How does one politely...

[Umbralpuff]

tell another player to be less aweful in an instance.

After trying for drops in instances many times with no success, and being rejected from my friends casual raiding guild because of raid time conflicts (when I don't have any) only to find out that the lock they did invite wipes them in SSC constantly...I've decided to take a break from my lock and work in my resto druid.

I decided to get my feet wet healing regular instances and maybe an easy heroic, like slave pens. I'm in a PuG in SV for the regular daily, and I notice that one of the rogues (that's right, we had 2) was needing heals often and early in encounters. For those interested, it was me healing as a resto druid, 2 rogues, a bear tank and an elemental shaman.

About half way through the instance, I decide to see how the damage meter looks; perhaps he's just doing so much more damage that he's pulling aggro. Oh no, that was not the case at all. That twerp was 4th on damage behind the tank and second on healing taken. At this point my cynical nature leads me to believe that this rogue is, in fact, dead weight. I was at loss as to how to express my frustration at the situation from a healer's standpoint, however. After all, this is regular SV and not H-MgT. I don't know what his gear was like, and I can't say that I really care all that much. I myself have had problems with low dps so I can relate to that. To the best of my knowledge, though, I have never been simultaneously low on dps and required the healer to watch me like a hawk. So the conversation went something like...

Me: Mr. Rogue, I would like you to change your tactics.
Rogue: to what?
Me: to something that involves you taking less damage and doing more to the mobs.
Rogue:


Later on the rogue starts attacking random non hostile mobs claiming that "The tree told me to do more damage." My reply was something along the lines of, "No, no, get it right. The tree told you to take less damage and do more."

On a happy side note, I got my Famous hat of don carlos yesterday. I have yet to farm the mageweave to make the entire outfit. It looks fabulous on gnomes.

[snackereen]

You might have been a bit too polite telling him what/that he did wrong (I assume you did your best healing the group ;)).
In my opinion, every 70 should know how to avoid as much aggro as possible. Of course you can't always, but if the rogue constantly gained aggro, he obviously did something wrong. Might it be gear or talents I don't know.

I'm always happy getting polite advice how to improve, but I know there are "others" out there, too. And advice (positive criticism) helps the entire group - every 70 should know that.

[Darn]

I think that your mistake was to heal that rogue. ;)

If they need healing there is something wrong. The tank or the rogue is doing something they;re not suppose to do. Letting people die can be an effective way of letting them see that they are messing it up.

Spamming some DPS-meters can be effective too.

[Gritz]

If you have an addon that displays party targets (I use pitbull, but X-Perl is the most popular, if I recall correctly), turn them on so you can see who everyone is targeting. Make a macro that says 'everyone assist the tank.' Spam it whenever you see the offending party member targeting the wrong mob.

You can also ask all the DPS to make a macro that says /assist tank
Where tank = name of tank
(yes, you'll need to change the macro every run)
Also, make sure that you decide a proper kill order before the run starts, and type it into chat. You can make that into a macro as well if you'd like.

If all that fails, then you can tell the offending DPS that if they pull aggro, they need to heal themselves. After 2-3 deaths, they will either wise up or leave the party. You win either way

[Theleb]

I'm with Darn.

If they die, just tell them you were too busy healing the MT to save them when they pull aggro. Two solutions are a) GET OMEN YOU SLACK ROGUE and b) LEARN TO NOT PULL AGGRO....possibly coupled with L2DPS (Yep, in caps. all of the previous have been used by myself at one time or another and this is on a Resto Shaman so healing a rogue doesn't even require any effort with CH....).

Just tell them how it is - maybe they'll thank you for it.

[levinho]

I never do it politely.

The reason is that they are costing me repair bills and time. I would have messaged the party leader and had him kicked. Then again when I pug stuff I also ask them what their gear is like and so forth.

If you have a tank go:

"mitigation? huhhh what is that"

Then you know its probably a pug to avoid. (I've seen that tell so many times btw.)

I also agree that the best tactic as a healer is to just not give heals. Really, no dps is going to appreciate a healer calling him out. If he kills himself too much hopefully he would drop group and hearth or ninja log.

I remember this rogue that did less damage then the tank when H magister's came out and we kicked him but due to the design of the instance there was no forced port to shattrath. He sat naked in front of Kael for 10 minutes until we all logged off whereupon he immediately hearthed. We finished it shortly after.

[Necronomis]

I've followed a "you pull it, you tank it" policy that quite a few healers have given the DPS in a group.

In a heroic ( or sometimes even Kara) I'll pull something off the tank if it's low on health and my cooldowns are up. I have enough health and burst damage to do it. This technique works better when the tank and healer are aware that you may do this from time to time otherwise they will get pissed and think you just suck at DPS. I wouldn't recommend it in pugs.

If someone pulls aggro just tell them to watch their threat. If it happens a couple more times don't even bother explaining, just kick them out. Most decent people I've seen do it just say "sorry, got a few massive crits and stuff procced" and that's good enough for me as long as it doesn't happen constantly.

[Belaenus]

I personally like helpful advice. Being new to level 70 I know there is a lot I need to learn. What I don't like are the comments from people that just say Learn to Play. I had someone tell me once to just leave a battleground. I asked what I did wrong and he replied that it was what I was doing it was what I wasn't. When I asked him what I wasn't doing, I didn't get a response. He didn't help me improve at all. The comment came from another lock who was doing an insane amount of damage so I am sure I could have learned something from him. He just chose to not pass that knowledge on.

[just1guy]

I am a firm believer of the "You yank it....you tank it" philosophy. I am astounded by the sheer number of players that cannot/refuse to manage their aggro (the accidental/unbelievable chain crit notwithstanding).

I had a similar situation while back with a rogue (no surprise...) who consistently pulled aggro or would evasion off-tank for no strategic reason - I threw only one lifebloom on him each time. He questioned my healing skills/focus and i plainly answered, "That one lifebloom just saved your ***...stop pulling aggro or you will be promoted to self-support a.k.a bandages..."

[Kiralyn]

I've had a lot of these issues lately in PuGs, both regular and heroic, and I think it's just a matter of the entry level 70 having changed. All the experienced players are a) off doing things like arena and BT and not wasting time in heroics or b) not playing a lot until Wrath releases. I am constantly running into situations where players have no idea how to operate in a group, don't understand simple concepts like assisting and CC, and seemingly expect the rest of the group to carry them like the 70s that boosted them through lowbie instances. It makes trying to accomplish anything insanely difficult.

I've run into some people who are, like me, taking the time to level and or gear an alt before the xpac, and those groups have been perfect. But more often than not, that's me lucking out and healing a group of friends who were missing one for an instance, and is definitely the exception as opposed to the norm. I know this has been brought up a lot, but most fresh 70s now have little or no instancing experience. Unless you want to be the nice guy and walk them through how to play their class in a group, it isn't improving anytime soon.