I’m DPSing in a heroic dungeon.
Suddenly, the tank’s health drops.
What do you do?
As a hunter, there really wasn’t anything that I could do. My job was to focus fire on the tank’s target without stealing agro and protect the healer.
However, these days I’m running as a shadow priest and there are things I could do to help keep the tank alive. Or the healer. Or a fellow dpser. But am I supposed to?
On my hunter, my role is clear but on my shadow priest, I find myself in a grey area and I’m not too sure where the lines are. As a shadow priest, I am choosing a damage role but as a hybrid class, I can do more than just damage. And personally, it would be wrong to do only damage.
Obviously, if the healer goes down, then shadowform falls off and I do my best to get some emergency heals out in desperation that the tank stays up. These are (supposed to be) rare occasions of heroism and I’m quite clear on my duty to do whatever necessary to save the group from a wipe. I’m more concerned about a normal run. What’s expected from my hybrid priest?
At a start of a fight, I don’t shield anyone. I signed up as a DPS and that’s what I should concentrate on. There is a reason that someone else has signed up as a healer.
However when the tank’s health drops to 50%, my spell rotation gets messy. I start blindly button smashing while I keep my eye on the health of the group. Depending on how the instance has been going and if the tank or the healers’s health drops more, I might toss out a shield to buy some time for the healer to get that big heal cast off (which I hope is coming).
In other cases, if a fellow DPS’s health is low, I might throw a shield on them because the more people we’ve got alive, the faster the fight will end.
Is this sort of behavior rude? Does it send a message to the healer that I don’t have faith in them?
Or is it welcomed? Is it recognized as a preventive, helpful measure?
DarthRegis
Brokentree
Chawa
Having the party live is always better than having them die.
With that said, it’s going to be variably received.
Disc priests are not generally going to like it when you shield people — especially the tank. Other healers should generally be okay with it.
Non-healers casting direct heals can be annoying if you don’t have a UI that shows incoming heals as they can end up with wasted heals. If the situation is dire enough to warrant off-heals it can be irritating when this happens.
In general, if the tank and the healer have entry-level gear and / or are inexperienced it is likely to be appreciated. A quick peek at their respective health and mana bars should give you an idea of their gear level.
When I heal, I don’t mind if people feel the need to help out. Sure, it’s some wasted mana or whatever… but meh.
Ultimately, I think actions like that don’t hurt anything, so it’s not worth getting upset over. (Although BT does make a good point about Disc priests.)
Someone might have a hissy fit, but keep doing what you’re doing until someone tells you otherwise.
This has been a question on my mind as well. My main is a hunter, but my S. priest just hit 71 so I am taking her to dungeons. I personally don’t know squat about healing anything in an instance. I think I am going to start asking when everyone zones in if shields are ok or what? I read a long time ago that shielding some tank classes will mess with their aggro. I need to do some more research on the priest class for dungeon etiquette. Thanks for posting this. I might just have to roll a mage.
There may be some shields that have that effect, but priest shields are detrimental to aggro. Those who QQ about such things are misinformed.
And if you have magey questions, let me know!
Paladins still kind of don’t like shields since they need actual healing to get mana back. Not that big of an issue if they are keeping Divine Plea up.
Rage-based tanks don’t care these days and neither do DKs.
That first reply was supposed to read “priest shields are NOT detrimental”. Le sigh.
There may be some times when they’re not ideal, but when a tank is pretty low on health (or dropping quickly), it can be assumed that a healthy aggro lead has been established. And in the example that BT gave about pally tanks and their mana – again, if they’re low on health (or dropping quickly), throwing a shield up is likely a good thing – and they’ll be hopefully getting some heals so they get some mana as well.
At the start of a fight, you’re just as well to let the healer do their thing and see where it goes.
I generally don’t complain if someone decides to throw a few heals when I am running as a healer on my priest, unless they then decide to call me out for bad healing after the pull.
When I am running Shadow I don’t think I even have my mouseover for shield on my bars anymore (just the OMG SHIELD/HEAL SELF macro.) I have been known to toss a renew out here and there if I feel it’s needed though.
It’s a bit less obvious than shield, and can buffer till myself or the other healer can get a cast off, depending on the circumstance. Actually if no one is watching the buff bars or saw me drop out of shadow form for a second or two the fact I healed at all might be missed.
A healer dropping into LFD is not going to assume there will be any off heals so they will (should?) be able to manage.
I would say if the healer goes down then step in to save the day otherwise just continue dpsing as usual. Consider your replenishment as your way of helping the healers.
What’s hilarious is that since writting this post, I have failed at being the off healer in a few particular moments. Things went bad too fast for me to even notice!
Dechion – so good to see you considering you’re taking 5 these days! And yes, I can feel that I can slip back on my typical shadowform without anyone noticing!
Starla Rae – so glad to know that I’m not the only one who thinks like this! I think, to play it safe, I’ll only throw a shield out when I see things getting iffy. Iffy will mean that my pathetic iffy healts might be welcomed!
Thanks BT for your healer input. I’ve got to learn to pay more attention to the incoming heals I think I see on my Vudho in the BGs. I’m still learning what Vudho can show me. And I’m sure there is an option to make incoming heals more obvious – i’m just not sure if i’m willing to throw in the oh-so obvious, horribly annoying sound option!
Oooh lookie, Wow.com’s Shadow Priest has spoken on how just awesome shadow priests are to instances. All hail!
http://www.wow.com/2010/04/07/spiritual-guidance-compensating-for-the-failure-of-others/
I almost always heal in 5-mans. I’ve noticed some DPS absolutely WILL NOT heal themselves (retadins, I’m looking at you!) but a lot of spriests are bubble-happy. If you want to start a pull bubbled in case the tank is slow on aggro, more power to you.
While DPSing on my shaman as enh, my heals are very weak. However, if the tank is obviously not keeping up or doesn’t have time for me, I’ll save my MW procs for an instant heal, usually on myself. When running with guild healers, I tend to be very reckless because I trust them. As I told my friend Don after I died in a heroic “Well, I figure if you let me die it’s probably my fault, and I’m OK with that”
I am guilty of spriest bubbles! But only in emergencies and only when I think the tank is getting one two many hits to the head. I don’t bother with bubbling myself at the start of a pull because I don’t expect to take any damage. On the rare chance that I get aggro, I just Fade.