Sunday, June 2, 2013

Sunday Night Strolls - World of Warcraft (PvP) - Deepwind Gorge - The Map and How To Heal On It

General Overview – What The Heck Are We Doing?

There's a lot going on on this map and coming into it for the first time can be a little bit confusing. The map is a giant oval with three different capture points all in a straight line and one base on the North and South positions. Each individual capture point is the same distance for both Alliance and Horde so it's not set in stone which side point should be taken by either faction as either is an option. However, in my experience, 9 out of 10 games each team will have one or two players turn right coming out of the gate, leaving each faction with one captured point while the rest mass in the middle to fight for the center capture point.

The primary goal is to keep two of the three capture points taken for your side and then the “flag” aspect is brought into play. There are two bases on either side of the map that have a cart filled with mined gold. You must go to the opposite factions base, take their gold cart, and carry it back to your base to steal gold from your opponents. Taking a gold cart from the opposing factions base does in fact reduce their resources. This brings a whole new aspect to the gather resources type of map. If the enemy team is turtling two of the points with good AoE and you're unable to cap an objective you can run and get a mine cart which will either make them leave one of the points to come and kill you, which allows your team a chance to cap a point, or they allow you to just go and get the gold and make a comeback.

The overall goal is to get to 1600 gold before your opponent.

15-Man Raid – Whats Your Role In All This?

Healing. And that's it.

If only it was that simple! In PvP, specifically as a Restoration Druid, you have a quite a few jobs in a map like this. The most important job that you have that not a lot of healers understand is flag capping. The DPS are too busy channeling their AoEs, stunning and CCing the enemy teams healers and trying to kill the DPS that are targeting you. They do quite a lot and they don't have the ability to try and channel the flag capture. As a Resto Druid it is easiest for you to capture the flag as the heals that you are going to be using in PvP are going to be instant cast. Once you Rejuvenation Blanket and Wild Growth you have more than enough time to channel the flag.

As a Restoration Druid your secondary objective is both healing and CCing enemy healers. You always want to keep Cyclone up until your diminishing returns kick in and then Typhoon whenever possible. This is the same for any battleground but I feel the need to mention it because not a lot of people do it.

3 Capture Points and 2 Flags - Where Are You Most Useful?

When you have both points to capture/defend and flag carriers to take care of where as a healer are you going to be most useful? As a Restoration Druid, you always want to be where the most players are because that is where you will be the most useful with your kit. As a healer, you never want to be defending anything, there are always going to be skirmishes over a point whether you're controlling the majority or not and that is where you want to be. A good rule of thumb is you either always want to be in a fight or heading to a fight, if you're not, you're wasting a lot of your potential and a healer should rarely ever be sitting at a point defending (for the record, tanks or classes with not great AoE should be defending points on this map).

If the enemy team is leaving the points alone and are aggressively going after your flag carrier then going to keep them alive is always a priority but there are better healers for that position like Holy Paladins and Disc Priests. If you ever feel like you're not doing a lot or not really sure where you should be, open up your map and find out which mine has the largest clump of colored dots and head in that direction. Unless of course they're fighting on the roads then just let them die as a lesson.


All In all, I really enjoy the play of the map. It feels exactly like Eye of the Storm except it doesn't take six years to get from one point to another to help defend it. I've always really liked the smaller maps anyway as it gives Pugs less places to fight in that are completely irrelevant to winning and discourages just straight up honor farming in the middle while the flag carriers cry because they keep dying. This is definitely one of the better PvP maps of the expansion and will be one I plan on playing heavily in the near future.

Tell me what you think about this expansions ever growing PvP Map list? Do you have a favorite new map or has a Mists' PvP map annoyed you so much that it's been added to your blackout list?

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