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SiteArena Healer Behaving Badly
I may have mentioned before that I enjoy PvP — and it’s true. I’m an extremely competitive person and healing against living breathing opponents creates just enough challenge to pique my interest. I’m not extremely good at it, mind you, but it makes it no less engaging!
Unfortunately, I haven’t had opportunity to do as much PvP recently as I have in the past. Raiding and managing a guild took up too much of the time that I used to reserve for my Arena partner. However, having reduced the number of days I raid drastically and stepped down from that leadership position, I now have much more time to focus on getting my weekly fix of PvP. Which is good; I think my partner was getting lonely without my special brand of heals.
Having recently rejoined my original 2v2 team, Hostile Negotiations, I’m reminded of one of the matches he and I had during our four hour long impromptu Arena binge the evening we first establish the team. Man, was that ever a doozy!
At the time, he was running amok as Deathcast, a quirky-yet-lovable kal’dorei Shadow priest. The idea of two priests standing up to their often more heavily geared opponents and doing surpringly well appeals to me. In general, Death would attempt to knock one off while I desperately tried to keep him alive and mana burn the healer if one was present. Death was always a bit of a rogue cowboy, rushing in headlong to take out his chosen opponent, so a couple of times it ended up being me versus one or even two people at the end. I think our performance was affected by how late it was.
Those matches, however, as some of the best PvP I’ve ever had as a healer! For example, imagine a Shadow priest and a healing priest matched up against a mace-specced rogue and his Survival hunter counterpart. Death charges, vowing to take down the rogue while I hang back, dealing with the hiss, hiss and scratch, claw of the hunter’s cat. Unfortunately, Death and I are separated during the course of the fight and I am unable to keep him healed during his altercation with the rogue. He dies, having taken his opponent down to perhaps half his life.
Oh shit.
At this point, you can almost imagine the our two opponents turning gleefully to the hybrid, raid-specced priest standing by herself, frantically trying to keep the pet at bay, both her mana and health at less-than-maximum. Not a promising situation.
I curse aloud, throwing myself behind a pillar as the hunter releases a Wyvern Sting and the rogue starts implacably towards me. Determined not to go down without one hell of a fight, I run up a ramp as soon as Wyvern Sting is broken, Shadow Word: Pain the rogue, and throw up my Renew and Prayer of Mending, all while trying to stay out of line-of-sight of the hunter and finding it almost impossible to heal myself through the pet’s constant attacks. However, as soon as I reach the bridge in the Blade’s Edge Arena, I walk off the edge, hide in an out-cropping, and throw up a Greater Heal, hoping to max out my life before both rogue and pet can start beating on my face again. It works, and I even have enough time to cast a Smite, which knocks out the rogue.
One down; one-and-a-half to go. Damned pet.
With the rogue down, it’s just me, the hunter, and her pet. She’s at full life and I’ve used up more than half of my mana healing Death and then trying to stay alive after he went down. Thus begins a fifteen minute game of cat-and-mouse1 as I try to take advantage of the Arena’s environment to stay alive and keep the hunter DoTed. I use similar tactics as I did before fighting the rogue, including numerous frantic runs to the ramp, jumping up onto a ledge, dropping down, healing myself while the melee is running back towards me, and trying to avoid the hunter the entire time.
For perhaps a minute and a half, she and I are running around two pillars, a string of curses leaving my mouth as I try my damnedest to keep out of her sights and the hunter tries her damnedest to puncture my pretty purple robes and finish this fight with the win she must have felt was a certainty. And the entire time, Death is speaking in my ear through the headset. A mindless, hazy, exhaustion-induced, two-in-the-fecking-morning mantra that serves as commentary for the fight: “Ohmigawd, how are you still alive? You’re amazing. I can’t believe you’re still fighting. You can’t win, can you? This is amazing. This is just amazing. You shouldn’t be alive still. I can’t believe it. You might just win. Go, go, go, go, go!”
C’mon, bitch. Bring it! Think you were going to win? Think again! I’ve got this. I’ve got this!
This is one hell of a rush. My hands are shaking. I’m at the edge of my seat. I want to scream and yell and bellow and somehow get rid of this burst of adrenaline that’s literally flowing through my veins, but it’s now a little past 2.15a and there’s no way I can justify waking up my family in the house just for a stupid game. I’m dodging and weaving between pillars, biting down on my botton lip as I frantically mash this button or drag my mouse one way or another. Speaking out of the corner of my mouth, I maintain endless chatter, a frantic counterpoint to Death’s commentary. “She really should be laying down a trap. Why isn’t she laying down a trap? Isn’t she thinking? This damned pet is keeping me from doing any casted spells. Not that I’d want to, because she’ll probably Wyvern Sting me again as I stood still. How long is that cooldown anyways? I’d really be screwed right now if she were BM. Stupid cat! Why the hell do hunters always take cats for pets? Gitoffame, gitoffame, gitoffame — there! How’d that fear feel? Oh, shit, she’s coming coming in melee range!”
The hunter, perhaps realizing that her sure victory might very well be upset, gives up trying to shoot me to death and leaps forward. I yelp, cursing as I realize that if she Wing Clips me, this fight very well might be over: there are too many instacasts for hunters that would let her burn my life as I frantically try to walk behind cover. Looking at her life — and my quickly dwindling mana pool — I make a decision: throwing up a Power Word: Shield and every other instacast that could possibly benefit me at this time, I charge forward brandishing my mace.
Yes, I meleed a hunter.
Yes, my thought processes were probably impaired by the time. It was late.
Yes, I probably could have done something different. Something safer. Something that wouldn’t have put me directly in the crosshairs of a hunter, her damned pet trailing after me as it continues to gnaw on my leg. Something that didn’t rely on my mace to deal damage.
And, yes, I won.
Somehow, I managed to dodge whatever melee attack she tried to use — Wing Clip? Auto attack? Oh, god, Raptor Strike? That could have been messy! What was I thinking?! — DoTed her, feared her, and chased, yes chased, after her, flailing my mace. Something killed her, I’m not sure what, but I recall seeing Spirit Tap2 proccing and hearing absolute pandemonium on the other end of the headset as Death broke out into cheers.
Lesson for the evening, boys and girls? I’m a healing priest — don’t feck with me.
