Bad experiences with (random) priests

[Samin]

The topic maybe misleading because I don't know if it's bad experiences or if I don't get how priests heal.
I recently run into some priests that in my opinion just healed bad (random heroics) - but I wan't to know if it is common for priets to heal this way. My problem is that these priests didn't top people, which I think is a most normal thing to do after a pull. At least the tank. They seem to forget about dps. I got hit by the WW of the warrior champ in ToC, so I backed off and had to watch how I slowly died (at ~25% health) by some dot I couldn't get rid off. This are just some examples. I don't think only priests are bad healers but it almost seems like a trend to me.
By my observations those were mostly but not only disc priests (judging by visuals of this spell: http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=47515 which is disc only, isn't it?)
I currently level my own priest (still low, 26) and would like to know if it's just hard to top off the whole group in heroics.. or if I just had bad luck with my healing priests.

[Momome]

You just had bad luck with your healing priests.

Do you really think anyone at all would play a priest if they were that horribly underpowered? :P

[Samin]

You just had bad luck with your healing priests.

Do you really think anyone at all would play a priest if they were that horribly underpowered? :P

Well I don't know some people probably don't have a problem with their health being low as long as they survive. I just don't feel well if I or anyone in my group as not full health. My first heal char is a druid and I know they heal differntly than priests..so I just ask. Don't want to blame anyone if they just act 'normal' for their class.

[ardoRic]

definately bad luck. I used to think the priest class (specially Holy priests) had mana regen/management issues due to the fact that most of the priests I used to notice were OOM at mid-fight (and even on heroics).

Then I noticed that those were just a (unfortunately large) subset of all priests. Priests who know what they're doing heal and manage mana just fine.

[Samin]

definately bad luck. I used to think the priest class (specially Holy priests) had mana regen/management issues due to the fact that most of the priests I used to notice were OOM at mid-fight (and even on heroics).

Then I noticed that those were just a (unfortunately large) subset of all priests. Priests who know what they're doing heal and manage mana just fine.

I know a holy paladin who was like this. Gladly he respecced ret. (It was me :)
Thanks for the responses. I'm relieved and will continue levelling my priests through dungeons and in-town quests only.

[kronpas]

you can judge a priest's gear by his/her mana pool. Usually 27 as disc or 23-24k mana unbuffed as holy is a sign of a somewhat decent geared for Heroic, and no excuse for being unable to top the party off.

[ardoRic]

you can judge a priest's gear by his/her mana pool. Usually 27 as disc or 23-24k mana unbuffed as holy is a sign of a somewhat decent geared for Heroic, and no excuse for being unable to top the party off.

I will always remember in the early days of WOTLK, when healers had around 16k mana, a healer quitting on us on random daily heroic AN last boss. We got a priest with 11k mana of whom we were skeptical but thought "wth, let's give him a chance".

That priest was able to heal that long-as-ass fight (i remember the hard times i had keeping mana up on my druid for the duration), without letting anyone die. He got his noob-alert achievement (the I just got my first Heroism emblem) and we got the kill.

Judging people by their mana pool is bad.

EDIT: *ahem* i might be getting too used to the new LFG system

[kronpas]

I lvled, healed with my priest since the first day of WotLK, and be through with all that you said. But the standard of "the old days" and of LFG groups today aint the same. Your 15k mana and sub 2k spell power priest would require a quite a good tank and careful pulls to not strain the healer's mana pool too much. Not to say he/she wouldhave to put tremendous effort to heal bosses like Loken in tank-n-spank style of post 3.3 LFG instance groups. And I was refering to the OP's question about the priest being unable to heal ppl to full, not your general LFG healing.

L2R.

[Peacemoon]

The topic maybe misleading because I don't know if it's bad experiences or if I don't get how priests heal.
I recently run into some priests that in my opinion just healed bad (random heroics) - but I wan't to know if it is common for priets to heal this way. My problem is that these priests didn't top people, which I think is a most normal thing to do after a pull. At least the tank. They seem to forget about dps. I got hit by the WW of the warrior champ in ToC, so I backed off and had to watch how I slowly died (at ~25% health) by some dot I couldn't get rid off. This are just some examples. I don't think only priests are bad healers but it almost seems like a trend to me.
By my observations those were mostly but not only disc priests (judging by visuals of this spell: http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=47515 which is disc only, isn't it?)
I currently level my own priest (still low, 26) and would like to know if it's just hard to top off the whole group in heroics.. or if I just had bad luck with my healing priests.

While most of the time its incompetence, its not always.

If someone is annoying, I might suddenly become slower to act and unfortunately, might not be able to heal them within the 15seconds it took for them to die.

Yesterday in Halls of Stone we had an annoying Death Knight tank, I can't remember what it was she did but she met an untimely end on the last boss just before it died. Same thing happens to Paladins who wont bless after asking me for buffs.

[Blizzro]

Yeah bad luck, my Priest is Disc MS and Holy OS, and everyone is always topped up, even if it's massive overhealing, I don't have to drink in HCs any more and with most tanks I barely have to heal so it's pretty boring as it is.

[Ultima]

Bad luck and I'm sorry for you.

I find Priests to be my second favourite healers in heroics, first being a Resto Druid who is on the ball.

When I'm healing, I just tell the tank to not stop moving and merge packs at his convenience, not in a pushy way, just that he doesn't need to worry.

[Dundebuns]

I'm leveling a disc priest atm (level 68) and coming from a resto shaman main, it's different and varied. I like the mechanic of shields, so peoples health doesn't normally drop below 75% anyway

I think you're just running into bad priests tbh. A lot of people level very quickly as a DPS spec and then switch to a tank or healer, and find out that they didnt l2p as they were leveling. Real, good tanks and healers level that way from day 1 usually

[dddmaster]

i sometimes refuse to heal lousy dps when im on my priest... you dont put effort in it , so why should i bother with it? The tank is working his ass off(and does 2-3 times more dmg then you do) and so do I! In some cases i even bother to dps a bit while healing the tank and actualy outdps a lot of people(mostly dks lol)

[Deleted]

Bad healing priests? As with most classes, specs and roles, the worse ones stick out like a sore thumb.

Why (disc) priests stick out like that? Don't know, are those guys even using some healing addon/raid frame?

I used the stock blizz UI till I got to 80 with my (holy) priest, and sure needed some time to get used to healbot, but now I couldn't imagine healing without an addon like that.

[Darkphyre]

heal and manage mana

..sooo...does that mean I shouldn't be bouncing around spamming holy nova through every fight? :-\

But no, seriously. Except for a handful of fights, thats about all the more it takes as a disc priest to keep your group alive and topped off (assuming you pay attention to the range of your nova) these days. If they can't even manage that...

[Doors79]

i sometimes refuse to heal lousy dps when im on my priest... you dont put effort in it , so why should i bother with it? The tank is working his ass off(and does 2-3 times more dmg then you do) and so do I! In some cases i even bother to dps a bit while healing the tank and actualy outdps a lot of people(mostly dks lol)

I generally agree with this. As a healer in heroics these days most of the time you're not having to do much healing so you can really see what everyone else is doing and can see when a dps is slacking. Myself as a holy priest I can get away with popping a PoM on the tank and let that do the work and DPS the rest of the time, maybe only having to cast a CoH once in a blue moon. It seems to me that the OP had a bad priest or had a good priest who was not healing him because he was doing something idiotic.

[ardoRic]

..sooo...does that mean I shouldn't be bouncing around spamming holy nova through every fight? :-\

By all means, heal however you feel confortable/fun with.

I sometimes like to "play holy pala" on random hc's with my druid. I switch off Tree form and spam Nourish.

As long as I can identify when a situation goes dire and I need a more efficient healing style to pull through, all is good.

[Samin]

I hate healers who think they should be the ones diciding who lives or dies. If I queue as a healer, I see it as my job to keep the group alive. It's the same if I tank, if someone takes away aggro it is my duty to get it back and tell him afterwards to chill down a bit.
Only because I am a unique role in the group (tank or heal) doesn't mean I can just let the others die just as I like. Did people completly lost the ability to just talk about things? I mean if a dps tries to tank after you told him 3 times to stop, you have to make him learn, that he is not able to tank properly. But people really stretch this to much and just let someone die if he gets aggro/damage.

So we have 2 options (according to answers of this thread)
1. Priest somehow couldn't use healbot because it was bugged and was unable to heal
2. Priest saw I took large amount of damage (ToC, melee on warrior champ. Guess What.) And said to himself lolz nub I let him die.

Sad, all the healer/tank elitism just because they've got unique roles in dungeons and are more rare than dps. I don't accept the excuse "but I have the harder job, I can do this"..well if you think it's so hard, just roll an easy dps class/spec.

[Doors79]

It's the same with all classes some players are useless, some brilliant, some helpful, some unhelpful.

There are occassions when it's actually the game/addon going wrong but most of the time not.

The answer is that you can't judge a whole class by your experiences with a handful of players.

[Eletharin]

When they made priets pvp viable (and perhaps a bit OP for a little while there) they got a whole roster of FotM re-rolls which degraded the pool from the stock of people who just liked healing a lot. Also there are always bad players regardless of class.

On my priest I do try to keep the group fully alive at all times, but in most heroics I can out DPS half the group if they remember to not stand in the fires and I can spend some GCDs DPSing. 4 DPS goes a lot faster then 3, so I'm not above trying to implement a little "scared straight" program if they aren't paying attention If you dip a little low for a second it doesn't really hurt anything unless you actually die.

On another note, remember renew is a heal over time. If you take a tick of WW and are on the ball, you won't be taking damage for a few seconds, so throwing a renew and letting it do its job is often an efficient solution. In the story you were relating you also had a DoT and died from it, so you probably just had a bad healer.