Revelation
So something was brought to my attention during my last raid. We currently have two Pally healers who are pretty consistent at making it to raids. Myself obviously, and one other. The other Pally, when he first came back(I guess he was on a hiatus or something like that), immediately began questioning my choices as a healer, such as me stacking int, why I hadn’t picked up the Frost libram yet, etc. That was 3 weeks ago. Since then I’ve been missing something so huge, that I’m surprised it didn’t smack me in the face with a brick wall sooner. Well it did on Tuesday night. Hard.
He’s not healing. Not just not healing well, at all.
At. Fricken. All. Seriously, on Marrowgar, he had just over 300,000 healing done. That means if he had beacon up, he did 150,000 of actual healing to someone. That’s NOTHING. We’ve got DPS doing more healing then that.
But, I had to ask him. I don’t want to just be the guy who assumes. So I asked him what he was doing to heal. His response was almost as shocking as seeing him on the meters. “Oh, nothing really.” Why? I’m still waiting on a response. I asked our assistant GM later that night about him. It’s a family oriented guild, with most of the core having been together for a while, so I had to check. I asked if this healer was a family member, whether the leadership knew that he was absolutely being carried, or what. Her response was that he’s the nephew of one of our healers, and he doesn’t really like healing. I had to take a step back at this point, and look at where I was at.
1. He doesn’t like to heal.
2. He isn’t healing.
3. He’s making raids, taking up a spot from someone who actually WANTS to be there.
I’m having a hard time with this. I’ve got 3 choices, as I see them.
1. Talk to him, try to help him out. Or at least talk him into healing a little more.
2. Talk to the leadership, try to get them to see that he’s simply being carried, and that we can fill his spot with someone who WANTS to be there, be they healer or DPS(I vote DPS since we’ve been fine without his heals so far).
3. Ignore it, don’t rock the boat, let a sleeping dog lie, don’t cause trouble.
My first instinct is to go with #1, I’m constantly trying to help people out. But, this healer isn’t the most mature, and I have a short temper when it comes to people just acting immature. The problem with that is I don’t want to alienate myself from his uncle, due to his uncle being one of the longest standing members of the guild. His word carries weight. I don’t think the guild would boot me cause he said so(or anything along those lines), but really, who wants to be the guy who causes trouble like that?
If I go with #3, then what happens when that rare piece of Pally Loot drops, and he rolls on it? I’m a firm believer in you get what you earn. And if he’s not doing anything, but still being given the chance to roll against me on something, then I have a serious problem with that. Not because I’m losing out on purple pixels, but because the guild as a whole is losing out on an upgrade. It’s going to someone who’s not doing anything, who’s being carried. It hurts the guild no matter which way you look at it.
With #2 I run into the same problem as #1, they could go to his Uncle, and again, I don’t want to rock the boat.
Seriously, this is a problem for me. The entire situation is. I’m damned if I do, and damned if I don’t. What would you guys do in this situation? I have a feeling I know what I’m going to do, but I’d like to see your ideas on how to handle this. More than likely you’ll think of something I haven’t.
-Sady
Flash of Sadysm 
I’m sure the leadership knows. When I was an officer in a casual/familytype guild, that kind of thing happened fairly often. There’s not much we could say about it, but we knew.
Generally we’d give them a few raids, then try to help them. Most of the time, though, they’d quit before they reached the “lets help them” stage.
I’d suggest wait about two weeks before thinking about doing anything. It sucks if you lose a roll to him in that time (murphy’s loot law: the more useless the player, the higher they roll), but if he’s as disgruntled as you describe chances are he won’t stick around.
Yeah, the assistant GM talked like it was business as usual. But I don’t believe he will be going anywhere, as his uncle is a long standing and very respected member of the guild.
I’m not sure what the ages involved are here… is the other pally very young? Or is he an adult who just doesn’t give a damn? How is his uncle? I’d suggest talking to his uncle first and seeing what the situation is – if the uncle is a serious player and the pally is just screwing around, he might understand your problem.
What about the raid leader? Does s/he know one of the healers is not… healing? Even if it’s a family guild, raids are for killing bosses, not coddling nephews. Maybe if the pally doesn’t like healing, the guild can help him get DPS gear or level a new class.
I haven’t been in a family/casual guild before, but personally I couldn’t keep raiding with a person who completely ignored the other people present. He is basically making you work twice as hard because he ‘doesn’t like healing’. Well, if he doesn’t like it, he can stop doing it and let someone else who *does* like it get in the raid. I think it’s ridiculous that he is allowed to take up that spot.
He’s 22 from what I’m told. And his uncle is a damn good player, he takes the raid quite seriously. And I completely agree, if we weren’t downing bosses cause of it, I’d really be pissed, but bosses are dying.
Well… you’re not downing bosses thanks to him either. You’re carrying him, pure and simple. Do you want to keep doing it?