[elapadrinar]

Ive played a healer a couple of times. I played on my buddies resto-druid which was pvp specced and in s3 gear. I did not have a healbot. Having never played a healer before i was the top healer in a magtheridon kill. I dont understand what is hard about clicking a player in a raid frame and healing them? When i see healers that are slacking or people not getting heals it really pisses me off. A tank should have 3 lifeblooms up and pally or priests healers on em at all times. IMO healing in raids is the most trivial thing in the game.(other then a pre-3.0, 1-button destro lock :P) Healing heroics is slightly more difficult. That being said, I dont blame the healers when we wipe unless it is there fault, and most the time it isnt. :P

[orcstar]

You don't understand a lot about healing now do you? Only looking at the meters and no idea at the job at hand. Why do you feel the need to bash another role when you're oblivious to the mechanics and the tactics involved?
In none of the posts I made any suggestion whether healing, tanking or dps is a harder job, that's a discussion on it's own. I didn't give my opinion on that in this thread with a reason.

Feel free to make another topic whether healers in general are slackers or not, or which class is harder to play or takes more skill.

[Furi]

Wow. Just...wow.

[Tobius]

If the tanks health gets low or runs out yell at the healers...
If the boss's health stays high or the enrage timer runs out yell at the dps...
When the boss dies congratulate the tank

[loquatious]

Honestly I think healing is the hardest job in wow - at least during a raid.

Healers dont get thanked enough but trust me if a decent healer leaves the guild everyone cries.

That being said there are a ton of slackers out there playnig whackamole with healbot, frankly they suck but you need 8 healers so they come. The smart proactive ones stand out no matter what class they are. Good healers are worth gold.

I think healing in a casual raiding guild is very forgiving of bad players - thats why there are so many bad/mediocre healers in our guilds.

[Barukh]

This is interesting: you're all more experienced than me, judging by the experiences, and I've never encountered these things we're describing. My raiding has been pretty minimal.

In my parties, the healer is the guest of honor. I never cross a healer; if a healer seems "weak" or "slow", I just - (at worst) - avoid that healer in future. I also don't tolerate harsh words in my parties, and usually my groups are fun and the slots are occupied by kind, sometimes wonderful, people.

I agree 100% with the previous poster who said, if the tank dies it's the healer's fault; if the healer dies it's the tank's fault; if others die it's their fault. Right or wrong, I consider my job description as a tank to be real short: "Protect the Healer." I fail at this pretty regularly and consider it my worst weakness as a tank; I work on it constantly though and hope to improve. But it makes it plain to me what a hard job healers have, because they're having to do the same for me - keep my toon alive.

I also make a big deal of my healers, congratulate them after exceptionally hard fights, and try to carry pots, elixirs, and buffed-food they can use.

Bottom line is there's really no reason to put a game before another person's feelings. Ever.

[Ott]

So I think this is a very interesting thread. So far, as far as I can tell, there seem to be two groups: the 'healing is easy' group and the 'healing is hard' group. This assumption seems to underlie the tone of most of the responses.

A few thoughts on these assumptions:
-That a healer knows when they are at fault. When a DPS pulls, its clear. When the tank fails, its clear. When the DPS fails on Brut because they are not using a perfect rotation (pre-3.0 of course) it is no single player's fault. Its a synergy that results in the 3% wipe. The same is often true of healers. When the tank dies on Brut it is often the case that one healer was running due to burn and all but one happened to land a heal within .2 sec. Then the tank gets gibbed in the following 2 secs with only one heal by an MH/OH combo. So the raid leader looks at grimreaper and says that only the one healer was doing his job right when in truth they all were. Don't be so quick to blame when the picture is more compliated for a healer than a DPS or tank.

-That DPS and Tanks step up. They don't step up because they are 'better' players. They step up because it is terrible obvious to the whole raid what happened. MT getting Eye Blasted is a good example. They have to. They are not better people/players for it. When was the last time you heard a DPS say they caused the wipe on Brut because they weren't watching Quartz and their casting was off by .2 sec each time. Yeah. Never. So give credit to those brave few who actually do step up. They are treasures.

-That healers get what they need in terms of guild and moral support. They don't. The don't get geared 1st because they are the tank. They don't get to brag about their ripping awesome big numbers. They don't get pat on the back for keeping the raid alive after boss. Healers who love what they do tend to have back ground personalities and be a bit more mild mannered about their in game performance. (many exceptions...) Give them a little love. This has been mentioned, but just saying healing is ez mode is not love.

So, as always, reality is more complex then "step up" or "leave them alone, their fine". But if you want an answer to the lack of healers question, I think much of this thread is a good example.

[Gromblee]

Heh I have played mostly healer and tank in games as far back as I can remember....maybe I'm not wired for DPS. I love both equally and my have 2 lvl 80 healers in wrath. I will always have my tank.......he has caused me much pain and taught me a lot. I have also been praised as a healer and asked how I squeezed so much healing from a SP. I fought hard to be accepted as a tank. Healing I believe is a talent not of the character but the one behind the keyboard it takes as much study of talents and rotations to be a top healer as it does for any other class .... and yes some idot that stands there taking stupid damage will get you yelled at.

[Faction]

As a Tank I can:

- Gear up best I can.
- Use all my skills properly.
- Avoid obvious damage coming through gimmicks.
- Hope RNG does not screw me.

As a DPS I can:

- Gear up best I can.
- Use all my skills properly.
- Avoid obvious damage coming through gimmicks.

As a Healer I can:

- Gear up best I can.
- Use all my skills properly.
- Avoid obvious damage coming through gimmicks.
- Hope RNG does not screw the tank.
- Cover for any mistakes in duties mentioned above from tank or dps or healers.

This last point is what makes healing difficult. Whatever mistakes you make as tank and dps, be it gearing, lack of skill or being a downs, the end result is your health bar taking a hit, which a healer is supposed to react to and heal.

Now consider 15 dps, 7 healers and 3 tanks in a normal raid. Considering all players to be of equal skill, you have 7 people covering any mistakes and the RNG factor for 25 people in raid. This is the inherent flaw in the game design, which requires those 7 players to be of a higher caliber if your raid is going to succeed. Now change those DPS to high caliber players who don't make mistakes on gimmicks and you get top guilds in the world (they learn faster because they cut out the damage by a) taking less of it and b) killing stuff faster).

There is nothing special about healing or dps or tanking (I have done all 3 roles for every boss in TBC). It is all about how many people can do the "gimmick" right in your raid. If your raiders are not doing it right, they will die. On progression fights if your healers are not getting the gimmicks right (they have to learn it too), then that coupled with DPS/tanks failing will cause wipes. Most people are unable to judge the difference and start yelling at healers.

This offcourse assuming the healers are not just plain bad players. But then those never last very long in healing anyway.

[silai]

I agree completely with Faction, although I've met a lot of bad healers who were given spots just because we had nobody else.

I remember back in the day on the Illhoof, I was secretly hoping to not getting sacrificed because I knew I would die (no stam on primal mooncloth FTL).

[Stramash]

The first advice I give to anyone speccing tank is "Talk with your healers". More than anyone else I've found they have the most valuable insights as to how I'm playing as MT. Aggro and threat caps are transparent and easy to gauge, but the best way to see if the damage I'm taking is healable or one gear set offers more protection than another is of course to ask the healers.

Conversely I seem to have much more appreciation of a good healer than our DPS. Those green numbers seem to mean much more to me than the DPS'er who gets flicked the odd HoT. Certainly it's only me that noticed as I tab-sundered an additonal mob that the healing aggro was miniscule.

My point is the tank-healer relationship is blatantly symbiotic and confidence and communication between the two is to me vital. They're the last person you should rip into and if you find you are, you probably weren't talking to them enough before things went wrong.

I ride our DPS instead

[orcstar]

Ott and Faction, I'd like to ask permission to quote your posts offsite because it expresses very good how I think about things. Much better then I could write myself.

[Kahmal]

From my raid experiance the learning curve to an encounter starts with the tank mastering it, then the DPS getting used to it to avoid unneeded damage, finally the healers.

Point I'm making is if your still wiping and a finger can't really be pointed it normally is a healer issue. In my opinion however you can't consider it the healers fault as a whole as opposed to the Raid Leader or Healing Coordinator. My guild had a very good Healing Leader and after a few attempts could assess the situation calculating the encounter, number of healers he had and then the quality of healers he had. He had good healing Synergy with our main Holy Paladin and were able to 2 heal Tidewalker our first time downing him (only had 5 healers) and it's not like I had 70% avoidance either.

I never yell at the healers due to fear of Karma pissing off the person keepin you alive is a had idea. In a raid sense yelling at healers is just dumb, it's not like a healer ever intentionally lets someone die. If there is ever a problem with healing I consider more of a Flaw in the Strategy.

So how can a new healer like me NOT be a whackamole nub by using Grid? The mod along with Clique has increased my effiency ten fold, so how does it make me bad? I always move when needed to

[Ashyn]

I was a MT for a long time, with most of that experience coming in vanilla wow, my playing was off and on during TBC.

I have to say that I always had a great respect for my healers and I did my best to build up a good repoire with them. I have never, I repeat never blamed my healers.

Any time that I died, the first thing I would do is to check my combat log, and check my available CD's. Is last stand or SW up? why? Pot or cookie? why didn't I use them? What hit me so hard, was it a crushing blow?

Having played one side of the coin I forced myself to roll a few healing classes to get a feel for the other side. I never played a healer to the extent of getting one geared and into end game, but I have to admit it gave me alot of perspective for what is frankly, a demanding job.

Healing is not easy, DPS in raids can, alot of the time be considered "easy", but definately not healing. So to the OP you are vastly uninformed and your post is a little bit on the ignorant side.

For the quality tanks out there, I think you probably share my opinion, never blame your healers, look to yourself first since there is always room for improvment. This is not say there are no bad healers or that sometimes it "is" a healers fault for letting someone (the tank) die, but this by no means makes what they have to do "easy".

P.S. (When I read this I didn't realize I was on the 2nd page and so this post is mostly in response to elapadrinar's post. My bad to the actual OP.)

[silai]

Source: elapadrinar Ive played a healer a couple of times. I played on my buddies resto-druid which was pvp specced and in s3 gear. I did not have a healbot. Having never played a healer before i was the top healer in a magtheridon kill. I dont understand what is hard about clicking a player in a raid frame and healing them? When i see healers that are slacking or people not getting heals it really pisses me off. A tank should have 3 lifeblooms up and pally or priests healers on em at all times. IMO healing in raids is the most trivial thing in the game.(other then a pre-3.0, 1-button destro lock :P) Healing heroics is slightly more difficult. That being said, I dont blame the healers when we wipe unless it is there fault, and most the time it isnt. :P

Grats on healing a trivialized encounter that you overgear.
Why dont you go heal sunwell and tell us how easy it is?

[Bajumba]

Abuse of the healers from random raid members is just not acceptable. Not merely because it's unpleasant but also because it's a sign they are simply not thinking. Maybe the wipe was caused by someone else not doing their job - not taking your bloodboils on Gurtogg is a good example of how a slacker dps can screw up in such a way that the healers can't keep up. He's blaming you because he's too lazy and stupid to figure out what the fuck he should be doing.

If that is your situation discuss it with your guild management. If they don't get control of the guild then move on.

If your raid leader or class officer is abusing you it may be justified. Research the fight on youtube and bosskillers etc to see if you can understand why your guild is wiping on that boss. Research your optimal rotation and spell selections at sites like Elitist Jerks. Information is the key to justifying yourself, even if only privately to yourself.

If they are wrong then let's face it the guild will always suck. Bad players who are convinced they are right all the time are endemic in internet games and if in a position of power never change. Move on.

If they are right but obnoxious about it you have to consider coping strategies. Standing up for yourself, tease them, maybe challenge them a bit rather than just let them bully you. We have a very forceful raid leader but we're all fairly rude back and we have a good cameraderie in my guild. At the same time improve, giving them less reason to pick on you.

At the end of the day you have the power. A healer can always find a raid guild and this will be more true than ever in WotLK. And if you get really burned out change to a dps class. (I did get burned out on my Holy Priest and have successfully secured a spot with a pretty decent guild as a Mage now).

[Bajumba]

Source: mero12513 We have exactly 2 good healers and about 10 second-rate healers. Whenever healing fails, I post healing meters. Synge and Fulgurite are literally hundreds of thousands of heals ahead of everyone else. I simply toss up the meter and say "Do what they do." Things tend to fix themselves when you give people role models that simply don't make mistakes.

So spam CoH and scream for Innervates is the way forward in your opinion?

Not imho a great healing method for all situations but it certainly wins healing meters

[bludwork]

I normally trust healers to do the right thing but sometimes it can get very fustrating when they don't stick to their healing assignments. I remember we were doing twins, I put a healer on each tank, and another healer to heal both tanks the rest of the healers on the raid. This setup worked for us many times but we had a couple of new healers that night.

The paladin assigned to heal me, and only me did not do that. Instead he was healing multiple tanks and I died. I was furious, how hard could it be to stick to healing one person? Bad healers are either afraid of spending their mana, or they heal so randomly they endup not healing properly.

[Funyryawnzar]

All of this talk about who to blame really doesn't get anyone anywhere. Regardless of who's fault anything is, the only person that yelling gets the job done for is the GM or an officer. We've already established that healing is the hardest job in the game because healers have to compensate for EVERYONE else's mistakes. The point of my post is this:

RIPPING ON ANYONE DOESN'T HELP ANYTHING.

Unless you're in a position of power and your anger is a form of constructive criticism, seriously, shut up. You probably don't know what you're talking about and have no idea how difficult the encounter is from another's point of view. The majority of the reasons guilds I've been in have been slow on progression in specific fights is because of fighting (both explicit and quietly) among the guild.

That said, I've played both dps, healer, and tank. I healed all of prebc content and bc content, only dps and tank in bc. Tanking is definitely not easy most fights, unless you outgear it...then its a joke. DPS is absurdly easy because someone always figures out the optimal button spam. Healing is the ONLY aspect of the game that requires instinct and because you have to compensate for other's mistakes. Its also the LEAST gear dependant class to play in the game. If you know how to heal and have the knack for it, a kara geared priest can easily heal BT (the longevity is the issue, but pre 3.0 pots etc. took care of that).

/end rant

[silai]

Source: Bajumba So spam CoH and scream for Innervates is the way forward in your opinion? Not imho a great healing method for all situations but it certainly wins healing meters

If you are in sunwell or late BT thats the only thing you should do with keeping PoM on CD.
Bad fight design lead us to be CoH spammer.