3 Personal but Probably Uncommon PvP Peeves

I think even those of us who love to PvP can agree that it can also be a source of annoyance. Common issues that I see cited frequently are people insulting their team members when things go badly (while frequently playing terribly themselves) or team mates not communicating when they need help. While I generally do agree that those things are annoying, I've also largely become immune to really letting them get to me. For me, it's some very different and probably slightly unusual matters that make me want to shout at my screen. I suspect that they have a lot to do with me playing pretty much exclusively as a healer. Let me tell you about this healer's pet peeves in PvP:

Number 3: Timid damage dealers

Back during my heyday with World of Warcraft, I went through a phase of doing 2v2 arenas with a friend. One thing I noticed early on was that the very start of the match was actually already a pretty good indicator of what was going to happen next: If they charged us before we charged them, we were likely to lose.

I continue to observe this in group PvP to this day, though I'm not sure which way the causation goes. Are better players just more confident and therefore more likely to charge in first? Or is taking the initiative and forcing an otherwise equally strong opponent on the defensive right away that much of a tide-turner?

Either way it drives me absolutely bonkers when I end up on a team that seems to be terminally afraid of making the first move. It's particularly bad in arenas, where getting everything just right is even more important. Whenever I end up on Corellia Square and my team jumps down just to immediately hide behind the nearest shipping container, it makes me want to scream. You're not setting up some sort of clever ambush here, guys, they know we're here! Though it can get vaguely amusing when the enemy team suffers from the same lack of confidence and everyone spends the entire first minute of the match just standing around, waiting for the other team to move first.

It can be annoying in regular warzones too though. As a healer, my ideal position is somewhere behind everyone else, just out of range of the enemy, healing up the damage my team is taking. Yet what happens in all too many games I'm in? We run towards, say, the southern bunker in Novare Coast together, but just before we get there, people to the left and right of me suddenly come to a screeching halt - "Don't want to get hit first!" - and suddenly I couldn't be any more exposed to the enemy if I tried. In Ancient Hypergates in particular this has become so prevalent that I sometimes completely give up on getting any support with the attack in mid, hit Hold the Line and charge the enemy on my own... which if nothing else usually earns me at least a brief moment of visible confusion on their part.

On the flip side, I absolutely adore damage dealers who are willing to make that push (usually Guardians or Sentinels) and will go out of my way to chase after them if they run out of healing range, because it's their daring and determination to hunt down the enemy healers at the back that can make all the difference when it comes to forcing the enemy away from an objective.

Number 2: People who complain about lack of calls

I suspect that this is the one that people might find the most surprising, considering that team mates not calling for help when they need it is one of the more common annoyances that players experience. Surely someone criticising such a person has a valid grievance?

Well, yes and no. Of course I'd prefer it if people made more of an effort to communicate. But the thing is, most of the time people don't need to type "help, I'm under attack" for their team mates to be able to know this. You see, there is this neat little thing called the operations frames, which show your entire team's health bars. So if Bob went off to guard the western turret at the start, and suddenly Bob's health starts dropping... something is wrong, whether he says anything or not. I get that if you're not a healer, your eyes aren't as glued to other people's health bars as mine are. But that's no excuse to not take a quick look every now and then.

Basically, whenever I see someone get savage because a player who was guarding a node didn't call for help and died, all I hear is: "Hello, I am unable to pay attention to more than one thing at a time and like to blame this failure on others!"

Not that I never get distracted by things like people with fascinating (guild) names...

Number 1: "Don't we have any healers?"

Usually asked while me and at least one other healer are working our butts off, desperately trying to keep people alive in the face of overwhelming odds while getting murdered by the enemy melee. Anyone asking this instantly drops to the very bottom of my priority list because they clearly have no awareness of what's going on around them and can't be a player worth keeping alive above others.

I suspect that at least some of those who ask this question are actively trying to get a rise out of the healers who they know very well are dying all around them, but sadly knowing this doesn't automatically make me immune to being aggravated by it anyway. It's just so deeply insulting - it doesn't just suggest that we're doing a bad job, it implies that we're so bad at what we're doing that it's not even noticeable that we exist.

Anyway, you should rarely if ever have to ask whether there are any healers on your team anyway, because once again the operations frames are your friend. Check your team's class composition at the start - there are exactly six advanced classes out of the total of sixteen that are able to heal. Any Sages/Sorcerers, Commandos/Mercenaries, Scoundrels/Operatives in the group? They might be healers. Sometimes the buffs on them can help; for example it's usually only healing Mercs or Mandos that use Combat Support Cell/Cylinder. At max level you can also inspect them and most people will be wearing something with a set bonus from which you can deduce where their specialisation lies.

More than anything though, healers usually try to make themselves known anyway. A bit like puppies, we just want to be loved. Admittedly, few will start off a warzone by saying "I'm a healer" but that's because such directness is considered somewhat crass (what's next, demanding a guard?!). But there are usually plenty of non-verbal cues: the Sage spamming Salvation in the starting zone, the Commando putting probes on everyone, the Scoundrel rotating heals over time on everyone before the match has even started.

We're not asking for a freaking medal. Just a bit of acknowledgement that we're not trying any less hard than you are.