his guide assumes you pvp with a dps partner or with other people in general, there are few instances where you can solo anyone.
Prior to Improved Tree of Life your best option when being attacked is to use travel form and hots, round corners to break line of site and throw instant cast heals when possible. Once Improved Tree of Life is attained sometimes it is best to heal through melee damage rather than trying to out run it. Remember Improved Tree of Life does nothing to mitigate magical damage.
Some good healing tips/combos:
1) "Stun Locked": Cyclone then Regrowth. If you can spare time to cast anything, but you're worried about damage burst or kicks, cast Cyclone (but try to be out of range for kicks) first because it's a faster cast time than regrowth. Once your opponent is trapped by cyclone, you can get away with casting 2 regrowths (one on yourself and one on a partner). If you want, you can save some time to recast cyclone on your opponent. Cyclone is affected by diminishing returns if recast, so you'll have less time to cast heal spells the second time.
3) Don’t forget your feral abilities. When defending stealth as cat to avoid being attacked and to track opponents. Pounce and Bash are still quite usefull.
2) Bash/Maim: It's best to use these in order to give yourself time to cast your longer cast spells, especially when you're worried about being kicked/spell locked. Bash/Maim are instant cast so there's no stopping them (besides miss/dodge/parry).
Vs. Melee: Melee Damage is highly unstable. You want to avoid getting hit by it as much as possible. You must try your best to keep melee cc'd and still manage to keep your health up through blows. If it is unavoidable, hopping into Improved Tree of Life form will reduce the damage you take and (especially when talented into Master Shapeshifter) increases the power of your heals. If you don't need to put any heals on other people or yourself, it's best to stick in bear form till your services are needed.
Vs. Casters: Casters are tricky because unless you have feral charge, you can't stop them from casting spells on you. Line of Sight is your best friend against casters. You can cast HoTs on the move, while almost all high damage spells need the caster to stand still, so abuse pillars and tight corners to break their spellcasts. In most caster cases, you can cyclone them to keep their outrageous damage outputs down while waiting for a dps partner to kill their target. Mages and to a lesser extent Shamans and Warlocks with Felhunters are the exception because if they counterspell you while casting cyclone, all of your major survival spells and abilities are locked down. The best thing to do while in a lock down is go Bear Form or travel form (if you are near something you can line of sight with). Use instant casts as much as possible, use your instant hots to heal yourself and others. But if there is no mage or felhunter, go ahead and freely cast regrowths, roots and cyclones.
Controlling Healers: If you start the fight stealthed, a good high stream of CC is this simple combo: Pounce, 2xClaw(add in a Rake if you desire), Maim, (Go bear form, wait for maim to end use Enrage if you don't have Furor) Bash, (Wait for bash to end) Cyclonex3. You can throw in a feral charge if you have it, and have longer cc's and shorter cd's if you have Brutal Impact. Lots of control from that. If you are having a problem killing a healer and you're having a breeze with the healing, charge up a Starfire and hit Moonfire right at the end for maximum burst and some dot damage afterward.
Healing for a DPS partner: You can do all the tricks in the world, but you gotta make sure your dps partner can do his job, because no matter how geared you are, you're not likely to solo anything (and be keeping yourself alive at the same time). If you can keep your hots rolling you can free yourself some healing time and use it offensively.
