To heal or not to heal...

[Anzanel]

I'm not a Cleric player at heart, but I did make a Cleric character a long time ago. Anyway, I was playing with her the other day, trying to get her to lvl 5 so she could wear the Might of the Abishai set, which would then free up some space in my shared bank. I then remembered why I didn't like playing as a cleric.

I joined a PUG running Kobolds' New Ringleader a few times. The leader was somewhat lacking in intelligence, and kept hitting explosive barrels along the way. I then had to heal him, only so he could keep doing the same thing. The fact that he was a WF with NO points in Healer's Friend didn't make matters any better. I mentioned to him that continuously blowing himself up was a bad idea, but he totally ignored me.

What do you all do in this scenario? Someone's being stupid, and you can either heal him or not heal him. If you DON'T heal him, the party doesn't advance as quickly and you level up slower. If you DO heal him, it only enables that kind of behavior. It's sort of a lose/lose situation :|

And what about when the rest of the party won't follow good advice and therefore take WAY more damage than they should? (I'm not a pro by any means, but I know how to run lowbie quests! And when I was a newbie, I listened to good advice, ya know?)

Please tell me people get smarter after the low-levels. If not then...Ive got way more respect for most clerics now that I know what kind of BS they have to put up with.

[Tyrande]

How about solo'ing the quest yourselves?

Or grab a hireling and then finish the quest yourself and the hireling?

[Zharfie]

some people have a great a statement in their bios on their healers

... "I don't/can't heal stupid"

[soupertc]

Sometimes letting someone die is what ya have to do. Sometimes it's best just to leave em dead.

To many people think that since a healers in the party they can play sloppy.....or maybe that's how they always play. It's not your job to babysit em. If I don't see a person even take a sip of a pot in downtime between fights and typing HEAL ME in chat....well they die. When they ask me for a rez....I ignore em like they ignored me when I asked em if they had any pots on em.

You babysit them then they expect everyone to do it even in EPIC content. They gotta learn sometime...and if they don't well I got a list for those people too.

[Illiain]

I would and usually do let people like this die. Carrying their stone through 1/2 the mod tends to give them time to think about their actions.

It's obvious the alt is not a TR, so loosing the 10% exp won't be an issue.

Just last week I let a Wizzy die during Reaver's. He kept summoning Hezrou that would mess with agro and wouldn't stop firewalling him, then running out into the middle. Took us forever to get charge buffs. Run went a lot smoother with him in the penalty box. Funny thing was, we had 3 healers, he was an arcane WF and he still died.

[Phidius]

... If you DON'T heal him, the party doesn't advance as quickly and you level up slower...

There's the problem - you shouldn't PUG when you want to get XP fast. That kind of thing is best left for guild/channel runs, and save the train wrecks for when you're in the mood to enjoy them.

I've been avoiding the PUG scene as I grind out XP on Gemstone simply because I'm trying to shorten the grind, not prolong it.

[Adrian99]

Yeah, what they all said. Don't pug KNR. It takes all of 2 minutes to solo

[taurean430]

All of the harbor quests are soloable with a two handed weapon like a Maelstrom, Sword of the Thirty, Acid of pure good ah weapon, Hellstroke Greataxe, or Carnifex. Cast divine favor and go. You have your own heals and some potent crowd control.

I'd say the mistake you are making lies mostly in relying on others to dps stuff. For the lower leveled quests, it's very easy to swing around a two handed whatever and kill mobs yourself. Only problem is, it gets boring...

If you go beyond level 5, you would do well to consider what the people killing themselves actually contribute to the group effort to finish a quest. You can be nice and leave their stone by the shrine, or just move on.

If your goal is to only get to 5. A few runs of Kobold's New Ringleader, and a run of either Tangleroot normal or Waterworks normal should get you there pretty quick.

[JollySwagMan]

Be prepared to meet a lot of bad playstyles when PUG-ing the lower levels. The wf barbs are particularly noticeable for their mistakes when running PUGs on a Cleric, as they lack AC, have not learned to dodge enemy attacks/flank enemies/manage aggro and have a divine healing penalty. Also the tendency to ignore the potions that their barrel breaking provides is very common. This type of playstyle isn't limited to new players though, you may also encounter vets/TRs who may be accustomed to higher level play when they're expected to maintain DPS in raids and self sufficiency isn't as easy as in the lower levels. However you can more reasonably expect gear such as the weapons taurean430 mentioned as well as healing amp and ship buffs on these players, ultimately making them much less spongey.

Healing amp helps, but I'm not too fussed about 'healing stupid' if it's a casual group though.

In addition to soloing as some of the other posters have mentioned, I would suggest leading pugs for quests that you know, allowing you to prevent much of the headache by planning things out and establishing priorities ('don't destroy explosive barrels if a player's going to get hit by it', 'Ogres have a triple cleave attack. Either dodge it, or wait until the Ogre's Commanded before fighting him').

[jellyfish21]

Here is what exacly you do:

Role (not roll) Play It!

There is a million possibilities this way.
For example:

Be very firm about having a briliant idea to this warfoged.
Ask him to stand on, say, three exploding barrels.
Tell him you are a cleric and prayed hard for him.
Tell him you are going to enable him to meet the Lord of Blades.
Then, use your crossbow to blow up those barrels!

Ta-Da!

[QuantumFX]

To hjeal, or not to hjeal: that is the question.
Whether ‘tis nobler for the caster to suffer the mana and consumable loss caused by outrageous PuG member,
Or to take arms against the troublemaker, and by opposing end them?
To let them die: to sleep; no more; and by a sleep to say we let them become soulstones and the XP bonus lost.

I joined a PUG running Kobolds' New Ringleader a few times. The leader was somewhat lacking in intelligence, and kept hitting explosive barrels along the way. I then had to heal him, only so he could keep doing the same thing. The fact that he was a WF with NO points in Healer's Friend didn't make matters any better. I mentioned to him that continuously blowing himself up was a bad idea, but he totally ignored me.

What do you all do in this scenario? Someone's being stupid, and you can either heal him or not heal him.

Personally, I would not have healed him. He could have destroyed barrels just as fast and with less party resources used by equipping a throwing weapon.

If you DON'T heal him, the party doesn't advance as quickly and you level up slower.

Not really. Being forced to use a shrine because of a manasink slows the group down more than the manasink being reduced to a soulstone.

If you DO heal him, it only enables that kind of behavior.

Exactly. Which is why you want to draw the line in the sand now. There are times where keeping the manasink up is the best way to complete a quest. But this is the exception and not the rule.

Please tell me people get smarter after the low-levels. If not then...Ive got way more respect for most clerics now that I know what kind of BS they have to put up with.

Yes and No. You tend to lose most of the clueless idiots and gain the “*I* do it this way… and so should *you*.” types. But do not let that affect your play. Clerics and FvS’s are great classes to play. It would be a shame if a couple idiots ruined your

If you haven’t already: CHECK OUT THIS FORUM THREAD.

[PNellesen]

When I was first starting out, on my first Cleric, I would have tried my best to keep him healed. Now that I know better, though - no way. If you leave me behind and get killed, that's YOUR problem, not mine, and you can enjoy the warm coziness of my backpack until we get to the next shrine (assuming you didn't die somewhere such that we can't retrieve your stone.) I don't mind zerging with players who could otherwise solo the quest - they don't complain if they die, and usually they're smart enough to get back in healing range if they start getting low, but I no longer chase after players who insist on taking on more than they can handle. The SP you would waste on them could be better served in keeping the SMART players going instead.

[The_Great_Samulas]

There are several things that are to a clerics advantage that can help you avoid this in the future:

A) A cleric doesn't have a problem finding another group.

B) A cleric can solo alot of content even before blade barrier.

C) A cleric controls who gets healed and who doesn't in these type of groups. It gives extra "weight" to your verbage.

D) A cleric heals damage to the group as his third option, not his first.

E) A cleric can form his own groups.

F) A cleric has a sh!t list of people not to group with.

Hopefully, in the not to distant future you will look back on this and laugh. Laugh at why you put up with this and just the way people can act sometimes. As you gain expertise, you learn how the options above can work for you. Many new clerics run into these types of groups, and much of it is because you are reliant upon others to show you through dungeons or to complete the quest objectives. This is the classic curse of the healbot - reliance upon others to complete quest objectives, because all you do is heal others. Hopefully, you will grow out of this, but many do not.

[NaturalHazard]

If only you could heal stupid............

[Dandonk]

If only you could heal stupid............

Maybe the Warpriest PrE can heal it with a well-aimed blow of a heavy blunt instrument to the head? If so, I'm looking forward to it being released!

[Delt]

If you are good enough to finish up a quest on yer own, you can let anyone die as you see fit.

...but I temper that with a note on the odd sense of entitlement/attitude some people get on healers. You rolled a healing class, do your job without any ego or stings attached.

[kjohnson1990]

Like My Bio Says.......


LOL. My bio sums up the role of a cleric in two simple sentences



I'm a Cleric, not your B*tch. I dont Heal on command"

[The-Last-Wolf]

Please tell me people get smarter after the low-levels. If not then...Ive got way more respect for most clerics now that I know what kind of BS they have to put up with.

Hi OP,

Just to answer your question above, from my experience on Argo, it does get better at higher lvls but not to 100%.

My Cleric is currently on his 2nd life and I have been doing a lot of PUGs recently. Yesterday I did 3 seperate quests in the 10-12 lvl with 3 completely different groups of people.

First PUG I was the only "healer". The group worked well, people familiar with the quest and it went pretty smooth. I was throwing combat heals & bursts but most of my SP was being used on CC and offensive casting. In between combats the other players were taking care of their own health and issues (curses, poison, etc.). The only thing I was asked to deal with was neg lvls which I was happy to deal with.

Second PUG. 1 FVS + Me. The group worked ok, with the exception of a caster joining a VONs 3 and not having firewall (?????). Again, combat heals and the occasional restoration, with the rest of my SP on offensive & CC. This was a good thing, as without FW, it was down to the FVS and myself to take out the end boss (Never done that before).

Third PUG. Again I'm solo "healer". After the first encounter, the rest of the party is on 30-50% Health and a couple of toons are wearing the poison icon. I wait a bit, but everyone is standing around doing nothing. I think "hmmmmm" and throw some heals to bring people back to 75%. Nothing is said (no mics on anyone else in the party it seems), and bingo off everyone runs (still 1 guy showing a poison icon). So next group of MOBs, and I seem to be throwing a lot more combat heals than usual. This pretty much is the way the rest of the quest unfolds. I am using about 75-90% of my SP on Healing the group, dealing with curses, poison, etc. Due to the large number of undead in the quest, I'm also leading the kill count through bursts and turns. I'm keen for the xp so don't make an issue of it. Anyway, we complete the quest and I decide to say something so type in party chat;

"Um guys, you really need to deal with your own health, I spent way to much SP on healing between fights"

The only reply I get is

"I fort you were the healer" (spelling as it was written).

So overall, I would say yes it gets better at higher levels, but you are always going to run into a group that thinks a cleric is just a hireling healbot. In these instances, I tend to just do what I can to get to the end, but I will NOT use up resources on such a group. If that means a wipe then so be it, ussually I can carry them through to the end on SP alone, but it does cut my fun factor down a lot, and I drop those groups immediatly on completion.

Regards
Wolf

[phalaeo]

Don't heal him after the second one... let him die and earn a nice ride in your backpack.

Yes, players get better in higher levels.... for the most part.

[soupertc]

If you are good enough to finish up a quest on yer own, you can let anyone die as you see fit.

...but I temper that with a note on the odd sense of entitlement/attitude some people get on healers. You rolled a healing class, do your job without any ego or stings attached.

I don't see it as Ego or entitlement when clerics get.....can we say "Cranky". I think it's just frustration. Clerics and FvS(to a certain extent) are the only class in the game where people expect things from them constantly during a quest. Yeah we ask Bards for new songs and haste and rage.....as we ask casters for haste and rage.

But as a healer it starts as soon as ya get off the boat and goes on forever. In good groups playing a cleric is like playing any other toon....in a bad group it can be a nightmare...as I'm sure your aware. This is the reason most people don't play healers outside of guild groups......but when they do they become @sshats at times.

Now I'm not one of those clerics who ask for donations in my BIO or lecture people about thier playstyles either...normally I'm up ahead with my fellow Zergers ......but I can see why some people get that way..and hell I'm all for it...it means they are PUGGING as a healer still and that right there earns them the right.I wonder do you PUG your healer often?