I predict a healer shortage on Cataclysm

[Naturcide]

shouldn't they be trying to make tanking and healing easier/ less effort to encourage more players to play them...?

It was easier in Wrath. To the point where it became boring. That's what the Devs want to change and i for one am in favor of it. However, the OP has a point. Randoms will probably be terrible until everyone outgears them by a few tiers.

[Spl4sh3r]

If you want people to learn to move out of stuff, don't heal the DPS unless there is an unavoidable AoE (or random targetting spell) that is meant to damage the DPS. Any other occassions it's the DPS's fault if they die.

[Heaterz 88]

If you carry them, they will not learn. If they stand in fire etc. etc., let them die and they will learn. That's what I'll do.

the good part is that if they do in fact stand in fire. they will die. there is no carrying ppl. avoidable dmg must be avoided in cata.

[firestarter451]

Play a priest and yank them out of the fire.

Well, you'll be adding me to your ranks of healers so now we have Shortage - 1

to quote portal, speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out

[Thetruth1400]

Good players will adapt quickly, bad players will not.

This. Sadly though, the majority of the player base is made of bad players and therefore I agree with the OP.

I have already decided that if I get Cataclysm (only a 10% chance I will) that I'll be playing either as a Shadow priest or Mage and hoping that things get better on the healer front.

Blizzard just isn't ready for the expansion to ship yet, balance just isn't ready. Yes, the fanboys can jump in now and say "But the game is never balanced, there's no way to do that and a game of this size has to ship with problems." but that's just fanaticism talking. This game doesn't need to ship before it's ready. The Blizzard of old would never do something like that, but that motto / business model has long since passed.

[Deleted]

It's probably better to run with guildies anyway

[Rezhial]

I too have been playing beta, not as a healer, but as an observant DPS. Most tanks and other dps for that matter still feel its okay to absorb all sorts of avoidable damage and wait around on the healer. I actually recall a pretty experience in HSC the other as follow:

Worm boss hits 66% and burrows.
Tank gets one shot due to being mentally inept and eating his one shot ability when he emerges.
"Wtf no heals?"
"you need to move out of that"
"ur bad"
Soandso leaves the group.


I hope it doesn't take TOO long to fix this come December 7th, but we will see.

[SolarLunar]

I too have been playing beta, not as a healer, but as an observant DPS. Most tanks and other dps for that matter still feel its okay to absorb all sorts of avoidable damage and wait around on the healer. I actually recall a pretty experience in HSC the other as follow:

Worm boss hits 66% and burrows.
Tank gets one shot due to being mentally inept and eating his one shot ability when he emerges.
"Wtf no heals?"
"you need to move out of that"
"ur bad"
Soandso leaves the group.


I hope it doesn't take TOO long to fix this come December 7th, but we will see.

After playing a priest and healing since vanilla i agree that people should be "virtually shot" when they criticize a healer for a fault of their own, but it is not something that Blizzard can fix. The player base needs to mature a bit, but the game itself is fine.

[Heaterz 88]

its not gonna be a mass shortage of healers. its gonna be a mass shortage of retards

[Naturcide]

I wish there was a "like" option for people in randoms that worked like ignore only opposite. If you "like " a certain person it would match you up again. Sometimes you do get some great players in randoms........sometimes

[cFortyfive]

Who would blame them healing is boring as hell.

[Lekscene]

I'm going to tell you guys right now that the healing/raid damage/tank damage/etc in heroic dungeons is very different than in raids, on beta.

As someone who has cleared all the content in the game before nerfs, loved M'uru and HM LK, loved every encounter that challenged me as a player and not JUST a healer... the raid encounters on beta right now, at least some fights, are a bit unbalanced (overtuned and undertuned). They don't exactly fit with the design model they have in mind for healers. For example- they want us to be comfortable with people not being topped off, but have mechanics in place where people will die if they are not kept at 100%. It isn't even about people playing poorly.

[Minimegamax]

Im making a priest

[Amplus]

Interesting. I've been healing on beta as a resto druid (as well as tanking as feral) and I've really only had one bad group so far. It seems like most people on beta are mindful enough of the difference between WotlK heroics, and Cata heroics... once the dishevelled masses start pugging though.... *shudder*

[Wolfgank]

Thank god. No offense but the game is fully of crappy healers who heard they can be immortal in pvp, and they are, now actually having to use your skull to play instead of your spam macro, it's hard. Right. Good riddance I say. It will be nice to see, or rather not see dumbass druids running around spamming instants, holy paladins fol-ing everyone to full, with 80%+ mana at all the time.

Hey but at least, this way we can see who is the shitty fotm-er and who is the true healer. Haha!

[Zonned]

My main is a shadow priest with a holy off spec, for me healing was not really something I enjoyed doing but something I used to speed up dungeon ques and deepen my raid versatility. I never shined or number crunched as a healer, I just copied whatever the most popular tree was and set up a bunch of healbot macros. It was after all my off spec and as long as I could keep people alive and no one complained about my performance I didn't really care.

Catacalysm however is making healing significantly harder, just because of the massive health pools, heals aren't healing for what they used to, mp5 seems weaker overall and its easy to run yourself dry. People in the new heroics often stand in fire, get killed in 1.5 seconds and then blame you for their death.

While never a huge fan of healing I find myself liking it even less in Cataclysm, however given that I'm a priest and its my off spec I couldn't really change it even if I wanted to.

[Krystal]

I predict a shortage of healers, too. Simply because.. healing is already difficult with dealing with idiots standing in fire.. it's gonna suck even more when you simply CAN'T heal them because of mana, and you'll just get screamed at..

But yea.. I'm going to be doing all guild heroics for quite some time anyways.

[Deleted]

My view of Cataclysm is that everyone will do MOST of their things with other guild members because of guild reputation and guild leveling. But then in randoms there will be a shortage of healers or tanks. Probably healers since the healing has changed quite a lot since the patch.

Note: There will ALWAYS be a shortage of something. It's just the way the world works.

[Myrrar]

Good players will adapt quickly, bad players will not.

This.

Anyone who healed pre-Wrath raids will still heal and if they are any good, will love the new healing. Those who only healed Wrath will have a lot of trouble and yeah, will probably quit healing.

And as for getting mad you can't heal people through stupid, that's nothing to do with the healer. If dps don't take defensive talent points or use their skills, they will die a lot. If they stand in fire, they will die a lot. Don't heal them and let them rack up their own repair bills.

If your tank is crap, kick him. If you can't, leave. Healers/tanks wont be able to carry baddies anymore, thank god.

[silverhope]

I have rules as a healer.. If you pull and the tank is not near you.. you get no heals.. If you stand in bad shit and dont try to move.. you die.

Its called tough love baby! They will learn at some point