Monday, April 21, 2008

/DND

I have never had to use that little tag before, and I prefer not to. But lately, it seems almost a necessity. When I have logged on recently (if I have the time to), there has been some sort of recent phenomenon plaguing WoW.

People refuse to listen and understand simple communication and directives.

If I say “No, I do not wish to heal normal Blood Furnace because it is getting late and I want to sleep soon,” this does not mean:

  • Comment “wtf it’s not even 2 yet”
  • Beg me several times until I give up and go.

You know what the above does? It makes a healer, who does not want to go not want to go even more. And if this said healer goes? You’re going to die. Because I will spend half the instance chatting on Trillian while your under-geared bear butt runs over proximity mines and you blow yourself to smithereens, or your frontloading mage spam pulls aggro and you get one-shot. Because I have suddenly lacked the will to care, and instead harbor a sadistic desire to watch you die.

At that point, I am beyond caring if you think I am a good healer or not. I am beyond caring if you complain or trash me. I am simply there to keep you alive mostly and then let you die for stupid mistakes. I will only rez you because I got a new addon and I want to test it out.

Let me reiterate in very clear, concise terms:

If someone, especially a healer or a tank, says they do not want to go somewhere, do not beg them or badger them. If they give in and go, they are much, much more likely to not cover for your stupid mistakes. They are more likely not to give a !@#$. They are more likely to want you to die and allow it to happen.

On another note, if someone offers to run you through an instance, follow their instructions. Seriously. If they tell you to wait somewhere, wait there. If they tell you to follow, follow. If they tell you not to touch things, do not touch things. This goes doubly if the person running you through is a healer. They may not have the dps to burn things down in a second like a rogue or a hunter would. They are there out of the kindness of their heart so you don’t have to wait in LFG; respect that and be courteous.

18 comments:

Khol Drake said...

You sound very much like my healer...only less vindictive...

Yay for angry healers!

Kestra said...

I know the feeling Bell.

Personally I have a reply macro that simply states "Sorry loging shortly, Good luck to you though".

I use this macro even if I'm not logging shortly, it works because it really cant be replied to or questioned, I assume they just carry on spamming other available healers get one and never check if I'm still online when they finish the instance. to say "WTF!!".

I do agree though, personally I thought it was a widly known "Rule number 1" dont wind up the healer or the tank.

Anonymous said...

so funny. Are these people guildies or just random people you healed for in some instance a few months ago?

Bell said...

@khol drake- I was sleepy and grumpy. But they deserved to die.

@kestra- I'm less bothered by random people; they become too persistent and /ignore is easy enough. Guildies are the problem because they've learned how to take advantage of me.

@toque- guildies. I tend to eventually give in to guildies because we have such a small pool of healers to choose from, and I do want them to get things done. However, just because my epic healing butt is in an instance doesn't mean you do stupid things *wince*

Anonymous said...

One of the issues I repeatedly had long ago in my old guild was that I was the only dedicated healer in the guild of some thirty guys and seventy toons. The only one. We had a glut of warrior tanks, hunters, shadow priests, and other caster classes, but not a single specced and geared healer aside from myself. Worse yet, my healer was not my main; my main has always been my beloved Beast Mastery huntress that I rolled my very first day on Feathermoon.

I got stuck in the same trap you did, Bell; because I was the only healer in the guild and because I was superbly geared by their standards since I raided outside of the guild (Tier 5 and Tier 6-equivalent) I felt that it was my responsibility to drop everything and heal for them, no matter what I needed or what I was currently doing at the time. This was further compounded by the fact that I was also guild master and so it was of course my job to keep my guildies appeased and geared up. This resulted in my leaving a number of raids (Karazhan, Zul'Aman, Gruul, a couple of Serpentshrine Cavern/Tempest Keep raids, and so on) just to fit my raiding schedule around their expectations.

What happened? A year and a half after forming the guild, personally paying for the guild website and Vent server (because college kids apparantly lack the funds to chip in), and becoming increasingly frazzled by my guild's expectations, I decided enough was enough and put in my three week's notice - my sanity was not worth that kind of repeated hassle. So, Bell, don't fall into the same trap I did; let your guildies know that what you say is the way it's going to be. Your mental well-being isn't worth it, I promise.

Loni Huff said...

Soooo ... what's the new addon! Share, share!

Bell said...

@phaellia- Druid Announces. Let's people know who I'm rebirthing and whispers people when I innervate them. Sometimes I end up whispering myself!

Anonymous said...

Wow, yeah, right on the money there. I'm feeling really sorry for the tanks in my guild at the moment for the same reason.

Personally I'd never ask more than once as I've been there, done that. On Sporeggar (EU) Horde side there was a major lack of tanks and I was early to 70 (TBC server). I got bugged so often to tank that, despite loving it, I ended up speccing boomkin just to get a break.

It bugged me so much that when I was bear specced I had my DND tag as "No I won't tank for you." as it was all I was ever being whispered for ;P

The other thing that irks me is the "OMG HI CAN U HEALZ / TANK" to people as they log on... before even saying hello to them.

/hug
/vanish

Anonymous said...

I had the 'if you don't stop nagging me right now I will whisper your Guild Leader and explain, in no uncertain terms, why I will never heal for a member of your Guild' conversation when I'd only hit 60. I've still to hit 70 and seem to spend about 50% of my time with /dnd up And in my case, it's not guildies, it's utterly random people that I've never had contact with...grrr

Khol Drake said...

In case it didn't come across, my comment was totally props. Healers and tanks have every right to be grumpy and vindictive...especially with the way many people treat them.

Anonymous said...

ack that is annoying! One of the reasons I like being a Boomkin - as soon as I mention it they leave me alone ;)

Anonymous said...

My personal favorite is when I get tells from random people I have never heard of while INSIDE a raid instance...

Anonymous said...

"If someone, especially a healer or a tank, says they do not want to go somewhere, do not beg them or badger them. If they give in and go, they are much, much more likely to not cover for your stupid mistakes. They are more likely not to give a !@#$. They are more likely to want you to die and allow it to happen."

This is VERY true. I've let people die because of this and it just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. There may or may not have been mad cackles as well.

You know what else I don't like? I don't like when I've respecced to something other than protection for either PvP or because my guild leader asked me to be DPS for something and someone gets cranky when they ask me to tank heroic something or other and I say I won't until I respec, which won't be until later. Then they whine and complain about it and badger me to respec for them. Not happening unless they're paying me 100g for both respecs. :P

Sorry if I stole your thunder there with my little mini-rant.

A said...

omfg /amen

Bell said...

@naissa- no, don't worry, I love stories. Steal my thunder all you want! :D

Brent said...

I quite often run dual-box, with my raiding main healer following along behind one of my DPS characters.

Every time I heal the DPS character, it is my focus, and I set a DND message stating:

Elorael is in HEAL BOT mode. Please contact %f.

Yet despite this, I still get repeated begging and "WTF you're a --insert insult name of the month--. Stop ignoring me"

Anonymous said...

You have my sympathies. I have a pally tank and sometimes i feel like stabbing moronic DPS people.
Most of the time they perform underpar and as soon as something goes wrong, blame is on tanks or healers.
If people give me flak during an instance after i say, "this isn't going to work out, i gtg" here is the paladin solution to the problem


1) pull 3 x groups
2) Bubble
3) Hearth
4) whisper apologies to healer and mail gold for repair bill

i love your blog btw :)

Anonymous said...

so true, Lately I don't even log into my raiding main (holy priest) until shortly before a raid is scheduled. I spend most of my time farming on my various unguilded alts ( the newest is a Druid, hence I am here :P )