Does Blizzard expect healers to deal damage?

[RawrbHero]

Or are all the talents that increase certain spell's damage on the healer tree's just for leveling? Im confused.

[z932074]

There was a blue post that said that there will be lulls in instances where healers, if they want, will be able to deal damage when they don't need to heal, instead of just standing there looking pretty.

[RawrbHero]

Ok, cause I look at most encounters in the game and I see no points during them where a Disc Priest can throw out a Smite or Holy Fire.

The Evangelist -> Archangel talents are pretty cool though.

[Therastos]

There was a blue post that said that there will be lulls in instances where healers, if they want, will be able to deal damage when they don't need to heal, instead of just standing there looking pretty.

Also, there shouldn't be 75 talent points that increase your healing power. You can choose, say, 5 points between damage reduction, utility, or DPS-talents.

Blue has also stated that in difficult content you most likely won't have time to DPS or you want to conserve mana to heal in more intensive phases. On the other hand in easier content the DPS-contribution healers can give doesn't affect the outcome (because content, as said, is easy), so no, you are not expected to DPS.

[Tezmata]

It seems counter-productive to their new model for healing, where it is going to be much more mana-intensive. If your mana is precious, you will NEVER DPS unless it provides a direct bonus to your healing. And if your group overgears an instance/raid, you aren't going to switch to +DPS talents beforehand just to overpower the content even more.

[Alraml]

It seems counter-productive to their new model for healing, where it is going to be much more mana-intensive. If your mana is precious, you will NEVER DPS unless it provides a direct bonus to your healing. And if your group overgears an instance/raid, you aren't going to switch to +DPS talents beforehand just to overpower the content even more.

The Archangel talent gives the priest 3% of his total mana per stack of Evangelism and +3% healing per stack

From the way i've looked at points, Disc is gonna be bloody good with it's mana conservation

[z932074]

It seems counter-productive to their new model for healing, where it is going to be much more mana-intensive. If your mana is precious, you will NEVER DPS unless it provides a direct bonus to your healing. And if your group overgears an instance/raid, you aren't going to switch to +DPS talents beforehand just to overpower the content even more.

pretty much this. I see quite a few flaws with this DPS mindset, one of which you've mentioned.

Not only, imo, is it useless, but if you're looking for a healer for Uldum or whatever, and you have a choice between a healer specced for improved dps, or a healer specced into improved healing... which are you going to pick?

And I know they said that healers aren't going to have 75 healing talents in one tree, but What's keeping me from just picking up more Holy talents as a disc priest?

TL;DR: i want my raid healers to heal the raid, not pewpew.

[Larancy]

pretty much this. I see quite a few flaws with this DPS mindset, one of which you've mentioned.

Not only, imo, is it useless, but if you're looking for a healer for Uldum or whatever, and you have a choice between a healer specced for improved dps, or a healer specced into improved healing... which are you going to pick?

And I know they said that healers aren't going to have 75 healing talents in one tree, but What's keeping me from just picking up more Holy talents as a disc priest?

TL;DR: i want my raid healers to heal the raid, not pewpew.

In some trees you need to take a few filler DPS talents just to get down the tier. They said they dont want you to take all talents that increase your healing so they are gonna force you to take some filler points.

[Tezmata]

The Archangel talent gives the priest 3% of his total mana per stack of Evangelism and +3% healing per stack

From the way i've looked at points, Disc is gonna be bloody good with it's mana conservation

Archangel will have to give enough mana to compensate for the mana spent on the smites PLUS the time spent on DPSing that could have been used for healing. I know that encounters overall will be less panicky and heal-spammy, but I'm still not sure that Archangel's current benefits are going to be enough to convince any priests to actually DPS.

[z932074]

it just seems like a lot of work for me to talent and spec into dps talents as a healer, just to do 1.6k dps instead of 800 :-/ (numbers made up off top of head)

But refresh my memory: Do all priests get Mind sear, or just shadow? Because if so, that's massive dps on AoE pulls anyways :P

[Therastos]

pretty much this. I see quite a few flaws with this DPS mindset, one of which you've mentioned.

Not only, imo, is it useless, but if you're looking for a healer for Uldum or whatever, and you have a choice between a healer specced for improved dps, or a healer specced into improved healing... which are you going to pick?

And I know they said that healers aren't going to have 75 healing talents in one tree, but What's keeping me from just picking up more Holy talents as a disc priest?

TL;DR: i want my raid healers to heal the raid, not pewpew.

If there is a point in fight in which you don't need to heal, speccing for evangelism+archangel actually increases your healing power and grants you mana (assuming smite costs less than 3% of your mana, which very likely is the case).

Also, if my calculations were correct, restoration druids currently have only 73 talent points that increase healing power, shamans have 71. I understand -threat talents are going to be removed, for instance, so the number of free talent points might actually increase.

The real question would be if you'd prefer a healer that can contribute 200dps on average throughout the run, a healer that has improved strength of earth totem or solar beam, or a healer that takes 10% less damage while casting.

[Thallidomaniac]

it just seems like a lot of work for me to talent and spec into dps talents as a healer, just to do 1.6k dps instead of 800 :-/ (numbers made up off top of head)

But refresh my memory: Do all priests get Mind sear, or just shadow? Because if so, that's massive dps on AoE pulls anyways :P

Mind Sear is a baseline ability, and I don't think they're changing that in Cata.

[gulkeeva]

My guild leader that plays a priest (full 277 icc heroic gear) says he can 1 shot Lv 81-82 mobs with a penance (mobs have around 20K hp)

[Larancy]

If there is a point in fight in which you don't need to heal, speccing for evangelism+archangel actually increases your healing power and grants you mana (assuming smite costs less than 3% of your mana, which very likely is the case).

Also, if my calculations were correct, restoration druids currently have only 73 talent points that increase healing power, shamans have 71. I understand -threat talents are going to be removed, for instance, so the number of free talent points might actually increase.

The real question would be if you'd prefer a healer that can contribute 200dps on average throughout the run, a healer that has improved strength of earth totem or solar beam, or a healer that takes 10% less damage while casting.

I agree with this quote!

[Kinderwurst]

They also wanted people to stick with the trees that they wanted to during leveling, so if a new Disc Priest wanted to stick a Disc Priest without having to switch to Shadow to do quests by his/herself, then they could do that.

[Omican]

Maybe healers will be able to DPS abit in content they overgear because it's more fun then standing around waiting for people to take damage? I often throw in a few starfires when farming heroics on my Druid just to pass time.

[Nicola]

nowadays in heroics and raids ( except icc25hc ) I have plenty of free time i spend by hitting the boss because there is no need to heal on my pally. The dps i do aint that great but when u wipe on a boss that only has 1% hp left u'll be pissed u didnt spend ur free time by hitting the boss so u wouldnt get a repairbill right now.

[huth]

pretty much this. I see quite a few flaws with this DPS mindset, one of which you've mentioned.

Not only, imo, is it useless, but if you're looking for a healer for Uldum or whatever, and you have a choice between a healer specced for improved dps, or a healer specced into improved healing... which are you going to pick?

And I know they said that healers aren't going to have 75 healing talents in one tree, but What's keeping me from just picking up more Holy talents as a disc priest?

TL;DR: i want my raid healers to heal the raid, not pewpew.

You're missing that those points cannot be spent to improve healing due to lack of talents for that. The new trees are specificially built to not allow you to spent all of your points on improving your spec role. And you won't find those in Holy either.

The other three healers do not even have secondary healing trees.

Besides, these talents will be nice for a hero spec later on in the expansion, when there is barely anything to do for healer.

[EvilMallet]

Also, PVP. An arena match where both DPS dies in a 2v2 situation and theres two healers just attacking each other with weak spells needs to stop :|

[RawrbHero]

I guess I like the prospect of not having an Ele shaman try to heal in a low level dungeon because its the best way to level and not wanting to respec. Also makes me wanna level a Disc Priest if Penance is one shotting things.