I thought healer was a quiet, non-stressful role when participating in dungeons while leveling and indeed it's so, but not always.
Sometimes it happens that a tank or a dps has entered as a tank and they argue about who should tank, or who between the two steals aggro and they go on with these stupid arguments.
The worst moments are when there are two tanks and among the dps there are warlocks who continue to sacrifice stamina to have mana, they are so lazy that they do not stop for a moment to recover mana.
Or when there are ranged dps who instead of staying at the maximum possible distance remain at melee distance to get killed.
Sure, the healer continues to heal them if they get aggro, but if you tell them that your priority is to keep the tank alive, they don't want to hear reason, they offend and get out of the dungeon.
The latter case is the one I prefer the most, in this way you look for another dps to compete the dungeon.
How are your experiences as a healer?
Like this or quieter?
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Member
First experiences as a Healer
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Member
Glad you mentioned it, lol. I call it stealing mana from the healer. It got so annoying at one point that I stopped topping off a warlock and just let him die.
I also remember being grouped once with three warlocks and a tank, and those warlocks were constantly life tapping. Super annoying.
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Member
In the dungeons I no longer say anything about their laziness. Almost always they pretend not to understand, they ignore you and in the worst case someone in the group even defends their way of playing.
I always hope that for some reason they get bored and leave the group.............always hoping that they will not be replaced by another warlock just as lazy or worse.
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Member
my experience healing a heroic dungeon this morning: a 6400gs ret pally queue's as tank. when we all zone in, the ret immediately says "healer just heal the f*ck out of me" and he proceeds to run straight into combat before anybody even started buffing, swinging away with his polearm. he can't hold aggro, he can't take damage very well, mid-way we wipe, we rezone in, two dps'ers leave, two more come, later a caster dies, before i can finish rez'ing him the ret runs on, we eventually make it to boss and finish.
this is an atypical experience i have as a healer, but yeah 1 in 10 dungeons a jarhead-tank queues and the healer has to try and save the party from wipe/leave. it can be a thankless job.
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Moderator
So annoying that the warlock is using the skills built in his kit. He should just AFK so that you don't need to do your role as a healer, dropping off a HoT is too much effort. Right?
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Member
In that case you kick him out if everyone agrees or if there's some class to help to heal or some plate class to help to tank, so at least the possibility of a wipe is reduced.
Sure, he uses his own spell to recover mana, but other than that I don't think he should do that for the whole duration of the dungeon.
You should consider that at the first levels:
- the equipment is not the best, but the dungeon is still feasible if players do not take certain risks or if they do not unknowingly abuse a spell
- as a healer you may not have much mana when leveling
- the hots you are talking about you unlock them after a certain level and not immediately
Aside that, I expected such a common and very trite answer especially with the last statement.
You could avoid such a banal answer since it is known that hots are effective...................but only have exceeded a certain level.
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Member
Yes, it is part of their skill set, so they should learn how and when to use it — much like any other skill.
Planning Life Taps also helps with DPS (glyph) and survivability.
I really dislike locks who, due to poor planning, tap themselves to near death mid-fight right before AoE hits and other shenanigans.
Regarding HoTs, my most common experience is:
The fight ends, and the party is moving to the next group. I see the lock is below half mana, so I put a HoT on them.
They proceed to ignore it, even though they don't have anything else to do. The HoT expires, so I just wasted mana for nothing.
Then they tap themselves to near death when the next group is pulled and expect (some even yell for) healing...
Also, I don't see a reason why they shouldn't use food/drinks when the healer (and possibly the rest of the party) is drinking or standing still.
Why do they wait for the healer to replenish mana and then expect to be healed?
This is especially annoying at low levels when you have a mana pool for like 6–7 heals—but at least then I can assume they’re new to WoW or the class.
Since this thread is about overall healer experience, not just a rant about locks, I’ll add some other stuff and the frequency I encounter it:
3/10 RDFs
Headless or Rambo tanks, oblivious to their surroundings, actual gear, or the party's GS average.
3/10 RDFs
DPS eating cleaves for no reason.
2/10 RDFs
Hunters using Aspect of the Pack or Distracting Shot.
2/10 RDFs
DPS trying to go “faster” by pre-pulling additional groups—either for the poor 3k GS tank or when I’m out of mana and the tank actually waits for me.
2/10 RDFs
Some 6k+ clothie showing off their "imba" DPS while standing in melee range or just flexing on the 5k tank.
1/20 RDFs
Fresh 80s boosting their GS/iLvl via BoEs not meant for their class/spec.
Yes, I’ve seen a warrior with cloth shoulders, healer mail legs, and a healer plate belt. Obviously, no gems or enchants either.
1/30 RDFs
Ridiculously low DPS. If I can out-DPS them on a single target as a healer, something is very wrong.
Some issues can be solved by kicking the culprit or just wiping once, but in general, I’ve left the group like 5–7 times while leveling and RHC-gearing each character.
After all, it’s a game and should be fun—not another job where ungrateful people undermine your efforts and then yell at you when you don’t perform miracles at will.
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Member
that's when you usually hear a lot of "go". or "go go go". why are they in such a ****ing hurry? I can understand impatience if a group is moving at a snail's pace, but not waiting for the healer to drink when we're oom?
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Member
If they die they get angry, swear, complain because they died immediately and continue not to realize what they do and if they don't understand why, it's probably because they play in tunnel vision all the time.............or worse.
To the impatience of some players, to their senseless and continuous haste to say "go go go pull pull pull" (XD), I answer calmly simply not saying anything.
Before the tank pulls again I notice that I need a few seconds to recover mana, but if they continue and die, I don't follow them, I don't enter combat and resurrect them later.
But even so, they still get angry, claiming that you didn't warn them.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think they're annoyed that you saved yourself and they died, as if they wanted everyone to die. XD
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Member
You would have to give more context. What class and level and what dungeons? TBC or Wrath? You also mentioned this was your first time healing, but then you're asking me what my experiences as a healer in general are.
As a first time healer I would expect you to be terrible at it and get frustrated. If we're talking about Wrath in 3.3.5 and you're asking me I'd say it's incredibly easy. Keeping in mind I have resources to buy gear and have up to date talents. I also know all the tactics, rotations, mana management and I know what to expect from other players. Lower level dungeons you can play any spec and still heal. Level 80 heroics are meant to be easy and players are usually way over geared. You should really only have issues in ICC dungeons or maybe TOC 5 man unless you get a giga geared anything which is quite common. Otherwise you probably need to read some guides and get proper addons.
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Member
Weird take. Sounds like you've never played a healer.
It's incredibly annoying for an entry-level healer (2k–3k gear score) to heal someone who's basically trying to kill themselves. These healers already struggle with mana management, and Warlocks make it worse by constantly Life Tapping without using food or bandages to recover health on their own. Instead, they just wait around for the healer to drink and then expect to be healed up. It's ridiculous.
Abilities should be used wisely. By your logic, it shouldn’t be annoying for a tank to deal with a Ret Paladin who uses Hand of Reckoning on a boss just for a little extra DPS and keeps taunting the boss off the tank. I mean it's their kit, but it doesn't mean it should be used in that way.
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Member
To add to this, probably a Warlock main too.
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Member
Warlocks use an excessive amount of mana which is why they have life tap. This mana equates to damage. So logically if they receive healing then they deal more damage. To maintain that you can simply place a HoT. It's not that complicated or mana intensive for a healer, but it's a significant dps increase for the group. The perspective of a Warlock stealing mana when that's how the class is designed is a poor one that would make you a worse healer.
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Member
I'm not talking about life tapping during combat. Of course it is acceptable to life tap when OOM, but not between pulls so that you don't need to replenish mana yourself. These Warlocks AFK with 10% hp while healer drinks for mana. That's what I'm saying.
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