What do you do when you see a priest in a pug play wrong?

[zenkai]

Ran a heroic random yesterday with 3 people on my server, Prot paly, Arms War, Warlock, and Me. I really didn't feel like healing it and I wanted to get through it fast and since I greatly out gear the other 2 dps I figured this was the way to go. So we queue up for a heroic hoping to get a decent healer so I wouldn't have to kick them and heal myself. We end up randoming VP (easy dungeon) with a holy priest in 333/346 gear, cool I thought this might be ok.

Well first trash pull priest goes oom really fast, but we get through it with tanks CD's and me healing, second pull priest is OOM, I was like wtf? we're even banishing one of the targets and we burn one down pretty fast. So I look at their spell list and all I see is FH's/GH's a couple of PoMs and a couple of Renews... So the 3rd pull same thing, I go oom popping out of shadow to heal the tank (warrior died a lot during all of this). So my thinking is, if they can't even make it through at trash pack they sure in the heck won't make it through a boss fight

So what would you do? I thought about telling them now to heal, I even had it typed out that they should be using 1 renew and spamming the tank with heal chakara and serenity. But then I thought to myself, it's late at night I just want to get this done so I can go to bed and I shouldn't have to explain to an 85 priest how to heal. So I vote kicked them out and end up randoming a disc priest from another server who I had ran with before (i remembered them because they were decent in a recent GB and has a really funny guild name) and we ended up clearing the rest of the instance with no problem other then the second boss because they disc priest never been there before. But once I explained the best way to see/avoid twisters it was no problem (nice Blizz is addressing that on PTR)

Do you think it's bad taste to tell someone how to play? That was part of my other problem I didn't really want to offend them either. I am usually nice and patient with most pugs, and if it's just a minor thing like a good tip I will usually casually throw it out.

[La]

As a tank I would've asked them why they were healing how they were, why they were using flash heal when it should never be used except on procs, or when the tank is very low, and even then they should use greater heal. Some people just don't know how to heal properly and while I could sit there and explain to them how to do it properly it's their job to do that, not mine. So yeah.. I'd kick them :/

[Ynna]

As long as you remain polite I don't see any problems in teaching players who are doing things wrong (And I really mean WRONG here, not just a little bit different). What I usually do is ask them if they feel mana is a problem, or I ask them why they are using a particular talent or spell. I then continue by saying I play a priest myself and I found that I don't go out of mana that fast when I do X instead of what they're doing, or I chose talent/spell Y for that reason.
I think this is the most non-intrusive way of guidance, since in the end it is still their choice whether they listen or not.

[Siri]

Sometimes I do, can't always be bothered though and if they don't seem interested in listening I drop it pretty fast.
It doesn't only apply to priests either, I have a working knowledge of most classes/specs so I can give advice to a lot of players.

If I'm in a foul mood I'll probably tell them to shut up and listen or get the fuck out.

[aloak]

One can give some tips but if it's beyond "fixable" (like a priest who doesn't have enough spirit), you can just explain politely that he's not prepared to do an heroic run and ask him to leave.

[chir0n]

I usually heal and while doing so I saw a lot of shadowpriests struggling on mana.
I then check their combatlogs and sometimes I see they don't cast SW: D at all, so I politely suggest they should try using that for 10% mana return.

Cause bitching around won't get you anywhere.. never

I think that telling people how to heal is a bit more difficult. Cause a selfrespecting priest usually will notice that they are struggling to keep people/mana up and the last they want to hear is an avalanche of comments of how theyre doing it wrong. Think with positive feedback and some suggestions it can get a lot better maybe?

[Cortex]

I do tell ppl how to play.

Most cases ppl get upset and gop all defensive, then they soften up when i am still being nice - though some just dont want to listen and get rude.
But i have had ppl realy showing intrest and straying around after instance to ask q's.

Usualy it helps to be humble and tell them that we all need to learn stuff all over now etc.

[lkonig]

If you ask me it's how you approach the person. Some people cannot accept positive criticism and they get all defensive. If it were me as long as the player is being nice and not saying something like hey jackass who taught you how to heal you should be doing this or that then I am totally cool with advice.

[ddk]

Shadowstep > Ambush > Kidney Shot > Shadow Dance > Ambush > Ambush > Cheap Shot > Backstab > Backstab.

Easy.

[Manito]

Learn to quote?

One thing to remember is: People will not get better unless you tell them what they are doing wrong. I think just kicking people is not a way of making better players or solving the over all issue.

[Deleted]

Since I dont know a sh.. thing of how to play priest I simply tell him to improve, and get myself votekicked by a reason *tard healer* because rest 3 players in grp cant see a difference between my char and healer char xD

[Parker]

I almost always will say something to someone not doing what they should. I try to be nice about it, but sometimes you have to be a jerk to get people to actually LISTEN. Since I prefer to heal its almost never a healer its always a Tank or DPS. I never used to say anything, i was polite and patient, but with cata i have lost a lot of faith for "LFD". Some top players I have had the... pleasure... of playing with are; I was with a DK that only did white (read auto attack) damage and one disease, OR an Assassin Rogue that only used SS, OR a arcane mage using frostfire bolt and ice lance. Or my personal favorite, A warlock that would dot a target up (aff) and wand at full health and mana... some of these might seem trivial, however when something was said, almost always the reply was "I know what I am doing" sorry to say but when you pull under 5k and you dont even use the correct spells per your talents... No.. you don’t

[Zorgen]

I know that a lot of changes have been made to all classes.. but how does one level to 85 without learning how to heal?

[Ultima]

I was running a dungeon when I was levelling my Mage with a tank friend. We had a random Holy Priest and he was sitting in Sanctuary and using it on every pack, for single target healing.

I typed out an explanation on what they should be doing in whisper, but thanks to the lovely Blizzard, I can't whisper players from servers with more than one word (Dave-Grim cannot be found, when it's Dave-Grim Batol). I felt sorry for outing him in party chat instead, but I had to. He said "ok" and proceeded to heal as he was. We kicked him, and funnily enough, got a Disc Priest replacement. Damage was high, so packs were not an issue after that.

[Deleted]

I know that a lot of changes have been made to all classes.. but how does one level to 85 without learning how to heal?

You can heal from 80-84 using the WotLK style of healing, it's only once you hit 85 where heals get insanely expensive and FH/GH stop being our main spells.

For OP, it's difficult to give people advice because it's human nature to not like being told how to play your class by a random person, but you could maybe try and hide your advice by commenting on how expensive FH/GH are in Cata and how you don't like it, you could then say that once you started using Heal to heal it got alot better.

[Ebbikenezer]

Imo - It's NEVER in bad taste to point out when someone can be doing something better as long as you're not being a dick about it. They may rage, and think they know better, such on and so forth..... but after hearing it more often they will think back on what you told them and realize you were just being helpful.

Not going to be able to get people to realize what they're doing wrong every time, so the best way to handle it is point it out and hope for the best, and replace as necessary.

[MoanaLisa]

You could say something in private like, "I might have an idea on a way to help you with mana," or you can just say straight out that you're doing it wrong or get rude and insulting from the start. I've seen all 3 and to my regret have done the last as well in the past.

Like someone said above, approach is pretty much everything. Some people really distinguish between being helped and being educated, much less abused.

What to do after advice is offered and either accepted or rejected is another issue. Very often, we say what we think/know needs to be done and expect all players to instantly just change their playstyle to do that. Some times, for me anyway, it takes rearranging a few things like action bars or keybinds to make a change of any significance happen so a fix is never quite instantaneous. Wanting to change and the ability to instantly change are different things.

[Bender]

This subject is relevant for all healers really, and to a lesser extent dps/tanks. The thing is that you really do need to educate bads or simply kick them, because the instances can't be completed if you have a healer who spams the equivalent of flash/greater heal. I usually go about it gently if I'm in a good mood, it often works after they noticed themselves that it isn't working out for them. There is a limit to my patience though and I feel as if it is not my job to educate others in how to l2p. I feel kind of bad about it, but I have been kicking a lot of people since I started running cata hcs.

[Skarrd]

This applies to all roles really, it's just more noticable with healers and tanks since they can't be carried by 2 other people doing their role.

I give tips/strat rundowns all the time in pugs. If people don't learn/care/can't take the criticism, then I kick them. Especially tanks. Lots of tanks seem to have become divas because they control the queue and success of a run or something. Nobody wants to lose their tank they waited 40m in a dps queue for, and it gets on my nerves when tanks think they can just skip bosses without a care for what the other 4 people need. I've started to just say "kick me or do the boss. hope you end up with a garbage replacement healer" and the dps tend to side with me, especially if they need the JP/loot as well. Dunno why tanks have such a sense of entitlement now.

[shaa]

Pretty much agree with everyone else in that if you are polite and are giving advice to better that person, I don't think it's in bad taste. Some people may just play 'for fun' and won't want to hear it, but the whole party probably doesn't want to continue wiping either.