Guide to the Would-be Healed

Thanks to Mike and the boss for finally joining forces with me. They have more to say about the finer aspects of tanking and choppin than I ever will.

This post is in honour of Kaboose. If you're a RedvsBlue fan, you can understand just how promising this premise is.

We have a few new recruits in t2 so I logged my Dark Rites specced DoK, Enfermeiro ("Male Nurse", if you're wondering), to help out in scenarios. At a point we had an almost full premade ruling over t2 scenarios. Me and Sarephi, a new Zealot, were in charge of healing, while the boss on his Magus, Xone on his Blackguard, Kahliah the sorc and Krueg on his WE Lilrotir were in charge of the killing. And so it was that we were there, we were merry and we were pwning.

On one of many Mourkain Temples, we were joined by an auspiciously named Marauder. At first glance, a fellow RedvsBlue fan was a prospective vessel for my respect and even though Kaboose disapointed me in the end, we can all learn from his mistakes.

He started off with the succinct crowd favorite "Heal!" in /sc. Every healer that is actually healing knows how twitch inducing this can be. I wasn't about to have that. Especially because I had other people there with me to help bash the poor Kaboose. "WHERE'S MAH HEALS, KABOOOSE?" and several variants were my choice of taunts. We ended up taking home the cake and the 6 emblems and my healing won.

Now here's where it gets interesting and it is on this point I would like to focus on. Kaboose whispered me after we won the scenario and I'll dissect my answer to him step-by-step to help non-healers know what they can and can't expect from healers.

"I don't consider you to be a good healer because I was holding the artifact and I died right next to you." - Kaboose

After much rofling and lmaoing, my answer was as follows:

• "Kaboose, you're as smart as your name implies" - if you're in the dark, Caboose was the brainless comic-relief of RvB.
• "Next time, check your combat log before bitching" - if you think you're not getting healed or not getting healed enough, check your combat log before you nerdrage at whoever it is you think isn't doing his/her job. Sometimes you'll be surprised at how hard someone's trying.
• "There's only so much a healer can do" - sometimes, people go down faster than any cast time. Let's take Kaboose's example for a minute. When he so dramatically died while "right next to me", he was getting hit not only by all the dps Order had but also their tanks and the artifact itself. Me, a lowly DR specced DoK under rk20, had only Restore Essence and Soul Infusion to help him. And instead of falling back a bit, Kaboose bravely stared death right in the eye and died with his back against a wall.

Also, I had no turrets at hand. Turrets I use to spam Consume Essence to build up Soul Essence and also to use my Rend Soul. Unfortunately, most mdps are kind enough to destroy the turrets for me. I don't bitch about it much because their heart is in the right place.

To sum it up, please bear in mind that while you're thinking "if only I'd lived a second longer I could've killed that thing" a healer might be going "if only I hadn't lost LoS (line of sight) he could've lived a second longer".

In truth, I don't hold any grudges against Kaboose. I bet he's a nice guy. He just made a mistake. The mistake of thinking that having a healer makes one invincible, or perhaps the mistake of thinking that he was the only one in need of some healing. Or maybe even the mistake of thinking a dps was the best choice for artifact carrying. Whatever it was he was thinking, Kaboose made a poor choice of judgment. Or several of them in a row. But we've all had our days too.

And the Golden Rule would be, no matter how pissed off you might be, it's never a good idea to upset a healer. You might find yourself dead more often.