Healing has not felt this unrewarding in a while for me.

[Sundreamer]

i feel the same way about healing...i've been disc healing since BC (holy before) and always enjoyed it...now it feels like i gotta keep atonement up all of the time, throw out 2 dmging spells to heal a tiny portion and reapply atonement...but as soon as big dmg rolls out, shit hits the fan because i cant heal like i used to...my aoe heal now only heals 3 targets or (if talented) heals 5 targets, applies no atonement and applies a bubble that absorbs healing...it's not fun anymore

[Thrif]

Hmm, I disagree, at least as a resto druid. PvE healing feels like it's in a really good spot for me. I have good control on whether people live or die outside of people completely ignoring mechanics - one or two screwups are easy to compensate for. So it feels like it is like it should be.

The main fault I find is the designed inability to save people from large damage spikes outside of Major use of CDs.
Health pools greatly out scale heal amounts and tanks are now mostly responsible for their own safety.

I don't feel like there are any large damage spikes in the game at all, though. Yes, healing is applied slowly, but so is damage outside of idiots completely ignoring every mechanic, and if that's the case you're not supposed to be able to compensate for that with just heals.

Current dungeon design combined with speed oriented play style has shifted virtually all of the stress of a dungeon run onto the healer.

In the early days of WoW the emphasis was on control. I remember talking before each and every pull. Waiting for the healer to drink, marking the mobs for crowd control, discussing the plan. But now it's all about maximizing pulls and kill speed and zooming as fast as conceivably possible from boss to boss.

This can be great mindless fun for tank and dps. Zoom, zoom, kill, kill while dodging a few mechanics. But the only limiter on how much they can zoom and kill is the ability of the healer to keep up and heal through it. This isn't much fun for the healer, always feeling stressed and rushed.

The way things are going I expect the healer shortage to get much worse before it gets better. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if, in the next expac, Blizzard starts to move away from the classic trinity and enables some form of healer-less dungeon runs.

That's pretty subjective though. I enjoy being a healer while keeping up a fast pace, having to manage my mana and sneak in shadowmeld drinks when I know I can manage. Of course, that's only to a certain extent while it's manageble and exciting, if it would become way too difficult it would indeed turn stressful and bothersome.

Pretty insightful post overall though.

[ejpaints]

I've not leveled all of my healers yet but I think this may be unique to certain classes. My Druid feels like I'm healing in cata again. My shaman is being leveled as Elemental still & I'm not sure if she'll go back to heals. Paladin seems wicked fun. Priest may not make it out of Stormwind bc I didn't like it at all during invasions & don't expect the artifact to change that much. The only one I haven't actually tried yet is monk.

Thinking it'll be my Druid/paladin like it was back in cata so far.

[JohnnyP]

So glad I came across this thread. I thought it was me.

[beefy48]

So glad I came across this thread. I thought it was me.

Yea, same here. I have found that I'm either doing almost nothing or having to spam the hell out of Flash Heal. But on the other hand, healing is always a challenge at the start of an xpac. People still think they can ignore mechanics and zerg the dungeons. I'm thinking it will get better as the xpac gets older.

[Lightwysh]

I main hpally. Runs are either stupid easy and I can dps my way through them or you just can't keep up. Lord help you if you get a full melee group.

I will say, once you get out of regulars and into heroic+ it gets easier. Yet it's still one extreme or the other.

[Dormie]

It will probably get better as the expansion goes along and we get more gear and class changes.

[Rakoth]

I main a MWer monk, and my play schedule leaves me out of guild mythic runs.

I remember a mythic Valor run (which also happened to be my first mythin) at 347. I spent the time scrambling, but it was SO MUCH FUN!

Hyrja storm side was easy, everyone went into the eye, and i DPSed. The tank didn't run from Santify, so I spent my time scrambling. The only reason we survived was because I burnt all my Cooldowns and pushed 200k HPS on that fight, including the downtime during eye of storm, so probably 350k HPS during the "Light" phase.

After the fight, one of the DPS educated him on avoiding those, but I felt I had done my job. You can't heal stupid, but I have been making up for it a lot, and I have had no trouble making up for the tank spikes. Maybe the MWer toolkit is really strong right now, but I never feel overwhelmed. Envelopping mist combined with 12 stack artifact is absurd... I healed for 2 million once.

[Regalbeast]

I'm enjoying healing. TBH it feels a lot more fun and involved than WoD did. I hardly had to heal in WoD.

[dextersmith]

Health pools greatly out scale heal amounts and tanks are now mostly responsible for their own safety.

I thought tanks are more dependent on healers now.

[Deleted]

I thought tanks are more dependent on healers now.

that was the alleged intention.

In practice it is difficult to dent the enormous tank health pool.
Instead the Tank himself has the largest impact on his own health and mitigation.

Many tanks can heal themselves for more than I can.

[Deleted]

What OP is describing is having a shitty tank/DPS. You cannot and SHOULD NOT be able to save people from failing mechanics on higher difficulties. Being able to do so would trivialize content.

If the DPSer sits in the fire he SHOULD be punished for his lack of awareness. He shouldn't be able to say "Its K the healer will deal with it". At that point, you might as well be fighting Patchwerk every time.

If you constantly have to spam your fast heal on the tank, he's not using his mitigation correctly or you've pulled one of the particularly big/dangerous packs, or more than one.

As for speed pulling, to each his own, I find going quickly and straining my mana pool entertaining. In fact, as I'm now almost 850 and the average puggie I run with is 840, the amount of incoming damage has considerably lessened and truth is I find the game most fun when I'm at <10% mana and struggling, which hasn't happened in this/last week's mythics as much as the 1st one. We'll have to see how Mythic+ goes.

[Exhale]

I agree with this post 100%

[Deleted]

Healing has been mismanaged since the beginning of Cata. Used to love it. Since then it doesn't satisfy at all.

Vanilla healing was great, but combined with today's knowledge and player skill, it would probably be too easy. Loved that healers actually had the time to get into the five second rule and plan their heals, instead of just spamming the shit out of everything. It started going downhill in late wotlk, but was still fun at that point.

In cata, they decided to make healing punishing and all about stacking and huge cool downs. It's been crap for me ever since. Not sure what they can do about it.

[TheWindWalker]

that was the alleged intention.

In practice it is difficult to dent the enormous tank health pool.
Instead the Tank himself has the largest impact on his own health and mitigation.

Many tanks can heal themselves for more than I can.

Exactly. If I have a massive amount of single-target healing available to me and I cast on a tank only to notice my "Flash Heal" is only going to get about 10% of his maximum HP per cast, and he's taking ~10% per second from the wall of mobs he's pulled, it's a bit scary. Now throw in two DPS losing HP much faster than him and it's downright stressful without coordination.

Like, I really enjoy it with a premade group I'm in chat with but with strangers it makes me feel pitiful.

[Chiquihuite]

Maybe it's a playstyle thing? I've been having a great time as a Resto Shaman. Banking Tidal Waves, then using Healing Surge as rapid response to burst moments/people screwing up mechanics. With 30% Crit from gear + 52% from Tidal Waves (with 3/3 artifact trait) it's extremely reliable to get huge mastery-buffed Healing Surges. Regularly landing crit heals for 650k+ in 840 gear.

[Asrialol]

People want to be able to top people off with 1 button? Kind of disgusting. Why not just make DPS kill stuff with the push of a button as well.

If you are in a 5 man and don't manage to heal through something that was intended to be healed through, you're either bad, have a bad tank/dps, or you're both undergeared.
If someone has 5-10% health left in a dungeon these days, you're either bad, the dps is bad because he stood in fire or something, or you're just undergeared.

Also, those saying healing in legion is boring; they've obviously never tried mythic+. Pretty much all the affixes affects healers more than the other roles. Healing in raids / dungeons isn't different now to how it used to be. It's "boring" to heal if nobody takes damage? You're supposed to deal damage then. Not fun? This game, or healing, or the class you play, isn't for you.

[Rakoth]

People want to be able to top people off with 1 button? Kind of disgusting. Why not just make DPS kill stuff with the push of a button as well.

MWer Artifact says hello. If I have enveloping mist on the tank, I can usually hit him with a 2+ mil heal.

Now, to be fair, this is only possible with 12 stacks (2 min setup).

[prwraith]

Yeah this happens often with pugging. I was in a mythic group in Eye of Aszshara and holy shit we had 2 dps that kept failing at mechanics. It was awful. They didn't move away from tornadoes, they didn't move away from waves, they didn't move from lightning and every now and then they'd fall into the boss. It was probably my least enjoyable run yet.

But that changes when I run with my guild so it's all good. It's definitely annoying when I'm pugging and people don't follow mechanics though.

Good thing is I've been in more groups that follow mechanics and pull good numbers, so I'm not too mad, but I have had a few groups that made me question everything.

As a holy paladin though I find things more relaxing. It's been my main forever so maybe it's just that I'm really used to it but in situations where everyone is taking loads of damage and even more avoidable damage I can still keep the group going.

- - - Updated - - -



Agreed. I like most things about GW2 but I'm mainly a PvE'r and the system GW2 has is just bad. I much prefer the classic trinity of dps-heals-tanks we have now.

Oh yea holy pal is my thing too, mained him as a healer since i can remember. I love high damage sections where I pop all cd's and can go to town. But I can't overheal a high damage section where people stand in mechanics every 30 seconds for 35 minutes :P

- - - Updated - - -

Healing has been mismanaged since the beginning of Cata. Used to love it. Since then it doesn't satisfy at all.

At the beginning of cata my holy pal was so overpowered it was disgusting, but I enjoyed the everliving shit out of it.

[Ham on Rye]

Boss fights are often very two- dimensional :

Either people do mechanics well and it is quite boring to heal, since there will be little damage at all.

Solution: you're bring too many healers. Cut one or two for more DPS. Bring as few healers as you can get away with without people dying.

or

Mechanics are not followed and party-members take such large amounts that the menial heals often wont be able to compensate in time and they die regardless.

Solution: get better raiders.