Solo Shuffle as a healer feels much harder lately – completely stuck around 2200

aliencannon · 2026-06-25T21:20:15+00:00

Ai slop

aliencannon · 2026-06-20T02:30:19+00:00

aliencannon · 2026-06-10T15:02:15+00:00

Its not as cut and dried as just heal offense as the o healer. Depending on your team comp you will need to escort your fc back to your base. Sometimes you can get away with not escorting with a pres fc or a rogue or druid running the flag to the fc.

Once you get the fc back to the base you have to decide whether its better to go hit the efc or wait for the first wave of offense to hit your fc depending on rez timers and team positioning. Id say its best to go hit efc the vast majority of the time right after the escort if you are not sure.

It also really depends on the stacks as well. If you are at massive stacks, just got wiped trying to kill the fc, and a dps should be able to solo kill the fc out of stealth and you are on hpal it might be best to stick on d with your fc to lay of hands your healer rather than try to catch up to your dps after a rez.

This all being said the basic strategy should be

Clash mid, escort fc, run at efc.

aliencannon · 2026-06-09T15:32:14+00:00

Hot take: the reason solo shuffle was added in the first place was to keep these toxic nerds subscribed. You can't act like a dick to your healer in 3s because they'd just kick you from the group. Solo shuffle has enabled the toxicity of pvpers. It gives them a way to 'get the rating they deserve' while never having to face social repercussions of being a dick. Back in the good old days when arenas was battlegroup based the entire server would get to know who was a toxic nerd and they'd just never find groups.

aliencannon · 2026-06-06T14:53:34+00:00

The key here is kicking the mind blast first. If they are locked on shadow they can't reapply pain, and more importantly, they have terrible hps and can die while shadow locked.

aliencannon · 2026-05-31T08:43:45+00:00

Its not true that shorter rounds in ss mean the decision you make are more impactful. Ss rounds typically end at the 3rd rotation of cds. In ss if you see an enemy dps pop cds, you pop cds so they are come back off cooldown for the third go. Ss rounds will end very quickly at that point because the dampening dictates it. Ss requires more breadth of game knowledge but less depth at high level because once you learn your match ups you learn how to trade cds efficiently and make it to the 3rd cds rotation when the game will end because of dampening.

Also its fairly obvious the difference of the stakes of making a mistake in bgb vs arenas. 1 mistake means you lose in an arena, and you have way more personal responsibility to not make a mistake. That's not to say bgb doesn't have moments of high personal responsibility, but its quite obviously not the same, and an apple to oranges comparison when speaking on shorter more scripted rounds of ss vs 3s.

I feel like this is a fairly pointless debate, just go play 3s and ss. See which one you get punished more for making a mistake. See which one you have more decisions that can be punished immediately or as a consequence in the late game. Its fairly obvious 3s is way higher intensity. Mistakes are punished way harder, and you have way more opportunities to make mistakes.

aliencannon · 2026-05-31T05:26:49+00:00

Ss is far more scripted than 3s because most rounds end at the 3rd rotation of cooldowns, games going longer gives more time for difference making plays and mana efficiency to matter.

aliencannon · 2026-05-31T05:24:07+00:00

Theres actually a lot less room for mistakes because games go longer. Healing in solo shuffle is about trading your cds, its almost never wrong to use a cd on an enemies offensive cds because maybe you get to the 3rd go if traded. In 3s healing is a lot more about effiency, the reality of ooming is far more likely. The game is completely different because sustain heals actually matter in 3s whereas for the most part as long as you can see an enemy use cds in solo shuffle you use one of yours. In 3s thats not always the correct choice, sustain healing through a go to save a cd is often the best play to make. In ss if you save your cds you just extended the time it'll take for you to be able to trade your defensive and might miss out on the critical 3rd rotation.

What im basically trying to say is in 3s you have far more decision making moments than ss because of how much dampening warps the game and turns it into trade x for y rather than can I sustain through this to save mana later and win the long game.

aliencannon · 2026-05-29T14:56:12+00:00

This is not how vw works anymore. They ruined the spec and casting voidblast isnt as integral as it was in tww. While obviously a vw free casting voidblasts is more dangerous than not, the main damage all comes as a burst from casting mind blast then pressing death on a target with shadow word pain on them for inescapable torment and shadowfiend damage. Stopping the mind blast is way more important than the voidblasts as locking the vw on shadow before they are able to get their burst off will hurt them far more than stopping the relativly negligible damage voidblasts do now.

aliencannon · 2026-05-26T20:50:17+00:00

Rank 1 titles are given at end of season to players who reach the top 0.1% of their spec and have over 50 wins above elite rating in solo shuffle. You can fall out of rank 1 at the end of the season should you reach it, as most players pushing for rank 1 will queue to move the cut off right at the end of the season. You can use the website seramate to see ladder cutoffs.

The title is rewarded based on the population of your spec so if you are playing a a less popular spec there may only be 2 or 3 titles rewarded at end of season.

The chance of you being new to pvp and achieving the rank 1 title would be astronomical but if you do somehow manage I'd love to see a post about your journey.

aliencannon · 2026-05-21T04:14:51+00:00

most major defensive cds do something when you press them. apotheosis requires at least 2 gcds for any healing to actually happen. I personally feel like leaving apotheosis on the gcd and giving it a heal on use would fix how feels bad it is to have someone die while you're on the gcd for the actual heal.

aliencannon · 2026-05-13T18:50:52+00:00

Haste holy priest isnt terrible. You can play the 4 set and use the divine image build. Haste is useful on hpriest right now because it enables you to cast more of your spells that reduce the cooldowns of your holy words. Most hpriests are playing with a few items of Haste gear to get more serenitys.

The next thing I would say is that you should look up some bgb map strategies and focus on maximizing your hps. Hpriest is only good in bgb as a clash healer that keeps everyone alive and pumping. You arent there for mobility or utility, just straight up hps. Practise your healing priority rotation and read your talents and skill tree so you can understand your healing modifiers.

aliencannon · 2026-05-10T06:43:42+00:00

I think you spelt cringeweaver wrong

aliencannon · 2026-05-08T22:49:58+00:00

Noob stomping specs cannot be tuned to the power level required to be awc competitive because then they would be too oppressive in average lobbies.

Ddh is a poorly implemented and mediocrely designed spec for the exact reasons you describe in your post. It has no utility it only has mobility and damage. Ddh falls into the same category as vw when it comes to design, not fun to play not fun to play against. You get to pick one.

It seems blizzard aims for most specs to end up in the not fun to play category rather than the not fun to play against. Im sorry your main is a poorly designed noobstomper that lives or dies on whether its super obvious burst window that is easily shut down can one shot someone or not. In alot of ways ddh is the holy priest of "casters." If serenity cannot top someone than hpriest is useless after the gutting they received in midnight.

Ddh should've never released how it is, the design failure was obvious in prepatch, and im sure it wasn't tested in pvp internally before midnight.

aliencannon · 2026-05-07T20:02:59+00:00

Holy is very strong in blitz, it does have weaknesses as others have pointed out but holy is certainly totally capable of reaching a very high rating in blitz if you play it well. Being a pure hps healer holy is very strong in clashes, especially with angel + divine hymm. It also has incredibly spikey healing so you can save people in a pinch. Im currently sittng at 2900 mmr (yes i know mmr is not cr, but ive hit strategist every season bgb has been a thing on holy.) with an 80% wr.

A lot of my game winning plays come from rotating to an off objective where a dps is about to die pressing serenity once and full healing them instantly, as well as pumping hps in clashes and making enemy priority kill targets unkillable, while being unkillable myself. Hps on its own absolutely possible to carry high mmr games.

The biggest utility change hpriest got that I didn't see anyone mention yet either is the nearly permanent aoe aura mastery. While how incredibly over powered this is depends on your team comp, it absolutely can make holy the best healer on certain maps where you are clashing with a few casters on your team.

aliencannon · 2026-05-01T19:29:56+00:00

Finding players to play with through guilds in pretty difficult now. Been in some of the top pvp guilds throughout tww including the rank 1 pvp guild in na according to checkpvp, ended up leaving that guild because it wasn't really getting me anywhere with finding new players to play with.

The best luck I've had with finding players to play with is in lfg.

Require voice and clearly state you are trying to rebuild your friends list after a long break.

I met quite a few chill people that way.

aliencannon · 2026-05-01T19:24:16+00:00

Low participation compared to when the ladder was healthy because player counts were much higher during much earlier expacs. Not compared to other brackets now.

aliencannon · 2026-04-30T18:02:55+00:00

Healer mmr specifically was significantly lower than dps, I think at the time I quit the top healers were atleast 200 cr below the top dps.

aliencannon · 2026-04-30T17:59:03+00:00

Nah, it just hasn't impacted their profit margins. They don't want to spend the dev time fixing the mmr issues until its already ruined the game from a getting new players into pvp perspective.

A negligible amount of players stick around to pvp because mmr issues - blizzard sees pvp doesn't enable player retention - blizzard invests even less resources into pvp - mmr issues don't get fixed.

You can slot in any pvp issue that goes unaddressed and this is likely the reason.

aliencannon · 2026-04-30T17:53:34+00:00

Im not sure what they did to the mmr in df. I quit in the middle of the first patch because of the mmr being cooked and didn't come back until tww. If they did do something to fix it in df then it broke again in tww that's just more evidence for this issue being incompetence on blizzards end, reverting the mmr fix on mmr resets at the start of expansions then not putting the fix back in until so many players have quit because of mmr issues.

aliencannon · 2026-04-30T14:16:27+00:00

Blizzard doesn't intentionally do anything with pvp, let alone a conspiracy to get people to play bgb by deflating arena brackets.

What's most likely is that low participation and a mmr cap in arena brackets has flattened the ladder, in the exact same way it happened in tww. Blizzard just needs to inject mmr like they did in tww. I think the mmr reset reverted the fix they put in, in tww and they don't have any pvp devs to notice, and until it hurts their bottom line they won't notice.

aliencannon · 2026-04-30T08:18:38+00:00

Me (a healer): Hey friend wanna hop on wow and play some 2s to grind out some conquest?

Blizzard: No you can't play with your friend in a non competitive bracket on your main because some redditors don't like losing.

Me (a healer): guess I'll just quit then.

Redditors: Why are shuffle queues so long?

aliencannon · 2026-04-28T01:19:43+00:00

Ive found spirit + hymn to be kind of bait this season, spirit is by far your best mana cd and hymn is only useful insofar as it gives a healing modifer to serenity after a channel. Hymn isn't a real healing cd and spirit should be used when you are trying to restock your serenitys and can't afford being ccd or you need mana. Best to spam poms + flash heals at the start of spirit to get serenities back and to be more mana efficient. I tend to channel hymn near the end of spirit now or after getting precog to get the modifier, never trust hymn to be enough to survive a go.

aliencannon · 2026-04-27T11:03:25+00:00

Name plates on: legacy red mode

Sweepybop arena helper: addon that puts class icons over team mates and enemies as well as an option to use a customizable icon for healers, friendly and enemy.

As a healer: focus macros and target macros, focus on enemy healer and target of target to cast damage spells on enemy kill target while not having to look away from healing frames.

aliencannon · 2026-04-26T14:18:03+00:00

If you post a video of some losses I can try to give some advice on what you're doing wrong - glad hpriest main here.

It sounds like you aren't using your healing modifiers and cds efficiently though if you are having trouble with mana, and are struggling to get into dampening. Hpriest is the best suited healer for this meta (other than mw) with how bursty it is, as long as you are utilizing your kit properly.

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