Alrighty, here comes a ranty post. Though, I’m unsure if it will come across as condescending or uplifting, but I guess that it will be in the eye of the beholder.
May need to be carried.
I used the title of this post because it reminded me of the old Christian saying “When you saw only one set of footprints in the sand, that was when I was carrying you,” an obvious reference to Jesus helping us along the way in life, carrying us when we thought we couldn’t go any further, though it somewhat works here as well.
Anyway, it all started with a tweet from Orithea:
It’s funny how easy it is to drag along a subpar dps, but a horrible healer or tank sinks the ship.
This got me thinking right away how true that statement is. It has often been the case that when I both heal or tank (yes I’m being a bit conceited here), I find that if others do not carry their weight, it can be noticeable, but only in certain positions. For all intents and purposes, when it’s noticeable, it is either the tank or the healer who aren’t carrying their weight. However, if a DPS decides to slack off a bit, you might not notice.
There is a difference though, usually the Healer or Tank won’t complain. Yup, I just went there. I will not deny that there have been healers or tanks who will blame the other for the shortcomings of the run; however, more often then not, it is not the case. Instead it is likely to be one of the dps, and in my case a majority of the caster dps, that will begin complaining if there is a near-wipe, or slow run, especially when they are the ones not pulling their weight.
You see, if a failtank is in a group, then it is very likely that there will be mobs running here and there, going after healers and dps. This is obviously the primary purpose of a tank (according to BBB) and I totally agree. The tank is there to be the meat shield between the flailing undead monstrosity and your smooth lotioned hands. It is their job to keep mobs on him/her, and bring control and order to chaos.
On the other hand, if a failhealer is in a group, you will likely not survive long enough to cast/shoot/stab that flabby abomination that is a mob. Not to say that wipes can’t be saved even with the healer tanking the floor, it is much more noticeable.
Lastly, if you have a failDPS in the group, and as long as they are casting/shooting/stabbing said mob, and making it’s lifebar drop, no matter how little damage they are doing, it is much less noticeable to the rest of the group. I will say that the other DPS may notice, and it is likely that eventually it will be noticed, but initially, a failDPS can be carried with little to no detriment to the rest of the group.
I digress… There are situations where the DPS have been put in the spotlight, and if they do not perform, then it is very likely that the boss will not go down. These are most often known as DPS races, and can occur in both raids and gimmicky fights in 5 mans; however, they are few and far between. Even then though, if a tank or healer go down, it is 98% of the time a wipe.
To go back to the initial quote that the title came from, there are also those who are willing to carry those who either cannot perform as well as the rest, or are altruistic enough to carry those who just do not care. I would like to say that I am that kind of healer/tank. I understand that everybody has to begin somewhere. We all were n00bs once, and no matter what others say, we didn’t know the mechanics of the game until later on down the line. I am the kind of person who takes that person and helps them along, giving them tips (if they accept them) on how to help themselves. It’s like the old adage, you can give a man a fish and he can feed himself for a day, but you can teach him to fish and he can feed himself for life (or something like that).
Today’s world (of Warcraft), where individuals feel as if they are entitled to get what they want when they want it, no matter how little work they do. They have gotten used to the overgeared tank and healer nearly 2 manning instances, and getting the spoils nonetheless. They feel that they can chant “gogogogogogo!!11!one!!” so that they can get their emblems faster, even when the healer is still trying to regain mana.
However, don’t get me wrong. I am not beating up on DPS, as it can be the very same case with Tanks and Healers, but it has simply been my personal experience, while pugging, for it to be the DPS who will slack and whine.
What are your experiences with this kind of behavior? Are you one of them? Would you willingly carry another player?
Illumination 
Some call it “carrying the fails”, I call it “leading by example”. I don’t mind carrying the undergeared and underskilled through 5-mans at all, in the hopes that one of the folks there will at least ask himself, “How can he do that much damage, and what do I have to do to get there?”
That is kind of one of the points that I tried to make. Everyone has to start somewhere, and if you want to end up with good PUGs in the future, you need to help those who have yet to get geared up get better, cause you never know when you’ll run into them again.
I guess using “failtank”, “failhealer”, and “faildps” is a bit harsh, but it was the easiest way to get it across.
I myself very much prefer to continue on with the instance, even if somebody is complaining, or has yet to master their class. It will only save you time in the long run.
There have been times that I’ve had to actually work during a pug, because yes someone in there didn’t have over a 3k gear score, but you know what, I’m fine with that. I can remember when running CoS, it was a big deal to get to the extra boss with more than 1 minute left of your timer. “Carrying” someone through content that they should be doing is not a fair usage of the term in any sense. They are running the content they should be running and for some elitist HT10 snob to come in and rip them a new one because they are not meeting some inflated standard of dps/hps/tps is wrong – period.
There are certainly times and runs that having a “failtank/healer/dps” can not be tolerated due to it putting too much of a strain on the rest of the group. However, even during those times, being a complete jerk to said failure instead of saying “sorry friend but this is why we are going to have to replace you, work on this/that/other and we will gladly have you back”, is so far beyond being constructive. Take a step back, remember when you first started and put that ego in your back pocket.
As am I, I am completely open to any new player to come in and actually require me to push a little bit. I’m unsure if you are agreeing with me or commenting against me though. Anyway, I guess that the word Carry should only be placed on those who do not want to do better, and just want to get the instance done, and get their emblems. It is more of a teaching experience otherwise.
I have a personal hatred towards GearScore, and have gotten in several arguments in Trade chat about it. In fact, I love what the Greedy Goblin is doing with their “Undergeared” raid group, who has so far taken down Lady Deathwhisper… in blue gear.
Sorry if it came off as harsh, I certainly agree with you and it was just a generalized rant 😛
Gearscore has become the hot item now that we are reaching the end of the expansion. I pray that once the new expansion is out, we will see less of it being spammed in trade… however I suppose it will eventually come back around full circle.
Greedy Goblin is showing by far that gearscore doesn’t mean jack. I sometimes have a little different view on how he approaches things, but he is proving that you don’t have to be an T10 Heroic geared individual to push your way through content.
Hehe, this post kinda struck a cord with me, and I agree with you here. Currently me (healadin) and my guildie (prot tank), are currently carrying two of our guildies through heroics till they can get geared, (although I’m making them go through the BGs to get the honor gear when we’re not on so that they get better gear faster, I’m in the honor gear and do nicely :). They do about 1.5-2k dps right now, and that’s below the DPS that our tank does. Me and the meat shield can probably 2 man most heroics if we had the patience to do so, but the boss fights take so long without the extra DPS there.
Me and my tank were in a random a while ago, (before I had all of my honor gear) and a few times a couple of people died and they tried to kick me. My friend kindly stated that if I go, he would go too. After that he whispered me: “If they could actually out DPS the tank, I’d have considered kicking the heals.” He’s always had better gear than me. DPS means a lot inside of instances when either your tank or your healer are under geared. But when they’re both well geared, DPS is really just there for the ride practically.
My Crit, Int and MP5 give my mana pool the ability to last an undetermined amount of time now when only casting FoL, (I got bored and tired after like 10-15 minutes of healing guards), but when you add the other spells, Holy Shock, Piggy(Bacon) of Light and Sacred Shield, then I start to run dry trying to heal everyone. I created a good macro that works great IMO to help. When you start casting, you don’t want to pop DP early or you’ll wasted gained mana, so I made it require a mod key. I also realized, (while I was in the BGs) that I habitually hold Alt down, (instead of using Healbot) to heal myself, causing these to pop earlier than desired sometimes, so I stopped that as well. Only DP activates the Global Cool Down, the other two pop the moment you touch them, so long as you’re not casting or channeling; so these work out with one click/press.
#showtooltip
/cast [nomod][mod:alt] Flash of Light
/stopmacro [mod:alt][nomod]
/cast Divine Plea
/cast Divine Illumination
/cast Avenging Wrath
I keep DP above the others there to visually see if it’s CD is up or not as I don’t think popping DI and AW are worth it when you don’t have DP up as well. And since DI and AW have the same CD length, it works out quite nicely. You’ll get error messages saying that the DI and AW aren’t ready, but they’re tolerable if you ask me. Also, as an added benefit to help you catch up, AW lasts longer than DI.
Holy crap I talk too much……..
I feel there is a bit of a difference though between carrying guildies, which I think is great, and carrying a random person who in all reality could not give a crap as to what you think. If there were more folks, and I consider myself one of them, who are willing to “carry” or even “boost” random players out there would be a decent shift in the attitude towards pugs, and the ever present and evil GearScore.
Corrections:
“you’ll waste* gained”
“so these work out with a* mod* and* one click/press.”
I just realized that other people may have more space on their action bars than I do, so they could probably drop the FoL and stopmacro parts of the macro to have it as a one click action, instead of a mod then click/press.
Also, did you see my comment about video capturing and editing?
Yes, yes I did see your comment, thank you, and I’ll probably take a look at that.
I actually don’t have much room on my actionbars, and have to try and fit as much as I can on there; however, using Clique has been a life/time saver.