This is a really good article. Let me establish that, wholeheartedly and truly, with big thumbs up to both the writer and the commenters supporting, it before I launch into the but.

BUT.

It is so sad that it has come to this. Now, I'll love to be proven wrong by similar articles for tank and DPS, but I'm currently assuming those articles aren't coming, and the message behind that likelihood is the greatest failure of Cataclysm: the trial, indeed, the intensified trial, of the healer.

One person in five should not have this much responsibility and pressure to make or break a group's chances.

One role in three should not have so much social weight in the sphere of guilds and circles of players.

The greatest failing of the outdated trinity is that the "value" and responsibilities are not remotely fair across all roles. Cataclysm just further exacerbated this problem, and I'm disappointed that that appears to be "working as intended".

Healers are the new tanks, as it relates to rarity of skillset and personality type, and I say this as a tank. The pressure on a tank is somewhat mitigated by the fact that the tank is at least "battling the boss", doing something heroic, something conventionally "sexy". I always, always sincerely compliment a good healer, and they beam like a parched man in a desert being offered a gatorade, because of how seldom their hard work is appreciated, and that very status quo is a sad, broken, outdated state of things. I have clung tenaciously to contacts I could barely stand, because they were healers, I have watched people grab on to this trend and ride it into the ground, because they were healers.

The fact that we have an article indirectly screaming "don't piss off the ones that will still heal!" speaks to how badly Blizzard failed at injecting fun into healing. I had three healer characters in WOTLK, and have always had at least one, dating back to vanilla, and I will not touch it now. Some of the most dedicated healers I've known have taken up DPS specs or classes in Cataclysm. In banking on "they will love managing their mana AND the green bars", Blizzard gambled and lost.

Again, I applaud this article, I am only shaking my head at a state of the game that necessitates it.

Long live the healers, the unsung heroes. Blizzard hands you lemons, and you make lemonade, but you really shouldn't have to.

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