As a healer, is it my job to heal pets?

[Keristrasza]

Nope, as a hunter I don't expect any healer to heal my pet for me. Those that do I thank but I don't demand it. I heal my pet and if things get too much for me, my pet heals itself ... it's one of the reasons I love having a spirit beast as a DPS pet.

On rare occasions should it die, after a fight I have had random healers kindly res my pet before I have the chance and I thank them for doing so. As a healer I on occasion will also heal a pet if the hunter isn't some moron doing anything stupid and generally a nice person.

[misterbeefy117]

I never heal a pet, unless it's my own. Even if a pet takes aggro in a raid or 5man, I still don't heal it. It's the hunter/warlock's job to monitor their pet. Pets shouldn't pull near enough aggro as a tank does, so that means that pet has their Taunt on autocast. And if that's the case, let the pet die if the hunter is too stupid to turn it off autocast.

Everyone makes mistakes, a hunter might have been questing and then joined LFR and forgot to turn off their pet's autotaunt, but if it's the second or third boss in and they still haven't turned it off, to hell with them.

[Miko]

and if a tank dies, its the healer in question who wasnt paying attention, so we keep on playing the blame game and see who has had the most fingers pointed at whom when the raid night is over, or what ? is that how your guild raids ? because where i raid, someone would help the main healer if he needed it instead of letting the tank die.

And someone would help the hunters pet instead of letting it die.

Sometimes tanks die for other reasons then the lack of heals. As a healer, I'm never going to heal your pet unless its an aoe heal. If it does, I assure you imma just laugh.

[King Shark]

So someone shares your opinion and you use that as a fact ? it is the healers job to keep dying things alive, its as simple as that.

If the pet is dying it is because the hunter is not doing his job, not the healer. Simple as that.

[Lovestar]

A pet class forced to heal its pet loses a lot of DPS. A pet class that loses its pet mid-fight also loses a lot of DPS, both if it's left dead and in the resources spent to revive it. Finally, just because a pet is taking damage does not mean the owner is doing anything wrong: many fights just have stupid, poorly-thought-out, or unfair mechanics that victimize pets.

Technically, none of this is your problem as the healer. But think of it this way: Less DPS means a longer fight, which means more healing and usually more intense healing as the fight drags on. Therefore, just like keeping actual DPS alive, it's in your best personal interest to keep pets alive simply because it means the fight ends sooner.

If the pet is dying it is because the hunter is not doing his job, not the healer. Simple as that.

That's actually not always true. There are mechanics that victimize pets, and spending constant GCDs or resources spoonfeeding them is a lot less efficient than letting the people who signed up to heal things... heal things.

As a random example, the adds in Stormstout Brewery can randomly select pets for their bolt attacks. RNG can cause this to occur in large bursts and chains, sometimes outpacing things like Mend Pet. Also, your DPS is usually busy killing things. If you want them to constantly reapply their heals (or channel them, etc) as well as worry about micromanaging pet health in addition to everything else, be prepared to deal with slower kills.

[Ulfric Trumpcloak]

In pve i only heal pets when they drop under 50% and when they do that its because the hunter/warlock is being an idiot and has the pet taunt on. When it comes to pvp you have to heal the pets just as much as the players.

[Deleted]

A pet class forced to heal its pet loses a lot of DPS. A pet class that loses its pet mid-fight also loses a lot of DPS, both if it's left dead and in the resources spent to revive it. Finally, just because a pet is taking damage does not mean the owner is doing anything wrong: many fights just have stupid, poorly-thought-out, or unfair mechanics that victimize pets.

Technically, none of this is your problem as the healer. But think of it this way: Less DPS means a longer fight, which means more healing and usually more intense healing as the fight drags on. Therefore, just like keeping actual DPS alive, it's in your best personal interest to keep pets alive simply because it means the fight ends sooner.

^What he said. Healing a pet is a DPS decrease. If the DPS required to complete a fight before the enrage timer is tight, you should damn well be healing that pet. Otherwise the Hunter / UhDK / Warlock will rape their own DPS healing it, and thus you'll wipe because your group is shit and cannot beat the enrage timer because of it... In that situation, would you expect them to heal their pet, or would you do it to hit the damage requirements?

[tangers58]

Never, it is their job to manage their own pet.

[Miko]

A pet class forced to heal its pet loses a lot of DPS. A pet class that loses its pet mid-fight also loses a lot of DPS, both if it's left dead and in the resources spent to revive it. Finally, just because a pet is taking damage does not mean the owner is doing anything wrong: many fights just have stupid, poorly-thought-out, or unfair mechanics that victimize pets.

Technically, none of this is your problem as the healer. But think of it this way: Less DPS means a longer fight, which means more healing and usually more intense healing as the fight drags on. Therefore, just like keeping actual DPS alive, it's in your best personal interest to keep pets alive simply because it means the fight ends sooner.

If the pet is dying its a loss of dps becuase I assure you the owner of that pet is doing something very wrong. Pets are not dps to me the owners of the pets are, they are the ones I keep a live. The pets should and are always at full health over the whole fight. Casting a heal on them for any reason is often a heal that could of went elsewhere or you could of saved mana.

[King Shark]

^What he said. Healing a pet is a DPS decrease. If the DPS required to complete a fight before the enrage timer is tight, you should damn well be healing that pet. Otherwise the Hunter / UhDK / Warlock will rape their own DPS healing it, and thus you'll wipe because your group is shit and cannot beat the enrage timer because of it... In that situation, would you expect them to heal their pet, or would you do it to hit the damage requirements?

If pet classes having to heal their pet once or twice is what's causing enrage wipes, then the problem lies much deeper than healers.

[Sevyvia]

Do not have them on my bars, I would not as raid leader make it a big deal if someone else didn't either. If someone's pet isn't surviving on smart heals they're doing something dumb with them anyway.

[Deleted]

If pet classes having to heal their pet once or twice is what's causing enrage wipes, then the problem lies much deeper than healers.

True, it's just a hypothetical situation xD. But if it occured, you still wouldn't heal the pet because of your stubborness? I don't heal, and don't play pet classes, but straight out saying "No I'm not healing them because they're a pet" is as bad as, say.. Not healing a Rogue because he -could have- cloaked out of some damage that he took.

[Jiry]

I play a hunter and a holy pala and don't think you should heal pets. Pets take virtually no damage in a dungeon/raid environment, the massive amount of aoe heals on melee is more than enough to keep pets alive.

In PvP on the other hand you're just terrible if you don't keep your partner's pet alive

[Miko]

^What he said. Healing a pet is a DPS decrease. If the DPS required to complete a fight before the enrage timer is tight, you should damn well be healing that pet. Otherwise the Hunter / UhDK / Warlock will rape their own DPS healing it, and thus you'll wipe because your group is shit and cannot beat the enrage timer because of it... In that situation, would you expect them to heal their pet, or would you do it to hit the damage requirements?

If the boss is enraging its prob a good idea to have the dk go frost lol.
Seriously tho, I don't understand what people don't get about not having to heal pets. If they are dying its because of owner of that pet is screwing up.

[HardCoder]

Do not have them on my bars, I would not as raid leader make it a big deal if someone else didn't either. If someone's pet isn't surviving on smart heals they're doing something dumb with them anyway.

No. Like I said earlier, if a player has his pet's taunt turned off, and the pet is dying, it's probably a bug in WoW.

90% AoE immunity + various built-in healing abilities + party AoE heals + party smart heals = pet should be automagically topped off all the time with no effort by the pet's owner or the group's healer.

[Tehstool]

No. Like I said earlier, if a player has pet's taunt turned off, and the pet is dying, it's probably a bug in WoW.

90% AoE immunity + various built-in healing abilities + party AoE heals + party smart heals = pet should be automagically topped off all the time with no effort by the pet's owner or the group's healer.

Yep, this is spot on. If pet classes needed to be healed then it would just be gimping the raid. My pet never needs heals... ever.

[Deleted]

I allways keep an eye out for the pets aswell in our 10man, it might not be "My job", but if I choose to ignore it and it dies and we wipe at like 0.5% or something I would be mad

[Telwar]

When I healed, I always said I wouldn't heal class features.

Not a healer any more, but I still would answer the same way.

[King Shark]

True, it's just a hypothetical situation xD. But if it occured, you still wouldn't heal the pet because of your stubborness? I don't heal, and don't play pet classes, but straight out saying "No I'm not healing them because they're a pet" is as bad as, say.. Not healing a Rogue because he -could have- cloaked out of some damage that he took.

I'm not a healer, I'm a Hunter. Keeping my pet alive has never been easier here in MoP than the previous expansions. And there are options for a pet class to revive a dead pet. If a healer is not stressed for mana or GCDs to throw out a heal, fine. But that's only if those heals aren't needed elsewhere. Pets are at the bottom of the ladder, as someone said earlier.

[Miko]

Interesting question, and I don't think most people replying have the contextual experience to answer this appropriately. (Just being honest.)

It all comes down to whether or not your guild gives a shit about progression. The biggest performance barrier to progression is beating DPS timers and in those circumstances it is NOT WORTH IT for the DPS class to waste a GCD on a pet heal. Obviously, when it comes down to triage heals go Tank > Healer > DPS > Pets, but that doesn't mean the Healers should not heal pets.

Bottom line: If your guild cares about progression, then they care about maximizing DPS, and therefore healers heal pets.

On which HC fight is pets dying before players when the pet owner is raiding at a HC lvl of play?