Healers doing dps.

[khazmodan]

I'm shocked that nobody mentioned the real reason here: hit.

Healers can't hit bosses properly. Just a waste of mana to try to dps when 18% of your spells don't even hit.

Healers can dps fine in dungeons, because the hit requirement is much lower.

This is a very good point, hit is almost never on healer gear.

[StillMcfuu]

Because the game wasn't designed around healers doing damage in those situations.

[Tojara]

Only a couple of the healers can do any meaningful damage. Shamans can actually do pretty good damage but will have mana problems over prolonged periods if they do. Also, like mentioned if you're casting spells in a raid environment you likely aren't itemizing for hit.

Chance to miss as a caster is 17% against 83 mobs (bosses), but if you have the hit debuff it lowers to 14%. Ignorance aside I don't know if there's easily accessible hit in any of the healer trees, but that's about the only option, as I doubt many healers are going to itemize for a hit set unless an encounter is borderline 'x' healable and you have no other options.

The game certainly wasn't balanced around healer DPS and to be frank, playing a healer and having that amount of your spells just flat out miss would be annoying.

If you watch healers in dungeons do DPS they can actually do pretty good DPS because the hit rating requirements are far lower. Realistically speaking though, the best thing to make your damage higher is for your tanks to swap their gear around for more offensive stats and talents, while essentially just preserving the ability not to be crit. PvP gear and trinkets are the some of the best ways to do this, as it's super easy to hit caps with resilience as opposed to defense rating.

[Hctaz]

I would hardly call it core gameplay outside of disc priest.

Even then, healers doing dps is mostly something relegated to M+, where the gain is a lot more substantial than in raids.

It's definitely been a core part of the role since Legion.

At least in Mythic. We absolutely used healer DPS to get our first Mythic Argus kill, otherwise we legitimately would not have met the DPS check. US 59th or something like that.

It's not a thing in Classic because it just doesn't work the same. There's hit rating to take into account, and this is before healer damage was tuned to be bearable for solo questing. Healer damage in Classic is basically utter crap.

[Kralljin]

It's definitely been a core part of the role since Legion.

At least in Mythic. We absolutely used healer DPS to get our first Mythic Argus kill, otherwise we legitimately would not have met the DPS check. US 59th or something like that.

...i wouldn't exactly call it a "core part" if you use a final boss of raid on the highest difficulty as reference.

Core means to me that something awis an integral part of its design, which is then present at (almost) every level whenever you engage with that spec.
When something is being used at the cutting edge, then that's not necessarily a core part but something largely min/max'ers resort to.

Say something like Lavaburst + Flame shock interaction, that's core to Elemental Shaman, something that you absolutely must respect if you want to play that spec remotely correctly, rather than something you need to engage with only at the cutting edge.

Dps'ing as a healer is something that makes the difference between a good and a great healer, but it's not like i would tell a healer "if you can't dps while healing, you're doing it wrong", because no content in WoW besides the cutting edge is tuned around that strategy.

[Sorshen]

Hit is brutal and mana is still a concern at this stage. For dungeons it's w/e, do it if your group is good.

[shise]

I mean, the obvious contribution is that you finish the raid quicker. Albeit not much, but still.

Not really, we are talking about 4 minutes overall really. Healer DPS in wrath was still very, very low.

[Puupi]

Say something like Lavaburst + Flame shock interaction, that's core to Elemental Shaman, something that you absolutely must respect if you want to play that spec remotely correctly, rather than something you need to engage with only at the cutting edge.

That's a funny example, considering Lava Burst + Flame Shock interaction is a core to RESTORATION SHAMAN. Even more important to resto than ele, you spread those flame shocks around and shoot out instant Lava Bursts and contribute a huge chunk of dps while having it impact your healing capabilities very little.

[Puri]

Mana is an issue, as well as hit. We are still two xpacs behind before healers can contribute meaningful damage to raid encounters.

[Mendzia]

I really hate this retail meta that tanks and healers are supposed to push dps too.
The Classic content is soo easy (especially in this tier) so it is absolutely not needed.

[Twdft]

"healer why no deeps from U?"
OK gimme some hit items
"healer wtf?"

[JamesTeeple]

A major worry is mana usage. You might get away with it, depending on the raid boss encounter, how mana potions and other get-mana-back spells are used, and the DPS in your raid group.

However, it wasn't required or needed in WotLK. Holy Paladins can get away with auto-attacking Judgement + Seal of Corruption/Truth while dropping Consecration, although the difference in damage would be insignificant.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

"healer why no deeps from U?"
OK gimme some hit items
"healer wtf?"

Pretty much. Hell, healers are lucky to even get healing gear right now let alone anything a DPS might want to just stick in their bank for the sake of banking an item. Not to mention most of the normals look at like the highest of the high guild numbers and say.. look.. their healers only have to do this much healing and no one dies so you should have plenty of gcds to pump dps.. not realizing.. while they are our raid is not only doing less damage than those people but also standing in the fire for like 5 times longer. When you point that out usually the room goes quiet for a minute. Then someone starts talking about something else. Gott'em, but not a god damn thing has or will changed. They know monkey brains will only click on the damage window of the log, see big bar and colored number, do a monkey dance, and if they die blame healers because how can such a powerful monkey that make number colored make a mistake like standing in the rain of fire the whole fight.

[Xilurm]

I just use my wand. Maybe put a dot or two, sometimes.

[Thundering]

To be fair too if you want to dps you go dps if you want to heal you heal....healers have different looks on things like how often can you give the tank an heart attack, and i dont want a logical reason like being busy dpsing to be a reason for that

[SinR]

"healer why no deeps from U?"
OK gimme some hit items
"healer wtf?"

HEALY THATS MY BIS!!

"but Bro you told me to-"

NINJA! NINJA!!!!

Other side of the coin:

BRO THATS AN UPGRADE

"But its got Spirit on it and-"

UPGRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADE

[Kralljin]

That's a funny example, considering Lava Burst + Flame Shock interaction is a core to RESTORATION SHAMAN. Even more important to resto than ele, you spread those flame shocks around and shoot out instant Lava Bursts and contribute a huge chunk of dps while having it impact your healing capabilities very little.

...No, just no.

Imagine telling a new player who wants to play Resto that they first have to master to multidot Flame shock and abuse Lava surge procs, before they learn how they're supposed to use their healing spells efficiently to keep their group alive.

Sorry, but your defintion of "core interaction" is in my view a really weird one, because the entire shtick of multi dotting FS in order to funnel damage into a single target is primarily an Elemental one.

The prime directive of a healer is to keep the group alive, once that is accomplished, you can focus on dps.
You don't go into an encounter with the mindset "how can i maximize my dps here?" as healer but first figure out how to keep your group alive, once you know what is the minimum to keep the group alive, you can start to min/max and squeeze out dps where you can.

This entire debate is so freaking weird because nothing but the cutting edge difficulty are designed around healers doing dps in WoW, especially in Classic.

[SinR]

Healy Core Mechanics:

1) Keep yourself alive. Healing the floor does not count.
2) Keep your tank alive. This *CAN* take priority over keep yourself alive if you know you're not going to take much more damage and can squeeze another heal on your tank before you need to hit yourself.
3) Keep the DPS alive. If you're assigned to raid healing like a Resto Shaman this takes priority over tank healing. Never takes priority over keeping yourself alive.
4) DPS. If you can toss a SW:P or a Flame Shock around then by all means go for it but don't run yourself OOM. HPally judge Wisdom or Light on the boss if you lack a Prot Paladin (which you shouldn't cause we're amazing)

[Velerios]

-Implying Ulduar will be hard.

Hahaa, this time for shure.

Nope everything up to ulduar was defintively a cakewalk (and yes, it was always funny to see vanilla-entusiasts to scream how hard naxxramas (in vanilla) will be), and for some semi pro guilds it will be right now too, no question; but hardmodes in Ulduar, especially yogg+0 will probably be a bit of a challenge. Yogg+0 is not in the range of LFR-Raids, it's a bit more complex. Naturally we can't even compare it right now, since there are 3.3.5 talents, so i might also be totally wrong and it will be an absolute cakewalk.

But nope, Ulduar yogg+0 and algalon will be down on day 1 by every good guild, no question

[Puupi]

...No, just no.

Imagine telling a new player who wants to play Resto that they first have to master to multidot Flame shock and abuse Lava surge procs, before they learn how they're supposed to use their healing spells efficiently to keep their group alive.

No, just no. Nobody said you have to master multidot flame shock and abuse lava surge procs BEFORE they learn to use their healing spells.

But it's still a core gameplay part of resto shaman.

Sorry, but your defintion of "core interaction" is in my view a really weird one, because the entire shtick of multi dotting FS in order to funnel damage into a single target is primarily an Elemental one.

As resto it's not as much about funneling damage to single target, but rather using only instant cast spells for damage, which you can easily do while moving, too.

The prime directive of a healer is to keep the group alive, once that is accomplished, you can focus on dps.

Of course.

You don't go into an encounter with the mindset "how can i maximize my dps here?" as healer but first figure out how to keep your group alive, once you know what is the minimum to keep the group alive, you can start to min/max and squeeze out dps where you can.

Yeah, not in the first time you play in an encounter, but after that you do. Does everything need to be regarded with the mindset of someone playing the game for the first time all the time? Even after nearly 20 years?

This entire debate is so freaking weird because nothing but the cutting edge difficulty are designed around healers doing dps in WoW, especially in Classic.

Only cutting edge difficulty is designed around even DPS players doing dps. Other difficulties are whatever in terms of dps anyway.