier and more reliable at the time.

[Deleted]

Me and my friend are currently doing 2's to cap every week, we manage it okay and even got our 1550 achievement this week (i know, we aren't pro!). But I'm starting to feel like I'm just becoming a liability to the team. I can't seem to survive any major burst no matter what I do - for example a decent rogue is able to solo me without concern for his partner, trinket one of his stuns and he just piles on another then dishes out 180k crits one after the other like it's nothing. Or boomkins with the vortex and solar beam combo. Combine all that with boomkin healing nearly as much as a resto along with other hybrids healing insane amounts. Is there any place for healers in 2v2 anymore?

I'm using every utility I have to try and counter these things, but atm it seems like resilience is useless as is pvp trinket in a lot of situations. I know I've seen resto shamans in high rated teams, how do they survive things like this? Anyone got some tips?

Shamans are really nice targets for rogues in 2v2. At your rating many rogues will blow everything to get the a huge Evisc, marked for death, evisc. Knowing this it's probably a good idea to use your astral shift+HTT totem macro as soon as he opens. Use root on his shadow dance.
The problem is all in the opening as the rogue will have his pve shado pan trinket going. Best bet is to immediately trinket as soon as the garrote lands and spam your survivability macro before rogue can cheap shot you. Your partner should be able to peel after this. The next opener won't be nearly as potent.

[Senathor]

This is all you and your mate. This shouldnt even happen if you were 1v1ing the rogue in worse gear than him.

Resto Shamans are literally godmode right now. My friend rerolled shaman and got 1750 first time he ever played resto shaman.

Make your DK spec Unholy to make the comp even more faceroll.

1750. Must be godmode. I'm not saying that they're bad coz they're not, but Dpriests, Rdruids are just as good. Just check ladders. In 2's Shamans get fucked coz every other healer besides Pallas are better. In 3's they're top with the rest yeah. And no I don't play one myself, but just had to say this, I get a bit annoyed by biased people that think that only coz one class is good it's OP beyond human comprehnsion and u cant do anything bout it...

[Deleted]

If they cloak that means your capacitor can full stun them later. If they trinket it's even better since you can NS hex them if you REALLY need breathing room.

Nothing inherently wrong with what you said but I had a good laugh at this. Whoever gets hit by the capacitor totem unless being somehow CCd already and thus unable to move 1 metre or poke the totem for a second should delete his character.

This is all you and your mate. This shouldnt even happen if you were 1v1ing the rogue in worse gear than him.

Resto Shamans are literally godmode right now. My friend rerolled shaman and got 1750 first time he ever played resto shaman.

Make your DK spec Unholy to make the comp even more faceroll.

And here we see a typical case of someone having no idea what he's talking about.

1750. Must be godmode. I'm not saying that they're bad coz they're not, but Dpriests, Rdruids are just as good. Just check ladders. In 2's Shamans get fucked coz every other healer besides Pallas are better. In 3's they're top with the rest yeah. And no I don't play one myself, but just had to say this, I get a bit annoyed by biased people that think that only coz one class is good it's OP beyond human comprehnsion and u cant do anything bout it...

Don't. It's mostly bad players having no idea what they're talking about. Shamans are pretty far from godmode, it's certain setups such as Mage+Spriest+Shaman who have mad synergies that currently make them fairly strong. Doesn't change the fact that Shamans get tunneled into the ground by decent melees such as rogue/dk.

[Deleted]

1750. Must be godmode. I'm not saying that they're bad coz they're not, but Dpriests, Rdruids are just as good. Just check ladders. In 2's Shamans get fucked coz every other healer besides Pallas are better. In 3's they're top with the rest yeah. And no I don't play one myself, but just had to say this, I get a bit annoyed by biased people that think that only coz one class is good it's OP beyond human comprehnsion and u cant do anything bout it...

It doesnt matter how cool and elite you act on these forums. I dont buy it and i bet alot of other people feel the same way.

And here we see a typical case of someone having no idea what he's talking about.

That goes for you too. Its hard to take you serious on these forums since all you do is act like the cool
kid in school bullying around all the weaker kids to make yourself feel better.

I am frankly quite intrigued how you two are even allowed to post here anymore.

This will be the last i respond to the two of you as you are not worth the time.

[Shaderas]

Resto Shamans are powerful... either that or they have some insanely good comps. They are both the highest represented healer in PVP at 2200+ rating and above at 7.1%...

http://www.worldofwargraphs.com/stat...0-0-0-0-0.html

...and the highest represented healer in 3s at 2200+ at 12%.

http://www.worldofwargraphs.com/stat...0-0-3-0-0.html

So it may be particular comp synergy, but at those numbers, I would be led to believe they are at least a little strong. How their primary comps are affected in 5.3 and how they will stand in that patch remain to be seen, but I don't see them being too bad after that.