dispell dispell, fuck cc'd dont let him drink

Rated PvP

When discussing rated pvp I will focus on 3v3 exclusively.

Most if not all of the advise here is perfectly applicable to rated beegees and 5v5/2v2 to a lesser degree but bare in mind the intented bracket/meta game for this guide.

So why the 3v3 arena bracket? Its the de facto balanced bracket.

Arena is 60% comp, 30% skill and 10% rng.

Play your class and your comp until you are a well oiled machine, you should be able (after a certain stage) to understand the flow of an arena match and be able to gauge when the next bout of intense pressure will occur based on your opponents cooldowns and as a direct consequence react accordingly.

As I stated at the very beginning this “guide” is just a breakdown of how *I* do things- I know some druids that use HT or have efflorescence in their builds and if they can make it work?

Epic for them!

So to reiterate, any form of strategy will be based on your playstyle and the synergy shared between your comp and your opponenets.

My guide will not go into specific comps but rather offer a more general guideline in terms of gear and spec. How you utilize this information will be up to you.

Healers dont have a rotation.

You will have to gauge the situation as it comes up and figure out a way to deal with the incoming problems from control issues to damage.
You do this by analyzing your skill set and exploiting it to your advantage.

In rated PvP due to damage and CD cycling by the opposing team you will be forced to play defensively and as a direct concequence this guide, the gear + talent choices reflect this mindset.

As we hit later seasons and our hots scale nicely with our resilience I would imagine we will have more leeway to fuck around, however for the time being we  need to focus on baseline mitigation with heavy CC and poledancing.

The basics

 

Our tool set is formidable against many opponents and situations as long as you keep an open mind and play your toolset strategically- while there is no accepted definition for all restoration druids it can generally be argued that we have our own niche defined by our unrivaled ability to kite.

As any melee DPS who has faced a resto druid in arena will tell you we are annoying, so annoying in fact that once we start running around poles many melee dps will simply give up and go for a target that will stand still long enough for them to get a few hits in.

This phenomenon is based on 2 factors; our ability to shrug off snares and slowing effects through powershifting and from the fact that the bulk of our healing stem from spells that have no cast time and as such can be utilized while moving.

Coupled with our pseudo immunity to polymorphs and hexes we are truly the most slippery healers.

As a general rule we can mitigate if not outright nullify alot of pressure with those three cornerstone abilities unique to restoration druids.