Shadow Priest Needs Healing Lessons (lawl)Follow

Okay, here is the situation:
I am a shadow spec., and was invited to a Stratholme group with three other people. I always make sure every group knows that I cant be the exclusive healer-- they can see the Shadowform if nothing else. The group was the others around the same level as I (60 as of this writing), a 58 warrior and a 68 warrior.
After entering, they all just start fighting, so then I decide to. One or two of them start dying, and start barking for me to heal them. Now, I was never asked to actually be the primary group healer, and one of the others was a shaman, so in my eyes, I was as much of a healer as they are. I was asked if I had anything against healing, which I usually dont.
So, we barely get passed the doorway, and they keep pulling groups of undead, and then ******** because I am not healing, and even when I did, they ***** because I was attacking too (well, duh, shadow spec).
Now, they are all cranky, because I told them that I was as much healer as their shaman. Because of the really poor dynamic of this particular group, and I know it was poor since I have done smaller groups in the same instance on the same character; they ALL start dying really quickly and expect me to keep up with the healing while the shaman whines because he will run out of mana if he heals. They tell me, "you are automatically the group healer, because you're a priest."
They called me a "retarded nub", told me to "learn to heal" in their illiterate vernaular, then kicked me from the group (I was the only one with the key to get them out, too).

Does anyone know see something wrong with that situation? How does a shadow spec "learn" to heal, when they are already in the Outlands bracket? At this level, one is either a primary healer, or DPS that happens to be able to heal; I fall into the latter case. How can a retarded newb be expected to heal for a group totally 4 in a level 60 instance, when they are CLEARLY marked as not a healing spec?
The shaman had the exact same excuse I had, yet just because I'm a priest I am supposed to be able to keep up with the ridiculous amount of damage they were taking? The way I see it, if you can heal, then do so! None of us actually were speced for healing, so then it would have been much more efficient to share that responsibility, which I would have gladly done and have never had a probem doing any other time.
Up until this point, I usually do help healing in the group, because it's not a problem as long as the damage is not as heavy as it was. They were acting like it was expected to be my only job, which made me feel rather distespected.

For those that wonder, I have done Stratholme with two and three man parties (the two man was on my 70 with another 70). It's not like this last group could not pull it off, but it felt like there was a lot of miscommunication and lack of organization.

Edited, Jan 17th 2008 4:49pm by sederix

get used to it. priests are often asked to heal, even if others in the group are qualified to do so... the only exception is when you have a tank and it's either paladin or priest healer. then pally heals (because everyone laughs at ret dps)

if you are told to heal, just wait for them to enter combat and hearth out.

i've run across many a shaman who won't/don't carry intellect gear. this is just an excuse for them to not have to heal. if a priest says, "sorry i don't have healing gear", it's /boot. total double standard.

From my own personal experience, as a lvl 62 shadow priest, when I get invited to a group, I always ask up front if they want me to exclusively heal or backup heal. The cool thing about being shadow is we can heal by doing damage as well. I usually start out in shadow, cast my vampiric spells, SW:P, then switch to healing.

As a shaman I almost always heal. Maybe 2% of the time do I get to DPS, but then I always end up backup healing anyway. Besides shamman have a mana totem and a healing totem. It's not like this person couldn't contribute healing to the group while dps'ing. You can have up to 4 totems down at a time, one from each element (fire, water, earth, air). So he could have put down either the mana or the healing totem down to help the group.

I guess if I were you, don't assume anything. Ask up front. And you can be the exclusive healer. We are able to do it. I make the DPS watch their fighting so I can concentrate most of my healing for the tank. If the dps dies, tough. They shouldn't be getting hit anyway, or very litte.

LOL besides you'd think the 68 warrior would know how to tank and mark by now...

Anyway, my 2 coppers worth.

The reason why we are expected to heal while off spec vs another off spec healer is your heals are far supirrior than any other class. Priest are the best healers in the game. We have the spells to withstand the hardest hits. We are not utility like other classes are.

Though there comes a time in raids later on endgame that you will have to raid heal where a shaman or a druid far supasses our raid healing. But as a healer you will learn to adapt and overcome ;)

Here here!!!

My alt is a shadow spec and is always being asked to heal. I don't mind most of the time as long as I know that I'm the main heals. I even have some backup heal gear that I've been lucky enough to greed along the way. But I am getting frustated when they just assume that you are going to heal. And I'm meeting it as a pally. My Main is a Prot pally and more often than not I'm asked to join a group as a healer. LOL! Not only do I not have the gear, but I don't have the talents either. A prot's mana pool is around 2 to 3k. A holy pally around 8 to 9k. It's not so much that they ask, because you don't know until you do. It's when they ask after the summon and we are in the instance. I tank. Stam, Str. Those are my stats baby... not heals and Int.

Communication is the key. Just be up front about what you are willing to do before you even join the group. That way there are no doubts.

Nope. Most shammies level enhance, which have only slightly more effective heals than warriors and rogues. Their gear has absolutely NO support for healing, while a shadow priests does, with intellect, spirit, and +dmg/heal.


You were invited to heal, you heal. Damaging was inappropriate, regardless of spec. Would you like it if you tank pulled out his 2H ax (well, duh, MS spec)?


That sounds about right. Priests, shadow or not, have incredible heals. Very well-geared doomkin and elementals shammies can heal well, but priests are overall the more diverse and, until around 70, *best* healers because of it. Kind of like how between a fury warrior, a shammy, and a moonkin, the warrior is automatically the tank - they can deal with it far better than the other classes/specs.


You don't, that's what your were supposed to be doing the last 40 levels or so. If you want to learn how to heal, go into BG's and start healing there, and then work your way into the easier instances (DM East, Strat), and then work your way into the harder instances and Outlands stuff. That or reroll and alt and get him up to at least 40-ish and learn how to heal in WC, SFK, and SM.


Sorry to say it, but your description of yourself is they key here. Had you been picking up a couple pieces of healing gear and learned how to heal over the last 40 levels, you would have had no problem. Strat is one of the easier places to heal, iirc, with soft enough hits that you can even spend a couple GCD's throwing out Pain, Blast, or even Flay.

That basically means nothing when it comes to running it at the appropriate level. Pallies can two or three-man Onyxia, that doesn't mean they know sh*t when it comes to fighting it at 60 with 40 other people.

EDIT: That all said, if they weren't using appropriate crowd control (including your shackle), things could get messy. It doesn't seem like this was entirely your fault, but it would have been much, much easier if you took the time to learn your *entire* class while leveling instead of just one aspect of it.

Edited, Jan 18th 2008 1:39am by lsfreak

In my eyes you were wrong. Very few classes level in their healing spec so a enchance/elemental shaman is no more of a healer than you. In fact you probably make the best healer of the group because even DPS sets for priests tend to focus on int/spirit or +dmg/heal while other classes in their leveling specs may go for str/agi or +ap/crit.

If you never wanted to heal you need to state that from the beginning and make it VERY clear that you are not healing. If you would have done this, even a decent shadow priest can make a decent healer look good via VT,VE. Should you have been the main healer? Maybe, it is debatable and depended on what spec the shaman was. You go on and on and on about how you are shadow spec but did you ever consider what spec the shammy was? If he was enhance he was definitely not a suitable healer. If he was elemental, he probably should have healed. But anyway, like I said with VE,VT your group dynamics may have made the shaman a better choice, or if he was only geared in enhance gear then you should have been MH.

Either way sounds like you had a serious miscommunication issue and that will always lead to wipes, frustration, and group breakup.

But in the end I have to be brutally honest here you were being close minded and stubborn. As a result, your group was a failure. Being shadow is never an excuse to declare "I'm not a healer". For 70 levels I was a spriest and healed every instance in the game. Only when I hit 70 did I respec to holy and consider myself a "healer".

Like someone mentioned earlier, fury warriors are not really "tanks" but they tank instances because they are the best choice for that role. In this case you were the best choice for a healer and you refused to fill that role. If you don't like filling a role and playing with a group then the game will get very boring for you at level 70 as no (good) raid or arena team will want you. Not that you can't enjoy the game but understand that post-70 is all teamwork/roll filling (unless you just want to pug BGs).



Edited, Jan 18th 2008 4:43am by MookusOU

I would qualify this statement with the following:

"Unless it's a heroic or 10-man+ raid."

And to Agoge, I wouldn't recommend taunting Mazra. You don't have the chops.

Bottom line, you were asked to join the group to heal. Heal or tell them you're shadow and you want to DPS. They'll say no and move on to find someone who will. I think you'll find yourself in a lot fewer groups. Healers are always in demand while leveling. DPS is a dime a dozen. Even good DPS.

While I don't necessarily agree with the concept of "Priest is default healer", because quite frankly a good shadow priest may provide better DPS than other classes, I do believe that there is a perception of just this, and a little communication on the front-end goes a long way to dispelling it. This is one of my pet peeves, along with text-kiddies who think that it's okay to type in Bosnian.

But I digress. Dead horse, I proclaim thee beaten.

Alright, sorry, I seem to have thought that they brought up healing when you first joined the group. That is completely different.


Sure you can, if you're not stubborn about it. I've main-healed every instance from RFC to Shattered Halls, Slabs, SV, Mech, Arc, and Bot without any points in Holy.


... I think I would have left the group >.>


I didn't say you should have healed entirely the last 40 levels. I said that, starting about level 20, you should heal enough to know exactly how to heal, and heal well, in any situation. If that means you have to heal every other instance from 20 to 60, then fine; if that means one out of every five you heal, that's fine too.

I realize that I'm probably not the best person to comment on these things, since I'm pretty inexperienced. I'm a mostly shadow spec level 33 undead priest, with a few points in Disc, and 2 points in holy (the uninterrupted healing). I have done a total of 4 complete instance runs, and a number of runs through Ragefire Chasm and Wailing Caverns that started and then ended half-way through due to loot arguments or other reasons. Of the complete runs, that was 1 Ragefire Chasm, 2 Shadowfang Keep, and 1 Blackfathom Deeps.

I have a number of characters, that I used to play regularly. Now, I pretty much just play this character in a vain attempt to catch up to my friend who is at level 43. In any case, this is my highest level character, and only one of my other characters has seen an instance (level 16 troll hunter, who died in Ragefire Chasm, due to getting lost and separated from the rest of the party).

I am shadow for roleplaying reasons and also because I prefer, overall, soloing to grouping. I don't mind grouping occasionally, but I don't really want to group all the time. Unfortunately, I, as a player, am terrible at DPS in a group. I find it hard to see what's going on, and by the time I have the correct monster targeted, it's already dead. I don't know what I'm going to do with my non-healing classes, especially my paladin, since I don't even want to think about tanking. I basically wish grouping wasn't required, but instead optional. That isn't the case, however.

I have been complimented on my healing more than once, and I don't feel that being shadow means that I can't heal. In one of the Shadowfang runs, we had 2 shadow priests and a tank. I healed, and the other priest did DPS. To be honest, I'm really worried about later levels, since I am bad at DPS and am worried that people aren't going to want me to heal because I'm shadow instead of holy/disc.

That said, I think there is a player issue here. It's not just a certain *class* that's better at certain things, or even a spec. It also depends on the player. Could I become good at group DPS? Probably... if I spent a lot of time in groups doing DPS badly and making everyone angry at me, until finally, I got better. Do I want to do that? No, not really. But I am good at healing, even if I don't have the best spec for it. I would *love* to be the main healer in any instance, because I find it a lot easier, and despite what some people seem to think, not boring at all.

So, if someone really has become good at DPS as a shadow priest, they might have troubles healing, especially as a main or only healer. It really is frustrating to be pigeonholed into something, because we really don't have a choice as to whether to group or not, unless we want to wait forever and then try soloing for loot that won't be useful at our level. If we like our class and spec, we shouldn't have to redo everything in order to perform effectively in a group. There are multiple roles in groups, and if you are good at DPS, you should be able to fill that role, even if you are a priest.

That said, there is compromise in everything, when dealing with more than one person, and communication is key. Whenever I'm in a group with another priest or other healing class, I ask if it's alright to be the primary healer. If they say "no", then I need to decide whether to try the DPS/secondary healing or to wait for a different group. And they need to decide if they really want someone who's not very good at DPS or to wait for a better player to fill that role.

There really should never be any kind of automatic assumptions. There's no reason to assume that Shadow priests can't be the primary healer (i.e. the original poster said that since he was in Shadowform, they should have known he was Shadow-spec and therefore NOT the main healer), and there's also no reason to assume that all priests only want to heal. It's an individual decision, and should be discussed prior to starting the instance, so everyone knows who is doing what, as a main role.

The main problem I see in the described instance is the lack of communication and the automatic assumptions. The original poster assumed that Shadowform automatically meant not primary healer. The other members of the group automatically assumed that priest=primary healer. Then, they started the instance, and it all fell apart. I'm guessing that it's probable that the other party members didn't really know *their* expectations either. The whole situation could have worked out better if everyone had talked it through earlier, and decided, for example, that both the shaman and the shadow priest would share healing responsibilities, as well as doing DPS. Or deciding that the shadow priest or shaman would be the primary healer, with the other maybe occasionally checking to see if help was needed. Or deciding that they needed another person to be the primary healer, who would be added to the group, and then waiting to find someone to do that.

As I said, I haven't done a lot of instances, and don't have a lot of experience. Aside from the one time with the other shadow priest, I've always been the only main healing class (there have been paladins, but they've always announced that they're tanking or DPS) in the instances I've run. So, take that as you will.

Whoops -- yeah, I meant just the fact that every group I've been a part of that has had a paladin, the paladin has been the tank or a fighter (in the case where we had a paladin and a warrior -- the warrior tanked), and I don't think I could ever tank effectively. I have more priests than anything, and I've never been good with multiple mobs. It would take me a long time to figure that out.

But you're right: I'll have to consider going holy. Good idea!

Edit: What I meant in my first paragraph is that I did precisely what I was advising against, that is, to assume things, and I sort of assumed that while paladins occasionally healed, their main role in a group was either tank or DPS, depending on the rest of the make-up of the group. I never really ever thought of them as primary healer in a group, regardless of spec. But I don't know much about paladins: the only one I have is only level 4, my lowest level character. I was mostly worried about tanking.

Edited, Jan 22nd 2008 1:26pm by Vespassienne

Up until recently I was shadow for solo leveling, then I switched over to holy/disc to help my friends in instances. But even when I was shadow, I made sure to always have an up to date healing set. It's just the reality of being a priest: you will be asked to heal, so be prepared to do it.

Funny Story: While I was still shadow spec at level 66 I got a random tell asking if I could heal for a sethekk halls pug. I told him I was a little low level for that, and he replied "don't worry, I'm a kickass tank" well, I respect a man with self confidence so I decide to join. The group is a 68 Warrior, 67 Mage, 68 Mage, 69 rogue, and me. I throw on my healing gear and get to the entrance. Warrior asks me what spec I am and I say I'll tell him after the instance run. Long story short, that pug was one of those rare one in a million that actually went great. The warrior held aggro, the rogue and mages controlled their dps output, and I ended up healbotting without paying attention, because all I had to do was spam renew and an occasional heal. Anyway, it went smooth as butter. After we were done
we all stood around complementing each other, We all added each other to our friends list, they complemented my healing skills (I was just mindless healbotting)

Then the warrior says this "Aren't you guys glad I found a holy priest instead of some lame *** shadow spec?"

I say: "I am shadow spec" hit the shadow form button and hearth out.

He later apologised.