PVP Tip: Kill the Healer First

If you play Alliance in the Vengeance battle group you have probably heard this 100 times: Kill the *#!*ing healer. Now the reason it gets said so much is that pick up groups often fail to use this basic tactic when PVPing. Failing to kill an opposing healer quickly, usually leads to lost objectives and lost battlegrounds.

By ignoring a healer on an opposing team, you are essentially making all their DPS classes invincible.  I don't know how many times, I have seen team members ridiculously throwing their toon at a Warrior or Death Knight with a healer standing right behind their foe. It only takes 1 or 2 folks in a group to do this and your attack or defense of an objective will end in an epic fail. So what to do?

Detecting a Healer

The first step is to simply detect the healers presence. Green swirlies around an opposing toon is a dead give away. :)  Pay attention to the health bar, if it gets topped off, healer. Most melee classes have some sort of healing abilities, but only Palidins and healing classes typically can top of their health.

Targeting the Healer

Once you have figured out your current opponent is getting healed, you need to find the healer. Now a lot of healers can be pretty arrogant and will just stand in the open and heal. Thus, they are very easy to find and target. Good healers will try to hide themselves somehow. Behind some terrain, a building, whatever. In that case, your tab targeting should pick them up.

When starting a fight with another group, any DPS class should be looking for healing classes and targeting them first, period. You may want to CC other classes if you can, but eliminate the healer must come first.

Killing the Healer

Killing some healers in PVP can be extremely difficult, resto druids for example. But once you have targeted a healer, your primary goal should be to harass them. Make them put the focus on their toon and only. This will give other players a chance to actually kill a few of the opposing team. Also, since most players like to focus DPS other toons, by you attacking a healer, you are more likely to pick up help taking the healer down.

As far as making the actual kill, stuns are generally the most effective tactic against any healing class. If you can stun a healer at less than 20% health, you have a chance of bursting them down. Of course mortal strikes, silences, and such work well too.

So next time you PVP, remember the opposing teams are not invincible, they just have a healer. Find it and kill it first.