This isn't about elementary school spit-spats, it's about the roles of people in my guild (and maybe many guilds, who knows.)
As the raid leader for my guild (although I hate the title, because I work closely with my GM to plan things and get things going), I have had the somewhat un-enviable job of telling people they need to gear up a little before they join a Naxx group or something like it. You can't just ding 80 and start healing (especially) Naxx 10.
A priest in my group yesterday, who is now 79 and only 2 bars from 80, was told by our GM that she needs to have 1300-1400 plus healing to start healing in Naxx. She said she had about 1100 right now, but she started going on about how "if you won't let me go, how can I gear up?"
I don't know if this is a result of the fact that Karazhan was easy late in BC. I was one of those people that went from dinging 70 and never having run a heroic to healing a Kara group that was outgearing the place, which helped me gear up quickly. Maybe this priest had the same experience.
But you can't just expect to hit 80 and raid. As much as it may suck, you need to run regular 80 dungeons, especially as a healer. You can't just jump into heroics right away (unless maybe you are DPS, but you know my feelings on that). You need to gain reputation by doing dailies and taking what little rep the regular dungeons give. Once you get a few pieces from Oculus/Strat/HoL, and maybe a few crafted/rep gear pieces, you can start doing the easy heroics like Nexus.
She also said to me "well you are raid leader, so you are going to be 'top heals'." What does that mean? I have 1630 bonus healing right now, by far the most in my guild at the moment. But what does "top heals" mean? And it's because I am the raid leader? I hate these labels...I'm not going to take the healing loot just because I am raid leader and have the most bonus heals. We don't have a "main healer" or "off-healer." Why label people and make someone feel superior or inferior to others? Everyone contributes to the raid, and if they don't then we look for a replacement the next time. If I pull 2000 HPS and this priest only does 1700, what am I going to do? Deny her loot or kick her out of the raid? That's just ridiculous im my opinion, and that is why I hate assigning titles to people. It causes resentment and animosity that we just don't need.
I'm not saying labels are all bad. Having a designated main and off tank are essential, and I may assign myself to the main tank and have others raid heal. Being the raid leader has nothing to do with my skill as a healer, but more to my commitment and planning skills.
It sucks having to be the bad guy sometimes, but people need to do the work that I had to do to get geared up, especially as a tank or healer. It's not like the end of BC. You have to do all the dungeons, maybe (GASP!) multiple times to get the gear you need to start heroics/raids. The expansion certainly is more accessible (and easier to an extent), but it still requires a commitment to access that easier content.
Overwatch 2
1 year ago
I would recommend telling healers to just grind out 78/79-80 just healing level 80 instances in order to be ready for raids at 80. I did heroic OS and heroic VoA the day i dinged 80 because i was sittin pretty with my blues from Hol, Cot, Oculus. The added bonus to this is that you gain needed experience and exposure to healing. I see too many people just respec holy because they have a few epics they picked up as dps and think that they'll get by with just gear. Experience is half the game.
ReplyDeleteI would have said the same thing. Right now we have a mage in our guild who wants to raid Naxx with us, we took her into some heroics and it was really difficult because she honestly was not geared enough to put out the DPS needed in there. How is it fair to us, who had to run 80 instances before doing Heroics, to carry her through these Heroics and then Naxx as well?
ReplyDeleteIts not.
A word on "top heals" and who raid heals and who MT heals. First of all lol, you're a paladin. Paladins are not really efficient raid heals. We excel at single target healing and therefore are the best at healing the MT/OT. Due to this and also based on how your tank mitigates damage, we are rarely top in heals! Its simple math... we're healing one person, theyre healing up to 9 people... theyre going to be the one topping the healing meter.
Being an officer in my guild, I sympathize that it does indeed suck to be the bad guy, but for what its worth, I definitely think you did the right thing.
I found as a holy pally the biggest issue in heroics wasn't healing the damage, it was mana regen. Part of which was my infrequent use of divine plea but part of it was also a low crit %, mp5 and int.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I healed any level 80 dungeons on normal mode before heroics (I did do low level dungeons while levelling) but I found it very stressful and as I am yet to do HoS or HoL at all, I'm aiming to do them on normal a few times to learn it before heroics.