Healers - James Ohlen speaks out?!

As a shadow tank, with some work, I can shut down 2 dps trying to kill/interrupt my healer between my KB, taunts, knockdown, stun, and mezz I can tie them up nearly indefinitely, freeing my healer to get out group heals on anyone in the immediate vicinity. One of my more regular PvP premade partners is a sage, and I've never seen him underperform in a WZ.

I don't know if I'd say required. If you want to be competitive, then yes, but the alternative was pre 1.2 when tanks were useless and all stacked dps gear because healers didn't need any help.

In the exact same circumstance, I would heal for twice as much as the sage in question because the interrupts would hardly phase me. Not only that, I would have to spend far less time healing both you guarding me and myself because I am far less squishy (for several reasons). This means the majority of my healing is going to other people that need it instead of to us.

Also, I am not trying to be rude here, but your example is a little far fetched. You should know as well as I do that you aren't going to be fighitng practice dummies. They are going to be using CC, interrupts, etc. on your healer as well. Your cool downs are going to be half as effective in use compared to theirs simply because multiple opponents have more to burn through than you do alone. I would venture to say that even a single well played marauder (using my guild members as an example) is going to do more than enough to lock that sage's effectiveness down despite your best efforts, even if a single marauders cant kill him.

Really man, I know what you are trying to do and say, but coming from the perspective of playing all three healers, I have a pretty damn good perspective as to the difference between them. The sorc/sage excels, no doubt, but only in situations where they are fighting idiots.

The point being that if i want to roll as heals in pvp. I aam expected to drag a tank along. Yet marauders for instance can not only survive without a healer to do their job but in most cases ccan take on 2 or more solo and still walk away looking for a fight. Now i am in no way saying healers should be able to survive 4v1without. But they need to be given better viability via survival cds or new escape mechanics.

I agree not all healers are in the same place. For sure Scoundrel is better off than sorc, that I'll admit. However, my point was that tanks are the pivotal game changer for ANY healer.

As a shadow tank, with some work, I can shut down 2 dps trying to kill/interrupt my healer between my KB, taunts, knockdown, stun, and mezz I can tie them up nearly indefinitely, freeing my healer to get out group heals on anyone in the immediate vicinity. One of my more regular PvP premade partners is a sage, and I've never seen him underperform in a WZ.

But if we give you those tools and you don't need a tank, why take one?

If you are capable of escaping any foe and never needing to rely on your team for help, you might as well just drop the tanks and stack more dps.

I see nothing wrong with at the beginning of a pug WZ you ask whos a tank and if you can get guarded. I often will call out in pug WZs to see who is heals and gravitate towards them for the teams sake.

This is a team game, you have to learn to work with others to shore up your classes weaknesses.

Your entire discussion points to a healer only being allowed to heal if he is attached to the hip of another player. This is un acceptable. I wonder how dps classes would feel if 90 % of their abilities could not be used unless they were standing next to a healer? Most of the sorc/sages i know have either rerolled or went dps and in some cases just unsubbed.

Been there done that. Most times the healers are left to their own devices unless in a PREMADE as you keep referring to. Let that sorc healer try to solo any dps. And he dies unless he outgears the opponent. Yes it is a team. It is a team of tunnelvisioner players who are wrapped around the next kill for their medals. Having a character that is essentially useless without another player is nonviable. IF they are ignored and IF your opponents are completely ignorant they can do well. Most dps jump straight to sorcs/sages not because they are afraid of their healing ability but because they are easy kills/medals.