The life of a healer in Cataclysm is new, exciting, and often times terrifying. The new expansion does something quite well, it makes healing really really hard. Since hitting level 85, I quickly geared up for healing and DPS just in case a guild group had a DPS slot available. Guild groups have been an absolute delight. Coordinating CC, figuring out new mechanics, and having a blast in new content and trying for achievements. Random groups however have been, to be honest here, full of suck.
This is mostly due not to the new healing mechanics, but to the new requirements in CC management and smart tanking. Over the course of the last week, I have queued for random heroics as a healer at least three times a day. This endeavor has met with slightly less mixed results than I would have anticipated. In the vast majority of cases the tank has been the problem. Not waiting for CC assignments or for the CC to go off. Breaking CC early, or to be perfectly honest here, pulling like a jack-ass. Now what I mean by this is that the tank is either pulling multiple groups, not waiting for the healer to have mana, not conserving mitigation cooldowns for when they are needed and generally ignoring any sort of logic or strategic approach. This is what I like to call the “Wrath Tanking Mentality”, which will be referred to from this point on in the post as WTM.
What is WTM you may be asking. Well, it’s the idea that heroics are stupidly easy, and require no forward thinking. That as soon as you reach maximum level, you are ENTITLED to the loot contained therein, and the actual running of the dungeon is merely a formality. This honestly wasn’t a problem the first few days as Blizzard instituted a gear requirement before even allowing people to queue randomly for the dungeons, but as players figured out how to raise their GS early the queues began to get worse and worse. In Wrath it wasn’t uncommon for a healer to just say “go ahead and pull 1/2 of the zone, I’ll be just fine.” or some variation therein. Honestly as a fresh 80 running heroics, very few reports of having difficulty healing existed. In Cataclysm though, it’s all about conserving mana, using the right heal for the job, and having a group that avoids all unnecessary damage while following CC assignments. As a healer you may have experienced this, but WTM is very very strong right now. I fear that the learning curve may actually be too steep for some people. I fear this, because inevitably what these people do is cry the loudest for dungeons to be nerfed, and they are very very quick to blame healers. Let me share with you some lovely examples from this week.
Day 1 of heroic ready healer
Throne of Tides: First boss
The tank was a warrior with LESS hit-points than my healer. My healer clocks in at 106k health right now, the tank only had 105k This was red flag number 1. I would have vote kicked him on the spot for that, but he had a voting block with two other guildies with him. We make it to the first boss through all the trash and it feels like a miracle. The tank seems to be made of paper, until I inspect them and see they are still wearing some ilvl 251 gear mixed in with sub-par greens. How this person got into the instance is a mystery to me at the time, but I go along with it. After all I’m a shaman and made of infinite win right? The first boss has a couple abilities that will tax a healer, and outright kill a stupid DPS. One of these abilities is a geyser that she casts beneath a player. You have ample time to move out of it, but if you don’t it will deal enough damage that it will one shot you. Funny thing here is, the first time she casts it even after being warned what it was, the tank does NOT move out of it and dies. That’s right folks, the tank. His comment “You suck healer you should have healed me through that.” I calmly explain that it is an instant kill and he needs to move off of it, and luckily one of his guildies backs me up on this. He drops the matter. The boss also has a phase where she summons three adds, two casters and a melee. The mage polymorphs one caster and I hex the other, which is pretty much standard operating procedure at this point. The tank, tags ALL three adds breaking the polymorph and the hex. The tank proceeds to die, and I am promptly vote-kicked from the group. Clearly both wipes were my fault. I write it off, tack myself to a guild group and a call it a night.
Day 2 of heroic ready healer
Halls of Origination: First Pull
The tank was much better off than the first one. Also a warrior he had a considerably larger health total, and his gear looked to be on par for heroic content. I was feeling optimistic about this run right until the first pull. This pull consists of five mobs that all do many different things. Usually the group marks 2-3 for CC and burns down the two biggest threats fast while pulling out of line of sight. The tank for this run however, rushed blindly in. No CC went out, and we had none besides my hex that could withstand damage so it was a wipe. Second attempt, someone in the group explains what we need to do, and this time we get our CC’s off . The tank however goes rushing in and dies a fiery death as he runs out of my healing range. Third attempt, the tank rushes in, and drops group as soon as everything is angry with us. Right gear, wrong mentality. I do some random heroics with guildies, call it a night.
Day 3 of heroic ready healer
Grim Batol: First boss
Interestingly enough, I got in this one as DPS. I forgot to uncheck DPS from the previous night’s heroic runs with the guild. We get to the first boss easy enough, I explain the fight on heroic and we engage. The healer, a holy priest, is doing a kick ass job and things are going great. Umbriss kicks into high gear and smears the tank pretty good. We wipe, go back in, tank drops group. We get a second tank and the same thing happens. I ask if he’s saving mitigation cooldowns (which I already know the answer to thanks to oRA3) and the only response I get is that the tank drops group. We get a third tank and the same thing happens. oRA3 in all cases shows me that the tank is just blowing tanking cooldowns at odd times. Times when healing isn’t tight and damage is manageable. This bothers me quite a bit and after three more failed tanks all doing the same exact thing I just call it a night and go to bed.
This continues on for what seems like many, many days. Now, not every experience was bad and there was some shinning hope here.
Day 5 of heroic ready healer
Heroic Deadmines
This was the first time that the group was all from random servers and guilds. No repeats of anything. The composition was a druid tank, me healing, a hunter a mage and a warlock for DPS. A lot of viable CC in this group, and best of all, they all listened. We worked together through the whole instance. For every one of us it was the first time setting foot in it since the change. We looked up encounters, made up our own strategies and fought all the way to the end. The druid was an amazing tank watching my mana closely and knowing when it was safe to pull and when it was time to sit back and take a break. Honestly I was impressed with the way the group was communicating without voice chat and getting along. Through normal conversation I find out that the group is made up entirely of players from the vanilla days who used to raid 40 man content. This is new and exciting to me as recently I’ve been running with “wrath babies” so it was good to reminisce about the good old days. We get to the end, figure out the cookie fight without looking it up, earn a few achievements and then begin the VanCleef event. I call it an event because, well, it is very much so an event and not a boss fight (coincidently, Kudos to you on this one Blizzard, A plus all the way on this fight). We get through a few wipes and then we realize it’s already 5 am and we just can’t keep going anymore. We drop group, but it was seriously the best healing experience I’ve had so far in a heroic, and one that hasn’t been replicated yet.
Long journey, but here’s the short of it. Healing is much harder than it was before. Most healers in my experience are making the transition pretty well thanks to the strong healing community feeding information into the media. Tanking and smart DPS is an entirely different story now. I don’t say this a lot, but right now the fail boat has a lot of passengers. I know there will always be a string of bad runs, or players that haven’t been keeping up on every change, but it feels as though we really do have a lot of players behind the curve.
Is the tanking learning curve too steep? Is WTM too strong after having used it for two years? What experiences have you had as a healer in the LFG system? Have you encountered the WTM a
That’s it for now, I’m going to head back in to the LFD tool with my head up and my mana potions stacked high. I’ll be sure to bring you back some awesome, and awful stories. Until next time, happy healing and may your mana be plentiful.
There are some tanks who will be having a hard time adjusting from “I am unkillable, I can solo heroic bosses!” back to “hell I’m made of paper”. Heroics are brutal for tanks at the moment, and those who have just been zerging content, skipping trash (Yes I’m talking about you PoS ramp) and generally ignoring the mechanics have got out of the habit.
Personally I prefer to work the mechanics even when I’m overgeared, it’s good practice.
I have run nearly all the heorics in my guild groups, we have wiped a few times and I run out of mana by the end of alot of fights but we have done it without to many problems.
I have sucessful healed 1 heoric pug but have attempted more then i care to count!
Cata really does make you realise how many people can’t play this game at all. I’ve seen Pally tanks wearing leather, no gems, no enchants, not useing cooldowns, no CCing, no tactics and to busy insulting each other and passing the blame onto anyone other then themselves.
I would not be surprized to find many people quitting if Blizz do not nerf it as pugs are near impossible at the moment. Blizz are obviously encouraging guild togetherness as per the new guild achievements and working together as a team…I feel for players not in a nice helpful guild tbh because its a nightmare out there.
At first i was tearing my hair out healing as i couldn’t keep the tank up or keep up with group damage, but after running with my guild and having way less problems i now realise that its not JUST my fault and blizz want us to play as a team, not as a healer saves everyones arse even if they do stand in fire!! Its just a shame Blizz couldn’t MAKE every player read how they are meant to be playing as it makes the LFG near useless right now.
I haven’t instanced yet (resto druid) but the stories I’ve read fill me with trepidation.
I do hope though that whatever happens Blizz won’t hit these places with the nerf bat. However, what I would like to see is the possibility for those ‘fail’ tanks and dps to learn the proper way in game. Maybe that’s too much to ask for, but right now I kind of feel like in order to be a good player, you need to read up a lot outside the game. I don’t mind this personally, I actually enjoy it, but I can understand if for other people that’s not what they signed up for. I think the game itself needs to encourage the right behaviour, rather than relying on kind individuals in groups teaching someone how to tank/dps (and then actually having someone who is receptive to that advice!) or relying on individuals doing lots of out of game research.
As one of the more serious players in a more casual guild, I hit 85 2 days before the next guildie, and then it was another 2 days for the next few 85’s to ding. After several bad experiences along the same lines as Lodur, I decided to hold off until guild groups were ready, or at least guild tanks. The straw that broke the camel’s back was a Grimm Batol where I got pulled in after the first boss was dead, and by the time we got to the last every position had seen people come and go several times. For me, the rage quit is worse than the lack of cc because it shows an unwillingness to adapt. At least some people are willing to admit we should take it slow after one wipe.
I haven’t done any instances myself, but this post is like a double-edged blade for me. I have a shammy healer and a paladin tank. I plan on leveling both from 80 to 85 somewhere before the new year kicks in.
I’m mostly scared of tanking to be honest. My wife has been healing some normal dungeons while leveling (she’s halfway level 82 now) and they haven’t been too bad as long as everybody does what they’re supposed to. But man, I already know my paladin is barely geared for Wrath heroics, let alone Cataclysm dungeons. I’m squishy and I know it!
But thanks for the post, it was a good read 🙂
Since the tanks in your guild and my guild can adapt, I’m sure it’s not too hard for anyone. They’re just inconsiderate asses who don’t listen to advice. I’ve only run with guild groups for now, but I’m actually looking forward to pugging. I’m not one of those healers who drop group when people bitch at them – I’ll be right there bitching back and vote kicking idiots who refuse to listen.
DPS has been getting a lot of the focus, but I’ve see these problem with tanks in pugs. Actually seen it in guild, but then its pretty easy to tell them to pull their head out. Right now at our gear level, not only has healing become more difficult, but as a holy priest I’m also learning to heal in a different manner. I’m just thankful that the first tank I let drop while working through specs/gear/spells was a friend and we had the group to recover. I’m sure other classes are feeling that pain as well.
I’m a tank and I see a lot of the heroic gear entitlement in my dps guildies who aren’t finished leveling yet. They think they’ll hit 85 and faceroll heroics.
In a guild group, last night, we spent two hours working our way through BRC heroic… and ultimately called it after a few wipes on the third boss. I said something about it on guild chat this morning and several people were shocked “lol seriously?”
Heroics are now more like mini-raids in time requirements and in difficulty, though they will get easier as we learn the fights. The gearing and situational awareness requirements for tanks and healers is a lot higher than dps [though dps need it too]. Take Ozruk in Heroic Stonecore – the tank is in literally constant motion… while having to build threat. I can’t imagine a group of 5 random people pulling that fight off.
I won’t pug yet as a tank… I got burned by a lot of abuse in Wrath and I’m not up for letting that garbage back into my environment yet. I’ve already heard the horror stories of trying to tank pug heroics.
Honestly, the LFG tool has gotten to the point of being unusable for me. I’m a Shaman – Enhancement mainspec though. Fairly serious – enough that my average iL is 340. Every time I queue for a random though, and I do mean every single time without exception, I get pulled into a dungeon “In Progress.” Which has turned into a giant red flag. Every one has been “In Progress” because the group has no concept of CC, no concept of mana conservation, no concept of letting the tank get aggro. Resulting in a waste of a 40 minute queue plus another 10 minutes; I don’t leave immediately unless they’re dying to trash without good reason. It’s honestly at the point where yeah, I could queue as Resto, but why would I want to put myself through THAT?
Now to be entirely fair, none of these concepts are new. I date back to vanilla, and I remember BC fondly. And honestly I feel like I’m the only one who ever does in these groups. Wrath was just too easy. Any facerolling nub could waltz their way through the base heroics. And then came the ICC5’s. People should have seen this coming courtesy those; I wasted many queues when it would pop Halls of Reflection because half the group would immediately go “HoR? SCREW THAT. /leave”
Already, people are going “I’m not doing any of this crap till it’s nerfed.” The queue times for normals are half that of heroics, and the facerolling in those is just as bad and readily apparent – just slightly less likely to leave me with a huge repair bill. I’m hoping that Blizzard has the brains to ignore these people.
Like you said; they think they’re entitled to facerolling their way to loot without any effort. The Wrath babies had it far too good for far too long. It was easy to carry a bad player, strategy was nonexistent, and it was far too easy to overgear and faceroll your way through any content. Even ICC itself was more or less a joke, especially compared to Sunwell.
Best of luck to you with the Looking For Doom tool; I’ve personally made the decision to quit using it and only do guild runs. I don’t believe myself that the learning curve is too steep at all. I just believe that WoW has become overpopulated with Wrath babies who are just going to whine until everything is nerfed to the point where it’s no longer fun or interesting to people who prefer a challenge.
I only hit 81 last night, and that during my first and only Cata dungeon run so far. (BRC) It was a fantastic run. Of course, BRC normal-mode fits more the Wrath scheme of things than other dungeons.
Still, the tank was great, explained the boss fights well and marked targets. And the DPS learned quickly, even though one of them had a totally fritzed-out DBM.
So, I was quite happy with my first dungeon run in Cata. (Except for the queue time. Took nearly 15 minutes to get a group.)
Heroic pugs to me equal 2-3 hours of headaches its just not worth it
I _REALLY_ hope Blizzard has the good sense to not listen to QQ and leaving the difficulty as is. I’m a BC baby, although (realistically) a Wrath toddler since that was my introduction to group play, and I’m LOVING the current design.
Sure, it’s hard. Sure, you have to pay attention. To me, that just means it’s more meaningful when you down a boss.
Had my first Heroic last night (Throne of TIdes), and it was refreshing to wipe on bosses and trash, and have to come up with interesting ways to deal with it (like having a rogue kite one of the 2 Faceless pull back to the entrance, or having 2 boss kills be last man standing kills.) I’ll probably be sticking to Guild groups just because of the horrendous queue times (25+ Normal, 40+ Heroic right now,) but I look forward to players having to step up their games.
I like that I have to try on nearly every pull and actually choose my heals correctly. If I use a Healing Rain in a bad situation then I’m going to pay for it. If I try and spam Healing Surge, I’m going to pay for it. Efficiency, damage prevention, spell selection. All important.
People also need to get in the habit of seeing their health bar hang in the 60-70% range.
Well, I’m a BC baby, not a Wrath baby, so I was relishing in the idea of CCing again. For the time being, though, I’m a little afraid to run heroics in a PUG as a healer – and your post here just reinforces that opinion. At any rate, a lot of tanks – and DPS – are still in the Wrath mindset where a healer can carry the group through just about anything. The only heroics I’ve attempted so far are Stonecore and Deadmines (the former as a healer, the latter as DPS/heals), and Stonecore was just miserable. I ran with my guildmate hunter and three pugs, and both pugs were melee, so we wiped four times on the first boss, as the melee wouldn’t help with some of the adds. Deadmines went a little more smoothly, but even with three guildmates and one PUG, and switching to Holy from Shadow on a couple things to help out our shaman healer, we couldn’t get past Admiral Ripsnarl.
So, basically, people need to get geared for it (no problem for me, I don’t mind doing this, nor do my guildmates), but I think the ilvl system definitely needs a tweak. As for WTM, yes. Definitely yes. Lost City and Grim Batol, even on regular, are extremely difficult when there is no CC. I don’t particularly look forward to HoO without a decurse, either, as I’ve had a mage say he was too busy killing things to decurse (since the curse works much like Curse of Torpor from Lady Deathwhisper).
Not quite into heroics yet but I have seen some of the WTM but not as much as I thought I might but less CC than I expect. One notable exception a couple nights ago: Stonecore, a few pulls in over eager tank charges forward yet again and goes “splat” + group wipe. tank: “whats a matter cant heal in T10?”, me: “it’s only about my 4th run here today”. tank: “well do it better then!”. me: “well have fun then. /leave”
I hardly _ever_ drop groups, I usually stick it out to make it work but that was a little too much.
I only felt sorry for the DPS that waited for the Q.
I truly hope that Bliz does not listen to the “wrath babies” crying and lower the bar. I really like the designs and group challenge they offer.
Let the prima donna tanks go back to Maple Story.
I am a tank who only started playing in wrath, a “wrath baby” as you put it, and have had no problem adapting. I mark the cc, both in pugs and in my guild runs, and everything goes well. Most of the random in LFG that I found did they’re job ok, using the cc they have when I called for it.
Heroics are hard but manageable if you pull carefully, the dps respect the kill order and dont stand in fire, and the healer knows how to manage his mana. WOW is still a game with easy mechanics, you don’t need 5 years to learn it.
Another night of no one caring about CC or you know moving out of bad stuff. I told the guild end of the night I rather slam my hand in a car door then heal another heroic and log to watch a movie. WTB more 85 healers then just me in the guild.
Honestly, I’m absolutely flabbergasted hearing about so many bad runs. Maybe I’m just astronomically lucky in the LFD tool, but I can honestly say I’ve had very little trouble finding people willing to learn and stepping up to the plate. Granted, I’ve found taking a strong leadership role and guiding them as if I were leading a PUG raid using chat to help significantly. It’s a lot of extra work to mark, talk strategy, politely wheedle through egos to bend them to my will, but I’ve been rewarded almost every time I’ve done so and saved my poor mana bar a lot of drainage, though I admit there’s been more than a couple occasions I’ve had to exercise my kick vote.
But make no mistake, these new heroics are like mini-raids. Even a well-oiled group will take an hour and a half to wind through most of them with a couple wipes.
As a resto shaman so far I’ve successfully pugged about 7 heroics. In each case there were a few times where we wiped just figuring out the mechanics, but after we got used to the mechanics it was pretty smooth. On the whole each tank waits for me to get mana, marks for CC, and will explain fights to those new. I agree with the “raid-like” atmosphere where it seems like each boss has 1 or 2 abilities that if you’re not paying attention will wipe the group.
I had a similar experience in HC deadmines. The event for the last boss was awesome but we wiped about 5 times getting through it all.
I’ve tanked all the regular instances so far, and have had mostly good ex
Shaytam: I fully agree that there are some good tanks and good groups – not all bad. And yes wow does not take 5 years to learn – if one is willing to care to do so.
Not all players do unfortunately and they have been able to get away with it. Even among guildes we have had (just tonight) had to instill a little discipline – fortunately the tank and myself were on the same page. Brought them in line and “got it done”.
True, sorry if I sounded a bit annoyed, I just don’t like the stereotype of: You haven’t been playing for 5 years so you must be having problems to adapt and are trying to chain pull a heroic… And even if this article didn’t say this explicitly it certainly went in this direction.
Actually I feel that quality of randoms I find in LFG is better than 1 month ago. Maybe because the content forced them to play better, maybe because the ones who get first to 85 are better players.
From a different point of view, I have had a few problems with healers running oom even when the group was avoiding as much damage as possible. So I feel the problem goes both ways, some are adapting fast, to some it will take more time, I just don’t feel it is fair to put all the burden on tanks.
I’ve tanked all the regular instances so far, and have had mostly good experiences. Other than having to regularly remind DPS to stick to my target (which is marked) I’ve seen less fail than I expected. Most of the people I’ve grouped with have been patient and polite, CC’d when and what I’ve asked them to, and followed my instructions on boss fights – a completely different world compared to wrath heroics. I’m really looking forward to heroics, particularly for the challenge. I think the WTM is worse for people who didn’t tank in wrath, or got their tank leveled right near the end. They don’t really know how to tank, don’t know how to use their CDs, LOS, positioning, etc. and instead of accepting advise they blame everyone else for their poor play and bad gear. Honestly learning to tank well is a steep challenge; the job is hardest at the precise time when you are worst at it (inexperience lines rIght up with bad gear). Note to new tanks: take it slow, learn as much as you can, and ask for help! Don’t be bad AND a douche.
I’ve tanked all the heroics bar DM (damn random LFG picks), and am fully 346 geared now but missing one trinket. I can tell you that with trash, CC becomes not really needed once you are completely heroic geared. The only times I spent time marking a few mobs are when the packs are large, or I know it consists of a mob that’s very nasty. And since I go with guild groups, the dps have been pretty smart to cc the caster mobs left at the back themselves. (Of course I don’t actually charge in, but use heroic throw on a caster mob to pull). This makes the runs go much much faster.
What I found different is actually the bosses. A lot of heroics success now relies very much on group coordination. This means it’s no longer the tank carrying the instance anymore. A brilliant example is most of the bosses in Grim Batol. The trash difficulty relies heavily on how good your group is at bombing. Then onto the bosses. (Can’t remember their names). Forgemaster have your dps dodging fire, fallen rocks, while pulling enough damage and kill it before healer run out of mana. The one which spawns a fire add have your dps watching where the fire add spawn, group near the boss, and also dodge the purple flame that seems to actually spray around a 1/3 of his face. The trogg add one have your dps splitting the malignant trogg, burn it down away from the other troggs. And ofc the final boss requires such perfect execution from your dps to not fail (we don’t have that great dps yet, so anyone stunned by binding shadow means we have hatched eggs and wipe). All these bosses do not require much from the tank at all other than watching the action going on.
I guess what I’m saying is that I hear lots of talk about the importance of CC. But barely one week in, we already see the need of CC to have almost gone away. (Some bosses still currently require CC to execute successfully though).
Oh and that first pull in HoO. You pull the 3 mobs standing in front of the big one, back to the first room. With shockwave, you should be able to tank it without any CC. The big mob at the back just aoe in the room where the mobs start at. It’s that stupid. Just never ever charge into that room at all.
Also for the first boss in Throne. I’m not sure if the melee adds is actually tankable at this point. Your warrior tank should have used both his shockwave and concussion blow to kite, and then disarm before he melees. It seems to hit very hard.
As a healer I will respectfully disagree here. I’m full heroic geared, the tanks I run with in guild are full heroic geared, the DPS is full heroic geared, and I can tell you how much easier on me it is when CC is used and observed. While it is true that as we begin to out gear heroics they will become much easier and will not require the same amount of care, right now even at equal gearing it can be hell to survive certain pulls without CC. If you’re successfully pulling without CC and not dying, seriously that’s awesome, but I suspect that partway through that pull the healer is either OOM or struggling to keep up.
As a Holy Priest that has started running only with guild tanks, I relate. That said, my go to tank is now most all 346, and I am about 50-66% 346 gear and we still CC 1-2 mobs on huge pulls, but a lot of the time we are already using less and less CC.
I fear by the time t10 is JP gear, it will be just like Wrath. I could be very wrong.
I completely agree with this article, tanks are a huge problem right now, but DPS does fall in short a lot of the time as well. I don’t even think most DPS has any clue how to properly CC or has an inkling that it’s even required in these instances. Most players are probably just sitting there fuming about how everyone sucks and is waiting on the carry to OP gear scores. As a holy priest I’m getting consistently blamed for wipes while tanks are pulling without calls for CC, checking caster mana, or even so much as a “R?”. The best you get are a few casual kill order marks before he goes ‘leroy’. I have really missed the CC and group-checking mob abilities of the old dungeons and I’m finding this experience refreshing and fun. That said, I’m sure because of Blizzard’s bias to the casual, the uninformed and the blizzfully ignorant we’ll see a nerfing of the instances or a buffing of the tanks down the road. The QQ always conquers. (Click the Lightwell)
I have done 1 PUG since hitting 85, I like to think I am an above average healing, seeing all content in WOTLK and leading most of those encounters too, but PUGS in Cataclysm at the moment are just not worth the energy, stress, water for me. I have a pretty active guild with at least 3-4 heroics running at any one time so I’m lucky.
My PUG experience went like this;
1. Queued and got Lost City of the Tol’vir
2. Sighed
3. Tank marked up and the 2 mages CC’d
4. Smiled happily that maybe I got lucky
5. Tanks first heroic and taking a lot of damage
6. 2 DPS died standing in stupid places, asked them what killed them, one said “no heals”, the other said “i’m a tard” and then told off the other dps cause he was standing in shit (they were in the same guild)
7. I typed ‘lol’ in party and said “dont stand in shit and you’ll live”
8. Pulled boss and all DPS stood in mines and died (again claiming lack of heals).
9. Stuggled to keep tank up but did ok until we got caught with mines all around us and tank died standing in 2-3 at once
10. Tank left
11. New Tank joined
12. Pulled boss (without waiting for buffs)
13. Kited the boss over all the mines and then qq’d when he died
14. Tried to explain the fight for him (first heroic as well), got attitude
15. Left party
I’m leveling now and haven’t made it to the cap but you’ve just described why after years of nothing but healing – I’m apprehensive. I think of all the bad runs I LFG’d into in Wrath, the undeargeared bad attitude tanks, the DPS that ran wide open and I fear that now that the game mechanics have changed, as healers, we’re all in trouble.
As a healer-turned tank, I don’t suffer from WTM and hereby vow to be smart about my tanking. I will keep an eye on your mana. I will wait patiently for CC. I will try my best to keep mobs away from you. I may be slow to mark and pull, but that is only because I am new and a bit nervous.
I love and respect healers and also DPS who stay out of the fire.
This was good to read! I was kicked from a PUG for the 1st time ever and although I knew it wasn’t my fault, it still hurt the ego. We were in Grim Batol and the WTM tank literally chain pulled the entire 1st corridor headed over the bridge LOS & dies. Not once did he look at my mana. Luckily I was in a nonheroic & in mostly 333 or + gear so I was able to keep us from wiping with just 2 deaths. I get both rezzed (no help form the Paly in the group) and begin buffing & healing everyone up since they all just stood around and did nothing for themselves. I’m at about 10% mana at that point and sitting to drink. The tank pulls as I am sitting, since Hey, he is ready. I’m not even looking at this point & am killed almost instantly. Paly doesn’t attempt to rez me so I run back in & on the way in am kicked from the group. I’m still scratching my head over that one.
I’ve been raid healing on my Disc/Holy Priest since vanilla. I love it so much I actually have 2 identical priests to be sure I’m never on lock out. I’m really enjoying the new mechanics in Cata. I find it very reminiscent of the vanilla days. Yes, it’s a huge challenge right now but after a year of spam healing it is really nice for a change.
/sigh. This was the whole reason I didn’t want to roll a healer in the first place, but I couldn’t resist. I wanted a bigger challenge than racing to the top of the DPS charts.
We have our own scheme of maneuver compared to DPS and tanks. We can follow it to a T, but if the cooperation isn’t there, it’s a wipe and it’s the healer’s fault. Christ, I was in normal Utgarde Keep and wiped three times on the first boss because the other participants (all happened to be guildies) wouldn’t bother to break the Ice Tomb on me. I would have to watch the tank and each DPS slowly die without heals. This post…this effing frightens me.
There would be an easy solution to the LFD chaos/madness.
Make the Luck of the Draw buff stronger, as in 20-25%, possibly even 30%.
That would only let the retards get away with it tho, but I don’t believe there’s a fix for stupidity so at least the buff would make it less miserable for the minority that gets screwed over.