Do Healers have to DPS now during down time in between heals?

[Toybox]

Apples and oranges mate – a tank has defensive cds, just like healers have increased healing cds, and dps have increased dps cds – everyone should be using them. And again, all classes have utility, and should be expected to use them. What you are asking is the equiv of dps tanking, and tanks healing others.

There have always been niche situations where this is expected or required, but that is not the same thing as expecting healers to be dpsing in every free global since vanilla, as some are wrongly claiming.

Back in the day, I just expected 4 other folks to stick around for however long it took to finish the dungeon Expectations are higher now across the board, & with M+ especially, any healer that doesn't DPS isn't a good healer. If I were playing Classic/TBC, I'd be expecting healer DPS, but I definitely didn't expect it (or do much of it myself) back in the day.

[Saltysquidoon]

Yes, healers should be dpsing if they can, which generally means how much you're going to be dpsing will be inversely proportional to the content (with notable exceptions on tight enrage fights).

I didn't even know this was a question of if. I have fond memories of our main resto guy complaining about how he had to be in cat form 24/7 when we were doing low keys back in legion.

[arkanon]

Back in the day, I just expected 4 other folks to stick around for however long it took to finish the dungeon Expectations are higher now across the board, & with M+ especially, any healer that doesn't DPS isn't a good healer. If I were playing Classic/TBC, I'd be expecting healer DPS, but I definitely didn't expect it (or do much of it myself) back in the day.

Why though? Why would you expect such a thing when the content is all steamrolled and dps is much higher, as is knowledge and experience. Doesnt that seem strange to you? Kind of like playing professional football for a decade, then dropping back to social league and expecting people to play at the same level as pros?

Hey, if you want to play with likeminded speedrunners and push the limits, thats absolutely fine, no issue at all, but to EXPECT it from others when it absolutely is NOT required, and is actually detrimental to the group in some situations, is not good thinking.

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Yes, healers should be dpsing if they can, which generally means how much you're going to be dpsing will be inversely proportional to the content (with notable exceptions on tight enrage fights).

I didn't even know this was a question of if. I have fond memories of our main resto guy complaining about how he had to be in cat form 24/7 when we were doing low keys back in legion.

So if they were in catform 24/7, why not just run an extra dps?

[Saltysquidoon]

So if they were in catform 24/7, why not just run an extra dps?

It was just a joke about his moaning because he had to spend so much time dpsing because of the low damage being covered by hots and kiting.

If you want me to be serious cat/owl weaving is pretty much mandatory for resto in m+ and has been since legion (they even had bear weaving for a bit). I can't imagine it would be much of a thing at all if healer weren't expected to dps during low damage sections of a run

[Byleth]

Also objectively the FF14 fights are piss easy compared to wow raid content. So its not really comparable.

Suuuure mate, suuure.

[Rendark]

That's why healing sucks now. If i wanted to dps then i would be dps.

[enigma77]

I've picked up healing again after being years away from the game since early MoP. Do Healers have to DPS during down time these days? I'm lost and confused.

I picked up healing on a Holy Paladin and a Resto Shaman. I found myself being pushed into using Crusader strikes on enemies and bosses. Which turned me off the spec and class that I enjoyed healing on back in the day. I levelled up a Shaman and decided to try Resto. I've been seeing a lot of talk about healers doing a ton of DPS in Mythic keys and am wondering if I should be DPSing as well when not healing or during downtime?

I've done a few low keys, and I barely have time to keep up with healing let alone DPSing. How are healers expected to or are DPSing at higher keys? Is there something I ain't doing right or should be doing? Thanks for any and all advice. Could really use it.

Well ask yourself this: If your party members are at full health and there's currently nothing to heal then WHAT do you DO?

Stand around and look pretty is not the answer

[ThrashMetalFtw]

Sadly yes. For me personally, this is the reason why I will never be a healer.



Blah blah.

Maybe high end min-maxers, which were few and far between in the old days, did that.

WHen I played between Wrath and MoP it was never the case that healers were expected to do damage. Back then it was perfectly normal and acceptable not to see healers on the damage meters at all.

The only reason for Healers not Dpsing in the past is that it was a waste of mana. Nowadays, Dps spells don't cost mana for Healers, so you obviously want to dps when you aren't actively healing.

If Smite had cost 0 mana back in Cata, you would 100% be expected to keep casting it whenever you weren't healing.

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If you are not killing a raid boss because of dmg or mythic plus is more likely to be due to the players themselves or just a terrible route, my point is a healer should not feel forced to do things they dont want to because its simply not needed.

Healers dmg should go back to being pretty much useless instead of the terrible design WoW has currently.

What kind of backwards logic is this? "If a Healer doesn't want to play to his full potential, he doesn't need to".

No shit sherlock, I'm not forced to use my Dps CDs or press my hardest hitting ability as a Dps either, but I would still objectively be doing it wrong. "I don't want to play properly, so I don't want people to tell me to play properly" is so such a batshit stupid argument that nobody in their right mind should be using it in the first place.

[Crionics]

It depends on the group and the encounter but when there is nothing to heal you should be DPSing. It varies wildly with how good the group is at avoiding damage of course. I don't do a ton of DPSing in raids as a Holy Priest, at least after the first several seconds of the fight, but in M+ depending on the group, affixes, and mob types you can do a lot of DPS. In M+ in particular your DPS can make a huge difference in on the timer.

[Temp name]

I've picked up healing again after being years away from the game since early MoP. Do Healers have to DPS during down time these days? I'm lost and confused.

Just as they did during MoP, and Cata, and Wrath.. If you aren't healing, you should be dpsing. Your job isn't to keep everyone at 100%, it's to make sure no one dies before the boss does. Or in m+, no one dies before the dungeon is over.
The dungeon goes faster if you do dps, therefore, your job is easier.

I picked up healing on a Holy Paladin and a Resto Shaman. I found myself being pushed into using Crusader strikes on enemies and bosses

Yes, that's how HPala plays. Your core "rotation" is holy shock, crusader strike, judgement, and WoG (m+) / LoD (raid). You fill downtime in that rotation with Consecration, and occasionally holy light if someone is going to die before your next HS/WOG. And of course, hammer of wrath when it's available.
In raids you can get away with the holy light build, but not in m+. (and even with the holy light build, you still benefit from crusader strike)

Even more so if you're venthyr, your job as a Hpala is to keep people alive, but not topped off. Topped off takes too long, heal them until they won't die, then kill mobs instead

As a quick example: Take a boss that only has 1 mechanic. At 75, 50, and 25% health he does 15k damage to your group. Everyone in your group has 50k health. You need to do exactly 0 healing on this fight, your time is better spent killing the boss. Though in m+ you'd probably want to heal people with WoG anyway so you don't have to stop after the fight to heal people up then

I've done a few low keys, and I barely have time to keep up with healing let alone DPSing. How are healers expected to or are DPSing at higher keys? Is there something I ain't doing right or should be doing?

Shitters take more damage than good players. Some of the hardest keys I've had to heal were 12s or so when I was gearing. Compared to the 20s I was doing a couple weeks later, it wasn't even close, I did way higher hps in the 12.

Less interrupts / CC means more damage going out. Worse players also don't use their defensives at the right time, and they love to stand in stupid things that cause more damage.

[Azerate]

The only reason for Healers not Dpsing in the past is that it was a waste of mana. Nowadays, Dps spells don't cost mana for Healers, so you obviously want to dps when you aren't actively healing.

If Smite had cost 0 mana back in Cata, you would 100% be expected to keep casting it whenever you weren't healing.

Okay, so...?

Point is, that was a much more healer friendly gameplay, which made the healing role much more approachable.

[kenn9530]

I'm just gonna keep showing people how ignorant you are rather than attempt to argue with you.

You couldn't be more wrong with the above statement.

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Only if you're a bad healer and doing damage when you shouldn't be.

I have participated in the higest level of content this game has to offer including realm first kills from many challenging bosses, your post just proves you have no clue about the game, there is alot of damage to heal in a mythic plus and even missing one heal could mean a group wipe, this is even more so in PuGs where a good healer can save bad players from avoidable mechanics, there is always damage to heal so a healer is never doing nothing and can weave in utility that helps the group much more than a few casts of some pathetic damage spells.

What kind of backwards logic is this? "If a Healer doesn't want to play to his full potential, he doesn't need to".

No shit sherlock, I'm not forced to use my Dps CDs or press my hardest hitting ability as a Dps either, but I would still objectively be doing it wrong. "I don't want to play properly, so I don't want people to tell me to play properly" is so such a batshit stupid argument that nobody in their right mind should be using it in the first place.

The full potential of a healer is in its healing output, not if it can do a little dps on the side, if you need healer dps that bad your raid group is just bad plain and simple, if healers focus on actually healing then you could bring one less healer and one more dps and the boss will die faster.

[Temp name]

if you need healer dps that bad your raid group is just bad plain and simple

Ah, shit, guess world first raiders are bad then
Wait, no, the other one
Out of the first 3 kills on Sylvanas, there's 6 holy paladins, 5 disc priests, and 1 resto shaman.. And the shaman only appeared on the third kill. And in case you're curious, 4th and 5th kills are also 2/2 pala/disc

Why would you bring a resto druid, or monk, when a paladin or disc priest does the same healing, but more damage (and also has more utility). Shamans are in kinda the same place, but it's easier for them to throw in a bit of extra damage

[sponge5307]

For holy pallies, DPSing is actually part of our normal rotation.

I get that its not appealing, basically doing a dps's jobs on top of healing. But believe me, ESO and FF14 are even worse if I recall correctly. WoW actually manages to keep healers healing most of the time. In those games healers are basically just DPS who cast an occasional heal.

FF14 depends on the class you pick some do dps more than others but you also have to look at your mana bar. Some class provide barrier that prevent damage while other is more straight healing. Some have pets that also heals and dps and some can boost the dps of their group. Tnaks (at least pally in FF14) does have damage reducation tools) General speaking healing in FF14 seems more relax for me. I think is maybe coz at least in WoW dps just don't care if they stand in avoidable damage or totally fail mechanics. in FF14 there seem to be less of that happening.

[kenn9530]

Ah, shit, guess world first raiders are bad then
Wait, no, the other one
Out of the first 3 kills on Sylvanas, there's 6 holy paladins, 5 disc priests, and 1 resto shaman.. And the shaman only appeared on the third kill. And in case you're curious, 4th and 5th kills are also 2/2 pala/disc

Why would you bring a resto druid, or monk, when a paladin or disc priest does the same healing, but more damage (and also has more utility). Shamans are in kinda the same place, but it's easier for them to throw in a bit of extra damage

World first raiders are not really any better players than any other skilled players, what they have is time and motivation to play the game a little more, it just proves my point where healers are doing too much damage so you only bring those healers, healers should not be brought because you need damage, holy paladin and disc are the worst healers to play as gameplay wise, disc has not been enjoyable to play since MoP.

Healers should not do damage period. And all the content can be cleared without the need for a healer to actually do damage.

[Kalisandra]

WHen I played between Wrath and MoP it was never the case that healers were expected to do damage. Back then it was perfectly normal and acceptable not to see healers on the damage meters at all.

Back then wanding wasn't really a thing any more, but doing DPS in Wrath and MoP cost mana, do you didn't do it on content where mana was tight, unless it gave mana or healing. Also in Wrath there generally wasn't time to DPS as healing was pretty full-on, the exception being Paladins, who wanted to judge and melee for mana.

Cata was different - many healers had some kind of 'do damage to get mana back' thing going on. For example, Shamans got mana back from lighting bolts, so you'd weave them in between heals whenever you could.

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I always thought this weaving of jobs was the best part of healing in WoW. But I never really did raids or m+

I really like healing in Ff14, it's fairly simple and there's a lot of ton of room to DPS. But MAN, it'd be so much better with a better UI. I miss Vuhdo so much over there.

The lack of Vuhdo or equivalent is the primary reason I never really went for healing in FF14. If they ever were to kill such things in WoW I'd never heal.

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And early cata! Best time to be a healer was early cata.

Not if you were a Shaman. Until they put in some buffs, going OOM on otherwise easy 5-man heroic fights was common, and healing raids was just awful. Once they fixed that it was fun though.

However, the last time I liked Holy Paladin healing was Wrath.

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But I doubt we will see a healer in the world smoking things faster than a mage even today.

Heh. Resto Shamans have ludicrous DPS for the first few GCDs. It wouldn't surprise me if they sometimes toast normal 'world' mobs faster than a mage.

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Yep, although ofcourse your primary goal is to heal. The thing with M+ is 80% of damage taken is avoidable, so if you find yourself healing DPS all the time there prob standing in everything. Also almost every DPS class has some sort of self-healing now so you don't need to keep everyone at 100%, doing so is actually inefficient.

Do that to a Ret and they'll have to spend resources to heal themselves, and they won't be thanking you. Same for Rogues and Mages, and others no doubt. Save that sort of 'savings' for the (Fury) Warriors.

[Tyris Flare]

World first raiders are not really any better players than any other skilled players.

LOL

Omega galaxy brain.

Anyway, just going back to my previous point because it remains true: if you want healers to do nothing but heal, then you need to ask Blizzard to design constant unavoidable damage all the time so that healers have to use every GCD or someone dies.

But that's never going to happen, so yeah, healers need to learn how to do at least decent dps.

[Kalisandra]

Even in Classic WoW, it is expected that you are doing damage. No, you're not expected to feature on the meter - Most people only show themselves the top 10, maybe top 15 if they can fit it in the UI. In a 40 man raid, if you have 25 people being outdps'd by healers, you're doing something wrong. Wanding/occasionally casting a damage spell should not out-dps an actual dps.

If you're casting damage spells as a healer in vanilla, your raid brought too many healers, because you're wasting mana, and if you can afford to do that... too many healers.

In BC, when 10 man raids became a thing, people were still stuck in that mindset. "Well what if the healer runs out of mana?! They need to have mana to keep healing!!!" >ignores that the boss dies with the healer at 50% mana<

Again, unless it's a fight where throughput requires many healers, if your healers have that much mana remaining, you brought too many.

In Wrath, we finally had a point where it didn't make sense for healers to do ANY damage - Because damage was so spiky that not spamming Flash Heal was the absolute wrong way to go. Tanks would literally shoot from max to dead within the span of a GCD, so you had to precast a heal or you'd lose the tank. Finally, for once, it made sense for healers to focus entirely on healing...

Absolutely. Most fun I ever had healing was in Wrath, tanking healing on my Pally. Make a mistake, tank dies, then you all die. Make no mistakes, and your tank can survive anything that doesn't outright one-shot them.

[Thoriangun]

Ok, let me put it this way, no matter what class you play, people should be doing everything they can to play at their best and contribute to the team.

A DPS class shouldn't need to use defensive CDs, but great DPSers use defensive CDs as an offensive CD to cut down on movement and more uptime on damage.

Its about using your tool kit for the team, what you are asking for and actually I'm not against it, if Blizz made more encounters where outgoing damage was more frequent and hitting harder all of the time.

If a Healer has many parts of an encounter where they don't need to heal is also seen as a problem on encounter design, healing 100% of the time is fine if the damage outgoing permits it.

[Ealyssa]

Yes healers have to DPS when they can.

The goal of the game is to kill things, no matter your role. Doing damage makes things die faster period.
If you are a healer who don’t do any damage you’re just a bad player. That’s just a fact, you can argue as much as you want that you don’t want to DPS but that’s just excuses. Current wow ask you to maximise your DPS no matter if you are a healer, a tank or a damage dealer.

And if your defense is "I can’t do both there is so much healing to do" plenty of people can heal what you’re healing and they still do damage on top of it. Just to confirm you’re bad.