Guest Post: Tanks and Healers Should Get The Biggest Rewards

120 thoughts on “Guest Post: Tanks and Healers Should Get The Biggest Rewards”

1. Interesting.

   I’ve had several conversations about gearing tanks and healers. However, very rarely have you heard ‘oh we cant heal this boss b/c of gear’. DPS, yes… the only boss that we MIGHT be able to say that would be the Dreamwalker event coming up.

   That all being said, I disagree. While yes, healers are a biatch to level – its the path we chose. We like healing. We like the challege that healers provide. I remember my post a year or so ago about “Why Do You Heal?”. DPS likes to dps, and blow stuff up. However, you can’t kill a boss without the tanks or the DPS, and to reserve a bonus to them would frankly be unfair. While, yes, I do appreciate the fact that most healers need to pay attention to a LOT of information and frankly, we do babysit a lot of the raid… saying that would be worthy of a bonus I think might be a little self serving.

   But we do get a bonus!! The bonus the tanks and healers get is clear: No queue in the LFG system. 😉 lol

   Good post, thought provoking.

2. That’s a pretty big statement which may be true for 5 man heroics and the easy raids.

   But for the rest……
   Every raid needs a good foundation: the healers and the tanks. But current content is tuned in a way that doesn’t require a lot of that. You have a good enough foundation fast.
   It’s what you put on that foundation (the dps) which detemines if you are succesful or not. More then anything, to be succesful in WotLK (beat hard mode encounters) you need good dps. Most hard fights are basically dps races. Not keeping everyone alive races.

   (Withyout direspect but somehow I think WotLK hasn’t challenged our healers enough because the first fight where healers are really challenged (Anub Heroic 25 p3) is a major major roadblock for our guild)

3. There is a motherload of DPS people out there and there are very few REALLY good dps guys, who know where to move, when to interrupt, use other abilities outside their rota like disarm, fear, various dispells, spellsteals, etc. I am a raid leader and a loot council member and a healer myself. We tend to gear the tanks and healers first to have solid “cornerstones” but what you really want is good tanks, good healers and good dps! Believe me, if your guild is lucky enough to have proper players playing damage dealers, you just want to praise them as much as you praise your traditional “cornerstones”.

4. I disagree. If we downed Anub HM it’s because DPS worked hard to get that extra edge. If you want top performance, the effort is comparable really. However, dps has 14 other people as backup in case one is slacking so there’s definitely a bigger margin for sub par performance. Yet I feel there’s a great deal of prejudice involved here:
   – The low performance from one dps is often held aloft as iconic for the entire group.
   – Spamming the dps meter to prove your effort and its great results is considered e-peen waving, childish and god knows what else
   – Trying to get an upgrade to up your dps is considered “lootwhoring dps”
   – If one spec or class has a simple macro/addon way to get decent dps, it seems to radiate on all dps. Mage, lock, spriest, rets, warriors, rogues, shammies, you name it. They all are the gods of dps by clicking 1 button every hour.
   With a view like this on dps, could a player to ever prove worthy? Do you play wow IRL with friends, and if so, are there dps players among them? I would be interested in their opinion on this article 🙂

5. I agree with your statements on the importance of tanks/heals and the stress that goes with filling those positions, but glossing over the importance of DPS is fail.

   Get me a video of a group consisting entirely of tanks and healers clearing a current end game raid and then I might be brought over a bit more. Show me the whole raid; trash pulls, boss fights, rolls on loot, and the stopwatch counting the hours it takes to do it. Good tanks and healers get invited to every group that the guild sets up. As you said, DPS are a dime a dozen, and as such they have to contend against every other DPS out there to fill that slot. There might be more slots to fill, but there’s also more competition for them. Your extra reward for being a tank or healer is a thing called job security.

   The tank/heals are like company executives, but if you throw out your sales, purchasing, and production departments, then where is your company headed? As for whether or not I would support an in game extra reward for tanks and heals that would be a matter of what it is that they get. I could handle something like titles given specifically for filling each role (tanks = Defender of X, healer = Protector of X, DPS = Destroyer for X), slightly modified models for mounts that drop from an instance while they filled that role (tank gets an armored proto-drake, dps gets the one that breaths fire now and then, heals has flowers sprout where it walks similar to Lifeblood), or something similar.

   In essence, I don’t support rewarding only two roles in the game because every one of them is important.

6. I disagree for the simple fact that there are certain fights you will not win if you have insufficient DPS. Patchwerk in Naxx, as an example, required your DPS to be able to churn out at least 10k dps for the group. (on 10 man, of course). Less than that, it was 6min 30sec “wasted” on a wipe. Sure, lots of groups can probably can 5-man that now…. but that’s neither here nor there. That’s also not to say that your tanks and healers weren’t important, but if your DPS wasn’t up to snuff, it just wouldn’t happen.

   HHoR. The group pulls are more managable with a bit of CC, most often provided by the DPS. Same with the Arthas chase at the end. If your DPS team isn’t coordinating and churning out the big numbers, you’re done for.

   So yes, you’re absolutely right that tanks and healers are essential…but there are a few cases that you’re completely lost without your DPS. But just because the DPS are a dime a dozen, it doesn’t mean their contributions to the group are worth less. It just means you can easily replace the ones that are worthless. (see what I did there? I had no intentions of doing that when I started this babble… :P)

   Really, the only “reward” I’d like for tanking is not having douchebag DPS in their ultra-1337 gear saying, “WTF hold aggro nub”. Right after they pull a trash group while you’ve already got one and all they’re doing is AoE’ing before you can get out your own AoE threat. That’s what I’d like to see – less douchey DPS – and then I’d be much happier to tank in pugs.
   .-= Darthregis´s last blog ..Hit-Rating, I’m just not that in to you =-.

7. I also happen to disagree with this (I am a healer). As much as I sometimes feel totally useless in 5-mans (with a tank that barely gets any serious dmg at all from trash), and as much as I feel the added stress in raids (If I use a GCD to judge while I should be casting another heal, with the result that tank dies – then Everybody notices), I don’t think we should have added rewards.

   If we take your line of thought a bit further, does this also mean that we should give more rewards to those dps who are insanely good at what they do? Should we make sure that the lowest 25% dps outputters in raid dont get emblems from bosses? 😛

   Surely, there is a real and serious problem with tank (or healer) shortage, and I hope Blizzard does more to make those roles a bit more interesting – but I dont think added loot for those two roles is the way to go.
   .-= Redemptio´s last blog ..Gear vs. Skill =-.

8. Sorry, but you either succeed together or you fail together. I can see an argument made for making healing a more desirable role but trowing gear at healers isn’t the way to to do that.
   .-= Scott´s last blog ..On Goblins of Avaricious Nature and the Social Aspects of WoW =-.

9. “But the DPS? They’re just meat in the room.”

   “DPS are a dime a dozen.”

   “DPS can just be picked up randomly as required.”

   “I’ve got nothing against DPS. It’s fun and there’s nothing wrong with that but they simply don’t deserve the equality of rewards.”

   Hmmm, ouch. I don’t know if you meant to marginalize the effort that GOOD dps put in – you know, the dps who pull huge numbers *and* manage their aggro *and* stay out of the crazy crap on the ground *and* switch targets at appropriate times when needed *and* trap/interrupt/spellsteal/etc. when needed – but statements like that convey a lot of disrespect toward a role that actually does present its own set of challenges (and also the role that does the damage that allows the group to actually kill the bosses).

   That being said, no. The instances are designed to include tanks, healers, AND dps for a reason. You need the whole team working together to get those bosses down, and for that reason I very much disagree that anyone should get extra rewards just because of the role they play, be they tanks, healers, or dps.
   .-= Shizukera´s last blog ..New Year’s Stuff =-.

10. A couple of things I think when reading this:

    Once reaching the critical treshold for Tank Health/Avoidance, excellent DPS is the best things a raid can have. And it’s the first thing that will improve the performance of the group as a whole. Some encounters become “cake” with decent DPS, things just die faster.

    Think for example Deathbringer Saurfang. Great DPS = cakewalk. Mediocre DPS = nightmare. Nothing healers or tanks can do about that, no matter the skill or gear level.

    Also, most bosses have an enrage timer or soft-enrage mechanism builtin. Again, it’s the DPS that needs to take that hurdle.

    I occasionally heal in iLvl226 equivalnt gear in ICC25 as a holy priest. I don’t notice I am undergeared, not live, not on meters. So, imo, prioritize loot as Tank->DPS->Heal.

    While I agree Tank & Heal are the key structure foundation of the raid, the healing will not define the progression. People skill will. People standing in slime will die, no matter how skilled the healer. If anything, fast-great-omg healers might make raiders more complacent and aloof, because the margin for error becomes larger.

    It will save raids on occasion. It just does not guarantee steady progress.

11. I’ve seen this raised before, and the general reaction is well good luck trying to beat the enrage timer in a raid consisting of only tanks and healers.

    A raid team, is just that, a team. Certain roles will naturally appear to be more vital, but on the flip side this is because it’s more apparent that the group will not succeed without them.

    Besides bringing the hurt we have to consider the other aspects a non tank/healer brings to the raid. The frostbolt on Lady Deathwhisper which must be interrupted, or the mind controlled player that must be cc’d will be tricky without those classes that can perform that function easily and reliably.

    In the worst case with this new tank/healer bonus we end up with all tanks and healers and suddenly it’s dps who are getting the instant LFG queues.
    .-= Crashandburn´s last blog ..Dos and Don’ts of LFG =-.

12. I’ve heard this opinion a lot over the years, but I could never really understand the feelings behind it. There is a logical, technical counter to each of the points frequently brought up. Supply and demand are the largest. There is one tank in a 5 man, 2 tanks in a 10 man, and 2-3 tanks in a 25 man. Compare that to 1 healer and 4 dps, 2-3 healers and 5-6 dps, 5-8 healers and 15-19 dps. The supply of tanks is limited because their demand is limited. I, personally, have never been in the position where there are absolutely not enough healers to get through a fight – often damage taken during a raid is more contingent on skill and coordination of individuals and the raid as a whole than raw numbers.

    Stress and responsibility – as Deverka stated, it is the path you chose. Control and management are part of the tank’s job. Ensuring everyone stays in the green (figuratively) is the healer’s job. If tanking or healing is that stressful, than why pay $15 a month to do it? Tanks tank and healer’s heal because that is the part of the game we love – both the good and bad. Sure, other players are quick to place blame on a bad tank or bad healer, but too often experienced players can spot the real reason behind a wipe and too often its not the tank or healer’s fault.

    All of that said, DPS do play an important part of the PVE trifecta. It is entirely upon their spells and weapons to bring the boss from 100% to dead before whatever flavor of impending doom befalls the raid. And just as there are players whose add management or clutch healing are truly epic, there are players who astonish with the speed and dexterity with which they learn and master the art of war. Maintaining a sustained rotation over a long period of time depsite shifting and transitioning encounters, responding and predicting the flow of the fight, avoiding and capitalizing on varied encounter mechanics, following orders quickly and efficiently — all of these and more make up a GOOD dps (we’re not talking about that warlock who has never had shards and is pulling 1200 dps).

    And now we get to the reward mechanics of WoW – success and skill are often determined more by the gear someone is wearing than the amount of skill and commitment they can provide. I ask the other tanks and healers out there – will more gear really make you feel better about your position in the game? Will a little extra dodge or a smidgeon more Mp5 make you feel like the Olympian Defender or Divine Mender? Gear is nothing more than a bonus to us, whereas it is the linchpin of a DPS’ capabilities. Sure that shiny new upgrade is nice, but we know that our own personal abilities as a player is more important to a group than any piece of gear our avatar is wearing.

    But yeah, those 5 second wait times are a godsend. 😛

13. This sentiment may ring true for heroics, but certainly not raids. In a push-content raiding everyone has a job to do, and if anyone slacks you will not complete the encounter. In “easier” raid content, you can often compensate for poor dps by healing the idiots who stand in the fire, or being able to not go oom when the fight takes too long, but not for cutting-edge raid content. There are quite a few fights where the tank’s job is fairly easy (think of the off-tanks on Marrowgar, they just follow the main tank and pretend to do some dps).

    Honestly if Blizzard is that concerned about the “tank shortage”, they should stop making 25-man encounters that only need 2 tanks. The reason that dps are so prevalent is simple logistics. You can handle almost any of the encounters in the game with 3 tanks, 5 healers, and 17 dps. When 68% of the average raid group needs to be dps, you can expect them to be “a dime a dozen”.

    One of the most difficult things I’ve found to recruit is actually dps. Let me rephrase that, good dps. It’s often easier to find a good tank or good healer than a good dps, as it seems like poor tanks/healers don’t survive the wow pool long (maybe they turn into dps?). It seems like when recruiting dps, you will often have about 25% of them actually being “good” (consistent dps, on par with their gear-level, and raid aware).

14. I think you’re missing the point of a party.

    Think of the party as a well-oiled machine. If you remove one of its internal, moving components, it fails. A party cannot run on tank and healer alone – without DPS, the healer runs out of mana before the job is done and the tank dies, or the boss enrages and kills everyone.

    We have a problem when one role views itself as more important than the others, and that is the sort of attitude that sours me against certain individuals. No, tanks and healers do not deserve extra rewards for what we do – I am a tank. I am a healer. In those roles, I demand nothing, for I chose to be what I am and all I want from the other members of my party is for them to do what we all entered that instance to do – help us, the party, succeed.

    The whole is more than merely the sum of its parts. The party is more than “The Tank and Healer Show”.

    This attitude of “I’m more important than you” is the trademark of a diva tank or healer – and the type of person I wouldn’t want to run with. Cherish your DPS, my fellow tanks and healers, for without them, your job would be impossible.

    DPS may be a dime a dozen, but good DPS is one in a million.

15. While I can see some of your logic and understand where you’re coming from, I disagree with the train of thought.

    Let me share where I’m coming from, because I think how well we understand the different roles can affect our thoughts in this. I have an 80 Warlock and an 80 Priest. I have raided on both – though most heavily on my Priest. I have tanks (though none are 80 yet), and my husband has a level 80 Warrior that he raids on – so I do know how challenging tanking a raid can be.

    As others have said, the instances are designed to have healers, tanks, AND dps for a reason. Sure, there are bosses that healers and tanks can down on their own – but it will take a long time (I recall my husband being part of a Naxx run that included a 45 minute Heigan Dance that ended with him, a healer, and one another person).

    Yes, there’s a lot of DPS, but there’s often more dps needed per group (but yes, it still seems that things tend to be unbalanced here).

    I enjoy dps’ing. I enjoy healing. In the raids that I have done on both of my 80s, I will say that I by and large found that healing was easier for me to do than keeping up my DPS. I was often a main tank healer, and as such, I usually had very little I had to focus on. One target, with a little bonus heal thrown around every now and then. As DPS, I have to be mindful of many things – switching targets, adds, aggro (which, while you have to watch this on the healer too, I didn’t build aggro NEARLY as fast as on DPS).

    I have worked equally hard to learn both of my classes, and to maximize the damage or healing that I do. I don’t see why I should get penalized based on the fact that sometimes I want to switch roles.

    As another commenter said – the bonus for tanks and healers is abundantly clear. I will sit in the queue as DPS for 15+ minutes. Healers and Tanks don’t need to wait as long the majority of the time, because there’s far fewer of them in the queue to begin with.

16. @ Shizukera

    Saying DPS is a dime a dozen isn’t trivializing their contributions, it’s just a reality of the current population out there. The insta-groups for tanks and healers while DPS queue for 10 – 25 minutes is proof of that.

    You’re right, though. GOOD DPS is hard to find most days.
    .-= Darthregis´s last blog ..Hit-Rating, I’m just not that in to you =-.

17. In the spirit of playing devil’s advocate..

    I agree with this, mainly because giving the tank that extra gear or the healers buys the DPS more time, which in turn allows for the raid to expand its player base.

    For example… When everyone started ICC a few weeks ago, i’m sure you all took your top dps, top healers, top tanks etc to try to progress as far as possible as quick as you could. Well, if your tanks and healers are a bit more geared, and some of your top DPSers can’t make it, it’s nice to be able to last those extra 20 or 30 seconds so your lower DPS guildies can come in and get some frost badges, loot, etc etc etc. In my experiences, the healers and Tanks are harder to get and replace, so they are called upon to be more reliable and to make most raids. Why not give your most active members first shot at gear?

18. I completely disagree with the idea that tanks and healers deserve additional rewards over other raid members. You are already additionally rewarded by having a near guaranteed raid spot.. Since there are more DPS characters out there, these players have to work harder and compete for their raid spots. I would argue that the top DPS people actually put more effort into an encounter than an average healer.

    Also, you made a conscious choice to create a healer or tank Sure as a healer, I take blame sometimes for failures, but I knew that going in and accepted it.

    I think this is more about a numbers game than it is about working harder. It sounds like you want to be rewarded because your rarer than average.
    .-= Virile´s last blog ..Miscellaneous Updates =-.

19. There are times when DPS is a must need. Deathbringer Saurfang is the latest DPS race. If you don’t get him to 50% (or less) by the time the first mark is delivered, than it could spell doom for that attempt.

    Now, a DPS or two can slack some in 25 man raids, but in 10 man raids it’s very less forgiving. You lose a DPS in a 10 man attempt of Lady Deathwhisper due to standing in Death and Decay, then you’ve severely impacted the performance of your raid’s DPS.

    HOWEVER, being a healer or a tank it is a love/hate relationship. There is no room for marginality. There is “Off Day” when you’re raiding. You either perform or sit. There is no one to carry you if you’re not playing 110%. Do we deserve an extra “reward”? I dunno, but it would be nice to see some players fill a role of a healer or tank sometime just to see what one little screw up leads to.
    .-= Bacon´s last blog ..Where’s your alt? =-.

20. Tanks and healers don’t deserve more rewards than the DPS.

    Frame it in terms of reward for time invested – even in a five man where you could two-man it (healer + tank) you don’t – because you want to do it quickly. In the raid situation, if you are progressing at all you have good tanks and good healers – what moves you forward or stalls you is the quality of your DPS.

    Its a team effort, meaning each individual needs to put in the effort to do *their* job well. Just because the team allows for bad DPS but not bad tanks or bad healers does not mean good DPS isn’t important – it just means the team is defective.

21. I agree completely..DPS are a dime o’ dozen. On the bosses in 25 ICC, when they say DPS we need to kick it up a notch you will instantly see a permanent Shadow Word: Pain , and a Devouring Plague being applied by this Holy Priest. The extra 10k overall damage on a boss fight more than likely came from DoTs applied by healers. 😉 Give this healer a good tank and we can 2 man ANYTHING.

    The Tanks and Healers seem to be the majority of those who research new boss fights prior to battle, because we need to know where to stand what to cure etc.. DPS just show up and say “OK, what do i do here?”

    Even in random 5-mans you see these brand new 80’s showing up in blues and badge gear just expecting to be towed along…DPS are a nickle o’ dozen

22. Tanks and Healers are a lil more important for heroics maybe but when it comes to raiding everyone has a job to do and everyone is as important as the tank or healer, but u cant ignore the dps u need them to burn down the mobs the bosses and such. Ya u got ur occasional douche bag in a party be it the tank, healer or dps but all is needed to finish the run. As long as everyone does their job and pays attention then all will be good, without the dps the tank and healer would have a hard time finishing the run, dps come and go u can always find more dps but a good dps now those are hard to find. So as long as everybody gets along and knows what they are doing then the run will go smooth and everyone will get their rewards.

23. I am a DPS, a healer and a tank. The easiest roles by far that I play are my DPS toons. I think that if I received greater rewards I’d make the effort to play the toon that would get that reward, which would encourage more people to fill that role.

    There is a profound shortage of tanks out there and an increasing shortage of healers.

    Increasing the rewards for them I think would contribute to increasing the pool.

    So I agree with the concept, but not because of the OP’s theory that they deserve it, but instead of by the economic parallel of supply and demand.

24. DPS may be a dime a dozen but *GOOD DPS*, those who can make a tank’s and a healer’s job easier, are ones that are worth their weight in gold. It’s amazing how much stress reduction can come from good dps:
    – pulling lose mobs off of healers
    – giving the tank extra threat every CD
    – keeping themselves alive when healers have other priorities (dps who carry healing potions and use them are guaranteed to be my favorites for life)
    – interrupting nasty boss abilities

    Remember that the only reason amazing tanks and healers ever beat enrage timers is because they a part of an equally amazing team.
    .-= Vixsin´s last blog ..PowerAuras and You: The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship =-.

25. *sigh*

    “[T]he DPS? They’re just meat in the room.” This is the kind of claim that can only be said if you completely avoid talking about the actual mechanics of actual fights. As a vague, abstract statement ungrounded by facts, sure, it sounds fine. Try running a raid by treating the competent DPS as “meat in the room.”

    The tanks are the most important part of Gluth? Really? How hard is it to say “Oh yeah, three stacks, taunt off me” while the hunters and mages are using the kiting skills they’ve been honing since they were level 10 to keep a dozen zombies under control?

    Deathbringer Saurfang is similar. One of our tree healers has decided he wants to walk on the wild side and has gone Boomkin. Yesterday we found out the ugly truth: he CANNOT KITE and we CANNOT kill Saurfang Jr until he learns how to do so. If we were to kick him (or demote him back to tree) and bring in a half-way decent mage, or another hunter…

    If you depend on vague generalities and theoria untethered from praxis you can claim anything. Never trust a statement that doesn’t discuss boots-on-the-ground (or fingers-on-the-keyboard) reality.

26. I raid as both a dps and a healer and I have to say I disagree. Raiding is a team sport, and different fights put pressure on different people.

    There are a number of fights where the tank(s) just needs to stand in one spot and hold the boss. Or maybe taunt off the other tank once every 30 seconds. Is this particularly difficult or stressful? On the other hand there are lots of fights where they need to be completely on the ball, moving around the area while putting out their maximum amount of threat.

    Same goes for healers. Some fights require your full concentration and ability. Some are pretty easy. If you aren’t running with the bare minimum of healers it is usually possible to carry one or two healers with lesser skill/gear or who are just having an off-night.

    DPS might be a dime a dozen, but good dps is not. A few bad dps – whether it’s just terrible output, taking more damage than necessary or outright dying in a fire – can just as easily cause a boss attempt to fail as a bad tank or healer. Sure there are some “stand and shoot” (or stand and swing) fights that don’t require much effort, but there are lots of fights with enrage timers who rely on dps to get the job done. Many fights, especially multi-mob fights, rely on a main assist (what do you mean, no such thing as a main dps?) to keep the rest of the dps focused.

    I don’t think people should reap bigger rewards based on the role they play. However, if you want to argue that reward should be based on performance, I could go along with that.
    .-= Jasyla´s last blog ..Plagueworks: Festergut (ICC 10) =-.

27. On the other hand, having stronger equipped healers allows you to drop one in favour of another DPS player to come in ^^.

28. Meh:

    1) DPS have their own challenges. There might be shocking differences between good and bad tanks and good and bad healers, but the difference between playing with great dps and just average dps are a sight to behold as well. If these are not clear to you, find better skilled friends to play with.

    2) For those that play for loot your suggestion would provide an a strong draw to exactly those classes for whom there is least room in groups and raids.

    3) For those that play their class for other reasons your suggestion would put them in a position where they will feel mistreated, if even just because of their perception of the situation (leaving the absolute justice of it outside this entirely). This will make those players very unhappy and this will in turn make the life for the tanks and healers miserable as well. Be it because they don’t like seeing their friends unhappy or because they would have to suffer unceasing bitching about it.

    The last bit is one of the basic tenets of productive organization: there has to be some perception of equity among members. So as long as DPS does not become unnecessary, they will have to be treated just like everyone else.

    Of course, this is quite obvious, just like the rather transparant nature of this article.

29. @Matticus
    Maybe there’s a way to get tanks and dps geared up to a point where the boss dies so quickly healers aren’t even needed. That would be fun. 🙂
    .-= Jasyla´s last blog ..Plagueworks: Festergut (ICC 10) =-.

30. Even during the three years I was a raid healer I never bought into the idea I should have priority over the DPS for items we could both use. And I’ve more than once told a tank with entitlement issues to shove it when he’s asked me to pass on a token (druids and warriors on the same token in BC sure was fun. not)

    Yes, a super healer can keep everyone alive for as long as their mana holds, but you still need some stellar DPSers to carry those subpar DPSers you mentioned. And bosses have these nifty things called enrage timers these days, which means DPS do have a role equally important to your wack-a-moleing.

    Also, I’ve run with several crappy healers (i.e. my same class doing half my healing) who have had long-term standing raid spots despite their suckiness, so i disagree that raids won’t bring crappy healers because they can and do.

    What I’d be most interested in would be hearing what piece of gear dropped that you didn’t get that inspired this post.
    😉
    .-= candy´s last blog ..How Patch 3.3 Helped me Get my Mojo Back =-.

31. As a healer who tried to play her dps off spec recently and was surprised by how hard it was, I would disagree! I did okay dps, but nothing compared to the people in my raid (who were a bit better geared too of course). Switching targets and really paying attention to the fights was harder for me than focusing on my little boxes and hitting my healy buttons. I think it’s just what you’re used to. I have nothing but a helluva lot of respect for people in our raid who max out what they can do on their toons.

    As a clothie, do I wish I had less of them to roll against for the rare cloth drops we’ve seen lately as opposed to the massive amount of leather and plate?!?! Yes! But I love them anyway….

32. Why do we play the game? We are healers and tanks because we enjoy it. The limited supply of those pocket healers are usually the ones that have worked very hard to become as good as they are. It is true that the poor ones fall away to pursue other endeavors. It is a mostly thankless role. In some ways raiding is a “job” and you need to have job satisfaction to be happy and enjoy what you do. By adding more perks to healers you could possibly bring back some that have lost that joy to their play time, and increase the ranks. But is it worth it by also encouraging those sub-par healers to rear their ugly heads? No. The best way to encourage healers to do better and to play often is to change the mindset of the other players. Promote unity between all players. By saying you can’t have a raid without tanks/healers (true in fundamental aspects) also creates the rift between the dps and the rest of the raid. How good are dps going to try to get if they feel they are just slime under our boots? No, there can be no caste system as an us/them mentality. It is a joint effort. This is a team event and as such needs to be nurtured into a machine of boss killing prorportions. This is the advantage of a guild sponsored raid. Help your team become the best they can be. Grow as a team and you learn to appreciate each one of their special abilities. And that, I feel, is the core concept that Blizzard had in mind from the start.

    No special favors. I think the looting and perks need to stay the same. Seriously, I would rather see the dps get the gear they need to make my life easier by making the fights shorter and successful. I’m all about clearing content before a shinny purple on my body.

    But something for me to think about… I am dating the tank. We are great together now, but man would that be ugly if we split.

33. The only ‘bonus’ we should get (due to the lower numbers) is faster queues in the LFG, and knowing that we can get into PUG raids easier. It’s a trinity for a reason, take out one of the parts and your just left with a > symbol.
    .-= adgamorix´s last blog ..Festergut and Rotface Tanking Crib Sheet =-.

34. Pingback: Welcome Back! Here, Have a Prima Donna Tank and Healer Post! « The Angry Healers!- Letting You Die of Your Stupid Since 2009

35. I guess everything can be two manned then.

    If you do bring along dps, for entertainment purposes or something, it won’t matter if they do the pulling, stand in the coloured circle on the floor, follow the kill order, break people out of iceblocks, dispel, interrupt,…….

36. Not much Blizzard can do in this category but REFINE the tanking threat system and get rid of Defense, which may well happen.

    Tanking has always been clunky in most MMO’s. They need to up rage generation, or do away with it or devise a better system in these games. It is Blizzards fault they went toward AOE spam and now we as players are paying the price.

    Good grouping and caution have gone out the window to be replaced with cry babies and a mediocre playerbase that just wants to AOE nuke everything down before tanks can catch up
    .-= Angry Gamer´s last blog ..2009: Looking back Angry Gamer style =-.

37. If this was vanilla WoW, I might have agreed with this post. The mechanics in the game required little or no thought on the part of the DPS; but the game has evolved since then requiring even DPS to be more situationally-aware than previously. Good examples are fights like Mimron, Lady Deathwhisper, and the Twins in ToC; where your dps has to be with the plan for a fight to succeed.

    With maybe the exception of priests, tanks and healers really aren’t rolling against other people for gear. In LC current gear is heavily specialized towards tanking or DPS. I don’t think that this should equate to giving a healer or a tank preference, even on token items, because there’s plenty of other loot that they will be the only ones able to use. Our tanks have two or three different sets of gear to begin with.

    The responsibility of a raid relies more on the guild officers than on any specific role imho, and they’re not necessarily tanks.

    We dropped the DKP-based loot systems back before Burning Crusade, and I’m happy and satisfied with that. If you have a guild of people that you play with and trust, you can trust them to roll on what they need. We random roll loot, and over a number of weeks, it works out in the end. Every person in a raid is necessary to make victory possible and should have an equal chance at rewards.

    – Xeeon of Death Knight Tactics

38. Matticus wrote:
    “On the other hand, having stronger equipped healers allows you to drop one in favour of another DPS player to come in ^^.”

    This is actually one of my biggest problems with healing, the reward for having a good healing team doing a good job is that we aren’t needed anymore. At least not that many of us. With more dps:ers we can have faster fights and even as a healer I prefer not to have too many healers, since too easy is a bit boring. But getting replaced with a dps isn’t really a good incentive for healing well.

    • @Belgwen: I don’t like thinking that way. That’s more focused on the individual level (a tinge of selfishness even). I’ve noticed I’ve begun to approach the game as being more results oriented. It makes no difference to me if its 5, 6, or 7 healers required for the encounter. I’ll make the lineup changes necessary to do it. It comes with the territory of being a GM and planning the logistics and stuff.

      Sometimes I wish I were just a grunt again.

39. I do tend to think that tanks and healers are the better players because most DPSers are kind of mindnumbingly single-minded. They tend to care more about meters than utility. The good DPSers care about the group, but that’s rare. In a raid situation, you have a mix of tanks and healers who tend to get carried along just like midlist DPS, at least in 25s. In 5s and 10s, it’s far easier to see that the tank and the healer put more into the success of the group than DPS–but maybe that’s just me.

    I look at it like this: what does it take for a group to survive and pull out a win? A tank to take the damage and a healer to heal through it. The DPS helps make sure the healer doesn’t run out of mana by speeding up the encounter, but I’ve had way too many groups where the DPS died and the tank and healer were still able to pull out a 30% should-be-a-wipe situation based on skill and utility. A group of two DPS couldn’t do that.

    I wrote a little about the phenomenon here: http://www.professorbeej.com/2009/10/lfm-and-lfg-the-difference.html
    .-= Professor Beej´s last blog ..Looking for New Authors to Read =-.

40. I believe this is true. Tanks and healers are sorely underestimated in the eyes of the common WoW player, as are in some cases the common material gatherer to the auction “goblins” – without them, this game would not exist in the capacity it does today.
    In regards to this, I believe tanks in particular should receive such a bonus as they are rarer, require a much higher level of competency in their job, usually bear the brunt of expenditures (and as such requires a higher income to support) and are the toughest to gear of any role. I believe good tanks should be rewarded with a system that gives them a discount on repair bills (maybe 1-2%, not much but an incentive nonetheless) as well as higher availability of gear. Perhaps this could be achieved through increased drop chances (either percentage or available from more sources), availability of equivalent or similar gear, or perhaps since it may happen in Cataclysm anyway, deriving of necessary stats from common pieces of gear.

41. It’s often frustrating to see that most of the DPS in your raid aren’t putting the same effort you are into your characters. The same DPS that complain they aren’t high enough in DKP to “get the gear to up their DPS” are the same ones not running the daily and the weekly or farming for crafted gear. They put out less damage, say it’s because of gear, or they have to switch targets, or because they died (pro tip: don’t die in the fire).

    That being said, there are some stellar DPS out there. I would hate for those players to be limited in what’s available to them (or not get the special reward) because the majority of the “huntards” don’t deserve them. Some DPS really do work just as hard as we do to make sure we have all the badge, crafted, and 10 man gear we can get before we get into the new 25. They take their survival just as personally as the healers and tanks do, and spend just as much time researching fights and their class. I notice the difference when certain DPS aren’t in the raid. We’re much less likely to succeed without them, not only because of the damage they can do but because they require less babysitting than the other less aware DPS.

    If there are people in your raid not pulling their weight (and for most of us, I’m sure we can name a few), the answer isn’t for Blizzard to reward the players carrying them, it’s for us to bench the ones that aren’t doing the work. I know it’s unrealistic to find 15+ stellar DPS for one raid group, but purging the two or three lowest dps (or even the ones that are prone to get themselves killed) can do wonders for raid morale – for healers, tanks, and even the stellar DPS. The good DPS hate the terribads just as much as we do!

42. I have always hated when people claim DPS is not as valuable as Healers or Tanks. A raid is a team effort. The DPS are contributing just as much as anyone else. Yes there are bad DPS…those that stand in fires, or do less DPS than the Tank, or do not follow directions. Is that not true of Healers and Tanks too?

    Good players are hard to find…that includes DPS. Good DPS means the boss goes down before he enrages or the healers run out of mana. Yes raids need good healers and tanks, but they also need good DPS.

43. Until you meet a DPS check…
    .-= Shyraia´s last blog ..Grid + Clique Guide =-.

44. This entry was written with the strong language obviously to invoke response, which is exactly what it did here in the comments. Bravo Spitfires, bravo.

    I only play tanks and healers, but that’s because I like the challenge. There’s nothing more annoying though than not having the DPS to beat an enrage timer, so they are indeed a valuable part of a group. I do think if extra rewards were given out, we’d see more healers and tanks…but would it produce good players in those roles or just bad players looking for an easy path to epics?
    .-= DFitz´s last blog ..Will questing become obsolete? =-.

45. My main is a healer, I’ve been playing a healer pretty exclusively for 2+ years and I’m tired of seeing dps getting dumped on. Yes, you can survive a bad dps (or a few of them) more than a bad tank or healer, but you can’t win without the dps — except maybe for phase 3 Onyxia, but who is it that gets her to phase 3?

46. Clearly the post was designed to be provocative, mission accomplished.

    Tanks/Healers/DPS, as groups, contribute in inverse proportion to their numbers in the raid. Bliz controls that in their raid designs.
    However each members contributes their 1/25 (or whatever) portion to the team success. It is just more often readily apparent if a tank or healer slacks or is not quite up to the task.

47. This concept is indicative of a very myoptic point of view in MMORPG culture. The illusion that certain job classes carry a larger burden as part of an overall group is not a new idea. WoW is a very streamlined game in that groups consist of three types of roles, tank, dps, and support. However, the relative burden of responsibility of each role is largely dependant on the layout, target(s), and design of dungeons and raids.

    It’s also worth noting that “tanks” and “heals” are very single-purpose roles in a raid group of any size. However, “dps” is a generalization of what ends up being a pretty diverse group of people. You have melee dps, ranged dps, caster dps, and debuff or support dps. In truth, you have almost as many dps categories as you do dps classes and specs in WoW.

    I propose that part of the reason there is a disparity between the population of tanks, healers, and dps demographically is largely due to a variation of the 80/20 rule. In truth, if a run fails for no obvious reason, the first person to blame is the tank, and the second person to blame is the healer. It’s harder to blame the dps because there are at least three of them, and sometimes as many as 15-20. It’s easier to focus judgement on the minority classes, and that added scrutiny is certainly influencial when a player chooses to adopt a particular role in his raid group, or in the game in general.

    Healers and tanks reap many more benefits as it is in today’s WoW. Look at the Dungeon Finder system. As a Disc Priest, my wait time on an average evening is 30 seconds. My role is coveted, I am a “difference maker” in a group of people. As a result, I see more action, I participate in more content, I accumulate more badges, more reputation, I see more opportunities for drops, and if I am good at what I do, my name spreads faster than any dps.

    Why do I care if my incremental rewards per dungeon or per raid are the same as anyone else’s? If anything, all 5 of my group, or all 10, or all 25 of my group, contributed AS A GROUP towards the accomplishment of a task. In that, we are equals, and that is enough for me.

    I do not fault the author of this article his opinion, but I most certainly disagree with it.

48. I am a healer, and I cannot DPS to save my life. No really.

    There are a lot of idiots who play every class, every role. There are more people who play DPS than tanks or healers. Therefore, it stands to reason that there are more idiots who play DPS. The percentage, however, may vary.

    So when I do team up with great DPS, I want them to get the good gear. I want our GROUP to excel. I want them to have higher level gear, so that they have higher stamina and health pools, so that it is possible to actually keep them alive.

    IMO, the best players are the ones who try every role. They are more well rounded, and have a better idea what to look for. I do not think healing is harder than DPSing – I think it is different. As a healer who uses addons, I never have to worry about who my target is. But as DPS, I do, and I am really awful at that very basic mechanic. That is such an integral function, that even though I’m a pretty good healer, I think it could be easily argued that overall, I’m a pretty crappy player. I mean really? Can’t target the right guy?

    On that basis alone, I don’t think I deserve better gear any more than the mage next to me who managed to stay alive and actually kill the boss.

49. the only reward I want when I’m healing or tanking is for dps NOT to make me regret choosing to tank or heal. if I make an error – don’t spew insults at me, if I lose agrro to an overeager dps who outgears me, don’t insult me and leave group becasue you cannot be bothered to think, if I don’t manage to heal through a debuff you shoudl have stayed out of in a first place – don’t blame me for being a bad healer.

    In my experience at least, what tanks and healers mostly want is some respect and cooperation. and maybe not rolling on tank/healer loot, when you came in as dps (though reverse also applies)

    unfortunately, no extra reward blizzard might invent, will insure common decency. and the biggest issue with tanks and healers, especially in heroics is that there’s 3 dps that can bounce blame of each other, but only one tank or healer, and that’s why its more stressful. if you screw up? there’s no back up, no one to pick up the slack.

50. “All of this stands to reason that tanks and healers should get bigger rewards than anyone else. I mean, it’s in our culture to reward those that do the most and work the hardest, right?”

    That is a totally wrong statement. If we really did that then Trashmen and hard laborers would make the most money and they do not. We do not reward the best workers at all. Rewards in our society go to those who know how to use the system or advocate for themselves in a good way. You could be the brightest guy in the world and not be rewarded for it easily.

    As far as Tanks and Healers getting the biggest reward. Nah. I have tanked. I agree it is more stressful and harder than DPS but without good DPS I would easily die. I am fine with my party getting the same rewards as I do.

    In essence though the tanks and healers get more rewards. If a DPS item drops you have more people rolling on it than tanks or heals. So basically in most runs you have a higher percentage chance of getting the gear you want because only you and the second tank maybe are rolling for it.

51. i disagree with this complety
    speeking as a dps i have gotten blamed many times for the fault of the tank and healer so it is a matter of the tanks and healers should get better at there job and not get bonus rewards just cause they are whiney little bitches that can’t deal with there fail and should just swich spec but don’t want too

52. Have to disagree n principal, but agree with the spirit of your post. Every place in a run should be filled with a competent player with appropriate gear. Giving extra reward to a healer or tank will not change the dps community.

    The best dps I’ve met are people who have also played the other roles, and if you find a player who is truly brilliant – my guess is that they have spent the time to study each role and their interaction.

    I don’t know what to do to raise the performance bar for dps; gear checks, and dungeon restrictions have only made a small dent in the sub-par performance.
    .-= Typhoonandrew´s last blog ..Quick noob move =-.

53. Healers and Tanks are hands down the heavy lifters of any instance/raid.

    DPS can be directly tied to the healers mana. The faster the DPS can down a mob/boss the less efficient a healer can be.
    .-= Skonged´s last blog ..2010 here we go again =-.

54. Not having to roll against two (heroics) or four (ten mans) other people is the reward for tank and heals.

55. Speaking as a Tank main and healer alt here.

    While the Tanks may be the skeleton structure, and the Healers the sinews & ligaments, it’s not done till we have the DPS, the muscle of the group.

56. I have two comments of note, the DPS is a dime a dozen is very, very true, however a Great dps is a toonie in a trashbin(no offense intended). In saying, you cannot truly build a successful guild while your dps remains subpar, even with the greatest tanks, your not going to burn through, Festergut for ex, with just phat tank deeps, despite the buff.

    Though I don’t agree with the idea of an extra reward, I do say that tank loot, needs to drop more often than it does. With healers its a bit harder to say, especially in cloth wearers case because well-optimized Cloth dps gear is usually very similar to well-optimized healer gear. I realize dps outnumber tanks, so in terms of gear, you need more dps gear to drop, but in the beginning of new content, you generally want your tanks to get the better gear first, to ease into the fights a bit more and create a larger buffer zone for healers. The issue also arises when your tanks try to obtain either a) multiple sets or b) best in slot items. It simply doesn’t drop often enough, though we must consider luck as a factor. What I would propose is a system that lets you select what drops you want with some sort of guild vote(give future changes in Cata, it could be possible). You would select whether you want loot to be completely random or favor, lets say, plate or tank loot. Your average drops per instance would not change, but your % chance to get tank loot would be boosted by, lets say, 15-25% from a base of lets say, 5% and scale. I’d prefer an idea that increases the chance to get tank loot to drop rather than a flat piece of bonus loot. Incorporating a similar idea to mine above for healers would be much more difficult.

    So, on the base concept, I must disagree, however, I agree in the sense that tanks need a better drop chance for their loot and healers need something to separate their loot from dps loot(mostly applies to cloth), something akin to hit, but doesn’t cap and become a terrible stat too easily.

57. Thanks for all of the great feedback and comments. I’ve really enjoyed reading them and hope you all liked the post.

    It’s been very interesting to hear the DPSers feedback and how they feel it’s a dfficult and valued job. I guess I can’t argue with that so I won’t try 🙂 A good player is a good player is a good player, regardless of their class and no doubt valued in groups anywhere, anytime.

    However, I stick by the spirit of the post and the underlying theme that tanking and healing is more stressful and demanding than DPSing. I think there’s a good argument and solid reasoning for rewarding that (and maybe encourging it more in order to decrease the disproportionate DPSers vs tanks & healers). Certainly in the grouping and raiding that I’ve done, both in WoW and other games, is that I’ve always felt a lot less pressured when I DPS compared to the other two roles.

    Anyway, maybe I’ve just played stressful tanks for too long 🙂

    Of course, I really liked the suggestion that maybe rewards should be given out depending on skill rather than anything else! That would definitely be the most ‘fair’.

    P.S. Thanks again for posting my guest article, Matt!
    .-= We Fly Spitfires´s last blog ..Husband Picks Wife Over Orc; WoW More Addictive Than Cocaine =-.

58. I agree that tanks and healers should get more rewards for what we do. But here’s the thing: we already do.

    In heroics, with the new LFG system you get an instant queue if you are a tank or a healer. If you are a tank, you get instant queue for yourself and any DPS you bring along (on my server I have seen the rise of DPS paying tanks to queue with them).

    In raids, as long as you are competent, you have a guaranteed raid spot. Healing spots are somewhat competitive in progression raiding, but not nearly as competitive as DPS spots. I assume if you’re healing raids it’s because you like healing raids, so you already have the reward of getting to raid. If you’re raiding, you have more chances for gear, and if you are never sat, you earn more DKP or have a chance to /roll more often.

    I’d turn this around and actually say that it’s harmful to reward healers with more gear. Sorry about the plug, but it seems relevant. I wrote a post a while ago called: Why Raiding Healers Get Geared First, and Why This is a Bad Thing.
    http://dys-morphia.livejournal.com/45526.html

    (And for the record I am a raiding healer with my offpsec for tanking heroics).
    .-= Dysmorphia´s last blog ..All That Aside =-.

59. When I first read this, I was inclined to agree wholeheartedly. But the more I think about it, the more I believe that every role in this game is critical to any kind of success.

    Here’s how I see it. How many times have you been in a group where the only reason you made it through whatever it is you were doing, was cause of a great tank, or great healer? I’m sure most everyone here can name quite a few, probably right off the bat. Now, what about the flip side of that, when both tank and healer are horribly sub-par, but the group still pulls through due to great DPS. I’m not talking just pulling huge DPS numbers type great DPS, I’m talking the DPS who knows how to burn a boss, while still letting the tank take the hits, isn’t a burden on the healers, and without making people feel like crap about it?

    Point I’m trying to get at is your role in a group/raid shouldn’t be rewarded, because there are good and bad people of each role. So why reward the bad with the good? I firmly believe that Skill is a more important item to judge and reward than just role alone. If it were possible to reward skilled players for doing skilled things, then I would support it 110%, but since I know it’s not possible, keep the candy away from everyone. Those who are skilled should take their own rewards in knowing that without them, some groups would go no where.

    -Sadysm of Flash of Sadysm
    .-= Sadysm´s last blog ..When tanks say something is wrong… =-.

60. As a healer I already feel like get greater rewards. My contributions are viewed, not just as important, but as crucial. When an encounter is cleared, a greater share of the glory is mine. I’m rolling against less people for gear – some gear is defined as being “for healers”. I never wait more than a few minutes in the LFG queue.

    Are there people who, for whatever reason, don’t celebrate their tanks and healers as they should? Never bothers me, since I’m the one who decides whether they live or die. What need have I for their respect?

61. I have to disagree with Anub HM is a dps fight. I must say a lot of weight is carried by healers.

    Because the last 30% is not about just to heal your heart out. It’s about topping the tanks up, and leave the rest at 10%. Plus there will be 2 or 3 people with PC debuff which needs to be topped again. It’s not just simply OMFG faceroll shit my keyboard. It’s about constant twist of to heal, or not to heal.

    DPS on the other side, has only one mindset. To DPS the fuck out of everything on their face at 30%.

    It is very true that there are dime a dozon dps out there. but the really good dps are hard to find.

62. A raid team is a team. Pretty much everyone has a contribution. It can vary from fight to fight. There are fights where the MT’s skill and/or gearing can make or break it. MT is the best job in the raid and the most thankless.

    Going beyond the MT, I have to agree that tanks and healers have the worst risk versus reward. It *is* more stressful. There are many more times in a raid that “blame” is attached to a tank or healer’s miscues. I am so glad I was never a flame tank on Illidan (I was a healer in BT, though, and that was nearly as brutal *cough* Illidari Council *cough*).

    @Darthregis – yes, H:25 Anub’arak is a DPS race. But, the healers need to keep a series Penetrating Cold recipients up for multiple minutes in typical first kill phase 3. For each PC cycle they have approximately three seconds to react. I believe healing is the primary point of failure in most wipes (add failures being a close second, but once you get this down.. the healers will make or break you).

    Although my point sort of proves my original statement: you can’t beat top content without the entire raid doing their job.

63. Having played Melee DPS (Unholy Death Knight), Caster DPS (Warlock), Ranged DPS (Hunter), Tank and Healer (mah dr00d!) I can honestly say that I heartily disagree with the OP. DPS is NOT meat in the room. Case in point: DPS that doesn’t switch to Bone Spikes on Lord Marrowgar will kill your Healers and wipe the Raid.

    My Hunter will push anywhere from 5K-7K in Raids on a consistent basis and I’ve peaked at 14K before, but there aren’t that many other Hunters out there that I know that can do that on as consistent a basis. Yes, talking about my DPS is like epeen waving to most, and many will say that it’s spam DPS, but people that have never played one won’t understand it. There are a LOT of mechanics that go into playing a Hunter, and despite what some feel, it’s not all “plant and plunk” when it comes to Hunter DPS. There is a shot rotation that HAS to be followed to maximize your DPS and there is also pet management to consider. Many Healers I know remove pets from Clique or HealBot so as to reduce clutter and make their lives easier, leaving the Hunter to heal his own pet. Aggro management is a constant concern, so ensuring that I don’t break Aggro on the tank, or pull an Add requires constant management of Misdirect, Feign Death and pet talents as well. Getting your pet out of Locust Swarm or Void Zones is vital to Hunter DPS, especially with Ferocity pets when they will do 30% of your overall DPS. Hunter shot rotation is important as well. Break that and have to opo a cooldown? Kiss your DPS goodbye. There are certain times in your rotation where you can move, but certain points where you don’t want to. High movement fights will hurt Hunter DPS the most but that doesn’t mean we are meat in the room, it just means that we may not be suited for that fight.
    .-= Dreddnought´s last blog ..Selecting What You Run, or “I would but…” syndrome. =-.

64. My main is a healer, and no. Please, no. We don’t need any more of this attitude. Any group needs tanks, healers and dps.
    We already have the biggest reward, and that is that we don’t have to wait 20 min to queue into a heroic, and that you can get into almost any guild you want to.

65. In an idealistic way, I would tend to agree.

    In a world weary, realistic way, I’d have to disagree.

    Some people argue “This is the path you’ve chosen,” disregarding the fact that the only information you have to base your choice off of in the early game is 5 man healing which is an entirely different feeling (for me, as a healer) than an actual raid environment. I didn’t choose Healing a Raid as my path, I chose Healing my Friends as my path.

    It’s a great deal more stressful, and not particularly rewarding, when we down a boss by barely managing to beat an enrage timer. Why? Because it wasn’t my fight. It was a fight for the DPS and there was absolutely nothing I could do to help contribute to the success (was I DoTing? Sure. Was it enough to matter? Probably not). I helped heal – that was “the path I’d chosen,” a path that is required in order for the DPS to show that enrage timer who’s really in charge around here. The enrage timer exists as the sole pressure for the DPS – because staying out of the fire isn’t a pressure for them. Really, it’s not. Neither is not aggroing the adds (or boss) – that’s pressure on the tanks.

    Every role is important, but the stresses involved are completely different between them. While it might be nice for there to be some sort of extra little reward for healers or tanks, I agree that it would simply encourage the creation, leveling and playing of fail-healers and fail-tanks who imagine that they can get by with the same lackadaisical behavior they were able to employ as DPS.

    It’s just one of those things, I guess. I love my DPS who can stay out of the fire – they get Power Infusion and Bubbles and lots of my love.

    “Good” DPS doesn’t even come down to damage per second – it comes down to significantly more than that. But we still have epeen waving DPS posting meters.

    I hear pretty regularly from DPS that they consider Healing or Tanking to be boring. The higher stress roles in the raid are BORING to them. Apparently there is no excitement in saving your raid members from themselves. What’s exciting to them? Meters! YAY METERS!

    If it’s boring, you’re doing it wrong.

    (when I’m doing it wrong, I play my baby lock and get reminded exactly why I enjoy healing)

66. Watch how fast I drop group if, as DPS, I’m treated as nothing more than “meat in the room”. I have far better things to do with my time than put up with diva tanks and healers, like, say, categorize my collection of navel lint by year, color, and texture.

    As somebody said upthread, your “extra reward” for being a competent tank or healer is the job security inherent in those high-demand roles. If you find that insufficient, then by all means continue to condescend at your DPS until they invite you to sod off, and enjoy raids full of fail as you struggle to beat frenzy timers and what have you.

67. While I agree in 5 man’s dps are just meat in the room. I have, on several occasions finished off bosses with myself healing the tank because of stupid dps (Utgarde Pinnacle boss with the whirlwind), (Nexus boss with a whirlwind), (Halls of Stone the boss that stones you – like in Gruuls).

    However only extremely overgeared player’s could duo a raid boss, so sadly the pew pew meat is kinda necessary on raiding progression.

68. DPS aren’t meat in the room. They’re pixels!

    OMG, and so are the tank and healer!

    We’re all going to die!!!!

    As far as rewards go:

    Guilds already choose how to reward their players on what they think are needed for the fight. So…done that, right? If that awesome sp necklace is best given to a healer, the guild can do it. If they’d rather give it to caster DPS, they do. Duh! So, rewards taken care of at raid level.

    For PUGs, healers and tanks already have an easier time queing than DPS. Now maybe, maybe, maybe it’s worth adding an incentive (extra badge per run? 10 g? Who knows?) for those who sign up as tanks or healers to get them to show up and not just use a DPS spec. But arguably the que time is the primary “incentive” towards being a tank or healer AND a change that would convince tanks and healers to que for PUGs would be good for everyone.

    Unless it’s like it is on most servers where the timer alone is enough to convince people who don’t know how to heal or tank to que as healers or tanks in order to avoid the que…in which case an added incentive will just make the problem worse.

    Yay?

69. I disagree, but with qualifications.

    I think the balance changes at different levels of content (group size), and I also think there is more to this question than ‘if the group has a poor ___, the group fails.’

    When 5 mans are the progression content (such as during the beginning of the expansion, or when the new ICC 5 mans are released, healers and tanks have to have great gear and be at the top of their game in order to keep DPS and themselves alive through unfamiliar and difficult encounters. Once players become more familiar with them and get better gear, a good healer or tank can carry a poor group through these instances.

    10 mans put the pressure on the healers, perhaps even a little bit more than the tank. There is a lot of damage and a lot of targets, but only so many GCDs spread around the healing team to keep up. You have to choose your spells right, especially when its progression. Tank responsibilities are less strenuous than in 5 mans, unless it is a specific fight with a lot of adds or a difficult tank mechanic (by which I do not mean taunt switching) an average skilled tank can get by in most 10 man encounters (barring the add fights and tank skill checks, like deathwhisper), while healer’s ability to get a heal in the right spot at the right time is as much if not more important than actually having amazing gear. I’ve had many 10 man healers who just didn’t cut it when I know their gear is sufficient. It seems sometimes you have it or you don’t, gear notwithstanding.

    Finally, in 25 mans, the stress on the tank adds “omgwtf that guy hits HARD” to “pick those adds up NOW”. Half the encounter for the tank is getting the right gear so he can stand up in front of the boss until it dies. Healing 25s doesn’t put quite as much pressure on healers as 10 mans do. There is less focus on individual performance and more opportunities for specialization in healing roles.

    I’ve left out DPS, because I feel they fit on a different continuum. The job of healers and tanks align – they both keep people alive. The job of DPS is to actually kill the bad guys. There is a certain amount of time that healers and tanks can succeed at keeping the raid alive – even on the easiest encounter, if all the DPS go afk, the raid will die. Eventually. Therefore, the abilities of DPS *do* have bearing on the success of the group. Sometimes, this is explicit, such as adds that need to die or tight enrage timers. Other times, it is just as important that they show situational awareness and mastery of all their class abilities, such as on Deathbringer Saurfang. In 5 mans, it is very hard for DPS to hold back a group with poor performance, but that is because the content is so easy that the tank and healer could probably complete the content on their own; DPS just make it go faster. However, whenever the content becomes difficult for the healer/tank, then good DPS is essential to making the healer/tank’s job easier by reducing the amount of mistakes. In other words, if the fight lasts 6 min, that’s 6 min in which the healer/tank has a chance to make a mistake and die. If the fight lasts 10 min, thats 4 more min where the healer/tank has a chance to slip up (DPS also fall into this slipup category – 4 more min is 4 more min for DPS to forget to move out of fire and other raiding sins we’ve all come to love). The quicker the encounter goes down, the less likely bad RNG will gib you or a player will make a mistake because there is less time to do so. Healing and Tanking make completing the encounter *possible,* but good DPS increase the chance of the encounter *actually being completed*.

    So, for rewards? Well, yes, good tanks and healers should receive good rewards. However, good DPS are just as important, and so they should receive similar rewards. This is already the case – good tanks, healers, and DPS get invited back and improve their gear, while players who don’t work on improving their play just don’t get to see progression raids that often.

    Blizzard has definitely leveled the playing field: if you manage to collect all the badge gear, and nothing but badge gear, from triumph badges on down, you will be able to perform in at least 10 man ICC, if not 25 man. As long as you enchant your gear and learn your class and spec, your abilities will shine through, no matter what your role.

    And sure, its your 15 dollars, however, the moment you step into a group, there’s 4/9/24 players who are all expecting you to know what you’re doing so that you don’t waste their 15 dollars.

70. While i disagree with the post, and do agree with that the DPS, the Tanks, and the healers are all important in a successful raid, it seems all to often that the tanks or healers go without recognition in their roles in an encounter. I play all three roles, (pally, hunter, shaman) and it discourages me to see that after we down a boss, that the DPS receive much of the credit for beating said enrage timer.

    The only thing i would like as a reward as a tank and healer is the simple recognition that we are contributing, we may not be as flash or as easily noticable but try doing a Anub fight with healers that keep everyone topped up in Phase three, or go into Marrowgar where we don’t heal you when you take that little fire damage before you move. Just please DPS there might be more of us, if you just realized that it’s not all your credit that the boss went down, it never would of went down if i didn’t top you back off when you stood in that fire a second to long.

71. Why do tanks and healers need or want better rewards? Would they be better gear? Higher ilvl than the raid? Purely fluff items like mini-pets?

    The only reason I can see giving tanks/healers better rewards is to entice more people to tank or heal. However, people who 1) are GOOD tanks and healers, and 2) keep the job over a long period of time actually like doing it now… they’re already tanking and healing, and giving them another bit of pixel loot for their bags isn’t going to change that.

    You may see an influx of tanks and healers over the short term with such an idea, but ultimately, with the added benefits (better loot) but for the long-term, having an awesomely geared tank or healer that they don’t enjoy playing will make them switch back.

72. I think tanks and healers should get at least one drop per bosskill( on 10 man). I’ve cleared the first wing of icc 3 times. And i’ve seen one tanking thing drop (a shield, which I won) I will admit a wasn’t looking at how much healer stuff dropped, but 12 boss kills and one thing dropped for tanks. I might justbe really unlucky but that seems rediculous to me. My raid makeup was 2tanks 3 heals and 5 dps. So one guarenteed drop for a healer or tank (50 50 chance for what it’s gonna be) doesn’t seem unfair to me at all.

    I also think that tank and healer loot should be upgraded a little or something. On my prot pally I was in mostly 75-80 tanking blues. I had about 24k umbuffed. And no one wanted me to tank thier heroic cuz they didn’t want to wipe. So no heroics=no gear. If they buffed stamina on ylearly tanking blues it would help alot. This was before ulduar came out so heroics were still kinda hard.

    I typed this on an Iphone and I’ve never really typed on one before. So sorry for any typoes and what not

73. hi im a dps and i regualy get abused or dissed by other people because of one thing: im a boomkin. people regually joke *so why aint you rolled a proper dps class or stuff like that and tbh it annoys me. i regualy chuck out out at least 5k dps so ill pull my weight in raids. my current guild treats me well and i get plently of raids. however when i pug its like *were only taking you because of your aura* and it annoys me. lots of steps have been taken to make moonkins more dps efficent but the insults remain. so no i dont believe dps is less important then others, i think idiots are worth less then others.

    oh and btw i love my class so pfft to you 😛

74. TLDR: I come for insight, not trolling.

    Full version:

    I appreciate that provoking discussion is important and that the poster is a guest, but I expect better than this from World of Matticus. Even if the article was deliberately obtuse in an effort to elicit a response, that is not only highly unprofessional, but also no excuse for wholly dismissing the contributions of damage dealers.

    Many arguments have already been made, but I will reiterate two for special emphasis.

    * Fights are built around enrage timers. Even in Burning Crusade, taking down Gruul the Dragonkiller was impossible without enough DPS to bring him down before the tank was overwhelmed by Gruul’s increasing strength. In WotLK, enrage timers became even more prevalent. Grand Widow Faerlina required that the raid (until they became overgeared) kill her within four frenzies. Patchwerk had a hard six minute timer. Malygos had a hard timer. Kel’Thuzad’s adds gained a stacking damage buff that eventually would overwhelm any tank. Flame Leviathan dealt a steady stream of unavoidable damage to the entire raid. Thorim gained a stacking damage buff that became especially dangerous in “hard mode.”

    * Fights are built around killing adds quickly. Freya wouldn’t be possible without DPS spreading across adds appropriately and downing them quickly. Mimiron P3 requires robots to die in a timely fashion lest they overwhelm the raid. Yogg-Saron requires tentacles to be brought down. Gormok requires snobolds to be killed. Jaraxxus requires Mistresses and Infernals to be killed.

    There are also a few examples of astonishing, willful ignorance in the article to which I must draw attention:

    * “If the tank dies who gets the blame? Not the DPS classes that didn’t burn the mob down fast enough but the healer who didn’t heal well enough.”

    If the author has been in raids where blame for a tank death falls exclusively on healers, then I recommend zie find a raid leader worth hir salt. Slow DPS on Gormok’s snobolds will wipe the raid, slow DPS on Jaraxxus’ adds will wipe the raid, slow DPS on XT’s adds will wipe the raid, and the list goes on. The burden of a raid leader includes correctly assessing the cause of failure – and that cause is sometimes slow DPS.

    * “Who’s ever heard of a Main DPS before?”

    The main DPS is the standout player, or group of standout players, whose job it is to blow things up quickly. In Hyjal, we had a handful of our best melee moving through the trash waves, killing Necromancers before their adds became overwhelming. The raid lived and died, in large part, on how well they did their jobs. That’s main DPS. Today, those are the people burning down Snobolds and Mistresses of Pain and Assault Bots. Try doing Jaraxxus in content-appropriate with no DPS on any of the adds for the entire fight. See how that goes for you.

    * “Sub-par DPS can join a raid (even if it’s not desirable) but sub-par tanks cannot tank one and poor healers cannot heal one.”

    A sub-par tank will do fine in a raid, until zie sustains an unhealable amount of damage. A sub-par healer will do fine in a raid, until zie cannot keep up with the damage incoming to the raid. A sub-par DPS will do fine in a raid, until zie fails to make the enrage timer, or kill an add in time, or interrupt a spell.

    * “DPS can just be picked up randomly as required.”

    I have an idea for your second guest post on this blog (god forbid): Try this sometime in a raid. Get your two tanks and two healers from a trusted source like your guild, and say “LF DPS ICC10, taking anyone” in trade chat. Take the first six people who reply. Write a post about how that turns out for you. I have a suggestion for the title: “I was wrong – damage dealers DO matter.”

    @Matticus:

    I respect your right to choose your guest posters, but just as I was appalled by Lodur’s post which reduced women to dehumanized cliches, I am appalled by this post, which reduces 60% of a given raid to deadweight. I am all for thoughtful discussion and challenging existing norms. However, just as one wouldn’t start a Holy vs Disc debate by saying “Disc priests are terrible and do not deserve loot”, one should not begin a discussion of the worth of damage dealers by outright dismissing them. As a loyal reader of your blog, I plead that in the future, you screen your guest posts more carefully.

    • @Neil: It happens. Everyone’s going to have different levels of tolerance to the material they’re exposed to. Some people are okay with it. Some people have a neutral attitude towards the things they read and others are instantly energized. It’s difficult as it is to pinpoint what is truly incendiary and what isn’t. I’ve turned down relatively high-risk flameworthy posts in the past, albeit for different reasons. As long as its a clear idea, conveyed in a relatively respectful manner (or obviously satirical), I’ll take a chance with it. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t. Judging by the temperature and response to this post, it’s probably not likely that WFS is every going to submit another guest post again for fear of pissing off the internet.

      So TLDR: Your feedback is accepted, noted, and pinned to the corkboard on my wall. ^^

      (Yes, I have a corkboard and its full of nothing but receipts)

75. “Certainly in the grouping and raiding that I’ve done, both in WoW and other games, is that I’ve always felt a lot less pressured when I DPS compared to the other two roles.”

    WFS, this comment really made me think, because at first I was inclined to completely disagree, and then I thought about it a bit more.

    I find the leadership role a lot more stressful.

    Now, this is based purely on anecdotal evidence, but in the groups with whom I run, it seems like often tanks and healers take on leadership roles. Perhaps it’s actually the other way around – leaders take on the healing and tank roles because they see a need for more of that group role, and, as leaders, feel it is their duty to step up to the plate.

    When I’m not leading, healing becomes a breeze, a walk in the park. Clickity click click hurrah! But when I am, it’s stressful. It is exactly the same when I DPS.

    TLDR, leading is stressful in and of itself, and lots of leaders take on the healing or tanking role. However, correlation between the two does not mean causality.
    .-= Miss Medicina´s last blog ..Salvaging the "Oculus Failure" =-.

76. This post managed to rattle the cage. Bravo!

    All roles in a team be it 5 man or raid is important just as all roles in a company is important, you need all roles filled with good players, but there is a difference in importance. There is the difference in responsibility, or rather blame, how often do you hear the dps getting blamed for the wipe?
    There are fights where it comes down to the dps if you will make it or not but even these fights require the tanks and healers to perform without fail, the popular example many dpsers bring is patchwerk (used too bring atleast), well if your tanks cant take the beating and the healers heal through the hatefulls your dps will be very low since you all will be dead. If your dps is having a bad day your tanks and healers will have to work harder, if your tanks or healers have a bad day you wipe.
    It’s not about dpsers being worse players, it’s just about the significans of the role. Many times have the day been saved by a stellar dpser.

    Lastly ask yourself this: In a boss fight a tank, a healer and a dps is about to die, you can only save 2 of them, who do you choose?
    .-= Uskan´s last blog ..Bah Humbug =-.

77. This article is silly. You want extra rewards as a tank? How about the fact that you have hardly anyone rolling against you for gear in raids. Try being a shadow priest and having to roll against everyone and their mother for a piece of gear. DPS can often be competing with 7 people in the raid for an upgrade. It takes them longer to gear.

    You have instant queues in LFD. Seems like a nice perk.

    You don’t have to be a good tank to get an instant pug raid in trade chat. You are in by default because there is such a tank shortage. It doesn’t matter if you have no clue what you’re doing, because half your initial threat will be generated by the “dime a dozen” hunters and rogues who misdirected mobs back to you, essentially doing half your job…then you can just stand there and spam your rotation while you get dedicated heals.

    There’s a tank shortage not because you’re job is so hard, it’s because most people would rather follow than lead. Raid main tanking isn’t rocket science. For the most part you are focused on 1 boss, spamming your rotation and taunts while everyone else is out dodging fires and other crap, dispelling, misdirecting, healing and managing adds.

    Everyone in the raid is working equally hard…to say that tanks work harder and deserve more is a complete line of BS.

    I’m seriously getting tired of hot-headed tanks who think they are “special” and deserve more than others. I’m tired of joining a pug and having the tank instantly charge into the dungeon full speed ahead like Captain Kool-Aid bursting through a brick wall, with no regard for anyone else in the group. Forget buffs. I get like 3 seconds to get everything together. Like the genius tank today who, right after a boss fight, instantly ran ahead and picked up a massive group of mobs while I was trying to rez 2 dead people.

78. I am a paladin tank and now the MT for my guild. I have tanked most things apart from the new ICC. One thing i have learned is healers make me look good as i stand there taking a beating but survive, my guilds ‘good’ dps reduce my healers stress as they dont take damage they dont need to while killing the boss quickly.

    I think the only reward tanks and healers need is ‘respect’ (if they are any good)
    I have that from my guild, my healers certainly have it from me, and dps that knows their rotations and moves correctly and gets the big numbers, they also have my respect, anyone can dps, but to dps properly takes skill.

79. In response to a (much) earlier post, which read something like: “Tanks and Healers are only this vital in 5mans. In raiding, DPS is usually what decides the outcome, and the ‘tank shortage’ is due to the lower tanks-to-everything-else ratio in 25mans. Surprisingly, DPS is harder to find than the other roles, perhaps because bad players don’t last long if they are not DPS.”

    —–

    Frankly, I wouldn’t mind seeing some more variance in encounter design in terms of number of tanks, heals, DPS. Pretty much everyone I know has dual-spec these days, and it would be fun and interesting to use it to tweak raid composition rather than just compensating for DC’d players.

    I’d also really like to see a fight at the 5man level that singles out bad DPS and prevents the group from surviving the fight unless the bad DPS are weeded out. Every fight is like that for the tanks and heals; I wish DPS could occasionally be held to the same standard. Aside from leading DPS to improve, this may alter the ratio of roles in the LFG queue. It’s tiresome to need to wait 15+ minutes before I can get in touch with my dark side, should the urge take me.

80. Thanks for everyone’s comments. They’ve been incredibly interesting and I’ve really enjoyed reading them. They’ve certainly given me a renewed perspective on DPS and people’s opinion about it! Great stuff.

    As for the controversy around the article, I was initially very surprised by how much of a storm it created although given my time on the Internet, I suppose I shouldn’t have been 🙂 I think had the article be phrased as a question (“Do you think healers and tanks should get bigger rewards?”) rather than a statement it would’ve lessened that.

    However, like I said over on Angry Healers, let’s not make a mountain out of a mole hill! If every article on every blog was a postive reinforcement of what we already know and think then they really wouldn’t be worth reading would they 🙂
    .-= We Fly Spitfires´s last blog ..Husband Picks Wife Over Orc; WoW More Addictive Than Cocaine =-.

81. I enjoyed your article, I have a healer main. I have total respect for my fellow raid team! As the majority of posts have already stated, we are a team, and I for one enjoy my part of that team as heals.

    The satisfaction of the entire team succeding makes raiding totally worthwile. Many times it is the team mentality that gets us through the bosses, so we have mutual respect for all involved.

    Extra gear for the role? I feel proportionately, with as many dps needed to down the encounter, that we are close to if not equal in chances to get our upgrades. True, that some nights may be plate night or cloth night drops, but that is the RNG fun of it.

    Me as DPS? I am so locked into my healer mentality – I also am subpar on my hunter and offspec druid dps. I respect you guys who can and do DO it well !!! Without you awesome DPS’ers, this game would be less fun as we would probably never see the end game content 🙂

    Just my 2c.

82. I play all 3 roles and would like to say that I partially disagree. More and more encounters are getting designed around the “minimal dps required” mechanics, and I may like this or not but it’s the way it seems to be today.

    Hence, loot priority today should probably be in this order:

    – Tanks
    (because they need the gear to stay up comfortably);

    – Reliable dpsers without tunnel vision, with good class skills and high survivability
    (because they will do most of the damage required, and won’t strain the healers making too many mistakes);

    – Healers
    (because they just need enough gear to have sufficient spellpower and sustained regen for long fights);

    – Other damage dealers.

    I heal as offspec lately – our guild has a million paladins and priests – and for what I saw from my less than perfect offset healing kit I don’t feel under pressure whatsoever in guild raids. Of course I won’t shine on Recount stats, but I can do the job fine without any issues.

    On the other hand, when I heal some pug raids, my feeling is I couldn’t save the players and win the fights even if I had been wearing all healers’ dreamed best-in-slots.

    With decent raid organization and tanks/dpsers with a brain they can use, healers can be “sufficiently” instead of “excellently” geared and the outcome will be good – so my guild raids are fine, and what’s slowing us down is we’d enjoy a better class combination (some classes are under-represented, we go in with whom we have available lacking some useful buffs etc) and some more dps from gear. No gear could brute-force heal an unskilled raid group – while is a very viable solution for bad random heroics 🙂

    Still, healers are the foundation of a good raiding team and they deserve rewards and respect, but I am not so sure that those must come in the shape of loot priority…

83. Our guild has already been rewarding tanks and healers. The healers are given free flasks. The tanks are given 75G repair from the gbank each raid night. But we never let tanks or healers to have priorities on loot.

    I believe the only time that tanks and healers should get more loot/reward is when the raid is above tanks threat, and healers are unable to sustain the fight length. However, it’s not really an issue for a guild that has been raiding consistently.

    IMHO, Tanks and healers are the backbones of a raid force. You lose a few dps, your raid can still go okay. You will have a very difficult time when your MT is not in raid. You will have a hard time when the regular OT isn’t in the raid. You will have a lot of frustration when your strong healer is MIA.

    It’s also very hard to quantify healers and tanks. There is no clear numbers, nor guide lines to tell how good the healers or the tanks are. We use our DPS meter to measure how good our dps are doing, and reward the top dps raiders. But we can’t do that for tanks and healers.

84. Let me tell you where I sit before I tell you where I stand. I’ve been a WoW player since 2004. In vanilla, I played a rogue, mage and hunter. I raided with my mage through AQ40 until BC was released. In BC I wanted to try tanking and rolled a Belf paladin, but ended up healing until I got the hang of tanking. In addition I leveled and played a warlock and continued to play my hunter. I switched back and forth between healing and gathering tanking pieces no one needed through BT. In Wrath, I changed my main to a DK, while leveling 6 other toons to 80 (mage, warlock, hunter, warrior, druid and my old paladin.) Currently I am one of the MTs for my guild on my DK and paladin and heal periodically on my druid. I only choose to dps on one of my other 80s when someone else wants to try tanking/healing. My first choice is always to tank and my guild mates prefer it.

    While I cannot wholly support the idea of “extra” loot for tanks and healers when running 5’s or raid encounters, I can say without reservation that tanks and healers are the backbone of any well oiled group and that dps as a whole are, in fact, a dime a dozen. I’ve come to this conclusion after countless runs in all three capacities and inevitably my satisfaction in a group is highest when:

    1.) The entire team is great
    2.) The tank is great
    3.) The tank and the healer are both great
    4.) The healer is great
    5.) The dps are great

    Clearly the experience is the best, when everyone is functioning at a high level and the run cruises along with chain pulls, smash-mouth dps and seemingly endless health to support this type of dungeon crawl. But put into context a great tank is your greatest asset – even beyond a great healer. A great tank leads from the front, knows the dungeon and its fight mechanics, and understands his class well. They also are adept at handling “Oh, sh*t” situations and can often times prevent wipes through their inherent uses of CDs for threat/dmge reduction and gathering loose mobs on the fly.

    While a terrific healer can definitely save your behind from a tank’s poor pulled/over-pulled room or overzealous dps threat, they are – or should be in my opinion as a part-time healer as well – support players proactively and reactively prolonging the other player’s abilities. A great healer, rarely leads from the front in literal terms – they’ll be creamed. It’s the competent tank that sets the pace, leads dungeon exploration, coordinates the pulls and positions mobs for the best possible outcomes for dps and healers alike.

    As an avid heroic runner when we aren’t raiding I can say that I have almost given up on dps LFG tool. Experience has taught me that the tank is, more often than not, the bar from which the ‘fun” level is set. And despite many tanks in at least 232 gear now from the LFG loot piñata, skill still cannot be bought with emblems.

    I’d have to agree with some of the previous posters that often times all a tank wants from a group is the common respect to let them do their job, without the hassle of managing reckless behavior from the rest of the group. We don’t even need a “thanks”. Just let us stay in front (RIP Sap skill), set the pace and set the rest of the group up for doing the most damage/minimizing over healing.

85. Pingback: Dealing With Controversy - We Fly Spitfires - MMORPG Blog
86. Pingback: » Counterpoint: It’s “Party” Not “Duo”

87. As a healer (priest), I would just like to be more appreciated, if your guild as a /guildnamehealer channel, all the healer will bitch about it. I dont think we should get extra for doing our job but what I would like is… NOT TO MIX THE HEALERS LOOT WITH DPS LOOT
    Why in god name did Blizzard gave utility to spirit for mages and warlock? wtf?
    What was previously priest gear (or druid for neck/rings) now became mages and warlock gear. They already have gear that have hit rating and no mana regen. Now I ahve to fight the other healers AND the dps to get better gear. Tank do not have that problem, you rarely need more than 3 tanks, they get new upgrade quickly.
    You want to reward the healers? Change how the class work or make the loot class specific (less desirable).

88. The reward for putting up with being a healer or tank is instant queue times. You get quicker groups more often.

    DPS are already queuing as healers or tanks to get quicker groups, we don’t want to encourage them by giving them extra rewards at the end.

89. I see a lot of share the same sentiment but I’m going to post a comment anyway.

    The reason you become a tank or healer is for the LOVE of it. You get a sense of satisfaction out of that role that you don’t get being a dps class. Maybe it is the sense of control, or of martyrdom, or whatever it is for you.

    You don’t become a tank or a healer because you want additional loot or in-game rewards. And if Blizz started doing that, every joe-schmoe would become one, and they wouldn’t necessarily be any good at it.

90. Fair distribution of loot:

    “For the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who was the master of a household, who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. He went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace. To them he said, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did likewise. About the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle. He said to them, ‘Why do you stand here all day idle?’ “They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ “He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and you will receive whatever is right.’ When evening had come, the lord of the vineyard said to his steward, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning from the last to the first.’ “When those who were hired at about the eleventh hour came, they each received a denarius. When the first came, they supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise each received a denarius. When they received it, they murmured against the master of the household, saying, ‘These last have spent one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat!’ “But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Didn’t you agree with me for a denarius? Take that which is yours, and go your way. It is my desire to give to this last just as much as to you. Isn’t it lawful for me to do what I want to with what I own? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?’ So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few are chosen.”

    • @Simbaria: Lets not quote bible passages here. I respect it, but like, I don’t think that’s necessary.

91. Ok, never again, but it is at least relevant.

    OP: They require the most effort and who can argue that as a result they should get the biggest rewards?
    ME: God

92. After reading the initial post and the responses by the original poster to the comments here.. its pretty simple the initial post was meant to stir thing up and get people reacting to a silly assumtion.

    @Simbaria: the bible was written over 500 years after the so called events portrayed in there.. it might be a semi interesting read but truth? Highly doubtful.

93. To be brief, every time someone spreads the belief that dps are a dime a dozen, you end up with that many fewer dps players with incentive to improve their skills.

    As for giving healers something extra, I tell my guild all the time that I have it easy: they kill stuff, and I get a share of the loot. How much more can you ask, honestly?

94. This post smacks of a /Trade Troll. I’m not sure why Matt allowed it to be published, other than increased traffic due to its controversy.

    Poor form.

    • @vine: I don’t know why people continue to think I do stuff “for the hits”. It’s not like I’m getting paid per page view or visit anything. The ads I have right now are just there because of a sponsor agreement which keeps this blog running and not offline. There’s no quota. I’d publish regardless whether I get 5 subscribers or 5000. I don’t think my blog is useless or boring to the point where I felt it needed some kind of controversial post to get “numbers” and traffic back up again.

      Look, it went through because I thought it was an interesting post and I honestly didn’t believe it would generate so much controversy.

      I was wrong.

      As a consequence, I’m going to need to take a much closer look at future guest posts and become increasingly paranoid and “politically correct” about how the tones and words of posts are conveyed.

      I’m tired of moderating this post so I’m going to seal off future comments. Feel free to continue to email more feedback though, I encourage that. I just get really irritated when someone says I do stuff “for page views”. Unfortunately, e-reputation doesn’t quite pay for my tuition. ASUS and Razer hasn’t really come knocking on my door offering me free stuff in exchange for links (although that would be cool).

95. Pingback: We Didn’t Start the Fire « Azure Shadows
96. Pingback: re: Tanks and Healers Should Get The Biggest Rewards « Moar HPS!
97. Pingback: Should Tanks and Healers Get the Biggest Rewards? | Super WOW Guide
98. Pingback: All Pixels Are Equal « Arrowrest
99. Pingback: Casual Healin' » Blog Archive » ORLY? Reward Healers and Tanks….
100. Pingback: Frustrations with LFD « Lujanera's Tanking Notes
101. Pingback: It’s about class, in more ways than one « Dechion's Place
102. Pingback: I Respectfully Disagree | Altoholics R Us
103. Pingback: Will the Dungeon Finder Lead to More Tanks and Healers « Don’t Make Me A Target
104. Pingback: The Interchangablility of DPS « The Ancient Gaming Noob
105. Pingback: The Most Important Role Of All « Casual Hardcore
106. Pingback: Tiger Ears » Blog Archive » Class equality
107. Pingback: The tank shortage situation « Lujanera's Tanking Notes
108. Pingback: All Pixels Are Equal « Arrowrest
109. Pingback: All Pixels Are Equal « Arrowrest
110. Pingback: In which we call out bullshit « Do Not Try This At Home
111. Pingback: All Pixels Are Equal « Arrowrest
112. Pingback: All Pixels Are Equal « Roving Marks
113. Pingback: 2010: Best of World of Matticus | World of Matticus
114. Pingback: Class Value « Roving Marks
115. Pingback: ringing in ears
116. Pingback: Should Healers and Tanks Get The Biggest Rewards? – Evangelysm

Comments are closed.