Should healers now be allowed to play how they choose to play?

[Gemina]

I hear this often from healers. They blame themselves for a party wipe even when they know someone else was responsible. Usually it's "if only i'd done this instead of that, we would have survived". Just because someone is wearing a mentor icon, doesn't mean they're good at the role they're playing - the WAR should have known better. We have no active mitigation in tank stance and even though we have a large health pool; that doesn't justify pulling 6+ mobs w/o mitigation. I have SCH and WHM at level 60 and I refuse to heal. Healing is way too stressful and even minor mistakes are glaring mistakes both in your own eyes and in the eyes of your party members. At some point though, you have to stop blaming yourself and realize that when trying to play to your full potential; you're going to make mistakes (in ANY role) and that you should try to shrug it off and keep going.

I hear you, and also believe healer is the most difficult role in this game if you are trying to optimize it. It is put in your face as early as Hall of Novice, where if you are caught off your toes DPSing, you fail the duty. The video showcases how one, very tiny mistake results in wipe. I do have 20/20 hindsight. I know and see what the tank did wrong, or didn't do to help me, and just left everything on my shoulders. I like that burden though, and when I fail the opportunity to save something, it takes me a long time to get over it. I am one of the most passionate healers you'll ever group with.

That said, as much as I wanted to give up as I always do when I feel like I failed, I carried on because I don't want to inconvenience my group further by having to wait for another healer and pull mobs one at a time while doing so. My performance after that point was pretty bad. A lot of over-healing, not hitting everyone with Medica 2; one of the party members was new, and I typically give new players hawkeye treatment, which may take my focus off of where it should be. The sync was just gone after the wipe, and when I feel that way, my threshold goes from 50% HP to 90%.

I take all videos though where wipes happen, and study the hell out of it to see what I could have done better to prevent further mistakes. So trust me when I say I can at least dust myself off and try again. Feel sorry for the next boss that has to face me!