Monday, November 12, 2007

Every time you heal a rogue*

While it's potentially blasphemous or irreverent, the title is pretty descriptive of how I feel. Especially when I'm healing a Karazhan or a Heroic, the rogues (and other DPS classes) don't get as much of my attention. My primary goal is to keep the tank(s) in a fully upright and locked position.

What this means to the DPS classes out there is this -- if you draw aggro, you're probably not going to be getting much of a healer's attention. You might; you might not. It really all sort of depends on what kind of shape the tank is in at the moment.

A good rule of thumb, perfectly summed up by my good friend Neith is "If it weren't for shadow priests, rogues would never get healed." And this goes perfectly well with other DPS classes (as noted in the footnote). You have a job to do, keep your aggro below the tank's aggro. That way the healer can more better focus his or her attention on the tank. It's less frenetic and more mana efficient.

Now, this isn't to say a healer expects you as a DPS class to take zero damage. There are area attacks. The monsters are going to try to give you chin music. But if you keep your aggro down, then all the hate can be focused on the tank. That makes it easy to focus all the healing on him or her as well.

* Insert the favorite DPS class here. They all apply.

1 comment:

Xizang said...

Well, this is why heroics are heroics. If you (as a DD) can't handle your threat on that level, better don't go there.

On the other hand, there are occasions where someone else but the tank will need your love as a healer. If I do multi-mob kiting for CC, and ranged mobs hit me, I better get your heal or the mobs will come right for you!

So it is a question of whether the player taking damage sticked to the plan, or violated it. As a healer, you are to judge this.