The – Blaming the healer – thing

I’m not sure where the myth comes from. I’ve experienced some creepy pugs, but never did anyone ever blame the healer unless they had a really good reason for it. And by good reason I mean something like “the previous healer in our party had less healing than our retri pala”, while in a Botanica run.

I have however left a party because I simply felt unfit to do the healing (& rezzing) on the particular party, it was a Mechanar run, the tank had 9k health and was really oddly specced. People kept dying, I got aggro a zillion times. I asked if he had some fire res gear with him, and he was like “que? fireres? what’s that?”. Of course it’s not exactly necessary in Mech (2nd boss), but since he was seriously undergeared I figured he could’ve used some extra stamina that comes along with the res-gear. So I left after the 10th time I died, saying “ok, I can’t do this guys, you better find a replacement”. I think I should’ve gotten the message at the invite: “you’re looking for a healer?”, “yes, but ooc rez”, “is someone gonna die then?”, “ok, you can come”.

And I have seen some pretty crap priests healing my furry behind. Shielding at the pull, healing the very instant I get damage, renewing at pull, having no mana after like 2 mobs even after using both a mana pot and his or her fiend, not to mention the crap talents they take (no mp5 while casting, no 70% reduction against interrupting a cast, etc etc (it’s a 2 point talent for heavens sake, druids need to put 5 points in the equivalent talent))

Seriously, in my opinion, as a healer you NEED the 70% chance reduction. Why? Because in regular instances, when you get aggro you’ll never die instantly and if your gear supports it, you can HoT yourself and easily continue healing while one or two mobs are on you. Even when wearing cloth. The 70% will make sure your Healing Touch won’t take 10 seconds to cast, but maybe 4 seconds at Max, most of the time just 3 or 3.5 seconds. You seriously do not want to be helpless and not able to cast anything but instants and even making the party wipe just because you figured 2 or 5 points were better spent in spirit tap or whatever sorry excuse for a healing talent you can come up with.

This is the main reason why I feel I’m seriously gimped as a healer in a battleground – or even a lvl 20-30 instance – if I’m specced Feral. You simply cannot get a cast done where HoT’s simply don’t have the punch to heal another player or yourself quickly enough.

Anyway, back to the subject. So yes, I have had doubts about healers, I have had issues, I may have hinted them that they shouldn’t do certain things like shielding and healing at the first bit of damage I receive. But come on, those things are just things you Have to know already when you’re lvl 70.

It’s like caster dps classes that get aggro and then keep on casting and critting until the tank can hardly taunt the mob anyway anymore because of the insane amount of threat they generate. If he’s whining about healing at that point, the caster should be hanged, not the healer.

If you either said ‘mana break’ in party chat or if you’re just simply drinking and clearly below 50%, and still mobs are being pulled, it’s not your fault people die.

No healer should get blamed of causing a wipe, unless:

• they are undergeared,
• they e-bay-ed the char,
• they DC-ed,
• they’re not healing the priority cases,
• they don’t care about threat,
• they use damage spells instead of healing spells.

And even if the healer DC-ed, it’s still Not his or her fault technically speaking.

To conclude in a nutshell, if you’re a healer and you’re being blamed because of deaths and wipes, you should:

• Recall what happened,
• Check your own gear,
• Check their gear,
• Laugh at their stupidity (or Learn from your mistakes).

I’m rambling, but I just get pissed when I think of the injustice of this all.

Personally, I’ve never been blamed a bad healer. I’ve been cheered upon because of my healing a lot, and I always try to do the same to other healers when I’m tanking or dps-ing.

There’s a nice pick-me-up if you’re saddened about events and your spec if you’re Alliance. Go do a battleground and support heal your fellow players. Knowing alliance, you’ll be on top of healing right after the top 3 to 5 horde players, and you’ll feel you’ve contributed something to the war simply because no other Alliance player gives a shit about healing others and therefor never win other battlegrounds besides AV.

I think I can go on and on about this, but it’s not exactly a constructive guide, so let’s leave it at this.