Post Your Healing Horror Stories.

[BroodingFicus]

Just a rant after a speed running tank rubbed me the wrong way today. I mean...a lot of speed running tanks tick me off when they just take it for granted that I should keep them alive no matter what but this one was particularly bad.

Put in for expert and right off the bat the first timer message pops up as we load into Arbor. Cool. Fine. More than happy to help people get their first run. I tell them just to say anything if they need an explanation and we move on but from that point on I find myself sprinting after a Paladin with my MP near empty at the start of each pull. And these are not small pulls. They were not even what I consider to be large pulls where you grab two packs or so at a time. These were the pulls where the tank would just run until he hit an obstacle. For example directly after the 1st boss he ran all the way to the first honeycomb wall. Even with full MP these would have been a challenge because despite having two BLM's one was new and barely geared enough to be there and there are also poisons to contend with etc with some of the mobs. But it wasn't helped by the fact that the tank would blow all his cooldowns at the start of these huge pulls rather than spacing them out. So when they dropped off, they did so all at once while he had 10+ mobs on him. Let us just say benediction was used EVERY time it came up. He also liked to randomly drop into sword oath and oh so kindly had a macro to notify me that I should heal him more because he wouldn't be in shield.'HEAL MORE' when I'm already spamming is not possible but thanks for the heads up buddy.

Then we get to the last boss and he doesn't even bother to put shield on, leaving him and myself at around the same HP (12k). I also have a relatively squishy BLM and a new BLM who is only at 10k hp to deal with so when her party wide AoE goes off, its nasty as you can imagine. The tank, with his 2-3 vulnerability stacks the whole fight, often drops down to 1-2k hp on the spot and /still/ refuses to stop trying to DPS even as my MP pool dwindles down to nothing. She dies with me unable to cast even a Cure I, Assize, SoS and my MP restoring potion on cooldown and the entire party at about half HP.

I stand there with him targeted hoping he can feel the hostility and trying to silently communicate to him how lucky he was that there was a new person here who didn't deserve to get killed by bees so I could teach a tank a valuable lesson. When he said 'GREAT JOB!' in party, I started wishing fluid aura worked on player characters so I could shove him off the side of the arena. No one died and I got all three comms but...I sorta still feel like the gif below. By which I mean I still want to shove him and every tank like him off a cliff and prove what happens when you make a healer wroth.

[Twilite]

Usually letting a bad tank die will set them straight. I hate doing big pulls.

[Gamer3427]

Words.

This story made my day more than any other post I've seen on the forums lately. I'm absolutely doing that the next time an undergeared tank tries to do a higher level run. I once had a DRK in The Aery with an iLevel 30 belt. I posted that in full detail somewhere in this thread a while back, but the short version is that he was using that because he "couldn't use his level 60 belt". Some of these people, I just don't understand. Do they think that you're not allowed to gear up aside from dungeon drops or level-capped gear? There's NPC shops and the MB for a reason, and if you REALLY can't afford anything, then it's time to start killing stuff for materials to sell or take up a DoH/DoL......

[Rivxkobe]

I have a few short stories during my runs as this new character I've made as I'm getting back into the game.

As a previous SCH main, and now PLD working to Heavensward for MCH, I am always trying my best to make the healer's life easier and not pull any of the "bad tank" stuff I use to see during many runs. Also I am so "afraid" of PUG healers I run mostly everything with my brother who main's WHM.

Alright, on with it:

My first story takes place in Sunken Temple of Qarn, first time as this character but I've run it many times. It wasn't that bad, and things went pretty smoothly, except for one of the DPS (MCH) not focusing Bees. I died a couple of times, but I don't get angry with any one because they might not know the mechanics unless they do it almost consistently. (though as a MCH you would think he would have run it enough to know better but w/e.) The MCH would also focus fire a different target than everyone else, and if they pulled aggro (rarely happened) they would stop DPSing and run around EVERYWHERE. As a former SCH main this pissed me off a bit though, as a healer you can't really do anything about the stingers, especially if you have to heal DPS who won't sit still and allow the Tank to pull hate off them. All-in-all though it was a good run.

Story #2 takes us to Cutter's Cry, first time as this character. I've always disliked this dungeon, I find it bland. But I digress. Party consists of a WHM, a BRD and a BLK. "Awesome!" I thought. Everything should go quickly with the high DPS this kind of group can bring, along with some good utility. Oh how wrong I was. The WHM (brother) and BRD were excellent at what they needed to do, even though it was the BRD's first time ever. Princess died so god damn fast. BRD did well on the Chimera (they died right near the end but the boss died immediately after). The BLK on the other hand... well I should start off by saying I probably should have leveled too get Shield Oath before attempting this dungeon but I honestly just wanted t get it over with. Well, the BLK would almost consistently pull aggro. Be it from pulling with Fire 2, spamming Fire on an enemy that I'm not doing my FIRST combo on, after Fire2 spam during (or even before I get to start) flash spam, and pulling the hate then spamming Fire 2 on the remaining enemies while I try to pull the enemy off them. It was rough, and I can't imagine how it was for the WHM, having to heal my sorry ass while the BLK papertanks half the mobs because they couldn't stop spamming spells for one second for me to set up enmity or not pull trash. The worst was when they pulled hate off one enemy, then spammed fire 2 on a cactuar and as I went to grab the other mob I got hit by 1000 needles (mostly my fault, but its hard to see through Fire 2 spam when you are also trying to keep this person alive). Must of been hell for healing. I can't even imagine. As a SCH I would have probably ended up letting the BLK die or only get heals from Eos.

MY final story is completely different, and while I know we don't usually talk 'bout bad healers in 4-man dungeons I just couldn't stand this. In a way it is a "Healing Horror Story" but more about a horror of a healer and less about healing something horrifying. I decide to do a Haukke Manor run, just because I love it, and I get a SCH. As someone who has run this dungeon many, many times as a SCH I was looking forward to this. SCH makes Haukke Manor so smooth and quick since they barely have to heal and can just Cleric Stance the entire dungeon when there is a geared tank. Yeah...

First pull SCH does NOTHING. Which is, fine, I guess but I'm over it quickly especially when they are just standing in the hall and pull a Maidservant, get hit by the PBAoE (te rest of us are in the first room) and stand there getting smacked before I come to their rescue. This is when they decide to start moving, well healing. Selene was also out, and she wasn;t under Obey. Every fight (except three) after this started and went the same way everytime: Bio one target -> Physick Spam until the trash is cleared. I was in hysterics. It was painful, and nauseating to see a SCH run Haukke Manor with Selene not under Obey, that is basically a minion (she literally casted Embrace 3 times the entire run), spamming Physick every second. Even when I was full health. They used Ruin twice, and once the target was already dead.

I'm not even joking when I say this. Boss #2 went as such: No Adlo (its fine, just weird) -> Shield Lob Jester -> Physick -> Flash, missing Servant who has turned and ran toward SCH -> Chase Servant all the way to the entrance where the SCH is (while spamming Shield Lob) -> Physick Spam -> Jester Aggros to BRD; Physick -> Combo Servant and pull aggro ; Physick -> Run to Jester and spam Flash; Physick Spam-> Pull Aggro back from Jester; Physick -> Jester dies; Physick Spam -> Servant Dies; Physick spam

It was insane. The final room (side room with treasure) with the floating fire things was a mess. I held Aggro as best I could, but the last "Firefly" that was out of Flash range/AoE range was all over he Healer, because Physick Spam. They couldn't even take time out of spamming Physick to shut off a lamp. It was maddening.

Oh and as an aside: The MCH that was with us was really... weird. They Spammed the living hell out of Foot Graze (?) binding random targets in the middle of combos, even targets in the middle of their AoE spam. It was very strange. Also without fail the MCH would be running all around the enemies so I couldn't even turn them around (not that there is any Cones or Cleaves (I don't think anyway)) but I always like to turn mobs away just in case and so I can see the rest of my party just in case something goes wrong.

SCH said "Thanks all. That was a great run." I just replied with "Lol." I probably should have said something but I didn't want there to be an argument or some "shut up ur a tankk don;t tell me how to heal" bs.

[Miyha]

Well... there have been several incidences where I've had to heal parties where everyone's gear is broken. |D;;;

The more, er... memorable of those have been in the Fractal Continuum. In one case, the tank's and the DPS' gears were all broken, so they were all squishy and doing hardly any damage to anything at all. Needless to say, we abandoned that duty after failing the last boss like, five times... In another case, the tank's gear was fine, but both DPS had broken gear (or at least I think they did, since they didn't say anything but their DPS certainly suggested it). SOMEHOW, we managed to just BARELY clear the last boss... In another instance, the tank fudged their ilvl using i180 DRG accs and had level 56 gear otherwise (save for their jacket, which was from Great Gubal Library), AND the DPS were pumping out sub-par damage. To top it all off, they kept crashing into the mines on the last boss. Idk if I'd call that one a horror story so much though, because it actually ended up being pretty fun/interesting. >.>

Also had a very different run of Keeper of the Lake once on the last boss. We wiped five times: the first two were because I was the only one trying to kill the bird thing that had the generator. .___. The third, I derped and thought I was inside the shield during his ultimate, when apparently I wasn't (QQ) and got blown up. The fourth, I was, yet again, the only one DPSing the bird, but this time it was on the second spawn. The fifth, the tank got on me for not DPSing the boss(es), and instead of arguing I just decided to try DPSing. Problem was, everyone was taking a lot more damage than they should have been for me to start DPSing, so I got flustered, a DPS died, then I died trying to keep everyone else up. Our DRG left, I just made the excuse that it was too hard with my current keybinds to switch to Cleric Stance (which it wasn't, but the tank seemed to think they could have easily healed/DPSed at the same time while everyone was eating AoEs to the face), FINALLY we got another DPS and cleared it.

Similar issues occurred in Great Gubal on the Demon Tome, believe it or not. |D Again I got flustered after a while and died to an AoE while trying desperately to keep the tank/last remaining DPS up, and ALL of them were just standing there eating every AoE that was thrown out. The MCH decided to get on my ass for pointing it out and asking (nicely) for people to stop taking AoEs to the face and said "LOL YOU ATE AOES TOO"... I ate one. One. ONE. He ate EVERY AOE until he finally became too much to heal and I elected to keep the tank up instead of him. ._. (Luckily by this time I developed some mad skills when it comes to dealing with smartass DPS/tanks. <3 )

Probably plenty of others. All healers have their fair share of horror stories. ;;;;;

[VanilleFang]

Keeper of the Lake

Midgardsormr has no enrage time, or dps check, that I can remember. So the tank complaining about your lack of dps doesn't really hold up. I would have told him flat out that if people would dodge aoes I would dps. Their HP is more important than you getting a Stone II out. Or let him die and tell him "sorry, I was dpsing. You died too fast."

[cgbspender]

KoTL's last boss has so little downtime that even an experimented healer will always think twice before turning into CS ^^ A wrong step by one of the players (including us, healers) can really be a pain to recover from ^^

[Rivxkobe]

Midgardsormr has no enrage time, or dps check, that I can remember. So the tank complaining about your lack of dps doesn't really hold up. I would have told him flat out that if people would dodge aoes I would dps. Their HP is more important than you getting a Stone II out. Or let him die and tell him "sorry, I was dpsing. You died too fast."

^ Exactly this.

The Tank sounded like he didn't know exactly what was going on. As a healer who shouldn't HAVE to DPS (I don't know about 3.0 dungeons, but pre 3.0 you don't have too). I always did as a SCH, but it wasn't something I had to do. The Tank either thought you were a DPS, or was really looking for someone to blame it on.

Besides DPSing the boss(es) is only a small part of the entire encounter. Dodging, positioning, and doing the mechanics correctly are much more important than if the healer does, or doesn't, DPS.

[cgbspender]

(Luckily by this time I developed some mad skills when it comes to dealing with smartass DPS/tanks. <3 )

Part of out toolkit, isn't it

[Miyha]

KoTL's last boss has so little downtime that even an experimented healer will always think twice before turning into CS ^^ A wrong step by one of the players (including us, healers) can really be a pain to recover from ^^

Indeed. And in my experience, at least one person will constantly take AoEs to the face. |D Midgardsormr is still one of my favorite fights in the game tho, just 'cause the AoE dancing is so much fun.