Guest Post: Ode to Healers

Nymphy is an arcane mage in the US guild Eff the Ineffable and co-writer for the blog D/E the Tank. She has wandered over here to Fannon's healing blog to set him straight about a couple things by volunteering to write about the most important job in a group/raid: DPS! Err...healing. Yeah, healing.


ODE TO HEALERS
In Which Team Heals and the Healer Tyranny Receive Their Due

First off, DOWN WITH HEALER TYRANNY!!! They think they are so special just because they can battle rez and bubble and have healing circles that sparkle and make pretty leaves and flowers bloom on the floor. Bah! That ain't special! I will go one more step and say that healers are my worst enemy! Ever since I joined Eff the Ineffable I hardly get to visit my beauteous Spirit Healer anymore! My time is consumed with trying to find more and more creative ways to die because those stupid healers persist in keeping my health above zero. Why, the mere thought of it is... wait? What? You mean this is supposed to be a healer appreciation post? Oh. Right. Ahem. That was for a different post. On to the real post then.

For most of my WoW career I have played a ranged DPS; mainly, a mage. I have dabbled with a healer on and off but always return to what I know best: Raining sweet arcane destruction down on my enemies. I have regarded the species known as healer with a mixture of awe and resentment. Awe because they seem to effortlessly keep groups of up to 40 people alive with just a click of a mouse button. Now I realize a 40 man group would have more than one healer, but the principle is the same. Resentment because they stand in the back clicking away just like me, but everyone values them SO much more than the DPS. In some of the guilds I was in (names are not mentioned to protect the not so innocent) healers were outright favored for gear and raid spots. It seemed so unfair! I thought for sure that healers had the easiest job ever. Just stand in the back and play whack-a-mole with healbot or grid or whatever fancy-pants add on they were using that week, but everyone acted like they were SO special.

It is rather like being picked last in gym class when you are a DPS trying to find a raid group. So I decided that I wasn’t going to stand for this anymore, and started leveling a discipline priest. I was going to sprout wings and join the exalted ranks of the appreciated! I was going to be a valued member of every dungeon or raid group!

Ilona: Level 58 Discipline Priest

Although now that my priest, Ilona, is up to level 58, I realize that maybe, just maybe, they don’t have it quite so easy. In my priest's cloth shoes I realized that healers have a horrible, thankless job. The blame for wipes is on their shoulders alone, unless of course the group blames the tank. Their presence and the fact that they are keeping you alive is taken for granted. The attitude of "Oh we can pull ALL the things because we got a healer" is prevalent, especially at the lower-to-mid levels. It seems that the healer is responsible for making sure EVERYONE ELSE gets to feel invincible. ESPECIALLY those mages! Oh, how they stand in the back and spam arcane blast at ANYTHING but what the tank is targeting. Then there’s always some huntard with his pet who decides he can tank too, so I have to pay attention to HIS health as well as the tank's! Don’t even get me started on the ones who want their pets healed. And whatever happened to MOVING OUT OF A WHIRLWIND?!? Every class of melee DPS under the sun just stands there and eats it, and then they whine to me when I can’t heal ALL the things because of the stupid things they’re doing. I’ve had enough! I’m going back to my mage. I’ll go take the longer queue times because the Outland Dungeons are about to start for Ilona, and I’m already having nightmares about dungeons full of DK’s, their sheer stupidity, their death-gripping in every direction. Oh, it makes my head hurt just thinking about it.

There is a saying that says that you can never truly understand another person’s experiences unless you walk across the Barrens in their slippers. For me, I found that to be very true. Playing a healer isn’t just clicking some buttons on an add-on. It is stressful and a huge amount of responsibility. If healers are favored, they deserve to be! I will happily go back and play my mage and from now on give them my utmost respect and gratitude. I don’t know how they shoulder that load and keep their freaking sanity through leveling AND raiding! Go Team Heals! This mage will forever be your personal cheerleader!