First allow me to introduce myself. I'm from Germany and playing on the European Server Kil'Jaeden, and discovered this site through MongoJerrys/Neriads tale of the Onyxia Raids on the Northamerican WoW Raids and Dungeons Forum. Great Work, which made me of course curious about this site. :)
On topic:
Noticing the sometimes upcoming complaints on the WoW forums about arrogant priests, while at the same time reading frequent complaints by priests about ignorant groups, as well as observing and participating in group hassels while instancing, I came to wonder if priest players are really from a different planet, than players of other classes.
This is more than a mere question auf game mechanics. When I look at my friendslist, I notice that most of them are either priests themselves or other primary caster classes such as mages and warlocks. Indeed the players of other classes that made it to my friendslist, are not so much there, because I enjoy their company, but rather because I have rated them as "reliable" players.
Now judging from the reactions of e.g. warriors or rogues to priests, I have come to thinking, that not much love is lost on the other side either, for us priests, as well as for mages or warlocks for that matter.
To give you an example:
Last weekend while attending a Scholomance raid, immediatly after raid formation, small talk erupted on the group channel of the group I had been assigned to. The topic was the priest in the other group of this raid (let's call him P2).
"Thank goodnees P2 is on the other group"
"Yeah he's a real bitch"
"You know what xy said about P2? It's good to have him in the party, as long as you also have him on ignore"
"lol"
Now I didn't know P2, but during the whole raid, he never did something stupid or demanded something excessivly burdening on the group, just warning people not to take unnecessary risks, when discipline on the raid was temporarily waning. In fact, I would rate him as a very good player, who knows what he's doing. I really don't want to know what people are chatting behind my back, then.
So what is the reason behind the "priest hate"?
Trying to explain this to myself, I have come up with some points that may explaÃn this:
1.) Priests are needed and there are not much high-lvl Priests around. It's a basic fact that one doesn't like people one is dependend on.
This shows in behavior prior and after invitation to a party as a priest.
First people will try to woe you into their group ("Pleeaasee, we have a complete group, just lacking a priest. Come on, it will be great"), then you are often supposed to STFU and heal. We don't like this and will get grumpy then (in the best case; in the worst case we simply hearth out of the instance).
2.) Warriors have a complete different rythm of play then priests. While priests loose Mana during battle which they have to regenerate afterwards, warriors gain rage, which they quickly loose after combat.
Now when one pull has been successfully mastered, there arises a conflict of interest. The warrior wants to engage as quickly as possible into the next pull to put the rage he has accumulated into use, while the caster classes want some seconds to regenerate mana, before advancing further.
3.) Priests are most often positioned at the back of the group, which allows them to quite literally have a wider viewing angle on the things that are happening around the group. So this is why it comes that priests are the first ones to see potential adds, that may join the fight (and often targeting the priest then), before the guys in the front notice them. That may give the impression priests are prone to panic unneccasary, while in fact they see things from their position, that others may overlook.
4.) Non healing classes often cannot judge how difficult a certain encounter was for the priest. They usally come out from the pull fine and healthy and think that this was a piece of cake and one could take greater risks not realizing that the priest was burning through his mana (no non caster reads mana bars, no one, empirically proven) and was having coronaries timing his heals, to keep everyone alive. When a priest then says something about better being cautious, people do not understand why. Everything went great so far, didn't it?
So next time your rechargable health battery a.k.a. priest is bitching about something it probably has something to do with the above mentioned issues.
So long,
Hedon
(a.k.a. Melisandre, lvl 59, Priest on Kil'Jaeden (EU))
On topic:
Noticing the sometimes upcoming complaints on the WoW forums about arrogant priests, while at the same time reading frequent complaints by priests about ignorant groups, as well as observing and participating in group hassels while instancing, I came to wonder if priest players are really from a different planet, than players of other classes.
This is more than a mere question auf game mechanics. When I look at my friendslist, I notice that most of them are either priests themselves or other primary caster classes such as mages and warlocks. Indeed the players of other classes that made it to my friendslist, are not so much there, because I enjoy their company, but rather because I have rated them as "reliable" players.
Now judging from the reactions of e.g. warriors or rogues to priests, I have come to thinking, that not much love is lost on the other side either, for us priests, as well as for mages or warlocks for that matter.
To give you an example:
Last weekend while attending a Scholomance raid, immediatly after raid formation, small talk erupted on the group channel of the group I had been assigned to. The topic was the priest in the other group of this raid (let's call him P2).
"Thank goodnees P2 is on the other group"
"Yeah he's a real bitch"
"You know what xy said about P2? It's good to have him in the party, as long as you also have him on ignore"
"lol"
Now I didn't know P2, but during the whole raid, he never did something stupid or demanded something excessivly burdening on the group, just warning people not to take unnecessary risks, when discipline on the raid was temporarily waning. In fact, I would rate him as a very good player, who knows what he's doing. I really don't want to know what people are chatting behind my back, then.
So what is the reason behind the "priest hate"?
Trying to explain this to myself, I have come up with some points that may explaÃn this:
1.) Priests are needed and there are not much high-lvl Priests around. It's a basic fact that one doesn't like people one is dependend on.
This shows in behavior prior and after invitation to a party as a priest.
First people will try to woe you into their group ("Pleeaasee, we have a complete group, just lacking a priest. Come on, it will be great"), then you are often supposed to STFU and heal. We don't like this and will get grumpy then (in the best case; in the worst case we simply hearth out of the instance).
2.) Warriors have a complete different rythm of play then priests. While priests loose Mana during battle which they have to regenerate afterwards, warriors gain rage, which they quickly loose after combat.
Now when one pull has been successfully mastered, there arises a conflict of interest. The warrior wants to engage as quickly as possible into the next pull to put the rage he has accumulated into use, while the caster classes want some seconds to regenerate mana, before advancing further.
3.) Priests are most often positioned at the back of the group, which allows them to quite literally have a wider viewing angle on the things that are happening around the group. So this is why it comes that priests are the first ones to see potential adds, that may join the fight (and often targeting the priest then), before the guys in the front notice them. That may give the impression priests are prone to panic unneccasary, while in fact they see things from their position, that others may overlook.
4.) Non healing classes often cannot judge how difficult a certain encounter was for the priest. They usally come out from the pull fine and healthy and think that this was a piece of cake and one could take greater risks not realizing that the priest was burning through his mana (no non caster reads mana bars, no one, empirically proven) and was having coronaries timing his heals, to keep everyone alive. When a priest then says something about better being cautious, people do not understand why. Everything went great so far, didn't it?
So next time your rechargable health battery a.k.a. priest is bitching about something it probably has something to do with the above mentioned issues.
So long,
Hedon
(a.k.a. Melisandre, lvl 59, Priest on Kil'Jaeden (EU))