I just thought of some anecdotal comparisons from WOTLK to make regarding this concept of healing stress and so forth:
1) Remember Halls of Stone I think it was - the event with Bran Bronzebeard (name?) where he goes to the computer data banks and wave after wave of mobs keep coming? Yeah well I can distinctly remember running that in early WOTLK (long before Ulduar was released), playing a tank with under 25k hps or playing a DPS with under 16k hps, while a healer with only blues, some not even max level gear, some still level 70 gear having trouble keeping us all alive. I came to THIS forum specifically to ask for tips on how to advise the healer who could not keep us up. That encounter featured problems with AOE aggro management on the part of warrior tanks in particular, problems with tanks, DPS, and healers standing in the fire, and problems with mana consumption/replenishment.
2) Remember Halls of Lightning - the last encounter with Loken with the constant, unavoidable AOE damage along with the burst PBAOE lightning damage? Again, early WOTLK, sup 25k hp tank, sub 16k hp DPS, healer in blues at best, not all max level, this encounter was a pretty decent chock stone for groups that could not coordinate properly. I believe that the first half a dozen times I ran that instance either as a tank or DPS, the only way we completed that final encounter was with the tank and healer being the last ones standing.
In fact, in those early days I was definitely apprehensive about leveling my healer up and playing it in heroics. Seeing what I saw then in the days of not overgearing anything made me think healers had the hardest job going. Some of you corrected my thinking as you expressed your experiences as healers in the later stages of WOTLK as having a pretty easy road.
Thinking back to even early WOTLK there were times when encounters were VERY tough for people with the gear that was tuned for the dungeons. I honestly think that a fair amount of this distress is much of the same. The biggest difference is that now we've had 1.5 years of easy mode since those "difficult" times where before we had only the difficulty of BC heroics which were not easy mode by comparison. Granted there may be some relatively minor tweaks needed to healing classes' abilities, but I strongly doubt that an overhaul of healing is what's required.
Again I feel like I can't say this enough - the overhaul that is needed is on the part of tanks and DPS - tanks need to learn to be like they were in the old days of WoW - paying attention to healer mana, paying attention to the fact that they are in fact mortal not IMMORTAL like they were in the last 2/3rds of WOTLK.
DPS needs to become cognizant of the fact that they're DPS, not tanks, and need to not pull aggro, need to CC, need to get out of the fire, need to watch out for their own asses all before they consider DPSing.
A major paradigm shift is needed in the game and it is not with healing imo, it is a paradigm shift BACK to the basics that many of us learned this game with (and learned other games with in terms of group play from games like EQ, DAOC, etc.).
I feel like I want to come play my hunter and warrior tank on Sly's server with him healing and see if between the two of us we can't sort this stuff out... Obviously that's not an option for me since my characters aren't leveled lol. I guess I will get the chance eventually as I get leveled, to see what's going on with healers in my guild.
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If ignorance were painful, half the posters here would be on morphine drips.
Everyone playing WoW knows everything about playing two classes: 1) their own and 2) Hunters
