Priorities

Like it or not, healers do have priorities.  They generally go Me, Tank, Other (read DPS).  Priorities do shift at times, as I've sacrificed myself in the past to give my dyeing heal to a tank or the lone DPS left at the very very end of a boss's life.  But by and large, I'm here to keep my tank alive.  If DPS gets healed then consider it as icing on the cake.  Don't get me wrong though, I don't like having any deaths on my runs.  As a very strong rule of thumb, if I can keep the tank alive we're all gonna make it in some form or fashion.  The issue I'm taking way to long to build up to is when DPS begin asking for heals.

I like pulls begun with everyone completely topped off.  I know within one or two pulls who my top aggro pullers are going to be.  I usually have a HoT ticking away on them as well as my tank.  I can't stand starting a fight with someone's HP not fully topped off.  I can only imagine that most healers have this same mindset.  We all know someone who's happy to run off and start a pull with 75-80% HP, or half their mana.  This drives me nuts, it's an itch I have to scratch.  Which leads me to my next issue.  If you're at less than 25% HP, and you're not taking (many) incoming heals, then there are other current events going on around you.  I promise, you were taken into consideration during this pull long before you realized your health was low and that incoming heals were slow.  I've already made a priority list in my head, quite some time ago as this began to take shape.  Apparently you weren't on the top two (or three) of the list.  Get over it, I'll get back with you as soon as I can.  Seeing "Heal please" go across my chat box just adds one more item of information to process at an already stressed time.  I'm not a vindictive person, but I'd be lying if I said the thought had never crossed my mind to reorder someone's priority from "4" to "5" after such a request.  ;)

I actually had two great examples of this laid out in my head, but decided their specifics would be a moot point.  It does however make me wonder back to when I was playing with my DK as one of the lowly (heh) DPS.  I can't remember if I ever made the cardinal sin of asking for heals or not.  If I did ever do this in the past, then to the healer there that day I say this.  Sorry, I was but a young grasshopper who had not yet learned the way.