I think I'm beginning to suffer a little bit of healer burnout. Curiously, it's not because of Blackwing Lair or the high-end raiding, it's because of ZG.
My guild does casual ZG runs, and I've been on several of them. Lately though, I've begun to not want to go on these runs, even though ZG is probably my favourite raid instance. The problem is that we now outgear ZG--basically just running it for fun, reputation, and profit--and so people are slacking off.
And when other people slack off, the healers have to step up and pay even more attention. And this is kind of annoying. It seems excessive that I have to be in full raid healing gear, or spamming Holy Light, for a ZG run. But it's nuts, people pulling aggro, mages suicide AoE'ing*, not bothering with crowd control, etc. And because we do outgear ZG, and the healers step up, we survive this silliness.
Personally, I find efficient runs to be more fun. Crowd control, tank properly, and focus fire. Killing swiftly and efficiently. Minimize the amount of healing, and the number of people to be healed. Take care of the little things, like making sure the bat boss is tanked far enough away from the raid so that the casters aren't hit with the AoE Silence.
As an example, take the Bloodlord fight. My guild likes killing the raptor first, and then healing the tank through the Bloodlord's Enrage. This strategy, while it does work, is hell on the healers. Yay for an enraged Bloodlord running around 2-shotting people! I find having a couple off-tanks ping-pong the Raptor between them while the rest of the raid kills Bloodlord to be so much easier and less stressful. But because the previous strategy is simple, and we have the gear and healing power to do it, it's what we do.
I've really begun preferring the harder raids. Maybe ZG is easier, and we wipe more with higher repair bills, but people are trying their best, and not making the raid harder than it needs to be.
The worst part about it is that I know that the people in the raid are better than this. That if they actually cared about having an efficient run, we could go through ZG like a hot knife through butter.
* Honestly, if you died the first three times, maybe that's a sign that this is not a good tactic.
I've found the same time - to the point that I don't even go to ZG or AQ20 anymore.
ReplyDeleteThe further we've progressed, and as people's gear have gotten better, the amount of coordination or whatever in lesser instances has gone down considerably. For awhile, as we were first entering bwl, and had downed rags, it had gotten really bad, but, it's not as bad now.
It's also amusing to see how much difference a gear makes. People also slack because, well, they can.
so basically, your retnub for raiding (lolz) and are complaining because your guild is zerging zg and u have to heal...hahaha! pally dps = 1337 rofl
ReplyDeletethanks for teh laughz...heh....ret..
Well, I was full Holy (32/11/8) at the time of these ZG raids. I've been Holy for the last two months, and Retribution for less than a week.
ReplyDeleteSorry if the out-of-order posts confused you.
This is why I hate going to places like AQ20/ZG/MC anymore.
ReplyDeleteIf they let me go and dps maybe it would be fun, but its always that "we'll need you to heal when necessary" which is always.
I don't blame my guildmates, but I don't think they understand healer burnout. Heck if I understood it myself I would have quit raiding or drastically cut it back months ago.
Excellent post! We're not at the point where you are in ZG, but it's definitely getting that way in our gear-nabbing runs through Strat, Scholo, etc.
ReplyDeleteI've been having trouble putting my finger on why I've come to hate these so much - and it really is because when other people (dps) get sloppy and play to "have fun" it means that much more work and that much less fun for the healers.
This may always be a fundamental disconnect between the DPS classes and the healers. At least now I know how to explain the situation, instead of just gritting my teeth through another "fun" instance. ;)
I know exactly how you feel. People are too relaxed raiding farmed content and goof off. Healers never get to slack off and end up having more work. I was getting sick of it myself...luckily we are taking a break from raiding during the Christmas vacation and stick with pvping. Too bad my holy spec makes killing people near impossible! :P
ReplyDelete-Imperator
Let the dps die to teach them a lesson if they're being sloppy on their aggro management!
ReplyDeleteHaving just completed the Undying achievement myself, I know where you're coming from, to an extent. While I like the idea behind such achievements, I think that they put a little too much pressure on what can sometimes be fragile strings.
ReplyDeleteWe had a few people upset that we didn't choose to bring them... etc. Luckily, we managed to get our "Undying" titles the first time we made the effort at it - Otherwise I could very well see the same kind of thing happening as will likely happen to that tank. All told, the entire group was shaking like a leaf during our KT fight. I'm quite surprised we *didn't* have a death!
Incidentally, we found it easier to do it with Dedicated Few (maybe give that a try next time, by the way), because while it *sounds* harder, the less people you/the healers have to worry about, the easier it seemed to be. With a supreme tank (your OT sounds like one!) and 1 beast of a healer (with a dedicated off-heals/dpser who then respec'd to full heals on Saph and KT), it makes life much, much easier when going for the achievement. Less people meant less chance for a screwup. (Also made the thadius achievement easier ;) ).
Anyway, good luck and here's hoping you guys get it down. A little patience, and you will. And yeah... a failed attempt is a week wasted, but you've still got several more weeks to try. :)
So that's why I could never get a ZG run. I'm kinda new to wow, I got it after TBC, but I just want to SEE ZG, mount Hyjal and AQ. from the inside. not just the gates, or on the map. And quite frankly, I wouldn't mind having epic gear at 60-something. I've grinded for profs to get blues, considered epics at 70, but it seems not much point. leveling from 60-70 I barely even saw outlands so it does seem like I'm missing out on quite a lot. I've got guild runs for strat but once again. no point doing it. Now I've got a new account and started again, it seems to be a bit different because everyone's hit 80 so now they'll run the raids even if it's just to get gear for their alts. And they want to do the runs on their alts just because. so it seems things are looking up. people are running raids again and "classic" isn't a dirty word
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