It was one of those nights. Cranky Tank is recovering from the flu and Fearless Leader is coming down with it. Some raiders seemed to have left their brains at home and stupid wipes were had. The loot gods were not kind. RL stress frayed tempers. I, ever the emotion sponge, soaked it all up and expoloded it right back at everyone (my response to one tank’s “heal me!” was “TPS the boss!”).
Normally, I try to keep spirits up with Amber’s Patended Random Silly, but even that was shot down. Steve has been refusing to give me assist, which means I can’t /rw spam. Aside from making me a very sad panda, this also puts a crimp on my role as healing lead. Vent can get chaotic, and even my healers with perfect hearing can’t always catch what I need them to, nevermind the one without. Whisper and raid chat can be lost, too. Let’s face it, /rw makes a noise and splashes red text on your screen for a reason. There’s some logic behind my request beyond my desire to be a dork, like telling Tank Healer #3 to cover Tank #2 because Tank Healer #1 decided to stand in front of a worm (I’m fucking brilliant some days, let me tell you).
I have my other gripes, as well. I disagree with having seven healers for ToC. How about we make our people learn to not hug opposite color orbs, and other such lazy dumbfuckery? What about dispells? Can you learn to do those? We have some damned fine healers and it doesn’t take much for boredem to set in. We did fine with 6 healers before when I decided to be a bitch and ignore Steve, and we’ll do fine with 6 again. The most fun I’ve had in ToC was one ToC 10 with one of our more undergeared healers. My mana bar was screaming! It was work! Holy shit! I LOVED IT. …you want us to have HOW MANY HEALERS in a 25 man?
One of our tanks also has aquired the Grate On Amber’s Nerves debuff. This is…not cool. It applies stacks, and after so many stacks I just want to scream. In fact, he gets a post all on his own!…again.
I Like Bubbles 
#1 by candy on November 3, 2009 - 10:17 am
We bring 6 or 7 healers, depending on who has signed up. But when we bring 7, we usually let one or two of them switch off DPSing. To counter the boredom and speed the proceedings up.
#2 by Joe Ego on November 3, 2009 - 10:28 am
ToC25 Normal with good healers? Run 5.
#3 by shadowtycho on November 3, 2009 - 10:33 am
yeah bring 5 and have a blast, takes some work but no one gets a free ride.
wipe nights suck, but if you can have fun anyway then you should.
#4 by Antikris on November 3, 2009 - 10:39 am
Turn wiping into a drinking game – a shot for every wipe and double for the one who caused the wipe – and the night cannot fail.
#5 by Hikari on November 3, 2009 - 10:51 am
Run 6 healers— trains you for hard modes. 5 healers would be pushing it for the hards unless your guild is a coordination miracle.
I know my guild isn’t a miracle of coordination, fo sho.
#6 by Kotakh on November 3, 2009 - 11:20 am
Lol @Hikari. You just made my day :) Lets just say that our guild is the complete opposite of being a coordination miracle.
And i totally aggre with Amber. 7 healers is 1-2 healers too many, especially since our dpser arent exactly all top notch.
It makes for a lot of wipe and frustration.It also creates bored healers and lazy dps (why try to evade orbs when you have so many healer to heal you through the damage?).
On another note, if we want our healers not to get bored, we should run Heroic ToC 10…holy bejesus! I pugged it yesterday after the fail raid and all i can say is OMFG! I joined them at Jaraxus (or whatever the second boss is name)and let me tell you that healing that fight is a prefect remedy to being bored. Boss damage, Maiden of pain, Volcano rock dudes oh my!
We called it quit after a LOT of wipes but we progressed on all try (wipe after 30 sec on first try…got him down to 21% health on last try). Our dps was a bit low i think, but it was 1000 times more fun than the fail ToC 25 we had earlier.
Anyway, i’ll stop my rambling in your comment section.
For now ;)
#7 by Light on November 3, 2009 - 11:25 am
We run ToC 25 with 5 healers, sometimes four. DPS needs to be trained not to eat orbs that don’t match their feet. :)
@Kotakh
Heroic ToC 10 is some of the most intense healing I’ve ever done. Anub is an nightmare. But it’s so much fun!
#8 by Beruthiel on November 3, 2009 - 12:13 pm
We run our herioc ToC with 6, and our normal with no more than 6 (I think our twink run has been using 5, because that’s all I can dig up).
I would agree with everyone else that posted that 7 is a bit of overkill on normal =)
I’m sure that you will all get it worked out! And hopefully fearless leader will say “ok, let’s try it with 6”!
#9 by kyrilean on November 3, 2009 - 12:44 pm
“I disagree with having seven healers for ToC.”
On this note, let me just say that if the RL calls for seven, then we should have seven and not undermine that authority by having someone switch. It’s not that I don’t agree with you that it’s one more than we need, but we’re not leading the raid.
On another note, I did volunteer to sit this one out and level alts so you could bring in another dps. :P
#10 by Joe Ego on November 3, 2009 - 12:59 pm
If 7 are called for, then 7 it is. But try to find a way to let the fail-dps die when they don’t move out of Legion Flames. Let Judgment of Light and a single HoT do the healing.
Also let one or two of your top healers try to dps. Most fights top output is me, our awesome Shaman, or our on the ball Priest. Not too much difference between us. We had 7 healers the other night on Anub 25. I was so bored I rocked 1k dps (almost full time for a holy paladin) and was almost out-healed by our Ret’s JoL. We are, however, capable of clearing 25 Normal with no wipes.
#11 by Niefe on November 3, 2009 - 3:21 pm
lol we progress 25 HC with two tanks and 5 healers, and we have problem with DPS, Icehowl usually enrages at 400-700k :D
#12 by Ron on November 3, 2009 - 3:38 pm
It’s not undermining your raid leader to say you can do more with less. They should appreciate that you’re up for a challenge. 7 healers is, and always has been too many healers for any content in Wrath. 5 is sufficient and 6 is acceptable in some situations (hello hybrids).
Point is, if your RL is telling you 7 is needed they either a) don’t know a damn thing about healing, b) have no faith or confidence in your healing group, or c) understand healing well and know that healing is the bottleneck of the raid.
My suggestion: Produce some measurable numbers to support not running with 7 healers. Present the argument constructively and dont’ take no for an answer. Run with 6 (or less)and kick ass the boast about it to the RL to the point where they don’t want to hear about it any more. You’ll no longer have issues with taking more healers than needed. Be warned though, fail and you are doomed to taking one too many healers until you have a new RL.
#13 by BobTurkey on November 3, 2009 - 5:37 pm
We usually use 6 but 5 is a lot more fun.
I think the number of healers is a reflection of where you are with the content. Start with more when people don’t know the fights then scale it down. 7 for new stuff, 5 when its on farm.
Gobble gobble.
#14 by Ambrosyne on November 3, 2009 - 6:05 pm
@Ron – BUT HE IS ONE OF THE HEALERS.
#15 by Ron on November 3, 2009 - 7:56 pm
@Amber – Then answer ‘A’ applies :)
#16 by kyrilean on November 4, 2009 - 8:48 am
@Ron – and in addition we did it the previous week with six, albeit behind his back. :P
#17 by Ron on November 4, 2009 - 11:38 am
@Ky – Sneaky is good :)