^^ this is the situation more often than not. It is a rare case when the rest of the raid is performing well and a healer is holding us back.

I can say in all honesty that we have had clear cases of healers not being up to it and it was the healers responsible for the wipes. Various fights through various expacs, based mostly on the competency of the players involved to deal with things like moving out of the way of key things (like the Lurker's spout).

We had a situation where we were stuck using 8 healers in early Ulduar because they couldn't do the job, including paladins that wouldn't tank heal - they didnt' want to and couldn't keep the tank alive. We replaced 3-4 of them, and were suddenly able to run Ulduar with 5-6 healers with much more success. Sometimes it really is the healers who are the weak point.

That said, I do agree healers get blamed more than they should by people who aren't paying proper attention. I'm the current heal lead and I'll be upfront and say "the tank had 17 stacks of the crap he should have no more than 4 of and that's just too much". Or point out ppl aren't moving properly, or are persistently out of range. Our RLs aren't the type to blame the healers for everything off the bat, we use mods that show cause of death etc to work out if it is healing assignments, healing failure, raid positioning etc that is the real issue. It's not about blame, it's about working out what went wrong and how to fix it next time.

Yes, the blog essentially assumes that it obviously impossible due specifically to a healer. Sometimes it is obvious who the problem is, and sometimes it isn't. But it's not a raid heal issue ... this is a raid issue because it might be the DPS or it might be the tanks as well...

For us, we have a DK tank that takes spikey damage. We try every combo and we just have to make sure he isn't dying. We have DK dps that no matter how hard he tries he has to back off DPS or he pulls trash and gives the healers pain.

We work together as a team to recognize weaknesses and compensate for them as best we can. This is definitely not the best advice I've read. It is better to take a raid time-out and talk issues than toss out a raider. You're guild will be considered elitist jerks if you act that way and only elitist jerks will raid with you. Friends work together.

This is one of the biggest problems in Cat that Wrath (until looking for dungeon was added). The guild worked together and you didn't have to be in Paragon to down a boss. The game is about friendships and spending time together... not about who is perfect.

I'll conceded, you do have to deal with under performers, but the boot first isn't the approach unless they are a pug.