CHAPTER 4: HEALER POSITIONING

HEALER POSITIONING INTRO

Welcome to our course on healer positioning, which we promise is a must-watch. The difference between good positioning and bad positioning is pretty massive as a healer.

You already have a lot of problems, and bad positioning can make them even worse. We don't want your life to be harder, we want it to be easier.

This course is going to put you directly into the middle of several arena games, and we're going to walk you through different matchups. What you're going to learn is that by following a few simple rules, positioning becomes a whole lot easier than many people realize.

Trust us, you don't want to miss out on this.

BAD HEALER VS. GOOD HEALER POSITIONING

Maybe you've seen a Rank 1 healer streaming on Twitch and you thought to yourself, wow, that looks easy. But when you try in Q Arena, you get bombarded with CC and get trained to death by every cleave under the sun.

So what's going wrong? Today, we're gonna help you out by showing you the three different ways you should position depending on what comp you are playing, and then show you how to avoid some of the most stressful situations you will encounter in 3v3.

So if you feel lost on a healer this season, be sure to stick around because this one is for you. Positioning is probably the hardest thing to learn as a healer, but why is it so important?

If you have bad positioning, you are making the game infinitely harder for yourself. For one, it means you are probably tanking way more CC than you probably should be.

On top of that, if you are the kill target for the enemy team, your positioning could be the reason why you are dying so easily. And finally, you might be hurting your team's offense by standing in the wrong place while your team is going for a kill.

Many low-rated healers often blame the wrong things when they lose a kill. So if you are a healer, you should be careful not to lose.

They might think certain comps have too much CC or that cleaves kill them too easily, but they fail to see how their own positioning might be causing these issues. On the other hand, having proper map movement allows you to elevate your team as a healer.

For one, having good positioning can make you almost impossible to CC or to swap to. This in turn will allow you to focus on keeping your partners alive and mobile without needing to fend for yourself.

And because you won't have to worry about recovering from a swap or a CC chain, you can keep your team more offensive. So just to recap, here are some of the problems that bad positioning creates.

But not to worry, because once you learn to solve them, you will see just how broken good positioning can be in Arena. But I'm sure you're wondering, okay skillcapped, where should we be standing?

Let's break it down.

HEALER POSITIONING IN MELEE CLEAVES

The way you position depends first on what type of comp you're playing, and if melee cleaves are your thing, get ready to buckle up. As a healer, healing two melee DPS is one of the most demanding challenges in WoW.

For one, it usually means you will be the only interrupt target, meaning you will need to fake cast often. And secondly, it means you will have to carefully manage your positioning, since your two DPS might need to pursue targets out of your line of sight.

Your goal when positioning as a melee cleave should include a few things. 1.

Keep your melee as mobile as possible, allowing them to stay in the fight to maximize pressure. 2.

Stay out of as much CC as possible while also avoiding as many interrupts as you can. 3.

Only push in for offensive plays when needed, since staying pushed in too long exposes you to CC chains and swaps. On most maps, this means playing near a pillar and within range of both your partners, but out of range of important CC spells.

This will allow you to have the highest healing output, since you will have a higher chance to avoid CC and interrupts. Here, we have a rank 1 Druid playing as a melee cleave against RMP, which is one of the most demanding comps in the game for healers.

The mage goes for a polymorph once our Druid is in line of sight, but seeing this, our Druid will reposition to the boxes to avoid future casts. At the boxes, our Druid is able to accomplish a few things.

For one, he is able to keep his melee in range of heals while also avoiding the mage's casts. And secondly, he is far away from the priest to avoid psychic scream.

And by staying far away from the priest, he can also avoid psychic scream. And by staying far away from the RMP, he is able to make their win condition much harder, since he can avoid cross CC with his team, like in this moment where the rogue shadow dances on our red paladin.

By being far away behind a pillar, our Druid is able to avoid the dangerous cross CC from the enemy RMP. Okay, so now, we're gonna cover one question I bet you are dying to know as a healer.

What the hell are you supposed to do when your melee run out of line of sight? Well, if it's LFG, you're supposed to rage at them and tell them how terrible they are.

Just kidding, of course. We will use Toviron as an example, since it is considered a difficult map for melee cleaves.

Say your melee really wants to pursue a priest around a pillar, but there is one problem. A mage is standing in the middle of the map.

One simple solution is to tell them, Hey, don't line me! And depending on the matchup, it could actually be fine for them to swap.

But if they really want to commit to the priest, there are a few things that probably need to happen. For one, you should check to see if they have cooldowns available, since if they get caught, it might spell trouble.

If they do, it can be safe for them. If they don't, they can't be able to pursue, but you should probably discuss trading cooldowns if needed.

Secondly, you should look for ways to deny important CC casts when you are crossing the map. You can use your own personal avoidance tools to do this.

Or you can call out for your partners to use their interrupts or other tools if needed. In any case, communication is key in these situations.

So be sure to tell your melee your concerns if you are scared of getting zoned out.

HEALER POSITIONING IN CASTER CLEAVES

So what if melee cleaves just aren't your thing? Well, luckily for you, caster cleaves are much more forgiving.

The advantage when playing with casters is that you don't need to expose yourself as often when healing, since they can just turret down enemy players from range.

Ironically, playing with a caster demands more on their end as far as positioning is concerned, since they should ideally be in between you and the enemy team, guarding you from enemy attacks while also being within casting range of both the enemy healer and DPS.

For more information on how to position as a caster, we highly recommend checking our caster-specific guide. In any case, the same principles that apply to positioning with melee cleaves also apply to positioning with wizards.

Your goal should be to keep your teammates aggressive while avoiding CC and interrupts from the enemy team. Though this will be much easier since your partners can help soak interrupts for you and likely have spammable CC to help heal you in case you get attacked.

One key difference between melee and caster cleaves as a healer is your role offensively. If you are playing a healer with a stun like a Wrester Druid, Holy Paladin, or Misweaver Monk, you can contribute more to kills when playing with casters.

Most melee DPS have some sort of stun effect, but stuns are far less common in wizard cleaves, meaning you can contribute a bit more offensively to kills if you have an ability to lock down the kill target. At the start of this clip, our Druid will push in with his team during an offensive go.

He's able to land a full stun on the Feral Druid while our Mage CCs the Priest, giving our team insane offensive pressure. This forces the Feral Druid to use his skill to counter the attack.

Feral's trinket, but our team isn't done yet. Instead of pulling back, our Druid pushes in with his team to threaten with Cyclones.

But recognize that while he is playing aggressive, he continues to perform his normal healing rotation to not fall behind. In any case, by threatening the enemy team with Cyclones, he creates a win-win situation.

If they interrupt him, his casters can freely land spells. If they interrupt his partners instead, our Druid can control the entire enemy team.

Another key difference when playing with casters is that you need to change where you are kiting in case you get targeted. This is one concept we covered extensively in our kiting video.

But just as a recap, you should avoid lining your partners when you are kiting enemy DPS. If you are playing with wizards who have spammable CC and off-heels, you can actually line of sight them as well if you aren't careful where you are kiting.

In this clip, our Druid is about to get swapped to by a TSG. Right now, he has a few kiting options.

He could run around a pillar to his right, avoiding purges from the Shaman. But if he does so, he will be lining his teammates at the same time, meaning their pressure and control will be abysmal.

Instead, he decides to kite in the open of the map, drawing the enemy melee far away from the pillar and forcing them to be in a very vulnerable position against two angry wizards. This will not only help our Druid survive, but will allow his team to build pressure.

Okay, so now you know some tips on how to position with casters. Let's break down our final comp archetype.

HEALER POSITIONING IN MELEE CASTER

If positioning with melee is hard mode and casters is easy, then playing a melee caster comp is somewhere in between.

You have the struggle of keeping a melee player mobile, making sure to keep them up even when they push out of LOS, but while also having the benefit of playing with a caster who likely has spammable CC to get you out of tricky situations.

With this in mind, you need to adapt the concepts covered in both the melee cleave and caster cleave section of this video. Once again, the same general principles apply.

Your goal should be keeping your team aggressive while avoiding as much CC as possible, which usually means playing near a pillar. And since you're playing with a wizard, you should avoid kiting them when you are trying to kite enemy DPS, since you might be lining their CC or off-heals in the process.

Just like playing with casters, you are often a huge part of your team's CC setup when you are playing a hybrid comp. This means that your positioning will have to transition between defense and offense when your team is going for setups.

HEALER POSITIONING RECAP

So just as a quick recap, playing as a melee queef is generally the most challenging, and requires you to take the fewest risk with your positioning. In many cases, this makes the game harder for you as a healer.

But on the opposite end of the spectrum, playing with wizards is far more forgiving since they can easily bail you out by soaking interrupts and peeling with spammable CC.

HEALER POSITIONING SPECIFIC SITUATIONS

With that in mind, let's go over some really specific situations which require nuanced positioning in Arena. The first is to avoid any AOE CC the enemy team might have.

Mechanics like Psychic Scream and Leg Sweep are incredibly common and can easily turn the game against you if you aren't careful with your positioning. The simplest solution is to monitor AOE CC with add-ons like Omnibar and making sure you aren't stacked on top of your teammates when they are up.

One of the most difficult specs to position against is Fire Mage, since they can easily CC you with a combination of Shimmer, Dragon's Breath, and Polymorph or interrupt you with a quick blink CS. The key when positioning against Fire Mages is to always assume they have Shimmer ready.

You can track its CD with Omnibar, but it can be slightly unreliable since they have two charges and cooldown reduction with shifting power. Since Shimmer has a 20-yard range and Dragon's Breath has a 10-yard range, you should ideally be 30 yards or more away from Fire Mages at all times.

4. Fortunately, most of your spells will have a longer range than this, so simply standing at max range of your partners is often good enough depending on where the Mage is currently standing.

And while we're on the topic of avoiding CC, one thing you can really focus on as a healer is avoiding the CC chain before it actually happens.

If you know the enemy team has CC ready, you can try and position in a way that makes it hard or even impossible for them to properly perform their setup, which in turn will delay their CC chain from starting while giving your team a larger window to execute their own wins.

This is a good thing to keep in mind if you're planning to get a CC. It's not just CC you can preemptively avoid, though, and if you are the kill target for the enemy team, you can also avoid swaps with your positioning.

If you are worried you're going to get trained to death by a Cleave, you should do your best to stay as far away from them as possible, forcing the enemy team to either commit their mobility cooldowns or to expose themselves in a vulnerable position if they want to swap.

By standing far away, you make it much more difficult for them to actually connect. Finally, your positioning might also need to change slightly if you are playing with classes that have lots of utility, like Warriors, Red Paladins, and Shadow Priests.

In order to fully support you, these classes need you to be within range of many of their key abilities.

If you're playing with a Warrior, for instance, you might want to consider prioritizing them in your positioning, trying to keep them in line of sight so they can intervene you if needed, or so you can dispel them quickly in case they need to peel with any of their CC options.

The same concept applies to Red Paladins and Shadow Priests. By keeping yourself in their line of sight, it is easier for both of you to support each other with things like Blessing of Sanctuary, Bop, or Mass Dispel.

HEALER POSITIONING WRAP UP

Just as a quick wrap-up, your positioning should accomplish a few things no matter what comp you're playing. You should always be in a position to assist your team with heals or dispels in order to keep them as mobile and aggressive as possible.

With this in mind, you should also try and avoid important CC casts and interrupts, which usually means standing max range or near a pillar.

And finally, you should be willing to adjust your positioning when needed in order to play more aggressive with your team, assisting them with CC or even damage when they are for kills. But once this is over, you should resume normal conservative positioning.