If the healer won't heal, is it appropriate as the tank to leave the group?

[Jester Joe]

He asked if leaving the group was the right choice and we're being honest — no, it probably wasn't, based on the details in the OP and the assumption he wasn't dying due to lack of healing.

Tanks have incredible control over their survival, the mobs, and the DPS rate of the dungeon at this point. It's reasonable to make that clear to a new tank who's worried about it.

Honestly, most people are just happy you made their queue pop. They don't care how fast or slow you pull, or if you're slightly difficult to heal, or you die once or twice and tell people "I'm learning to play Tank spec". You'll get a few jerks that drop group (which is only hurting them, so who cares?) or act impatient, but usually, people understand and you're better off sticking around to learn.

He also said he was getting close to dying, and he wasn't comfortable with that. I agree with that he could of kept going fine, and could of easily blamed the healer if anything bad happened, but still, can't just say it was a wrong choice because he could of kept going dealing with the healer that refused to heal. He was justified in leaving in my opinion. I still stand by that I think it's odd that people are so harsh on tanks on this forum, why should he of had to deal with a healer that wasn't healing? Just on the sole argument of he could? He shouldn't have to, the healer used queuing up as a healer to skip the dps queue, and the tank should just have to deal with it?

[Lovestar]

He also said he was getting close to dying, and he wasn't comfortable with that.

I cannot find a single line in the OP that says this. All he says is he "had to keep himself alive", but that's easy to do as Brewmaster and perfectly normal since you have tons of self-healing.

Since he doesn't even have Desperate Measures at 40, his damage intake couldn't have been that bad if he's keeping himself alive in DM with "next to no healing", and that's my assumption for why the Shaman was DPSing and off-healing.

If the OP would respond to any of our comments, we might have a more accurate understanding than the vague summary he left us with.

I still stand by that I think it's odd that people are so harsh on tanks on this forum, why should he of had to deal with a healer that wasn't healing? Just on the sole argument of he could? He shouldn't have to, the healer used queuing up as a healer to skip the dps queue, and the tank should just have to deal with it?

No one's singling out tanks. We point out healers should be DPSing in leveling dungeons, and DPS can just offheal or ghetto-tank if a Tank drops. The point is that leveling dungeons are more like GW2 where everyone just does random crap and fills in everything as needed, not Heroic SoO where you need and expect everyone to do their designated job.

And he has to deal with a healer that isn't healing because it's leveling dungeons and no one is going to die and it's faster to just get XP and not muck up the run for the DPS that did nothing wrong and waited about 20x longer for their queue to pop.

If you're inexperienced/uncomfortable with tanking, that's fine, but that's your own issue while you're learning — don't project it onto everyone else and blame them for expecting what they usually get in a leveling dungeon .

[Jester Joe]

I cannot find a single line in the OP that says this. All he says is he "had to keep himself alive", but that's easy to do as Brewmaster and perfectly normal since you have tons of self-healing.

Since he doesn't even have Desperate Measures at 40, his damage intake couldn't have been that bad if he's keeping himself alive in DM with "next to no healing", and that's my assumption for why the Shaman was DPSing and off-healing.

If the OP would respond to any of our comments, we might have a more accurate understanding than the vague summary he left us with.

No one's singling out tanks. We point out healers should be DPSing in leveling dungeons, and DPS can just offheal or ghetto-tank if a Tank drops. The point is that leveling dungeons are more like GW2 where everyone just does random crap and fills in everything as needed, not Heroic SoO where you need and expect everyone to do their designated job.

And he has to deal with a healer that isn't healing because it's leveling dungeons and no one is going to die and it's faster to just get XP and not muck up the run for the DPS that did nothing wrong and waited about 20x longer for their queue to pop.

If you're inexperienced/uncomfortable with tanking, that's fine, but that's your own issue while you're learning — don't project it onto everyone else and blame them for expecting what they usually get in a leveling dungeon .

Well, on the first part I'll agree I read "having to keep myself alive" as coming close to dying, just the way I interpreted it.
The problem continues onto though that I would hardly consider a few healing surges off healing. He could of at least been dropping healing stream, it takes less work than healing surge does even.
The rest if you poke into any thread about a tank that possibly complained about something, most people are ripping them apart, saying "Tanks aren't needed anyway, stop pausing, chain pull more". If you honestly don't see how toxic people are to tanks in these forums, I'm not going to bother arguing against it at this point.
The fact is though, that healer hit to queue up as a healer, they were being selfish as they were trying to shorten their own queue and not care about who was tanking, yet it's the tanks fault for leaving? If the "healer" didn't just try to shorten their own queue, none of this would of happened, I'd say he's more to blame than the tank.
Also, I would hardly say everyone is expecting to get people not in their right roles as a good thing in a leveling dungeon, it's more of a "Great, I might have to deal with a holy paladin thinking they can tank" or something dumb like that.

[Spraxle]

This is why I don't level via dungeons unless I'm grouped with the tank. It just makes it so easy if they tank, I heal, and we pull the whole instance in two pulls.

[Lovestar]

The fact is though, that healer hit to queue up as a healer, they were being selfish as they were trying to shorten their own queue and not care about who was tanking, yet it's the tanks fault for leaving? If the "healer" didn't just try to shorten their own queue, none of this would of happened, I'd say he's more to blame than the tank.

Yet we have no evidence of this from his vague details.

Leveling my RSham I spent most of the dungeons doing more DPS than the actual DPS while keeping everyone alive without issues, and this was during early Cata well before Resto had the crazy tools it got in MoP. I didn't switch to Resto until about early 50s because there was no healing to do until about Stratholme and its giant mob-patrol clusternuts.

I wasn't queueing as heals to "shorten my queue times", I was queuing as heals because I like healing, but I did it as Elemental because no one needed any healing and a few offheals thrown out on bigger packs was completely sufficient. Meanwhile my function as a 4th DPS increased the tank's life by about the same amount, but also sped up the run.

Even once I swapped to Resto, I mostly just kept Earth Shield & Riptide on the tank while continuing to spam DPS spells and come in 1st or 2nd on Recount (which I don't care about, but just saying — having 4 DPS speeds up the run, 5 if you could the tank's DPS while leveling).

If I got a hardcore tank like this one DK that pulled all of Mana Tombs without stopping, then yes I paid more attention to healing, but for most tanks pulling 1 pack at a time in leveling dungeons I was just staring at the wall if I didn't DPS.

[Jester Joe]

Yet we have no evidence of this from his vague details.

Leveling my RSham I spent most of the dungeons doing more DPS than the actual DPS while keeping everyone alive without issues, and this was during early Cata well before Resto had the crazy tools it got in MoP. I didn't switch to Resto until about early 50s because there was no healing to do until about Stratholme and its giant mob-patrol clusternuts.

I wasn't queueing as heals to "shorten my queue times", I was queuing as heals because I like healing, but I did it as Elemental because no one needed any healing and a few offheals thrown out on bigger packs was completely sufficient. Meanwhile my function as a 4th DPS increased the tank's life by about the same amount, but also sped up the run.

Going by the first few sentences, the OP said that a few trash pulls after entering he realized he wasn't getting any heals. If they entered as a healer, why would they switch to DPS without even healing?

Also just because you did it doesn't make it better to do, if you went into an instance, saw the tank struggling, if he asked you why you weren't healing, or just would prefer you to heal, would you deny him? Not sure what crazy tools you mean shamans got though, except AoE stun totem, Healing Stream reworked, and Healing Tide, but that was in the level 75 tier for a while. Like said already though, healing the tank allows him to pull more and aoe more down, especially as a shaman, earth shield is pretty ridiculous at low levels.

[Cannibalus]

I was eating some chips the other day and all of a sudden 2 of them were extra crunchy... SO I FKIN FLIPPED THE TABLE AND PUNCHED A WALL!!!.

People sometimes complain because they enjoy complaining... srsly it's leveling.

[Terridon]

Better to leave and not have to worry about the bullshit. Eat the deserter debuff if you get it and move on.

Takes so long before you can kick them anyway. Just remember to kill first boss before you leave, so you don't get deserter debuff, and then go for a new group.
The best action would of course be to kick him overall, but the hassle you will have doing so is just not worth it. Overall it's too hard to kick people.

- - - Updated - - -

Yet we have no evidence of this from his vague details.

Leveling my RSham I spent most of the dungeons doing more DPS than the actual DPS while keeping everyone alive without issues, and this was during early Cata well before Resto had the crazy tools it got in MoP. I didn't switch to Resto until about early 50s because there was no healing to do until about Stratholme and its giant mob-patrol clusternuts.

I wasn't queueing as heals to "shorten my queue times", I was queuing as heals because I like healing, but I did it as Elemental because no one needed any healing and a few offheals thrown out on bigger packs was completely sufficient. Meanwhile my function as a 4th DPS increased the tank's life by about the same amount, but also sped up the run.

Even once I swapped to Resto, I mostly just kept Earth Shield & Riptide on the tank while continuing to spam DPS spells and come in 1st or 2nd on Recount (which I don't care about, but just saying — having 4 DPS speeds up the run, 5 if you could the tank's DPS while leveling).

If I got a hardcore tank like this one DK that pulled all of Mana Tombs without stopping, then yes I paid more attention to healing, but for most tanks pulling 1 pack at a time in leveling dungeons I was just staring at the wall if I didn't DPS.

The tank will do more damage than any other in the group. As a monk tank leveling i did 50-60% of the damage and the monk dps i leveled with did 20-25%. When the healers insisted they were better off dpsing my damage fell down, and i couldn't pull as fast and it went slower. Same for warrior, paladin, DK etc.

As much as people want to excuse themself from doing the role they signed up for it's rarely working.
Had a shammy doing it in the beginning of HCs in MoP where it worked, but he asked me if he should do it, first.

[Lamelight]

When I RAFed up my druid I only leveled in dungeons. the druid had 0 looms and I just had my shammy go ele and bound LB to every keybind (douboxing) up untill around level 50, then I needed to start going resto for ES and riptide.. healing in low level dungeons is about as much to do as healing in lfr..

[Raiju]

The tank will do more damage than any other in the group. As a monk tank leveling i did 50-60% of the damage and the monk dps i leveled with did 20-25%. When the healers insisted they were better off dpsing my damage fell down, and i couldn't pull as fast and it went slower. Same for warrior, paladin, DK etc.

As much as people want to excuse themself from doing the role they signed up for it's rarely working.
Had a shammy doing it in the beginning of HCs in MoP where it worked, but he asked me if he should do it, first.

Not quite sure how you dropped dps while tanking as a low level monk but I'll entertain it - healers can do nearly as much as tanks. They do far more than dps than your average dps (I levelled a warlock recently and could beat most tanks, but the healer would usually be next on the meter). The dps you have to gain from the 1 survival button you hit every 10~seconds needs to be fairly significant to warrant them healing instead of dpsing.

[steveyboy]

i leveled my healer priest without ever casting a healing spell, atonement did enough. and most times I was top dps.

Never complain unless you die at most twice

Now point to what spells shamans can use to dps and heal at the same time otherwise this point is invalid.

[Raiju]

Now point to what spells shamans can use to dps and heal at the same time otherwise this point is invalid.

healing stream totem

[Jester Joe]

healing stream totem

I believe they literally meant it heals as you do damage, but there are easy things to do as a resto shaman while leveling for dps.
Drop healing stream and just spam lightning bolt, flame shock, and lava burst. Use Searing totem. Heck, you could probably just throw Earth Shield on the tank and use the glyph that each Lightning bolt has a chance to add another charge to the Earth Shield. Especially at level 90, just drop primal fire elemental and watch it pull like 100k burst for you.

[Radio]

I don't think that we should re-enforce the "tanks tank, healers heal, dps dps" mentality, because it is not the way that you should be thinking if you want to learn tanking under the current paradigm.

Tanks in MoP are the biggest contributor to their own survival, NOT the healer(s), and this stays the case well through heroic raiding. In my opinion, having 4 DPS and 1 tank in levelling 5 mans is probably the best way to practice tank self-sufficiency and mess with your survival toolkit before you have the added pressure that you get when you get to max level content. The ideal MoP tank is an independant tank, they focus on keeping themselves alive, rather than waiting/hoping that their healers will do it. Of course healers will still contribute to a tanks life, but a tank who waits on that healer is probably already dead in any kind of difficult content.

OP, don't leave a group next time this happens, use the opportunity to test your toolkit, find your limits and stretch yourself a little.

[runedhill]

I didn't want to deal with the hassle of kicking him, so I just said "if you can't be bothered to heal, I can't be bothered to tank" and left them. I don't understand this.

I don't understand this either, why would you do something so stupid? He's just going to keep doing it now they're not only going to wait for a tank but they're going to end up kicking the healer, so you wasted their time 2-fold. You should've just done the right thing and kick him.

[Lamelight]

I don't understand this either, why would you do something so stupid? He's just going to keep doing it now they're not only going to wait for a tank but they're going to end up kicking the healer, so you wasted their time 2-fold. You should've just done the right thing and kick him.

Most likely they just go on without the tank..

[Frolk]

If a hybrid wanna dps while healing thats cool, as long u keep my alive when i pull normally, (as in 5-6packs in each go) then dps all u want

[Jester Joe]

I don't think that we should re-enforce the "tanks tank, healers heal, dps dps" mentality, because it is not the way that you should be thinking if you want to learn tanking under the current paradigm.

Tanks in MoP are the biggest contributor to their own survival, NOT the healer(s), and this stays the case well through heroic raiding. In my opinion, having 4 DPS and 1 tank in levelling 5 mans is probably the best way to practice tank self-sufficiency and mess with your survival toolkit before you have the added pressure that you get when you get to max level content. The ideal MoP tank is an independant tank, they focus on keeping themselves alive, rather than waiting/hoping that their healers will do it. Of course healers will still contribute to a tanks life, but a tank who waits on that healer is probably already dead in any kind of difficult content.

OP, don't leave a group next time this happens, use the opportunity to test your toolkit, find your limits and stretch yourself a little.

I would disagree about this, because they said with WoD they plan on reinforcing the trinity again, so it's probably a good idea to start getting into the practice, and the fact that I think it's an overstatement about it being in heroic raiding too. I would say it's about 60% tank, 40% healing in that case. The tank does have more responsibility, but only slightly, because no matter how well they play, they need healing too.

[Lovestar]

I would disagree about this, because they said with WoD they plan on reinforcing the trinity again, so it's probably a good idea to start getting into the practice, and the fact that I think it's an overstatement about it being in heroic raiding too. I would say it's about 60% tank, 40% healing in that case. The tank does have more responsibility, but only slightly, because no matter how well they play, they need healing too.

No they didn't. The most they've said is that healers will need to choose their targets more carefully, triage will matter more due to inability to keep people topped up (Cata deja vu...), and that Tank self-healing might be affected by the redesigns to Vengeance.

The trinity still exists right now in content that 'matters', there's nothing to reinforce, and I'm extremely sceptical you'll see any major changes to the current a) leveling formula and b) treatment of 'easy' content like Normal Dungeons and LFR.

@Radio is correct and, as we've covered ad-nauseum in this thread now, there's no reason to flip out during a leveling dungeon unless you're actually dying, and that's very difficult to do if you apply some basic sense to your actions and ability usage.

Healer wants to DPS? Great, stuff dies faster, maybe pull slightly smaller packs more frequently in-pace with your self-survival tools. Healer insists on healing? Great, you can pull the entire dungeon without stopping and let your DPS end it in a giant orgy of AoE.

You waste more time complaining about people not doing it right, than you do just adapting and getting the dungeon done.

[Bllets]

Tanks today have a lot of tools/healing to keep themselves alive. At higher levels this means a tank can end up matching or being higher than the healer on low damage fights. At earlier levels the damage is lower and the tools are fewer.

As a tank; if the healer is doing DPS and not doing ANY healing when needed, like mage is at 40%, I would not leave the group, but get him kicked. But honestly at level 40 I will much rather have the healer heal, and then pull 3-4 groups instead of 1. A 4th DPS may increase DPS, but the reduced amount you can pull will reduce AoE DPS and most likely slow the group down overall, this only applies if the group actually has any good AoE DPS.