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

[Hedon]

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 explaín 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))

[Rinnhart]

Nice to meet you.

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 explaín 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).

Dependence upon priests is an issue. Warriors' monopoly upon tanking isn't as big a deal as there are half a dozen warriors to every priest AND druid (87% of all statistics are made up on the spot). Plus, one good warrior's all a raid really needs. You do need at least two priests/druids for something like UBRS (or a ton of paladins, but that becomes more trouble than we're worth).

In the defense of the current "priest hate" out there- I've had alot of priests set conditions upon their attendance, usually demands for particular items or tradeskill drops. And then it becomes either take the asshole and his terms or wait three hours , let the group break, and start all over.

Or priests who have hearthed out/DC after losing a roll or not having what they wanted drop. Doesn't happen often, but I've seen it several times.

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.

Interesting take. Hah, last night we had a mage who kept pulling because the warriors and rogues decided mid-raid that we needed a twenty minute break between their pulls.

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.[quote]

Priests are the only cloth class I've ever had trouble pulling a monster off. Primarily because they're the only cloth class I've ever seen run in oldschool Everquest "I've got aggro!!!!11 ehlpz!!!!11" circles. :D

Alright, there was that one mage- but she kept dropping ae's on the single monster chasing her, so I have no clue what she was doing.


[quote]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?

Bah, we can't ease up or you'd all get soft.

EDIT: Tags are fubar, sorry if it's unreadable.

[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

[Treesh]

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.
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I really do agree with this. Taking my rogue into an instance (now that I've stopped having to explain every single time that sap has to be done before combat starts) is so much more laid back and relaxed (for the most part) than doing instances with my priest. The only thing that makes things not so relaxed is when we get adds and I wonder "I am on the same target that others are expecting me to be on?" I solve that issue by usually being main assist now. ;) The priest is a bit easier for me in an instance though, oddly enough, because I don't have to worry about that too much - when things go bad, I hunker down and heal. It's plain and simple. ;) Let my DPS monkeys worry about dishing out the damage, let the crowd controllers crowd control and let my tank tank.

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?[right][snapback]76346[/snapback][/right]

I love the pallies that just don't know what blessing to cast on what class. That blessing of might is so much more important to cast on the mage than salvation or even wisdom. :wacko:

I think I've been spoiled by having two mages behind Aleri and Gnolack. We can usually weed down the enemy into a small group where it is beneficial for everyone to focus fire on the one target. Aleri still doesn't normally draw aggro while healing. Get your tank to lock aggro on everything better. ;) Of course, in Sunken Temple we had to change that up a bit because of all those little demon slaves, but now I'm digressing. In Razorfen Downs, it was more beneficial to the group for them to deal with the other critters while I shut down the casters with my rogue so I was off basically doing my own thing while they did whatever they needed to back there.

Rambling aside, the point is there are cases where the focus fire tactic is good and other where it doesn't make sense. Don't dismiss the focus fire tactic completely. Dismiss the monkeys who refuse to ever change how they do things. ;)

[Rinnhart]

I love the pallies that just don't know what blessing to cast on what class.  That blessing of might is so much more important to cast on the mage than salvation or even wisdom.  :wacko:
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I do that occasionally. But only when we're halfway through the dungeon and, despite multiple requests and my status as MT, I still don't have a fortitude.

[Icebird]

I think every person should be try being a primary healer in a group at least. Until you've actually played one, I don't think you have an appreciation for what playing a priest / druid / pally / shaman is like.

The primary healer has to concentrate more than almost any other player in the party except for perhaps the main tank. In battle, about 90% of my attention is on those precious life bars. More than once I'm found myself so intent on the health of my party that I don't even realize I'm under attack.

When a battle is under control (no one but the main tank needs healing, and he only needs renew and the occasional flash heal) I'll sometimes throw out a Shadow Word: Pain, or Mind Blast a mob near death. But often I just sit back and take breather before the next intensive session of keeping everyone alive.

Being a healer can be one of the most exhilirating experiences in the game. I did a Blackfathom Deeps run last week. We were going pretty smoothly until we got to the entrance to the shrine room with Lord Kelris in it, and somehow we seemed to aggro almost everybody. I think I used every spell in my book, and then some, all the while keeping a worried eye on my mana bar, and hoping we could get control of the battle before the blue bar drained completely. (I was even looking for bandaging opportunities to conserve mana). But we got through the battle without a single death, and it was rush knowing that we avoided a potential wipe because I got my Shields, Renews and Flash Heals to the right people at the right time.

My main character is a warlock, and my Friends list is filled with Priests. You can never know enough competent healers. When I'm playing with a priest, I try to make life easier for them by avoiding taking aggro away from the tank, intercepting adds or runners, bandaging myself, and trying to help if they are under attack.

The two things that groups usually don't understand about healers:

1) Mana is life. Priests especially can only keep people alive as long they have mana left. A good party will keep an eye on the priest's mana and realise when the mana is being burned too fast.

2) Priests often won't defend themselves when under attack (this applies to me anyway). Druids, shamans and pallies have better tools to take care of themselves. But for priests, killing mobs that attack them requires both time and mana which are usually in short supply. It takes a bit of practice to get into the habit of running *towards* the tank rather than away from battle. If I run towards a player while being chased, the last thing I want to see is the player running away. The fact is, for a priest almost anything we do to the mob will only create more aggro, making them harder to peel off, and distracting from keeping the rest of the party alive for longer.

Chris

[mjdoom]

More than once I'm found myself so intent on the health of my party that I don't even realize I'm under attack.
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The number of priests who have died before they even realized they were under attack is probably unbelievably high. I actually got mini-group for the sole purpose of trying to help notice when I, myself am under attack! Since then I have found other benefits of it but that was the entire reason I downloaded it.

Also a more general comment. I have now gotten my warrior up to 56 (and climbing :)) and have tanked at least parts of instances up to BRD and Dire Maul. As the tank I do have to worry about managing aggro of multiple targets and protecting my squishees but with any halfway decent group breakouts are not very common. Due to this I find playing my warrior to be easier on me mentally than playing my priest. With my priest I am always doing my best to ensure that noone dies and I have to be aware of the aggro situation of all 5 party members at once (nothing says wasting mana like shielding someone who has lost aggro). I basically have to know exactly how everyone is taking damage if I want to have maximum efficiency (rogue took some damage? Did he grab aggro and get stuck with it? Did he grab it and then vanish? Was it an aoe?) With my tank I just have to worry about pushing buttons to make the mobs hate me :)

I definitely have my "off" days. When I have those with my tank it might me a bit more damage to party members but usually as long as the rest of the group is competent we are ok. If I have an "off" day with my priest people die :angry: :(

- mjdoom

[Alarick]

The number of priests who have died before they even realized they were under attack is probably unbelievably high.  I actually got mini-group for the sole purpose of trying to help notice when I, myself am under attack!  Since then I have found other benefits of it but that was the entire reason I downloaded it.

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I'm actually surprised at how often I don't even notice myself getting attacked. I look up and see myself at half health!

I'm very happy I took up being the priest. It's been rough at times, and I'm still annoyed at the devs' perception of the class, but it's still fun. I pride myself as being a decent healer. Not the best, but good enough to survive most encounters.

It's always nice to look back on times where there was a bad pull that the group made it through (7 elite pull in Scholo), or where quick thinking managed to save a potantial wipe. Sadly, most people only see the bad (wipes) and never notice the good (healer out of mana and no one dead after a bad pull).

It happens more often in a raid, it seems, because a 5 man group more often knows what it comes up against. At least, in most of the 5 man groups I've been in, very rarely does the blame ever land on a single person. It's usually a few mistakes that everyone admits to.

All in all, I agree with a lot of the initial statements about priests. I'm slowly working on a warrior, so I'll soon be able to see things from the MT point of view. Even so, having gone practically all 60 levels with no main tank for instance runs means that these nice runs with a good main tank are even easier for me.

[Lissa]

I'm actually surprised at how often I don't even notice myself getting attacked.  I look up and see myself at half health!

I'm very happy I took up being the priest.  It's been rough at times, and I'm still annoyed at the devs' perception of the class, but it's still fun.  I pride myself as being a decent healer.  Not the best, but good enough to survive most encounters.

It's always nice to look back on times where there was a bad pull that the group made it through (7 elite pull in Scholo), or where quick thinking managed to save a potantial wipe.  Sadly, most people only see the bad (wipes) and never notice the good (healer out of mana and no one dead after a bad pull).

It happens more often in a raid, it seems, because a 5 man group more often knows what it comes up against.  At least, in most of the 5 man groups I've been in, very rarely does the blame ever land on a single person.  It's usually a few mistakes that everyone admits to.

All in all, I agree with a lot of the initial statements about priests.  I'm slowly working on a warrior, so I'll soon be able to see things from the MT point of view.  Even so, having gone practically all 60 levels with no main tank for instance runs means that these nice runs with a good main tank are even easier for me.
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During beta, a raid I was on in Stratholme because I didn't realize I was under attack until it was too late, once I dropped, the group wiped as no one was able to keep the main tank healed. I often tell the secondary healers in the group to watch my health when I play my priest because I typically focus on those other 4 life bars and not my own.

[Darian]

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]

First off... welcome. :)

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.

This strikes me as odd, because in my experience I am closer to my priests than to any other players in the party.

Now I didn't know P2, but during the whole raid, he never did something stupid or demanded something excessivly burdening on the group...

It's entirely possible that P2 is a perfectly competent player, but an annoying person. You just never know about personalities.

Now here's where we get into areas where I strongly disagree with you, and think you're grossly overgeneralizing.

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.

If this were true, I guess I would have to consider myself horribly unliked, being the only level 60 Warrior in my own guild, and until last week being the only Lurker playing a level 50+ Warrior on Stormrage. Likewise, I must not like the people I group with night after night (because I can't go raid without them, and am thus dependent on them). Guess I'll go shoot myself now. ;)

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.

Quite frankly, the warriors you're playing with are complete idiots if this is the case. While it's nice to be able to start a fight with a full rage bar, I don't want to engage until I see that my priest's mana bar is filled to at least the level I deem necessary for the upcoming pull. If that pull is only one mob, sure. I might well pull while my priest is only at 20% mana -- after telling them to go ahead and drink and not worry about us unless bad things happen. If it's a multi-pull, I have been known to get grumbled at by an impatient party member for not pulling yet when I'm waiting for my priest to get to 75, 80, or even 95% mana, based on the difficulty of the pull.

Any Warrior who is placing his rage bar level on a higher level of importance than his priest's mana bar should be taken out back and clubbed senseless, and then placed on ignore and never again invited to do anything. It's that stupid. If that's the quality of warrior play on your realm, you have my deepest sympathies.

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.

No, an intelligent melee player recognizes this as the priest being able to see things which are behind or to the side of the melee cloud. If the priest is getting hit, it's someone's job to go make it stop, period, because if the priest is getting hit, he's going to keep getting hit until someone does stop it. Priests who keep getting hit die, and dead priests can't heal. I would much rather see Grizelle's "Something is trying to eat me, please make it stop" macro than see her lying dead on the floor because she kept quiet.

Non healing classes often cannot judge how difficult a certain encounter was for the priest.

Sure they can. Look at the mana bar.

no non caster reads mana bars, no one, empirically proven

This one really sets me off, and it's going to set a lot of people here off. The relationship between myself and my priests is this: they look at my health, and I look at their health and mana. I don't pay attention to my own health (unless the priest is out of mana); healing me isn't my job, so I don't give a damn what my health looks like. Keeping the priest from dying is my primary job, so I need to know if he's taking damage. Keeping the party on track is my secondary job, and making sure the priest has the juice to heal us is part of that job -- and I can't do it without looking at mana. So don't even charge that it's "proven" that non-casters don't read mana bars. There's at least three priests right here who can tell you otherwise.

[Hedon]

@Darian

First:
Please take into consideration that many of the points I made refer rather to pick up groups, and not to close knit groups, that have a lot of experience in playing together. Since the advent of the honor system I have been to a lot of pick up groups lately, because many of my guildies went crazy over Honor Points farming and I have found myself accepting more invitations from strangers than usally. (Though I play on a PvP-Server and enjoy riding about the landscape picking up targets und ganking them, I loathe participating for hours in the TM-SS-Perma-Zerg-Situation, running back an forth between TM and SS, suffering from epic lag, and getting single digit contribution points for some zerged random kills).

With pick up groups I mean, that the priest is often the pick up, while the other 4 group members often know each other already and have been just looking for some priest to get things started. This automatically places the priest in an outsider position.


Second:
Many this problems don't become so apperent until you start doing instances from BRD on upward. BRD is the first instance which can not be conviently outleveled, i.e. even a group consisting mostly out of 60s can easily get wiped for doing stupid things.


Third:
Wether you belive me or not, many people don't think highly about priests. I mean what kind of strange persons priest players must be, who play class that requires them to stand in the background to just heal people, instead of tackling mobs and dealing high amounts of 1337 damage. Naturally a person playing such a class must be insceure and overly cautious by nature, shunning risks etc. Certainly there isn't nmuch use to gain out of such persons comments.
If you have never encounterd such people, consider yourself lucky. On my server there not exactly a tiny minority. Going from there, why so few people play priests (mages and warlocks aren't a dime a dozen either), while warriors, shamans, rogues and hunters are legion? I stand by my statement, that there is a certain condescending attitude by the more bully classes for the flimsy cloth wearers, priests especially (mages can do insanely amounts of damage, even when theys die like flies, warlocks can at least summon a sexy succubus, but what is cool about priest?). To sum it up: Cloth wearers are needed, but not overly respected.


On this note: I have never aspired the role of the "leader of the pack" so to speak, and most the priests I know don't want this either. I'm quite content to follow to big badass tauren warriors leading us into battle, but this doesn't mean, I like to be ignored, when I come up with some concern.

e.g. Last time doing BRD, I told our warrior, not to bypass nearby mob camps, because the amount of time saved, does not pay off the risk of these adding up suddenly to another pull, thus causing the group to wipe. I said this three times, three times I was ignored, three times we wiped because of this, then I left the group.

Another example: Telling people to keep out of the toxic clouds the infected zombies ooze in Scholo. There are seemingly always people who won't listen. Isn't the priest there to heal out such things? Of course we are also expected to jump up and heal when people dive into the toxic clouds to loot the zombie bodies, insted of waiting 10 sec. to let the toxic cloud wear of ("Whats your problem? Just heal me then, and everything is fine").

Fourth:
When I say "empirically proven" this is of course an exaggeration. I should have put an ;) smiley behind this sentence. My apologies for not doing so. But the fact remains, that I better not count on the puller obeserving the casters mana pool. I have already surrenderd to it as a fact life and made up a macro "Stop! Mana break" to deal with it ;)

[Tal]

So what is the reason behind the "priest hate"?
Trying to explain this to myself, I have come up with some points that may explaín 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).[right][snapback]76335[/snapback][/right]

If someone has told you to STFU and heal then yeah, I can see why you would get grumpy and leave. In general I leave it up to the priest's judgement on what is doable in a group situation. Want to Mindcontrol that mob and have it beat on another - thats fine. Use scream because you've gotten an add? Not so good. ;)

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

I'm sorry you've grouped with such craptacular warriors in the past. As a rule I watch my priest's/druid's mana bar. If they're drinking and I'm looking at a tough pull then I wait until they're ready for me to go. If its a singular pull and everyone else is on their feet and ready to attack then I'll tell the priest to chill and mana up while we take care of this garbage mob.

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]

IMHO you're overreacting here. Most tanks appreciate knowing when an add has come on the scene. It allows us to more quickly react to lock down aggro. If you were to run away from the tank and the fight at the addition of a mob then that might make me judge you as someone who panics unnecessarily. ;) Same for those priests who hit psychic scream right off the bat upon getting hit. ;)

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.
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I would suggest communication above bitching personally. A little annecdote on why I try to avoid pick up raids anymore. I recenlty got talked into going to Stratholme by a rogue friend of mine. Upon arriving on the scene I was put in a group with a priest and designated as main assist. The group also informed me that I was going to be handling the pulling for our main tank to taunt aggro off of.

First pull of the instance we got two non-crowd controlled mobs and at the end of it I was face down on the pavement of Strat. So I figure that the priest may have been distracted and move on after being rezzed. Next two mob pull I end up the same way. So I ask the priest what was up. He then informed me that because I can heal myself I would be handling my own healing. :blink: Was my response. See I can tank or I can heal. I know it seems strange but between exorcism to pull, casting and judging seal of fury, casting consecration and then seal of fury to switch to the second mob I'm usually at half mana. Adding Holy Shield on top of that to help keep me on my feet longer also cuts into my mana and any further exorcisms (say to get a mob off a priest) is going to deplete it. I may have the ability to heal but that doesn't mean I can heal in cases like that.

So I told the priest all of this and the group brow beat him into healing me. Though he took his sweet time each time doing it. ;)

[FenrisWulf]

I have already surrenderd to it as a fact life and made up a macro "Stop! Mana break" to deal with it  ;)
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It would be so much cooler if you had made the macro say: "Stop! Mana time!" and then stream "U Can't Touch This", by the venerable MC Hammer, to them until your mana replenished. Can you stream music to other players in WoW? Blizzard should implement that, if only for this reason.

[swirly]

I would much rather see Grizelle's "Something is trying to eat me, please make it stop" macro than see her lying dead on the floor because she kept quiet.
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I would just like to point out that Grizelle's quote made me smile and I very well may steal it as the one for my priest. Currently I have a nice boring, but affective one. Her's just seems so much better though. : )

[Drasca]

it's the tank and healer that are making it seem so "easy" on the good runs.[right][snapback]76346[/snapback][/right]

Tanks and healers overrate themselves. However, this is coming from a warlock, and we all know warlocks are crazy--so's playing one.

If the enemy is stun-able, two rogues will lock it down completely. If the caster is silenced at critical moments, another "I win" button. Of course, this is from the warlock who plays a ridiculous number of roles from off-tanking via voidwalker, to personally tanking through soul link against bosses or aoe aggro theft (Dps, cc and tank! nerf me!), and an endless number of tricks to extend effective battle time. Bleh. I think healers/tank overrate themselves. Those that think they need the most attention never played a lock. . . who splits his attention between four forms of DPS (dots, damage enhancing curses, single DD, aoe), debuffing spells, four forms of direct crowd control (banish, enslave, fear, charm), indirect CC aggro theft through voidwalker taunt/aoe suffering or AoE and high aggro spells, pet life, distance and aggro, self healing (life drain), and multiple all dot/debuff attention requirements to every individual enemy.

Example: Engaging firebrand invokers in 5 man lbrs...

Mage/Roge poly/saps (if available), I seduce while watching for charm to break, cast individually curse selections per mob, deciding which is best on them, decide to dot or not waiting for CC options, steal aggro away from healer if charm breaks and my succubus is killed immediately, otherwise wait and recharm as soon as I can, MAYBE get a few damage spells in on autopilot spam while watching my life and mana balance, then decide whether to life drain or spam shadowbolts depending if I have enough mana to spare. If not, I life tap until at a reasonable mana pool to draw from, and life drain it back from what I hope is the right target to add aggro to. Then, I must checkup on the dot status of other mobs again to see if they need refreshed.

Point is, a good warlock splits his focus on a lot more than just kill kill, aggro management, or CC. He does it all, and more... engaging all enemies at once, while watching his own ass, his pet's, and any priority targets friendly or enemy. There are few exceptions.

I sometimes get away with simply staving enemies to death-- but in those situations no one needs to play their top game. There's also the chromatic bodyguard next to general Drakkar in UBRS. They upped their resistences. Even with curse of shadows sticking, which takes several tries, fear is not guaranteed and the warlock may be mortal striked to death if not careful. That requires focus, and its generally understood this role is important enough for the warlock to focus only on fearing the bodyguard mob--although if not reminded, healers can forget to shield and heal that lock... Thus leading to MS death.. its only 3.9k damage, most locks can take that once. Twice, no. Also died once before when general drakkar immolated me. Even locks have limits... didn't have felhunter out then... and forgot to soul link.

IMO: #1 Reason for wipes = lack of coordination, and lack of following correct orders.

I'm known as a instance nazi, but some people understand. I screen people for any long instance. If they refuse to follow orders, I'm going to boot. Mostly, its taking action that's not sanctioned or approved yet. Running ahead while we're all sitting? Nope. Not happening. Going to aggro everything on purpose? Not going to announce your actions? You're out.

My last UBRS run wiped at Father flame because the kids didn't go down and kill the elites opening eggs. . . after yelling at everyone to do so. I can only aoe a dozen times before both I'm out of health and my druid healer is out of mana. After wiping twice, we had a final death wipe because the third time someone activated the eggs yet again.

Being a healer is either extremely rewarding or an exercise in frustration.

Important machine gear amongst the other cogs, but by no means the only one that makes or breaks instance machines. Will need good heals, but for most instances, the party can make healing less necessary.

[Bob the Beholder]

The relationship between myself and my priests is this: they look at my health, and I look at their health and mana.  I don't pay attention to my own health (unless the priest is out of mana); healing me isn't my job, so I don't give a damn what my health looks like.  Keeping the priest from dying is my primary job, so I need to know if he's taking damage.  Keeping the party on track is my secondary job, and making sure the priest has the juice to heal us is part of that job -- and I can't do it without looking at mana.  So don't even charge that it's "proven" that non-casters don't read mana bars.  There's at least three priests right here who can tell you otherwise.
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Quite true, and one of the reasons I enjoyed playing my warrior. When you're in mid battle and the rest of the party is relying solely on you to lock all of the enemies down for better apart-ripping, and you get really into it... it brings up something of a tunnel vision. Nothing exists but your rage, the mobs, and the healer, and how you control the three. It's something of an exhilirating effect.

When I first started tanking through instances with my warrior on Gorefiend, once I really got the basic motions of tanking down... I remember the one wipe in the run where I first started tanking... decently.

I had the mobs locked down, and, luckily, had a cooperative group who, thankfully, left me to worry about aggro, while they took my advice and focus-fired each mob to take them down as fast as possible. (And it helped that this was the first time I'd ran with a good healer who I would go on to party with for... well, until now, and likely in the future) But there was an unexpected add, which aggroed on the priest, so I broke off and ran for it... but I didn't even notice the amount of damage I'd been taking through the battle. I had maybe five mobs locked to me the whole time, and just the few seconds with the healer too busy to keep me going were too long, and before I realized what was going on, I was lying on the ground.

It was a shock, being so fragile as that after soaking up half a dungeon's worth of punishment without pause. (This was, of course, compounded by the part where it was a low level instance, we were all slightly underlevelled for it anyway, and I was running around in grey and white equipment which provided little to no solo lasting power.)

Well, that was a long and rambly way of getting to the point, but here it is: A skilled healer is well appreciated, if you're lucky enough to find the ones who can recognize the skill involved. But in the same way, no priest should forget the importance of the parts played by the other players.

[Alarick]

I would just like to point out that Grizelle's quote made me smile and I very well may steal it as the one for my priest.  Currently I have a nice boring, but affective one.  Her's just seems so much better though. : )
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I actually thought the same thing first time I raiding with her. I might try and steal it at some point myself.

[Mirajj]

I think every person should be try being a primary healer in a group at least. Until you've actually played one, I don't think you have an appreciation for what playing a priest / druid / pally / shaman is like.

The primary healer has to concentrate more than almost any other player in the party except for perhaps the main tank. In battle, about 90% of my attention is on those precious life bars. More than once I'm found myself so intent on the health of my party that I don't even realize I'm under attack.
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I've rolled a Priest, and started playing her a bit with some other of the Lurker 'babies'. One of the things I"ve found quite hard to wrap my brain around is that I'm not really supposed to attack things...but my job is to now watch lifebars and make sure everyone's is 'green'. ;)

It really feels wierd, standing a little out of combat, watching everyone's health. However, I've also (already, and she's only 16) died from watching everyone else's health, and not mine. Something was munching on me from behind. *L* I'm learning, and it's quite a bit of fun.

[Icebird]

Drasca. I've played both a warlock (level 55) and a priest (level 32 at the moment). I haven't been to some of the high-end instances you mention, but I can comment on some of the differences I've found in playing the two classes in groups.

The priest is a very focused class. They're singular objective is keeping people alive, and the only thing they're worried about is stuff that gets in the way of that: mobs attacking the priest, and running out of mana. In the intense battles the priests lives in a very small world of life bars, mana bars and debuffs.

When the group is playing well, a priest's job can be very easy. I try to enjoy it while I can because inevitably Things Go Wrong (TM MongoJerry) and suddenly I'm unloading heals as fast as the cast timers allow.

The warlock is more of a big picture character. Warlocks are usually the last characters to get aggro (unless they're playing recklessly) and they have more opportunities to assess the state of the battle and adapt the tactics to the moment to moment needs of the situation. Incoming adds or priest under attack? Redirect the pet. Humanoid on the verging of running? Curse of Recklessness. Realizing halfway through a tough battle that the soulstone has expired on the main healer and only rezzer in the group? Create a stone and protect him on the spot. (Actually happened to me during the Marshal Winsor escort in BRD- the druid died so it was just as well, but I was a bit embarrased for not remembering to replace the SS in the first place).

Because warlocks don't really have a rididly defined niche in the group ("healer", "tank", "main DPS"), it gives them more freedom to tailor their play to the need of the situation. In comparison priests are much less in control during battles: which healing spells I use, and how fast I use them is determined more by how the group is playing.

Chris

[Treesh]

I do that occasionally. But only when we're halfway through the dungeon and, despite multiple requests and my status as MT, I still don't have a fortitude.
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Then your priest is a crappy priest. It's as simple as that.