How do you deal...

when your GM seems to be a little schizoid over his intentions for you in his raids?

My situation: I've recently respecced pretty much permanently prot, I've been gathering gear for a while through severe healer burnout, then finally took the plunge and I'd been happier with my lot than I'd been for a long time. People were trusting me to tank their heroics, I was MT'ing and RL'ing my Kara group just fine, gathering badges to get better gear so I can tank in ZA - until this weekend.

We run 2 Kara groups usually - and mine had 3 people unsign close to raid time on Saturday due to RL issues, so the GM decides to consolidate into 1 group. We had 5-6 healers and 3 tanks available, yet what do I hear next in raid leader chat: "Go respec holy Kirbs, we need you healing". We had more healers available than there were spaces in the raid. Yet I still get nagged to respec. He knows how burnt out I am as a healbot, I can barely look at my toon in holy spec let along want to play it, yet I still get forced into respeccing. When there are other healers available. I told him when I went prot that I would only respec holy in absolute emergencies, yet last night I get forced to respec when there were healers available who wanted to go to Kara, and that really grinds my gears. I'm stuck holy until Monday night now for the followup run, which had the side effect of bringing my alt to lvl 50 today because there was no way I was healbotting for anyone today.

(There's also one guy in the guild who cuts over me every time I step into a tanking discussion with the warrior and druid tanks in the guild with a sharp "Paladins should heal, end of". But that's another story, and another little frustration.)

Sorry for rambling... but really what I'm asking is what the hell can I do to make my life less frustrating, I really don't want to go looking for a new guild because alliance on my server is a total cesspool mostly, and I've put so much effort into my guild as officer and raid leader - but when I keep getting forced to respec despite the fact it was totally unnecessary and it makes me completely miserable, sometimes I feel it would be the best option to look for somewhere new.

</rant>
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Is your GM mature enough to sit down and talk to, saying exactally what you just posted here? If so, do so. I've always been a firm believer in telling it like it is.
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armory | youtube | stuff

I agree with Invisusira. Step one is to stop letting people "force" you into doing something you don't want to do and the only way to do that is to stand up for yourself and tell the GM exactly what your intentions for your character's spec are.
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yeah, my thoughts are, don't respec if you don't want to. The reason people look at hybrids as 'healers with jokey off-specs' is because people are so willing to buckle and switch to a healing role when they're forced to.

A raid leader/guild leader looks at anyone with a heal button as a healer. My fiance once got into an argument with a guild leader on ysera about potential healers being dps; the topic was shadow priests. She asked the guy, 'if Mages had Fire, Frost, and Holy trees, would you make them respec to heal?' and the guy stopped for a mintue and said 'yes'. This is a typical mentality for a guild leader. When you're weak on healing you look for it where you can find it.

Be inflexible. If you don't want to heal, don't. Even if it comes at the raid's expense. Yours is not the only guild in Kara/ZA. Any guild who can get together ten people can pull together a Kara run at this point. Tanks are perfectly in demand. If your guild is willing to let you go because they'd rather not recruit a new healer, then leave.

edit; ftr i'm not saying MY MANA IS FOR ME / PALLIES SHOULDN'T HAVE TO HEAL - I am saying, do what you want to. I personally don't mind off-healing on occasion. If you like to heal sometimes, but tanking's your passion, do that. But if you don't like healing and you've made that clear, you shouldn't, period. Don't play the game at all if you're not going to have fun with it.
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Yeah, my GM looks at anyone (except me ^^) with a heal button as a healer. Even my Bear OT is a healer in his eyes, lol.

He doesn't lead the raids. =3
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armory | youtube | stuff

If you really have this dude actually cutting you off in Vent or whatever to say something like that, I'd suggest doing one of the following (no, I don't tend to be nice to people that are just simply rude);

* Tell him "People who interrupt others should shut up"
* Mute him. That way you can cheerfully talk over the top of him and keep right on your merry way while he's trying to protest
* Challenge him. Ask him why he thinks it's acceptable to interrupt someone when they're in the middle of talking in an attempt to discredit them with a baseless statement. Don't mention your class. Don't mention his.

Basically, interrupting someone with a statement intended to discredit the talker, and tacking an "end of" at the end to try and discourage debate is just absolutely, unforgivably rude. You shouldn't put up with it.

Doesn't matter what your spec is.
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Zen Tanking - http://zentanking.blogspot.com

I wouldnt have respeced, I would have gone and done a heroic. and I would tell buddy who keeps interupting you that he can shut his pie hole, then proceeded to mute him in vent, and ignore him in game.
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I have heard of people being moved to a different channel in vent that voice bad opinions. They keep talking while not being aware they have been moved, and no one keeps hearing them.

It's hard though when you have personnal issues in a guild that you enjoy. I'm guessing that's why this is a hard thing for the original poster. You love the guild, get along great with a good handful of people, the rest you are neutral with, while the final ones are... well, just horrible really. You don't want to leave because of the good players, but some others just make it hell.

If I have read right it sounds like a misunderstanding. The OP wanted to go into Kara, they had enough tanks for the group (like the normal tanks for group 1). Perhaps the OP had a reputation as a good healer in the past and so that was the only way they would let him run that day.

That's me just guessing and filling in the blanks.

You don't have to run Karazhan though whenever it's avaliable. I haven't been there a while, and I have only been there twice, the first time I was in a crap group with no healers and we could not kill the first boss, the second time we ran out of time and only got up to Moroes.

But I've kept working at my gear, kept running heroics, built up a reputation with some good quality PuG people who we regularily bust down heroics with....

Now I'm starting to get to the point where I might be able to tank in ZA, let along Kara, without actually having any Kara items. I broke 15.8k health in a heroic half pug. That's enough to solo tank the whole of Kara, if I understand correctly.

But that's me, that's how I deal with a lack of Kara runs. I don't have an ironclad association with my guild, I have an iron clad association with my secret heroic pugging group. Maybe one day there might be enough of us that we just pug ZA.

There are no real answers here to how to deal with the OP situation, but it might present a different way of looking at things.
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Don't let yourself be forced into respeccing. That's the single biggest problem I see here.
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Well Kirby you pretty much summed up in this last post. YOu let yourself being juggled by them. Sometimes you *have* to be a dick to get what you want. They had plenty healers and tanks, so why change at all? It'd be better to just sit out.


And kick the guy that cut you in the neck. Or maybe stick a pineapple sideways into his ass. That should be enough >.>
Hope you get the problem behind you ^^
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