I've been itching for a long time now and finally decided to speak up for Healers. This will be one long rant.
I've been a healer in A LOT of MMOs, basically every MMO i've played before. Healing is what i LOVE most. Only accidentally I've became a tank in RO2. I hope that makes me a good tank, as though I'm not so good at switching targets and holding threat on everything, I believe that I understand healers and try to make their job as easy as possible. Even if it annoys DPS. (ur dps! ur job is already simple enough, im not gonna make it even easier!)
Healers are most sought for players in most games. Not even just MMORPG. In LoL most people prefer to play dps too.
Obviously that puts healers in high demand. That doesnt change their supply much though. Of course still some players decide to make a healer just to have no trouble finding a party/raid, but such people mostly either don't make all the way or become those dps priests that fail at healing and shoot lightning around instead. Such cases are minority, as they eventualy start playing something they really enjoy.
What's left are those nice guys who honestly enjoy healing people. I want to stress that absolutely MOST people choose to play HEAL because they are NICE. Like real trying-to-help-everyone-around-even-if-it-hurts-himself nice. They can't hate others even if they do
, they can only be disappointed; they can't be mean only because they want to, they already aim for greater good.
If a priest didn't rez you before looting it may be because he's a turd, most likely he was just distracted/spaced out after a hard fight. If he didn't join your party, maybe he had some other agreement.
If he didn't join you and said he wants a full party, maybe he just thinks that those, who already went through trouble of gathering 4 people deserve to be prioritized than some guy who was most likely use him as a leverage to get himself a party on his conditions (like not allowing other people of his class in). You could have gathered 4 people yourself before inviting a priest. (We know who that part of rant was aimed at.)
Then most priests do all the dungeons so many times that every next time literally hurts them. Limited number of people cant satisfy everyone.
Especially since half of them don't even bother to be nice and think of that poor guy who has all the responsibility and has it hardest.
Other players on their team tend to ignore aoe (because it's not their job to watch their health), ignore ads (it's not their job again), ignore strategy (those stupid stratedies hurt their dps) and don't do breaks (why would they if their health is full). Also sometimes dps think that sharing 1 pack of mobs is lame and pull a pack each.
Ofc noone focuses anything ever too. Tank's supposed to keep his threat off that deviant rogue by AOE alone, or he's a bad tank and it's all his fault (just some personal insecurity, noone complained yet, but happens often).
Anywai priests are SICK of most dungeons, they see them more as a DUTY than some exciting new experiense. They likely don't need anything from it any more.
So some requests (not demands) like getting all greens (maybe they need mats to level BS) or doing trash (Khara) aren't outrageous demands, it's them trying to get SOMETHING for their WORK. They're being your personal guardian angel and tolerate all your quirks and as you will never get that thought yourself, they try to make you do something nice to them too.
As a most in-demand class, priests find parties to dungeons in a flash, because that's one of the few things that actually REQUIRE a healer. But once they're outside... They're just a bother (except world-bosses). They're slow, they have no damage output, they leech on your experience...
People don't understand how hard it is to level in a grind-based game with only one damaging spell. That is not their problem. Priests are supposed to be somewhere around always ready to heal a dungeon/boss/whatever, never have any needs and poop rainbows all around. People generally avoid forming a static leveling party with anyone but their IRL buddies. Synchronizing your play-time is a butt. Thus people rarely party for more than a few quests and only when they discover that they have all the same quests. Such coincidences are a rare thing and people HATE doing same thing over again for someone else's sake.
And that is even worse in priests' case. As I already mentioned grinding with only one dmg spell is ridiculously frustrating. If i have a miniboss to kill on my young priest i most often fight it for long enough that people around get annoyed and finish it for me. That means that most Khara are just out of question. Only the most basic and necessary quests. That's why wherever I go on my warior i see loads of underleveled (relative to the aone they're in) priests bunching up together to do quests like some OUTCASTS. Because apparently only other priests bother to help their kind. They not only have to do less quests to avoid going insane, they also share the combat experience with each other which SETS THEM BACK even more.
Think about it. How many of you helped a priest even once on your way to 50? Not with some world boss or dungeon (it's a moot point who helped who there), but in their everyday questing, grinding, something boring.
Seeing how people ignore others in dungeons (dont wait for dead before looting, not waiting for casters to eat, stealing tanking rings from tanks and shouting NEED! when a dps ring drops 5 minutes later =/) i don't expect many did.
So the point of this rant is: Be mindful of those who have your back in the toughest moments. Next time you login into the game - ask in LFG or Public or Trade if some priest needs help with his quests. They try to avoid bothering other people with their own problems, but they DESPERATELY NEED someone to be bothered.
And even if you don't have time for that (who are we kidding, it's not about time) - please at least tell your friends about priests' hardships and give them a nudge towards being generous once in a while and giving some of their time to help those in need.
If you do that, you will notice soon that your friendlist is packed with happy high-level priests ready to jump into action at a wave of your hand.
Be Nice.
Thanks.
