I ask this because I've been noticing something curious as I've been leveling Olateria. Now, she's not a healer, but she has been called on to heal a few times - and maybe it's just me, being as it's been awhile since I've leveled a baby character, but it seems that the new trend in LFG is that, if you're a healer and you need mana, you tell the group that you need mana and plop your butt down to drink. It used to be, at least for me when I was leveling my main, that one of the tank's responsibilities was to watch his healer's mana bar and to pause accordingly to let them drink when they got low. I'm guessing this is no longer fashionable and that it's now the healer's responsibility to pipe up if they're parched - which is fine, don't get me wrong, I'm the first to scream "MANA" when I'm scraping the end of the mana bucket - it just seems like a curious change to me. But maybe I was just spoiled when I leveled the first couple of times around. After all, we didn't have LFG and if you could actually find a healer (or a tank) you held on to them with a grip like a vice.
It's an interesting situation to me and it prompts me to ask - if you're a tank out there in the LFG system now, do you watch your healer's mana bar?
I'm guessing that answers would be mixed. I would expect more "yes" from the people who had 80 tanks (or perhaps even ANY 80) before LFG came out and more "no" from those that didn't. I can say though, that everytime I'm in a group (whether as DPS or heals) that if a tank pauses for the healer to drink before they ask or tells the group "mana up" before a boss, that my loyalty and admiration jumps like a gazillion points. I will follow you anywhere, Mr. Tank, and mercilessly kill anything you ask!
Hmmm, I wonder if there is an addon out there that would announce a healer's low mana to the party? I'm guessing there probably is one, I just don't know about it. I have MSBT set up to play a little chime sound when I get low on my main, but how much more awesome would it be if it would also post something in party chat like, "Olateria is below 20% mana. For the love of all that's holy, let her drink!"... or something similiar. Obviously, I would only want it to do that if I was healing. I never expect a tank to stop and let me drink if I'm DPSing. I always figure I'll just drink and catch up when I'm done.
The new LFG has obviously brought a lot of changes, both big and small. For the most part though, I really do love the system. Ola is wearing so many more blues now than she ever would have before. I almost don't even miss heirlooms!
Well, almost.
