I remember that thread. That was simply a poorly ran guild, and most of the responses were telling the poster to just find a different guild. Stuff like that happens all the time unfortunatly. Good leaders know what to look for in a healer.The main problem was that the raid leader thought: "high on meters" = "good healer"; "lower on the meters" = "the one at fault".
Which is an oversimplification others will make every time if we support it some of the time, and in the example given it was misleading.
One of our Holy Paladins takes a huge hit to her hps by focusing 90% of her attention to the tanks, especially on fights with massive tank damage. Everone on our healing team understands the reasoning, as do our raid leaders. It allows the raid healers to focus on the raid, and not have to constantly worry about tanks not being looked after. Many "tank healers" just keep a modicum of their attention focused on the tanks they are supposed to be healing, and it just becomes various healers pitching in, but when the shit hits the fan no one is prepared. Dedicated tank healers with supplemental healing from the raid healers are where it's at, but some people would just not be willing to take that hit to hps. I include myself in that category as I would not be happy at all as a tank healer.
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On a personal skill level, I suppose I can agree with this. Being a DPS is not difficult. Being a DPS performing to max potential is difficult. Tanking in raids is also more about personal skill. Picking stuff up, switches, CD usage, etc. It is a bit more involved than dps as you have to pay attention to what is going on around you, as well as yourself, but in the end the current formula is akin to the DPS role in personal responsability.Remember Wild Growth in FL? Holy Radiance in Dragon Soul? Spinning Crane Kick in MSV? Ye, so do I. With Renewing Mists continuing the trend in ToT. Since ever smart heals were implemented, healing requires very little, if any skill at all, and is currently by far the easiest raid role in the game.
Healing difficulty, on the other hand, is directly proportinal to not only personal skill, but also to the skill of everyone else in the raid. If everyone is performing perfectly, healing won't be much of a challange, unless you severly undergear an encounter. Now if people are messing up, your job just got a lot harder, and that is completely out of your control. Healing is either the easiest (and most boring) role, as evidenced on farm content, or the hardest because you have to adjust to every single mistake someone in the raid makes.
Don't get me wrong, there is overlap between the roles. You aren't in a vacuum in a raid setting. Everything has the potential to effect something else in a dozen ways. Healers just end up taking the brunt of those effects as their role is there to make sure everyone else can do theirs.