Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Moonkin PvP Tricks in Arathi Basin


This week and likely into next, I'm gonna do a series of tips and tricks for moonkins in each of the PvP zones.  Today, I'm gonna be starting with what I think is the pinnacle of 15 vs. 15 PvP, Arathi Basin.  It is a very fluid battleground where the difference between a win and a loss is coordination, focus-firing, and moving quickly.  While I'm smart enough not to give out my guild's strategy for Arathi Basin, there are a few tricks you can use as a moonkin when PvPing in that area. 

1) Typhoon Off of Lumber Mill - Woe to the healer or caster who is standing away from the flag and near the edge.  Usually, the very next move will be for me to come up and  Typhoon you off the edge.  If you have taken any damage before that, you will likely be dead unless you can heal yourself or a priest life-grips you back.

2) Moonfire/Sunfire Is Your Friend When Defending - Arathi Basin is the main battleground where you may be defending nodes, although the new Battle for Gilneas also has you defending nodes. (My personal favorite node to defend - Lumber Mill. See Trick 1.) Even if it is not the main battle you are fighting, you can use Moonfire/Sunfire to your advantage.  One, it is an immediate strike which will interrupt anybody taking the node.  Second, it is a DoT which will further prevent tha person from capping the node.   When I'm defending a node, the very first thing I try to do is to Moonfire/Sunfire everybody so they can't cap it until it wears off.  I will also add in that Typhoon works well for keeping people off nodes as well.  Not a DoT, but at least it will blow everybody the opposite direction and snare them on the way back.

3) Cat Form Saves Lives - If you happen to be on the unfortunate end of a moonkin or an elemental shaman and are flying off of lumber mill yourself, remember that you take less damage in cat form.  Nine times out of ten, you will survive a fall from lumber mill as a cat.  This goes to a bigger issue with moonkins that I have talked about before, and this is to keybind your forms.  You should do this anyway for a bigger PvP trick for druids which is to shapeshift often to get out of Frost Traps, Stuns, Snares, etc.

4) Get to Blacksmith Before Anybody With Aquatic Form - There are not a lot of times where we get to use Aquatic Form as druids, but Arathi Basin is one of them.  If you do not have Water Walking, you can swim faster in Aquatic Form from your base to Blacksmith to  help defend or pick up the node.  This is one of two druid shortcuts in Arathi Basin, with the other being...

5) Cat Form Drop to Gold Mine - You take very little damage from the fall and can assist in a battle at Gold Mine, which may be the difference in taking or defending the node.

There are a lot of general PvP tactics I could throw out and I will hopefully cover some of those as time goes on, but these are some cool tricks you could do to help you win Arathi Basin.

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3 comments:

Natrisi said...

You forgot the Boomshroom on the flag defense. And the ever annoying ZOMG Solarbeam on defending flag. For the record as a lock trying to defend a flag...Solarbeam makes me want to punch kittens.

Redhawks said...

@Natrii

I really haven't thought about Wild Mushrooms in that respect since I'm not a big fan of using them in the first place, but that is something that would work, especially if combined with the Fungal Growth talent.

Also, I never usually use Solar Beam on just a specific area, I prefer to pick a caster,usually a healer, Entangling Roots them, then Solar Beam them. It is a form of complete CC that I love. If you do arenas with someone who can stun while they are in the Solar Beam, it is a dead caster. And if they escape and run towards me, I just Typhoon them back into it for more silence.

Anonymous said...

This only works for ferals, but if you are ever falling and there is an opponent below you, you can Feral Charge them and take no damage (such as your Gold mine situation).

This also works from any height, so in world PvP you can shift out of flight form from 100 yards up and charge them right before you splat.