You are going to forgive me with the title of the Article but I have been wanting to write about this type of Addons for some time that many times lead to personal pits in the game between the DPS and to crucify some Healers by the numbers obtained and I see some serious problems that above all , affect the Healers.
1 - More Healing Doesn't Mean Better Healers
If we simplify the job of the DPS, their job is basically to do damage. The higher the damage dealt, the better DPS they are. It is clear that the life of the Boss is constant with what we deduce that the greater the damage, the faster the boss dies, the faster people get the loot and therefore the faster progress is made. However, this case is not applicable for the Halers. I'll give you an example: You have just reached level 80 with your mission rewards team and you arrive at Naxxramas. People will take a lot of damage, the damage mitigation from the tank will be low as well, the DPS will do little damage and the Healers will lack the hands to heal them all. Now we fast forward to a more intermediate point in which, those same players have already equipped themselves with items of sartharion and Naxxramas. Tanks no longer lose as much health and now encounters last half as long as before.
Then the meters arrive.
"Incredible! My DPS is almost double what it was when I got here" says Sharpener, our best rogue.
"Yes! mine too, now we are the cane of Spain »say the rest of DPS.
Now a funny guy arrives and puts the healing comparison in the chat.
Surely, as a healer, you have cured half of what you cured that time and of course ... this will provoke in the less savvy the typical comment (and even insults) that healers are not good. The key is that Healers scale almost the reverse in healing as the level of the group's team increases but in the minds of many players, to great numbers, great players.
2 - Situations vary
This is something that a great majority of players do not quite understand. Who you are assigned to curate greatly varies your position on the meters and I have seen some great examples on recent bands. We were trying to do Patchwork with 20 people for the achievement (yes, we like the achievements). Our tanks were a Death Knight, a Druid, and a Warrior, and our team of healers consisted of 3 Paladins, a Priest, and a Shaman. Each Paladin was assigned to a Tank and each tank was therefore the target of Sign of the Light and the Priest and the Shaman were assigned to heal all tanks as possessed.
We were done with Patchwork pretty quickly and we were really impressed with ourselves and then the usual funny man came up with the Healing stats. 2 Paladins were at first followed by the Priest and then the Shaman. At the bottom of the list was the Third Paladin.
At first glance it can be said that the Paladin had failed as his cures performed were horrible. However, after thinking about it, there were several reasons.
In the first place, this Paladin was healing the Main Tank which therefore does not receive the attacks from Hate Strike and so there was much less harm to heal. On the other hand, the other Paladins were performing cures of 14,000 effective points and taking advantage of the Sign of the Light healing the same amount to others.
3 Paladins, 3 Objectives and 3 players using the same cures with very different results. For people to whom it may seem that the paladin had failed, if we consider the scenario we must forget about the appearances by the meter.
3 - Each class has a role
A sad reality is that some classes end up "beating" others. Paladins for example cannot use heals over time or heal several at the same time in an efficient way and there are Priests, Shamans, Druids and a lot of players who do not quite understand this.
I once had a Band Leader who said: «All of our healers are excellent except our Paladins«. His reasoning was that the other Healers always outperformed the rest of the Healers in the statistics. Despite trying to explain to him that no one died and that therefore the work that was being carried out was impeccable, he was not able to understand it. Many people have a hard time understanding the different mechanics of classes and their different roles.
4 - Meters are not infallible
Nothing and no one is perfect and meters are no exception. I have sometimes seen different reports of the same battle that show very different results. I've even seen WWS reports that apparently I haven't been there. I have also played with some Priests who used to pound the Healing Circle button and some Shamans who only had a healing spell called Chain Healing. Neither the healers are perfect, nor are the Addons that collect this information, either.
Conclusions
The meters have a goal. Measure DPS. For Healers they also have a purpose but it is much more difficult to define if a Healer is good or bad based on the statistics. When I was playing as a Guildmaster as well as a Raid Leader, I used to look at all this data and especially one important statistic: Healing Too Much. Many times it heals too much and this increases the statistics (although it worsens others of course) and part of the general situation of the combat in question, it was one of the values that helped me evaluate the attitude of my healers.
Before you clear the meters or insult your raid leader, I must say that I have had them installed since before Karazhan but you have to know how to use them wisely in every way, even in DPS. A few days ago I received a question for Guíaswow He responded that it came from a mage and told me that his damage in Bands was exceptional but in 5-person dungeons it was much lower than the rest of the DPS. Everything influences.
If you have any correction or clarification to add, as always the comments remain open.