Changing Relationships: Healers, RDF and Me

(G)TFL had an interesting post about tree hugging. I was going to say that it really hadn't changed my relationship with healers--but he made me think it it has.

Where as players on my server are actually people, thanks to the lack of tools from Blizzard for cross server chat, all others have been reduced to mere numbers. I mean I know they are still people, and I would like to connect at least some of them--but they are only part of my life for these 15 action packed minutes. Not only am I unlikely to see them again, its difficult to actually talk to them once we are done.

I am, if you ask me, catastrophically overgeared for most 5 mans. There is very little that can kill me in i200 dungeons other than stupidity or inattentiveness. My healer is reduced to a mana pool. If the pool is high, I keep on pulling, if not I stop. The DPS, generally, gets even less attention. I don't care about their mana. If they pull aggro they are probably even more overgeared than I am for the instance and can down the mob without my help. Even if it they, aren't, it probably gives the important mana bar healer, something to do.

My mental model for these people has been reduced to some black boxes of heal, damage or tank, with maybe 2 bits of other information--good or idiot, and (if a healer or tank) capable of supporting chain-pulling: Y/N.

RDFs really are soloing together.