Priests. Why we are so ..umm.. difficult.

[Bolty]

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.  :)[right][snapback]76335[/snapback][/right]

Hiya Hedon! Welcome to the Lounge. Mongo's quite the gifted writer!

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).[right][snapback]76335[/snapback][/right]

I recall seeing last week a group willing to PAY 5 gold for any Priest to join their group for Dire Maul (I was actually tempted by that into dragging out my level 60 Priest that I don't play anymore). I mean, dayum. That's desperate. Seeing as how I believe my role as a Priest is to "STFU and heal," I don't have a problem with that personally. I DO have problems with players/groups that have no clue how to group with a Priest, but then again ALL Priest players feel that way after having played long enough.

2.) 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.[right][snapback]76335[/snapback][/right]

And a warrior that does not watch his/her healer's mana is a stupid warrior that will find themselves having a hard time getting into parties. It's just a fact. The only truly relevant mana pool to watch out for *most of the time* is the healer's. Good tanks and good healers will always go out of their way to group with each other, for they form a relationship that other classes will never appreciate until they try playing one themselves.

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.[right][snapback]76335[/snapback][/right]

This goes for casters in general, but it's quite true - many times Priests are the only ones to see the Impending Doom™ coming. Especially when they're down to their last 1/4th of mana and they know the group won't survive the adds because they're acutely aware of their mana drain rate.

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?[right][snapback]76335[/snapback][/right]

Hear, hear! And by the way, *I* read mana bars. :) Having played a Priest to 60, I know what drives Priests nuts and it makes me a better tank player for it.

Lately I've been playing a character of every class in the game, and when grouping I experience this a lot. If I'm not the tank or the healer, it's so...different. It's hard to quantify. No longer playing a big role in how the party progresses casts a different shadow on an instance run. I'm only marginally aware of "how hard" a fight really was, because I'm focusing on doing damage, or providing various support mechanisms. A fight might end and the tank/healer are going "phew," while I'm thinking "that wasn't so bad, we kick butt." Turns out we might have been an inch away from a solid wipe and only a mana pot/heal pot/last instant heal saved the day. The tank and the healer are the ones who are completely aware of this and are the ones best able to judge how easy or hard a fight was. If you've never played a tank or a healer, but you find that some groups seem to do so well while others wipe over and over and you're not sure why...guess what, it's the tank and healer that are making it seem so "easy" on the good runs.

This is one of many reasons that the first players people blame for a wipe are the healers. And why healers then immediately /ignore those players or hearth out and are thusly labeled as "jerks." Most of the time, it's just ignorance on the behalf of players who have no idea how other classes work. Like the Paladin who casts Blessing of Might on my Priest, or the players that insist that sending everyone in on the same target is a good strategy, leaving the Priest to get pounded the moment they heal anyone - WTF?

Being a healer is either extremely rewarding or an exercise in frustration. Rewarding when you bring a group through a battle that was almost a certain wipe, even if YOU are the only one who knows how close you came. Usually, it's just you and the tank who knows, though. Must be why my 60 Priest appears on so many tank's friends lists, and why the last time I logged on after a good 2+ weeks of not playing that character, I was assaulted with "where have you BEEN!" whispers. :) It's also unbelievably frustrating. I recall a time in Taranis when a group was begging for a healer for Zul'Farrak for a good half hour. The begging stopped, and then about 15 minutes later they were begging again. That should have been the red flag for me, but at that particular moment I had just gotten all the pre-instance work done and wanted to give it a go. Big mistake. The group just about made every mistake possible that screws over healers - concentrating all fire on one target, not listening to me "on me" or "help" statements as I was getting pounded, and then finally blaming me for the inevitable wipe. I left the group.

2 minutes later, general chat rang out: "LF Healer for Zul'Farrak!"

Best of luck to you, I thought...and after churning through 2 (or maybe more) healers, the group probably still thought they knew exactly what they were doing...

Ultimately, playing a Priest (to me) is about logging in and knowing that you could be in a group to do an instance within 60 seconds flat. Now that's convenience! It sure makes that slow grind to 60 seem worth the hassle, especially now that I'm playing rogues and hunters that show me how SLOW I was going before (ouch).

-Bolty