This question irritates me.
Specifically, this question irritates me when it comes from healers, in pugs. If you're a healer, presumably you have some kind of raid/party frame for, y'know, healing. Presumably this can be clicked to see a unit frame of the person you've selected. Presumably this unit frame tells you that person's current & total health. Total health is generally a good indication of whether someone's a tank or not.
If this is not the case, I'd love to know how you heal.
If someone's taking damage, I keep them alive. I can tell if it's the tank by the fact that they're usually easier to keep alive than the others...
ReplyDeleteI will (as a healer) admit I've asked people in a PUg who is tanking, because we had two warriors and a DK in similar gear. They started readying the pull, and I was not about to inspect each one for talent points and such. The fact all three pulled aggro during trash made the question quite relevant. Turns out two of the people thought they were tanknig and taunted off each other. (Until I asked which cleared things up and we went very smooth afterwards).
ReplyDeletePlus, in my guild, the DK has more health than our Pally tank, but is far more quishy (the DK does a lot of PvP and gems for +sta, but is not a tank0. So Health is not -always- the final indicator. It is a good shortcut though, yes.
When a druid shows up in there off-spec with 16K health because they haven't changed over and gotten into bear form displaying 33K health - it's a good time to ask who's tanking.
ReplyDeleteWhen as a priest you have more health than all others in the group - it's a good time to ask who's tanking.
When you pug and you know no one in the group; therefore have zero clue if any of them have a clue as to what they are doing -- it's a good time to ask who's tanking.
When you're running with your friends and all of them have a tank they play from time to time -- it's a good time to ask who's tanking.
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Because you're the healer and you should always take charge of any pug you're in -- it's a good time to ask who's tanking and make sure everyone else know's what their role is.
Oh yeah.. one other way to know if I (healer) know who the tank is... it's the only person I'll heal if they do something stupid, cause it's the only person I need to keep alive to stay alive.
ReplyDeleteThe situation that caused me to write this short rant was that it was *very plain* who was tanking. The healers just hadn't *bothered* to look on their screens. Both tanks had health in the high 30,000s/low 40,000s. It was a no-brainer.
ReplyDeleteYes, where there is ambiguity, ask. But if you're just asking because you can't be bothered to look at the raid frames you use to heal with ... Well ... Why are you healing?