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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: Don't you mean the *healer* shortage?
by Allison Robert 
Dec 9th 2008 at 8:00AM
I wrote a Breakfast Topic recently concerning the somewhat ambivalent effect that Death Knights were having on the usual tanking shortage, but wasn't too surprised to see a lot of people (perhaps most) write in to note that the healer shortage on their realms was even worse. Leveling as a healer -- even with all the changes to spellpower and shared gear -- is an unattractive proposition for most, and a lot of people who healed at 70 want the chance to do something different. Past a certain point you'd give anything to be doing something that doesn't involve staring at a series of dropping health bars, and that doesn't lend itself to a large and willing population of healers cheerfully offering their services for 5-man use in LFG.My main's a Druid and I PuG a lot, so I have the luxury of being able to observe which spec is the most wanted for 5-mans (at least on my realm). As soon as dual specs become available, I'm going to have a PvE tanking and PvE healing spec set up and ready to go -- and after that, I'm going to keep a little notebook and tally how many times I get asked by a group to heal, and how many times I'm asked to tank ("But what if someone wants you to DPS?" you ask. What is this "dee pee ess" you speak of, strange one?). With an increasing number of Death Knights reaching 80, I'm willing to bet that the demand for healers is going to be even greater than it is right now, and that increasing pressure is going to be exerted on hybrid tanks (i.e. Druids and Paladins) to maintain a healing spec and gear in order to ensure that groups get off the ground faster than they do right now. I could be wrong, but I'd also be lying if that wasn't the dominant trend back on Wrath's beta with respec costs at 1c and a ton of Death Knights at 80.
Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Priest, Shaman, Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast Topics, Instances, Features, Leveling, Classes
Reader Comments (Page 8 of 8)
Ivee Dec 9th 2008 6:53PM
I play on the EU-Dragonmaw realm, Alliance side an my experience is different than yours; here is tank shortage and we got enough healer.
My main char is a holy priest, I respecced after lvl40 to holy and I am holy since then. I got only T5 gear on lvl70 (because there were periods when I wasn't playing). With this equipment plus max enchants the levelup was surprisingly easy and fast! Less than a fortnight I stepped up lvl80 (exactly on 27-Nov) beside work. I accomplished altogether only 220 quests under this time. (as far as I know there is 1000 quests roughly). In the big part of the levelup we played in dungeons. I got quasi all blue healer items what is obtainable from normal dungeons so I started the heroics quickly.
I never thought to be shadow even while level-up and don't plan to get shadow priest gear when dual spec feature comes.
I pondered on why there is healer shortage in your realm. According to me because of two reasons:
1. Level-up: many people think yet healers can't levelup so fast. (Maybe thats why you can't find healer sometimes between lvl 70-79.) My expericene is: you can! much easier then ever in wow history.
2. Heroics and raids: on other hand healers' job (at least the holy priests) is harder a little bit in Lich King heroics and raids than was early. The enemies are more evil, they have much more AOE and other spec effect compared to BC or Classic. My experience is DPS ones make much more failure in raids than early and get nasty damages. This is the healers' nightmare! I am not surprised if a healer get tired because of this.
So the healing job became harder in Lich King but more exciting! I like it even better now :) In my eyes the tank role is easier than ever (my alt is a prot pala and I experienced this). Possibly this the reason why are many tanks and few healers.
Best regards
Ivee, lvl80 nightelf holy priest @ EU-Dragonmaw
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Dragonmaw&n=Ivee
Zarfay Dec 9th 2008 7:20PM
I haven't notice this shortage because I have an enthusiastic Paladin healer in my guild.
I was restoration before wrath and now I'm elemental but to be honest I think healing was more fun, but I'm going to collect damage gear until I can afford to make a healing offset.
Dysmorphia Dec 9th 2008 7:27PM
There seems to be both a tank and a healer shortage. Being a healer (who actually loves healing) I'm pretty happy. Since my toon is a druid I get whispers asking for both tank and heals, and I'd say I get slightly more asking for heals, maybe 60/40.
Yes there a lot of dumb tanks and a lot of retarded DPS. I try to stick to guild runs and people I know, but if someone asks nicely, well I'd rather heal a mediocre instance run than do dailies...
Your life in my hands...I love that feeling. And if I find a tank I like I'm happy to heal for 8 hours straight. Thanks to the shortage, I can, and have.
JBurg Dec 9th 2008 7:37PM
I wonder if this whole healer shortage might have something to do with arena not starting, yet? I know a lot of PvP healers that would heal instances and such when they weren't in the arenas and battle grounds. Right now though they are either enjoying there last days of posting big damage numbers or specced to tank dungeons and gather badges. In short, lots of healers I know are doing anything, but healing until arena starts up again. You also have to figure plenty of former Stormherald wielding warriors are currently willing to tank until they go back to mortal striking everything. This to me would explain why there are plenty of tanks and few healers. Won't be able to tell if my theory is right, however, until arena starts up again.
Jane Gray Dec 11th 2008 9:42AM
There will be no pvp healing unless things get majorly changed (at least not in 2s or 3s, the majority of teams) so dont hold your breath
Nezzdi Dec 10th 2008 1:40AM
I can't understand why everyone argues that healing is so boring because all you see is green bars. Do you all have healbot scaled to take up all of the screen or something? Do you even use healbot? Half of the encounters in the game use some sort of mechanic that requires you to move or react to something - that requires looking away from the green bars. Healbot only requires a glance to priortise your heals and then you get the duration of the heal cast to survery the playing field. I know a number of healers that lead raids - how do they do this by constantly starting at green bars and missing out on the fight?
Arivia Dec 10th 2008 1:27AM
On Alleria Horde, the healer shortage is getting better. What I'm funnily seeing more of is people who were looking to tank heroics a few days ago now being dps for those same heroics. It's turning into a tank shortage as the faux-tanks realize they can't cut the mustard any more and go back to all they're able to do. (This is coming from a real tank crowded out by them last week.)
People are starting to realize they need to slow down a bit and work on their skills, spec, and gear before jumping into heroics and raids with two feet. It's easier (I'm tanking heroics less than a week after hitting 80), but not that easy.
Lemons Dec 10th 2008 1:59AM
yeah healers are rare, but, at least on my realm, tanks are still much harder to find than healers.
EastAngel Dec 10th 2008 2:46AM
Pre LK, My shaman was enhance(from level 1 since before MC). but when 3.0 came out I moved server for friends and ended up being their healer... i had picked up a okay set from around the place(left over ZA healing gear) and ended up when LK came out with a full badge set healing gear and entering sunwell(as enhance i had barely seen ssc)
LK came out, went back to enhance for the day, and resto for the night. was loosing too much money so I ended up leveling as resto from 71 to 80... couldnt kill anyone(pvp server) but I gave them a run for their money. kited a rogue all the way to warsong hold while she was trying to kill me.. yay for 10k 1.5second cast Healing waves. just takes so long to quest.
The things I hate about being a healer in LK
seeing people in trade go 'LF 1 HEALER NAXX 10' and knowing im saved...
tanks who are aren't that geared but still think they can stand in the poisen nova when i have 20+ snakes on me with no ranged AOE dps(let me refrase that, dps who say 'im not supposed to get them off you'). then blame it all on my shit heals(2k+healing thank you very much) and then ragequits when i ask them to move out of the nova 'dont tell me how to tank.'
same msg from 1 guy for the whole of a week asking me if i could heal his naxx 10(was saved since the weds) after i helped him with a chain in icecrown.
currently unguilded(guild disbanded because we couldnt find healers for a guild naxx25) and being forced to farm the 'twill' grey set to wear when in dalaran, even when passing throu. with in 10 mins, 5 /w from complete randoms mentioning my healing naxx10/25 gear and my current guild status and asking if i would like to join such and such...
yeahh... CREATE A NEW HEALER KK THANKS BLIZZ
I do like 3 manning Heigan the Unclean with the 2 tanks from 75% to 0% tho... 22min fight. Watershield FTW!
Ivee Dec 10th 2008 6:13AM
haha, EastAngel, I agree.
"they can stand in the poisen nova when i have 20+ snakes on me"
"dps who say 'im not supposed to get them off you'"
"when i ask them to move out of the nova 'dont tell me how to tank.'"
these are how well-known stories for me and unfortunately these occur too many times nowadays!
Im always surprised when peoples are unable to follow the counter-clockwise direction to avoid Energize Cores effect at Varos Cloudstrider in HC Oculus.
They just stay in a place, pressing only one button to shot/hit him and they beleive all fine in this manner. After wipe they say: 'wake-up healer, you should heal better here or replace you'. (I got ~2.000 healing bonus, completed all HC dungeons so many times and know all boss tactic).
Stinkfoot82 Dec 10th 2008 4:07AM
I like healing, i've DPS'd through vanilla wow, Tanked through Burning Crusade and for Wotlk I wanted to do something different so I rolled a Resto shammy, 76 now, ( damn CE shipping delay) and I'm loving it, I play it together with my gf who is a mage, and we stomp trhought every quest we get.
I love doing instance, but I vind it very stressing at times.
I've healed once in a while with my tankadin, but the main problem is Pug.
"Dont do PUG's" you say? well as most of my guild is nearing 80 and only wanna do heroics, I am forced to pug most of the time.
One of the things that bother me the most is that people just go completely bananas without keeping the healer in mind.
i've seen mages pull with pyro/Living bomb combo, then scream at me for heals. I've seen DK "tanks" in full crit gear get one shotted in AZnrub. heck I had a DK the other day, that pulled the ENTIRE Dragon room in UK, "cause I have dinner in 30 Min" and my personal favorite, run miles ahead and start the next fight, while i'm still drinkin because they get hit so hard it drains me after every fight.
I'm not a bad healer, my gear's oke, nothing stellar but most of the blue instance stuff, I got rid of my last green 2 levels ago. but I can understand why healers don't wanna do pugs.
Its pretty demotivating to see your tank not wearing any Defence gear and then calls you a bad healer when he dies...right after I die from aggro...
Vyanda Dec 10th 2008 6:35AM
I've transferred to the new EU realm, Chamber of Aspects. Unsurprisingly, there's an incredibly high demand for any healer class there due to the many DK rerollers. Finding a tank takes 5 mins at most. Finding a healer... good luck, my friend. As a restoration druid equipped in badge/heroic/early Naxx gear I could spam heroics all day and all night if I wanted, so it's pretty much the realm of my dreams, so to say. I'd like to add, I don't have too much bad experience with pugs. Okay, there are some tardy DPS guys, but tanking is so easy now (the threat part is at least) that pulling aggro is hardly an issue even with complete retards who have never heard of Omen. Yesterday I ran hc VH with a slightly unskilled prot warrior, and even with some mistakes we managed to complete the instance without wipes. I feel sorry for paladin healers though, they seem to have difficulties these days with so many AoE damage in heroics. Don't lose your faith holydin fellows, we're going to need you in the final battle against the Lich King for sure. :)
Pew pew Dec 10th 2008 8:39AM
I think most healing specs are frowned upon by classes that can heal because you don't lvl fast since your solo grinding is tougher. They could solve it by making all healing spells like Priests' Penance spell. http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=53007
I'm sure there are gonna be complications in pvp if such was the case, but that's for someone else to numbercrunch about.
Tatertot Dec 11th 2008 2:47PM
With the lack of healers in Outland, we've found a way around it. I've done a few dungeons with nothing but Death Knights. As long as everyone uses Frost Presence for equal threat and no one uses Death and Decay, it's quite possible. Just make sure to stock up on potions and bandages. 5 tanks, no dps and no healers make for a nontraditional party... but we do what we have to in times of crisis. I've also had 4 DK's and 1 dps, which worked out wonderfully.
Sneh Dec 15th 2008 12:04PM
My main is 78 holy priest and I pug a lot. I'd like to add few things the DPSers and a tank can do to make a healer happy (and keep him playing and therefore prevent a shortage).
If you are a DPS:
- Inform your healer that you can manage your aggro and do not wish to be healed on regular pulls (he/she has to heal you on boss fights). E.g. if you are class that has any of Feign Death, Vanish, Ice Block or similar use them and since your healer was not healing you the aggro will go back to tank.
- Learn how to drop aggro my friend balanced druid has a bad habit of fighting the mob he pulled off of tank - do not do that!
Look at your spells and if you do not have anything to reduce your threat try this, cease the fire and and run towards the tank , usually tanks aoe will get the mob off of you.
- Some say it's a good idea for a DPS to get mobs off of healer - talk to your healer about it first - I personally hate when DPS does that. You are there to deal damage and kill things ASAP without getting yourselves killed - do so!
-If you are last on DPS meter - I personally might never heal you - ever, even in a boss fight. I have only so much mana to go around. Tank and me are priority often a top DPS too the last two guys are sometimes simply expandable.
Good healer knows not only who to heal and how but also who to sacrifice.
If you are a tank:
-Learn how to tank the boss fights in advance - I found the northrend dangeons really easy assuming the group and tank as the groups leader is familiar with the boss, and know how to fight him.
-Educate your group how to fight the boss if they do not know.
-Do you have to taunt a lot to keep the healer alive? Likely he is a newbie politely explain to him how to drop the aggro.
DISCLAIMER: The above applies to all the 5man that I ran, and some of it may differ in raid setting.
LadyFirehawk Feb 20th 2009 10:03PM
The healing shortage has gotten bad enough on my server that I'm seeing guilds and raiding alliances actively poaching healers. It's worse than Hemet Nesingwary during elekk season!