Myths concerning healers

Perusing our forums this morning I ran across a post by Oneear. He’s one of my favorite people and here’s one of the reasons why. Here… as posted by Oneear.

This is an opinion post. As such, it IS pure opinion. Feel free to post your own.

Every once in a while someone will say something really dumb about healing in WoW and it rankles me. Not because I love healing so much (but I do enjoy it), but because it is misinformed and frankly just inane. New players or players who have not tried healing are sometimes put off by what they hear about healing without having tried it.

Below are a few things I have heard. Both recently and for years now.

* Healers are elitist

Healers, decent ones, are usually in short supply. And are, by coincidence, in high demand. Some healers are egotistical, but then so are some tanks and some DPS. Healers are no more elitist than any other class. Because the job of healing is much less selfish than others in the group, I’ve found that the best healers are the ones who are the most modest. Especially about their own abilities.

* It’s always the healers fault or “Why didn’t you heal meh?!?”

Decent healers know when they have to let people die to save a group. Same with decent tanks. The adage of “if a tank dies it is the healers fault, if a healer dies it is the tanks fault, and if a DPS dies it is their own fault” is very true. Healers pretty much need to prioritize heals. And this priority gets more difficult with less tools (such as holy pallies with aoe damage). This priority also changes with encounters, gear levels, group composition, etc. Good healers know what to do instinctively. Which is required due to the speed needed to react sometimes. Just because you didn’t get a heal doesn’t mean it was the healers problem. Most likely you gave yourself too high a priority that was not shared by the healer.

* Healing is just playing whack-a-mole with health bars lol (aka Healing is boring)

If this is what you do as a healer…. you suck. Bad.

Since I know I can not convince anyone that something they don’t like is enjoyable, let me just put down a few things I look for in healers I play with to illustrate how narrow this view is.

Reaction skills to handle the unexpected (healing, IMO, is THE most reactive portion of WoW and
the top reason some healers are really bad). Knowledge of how to manage their mana (when to pop pots, flask/elixir selection, gear choice per encounter, mechanics of their class). Target prioritization (whom to heal and when). Foresight and knowledge of when to expect things to happen (good healers will KNOW when someone is going to take damage and can plan accordingly).

IMO, healing perhaps more than any other role in WoW, requires a lot of thought before and after the pull. You can be a healer by spamming a single heal on a random target. But to be a good healer, you MUST look at the entire raid and not just the health bars. And you MUST pay attention to the situation and have outstanding situational awareness.

* I can’t level or solo effectively as Resto

Simply untrue and shows a high level of n00bery. I’ve leveled my shaman from 60-70 and from 70-80 as pretty much all resto. No downtime. He never really dies unless I do something stupid. Killing something takes maybe 3-4 more seconds than if he was Elemental. But…. he. never. stops. killing. The only other faster way to level that I have seen is with my druid as cat. Lock, slower. Mage, much slower. I also tried my druid as resto for a while. Wrath and Roots was kind of fun and still no downtime (but cat is slightly faster). Priest, Shadow is interesting, but seems slower than smiting crap to death.

When I hear people say they can’t kill anything as resto, I always think to myself “N00B! L2P!”. I’ve soloed elites as resto on my shaman, my druid (in fact I respeced to resto so that I COULD solo an elite), and my priest. I can’t speak for holy pallies, but I don’t see it being that much different. Being able to heal yourself efficiently is a great big win.

* Healing isn’t sexy

Subjective, but I think helping your group win an encounter is sexy. Being an integral part of the reason why the group succeeded is sexy. Just being YET ANOTHER DPS is not sexy, IMO. Aside from a few exceptions, WoW encounters are setup as about 1/3 of the group tanks/healers and 2/3 DPS. So, if you want criticality of role, then each tank and healer is 2x more important than a DPS. Not to say that DPS is unimportant, they are. In fact, they kill the boss. But individually, they are a lot less important than tanks and healers. That means tanks and healers have more individual responsibility.

* Lack of healers is killing the game (aka I can never find a healer)

This last one is the reason for this post as I have been leveling my priest and getting group invites all the time. It’s true, there are fewer healers. And you are probably the reason why. Did you blame a pug healer for a wipe? Did you laugh at a healer while they were leveling for doing it as resto/holy? Did you whine that every priest/druid/shaman/pally should be Holy/Resto so they can heal for you (many healers level as other specs and switch back and THEY remember asshat comments like that)? Did you see a holy/resto healer clearing their way for a quest and ninja it from them and laugh (remember they may not have to stop, but they do go a little slower killing)?++ In short, where you an asshat to a healer or healer class at some point? Well, people remember.

++ – I admit that have sometimes done this to DPS while they were eating, drinking, or bandaging. Wink