Witch Doctor

Mr Witch Doctor had been eyeballing the Vengeful Gladiator’s Waraxe for a while, telling me how good the stats are, how he can even use it for PvE, how it costs only 1000 arena points. I just looked at him with a blank stare, because I had no idea how much an arena point was worth.

And then, one day, I find myself being half of a 2v2 arena team.

“You know I’m no good at PvP,” I protested, “I don’t have a PvP spec, I don’t have PvP gear, and we play as the two worst arena classes!” He smiled and nodded, and signed us up for the arena queue.

Fast forward four weeks. We have accumulated the 1000 points needed for the axe (hurray!), and with 22 wins and 22 losses our current rating is 1517. If you’re anything like me and don’t have a clue what that number means: I’ve been told is quite alright for a beginner.

What surprised me is that I’m actually starting to think is arena PvP is kind of fun. Some teams steamroller right over us, when that happens I can do little more than throw my hands in the air and hope it’s over soon. Some teams, however, are just as bad as we are. We’re not playing in a competitive bracket so we meet a lot of hobbyists just like ourselves. And those fights can be very fun!

Now I just need to figure out what to spend my arena points on. I already noticed that all of the arena gear is very bad for PvE, so maybe I should actually try to build a PvP wardrobe for myself. Some extra stamina and resilience certainly wouldn’t hurt.

How to arena as a resto shaman
Note: I’m not so daft to pretend that I’m suddenly some kind of resto shaman arena guru. I’m writing this list first and foremost as a reminder to myself of all the things that I should be doing but keep forgetting the whole time.

• Purge! Purgepurgepurgepurge! It’s cheap, it’s powerful, it’s perfectly spammable, and last but not least very annoying for the opponent.
• On that note: be annoying. You’re not there to deal damage but you can still help your arena partner by annoying the other team as much as you can. Use earthbind totem, grounding totem against casters, tremor totem against locks and priests, earth shock to interrupt heals, flame shock against stealthers. If they are very keen on destroying every totem you put down, try a stoneclaw totem. Using searing totem in the direct vicinity of a freezing trap is a very bad idea.
• Spamming Lesser Healing Waves is usually better than trying to throw big fat heals.
• Never panic. You’re a shaman, you have a shield, you can take quite a beating.
• Communication. This is really the deciding factor in a lot of fights. Tell your partner that he needs to trap that warrior right now before he kills you, pop bloodlust the very instant your partner asks for it. You have to trust each other.
• Save your trinket for emergencies only. Being polymorphed is not so bad when you’re low on mana!
• Many teams will try to drain your mana pool. Use mana spring totem and water shield liberally. The lovely mana tide totem animation basically screams “Hai guys! Kill me!” at your opponents, so if you want to use it, try to hide it behind a pillar or some other obstacle.
• Earth shield yourself if you want to prevent spell casting pushback. Earth shield your partner (or his pet!) if you know he’ll be out of LoS.
• Enable enemy health bars (default keybinding: V) so you can keep track of who goes where, and how much health they have.
• Have fun! Enjoy the victories, laugh at the losses. It’s just a game, it’s not worth any amount of drama.

That’s about it I think. Are there still important things missing from this list? Please feel free to share your tips with me!

Who knows, we might just reach 1550 rating someday…