The long version: a. Maraudon is hell. b. Tanks like that deserve being beaten across the head with the big stick or left to die while you’re laughing. See this as a service done to your level 80 friends: if a tank learns at level 40 that healing drinking = no heals = dead, maybe he’ll stop doing it in heroic. c. Don’t worry.
.-= Jen´s last blog ..X-realming lowbies – the checklist =-.

I called mana, he ran into another group way ahead of us. By the time i got there, he was dead and the rest of the group was almost there. Of course, we wiped.

Guess who got blamed. He called me a dumb ass and I left. Never doing random instances without one of my guildies tanking again. I told him I’d never ran the dungeon period when we started. I am fully sick and tired of people assuming everybody has been doing this for years and know everything. Especially when stated otherwise.

/new healer rant

My favourite answer to that question is “people took more damage than they had health.” It has unfailingly tended to diffuse some of the stress and frustration with a moment’s laughter before we settle down to seriously figure out what happened, and it nearly always deflects the few raid members who do like to blame the healers for everything. (Thankfully, the raid leadership never really tends to blame healers automatically in my guild.)
.-= elfennau´s last blog ..010 :: Malygos Encounter =-.

I’m just going to pick up on a couple of points in your reply that I think are interesting.

1. Your comment about tanks in blues and greens being summarily kicked is sad but true – I’ve seen it myself. I might baulk a bit at healing them through halls of reflection on heroic mode but for an ‘ordinary’ heroic I’m more than happy to do it. In my experience it’s the dps who quit the group (and are replaced quickly !) presumably because they don’t want a run to last more than about 5 minutes flat.

I think this reinforces my view that if you’re going to get a player being snotty about things it’s not a healer. I’ve also seen tanks moan when their dps goes higher than a dps class (if you see what I mean). As long as things get done does it really matter – let’s face it, most people are running heroics for emblems these days.

2. The point about the LFG tool is that it’s across battlegroups, so takes in more than 1 server. I play in Europe so perhaps the US servers are different but I can assure you over here there is a shortage of healers and tanks – and I put the blame for this squarely on the fact that we are the classes that get whinged at by DPS when it all goes wrong (note I am including tanks in this).

3. I really do not think I agree with your assessment that healing (or tanking for that matter) is as easy as DPS. It is not and I have long advocated that the best dps are those who also have either a tank or healer class in their toons list as well – they have an appreciation for those classes and understand that sometimes a dps is going to die because we really have no choice. I’ve been QQ’d at too often by DPS who I’ve chosen to let die because in my judgment that was the least worst option at a given point of an encounter.

4. I didn’t say I find healing unpleasant but at times it can be stressful. Having said that for myself I thrive on that but I am aware that other healers don’t enjoy it and a bit of consideration from others would go a long way.

5. Your ‘precious’ tank I’ve experienced myself so total sympathy there. He actually /gquit in a moment of pique which was a huge relief as it saved me from having to kick him and then deal with the fallout of losing a well geared tank in the guild.

6. I don’t think I did argue that _all_ members of a certain role behave in a certain way. But I do think, statistically, there’s a tendency to blame healers and tanks when things go wrong.

Nari

For what it’s worth, I play two hybrid classes and while my primary spec is dps, I also heal on a regular basis (always for heroics and pvp and occasionally during 10 and 25 man raids). I think it’s silly to argue that all members of a certain role (whether healers, dps or tanks) behave in a certain manner or have a certain skill level or face a certain level of challenge, and did not suggest this.

Certain encounters/specs/situations are particularly challenging and others aren’t. Some guilds run Festergut with as little as four or as many as seven healers- obviously the first is more challenging for the healers and the last for the dps. Certain players have more or less gear or experience, a better computer/internet connection, faster reflexes, etc. Arguments that a certain role isn’t challenging have always struck me as ridiculous- you can always add to the challenge by doing everything in your power to maximize your performance and having perfect responses and timing alone is virtually impossible.

My comment was in no way anti-healer, only anti- those healers who believe they are worthy of special treatment beyond that shown the rest of the raid simply because they are healers. You may feel dps are a dime a dozen, but finding a top quality player is difficult no matter the class/spec, and most top-quality players can comfortably fulfill multiple roles if necessary.

I don’t think the LFG interface is reliable proof that dps are a dime a dozen either, because it operates under a special set of circumstances. For a heroic a well-geared tank and healer can carry undergeared dps, but not vice versa, and because of this many undergeared players will queue as dps in order to gear themselves out rather than as a tank/healer. A player queueing as a tank in half blues and greens will most likely just get kicked.

Perhaps on your server and at your level of raiding there genuinely is a dramatic shortage of healers, but I have not generally had this experience. Even if it were the case on our server, however, having to walk on eggshells around one particular group lest you provoke ‘healer rage’ is ridiculous. I have been in a situation where a tank was treated in this manner because no one wanted to go through the hassle of finding a new MT, and it was an extremely unpleasant situation for everyone else in the guild- not only holding back our progress, but infuriating all the other guild members unhappy with special treatment he received.

In my opinion, if a healer is really finding healing that stressful or unpleasant they should either take a break from the game, find a less hardcore raiding environment or try out raiding as dps and see if they do enjoy it more.

well I’m afraid one thing you haven’t considered is that healers are (generally) a rare commodity. Tanks have become more commonplace because of the Death Knight class but are also rare as well. DPS are 2 a penny. Want proof of this ? Try the new LFG as a healer or tank – instant heroics. Try it as DPS and (in my battlegroup at least) you can have a 30 minute wait.

All too often healers have been at the receiving end of ‘just heal more’ when they are already run ragged smoothing over other peoples mistakes let alone healing the encounter.

I think healers DO deserve some special courtesy because it is a role not many people want to play, at least regularly, and those people who do play healers (often to the detriment of their other toons) in order that their guild friends can progress in raids are deserving of a thankyou. I should add that my guild is appreciative of the whole healing team and when raid leading I always make sure to single out people who have really pulled out all the stops and give public praise. I also criticise individuals privately and it’s always constructive.

Generally I find people who think healers are just ‘meh’ have never rolled and subsequently played a healer of their own and genuinely do not understand the special challenges being a healer (especially a raid healer) bring. As to your last paragraph, I have yet to meet a healer who will not accept the blame (indeed admit to it) when they slip up. What we don’t like it being automatically accused because pretty much any encounter can be fixed if the healers heal more – so it’s an easy option for the rest of the group. Certainly for myself I’ve always immediately said over Vent if I’ve made a mistake in healing and if there’s a wipe subsequently explained what I’ve done wrong.

If, however, a wipe actually is the fault of one or more of the healers and these healing-related issues are not being addressed adequately by the healing class lead then it is reasonable to expect non-healers to start questioning why the wipes are occurring.

And certainly there’s a large middle ground where multiple issues (healing-related and non-healing-related) may be contributing to the wipe and/or where the healing class lead may address some healing-related issues, but may not know every healing class well enough to pinpoint small issues that may be contributing to healers not reaching their maximum performance.

What I don’t think healers have the right to do is expect special ‘courtesy’ or deference simply because they are healers. No, you don’t often hear ‘awesome job healers’ after a successful raid night, but you don’t often hear ‘awesome job dps’ or ‘awesome job tanks’ either. And while other roles may seem less stressful, a dps that pulls sub-par dps or dies to avoidable raid damage will certainly be criticized as easily as a healer. Unless there is an enrage timer (such as on Festergut) though, the precipitating factor to most wipes is usually a tank death, in which case usually it is the healers who are asked (reasonably) why the tank died. In our guild if the raid wipes due to multiple dps deaths, however, it is usually the dps who are first asked why they died, as the (reasonable) assumption is that usually a dps death is the fault of the dps. And certainly on fights where dps have specific responsibilities (such as immediately switching targets to a spawned add) if those responsibilities are not met the dps will absolutely be questioned as to why.

Maybe some healers just need to relax and respond reasonably when questioned about a wipe without immediately raging that someone could even question whether healing issues might be occurring. We all make mistakes and lately people seem way too uptight about having calm public discussions as to what went wrong during a wipe.