After capping my rogue

[Tuftears]

I'll disagree with that in the cases where allowing variants creates synergy that wouldn't have existed in the cookie-cutter version. For instance, bringing a shadow priest means your warlocks' shadow damage are synergized by the shadow priest's shadow weaving. Bringing a feral druid can boost up to three rogues by 2% in damage. (for DPS parties, I tend to use rogue, rogue, DPS warrior, feral druid)

[Epi]

3) You never, ever hear people cry "where was the tanking!?!?!"  You will always hear "where was the healing!?!?!"
5) E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E  E-L-S-E  thinks they can play your class better than you, especially "tunnel-vision" players (usually DPS) that only notice one thing during a raid encounter: they, individually, were taking damage and you didn't heal them.  Never mind that the entire raid was getting blasted, especially the tanks, and if the tanks died it would mean a wipe.

I don't know - either we play different games, or I was extremely lucky so far with groups, or I just didn't reached the realms of real end-game raids (not enough people in our guild even for regular MC raids)...

Anyway, in my expirience the complains to healers are very rare, and I hear "you noob don't know how to tank" in PUGs pretty often (and occasionaly, in much more polite form, in guild raids too - although not in the current guild). And when somebody in my group dies, I never hear them blaming me - more often they reply "it was my fault" to my apologies for not keeping them alive. Have no idea how to explain this... probably, it means that I'm not bad healer ;), but it's VERY unlikely that I'm that better than you all. :unsure:

Does it means that raiding MC and above is radically different from lower instances? or that PvE server is so different from PvP? Why everybody is so nice to healers on our server?

-Miiko, lvl 60 nelf Priest

[Warlock]

I don't know - either we play different games, or I was extremely lucky so far with groups, or I just didn't reached the realms of real end-game raids (not enough people in our guild even for regular MC raids)...

Anyway, in my expirience the complains to healers are very rare, and I hear "you noob don't know how to tank" in PUGs pretty often (and occasionaly, in much more polite form, in guild raids too - although not in the current guild). And when somebody in my group dies, I never hear them blaming me - more often they reply "it was my fault" to my apologies for not keeping them alive. Have no idea how to explain this... probably, it means that I'm not bad healer ;), but it's VERY unlikely that I'm that better than you all. :unsure:

Does it means that raiding MC and above is radically different from lower instances? or that PvE server is so different from PvP? Why everybody is so nice to healers on our server?

-Miiko, lvl 60 nelf Priest
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One of the big differences between raid instances (or at least Molten Core) and the rest of the game is that many characters don't need to multitask in raids. For instance, instead of a 5-man tank sometimes needing to hold three or four mobs a raid tank can focus on a single target. Similarly for DPS classes instead of "crowd control this one, offtank that one with the pet, pull number three off the healer and then help out on damage" just focus firing on the raid's target is generally needed, a much simpler task. For healers other than the main tank healers it's the reverse - instead of only needing to watch five health bars they now need to track forty. So healing in raids is relatively harder than the other roles. Healing errors are also more serious - a healer taking ten seconds to say Hi to their family can cause three people to die, a DPSer doing the same means the boss takes an extra fraction of a second to take down.

So the DPS team sees fewer or no wipes caused by them and more than they were used to in five man caused by a lack of healing. They don't need to apologise for mistakes as often (no more "Sorry for breaking that sheep") and get more failures due to the healers - it's natural (if not fair) to put pressure on them to do better, whether through respeccing or taking only healing equipment or whatever.

[Hedon]

I'm lucky in that I belong to a guild that doesn't force me to play a certain way.  If I WANTED to turn into a shadow priest, I wouldn't get kicked out of the guild, and just KNOWING that makes a huge difference.  I don't feel used.  I hear stories of Priests getting kicked out of guilds for rolling on a +damage/healing item, and I just shake my head.  Meanwhile, nobody thinks twice about warriors spending lots of points on Uber Epic Weapon of Doom.  There's a reason why healing classes have such high turnover...

Well I certainly wouldn't get kicked out of guild should I decide not to spec the "proper" way, but I would fall way down on the priority list, when it comes to assigning raid slots, i.e. if a holy/disc priest, a restoration druid or shammy would be available to replace me, they would most probably get the raiding slot I would otherwise be almost guranteed to have as a holy/disc spec. When the druid patch came out most druids specced back to innervate, after playing around a bit, and the only druid that insisted on remaining feral (i.e no innervate) was almost never again seen in our raids. Even when we were short on druids, and someone recommended inviting him, you would hear comments from raid leadership like "Nah, he's feral. We don't need feral druids".

Generic spellpower items (+healing/damage) are another issue. We have theoretically a "pure" DKP system in place. That means, if you have the DKP and you are able to equip the item, you may bid on it. But in practice healers are expected to bid on generic spellpower items only if the established DPS casters are already equipped with said item or an equivalent one.

We had somewhat a row on the guild forums when certain DPS casters noticed that some healers had interest in the [Choker of the Fire Lord] and argued that healers should go for [Jin'do's Evil Eye] instead, because there was enough competion for the choker already.
I dared to argue that farming for the Evil Eye is bad joke considering the low drop chance and the lack of other interesting items for MC/BWL equipped healers in ZG. The arguement of the other side was that of course we healers have the right to bid on it, but it would be better for the raid if the DPS casters would get the first shot at the choker.
Another example was a shammy who dared to outbid a rogue on [Core Hound Tooth]. Said rogue went nuklear about this.

[Bolty]

For healers other than the main tank healers it's the reverse - instead of only needing to watch five health bars they now need to track forty. So healing in raids is relatively harder than the other roles. Healing errors are also more serious - a healer taking ten seconds to say Hi to their family can cause three people to die, a DPSer doing the same means the boss takes an extra fraction of a second to take down.[right][snapback]104118[/snapback][/right]

This is indeed something I neglected to mention originally.

Healing in 40-man raids is very stressful; by comparison, 5-player groups are a cakewalk. One of the big problems with healing is that you CANNOT take a break. You can't stop to answer the phone. You can't stop if the doorbell rings. You can't stop to get a drink, or to take a bite to eat. Just a few seconds away from your computer and people die. You, as a healer, are always required to be ready and up for every pull, or else you get the usual "I didn't get a heal, WTF."

Part of the problem is that healing is reactionary. While mob behavior is predictable and recognizable, player behavior is not. A healer never knows when someone might decide to do something crazy, yet they're expected to compensate for it and react quickly enough to save the day. This creates a constant feeling of tension.

It's possible that this is another large cause of burnout. I know on some of our early MC attempts when we'd be in there 5+ hours just getting to Domo, by the end of the night I was pretty frazzled. Not necessarily unhappy, just frazzled. Tired. Beat. The constant concentration wears on you.

I've heard the stories - Hunter players just switching on autoattack and walking off to take care of something; Rogues and Warriors doing similar things. Healers can't do that. If a DPS player wants a nice, relaxing night, it takes 5% longer to kill something. If a healer wants to take a little break, spot heal here and there, etc, it doesn't work. People go splat.

Also mentioned in this thread is that healing has a cap on your abilities - you are there to heal people who get hurt. The damage people take is your cap. Whereas with a DPS class, there's always ways to get better gear and do MORE damage and be more useful, healers have a cap on their usefulness based on the incoming damage to the group. Then you get in a situation where the group doesn't need much healing or action on your part for a stretch of 30 minutes...and then all of a sudden crap happens and you have to ramp it up like crazy. Some people can't just ramp up like that right away after 30 minutes of tedium. In short, you could be a fantastic healing player but you don't get to do what you're good at a lot of the time. This reduces the satisfaction level.

There's a reason why I encourage people to:
A) go faster
B) be a monkey

It's because it lets me do what I'm good at. Non-healers may not understand that. I don't get to do what I'm good at unless the group is pushing the envelope. I don't get the satisfaction that a DPS player would get WTFPWNing everything unless I'm being pushed to my limits. The fun factor isn't there. This ties in to what I wrote originally, that healers are generally not noticed unless they make a mistake; there's just a general sense of the party that "man, this is a good run" and "hey, this is a great group." The healer knows it's going well because of his/her work, but it's often transparent to most other players.

This isn't unique to WoW, it exists in most every MMORPG, from what I hear. Just read through the thread linked in the original post.

-Bolty

[Epi]

One of the big differences between raid instances (or at least Molten Core) and the rest of the game is that many characters don't need to multitask in raids. [...] For healers other than the main tank healers it's the reverse - instead of only needing to watch five health bars they now need to track forty. So healing in raids is relatively harder than the other roles. Healing errors are also more serious - a healer taking ten seconds to say Hi to their family can cause three people to die, a DPSer doing the same means the boss takes an extra fraction of a second to take down.[right][snapback]104118[/snapback][/right]

Well, probably I was not clear enough - although our guild does not do regular MC runs, it does not mean that I never participated in one (I did), and we do 20-man ZG (and now AQ-20) regularly (from my experience, it's quite similar to 40-man). In other word, I do realize that raid healing is quite different from healing in 5-man... and I like it, BTW :P. One of the main reasons why I consider Priest my main now is that I found raiding with Hunter quite boring - hitting only 3 buttons in the same order (and 2 more in the "oh, crap" case) is far cry from what healer have to do... even when things go as expected. ;)

Not sure how how it relates to the other players' reaction, though, - my point was (and still is) that in raids I still getting full respect for the job done, and complains about inadequate tanking is much more common.

Healing in 40-man raids is very stressful; by comparison, 5-player groups are a cakewalk.  One of the big problems with healing is that you CANNOT take a break. [...] Just a few seconds away from your computer and people die.  You, as a healer, are always required to be ready and up for every pull, or else you get the usual "I didn't get a heal, WTF."[right][snapback]104139[/snapback][/right]

Don't quite agree with that. I mean, yes, healing in raid is much more stressful (= more fun ;)) than DPSing in the raid, completely agree with that. However, you CANNOT take a break in the 5-man group (where you are the only healer) either. Quite the opposite, you CAN sometimes take a break on the trash mobs in raid - there are other healers out here to cover your arse and cross-heal your party. It's that tank and CC'ers who must be ready for each pull, and the healer pretty often is still drinking at the beginning of the pull.

Regarding 'the usual "I didn't get a heal, WTF"' - I got this, probably, one or two time in my priestly carrier. I hear the words "thanks for the healing" much more often - that's why I suspect we're playing diferent games... or don't know what. :unsure:

Whereas with a DPS class, there's always ways to get better gear and do MORE damage and be more useful, healers have a cap on their usefulness based on the incoming damage to the group.  Then you get in a situation where the group doesn't need much healing or action on your part for a stretch of 30 minutes...and then all of a sudden crap happens and you have to ramp it up like crazy.  Some people can't just ramp up like that right away after 30 minutes of tedium.  In short, you could be a fantastic healing player but you don't get to do what you're good at a lot of the time.  This reduces the satisfaction level.[right][snapback]104139[/snapback][/right]

Yes, I agree completely with this point, but think you oversimplified a role of other classes in the raid. I did some raiding with my Hunter (including MC), and believe the same pattern is applicable to all others as well. You don't do nothing 30 minutes (except for mindlessly hitting the same 3 buttons), and then suddenly you need to react quickly, send your pet to intercept that add heading to the healers, try to grab aggro ASAP... For healers, it may be more noticable, but the issue does exists for everybody else too. That's why I like small groups better. (OT: my biggest gripe is the Blizzard position of "good items requires at least 40-man raid to get" - I don't want/need cheese, I'm quite ready to put my efforts to get an upgrade, I just want to do it in more fun small party - let it be very difficult, but don't require gathering 40 players!)

-Miiko, lvl 60 nelf Priest (and Yolka, lvl 60 nelf Hunter & Bangalash, lvl 60 cat)

[oldmandennis]

...only druid that insisted on remaining feral (i.e no innervate) was almost never again seen in our raids. ...you would hear comments from raid leadership like "Nah, he's feral. We don't need feral druids".

We have theoretically a "pure" DKP system in place. That means, if you have the DKP and you are able to equip the item, you may bid on it. But in practice healers are expected to bid on generic spellpower items only if the established DPS casters are already equipped with said item or an equivalent one.

We had somewhat a row on the guild forums when certain DPS casters noticed that some healers had interest in the [Choker of the Fire Lord] and argued that healers should go for [Jin'do's Evil Eye] instead, because there was enough competion for the choker already.

...

Another example was a shammy who dared to outbid a rogue on [Core Hound Tooth]. Said rogue went nuklear about this.
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Sounds like quite an interesting group.... and by interesting I mean unpleasant.

Feral druids mixed in a group of rogues are a fantastic idea, especially since AQ has a bunch of items rather clearly designed for them, that will up melee DPS without gimping the mana pool.

As far as the choker goes, could you propose healers passing on it, if the mages/locks pass on The head of ossiran to allow the healers to get This neck? At a 100% drop, 2x a week it shouldn't take long to get everybody one. The fight is fun and exiting, but not terribly demanding in terms of gear, and if you are in a hurry you can get there after only killing 2 other bosses.

As far as the tooth and the shaman go... the rogue is right. There is categorically no possible use for the CHT in a PvE shamans hands, and not much of one for PvP. Even if you are letting your shaman do a lot of melee (a pretty marginal proposition to begin with), the CHT is thourghouly dominated by a big 2H mace like the earthshaker or TUF, especially since the CHT would demand rockbaiter, and the extra aggro is not a good idea PvE.

[Artega]

I'll disagree with that in the cases where allowing variants creates synergy that wouldn't have existed in the cookie-cutter version.  For instance, bringing a shadow priest means your warlocks' shadow damage are synergized by the shadow priest's shadow weaving.  Bringing a feral druid can boost up to three rogues by 2% in damage.  (for DPS parties, I tend to use rogue, rogue, DPS warrior, feral druid)
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Yeah, but does the loss of a healing Priest and healing Druid worth the increase in DPS? For trash pulls, I'd definitely say yes. For bosses, I might not be so sure.

[Tal]

Yeah, but does the loss of a healing Priest and healing Druid worth the increase in DPS?  For trash pulls, I'd definitely say yes.  For bosses, I might not be so sure.
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Its not hurt us in our march past Ragnaros up to Chromaggus in Blackwing Lair.

[Mavfin]

Yeah, but does the loss of a healing Priest and healing Druid worth the increase in DPS?  For trash pulls, I'd definitely say yes.  For bosses, I might not be so sure.
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And, really, this illustrates the split between the hardcore min/max and the ones who want to raid, but don't have to min/max everything.

This is not saying that Artega or Dozer, or whoever, is wrong, it's just that we're not all playing the same game for the same reasons. The guild that doesn't take feral druids to raids isn't playing the same game as the alliance I'm in. Again, not a case of wrong and right, but what your goals are.

[Mavfin]

Its not hurt us in our march past Ragnaros up to Chromaggus in Blackwing Lair.
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However, we have *no* shortage in healing. Some guilds barely have enough.

[Tal]

However, we have *no* shortage in healing.  Some guilds barely have enough.
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Or any shortage in tanking either. ;)

[oldmandennis]

Yeah, but does the loss of a healing Priest and healing Druid worth the increase in DPS?  For trash pulls, I'd definitely say yes.  For bosses, I might not be so sure.
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I'd definatly say yes on bosses - if they are being played right. The priest who immieadiatly goes Shadowform and refuses to leave is just as lame as the leader who kicks them. Same for the druid who spends all of his time in cat form.

But if you can be flexible... say only casting SW:P to keep shadow weaving up sometimes, then healing, then there is no reason you are NOT part of even a min-maxed group. Or the druid who shifts out of feral when the healers start going light on mana to give their pots a chance to finish cooling down, then back to finish off the boss when he is down to his last couple of hundred mana.

[Kevin]

I'd definatly say yes on bosses - if they are being played right.  The priest who immieadiatly goes Shadowform and refuses to leave is just as lame as the leader who kicks them.  Same for the druid who spends all of his time in cat form.

But if you can be flexible... say only casting SW:P to keep shadow weaving up sometimes, then healing, then there is no reason you are NOT part of even a min-maxed group.  Or the druid who shifts out of feral when the healers start going light on mana to give their pots a chance to finish cooling down, then back to finish off the boss when he is down to his last couple of hundred mana.
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My favorie example is in BWL where the melee DPS (and ranged for that matter) are told they take care of themselves and they have to move out of LoS to wait out a debuff at times anyway. Feral druids are freaking perfect for this. It is possible to get too many debuff's stacked again before your bandage is back. Well feral druids have to back out to heal themselves via bandage or spell as well. If they are still waiting for the debuff to go away their mana isn't doing any good. So throwing a heal on the recently bandaged by still injured DPS people could very well mean they get back into th fight sooner. You don't always know if they are waiting on the debuff or the bandage cooldown.

You dont' have to assign another healer to these people. They get a bandage, or a feral druid heal or nothing (in 1.1 they might get a lightwell). I can't see how that doesn't help as a feral druid in the right gear is going to push some good DPS still and they will get that rogue back into battle quicker and some of the time give them 3% more crit as well. Replacing them with another rogue is not better because of the time that will still need to be spent OOC on the debuffs. Having another healer heal them doesn't really help because of the debuff thing as well and if the healer is using mana there because they have it you have too much healing or aren't optimizing your DPS.

Just one place where I think feral druids (or moonkins to boost the caster DPS but drop to heal when needed) are better than any other option you have, min/max or not.