Post Your Healing Horror Stories.

[Urthdigger]

Reading some of the recent entries, there really is an issue with people blaming the healer for things. Recently had a group accuse me of being a shitty healer for DPSing too much. Now, our issue was primarily not meeting DPS checks, and the vast majority of deaths were either instant death mechanics like knockback or doing things like eating multiple vuln stacks. Sure, you may have been been at 80% health when the attack that killed you went off, but it's not my fault when the attack hit for over your max HP anyway.

People never notice when you do well, but God forbid you're not a perfect being capable of carrying the whole party on your back.

[Newfable]

People never notice when you do well, but God forbid you're not a perfect being capable of carrying the whole party on your back.

This has a bit to do with MMORPG culture in general; it's something that facinates me, so I've spent some time thinking about it.

As far as FFXIV goes, the Roles can easily be shown to fail visably: if the mobs are running from player to player, the Tank is failing; if fights take far too long, the Damage dealers are failing; and if everyone keeps dying, then the Healer is failing.

That's the theory anyway, in practice, if something else goes wrong, or folks aren't working as a team, then deaths can happen anyway, which makes it look like the Healer is failing to do what they should be doing. But since clearing a dungeon as fast a possible is status quo and expected, when a Healer is doing their job well, commendations may mindlessly be given, but there's not much thought given to the skill of the Healer. We'll always get the short end of the stick, despite how much I love being a Healer.

My healing horror stories have been told time and again, but I have one when I started Tanking.

I was tanking the Dzemael Darkhold, and forgot the early mechanics of standing in crystal light with pulls (while I knew the mechanics for the first boss, it had been forever since I had been to the dungeon, and forgot about the general buff).

We wiped once, I knew it was my mistake, and apologized for it. Our Healer, on the other hand, promptly lost it. From begging to be kicked, to slander, to postulating all of the other queues he could be in at the moment: he was a twobled wittle boy. I simply stated that I would pull a bit smaller, mind where I stood, and strive to do better.

That shut him up, but didn't stop him from pulling extra mobs onto himself that I had to pick up when he got bored.

Nary a wipe after the first, everything went pretty smoothly. I figured that I still had lots to learn, and still apologized for my poor performance as a Tank. I left with 2 commendations (from the other DD's), and a whisper from one of them saying, "That healer was an ass."

When I play a Tank, most of my healers are fantastic. Possibly because I don't buy into the pull-the-whole-dungeon mentality?